“I think your life has gotten complicated.”
Radu dropped his head, covering his eyes with his hands. “I do not know what to do.”
“I am in charge of many people in my vilayet. Sometimes, a decision I make will impact someone in a negative way. Perhaps one farmer wants more access to water, but giving him that would deny three other families the water they need for their crops. I am denying the first man the opportunity to expand his crops and make more money, but I am saving the other three families from starving. Some years I have had to increase taxes to lay up stores against the winter, which is a burden for my people. But it means we will have enough to sustain us through a bleak period. I have had to take fathers from their families for committing crimes—denying a family of their provider, but keeping the rest of my people safe.” He sighed. “It is never easy. I try to build for the best future I can, where the greatest number of people will be affected in the best ways. Sometimes I have to make hard choices, but I try to do so with a prayer and the welfare of my people always in my heart. I have made mistakes, but I try to use regret as motivation to be more thoughtful, to consider things more carefully, and to be kinder and more generous in all my dealings.”
Radu thanked him, though he was still left in the dark as to his own problems. Should he pursue good for himself, or good for others? What if Halil Pasha thought he was doing good by preventing Mehmed from taking the throne? Mehmed’s idea of the future was in direct opposition of, say, the citizens of Constantinople’s idea of a good future. Whose had more value? Whose was right?
And could he ever be generous enough to wish his sister happiness with the man they both loved?
Radu’s time at Kumal’s home was too short, but after a few blessed days of peaceful respite, he was no closer to solving any of his problems. Edirne beckoned him back.
With a promise to visit soon, he returned to the city to find that Murad, still pleased with his poem, had waxed generous and given Radu command of a small group of frontier Janissaries. Bemused, Radu went to the barracks to meet with his men. He was a good rider, excellent with a bow and arrow, and skilled enough with a sword, but he had never aspired to commanding men. He thought it odd that Murad would think a poem qualified Radu—so young—to lead soldiers.
A familiar figure greeted him.
“Lazar,” Radu said. He still did not know how to feel about the other man, knowing that Lazar knew the deepest secret of his heart.
Lazar saluted Radu with brisk formality, then bowed, popping back up with an infectious grin. “I knew I was right to stay in Edirne. I have requested to be assigned to your frontier group.”
“I have no idea what I am doing,” Radu admitted.
“That is why I am here.” Lazar introduced him to the fifty men at his command, and Radu’s fears about the other man disappeared. Lazar dropped the familiarity he normally held with Radu, speaking in crisp, commanding tones and showing the proper amount of deference when addressing Radu. Radu stood straight, nodding seriously, trying to commit names to memory.
After the tour was done and the men were dispersed, Lazar walked with Radu out into the larger Janissary headquarters on his way back to the palace. “You will do well. I can take care of day-to-day organization and training. These positions are more ceremonial than anything, but you are liked. The men are happy to have you.”
Radu nodded. “I am glad.”
Lazar leaned in closer as they walked. “I am happy to have you, as well.”
Radu cleared his throat, wondering if there was more meaning there, when a sweep of a cape around a corner ahead of them caught his eye. He sped up, turning in time to see Halil Pasha clasp hands with another man before they entered a room together.
“Who was that with Halil Pasha?” he asked Lazar.
“Kazanci Dogan, the commander of all the Janissary corps. You will meet him at some point, I am certain.”
“Is Halil Pasha here often?”
Lazar shrugged. “I have seen him on occasion.” He paused, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “Would you like me to keep track of how often he visits?”
“Yes. And of anyone else Kazanci Dogan meets with outside of the Janissaries.”
Lazar put a fist to his chest, then left.
Radu walked back to the palace, deep in thought. Halil had strings of his web everywhere. Viziers, pashas, beys, both major branches of the military, with the native spahi leaders and their regional forces, and the Janissaries with Kazanci Dogan. And at the center, fat and lethal, sat the spider Halil Pasha.
If they killed him, as Huma wanted, the web would remain. All these lines of power, tugged together, aligned against Mehmed. And who knew if another, more dangerous spider, would take Halil Pasha’s place?
No. Huma was wrong. First, they needed to destroy the web. Then the spider would be powerless.
LADA AND NICOLAE LAY on their stomachs, peering over the ledge at the city laid out beneath them. Wood homes stretched above the river, jostling for space as they lined its banks, growing straight up from the water. Amasya was a fairly recent addition to the Ottoman Empire, its long, storied history evident in the Roman tombs casting shade on Lada’s legs. The last time she was up here, she had been with Mehmed and Radu, staring up at the sky and dreaming of stars.
Now, she looked down and plotted flames.
“We could use the river,” Nicolae mused, speaking Wallachian as required by Lada. “Travel down it by boat in the middle of the night, setting fire to the homes. That would keep the locals busy, and many of the soldiers.”
“Who is in charge of the spahi forces here?”
Behind her Petru, a young Wallachian only recently released from training, spat in derision. “Spahi! Lazy, fat pigs. Why should we worry about them?”
Lada had picked him because he had been pulled from Wallachia at a relatively late age—he was already fourteen by the time he came to the Ottomans. But he was arrogant and thickheaded, with a mean streak that reminded her of her older brother Mircea. Sometimes it made her like him more.
Most of the time it made her want to pitch him off the cliffs.
“And who told you the spahis were lazy, fat pigs? Have you fought them?”
“Why would I fight them? We are on the same side.”
Lada and Nicolae shared a glance. Perhaps Petru would need to be released from her regiment. “Are the spahis forbidden from growing beards?”
Petru scoffed. “No.”
“And yet you are permitted only a mustache.”
“If he can ever manage that,” said Matei, a wiry man with a perpetually hungry look whom Lada had recruited from his corps in Edirne. Petru threw a rock at him. All together Lada had ten men, varying in age from eighteen to mid-twenties. There were few Wallachians to choose from, the Ottomans preferring other nationalities as making smarter and better soldiers.
Fools. Lada squinted, looking for which houses could be blown up with the stores of Janissary gunpowder to most effectively block the roads to the keep. “And are the spahis forbidden to marry and have children?”
“No.”
“Another thing our Petru could never manage,” Nicolae said cheerfully.
Lada waited for the laughter to die down. “And are the spahis slaves, stolen from their homelands and brought here to serve another man’s master and another man’s god?”
She was met with silence. “The spahis resent our growing power. They resent our organization, our skill in battle, our position closest to the sultan and the sultan’s heirs. Do not ever think you are on their side, because they are not on yours. They fight to gain land, prestige, and wealth. We fight because it is the only thing given to us.”
She waited for a few moments, then continued. “Who organizes a city’s defenses?”
“The spahi in charge.” Petru sounded focused as he crawled next to her to look over the city.
Lada traced the line of the river as though it were a serpent. “Cut off the head in your first strike, and the b
ody is powerless before you.”
Matei continued sharpening a dagger on a whetstone where he sat on a fallen tomb marker. “Much as I would enjoy cutting off the heads of a few spahis, I am not certain I have time to set fire to the city tonight.”
“Planning imaginary destruction is my favorite training game, though.” Nicolae stretched long, rolling onto his back. “It is so very restful.”
Lada pushed herself up, dusting off her tunic and adjusting the white cap she now wore. “Is Ilyas Bey on duty?”
Stefan, a quiet man whose face was a cloudless sky—devoid of emotion and impossible to read—nodded. He spoke little, but Lada had found he had a mind like an ant colony, constantly bringing in bits of information to feed itself.
She nodded in return. “Good. Time to assassinate Mehmed.”
Nicolae groaned. “That is so much less restful.” But the other men were already packing up, anticipation lighting their faces. As they wound their way down the mountainside toward the fortress, they made their plans. Stefan ran ahead to spy whether Mehmed was outside or inside. He could usually determine it solely by the presence of guards in certain areas.
If Mehmed was outside, they would launch a sneak assault over the wall, firing arrows as fast as possible. If he was inside, Matei and three others would get as close as possible, hoping no one noticed that they were not on duty, while Nicolae scouted for Mehmed’s location and signaled from a turret where he was. That would leave Lada, Petru, and four other soldiers light and strong enough to climb the outer walls of the fortress.
They needed only one person to get close enough. One shot, one dagger, one chance was all it would take to kill the heir.
Stefan met them at a gnarled pine that grew sideways out of the rocks. Lada always chose this as the meeting spot, though it made her heart hurt with long-distant and time-poisoned memories of happiness.
Stefan’s face was, as always, unreadable. But there was something defensive in his stance that put Lada’s teeth on edge. She knew what he would say before he spoke, and she also knew that he knew it would upset her, which was almost as bad.
“Janissary presence at the gates to the harem, two eunuchs on duty at the doors.”
Her men let out a collective breath, whether in relief or frustration she did not know. Nicolae’s voice was deliberately bright. “Well, that signals the end of today’s game. We cannot very well launch an assault on the harem.”
“And why not?” Lada’s jaw ached. She focused on that concrete, specific pain. Since she began training her men, she had seen little of Mehmed. And, when he did see her, it was always dark corners, stolen kisses, desperate hands.
“Because…,” Nicolae said, dangling the word on a line as though he hoped Lada were a fish that would swallow it and prevent him from having to explain. She did not bite. “Because,” he said, sighing, “the walls are too high, the windows too barred, the doors too guarded. We have strategized this before, Lada, and the conclusion is always wait until he leaves. We cannot get in.”
“You cannot get in,” Lada said. “Stefan, did you recognize the guards on duty?”
He shook his head.
“Good. Then they will not recognize you. I need skirts, an entari, and a veil.”
Petru’s mouth hung open, making him look like the fish Nicolae had hoped to catch. “Skirts? But why?”
Lada motioned for them to follow. “Because a tremendous amount of weaponry can be hidden in skirts, and because Stefan is about to drop off a gift from the sultan.”
Nicolae caught up to her as she made her way swiftly toward the outer building she had been given for her garrison. It was another impediment to Mehmed meeting her—she lived in the makeshift barracks with her men. She was never alone. Because if she was alone, then there was no barrier, no impediment, nothing stopping them from…
He was in the harem.
“Lada,” Nicolae’s voice was low enough that the others could not hear him. “Is this really a good idea? I think we should wait. We can catch him coming out. We have plans for that.”
“And they are good plans, which mean they are obvious plans, which means Ilyas may have already anticipated them. This is a better plan.”
He grabbed her arm. “Lada, stop.”
She wheeled on him, fury blazing, making her feel taller and stronger. “Do not tell me what to do.”
He lifted his hands in the air. “I merely wonder if the harem is the best place for you to be.”
The concern in his expression made her want to tear out her hair. And then strangle him with it. She sneered, “Do you think I do not know what happens in there? Are you worried for my tender sensibilities?”
“No! I would never think any of you tender, I promise.” He grinned, scar puckering. “But I wonder about…your reputation. Women who go into the harem do not come out. It is a permanent position.”
She batted the suggestion out of the air with a wave of her hand. She knew he was trying to say something bigger, and she would not acknowledge it. “I am not going in as a woman. I am going in as an assassin. So we have nothing to fear.”
A few minutes later she was covered from head to toe in leftover finery from Mehmed’s wedding. She had never worn half the clothes prepared for her, but an industrious servant packed them all to be sent back with her. Other than the wrinkled garments that would have had any maidservant beaten, she looked like a woman. And, veiled, she looked nothing like herself.
It was decided that only Stefan should accompany her. Any more guards would look suspicious. So, without fanfare, he brought Lada to the gate of the harem and handed her to the closest eunuch.
“A gift from Mehmed’s mother,” he said.
The eunuch nodded, uninterested, and led Lada straight past the two Janissary guards and into the harem.
She jumped in spite of herself as the door clanged shut. It sounded so formal, so final. Her heart was racing and her breathing shallow and unmeasured as she followed the eunuch down several twisting hallways, trying to memorize them. Everything was bright and clean. Elaborately patterned and gleaming tile beckoned them farther inside.
The eunuch opened a door to a small waiting chamber. “Someone will be with you within the hour to determine your placement and get you situated.” He left her there without another word, closing the door behind him.
He did not lock it.
Not that it would have mattered if he had, but the principle of it made Lada burn with rage. It was only about the door, she told herself. About the eunuch’s utter inability to see a woman as a potential threat.
She took out one of her daggers and stabbed it into the sofa. Tugging it along the length of the sofa, she created a jagged gash. Then she sheathed her dagger and fixed her veil. She stepped out into the hallway. She was perfectly capable of carrying out this mission without letting the fact that she was inside Mehmed’s harem distract her.
Her only guess was to go farther in, so she picked up a large vase with a fragrant bouquet, holding it carefully in front of herself as though she had a purpose. Carrying a bunch of flowers around seemed like a rational occupation in this gilded birdcage.
After passing several closed doors and turning down three separate hallways, Lada was hit with a wave of despair. Mehmed would probably finish with his business here and leave before she ever found him, and then what would she tell her men?
The sound of a baby crying tugged at her ears. She swerved, following the shrill donkey-like braying until she came to a room with its carved wooden doors thrown open.
She slipped inside and immediately moved to the left, where a delicately painted screen stood in front of a large, open window. She managed to slide between the screen and the wall, the sound of her movements masked by the screaming infant.
Mehmed’s laugh rang through the room, falling on Lada’s shoulders like a blow.
“Am I holding him wrong? He does not like me.”
“Of course he likes you!” The woman’s voice was sticky sweet
. Lada could feel it settling in her ears and knew that no amount of scrubbing would rid her of its residue. “He is strong, see?”
“My little Beyazit. Be strong while I am gone. I will be back soon.”
Mehmed’s words effused tenderness, and Lada wished for any other scenario. She had thought the worst that would happen would be finding him with another woman, but this…
She did not know how to be angry over this.
But still she managed.
“How long will you be gone?” the woman asked.
“However long it takes to defeat Skanderberg. Will you need anything?”
“No, no, we are very well taken care of. Be safe.”
“Goodbye, my boy!”
Lada noted with some mean satisfaction that Mehmed’s tone speaking to his concubine was the same he used when addressing any servant. But he clearly felt something for the child. And the concubine had given him that.
The baby’s cries left the room. Lada heard someone stand. She stepped out from behind the screen, still holding the vase.
Mehmed barely glanced at her as he walked straight for the doorway. She threw the vase to the right of his head. He ducked as it shattered against the wall, water and flowers scattered among the sharp shards of glazed pottery.
He looked at her, face red with fury. “What in the name of—”
She ripped off her veil. For a moment his anger stayed frozen in place, then dissolved into a smile. He laughed, shaking his head. “What are you doing here, Lada?”
She closed the door. Hope lit his eyes, and he moved forward.
She twisted out of his reach. “I could have killed you.”
“By all means, kill me.” His smile was anything but concerned as he reached for her. It had been days since they had stolen a private moment.