“I heard he is so wealthy that he had all his teeth replaced with jewels.” John, the older boy, said it with a studied casualness, but he leaned forward just as intently as his brother.
“That would make eating all his blood-sprinkled meals quite a task! But no, that is not true, either. Though he does sometimes wear a turban so large it nearly brushes the ceiling!” That was an exaggeration, but both boys nodded in wonder. “He has fountains of clear water in all his rooms, and his fingers are so heavy with jewels that he cannot sign his own name without removing his rings first.”
Manuel scowled. “I do not know why he wants our dumb city, then.”
John elbowed him sharply in the side. “You are just jealous because I am the heir to the throne and you are not.”
Manuel stuck out his tongue. “Not if you die first!”
Cyprian put a hand on both their shoulders. “No talk like that, boys.” They deflated, looking shamefacedly at the floor. “And I am going to have a word with your nurse about the rumors she is letting you hear.”
John looked up first. He lifted his chin bravely, but it trembled slightly. “Is the sultan as cruel as they say?”
Radu wanted to deny it, but he had to remember he was playing a part. “He is … very smart, and very focused. He will do whatever it takes to get what he wants. So, yes, he can be cruel.”
John nodded, then set his jaw determinedly. “Well, it does not matter. The walls will save us. And even if he gets past them, an angel will come down from heaven with flaming swords before they can pass the statue of Justinian. The infidels will never have my city.”
A loud, deep laugh sounded next to them. Constantine ruffled the boy’s brown curls, skewing the circlet to the side. “Your city? I am fairly certain it is still mine.”
John smiled, blushing. “I only meant—”
“Have no fear, John. I will take good care of it until it is your turn.”
They turned their smiles on Radu. The combined weight of their love and hope with the heavy gaze of Jesus above them nearly knocked Radu to the floor. He bowed to cover his feelings, then straightened.
“Will you join us for a meal?” Constantine asked. “It will be nice to have someone else to answer their infinite questions for once.”
“I would love to,” Radu said, still exhausted but with a spike of excitement. This was his first personal invitation to spend time with the emperor. It was a good thing. A step in the right direction. A way to feel like he was actually accomplishing something, even though he feared there was no point.
Then a tiny hand slipped into Radu’s own, and he looked down into the saintly eyes of Manuel. The little boy beamed up at him, and Radu felt his soul wilt as he smiled back.
Everything had been so normal at dinner. Even Radu had managed to relax, enjoying the food and laughter and stories. All his hopes to hear something useful were dashed in the middle of bread and meat and preserved fruit.
And that was when he had his idea.
Mehmed might have sent him in without a plan, but he could destroy the city’s chances at surviving a siege before the Ottomans ever got to Constantinople. If food made them feel normal, allowed them to continue on as though their city were not under imminent threat, the absence of food would finally make it clear they could not survive.
It would be an act of mercy, destroying the food supplies. People would be forced to flee. Even if it did not lead directly to surrender, at least it would empty the city of innocent citizens.
Orhan, the pretend heir to the Ottoman throne, proved the key to discovering the location of one of the major food supplies. Because his men were not allowed at the wall—for fear soldiers would confuse them for Turks loyal to Mehmed—they had other assignments throughout the city. And one of those assignments was patrolling and checking all the locks on a warehouse. Radu could think of no reason for its protection other than that it housed food.
It had been a simple enough task for Radu to shadow the men and find his target. But now the bigger question: how to eliminate it?
Lada would burn it down. Radu did not doubt that. But the warehouse was in the middle of a relatively populated section of the city. If he set the building on fire, the fire would spread. He could end up killing innocent citizens—and part of his motivation in doing this was to save them. He could not live with collateral damage.
Poison would have the same effect, because they would not know the food was poisoned until people were dead. And Radu had no real means of obtaining large quantities of poison, much less doing so in secret.
He was in the kitchen tearing apart bread, pondering the problem of the food, when Nazira shrieked in terror from their bedroom. He raced upstairs to find her standing on the bed. “A rat!” She pointed to a corner where a large, mangy rat seemed equally terrified of her. “Kill it!”
Radu sighed, looking for something large enough to smash the rodent. And then he stopped. A smile lit his face. “No. I am going to catch it.”
Though rats were in plentiful supply in the city, catching a significant number of them was no small task. Or rather, it was many, many small, wearying tasks. And because Radu could not risk being missed at the wall, he had to sacrifice sleep. Nazira loved the plan, but was physically incapable of interacting with rats without screaming. Screaming did not lend itself well to secrecy.
So Radu spent all night, every night, catching rats. It was a far cry from his life at the side of the sultan, but not so far from what his role had always been. Sneaking around, gathering supplies, building toward an ultimate goal.
It would have been thrilling if it did not involve so many damned rats.
“What happened to your hands?” Cyprian asked a couple of mornings into the rat adventures. He and Radu were eating together on the wall, shoulder to shoulder as they looked out on the empty field that was filled nonetheless with the looming threat of the future.
Radu looked down at his fingers. “Vermin cemetery residents do not like sharing gravestones with trespassers.”
Cyprian set down his bread and took Radu’s hands in his own. He carefully examined them. Radu’s stomach fluttered. It felt like something more than fear of discovery, but he could not say what.
“Be careful,” Cyprian said, running a finger as soft as a whisper along Radu’s palm. “We need these hands.” Cyprian looked up and Radu found himself unable to bear the intensity of his gaze. Cyprian released his hands, laughing awkwardly. “We need all the hands we can get.”
“Yes,” Radu murmured, still feeling Cyprian’s finger tracing his palm.
That night, Radu had enough rats. Any more and he would not be able to carry them in secret. He waited for Orhan’s men to finish their patrol past the back doors of the warehouse. They never went inside, only checked the locks. He crept silently across the street, a wriggling, repulsive burlap sack filled to bursting slung across his back. He set the sack down and picked the lock, cursing his bitten fingers for their slowness. Cyprian had been right. They needed these hands.
Finally, shivering with nerves, Radu got the door open. Slipping inside, he made his way to the center of the vast space. Crates and barrels loomed like gravestones in the darkness. Everything smelled warm and dusty. He had guessed right about the contents of the warehouse. He used the metal rod he had brought to pry open lids, then he dumped rats into crates and barrels until his sack held only the rats that had not survived captivity. But he had managed to hit barely a third of the containers. He would have to do this every night for weeks to actually destroy all the supplies.
Burn it, Lada whispered in his mind.
“There’s always another way,” Radu answered. Thun der rumbled overhead as though agreeing with him. The city was prone to torrential downpours. Radu would need to hurry home to avoid getting caught in one. He looked up at the ceiling—