Dragon Slayer (Sons of Rome Book 3)

by Lauren Gilley

  “Do you like any of them?” Mehmet asked when he’d reined in close beside Val, tone unworried, and conversational. “I’ll share them with you, if you like.”

  Val tossed him a look, not daring to speak for fear of what he’d say.

  Mehmet shrugged, the movement exaggerated thanks to the quick pace of his horse. “I can be generous.”

  Val faced forward, and said nothing.

  Back at camp, he waited until he’d taken his evening meal, and blood, and refused a second invitation to join the sultan in sampling his fresh prizes. When he was alone, he posted Arslan as watch, and went dream-walking into the city.

  Emperor Constantine stared morosely into a cup of wine.

  Val approached his chair slowly, the only sound the crackle of the fire; the flames provided the only light, leaping long across the floor, bathing Constantine’s feet, and the Turkish rug, and casting strange shadows. Still, the emperor didn’t startle when Val said, “Where’s George?”

  Constantine heaved a hard sigh and drained his cup. “George is with his wife and children. I sent him away. He was fretting over me.”

  “Oh.” Val hesitated. “Should I go?”

  “No.” He lifted his head, finally, and offered a tired smile. “I would be grateful of your company.”

  Val moved to sit on the edge of the table, near the emperor’s elbow. “You’ve heard about what happened today, I take it.”

  “You did say that he would try to provoke me.”

  “He wants to draw you out into battle. Beyond the safety of the walls.” He pressed a warning into his words.

  Constantine shook his head. “That sort of blustering is a young man’s folly.” Another smile, this one miserable. “I don’t know if we can hold out against him forever. I won’t pretend such confidence. But he’ll have to come over or through these walls to take Constantinople from me. This I promise.”

  “Good.” Val knew a moment’s fleeting relief. At this point, he would take such small boons as favors.

  32

  THAT WAS WINTER

  The city of Constantinople occupied a triangular jut of land shaped like a horn, flanked at its very tip, and its northern and southern sides by water. To the north: the Golden Horn, a deep-water inlet where the Roman fleet was docked, fed by the Bosporus Strait. And to the south: the Sea of Marmara. A Mediterranean city, with a coastal clime, but a blended one. In the year 324, the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great established himself there, in what was then Byzantium, renaming the city after himself and declaring it the new capital. A Greek city made Roman, it became the heart of western culture, politics, and religion. It served as the seat of the Greek Orthodox church, and it housed the remnants of the Library at Alexandria. A gilded, thriving city, bursting beauty from every crevice, teeming with life, and language. The soaring grandiosity of St. Sophia inspired the entire nation of Russia to adopt Greek Orthodoxy as its official religion. Just one of the legacies left by what had once been the richest city in the world.

  But none of this was the city’s true claim to fame. No, that honor belonged to its sheer impregnability, to Constantinople’s Theodosian Walls.

  An ingeniously designed double layer of protection, with a moat, a low wall, then an outer wall, a terrace, and a soaring inner wall, the barrier had protected the city from all but one landside attack, that of the Fourth Crusaders in 1204. On the sea side, the walls went straight up, and up, and up, and there was no design of man that could scale them, topple them, or break through them.

  Val rode near the head of the endless columns of armored soldiers. When he twisted around in his saddle, he was nearly blinded by the glint of sunlight off the metal of helms, and breastplates, and spear-tips. The army breathed; a regular rhythm of clinking mail, and stomping footfalls, and creaking saddles. The column stretched back, regular, disciplined. Impossible. That word came to him again. Yes, the idea of sacking Constantinople was impossible – but so was Mehmet’s army.

  Val turned away, his heartbeat quick and shallow, and as they rounded the next bend in the road, waves thrashing along the coastline just beyond this strip of forest, the trees parted in front of him, and he had his first glimpse of the sea walls.

  A cheer went up amongst the men.

  Val swallowed…and swallowed and swallowed, trying to contain his tripping pulse.

  In his mind, he’d imagined the army falling on a quaking city, one crouched at the shore, half-swallowed by waves. But here now, seeing it in person, Constantinople towered. Pennants thin as threads from this distance snapped along the high, crenelated walls; the waves barely skimmed the rocks upon which they stood, proud and mocking, daring weak mortals to take a run at her.

  Val let out a breath and thought, he’ll fail. He has to.

  Beside him, Mehmet’s heart beat like a drum, excitement dancing around him like sparks. “Don’t worry,” he said, puffing out his chest, misreading Val’s anxiety. “The battle won’t last long. And then we’ll be on top of those walls. I’ll hand-feed you dates and fuck you sweet in a room that overlooks the sea.”

  “Poetic,” Val said dryly. His stomach lurched.

  “Hmm,” Mehmet hummed in agreement. When Val glanced over, the sultan’s gaze was pinned to their view of the wall, his look faraway – dreamy. “This will be my triumph, Radu,” he murmured.

  Val swallowed again, and kept on, and on.

  ~*~

  They had wintered in Edirne. Once Mehmet was satisfied with the progress of his fortress, they’d decamped back to the capital last year, to spend the cold months in the palace, warming themselves in front of coal braziers and enjoying all the comforts of royalty.

  Mehmet saw to his wives, and entertained the dignitaries visiting from the east. Held lavish feasts where the wine flowed freely, enough to intoxicate even a vampire.

  Val trained. He stripped down to the waist and threw himself at jousting dummies and any opponent who would have him, skin steaming, hands numb around the grip of his sword from the cold. He took his mare galloping, bareback, holding himself to her with the strength of his thighs and his core muscles. He weighted the ends of poles with water buckets, and carried them across his shoulders; ran along the palace walls, enjoying the burn in his lungs and his legs. He was still lean, but he bore a sleek suit of clear-cut muscle now, strong and sculpted.

  He started to feel like a man that winter – the man he would need to be to turn the tide of war when spring came.

  And it was also the winter in which he first noticed that something wasn’t quite right with Mehmet.

  Arslan had come to fetch him from the communal baths – up to his ears in the steaming water, all his muscles unknotting, not caring that some of the high Ottoman officials kept shooting him badly disguised appreciative looks. He was beautiful; let them stare. Warm and pleasantly loose-limbed from the heat, wrapped in a silk robe and a fur, he followed his slave back to Mehmet’s suite, humming quietly to himself, a hint of desire stirring low in his belly. He’d long since stopped berating himself for his arousal.

  In the sultan’s antechamber, slaves were clearing away the remnants of a meal and tidying the sideboard and its array of gold and silver decanters. Val handed his fur off to one of them and proceeded into the sitting room, where more slaves were lighting candles, past the crackling fire and on into the bedchamber, where the space was warmed by the glow of candles and the heat of two coal braziers.

  Mehmet sat on the edge of his bed, hands on his knees, rubbing at them and wincing to himself.

  Val slouched into view with an affected step, canting his hips at an angle he knew emphasized the narrowness of his waist. “Here I was coming to scold you for having me pulled out of the bath, but it appears you’re the one who needs a good soak. What’s wrong with your knees?”

  “Nothing.” Mehmet sat upright, but not without obvious effort, a note of strain in his voice. “It’s only the cold air. Makes my joints ache.”

  “It’s gout,” Val said, matter-of
-fact, and went to pour a cup of wine.

  “What? Impossible.”

  Val took a measured sip as he turned back to the bed, and moved to stand just beyond the sultan’s reach. He cast a glance toward the slaves – the last of which lit the final taper and saw himself out of the room with a bow, pulling the door shut after him – and then back to his master. Gaze narrowing, studying. Mehmet still looked young, was still strong, still bore a look of robust health.

  But he was…fleshier, than he had been. A little softness along his jaw, and around his waist.

  “Gout,” he said, again, pronunciation crisp. “It’s a malady that affects the joints of–”

  “I know what it is,” Mehmet snapped, color blooming in his cheeks. He left off rubbing his knees, though his brows stayed pinched together. “I meant it isn’t possible that I have it. Not after I was…turned.” The last he merely breathed, a whisper. Still a superstitious human, despite his powers.

  “Hmm,” Val murmured. “And the cold shouldn’t bother you either.” Inwardly, his thoughts raced. Mehmet was right; this was impossible. But Father had always said Romulus couldn’t turn a person properly. Val had never understood what that meant, but he thought that was what he saw now. That wrongness. “Did you know that my uncle has never had a proper heir?”

  “What?” He frowned, and touched his own chest. “No, that’s why–”

  “Excluding you, of course. You’re his heir now. But my uncle is very old, you know. Very old. I wonder why he never had an heir before now. Do you wonder, too?”

  “No.” His frown deepened to a scowl. “Give me that.” He reached for the wine.

  Val took one last sip before handing it over. “I just think it’s interesting, is all. We have no way of knowing how potent Uncle’s blood is – whether it would prevent against normal human sicknesses.”

  Mehmet downed the wine in a few long swallows, breathless afterward, hand shaking as he set the cup aside on the bedside table. “Enough chattering,” he decreed. “People have been talking at me all day, and I don’t need it from you, too.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty,” Val said, and Mehmet didn’t seem to notice his mocking tone.

  He patted one thigh. “Come here, I’m afraid you’ll have to do most of the work tonight.”

  “Don’t I always?”

  And Val tucked all his questions about Romulus’s blood, and Mehmet’s health, away in a safe place in his mind, where he could ruminate over them properly later.

  ~*~

  It should have been a restful winter…but it wasn’t.

  The sultan didn’t know how to rest.

  Near the end of November, Mehmet dragged Val from bed one morning and told him to dress for riding.

  Val loved riding, but the command chafed at him, as did the earliness of the hour. “There’s frost on the ground outside,” he complained, peering through the window at the dawn-silvered morning.

  “It won’t be there by the time you get your ridiculous hair braided. Come on.”

  They dressed warmly, and rode with a full honor guard to Didimotkon, not far from Edirne. They sat astride their horses in the square, waiting, and finally a bedraggled group of men in chains was led out for the sultan’s inspection. One was younger than the others, his features fine even beneath a layer of sweat and dirt, and Val watched Mehmet’s gaze settle on him a long moment. Too long.

  “Your Majesty,” the captain of the local guard said, and bowed deeply to the sultan. “I present to you the blockade runner, and criminal, Antonio Rizzo, and his crew.”

  Val tensed, and his mare shifted beneath him uneasily. He’d heard Mehmet give orders to the skeleton crew they’d left at the Throat-Cutter, to set up a blockade at the head of the strait, and toll every Latin merchant who attempted to pass through. This man, Rizzo, head held high despite the iron collar around his neck, had attempted to outrun the sultan’s ships, and avoid the toll. Doubtless he was one of the few brave ones attempting to take grain into Constantinople. Last he’d visited Constantine, the emperor had been massaging his temples, stressed, fearing a famine in his city.

  Mehmet swung down out of his saddle, and two janissaries fell in beside him, spears raised and ready. He ignored them, and passed down the line of captives, inspecting each one. He stood longest before the boy; twitched a smile and reached with a jeweled hand to chuck the boy under the chin.

  “The captain’s clerk, Your Majesty,” the captain of the guard said.

  Mehmet motioned over his shoulder, and more janissaries stepped forward. The boy was unhooked from the others, and led toward one of the spare horses they’d brought. He would be cut and go to the seraglio, same as all the boy captives Mehmet took a fancy to.

  Then Mehmet paced back to the captain, Rizzo. The man stared him in the eye.

  “Bold,” Mehmet told him.

  The captain spoke with a raspy voice, his throat doubtless dry. “I figure I’m already good as dead. Boldness won’t hurt me now,” he said in Latin.

  Mehmet grinned. “No, no, you’re right.” He stepped back, and nodded to the guard captain. “Kill his men. Make an example of the good captain here.”

  Later, as they rode out of the city, the clerk in tow, Val twisted around in his saddle to look back. He didn’t want to, but he felt compelled to do so; to show some sign of respect to the man who’d defied the sultan.

  Antonio Rizzo had been impaled on a long wooden spike, and mounted on the walls. Still alive – sunlight glimmered off the blood that dripped down the spike – but the crows waited, already cawing in anticipation.

  “Go with God,” Val murmured, and faced forward again.

  ~*~

  Val woke most nights, in the small hours, to the sound of feverish mumbling, and wandered out into the antechamber to find Mehmet poring over a map, or a scroll, or some dusty old book, eyes glassy, hands trembling, a cup of wine at hand.

  The first few times, Val tried to tow him back to bed, but Mehmet bared his teeth, and growled, and swatted him away.

  “How can you rule an empire if you don’t get some sleep?” Val tried to reason.

  Mehmet shook his head, and his attention went back to his scroll, woeful. “I’m having dreams. Dreams where I’m Alexander…I want to make him proud, Radu…”

  Some nights he sketched; designs for walls, for armor, for weapons, all frustratingly fantastic, none of them able to be made by his architects or weaponsmiths. He sketched what he remembered of Constantinople’s walls and battlements, with shocking accuracy. Val felt a jolt when he looked on them, at the precise lines of ink, neatly labeled.

  “This is my life’s work, taking this city,” he murmured, like a mantra. “My life’s work.” Then he tipped his head back, gaze both beseeching, and unseeing. Lost in his own fantasies. “Do you think my people recognize the kind of achievement this will be?” he asked Val, and clutched at the edge of his robe.

  Val reached to gently, but firmly, dislodge his fingers. “I guess you won’t know until it’s done, will you?”

  Mehmet blinked at him a moment. He didn’t smell of wine, and hadn’t been drinking, but he looked intoxicated. Then he sat upright with a jerk, and awareness returned to his gaze. He fumbled across the desk, and its wealth of half-open scrolls.

  “Wait,” he said, “wait, wait, wait…”

  “Yes, I’m waiting.”

  His hand closed over a particular scroll with a small shout of triumph. “I’ve been reading about the emperor Nero.”

  “Dangerous topic,” Val said mildly.

  “Did you know,” Mehmet pressed on, heedless of the jibe, “that Nero dressed as a commoner and went out amongst the Romans? He asked them about their emperor, to see what they said of him?”

  “I thought Alexander was your hero, and he was Greek, dear.”

  “But I am Roman.” Frantic, spray of spittle. “My sire is Roman, and I am the heir to the empire, and I–”

  “Yes, yes,” Val said. “Where is this going?”

/>   Mehmet grabbed his robe again, knuckles white. “I want to do that. To disguise myself and go out among my people.”

  “That’s…a terrible idea.”

  “No, listen–”

  “It was a terrible idea when Nero did it, too. What will you do if you find out they loathe you? Or if they recognize you?”

  Mehmet didn’t answer, turning away. “You shall come too.”

  “I don’t remember asking to come.”

  “Too bad.”

  It was too late then, too close to dawn, and Val hoped Mehmet would forget it, but of course, he didn’t. The next night, he was presented with rough-spun, dirt-smeared clothes, a cloak with a hood, and dark paint for his face.

  “Really?” Val asked, pinching the cloak between thumb and forefinger. It smelled.

  “Put it on,” Mehmet ordered, his own face unrecognizable. “We’re leaving.”

  They went without an escort of the usual honor guards and janissaries, just two men, cloaked, dirt-streaked and unremarkable, shoulders intentionally stooped. Val wasn’t proud of the fact that he held to Mehmet’s elbow, his heart fluttering like a trapped bird in his chest. They were the most dangerous creatures on the streets of Edirne that night, but it didn’t feel like it. Without the safety of palace walls, and guards, and the deference of bowing slaves and court members alike, the city felt like a jungle, beasts round every corner.

  One night they came across a group of stumbling, drunken youths, and Mehmet had whispered, “Let’s hunt.”

  “No.”

  But he’d put his arms around the young man Mehmet shoved toward him, warm, and sweaty, and his pulse so, so tempting, and he’d sunk his fangs into his neck. Live blood, intoxicating, dizzying. Mehmet had pulled him in a night-black alley behind a shop, after, and fucked him up against a wall, a handful of cooling blood used to ease the way.

  Val woke the next morning with a pounding head, and couldn’t eat any food, sick to his stomach over what he’d done. He was the puppet of a monster, but he couldn’t allow himself to become one as well.