The Sultan's Eyes Read Online Free PDF

ruled by the Turks.’
    ‘And full of Greeks,’ said Willem.
    ‘Would we even be welcome there?’ I asked.
    ‘I should think so,’ said Al-Qasim. ‘The Turks, as you call them, are quite accommodating. There are, for example, many Spanish Jews living in exile in Salonica. Besides, you’ll be with me.’
    ‘But what will we live on?’ asked Willem. ‘Where will we work?’
    ‘One problem at a time,’ said Luis. ‘First, we have to get you out of Venice. Alive.’



4
I N WHICH DARING PLANS ARE LAID
    The days that followed were strange indeed. Everywhere I went, from the market to the booksellers’ stalls behind the piazza, I felt sure someone was following me. When I glanced around, the streets seemed the same as ever, filled with people shopping or gossiping or haggling over prices, flower-sellers standing on street corners, grocers unloading their boats. But any of them might report to Brother Andreas or to Fra Clement himself. Any of those booksellers or washerwomen or shopkeepers could be frightened enough, or paid enough, to spy on me. Behind half-open shutters, from high windows, hidden in the deep shade of a portico, someone could be watching. Signora Contarini always said that in Venice there were no secrets and many secrets. It had never felt so true. This place where once I had found refuge no longer felt safe.
    I spent several days and sleepless nights lurching between fear and fury, between rebellion and defeat. I didn’t want to believe that Fra Clement had the power to harm us, but I remembered the fire in his eyes, the smoke and screams in the dark, the fury and faith of the Seville mob, and the sigh of Master de Aquila’s last breath.
    Finally, I realised there was only one way to rid myself of the constant dread.
    I found Al-Qasim at home, in the house on the Grand Canal that he shared with Luis. He was busy, bent over some tools on a long bench, but greeted me with a smile.
    ‘Welcome, Isabella.’
    ‘Forgive me. I’m interrupting you.’
    ‘Not at all. But you have found me hard at work.’
    ‘What is all this?’
    He motioned me over. ‘Luis decided that I had too many idle hours so he made me a workroom.’
    Unlike our print workshop, this one was cluttered with all sorts of odd tools and small pieces of metal. Al-Qasim rested one hand affectionately on a small vice.
    ‘I may not be able to make maps any more, but I am still a man of science. I carry out a few experiments. Record the movements of the stars and the planets. And here, you see, I have taken up lens-making, so I can keep us both supplied with eye-glasses. I cannot paint, but I can still use a lathe. I even built myself a telescope, like Professore Galileo.’
    ‘I knew you were concealing some great mysteries from us.’ I grinned, but he didn’t smile back.
    ‘Forgive me. It was not my wish to deceive you.’
    ‘I don’t feel deceived,’ I said. ‘Truly. But I would like to speak with you if I may.’
    He nodded and led me to a long, sunlit room where the reflection of the water outside rippled on the ceiling.
    ‘Please,’ he said, motioning with one hand. ‘Sit wherever you feel comfortable.’
    I hesitated. There were no chairs, just low window seats covered in rugs and piled with cushions.
    ‘You will need to get used to this style of furnishing,’ he said. ‘It is our way, and this is the fashion in all the houses in Salonica.’
    I lowered myself onto the seat and leaned back into the cushions. ‘I quite like it. It feels like climbing into bed.’
    He smiled. ‘That is the idea. Although it is also an illusion. Great deeds and complex political discussions are undertaken while we pretend to relax.’
    He called out for the footman, Paco, a young Spaniard who’d joined Luis’s service in Spain and had come all the way back to Venice with us. Paco and I exchanged shy smiles. I was only too aware that the nasty scar across his forehead was the result of a sword slash earned in my defence in the