“If the sultan comes after us.”
“He will come,” Lada said, her voice dark with memories of the last time she had seen Mehmed in person.
The gentleness in Nicolae’s voice was as false as a warm day in February. “Do you think maybe you are provoking him because you want him to come?”
Lada snarled, “Say what you mean, Nicolae.”
“I mean you are going out of your way to antagonize him. Bulgaria was unnecessary.”
Lada dropped her feet to the floor. “They killed my people!”
“In one village. You killed his envoy in response. I think that was more than enough of a message, but you keep stabbing deeper and harder. I am trying to understand why.”
“I do what I do for Wallachia.”
Nicolae smiled ruefully, his face twisting around its old scar. “Do you? Mehmed cares about you. You could leverage that, get him to agree to different terms of vassalage. Lower payments. No boys for his armies. He would do it. You could create the best, most powerful, most stable position for Wallachia in generations.”
“As a vassal state to the Turks!”
“Then so be it!”
Lada burst out of her chair, throwing Nicolae from his own and pinning him to the floor with one forearm pressed against his throat. She bared her teeth, her heavy breaths mingling with his increasingly labored ones. He did not move, did not attempt to push her off.
“I will not be anyone’s vassal,” she hissed. “Wallachia is mine. Mine. Do you understand?”
Nicolae blinked, his dark lashes moving over his brown eyes. Something that had been there longer than his scar, as long as Lada had known him, had disappeared from his gaze. She did not know what it was, had never noticed its presence, only registered it now that it was gone.
“I understand,” Nicolae said, his voice strained.
“Lada?” Daciana asked.
Lada stood and turned her back on Nicolae. Daciana stood in the doorway, hesitantly regarding the scene. She held several bundles in her arms.
“Yes?” Lada demanded.
“Your new clothes. We were going to make certain I cut everything correctly?”
“Very well. You may go, Nicolae. Speak to Bogdan before you leave. He has been scouring the prisons for likely new soldiers.”
She expected Nicolae to argue—he always argued—but he bowed and exited.
Daciana took his place, wordlessly helping Lada disrobe. She was a better seamstress than Oana, whose eyes were not good anymore. So Oana had taken over the kitchens, and Daciana the clothing of Lada. When she had Lada stuck in place while she measured, Daciana finally spoke. “Is there a problem with Nicolae?”
“No.”
“Good. I like him.”
“I did not ask your opinion.”
Daciana made a small noise, looking up at Lada from where she was marking cloth with chalk. The new coat would have a fur collar and cuffs. It was dyed deep red to match Lada’s hat. “Then perhaps you do not want to hear my next opinion, which is that you should be careful not to let Bogdan get you alone any time soon.”
“What do you mean?”
“He is going to ask you to marry him.”
Lada jerked away in surprise, leaving a long trail of chalk along the hem of her would-be tunic. “What?”
“He talks to me sometimes, after church. This last time he looked around and mentioned how nice it would be to be married there. Asked whether I thought a girl would prefer to be married in that one, or the monastery on Snagov Island. And since I know he was not coyly trying to get my attention, I can safely assume he was thinking of the only woman he realizes exists.”
Lada sat, ruining the shape of the unsewn tunic. “Why can none of the men in my life simply do what I ask them to?”
Daciana gathered up the fallen cloth, then gently unwrapped the rest from around Lada. “Have you asked Bogdan not to be in love with you?” Her tone was teasing.
“I cannot understand what possesses him to be in the first place. Or why he would imagine I am ever going to marry him.”
“He is a little boy.” Daciana set the cloth to the side, then pulled out a comb and began working on Lada’s hair. She was much gentler than Oana had ever been. Lada did not mind it so much when Daciana groomed her. “He sees in you what he wants to see. Be kind when he asks you.”
Lada looked up through her heavy lashes at Daciana and raised an eyebrow.
Daciana laughed. “Well, not kind, then. But do try not to be cruel. He is a fragile soul.”
“He is twice your size. I have seen him break necks with his bare hands.”
“Ah, but you will break his heart with yours.”
“I never asked for his heart.”
Daciana finished, stroking her hand through Lada’s hair. “That is the thing with giving your heart. You never wait for someone to ask. You hold it out and hope they want it.”
The door burst open and two small children toddled inside. Stefan followed, a brief flash of surprise disrupting his plain face upon seeing Lada. “I am sorry, I thought you were gone.” He leaned down to scoop up the children, but they squirmed away.
“They want their mother,” Daciana said, laughing. She held out her arms and both ran to her, collapsing against her.
Lada was confused. Given how often she was away from the castle, she did not see Daciana much. And she had not seen Daciana’s baby—named for Lada herself—since she was an infant.
But Lada was absolutely certain there had been only one of them.
“Who is that?” she asked, pointing to the other child.
A furtive look passed between Daciana and Stefan. Lada only caught it because she was so used to Stefan being expressionless. That shared look cut straight through her confusion. Suspicion bled out instead.
“Our son.” Daciana smiled pleasantly, as though such a thing went without saying.
“And where did he come from?”
Daciana pulled her hair free from the little boy’s dimpled fist. “Where all babies come from, of course.”
Lada would not play along. She stood. “Whose child is that?”
Stefan picked up the boy, holding him close. “Mine,” he said. He took the little girl in his other arm and walked out of the room.
Daciana gathered her things, keeping her eyes anywhere but on Lada. “There are a lot of orphans,” she said, shrugging. “We thought our little Lada would like a brother.”
“Hmm.” Lada watched as Daciana fumbled the comb, dropping it on the floor. She picked it up, then dipped her head and hurried from the room. She had not finished her work, which was unlike her.
Daciana had been a wet nurse to a boyar family after she had her own baby. A Danesti boyar family.
Lada had killed all the Danesti boyars. And ordered all their heirs killed as well.
She found Nicolae’s sheet of carefully taken notes and added two of her own at the end.
Watch Nicolae.
Watch Stefan.
10
Constantinople
RADU AND HIS men rode out to the gates of Constantinople, accompanied by Mehmed. Mehmed rode in the center of a ring of guards. His turban gleamed and sparkled in the sun, woven through with pure gold threads. His horse stepped high, a head taller than the rest of the horses, white and gleaming. Mehmed’s purple cloak cascaded behind them. Radu imagined he was a citizen on the side of the road, watching, dazzled. The sultan was certainly everything he should be. Power and glory personified.
They stopped just outside the city, and Mehmed allowed Radu to approach him. “Bring her home.” The quiet urgency in his voice was in contrast to his confident posture.
Radu nodded, but he could not pretend at confidence. Lada was already home. And Radu did not feel at home in Constantinople. But he would get Lada, and he would bring her back. And then …
He did not know where he would go. But his duties to both Mehmed and Lada would be discharged, and he knew what he would do: spend the rest of his days looking for Nazira.
With a hollow pain in his body that was familiar and dull around the edges now, Radu spurred his horse forward. Away from Mehmed.