The bases of the two towers on the opposite end of the city were engulfed in a matching bright blaze. Lada watched as panicked guards ran around atop the tower nearest her and peered over the edge. “Are you Wallachian?” she called out in her native tongue.
One of them shot an arrow. Lada twisted to the side, and it glanced off the chain mail shirt she wore. Bogdan fired a return arrow. The man tipped silently over the tower’s edge.
“Are you hurt?” Bogdan said, voice desperate as his big hands searched for a wound…around her breasts.
“Bogdan!” She slapped his hands away. “If I were, it would certainly not be a wound for you to see to!”
“You need a woman, then?” he asked, looking around as though one would magically appear.
“I am fine!”
Another man waved a piece of cloth above the edge of the tower. “Yes, we are Wallachian!” he shouted, voice quavering.
Lada considered it. “Let us in and you can run. Or you can join us.”
She counted her heartbeats. It took only ten before the tower door opened and seven men filed out. Three skulked silently into the trees. Four stayed. She walked past them and climbed the stairs to the top of the tower. It was circular, with a thick stone railing that she leaned over to view the city.
Already, panic spread like disease within the walls. People flooded the streets, women screaming, men shouting directions. It was chaos.
It was perfect.
Three days later, stray remnants of smoke still wrote Lada’s anger across the sky above the crippled city. She and her men had camped brazenly close by, drunk on soot and revenge, secure in the knowledge that every man in the city was spent with the effort of saving what had not already been lost. They were also more than a little drunk on the cart full of wine that Matei had somehow managed to bring back.
It was there that Stefan slid in, silent and anonymous as a shadow. He, too, had been with Lada since the beginning. He had always been the best at gathering information: a blank and unremarkable face making him a half-forgotten memory even as he stood in front of someone. One day, Lada thought, the world would know she was deserving of an assassin such as him.
“What news from Tirgoviste?” she asked. Her throat was still raw from breathing in so much smoke, but her hoarseness did not disguise her excitement. “Did you kill the prince?”
“He was not there.”
Lada scowled, hopes of announcing her rival’s death to her men dashed. His death would not have meant the throne was hers—he had two heirs her own age, and she still needed the damnable boyars to support her claim as prince—but it would have been satisfying. “Then why have you returned?”
“Because he is in Edirne. At Mehmed’s invitation.”
Though Lada knew her internal fire should have blazed to white-hot fury at this information, she was filled instead with cold, bitter ashes. Her pride had not allowed her to ask Mehmed for help. But all this time she had held him tightly in her heart, knowing that somewhere out there, Mehmed and Radu still believed in her.
And now even that was taken from her.
MEHMED HAD NOT LEFT a letter in the potted plant where they exchanged messages. Radu always took the secret passage—the same one that Lada had run through the night of Ilyas and Lazar’s betrayal. And Radu always wished that this time Mehmed would be waiting in the chamber where Radu and Lada had saved his life. But Mehmed was never there. Radu lived for the few brief sentences he spent in Mehmed’s company. His eyes devoured the aggressive lines of Mehmed’s script, lingering on the few curving flourishes. They never signed or addressed the messages. Radu would have liked to see his own name, just once, in Mehmed’s hand.
But today, the dirt was as empty as Radu’s life. Mehmed had to know that Radu knew about the Danesti prince. Radu had not been technically invited to that party—meeting Suleiman there had been a desperate, last-minute plan—but Mehmed had seen him. And so, rather than leaving his own message about the navy and then slipping away to wait until Mehmed decided to address the matter of Lada’s fate, Radu sat. He hoped that…
Well, he no longer knew what to hope for. He sat, and waited.
As the sun set, Radu tried not to dwell on the horrors this room had held, but with Lada so firmly in his mind he could think of little else. He had been so certain she would take the Wallachian throne, he had not considered the possibility that she might fail. His sister did not fail. Was she even still alive? He could not imagine that Mehmed would withhold news of his sister’s death.
But Mehmed had kept the knowledge of their father’s and brother’s deaths from Lada. Who was to say he was not doing the same with Radu? And if he was, what did that mean? That he was trying to protect Radu? Or that he was trying to keep him focused on their goals with Constantinople and feared what this news would do? Or that Mehmed cared so little that Lada was dead, he had not even found the time to pass along the information…?
No. Radu could not believe the last one.
Unable to settle on any peaceful train of thought, Radu turned to the only solace in his life. He prayed, losing himself to the words and the motion. Whatever else was happening, had already happened, or would happen, he had God. He had prayer.
By the time he finished, a veil of peace had drifted over his harried mind. Drawing it tightly around himself, Radu opened the door and walked into the central hall of Mehmed’s sprawling apartments. He could do nothing to change the past. He could only do what he felt best for the future. And to do that, he needed more information.
All the rooms were dark. Radu found a chair in the corner of Mehmed’s bedchamber. He avoided looking at the bed, which threatened to tear his veil of peace.
Some time later, a girl around Radu’s age came in and lit the lamps, then slid silently back out. Radu was so still she did not notice him.
Neither did Mehmed when he finally walked in. The same girl followed him. Radu would have been afraid of seeing something he had no wish to, but the girl wore the plain clothing of a servant, not the silks and scarves of a concubine or a wife. Mehmed held out his arms and she carefully took off his robes, one luxurious layer at a time. Radu knew he ought to look away.
He did not.
When Mehmed was down to his underclothes, the servant set his robes aside and slid a nightshirt painted with verses of the Koran over his head. Then, bowing, she backed out of the room. As soon as the door shut behind her, the sultan melted away. All the darkness and fear that had nestled in Radu’s heart disappeared along with the sultan. There was Mehmed. His Mehmed, not the stranger who inhabited the throne.
Mehmed rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. Then he sat on the edge of the bed and unwound his voluminous turban. His hair was longer than Radu had ever seen it. Curling toward his shoulders, it was black in the dim light, though Radu knew it would shine with chestnut colors in the sun. Radu did not know what it would feel like to touch it, but he desperately wanted to.
“Is my sister dead?” Radu asked.
Mehmed stiffened, one hand going to his waist, where his dagger would normally be. Then he relaxed, shoulders sloping downward.
“You should not be here,” he said, without turning.
“You should not be meeting with the Danesti Wallachian prince without telling me what happened.”
Mehmed sighed, rubbing the back of his neck again. “She is not dead.”
Unexpected tears pooled in Radu’s eyes as he let out a sharp breath of relief—relief both that Lada was not dead and that his immediate reaction was not one of disappointment. He was not yet so evil, then, that he would begrudge his sister her life. Merely her place in Mehmed’s affections.
“What happened? I thought you gave her the throne.”
“I did. Apparently Wallachia disagreed with me.”
“And yet you support her rival?”
Mehmed lifted his hands helplessly. He was still facing away from Radu. Radu yearned to see his face, his expression. But he could not cover the distance between them. After
this long, he did not trust himself to be close to Mehmed.
“What can I do? You know I need all my borders secure. I cannot fight a war on two fronts. If we are to take Constantinople, we need peace everywhere else. Hungary looms as a threat, with Hunyadi harassing me at every opportunity. I cannot afford to lose any territory in Europe, and I cannot start a war there without risking a crusade. The Danesti prince accepted all my terms.”
It made sense. It was a perfect explanation. And yet…Mehmed still would not look at him. “Is that all? Or do you keep Lada from the throne in the hopes that she will return here in her failure?” All Radu’s frustration and loneliness of the past year climbed out his throat, lacing his words with accusation.
Mehmed laughed, darker than the night pressing against the balcony. “Do you see her here? Have you heard from her even once? If she had asked for help, Radu, I would have sent it. I would have gone to war at one word from her. But she left us. She rejected us, and I will be damned if I follow without an invitation.”
Again, the explanation made sense. But none of the information felt as though it should have been withheld like a secret. “How long have you known Lada was not on the throne?”
Mehmed grunted away the question with a noncommittal sound in his throat. “Does it matter?”
“It matters to me. She is my sister. Why would you keep information about her from me?”
Finally, finally, Mehmed turned to him. In the dim light of the lamp, his face was thrown into sharp relief, nose and cheekbones golden, lips teased into view and then tipped back into darkness. “Maybe I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Afraid that if you knew she struggled, you would go to help her.”
Radu laughed in shock. “What do you think I could do to help her?”
Mehmed tilted his head to one side, half his face in shadow, the other in light. “You are asking sincerely?”
Radu looked at the floor, intensely uncomfortable. He longed for an answer, and feared one. What if Mehmed could think of no reasons that didn’t sound like anything more than empty words?
“I was always better with a bow and arrow.” Radu smiled wryly.
“Lada does not need a perfectly aimed arrow. She needs a perfectly aimed smile. Perfectly aimed words. Perfectly aimed manners.”
Radu finally dared to look back up. “Her aim in those matters has always been off.”
“And your aim never errs. Do not devalue what you can do merely because it is not what Lada excels at. You two are a balanced pair.” Mehmed stared into the space between them, eyes no longer focused on Radu. “Or you were, at least.”
In that moment Radu knew Mehmed was not seeing him but the absence of his sister. “Do not keep secrets from me,” he said.
Mehmed refocused sharply on him. “What?”
“When you keep things secret, it gives them more power, more weight. I assumed the worst as soon as I discovered your deception. I was willing to risk our friendship being found out simply to talk with you. Be open with me in the future.” Radu paused, knowing he had spoken to Mehmed as a friend and not as a sultan. In the past he would not have noticed. But now—now there was a distance. And he wondered if maybe the pretend distance had grown into something more. Frightened of this unknown element between them, he added a gentle “Please.”
“And you are open with me in all things?” There was a note in Mehmed’s voice, a subtle teasing lilt that terrified Radu in a different way. Was Mehmed asking what it seemed like he was asking?
“I— You know I work only for you, and—”
Mehmed dispelled the terror with one raised corner of his lips. “I know. And I was foolish to doubt your loyalties to our cause. But you cannot blame me for selfishly wanting to have you only to myself.”
“No,” Radu croaked, his mouth suddenly parched. “Of course not.” But the words that wanted to leave his mouth were “I am yours. Always.” He swallowed them painfully.
Mehmed shifted on the bed. “Do you have further plans for this evening?”
Radu’s heart pounded so loudly he wondered if Mehmed heard it. “What? What do you mean?”
Mehmed gestured toward the door. “Any idea how you are going to sneak out without being seen?”
The sweat that had broken out on Radu’s body turned cold and suffocating. He was a fool. “No.”
“I will go out and make certain any guards follow me to the first antechamber. You should be able to slip into the passageway then.” Mehmed stood, and Radu followed. Too close. He bumped into the other man.
Mehmed paused, then turned and clasped Radu’s arms. “It is good to see you again, my friend.”
“Yes,” Radu whispered. And then Mehmed was gone.
A letter from Nazira waited for him on his desk. She wrote that she and Fatima would be staying in the city in the modest home Kumal kept there. And, she informed Radu, he would be joining them for regular meals.
Radu was both annoyed and pleased. She did not need to fuss over him, but it would be nice to have someone to talk with who expected nothing from him. If he imagined the perfect sister, Nazira would be close to what he would create for himself.
The guilt resurfaced. He had been able to dismiss thoughts of Lada because he assumed she had everything she wanted. Now he knew otherwise. With a weary sigh, he pulled out a piece of parchment and a quill.
Beloved sister, he wrote. One of those words was true, at least.
Three days later, Radu walked toward an inn close to the palace, swinging his arms in time to his steps. A gathering of pashazadas—sons of pashas who were unimportant enough to still welcome him—had been talking about a foreign woman trying to be seen by the sultan. They joked she wanted to join his harem and had brought a cart full of cannons to make up for her homely face.
It was the cart that sparked Radu’s curiosity. And his concern. If a foreign woman was in the city with weapons, trying to meet the sultan, Radu wanted to know why. The other men might dismiss her as crazy, but he knew firsthand that women could be every bit as violent as men.
Turning a corner, Radu ran right into a woman. He managed to catch her, but her bundle of parchments tumbled to the ground. She swore loudly and vehemently in Hungarian. It made Radu oddly homesick for his stuffy, stuttering tutor running through their lessons in the middle of a forest. And then he realized this had to be her. The foreign woman trying to meet Mehmed.
“Forgive me,” Radu said, his Hungarian sliding into place despite years of neglect. He practiced his other languages—Latin, Greek, Arabic, anything that Mehmed had learned with Radu at his side—regularly, but Hungarian and Wallachian had not been on his tongue since Lada had left. “I was distracted.”
The woman looked up, surprised. She was young, older than him but only by a few years. She wore European-style clothing, sturdy skirts and blouses designed for travel. “You speak Hungarian?”
“Among other things.” Radu handed her the parchments. Her fingers were blunt and blackened, her hands shiny with scars from old burns.
“I do not speak Turkish. Can you help me?” She said it crossly, more demanding than pleading. “No one in this damnable city will let me have a conference with the sultan.”
Radu felt this wise of the damnable city. “Where are your servants? Your father?”
“I travel alone. And I am about to be kicked out of my inn for just that. I have nowhere to stay.” She rubbed her forehead, scowling. “All this travel wasted.”
“Are you trying to join the sultan’s harem?”
Her look of murderous outrage was so sudden and severe it reminded him of Lada. He liked the woman more for it, and was also alarmed. Maybe she was here to kill Mehmed.
“I would sooner join his stables and let him ride on my back than join his harem and let him ride on my front.”
Radu felt his cheeks burn and he cleared his throat. “Then what do you need?”
“I have a proposition for him. I went to Constantinople first, and the
y would not see me, either.”
“You come from Constantinople?” If she was an assassin, she was a stupid one, admitting this up front.
She lifted one of the parchment rolls. “That ass of an emperor would not so much as let me show him my work. He laughed and said even if my claims were true, he could not afford me.”
“Afford you for what?”
She finally smiled, showing all her fine teeth. “I can build a cannon big enough to destroy the walls of Babylon itself. I would have done it for the sultan, if he would have seen me. Now it appears I have to go home, every bit as disgraced as my father and mother said I would be.” She shook her head bitterly and turned to walk away.
“Wait! What is your name?”
“Urbana. Of Transylvania.”
“I am Radu. And I think we may be able to help each other.” He took the bundle of parchments from her. “Go get your things, and I will introduce you to my wife.”
Urbana raised an eyebrow. “I have no intention of joining anyone’s harem.”
Radu held back a laugh. It might have been misinterpreted as mean. “I assure you that is the last thing on my mind. I was born in Transylvania, and I know what it is to be a stranger in a new land. Allow me to help you as I would want someone to help my own sister.”
“If you try anything unseemly, I am fully capable of blowing up your home.”
This time Radu let himself laugh. “My sister would accept help in much the same spirit. Come, I will take you to my home. You are going to love my wife.”
With Nazira’s help, he would be able to determine whether Urbana could be trusted. If so, Radu had a creeping, joyful suspicion he was about to once again prove to Mehmed just how valuable he could be.
LADA KNEW PUNISHING TRANSYLVANIA for everything that had gone wrong in the past year did not make perfect strategic sense. But it felt better than anything else, and so Transylvania burned.
Lada was not happy, but she was busy, and that was almost the same.
“God’s wounds,” she whispered, trying to fasten binding cloth tightly enough around her breasts so that they would not chafe against her chain mail. It was difficult to dress herself in the woods. But this arrangement was far preferable to the one the governor of Brasov had proposed—before he sent an assassin after her. After agreeing to see what men and funds he could free up to support Lada’s bid for the throne, he had suggested she stay with him rather than going back “where no lady belongs.”
Now I Rise Page 3
