a murderer was a worthy companion

She washed herself as well as she could in the little basin with its lukewarm water, and looked in the mirror dispassionately. The bruises on her face were fading, but she was tanned by the sun, and her cheeks and the bridge of her nose not far off from being actually burnt, so she must find some cream or ointment to deal with that. A broad-brimmed hat would help too.

She spread a very little of the rose salve on her nose and lips, her cheekbones and forehead. Then she sat down and thought about Ionides.

He’d been very helpful so far, but could she trust him any further? This part of the world was completely new to her, whereas Ionides was at home with the languages here, and the customs, and the modes of travel. Could she manage without his guidance? She could probably afford it. She still had most of the gold that Farder Coram had given her. Ionides hadn’t let her down yet, and besides, she liked him.

The man at Marletto’s, this Mustafa Bey whom Bud Schlesinger had recommended. She didn’t know what to do. The alethiometer would have helped her decide, of course; even without the books, and without risking the sickness and disorientation of the new method, she’d have gained something from it; her knowledge of the symbols was much greater than it had been, and just to hold it would have given her thoughts something to focus on. And now it was gone.

But she still had the glass, and the needle. If she didn’t find something safe to keep them in, though, she might not have them for long. The glass was merely a glass (she supposed), but the needle . . . She took it very carefully out of the pocket it was in, and laid it in the centre of a piece of scrap paper, which she folded over and over till the needle couldn’t slip out, and put it in a compartment of her rucksack.

Then she thought of the old gentleman on the train, and the cards he’d given her. She took out the pack and shuffled it and spread the cards face down on the bed beside her. Now what could she do? The alethiometer worked by blending the meanings of three symbols. Should she pick three cards? Or just one? Or what?

She chose one and turned it over. It showed a man behind a barricade trying to defend it from a group of soldiers, against a background of gunfire and bursting shells. She looked at it despondently for a minute or so, and gathered the cards together again.

___________________

Ionides sprang to his feet as soon as he saw her come downstairs.

‘Miss Silver! Now I am your guide and guardian for the journey to Marletto’s Café. May I ask if you are hoping to see the well-known and respected Mustafa Bey?’

‘How did you know that?’

‘It was a guess purely and entirely. A traveller of your consequence would of course wish to pay her respects to such an important gentleman, and Marletto’s is where he is to be found. It is as good as a headquarters for his multitude of enterprises.’

He held open the hotel door and walked along beside her with the air of a senior courtier accompanying a princess. He looked no different from the ragged and none-too-clean individual who had first appeared outside her hotel room in Seleukeia, but he bore himself with such confidence and brio that Lyra felt herself to be acting a part too, and enjoying the attention of other passersby. Most of those who looked at her were disconcerted, of course, by her lack of a dæmon, but she remembered the woman she’d seen in Amsterdam, strolling along magnificently indifferent to the hostile stares of other people, and she remembered Farder Coram’s advice too, to bear herself like a queen.

‘Mr Ionides,’ she said.

‘I am all ears,’ he declared.

‘From now on my name is Tatiana Iorekova. I am a queen of the witches of Novaya Zemlya. You are a magician from Prague, and you are in my service.’

‘Ah! I completely understand. This is how I shall present you to Mustafa Bey, no?’

‘That’s correct.’

‘And what is my name?’

‘Magister Parathanasius.’

‘Parathanasius. A fine name, which I shall strive to deserve. How should I address you, Queen Tatiana?’

‘Like that. Say Queen Tatiana, may I present His Excellency Mustafa Bey?’

‘Not “Your Majesty”?’

‘No. We witches live plainly and without ceremony. Ah! – Wait here.’ She had noticed something in the window of a dress shop, and went inside. After a minute she came out with a length of narrow scarlet ribbon.

‘That for me or for you?’ said Ionides.

She smiled, which surprised him, and it occurred to her that she couldn’t remember the last time a smile had come to her face. She tied the ribbon around her head, across the middle of her brow, and let the ends fall in front of her right ear.

Ionides watched critically, and said, ‘You permit?’

She nodded, and he adjusted the ribbon slightly.

‘There. Very royal. What my name again?’

‘Parathanasius. Magister. Like Maestro. Master Parathanasius.’

‘From Prague.’

‘That’s right.’

He looked around. The street was busy; it was a late morning in a prosperous cosmopolitan city, and no one knew they were in the presence of a queen and a magician.

‘All right, Queen Tatiana Iorekova,’ he said seriously. ‘You wanted me to guide you to Aleppo. Here we are, and you will soon pay me forty dollars–’

‘Thirty.’

‘As you say. When I take you to Mustafa Bey our contract will expire, not so?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And what then? The whole of Asia is open to you. What is your destination? Will you require a guide to accompany you there?’

She had already made her mind up, but there were formalities and customs to observe.

‘Master Parathanasius, this is not the right place nor the right time. A queen of the witches does not bargain in the street. When I have concluded my business with Mustafa Bey, you and I shall go to another smaller café and discuss the matters you raise over a glass of tea.’

He nodded slowly. His expression was serious, his clothing ragged and dirty, the scar across his face white against the brown skin and the greying stubble. He looked like a beggar. But he stood upright, his body was lean and tense, and his eyes were alive with complicity and, deep inside, amusement.

‘All right, we go to find Mustafa Bey,’ he said. ‘You come with me, Queen Tatiana, and my magic powers find the way.’

He strode along beside her for all the world as if he really was a magician in the service of a queen. Lyra was pleased with her own bearing too. Like panthers, that was the way Farder Coram had described the way witches bore themselves. She found herself thinking something unexpected: she wanted Abdel Ionides to feel proud of her.

He swept imperiously into the entrance of Marletto’s, stopping in mock astonishment only when a white-aproned waiter said a few words in French, sharply, and barred his way.

‘Vous nous prenez pour des MENDIANTS?’ Ionides said in high indignation. ‘Écoutez, espèce d’imbécile. Voici sa majesté la reine Tatiana Iorekova, qui gouverne le royaume entier de Novaya Zemlya, et moi qui suis son sorcier particulier, le gardien de ses finances, le président de conseil de ses affaires d’état, le Maître Parathanasius! Queen Tatiana,’ he went on, turning to Lyra and switching in a moment from arrogant to emollient. ‘I apologise for the ignorance of this low-born rascal. Please forgive him, because now he knows who you are, he will hasten to bring you everything you desire, and conduct us without delay to a corner of this establishment which is fit to receive us. ‘And,’ he added to the waiter, ‘take word to His Excellency Mustafa Bey that Queen Tatiana Iorekova will receive him at once.’

The waiter looked from Ionides to Lyra, from Queen Tatiana to Master Parathanasius. Ionides was bursting with angry pride, and Lyra held herself still and faced down the waiter with a gaze that came from the coldest fastnesses of the northern ice. Privately she was delighted.

The waiter bowed nervously and led the way to a corner shaded by a potted palm whose leaves waved delicately in the breeze from a fan on the ceiling. Ionides held out a chair for her while the waiter hastened away.

‘When you’ve presented him to me, you can go,’ Lyra said quietly. ‘I saw a fountain in the square as we came through. I’ll meet you there in about an hour.’

‘You don’t need interpreter?’

‘I’m sure I can manage. Here he comes.’

Mustafa Bey was a large man in a physical sense, and an imposing one. His wealth was visible in the exquisitely cut cream linen suit, the hand-made shoes, the massive gold watch on his wrist, the golden signet ring on his little finger, the immaculately groomed grey hair; his power was manifest in the way he seemed to carry a field of magnetic force around him, compelling attention, demanding respect, knowing with utter certainty that his every wish would be not only fulfilled, but anticipated. His dæmon was a cheetah. If Lyra had not been a queen, she might even have been intimidated.

Ionides inclined his head briefly and said, ‘Queen Tatiana, may I present His Excellency Mustafa Bey?’

Lyra extended her right hand. The great merchant bent to kiss it, and Lyra responded with a smile.

‘Please join me, Mustafa Bey,’ she said. ‘I know how busy you are. I would be grateful for a few minutes of your time.’

She indicated a chair, and Mustafa Bey sat down. Ionides was giving an order to the waiter, who hurried away, and then Master Parathanasius bowed deeply to Lyra and withdrew. Mustafa Bey still had not said a word.

‘I was advised to consult you,’ Queen Tatiana said, ‘by a learned scholar in Oxford, Doctor Sebastian Makepeace.’

The merchant’s large and profoundly dark eyes widened a fraction of a millimetre. His expression changed from one unreadability to another.

‘And there was a friend I last saw in Smyrna,’ she went on, ‘who said that the one source of all the information I would ever need on my journey was Mustafa Bey, whom I would find in this café. One such recommendation would have been enough to make me come here – two, and I had no choice. Mustafa Bey, I am glad to meet you. Will you take tea with me?’

She could see the waiter hastening to her table with a loaded tray.

‘I would be honoured,’ said the merchant. His voice was unexpectedly light and gentle.

The tea was poured, the pastries were set out, the waiter bowed and left.

Mustafa Bey was not going to start this conversation. He was a busy man, but he was clearly curious, and Lyra was aware that they were being watched by many eyes that were equally interested. She was glad she had not come to him as a petitioner, having to wait to be seen: this table gave her a little enclave in the middle of his territory, like an embassy, where she could command things, to which she could summon him, from which she could dictate the course of their encounter. It also meant that the initiative belonged to her: she must get on with it.

‘As I mentioned, Mustafa Bey,’ she said, ‘I’m on a journey. I want to travel to the desert of Karamakan, and I would like to ask the advice of someone who knows the Silk Roads as well as anyone alive.’

‘My advice would be a single word: Don’t.’

‘I shall bear that in mind, but I won’t take it. I’m determined to go.’

‘What do you think you will find there?’

‘A red building that contains something of immense value.’

‘And what is that? Do you know what is in this red building?’

‘Yes, I believe I do.’

‘And you still want to go there, and put your life in danger, and risk not being able to return?’

‘Yes.’

He sipped the hot tea. Despite his bulk, all his movements were delicate and graceful.

‘I have never been to the red building myself,’ he said, ‘but I know the conditions under which it must be approached. The traveller by land, the dæmon by water. Do you?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘And your dæmon?’

‘The witches of the Arctic have the power of separation. At the moment, my dæmon is attending to an important piece of business somewhere else.’

He nodded, and set a calming hand on the head of his cheetah-dæmon. ‘And what do you need to know about the journey between here and Karamakan?’

‘How long does it take for a camel-train to go that far?’

‘Six months, more or less.’

‘And a traveller alone?’

‘Less time, but more danger.’

‘Danger from what, Mustafa Bey?’

‘Bandits on the ground. And even more from birds in the air. There are no zeppelin routes across these lands for that reason. The birds are immense and ferocious. They command the air almost entirely. Do your people ever fly across Central Asia?’

‘Very seldom.’

‘With good reason. But, Queen Tatiana, you are not telling me the truth.’

Lyra was aware of a deep soft growl, almost too quiet to hear. It was the merchant’s dæmon, whose black-rimmed eyes were staring at her throat.

‘In what way?’ said Lyra. Her skin was prickling.

‘You are not a witch. I have dealt with many witches – please do not interrupt me – and you are not one.’

‘Could you tell at once?’