If, as Mehmed and Lada suspected, a group of Janissaries were behind the attempt, the palace was not safe. They had no way of knowing who had set it up, whether it was the soldiers themselves, or whether they were acting under orders from someone else. What if they ran to an advisor or a pasha for help, and ended up in the clutches of the very person who had ordered Mehmed’s death?
No, they needed somewhere secure. Somewhere secret. Somewhere no one else here could go, but that they could get to quickly. Because they could not simply run. Mehmed was the sultan, and if they ran now, he would lose everything.
Where could a sultan go to hide?
Radu snapped his fingers. “The harem!”
Lada’s look of horror intensified.
Mehmed frowned. “But they might look there, too.”
“Your mother is there, yes?”
Mehmed nodded. “We do not speak much, though.”
Harem politics were as complicated as court politics, if not more so. Though the harem was a community unto itself, the women could exert incredible influence on the most powerful man in the empire, making them a political force to be reckoned with. The most powerful woman in the harem—and, therefore, in the empire—was the mother of the sultan. Radu had never met her, but the chief eunuch had remarked on her intelligence.
“Your mother stands to lose the most if you are killed, so she will protect you,” Radu said. “And the guards there are eunuchs, not Janissaries. We will be safe, and you can begin investigating.”
Mehmed clasped his shoulder. “Yes! Yes. Thank you, Radu.”
“No!” Lada shook her head, eyes still wild. “I cannot go in there! If a woman enters the harem complex, she belongs to the sultan!”
Mehmed peered out the window they had climbed through, to make sure their path was clear. “I would not hold you to that, Lada, and—”
“It would not matter! Everyone would know, I would be labeled your concubine, and—”
Radu took her hand, which still hung in the air pointing accusingly at Mehmed, and squeezed it in his own. “And you would be unmarriageable? What a tragedy. I know how dearly you treasured the hope of marrying some minor Ottoman noble, dear sister.”
She finally met his eyes, hers still feverish and frenzied. “But I would be his.”
“I think our Mehmed is smart enough to know he could never claim you. Right?”
Radu’s tone was light, and he turned to Mehmed with a playful smile. Perhaps it was the dimness of the room, or the stress of the night, but Mehmed’s face was clouded with…disappointment? Hurt? Then a tight, false smile took its place, and he nodded. Radu’s own chest felt equally tight with anxiety and fear and a twisting, bitter sense of jealousy.
He pushed it down. Assassins were after them. Lada had killed a man. They needed to move. He said a prayer in his heart, then went first, climbing slowly down the palace’s carved stone exterior to the ground. Mehmed followed, and then Lada. Radu led the way, creeping through the gardens, keeping to the deepest shadows.
“How do you know the way to the harem so well?” Mehmed said. “I think you are more familiar with the path than I am.”
Radu flushed, feeling defensive, but there was no accusation in Mehmed’s voice. “I know the chief eunuch. He has an amazing collection of maps, and I visit him sometimes. Did you know he was born in Transylvania?”
Mehmed’s tone was strained but amused. “I did, in fact, know that about the third most powerful man in my government.”
“Oh. Right.” Even when Radu had the best idea for keeping them safe, everyone always knew more than he did. He stopped outside the guard gate, a side entrance to the vast harem complex. A guard stood posted, his white turban a bright spot in the dark night. On his first trip, Radu had tried to see a difference in the eunuchs as opposed to uncastrated men, but other than their voices not being as deep as a man’s nor as high as a woman’s, he was not able to tell who was a eunuch and who was not.
The guard, whom Radu had met before, cocked his head curiously at Radu before noticing Mehmed behind him. He bowed low to the ground, then stood at attention.
Mehmed did not acknowledge him as he walked straight past. Radu nodded, and the man’s eyes followed them. Without knocking, Mehmed entered the outer apartments of the chief eunuch.
Though it was late, they had not been in the room more than a minute before the chief eunuch joined them. He was an older man, nearing forty, skin wrinkled and features indistinct, as though his face had never decided quite who it wanted to be. He bowed to Mehmed, then straightened with a smile for Radu. He took in Lada’s bloodstained appearance with a mere flick of his gaze. “How can I serve you, My Sultan?”
“I need a conference with the valide sultan. Also lodging for the night.”
“Of course. Whose company would you like?”