And I Darken

by Kiersten White

  “Which taxes?”

  Mehmed did not smile. “All of them.”

  “All—all of them?”

  “All of them. I want to trace every coin that comes into the treasury, and every coin that leaves it. I want to see what every state and city is making, who is in charge, how they are spending my gold, and what there is to show for it. Wages. Allowances. Payments to foreign countries. Payments made by vassal states.”

  “But—it will be weeks before I can gather enough information for us to go through, and it would be a massive undertaking.”

  “Then you had better start. Now.”

  The man scurried from the room as though Mehmed’s declaration were whipping his heels. Mehmed sighed, rubbing his forehead. “We have lost so much time. It will take me months, years perhaps, to get everything in order. When I think of how far I could be if my father had not taken back the throne, if I had not been banished again to Amasya…”

  Radu tasted Mehmed’s anger, and his tongue dried in his mouth. Though they had never spoken of it, Radu often wondered if Lada, too, regretted what they had done. Maybe there had been another way. A way that would have let Mehmed keep the throne the first time he inherited it. They had been scared. They had been children. And they had made a decision that impacted Mehmed’s future without consulting him.

  “Are you well?” Mehmed asked.

  “Yes! Yes. I am simply nervous. I meet with Kumal and Nazira today.”

  “Why would that make you nervous?”

  Radu realized with a pang that although he and Mehmed were together nearly every day, they had not fallen back into their comfortable ease of telling each other everything. Radu had too many secrets he could not afford to reveal, and so he spoke as little as possible. It was easy. Mehmed always had people around him. Even now there were two guards in the room and a squat, thick-fingered man who held a stool for Mehmed’s feet. Their presence did not lend itself to intimacy, which might have hurt Radu before, but now seemed a tender mercy.

  “Did I not tell you? Kumal wants me to marry Nazira.”

  Mehmed sat back as though struck. The stool-carrier jumped forward, but Mehmed waved him away. “Marry her? You would leave me?”

  Radu felt a flutter of something—not quite hope, but its darker, more desperate cousin. Perhaps the disbelief and hint of anger from Mehmed was jealousy. “Am I not allowed to marry? I know the Janissaries cannot, but I am not clear on what, exactly, I am here.”

  Mehmed’s face softened. “You are my friend. You are certainly not a slave. If you want to marry her…” Mehmed trailed off, his eyebrows lowering as he examined Radu with an intensity that made it difficult for Radu to breathe.

  “I do not love her.” The words tumbled from his mouth like pebbles in a stream, cold and clacking together. He did not know where they would land, but he kept talking. “I care about and for her, and Kumal has been very kind to me. I am not certain I am a good match for Nazira, though. I think she could marry higher and be better off. And my first duty—my only duty—will always be to you. No one could take me from that.”

  No one could take me from you.

  Please, Radu thought, please know what I am saying.

  Mehmed’s eyes widened, pupils dilating almost imperceptibly. Then a smile shifted the intensity and sincerity away from his eyes. “I will leave it up to you, then. Kumal Vali is a good man. I will make him Kumal Pasha. You are free to do whatever you wish, as long as Nazira knows I require you by my side.”

  Radu clasped his hands together behind his back, away from Mehmed, so tightly they ached. “There is no place I would rather be.”

  The words caught in his throat, trying to pull more out. Radu knew if he started, he would never be able to dam the flow of honesty that would pour forth, drowning him in its wake.

  So he bowed and walked from the room, breath shaking and pulse pounding.

  Love was a plague.

  He was meeting Nazira and Kumal in the same garden where he had first seen Mehmed.

  They found Radu standing in front of the fountain, staring at ghosts, wondering: If he had not met the crying boy here, would he be able to love Nazira?

  “Radu!”

  He turned, still tangled in the past, and embraced Kumal. His friend was thinner than he had been. A lingering shade of death’s touch deepened the shadows beneath his eyes and the hollows of his cheeks. But he was alive.

  “I am so glad to see you well.” Radu hugged him tightly before releasing him.

  “It is only thanks to you.”

  Radu turned to Nazira. She wore a sunrise-pink scarf over her black hair; her soft, dark eyes turned up at the outer corners and made her look pleasantly teasing. Her lips were so full, they were nearly a circle, but she pulled them apart into a smile. “Radu.”

  Radu bowed. He was happy to see her, but uncertain how to act around her. Where before they had had the easy rapport of friendship, siblings even (as Radu imagined sisters who were not Lada to be), now there was a chasm he did not know whether to cross or flee from. He had wished her his sister, and she, apparently, had wished for more.

  “I see an interesting shrub over there.” Kumal pointed, beaming. “I will go examine it for a while, I think.”

  Radu could not bear to sit at the fountain, so he led Nazira to a stone bench beneath a broad tree. Its branches were bare for the winter. They sat, shielded from view. Radu did not know what to say.

  Nazira stared straight ahead when she finally spoke. “I want to marry you.”

  Her directness disoriented Radu, who had become so used to the angling and meandering communication of the courts. “I— You are very— You see, I—”

  She turned to him and smiled, putting her hand on top of his. “Radu, sweet Radu. When you look at me there is no hunger in your gaze. I have spent a good deal of time observing men and the way they look at women, and you do not look at me as a man looks upon something he desires.”

  Fear blossomed, its dark petals spreading wide. “You are very beautiful, and—”

  She squeezed his hand, shaking her head. “It is not a hunger I welcome. That is why I picked you. You are kind and smart and you are…alone. And you will, I think, always have to be alone.” She formed it almost as a question, her eyes searching his for a truth he did not want them to find. “Do you remember our dance?”

  Radu shook his head.

  “At Mehmed’s wedding to Sitti Hatun.”

  “Ah, yes.”

  “Half the women in the room watched you move, craving your attention, waiting for their turn. And you looked at none of them. I knew then. I understand. I understand what it is to look upon what you are supposed to have and feel nothing.” She waited, then whispered, “I understand.”

  Radu realized tears had formed in his eyes. “You do?”

  “I do. As your wife, I would expect only your friendship. Nothing more.” She looked at the ground, and a blush spread across her cheeks. “And I would request that my maid, Fatima, be allowed to accompany me. Always.”

  “Fatima.” Radu sat back, remembering. The way Nazira’s gaze always followed the maid wherever she went, the day he found them in the gardens, breathless and flushed, their hair askew from being chased by a bee.

  A cloud passed from the sun, bathing them in warmth and light. With it came surprising clarity. Radu smiled. “You were happy to have been stung by that bee in the garden. You have found happiness, then.”

  She nodded. “I have. Will you—please, will you help me protect it? Will you let me be your friend, your true friend who knows you and loves you?”

  Radu leaned his forehead against hers, closing his eyes. He could not help the welling of jealousy that filled him. Nazira had found her happiness and, miraculously, Fatima felt the same. But his bitterness was brushed away by genuine love for Nazira. If she had what he feared he never could, he would do whatever he could to help her.

  “Nazira, it would be my greatest honor to be your husband.”

&nb
sp; She let out a burst of laughter mingled with a sob of relief and threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you, thank you, sweetest Radu. Thank you.”

  He placed a gentle kiss on her forehead.

  When they rejoined Kumal, he took in Nazira’s tear-streaked face with alarm before noticing their clasped hands.

  “Brother!” He took them both in his arms. Nazira’s frame trembled as she cried and smiled, and Kumal began making wedding plans.

  “We can invite the sultan!” he said.

  “No,” Radu said, too quickly and with too much force. Nazira’s eyebrows raised knowingly. Radu nodded his head, a tiny movement only she would catch. She squeezed his hand, and he was surprised by how much comfort it was to be understood.

  This time when he spoke, Radu was careful to sound calm and unaffected. “He is burdened so heavily right now. He would feel guilty for being unable to attend. It is best not to invite him. I will ask him for an estate nearby, but out of the city. Closer to you. It will be healthier air for Nazira, and I can travel between her and my duties to the sultan with ease. I would like to marry in a simple ceremony, as soon as possible.”

  “That is my wish, too.” Nazira glowed, outshining the sun.

  Kumal laughed good-naturedly. “It appears you both know exactly what you want.”

  “We do,” Radu said. But only one of them was able to truly have it.

  EXHAUSTION PLAGUED LADA, dragging her limbs and mind down. Nicolae was occupied with scouring the Edirne Janissaries for Wallachian recruits to fold into their ranks. Stefan was training the few they had found. And so, with Petru and Matei both ill, Lada had taken a double night watch. Now, finally past dawn, all she could think of was bed.

  It had been strange, standing inside Mehmed’s room while he slept. He had pleaded for her to join him in his bed, teased and flirted, but she reminded him that she was all that stood between him and a knife in the dark.

  And that if he did not shut up and go to sleep, the knife would belong to her.

  Still, there was something discomfiting about the whole experience. It was like watching him during the coronation. He was there, he was Mehmed, but he was so separate from her. Unreachable. His face sleeping was the same as it had been during the ceremony: alien.

  During the longest, loneliest hours of the night, it had been all Lada could do to keep herself from waking him just to see the way his eyes changed when he saw her, the way his lips formed around words and intentions. She liked who she was when he looked at her, craved it. But she had resisted. And now, with her own sleep so close, she found her door blocked by a woman.

  “Lada?” The woman’s round face was sweetly pleasant, like a plum, with equally round lips. Her eyes were weak, too large and watery.

  “What?”

  “I—it is me. Nazira.”

  Lada frowned, her mind sluggish. The woman did look familiar.

  “I introduced myself at Mehmed’s wedding? I danced with Radu.”

  “Everyone danced with Radu.”

  The woman laughed. It came so easily to her, a reflex of a muscle Lada did not have. “Yes, that is true. Radu has not mentioned me?”

  Red flashed before Lada’s eyes, all her muscles tensing. Was this some sort of test? A trick? Did someone know Radu’s true heart and feelings for Mehmed? If Halil had discovered it, he would try to use it to his advantage. Lada would not betray her brother so easily. “Radu and I do not speak much. We are both very busy.”

  “Oh. I am sorry. You would know my brother, though. Kumal?”

  Recognition slammed into place, jarring Lada completely awake. She had never paid much attention to the women who floated around the edges of the court, but she did remember Kumal. Kumal, the stealer of souls. The man who had driven Radu into the heart of the Muslim god.

  “I do know him.”

  Nazira must have missed the growl in Lada’s voice, because she smiled in relief. “Well, apparently Radu has not spoken of it with you yet, but I—we…we are being married tomorrow.”

  “You are what?”

  “We have only recently decided, and we wanted to be married quickly, without fuss. There is so much else going on, and Radu must be available for Mehmed.”

  Lada felt dizzy, as though she had dismounted from a daylong ride and the earth still moved beneath her with the gait of a horse. “He is marrying you.”

  “We are avoiding the more rigorous traditions, but I wanted to spend today at the baths with my cousins and aunt. And you, of course. You are his only family.” She mistook Lada’s expression of confused horror for a questioning one about the baths. “It is custom to spend the day before a wedding at the baths. Radu has reserved one of the palace baths for us, so we will not be disturbed. And I hoped, since we will be sisters, that you would join us.”

  Who was this woman? First her brother delivered Radu’s soul to a foreign god, and now, when Radu had the ear of the sultan, she swooped in to marry him? Lada knew Radu did not love her. She suspected her brother incapable of loving anyone but Mehmed. Why, then, had he agreed to this marriage? Did they have some sort of hold on him, some vicious blackmail?

  If Nazira was using Radu to get to Mehmed, Lada would need to have as much information as possible. She could work with subtlety like Radu. He was not the only one who could play that game. She gritted her teeth in an approximation of a smile. “Give me a few moments to change?”

  Lada followed Nazira through a walkway over which deep green vines arched, waxy and impervious to the chill of winter. She had never been to the baths, preferring to clean herself in private rather than spend time with other women. The exterior of the building was simple, almost austere. But once they were inside, a new world was revealed. Hand-painted tiles featured a repeating flower motif that grew along the walls and climbed across the ceiling in brilliant reds and yellows accented by the deepest blues.

  High-set windows let in light, which cut through the steam curling in the air. Nazira greeted several women with delight, exchanging kisses. Everyone seemed overjoyed and surprised, remarking on the speed of the engagement and Nazira’s good fortune in nabbing the handsomest man in Edirne.

  Lada wondered whether her own head or the tiles would break first if she began smashing her skull into them.

  Her smile felt like agony.

  An attendant led the women to an area that had been prepared for them, with mats for their clothes and long, soft swaths of cloth to wrap themselves in while disrobing. Lada lingered near the back, wondering how Radu did this sort of thing. Did she insert herself into conversations? Did she hope to be invisible and merely listen?

  The other women did not hesitate to slip out of their clothing, laughing and talking, perfectly at ease. They were neither ashamed of nor embarrassed by their bodies. When most of them had gone into the water, Lada threw off her clothes as quickly as possible, tucking the leather pouch she wore around her neck beneath them. Then she slid into the bath from the side, rather than walk naked to the shallow steps.

  She stayed there, arms folded tightly across her breasts, hoping that someone would say something damning very quickly so she could leave.

  The water did feel nice on her exhausted, tight muscles, but she felt more than naked. She felt exposed and vulnerable. She longed for a weapon, for chain mail, for something between her skin and the rest of the world.

  Lada inched closer to the other women, her hair trailing behind her. But instead of speaking of Radu’s favor in the capital and his connections to Mehmed, the women spoke of his eyes. They spoke of his smile. They spoke of his charm and his kindness. Each one had an anecdote, a story of something Radu had done for them or for someone they knew. Some perfectly timed joke, some utterly captivating tale, some startling moment of generosity.

  A pang in her chest made Lada aware of a strange sense of loss. Of missing Radu. Because she did not know the man they were speaking of, and she thought she might want to.

  Maybe she was wrong. Maybe Radu did love Nazira. May
be whatever he felt for Mehmed had been siphoned off and given to this sweet-faced nothing of a girl. Lada obviously did not know him as he was to this city.

  But no. The way Radu watched Mehmed, the way he could not escape the current left in Mehmed’s wake—that had not altered. The rest of the world was an afterthought to Radu. Only Mehmed mattered.

  Lada had once mattered to him. How had she lost that?

  Nazira laughed, and Lada remembered. Kumal had given her brother prayer and taken him away. And now Nazira was claiming him as well. She drifted closer to Nazira, who was partially blocked by two broad-shouldered aunts.

  “We will tell you some secrets,” one said, a lisp coming from where one of her front teeth was missing, “so Radu’s handsome looks do not go to waste.”

  The other aunt gave a bawdy laugh. “Looks will count for little if he is not a good learner.”

  “Hush!” Nazira said, her skin flushed from the heat of the bath or from embarrassment. She put her hands over her face, shaking her head.

  “Oh, come now, you are to be a wife. You must know that husbands are useless in all things unless properly instructed. Particularly in the pleasuring of their women.”

  Lada inched away, intensely uncomfortable. If they were going to speak of snakes and gardens, of a woman’s responsibility to provide safe haven for a man’s seed…

  “Please, aunties, you are scandalizing her,” one of the married cousins said, though she laughed, too, comfortable with the topic. “Wait until after her wedding night when she is no longer terrified. Then tell her how a woman can be pleased as well as a man.”

  “Bah,” the lisping aunt said. “How long was it after your marriage until you came to me, crying, complaining of your unhappiness with his nightly ministrations?”

  The cousin laughed. “Five miserable years. Two screaming infants I had given him and gotten not one evening of joy in return. You are right, I would not wish that on my poor Nazira.”

  Nazira splashed water at them. “No more! If I have questions, I will write you a delicately worded letter. I have faith in Radu’s generosity and abilities.”