“I do not care about falcons! I need men. I need alliances.” Lada shook, a wave of unacknowledged anger and grief overwhelming her. Her father had given her a knife, and her mother had left her with nothing. She desperately wanted something to hold on to. Or, barring that, something to fight against. “I need you to ask me where I have been the last fifteen years! I need you to ask where your son is!”
Her mother stood, her dress-draped frame trembling. “It is time for me to retire for the night. The maid will see to you. Your room is the nicest in the house. You will be happy. And you will be safe; this is a very safe house.”
Vasilissa held out a hand. The maid rushed to her side. Lada saw, for the first time, that her mother walked with a pronounced limp. One of her feet, when it peeked from beneath her skirts, was twisted at an odd angle. The way Vasilissa moved without cringing spoke of it as an old, permanent injury. Lada did not know what to say, how to talk to this strange, ruined creature. Her impression of Vasilissa on the horse had been wrong. Her mother was exactly the same person who had left them behind. The only difference was that she had found a safe place to hide.
Perhaps Radu would feel tenderly toward her. Lada knew he would urge compassion.
She felt only rage.
“You never came back for us,” Lada said. “He sold us. To the Turks. We were tortured. We were raised in a foreign land by heathens. Radu stayed behind. They broke him.”
“Well.” Vasilissa reached out as though she would pat Lada’s arm as she passed. Her hand hovered in the air, then moved back to the maid’s arm for support. “You are welcome to stay forever. We are all safe here.”
“I belong in Wallachia.”
Her mother’s voice was as harsh as Lada had ever heard it, finally filled with true emotion. “No one belongs there.”
The maid was loath to part with any information, but as far as Lada could determine, her mother was mad. They had lived together in this house, far away from everyone and everything, for the last ten years. Vasilissa had been given the manor by her father, who doubtless could not stand the broken shell of a woman she was.
Every day was the same. The maid smiled as she described it, saying over and over how pleasant it was, to be safe and to always know what to expect. This was what Lada’s mother had chosen. Safety. Seclusion. The woman had abandoned her children, utterly and completely, to live in pampered isolation instead of dealing with the harsh realities of life.
The harsh realities of her own children’s desperate attempts to survive without anyone to aid them.
Lada did not say goodbye. She stopped in the kitchen and stole as much food as she could carry. Then she closed the front door behind her and walked along the dark lane to where the campfire of her men—her friends—called to her. She sat next to them, drawing heat and strength from their shoulders. Bogdan shifted closer and she leaned against him.
“Well?” Nicolae asked.
“She is mad.”
“Then you do have something in common after all!”
His attempt at levity met with no reaction from Lada. His voice got quieter. “Will there be any aid from Moldavia?”
“None that she can provide. We can go to the capital and appeal to the new king. But I do not think these people will help us. She is just like all the nobility, the boyars. They are sick with the same disease. They lock themselves in finery and wealth, and they refuse to see anything that might jeopardize their comfort.” Lada paused, remembering her mother’s teeth, her mother’s foot. Perhaps she should not begrudge the small measure of comfort a powerless woman had managed to find in a cruel world.
But she would absolutely begrudge her mother the failure to empower herself. Running and abandoning those who needed her was the weakest, lowest thing possible. Lada would not do that. She could not. Whatever else she was, Lada was nothing like the class who could go on living after turning their backs on those who depended upon them.
“What, then?” Nicolae asked. “Do we try to convince more boyars that you are a tame princess and not a warlord prince?”
Lada picked up a canteen of water and poured it on the flames, watching them sizzle and die. “I do not know. I have tried—” Her voice caught. She had tried everything. She had pledged loyalty to foreign kings, she had betrayed an ally, she had trusted that love was the same as honesty. “I have tried everything.”
“The little zealot was always unlikely. None of us blame you for looking for help there, though.”
Lada sat up straight, alarmed. “What do you mean?”
Nicolae’s expression was without reproach. “We are all very good soldiers and scouts, Lada. Did you really think we would fail to notice the sultan camped within miles of us?”
She hung her head, the weight of her shame pulling her down. “I told you I was freeing you. But when he offered help, I leapt at the opportunity.”
“We do not care,” Petru said.
The way Bogdan sat perfectly still next to her indicated that he, perhaps, did.
“We know you fight for us. For Wallachia.” Nicolae shrugged. “The little zealot was a means to an end. It did not work. So we find more means for the same end.”
Lada held out her hands. “I have exhausted my means. I am sorry you have followed me this far.”
“We still have Hunyadi,” Bogdan said.
Nicolae rubbed his beard, leaning back with a thoughtful expression. “No, Hunyadi is not our best option. We have our own Hunyadi in Lada. What we need is someone who can work new angles of power. What we need is Matthias.”
“He is the same as all the other leaders,” Lada said, shaking her head.
“That is precisely the point.” Nicolae smiled, the fire illuminating his face in the midst of the darkness. “He is the same as them. So if we get him …”
Lada took a deep breath filled with smoke. It seared her lungs. She wanted nothing to do with Matthias, and knew his help—if she could get it—would not be without a price. How much more of herself would she have to lose to get where she belonged?
“For Wallachia,” Bogdan said.
Lada nodded. “For Wallachia.”
27
April 4–6
A THICK FOG over the city muffled all life: muting church bells, softening footfalls, cloaking the streets in a layer of damp and stifling mystery.
Radu turned from staring out his window into the blank white that had settled over the distance like a sickness coming ever closer. Taking a deep breath, he knelt on the floor facing Mecca. Letting go of his fear and questions, he hoped his prayer could find its way out of the fogged-in city even if nothing else could. He was so lost in the ritual he failed to notice an increase in the frequency and number of church bells until his door burst open.
For a split second, Radu froze. He was upright on his knees, so he clasped his hands in front of himself like he had been caught in an acceptably Christian form of prayer. Cyprian, breathing hard, had been scanning the room at eye level. By the time he looked down at Radu, Radu was almost certain everything appeared as it should.
“What is it?” Radu asked, standing.
“The Turks.” Cyprian steadied himself against the doorframe. “They are here.”
Without a word Radu pulled on his cloak. Nazira was in the kitchen preparing the afternoon meal with anemic vegetables and some lumpy bread. “While you are out, try to buy some meat!” she called as they rushed by.
“The Turks are here!” Cyprian shouted. Nazira was at their side as they ran out the front door. She wore only slippers and a layered dress. Radu unfastened his cloak and threw it around her shoulders. She held it shut, keeping pace with the two men as they raced through the streets toward the walls.
If Cyprian had not been with them, Radu was certain they would have gotten lost. The fog changed the character of the city, obscuring landmarks, leeching the already faded colors. With no church steeples visible, bells rang out as though from the world of spirits, their metallic warnings hanging lonely in the air.
“When did they arrive?” Radu nearly slipped on a slick portion of road. Cyprian grabbed his elbow to steady him.