iridescent beetles, while their larger brethren, the caiques, paddled steadily onward like swans. Small merchant ships swarmed close to Hagia Sophia’s hill, like grubby workmen resting from a hard day’s work.
All of which made the great, white ship in their midst look like an eagle amid a gaggle of pigeons and sparrows.
“What on earth is the Phidaleia doing here?”
“Which ship?” Gareth swung around to follow her gaze.
“HMS Phidaleia. She’s Britain’s newest armored cruiser.”
Speaking the blatant truth sent ice diving from her lips into her gut. Had the warship come to help St. Arles?
She sank back into her seat and tried to chase her skittering thoughts. If the Royal Navy thought highly enough of his plots to back him with one of their best ships…
“Armored cruiser?” Gareth queried, his tone far too soft.
“Ten six inch guns plus six torpedo tubes. She’s fully armored but can make seventeen knots, with a crew of almost five hundred.” She gripped his hand hard, desperate for comfort.
He turned his palm up and locked their grasps, silently uniting them.
The carriage was trotting past an enormous palace, built of glittering white marble. Surely even the most extravagant sultan would not have inlaid his walls with gold or carved them in fantastical shapes like a cross between Versailles and the Arabian Nights.
“You’re very familiar with her and her type,” Gareth observed. His voice was all Kentucky drawl now, which meshed oddly with French words. He must be thinking hard.
“St. Arles is a former naval officer. He only left Britain’s senior service to take up the title when his brother died.” How little he disguised his homesickness for those days, too. “We spent considerable time with his naval friends.”
“On board their ships?”
“Yes, but not the Phidaleia,” she answered Gareth’s unspoken question. “She was only launched a few months ago and is the Admiralty’s pride.”
“She’s here to pay Great Britain’s respects to the Sultan,” Adem announced cheerily, deliberately ignoring their tension. “Next Friday is the Night of Absolution, when Almighty Allah forgives all his creation. Except for a very few of the lowest scum, who we will not soil your ears with, gracious lady.”
His manicured fingers dismissed those vermin like an executioner flinging aside decapitated skulls.
“Is it a festival?”
“It’s one of the five nights, or kandili, when the mosques are lit with candles,” Gareth said brusquely, his mind clearly elsewhere.
“We will pray and lament in the cemeteries for our departed friends and relations,” Adem contributed. “Then we return home, where the elders receive the younger people. There are special foods served, especially desserts to celebrate the dead who walk among us that night.”
“Ah yes, it reminds me of how my grandmother’s relatives decorate the family graves outside Louisville.” Her shoulders eased and she started to relax, pleased she understood at least a little of this unusual country.
“The Sultan always lights the first candle. It’s one of the very few occasions on which he does not attend the mosque next to the palace.” Gareth rapidly drummed his fingers on the carriage’s rim.
Portia’s heart slammed into her throat.
St. Arles had five chances every year to attack the Sultan—and one occurred next Friday? When a top British warship just happened to be in town to support him?
May God have mercy on the Turks, they didn’t know what was about to happen. But how could she tell them? She had no proof; a trunk full of gold was not a sin.
The great marble palace gave way to verdant gardens bordered by the blue ribbon of the Bosporus. Another white palace rose on the opposite shore, as if transported from Renaissance Italy. Two fantastical tents rose beside the water, almost as if fairies had recreated a genie’s pavilions into stone.
A ferry steamed past, promiscuously scattering cinders and fragments of conversation. Two fishermen struggled with a heavy net and a small boat, pulled ever closer to shore by the strong current.
A new palace appeared ahead, standing tall and proud beside the water. White marble like the others, it was carved into narrow, vertical blocks. From a distance, they could have been filled with windows or giant steel bars, despite their fanciful carved frames. A great marble terrace surrounded it, edged by dozens of armed guards.
“What is that building?” Portia raised herself up to get a better view.
“Don’t look at it!” Gareth wrapped his arms around her, heedless of Moslem prohibitions on displaying affection in public, and pulled her face against him. “For God’s sake, Portia, they’ll arrest you if you so much as glance at the