PIF 21

Plot Summary

Following the unsuccessful meeting with the Sultan, the French Embassy comes under increasingly violent attacks. Believing Gabriel is responsible, Lymond resigns his post and disappears. Meanwhile Jerott, Marthe and Pierre Gilles arrive in Constantinople hoping to find Lymond. Khaireddin is also now in Constantinople and is being befriended by a blind Meddáh, who is revealed to be a sickly Lymond. He finds out that the cause of his sickness is an opium addiction and realises he has been betrayed by one of his household. For the first time, all of the key players are in the same place

Dates

Autumn 1553. The chapter covers events in Constantinople, and then goes back in time to follow Jerott's party as it makes its way to Constantinople over the same time period.

Fictional Characters

(including references to characters not present)

• Francis Crawford of Lymond
• Onophrion Zitwitz
• Georges Gaultier
• Jerott Blyth
• Marthe
• Archie Abernethy
• Pichon
• Khaireddin
• Názik, the nightingale-dealer
• Kuzucuyum
• Philippa Somerville
• Durr-i-Bakht, The Pearl of Fortune
• Ishiq
• the blind Meddàh
• Murad
• Mikál
• Graham Reid Malett (referenced)
• Gabriel (referenced)
• the child (referenced)
• Evangelista Donati (referenced)
• Marino Dorati (referenced)
• Kiaya Kháhtún (referenced)
• Sybilla Crawford (referenced)

Non-Fictional Characters

(including references to characters not present)

• M. de Luetz, Baron d' Aramon
• Khourrém Sultán
• Pierre Gilles
• Herpestes
• Roxelana Sultán
• Suleiman the Magnificent (referenced)
• the Sultan (referenced)
• the Capi Agha (referenced)
• Alexander the Great (referenced)
• Pliny (referenced)
• Nero (referenced)
• Rustem Pasha, Grand Vizier (referenced)
• Prince Mustafa (referenced)
• M. Chesnau (referenced)
• the Kislar Agha (referenced)

Locations

(Including references to other locations)

• The Golden Horn
• Pera
• the French Embassy
• The Sublime Porte
• Stamboul
• The Bosphorous
• Topkhane
• Smyrna
• Bursa
• the Beyazit Mosque
• Názik's house
• the Searglio of Topkapi
• Tapano
• the courtyard of Ayasofya
• the market under the Hippodrome
• the gardens of the Beyazit Mosque
• house near the aqueduct of Valens
• Scutari (referenced)
• Chios (referenced)
• Constantinople (referenced)
• Aleppo (referenced)
• Olympus (referenced)
• The Constantinople Bazaar(referenced)
• The Constantinople Hippodrome (referenced)
• Mehedia (referenced)
• Eregli (referenced)
• Thessalonika (referenced)

Literature

• the Wooing o' Jock and Jenny
• sive Idolatra, sive Turca, sive Judaeus, sive Christianus
• Heu prodiga ventris hi, nives, illi glaciem potant, poenasque montium in voluptatem guide vertunt
• Know that this world's life is only sport
• O bird of the dawn. Learn love from the moth

Scots words and phrases

• gear
• kistful
• yon
• weans
• wilsum

Other References

• the Chorea Machabaeorum, the Danse Macabre, the Danza General de los Muertos
• better a fowl in hand nor two flying
• as the hare by the snake
• the ajémoghláns
• the naturals and the accidentals
• a canto of Yúnus the illiterate
• the Persian khoja who played a trick upon a Baghdad khoja and his son
• the great Cham
• The footprints of the dog are like roses
• the soul enters by the throat

Quotes from Dunnett

• Despite his thinness and pallor, and the dark rings which came so easily under his eyes, the child called Khaireddin grew daily more handsome; flat-backed and blue-eyed, with arched feet and small, well-made hands, and yellow hair curling like silk
• You have all the afflictions of the highly strung, Sybilla had said to him once, long ago. All your life you will have to disguise them

Controversies

• none

Previous/Next

PIF 20 / PIF 22

References

<references>