Mehmed’s smile chilled even Radu. “Yes. Payment. We would say a great deal is owed Constantinople. Very soon every debt will be erased.”
A silence as thick as blood had descended on the room.
Mehmed laughed, suddenly the bright, happy young sultan again. He clapped his hands. “A party! Tonight. You can show us how they dance in Constantinople. We will make you all dance.”
Mehmed leaned toward Kumal, engaging him in conversation and effectively ignoring the ambassadors. They stayed where they were, shuffling their feet or clearing their throats. Mehmed had not dismissed them, so they could not leave. Radu could not see their faces from where he stood, but he did not imagine they looked happy.
Then one, the nearest to him, turned. It was the ambassador with the gray eyes who had delivered a gift—a book—to Mehmed upon his coronation. Radu was surprised at how easily he recognized the young man after more than a year. And it appeared the ambassador recognized him as well. His eyebrows lifted in shock, and then he smiled grimly, shrugging his shoulders toward the throne.
Radu answered with a similar smile.
To Radu’s surprise, the ambassador took it as an invitation. He left his companions and made his way to Radu’s side.
“You stood next to the sultan before,” the ambassador said without preamble.
“Things change.”
“They do. I am Cyprian.”
“Radu.”
Cyprian clasped Radu’s hand, holding on for a few seconds more than seemed necessary. Radu was always deeply aware of touching, nervous to do anything out of the ordinary. As though someone might figure out he was not normal by the way he lingered in a hug, or drew too close while standing. Cyprian did not seem to have this same worry. He leaned in close, his unusual eyes piercing Radu. They were the color of the sea on a stormy day, and had a similar effect on Radu as that of stepping onto a boat. The floor swam beneath him for a moment, until Cyprian looked away.
“Tell me, is there somewhere we could get a meal outside the palace?” the ambassador asked. “It is far colder here than I remembered.”
It was, in fact, quite warm in the room in spite of the season. But Radu did not think Cyprian referred to the temperature.
“I am sorry.” Radu found to his surprise that he actually was. “We have a party to prepare for.”
“I will find you there, then.” Bowing his head, Cyprian smiled, his eyes crinkling until they nearly disappeared. Radu thought Mehmed’s smile the best in the world, but he could not deny that something about Cyprian’s transformed his whole face in a way that made Radu feel some hope for the first time in days.
As Radu was changing for the party, a knock came at his door.
Opening it, he was shocked to find Mehmed standing there. Exactly as he had hoped and dreamed. “Mehm— My sultan?” Radu bowed low.
“Stay here,” Mehmed said to the Janissary guards who always accompanied him. He brushed past Radu and waited for him to close the door.
Radu’s heart raced, so loudly that he again wondered if Mehmed could hear it. “What is it?”
Mehmed paced the small length of Radu’s receiving room. His hands were clasped behind his back, his brows drawn tight. “I have an idea.”
“Oh?” Radu watched him. His presence filled the room. Mehmed did not talk further. Radu needed him to talk, needed to keep him here. “I have good news! Urbana said we can test the Basilica tomorrow. I wonder if we should make a demonstration of it. We could even invite the ambassadors. Let them run back with tales of your astonishing artillery.”
Mehmed’s gaze was on the floor, and though he nodded, he did not seem to have really heard Radu. “I sent forces into the Peloponnese today. They will keep the emperor’s brothers from going to his aid in Constantinople. As soon as our troops set up a line there, we have effectively declared war. But I think I will do it sooner.”
Radu wished there was enough room to pace by Mehmed’s side. He would burst if he had to remain by the door. “The cannon demonstration would be the perfect moment!” He could see it playing out. Everyone lining up, watching. The shock and awe of the court. The fear of the ambassadors. Mehmed looking at him with secret, joyful pride. And it was all Radu’s doing. Without him, no one would have helped Urbana. The cannon was his project alone. Radu’s triumph would be used to declare war, and they could finally end this pretense at distance.
Mehmed stopped. He narrowed his eyes at Radu, expression unreadable. “I saw that ambassador seeking you out.”
“I— What?”
“The young one. He sought you out the first moment he could. Why?”
Radu scrambled to adjust the trajectory of his thoughts. “I do not know, actually. He wanted to take a meal together.”
“Was that all he said?”
“He remarked on the difference in my post from last time, when I stood at your side.”
Mehmed smiled. It had none of the warmth of Cyprian’s smile. “That was what I had hoped. Radu, I need you to do something. Something I can trust no one else to do. Something only you can do for me. For the empire. For the cause of our God.”
Radu’s heart beat even faster. Something only he could do for Mehmed. “Yes. Anything. You know I would do anything.”
“At the party, seek out the ambassador. Tell him you want to leave me. Tell him you want to aid Constantine with your knowledge of my plans. Tell him you wish to be a traitor.”
Radu could not process what was being asked. “But…then I will be in the city. How will I get back in time to join you?”
“You will be more valuable to me behind the walls than any man on my side of them.”
Radu could not pick which path of thought to follow. Happiness that he would be the most valuable man in the world to Mehmed? Fear of what he was being asked to do? Or disappointment that after all his planning and work, he would not stand with Mehmed at the wall?
“How will I convince them? And if I do, what do you want me to tell Constantine?”
“Tell him anything you wish. In fact, tell him the truth. Tell him I am better prepared than anyone who has led forces against the wall. Tell him of my navy, my cannons, my legions of men. Tell him Constantinople will fall. Or, tell him that he has hope still. Either way, give him verifiable information and tell him you wish to fight at his side against the people who kidnapped you and stole your childhood.”
“But I do not think that!”
Mehmed put his hands on Radu’s shoulders, steadying him, forcing Radu to meet his eyes. “I know. But he does not. You will be my eyes and hands behind the wall.”
“I wanted to be with you.” Radu heard the longing in his own voice, but could not hide it. The idea of another separation—for a length of time no one could predict—was as cruel as a knife in his chest.
“I need you elsewhere. Do you think you can do it?”
Radu nodded, his head bobbing almost of its own volition.
“The ambassador will trust you. He seemed to…like you.”
Radu came back to himself sharply. He searched Mehmed’s face for a hint that there was something behind his words. Mehmed leaned closer, so close Radu could feel the other man’s breath on his own lips. “Do not forget where your loyalties lie. Promise me.”
It would be only a matter of leaning in to kiss. Radu managed to whisper, “I could never forget.”
“Good.” Mehmed pressed his lips against Radu’s forehead. Radu closed his eyes and resisted tipping his face up. Mehmed’s lips were so close to his own. Would it be so bad? Would Mehmed resist, be surprised? Or would he answer with his own lips in a way Radu never dared allow himself to imagine?
And then Mehmed pulled back. “I know you will accomplish this. Visit the cathedral of the Hagia Sophia for me. I will see you inside the walls of Constantinople.”
“Inside the walls,” Radu echoed hollowly as Mehmed released him and left as quickly as he had come.
IF LADA HAD TO endure this torture, the least her tormentor c
ould do was pretend not to be so happy about it. Her nurse hummed and sang tunelessly as she finally got her way with Lada’s hair.
“I could kill Bogdan for finding you again,” Lada said.
“It was not easy. My boy is cleverer than he looks.” Her nurse paused. “But not by much.”
Lada snickered. Then she cursed as her head was yanked sideways, hair caught on the comb. “If he wanted his mother, that is fine. But I do not understand why you are still pretending to be my nurse.”
“You silly child, Bogdan did not bring me for himself. He had barely greeted me before telling me that you needed someone to take care of you while you ‘saved Wallachia.’ Which he absolutely believes you will do. Ever since you could talk, he has belonged to you. He would do anything for you then, and he will do anything for you now.”
Lada did not have a response to that. She had taken Bogdan’s loyalty for granted as a child. When they found each other again, falling back into the same patterns had been effortless. But she knew now, after Matei, that loyalty was not a given. “I did not ask him to find you.”
“Well, Radu was the one who loved me. But I love you enough for both of us.” The comb caught on another snarl.
“God’s wounds, Nurse, I—” Lada paused, gritting her teeth against the pain. “I cannot keep calling you Nurse. What is your name?”
The nurse paused, her fingers on Lada’s temple. She stroked once, so lightly Lada wondered if it had been intentional. “Oana.”
“Fine. Oana, when will you be finished?”
The nurse—no, Oana—laughed. She had lost most of her teeth in the years since they had parted. Lada had always thought her old, but now she realized Oana must have been a very young woman when she began taking care of her and Radu. In truth, Lada could not believe the woman was still alive. In Lada’s mind, she had ceased existing once they were taken to Edirne. But Oana was strong and sturdy, as capable as ever.
Tonight, Lada both loved and hated her for that.
“It is easier to destroy than to build,” Oana said. “And you have been destroying your looks for a long time now.”
Lada could not enjoy the irony of hearing her nurse’s—Oana’s—favorite phrase used in relation not to the burning of Transylvania, but to the styling of hair.
“What does it matter? I am swearing loyalty to a foreign king as a soldier, not as a girl.”
“These things matter, little one. Now hold still.” Oana smacked the hard wooden edge of the comb against Lada’s temple. Lada was certain it had been intentional.
The tiny room they had been given in the castle at Hunedoara had no fire. The stones themselves seemed to have been carved out of ice. Twice Oana had had to break the frozen top layer of the water bowl. Lada shivered violently, but not as violently as her thoughts were turning under the continued assault of the comb.
Finally satisfied, Oana helped her dress. The replacement king, Ladislas, had gifted her with a dress. Lada knew it would be disrespectful and even dangerous to reject it. Still, it was a good thing the room had no fire. Otherwise the dress would be feeding it.
Lada slapped Oana’s hands away when she tied the underclothes too tight. Oana slapped Lada’s hands away in return. By the end, they were both red-faced and sweating, having fought a more intense battle over getting Lada into the dress than Lada had ever endured.
“I cannot breathe in this damnable thing.” Lada tried to lift her arms, but the sleeves were not made for her broad shoulders or thick arms. She could barely move. Oana had had to let out the waist some, and Lada’s breasts still spilled out from the top of the bodice. Oana tucked extra fabric in there, trying to cover the soft mounds.
“This weighs more than my chain mail.” Lada tugged at the layers of material that made up the skirts, and something stiffer sewn in to keep their shape.
“Think of it as armor.”
Lada’s lip curled in a sneer. “What could this possibly protect me from?”
“Mockery. Ridicule. Your men are used to you, but this is a court. You have to do things a certain way. Do not mess this up.” Oana yanked on one of Lada’s curls as she tucked it back into the elaborate style. A lacy kerchief went over the top of it all.
“Radu should be here.” Lada stared down in despair. “I do not know how to talk to these people.”
“He was always better at that. How did he fare when you left? I worried for him. I thought they would kill you, and break Radu’s heart.” There was a wistful tenderness in Oana’s voice.
Lada took a deep breath. Or tried to—she could not manage it in this abomination of a dress. She and her nurse had not really spoken of Radu since Oana had asked where he was. The truth was as cold and brittle as the ice in her water bowl. “He grew into a new man. Smart. Sly. Too handsome. And, eventually, into a stranger to me.” She had had no word from Radu, no news. She wanted to tell Oana that Radu was coming, but it had been so long. What if he was not? “When I left, he chose the Ottomans. So you were wrong. I survived, and Radu grew a new heart.”
“Did you have nothing in common, then?”
A strangled laugh escaped the prison of her bodice. “Well, one thing.” Lada wondered, yet again, whether her absence had granted Radu the portion of Mehmed’s attention and love that he so desperately craved.
And, yet again, she forced herself not to think on it.
Lada tugged at the bodice, trying to shift it to make it more comfortable. She missed her Ottoman finery. At least those draped layers of tunics and robes were comfortable. “I am going to give the wrong impression, wearing this.”
“You mean a good impression?”
“Yes, exactly.”
Oana surveyed her with a critical eye, then threw her hands up in surrender. “This is the best we can hope for, at least as far as your looks. As far as everything else, tonight, pretend you are Radu.”
A small pang hit just above Lada’s heart. Did Oana wish that it were Radu and not Lada she had been reunited with? Everyone always loved Radu best. And now Radu and Mehmed had each other, and all Lada had was this woman who wielded a comb as a weapon.
Well. Lada could be Radu for one night. She grimaced, then smiled broadly and opened her large eyes as wide as she could. It was her best imitation of him.
Oana recoiled. “That is terrifying, girl. I was wrong. Be yourself.”
Lada let her hooded eyelids drop low. She had never been able to be anyone else.
The castle at Hunedoara was small compared with anything in Edirne, but bigger than Tirgoviste. A moat surrounded it, with a hill on the back side of the castle that dropped off steeply. Lada liked looking out over the wall at the winter landscape stretching into the hazy distance. She pretended she could see Wallachia from there.
But tonight there was no time for that. She left her tiny room and traversed the back tower’s serpentine stairs. For a few terrifying moments she thought the dress would actually be the death of her, but she managed to make it to the bottom. Stefan met her there. He was the only one of her men who spoke Hungarian—though no one else knew it. He would gather information as he always did, snatching pieces and organizing them into a whole for her.
They walked across the open courtyard in the center of the castle, then through a massive wooden door into the throne room. The floor was brightly tiled—though no tile was impressive to Lada here. After Edirne, everything except churches seemed drab. The walls of this castle were whitewashed and hung with elaborate tapestries and gilded, framed paintings of mournful-looking Hungarian royalty.
Lada had gotten used to large, lovely windows during her time in Edirne. She had forgotten that castles elsewhere were not for ornamentation, but rather for defense. To compensate, chandeliers dripped with light, and two fireplaces roared cheerily.
If her room had been freezing, the throne room was stifling. Lada had always thought it weakness when women fainted, but now she understood. It was not their bodies—it was their clothes.
She was not the only thin
g on the schedule for the evening. After interminable droning speeches in Hungarian, it was finally her turn. Kneeling in front of the king was a relief, if only to get off her feet. As she knelt, there were some tittering laughs and shocked whispers. The man who went before her had knelt. What was she expected to do instead? To her horror, she realized there was nothing she could do. In her dress, she could not get up again on her own. Her face burning, she looked up at the king.
Ladislas Posthumous, the painfully young replacement for the previous monarch, trembled. At first Lada had thought him cold or frightened, but the trembling continued unabated. He was stricken with some sort of palsy, his illness showing in his every movement. Lada did not have to be ruthless to see that this was a king who would not last.
Younger than her, physically weaker than her, and still he was more important than her. So she bowed her head and murmured the words. She vowed to protect the Transylvanian frontier—no one objected that she had come directly from terrorizing it—and to keep the borders safe from the Ottoman threat. Finally, she swore her fealty to him and the crown of Hungary.
The crown that was nowhere to be seen. Certainly not on Ladislas’s trembling head.
When Lada had finished, she stayed where she was, utterly humiliated. She could not get up, and she could not ask for help. A hand at her elbow rescued her. Stefan smiled wanly at her as he steadily guided her back to her feet. Hoping her expression hid her relief, she nodded at him as gracefully as she could manage. They walked back to their position at the rear of the room.
After the official business ended, everyone remained. Apparently there was always an informal reception afterward. Lada leaned against a wall for support. Every part of her hurt from being held in an unfamiliar position by her dress. No one spoke to her. She knew she should try to strike up conversations, try to gain allies, but she could not smile. She was gritting her teeth too hard to manage it. She was as likely to kill anyone who talked to her as she was to make a friend.
No. She was far more likely to kill someone than to make a friend.