by Karen Chance
“These weren’t slaves in the American sense. The Janissaries were among the elite of Ottoman society, respected and feared, even by free men. They had known nothing but military service their whole lives. They ate and drank it. At that time, they didn’t even marry, for fear it would distract them from their work. They threw all of their passion into warfare, and these were the soldiers against whom Hunyadi was taking a paltry force under an untested king!”
“Didn’t he know this?”
“Of course he knew. But he was a pompous, arrogant ass, and worse, a zealot. A cardinal, Cessarini, was traveling with the army, a papal appointment to see to it that God was on the battlefield.” Mircea lips twisted, but not in a smile. “If he was, he was fighting for the other side.”
“They lost?”
“We lost. Or, to be more precise, we were obliterated.” His hand stilled on my arm.
“We? You mean you were there?”
“Yes. Leading four thousand cavalry from Walachia.”
“But if your father knew it was a lost cause—”
Mircea sighed. “That was precisely my argument. But my father was in a difficult position. He owed his position to King Sigismund, his old mentor, who had loaned him the army he had used to seize the throne. Sigismund was dead by this time, but Ladislas had succeeded him, and he reminded my father of his obligation. There was also the fact that my father was a member of the Order of the Dragon, a Catholic military organization started for the express purpose of combating the Turkish threat.”
“So it was a religious thing?”
“It was a political thing. My mother was the devout one in the family; my father put his faith in a strong arm and a good sword, and he had need of one. There were many competitors for his throne who would have liked to do to him what he had done to the cousin he dethroned. If he gave the surrounding Catholic leaders a reason to distrust him, they might lend one of them an army, as Sigismund had done for him.”
“Then why didn’t he lead the forces himself? Why send you to do it?”
“He would have preferred to go himself, if one of us must. But he had signed a treaty with the Turks forbidding it.”
“But . . . I thought they were the enemy.”
“They were. But they also had an army far larger than our tiny force. Had it come to invasion, we would have fought bravely, but we would have lost. As it was, after the Turks made a raid, we would find whole villages nailed to crosses or impaled, or find pyramids made out of the bleached skulls of the dead.”
“Why would they do that? Why not just plunder and leave?”
“Because they wanted to be bought off, and they made sure my father had little choice. In the end, he had to sign a treaty agreeing to pay them ten thousand gold ducats a year and to refuse to lift his hand against them in battle. And to guarantee his good behavior, he had to give two of his sons as hostages.”
“That’s how your brothers ended up in a Turkish dungeon.” I’d known that Vlad, the brother better known to the world as Dracula, had gone insane in a Turkish prison. But I hadn’t known the details of how he got there.
Mircea nodded. “My father went for the treaty discussion under a flag of truce, taking my two younger brothers with him. They were supposed to be safe, but they were seized and put in chains as soon as they arrived. Vlad and Radu were carried away before the treaty was given him to sign. He knew if he failed to do so, their lives would most certainly be forfeit.”
“So he signed.”
“Yes, and was therefore put in an impossible position when Ladislas demanded his loyalty as a member of the Order, to fight alongside him on his damn fool crusade. My father couldn’t refuse without risking his throne, but agreeing would likely mean the death of his sons. He therefore agreed to send the smallest acceptable force with Ladislas, but chose me to command it, thereby keeping the letter of the treaty, if not the spirit.”
“By not lifting a hand against the Turks himself.”
“Yes.”
“I assume it didn’t work?” I really didn’t have to ask. I could read that much from Mircea’s expression.
“Nothing worked. At the battle, we were outnumbered three to one, and then that foolish, foolish king decided to make a dash for glory along with five hundred cavalry—and predictably ended with his head on a pike. The Turks paraded him around like the trophy he was. And as soon as his army saw it, they broke and ran. My forces stayed together and managed an organized retreat, which is probably why most of us survived. Virtually everyone else left their bones bleaching on the battlefield—including the cardinal, who was stripped naked by the victors and left for the carrion birds. Hunyadi, of course, escaped, as such men always do.”
“And your brothers?” I asked softly.
Mircea lay back against the bed, his hair spread out around him. I combed my fingers through it, fanning in out on the pale blanket, because it was beautiful. But also because I couldn’t do anything else to erase the sadness from his face. It had all happened so long ago, but it looked like I had been wrong. At least for one vampire, the past hadn’t faded at all.
“Before the defeat at Varna, they had been hostages, yes,” he told me. “But very well-treated ones. They were kept at Adrianople, the capital, were given food and clothing worthy of their station, were well educated and even received a good bit of freedom within the city itself. After the debacle, they were imprisoned in a filthy dungeon, beaten on a daily basis and half starved. It is a wonder they survived.”
“And your father couldn’t do anything? Pay a ransom or—”
“No. The Turks weren’t interested in money, not after Varna left all of Eastern Europe open to conquest—or so it looked at the time. They groomed Radu, who had proven to be the most malleable, to be a puppet prince for when they annexed Walachia. Vlad, who fought them at any and all opportunities, they mistreated terribly, but kept alive because his hatred for them paled in comparison to his loathing for their mutual enemy, Hunyadi.”
“Because he’d caused him to be imprisoned?”
“No.” Mircea got up abruptly. “Because Hunyadi murdered his entire family.”
I sat there blinking while Mircea disappeared onto the balcony. I wrapped the comforter around me and followed, a little hesitantly, because I wasn’t sure I was wanted. I found him lighting up a cigarette, one of the small, dark, spicy ones he preferred, which wasn’t a great sign. Mircea only smoked when he wanted to settle his nerves, or to give himself something to do with his hands besides wrapping them around someone’s neck.
But I guess that someone wasn’t me, because he pulled me back against him, adding his warmth to the comforter’s, making the otherwise frigid balcony almost cozy. It looked like this hotel was connected to a train station, because there were a ton of people coming and going far below, all looking like extras out of Dickens. Maybe A Christmas Carol, because a bunch were singing on the sidewalk in the middle of the mad rush. The songs drifted up to us in snippets, blown around on the breeze.
For a long time, Mircea smoked and I just enjoyed the feeling of those arms around me. I didn’t get it very often these days, with negotiations and Senate duties and the damned coronation taking up so much of his time. I laid my head back against his shoulder; it was always a surprise how good he felt.
“My father was livid with Hunyadi,” he finally told me, letting out a breath of sweet-scented smoke that drifted up, ghostly pale against the blackness. “He had warned the man, had almost begged him not to go, and now fifteen thousand good men were dead, his sons were imperiled and nothing had been gained. If anything, the crusade had only served to show the Ottomans our weakness, and he knew them well enough to know they wouldn’t hesitate to exploit it.”
“What did he do?”
Mircea shrugged, a liquid movement against my back. “What he should have done. He imprisoned him when the man passed through Walachia, intending that he should answer for his crimes. But Hunyadi had powerful friends, and they immediately began
petitioning my father to release him.”
“And did he?”
Mircea was quiet for a moment, but his arms tightened around me almost imperceptibly. “They called me Mircea the Bold then,” he said quietly. “Due to my actions in battle. But I was too bold on that occasion. Furious and grieving, and still in pain from wounds received at that disaster of a crusade, I was rash. I spoke out in open court, told how I had seen Hunyadi’s arrogance firsthand, that I knew his ego and ambition would drive him to find a scapegoat for his failure. He could hardly blame the martyred king or the saintly cardinal, leaving us as the obvious targets. I begged my father to kill him, warned that if it was not his head on the chopping block, it would be ours.”
“And did he listen?’
“No. But someone else did. I don’t know—I never knew—who told Hunyadi. But somehow, my words reached his ears. And after my father bowed to pressure and released him, Hunyadi vowed to do precisely as I had said: to see us all dead. He put together a force and attacked us—his former allies—barely three years later. My family was forced to flee for our lives, but it did little good. Boyars—the local nobility—in his pay hunted us down. It was about this time of year when they caught up with us.”
It was a little incongruous, standing there warm and safe, listening to Christmas carols and smelling the cold, crisp air and Mircea’s funky little cigarette. And imagining the horror he must have felt. “They killed . . . everyone?”
“Everyone they could reach. They slit my mother’s throat, tortured my father and buried me alive. It is ironic, but the only thing that saved my brothers was being in Turkish hands. They were far safer in Adrianople than they would have been at home in their own beds.”
I turned to look at him. “Why did you tell me this?”
Cold hands slid inside the coat, caressed my bare flesh, made me shiver. “So that you would understand. I caused the deaths of my entire family once—”
“You didn’t!”
“Shh.” His hands curved around my waist, then dropped to settle on his favorite spot—my bare ass. “I have had five hundred years to come to terms with what I did. I was young and hotheaded and foolish, and Hunyadi might have done the same even had I said nothing. I will never know. What I do know, what I learned from that one tragic mistake, was never again to risk the ones I love.”
I looked up at him to find the dark hair dusted with snow. It clung to his high, arched brows, trembled on his lashes. “You love me?”
He just looked at me for a moment. And then he reared back his head and laughed, a rich, mellow sound, unreserved and unashamed. “No, not at all. I regularly battle gods for women I dislike!”
I just stood there, snow melting on my cheeks like tears.
“What is it?” he asked, after a moment.
“I—Nothing.” Except that no one had ever said that to me before. Not Eugenie, not even Rafe. They had acted like it, had shown it in a lot of little ways, but no one had ever said it.
No one at all.
Mircea pulled me against him, and I laid my head on his chest.
He was silent for a moment. “I have had . . . difficulty . . . with this season, ever since.”
“Perhaps you need a good memory in place of the bad ones.”
A corner of his lips quirked. “And where would I obtain such a thing?”
I buried my head in his chest. “I think we can figure something out.”
Chapter Thirty-nine
“You brought that thing?” I asked the next morning, sitting up in bed. I was looking at a battered old suitcase with a burn scar on its bum that was hovering near the foot of the bed.
“I could hardly leave it, dulceață,” Mircea said, pouring coffee at a little table by the window. “The charm still works.”
“Sort of.” It was drooping like a week-old bouquet or a half-deflated balloon. I pushed it with a finger, and it bobbed a little in the air, giving off a nasty smell. I wrinkled my nose, wrapped a sheet around myself and went to see what was for breakfast.
Watery sunlight was leaking in through the glass, gleaming off white china and solid silver, and a wire basket that was leaking mouthwatering smells. Fresh scones. Yum.
Mircea handed me a cup of coffee. “And I thought you might want to keep it, as it belonged to your mother.”
“What, the suitcase?”
He nodded.
I shook my head, mouth full of scone. “It was the mage’s.”
Mircea raised a dark brow. “Not unless he used her perfume.”
I swallowed and pulled the little case over. I didn’t smell anything but charred leather and smoke, but I trusted Mircea’s nose. And sure enough, there was a pile of lingerie and a few obviously female outfits inside. A pair of shoes a size too big for me. And tucked into a pocket along the side, a bunch of old letters.
“But . . . how would she have had time to pack?” I asked, sorting through them. “It’s not like she knew she was being kidnapped!”
“If that was, in fact, what we saw.”
I looked up. “What do you mean?”
“Dulceață, I have seen many people under a compulsion, and without fail, they are blanks. Almost robotic in their movements, their speech . . . they do not make decisions; they wait for orders. And they do not tell their captors to hush.”
“You’re saying . . . she went with him on purpose?”
“It would seem the only answer.”
“But . . . why? How would she even know someone like that? She was the Pythian heir!”
“Perhaps the letters will tell you.”
I shook my head, opening one after another. “No. These were all written by my father. It looks like he’d been writing to her for a while and she’d kept them. . . .” I frowned. “But that doesn’t make sense, either. Jonas said that my parents barely knew each other a week before they ran away together. And these . . .” I checked a few more. “They go back more than a decade.”
Mircea hesitated. I wouldn’t have noticed, but I was looking right at him. And he definitely started to say something and then stopped.
“What?” I demanded.
“I could be wrong,” he said carefully. “It has been many years, and I had no reason to pay particular attention at the time—”
“Attention to what?”
“To your father’s individual scent.”
I frowned harder. “What does that have—”
“I did not notice it at the party. Things were too fraught and there were too many other scents in the vicinity. But last night, when I was standing by the mage, I thought I recognized—”
“No.” I looked at him in horror.
“—the same tobacco, the same cologne, the same brand of hair pomade—”
“No!”
That damned eyebrow went up again. I was starting to hate that thing. “Would you prefer to have been sired by a dangerous dark mage?”
“Yes! If the alternative is . . . is him. He was—”
“Quite capable.”
I stared at him. “Are you—Did you see?”
“I saw him protect your mother from four demigods for a protracted period of time.”
“He did no such thing! She was driving the carriage—”
“Yes. Because it is difficult for anyone other than war mages to keep up a shield and to concentrate on anything else at the same time.”
“I didn’t see a shield.”
“No more did I. But I saw several direct hits bounce off of something. He wasn’t able to keep it up for the entire chase, but he certainly helped. And last night—”
“All he did was enchant a suitcase.”
“And it proved useful, did it not? The Spartoi must have had them cornered, but he broke through their ranks—”
“Because he was acting like a crazy man!”
“—and protected your mother during a firestorm of spells such as I have rarely seen.”
“He was screaming the entire time!”
Mircea�
��s lips quirked. “It is only in the cinema that heroes have to look a certain way. I have been in many battles, dulceață, and can tell you from experience that what matters is what works. Ladislas’s charge looked heroic—banners streaming, armor glinting, five hundred horses galloping in one great wave—but it was the height of folly. Your father’s tactics were . . . less impressive . . . but they succeeded. Which is the most heroic, in the end?”
“But he didn’t look anything like that!” I said, grasping for straws. Because Mircea could say whatever he liked, but being related to that guy . . . no. Just no. “The kidnapper was tall and blond and you said my father was—”
“I told you how he appeared to me. But he was in hiding; it would not be surprising if he used a glamourie. In fact, it would have been more so if he had not.”
“But you said nothing was supposed to happen at the party—that your men had checked! If he was my father, if he was supposed to be there, to elope with my mother or whatever the hell they were doing, wouldn’t your people have known?”
“By all accounts, the party was supposed to be uneventful,” Mircea agreed. “I would hardly have taken you there otherwise. Your mother was not reported missing for several months.”
“There. You see? He can’t be my father!”
“Yes, but, dulceață, the important term is ‘reported.’ My people were not at the party; they did not see for themselves. They were going on the official reports. Reports that may well have been . . . adjusted.”
“Adjusted? But why—”
“To give them time to find her.” He waved a hand. “The Pythian court likes to appear infallible, mysterious, all knowing. This is not a reputation that would be enhanced by losing their heir to a set of circumstances none of them foresaw. It would not be surprising for them to wait some time before admitting that they had lost her. They would want a chance to locate her and bring her back without anyone realizing there had ever been a problem.”
“You think they lied about when she left.”
He shrugged. “I think it possible, yes. I always found it odd that they maintained that your father knew her for such a short time before they eloped. Eight days is not much in which to persuade the heir to the Pythian throne to leave it all behind for a life on the run!”
