Now I Rise

by Kiersten White

  Hunyadi’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “No. You are right. I think if you had been born a boy, perhaps you would have been satisfied with what the world offered you. That is how we are alike. We saw everything that was not ours, and we hungered. Do not lose that hunger. You will always have to fight for everything. Even when you already have it, you will have to keep fighting to maintain it. You will have to be more ruthless, more brutal, more everything. Any weakness will undo everything you have accomplished. They will see any crack as evidence that they were right that a woman cannot do what you do.”

  Hunyadi knew what he spoke of. Her merits, her accomplishments, her strength would never speak for themselves. She would have to cut her way through the world, uphill, for the rest of her life. She showed all her small teeth in a vicious smile. “I will make you proud. No one will be more brutal than me. No one will be more ruthless. And I will never stop fighting.”

  Hunyadi laughed, wheezing and gasping until he was so pale he looked dead already. Lada helped him drink. He choked, spitting most of the water out, but managed to swallow some. Finally, he closed his eyes. “No rest for the wicked. But this wicked soul will have some now, I think.”

  “Sleep.” She wanted to give him assurances that he would get better, but she could not bring herself to lie to him. Not again.

  “Promise me,” he whispered. “Promise me you will watch out for my Matthias. Be his ally.”

  “I swear it.” She did not mention that she already intended to be just that.

  “Your father is dying,” Lada said as she sat in a private room with Matthias. It came out as an accusation, though she knew Matthias was not to blame. She was, at least in part.

  “I never understood him,” Matthias said, toying with a goblet of wine. “I never even really knew him. He sent me away as soon as I could talk. When he visited, he watched me with this look—this look like he could not believe I was his. All I heard of him was stories of his conquests, his bravery, his triumphs. And when he visited, I recited poetry for him. I asked him, once, to teach me to fight. He had never lost his temper with me, never been around long enough to, but that day I feared he would strike me. He told me he had not fought his whole life so his son could learn to swing a sword.” Matthias touched a worn hilt at his side. “Now I have his sword and no idea how to use it. That is his legacy to me.”

  “You do not need a sword. All you need is to work with people who know what to do with them.” Lada leaned forward, forcing him to meet her eyes. “You want to be king.”

  Matthias smiled slyly. “I am loyal to our blessed king, long may he rule.”

  Lada brushed his false sentiment from the air with a wave of her hand. “If I wanted shit, I would have visited the privy, not asked for an audience with you.”

  Matthias laughed. “I think you have been living with soldiers for too long.”

  “And I think you and I have something to offer each other. You want Hungary. I want Wallachia. I will do whatever you need to secure your throne. And, once you have it, you will help me to mine.”

  Matthias raised his eyebrows. “Will I? Tell me, why would I want that?”

  “A strong Wallachia means a more secure Hungary. We both know the current prince has given the sultan rights to move through the country. They walk straight to your borders without so much as a blade to bar their way. If you help me gain Wallachia, I promise no Ottoman army will make it through alive.”

  Matthias’s hand traced the air above his head, lingering on something Lada could not see. “Do you know, Poland has the crown? They took it for ‘safekeeping.’ No one can be a legitimate king of Hungary without that crown.”

  “What does that matter? It is an object.”

  “It is a symbol.”

  “Dependence on symbols breeds weakness. If you are king, you do not need a crown.”

  “Hmm.” Matthias dropped his hand and looked Lada up and down in a way that made her feel more like livestock than a person. “My father has left you in charge while he is on the mend.”

  How little did Matthias know of his father’s condition? Lada was not equipped to break the news gently to him. He should have already been told. “Your father will never mend.”

  Matthias shook his head. “No, that will not do. My father is in seclusion for his health, but while he rests, he has entrusted you with his most private concerns and important charges.”

  Lada caught his meanings like the beginning of a cold. “Yes,” she said. “He has left me in charge.”

  “And he tasked you with rooting out threats to the throne. Such as treason.”

  “Treason.” Lada had expected to argue with Matthias, to convince him of her utility. She had underestimated his willingness to grasp at any advantage.

  “Yes. It would appear that Ulrich, the protector of the king and my chief rival, has been committing treason. You and your men will go to his home and find all the evidence you need.” Matthias smiled, teeth stained dark with wine. “And then you will execute him on behalf of my father.”

  Lada raised an eyebrow. “Without trial?”

  “You are Wallachians. Everyone knows how vicious you are.” He watched Lada for her reaction. Balking at being asked to commit murder. Taking offense at being called vicious. He would get no such reactions from her. She met his look with a hint of a smile. He seemed to think she would dislike her people being spoken of this way. Instead, it filled her with pride.

  Satisfied with her lack of objections, Matthias continued. “After Ulrich is dead, the king will need a new protector and regent.”

  Lada nodded. It was simple enough. “And then?”

  “And then the king will succumb to his weaknesses, and the protector will be the most obvious choice for king. A king who can connect you with those who will secure your own throne.” Matthias held out his hand. It hung in the air between them like a chain. The chain was weighted with the deaths of two innocent men. Ulrich, whom Lada did not know, but whose reputation was one of fairness and morality. And the child king, who had done nothing wrong but be born to power he could not wield.

  Two deaths. Two thrones.

  Lada took his hand.

  RADU CREPT INTO THE kitchen, a knife in his hand. The noise that had awakened him in the middle of the night was revealed by a candle, which threw the room into sharp relief. A few golden glows, a multitude of black shadows.

  One of the glowing points was Cyprian’s face, but it did not have its usual light. “What is wrong?” Radu crossed the room to him and felt his forehead, fearing Cyprian was ill.

  Then he smelled the alcohol, and Cyprian’s malady was explained. “Come on.” Radu took Cyprian’s elbow to steady him. “You should go to bed.”

  “No. No! I cannot sleep. Not now. I fear what dreams will dance before me after tonight’s meeting with my uncle.”

  The withered part of Radu that still hoped to make some difference jolted alert. “Then we should go for a walk. The night air will help sober you.”

  Cyprian mumbled assent. Radu found the other man’s cloak discarded on the floor and helped Cyprian fasten it. Cyprian stayed close to Radu, one hand on his shoulder. The weight of it suggested Cyprian could not quite stay upright without Radu’s support. “What about Nazira?”

  “She will not miss me.” Radu opened the door and helped Cyprian navigate the short distance to the street. They walked in silence for some time, Cyprian leaning against Radu for support. The night was bitterly cold and as still as the grave.

  “You love Nazira,” Cyprian said.

  “Yes.”

  “Like a sister.”

  Radu stopped, causing Cyprian to stumble. Radu forced a quiet laugh. “You have never met my sister if you think I could ever adore her as I do Nazira.”

  Cyprian gestured emphatically. “But there is no passion.”

  Radu began walking again, his mind whirling. Cyprian saw too much. They should never have agreed to live with him. If someone suspected Nazira was anything other th
an his beloved wife, they were in more danger than ever. She had come to sell his story beyond doubt. But if people doubted the marriage itself…“She is my wife, and my concern. And now you are my concern, too. What is wrong? I have never seen you like this.” In the weeks that they had known him, Cyprian had never been drunk. Even when he had learned of the deaths of his fellow ambassadors, he had remained focused and collected in his grief. Something must have happened tonight to effect such a change.

  “Eight thousand,” Cyprian said, his voice a whisper.

  “Eight thousand what?”

  “Eight thousand men. That is all we have.”

  Radu paused, causing Cyprian to stumble again. Radu caught him and held his arms. “Eight thousand?” That was fewer than Radu had suspected. He had seen how bleak the city was, but not even that was enough to indicate just how few men they had to call on.

  “Eight thousand men for twelve miles of wall. Eight thousand men against sixty thousand.”

  “But surely more help will come.”

  Cyprian shook his head, listing to the side with the movement. “My uncle holds out hope, but I have none. The Turks are already here. You told us they have a navy on the way. Who will send aid? How will they get here? Who will look at the hordes at our gates and dare stand with us?”

  “But you heard Giustiniani on the walls. You are still fighting from a place of strength.” Radu did not know whether he was trying to press Cyprian for more details on the city’s defenses or to comfort him. “You were able to repel that attack yesterday!”

  Mehmed had sent a small force against one of the weaker sections of the wall. It was a sudden, ferocious attack. But after a couple of hours, two hundred Ottomans were dead and only a handful of defenders had been lost. It was a huge victory for Giustiniani, evidence that his claims of being able to defend the city had some weight.

  Or at least, that was what was being said. Radu suspected that Mehmed had been playing, like a cat with its prey. Because what no one knew, what they did not take into account, was that throwing men at the walls was not how Mehmed meant to break them. The cannons had not arrived yet. Until then, he was content to bat at the walls and watch the mice scramble.

  Radu saw a familiar building in front of them. He steered Cyprian toward the Hagia Sophia and propped him against the wall while he picked the lock. The door clicked open. Radu grabbed Cyprian and pushed him into the church. Cyprian stumbled, looking up at the ceiling instead of at his feet. “Why are we here?”

  “Because it is quiet.”

  “Have you come here before? You picked that lock very easily.”

  Radu smiled, because Cyprian could not see it in the dark. “It took me forever to pick the lock. You are too drunk to remember. You fell asleep in the middle.”

  “I did not!”

  Laughing, Radu guided Cyprian toward a corner, where the drunk man slid down against the wall and leaned his head back. Radu sat next to him, mimicking his posture.

  “I am so sorry,” Cyprian said.

  “For what?”

  “For bringing you here. I condemned you to death. I should have— I thought of taking us somewhere else. To Cyprus. I should have talked you out of this madness. Now you are trapped here, and it is all my fault.”

  Radu put a hand on Cyprian’s arm, hating the anguish in his friend’s voice—no, not his friend. He could not view him as a friend—would not. He quickly pulled his hand back. “You saved us from Mehmed. Do not apologize for that. We came because we wanted to help the city. We would not have accepted running and hiding, just as you could not bring yourself to do it.”

  “You call him Mehmed.”

  Radu turned toward Cyprian, but the other man was staring straight ahead into the darkness. Radu could not make out his expression. “What do you mean?” he asked, his voice careful.

  “The sultan. You try not to, but when you are not being careful, you call him Mehmed. You were close to him.”

  Radu searched the shadows around them for the right way to answer. Cyprian spoke before he could, though. “It was not all bad, was it? Being with him?”

  Now Radu was fully alert. Could Cyprian’s drunkenness have been an act to lull Radu into security, to get him to reveal something he should not? Was this a follow-up to the prying questions about Radu’s relationship with Nazira? He chose his words with as much care as he had ever given anything. “The sultan was kind to me when we were boys. I looked up to him. I thought he had saved me from the pain we endured from his father’s tutors. He was all I had.”

  “Your sister was with you, though.”

  Radu laughed drily. “Again, you have never met my sister. She responded to our torments by getting harder, crueler, further away. It made her stronger, but it was breaking me. So when Mehmed—the sultan—offered me kindness, it was like someone had offered me the sun in the midst of the longest, coldest winter of my life.” Radu cleared his throat. He walked as close to the truth as he could, so that his lies would be masked in sincerity. “But as we grew older, he became different. More focused. More determined. The friend and protector I thought I had was not mine at all, and never had been. I valued him above everything else, and he— Well. Everything in the empire belongs to him, and he uses people as he sees fit.”

  Radu knew Cyprian would think he was referring to being part of a male harem. But the sadness in his voice was not hard to place there. Mehmed had used him—sent him away on a fool’s errand. He would rather have been a shameful secret than a banished one.

  “But did you love him?”

  Radu stared hard at Cyprian. Cyprian, in turn, stared only at the frigid marble tiles beneath them, tracing his finger along a seam. The question sounded oddly earnest, not as though he were teasing or trying to provoke Radu.

  Radu stood. “It does not matter, because I betrayed him. He never forgives betrayal.” Radu held out his hand, and Cyprian took it. He pulled Cyprian heavily to his feet, and they both lost their balance and stumbled. Cyprian held on to his collar, his face against Radu’s shoulder.

  “I would forgive you,” he whispered. There was a moment between several breaths where Radu thought, maybe, perhaps—

  Then Cyprian bent over, hands on his stomach, and ran for the door. Radu followed, then wished he had not as Cyprian vomited into the street just outside the Hagia Sophia.

  Confused and cold, Radu closed and locked the door behind them. I would forgive you echoed in his brain, sticking where it should not.

  Would he really? If he knew?

  Radu turned to help Cyprian, whose wretched retching noises were the only sound in the dark. A movement caught his eye. Across the street, in the shadows of a pillar, stood a boy. Radu peered through the darkness and then inhaled sharply with surprise.

  It was Amal. The servant who had spied for him while Murad died. The servant who had raced through the empire to bring word to Mehmed so he could claim the throne before it was taken from him. The servant who had most definitely been in the palace at Edirne when Radu left.

  The boy smiled at Radu. Checking to make sure Cyprian was otherwise distracted, Radu hurried across the street. He whispered troop locations, numbers, and any other details he could recall that Amal would be able to remember. To take to Mehmed.

  His Mehmed.

  Then Radu went back to Cyprian and helped the other man home, his burden lifted by excitement and hope.

  Radu paced, the candle in his hand throwing his shadow on the wall behind him. Nazira sat on the bed.

  “He did have a plan for us! That was why he told me to visit the Hagia Sophia. He always meant to send a scout to find us there. Amal is the perfect choice! The passage between Galata and Constantinople is open during the day. He can easily slip back and forth, meeting Mehmed’s men beyond Galata and carrying information. Oh, Nazira, he did have a plan for us.”

  Radu finally sat, overcome with exhaustion and relief. Nazira got off the bed and knelt in front of him, placing the candle on a table and taking Radu
’s hands in her own. “Of course he had a plan for us. Did you really think he sent us here for nothing?”

  “I feared it. I thought he wanted me gone. I was so scared. I thought I had risked your life without any purpose.”

  She tutted. “I would never do anything so foolish. And I would never accuse Mehmed of being wasteful with resources. Of course he would not fail to take advantage of you. We will have to be careful with Amal and not put him in any danger. But it is a good method.”

  Before Radu could stop himself, tears streamed down his face. He and Nazira would be useful. They would help Mehmed. And Mehmed would know and be glad. “He did not abandon me,” Radu said, lowering his head onto Nazira’s shoulder. “I can still help him.”

  Nazira patted his back, then lifted his chin so he looked her in the eyes. “We can help the empire. That is why we are here. To fulfill the words of the Prophet, peace be upon him, and to secure stability for our people. We fight for our brothers and sisters, for their safety. Do not lose sight of that. We are not here as a favor to Mehmed.” She paused, her voice getting softer but cutting deeper. “He will not love you for what you do here.”

  Radu jerked back from her words. “Do not speak to me of it.”

  “You carry too much hope, and it will canker in your soul like an infection. Serve Mehmed because through serving him, you serve the empire. But do not do it out of some desperate hope that it will make him love you the way you love him. He cannot.”

  “You do not know him!”

  Nazira raised an eyebrow. Radu lowered his voice, hissing instead of shouting. “You do not know him. Besides, I do not wish anything more from him than his friendship.”

  “You are welcome to lie to me, but please stop lying to yourself. Whatever your hopes are with him, I promise they will never be realized.”