Heart of Glass

24





I’ve never seen a Venetian apartment like this before. It has been transformed. Clouds of incense fill the air from shallow copper bowls, and thick rugs cover the marble floor. Chairs and couches have been pushed against the walls to make room for scattered cushions. Halim lowers himself onto one of them and sits cross-legged. A length of glistening linen has been twisted around his temples in a neat turban. His trousers are made of rich silk that whispers luxuriously as he moves, and rows of tiny buttons line the edges of his collarless tunic. Over it, he wears a waistcoat of cream taffeta embroidered with gold brocade. There is a wide sash at his waist, and leather boots encase his feet. When he smiles, his teeth glitter white against golden skin.

Across the room from us are some of Halim’s advisers. They kneel and sit around a low wooden table with a map spread across it. From the familiar curves of the coastline, I recognize it as the Mediterranean. Faruk goes to join them, and the men pause in their murmuring, watching as Halim indicates a cushion to me. I tuck my skirts beneath me carefully, sitting with my legs arranged to one side. It is difficult to be a graceful Venetian lady sitting so close to the floor, but I take a tumbler of white liquid from a servant and sip it to hide my embarrassment. It’s sweet and sour at the same time, and I wrinkle my nose.

Halim smiles. “It is a yogurt drink,” he explains. “Traditional in our country, though I fear the Italian cows do not produce such rich milk as ours.” The smile falls from his face. “But I’m sure you’re not here to discuss dairy cows.”

My eyes flicker over to Halim’s advisers as I try to judge what I can and cannot say in front of witnesses. Halim notices my reticence and clicks his fingers above his head. “You can go,” he tells the men. Led by a grumbling Faruk, they leave the room, shutting the door behind them.

Now we are alone. Now I can say anything I choose.

“You are a brave woman,” Halim tells me. “Strong in spirit, too. It cannot have been easy, coming here today.”

“I heard that you buried your sister on the mainland,” I say.

I wonder if he knows why his sister came to Venice in the first place—why she felt the need to make contact with the Segreta. An answer to that question flashes across my mind, but I push it away for now, because it’s too painful to think about.

Prince Halim leans to light another cone of incense and I guess that he is playing for time, waiting for his composure to return. Finally, he looks at me through the clouds of frankincense and juniper.

“Do you want to know about Ottoman funerals, then?”

“I want to know how you are,” I tell him. If I want this man to help me, I need to understand him. “I know what it is to lose a sister, remember.”

Halim changes before my eyes. Something seems to fall from his face, and he slumps back against the cushions.

“After my sister was born, my mother gave away the—how do you say it?—the ‘good-luck eyes’ she’d had since girlhood. Do you know what they are, Laura?”

I shake my head.

“Glass beads that ward off ill fortune. Mother always said that her beautiful daughter was all the good luck our family needed.” Halim laughs at the memory. “We all believed the same, until she ran away.…” His eyes cloud with darkness, and I move to sit on a cushion nearer to him. I daren’t reach out and clasp his hand in sympathy, but it doesn’t matter—he’s lost in a scene playing out in his head. “She ran away from home a month ago, and we didn’t even know why. She was the center of our family, and suddenly our heart was torn from us. When she disappeared, I truly thought …” He breaks off, and suddenly his eyes snap back to me, his gaze hungry for reassurance. “Why would a young woman run away like that?”

“I don’t know.” If she hadn’t run from me on Murano, she might be alive now. But my theory continues to take shape in my head, and this time it won’t be chased away. Roberto visited Constantinople. What if Aysim’s coming here had something to do with him? What if that is why she was in his rooms? “The whole of Venice grieves alongside you,” I say.

I realize immediately that this is the wrong thing to say. At the mention of the city, Halim’s face closes up. He gets to his feet and walks around the map spread out on the table, pretending to inspect it.

“You haven’t told me. Why are you here?”

“Because I need your help,” I reply. There’s no time to dance around the truth.

His eyebrows lift with surprise. “Go on,” he says, after a moment.

The incense is thick in the air now, making my throat dry, and I struggle to say my next words out loud. “Roberto is innocent.”

Funny, I used similar words not an hour ago to my brother. So why do they now carry less conviction? No! I mustn’t let the rumors of this city infect me. Nothing has changed.

Halim closes his eyes, his brow creasing with pain. I know it must be difficult to hear me defend Roberto. I rise to my feet, moving to stand beside him. I place a hand on his arm and wait to see if he pulls away, but he does not.

“Whatever you believe, Roberto is not to blame for Aysim’s death. He is a gentleman, and I love him.”

At these words, Halim opens his eyes to stare at my hand, still resting on his arm. I take it away. My voice drops to a whisper, as I am suddenly aware of the advisers who left us and wonder if any of them are listening at the door.

“He could never have committed the crimes for which he is imprisoned,” I say. “He is the most honorable man in Venice.”

Silence throbs through the room. After a few seconds, Halim nods slowly, and hope flickers into life. But then he speaks.

“No.”

He walks languidly over to the doors and opens them. There’s no anger in his movements. See how little I am affected by your story, his actions say. The Ottoman prince has returned and Halim is lost to me. “There’s nothing I can do to help,” he says. “Simply nothing.”

I walk through the door and turn back to him. But his gaze remains fixed on the stairs—my invitation to leave.

“Halim …,” I say, sending out one last desperate plea.

He shakes his head and, finally, looks at me. His brown eyes scorch my face. “I have proof,” he says. “Proof of what Roberto has done. It’s you I feel sorry for, dear Laura. You stand loyal to the wrong man.”

And with that, the door shuts. I behold the varnished mahogany for a long, painful moment. Then I stumble down the stairs. The guards watch me step out into the sunshine, my eyes watering in the light.

“That was quick,” one of them says. There’s a sound from above our heads, and when I glance up, I see Halim standing on a balcony, watching me.

“You’ll see at the trial how right I am,” he calls. It’s as though he’s raining arrows on my head instead of words, and each one causes fresh pain.

I walk away, past the fountain and the bench.

I hardly see where I’m going.