Sheen on the Silk - Anne Perry [4]
They set out in the morning, walking briskly. The air was fresh. Food shops were open, and at practically every corner bakeries were crowded with people, but they had no time to indulge themselves. They were still in the web of narrow streets that threaded the whole city from the calm water of the Golden Horn in the north to the Sea of Marmara in the south. Several times they had to stand aside to let donkey carts pass, piled high with goods for market, mostly fruit and vegetables.
They reached the wide stretch of Mese Street just as a camel swayed past them, high-headed, sour-faced, and a man hurried behind it, bent double under the weight of a bale of cotton. The thoroughfare teemed with people. In among the native Greeks she saw turbaned Muslims, Bulgars with close-cropped heads, dark-skinned Egyptians, blue-eyed Scandinavians, and high-cheeked Mongols. Anna wondered if they felt as strange here as she did, as awed by the size, the vitality, the jumble of vibrant colors in the clothes, on the shop awnings—purples and scarlets, blues and golds, half shades of aquamarine, wine red, and rose pink, wherever she looked.
She had no idea where to start. She needed to make inquiries and learn something about the different residential areas where she might find a house.
“We need a map,” Leo said with a frown. “The city is far too big to know where we are without one.”
“We need to be in a good residential district,” Simonis added, probably thinking about the home they had left in Nicea. But she had willed to come almost as much as Anna herself. Justinian had always been her favorite, even though he and Anna were twins. Simonis had grieved when he left Nicea to come to Constantinople. When Anna had received that last, desperate letter about his exile, Simonis had thought of nothing but rescuing him, at any cost. It was Leo who had had the cooler head and wanted a plan first and who had cared so much for Anna’s safety as well.
It took them several more minutes to find a shop selling manuscripts, and they inquired.
“Oh, yes,” the shopkeeper said immediately. Short and wiry, with white hair and a quick smile, he opened a drawer behind him and pulled out several scrolls of paper. He unrolled one of them and showed Anna the drawing.
“See? Fourteen districts.” He pointed to the loosely triangular shape drawn in black ink.
“This is Mese Street, going this way.” He showed them on the map. “There’s the Wall of Constantine, and west of that again the Wall of Theodosius. All except district thirteen, across the Golden Horn to the north. That’s called Galata. But you don’t want to live there. That’s for foreigners.” He rolled it up and passed it to her. “That will be two solidi.”
She was taken aback and more than a little suspicious that he knew she was a stranger and was taking advantage. Still, she passed over the money.
They walked the length of Mese Street, trying not to stare around them like the provincials they were. Row after row of merchants’ stalls lined the street. They were shaded by canopies of every color imaginable, tied tightly to wooden posts to anchor them against the wind. Even so they snapped loudly in every gust, as if they were alive and struggling to get free.
In district one there were spice merchants and perfumers. The air was redolent with their wares, and Anna found herself drawing in her breath deeply to savor them. She had neither time nor money to waste, but she could not help gazing at them, lingering a moment to admire their beauty. No other yellow had the depth of saffron, no brown the multitoned richness of nutmeg. She knew the medical values of all of