“My padishah is gracious,” he said.

“Hmm.” The sultan gave a little grunt. It was the same grunt as the old sultan’s, though higher pitched.

“Our ears have received a report that concerns the honor and memory of our house,” the sultan began, a little stiffly. Mahmut would have spoken the same words as if they came from his belly, not his head.

“Does Bellini mean anything to you?”

With a sultan one does not gape like a fish. The room, Yashim now noticed, was papered in the European fashion.

“No, my padishah. I regret-”

“Bellini was a painter.” The sultan waved a bony hand. “It was a long time ago, in the age of the Conqueror.”

Yashim cocked his head. He remembered now the man who had once designed a bridge across the Golden Horn: Leonardo. Leonardo da Vinci. A Florentine.

“From Italy, my padishah?”

“Bellini was the greatest painter of his age in Europe. The Conqueror summoned him to Istanbul. He made some drawings and paintings. Of-well, people. With colors from life.” The color seemed to have risen in the young sultan’s face as well. “He was a master of portraiture.” He pronounced the word well, with a French accent, Yashim noticed.

Yashim thought of the tulips he had rescued from the sledgehammer: they were very pure. But to paint people? No wonder the young man was embarrassed.

“The Conqueror desired that it should be so,” Abdulmecid added, his blush subsiding as he spoke. “Bellini rested at the Conqueror’s court for two years. I am told that he decorated parts of the Topkapi Palace-fresco, it is called-with scenes that the sultan Bayezid later removed.”

Yashim nodded. Mehmet the Conqueror’s successor, Bayezid, was a very pious man. If this Bellini painted people, Sultan Bayezid would have been shocked. He would not have wanted such blasphemy in his palace.