“You should travel with guards.” Lada wore her anger as armor against this woman. “We could have been anyone.”
Vasilissa moved her trembling hand to her heart.
“We are not going to rob you.” Lada sighed. “We are here to speak with you.”
“Ladislav,” Vasilissa whispered. “My little girl.”
Lada had been prepared to be humiliated by introducing herself. She had not thought about what she would do if her mother knew her. She stepped back as though struck, her vision narrowing to a tunnel. Every muscle tensed, waiting for attack.
Vasilissa leaned down as far as she could from her horse. Her voice was barely discernable over the rush of blood in Lada’s ears.
“Ladislav.” She reached one tiny, gloved hand toward Lada’s hair. Then she cleared her throat, looking Lada up and down in a way that made her feel naked. “Come. We will get you a bath and some new clothes.” Her mother turned the horse back toward the manor and set off at a brisk pace.
“I have men with me!” Lada shouted, finally regaining her voice.
“No,” Vasilissa said, not turning around. “Only you. No men.”
At a loss, Lada gestured to Petru, Nicolae, and Bogdan, who watched her from the cover of the hedge. “Just … stay, for now. I will come back for you.”
“Are you certain you will come to no harm?” Bogdan asked, narrowed eyes tracking Vasilissa’s hasty exit.
Lada was certain of the opposite. But she did not expect the type of harm Bogdan feared. “Wait here.”
When she got to the manor, the front door was closed. Barren ivy climbed over every surface, its tangled brown masses swallowing the angles and shape of the house. In the summer it would be green and lovely, but not now.
The least her mother could have done was wait for her. Lada laughed bitterly. No, her mother was skilled at doing far less than the least she could do for her daughter. Of course she would make Lada knock. Lada pounded her gloved fist against the door. It opened with such speed, the maid behind it must have been waiting there.
The girl curtsied awkwardly. She wore a shapeless brown dress and an ill-fitting black cap. “Welcome, mistress. My lady has prepared a room for you.”
Lada frowned. Who else was her mother expecting? “I only met her just now on the road.”
The girl cleared her throat, keeping her eyes on the floor. “My lady has prepared a room for you. Please come with me.”
“Where is my moth—where is Vasilissa?”
“If you will come with me, I will show you your room and draw a bath for you. Her ladyship receives visitors after supper.”
“But she already knows I am here. And I have my men waiting outside.”
The maid finally looked up. Her eyes pointed in slightly different directions, one drifting to the left. She whispered, “Please, mistress, do not speak of the men to her. We do as she wishes. It is for the best. Allow me to take you to your room, and she will see you after supper.”
Exasperated, Lada flung a hand out. “Fine. Take me to my room.”
The girl flashed a quick, grateful smile, and led Lada into the house. The deeper they got, the more Lada’s stomach clenched in fear.
There was something very wrong here.
25
Early April
CHRIST STARED MOURNFULLY down at Radu. No matter how Radu shifted or where he looked, the round eyes of Jesus followed him.
“Are you well?” Cyprian whispered out the side of his mouth, leaning close.
Radu stopped fidgeting under the giant mosaic. “Yes. Just tired.”
In front of them, standing behind a giant wood postern, a priest ran through liturgy after liturgy. Radu’s Greek was good, but he could barely understand the antiquated phrasings and words. Even if he could, he would not care. Being in this church made him feel like a child again. Radu had not enjoyed his childhood, and it was deeply uncomfortable to be reminded of it.
Everything was larger than life in the church. Though it was not as big or beautiful as the Hagia Sophia, gilt covered all possible surfaces. The priest wore elaborate robes, stitched and embroidered with pounds of history and tra dition. A censer filled the room with scented smoke that made Radu’s eyes water and his head spin.
On the raised dais next to the priest, Constantine sat on a throne. Radu envied him a seat. All the other men stood, packed in too tightly, still and listening. Radu yearned for the movement of true prayer, for the simplicity and beauty and companionship of it.
The liturgy continued, as cold and uncaring as the murals of various saints meeting violent ends that decorated the walls. Lada would like those at least. Radu smiled, remembering when they had visited a monastery on the island of Snagov in Wallachia. Lada had been chastised for laughing at the gruesome death scene of Saint Bartholomew. An elaborate painting of him with half his skin already off adorned one of the monastery walls. Radu could never look at that mural without shivering in fear. Lada had told him to think instead of how cold poor Saint Bartholomew must have been without any skin on.
He wished Lada were with him now. But even if she were, she would be up in the gallery with Nazira and all the other women. And she would be blisteringly angry about it.
Radu avoided Jesus’s gaze yet again and found himself staring at an equally mournful mosaic of Mary. Her head was tilted down and to one side, a miniature Christ child solemn and staring on her lap. Will you protect your city? Radu silently asked her. He knew there was one God. But in this city of mysticism steeped in so much religious fervor, he could not escape the fear that the other god, the god of his childhood, lurked in the mist and the rain and the tremors of the earth. Radu was trapped behind these walls, separated from who he had become. With his tongue he cursed Muslim infidels and with his heart he prayed for constant forgiveness.
Surely the true God, the God of his heart, knew what Radu was doing here. Even if Radu himself did not.
When the liturgy finally ended, Radu wanted nothing more than to go back to Cyprian’s house and sleep for a day. But Cyprian grabbed his arm and pulled him toward a group that was milling about near Constantine.
“I wanted to introduce you to—ah, here they are!” Cyprian clasped hands warmly with two boys who shared the round-eyed, mournful faces of the mosaics around them. Radu half expected them to tilt their heads and lift their hands in various saintlike poses. Instead, they smiled shyly.
“This is John, and his brother, Manuel. My cousins. Their father was John, the emperor before Constantine.”
The older boy looked to be around eight, the younger five. They wore purple robes and gold circlets. The clasps of the chains securing their robes glittered like jewels, but as Radu looked closer, he saw they were made of glass.
Radu bowed. “I am Radu.”
The younger boy, Manuel, perked up, his round eyes growing even rounder. “From the sultan’s palace?”
“Who told you about me?” Radu asked, with a puzzled smile.
“Cyprian has told us all about you!”
Cyprian cleared his throat. “Not all about you. Just … that you saved me.”
Manuel nodded. “Is it true what they say about the sultan?”
Radu smiled to hide the pit that had opened up in his stomach. Had even this small boy heard that Radu was the sultan’s shameful plaything? Why would Cyprian have told him that? “They say many things. I am afraid you will have to be more specific.”
“That the sultan kills a man before every meal and sprinkles his food with the blood to protect himself against death.”
Radu was so relieved he had to choke back a laugh. He covered it by pretending to cough. “No, unless things have changed dramatically since I left. He prefers his food without blood, like most men.”