Lada had expected cold glares and hard looks as she threw her shoulders back and strode through the room behind Toma. Instead, she was met with a few curious, even amused glances. Most of the boyars did not stop eating or speaking to their neighbor.
She had dressed for battle and was met with indifference. Would she have to fight the battle to be seen her whole life?
The walk to the head of the table took an eternity. She wished she had not insisted she be alone for this. She wanted someone trusted by her side. Nicolae, with his incessant questions? Bogdan, with his dogged loyalty? Petru, or Stefan, or even Daciana?
She realized with a pang whom it was she missed. She wanted Radu on her right. And she wanted Mehmed on her left. They had made her feel strong, and smart, and seen. They had made her feel like a dragon. Without their belief in her, who was she?
She stood at the head of the table and waited. And waited. Nothing changed. No one ceased conversation, or bowed.
“Welcome,” she said. Her voice was lost among the general buzz of activity. She cleared her throat and shouted it, the meaning of the word probably lost with her angry tone.
Finally, taking their time, the boyars’ chatter quieted and then stopped. All eyes turned toward her. Eyebrows lifted. Corners of mouths turned up or down. Nowhere did she see the anticipated anger. Most of the boyars looked…bored.
She looked desperately to a side door, where Nicolae stood smartly at attention. He mouthed Thank you for coming.
“Thank you for coming,” Lada blurted, then immediately regretted it. She cleared her throat again, standing straighter. “We have much to discuss.”
“I want compensation for the death of my cousin,” a boyar near her said, his tone flat.
“I— We will get to that, but—”
“Yes, of course,” Toma said. He sat next to the head of the table, on her right. “I think we can work out payments, and extra land as redress.”
Lada froze, grasping for words. Why had he answered for her? Already they had put her on the defensive. This was not how it was supposed to go. How could they come in here, demanding compensation for the deaths of their relatives, while her own father and brother rotted because of their betrayal?
Toma smiled encouragingly, as though nudging her. “That is how you will answer for the deaths, right?”
Lada closed her eyes, then opened them, smoothing her expression to match Toma’s tone. “I will answer the same way they will answer for my brother lying facedown in a grave outside the city. Or my father, who has no grave.”
Toma cleared his throat, giving her a minute shake of his head and a small, disappointed frown. “This is all very bleak talk for the dinner table. We should speak of something else. How will you disperse your men?”
“You mean to clear the roads?” She had not had a chance to finalize her plans for making the roads safe for travel and commerce. Why was Toma pushing her to talk about those ideas now? “I had thought we would divide it by area, and—”
Toma held up a hand to cut her off. “No. You misunderstand. As prince, you are not allowed to have a standing military force. It is part of our treaties with Hungary and the Turks both. Matthias Corvinas specifically mentioned it in his most recent letter.” He smiled patronizingly. “I know this is all very new, and you were so young when you left us. Of course you did not know, but your men far outnumber a traditional guard. You may keep…” He paused as though thinking, stroking his beard. “Oh, twenty? That should more than meet your needs. The rest we will divide among our estates. Since I already have a relationship with them, I volunteer to house the bulk of your forces.”
Lada had more than three hundred men now. Good men. Men who had given up everything to follow her. “They are my men,” she snapped. “I have made no promises to Hungary or to the Ottomans, but I have made promises to my men.”
A dark-haired, rat-faced boyar near the middle of the table spoke up. “Promises you were never entitled to make. Princes,” he said with a sneer that made it clear what he thought of a woman holding the title, “cannot defend themselves. It is not done. A prince is the servant of the people. It is the duty of the boyars to hold soldiers to be called upon in times of need. If we decide the need is urgent, we will organize our men.”
Toma nodded, reaching out to pat Lada’s hand. “You have been gone too long. A prince is a vassal, a figurehead. Any attempt to build an army or even so much as a tower to defend yourself is seen as an act of aggression. You have nothing to fear now, though. The boyars are your support.”
“So your strength is my strength,” Lada said, eyes half closing as she let the sea of faces in front of her blur. “That is comforting.”
Some of the men and women laughed. Many went back to their conversations. None of this had gone as she thought it would. She had expected opposition, challenges, arguments. Instead, they all seemed perfectly willing to accept her as their prince.
And then she realized why. They were happy to have her because they were happy with weakness. The more pliable the prince, the more power they had. And who could be more pliable than a simple girl, playing at the throne? No wonder Toma had supported her. He could not have designed a better avenue to power for himself than a female prince. If Lada died, the Danesti line would put their own back on the throne. And until then, they would do whatever they saw fit.
If she had Radu, if she had a way to manipulate them, then maybe she could manage all this. But they worked with weapons she had no training in. Despair washed over her.
Toma leaned forward conspiratorially. “You did very well. I will stay on as your advisor. No one expects you to understand everything.”
All the change she saw sweeping the country in the shadow of her wings had been an illusion. These people ran everything, and nothing had changed for them.
“Which one will she marry?” a woman a few seats down asked.
The man sitting next to her snorted into his cup of wine. “Aron or Andrei, whichever one, what a pity for them. First they lose their father, and then they have to marry the ugliest murderess in existence.”
“Still, it will be good to get the Draculesti line under control.”
Lada stood. Her chair scraped back loudly. “Lada,” someone said from the door nearest her. She turned to see Bogdan. Something was wrong. She could see it in his pale face and downturned mouth. She hurried to him.
“What is it?”
“Come with me.”
No one called after her. She followed Bogdan down the hall and into the kitchen, where a large wooden table had been cleared of food. It was now laden with a body.
Petru’s body.
Lada stumbled forward. His eyes were closed, his face still. His shirt had been pulled up to reveal a ragged hole of a wound that was no longer bleeding, because his heart no longer pumped. Bogdan turned him gently on his side. The origin of the wound was his back. Someone had stabbed him from behind.
“How did this happen?” Lada touched Petru’s cheek; it was still warm. He had been with her since Amasya. She had watched him grow up, into himself, into a man. One of her men. One of her best.
“We found him behind the stables,” Stefan said.
“Were there any witnesses?”
Bogdan’s voice was grim. “Two Danesti family guards who were arguing with him earlier said they saw and heard nothing. They suggested perhaps he fell on his own sword. Backward.”
Lada clenched her jaw. She stared at the body on the table until her vision blurred. Petru was hers. He represented her. And he had been stabbed in the back by men who represented the Danesti boyars. “Kill the guards. All of them, not just those two. Then bring my first men—those who have been with us since before we were free—into the dining hall.”
Lada turned around. She walked back toward the room holding the Danesti boyars. Dining with boyars. Dealing with Hungary. Pleading with the Ottomans for aid. Had she become her father this quickly?
She slammed through the door, the noise drawing the atten
tion of everyone who had not noticed her absence. “Someone’s guards killed one of my men. I want to know who allowed it.”
“Why?” Toma asked.
“Because an attack on my men is an attack on me, and I punish treason with death.”
Toma grimaced a smile at the table, then leaned close. “I am certain it was a misunderstanding. Besides, you cannot ask for a noble life in exchange for a soldier’s.”
“I can do anything I want,” Lada said.
Toma’s expression became sharp. “Sit down,” he commanded. “You are embarrassing me. We will talk about this later.”
Lada did not sit. “How many princes have you served under?”
Toma narrowed his eyes even more. “I would have to count.”
She leaned forward against the table, gesturing toward everyone. “I wish to know how many princes you have all served under.”
“Four,” the rat-faced boyar said with a shrug of his shoulders.
Many nodded. “Eight,” another said. “Nine!” someone else countered.
A wizened old man near the back shouted out, “I have you all beat. Twenty-one princes have I seen in my lifetime!”
Everyone laughed. Lada laughed loudest and sharpest. She kept laughing long after everyone else stopped, her laugh ringing alone through the room. She laughed until everyone stared at her, confused and pitying.
She stopped abruptly, the room echoing with the silence left in the wake of her laughter. “Princes come and go, but you all remain.”
Toma nodded. “We are the constants. Wallachia depends on us.”
“Yes, I have seen Wallachia. I have seen what your constant care has created.” Lada thought of the fields empty of crops. The roads empty of commerce. The hollow eyes and the hollow stomachs. The boys missing from the fields, their corpses against the walls of Constantinople now. The lands eaten away by Transylvania and Hungary.
So many things missing, so many things lost. And always, ever, the boyars remained exactly as they were.
She, too, had been lost. Sold to another land, for what? For her father to be betrayed and murdered by the men and women in front of her now, eating her food. Patting her hand. Calculating how long this prince would best serve their needs until they found another.
The Danesti boyars were a poison that would be her eventual end. In the meantime, they would try to marry her into their families, and would siphon the life from her Wallachia. She had promised the people a better country. A stronger country. And now, finally, she understood how to create it. There were no compromises, no gentle pathways. She could not keep power the way anyone else had before her, because she was like no one else before her.
“Your mistake is in assuming that because I have been far away, I do not understand how things work.” She reached over and plucked the knife from beside Toma’s plate. “I have been far away. And because of that, I understand perfectly how things work. I have learned at the feet of our enemies. I have seen that sometimes the only way forward is to destroy everything that came before. I have learned that if what you are doing is not working, you try something else.”
She stabbed the knife into the top of the table, embedding it in the wood. Then she looked up to see her men entering the room and lining the walls of the hallway. “Who killed my father and brother? And who is responsible for the death of my soldier Petru? I demand justice.”
No one spoke.
“Very well. Lock the doors,” she said, her voice cold.
A murmur arose among the boyars. They shifted in their seats, watching as each exit was closed and locked. Finally, they had the sense to look uncomfortable. Finally, they truly saw her.
Lada drew her sword, looking down the curve of it. She had thought it like a smile, before. Now she saw what it was: a scythe. Without a word she shifted and plunged it into the chest of Toma. The man who had used we to talk about their plans, when he meant himself and a foreign king. The man who had thought that through words and advice, he could take Lada’s soldiers, Lada’s power, Lada’s country without ever fighting her. She watched his face as he died, committing it to memory.
A woman screamed. Several chairs clattered as people hastily stood. Lada pulled her sword from Toma’s chest, then gestured to the table.
“Kill them all,” she said.
Her men did not move, until Bogdan drew his sword and stepped forward, swiftly killing two boyars. Then the work of harvesting began in earnest.
Lada picked up a cloth napkin and used it to wipe the blood off the length of her sword. The screams were distracting, but she was used to distractions. Hold hands with the devil until you are both over the bridge.
Or kill the devil and burn the bridge so no one can get to you.
It took a few moments for her to notice the screaming had finally stopped. She looked up. Bodies littered the room. Men and women slumped over the table or lay in their blood on the floor where they had tried to escape. Her men had not even broken a sweat.
It was good that Radu was not here after all. She did not want him to see this. Maybe it would not have been necessary if he had been here. Maybe, together, they could have found another way.
But he had chosen Mehmed, and she had chosen this. She could not stop now. Lada sheathed her sword. “Take the bodies to the courtyard. Everyone needs to know a new Wallachia has been born tonight. After they have been displayed, we will give Petru the memorial he deserves.”
“What about their families?” Bogdan asked.
“Kill any Danesti heirs. They have nothing to inherit now. I will give their titles and land to those who actually serve me.”
“Lada.” Nicolae grasped her elbow. His sword was still sheathed. “Do not do this.”
“It is already done.”
“But their children—”
“We cut out the corruption so we can grow. I am making Wallachia strong.” She turned to face him, her eyes as hard as her blade. “Do you disagree with me? They killed my family. They would have killed me, too, when it suited them. And they wanted us to continue under the Ottomans. They would sell our children to the Turkish armies, just like you. Just like Petru. You know I am right.”
Nicolae looked down, scar twisting. “I— Yes, I know. I wish we could have done it another way, but I think you are right. The Danesti boyars would never have supported a new Wallachia under you. But their children are innocent. You can afford to show mercy.”
She remembered the choice Huma made to assassinate Mehmed’s infant half brother to avoid future civil war. Kill a child, save an empire. It was terrible. Sometimes terrible things were necessary. But unlike Mehmed, who had his vicious mother, no one would make these choices for Lada. No one would save her from this. She had to be strong. “Mercy is the one thing I cannot afford. Not yet. When Wallachia is stable, when we have rebuilt, then yes. What we do now, we do so that someday mercy will be able to survive here.”
“But the children.” Nicolae’s voice was as empty as a boyar’s promise.
“You said you would follow me to the ends of the earth.”
“God’s wounds, Lada,” he whispered, shaking his head. “Someday you will go further than I can follow.” He let go of her arm, then grabbed Toma’s body and dragged it from the room.
She had done what was necessary. She watched as each body was removed. She would mark their passing, and acknowledge their unwilling sacrifice. Because with each body they drew closer to her goal. She clutched her locket so tightly that her fingers ached.
She was a dragon. She was a prince. She was the only hope Wallachia had of ever prospering.
And she would do whatever it took to get there.
To Lada Dracul, Vaivode of Wallachia, Beloved Sister,
Constantinople has fallen. Mehmed is sultan, emperor, caesar of Rome, the new Alexander. He has united East and West in his new capital. As his vassal, I ask your presence to celebrate his victory and to negotiate new terms for Wallachia’s taxes and Janissary contributions.
He wishes to see you, as do I. I think of you often, and wonder whether I chose right after all. Please come. Mehmed will offer you good terms, and I dearly wish to spend time with you. I have much to talk about with you.
Your visit is eagerly anticipated.
With all my love, and the official order of the sultan, emperor, and caesar of Rome,
Radu Pasha
To Radu, my brother,
I do not acknowledge your new title, nor Mehmed’s. Tell the lying coward I send no congratulations. He sent none to me when I took my throne in spite of him.
You did not choose right.
Tell Mehmed Wallachia is mine.
With all defiance,
Lada Dracul, Prince of Wallachia
Draculesti Family, Wallachian Nobility
Vlad Dracul: Deceased vaivode of Wallachia, father of Lada and Radu, father of Mircea, husband of Vasilissa
Vasilissa: Mother of Lada and Radu, princess of Moldavia
Mircea: Deceased oldest son of Vlad Dracul and his first, deceased wife
Lada: Daughter and second legitimate child of Vlad Dracul
Radu: Son and third legitimate child of Vlad Dracul
Vlad: Illegitimate son of Vlad Dracul with a mistress
Wallachian Court and Countryside Figures
Nurse: Oana, Mother of Bogdan, childhood caretaker of Lada and Radu
Bogdan: Son of the nurse, childhood best friend of Lada
Andrei: Boyar from rival Danesti family, son of the replacement prince
Aron: Brother of Andrei
Danesti family: Rival family for the Wallachian throne
Daciana: Peasant girl living under a Danesti boyar’s rule
Toma Basarab: Boyar from Basarab family
Ottoman Court Figures
Murad: Deceased Ottoman sultan, father of Mehmed
Halima: One of Murad’s wives, mother of murdered infant heir Ahmet
Mara Brankovic: One of Murad’s wives, returned to Serbia
Huma: Deceased mother of Mehmed and concubine of Murad
Now I Rise Page 36