The Sultan's Eyes Read Online Free PDF Page B

mêlée at Seville.
    Al-Qasim asked for tea to be brought and sat down, facing me, on the opposite bench.
    ‘In Salonica, you will also find that there are long hours of tea drinking and protocol and endless gossip before you get to the point of any meeting,’ he said. ‘But here, among friends, there’s no need for that.’
    ‘That’s good news,’ I said. ‘I’m not very good at diplomacy, as we all know.’
    ‘I’m sure you are, if you try.’
    ‘Perhaps.’ I smiled. ‘But it seems such a waste of time.’
    He pondered that for a moment. His thoughtfulness was one of the things I most admired about him. Willem and I were likely toblurt out exactly what was on our minds, and Signora Contarini certainly had no hesitation in voicing her thoughts. But Al-Qasim always spent a few moments weighing his words, measuring each concept and selecting the most appropriate course. It was a skill I hoped to learn from him.
    ‘Diplomacy has been known to save lives,’ he said at last. ‘The trick is knowing when talk is indeed a waste of time, and when it is more valuable than action.’
    ‘How can you ever know the difference?’
    He shrugged. ‘Sometimes it is a game of chance. But that is not the situation we now face.’
    ‘No.’ All the lightness vanished from our voices. ‘It’s too late for that now.’
    ‘Agreed. And since we two friends have no need to pretend, what do you want to do?’
    ‘Me?’
    ‘This is your first visit to our home,’ he said. ‘I assume you have a specific purpose.’
    Paco entered silently and offered us glasses of tea from a copper tray. I took a sip and waited for him to leave the room before I spoke again.
    ‘Your English is much better than it was when we first met, when Master de Aquila tried to pass you off as a translator.’
    ‘It was not, perhaps, the ideal subterfuge.’
    ‘But you have been studying?’
    ‘Luis has been teaching me,’ he said. ‘In the evenings.’
    ‘He must be a good teacher.’
    He smiled. ‘He is very patient.’
    ‘As are you.’
    ‘Perhaps. Or, at least, I am very good at pretending to be patient.’
    I placed the tea glass carefully on the table and looked at him. ‘Can you teach me Arabic? Please?’
    ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘it would be an honour.’
    ‘Thank you. I thought we could start straightaway, and then continue lessons on the ship.’
    ‘So that you have a few words when you arrive?’
    ‘As many words and phrases as possible,’ I said. ‘But there’s something else.’
    His smile didn’t waver. ‘I thought as much.’
    ‘I don’t want to go to Salonica. I think we should go to Constantinople.’
    One raised eyebrow was his only response at first. ‘That’s a long way,’ he said after a few moments.
    ‘I know it is, but that’s the point. I don’t believe we’ll be safe just a few days’ sailing from here. Fra Clement managed to reach his claws all the way across Europe to find us a few years ago. The stretch of ocean between here and Salonica would be nothing to him.’
    ‘True enough.’
    ‘It might be part of the Ottoman Empire, but it’s an outpost.’
    ‘Also true,’ said Al-Qasim. ‘The empire is happy enough for outposts to rule themselves, so long as they don’t make trouble.’
    ‘But in the capital, in Constantinople, there’s the Sultan and his court, the army, there are your priests —’
    ‘ Imams .’
    ‘Sorry, your imams , and magistrates — all sorts of different powers at play. It will be easier for us to stay hidden in a big city.’
    Al-Qasim nodded, so I went on.
    ‘If we can find a place there, we’ll be further out of reach of the Church, I’m sure. There’s an English ambassador and a wholeconsulate, as well as Venetian and Dutch traders if we need them. There are people to do business with, eventually, if we are able to work.’
    I stopped for breath and he held up one hand, then let it drop into his lap and turned his head slightly to gaze out of the window at