“No. I gave them to someone already.”
Toma laughed. “To a peasant woman? Yes, I heard. That was amusing. Please leave land distribution to me. In fact, perhaps it is best if you stay out here with your men. I will handle everything.”
He rode away, his men following. Lada watched his back with all the tension of a nocked arrow.
Nicolae put a hand on her arm.
“What?” she snapped.
He jerked his head behind them. She turned to see a line of peasants. A line of very angry peasants. They made no move toward her—probably owing to the mounted soldiers behind her—but she had no doubt they would kill her if they could.
“Who is in charge?” she asked, pacing her horse in front of them.
“My brother,” one man grunted.
“Where is he?”
“Dead in the field back there.”
Lada stopped her horse, glaring down her long, hooked nose at the man. “And you think that is my fault?”
“Your swords have blood on them.”
Lada drew her sword. It gleamed, well polished. “My sword is clean. My sword was not behind your brothers and cousins, forcing them into a fight they were not prepared for. My sword was not hanging over your necks, forcing you to serve a man who cared nothing for your lives. My sword was not held by the guards of your boyar to ensure none of your sons and friends could run when they should have.”
Nicolae cleared his throat. “Maybe not the best tac tic to encourage them to fight with us,” he said under his breath.
Lada turned her horse, disgusted and angry. “We are going to Tirgoviste,” she said. “Join us.”
The man looked to the side, rubbing his stubbled cheek. “Not right, a lady having a sword.”
Lada knew that killing him would set a bad precedent. She knew that, yet her sword inched closer to him anyway.
“Why should we?” asked an old man with white and wispy hair like the clouds overhead. Loose skin beneath his chin wobbled as he spoke. “We were fine before you came. We want no trouble from Tirgoviste.”
Lada turned toward him, sparing the other man. “And Tirgoviste has never troubled itself about you. It does not care. It does not care about your lives, or your families, or your welfare. What has the prince ever given you?”
The old man shrugged his sharp shoulders. “Nothing.”
“If you are happy with nothing, by all means, flee and find another boyar to serve. Dorin Basarab will be with me. And when I am on the throne, I will remember every man who helped get me there, no matter his station.”
“You want to be prince?” the first man asked. He was not angry anymore. He was confused. Lada preferred angry.
“I will be prince.”
“What family are you from? Do they have no sons left?” he asked.
She opened her mouth to declare her lineage. Then she stopped. She did not deserve the throne because of her family. Because of her father. Because her brother would not take it. She did what she did not for herself or her family name but for Wallachia. She would earn the throne. “I am Lada Dracul, and I will be prince.” She lowered her voice, leaning toward the man and speaking like the sound of swords being drawn. “Do you doubt that?”
He shuffled back a step, finally seeing the truth in her face. She was not a lady. She was a dragon, and this whole country would know it before the end.
“If you fail?” the old man asked.
“Then you are no worse off than you are now. Your boyar will come crawling back. They always manage. But if I succeed—and I will succeed—I will remember you. Do you understand?”
The men nodded, some more grudgingly than others. The old man grinned toothlessly. “I think you are mad. But I will not say no to this offer.” He bowed to her.
Lada looked over their heads toward the horizon. The effect was rather ruined by one of Toma’s men riding up. “My lord says you can make camp behind the manor. You may join them for dinner, if you wish to.”
Lada did not wish to. She gritted her teeth and nodded anyway.
39
May 16–24
AS MAY PASSED its zenith and began slipping toward June, no end to the siege was in sight. The weariness with which Radu wandered through the days was broken only by scarlet bursts of horror. Everything else about that time was dirty—the dust, the clouds, his soul.
After the night in the forge, he had again done his best to avoid Cyprian. Nazira had few useful contacts left; Helen’s disgrace at being associated with poor impaled Coco left her a pariah, and Nazira was swept along in that wake. Most of her time was spent trying to find food and delivering it to those in need. Radu never asked what the latter accomplished. He understood the need to extend kindness even as the very act devoured the soul with guilt. He understood the desire for penance, as well.
When Radu made it home to sleep, he and Nazira lay in the bed, not touching, not talking. Side by side, and alone together. The only thing Radu was certain of anymore in the sea of endless smoke was that Nazira would make it out alive. Everything else was negotiable.
On May nineteenth, the bells of the city jangled out their now-familiar call to the wall. Panic! they said. Death! they said. Destruction! they said. They were no longer instruments of worship, only proclaimers of doom.
Radu trudged past the Hagia Sophia. A sharp tug on his shirt startled him. He turned to find Amal. “I do not have anything for him,” Radu said.
Amal shook his head. “He has a message for you.”
Radu’s weary heart stepped up its pace. Mehmed! His Mehmed. “Yes?”
“He says to stay away from the walls today. Find somewhere else to be.”
Radu did not know whether to laugh in delight or cry in relief. Mehmed remembered him—and cared whether or not he was safe. “Why?”
Amal shrugged. “That is the message.”
“Tell him thank you. Tell him—” Tell him I miss him. Tell him I wish things could go back to how they were. Tell him I am terrified they never can. Tell him even if they could, I do not know if I will ever be satisfied with it again. “Tell him my thoughts and prayers are with him.”
Amal nodded, then held out his hand as though begging. Radu dug free a single coin and placed it in the boy’s palm.
Radu turned to go back home, happy he could at least report to Nazira that Mehmed thought of them and had sent a warning. And then he remembered: Cyprian was already at the wall.
The wall Mehmed thought was dangerous enough it merited risking sending a message.
Radu could go home. He could wait and see what happened. He could stand at the window, watching for Cyprian. And if Cyprian did not return …
Radu ran for the wall. He would think of some reason, some excuse to pull Cyprian away. He did not question why it was worth the risk. He simply knew he had to.
When he got there, though, he stopped in shock. There were towers on the other side of the wall. Made of wood, they were covered in sheets of metal and leather hides to protect them from fire and arrows. Huge wheels stuck out from their bases. And they were making their way toward the city.
Where Mehmed had been keeping the towers was a mystery. No one around Radu knew where they had come from or when they had appeared. But their purpose was already being served. As the towers moved forward, the shielded men within them threw dirt and rocks and bushes into the fosse. Slowly but surely they were filling up the protective ditch.
Radu hurried past a line of archers, desperate to find Cyprian. Mehmed had not wanted him here, and he saw why now. The walls would fall today.
The archers shot burning arrows, but they bounced harmlessly off the towers’ shielded exteriors. Small cannons were fired to little effect. The towers carried on without pause. Giustiniani pushed his way to the center of the wall, a few men down from where Radu crouched behind barrels. A constant barrage of arrows flew at the wall, preventing any concerted counterattack.