“I did not!”
Laughing, Radu guided Cyprian toward a corner, where the drunk man slid down against the wall and leaned his head back. Radu sat next to him, mimicking his posture.
“I am so sorry,” Cyprian said.
“For what?”
“For bringing you here. I condemned you to death. I should have— I thought of taking us somewhere else. To Cyprus. I should have talked you out of this madness. Now you are trapped here, and it is all my fault.”
Radu put a hand on Cyprian’s arm, hating the anguish in his friend’s voice—no, not his friend. He could not view him as a friend—would not. He quickly pulled his hand back. “You saved us from Mehmed. Do not apologize for that. We came because we wanted to help the city. We would not have accepted running and hiding, just as you could not bring yourself to do it.”
“You call him Mehmed.”
Radu turned toward Cyprian, but the other man was staring straight ahead into the darkness. Radu could not make out his expression. “What do you mean?” he asked, his voice careful.
“The sultan. You try not to, but when you are not being careful, you call him Mehmed. You were close to him.”
Radu searched the shadows around them for the right way to answer. Cyprian spoke before he could, though. “It was not all bad, was it? Being with him?”
Now Radu was fully alert. Could Cyprian’s drunkenness have been an act to lull Radu into security, to get him to reveal something he should not? Was this a follow-up to the prying questions about Radu’s relationship with Nazira? He chose his words with as much care as he had ever given anything. “The sultan was kind to me when we were boys. I looked up to him. I thought he had saved me from the pain we endured from his father’s tutors. He was all I had.”
“Your sister was with you, though.”
Radu laughed drily. “Again, you have never met my sister. She responded to our torments by getting harder, crueler, further away. It made her stronger, but it was breaking me. So when Mehmed—the sultan—offered me kindness, it was like someone had offered me the sun in the midst of the longest, coldest winter of my life.” Radu cleared his throat. He walked as close to the truth as he could, so that his lies would be masked in sincerity. “But as we grew older, he became different. More focused. More determined. The friend and protector I thought I had was not mine at all, and never had been. I valued him above everything else, and he— Well. Everything in the empire belongs to him, and he uses people as he sees fit.”
Radu knew Cyprian would think he was referring to being part of a male harem. But the sadness in his voice was not hard to place there. Mehmed had used him—sent him away on a fool’s errand. He would rather have been a shameful secret than a banished one.
“But did you love him?”
Radu stared hard at Cyprian. Cyprian, in turn, stared only at the frigid marble tiles beneath them, tracing his finger along a seam. The question sounded oddly earnest, not as though he were teasing or trying to provoke Radu.
Radu stood. “It does not matter, because I betrayed him. He never forgives betrayal.” Radu held out his hand, and Cyprian took it. He pulled Cyprian heavily to his feet, and they both lost their balance and stumbled. Cyprian held on to his collar, his face against Radu’s shoulder.
“I would forgive you,” he whispered. There was a moment between several breaths where Radu thought, maybe, perhaps—
Then Cyprian bent over, hands on his stomach, and ran for the door. Radu followed, then wished he had not as Cyprian vomited into the street just outside the Hagia Sophia.
Confused and cold, Radu closed and locked the door behind them. I would forgive you echoed in his brain, sticking where it should not.
Would he really? If he knew?
Radu turned to help Cyprian, whose wretched retching noises were the only sound in the dark. A movement caught his eye. Across the street, in the shadows of a pillar, stood a boy. Radu peered through the darkness and then inhaled sharply with surprise.
It was Amal. The servant who had spied for him while Murad died. The servant who had raced through the empire to bring word to Mehmed so he could claim the throne before it was taken from him. The servant who had most definitely been in the palace at Edirne when Radu left.
The boy smiled at Radu. Checking to make sure Cyprian was otherwise distracted, Radu hurried across the street. He whispered troop locations, numbers, and any other details he could recall that Amal would be able to remember. To take to Mehmed.
His Mehmed.
Then Radu went back to Cyprian and helped the other man home, his burden lifted by excitement and hope.
Radu paced, the candle in his hand throwing his shadow on the wall behind him. Nazira sat on the bed.
“He did have a plan for us! That was why he told me to visit the Hagia Sophia. He always meant to send a scout to find us there. Amal is the perfect choice! The passage between Galata and Constantinople is open during the day. He can easily slip back and forth, meeting Mehmed’s men beyond Galata and carrying information. Oh, Nazira, he did have a plan for us.”
Radu finally sat, overcome with exhaustion and relief. Nazira got off the bed and knelt in front of him, placing the candle on a table and taking Radu’s hands in her own. “Of course he had a plan for us. Did you really think he sent us here for nothing?”
“I feared it. I thought he wanted me gone. I was so scared. I thought I had risked your life without any purpose.”
She tutted. “I would never do anything so foolish. And I would never accuse Mehmed of being wasteful with resources. Of course he would not fail to take advantage of you. We will have to be careful with Amal and not put him in any danger. But it is a good method.”
Before Radu could stop himself, tears streamed down his face. He and Nazira would be useful. They would help Mehmed. And Mehmed would know and be glad. “He did not abandon me,” Radu said, lowering his head onto Nazira’s shoulder. “I can still help him.”
Nazira patted his back, then lifted his chin so he looked her in the eyes. “We can help the empire. That is why we are here. To fulfill the words of the Prophet, peace be upon him, and to secure stability for our people. We fight for our brothers and sisters, for their safety. Do not lose sight of that. We are not here as a favor to Mehmed.” She paused, her voice getting softer but cutting deeper. “He will not love you for what you do here.”
Radu jerked back from her words. “Do not speak to me of it.”
“You carry too much hope, and it will canker in your soul like an infection. Serve Mehmed because through serving him, you serve the empire. But do not do it out of some desperate hope that it will make him love you the way you love him. He cannot.”
“You do not know him!”
Nazira raised an eyebrow. Radu lowered his voice, hissing instead of shouting. “You do not know him. Besides, I do not wish anything more from him than his friendship.”
“You are welcome to lie to me, but please stop lying to yourself. Whatever your hopes are with him, I promise they will never be realized.”
“You have found love.”
“Yes. With someone who could return it. But you refuse to let go of this festering love for a man who is incapable of loving you.”
Radu blinked back tears. “Do I not deserve love?”
She put her hand on Radu’s cheek. “Sweet Radu, you deserve the greatest love the world has ever seen. I simply do not think Mehmed is capable of loving anyone the way you love him.”
“He loves Lada.”