She spoke in Wallachian, voice calm and unconcerned about her armed escort to what was likely her death. “Halil Pasha is the reason I am a prisoner here. I will not let him take any more of my freedom. I cannot accept that a political marriage is my fate. It would mean I was set aside and forgotten, and I would rather die than be forgotten.”
“I would never let that happen,” Radu said, but he did not know if he meant he would never let her die, or he would never let her be forgotten.
He wished he had more options than those two.
“We have orders to take her to the south wing,” one of the Janissaries said. “You can come along if you would like.”
Radu snapped his attention back to the soldiers, giving them a smile as brilliant as the summer sunshine. He walked next to them, asking what region they were from, getting them to talk to him. Very soon he knew their names, their various duties, and what they hoped to eat for supper that night. Their hands never drifted toward the swords at their side, and his chatter remained light, friendly, focused on keeping them calm so they would not provoke his sister into doing another stupid thing.
Lada walked behind them, thankfully silent.
The soldiers instructed them to wait on a gilded bench outside two massive copper doors. Then they left.
Radu sank onto the bench, wiping his hands over his eyes in relief. “If they are leaving us here, you might live after all.”
“How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Make people talk to you. Is it because you are a boy?”
Radu knew she envied him his ability to persuade people to trust him. She looked sharp, contrary, and sly. Hers was the face of a fox raiding the livestock. Radu’s was the face of an angel. But it hurt Radu that she thought it was a trick. Did anyone ever truly like him, or was she right? Did his face and tongue merely fool them into thinking they did?
Radu gazed at the gilded ceiling in exasperation. “People respond to kindness, Lada. They trust a smile more than a promise that you will leave them choking on their own blood.”
Lada snorted. “Yes, but my promise is more sincere than your smiles.”
She was right, of course. It had been a lifetime since his smile felt like anything more than a desperate and false ploy. He sniffed, trying to keep the mood light, keep his sister calm. “But no one knows that.”
“Someday they will, Radu. Someday they will.”
They both startled as the door beside them opened. The gaunt man swept into the hall, his robes a bland brown, oddly austere for the court. Even his turban looked functional rather than ornate. He considered them both with a penetrating stare magnified by his spectacles. Radu had never seen any like them. The glass pieces were perfectly cut and polished, balanced on the bridge of the man’s nose by a thin length of metal that connected the two pieces and fitted to his face.
“You may go in,” he said, gesturing to the door behind him, then leaving.
Radu and Lada entered. These apartments were to their sparsely furnished rooms what Edirne was to Tirgoviste. The ceiling soared overhead, painted in bold, clear blues with gold script swirling around the edges. Chandeliers hung down, glowing even during the day. The windows, taller than Radu, were peaked at the top and framed by scrolling metal lattices. Silk in blues, reds, and purples—the colors of wealth—draped everything. The floor beneath them shined so clearly that Radu could see his face in it. A fountain of water bubbled in the middle of the room, and the walls were lined with low cushioned benches. Sitting near the fountain on one of a dozen lush pillows was the boy.
He clapped delightedly and stood. “Here you are!”
“Where are we?” Lada asked.
“In my chambers!”
“And who are you, to earn such esteem from the devil?”
Radu elbowed her. The boy’s smile turned wicked. “Why, I am the son of the devil himself. Mehmed the Second, son of Murad.”
“God’s wounds,” Radu gasped, clutching at his stomach. He swept into a deep bow. He had hoped to see the boy again, had thought of him often since their meeting, imagining what friends they would be. And now this. Lada had threatened him, had insulted his father, and would doubtless continue to do both. Radu’s fear was replaced with weary resignation. Lada would be the death of him, and that death would be swift and soon.
“I had you brought here.” Mehmed waved an arm dismissively. Radu peered up through his lashes, where he could see another massive room behind this one and several doors.
“Yes, congratulations,” Lada said. She had not moved since finding out they were in the chambers of the sultan’s son. There was no indication of respect, no deference in her wide-legged stance. “But why are we here?”
“Because I hate Halil Pasha, and I hate my cousin.”
Lada shook her head in exasperation. “And who is your cousin?”
Radu flinched at her tone. He straightened. No point in continuing to bow if Lada was going to get them both killed.
“Why, your beloved, of course! The man whose tongue you are going to cut out and devour.” Mehmed collapsed back onto a velvet pillow as large as a horse, overcome with laughter. “I thought he would piss himself, he was so humiliated! By a girl! Oh, he is a loathsome, foul man. I have never been so delighted as I was today.”
“I thought Lada would be punished.” Radu took a hopeful step forward.
Mehmed shook his head, putting his feet up on another pillow. “No. I requested that she—and you, too, I suppose—be brought to me. I am being sent back to Amasya to govern. I suspect it is more to get me away from here, because my father has no use for me, and my mentor, Molla Gurani—he is the one who sent you in—does not get along with Halil Pasha.”
Lada tapped her foot impatiently. Radu pinched her, and she slapped his hand away.
Mehmed snapped his fingers. “Yes! The reason you are here. I have requested that you come with me to Amasya as my companions.”
Lada sat on a pillow nearest the door and sighed. “So I am being punished.”
“She does not mean that!” Radu glared at her, then looked at Mehmed, trying not to betray himself with the obviousness of the hope writing itself all over his face. Away from here! Away from the tutors and the head gardener! And with Mehmed, the boy from the garden, who maybe would be his friend, after all. He wanted to know Mehmed with a painful, yearning desperation. Even now, aware of who he actually was.
Mehmed smiled. “I think she does mean it. But I do not mind. I find your sister very amusing.”
Radu sat on a pillow near Mehmed, back straight and hands folded carefully in front of him. “Tread carefully, in that case. She very much hates to amuse.”
Lada threw a pillow at Radu’s head with vicious accuracy. Mehmed watched it all, his face a picture of joy. Radu did not know what to make of this new development, but he dared to nurture that seed of hope sprouting inside him. The smile that met Mehmed’s did not, for once, feel false.
Amasya, Ottoman Empire
ANOTHER CITY, ANOTHER TUTOR. Lada’s life seemed an endless parade of droning men pushing information between her ears. It could be worse, though. It could be an endless parade of droning women. Halima painting the world in cheerful tones while Mara loomed over her, insisting she accept her fate. Embroidery in place of history, courtliness in place of languages. But at least if she was learning embroidery with Halima, she would have needles to stab out Molla Gurani’s eyes.
Molla Gurani, Mehmed’s lifeless teacher, either did not realize or did not care that Lada spent much of her time idly dreaming of smashing his spectacles into his face. She suspected that if he did know, it would not change his expression one bit. He was a man without passions. This meant he did not beat Lada for disobedience. Thankfully, he also did not beat Radu on her behalf. Her relief was tempered by the knowledge that they would find something else to hurt her with. They always did.
During their first lesson, as Radu had feverishly scrambled to keep up and Mehmed had recited whole sections o
f the Koran, Lada spoke only in Wallachian. Molla Gurani had merely gazed at her, impassive behind those hated lenses, and informed her that his sole duty was to educate Mehmed.
And, he had added in a disinterested tone, I do not think women capable of much learning. It is to do with the shape of their heads.
Lada excelled after that. She memorized more sections of the Koran than either of the boys, and intoned them in a mocking imitation of Molla Gurani. She completed every theorem and practice of mathematic and algebraic problems. She knew the history of the Ottoman state and Mehmed’s line of descent as well as Mehmed himself. Mehmed was nearly thirteen, born between Lada and Radu. He was a third son, his mother a slave concubine, and his father favored the eldest two sons, which subjected Mehmed to gossip and shame. It was dreary knowledge, and Lada worked hard not to relate to or pity Mehmed.
But above all, more than any other subject, she devoured lessons on past battles, historical alliances, and border disputes.
For a while she had feared that Molla Gurani had meant to trick her into studiousness with his challenge, but he remained as impassive as ever, showing no pleasure in her attentiveness, never rising to her baiting. It did, however, greatly chagrin Mehmed whenever she surpassed him. That became her new goal.
Every day she waited for a beating, for some new horror to be visited on her and Radu, for the real reason they had been brought to Amasya to be revealed. The suspense made her quiet and sullen. Radu, meanwhile, gained back some of the weight he had lost. Lada no longer heard him crying at night. She hated seeing him grow comfortable. It would make whatever lesson was coming for them that much worse.
After all, Mehmed was the son of Murad. He was not their friend. He was their captor.
After their main studies, Molla Gurani always spoke with Mehmed about nothing but the Prophet and the destiny of the Ottomans to overthrow Byzantium and Constantinople once and for all. Lada soured at the notion that a mysterious god hovered above everyone, singling out a sultan to spread the Muslim religion to the world. She had never seen such a god, nor any evidence of him. The Ottomans were successful because they were organized, because they were wealthy, and because they were many.
Most afternoons, tired of studying and drained from being constantly on guard against whatever new devilry the sultan had planned for them, Lada wandered away, leaving Radu to nod and agree and fetch things like a puppy for his masters. Amasya was no Wallachia, but it was closer to it than Edirne had been. The city was built into the rocky hills, with a ponderous green river curving lazily along its base. Many of the buildings, including the keep where Lada and Radu stayed, were built into the side of the mountain itself. Behind the keep, growing up the hill in tangled, dense orchards, were apple trees.
Lada amused herself by lying on her back, throwing a knife straight up to try to snag an apple. Sometimes she did. Sometimes the knife came back down and nearly stabbed her. She was equally entertained by both outcomes. The mere fact that she was allowed to have a knife again was evidence of how invisible, how unimportant she had become.
Even the crispest apples tasted mealy and bitter to her in Amasya.
The orchard was where she lay one day in early autumn, as the light turned low and golden, so heavy around her she imagined she could taste it. It would taste nothing like the apples of her captivity. It would taste like home. Home.
She lifted the pouch around her neck free of her top, pressed it to her nose, and pretended she could still smell the evergreen sprig and the flower, now so old and dry it had crumbled to almost nothing. She had moved them to the pouch the night they fled Wallachia, and carried it with her ever since.
A couple of Janissaries passed nearby, unaware of her presence. They were joking, and though they talked in Turkish, one of them still carried the shape of Wallachian vowels on his tongue. Lada got up, then darted from tree to tree, following the soldiers to their barracks, a cluster of low stone buildings grouped around a dirt courtyard. Harsh laughter accompanied the ring of swords clashing. Lada peered from behind a wall, watching.
She was grabbed roughly by the shoulders and pushed forward into the open. “A spy!” called out an uneven voice, still clinging to the last remnants of youth. “Or a thief!”
To Lada’s horror, at least a dozen Janissaries turned to see what the matter was. Open curiosity on their faces, they formed a loose semicircle around her.
“That is no spy,” said a short, barrel-chested boy with a single thick eyebrow over both eyes. “The little zealot keeps her as a concubine.”
“Not very pretty for a whore.” The soldier behind her tugged on a strand of her hair. She ducked under his arm, grabbing his wrist and twisting it behind his back to pin him. It was a trick she had learned under the harsh tutelage of Mircea and perfected by practicing on Bogdan and Radu. The soldier shouted angrily and tried to pull away, so she twisted harder, pushing up against the joint. He yelped in pain.
“You are prettier than I.” She put more pressure on his arm. “Perhaps you could offer yourself as whore instead.”
“Help me!” he gasped. Lada looked up, defiance in her set jaw, to find the other Janissaries grinning in delight. The single-browed soldier, who could not have been more than eighteen or nineteen, laughed and walked forward, patting his trapped comrade on the head condescendingly.
“Poor Ivan. Is the little girl picking on you?” He wrapped his arm around Ivan’s neck. Lada released him, and the other soldier twisted, taking Ivan to the ground and sitting on his back. Ivan kicked out angrily, but to no avail.
“You have met Ivan. I am Nicolae. And you are Wallachian!”
Lada nodded, realizing it had been Nicolae’s voice she had heard her home’s tones in. “Ladislav Dragwlya.”
Lada felt a pang at saying her name out loud. They had not been allowed to write their father, nor had they received any letters from him. She did not know if he knew where they were, that they had left Edirne.
She did not know if he would care.
Radu still worried about their nurse. She had lost her son and now her charges to this wretched empire. Lada wondered if she had found other work. She hoped so. She did not bother hoping that her father would think to take care of the woman who had raised his children. But she never said these things to Radu. It would do him no good to dwell on their nurse.
And Lada did not like the discomfort of remembering the woman who had always been so kind to her for so little thanks. If she ever got back to Wallachia, she would remedy that.
“The daughter of the Dragon?” Nicolae laughed, but it sounded good-natured, rather than mocking. “No wonder poor Ivan was no match for you. What brings you here, little dragon?”
“Not whoring.” She kicked Ivan’s prone backside.
“I would be terrified to take a dragon into my bed. Even the little zealot must feel the same.”
“Molla Gurani is your zealot? I think he is made of parchment, not flesh.”
Nicolae laughed, shaking his head. “No, ‘the little zealot’ is our name for Mehmed.” The other soldiers nodded, giving each other wry smiles.
Though she knew from experience that Janissaries were far from decorous, she was surprised to hear such open mockery of the son of their sultan. She tucked it away as information she hoped to be able to use someday. “I am here with my brother. We are Mehmed’s companions, studying with him.”
“You must be dreadfully bored, then. Come on.” Nicolae stood up, dragging Ivan along with him. “You can watch me teach Ivan to respect scholars.”
As another infinite afternoon dragged on, Lada stared out the window, straining for a breeze to cool her skin. Mehmed rarely interacted with her now except to glare when she bested him in their studies. She often caught him staring intently at her, as though willing her to accomplish some mysterious task. She always met his gaze with her own unflinching one.
Radu followed Mehmed like a lapdog. Even now he sat on the floor by Mehmed’s feet, poring over the same texts Mehmed ha
d studied a hundred times.
“You see, there.” Mehmed pointed at a passage. “The Prophet, peace be upon him, speaks of the man who will conquer Constantinople and what a wonderful leader he will be.” Mehmed’s eyes went faraway and soft.
“But there have been attempts,” Radu said.
“Yes. Even my father tried. But now he is tired from fighting his brothers’ challenges to the throne, from spending his reign merely maintaining what we already have. He loves to talk and philosophize, but he fails to see the calling of duty his faith has given him. My elder brothers might answer the call, but they are less than devout. The Prophet, peace be upon him, mandated that we should not have a state but an empire. We should be so much greater than we are, and my father refuses to—”
Lada let the door slam behind her. She was quivering with rage from listening to them talk yet again about the glories of the Ottomans, and their destiny to spread across the world. The Ottomans had already seeped like a poison into her own world, pulling her away from everything she loved. How much farther would they go? She stormed through the keep and into the small armory. It was abandoned, the barracks holding most of the actual weapons, but there were a few items left that she made free use of.
“Are you well?”
She spun, surprised to find Mehmed standing in the doorway. “What are you doing here?”
“You seemed unhappy when you left.”
Lada laughed, as bitter as the skin of the Amasya apples. “I seem unhappy? Pardon me if I do not delight in listening to you extol the virtues of your glorious empire and what a favor you will be doing to spread it by the sword.”
Mehmed’s narrow eyebrows, finely shaped like his father’s, drew low over his eyes. “You have seen my country. Where are the poor, suffering, and starving in the streets? Where is the crime? Radu told me that you cannot go into the streets of Tirgoviste at night for fear of thieves and murderers. Yet one can walk in Edirne without assault.”
“Yes, but—”
“And our roads are safe for trade, which means our people have what they need to buy and sell, to live on what they have been given. They are free from hunger and poverty.”