Radu dismounted and offered a hand to help her off her horse. “Somewhere out of Wallachia.”
“I do not know,” Cyprian said. “This area is quite nice.” He patted his horse and stretched his broad shoulders. Radu quickly looked away—and then remembered he did not have to. He let his eyes linger, drinking the other man in. Cyprian caught him staring. His answering smile was sharper than normal. Sharper, and more devious.
The Janissaries gathered and dismounted as well. Radu had left Kiril in charge in Tirgoviste, trusting him to keep an eye on things there. The guards who had accompanied them would cross over to the island with them, in case they encountered any hostility. In an effort to appear nonthreatening, Radu had dressed Wallachian-style. He had left his beloved turban at home and wore a rather absurd hat instead. He wanted to return to flowing robes and beautiful fabrics, leave behind these layers of breeches and vests and coats. Not only were they ugly, they were damnably hot in the heavy summer air.
Nazira and Fatima, too, had shifted their dress. They did not look quite Wallachian, but they did not look Turkish, either. As with everything, Nazira prettified whatever she wore simply by virtue of being in it. Radu suspected she could wear the dirty wool right off a lamb’s back and make it look deliberate and fashionable. Fatima’s clothes were serviceable and plain. Though Radu told her she did not need to play at being a servant here, she preferred to go unnoticed. Looking like a maid was an easy way to become invisible to anyone who had no use for you.
Cyprian at least was comfortable in Wallachian clothes, as they were similar to styles he had worn in Constantinople. He had stopped wearing the Janissary uniform—where Nazira had gotten one for him, Radu did not know, though he suspected somewhere was a Janissary still too charmed by her to bother being angry that he was walking about naked.
After issuing instructions to the guards, they walked to the rickety dock. It was apparent that the previous dock had been burned and dismantled. The replacement was just a few planks nailed together, but there was a boat waiting. With a queasy lurch, all Radu’s thoughts twisted away.
“Oh, a boat! Radu loves boats,” Nazira teased.
Radu climbed gingerly into the back, with Cyprian sitting at his side. Nazira and Fatima took a nearby bench, and the rest of the guards filled in where they could. They helped row, following the increasingly annoyed directions of the Wallachian-speaking ferryman. Radu translated as best he could in between trying not to vomit.
When they reached the island, Radu nearly fell over in his haste to rejoin firm ground. Cyprian leaned close and whispered, “Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps the real reason you stayed behind in Constantinople was not out of altruistic duty to my little cousins, but because you knew you could not survive a boat ride.”
Radu laughed weakly, and Cyprian joined him. That Cyprian could not only forgive his past but also find ways to joke about it was deeply reassuring. It would always be a tender spot—but as a scar, not an open wound.
After his stomach had settled, Radu finally took a look at the island. It was tiny, the borders marshy and overgrown. Insects droned, lending the humid and heavy air its own music. Short but dense trees offered the promise of shade, and a path led to carefully tended garden rows. The monastery rose in the distance, pale-red stone towers marking its place. Though the guards around them were on high alert, the monk ambling toward them seemed utterly unconcerned by the appearance of this many armed men.
“Hello,” Radu said. “I am …” He paused, unsure whether Radu Bey or Radu Dracul would get a better reception. He had already dressed the part of Wallachian nobility, though. May as well continue to play it. “I am Radu Dracul, here on behalf of Prince Aron Danesti, vaivode of Wallachia.”
The monk, his face lined and tanned with years of being outdoors, did not smile. But something in the lines around his eyes shifted with amusement. “Prince Aron? I was not aware we had a new one. Or that we needed one.”
“Yes.” Radu smiled, though he did not quite know where he stood with this man. “He sends his greetings and asks that a priest join him in Tirgoviste to take over the cathedral.”
“Hmm. Well, come along with me to the monastery. We can offer you food and rest.” The monk turned back down the path. Radu walked by his side, the others falling in behind.
“Have you been to our island before?” the monk asked. “You seem familiar.”
“Not since I was a small boy.”
“Ah yes. I remember now. Your sister told me.”
“Lada has been here?”
“She came last autumn. In fact, look there—” The monk pointed to the spires of the church, nearly finished, with men on ropes clinging to the outside and hammering in shingles. “She donated the funds for the new building. She has been a good patron to us.”
Radu frowned, puzzled. The church was functional and elegant with dusty stone that would age in beauty the way all churches here did.
“You seem surprised,” the monk said.
“I never knew my sister to be particularly concerned with the welfare of her soul.”
The monk smiled slyly. “Are we not all? Besides, as she put it, our church is Wallachian and thus deserves more glory and trappings than other gods.”
“Ah, that makes more sense.” If it was done for Wallachia in competition with other countries, then Radu could understand Lada’s desire to improve the island. In fact, he was surprised she had not made the church much larger. And spikier. “What did you think of her?”
“She is singular. I have never encountered her like—though I have lived the last twenty years on this island, and we do not have many visitors. Still, while I was initially skeptical, reports from the countryside indicate that your sister is a leader of remarkable vision and strength.”
“Was,” Radu gently corrected.
“Oh?” The monk’s face twisted playfully. “Mircea!” he called out. Radu cringed involuntarily, hearing his cruel older brother’s name. But Mircea was dead, and his name common. One of the men working on the church turned his head. “Who is prince of Wallachia?” shouted the monk.
“Lada Dracul, may she spit ever in the faces of the Turks!”
The guards around Radu shifted uneasily, but none of the workers moved aggressively, or even paid them much mind.
“Does he not know a new prince has been crowned?” Radu asked. Maybe people had not returned to their towns because they were unaware.
The monk opened the church’s doors, the dim interior cool and inviting. “I think, my son, that he does not care.”
Lunch was fish with summer vegetables and rough bread. The monks were polite and kind, patiently disinterested in anything Radu had to say. And even less interested in taking a position in the capital.
“Perhaps check in one of the village churches,” the monk that had led him here suggested.
“Everyone is afraid to come to Tirgoviste,” Radu confessed, staring up at a mural of Christ. “Most are still hiding in the mountains. Those that have come down are much like your man on the roof. They do not care about the new prince. We cannot even begin to collect taxes. We are mostly just praying they plant fields so we will have a harvest.”
“It is a different country now. Your sister offered them change. They will not give it up easily.”
“But she is not even here.”
The monk lifted his hands as though offering evidence. “She is, though. As long as she is alive, so are the changes she wrought. The gates have been flung open, and the sheep have wandered. I suspect this Aron is not up to the task of shepherding them back in.”
Radu could not argue with that. He said nothing, and studiously avoided Nazira’s pointed look.