Radu wilted inside. No easy surrender, then.
Giustiniani continued. “We may be outmatched in artillery, boats, and men—overwhelmingly outmatched in men—but rest assured, Constantinople is still the best-defended city in the world. It will not fall easily. Tell me, Radu: do you think we can outlast Mehmed?”
Radu weighed the truth. Surrender was not on their minds yet. And they were right to make an effort. Even speaking the words felt disloyal, but acknowledging reality would not change it. “If you can draw out the siege long enough, you have a chance. The Ottomans have come against Constantinople before, and they have always failed. They are superstitious; they will see portents of doom in any delay or failed initiative. Mehmed will be fighting time and morale. He is better prepared than anyone who has ever come before, but he is betting his throne and his legacy on this single assault. If you can outlast him, he will never be able to amass the support to make another attempt.”
“So if we do this, the city is safe from him.”
Radu nodded. “I do not doubt that if Mehmed fails at the wall, he will not live long afterward. There are too many powerful men who do not like him.” The thought terrified Radu. Halil Vizier was still with Mehmed, working against him at every possible turn. How could Radu protect Mehmed from here?
Constantine stared blankly at the floor, his expression far away. “All we have to do is outlast him, then.”
It was as simple and as impossible as that.
“WHERE ARE YOU GOING?” Bogdan asked.
Lada whipped around, knives in her hands. Taking a deep breath, she put them away. It was near midnight. She had thought her furtive exit from camp would go unmarked. She should have known Bogdan would mark it, as he did all her movements. He had a way of tracking her, watching her without watching. His childhood loyalty had grown as broad and strong as he had. Usually Lada found comfort in that. But lately it felt far more serious, like he was not only looking for her but also looking for something from her.
She had been deliberately vague about their purpose on the shared border of Hungary, Transylvania, and Wallachia. None of her men had questioned her disobeying Hunyadi’s directive and leaving the Transylvanian passes they were supposed to guard.
Lada did not know how her men would feel about taking up with the Ottomans yet again. Some harbored less ill will toward their onetime captors and benefactors; others hated them. Doubtless some would prefer to fight for Constantinople than at the sides of Ottomans. But she was their leader. They joined her to take back Wallachia, and she did not need permission to make decisions. If they did not like it, they were welcome to make their own way.
Her way was forward, to the throne, however she got there.
“You are supposed to be patrolling on the other end of camp,” she snapped.
Though she could not see his face, she could practically feel Bogdan’s blunt smile. “You did not answer my question.”
“Because I do not have to. I am leaving. I will be back. That is everything you need to know.”
“Something is wrong.”
“Nothing is wrong!” All day she had been on edge, knowing how close Mehmed was. She was not certain of the precise location of his camp, but she knew it was within a few miles of where she stood now. Mehmed was within a few miles, not separated by rivers and countries and the year that had come between them. She thought she had hidden her agitation well, but apparently not.
“I will go with you.”
“No!” Not Bogdan. Anyone but Bogdan. Lada could not face him if he found out what she was doing. Admitting it felt like asking permission, and she refused to do that. Besides, she remembered Bogdan’s thinly veiled distaste for Mehmed. She did not want to bring that along with her. “I must go alone.”
“Why?”
“Get back to your patrol.”
Bogdan stood, unmoving, for five eternally long breaths. Then he walked off into the night.
Lada hurried through the dark, knives back in both hands. She had a lot of ground to cover. It would have been easier on a horse, but that would have drawn even more attention to her departure. Still, after an hour crisscrossing through the terrain, looking for signs of a camp, Lada found herself slowing down. She wished she could enjoy walking alone—solitude was not a luxury she had much of lately—but she knew what awaited her.
Who awaited her.
And she did not know how to feel about seeing him again after so long apart. She had not been able to sort through her feelings, to separate what was real and what was merely a reaction to the circumstances of her childhood. What if she saw Mehmed and felt nothing? Worse, what if she saw Mehmed and felt everything as acutely as she had when they were together? It had been a hard thing, leaving him. Would this reopen the wound?
Before she could settle her emotions, she saw the familiar white cap of a Janissary. It glowed in the moonlight. Annoyance flickered through Lada. They should know better than to wear those white caps at night. If she were an assassin, this sentry would already be dead.
A slow, vicious smile spread across her face. She had planned on walking into the camp and announcing herself. She was not expected tonight—Mehmed had merely said where they would be. There had been no specific time to meet established.
It was a night to play “Kill the Sultan.”
She generously decided not to hurt any sentries. They would probably be punished for their failure to detect her, but they deserved that. The first was easily skirted. The second and third announced their approach with a cacophony of snapping twigs. Closer to camp, the going was more difficult. The tents were packed close, and under cover of trees. Between the trees and the darkness, Lada could not get a sense for how many men Mehmed had brought. It did not seem like enough. He probably had them spread out, though. That was what she would have done.
She pressed into the deeper darkness behind a tent as two Janissaries walked by, talking in quiet voices. She had an odd stirring of something that felt like nostalgia at hearing Turkish again. Scowling, she gripped her knives harder.
Mehmed’s tent might as well have had his name painted on it. It was the largest, made of sumptuous cloth in what she assumed would be red and gold in the sunlight. That was another mistake. If she were in charge, he would be sleeping in one of the small, anonymous tents. Make an assassin look through every tent, rather than boldly advertising the target.
He really did make this too easy.
Lada peered around the edge of a soldier’s tent from which gentle snores emanated. The entrance to Mehmed’s grand tent was manned by two Janissaries, both awake and alert. Lada slipped around to the back of the tent, which was guarded only by her friend darkness.
She darted forward, not hesitating as she stabbed a knife into the tent and dragged it down. With only the barest whisper of material, she had her own private entrance.
Inside, it was dim, a coal brazier in the corner giving only a faint glow. Lada wondered who had to carry the furniture Mehmed traveled with: a desk, a stool, a full table, an assortment of pillows, and a bed. No bedrolls for the sultan, whose body was too precious for the ground.
And whose body was in that bed, breathing softly.
Lada crept forward with her knife raised. And then she stopped, looking down at Mehmed.
She had forgotten the thick sweep of his black lashes. His full lips were turned down at the corners, as though his dreams troubled him. His hair, so often covered by turbans the past few years, was draped on his pillow, one strand lying across his forehead. Lada was filled with a sudden tenderness. She reached out and brushed the hair from his skin.
He awoke with a start, grabbing her wrist. His eyes were wide, body tensed for a fight. Lada leaned closer. She had never seen this ferocity in his face. She wanted to taste it.
Mehmed kept his painful grip on her wrist. “Lada?” he asked, blinking rapidly.
“I have just killed you. Again.”
He pulled her down, meeting her lips with desperate hunger. S
he dropped the knife. She had forgotten what it was to be kissed, to be desired. She had thought she did not need it.
She had been wrong.
Mehmed moved from her lips to her neck, his hands in her hair. “When you left, you took my heart with you. Kill me, Lada,” he said, with so much longing she could not keep her own hands off him. He rolled so she was beneath him. His hands explored her body, alternating between rough greediness and softness so gentle it nearly hurt her.
He put his mouth against her ear. “I have learned some things,” he said, voice teasing, “about pleasure.”
Before she could wonder where he had learned those things—things she had accused him of not caring about aside from his own satisfaction—he moved down her body. Her back arched as his hands slid under her tunic and up her torso. She grabbed his hair, not knowing whether she wanted to pull him away or draw him closer. She feared if he continued, she would lose control. She had never let herself lose control before.
His hands found the space between her legs and she cried out with the shock and intensity of it. He responded with greater eagerness, kissing her stomach, her breasts. He pulled her tunic up higher, and, impatient with his clumsiness, she tugged it off herself. They had done this much before, but absence had made every sensation stronger. This was where she had always stopped him, where she had always drawn the line so that she stayed in charge of what they did. So that she remained hers, and hers alone.
She did not stop him.
He pulled off his own nightshirt. He wore nothing underneath.
He unlaced her trousers and pulled them off. She thought he would try to put himself inside her, and thought—maybe—she wanted him to.
Instead, he lifted her legs and kissed her, and kissed her, and kissed her where she had never imagined being kissed. Lada’s control fled on the wave of pleasure, and she did not miss it. She cried out like a wounded thing, but Mehmed put a hand over her mouth as he shifted on top of her.
She let him.
“HOW MANY ANGELS CAN dance on the head of a pin?” a man shouted, a sneer deforming his pockmarked face.
Another man jabbed his finger into the first man’s chest, screaming something about the Father and the Son. The pockmarked man threw a punch, and then they were wrestling on the muddy street, biting and kicking.
Cyprian did not even pause as he steered Radu around them.
“People here are very…religious?”
Cyprian laughed darkly. “To all our downfall. There she is.” He pointed. With nothing else to do for the day, Radu had asked to see more of the city. He wanted to see the fabled Hagia Sophia cathedral in particular. Mehmed had told him to visit. It had been his only actual instruction. And until Constantine called for him again, there was not much he could do besides wander with his eyes and ears open.
The street led to a courtyard, where the massive cathedral loomed. It was darker than Cyprian’s laugh. Everywhere they had passed churches with bells ringing, a near-constant stream of people going in and out. But the Hagia Sophia, the jewel of Constantinople, the church so magnificent that stories said it had converted the entire population of Russia to Orthodoxy, sat cold and empty in the late-afternoon rain.
“Why is no one here?” Radu asked. They walked up to the gate, and Cyprian pushed experimentally against the door. It was locked.
“We had Mass in Latin here a few weeks ago.”
Radu knew that Orthodox services were conducted in Greek, but he did not follow Cyprian’s meaning.
A dog ran past them, followed by a young boy with bare feet. “Rum Papa!” he shouted. “Stop, Rum Papa! Come back right now!”
“Did that boy call his dog the Roman pope?”
Cyprian rapped his knuckles against the beautiful lacquered wood of the Hagia Sophia door. “Yes. Half the dogs in the city are called that. While my uncle appeals to the pope for help, people curse his name. My uncle pushed for union between the two churches, and even held Mass here to celebrate the official reunion, the ending of the schism between East and West. And now the most beautiful church in Christendom is silent and abandoned because it was tainted by watered wine, Catholic wafers, and worship in Latin.” Cyprian sighed, resting the palm of his hand reverently against the door. “And for all her sacrifice, the Hagia Sophia brought us nothing. The pope sends no aid.” He shook his head. “Come. We can see some relics. That is always fun.”
“You and I have different opinions of fun.”
Cyprian laughed, this time a bright sound at odds with the dreary, wet day. “We take our relics very seriously in this city. They protect us.” He winked.
“Do you really believe that?”
“Does it matter? If the people believe it, then it gives them strength, which gives the city strength, which means the relics worked.”
“That is very circular.”
“We Byzantines love circles. Time, the moon, arguments, and, most of all, coins. All good things are circular.”
They passed another empty section of the city. As they walked, Cyprian cheerfully gave the history of this pillar or that crumbling foundation. The whole city was steeped in heritage, and falling down around them.
They were almost to another church when the ground rumbled beneath their feet. Radu stumbled, and Cyprian caught him. A sliding noise came from above. “Run!” Cyprian shouted, tugging Radu away from the walls of a house next to them. Slate crashed down with shattering force where they had just been standing. The two men dove onto the muddy street.
Radu breathed heavily, his arms tangled up in Cyprian’s. Cyprian’s eyes met his own, black pupils nearly swallowing the gray. Then he shook his head and stood. They brushed as much of the mud from their clothes as they could, but it was a lost cause.
“Thank you,” Radu said. “Your quick instincts saved us both.”
Cyprian smiled shyly, reaching out to flick away some mud on Radu’s shoulder. “Consider it partial payment against the debt I owe you.”
Guilt seeped the color from the world. Radu swallowed, turning away. “Does that happen often? The earth shaking like that?”
“More and more lately. We have also had unseasonable storms, and a miserable winter and a torturous spring. You can imagine how much that boosts the morale of people looking for signs and portents in everything around them.”
They heard someone shouting up ahead. Radu wondered if it was another fight, but the cadence suggested a performance. They made their way toward the voice, crossing a couple of streets until they found a crowd gathered around a man standing on the wall outside a shrine.
“Wretched Romans, how you have been led astray! You have trusted in the power of the Franks, rather than the hope in your God. You have lost the true religion, and our city will be destroyed for your sins!” The man, who wore rough-woven brown robes, lifted his arms to the cloud-laden skies and tipped his head back. “O Lord, be merciful to me. I am pure and innocent of blame for the corruption of this city.” He snapped his head upright to stare down at the crowd and swept a hand over their heads. “Be aware, miserable citizens, of what you have done by betraying your faith in God for the promises of the pope. You have denied the true faith given to you by your fathers. You have accepted the slavery of heresy. In doing so, you have confessed all your sins to God. Woe to you when you are judged!”
Women cried out, beating at their chests. Men held children up, begging for blessings. Vicious, ugly shouts against Constantine, the pope, and all of Italy tore through the air.
Cyprian made a rude gesture, then took Radu’s arm and pulled him away. “That fool hates the pope more than he hates the sultan. He would love nothing more than to see the city burn, welcoming hell with open arms as proof that he was right all along.”
“How can they hate Constantine for doing whatever he must to protect them?”
Cyprian rubbed his face wearily, then looked down at his still-muddy hands. “This is Constantinople. We are more concerned with the purity of our souls than the survival of
our bodies. Come. There is nothing left worth seeing here.”
After they had washed, and eaten dinner with Nazira, Cyprian excused himself to attend to his uncle. Constantine’s main duties seemed to be an endless campaign of letter writing, his weapon the pen, his ammunition empty promises and desperate pleading. Radu wished that Cyprian had invited him to come along.
“Patience,” Nazira reminded him, squeezing his shoulder as he cleaned the dishes. “You will find ways to help. The best thing we can do now is become a part of the city.”
Radu turned to see her wearing clothes in the style of the women in Constantinople: a stiff and structured bodice, with tight sleeves and excessive skirts. He raised his eyebrows. Twirling in a circle, she smirked. “Do you like it? I feel like a flower in the wrong petals.”
“You always look lovely. Are you going somewhere?”
“Oh, yes. I met the wife of one of Emperor Constantine’s advisors today in the market. She felt very sorry for me when I confessed I did not know how to cook with the food here. I am invited to supper with her.”
“But we just had supper—and it was very good.”
Nazira’s smirk grew. “But she does not know that. And at this supper, I will meet all the other wives of important men, and they will gossip about all the mistresses of the important men, and in such a way I will soon have a larger net than you.”
“I did not realize it was a competition.”
Nazira laughed, rising up on her toes to kiss Radu on both cheeks. “It is. It is a competition to see who can find out the most the fastest so that we can go home.”
She said it lightly, but Radu could hear the longing in her voice. Nazira never spoke of Fatima, and he was too ashamed of having separated them to bring her up. But if he missed his aching, one-sided relationship with Mehmed every day, how much more must she miss the woman who loved her back?