Bright We Burn

by Kiersten White

  “Sit up straight,” Oana snapped.

  “I do not want to do this.” Lada gestured weakly toward the table covered with demands for her time and attention.

  “Well, I would help, but I cannot read.”

  “Count yourself fortunate.” Lada sat on the floor next to the table, sweeping a pile of missives onto her lap. “Go find Stefan. I want to speak with him if any of these prove interesting.” Lada began sorting.

  Boyar asking for redress for the loss of life of a relative—tossed in a pile in the corner.

  Boyar asking for a meeting to address the conscription of land for Lada’s own purposes—same pile.

  Letter from her cousin Steven, the king of Moldavia. This, she read carefully. She had never met him, but he had a fierce reputation. He wrote to congratulate her on taking the throne, and to commend her on the reports of order and peace in her country. He said nothing of her mother. It gave Lada a dark thrill of vindictive pleasure. Her mother had talked almost obsessively of his yearly visits. He was one of the highlights of Vasilissa’s sad, solitary life, and she did not so much as register in his own.

  But then the end of the letter soured some of her pleasure. Please take care to avoid antagonizing our neighbors. Let me know when you have new terms with the sultan. I am most curious to hear them.

  Glowering, she threw his letter in with the boyar demands.

  “From Matthias Corvinus,” Stefan said, passing her a slender letter.

  Lada did not know when he had entered the room, but would not give him the pleasure of reacting to his stealth. She was still cross with him for failing to meet her at Nicolae’s estate. “Read it. I do not care to.” She picked up another letter, more nonsense from a wheedling boyar.

  “Matthias wants to meet. He says you have much to discuss.”

  “I have nothing to say to him. We both got what we bargained for. As far as I am concerned, our relationship is over.”

  Stefan held out the letter to her. “We want him as an ally.”

  “ ‘We’? I do not want him as anything.”

  Stefan did not lower his hand or change his impassive expression. Growling in frustration, Lada snatched the letter and set it next to herself, but not in the pile for burning. “Very well.”

  Stefan picked up another letter. “This one is from Mara Brankovic. She is—” He paused, eyes scanning the air as he retrieved one of the thousands of bits of stored information he carried at all times. “The daughter of the Serbian king. Widow of Sultan Murad.”

  Lada opened this letter with more curiosity than she had felt about any so far. Mara’s handwriting was perfect and elegant. There was not so much as an ink spot out of place. Lada read the letter twice to make certain she understood it. “Mara has gone to Constantinople and joined Mehmed’s court as one of his advisors. Have you ever heard of such a thing? She was so eager to escape Edirne, and now she goes back to the empire of her own free will?”

  “I have never heard of a foreign woman advising a sultan.”

  Lada frowned, looking over the words. “It is smart of him, though. She is brilliant. And, as Serbian royalty, she has connections and can deal with Europeans better than he could. She is a perfect choice for soothing relations.” Lada leaned back, tapping the letter against her leg. Mehmed obviously benefited, but Mara was not the type to get into any situation she did not want to. Her marriage to Murad had been forced, but she had made of it what she could. And she had gotten out, to return to her family.

  Ah. There was her motivation. She was still young enough to be enticing for a political marriage. This move and position put her entirely out of her father’s power. She was, for all intents and purposes, free forever now. Clever woman!

  “What does she want from you?” Stefan asked.

  “Hmm?” Lada looked up, stirred from her memories of meals with Mara, during which the older woman advised her how to use society’s demands to create a position of stability. Lada did not care for her methods, but she could not deny that Mara knew what she was doing. “Oh, she asks me to visit Constantinople. She makes it sound like a social call. ‘Come and visit the palace! We will eat, take a walk around the gardens, discuss the ways in which you should let Mehmed and his horrible empire continue to dictate your life!’ I wonder if she thought of this on her own, or if Mehmed asked her to write, thinking our past connection would sway me.” Lada did not know which she preferred to believe: that Mara was trying to manipulate her—she would not doubt it, or be bothered by it—or that Mehmed was trying to get to her through any means possible.

  But if that were the case, surely Radu would have been sent. Or at least written. She had not heard from him since his letter telling her of the fall of Constantinople and his new title of Radu Bey.

  Maybe his absence meant that Radu was finally out of Mehmed’s control. Because Mehmed would never neglect an advantage like Radu—not if he had a choice.

  “We should write my brother,” Lada said, picking up another letter.

  “To ask him to come back and help?”

  “No.” She threw the letter aside without looking at it. “I have learned how to handle the boyars on my own. I do not need him for anything. But he may be a useful source of information about Mehmed.” Lada could accept that as the reason. The other, smaller reason was that she missed him. She had feared for his life in Constantinople, and wondered what had happened to him there. She did not like feeling this way. Radu was the one who missed, who mourned.

  “From the pope,” Stefan said, passing her another letter. “He curses the infidels and calls down destruction from heaven on their empire. And then he urges peace.”

  “He should make up his mind.” Lada tossed the pope’s letter into the pile for burning. “Would that I had a country without borders. Would that I had an island.” She stood and looked at the rest of the letters. Demands and requests, alliances and enemies, the subtleties of politics of a dozen countries and an encroaching empire screaming for her attention.

  She gathered them all and threw them in the fire. The remains of parchment dust and sealing wax were easily wiped away on her breeches. “I am going to the stables. It is a lovely afternoon for a ride.”

  * * *

  Two weeks later, the Turkish ambassadors showed up unannounced and uninvited, complete with a Janissary escort. Lada had her own men line the room for a show of power. They outnumbered the Janissaries three to one. Her men, several of them former Janissaries, looked on coldly.

  Lada lounged on her throne, one leg draped over its arm. She tapped her foot impatiently, bouncing it through the air. She could see in the puzzled looks and shuffling posture of the ambassadors that her lack of decorum made them nervous.

  She smiled.

  “This is Wallachia. Remove your hats out of respect.” Neither the Janissaries in their cylindrical caps with white flaps, nor the ambassadors in their turbans, made any move to follow her order.

  The lead ambassador, an older man with a silver beard and shrewd eyes, raised an eyebrow dismissively. “We bring terms of your vassalage from our sultan, the Hand of God on Earth, Caesar of Rome, Mehmed the Conqueror.”

  Lada tapped her chin thoughtfully. “What a burden, to be the hand of God! Which hand is it, I wonder? God’s right hand, or God’s left? If Mehmed cleaned his ass with the hand that is the hand of God instead of his own hand, would he be struck down for blasphemy?”

  Many of her men in the room laughed raucously, and Lada flushed with pleasure. But Bogdan had his eyes averted. He hated it when she spoke this way about God. It was a good reminder. She had no use for God, but most of her people did, and anything that held faith and belief was a source of power. She had seen what Mehmed had accomplished because of his steadfast faith. She had seen that same faith steal her own brother from her. Faith was power. She knew she should not dismiss anything that gave her power over others. She sat
up straight. “Our god, the true God of Christianity, is without form and thus without hands. We reject your sultan’s title and his authority. You have no purpose here. Leave.”

  “There is something else.” The Janissary captain stepped forward. He was compact and broad, years of training evident in every move. She had almost forgotten how perfect the Janissaries were. It made her uneasy, thinking back on the men she led now. They were nothing compared to these soldiers, who were trained from childhood to be weapons of the sultan. The captain continued, “On our journey here we passed through Bulgaria. It appears there have been some conflicts along your border. Several Wallachian villages were burned.”

  Lada could not believe she was hearing about this now, from an enemy instead of her own people. She hated that he was showing her he had more information than she did. “I have not had reports of this yet.”

  He did not change his expression, which was as sharp and unyielding as steel. “All the Wallachians were dead. It is unfortunate. Most likely due to a misunderstanding. But once your terms of vassalage are secure, Bulgaria will be a powerful ally and such conflicts will cease. The sultan protects his vassals.”

  This man, this Ottoman, thought he could come here and tell her about attacks on her own country—slaughter of her own people—as a method of forcing her to agree to Ottoman rule? As though dead Wallachians somehow argued in favor of allying with those who killed them? And it did not make sense that he would have news of this before her.

  Unless he had come directly from doing it himself. Lada leaned forward, her voice cold. “You killed my people.”

  The Janissary captain flashed a smile that did not touch his eyes. “No. Bulgarians killed your people along a chaotic border. The sultan’s terms eliminate such chaos. A solid treaty, respectfully followed, will protect your people.”

  Lada bared her small white teeth. It was not a smile. “I protect my people. I avenge them, too. And you have nothing to teach me about respect. After all, none of you showed me the respect of removing your hats.” She stood. “Bind them.”

  Her men sprang into action. The Janissary captain and his soldiers put up a fight, but they had not been allowed to bring weapons into the throne room. Everyone was subdued, though not without a struggle and several broken noses.

  The lead ambassador glared murderously at Lada. “You cannot harm us. You do not want to risk what it will bring.”

  “You did not worry about what risk killing my own people would bring.” Lada seethed with rage. They had come into her land. Slaughtered Wallachians under her protection. Unlike letters, such a thing as this could not go unanswered. She would send a message the likes of which would echo through Mehmed’s empire and all of Europe.

  She prowled in a circle around the ambassador, then tugged on the edges of his turban. “I am going to help you. If it was so important to you to leave your heads covered in my presence, so important that it was worth disrespecting a prince, then I will make certain you never have to uncover your heads again.” Lada turned to Bogdan. “Bring me nails and a hammer.”

  Finally, the lead ambassador trembled. Finally, he saw how Lada answered disrespect and the deaths of her own people.

  Lada stood in the corner of the throne room as her men drove nails into the heads of the Ottomans. As always, she made herself watch. It would have been easier to do in private. In some hidden dungeon. But no. She would bear witness to the things that had to be done for Wallachia to be secure. This was her burden, her responsibility.

  Their screams were loud. In a bright, bloody flash, she remembered one of her many childhood trips to watch the sultan’s torturers’ brutal work. The price of stability was always paid with blood and flesh and pain.

  She watched, but as though from a great distance.

  They were not men. They were goals accomplished. They were not men.

  A sudden wave of relief that Radu was not here washed over her. She did not like to imagine the look on his face if he were. She had always tried to protect him because he was her responsibility. Now all of Wallachia was. She would do whatever it took to protect her people.

  The screams stopped. Which was good. She had other things to do.

  “Send them back to their Hand of God,” she said, glancing over the bodies. Some were still alive. It was unfortunate for them but would not last long. “Tell him I will have his respect.”

  She turned to Bogdan, whose hands were slick with blood. His mother, Oana, would be the one to clean it up. Some things never changed. “Send for Nicolae and our forces. We have business to attend to in Bulgaria.”

  Constantinople

  RADU WAS NOT SITTING as far from Mehmed as he had in Edirne, when they had pretended Radu was out of favor. But no one sat next to Mehmed here. He lounged at a table on a dais, at the head of the room and separate from everyone.

  Radu was grateful he had not spent much time in the palace under Constantine, so this room was new to him. Dazzling blue and gold tile covered the walls in floral patterns growing up to the ceiling, which was ringed with gold leaf. A heavy chandelier hung overhead. It, at least, looked original. But Radu suspected that beneath the tile were the more Byzantine-favored religious murals. Mehmed was claiming every inch of the city, one mosaic at a time.

  Radu had come in late—his detour into the city had made him miss the beginning of the meal—so after washing, he took a spot next to his old friend Urbana and a woman he vaguely recognized from Murad’s court. It was unusual for this many women to be at a formal dinner. Murad had excluded them entirely. But Radu was comforted and pleased to sit by Urbana. She had not been changed by the siege, other than the shiny burn scar that disfigured half her face. She smelled faintly of gunpowder and had black scorch marks on all her fingers.

  Unchanged also was Urbana’s distaste for Ottoman food. She kept up a steady stream of complaints in Hungarian to the other woman. Radu stared determinedly at his plates, avoiding looking at Mehmed. Why had Mehmed called him back to the city? What would it feel like to talk to him again? When Radu had left six months before, Mehmed had been so busy with planning and rebuilding that they had scarcely seen each other. Had Mehmed missed him?

  Had Radu missed Mehmed?

  Glancing up, his stomach clenched and his pulse raced to see the other man. Yes, he had missed him. But it was not the same easy longing he had experienced before.

  Mehmed was swathed in purple. His turban, gold and fastened with an elaborate gold-and-ruby pin, haloed his head. He was twenty-one now, and his features had settled into adulthood. His eyes were sharp with intelligence, his eyebrows finely shaped, his full lips static and expressionless. Radu longed for them to curve in a smile, for Mehmed’s solemn eyes to wrinkle in delight.

  But Mehmed his friend had become Mehmed the sultan. It was like looking at a drawing of someone beloved. He both recognized Mehmed and felt that something was disturbingly altered and lost in the process of being captured on paper.

  A servant knelt beside Radu. “Allow me to deliver the sultan’s welcome. After the meal, I will show you to his reception room, where you can await your audience.” The servant bowed, then backed away. Radu was startled. He had never had audiences with Mehmed. Particularly ones scheduled by servants.

  This was nothing like how Murad had run his court. Favorites had always been allowed to swirl around him, to sit next to him. He had been at the center of everything, reveling in parties and close relationships. But even this meal was evidence that Mehmed ruled in a much more formal capacity. No absconding to the countryside to dream with philosophers. No allowing advisors like Halil Pasha—publicly executed months ago in a demonstration Radu had not attended—and his ilk to gain favor and therefore power.

  Radu wondered whether the distance Mehmed had created in public would continue even in private. Or would he simply communicate with Radu through messengers, remaining forever separate?

 
“How is your sister, Radu Bey?”

  Radu looked up, surprised. The woman who had been part of Murad’s court had spoken. She was a paradox of harsh elegance. Everything about her was precisely fashionable by European standards, her elaborate dress and hair acting as a barrier between herself and the world. She sat up straight, her skirts awkwardly pooled around her, rather than leaning on an elbow like many of the other diners.

  “I am sorry, I do not remember your name.” Radu smiled in apology.

  “Mara Brankovic. I was one of Murad’s wives.”

  “Ah, yes! You negotiated the new terms of Serbia’s vassalage.” It had been her parting move, using an offer of marriage from Constantine to negotiate her own freedom and better rights for her country. Mehmed had admired her for it.

  Without conscious thought, Radu found himself staring again at Mehmed. He dragged his eyes back to Mara. “What brings you to the empire?”

  She turned her gaze toward Mehmed. Her look was affectionate. “A leader who recognizes my value. I am here as an advisor on European issues. I help with handling the Venetians. The Serbians, obviously. And a troublesome little country you are quite familiar with. And familial with.” She laughed lightly at her own joke.

  “So you are not asking after my sister as a social courtesy.”

  “Oh, I am! Social courtesy is the heart of my role here.” Her tone was pleasantly wry. “It is amazing what one can accomplish through polite inquiry. Besides, I quite liked Lada. Though she was foolish to pass up a marital alliance with Mehmed. She would have done quite well.”

  Radu looked at his plate, now filled with tiny pieces of flatbread he had torn apart. “Quite well would never have been enough for her.”

  Mara laughed. Urbana snagged her attention to point out how much worse unleavened bread was, and Radu was again left to his own thoughts. Which, to his surprise, did not linger on the person on the dais. “Mara,” he interrupted. “Do you have any contacts in Cyprus?”