The assassin was stunned, but he would recover fast. Lada punched him in the face, again and again, but her angle was off and she could not use as much strength as she hoped to. He grabbed her wrists, pulling her to the side. Her face was forced close to his, his hands too strong to break free from. She slammed her forehead into his nose, then bit into his cheek where his head wrap had come loose.
He cried out and released her wrists. Rolling away, she found the dagger and spun around as he stumbled to his feet. He dodged her first lunge, moved with her in a dance she had practiced many times in the ring with Nicolae. A dance they both knew the same moves to. Even bloodied and dazed, he was more than a match for her.
And still no help had come.
Her training was failing her, the jabs and the lunges anticipated, killing blows knocked aside. One of these times he would catch her wrist and get the dagger, and then he would kill her and Mehmed.
Despair welled up in her. A look of triumph shaped the assassin’s eyes into omens of death. He knew everything she would do. He only had to outlast her. She was a girl, and a child. He was stronger, and faster, and…
With a scream of rage, Lada abandoned her learned moves, her careful training. She flew at him like a wild boar, all fury and animal instinct. He did not know where to block because her blows made no sense, her movements had no grace. She slashed at his face, and when he grabbed her wrists, she bit his hand, clenching her jaw, teeth clamping onto bone. She kept her teeth in him as he shook her, slamming the dagger into his side again and again, following him as he fell away from her, trying to break free. She stayed on top, stabbing, not caring where she hit, not going for a careful, efficient blow. An animal scream, muffled by his hand, continued from her throat.
“Lada!”
Shaking and panting, she blinked her eyes clear of the haze that had descended. Her jaw would not unlock, the muscles so tight she wondered if she would have this man’s hand in her mouth forever. Finally, with pain shooting through her whole face, she managed to part her teeth enough for his hand to fall free. It was then that she tasted the blood that filled her mouth, then that she realized she was on the floor, on top of the man.
On top of the body.
She staggered to her feet, then fell back down, crawling away from the ruined body.
Mehmed placed a hand on her face and turned it toward his own. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, then nodded, then shook it again. She did not know if she was hurt. Everything was trembling, everything was numb. She looked down at her hands, covered in blood, and could not feel them.
“Lada. Lada. Lada.”
She snapped her eyes back to Mehmed. He was the only thing in the room that she could focus on, the only thing that made sense.
“My guards never came.”
She knew that was important, knew she had known it was important, before…this. Before the blood. So much blood.
“Do you think they are dead?” Mehmed took a step toward the door. He should not go out there. She knew he should not, tried to figure out why.
Everything snapped back into place. “Stop! We need to leave. Another way. The guards are either dead or they were collaborators.”
Mehmed shook his head. “They are Janissaries. They would never—”
“He was a Janissary.”
“What?”
Her teeth trembling, Lada peeled back the man’s mask. She did not recognize him, and found herself deeply grateful for that. But she still knew what he was, if not who. “The way he fought. I have sparred with dozens of versions of him. He trained as a Janissary. We need to get out of here, now, and we need to hide until we know who to trust.”
Mehmed was shaking as much as she was. “Who can I trust?” he whispered.
Lada held out her hand. He took it.
UNDER OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES, the look of utter bewilderment on Lada’s face would have delighted Radu. She was always so certain of herself that the image of her standing in the middle of the room, stiff, arms wrapped protectively around herself as her eyes darted everywhere, should have been one he treasured.
But she was covered in blood, and Mehmed’s jaw trembled when he was not talking, and both of them looked the way Radu always felt on the inside.
He could not feel that way right now. They needed him.
“We have to go somewhere else,” Radu said. “It is well enough known that we are Mehmed’s friends. If there are more assassins, and they search for him, they may look here.”
Lada shook her head, eyes pleading. “I could not think of anywhere else to go.”
If, as Mehmed and Lada suspected, a group of Janissaries were behind the attempt, the palace was not safe. They had no way of knowing who had set it up, whether it was the soldiers themselves, or whether they were acting under orders from someone else. What if they ran to an advisor or a pasha for help, and ended up in the clutches of the very person who had ordered Mehmed’s death?
No, they needed somewhere secure. Somewhere secret. Somewhere no one else here could go, but that they could get to quickly. Because they could not simply run. Mehmed was the sultan, and if they ran now, he would lose everything.
Where could a sultan go to hide?
Radu snapped his fingers. “The harem!”
Lada’s look of horror intensified.
Mehmed frowned. “But they might look there, too.”
“Your mother is there, yes?”
Mehmed nodded. “We do not speak much, though.”
Harem politics were as complicated as court politics, if not more so. Though the harem was a community unto itself, the women could exert incredible influence on the most powerful man in the empire, making them a political force to be reckoned with. The most powerful woman in the harem—and, therefore, in the empire—was the mother of the sultan. Radu had never met her, but the chief eunuch had remarked on her intelligence.
“Your mother stands to lose the most if you are killed, so she will protect you,” Radu said. “And the guards there are eunuchs, not Janissaries. We will be safe, and you can begin investigating.”
Mehmed clasped his shoulder. “Yes! Yes. Thank you, Radu.”
“No!” Lada shook her head, eyes still wild. “I cannot go in there! If a woman enters the harem complex, she belongs to the sultan!”
Mehmed peered out the window they had climbed through, to make sure their path was clear. “I would not hold you to that, Lada, and—”
“It would not matter! Everyone would know, I would be labeled your concubine, and—”
Radu took her hand, which still hung in the air pointing accusingly at Mehmed, and squeezed it in his own. “And you would be unmarriageable? What a tragedy. I know how dearly you treasured the hope of marrying some minor Ottoman noble, dear sister.”
She finally met his eyes, hers still feverish and frenzied. “But I would be his.”
“I think our Mehmed is smart enough to know he could never claim you. Right?”
Radu’s tone was light, and he turned to Mehmed with a playful smile. Perhaps it was the dimness of the room, or the stress of the night, but Mehmed’s face was clouded with…disappointment? Hurt? Then a tight, false smile took its place, and he nodded. Radu’s own chest felt equally tight with anxiety and fear and a twisting, bitter sense of jealousy.
He pushed it down. Assassins were after them. Lada had killed a man. They needed to move. He said a prayer in his heart, then went first, climbing slowly down the palace’s carved stone exterior to the ground. Mehmed followed, and then Lada. Radu led the way, creeping through the gardens, keeping to the deepest shadows.
“How do you know the way to the harem so well?” Mehmed said. “I think you are more familiar with the path than I am.”
Radu flushed, feeling defensive, but there was no accusation in Mehmed’s voice. “I know the chief eunuch. He has an amazing collection of maps, and I visit him sometimes. Did you know he was born in Transylvania?”
Mehmed’s tone was straine
d but amused. “I did, in fact, know that about the third most powerful man in my government.”
“Oh. Right.” Even when Radu had the best idea for keeping them safe, everyone always knew more than he did. He stopped outside the guard gate, a side entrance to the vast harem complex. A guard stood posted, his white turban a bright spot in the dark night. On his first trip, Radu had tried to see a difference in the eunuchs as opposed to uncastrated men, but other than their voices not being as deep as a man’s nor as high as a woman’s, he was not able to tell who was a eunuch and who was not.
The guard, whom Radu had met before, cocked his head curiously at Radu before noticing Mehmed behind him. He bowed low to the ground, then stood at attention.
Mehmed did not acknowledge him as he walked straight past. Radu nodded, and the man’s eyes followed them. Without knocking, Mehmed entered the outer apartments of the chief eunuch.
Though it was late, they had not been in the room more than a minute before the chief eunuch joined them. He was an older man, nearing forty, skin wrinkled and features indistinct, as though his face had never decided quite who it wanted to be. He bowed to Mehmed, then straightened with a smile for Radu. He took in Lada’s bloodstained appearance with a mere flick of his gaze. “How can I serve you, My Sultan?”
“I need a conference with the valide sultan. Also lodging for the night.”
“Of course. Whose company would you like?”
It took a moment for Radu to follow the easy way in which the chief eunuch asked the question. And then another moment to process what it meant. His face grew heated with embarrassment, and also curiosity. Was this— Did Mehmed come here regularly? Was he already enjoying the benefits of being sultan? How many concubines could he have amassed after so short a time? Did he have a wife already? Islam had rules about how many wives a man could have, but exceptions were made for sultans.
And what was it like, being with him? Did they love him? Did they wait every day, hoping to see him?
Radu glanced at Lada to see if she was wondering the same things. Her eyes were fixed determinedly on the far wall, a scowl set on her face. They had cleaned the blood from around her mouth and off her hands, but there were traces of it still. She looked wild and angry, nothing like a concubine. At least, not how Radu imagined them to look.
Radu pictured concubines like his nurse, matronly and soft and always sewing or fussing. He knew that was not their purpose, but whenever he tried to imagine that, everything got hazy and confused.
Mehmed’s voice was strained. “None tonight. I am here on business. Prepare a room for my companions as well. Lada will need a bath.”
“Shall I have the servants escort her to her new room?”
“No!” Mehmed’s voice came out a shout, making the chief eunuch startle. “No. She is here as a guest, not as a…resident. House us in the guard wing.”
“And no one can know that we are here,” Radu said, unsure if he was allowed to speak, but worried that Mehmed was too distracted.
Mehmed gave him a brief, grateful glance. “Yes. My business is with the valide sultan alone, and no one—not even my guards, should they inquire—is to know that we are here.”
The chief eunuch nodded, then bowed again and left the room to make preparations. As soon as he was gone, Mehmed’s shoulders slumped. He put a hand over his eyes, head hanging low. Lada had found a bit of dried blood on her hand and was furiously rubbing it against her skirts, trying to get it clean. The fact that her skirts were stained with blood did not seem to occur to her. Radu stood between her and Mehmed, not knowing what either needed, suspecting they both needed the same thing.
He went to Mehmed instead of his sister, and put his arm around the sultan’s shoulders. Mehmed leaned gratefully against him. Radu looked up at Lada and held out his free arm. She considered it, eyes heavy with exhaustion and something that looked suspiciously like sorrow. Before she could move, the chief eunuch returned. Mehmed straightened and stepped away from Radu, and Lada resumed staring at the wall.
“Follow me,” the chief eunuch said, and Radu once again found himself in the back, the pool of light from the eunuch’s lamp not quite reaching him.
MEHMED’S MOTHER MOVED WITH a sensuous grace that terrified Lada.
Lada could not seem to get comfortable, no matter where she sat in the opulently perfumed and padded room. The valide sultan occupied too much space here, with her silks and her veil and her dripping jewelry, with her careful face and her calculating smile and the way she lay across several pillows with as much precision as any Janissary sword.
If Halima and Mara were different seasons, Huma was nature itself.
“Sit down.” Her voice was kind, but a narrowing of her eyes indicated that she would brook no argument. Mehmed ceased pacing and sat across from her. He seemed as out of sorts as Lada. He had never known his mother, not in any real sense, and now came to her from a place of weakness. It was not ideal.
Lada remembered the sensation of the dagger meeting the resistance of flesh, the unyielding bone that made it turn course, always seeking more, deeper, deeper….
Not ideal. None of this was ideal. She had bathed, her hair still wet, but her hands felt sticky and her mouth would not surrender the memory of the bright, metallic taste of blood.
Radu, however, seemed fascinated, even delighted by the valide sultan. He sat near her, a rapt, worshipful look on his face. As though sensing the weight of his admiration, the valide sultan turned to him. Her lips, so much like Mehmed’s, parted in a way that was almost like their nurse’s smile. A way her lips had not moved for Mehmed.
“You were very clever, to bring him here. Radu, is it?” She sat up, leaning forward and putting her finger under his chin to lift his face. “Beautiful,” she murmured. Her gaze flicked toward Lada, whose spine stiffened and jaw jutted out defiantly. She knew how she would compare. The valide sultan’s smile shifted into something less maternal, but Lada did not know what it was.
“Valide Sultan,” Lada said, scowling over the show they were being forced to endure, “we need to—”
“You may call me Huma. Both of you.” She turned back to Mehmed, settling back down and resting her lovely cheek on her palm. “And you may call me Mother.” A small laugh, like coins being dropped into a well, escaped her lips.
“We do not have time—”
Huma held up a hand heavy with gold, cutting off Mehmed. “We do not have time to panic, or to display weakness. We have all the time in the world to allow you to engage in your much-deserved holiday as you take full advantage of the pleasures of your harem. Indeed, were the new sultan to spend an entire week of debauchery and riotous celebration with his women, no one could blame him. Or interrupt him. Or access him. And no one could discover how tenuous his power truly was and how close he came to being murdered before he could rule.”
“But the assassin—”
“Did not exist. It never happened. No one would ever attempt to take the life of the sultan, because to admit an attempt happened and nearly succeeded is to admit that it is possible to imagine an Ottoman empire without you at its head.” Her darkly lined eyes narrowed. “Do you understand? You are not hiding here. You are reveling. You are enjoying your power.”
Mehmed nodded, one slight dip of his head.
Huma’s face returned to its cheerful, lovely mask. “I have already sent the chief eunuch notice to inform the pashas and viziers of your activities. Word will spread. We have all the time we need.”
It was a good lie. And in order to be a good lie, it had to be believable. Lada did not want to think about why it would be so easily believed, how much time Mehmed had already spent here, whether there was precedence. She did not want to think about any of this.
It made her weak, this avoidance of reality. And still she recoiled when her mind tried to settle on it.
Huma stood, a rustling of silks and a cloud of sweetness trailing in her wake. But there was an undertone to it, a sharp scent that made Lada?
??s eyes water and her head swim. “Now go to your rooms. Servants will be by to see to you shortly.”
Mehmed opened his mouth as if to argue. Huma raised a single perfect brow. “Let your mother take care of this, my precious son.” The soft and comforting words were spoken in a tone that pierced like a needle.
Feigning a look of indifference, Mehmed walked past her, followed by Radu. Lada stood to leave as well, but Huma’s arm shot out, blocking her way. “Take a meal with me.”
“I would rather return to my room.”
Huma traced a finger down the line of her own hip, stroking the material of her dress lazily. “It was not a request.”
Lada took a step forward, but Huma seized her wrist. Huma laughed, and in her laugh Lada heard all the secrets she had never been privy to. “Ladislav Dragwlya, daughter of Vlad, who sent forces, including his own son, to fight at Varna, thus invalidating his treaty with the Ottomans and leaving his children’s lives utterly forfeit. Ladislav, whom no one in the world other than her beautiful brother and a powerless sultan care about. Little Lada, who is in my house under my protection, sit down.”
Lada remembered the feeling of skin and tendons clamped between her teeth, the resistance of flesh meeting the determination of her jaw. For one brief, dizzy moment, she considered attacking Huma, savaging her the same way she had Mehmed’s attacker.
Instead, she sat.
“Good girl.” Huma clapped her hands and a trio of delicate flowers in girl form came in, setting food and drink in front of them, then gliding silently away. Lada watched the girls, and as she watched them, she wondered, Are they Mehmed’s? Has he been here? Has he picked these flowers?
Huma’s pointy red tongue flicked out, running along her teeth as she considered the meal in front of them. Lada was reminded of a snake, which confused her. Women were the garden, and men were the snakes. Her nurse had explained how men and women came together in the marriage bed to her when she was very young, around the same time her religious tutors had taught her the story of Adam and Eve. The two had mixed together in her head, until it was men and their snakes that had persuaded Eve to lose her beautiful, perfect garden.