Yashim inclined his head.
“Mehmed the Conqueror,” the valide continued, “had taken the city from the Greeks. But afterward he needed their support, of course. The Greek Patriarch agreed to treat the sultan as his overlord. But as for the relics, neither of them could accept that the other should possess them. Do you understand?”
“They found a compromise, didn’t they? A third party who would safeguard the relics forever, beyond control of the church or the Ottoman sultans.”
“Very good, Yashim. I wanted to unburden myself of this secret because- eh bien, I am not a church or a line of rulers myself. Someone needs to tell the crown prince, if I cannot.” She opened her eyes and glanced mischievously at Yashim. “But I suppose you already know who was found to hold the ring?”
“A guild, Valide. Without this guild, the sultan would not rule and the Patriarch would have no flock. For Istanbul could not otherwise exist.” He caught the valide’s approving glance. “It couldn’t have been hard,” he went on. “As far as I know, the cup and plate were already hidden in the cisterns, somewhere beneath the Great Church. They were already, in that sense, in the keeping of the watermen.”
“Bravo! The watermen’s guild, yes. They were always Albanians. You know what that means. Some Catholic, some Orthodox. And some, in time, were Muslims, too. But the first religion of the Albanian, as they say, is Albania. They call themselves Sons of the Eagle.”
“And this has been their secret,” Yashim murmured. A secret for which men were bound to die, linked by a fatal indiscretion. Monsieur Lefevre had always been too much the salesman.
He went across the apse to a wooden cupboard hanging on the wall. It was crudely made, its door fastened with a wooden catch. Inside he found a battered-looking copper goblet and a wooden plate, which had split and been repaired with thin iron staples. He’d seen them both before. Water and salt: cup and plate. This much, at least, even Grigor could not have guessed. He remembered the relief in Grigor’s voice: for old times’ sake.
“I spent a week with some people who thought they knew exactly where the relics were,” he said, turning to the valide. “They put it together out of old books.”
And Grigor had believed them, hadn’t he? Raised the alarm. Condemned men to death.
The valide sniffed. “When we get back to the apartments, I think I shall ask you to read to me a little. Monsieur Stendhal.” She put out her stick and got to her feet. “It’s cold in here.”
He took her arm, and they went slowly out of the old church. In the shade of the portico, the valide put up her hands to adjust her veil.
“Your friends-I suppose they were very disappointed, non?”
Yashim cocked his head. “Disappointed? I think you could say that. One of them, in fact, wound up dead.”
“Well, well, Yashim. I’m sure you will want to talk about it. It just goes to show that you can’t believe everything that you read in books, n’est-ce pas?”
She dropped her veil, and they passed out together from the shade into the sun, leaning close together like old friends.