The Rat and the Serpent (17 page)

Chapter 9

Ügliy the citidenizen—there were so many surprises in store for me.

When Garakoy took me to a tower off Tulku Sok Street and told me I would be living there, I could find nothing to say. We climbed the steps to the top floor, where Garakoy took a key from his pocket, handed it to me, and invited me to unlock and open the door. I did this with some anxiety, as if some fierce beast might be lurking in the room behind. I had never used a key before. Opening the door revealed a short corridor off which four doors led.

Garakoy said, “This is your home.”

I shrugged. “Which door?”

“All of them. The top floor is your home—there are four rooms here.”

I stood back, amazed. “That can’t be right. One room would be sufficient. The nogoths on the street—”

Garakoy slapped a hand across my mouth. “Remember you’re a citidenizen. Remember the third part of the test. I won’t warn you again.”

“I’d forgotten,” I mumbled, aware that I had made a mistake.

Garakoy continued, “You’re still in shock. I understand. Let’s hope you snap out of it soon. Now then, because you’ll be working in Stamboul, like all citidenizens, you’ll get money every new moon. That’s how you’ll live. Stamboul provides shelter and food, and in return you work for it.”

Eager to obliterate my previous mistake, I nodded, saying, “As I learned in the Dessicators.”

“You know, they’re not so far away, just at the top of Gedik Pasa Street. You might find yourself working for them.”

I nodded, hoping that I would not be.

“Here in the Zolthanahmet district,” Garakoy continued, “we have alot of ancient places, guilds, schools and suchlike. A man with your talent should find good work, interesting work.”

“Wonderful!”

Garakoy took my hand and studied the silver ring. “Keep that on just in case. After a few months, maybe a year, you’ll be well known in Zolthanahmet and you won’t need to wear it all the time.”

“I’ll have fitted in?”

Garakoy nodded, smiling. “You’ll be recognised.”

“Good,” I said, though in fact I was uncomfortable with the notion. Already I was lying and acting in order to fit into the citidenizenry! It was quite an effort to conceal my revulsion at what I was learning.

Garakoy took a pouch from beneath his cloak. He bounced it in his hand, and it clinked. “Your first month’s money,” he said, handing it over. “You already have the key, I think.” He opened the nearest door, then the three others, saying, “This is your bedchamber... prepare food and drink in here... and here you can clean yourself. There is water here, but you will have to heat it with a sorcerer’s block... and this is your study—see how it’s already furnished with a couch and a table. You might like to buy further items later.”

“Buy?”

“With the money.”

I looked down at the pouch in my hand. “How would that work?”

Garakoy raised his gaze to the ceiling, but then he smiled. “That precious money,” he said, “will allow you to obtain the essentials of life, furniture, decorative objects, clothes, and then all the entertainments and the finer joys—drink, good food, and of course women.”

“But food and drink alone are the essentials of life.”

“Not here. You have choice.” He laughed, then added, “A choice of whores, for example.”

I failed to understand. “But when I have bought furniture and all the rest of it, and the money still comes, what then?”

“I’ll leave you to find out.”

I sensed injustice. “But—”

“Ah, ah!” Garakoy waved his hand in a delicate gesture. “I know what you’re thinking. Remember, you’re a citidenizen now.” He paused, as if embarrassed, then said, “I’ll leave you here to sleep. In a few days you’ll be asked to go to the Forum of Constantine, where you can choose work. Until then, be at peace! Stamboul provides for those who love it.”

And he was gone, shutting the door behind him.

The door opened a second later. Garakoy popped his head around, to add, “Don’t forget to lock your home every time you leave—and keep the key on you at all times, eh?” He winked, grinned, then shut the door.

I was left alone.

Life, I felt, was going to be strange.

I took time to explore my new home. Each room was clean and warm: two windows facing west towards Gedik Pasa Street, the lamps of which I could glimpse over sooty roofs, two windows facing east towards the Hippodrome, the flags of which I could see fluttering like bats against a gloomy sky. But I was too tired for sight-seeing. I took off my clothes, dropped them on the bed chamber floor, then studied the low couch provided. Its blankets were as white as new mushrooms. I shook my head, put my rags on and slept on the floor, huddled in a corner like an animal.

I did not dream.

It was midnight before I was awake and able to examine each of the four rooms in detail. Basic items had been provided: a cloak, simple clothes and boots that did not fit, dry food and water, a steel tub and a variety of pots in the cleaning room. Many of the objects I did not recognise, and I had to think back to how Raknia had behaved in her own room to grasp the use of these things.

Garakoy returned to check my progress. I reported some of my worries, but said nothing of my inner feelings. I said, “I don’t know what alot of my possessions are, and it seems strange having so much space when there’s nobody to share it with.”

“Lonely? Plenty of citidenizen women would like a man such as you.”

I said nothing. I was thinking of Raknia.

Garakoy shrugged. “Anyway, if there is something that really annoys you, tell one of your local counsellords.”

“My what?”

“Ah! You haven’t met one yet?”

I shook my head. “I’m still struggling with—”

“The rise from nogoth to citidenizen is not the only move that you can make.”

I stared at Garakoy, too shocked to reply.

“Are you all right, Ügliy?”

“More than citidenizens? But they were everything to me!”

Garakoy patted me on the shoulder. “Calm down. I know, I know, it’s a surprise to everybody who makes it off the street. But think. Citidenizens can’t just be organised by whimsy, or by sorcery. There have to be rulers.” He laughed then waved his hand about, as if to describe the poverty of the citidenizenry. “I’m afraid we’re just rags and bones to the counsellords,” he said. “I’m hoping to rise to become one quite soon, but it’s not easy.”

I found that I was trembling. “Is there... a test?”

“Of sorts. You have to be elected by the citidenizens of your local district. In our case it’s Zolthanahmet.” Garakoy glanced up at the ceiling. “Ah, I dream every night of being a counsellord. Dispensing justice. The honour, the finery. Awe on the upturned faces of common citidenizens—like yours now.”

I said nothing. I felt sick inside.

“It is a noble aim,” Garakoy continued. “And of course counsellords are allowed to wear jewellery, just as you are allowed to wear make-up. In fact, you should be wearing make-up now.”

I stuttered, “I found... I didn’t find any make-up.”

“You’ll have to go out and buy some. There’s a good place where Klodfarer Street meets Gedik Pasa Street—a short walk. Shall we go now?”

I felt events rushing out of my control. “Maybe not just yet.”

Garakoy’s face showed his disapproval. “You’ll have to find something before you go to the Forum of Constantine—imagine their consternation if you turned up like you are now. Were there no clothes to hand here, nothing better than your old rags?”

Slowly, I shook my head. “So many rules...”

Garakoy chuckled. “Rules? Nothing! The simplest of mores by which a good citidenizen lives. Think nothing of them, Ügliy, they are mere tenets of civilisation.”

I did not like what I heard. But because of the warning I received, I took some of the coins in my pouch and went with Garakoy to the stall on Gedik Pasa Street, where, embarrassed, and so awkward I began stuttering again, I asked for make-up suitable for a new citidenizen. At that point Garakoy left; I think he was ashamed of me. The man in the stall was sympathetic, however, offering me a free parchment of instructions along with the pots and trays of strange substances. I returned home, then faced my reflection in the mirror of my bed chamber.

I had never considered this moment before. Recalling the citidenizens that I had idolised from my place in the gutter, I saw before my mind’s eye their pale faces, their dark eyes kohl-surrounded, that shiny black hair so often crimped, and the luxurious clothes, the cloaks, the leather boots, the satin breeches. Cursing, I took more coins from my pouch and returned to Gedik Pasa Street, where I found a small house whose front window displayed a row of outdoor clothes. I entered. The woman inside knew immediately that I was a novice. She found me new garments; she took my money.

I returned home. I experimented with the make-up, then put on my new clothes and looked in the mirror, but there I saw a different man: long black cloak with silver chains at the neck, stiff breeches of grey cotton, black boots laced up to the knee. Pale face, dark hair. And beneath that... what?

I spoke aloud to myself. “Is this all it is—a new exterior? Following the rules of other people?” I felt crushed. I knew there must be more to life in the citidenizenry, but for the moment I knew only disappointment. Above all, I was alone. I was a citidenizen, but I had no friends.

It was then that I thought of Raknia. In minutes I was walking east along Tulku Sok Street toward the Gulhane Gardens. For once, she was not expecting me. When the door opened and she peered out she too saw somebody different, and it was a few seconds before she realised who her visitor was. She put her hand to her mouth, then invited me in.

Having shut and bolted the door, I turned to see her staring at my right leg. “I am not lame any more,” I said.

“So you passed?” she asked.

I nodded.

She added, “Aren’t you happy?”

For a moment I made no reply, standing still as if dejected, before I shrugged and went to sit on her couch. She sat beside me. I noticed that she did not offer me a goblet of raki.

“What’s happened to you?” she asked.

“I am not sure,” I replied. “It is all very different... not what I expected.”

“No, no—the leg.”

I hesitated. She was rubbing her hand up and down my new thigh.

“You
are
a citidenizen?” she asked, her voice intense.

I showed her the completed ring, then jangled a few coins in my pocket. I felt like a fraud, however.

“You should be elated,” she remarked.

“It doesn’t seem right to leave everybody behind.”

“Including me,” she laughed.

“Not you.”

She turned to face me. “I have a confession to make. You’ve probably guessed it already.”

“No.”

“I too passed the citidenizen test, many years ago.”

I was astonished. “But you’re a nogoth,” I said.

“There can be movement both ways.”

“What—?”

She put a finger against my lips. “What happened to me is private. But Ügliy, I want to join you in the citidenizenry, I want it more than
anything.
To be with you... to be a citidenizen again.”

I said nothing. Her plea sounded genuine, yet there was an undertone of manipulation. Much was explained by her brief confession.

She began fussing with my make-up, smoothing the foundation I had used to whiten my skin, scraping away excess kohl, laughing at the clumsy way I had applied everything. “The trick is to use the minimum amount for the best effect,” she said. “I’ll teach you, don’t worry. I know all the tricks.”

I glanced at her.

“It’s true,” she said. “Yes, I’ve been a nogoth for some years, but I was once a citidenizen living here in the Seraglio district.”

“Do you know about the counsellords?”

“Of course.”

I felt shadows returning to my mind, and I realised that here was the root of my gloom. That the citidenizenry be subdivided, that these counsellords have power and enjoy better living was a bitter blow to one who had wanted nothing more than to rise above the gutter.

“I am wasting my time,” I muttered.

“No you’re not. Why?”

“What is the point of being a citidenizen if the counsellords dispense justice? That is what I want to do. I want to make the Mavrosopolis—”

“Stamboul.”

“—a better place.”

Raknia smiled at me. “There’s no reason why you couldn’t rise to be a counsellord,” she said. “Any citidenizen can do it as long as they’re elected on a popular wave. You’d be good at dispensing justice. You’ve got that...”

“That what?”

“That... something, you know, that every ruler needs.”

She was losing track of her argument, and I saw, clearer now than ever, that what she wanted was to use me to return to the citidenizenry. With a grimace I said, “I don’t think people who have been ejected from the citidenizenry can return. You can only take the test once.”

“So they say. But I believe there are alternatives.” She stared at me. “You’ve got to find one for me. Imagine us together—where’s your home?”

“Tul—” I stopped myself in mid-sentence.

She sat back, frowning. “So you don’t want me to know?” Her voice had changed from sweet to acid.

“It’s not that,” I replied.

She stood up, took a gown from the back of the couch and draped it over her bare shoulders, as if she felt a draught.

Realising that I had made a mistake, I also stood. “I will come back later,” I promised. “I need time to think.”

She said nothing. I let myself out.

I had been home only five minutes when there was a knock at my door. But it was not Garakoy, the only person who knew where I lived, it was Raknia.

She must have followed me. She strode into the corridor separating my rooms, smiled at me—a vicious smile, not one alluring—then proceeded to examine the four rooms, ending in the study, where she sat, arms outstretched over the back of the couch, her fingernails tapping the fabric. I shut and locked the front door, then joined her.

She told me, “You’ve got to help me get back into the citidenizenry, you’ve
got
to.”

I sat beside her. I felt calm, though I knew trouble lay ahead. “Is that possible?” I asked in my most matter-of-fact voice.