Only when she could not place her source of vague disappointment did she come to a horrible realization. She had thought if she looked like a noblewoman, men would talk to her. Of course she would have rejected their flirtations, but she had been preparing herself to do that.
She had not prepared herself to remain utterly invisible while wearing a dress and with her hair combed. Or maybe she was so unbelievable in a dress, or had humiliated herself so completely by kneeling, that no one would ever believe she belonged among nobility.
Lada was taken back to Mehmed’s wedding. Standing alone, always alone, without a place and without worth. She drew a ragged breath. This was not the same. She was not that person. She had more than just Mehmed and Radu now.
But she did not have them anymore. Tonight, she felt the full weight of that loss. The loss of a brother who would have stood at her side and fought this battle of manners and politics for her. The loss of a man who would have laughed at her dress and her hair but also been desperate to be alone so he could undo it all for her.
Perhaps she had never stopped being that girl lost in a place where she could never have power.
It took Lada several minutes to realize Stefan had returned from his rounds. “What did you find?” she asked, relieved and grateful for a familiar face. Even one as anonymous and blank as Stefan’s.
“The crown,” he said, nodding toward where Ladislas spoke with several priests and a tall, confident-looking older man. The rest of the royalty revolved around two men and a regal woman. The woman was glorious, Lada had to admit. She truly wore her elaborate clothes as armor, not something to wilt under like Lada did. The way she commanded the attention of everyone around her, shooting frequent sharp glances at the king, reminded Lada of Huma, Mehmed’s mother. Huma had been so sick when Lada left, surely she was dead by now. The thought of Huma’s death made Lada oddly mournful. The woman had been a threat, and a murderer, too. But she had been so good at everything she did.
The woman in layered, gold-embroidered finery briefly met Lada’s eyes. Lada felt herself weighed and summarily dismissed. It stung.
“Where is the crown?” Lada asked, glad Stefan was here to distract her.
“After Varna, the Polish king took it for safekeeping. But no one can truly be king of Hungary without the crown. Elizabeth is trying everything she can to secure it.”
“Elizabeth?”
Stefan nodded toward the glittering woman. Suddenly it all made sense. “She is his mother?” Lada asked
“She is the true ruler of Hungary. But she does not have the money to buy the crown back. And until Ladislas has it, his rule is illegitimate. The man next to him is Ulrich, his regent. Between him and Elizabeth, this country is run.”
“I suspect Ladislas’s rule will be as short in stature as he is.”
“No one speaks outright of killing him. They do not speak of him at all. He does not matter. Elizabeth is the throne.”
“And Ulrich?”
“The most likely successor. The connection to the royal line is distant, but there. He is modest, just, and well liked.”
“How do you know?”
“I spoke with his servants. It is the best way to get a sense of a man. And the other—”
They were interrupted by silence, which was followed by a wave of noise. Lada followed the crowd’s eyes to a doorway in which Hunyadi stood. The day before, he had ridden out to the Transylvanian border, to respond to a problem there. Judging by the riding cloak he wore on his shoulders and the weariness on his face, he had only now returned. A chorus of cheers filled the room as he smiled and lifted one hand. People surged forward to speak with him. Elizabeth watched with narrowed eyes. Then the crowd parted for her, and she greeted Hunyadi with a lingering embrace.
“He could have it all,” Lada said.
Stefan shook his head. “He will not take it. But he controls the soldiers, which means he has more power than anyone else in this castle.”
It was similar in Wallachia. The prince was allowed no troops of his own, permitted no fortresses or defense. He was entirely dependent on the boyars, each of whom kept his own soldiers at the ready. It did not make for powerful leaders.
King Ladislas waved to Hunyadi. Hunyadi did not see it. Lada pitied the king then, but more than that, she hated him for being weak. This was his country, and he let another man have all the power. He deserved to lose everything. Lada did not understand why Elizabeth depended on a feeble son rather than taking the throne herself.
Huma had played the same game, and in the end it had seen her banished. Power through sons was no more secure than power through husbands.
“You said there was another contender for the throne?” Lada asked Stefan.
One man had not moved forward to greet Hunyadi. He stood alone, dark eyes calculating as he watched everyone who mattered in Hungary clamoring for a moment of Hunyadi’s attention. Though he was far leaner than Hunyadi and dressed in more finery than Hunyadi would ever wear, Lada saw the same determined jaw, the same confident brow. But where Hunyadi’s eyes were bold and honest, his son’s were calculating and secretive.
“Matthias,” Stefan said.
Lada watched Matthias throughout the evening. He never so much as glanced her way, so she had ample time to study him without fear of being caught. He wore a smile as ostentatiously as he wore the gold chain at his neck and the jeweled pins on his vest. It was ornamentation, meant to dazzle. But always his eyes were narrowed and shrewd as he spoke to this person or another or, in many cases, did not speak to them.
Hunyadi had been drawn into a corner, trapped by an impassable wall of dresses. Lada did not envy him. He was a widower, and the most powerful man in the country. The fact that he had no family name paled in comparison to his wealth. She wished he could break free so they could speak. Of what, it did not matter. But he was her only ally here, and she might as well have been alone.
Nicolae sidled up to Lada. He had secured some clothes nice enough to gain him access. She did not know where or how he had obtained the clothing, and she did not care. It was a relief to see him.
“You should dance. Or at least speak to someone,” he said.
Lada shook her head. “It will do no good. I belong here as much as a pig in a dress does, and everyone will know as soon as I open my mouth.”
“I actually saw several pigs in dresses as I came in. Not a single one got past the door. You are definitely doing better than they are.”
Shaking her head, Lada let Nicolae lead her away from the wall. “Look, no one is speaking to the king.” Nicolae nudged her in that direction. “Talk to him.”
“No one speaks to him because he does not matter. I have pledged my loyalty for nothing.”
Something in Lada’s tone must have warned Nicolae, because he immediately turned them both around and steered Lada out of the throne room and into the freezing night air of the courtyard. He smiled and nodded to everyone they passed, quickly taking them through the gate and across the bridge. Lada leaned heavily against one of the stone pillars.
“I knelt in there and swore fealty to another king—a foreign king—for nothing, Nicolae. He will not help me get my throne. He cannot even get his own crown. What have I accomplished?”
Nicolae took her hands in his. “You do what you must. It is no different from what the little zealot does, making treaties and creating alliances that mean less than the paper they are written on. Your brother would have done the same. You must survive, and Hungary has welcomed you. Take advantage of it. Hunyadi is a powerful ally. In spite of your best efforts, he cares about you. This is a good situation. It is certainly better than hiding in the woods, picking on Transylvania.”
“But it is not what we came for.”
Nicolae shrugged, stamping his feet against the cold. “I came to get away from the Ottomans. We all did. You gave that to us.”
“Matei was spying on me,” she said. She had told no one, holding the information close out of sham
e, anger, and, perhaps, a bit of guilt over his death. “He was reporting to Mehmed.”
Nicolae uttered a sad oath, his breath fogging into the night air. “Matei was a fool, then. I will keep a sharper eye on everyone. But I know this—you have done many things for us already. We are in a good position. You fight at Hunyadi’s side. Foreign kings accept your allegiance. Your men respect and are loyal to you.” He smiled. “That is quite a bit for a little dragon from Wallachia.”
Lada knew he was trying to help her, and she was comforted that her men were satisfied. She had gotten them out of slavery. Led them successfully in battle. Earned the respect of one of the greatest men of her time.
She stared numbly into the night. The Hungarian night. Not the Wallachian night.
It was not enough.
Never enough.
RADU HAD ONLY AN hour before the party, before he would need to persuade Cyprian that he was ready to betray Mehmed and join Emperor Constantine’s cause. He hurried to Kumal’s house. Kumal was not there, but he was not whom Radu needed to speak with.
“Nazira?” he called, bursting through the front door. “Fatima? Nazira?”
Nazira rushed into the front room, Fatima close behind her. Nazira held a cloth in her hands, dripping water along the floor. Concern pinched her face. “What is it?”
“I am leaving. For Constantinople.”
“They march already? So soon?”
“No. No. I—” Radu paused, looking around the room. “Are we alone?”
“Yes, of course.”
Radu sat, suddenly exhausted. He looked down at his hands. “Mehmed has asked me to defect. I am to convince an ambassador that I wish to aid Emperor Constantine. If all goes to plan, I will run tonight.”
Nazira covered her mouth with the wet cloth, then dropped it. “Tonight?”
“Yes.”
“But what if they find out you are still loyal to Mehmed?”
“They cannot. I have to pretend to want a new life with them. They must think I am never coming back. I do not know what Mehmed will tell Kumal, but I wanted you to know the truth. I will not be able to write or communicate in any way.”
A sudden determination hardened Nazira’s face. “That will not be a problem. I am coming with you.”
“What? No. You cannot!” Radu stood again in disbelief.
“I can, and I will. You have taken care of us all this time. Now it is my turn to repay you. It is too much to bear this secret alone. I will go as your wife.”
“It is too dangerous! If they discover me, they will kill us both!”
“Which is exactly why I need to come! Why would a man put his beloved wife in that much danger? My mere presence will sell your loyalty in a way nothing else could. Besides, I have spent all these years studying Greek. It is about time I got to use it.”
Radu shook his head, aghast. He turned to Fatima for support. “Tell her this is insane.”
Fatima looked as though she wanted to cry, but she shook her head instead. “Nazira is right,” she whispered. “It is the best way to keep you safe. We will come.”
“But you hate to travel!” Radu looked back at Nazira, triumphant. “You cannot ask Fatima to come.”
“I am not.” Nazira turned to Fatima, cupping her face gently in her hands. She put her lips to the other girl’s ear, whispering something Radu could not hear. Then she said, “You understand?”
Fatima shook her head, silent tears streaming down her face. “I can come,” she whispered. “I want to be wherever you are.”
“And I want to be wherever you are. But I need you to be safe.” Nazira regarded Fatima with a tenderness that hurt Radu to see. “I can weather this storm for both of us, but only if I have the shelter in my heart of knowing that my Fatima is well.”
Fatima shook her head again, then nodded, crying.
“I will come back to you. Always.” Nazira closed the distance between their mouths in the exact way Radu had imagined Mehmed doing with him. But this kiss was infinitely more sweet, more intimate than any Radu had ever managed to dream of. He looked away, unwilling to intrude on the two women’s love and heartbreak.
Nazira cleared her throat. Radu turned back to find her still holding Fatima close. Fatima hid her face in Nazira’s shoulder, but Nazira’s face was ferocious. “When do we leave?”
Cyprian was waiting outside the grand doors to Mehmed’s party. Though the ambassador had carefully composed himself, his nerves showed in the way his fingers tapped unceasingly against his blue-clad leg. Radu did not care for the styles out of Constantinople. He found the deliberate exposing of multiple layers of clothes to be gaudy and vain. But unlike that of the other ambassadors, Cyprian’s layers were coordinated and less jarring. Radu supposed he himself would be wearing clothes like that soon.
He did not realize he was running his fingers along his turban until they caught in one of the folds.
And prayer. When would he pray? Being cut off from prayer with his brothers would be like being cut off from sleep. He could already feel his soul wearing thin and tired simply from contemplating it. He would find a way to pray. He had to. Even if he could only pray in his heart, God would understand.
Light and music spilled from the doorway, a jarring accompaniment to Radu’s bleak thoughts. There was no use in delay. He crossed the hall to Cyprian, whose visage flashed a brief look of happiness before worry claimed it once more.
“You came,” Cyprian said. “I had begun to fear you would not.”
“We are all of us slaves to the whims of the sultan.” Radu hated the way the words flowed smoothly out of his mouth, as though they belonged there. “Cyprian, this is Nazira, my wife.”
A momentary twist of confusion distorted Cyprian’s face as he finally noticed Nazira at Radu’s side. “Your wife?” With movements formed by years of habit, Cyprian reached out and took her hand, bowing and kissing it.
“Hello,” Nazira said, her voice strained. She looked over her shoulder constantly. Radu did not know how much of it was nerves, and how much was acting to sell their deception to Cyprian.
“I—I did not expect you to have a wife.” Cyprian frowned, then shook his head. “I mean, you are so young. My age.”
Radu smiled tightly. “When you find someone like Nazira, you do not wait.” He looked past Cyprian toward the party, and then back down the hall. “Can we speak in private?” he asked in a low voice.
“Of course.” Cyprian followed them out into a side garden. The same side garden Radu had come to so many times to read and then destroy Mehmed’s secret notes. In the face of what he was moving toward, he longed to have even that level of closeness again.
As soon as they were far enough into the garden, Radu turned to Cyprian. “We want to leave.”
“What?”
“Right now. We cannot pretend to support Mehmed anymore. His father kidnapped me, tortured me, stole my entire childhood. I cannot stand by and watch as Mehmed takes Constantinople the same way.”
Cyprian wilted. “So he does mean to attack.”
“As soon as he is ready. Can you get us to the city, to the emperor? I will do whatever I can. I grew up with Mehmed and served him; I am familiar with his true temperament and many of his plans. I can help you.”
Cyprian nodded. Mehmed had been right. Cyprian must have planned to try to get information from Radu. Why else would he be so quick to trust them? “We should leave right now,” he said.
“We are ready.” Radu pulled his and Nazira’s traveling bags from behind a stone bench.
“She is coming?” Cyprian’s surprise was confirmation of what Nazira had said. No one turning spy would risk the life of an innocent woman. Please, Radu prayed, please let Nazira come through this safely. It was one thing to gamble with his own life for Mehmed’s cause. He felt sick knowing he was also risking Nazira’s.
“Radu is my husband.” Nazira gripped his hand. Some of Radu’s fear was soothed. It was selfish to draw any amount of happiness from her sa
crifice, but he could not help it. “Where he goes, I go.”
“Very well.” They followed Cyprian to the guest stables, where he found one of the ambassadors’ servant boys. The boy was small, with intelligent eyes and black hair thick and tangled like thatch. After a quick, whispered conversation, the boy saddled three horses.
Though Radu knew perfectly well they would not be followed, Cyprian’s paranoia was contagious. Radu found himself glancing over his shoulder as they rode through the city. His last view as they crested the hill outside Edirne was the same as the first he had ever had of the empire. Spires and minarets were black points against the starlit sky.
He bid them a silent farewell, praying that they would watch over the city in his absence.
LADA WAS NOT CERTAIN which was more surprising: that she had been invited to one of Hunyadi’s inner-circle councils, or that his son Matthias had not.
Hunyadi sat at the head of the table, with several similarly grizzled men around him. At the opposite end of the table sat two priests. The seat next to Hunyadi was empty. He stood and gestured for Lada to sit there. The sting of invisibility that had plagued her in the week since swearing her loyalty disappeared as she sat at Hunyadi’s right hand. As soon as she was settled, he leaned forward, slamming a fist against the table.
“Constantinople!” he roared. “Once again it faces a threat. Perhaps the greatest threat it has ever known. We cannot let the heart of Christendom, Rome of old, fall to the infidels. If Constantinople succumbs to the Muslim plague, what is to stop them from spreading over the whole world?”
One of the priests nodded vehemently. The other remained impassive. A few of the men were engaged, but several leaned away from the table as though distancing themselves from the topic.
“What are you suggesting?” the excited priest asked.
“We crusade, as we have before. We gather the righteous until we swell around the walls like God’s own wave, to forever drown the infidel threat.”
The other priest smiled drily. “I believe the last successful Christian crusade actually sacked Constantinople.”
Now I Rise Page 10