“Abdullah, take the boy out.”
Abdullah looked doubtfully at the intruder, but did as he was told. He left the door open.
“Your name?”
“The boy belongs to me,” the man said in the thick accent of Istanbul’s back streets. His hands were scarred and his fingernails blackened. He took a wrestler’s pose, feet apart, arms loose at his side.
“Your name?” Kamil repeated angrily. He smelled anise; the man had been drinking raki.
“Mustafa,” he muttered grudgingly.
“What do you mean, the boy belongs to you?”
“He works for me. His father gave him to me.” Mustafa became animated, gesturing with his hands. He took a step toward Kamil. “I have the agreement.” He reached into his vest, pulled out a tattered piece of paper, and held it out to Kamil. “He signed it and I signed it.”
Kamil took it and read it. “This is a bill of sale for a young sheep,” he said finally. “It says you paid five hundred kurush for it. That’s quite a sum for a sheep.” There were two names at the bottom, Mustafa the Tanner and another name that was illegible, with an X penned under each.
Mustafa looked stunned. “That can’t be. Let me see.” He reached over the desk and snatched the paper from Kamil’s hand. He looked at it intently, but it was clear to Kamil that the man couldn’t read. He looked at Kamil helplessly. “I paid him for an apprentice.”
“Didn’t you go through your guild?” The tanner’s guild regulated the hiring and training of apprentices.
Mustafa shifted nervously. “I needed the boy to do some extra work. It wasn’t really an apprenticeship.”
Most likely something dangerous, Kamil thought, something the guild wouldn’t agree to. Tanners worked with caustic chemicals that ate the flesh from hides and from the workers’ hands. The stench of drying hides stung the eyes and throats of residents within a wide radius of the tanning sheds just outside the city wall.
“You can’t purchase a free subject of the empire. The boy isn’t a slave. And as far as I know, both his parents are deceased.”
Mustafa looked surprised, then said, with a sly smile revealing broken and blackened teeth, “So he needs a home. I can give the poor orphan a home.”
“He has a home. And I’m going to report this to your guild to make sure you don’t use up any of your other boys like kindling. You can go.”
The man glowered at Kamil, then turned and stomped angrily out the door.
Kamil heard a mutter, followed by a sharp scream of pain. He ran to the door and saw Avi collapsed in a heap on the floor, blood streaming from his head. Abdullah and Ibrahim were holding on to the bearded giant as more men ran toward them to help. But with a shrug of his massive shoulders, Mustafa broke free and ran away.
“Let him go,” Kamil called to Abdullah. “I know who he is. Help me with the boy.”
They laid Avi on the divan. Kamil watched while Abdullah washed and bandaged the deep gash on the boy’s forehead where Mustafa had hit him with the hilt of his knife. When Avi opened his eyes, he found Kamil sitting next to him, reading.
“Welcome back, my son,” Kamil said. His relief ran deep, but currents of anxiety still pulsed through him. He crossed his arms. Is this what people feel, he wondered, when they have children? That life can never again be taken for granted and you can never know peace? It seemed a precarious way to live.
Avi smiled weakly. His eyes were bloodshot. When he tried to move his head, he whimpered in pain.
“When you’re well enough to move, we’ll send you back to Amalia Teyze in a carriage.”
Avi frowned and tried to shake his head.
“Don’t worry. When you’re well, you can come back.”
Tears spilled down Avi’s cheeks. “She’s dead.”
Kamil paused. “Who’s dead?”
“Amalia Teyze,” Avi whispered. “I didn’t know she was sick,” he cried. “I could have done something.”
This news didn’t surprise Kamil, who already suspected something of the kind. But surely another family in the village would have taken the boy in. “Bashin sagholsun, my condolences, son. There’s nothing you could have done. These things just happen. Tell me, where did you stay after that?”
“One of the men from the village took me to Tanner Mustafa and told me I had to work for him. But he beat me and I ran away. I’m sorry, bey. I’m sorry I lied to you. I was afraid you’d send me back there.” His thin body shook. “Please don’t send me back.”
Kamil fought down his anger. He would see to it that both sides of this devil’s bargain would regret it. He took out a linen handkerchief and wiped the boy’s face. “Don’t worry. You’re not going back. We’ll find you a place in the apprentices’ quarters. But first you need to get better.” He placed his hand on Avi’s hot cheek and held it there, thinking. Then he rose and told Abdullah to get a carriage ready.
It was a short ride to his sister Feride’s mansion in the suburb of Nishantashou. The carriage swayed to a halt inside the stone gate, and three men dressed in scarlet and blue livery ran to greet him. The ambition of his brother-in-law, Huseyin, was emblazoned even on the backs of his servants, Kamil thought sourly as he gave them instructions to carry Avi inside. Kamil disliked his self-centered brother-inlaw, a distant cousin and minor member of the royal family whose exact function in the palace bureaucracy was unclear.
Feride greeted him in the reception hall, a massive room decorated in the European style. Kamil thought the ropes of gilded plaster and oil paintings of fruit and dead pheasants an abomination of taste. He was certain it was Huseyin who had insisted on this décor. In contrast to the room, Feride had the calm demeanor and classical lines of a Roman marble. Her face was a long, pale oval, with a straight nose and thin lips that gave her an air of repose. As always, she was fashionably but simply dressed. A light silk scarf edged in tiny pearls fluttered from her head. He never understood why she had agreed to marry Huseyin against his advice when she had had her choice of men of good family seeking her hand.
Feride smiled happily and held out her hands to Kamil. “My dear brother, what a wonderful surprise.”
He kissed Feride’s cheeks. “You’re looking well, Ferosh,” he lied, using the affectionate form of her name. The strain of her marriage and their father’s suicide had begun to show. Two deep lines had settled permanently above her nose, the beginnings of sorrow on her otherwise flawless face. He reached up and gently brushed away a strand of hair, then kissed her forehead. He was rewarded with a brilliant smile that made her look young again.
“You’ll stay for lunch, won’t you?” she pleaded.
The events of that morning were still fresh in his mind and he did not want to spend precious time in idle conversation, but not wishing to disappoint Feride, he acquiesced. He also wanted to ask Huseyin about Hamdi Bey.
He heard a distant patter of feet and squatted, waiting for his seven-year-old twin nieces to appear. They flew into the room, matching flurries of white and blue, and threw themselves into his arms. He kissed their red hair and breathed in the scent of soap and innocence. Feride pried them away and sent them to tell the cook to add a place at the table.
“Ferosh,” Kamil said, “I’ve brought you a gift, another child. A boy, this time.”
Feride looked shocked, then laughed. “You’re always teasing me. I can’t wait for the day when you really will be married and bring your children to see me. When will that be, my wild-blooded brother?”
“I’m serious. But he’s not mine.”
“Whose then?”
“An orphan.” He told her about Avi. He had considered bringing the boy to his house, but thought Avi might benefit from staying in a family with other children.
“The poor child,” she exclaimed. “Of course he can stay here.”
She swung her arms around wildly. “There’s enough room here for an entire city of boys.”
Feride gestured to a servant waiting at a discreet distance and consulted with her. The woman led them to the servants’ quarters. There, they found Avi on a mattress under a quilt with a matronly servant squatting beside him, spooning broth into his mouth from a bowl. When Avi saw Kamil, he relaxed.