“I do not trust him at all.”
Nicolae rubbed his scar. “Did you think he could just hand you the throne? You need allies. You need the boyars. You cannot skip past them, and to get them, you need him.” Nicolae put an arm around Lada, drawing her close. “Make a deal with the devil until you are both over the bridge.”
“Am I the devil, or are they?”
Nicolae laughed again, but he did not answer.
Bogdan sat on Lada’s other side. His eyes lingered on Nicolae’s arm around her shoulder. He offered her the inside of his bread. It was the softest part, her favorite. He took the crusts without expecting thanks. He simply did it, as he did everything for her. As he always had.
It sparked an idea.
“What if I take land—if I give the land to the people who deserve it, like Daciana’s mother? I get their loyalty. The boyars claim things based on centuries of blood. The land is theirs by birthright. So I take it from those who oppose us. I give it to people whose vision for Wallachia matches my own. They have nothing to claim other than my favor, and they owe all allegiance to me.” She met Bogdan’s approving stare and offered him a smile. He ducked his head, a pleased flush spreading across his cheeks.
“You cannot kill all the boyars.” Nicolae helped himself to some tea.
“Oh?”
Nicolae looked up sharply, narrowing his eyes. “They did not ask for their birthright. They have done nothing to you, and you have no guarantee that they ever will. I do not think you were wrong to kill that last pig, but slaughtering every noble in the country will have repercussions even you cannot handle.” When Lada did not respond, he threw his hands up in exasperation, spilling his tea. “They are related to nobility in other countries. You will draw too much attention and too much ire. Someone will retaliate. Besides, they have families. They have influence. And they are people.”
Lada gazed into the flames, letting them fill her vision. “Of course. I will listen to Toma Basarab and accept allegiance from those who offer it. But no one keeps anything without meriting it. That goes for every Wallachian.” She blinked, spots of light dancing in front of her eyes. “Including you, Daciana. So I ask again: why are you here?”
“You have no lady’s maid.”
Nicolae snorted. “You are mistaken. Our Lada is no lady. She is a dragon.”
Bogdan growled low and angry in his throat. Lada laughed, patting Bogdan’s knee. Then she tossed a handful of dirt and dry evergreen needles at Nicolae. “No one asked for your opinion.”
“My opinions are gifts I distribute freely, asking neither permission nor payment.”
“Take your gifts elsewhere,” Bogdan grumbled.
Lada waved her hand. “Nicolae is right. I need no lady’s maid, because I am not a lady. I am a soldier.”
Daciana smiled, smug and self-satisfied. “Precisely. A soldier does not have time to wash her monthly courses from her clothes.”
Lada’s cheeks burned, and she looked at the ground rather than at Nicolae and Bogdan. Daciana’s stomach loomed in the edge of her vision. And then she had a thought.
A terrible thought.
Lada stood, nearly falling into the fire. She grabbed Daciana’s hand. “Come with me.” The girl yelped, struggling to her feet. Lada dragged her away from the camp and into the trees.
“Tell me about being with child. How did it happen? How long did it take until you knew there was a—” Lada swept her hand toward Daciana’s stomach, unable to tear her eyes away from it now. “How long until you knew that thing was in there?”
Daciana’s dark eyes betrayed no emotion. “When was your last bleeding?”
Lada turned her back, stalking several feet away. “I am not asking about that, I only want to know—”
“I am neither stupid nor a gossip. When was your last bleeding?”
“Weeks. Maybe eight? Or nine.” It had been before Hunyadi, when they were in the mountains of Transylvania. Her underclothes had frozen when she hung them to dry after washing.
“Do you bleed regularly?”
Lada shook her head. “No. Only a few times a year.”
“That is fortunate. I am—” Daciana paused, taking a deep breath. “I was so steady you could track the moon by my blood. And when did a man last know you?”
Lada whipped around, snarling, “No man knows me.”
Again, Daciana did not respond with any apparent emotion. “Your breasts would be tender and swelling already. You would be sick. Exhausted beyond anything you have ever known.”
Lada shook her head in relief, then realized she was confirming Daciana’s assumptions. Of course she was. She was a fool. Moving with Mehmed in the darkness, the feel of his skin, the feel of him inside her …
She closed her eyes, because she had worked so hard not to think of it. But as soon as she allowed the memories back in, she wanted to kill him. And she wanted to be with him again.
She did not know which impulse was stronger.
“My sister is like you.” Daciana spoke as though they were discussing the weather. “She bleeds rarely. She is one of the only ones who has never been with child, despite many visits from our boyar, may his soul be damned forever.” Daciana spat on the ground. “She was the lucky one. You will probably have similar fortunes.”
Lada swallowed down some of her fear. It tasted like blood and bile. Daciana turned to go back to camp.
“You may stay with me,” Lada said.
The girl smiled. “I know.”
“You can sleep in my tent, if it makes you feel safer.”
“That is very generous of you. I will be sharing Stefan’s tent soon, though.”
“You will?” She had never known Stefan to take up with a woman. Though, of all her men, he would be most likely to do it without being noticed.
Daciana’s smile grew into something sly and sharp. “He does not know it yet.”
Lada laughed, and then the two women walked back together. It was a pity no one had given Daciana a knife when she was a little girl. Lada suspected she was as formidable as any of the men in camp.
37
May 5–16
UNWILLING TO SPEND more time repairing the wall—a huge section of which had fallen the day before with losses on both sides but no real change—Radu visited Orhan’s tower, where all the Turks in the city were stationed. Here, at least, were Ottomans he did not have to kill.
Radu stopped to sit with the guard. He knew them all by sight, if not by name. They were outsiders here, committed to the city but never truly a part of it. Everyone viewed them with some measure of distrust.
“There is little food,” the guard, Ismael, complained. “And no coin to buy it with. Orhan does as well by us as he can, but it is not easy.”
Radu nodded. “The Venetians tried to flee yesterday. Giustiniani barely stopped them. Men are missing their shifts on the walls, staying in the city to try to find food for their families.”
“Such is the nature of a siege. Death from without, rot from within.” Ismael smiled ruefully. “We may yet make it out of this, though. Back to the way things were before. How I miss walking the streets and having mud thrown at me simply because I am Turkish. Now we cannot leave our tower for fear people will think we are the sultan’s men, inside the city.”
Radu leaned back, the crate he sat on groaning in protest. Something inside caught his eye—an Ottoman flag. The crate held the rest of the flags they had not used for their messenger boat deception. Now, sitting here, useless and abandoned. Radu felt a surge of solidarity with the flags.
“Why did you stay?” Radu asked. If Mehmed won, Orhan’s men were all dead. And even if Mehmed failed, they would still be pariahs in the city. Orhan would never be able to claim the Ottoman throne, not now that Mehmed had heirs. He was useless politically.