Page 61 of Inconvenient Honor
Sahin Pasha wishesto speak with you. It is not permitted that you meet alone. Come to the audience chamber by the old gate at sunset.
Valide Sultan
Sahin?She had been there a month with no word from him.
What now? Perhaps he has word from Papa.
Her heart began to race.
The headon the pole looked down at Richard with empty eye sockets, long since pecked empty by crows. From the look of the thing, it hung there several weeks before he reached Thessaloniki. If its location in front of the gate meant to squelch the rebels, the grumbling in the streets indicated that it had failed.
The decaying horror told Richard even less than it had the day he arrived, still puffed up with the excitement of disguises and assumed identities four days before. A coup had been thwarted. This man, most likely Volkov’s agent, paid dearly. Whether Volkov skulked nearby, whether he came to Thessaloniki and departed, or even whether he came at all, the sunken face could not say.
Richard passed the sight, pulled his tattered hat down across his eyes, and elbowed his way through the crowd in the square. In twenty paces, he heard a half dozen miserable grumbles and at least one outright treasonous threat. He ignored them.
A message led him to a tavern that was seedy even by port standards. It lay streets off the main square. A quick scan of the place showed him his contact had not arrived. He took a seat where he could watch the door and called for ouzo.
Richard paid the barkeeper, drank deep, and slunk back in morose silence. The distraction he had enjoyed in his disguise on Malta faded in this third rate Greek port of call where the identity he assumed required him to stay in a bug-ridden inn like any good merchant would. The novelty had worn thin to the point of fraying.
What the hell am I doing here? In one month I’ve abandoned everything I worked for, the life I planned, and everything I thought I held dear in pursuit of a woman who made it clear she does not wish my protection. What is this madness?
A stocky man with full beard and hair around his shouldersentered, bringing Richard to attention. The furtive little man behind him put him on his guard. The knife in Richard’s belt under his loose jacket felt comforting against his back. The one in his boot felt even more so.
The bearded one saw him and gestured to the other with his head. The two sat in front of him, glancing around all the while as if watching for the sultan’s agents.
“You, merchant, are trouble. I want paid now,” the bearded one said.
“Who is your friend?” Richard asked.
“No one I want to know. Pay me now, and he may talk.”
Richard pulled a leather pouch from under his jacket, weighed it in his hand, and held it up. “What we agreed on, not a cent more. I should take coins out for—” He meant to say “being late,” but the bearded one grabbed the coins and bolted for the door.
“You better be worth it,” Richard told the man left behind.
“Do you value your life?”
Richard nodded as much to keep the man talking as to agree.
“I am your one warning. You ask too many questions.”
“Too many for whom? Russia or the Ottomans.”
“Both.”
So there are Russian agents on the ground. That answered one question.
“I leave them to their conflict. My interest is in a woman.”
The furtive little man looked back, his face a mask of indifference. “Women come and go.”
“One passed through here. Maria Dalco. I’ve been told she met her ‘aunt’ and sailed on.” The statement got no reaction. “Another woman, possibly English, sailed with an Ottoman party. She may or may not have disembarked.” The man sat stone-faced.
“Do you know of either?” Richard demanded.
The man shook his head. “What do we care about women?”
“Volkov cared for the one I seek.”
