“As long as the Saxons make a woodcut of my demise, I will accept it with grace.” He stroked his chin. “Please ask them to get my face right. A face such as this should never be poorly represented.”
Nicolae was not wrong about Bogdan, though. Bogdan, her childhood companion and now most stalwart soldier and supporter, did not speak often. But lately even that had been too much. A break from him had been one of her motivations in making this trip alone. She was meeting him in Arges, but she had deliberately given him a task that took him from her before then.
Bogdan was like sleep. Necessary, sometimes enjoyable. She needed him. And when he was unobtainable, she missed him. But she liked that she could take him for granted most of the time.
Mehmed would never have tolerated such treatment. She scowled, pushing him from her mind. Mehmed deserved no place among her thoughts. He was a usurper there, just as he was everywhere.
They passed a frozen pond, patterns of frost telling a story she could not read. The trees opened up ahead to rolling farmland softened with snow. “Why did Stefan not stay after delivering these letters? He knew I was due here soon.”
“He wanted to get back to Daciana and the children. And he was probably worried if he saw you before that, you would send him away again and he would not get a chance to stop in Tirgoviste.”
Lada grunted. That was true. She wanted him in Bulgaria, or maybe Serbia. Both were active vassal states of the Ottoman Empire, and likely staging areas for any attacks. She did not expect an attack. But she would be prepared, and for that, she needed Stefan. He had spent the last couple of months scouting in Transylvania and Hungary to get a feel for their political climates, whether there were any active threats toward Lada’s rule. She wanted to speak with him in person. Daciana should not take priority over that. Nothing should.
Daciana ran the day-to-day business at the castle, all the details and mundanity that Lada could not begin to care about. Lada was grateful for her work. It had been a stroke of luck, finding her during their campaigning last year. But there was nothing at the castle that required Stefan’s attention. Daciana was safe and busy. He should know better than to waste all their time.
Lada scanned the neatly ordered reports impatiently. Stefan had written his own observations and coupled them with the woodcut printings. In Hungary, Matthias was king. He did not go by Hunyadi, as his father did, but had styled himself Matthias Corvinus. Lada was not surprised. Matthias’s relationship with his soldier father had been fraught. Of course he would not honor the man who had cut the path to the crown for him. And Lada had helped, in the end. She had betrayed Hunyadi’s legacy and committed murder for Matthias.
And then she had had to do everything by herself anyway, because the aid of men was never what they promised. It always came with hooks, invisible barbs to tug her back when she got close to her goals.
Matthias was not having an easy time of being king, at least. According to Stefan’s report, he spent all his time and money flattering nobles and trying to buy back his crown from Poland. The Polish king had taken it for safekeeping years before when the previous king had been killed in battle. It was an important symbol, and Matthias was desperate for the legitimacy it would give his questionable claim to the throne.
Lada skimmed that information. Matthias was a fool if he thought a piece of metal would give him what he wanted, and she did not particularly care about any of his machinations as long as they were directed toward other countries. It also served the benefit of keeping him distracted. As far as Stefan could tell, he had no designs on Lada despite her refusal to defer to his authority.
The woodcut printings demonstrated Transylvania’s continued opposition to her rule, but aside from the artistic flair, they had no organized opposition. There did not seem to be any attempt to destabilize her militarily. Stefan mentioned the downside to losing them as allies—they had long served as a buffer between Wallachia and Hungary—but there was nothing to be done. She had, after all, spent much of the previous year burning their cities. But if they had not wanted her to do that, they should have allied with her sooner.
All things considered, it was as good of news as she could have hoped for. But she had questions for Stefan. And concerns, now. Daciana was hers. Stefan was hers. She did not like them being each other’s before that.
She tucked the papers into her saddlebag. “And how have you managed?”
“I sleep well at night, and my appetite remains consistent. Some days I feel a touch of melancholy, but I combat it through long walks and deep barrels of wine.” He grinned at Lada’s exasperated look. “Oh, were you not asking about me, personally? I was born to be a lord. This much authority suits me nicely. My crops flourished, the fields are ready for the thaw, and the people on my land are happy. Revenues should be robust this year. Good news for the royal treasury, which is—”
“Still empty. And the men?” Along with the farmland, they had set aside a portion of Toma Basarab’s estate for training Lada’s soldiers. Princes had never been allowed to have a standing army. They were expected to depend entirely on the boyars and their individual forces. It was a disorganized, messy system. And a system that saw prince after prince dead before their time.
But Lada was like no prince before.
Nicolae tugged down his hat. In the cold, his nose had gone bright red, and his scar almost purple. “You were right to send us out here. It is easier to control the men and instill discipline when there are no city temptations. And everything I learned from the Janissaries is being put to use. This will be the greatest group of fighting men Wallachia has ever had.”
Lada was not surprised, but she was pleased. She knew her methods were better than what had always been done. Power was not split among meddling, selfish boyars. It flowed in a direct line of command to her. She rewarded merit, and she punished disloyalty and crime. Both with very public efficiency. And she knew from her stay the night before that word was spreading. Her people were motivated.
They passed two frozen bodies hanging from a tree. One had a sign that said DESERTER. The other, THIEF. Nicolae grimaced and looked away. Lada reached up and straightened one of the signs.
She had been focusing on making the roads safe and preparing for the spring planting. She had also been pruning the boyars. But Nicolae’s work was just as important for the future of Wallachia, and she would invest whatever she had to. It was a different type of seed to nurture.
Nicolae stretched, holding his long arms above his head and yawning. “How are things in the capital? Any problems with the boyars? I heard rumors that Lucian Basarab was angry.” Nicolae’s casual tone was as artfully constructed as a Transylvanian woodcut. Lada knew he had not forgotten nor forgiven her choices at the bloody banquet.
Though she had mostly killed Danesti boyars, the family most directly responsible for the death of her father and older brother, Toma Basarab had also been eliminated. It did not go over well with the Basarab family, including his wealthy and influential brother, Lucian. She was not sorry. The fewer boyars alive to betray her, the better. They had outlived far too many princes. This had made them comfortable and lazy, assured of their own importance. If boyars now lived in constant fear for their lives? She did not think that was a problem. They needed to know they were the same as all Lada’s citizens: they served Wallachia, or they died.
But Nicolae always wanted more delicacy. More mercy. It was part of the reason she had sent him out here, even though he was one of her best. She had no use for his counsel on moderation and placation. Neither of those were skills she had any interest in cultivating. If boyars served a purpose, they could remain. But they so very rarely did.