“Yes! That thing was so mean, and its milk was sour. But at least we had milk.”
Nicolae tipped his head back, scar puckered and pulled tight as his cheeks shifted into a delighted smile. “I did not steal it like I told you I did. Well, not exactly like I told you. Though I suppose I did end up stealing it.”
Lada knew he wanted her to demand he tell the real story. Normally she would have avoided asking just to tease him, but she was too warm and happy to pretend. “What really happened?”
“Do you remember the old farmer we ran into earlier that day? The one with the—”
“The long fingernails!” Lada finished, finally remembering. It took a lot to stand out in her memory of that time. But that particular man had had fingernails nearly as long again as his fingers. Each nail was twisted, yellowed, and cracked. He had offered to sell them food, but she could not stop looking at his nails and imagining what something they had touched would taste like. They had ridden on and camped nearby.
“Yes! I ran into him again as I was hunting. He had a goat with him that he had no need of.”
“So he gave it to you?” Petru asked.
Nicolae shook his head, his smile growing even bigger. “He had no need of a goat, but he did have need … of a wife.”
“No,” Lada said, finally seeing where the story was going.
“Yes!” Nicolae doubled over with laughter. “I sold you to him! For a single goat! I told him I would take the goat back to camp and get you ready to be his bride!”
Lada shuddered, imagining being touched by those hands. “If I had known, I would have stabbed you.”
“That is why I never told you. I think of him sometimes, staring forlornly out of his shack, still holding out hope that someday his bride will come.”
“I cannot believe you sold me for a single goat.”
Bogdan huffed indignantly. “Lada is worth all the goats in the world.”
She knew he meant it sweetly, but she really would rather not be valued in terms of goats. “Next story,” she said, throwing her empty cup at Nicolae. He ducked just in time, and it shattered against the stone tower.
Nicolae refilled Bogdan’s cup. “What was she like as a child?”
“Smaller,” Bogdan replied.
Lada laughed until her stomach hurt. “Tell them about the time Radu—” She stopped, cutting herself off. Because saying his name, bringing him into this space, made her realize that she would trade any of these men—her men, her friends—for Radu to be here with her.
Nicolae filled in the space her silence created, recounting the abuse she had hurled at the Janissaries in the woods to distract them from Hunyadi’s forces. But soon they ran out of stories from the past year. When they had finally circled so far back in their history that the stories started taking place in the Ottoman Empire, everyone got quiet.
They had left it behind, but they still brought it with them everywhere. What they had learned. What they had done. What they had lost. Lada knew that was why she kept these men closest. Not because they were better trained, but because they had been hardened in the same fire she had. Only they understood the strange space of hating what a country made them, while being grateful for it at the same time.
Lada looked at the Radu-sized hole next to her. Then she looked up at the stars beginning to shine above them. “We are never going back to the Ottomans,” she said.
“They will come for us,” Bogdan said. “They always do.”
Mehmed would not come. She had made it very clear what she would do if he did. But now, with the softening and dulling of the wine, she doubted her rash declaration. If he came to her, maybe she would not kill him. No one made her feel the way he did. He haunted her dreams. If he came to her, she would make him make her feel those things Bogdan could not manage.
And then she would kill him, if she still wanted to.
“Let them come,” she said. “I will drink their blood and dance on their corpses.”
Petru raised his cup. “I will drink to that!”
Nicolae was staring at the horizon, frowning. “Either I am far, far drunker than I thought I was, or something is wrong with the moon.”
Lada was about to tell him to stop criticizing the poor moon, when she realized he was right. The moon had been almost full the night before. But tonight it rose as a slender crescent, barely there. The rest of the moon was washed darkest red.
“You see that, right?” Nicolae asked.
“It looks like blood,” Petru whispered.
They sat on the tower and watched the moon in silence. Lada wondered what it meant, that the night she chose to herald the beginning of her new life was bathed in the light of a moon stained with blood.
49
May 29–June 12
THAT EVENING, WITH the boys sleeping curled up around each other like puppies, Radu went to the edge of the roof and watched. He could tell from the activity in various neighborhoods that something was changing. Someone was coming.
Mehmed.
But Radu did not know the way he used to, when Mehmed had felt like a current running through his body pulling him swiftly in the right direction. He knew now because he saw the effects of the man rippling outward. Soldiers coming through, clearing the streets, dragging bodies to the side.
Finally, Radu could see him. Mehmed rode straight and proud through the city, his horse sidestepping occasionally around a remaining body. Perhaps Mehmed was not riding so straight-backed out of pride, but rather out of stiff revulsion. His triumphant entry into the city of his dreams was paved with bodies and decorated with death.
Mehmed picked his way slowly toward the Hagia Sophia, and Radu wondered what to do. Go down and appeal to Mehmed’s mercy? Wait and try to sneak the boys out of the city once things had calmed down? Find Cyprian and Nazira and live a fantasy life where they could all forget and forgive everything they had seen and done?
Sick and exhausted, Radu decided to sleep instead. He walked past the trapdoor—only to find his sword placed to the side. Horror clawing through his chest, he raced to where he had left the boys. Manuel and John were still there, sleeping.
Amal was gone.
Radu had not spoken with Amal, had not given him any instructions. But Radu had not been the one to send Amal into the city in the first place. Radu finally felt the tugging sensation of his connection to Mehmed return, and he walked slowly back to the edge of the roof.
Mehmed had entered the square. The soldiers there lifted their swords, cheering and yelling, praising God and Mehmed. Then a boy darted between them, running directly to Mehmed’s horse. Mehmed’s guards drew close, but Mehmed waved them off.
Amal pointed, and Mehmed looked up at Radu. Mehmed smiled, a look of relief and joy lighting his face. Once, Radu would have given anything to have Mehmed look at him that way. Now, Radu had given everything, only to find he was still empty. He sat on the edge of the roof, dangling his legs over the side. Doubtless Amal would have told Mehmed about the heirs, too. Radu could not hide them from Mehmed. He had saved them for nothing. They would meet the same fate as Mehmed’s infant half brother, sacrificed for the security of the future.
Radu should do what he should have done to Constantine. He should get up and swiftly kill them as they slept.
Instead, he hung his head and wept.
Small fires burning throughout the city gave it a cheery glow as, sometime later, the trapdoor opened. Radu did not turn around when Mehmed sat next to him, shoulder to shoulder.
“I am glad you are here,” Mehmed said.
Radu smiled bitterly. “That makes one of us.”
“The flags in the palace—that was brilliant.”
Radu imagined himself before his time in Constantinople, how that person would have exulted in this moment. How he would have been filled to the brim with joy and pride to be recognized by Mehmed, to be truly seen. To be the more valuable Dracul.
He could not answer.