Ironfire: An Epic Novel of Love and War by David Ball

Author:David Ball [Ball, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-17T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 25

He waited by the grate a fourth week, and a fifth, always in vain. He was ready to confess everything about himself to the Kislar Agha, who alone would be able to find out about her. Nico would do that and meet his executioner gladly, if only he could first have word of her safety.

During a Greek lesson Nico failed to respond to a question—not once but twice. By the time he rose from the fog and realized his lapse, Iskander was standing directly in front of him, his face inches away. Iskander’s eyes burned with curiosity. “Do you think of your secrets, Asha?” he asked quietly. “Tell me of your secrets.”

“No, sire. There are no secrets. I was only...” And Nico could not think of a word to say after that. His mind went blank, and he stared stupidly into the cold eyes of his lala and knew that his face betrayed him.

“I know a means by which we might refresh your attention span, even if it might not loosen your tongue for me,” Iskander said. He made Nico climb atop a courtyard wall above the Büyük Oda and stand there for eighteen hours, without water or food. The wall was no wider than one of his own feet, and to fall would surely be to die, but Nico stood toe to heel and had no trouble staying upright, because she held him there. Though he could not see into that part of the seraglio where she lived, his mind saw her clearly, sitting in the garden with her friends. She looked up at him and waved gaily, and she ran to the foot of the wall. She climbed the branches of a fig tree and brought him fruit and cool water. They spoke in whispers, and then in full voice, because everyone in the courtyard below had gone away and left them alone. She stayed all day, from before sunrise, and through the heat when sweat poured from him, and past sunset into the night, when the cold air from the Bosphorus froze the sweat in his clothing and made him shiver. Only when he was back on the ground did she release him from her embrace. His quivering knees collapsed, and he slept.

And then, two weeks later, she was there—not in his mind, but really there. She slipped in through the grate and saw the tears of relief that welled in his eyes, and she kissed them away and held him. “My love, my Asha, I am all right. Forgive me, I could not come. The eunuch saw me that day running behind everyone else. He suspected something. He has been watching me and I could not come. I would have done so anyway, for I could not stand it any longer, but I dared not put you at risk. And then yesterday Allah smiled upon us—the eunuch fell ill of food poisoning and was taken away.” Nico kept his head buried for a moment more until the lump in his throat subsided and he could control his voice and his tears.

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