Radu felt as though he were breathing in Mehmed’s laughter, warm and heavy as it filled his lungs and settled on his skin. “You scared me.” His tongue was thick and clumsy in his mouth. He had not seen Mehmed for days, had not seen him alone for weeks.
“Yes, that was apparent.” Mehmed’s lips twisted into a playful grin. “You looked like you were about to fall asleep. I was worried you would drown.”
“Well, thank you for preventing my drowning by pulling me under the water in an attempt to drown me.”
Mehmed bowed with a dramatic flourish. He was giddy, cheeks flushed brighter than the heat could account for. The war had not been going well, even with Mehmed’s father reluctantly taking the lead.
“Do you have good news?” Radu’s chest twisted tight with bands of hope. It was a strange sensation, and one he did not know what to do with. Did he hope Mehmed’s forces were winning? Was that traitorous, knowing that his own brother led troops in the conflict? Did the Ottomans winning make it more or less likely that Radu and Lada would be killed for their father’s betrayal? And then, seeing the relief shining in Mehmed’s black eyes, Radu knew what he hoped for: He hoped for the best for his friend. Regardless of what that meant for himself.
Mehmed threw his arms in the air, splashing them both. The gesture was childlike in its joyful abandon. Ever since they had returned to Edirne, with its politics and demands and war, Mehmed had held himself as unyielding and straight as a stake. Radu laughed to see him relax back into himself.
“My father has triumphed at Varna. The crusade is defeated. Hunyadi fled like a dog, and the Hungarian king’s head travels here now on the end of my father’s spear!”
Radu smiled as best he could, but his mind worried away at what this meant and how it would affect him.
Mehmed’s expression turned thoughtful. “Your father was not there.”
Feigning a casual, joking tone that could not be further from how he actually felt, Radu put a hand to his chest. “My father, the coward? Miss a battle where he has tepidly supported both sides? I am shocked.”
“I have no word on Mircea’s fate.”
“His fate is nothing to me.” Radu’s pretense of disinterest was betrayed by the bitterness that curdled his words.
Mehmed put a hand on his shoulder, the weight of it there both a comfort and a strange thrill. It made Radu feel real in a way he often struggled to. “It will work itself out,” Mehmed said. “There will be a new treaty. And my father wishes me to remain on the throne. I…think I am ready. I know that was not our plan, but the last few weeks have changed my mind. I want this. I think I can be the sultan.”
His voice raised at the end, a hint of a question lingering there.
“I think,” Radu said, putting his own hand on Mehmed’s shoulder, “you will be the greatest sultan your people have ever seen.”
“Lada does not believe in me.” Mehmed’s mouth twisted wryly. “She believes in no one but herself.”
Radu shook his head, so aware of the space between them, the water connecting their bodies. He felt secure and happy and closer to Mehmed in this moment than he had ever felt to anyone. “I believe in you enough for both of us.” Radu knew Mehmed could do this. And he would be at Mehmed’s side, helping him. Lada would, too, even if she pretended at hating life in Edirne. The world and their future opened up before him like the soaring ceiling of the mosque. Upward.
Mehmed nodded solemnly. “And you do not have to worry about your father. As long as I am on the throne, you are under my protection. I will make sure no one hurts you.”
Radu closed his eyes in relief. Finally, someone cared enough to keep him safe. Someone who actually had the power to do so. It was a very different reassurance than Lada’s promise that no one would kill him but her. Blinking away the emotion that had pooled in the corners of his eyes, Radu nodded. “But…perhaps you could make certain that no one lets my father know we are safe.”
Mehmed’s eyebrows lifted quizzically.
“He does not deserve to be reassured. Let him think he has killed us. Let him be poisoned with whatever guilt he has the capacity to feel.”
“That is fitting. Though I am glad for your father’s weakness. Without it, I would have been denied your friendship. And Lada’s.”
Radu beamed. “I am glad, too.”
He had only a split second to register the shift in Mehmed’s expression from sincere to mischievous before Mehmed’s ankle hooked around Radu’s own and Mehmed pushed his head beneath the surface.
Radu rose, coughing, as Mehmed cut through the water away from him, laughter trailing in his wake. As he gave chase, the steam, so thick it looked like a living creature, parted briefly to reveal a man sitting, unnoticed, in the corner of the baths.
Watching them.
The steam once again hid the man just as Radu was able to place his face. Halil Pasha. Mehmed’s laughter rang through the room, disembodied as it bounced from wall to ceiling and back again, sounding like a warning bell.
“AND HUNYADI FLED,” Lada said, riding beside Nicolae.
“Like a rabbit before a hawk.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “With the Hungarian king dead, everything is in turmoil. Hunyadi might even have an avenue to the throne.”
“You think he wants to rule Hungary?”
Lada snorted. “No, he wants to defend Europe out of pure love for the cause of Christ. Of course he wants to rule.” She leaned back in her saddle, closing her eyes against the sun. It was a relief to have the Janissaries back. While they had been out fighting, she had worried she would lose her mind with idleness. She had never known what outcome to hope for, either. A win for the Ottomans? A triumph for Hunyadi and hated Mircea?
It did not matter now, as everything was decided. And due to several key deaths, Ilyas had been promoted to lead a larger group, including the Janissary troops who had accompanied Mehmed from Amasya. All together there were several thousand Janissary troops spread throughout the empire, with only a couple hundred regularly stationed in Amasya with Mehmed. It was a nice promotion for Ilyas, but she knew he was destined for bigger things.
“I wish I had been there,” Lada said.
Nicolae laughed darkly. “I wish I had not. But if you had been there, little dragon, whose side would you have fought for?”
“My own.”
“And which side is that?”
Their father had killed Lada and Radu twice over—first by leaving them here, and next by breaking the treaty that protected their lives. She would not fight for him. And certainly not for Mircea, contemptible worm. Hunyadi she would kill on sight.
No. She rolled her head around on her shoulders, stiff neck straining against jacket collar. It was not Hunyadi’s fault her father left Wallachia weak enough that Hunyadi had found a foothold there and forced her father to turn to the sultan.
Mehmed, then? He was her ally in a world straining at its bit, bristling for her death. A laugh, a flash of his dark eyes, a tug on her hair. He was her friend.
He was also ruler of the country holding her captive.
She finally fixed her hooded black eyes on Nicolae. “My own side.”
She tethered her horse while the Janissaries—Ilyas’s men and a few other groups—drilled their horses, practicing formations. Lada was never invited to participate in those, as her participation served no purpose. Weapons training and sparring were individual skills, but hundreds of men moving and reacting as one was something she had no part in. She settled against the roots of a tree at the edge of the open space, in the shade and facing away from the troops.
“…seems fair enough,” said a man walking close by.
“I like him more than the last commander we had. He was a Bulgar. I cannot stand Bulgars.”
“I am a Bulgar, you cur.”
“And I cannot stand you, either.”
They laughed, then the first spoke again. “Are they really leaving the brat on the throne?”
Lada tried to see
who was speaking, but the tree blocked her view. Her first impulse was to stand and defend Mehmed. But what would she say? That Mehmed was her friend? She doubted they would accept that as evidence of his leadership qualities.
“As far as I hear, yes. Murad has returned to his retirement.”
“Barely on the throne and we have already fought one crusade. How many more are we to fight to defend him?”
“They do not pay us enough to shoulder the burden of the brat.”
“They simply do not pay us enough. Last week Ismael openly spoke of protesting in front of the sultan’s own bodyguards.”
“What do they say?”
“They say nothing. They also do not prevent anyone from saying it. If we could get a few higher-ranking officials on our side, we would be able…”
They drifted away, and Lada lost the last of their gossip. Their complaints were not unfamiliar, though they sounded more widespread and accepted than she had thought they were. The Janissaries were a privileged class, educated and paid, but they were still slaves. She wondered how much actual force was behind their words, and how much was empty complaints.
Nicolae rejoined her some time later. They rode out behind the corps, done for the day. He let his horse slow, putting more distance between them and the rest.
When he spoke, he lacked his usual jesting tone. “I have been here since I was seven years old. I have trained alongside brothers from every nation under the shadow of the Ottomans. We fight, we bleed, we die for a country that is not ours, commanded in a tongue our mothers never spoke to us, instructed in a religion that allows us to be enslaved because we were not born to it.” He paused, their horses’ hooves meting out a discordant rhythm. “And yet my life is better than it would have been at home. I am educated and better trained than anyone we fight. I have enough to eat and clothes on my back, opportunities to advance. Until I am broken against the walls of a city that should be my ally, or die on the end of a sword held by a cousin I never knew. We are the most valuable force of this empire, and we exist here because we are not actually part of the empire. Most days I think I owe my life to the Ottomans. On the field at Varna, I realized I do not want to give my life for them. But in my heart, I am a soldier, and I wish to do nothing else.” He shook his head, a heavy sigh punctuated by his hands lifted into the air, palms up. “I would like to be as certain as you are, Lada, who my side is.”
She looked at his palms, open, waiting to receive. “In your heart, where you know you are a soldier, tell me: What language beats there?”
Nicolae’s eyes fell, his face going soft and far away. “Wallachian.”
She reached out and put her hand on his, resting it there, palm to palm. “We are on the same side.”
He wrapped his fingers around hers, then opened his eyes and smiled wryly. “We had best not tell anyone else, then, seeing as how we are deep in enemy territory.”
Lada pulled back her hand and took the reins. “For now.” She kicked her horse to a gallop, past the soldiers, hair whipping around her face as she raced toward home. Toward Edirne, she corrected herself, silently cursing her traitor mind. Maybe she was not so certain whose side she was on after all.
In spite of Ilyas’s allowances, the leaders in Edirne were stricter than they had been in Amasya, and too often Lada had been prevented from training with Nicolae’s men. She stomped into her chambers, startled to find Radu deep in conversation with Molla Gurani, whom she had not seen these last three months since leaving Amasya.
Her brother looked up, guilt painting itself across his face like the sun disappearing behind a cloud.
“Lada! I thought you would be with the Janissaries.”
“Are we being forced to endure his lessons again?” She scowled. In their time here, with the war and Mehmed’s constant duties as sultan, she and Radu had not yet received regular tutelage. While she wanted to resume the history, logic, and strategy lessons, she had not missed Molla Gurani’s insufferable dronings on Islam.
Molla Gurani’s eyebrows lifted slowly, heavy with the weight of his disdain. “I am here at your brother’s request. You are welcome to be elsewhere.”
“What is he talking about?” Lada snapped, lapsing into Wallachian for privacy.
Radu shrugged, head tilted to one side as though he were trapping something between his ear and shoulder. “Know your enemy?”
Caught off guard, Lada barked out a sharp laugh. “You will have to know this enemy enough for both of us.” She bowed mockingly toward the teacher and went into her own small room. While this freed her from Molla Gurani’s fetid-water voice, it left her with nothing to do and no refuge.
She flopped onto her bed and boredom made her eyes heavy with sleep. She dreamed of Amasya, swimming in the pool with Radu and Mehmed, stars swirling and burning around them. When she awoke, it was with Mehmed’s name heavy on her tongue, his absence in her life a palpable pain.
She hurried out of their rooms before Radu could ask where she was going, before she had to admit to him—and herself—how much she longed for a few private moments with Mehmed as her friend, not as the sultan.
In the halls of the palace, she felt invisible. There were so few women here. In Tirgoviste women had been far more present, less separated from the regular courts. She wondered, sometimes, what her life would have been like had her mother not fled. Would she have had an ally? A friend? Would her mother have stopped her father from leaving them here?
Probably not. Her mother had not been strong enough to stay with them, much less keep them safe.
Perhaps, though, she would feel stronger walking down these halls with another woman at her side. Halima laughing, or Mara glowering. Maybe they did have something to teach her, after all. Men here either looked right past her as though she did not exist, or looked so hard that she knew they were not seeing her at all. It made her long for a weapon in her hand, for a crown instead of snarled braids, for a beard, even. For anything that would make them see her for what and who she was.
Or perhaps, looking at her and seeing nothing, they understood perfectly well who she was already.
She was not certain the guards would allow her to see Mehmed. She had never come without an invitation. If she was turned away, she did not know what she would do. But after only a few heartbeats of waiting, the guards let her through.
Mehmed looked up from his desk, eyes lighting as he stood. Lada felt the tension and terror of anonymity drain from her body.
She mattered to Mehmed.
“To what do I owe the honor?” he asked, sweeping his arm back in an exaggerated bow.
“Do not make me knock your turban off.” She pushed past him and sat in his seat, examining the papers so he would not notice how grateful, how glad to be in his presence she was. He did not need anyone else nourishing his ego; Radu did that enough for the entire Draculesti line. Lada lifted several pages, all notes and ledgers and maps. Detailed lists of troops and supplies, Janissary forces, horses, wagons, weapons. Ledgers of various accounts. Maps of…Constantinople.
She tapped a finger on one. “You have been busy.”
He leaned over her, tracing the edge of the map reverentially. “I am the sultan, Lada.”
“I have noticed.”
He grinned, the expression wiping away the regal years he tried to force onto his face by distant scowls. “My father has returned to his retirement. I did not think I was ready, but the throne is mine regardless. And I will be worthy of it.”
Lada shrugged, shifting away from the intensity of Mehmed’s pose, his body radiating energy so near hers. It was only because she had not been around him much these last three months that his presence affected her so. Or maybe it was because she could not help noticing he was growing taller, more handsome, more…No. She needed to focus on something else. Anything else. “Constantinople? This soon?”
He walked away from her, began pacing. “We have a five-year peace treaty with Hungary and Hunyadi. My borders are as peaceful as they ever
were. This is why I am here. This is why I was born.”
“Your father started out his rule trying the same thing, and it brought him nothing but trouble.”
A line formed between Mehmed’s fine brows. “He had too many fronts. His brothers trying to claim what was his, trying to steal land. He had to attend to problems at home.”
“And your advisors support you?”
His scowl deepened. “Not all of them, no. But I am sultan. They must follow me.”
“A sultan who summoned his father to fight his first battle.”
Mehmed’s face erupted into a storm. “That was your idea! If you—”
Lada heard the noise before she registered that anything was wrong. An instinct honed by all those days in the forest with Bogdan hunting her, a body trained with focus provided by desperation and loneliness. A sudden sense of wrongness she could have ignored.
She threw herself forward and tackled Mehmed as a dagger flew past where his chest had been. It cut her shoulder before clanging sharply against the wall and falling to the ground. Lada and Mehmed hit the floor hard, with Mehmed letting out a breathless groan. Lada rolled forward, picking the dagger up, then turned and threw it as soon as she spied a moving target.
The man dodged a fatal blow, the dagger glancing off his side. His face was wrapped in black cloth, features hidden; his clothes were plain.
Their assailant pulled out another dagger, crouching defensively and stalking to the side, trying to find a better angle on Mehmed. Lada kicked her friend toward the desk. “Get behind it!” she shouted.
The man passed his dagger from hand to hand, movements lazy and unhurried as Mehmed scrambled behind the desk and shouted for his guards.
The assassin did not seem concerned.
His eyes crinkled in a smile as he looked at Lada. He pointed the dagger at her, then looked toward Mehmed. Lada launched herself forward, barreling into him with all the momentum she could build. He was strong, lean and lithe, but she was solid and lower to the ground. She hit him squarely in his middle, the air leaving his lungs in a rush as she took him to the ground. His grip on the dagger loosened, and it skittered away, out of both of their reach.