“I do not like you going alone. I do not trust Matthias.”
“Neither do I, but for now our goals intersect. I will not let this opportunity fall.”
“Grigore can handle going after Galesh so that—”
Lada grabbed Bogdan’s arms, cutting him off. “I trust only you to do this.” It was true. So many of her men were lost to her. But Bogdan remained. She knew that, of every man in the world, he would be true.
“I will attend to her,” Oana said with a reassuring pat on Bogdan’s arm. It made Lada realize how little they touched. Oana was far more demonstrative with Lada. So was Bogdan, for that matter. Whether it was because Lada had been Oana’s charge, or because Bogdan had been taken from her at such a young age, Lada was the center of their mother-son relationship. She pushed away a pleased smile at the thought.
Oana threw her shawl over her shoulders and tied it in place. “A lady should not be alone, ever. Not in a foreign castle.”
Lada snorted a laugh. “If someone threatens my honor, will you kill them with your knitting needles?”
Oana grinned, warm wrinkles around her eyes. “Do not doubt what I can do.”
“I never would.”
Bidding farewell to Bogdan, Lada and Oana climbed down the mountain with thirty guards. Horses awaited them at the nearby village, so remote the villagers had not bothered evacuating.
Lada sat straight and eager in her saddle. For the first time, going to Hungary did not feel like a punishment. It felt like victory.
32
Tirgoviste
RADU COULD NOT tell if the stench of death lingered in Tirgoviste, or if his memory of it was so strong that he would never be able to walk through the city again without gagging.
The work of clearing the bodies—taking them down, burying them with their heads toward Mecca, and giving them the respect they deserved—was finished. It had been a week of nonstop, wearying work. Because they had no grave markers, and could not identify most of the bodies anyway, Radu had them buried in the sections of forest that had been cleared to make the stakes. They planted seeds and saplings between each grave. Someday, a forest would grow and hide his sister’s abomination from the heavens.
Until then, they all carried it with them.
Radu paused at the castle gates, staring at where Kumal had been displayed. He would never tell Nazira. He would carry the memory himself; there was no reason to burden her. If Radu were still Christian, he would dedicate a church to his brother-in-law. As it was, whenever he prayed, he dedicated himself to Kumal’s memory. It was not enough—it would never be enough—but it was all he had to offer.
“Sir,” Kiril said, inclining his head smartly, then walking at Radu’s side. Radu had promoted him to his second-in-command. “We have finished the last of the cleanup. What now?”
“We need to find my sister. Until we know where she is and what she is planning, we cannot accomplish anything here. No one will return to the capital if the threat of her wrath looms over it. But I cannot see any way for her to retake it with the numbers she has.” Radu had been alert and waiting for attacks, but nothing had happened. Lada had vanished and taken with her everyone and everything they needed to fight. “Just because I cannot see it, though, does not mean she cannot find a way. More likely, though, is that she will try to draw us into the mountains where she will have the advantage. I do not particularly want to stumble into any more welcomes she has designed.”
Radu avoided the castle door. He had no wish to go inside. Instead, he climbed a ladder to the wall that circled the castle. He leaned over the bulwark and looked out at the city. It was still nearly empty. It had been easy to house his men—they had an entire capital to choose from. “We should act less like Ottomans and more like Wallachians.”
“How do Wallachians act?” Kiril was Bulgarian by birth, but did not remember anything of his homeland. He had been with the Ottomans since he was five. He often joined Radu for prayer and meals. They had the easy understanding of two people who had decided to claim the home that had claimed them.
Radu leaned on his elbows, looking back at the castle. In the center of the courtyard, as a child, he had once watched Aron and Andrei be whipped for a crime they did not commit. One he had framed them for. “Wallachians are desperate. Sneaky. Vicious. Or at least, that is how my family line has always behaved. Find a small group of men—those with frontier experience, not city experience. Send them into the mountains for scouting only. The smaller the groups, the more luck they will have in discovering without being discovered. We need to know where Lada is, and where she is hiding the bulk of her forces. Once we have that information, we will be able to move forward. In the meantime, we coronate the new prince of Wallachia, Aron Danesti.”
“So we act as though the country is ours, when our enemies are still out there and everything is in turmoil?”
“Lada will be furious. She antagonized Mehmed—” Radu caught himself and corrected. “Antagonized the sultan to get him to meet her where she had the advantage. We will do the same. I do not count on her storming out of the mountains, but I also would not be surprised by it. She has a terrible temper when you take what she thinks is hers. And even if it does not bait her, it serves a purpose. Sometimes, the best way to achieve power is to pretend like you already have it. We coronate a new prince, and we begin ruling. The country will fall in line. Lada changed too much, too fast. Change is hard. It requires a tremendous amount of time and willingness to endure discomfort. Going with what one has always known is easy. Add that to the sheer destruction of Lada’s tactics and the suffering that will cause? Wallachia will choose us, because we are the way to survive.”
He hoped they would gladly accept a return to what had always been if it came with peace and stability. Even if, perhaps, they deserved more.
Much like he had returned to Mehmed again and again. He had finally decided that the lonely unknown was preferable to the lonely known. He would not go back to Mehmed. Not as he had before. He prayed that Wallachia had not been pushed so far that its citizens, too, would realize they deserved better than what they had always had.
Radu would do his best to improve the country for as long as he was here. But he could only do that if it was stable. And, for now, it could only be stable by resettling into its old shape.
Kiril nodded. “I think that is a good plan, sir. And—this may be out of place—but I am glad to serve under you. Doubtless you know the rumors of why you have command. But Mehmed does not give power out on whims or as favors. You deserve your place here, and I am honored to follow you. All your men are.”
Radu laughed. “That compliment is a bit like a rose. It comes with a lot of barbs and thorns.”
Kiril raised his hands, a flush of embarrassment covering his cheeks.
Radu put a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “No, no, I understand. And thank you. Your confidence in me means more than you can know. I will always try to do right by my brothers.”
Radu excused Kiril with one last warm smile. It was a good plan. He would put on a show of power. Boyars would flock to him as the only safe option. And, if he was lucky, Lada would be so angry at being replaced as prince that she would come down to meet them where they had the advantage. Funny that after so many years of doing everything he could to avoid her ire, he was now in a position of using all that history against her.