Where We're At: Parts 4.8-4.9: Against the Day

Cyprian; Yashmeen

• When Austria announces that they're going to annex Bosnia, Theign sends Cyprian (from Vienna) there. He can bring Bevis along. He gives them a ridiculously tiny map; Bevis sees that as evidence that he knows they'll be killed before they'd need to use it.
• Yashmeen find the dress shop closed, and she's locked out of her apartment; she's being chased out of town. Cyprian thinks it's dangerous for her in Vienna and she needs to leave.
• Ratty meets Cyprian in Graz (Austria). Ratty's people think Theign is too close with the Austrians. Ratty warns Cyprian that where he's being sent is dangerous; he'd intervene if he could. He warns Cyprian that Theign is a danger to him (Cyprian). Cyprian asks Ratty to have someone watch out for Yashmeen and mentions that he's considering bringing her to Trieste; Ratty recommends Vlado Clissan (he's in Cyprian's organization and he hates Theign) there to watch over her.
• Theign tells Cyprian that his shop won't or can't help Yashmeen; the Okhrana are interested in her and they need to be friends with Russia. Cyprian reminds him that they had an agreement. In a lovers' quarrel, Theign offers to let him out of the agreement; Cyprian declines.
• Cyprian tells Yashmeen about Okhrana and Theign; Theign might know where she is. But Yashmeen, not Theign, is the love of his life. Cyprian tells her that Vlado will be in touch. They part.
• Vlado and Yashmeen meet; they become lovers; she falls in love with him; he cheats on her.
  

Cyprian, Danilo

• Cyprian is on the John of Asia, heading for Bosnia. Bevis will come onboard at Pola, Austria. Among the other travelers is Jacintha Drulov, who's probably a spy (and traveling with an older woman, Lady Quethlock, who she's claiming is her aunt). Bevis falls in lust with Jacintha. Bevis flirts with Jacintha by explaining the AppliedIdiotics school of spying; he's actually pretty clueless aside from the decryption stuff and may not understand that Jacintha's a spy.
• Cyprian and Bevis arrive in Sarajevo. It's lovely, but there is the occasional explosion.
• Danilo Ashkil is a Turkish Sephardic Jew. ("[I]n Bosnia the fez was like the veil, an emblem of submission, and wearing it one of the costs of doing business"). He speaks tons of languages and he trains spies who'll be working in the Balkans. Cyprian and Bevis are instructed to see him to safety--they'll bring him to Trieste.
• Danilo finds that Cyprian lacks a proper sense of time ("I know it is difficult for an Englishman, but try for a moment to imagine that, except in the most limited and trivial ways, history does not take place north of the forty-fifth parallel. What North Europe thinks of as its history is actually quite provincial and of limited interest." ) and posits that looking at things from a Constantinople-centered world, the war between Turkey and Russia (and the Treaty of Berlin which ended it) is the pivotal event of the 19th century.
• Danilo says he'll need a weapon for the escape; Bevis says they should see the Black Hand--which makes Cyprian wonder whether Bevis has been sent by Theign to spy on him, Cyprian, for Theign.
• Cyprian runs into Misha and Grisha. He thinks they still want to kill him for the Khautsch thing; they don't because no one would pay them for it. They tell them that Khautsch is somewhere in the area. (He'd been expected to commit suicide in Vienna and instead had shot his way out.) Blackmail, even for sexual preferences, is dead. Khautsch randomly walks into the cafe he's looking shabby. Cyprian wants to follow him (or maybe just talk to him) but Khautsch ditches Cyprian.
• Danilo tells Cyprian that the posting in Serbia is a set-up; his English employers have shopped him to the Austrians as a supposed Serbian agent; the Austrians will kill him. Cyprian should regard himself as owing England nothing anymore and should flee for his life.
• Cyprian, Bevis, and Danilo (he's feeling in danger as well) flee.
• Bevis disappears off a train within their first two weeks running and still in Bosnia. Cyprian forces Danilo to get off the train with him to search for Bevis. They pose as Serbian agents and meet Black Hand agents Batko and Senta, who tell them to stay off trains because the Austrians are looking for them.
• As autumn progresses, Cyprian and Danilo travel on foot, then, heading for the coast (?) to catch a boat out. They get shot at, and run; they're in the mountains. One night they see odd lights everywhere and a solitary figure in the distance.
• Danilo falls and breaks his leg; Cyprian uses a rifle as a splint and they make their way to a small village where Danilo can heal. Cyprian mothers Danilo; it's a different kind of desire. They make their way through Serbia and wait for the mountains to melt.
• They travel through Macedonia to Danilo's home town, Salonica. It's in Macedonia, which Greece, Russia, Turkey, and Bulgaria all want to control. (Salonica is the Greek city Thessaloniki.) The city's caught between the Austrians and the Turks. Cyprian meets Danilo's cousin, Vesna.
• Russia annexes Bosnia, with German approval.
• Danilo shows up one day with Gabrovo Slim, a Bulgarian. (The Greeks want to exterminate the Bulgarians.) He's in danger because the Greeks think he's a Macedonian revolutionary, which he is. Gabrovo and Cyprian trade clothes, and Danilo and Cyprian send Gabrovo on to Constantinople; he's to find Khalil at the spice bazaar when he gets there.
• Cyprian leaves for Trieste; Danilo, whose home is Salonica, stays.
• As Cyprian travels on ships toward Trieste, he randomly gets a train to Cetinje, Montenegro. There he meets Bevis, who had run off with Jacintha and been there all winter.

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