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.
13
Late March
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 sacrifice, 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.