Remy as of late learned things not from books, but from listening.

  In this city, knowledge did not announce itself loudly. It was offered in the pauses between words, in observations shared after cups were emptied, in habits explained as though they were trivial. They rarely were. The Ottomans hid much of their order behind custom, and custom, when observed carefully, revealed more than proclamations ever could.

  It was during one such conversation that their new acquaintance, a wealthy man whose name Remy never repeated aloud, spoke of doors suddenly.

  Ottoman houses, he had explained, often bore two knockers. One large, heavy, meant to be struck firmly. One smaller, lighter, producing a gentler sound. The distinction mattered. The larger knocker announced a male guest and summoned a man of the household. The smaller called for a woman. In this way, modesty was preserved without awkwardness, and no one was caught unprepared.

  Remy listened with interest to these things. The simplicity of it appealed to him. No elaborate signaling, no spoken negotiation through a door. Just sound, understood by those who lived within and in the know.

  Jehan listened as well, though her expression suggested uncertainty rather than appreciation of the customs of others. Sir Gaston regarded the explanation with polite neutrality, the way a man acknowledged a custom he did not intend to adopt.

  “It avoids embarrassment,” the merchant said lightly. “And embarrassment leads to offense. Offense leads to trouble.”

  Remy nodded. He had seen enough of the world to know that trouble rarely began with malice. More often, it began with ignorance.

  The conversation moved naturally to charity.

  When Remy mentioned that they were pilgrims, traveling with modest means despite their arms, the merchant’s eyes brightened slightly. Not with suspicion, but with something like approval.

  “In that case,” he said, “you should know how charity is practiced here.”

  He spoke first of the bakkal, the small neighborhood grocers who knew every household within their street. These shops kept a debt book, the veresiye defteri, where names were recorded beside amounts owed for bread, oil, lentils. The poor bought what they needed on credit, and the book grew thick with quiet obligation.

  Wealthy men, the merchant explained, would sometimes enter these shops and ask to see the book. Without announcing themselves, without naming any debtor, they would pay off a portion of the debts. Sometimes all of them. The grocer would mark the accounts settled. The debtors would never know who had paid.

  Remy considered that in silence. Anonymous charity. No gratitude demanded. No name remembered. The act existed entirely between the giver and God.

  Jehan frowned. “And this is… common?”

  “Common enough,” the merchant replied. “Among those who can afford it. Charity that seeks praise is not charity at all.”

  Remy felt a faint, unexpected warmth at that. It aligned closely with doctrines he knew well, though expressed through a different tongue.

  The merchant then spoke of the sadaka ta??, the charity stones. They were placed in quiet corners of the city, tall pillars of stone topped with shallow bowls. The wealthy would leave coins there. The poor would take only what they needed. Nothing more.

  “And if someone takes too much?” Sir Aldred asked, skeptical.

  The merchant shrugged. “Then he answers to God. And to the city.”

  He did not elaborate. He did not need to.

  Remy had already seen Ottoman justice to understand the weight behind those words.

  Punishment here was not random. Nor was it gentle either. Theft was treated with severity that varied by circumstance. The value stolen. The location. Whether the act violated not only property but sanctity. Crimes committed near mosques were punished more harshly, for they offended both law and faith.

  Islamic law prescribed amputation for serious theft, but Remy knew, from observation and conversation, that Ottoman courts more often applied ta?zīr punishments. Discretionary penalties. Flogging. Imprisonment. Public humiliation. Forced labor and sometimes exile.

  He had seen men bearing these punishments.

  One, missing fingers, worked silently near a bathhouse, hauling water. Another wore iron shackles as he swept a courtyard, his movements slow and exhausted. A third bore scars across his back, old but unmistakable, the marks of a flogging that had not killed him, but had ensured he would never forget.

  The city did not hide these men. It did not glorify them either. They existed as warnings, integrated into the rhythm of daily life.

  Order was maintained not through spectacle, but through memory.

  It was after these conversations that plans were made to leave Adrianpole. They had lingered longer than Remy preferred. The city was vast, and vast cities bred attention. Attention bred questions. And questions, in places like this, could turn dangerous without warning.

  Their acquaintance, however, urged caution.

  “Friend,” he said quietly, his tone measured, “I hear that raiders are targeting pilgrim caravans beyond the city. These men who do not care for letters or law. You are well-armed, yes. Your men are strong. But blood draws eyes. And eyes draw trouble. I pray you stay, at least until the road settles.”

  Sir Gaston heard this and frowned.

  “I have heard the same,” he admitted. “Though we carry the protection of the Ruler of Granada, some men cannot tell law from opportunity. I concur.”

  There was doubt in his expression. Not fear, precisely, but wariness. The kind borne from standing in lands one had been taught to name enemy.

  Jehan did not speak at first. But later, when Remy stood with her near the courtyard wall, watching shadows stretch across the stone, she turned to him, displeasure plain on her face.

  “You speak their tongue,” she said quietly. “You share their food. You talk as if they are not enemies, we must turn to Christ.”

  He met her gaze calmly.

  “I understand that you have an open heart,” she continued, “but not all of us accept this, Monsieur Remy.”

  He had expected this. It was inevitable.

  To some in the company, he was too comfortable. Too accommodating. Too willing to explain and understand rather than condemn. They saw the Ottomans as thieves of land that rightly belonged to Christendom. They did not understand, and therefore they feared. And because they feared, they refused to understand.

  Remy did not fault them for it.

  Hatred was often inherited, passed down like a scar whose origin no one remembered. To question it felt like betrayal.

  They cannot see past the veil of enmity. And perhaps they do not wish to.

  He did not condemn them for that either.

  Instead, he spoke gently to Jehan.

  “When a guest is served coffee with water here,” he said, “it is not merely courtesy. It is communication. If the guest drinks the water first, it means he is hungry. The host will prepare food at once. If he drinks the coffee first, it means he is content.”

  Jehan looked at him, puzzled.

  “This is how they welcome,” Remy continued. “Quietly. Without forcing questions. And when a man is welcomed into a home, blood is not spilled lightly. Men are unpredictable, yes. But in their own houses, they honor hospitality fiercely.”

  She frowned. “That does not change what they are.”

  “No,” Remy agreed. “But it changes how we must be.”

  They were guests. That was the truth that mattered most. Who owned the land, who claimed divine right to it, who would rule it a century from now, these were arguments for kings and historians. Not for pilgrims passing through with limited time and limited lives.

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  Sir Gaston joined them then.

  “Sir Remy is right,” he said simply. “We are guests. And guests survive by respect, not defiance. It is decency.”

  There were murmurs among the men, but no open dissent. Sir Gaston’s authority carried weight because it was rarely exercised without reason.

  That night, Remy lay awake longer than usual.

  Adrianpole breathed around them, vast and unconcerned. Somewhere beyond the walls, raiders prowled. Somewhere within them, officials counted taxes and planned patrols. Somewhere else, a poor family slept easier because a debt book had been quietly cleared.

  The city was not simple. Neither cruel nor kind by nature. It was structured. Ordered. It rewarded those who learned its rhythms and punished those who ignored them.

  Remy stared at the ceiling and reflected on the irony.

  So much of Christendom spoke of these lands as barbaric, lawless, soaked in blood. And yet here, charity was anonymous, order was enforced, and hospitality was ritualized with care.

  That did not make them righteous. It did not absolve conquest or suffering that was made. But it complicated the story. And complexity unsettled people far more than evil ever did.

  They would decide whether to stay or move on. Whether to trust the road or the walls. Whether to risk raiders or scrutiny.

  Remy knew what he preferred.

  Movement. Quiet progress. No blood spilled if it could be avoided.

  He had learned long ago that survival did not belong to the strongest, nor the most righteous, but to those who understood where they stood.

  And here, in Adrianpole, they stood as guests.

  Nothing more.

  Nothing less.

  They had chosen to stay after an agreement was made among the company.

  Though some found staying in enemy territory disturbing, once Sir Gaston and Remy decided, there was no room for argument. Sir Gaston had their trust, and Remy the coin.

  And while in Adrianpole, Remy learned customs the same way he learned most things. Not through instruction, nor through deliberate inquiry, but by being present long enough that explanations began to offer themselves. The city did not volunteer its inner workings to those who rushed. It revealed itself to those who lingered quietly at the edges of conversation.

  The matter of pilgrimage arose first.

  In the Ottoman lands, the Hajj was not treated as a private spiritual undertaking. It belonged to the family, the street, sometimes the entire quarter. When a man or woman prepared to depart for Mecca, their household became a focal point of attention. Before departure, relatives and neighbors gathered for dinners that were both celebratory and restrained. Gifts were exchanged. Food was shared. Prayers were spoken aloud, not dramatically, but with collective seriousness.

  Remy observed one such gathering from a distance. Lanterns had been hung earlier than usual. Bread was prepared in quantities that suggested generosity rather than necessity. There was laughter, but it was tempered. No one behaved as though the journey were guaranteed to end in return.

  After the pilgrim came back, if they came back, the household was honored again. Not extravagantly, but unmistakably. The traveler brought small gifts, dates, cloth, vials of water said to be drawn from sacred places. The family received visitors for days afterward. The pilgrim was not elevated as holy, but they were treated as someone who had crossed a threshold and returned changed.

  Remy found that distinction rather telling. It was reverence without worship. Honor without indulgence.

  The Ottomans of this city, Remy learned, communicated much without words.

  One morning, as they walked through a quieter residential quarter, Remy noticed flowers placed deliberately near a doorway. Not in a vase. Not arranged for beauty either. Simply positioned where they could not be missed.

  Yellow blossoms.

  He slowed his pace, studying them. Their acquaintance, walking beside him, noticed the pause.

  “Someone inside is ill,” the man explained. “It is a request for quiet.”

  Remy glanced at the street. Children passed without shouting. A cart rolled by with its wheels muffled. Voices lowered instinctively as people drew near the house. No sign was posted. No message declared. The flowers were enough.

  Later, in another quarter, he saw red flowers braided carefully and hung near a doorway.

  “That house,” the acquaintance said, “has a young woman ready for marriage.”

  Remy frowned slightly. “And this is announced openly?”

  “Not announced,” the man corrected. “Acknowledged.”

  The red flowers were not an invitation. They were a boundary. They reminded men passing by to mind their language, their behavior, their laughter. Rowdiness near such a home was considered a public failing. The neighborhood would notice. And remember.

  Modesty here was not enforced solely by walls. It was reinforced by shared awareness.

  Marriage itself followed rituals that balanced seriousness with quiet testing.

  Remy was also told of the custom of salty coffee during a formal marriage proposal, the k?z isteme. When a groom came with his family to ask for a bride’s hand, the young woman would prepare coffee for him. Not sweetened, as courtesy would suggest, but salted deliberately.

  “If he drinks it without complaint,” the acquaintance said, “it means he has patience.”

  “And if he refuses?” Sir Gaston asked.

  “Then perhaps he should not marry,” the man replied evenly.

  Remy considered that. Patience tested not through hardship, but through discomfort accepted silently. It aligned with much of what he had observed already.

  On the night of henna, the k?na gecesi, customs became more symbolic. The bride would dance with a clay jug filled with sweets and coins. At the right moment, she would break it. The candies scattered. The coins rolled. Children rushed forward laughing. The breaking was meant to invite fortune, abundance, fertility.

  Destruction as a blessing. Loss transformed into promise.

  Parents, Remy learned, examined prospective grooms carefully. Not only their lineage or wealth, but their bodies. Foreheads. Knees. Marks of prayer. Darkened skin where a man’s brow touched the ground regularly. Calluses where knees bore weight. These signs mattered. They suggested discipline, humility, and routine devotion. Not proof of virtue, but evidence of habit. Habit, Remy knew, was often more reliable than intent.

  Daily life in Adrianpole was threaded with small observances that, taken together, formed something like a moral landscape.

  Birds, for example.

  Remy was surprised by how often he noticed them accounted for. Food scattered deliberately on the floor. Small wooden shelters affixed to walls. Even foundations dedicated to injured migratory birds, funded through endowments.

  “Birds praise God,” the acquaintance said simply. “In their own way.”

  Remy said nothing, but the idea stayed with him. Superstition here lived comfortably alongside order.

  Lead pouring, kur?un d?kme, was practiced openly. Melted lead poured into water, shapes forming unpredictably. Women interpreted them, warding off the evil eye, diagnosing misfortune. Remy watched once from the edge of a gathering. No one treated it as absolute truth. Nor did they dismiss it as foolishness. It existed in a space between.

  People needed ways to speak about fear.

  Age carried its own peculiar reverence to these people. The Prophet Muhammad had died at sixty-three, and so many elderly Ottomans avoided saying they had surpassed that number. Instead, they would say, “We have exceeded the s?n?r.”

  Remy found that phrasing striking. As though life beyond that age were borrowed time. Not owned. Granted.

  Meals followed rules as quiet as gravity. Eating while standing was considered impolite. The eldest began first. No one needed reminding. The order asserted itself naturally.

  Even the stairs had customs. Men descended first, to ensure safety. Women ascended first, to preserve modesty. These rules were observed without ceremony, practiced without discussion. They shaped movement the way water shapes stone.

  Palace customs, Remy learned, amplified these tendencies rather than contradicting them.

  In the Sultan’s court, meals were sometimes taken in silence. Conversation during dining was discouraged, even forbidden. Eating was not entertainment. It was a function. Sustenance taken with awareness.

  He imagined the long tables, the measured gestures, the absence of idle speech. Discipline carried into the act of nourishment itself.

  Turbans spoke where mouths did not. Rank. Profession. Authority. All legible at a glance to those who knew how to read them. A man did not need to announce who he was. His head did it for him.

  The harem was guarded by eunuchs, a fact often spoken of with fascination or disdain by outsiders. Here, it was simply practical. Men incapable of fathering children were considered safe. It was trust built on biology rather than virtue.

  Remy did not judge it. He noted it.

  What struck him most was not any single custom, but how seamlessly they connected. Hospitality. Modesty. Discipline. Charity. Fear. Faith. All braided together into a system that sustained itself.

  None of it was flawless. None of it was gentle by necessity. Punishments were severe. Hierarchies were rigid. Women were constrained. Outsiders tolerated rather than fully embraced.

  And yet.

  As he walked the streets, as he listened to these explanations offered without pride or apology, Remy felt the same quiet unease he had felt since entering the city.

  This was not chaos masquerading as order. It was order, sustained deliberately.

  That realization troubled him more than brutality ever could.

  Because brutality could be dismissed. Order demanded engagement.

  That night, as the lamps were lit and the city settled into its evening rhythm, Remy stood again at the edge of the courtyard. Somewhere nearby, a family celebrated a pilgrim’s return. Somewhere else, yellow flowers warned the street to tread softly. Somewhere else, a young man drank salted coffee without complaint, sealing a future not yet tested.

  And Remy was simply a guest, a stranger passing by, understanding the customs of the roads he threads on.