Tasha Alexander - Tears of Pearl

“Find something heavy,” I said, doubled over in pain, trying to drag myself up the slippery steps. “Block the door with it.”

“I don’t see anything. I don’t know what to do. I can’t—” Roxelana’s face was ashen, her eyes sunken.

“One of the stones from the edge around the stairs,” I said.

“I don’t want to hit you.”

“You won’t,” I said. “I’ll keep moving.”

“Let me help you first,” she said.

“No, it will take too long. Push it over.”

She stood behind one of the rectangular blocks stacked in haphazard fashion on either side of the top of the stairwell, serving as a sort of barrier to keep people from dropping down the steps from the side. She strained against it, and it moved, only slightly.

I could hear Mr. Sutcliffe fiddling with the latch, clawing at the door. “Let me out! Please! Please!” His voice broke into sobs.

“He’s here. You must hurry.”

She pushed again, harder, I think. I could no longer see her. My vision had become hazy. But I heard her groaning and then heard the scraping sound of rock, followed by a crash, followed by sobs.

“Is it in front of the door?” I asked, the words almost impossible to form.

It sounded as if her answer were yes, but the only thing I heard with clarity was fingernails digging into wood.

POST OFFICE TELEGRAPH

May 2, 1892

Handed in at: Canterbury at 1:37 PM

Received here at: 12:13 PM

TO: Mr. C. Hargreaves

c/o British Embassy Constantinople

Mrs. Brandon having great difficulties. Send prayers and prepare my daughter in case things turn worse. Will update at regular intervals.

Bromley

Forgetting flowers is the easiest thing in the world. They’re there, in the background, and you almost don’t notice at all until you start paying attention, cataloging the colors, gauging the sweetness of their fragrances. I loved irises, their grape scent filling the garden in spring, and roses, of course, climbing over walls and trellises. It had been such a pleasant night’s sleep, full of blooming fields and sparkling sunshine. Warmth radiating from me, I reached for Colin, wanting to pull him to me.

My arm, however, felt only cool sheets, rumpled blankets. I started to turn on my side, to see if he’d already awakened, but was stopped by a shooting pain that sent a cry from my lips, which I realized, as I woke further, were cracked and dry.

“Colin?” My eyes were so heavy that it was hard to open them, but as soon as I spoke, I heard sounds all around me. Footsteps, sharp breaths, rustling skirts.

“My dear girl.” His voice was like liquid heaven, and I felt his weight next to me now. I turned my head and forced open my eyes.

“You look dreadful,” I said as he sat on the edge of the bed. “When’s the last time you shaved? I won’t have you with a beard. I simply won’t.”

He laughed—relief and nerves—and kissed me on the forehead. “My dear girl.” It was all he could say, apparently, and he kept repeating it.

We weren’t alone. Margaret was on my other side. “Good heavens,” I said. “Is it a party? What have I missed?”

And then I started to remember. I felt the heavy bandage on my abdomen under my nightgown and started to cry. “Did they catch him?”

“They did.” Colin wiped my tears with his hands. “You set everything up without a flaw. The police arrived within ten minutes of your losing consciousness. Roxelana was tending to your wound.”

“How did Sutcliffe get her?” I asked.

“I never even saw her,” Margaret said. “He must have been waiting outside the window. He followed us because he was suspicious that you were on to him, and as soon as he saw us stationed near the mosque and then saw the caravan with the concubines, he knew what we were planning. You were right that he’d been tailing Benjamin. He’d arranged for the shootings at the dig to make Sir Richard worry—he wanted to drive him crazy. And from following Benjamin, he knew all about Roxelana.”

“Is she—” I could hardly bear to think what must have happened to her.

“The sultan has forgiven her, but will not allow her to leave the harem,” Colin said.

“And Benjamin? He didn’t kill—”

“I know,” he said. “He did try to strangle her, but she wasn’t dead when he fled from the palace. He twisted his ankle making his escape and invented the bandit attack to explain it. He’s not having an easy time with any of this.”

“It’s all so awful. He must be heartbroken to lose Roxelana as well.”

“He is, but I think he considers it a fitting punishment.” He brushed the hair off my forehead. “You did it, darling. Sutcliffe confessed to everything. Ceyden, Bezime, Jemal—your speculation about him finishing Ceyden was dead on. Being able to frame Benjamin for the murder brought an extra measure of revenge, though at a price—Jemal demanded additional payment for implicating him to the sultan. Sutcliffe was willing to part with the money, but decided Jemal had proven too demanding to be trusted any further.”

“And so he killed him,” I said.

“Yes. He spared no detail when he spoke to the police. You so terrified him by locking him in the dark, he was like a wounded child when they removed him.”

“Sir Richard?” I asked.

“Will be reinstated at the embassy as soon as he regains his health. And, yes, Sutcliffe was slipping the chloral hydrate into his coffee every day at the embassy.”

“What about the train?”

“Sutcliffe was two cars away from us.”

“And Murat?”

“The former vizier has been charged with treason, and I got him to admit his messenger’s death was not suicide.”

I wanted to sit up, but the pain stabbed again as I tried. I fell back on my pillows, then opened my eyes and looked to the far side of the room. “How long have I been unconscious?”

“The doctor’s kept you sedated for more than a week,” Colin said.

“And what of Ivy?” I asked. “Has she had her baby?” I couldn’t breathe as I looked at them. They’d both gone gray and were staring at the floor, their silence thick like tar.

“Would you excuse us?” Colin said, and I wanted to tear at his arms and beg Margaret to stay, if only to stop him from telling me—to give me even another hour of ignorance. When the door had closed, he took my face in his hands and leaned in to kiss my lips. “So much has happened.”

“I don’t even want to know,” I said, sobs choking me, tears stinging my ragged lips, as pain cut through my abdomen. “Don’t tell me. I won’t let you. I don’t want to know.”

“Darling.” He kissed the tears, wiped my face. “You’ve been through so much. It’s not what you think. Ivy is fine. She has a daughter who is healthy as anything. The birth was extremely difficult, and we all feared for her. But she came through all right.”

I wanted to slap him. “Why, then, would you set me up like this? Have I not been through enough? I thought she was dead. I—”

He took my hand. “Things have not turned out quite so well for us.”

The sinking feeling returned to my stomach, and I knew what he was going to say. “I wasn’t sure,” I said, more tears coming. “I would have told you if I were. But it was too early—”

“I know, darling. The doctor said as much.”

“I’m so sorry. I would never have—”

“Stop,” he said. “You had no choice. He was going to kill her. It was necessary danger.” His eyes were heavy with sadness, red-rimmed.

“I just wish—”

“Don’t.” He kissed my eyelids. “You must rest now.”

“When I’m well, I’m sure we can—”

Now he squeezed my hand, hard. “Maybe. Your injuries have made it so that it’s not clear...” His voice faltered, and I felt my heart shredding into pieces. “My dear girl, I’m just so glad you’re all right. You’ve no idea what I’ve been through. I can’t lose you. Ever.”

I laid my palms against his rough cheeks. “You won’t.”

“You don’t know that,” he said. “What we do is dangerous.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“You wouldn’t be you if you stopped,” he said. “And I wouldn’t adore you the way I do if you were anything less.”

I closed my eyes—it was so hard to keep them open—thinking how fortunate I was to have him, a man who saw me for who I was and loved me without questioning any of it. And then I remembered his words and considered that I might never be able to give him an heir. Panic and fear flooded me at an intensity at least a hundred times greater than that I’d felt when I was trapped with Mr. Sutcliffe.

“Don’t,” he said. “I see exactly what you’re doing to yourself and won’t stand for it. We’ll face it when the time comes—if the time comes. It’s not the worst adversity there could be. We have each other, Emily. Isn’t it greedy to want more?”

“Maybe I’m greedy.” My voice was raw.

“Forgive yourself for that,” he said. “When you’re well enough to travel, I’m going to take you away to somewhere safe and prove to you beyond doubt that you, my dear girl, are everything to me. But in the meantime...” His voice trailed off and he kissed me, his tongue coaxing my lips apart.

“Yes?” I asked when he pulled back.

He stood and picked me up, cradling me in his arms, and stepped to the balcony, where he gently set me in a chair. Ducking back into the bedroom, he grabbed a blanket and tucked it around my shoulder, then my knees, then under my feet.

“There is a boat downstairs waiting to take me to the European shore. It’s been there from the moment I knew I’d lost our bet. Prepare yourself, darling wife. I am about to swim the Bosphorus for you.”

While I’ve tried to stay true to the history of the twilight days of the Ottoman Empire, I have chosen to take a few liberties. My character Bezime is based on an actual person, the valide sultan who eventually came to be called Pertevniyal. Deciding it might be confusing to have two valides whose names started with “P,” I kept her as Bezime. I have further played with history by letting her stay alive some years longer than she actually did. How could I resist having such an extraordinary character avoid death long enough that Emily might meet her? The real Bezime slapped the empress Eugénie, was extremely interested in astrology, smoked a pipe, and attacked the minister of war when he came for her son, the sultan. She was not, however, unceremoniously murdered by an unruly Englishman.

Tasha Alexander is a graduate of Notre Dame, where she signed on as an English major in order to have a legitimate excuse for spending all of her time reading. Following graduation, she played nomad for several years, eventually settling with her family in Tennessee. When not reading, she can be found hard at work on her next book featuring Emily Ashton.