One of the interesting bits of knowledge she had picked up in the Topkapi Palace was that the most feared men in the Ottoman Empire were not the Janissaries with their big scimitars and muskets, but rather the hashishin: trained murderers who went unarmed except for a small dagger concealed in the waistband. Eliza did not have the skills of a hashishin, but she knew a good idea when she saw one, and she was never without the same kind of weapon. To whip it out now would be a mistake, though. She only made sure it was ready to hand.