Radu nodded. “I do not doubt that if Mehmed fails at the wall, he will not live long afterward. There are too many powerful men who do not like him.” The thought terrified Radu. Halil Vizier was still with Mehmed, working against him at every possible turn. How could Radu protect Mehmed from here?
Constantine stared blankly at the floor, his expression far away. “All we have to do is outlast him, then.”
It was as simple and as impossible as that.
20
Late March
“WHERE ARE YOU going?” Bogdan asked.
Lada whipped around, knives in her hands. Taking a deep breath, she put them away. It was near midnight. She had thought her furtive exit from camp would go unmarked. She should have known Bogdan would mark it, as he did all her movements. He had a way of tracking her, watching her without watching. His childhood loyalty had grown as broad and strong as he had. Usually Lada found comfort in that. But lately it felt far more serious, like he was not only looking for her but also looking for something from her.
She had been deliberately vague about their purpose on the shared border of Hungary, Transylvania, and Wallachia. None of her men had questioned her disobeying Hunyadi’s directive and leaving the Transylvanian passes they were supposed to guard.
Lada did not know how her men would feel about taking up with the Ottomans yet again. Some harbored less ill will toward their onetime captors and benefactors; oth ers hated them. Doubtless some would prefer to fight for Constantinople than at the sides of Ottomans. But she was their leader. They joined her to take back Wallachia, and she did not need permission to make decisions. If they did not like it, they were welcome to make their own way.
Her way was forward, to the throne, however she got there.
“You are supposed to be patrolling on the other end of camp,” she snapped.
Though she could not see his face, she could practically feel Bogdan’s blunt smile. “You did not answer my question.”
“Because I do not have to. I am leaving. I will be back. That is everything you need to know.”
“Something is wrong.”
“Nothing is wrong!” All day she had been on edge, knowing how close Mehmed was. She was not certain of the precise location of his camp, but she knew it was within a few miles of where she stood now. Mehmed was within a few miles, not separated by rivers and countries and the year that had come between them. She thought she had hidden her agitation well, but apparently not.
“I will go with you.”
“No!” Not Bogdan. Anyone but Bogdan. Lada could not face him if he found out what she was doing. Admitting it felt like asking permission, and she refused to do that. Besides, she remembered Bogdan’s thinly veiled distaste for Mehmed. She did not want to bring that along with her. “I must go alone.”
“Why?”
“Get back to your patrol.”
Bogdan stood, unmoving, for five eternally long breaths. Then he walked off into the night.
Lada hurried through the dark, knives back in both hands. She had a lot of ground to cover. It would have been easier on a horse, but that would have drawn even more attention to her departure. Still, after an hour crisscrossing through the terrain, looking for signs of a camp, Lada found herself slowing down. She wished she could enjoy walking alone—solitude was not a luxury she had much of lately—but she knew what awaited her.
Who awaited her.
And she did not know how to feel about seeing him again after so long apart. She had not been able to sort through her feelings, to separate what was real and what was merely a reaction to the circumstances of her childhood. What if she saw Mehmed and felt nothing? Worse, what if she saw Mehmed and felt everything as acutely as she had when they were together? It had been a hard thing, leaving him. Would this reopen the wound?
Before she could settle her emotions, she saw the familiar white cap of a Janissary. It glowed in the moonlight. Annoyance flickered through Lada. They should know better than to wear those white caps at night. If she were an assassin, this sentry would already be dead.
A slow, vicious smile spread across her face. She had planned on walking into the camp and announcing herself. She was not expected tonight—Mehmed had merely said where they would be. There had been no specific time to meet established.
It was a night to play “Kill the Sultan.”
She generously decided not to hurt any sentries. They would probably be punished for their failure to detect her, but they deserved that. The first was easily skirted. The second and third announced their approach with a cacophony of snapping twigs. Closer to camp, the going was more difficult. The tents were packed close, and under cover of trees. Between the trees and the darkness, Lada could not get a sense for how many men Mehmed had brought. It did not seem like enough. He probably had them spread out, though. That was what she would have done.
She pressed into the deeper darkness behind a tent as two Janissaries walked by, talking in quiet voices. She had an odd stirring of something that felt like nostalgia at hearing Turkish again. Scowling, she gripped her knives harder.
Mehmed’s tent might as well have had his name painted on it. It was the largest, made of sumptuous cloth in what she assumed would be red and gold in the sunlight. That was another mistake. If she were in charge, he would be sleeping in one of the small, anonymous tents. Make an assassin look through every tent, rather than boldly advertising the target.
He really did make this too easy.
Lada peered around the edge of a soldier’s tent from which gentle snores emanated. The entrance to Mehmed’s grand tent was manned by two Janissaries, both awake and alert. Lada slipped around to the back of the tent, which was guarded only by her friend darkness.
She darted forward, not hesitating as she stabbed a knife into the tent and dragged it down. With only the barest whisper of material, she had her own private entrance.
Inside, it was dim, a coal brazier in the corner giving only a faint glow. Lada wondered who had to carry the furniture Mehmed traveled with: a desk, a stool, a full table, an assortment of pillows, and a bed. No bedrolls for the sultan, whose body was too precious for the ground.
And whose body was in that bed, breathing softly.
Lada crept forward with her knife raised. And then she stopped, looking down at Mehmed.
She had forgotten the thick sweep of his black lashes. His full lips were turned down at the corners, as though his dreams troubled him. His hair, so often covered by turbans the past few years, was draped on his pillow, one strand lying across his forehead. Lada was filled with a sudden tenderness. She reached out and brushed the hair from his skin.
He awoke with a start, grabbing her wrist. His eyes were wide, body tensed for a fight. Lada leaned closer. She had never seen this ferocity in his face. She wanted to taste it.
Mehmed kept his painful grip on her wrist. “Lada?” he asked, blinking rapidly.
“I have just killed you. Again.”
He pulled her down, meeting her lips with desperate hunger. She dropped the knife. She had forgotten what it was to be kissed, to be desired. She had thought she did not need it.
She had been wrong.
Mehmed moved from her lips to her neck, his hands in her hair. “When you left, you took my heart with you. Kill me, Lada,” he said, with so much longing she could not keep her own hands off him. He rolled so she was beneath him. His hands explored her body, alternating between rough greediness and softness so gentle it nearly hurt her.
He put his mouth against her ear. “I have learned some things,” he said, voice teasing, “about pleasure.”