Now I Rise

by Kiersten White

  But going out of his way to run into the other man was tactical. It was not because he was lonely for conversation with anyone outside of the bedroom he shared with Nazira. She, too, was frequently gone, making social calls and leaving Radu with far too much time to think.

  “Have you seen Giustiniani?” Cyprian asked.

  “You only now missed him. There was a fight, and he went to see about it.”

  Constantine leaned out over the wall, itching at his beard. “If the Italians send us nothing else but Giustiniani, they have still done more to help than anyone. I cannot keep the Genoese from fighting with the Venetians, who fight with the Greeks, who suspect the Genoese, who hate the Orthodox, who hate the Catholics. Only the Turks under Orhan seem to get along with everyone.” He smiled wryly at Radu.

  “Orhan is still here?” Radu was surprised that he had not fled the city in advance of the siege.

  “He has nowhere else to go. And I am glad for his help, and the help of his men. He is no Giustiniani, but no one is. Except perhaps Hunyadi.”

  Radu was eager to contribute to a topic he knew something about. “I had never heard of Giustiniani before, but if he is anything like Hunyadi, the Ottomans will fear and hate him.”

  “They fear Hunyadi that much?”

  “He is a specter that haunts them. Even their victories against him count for little when stacked against how much he has cost them. His name alone would cause problems for Mehmed.”

  Constantine nodded thoughtfully. “He should have been here by now. I am afraid we have lost him.”

  “But you have more Venetians?” Radu hoped it sounded like he was trying to be positive rather than fishing for more information.

  “Only a handful. We hope more are coming. Galata, our neighbor, will send no men. They are too afraid of being caught in the conflict. They are everyone’s allies, and thus no one’s. It was all we could do to make them attach the boom across the horn.”

  The giant chain that closed access to the Golden Horn bay was strung from Constantinople to Galata. Sitting along the swift water leading to the horn, Galata lacked Constantinople’s natural defenses. If Mehmed attacked the city, it would fall. But he did not want to waste resources on Galata. If he took Constantinople, Galata would effectively be his.

  During the day, people walked freely between the cities, but at night both closed and locked their gates. Radu wished everyone in Constantinople would walk across the bay to Galata and stay there. He did not understand why they stayed in Constantinople. When Mehmed arrived, Radu hoped they would finally see the futility.

  “There,” Constantine said, pointing. Cyprian was taking detailed notes. Radu moved closer, following the direction of Constantine’s finger. “We need as many men as can be spared on the Lycus River section.”

  Though Constantinople was on a hill, there was one section of the wall that did not command high ground. The Lycus River cut straight through it, making a fosse impossible to dig, and lowering that section to a dangerously accessible level. Radu knew all this from Mehmed’s maps, but it was still a strange thrill to see it in person, and from this side of the wall, too, where he had not expected to be until after the siege.

  Constantine detailed which men and commanders should be stationed where. Radu committed it to memory, secreting it away with all the other information he heard. Everywhere they went, Constantine stood straight and confident, complimenting the men on the work in progress, giving suggestions for further improvements. He may have been jeered in the streets, but among the soldiers it was apparent that he was deeply respected—and returned the respect.

  “Here,” he said, stopping again. They had come to a patchwork section. Where the other walls were shining limestone with a red seam of brick running through, this one had a haphazard look to it. And, unlike the rest, there was only one wall, rather than two. It jutted out at a right angle, the palace where Constantine lived rising behind it.

  “Why is this section so different?” Radu asked, though he knew the answer.

  “We could not leave a shrine outside the walls.” Constantine’s tone hinted at annoyance, but his confident smile never left. “We are better protected by one wall and a holy shrine than by two walls without one. Or at least, that was the reasoning a few hundred years ago when they built the wall out to encompass the shrine.”

  Constantine noted several weakened and crumbling points as he talked with a foreman directing repairs. Finally, the three men descended the stairs and went back into the city through a sally port, a heavily guarded gate used to let soldiers in and out during attacks. “Tell me, Radu, what do you think of my walls?” Constantine asked.

  “I think they deserve their tremendous reputation. They have stood for this long for a reason.”

  Constantine nodded thoughtfully. “They will protect us yet.”

  They had lasted a thousand years of unchanging siege warfare. But Mehmed was not the past. Mehmed was the future. He brought things no one else had yet imagined, and that no walls had yet seen.

  Constantine spoke again, his thoughts apparently on the same man as Radu’s. “I hear the sultan is repairing roads and bridges all over my lands. It is very generous of him to perform maintenance while I am busy. Do you think he would spare some of his men to help us repair the walls while he is at it?”

  Radu laughed weakly. “I am afraid I am no longer in the position to make that request.”

  Constantine’s face turned serious so quickly that Radu feared he had betrayed something. The emperor’s hand came down on his shoulder, but instead of a blow, it was a reassuring weight. “I know why you fled. Everyone has heard of his depravity, his harems of both women and men. You are safe here, Radu. You never have to go back to that life.”

  Several moments passed while Radu worked through Constantine’s words and tone. He looked at Cyprian, who was staring determinedly up at the palace. And then everything made sense. The sneering guard they had passed at the Rumeli Hisari. Everyone’s willingness to accept that Radu would so easily turn from Mehmed. Eyes filled with scorn or with pity.

  “I— Yes, thank you. I have to— Excuse me.” Radu turned and walked stiffly away. When he had rounded a corner and was out of sight, he sank against the wall, pushing a fist into his mouth in horror.

  Was that the rumor, then? That Mehmed had a male harem? And that Radu had been the jewel of it? Radu the Handsome. Someone else had called him that recently, before the soldier. Halil Vizier, back in Edirne. Was he the source? Was this another tactic of his to demean Mehmed, to make him seem evil?

  Radu did not know which filled him with more despair—that everyone had heard this rumor except him, or that the mere suggestion of Mehmed loving women and men was seen as evil. His feelings for Mehmed had never felt evil or wicked. They had been the truest of his life, bordering on holy. To hear his love so casually profaned made him sick to his stomach.

  And then another, more horrible thought occurred to him. Mehmed must know about these rumors. Surely he knew. Was the ruse of Radu’s distance from Mehmed not simply for their enemies? The way Mehmed had jumped on the chance to send Radu away, too, with so little preparation or aid. Mehmed had been eager to take the opportunity without any information or guarantees. Radu had thought it was because Mehmed trusted him. Now he wondered.

  Did Mehmed know the rumors and Radu’s true feelings, and had he sent Radu here to end both of them?

  Radu collapsed into bed next to Nazira. He had spent a long day helping repair the walls. The irony of being sent behind the walls to undermine them while physically repairing them was not lost on Radu’s aching muscles.

  Sighing heavily, he put an arm over his face. “You first.”

  Nazira shoved him onto his stomach, then began kneading the muscles in his back. Radu sank deeper into the uneven mattress, not caring about the feather spines that jabbed into him. Simple human contact with someone who cared about him did more healing than Nazira’s small hands ever could. He realized how little
anyone had actually touched him over the last few years. Lada had never been physically affectionate, unless he counted her fists. Lazar had frequently accidentally touched him, but Radu tried his best not to think about his dead friend. He could remember every moment of physical contact with Mehmed, but each was too short, too formal, never enough.

  And then there had been the horrible kiss with Halil’s son, Salih, a kiss that still filled Radu with self-loathing for how much he had liked being wanted, even when he did not return the feeling.

  So this friendly intimacy with Nazira had its benefits. Of course, the downside to being married was that they were given the same room, and same bed, to share. Sometimes Radu woke up from dreams—aching, desperate dreams in which his mind somehow knew the sensations his actual body had yet to experience—in a state he really did not want Nazira to witness. Frequently, in spite of his exhaustion, he could not fall asleep for fear of what he might dream about while lying next to her.

  Nazira worked on a tender knot and Radu grimaced. “Let me think of what I heard today,” she said. “Mehmed is the Antichrist.”

  “Yes, I heard that one, too.”

  “Did you hear about the child who dreamed that the angel guarding the city walls abandoned his post?”

  “No, that is a new one. I heard about a fisherman who drew up oysters that dripped blood.”

  “Good thing I never cared for oysters. And fish! So much fish in this city. If I never eat fish again when we leave, I will be happy. What else. Hmm. Oh! Helen, one of my new friends, is very bitter. Apparently the first emperor of the city was Constantine, son of Helen. And now this emperor is Constantine, son of Helen, which means the circle of history is closing and the city is doomed. It also means the name Helen is deeply unpopular, and she is taking it quite personally.”

  “Why are you friends with her?”

  “She is currently entertaining one of the Venetian ship captains, a man named Coco. She talks about him constantly.”

  “Well done,” Radu said, wincing as Nazira hit another particularly sore area of his shoulders. “Word from the walls is that with the relic of the true cross in the city, it cannot be taken by the Antichrist. On the other hand, they do not like the patterns of birds flying in the skies. However, Mary herself is protecting the city. Unfortunately, someone’s uncle finally decoded the secret messages scrawled on a thousand-year-old pillar that declares this the last year of Earth. But the moon will be waxing soon, and the city cannot be taken on a waxing moon, so there you have it. The city is both utterly doomed and cannot possibly fall.”

  “These people are insane,” Nazira said sadly.

  “At least it saves us the trouble of trying to foment chaos within the walls. They need no help with that.”

  “How are you doing with getting close to Constantine?”

  Radu shrugged, rolling back over. Nazira lay on her side, propped up on an elbow. He had not told her the real reason why Constantine accepted his loyalty without question; he was too humiliated to speak it aloud. “I see him only in passing. He is everywhere in the city, constantly on the move to inspire people.”

  “I have seen him a few times. Helen hates him. I think he looks nice. What about the other important men?”

  “Right now they are trying to organize, and waiting for further aid before they decide where to commit. I do not see much of them. I never knew waiting could be such a wearying task.”

  “What about Cyprian?”

  Radu shifted uncomfortably. “He is close to Constantine. He takes notes for him. I am sure he knows most of the organization of the city. But…”

  “But what?”

  Closing his eyes, Radu rubbed his face. There was a bigger issue where Cyprian was concerned, a nebulous one, the contours of which Radu had not yet traced out. He did not know if he wanted to or even could. “We are living with Cyprian. We eat meals with him, sleep next to his room.” And they liked him. Nazira had not said it, but Radu could see in the smiles she gave Cyprian, the easy way she laughed at his stories over meals. Radu was not the only one with complicated feelings toward their enemy. But he rationalized them anyway. “It would be dangerous to abuse any information we get through him. Too immediately suspicious.”

  “True.” Nazira drew the blanket up to her chin and snuggled into Radu’s side. “We carry on, then.”

  Radu patted her arm, waiting for her breath to go steady and deep. Then he rolled away, sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands.

  The only thing coming here had accomplished was getting Radu far away from Mehmed and the rumors spread about them. Radu knew if that was what Mehmed needed, he should be glad. He should be willing to sacrifice himself to protect Mehmed’s vision, to protect his reputation. But he could not—would not—be willing to sacrifice Nazira.

  He would stay the course. He would make something of their time here. And he would get her out alive, no matter what.

  OANA—THE ONLY ONE WHO knew about Lada’s meeting with Mehmed—said nothing as Lada commanded her men to pack up camp the next morning. Lada was grateful to her for that. She could not have handled questions about the soldiers she should have returned with.

  Bogdan stayed closer to her side than ever. He never asked where she had gone. At least his unquestioning acceptance of her actions had not changed. But even if he asked, she would never tell him.

  Or anyone.

  Lada’s mind chased itself in angry circles. Mehmed—whom she had always trusted—had deceived her. And he thought she would choose Constantinople after that? How little he knew her.

  The next night, though, lying on the frozen ground, her mind betrayed her. Images of being empress next to Mehmed haunted her when she closed her eyes. It was the worst part of everything, knowing that, on some level, she wanted that much power, even at that cost.

  She awoke, gasping and aching. No. The worst were dreams of Mehmed at her side in an entirely different fashion.

  She made her men move before dawn. Sleep was not her ally. She drove them hard toward Hunedoara, reassuring herself that at least she had done some good for Hunyadi. Constantinople would fall—of that she had no doubts, whatever else she might now doubt and hate about Mehmed—and Hunyadi would have died there. Her duplicity had spared him his life. She could take comfort in that.

  “I hate Hungary,” Petru grumbled, riding abreast of Lada, Nicolae, and Bogdan. “And that lord or noble or prince, Matthias? Whenever he is around me, he holds a handkerchief to his nose.” Petru ducked his head to smell under his arms. “I smell nothing.”

  Nicolae leaned close, then feigned fainting. “That is because your sense of smell has killed itself out of despair.”

  “Matthias is not a prince,” Lada said. “He is Hunyadi’s son.”

  Petru’s expression shifted in surprise. “How did Hunyadi’s seed produce that weak politician?”

  Nicolae’s cheerful voice answered. “The same way Vlad Dracul’s traitorous seed produced our valiant Lada!”

  Lada stared straight ahead, numb. In that moment, she realized she was exactly like her father. Hunyadi had cautioned her not to discount the man who made her the way she was. Apparently her father had done his job well. She, too, had taken someone who trusted her and leveraged that trust for Ottoman aid—aid that benefitted her nothing. And she had been stupid enough to make it personal with Mehmed.

  She was a fool.

  “Lada?” Bogdan asked, his low, grumbling voice soft with concern.

  She pushed her horse forward, outpacing them all so they could not see the first tears she had cried since she was a child.

  Oana caught her, though. Lada wiped furiously at her face. “What do you want?”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Back to Hunyadi. He is my only ally.”

  Oana made a humming noise. “Not your only ally. You have other family besides your father.”

  “Mircea is dead, too. And none of the boyars are more closely related to the Dracul line th
an to the Danesti or Basarab.”

  “Not that side. Your mother. Last I heard, she was alive in Moldavia. And she is still royalty there.”

  Lada turned her head to the side and spat. “She is nothing to me.”

  “Be that as it may, you might not be nothing to her. Blood calls to blood. You could yet find your path to the throne through the support of her family. If nothing else, it is a place to rest and regroup. You need some rest.”

  Groaning, Lada rubbed her forehead. “I do not want to see her.” There was a reason appealing to her Moldavian relatives had never crossed her mind. Her mother had ceased existing for her years ago. The idea of welcoming that woman back into her life, even if it got her the throne…

  Oana leaned closer. “It cannot cost you more than whatever happened with the sultan.”

  “God’s wounds, woman, very well.” Lada ignored Oana’s pleased smile as she turned her horse around. “New plan,” she said when she rejoined her men.

  “New plan?” Petru asked.

  “Where are we off to now?” Nicolae asked.

  “Moldavia.”

  “Moldavia?” Petru said.

  “Is there an echo here?” Lada glared at Petru.

  Though he ducked his head and blushed, excitement animated his voice. “Are we burning Moldavian cities? Like we did in Transylvania?”

  Lada had not forgotten Matei and the waste of his death, traitor or not. She would not lose men to petty vengeance again. Only to vengeance worth taking. She shook her head.

  “What, then?” Nicolae asked.

  “We go to appeal to my blood. We go to see my—” She paused, feeling the edges of the next word sticking in her throat, threatening to choke her. “My mother.”

  “She is so beautiful,” Petru whispered, peering through the hedge they hid behind. “You look nothing like her.”

  Nicolae cringed. “And that, Petru, is why your line will die with you.”

  Lada did not—could not—answer as her mother rode elegantly toward them down the dirt path of her country manor.