Chapter Fourteen
Northern Syria, Aleppo, Kilis, and the pashalik of Nazim Pasha, June 29, 1811
Kilis lay roughly eighty miles northeast of Maraat Al-Numan, where Foye had briefly gone, through Syria with its factions and tribes all looking to establish independence from the sultan or from Ibrahim Pasha in Egypt now that he’d massacred the Egyptian Mameluks out of existence. Nazim Pasha, it was believed, aspired to control the entire province without the nuisance of allegiance to any higher authority. With or without the assistance of France or Russia. Or Britain.
Foye was five days reaching Kilis because he stopped in Aleppo for supplies and to check whether any of his letters to Sabine had arrived at the consulate, and if any had, whether she and Sir Henry had been by to collect them. Three of his letters were there, uncollected. He did learn, however, that the pasha had been through the city on this way to Kilis, and that the Godards had been with him. Both in good health.
As for why he was on his way to Aleppo? The hell with Damascus, and the hell with being separated from Sabine when it wasn’t yet necessary. When it was madness to allow Sabine and her uncle to travel alone with the pasha, into an area known to be politically unstable, then he ought to put a stop to it. Let Godard think what he would of Foye’s joining them. He could at least have Lieutenant Russell’s courage in facing the man on behalf of the woman he loved. He intended to do whatever it took to convince Sir Henry that he loved Sabine and deserved his blessing for a courtship.
In addition to replenishing the supplies necessary to get his men and himself to Kilis and back, he had with him a set of English dueling pistols to present to the pasha when he arrived at his palace, as it seemed that was where he must go to join the Godards. The pistols were a common gift made to princes, pashas, and various warlords who were in de facto control of the remote provinces of the sultanate.
He also hired more men while he was there—mercenaries and former Janissaries—to accompany him to Kilis. If there was trouble, he wanted to be prepared, and that meant men and weapons, neither of which were in short supply here. There were a good many retired fighting men in Aleppo, as well as ferocious-looking men from any number of the tribes indigenous to the area.
He chose men who looked like they’d be bastards in a fight and paid them enough to secure their loyalty with a promise of half as much money again when he discharged them. In the end, Foye outfitted and armed twenty men in addition to his personal guard. His valet, Barton, knew his way around a pistol, and his young dragoman, Nabil, though still a boy, kept a pistol tucked into his sash and a sword over his back. Including those two, his retinue numbered nearly thirty. More than enough, he hoped, to deter any bandits or Bedouins they might meet on the road.
Well provisioned and armed, Foye left for Kilis two days after arriving in Aleppo and a month since leaving Buyukdere. The journey between Kilis and Aleppo was just long enough to require an overnight stop. A man on a fine horse might make the trip in a day, but with a small army and the pack animals carrying their supplies? If there was trouble on the way, he wanted his men fresh, not hungry and exhausted from hard riding.
Their stop came at just past the halfway point, at a village where the people stared at him with wide eyes, likely having never seen a European man as tall as he was. They were followed by children begging for food and money. Emaciated dogs nipped at the heels of their horses. Nabil secured them lodgings in an inn that served surprisingly good food.
After they ate, Foye took Barton and Nabil with him for a walk. With Nabil interpreting, he was able to discover that the pasha had stopped here, too, when he came through on his way to Kilis. Not surprising, given that Sir Henry was unable to travel quickly.
With full dark at least an hour or two away, they continued their tour of the village. There was a public fountain erected at the side of the road that continued on to Kilis, and several more in the village proper. As they walked, a dozen children followed after him, begging for coins, which he handed out amid laughter and shrieks of joy. He spent some time at the village bazaar, where he found some exceptionally fine embroidered silk and another merchant who had a superb selection of emeralds. Foye sat with the vendor, and again with Nabil interpreting, they smoked and drank coffee and haggled over a price for the emeralds.
His lack of Arabic or Turkish was no barrier to commerce. Where money was involved, all one really required was an expressive face and the will to walk away. Nabil translated when necessary, but for the most part, Foye conducted the matter on his own and came away with the gems he wanted at a more than agreeable price. Barton tucked his purchases into a satchel, and they continued their walk.
The farther north they went, the fewer Turks there were, and this was as true of Aleppo as it was of this village. The population was more and more tribal: Arabs, Bedouin, Druze, Turkmen, Syrians, and even Christians. At the end of one street they reached a spot where an Arab had erected a small rug-covered dais. Ten youths sat on the rug with one blackamoor woman, hugely pregnant, and two paler-skinned women, both of whom were quite young and very pretty. The Arab was, Foye realized with a start, a slaver, and he was even now displaying his female merchandise to a man who looked disinterested in what he saw. Foye saw no blondes, no other women of any color but the two Caucasian girls. His heart misgave him at this evidence that, indeed, the trading of women was a practice that survived in the north.
Thank God he already knew the pasha and the Godards had passed safely through here.
They reached Kilis about eleven the following morning. Nazim Pasha’s palace was on a rise on the northern outskirts of the city, well situated to withstand an assault should anyone be foolish enough to attack the pasha. Foye ordered the bulk of his men to make camp out of sight of the palace. He saw no reason to alarm the pasha by approaching with what was, in effect, a small fighting force.
With just Barton and Nabil, Foye rode to the pasha’s palace. Planted in the dirt inside the entrance were two wooden spears, each with a cow’s tail affixed to it. They were the literal symbol of the pasha’s standing; Nazim Pasha was a two-tail pasha, a man of significant rank in the eyes of the Ottoman Porte. Three tails, and he would be sitting in the High Porte, Sultan Mahmud’s private court, with the title of vizier or something equally lofty.
A white-bearded man greeted them at the courtyard entrance, which was wide with a gate high enough to admit an entire caravan of camels and donkeys. Foye relayed via Nabil that he was most anxious to meet the pasha and present him with a gift as a token of his esteem. They were admitted, and Foye let out a breath of relief. He would see Sabine again, within the hour he hoped.
The Godards had been staying in opulent quarters indeed. The interior of the palace was a grand affair, with marble floors and columns, mosaicked walls, and windows and doorways with inverted teardrop-shaped tops. From what he saw, the general layout adhered to the traditional courtyard-based constructions he’d seen in Buyukdere and elsewhere in the provinces of Turkey. There were two minarets and, so Foye assumed, at least one mosque.
With frequent bows and salaams, the white-bearded servant escorted him to an interior courtyard with a marble floor laid out in a pattern of dark and light tiles. Barton and Nabil followed him. Covered walkways lined the perimeter of the rectangular courtyard, with marble columns supporting the arched openings. Fruit trees and flowering bushes offered shade, and two fountains, one at each end of the enclosure, cooled the air.
The irwan to which the servant escorted him was as magnificent as the rest of the palace. This high-ceilinged, domed room was entirely open to the courtyard. The marble-lined floor-to-ceiling walls were decorated with tiles inlaid in the pattern of black and white so common in the north. Bright rugs covered the floor, and a divan glittered with pillows in jeweled tones of silk. The massive fountain at the near side of the courtyard was surrounded by palm, orange, and lemon trees. Finches flitted from branch to branch. It was here, the servant told him, that he would meet Nazim Pasha. First, of course, he must freshen himself after his journey.
Half an hour later Foye returned to the irwan with Nabil at his side. Foye looked for the Godards but did not see them yet. Servants had brought food and drink to the irwan, arranging the selection on what looked like upside-down chairs with platters laid over the legs. Soft music of flutes and stringed instruments came from an enclosed structure on one side of the irwan. He adjusted his grip on the, dueling pistols, wrapped in a velvet bag, that he intended to present to the pasha and crossed the remainder of the courtyard.
The infamous Nazim Pasha reclined on the divan, a narghile at his feet, his robes as extravagantly embroidered as before. Gold and silver thread embellished his heavy silk kaftan, and a teardrop pearl adorned the front of his turban. As was the custom, Foye and Nabil removed their outer shoes before they entered the irwan, Foye retained the thin slippers he’d worn inside his shoes, a convenient custom he was happy to have adopted. Without a word, Nabil installed himself on the floor, legs crossed and hands resting on his thighs.
As expected, the pasha was established in the rightmost corner of the divan. He wore a large ruby on his left hand. A long-limbed Moor in a striped kaftan served fresh coffee, hot and strong and almost unbearably sweet, and then retreated to the lower portion of the floor to sit with Nabil until he was needed again.
Foye presented the dueling pistols, which were graciously received and exclaimed over.
“Excellency,” Foye said in French once the pasha had set the pistols aside. He sat on the left corner of the divan, cradling his coffee in his hand. After a clap from the pasha, the Moorish servant moved a tray of nuts and sherbet within his reach. “I hope my arrival here is not inconvenient.”
Nazim Pasha waved a desultory hand. “It is delightful to see you, my lord. I do enjoy my European visitors.”
“I confess, Pasha, I had hoped the Godards would be here. Have they left Kilis already?”
“No, Marquis.”
“I hope they are well, sir,” he said. “I am anxious to see them, as you must be aware.”
“Alas,” the pasha said in his near flawless French. He peeled a fig as he spoke. His fingers were expert. “I regret to tell you that only a few days ago Sir Henry fell very ill.”
Foye leaned against the divan, his chest tight. He’d done the right thing, then, coming after Sabine. “Distressing news indeed.” If what the pasha had just said was true, it did explain why the Godards had not joined them in the irwan. He only wished he knew whether he ought to believe the pasha. “How is Sir Henry now? Has he recovered?”
The pasha bowed his head. When he looked at Foye, the mournful cast to his eyes sent a bolt of dread lancing straight through to his soul. “Je suis desoli, Marquis. II est mort.”
Foye didn’t understand the words at first, even though the pasha spoke quite clearly and simply. His confusion must have been quite evident. The pasha swallowed his bite of fig before he spoke in heavily accented English. “It is my very sad duty to tell you, Monsieur le Marquis, that Sir Henry died three days ago.”
Foye started to say something, then stopped. His heart gave a gigantic thump against his ribs, so hard and loud he was sure the pasha could have heard it from where he sat. He gathered his thoughts. “And Miss Godard?” he asked. He tightened his fingers around his coffee cup. For three days, Sabine had been here on her own, grief stricken and alone with no one to look after her and see that she was safe. “How is she? Is she all right?”
“Such sad news to tell you, Marquis.” He lifted a bejeweled finger. “She is doing as well as one can expect after the loss of a beloved uncle.”
Sir Henry Godard was dead. God ought to strike him deaf and dumb, for his first thought was that Sabine was free. What kind of beast was he that he felt even a moment of pure, clear relief in the knowledge?
“I can see that you are quite undone at my news,” the pasha said. “Please accept my condolences, Marquis. I was not aware you were such close friends.”
“Yes,” he said. “The news is most shocking. Forgive me, I did not expect this. It is fortunate I came when I did,” he said. Good Lord. What if he hadn’t? What if he’d continued his self-pity and gone on to Palmyra? Or Damascus? “I’ll see to everything, of course. Have you notified the British Consulate? They knew nothing of this when I left Aleppo.”
A flash of impatience showed in the pasha’s dark eyes. “She is grieving, naturally. I have done everything possible to console her.”
Foye set down his coffee. His fingers trembled. The pasha’s impatience made him sit up straight. Without her uncle, Sabine was without any influence. She was an unmarried woman alone in a country with far more restrictive notions of a woman’s place in society than Sabine was used to. “You will be relieved, I am sure, to know I am prepared to oversee Miss Godard’s immediate and safe return to England.”
The pasha raised his eyebrows. “Miss Godard’s every need has been satisfied during this difficult time. She is disconsolate, you may imagine, Marquis.” If not for their surroundings, Foye could have believed himself in a Paris drawing room. “My own personal physician attended Sir Henry in his final days, and even knowing that his faith was not the true one, I nevertheless summoned a Christian priest to preside over his burial.”
But he hadn’t informed the British consul of Sir Henry’s illness or of its fatal result. The pasha had—deliberately?—left Sabine isolated from her countrymen all this time. Foye drank some of his coffee, even though he didn’t want any, in order to think through what he ought to do.
“You have my sincerest thanks for all your troubles on their behalf, Excellency. I am sure that everything you did for her and her uncle was a comfort to Miss Godard.” He forced himself to loosen his grip on his cup.
“It was nothing,” Nazim Pasha said. “I was more than happy to be of assistance to her.”
Foye rose from the divan and stood looking down at the pasha. “Would it be possible for me to speak with her now? We have much to discuss, and I would like to be on our way first thing tomorrow.”
“But of course, Marquis.”
The pasha’s answer disarmed him. He had, he realized, expected to be denied. From the moment he’d heard that Godard was dead, he’d believed his worst fears about what might happen to Sabine were to come true.
Nazim Pasha clapped his hands, the usual method of summoning a servant, and gave instructions in a language that, to his admittedly untutored ear, did not sound like Turkish or Arabic. He saw Nabil cock his head. Curious. Foye’s uneasiness returned. The servant bowed and left the irwan.
“While we wait for Miss Godard to join us,” the pasha said, “perhaps you will tell me about your country. I am curious to know more about England.” He reclined on the divan, a pillow behind him. “Have you a large estate?”
Foye replied with some nonsense about English weather and that when he was not in London, he lived in Cornwall, the loveliest spot in the whole of the British Isles. How the hell long did it take to fetch one young lady? When the servant returned, it was without Sabine. Foye listened, maddeningly, to an exchange in language he did not understand. He had become adept, though, at reading expressions. It was Foye’s distinct impression that there was nothing out of place with the servant. He was reporting to his master on a subject that was, for him, entirely mundane. The pasha, however, was another matter. Foye did not like anything about the way he listened to his servant. Every instinct in his body reminded him that the man before him was an opportunist.
But surely there was no reason for him to feel so apprehensive. Sabine was here, by the pasha’s own admission. When she was able, he would see her. There was no reason for Nazim Pasha to keep him from seeing her. None at all.
When he had dismissed the servant once again, Nazim Pasha pressed his hands together and addressed Foye. “Alas, Marquis, such ill luck!” His dark eyes glinted. “I have been informed that Miss Godard is not here.”