After they had eaten, the men stripped free of their uniforms. They left their Janissary caps in a pile that glowed faintly in the twilight, looking like nothing so much as a tumbled stack of skulls. They had brought various articles of extra clothing, ones that had no indication of their rank. Simple turbans covered their heads; in the dark, they would pass for servants. Provided that no one probed too deeply or touched them, discovering an incongruous layer of armor.
Lada, however, owned no clothes other than her uniform and the ridiculous dress she had used to sneak into the harem so many months ago. She had left the dress in Amasya. It was not a role she cared to play ever again, even in defense of Mehmed.
She was about to give up and make plans to scale the walls when Amal returned, breathless, holding a bundle of dull brown cloth.
“Well done,” Lada said, covering her armor with a simple dress and draped sash. She tied up her hair and pulled a scarf low over her forehead.
Nicolae coughed to cover up a laugh. “You may want to shave.”
She frowned, then remembered the charcoal she had neglected to clean from her face. “I suppose a bearded woman would draw notice,” she said drily, wiping it away.
It was dark by the time everyone was ready to go. They had stopped half a league from the city and would go on foot in groups of three or four, meeting at an inn they all knew. Lada watched as her forces dwindled until she was left with Stefan, Nicolae, and Mehmed. Amal had gone ahead to alert Radu that they were on their way. His code phrase was to remind Radu that only an ass pulls a shield for a sled.
“I feel like a thief,” Mehmed said as they crept along the trees parallel to the road, waiting until the last moment to emerge into the open.
“We are thieves,” Lada answered. She stopped, the walls of the city coming into view. “Now we steal your city.”
A MAN MELTED FREE FROM the wall behind the inn. He was tall, with a face so blank and eyes so lifeless they made Radu shudder.
“Radu,” the man said, a statement rather than a question.
Radu nodded. He had left Amal behind to keep the boy out of any further danger. “I think I am being followed.” Though the path he had taken was wandering and he had walked with casual, aimless ease, an echo of footsteps—a hint of a cloak—had shadowed him the whole way.
The man pointed to Radu’s own finely woven cloak, worn with a hood against the evening’s chill. Radu unfastened it and handed it over. After two quick knocks on an unobtrusive door, the man threw the cloak over his shoulders, adjusting his posture and gait to match Radu’s, and walked to the end of the alley. The door opened, and Radu ducked inside. Nicolae pulled him into a quick embrace, his smile a bit tighter than normal but still a relief after the strain of the journey.
“Come, we have a room.” He led Radu up an uneven flight of stairs along the back of the building, the bright sounds of fireplace and food growing and then fading as they passed behind a kitchen. “We have a man in the main hall to watch the entrance.”
“You made good time.” Radu reached for more to say to block the painful lump growing in his throat, the breathless flutter of his chest, but nothing came to him.
He was about to see Mehmed.
And Lada.
Nicolae opened a door on the second floor to a sitting room filled with men like trees growing too close together. As one, they looked in his direction, hands on weapons. The men relaxed when they saw Nicolae, and the door closed behind them. Radu could not see any of them, not really, not with how hard he was looking for—
Mehmed. Leaning over a roughly made table, a lamp’s light catching his face so that even his eyes seemed to glow soft and warm. He pointed at a piece of parchment spread against the table and weighted down with various weapons, long fingers tracing intrigues and plots in the air over the map.
And next to him was Lada, scowling, shortest in the room and still somehow taking up the most space. She wore women’s clothing, which seemed incongruous on her.
She glanced up first. Something flashed across her face, and Radu instinctively curled his shoulders inward, bracing for a blow. Only after she looked back down without acknowledging him further did he have time to process that her expression had been one of rage, and then of sadness.
But everything else was forgotten when Mehmed straightened up and caught sight of him. A relieved smile transformed his face as he crossed the distance between them and hugged Radu. Radu closed his eyes, answering the embrace for only the briefest moment. He feared if he held on longer, he would betray himself. Instead, he pulled back, keeping his hands on Mehmed’s shoulders to separate them. “Are you well?”
Mehmed nodded, gesturing to a low bench built along one entire wall of the room. He sat, and Radu followed, turning toward him.
“My father?” Mehmed asked.
“I will be surprised if he is still alive by the end of tomorrow. He has not been conscious for three days.”
“What are we fighting?” Lada asked, standing nearby. Her arms were folded tightly across her chest, and she looked over Radu’s head when she addressed him.