Huma tsked. “There is great power in being a woman. You are ruining your chances. There is much I could do with you, if you chose to let me.”
Lada turned to leave, but Huma cleared her throat, patting the space beside her. Scowling, Lada slouched against the wall, watching with hooded eyes.
“What did you want to talk about, Huma?” Radu asked. The longer she was here without telling them the reason, the more nervous he became. Why was Mehmed not back yet? Had something happened in Edirne? Was Huma here to tell them their plot had been discovered and Mehmed hated them?
Radu clutched his hands together, knuckles white.
Huma ignored him, picking at colored strands that trailed from her embroidery. “Tell me, have you ever heard of Theodora of Byzantium?”
Lada leaned her head back, raising her eyes in exasperation. “Does she sew, too?”
“Actually, she was a prostitute.”
Radu sat on a bench near Huma, confused but intrigued. This did not sound like the beginning of a way to tell them that Mehmed wanted them dead for taking the throne from him.
“She lived nearly a thousand years ago in Byzantium, when Byzantium was still Byzantium and not a single, sad city clinging to life behind its walls. Her father trained bears, and her mother was an actress.” Huma said the word actress with a knowing smirk that implied all the other duties an actress would have had. “Theodora followed in her footsteps, becoming quite accomplished at everything she did. There are some interesting stories about her early life. But I will skip those, as they are not polite for mixed company.” She glanced at Radu, who looked away, trying not to blush. Why she would think those stories fine to share with Lada but not him, he did not know.
“Why are you telling us this?” Lada said, her voice flat.
“I am doing you a favor. Be gracious. Theodora, after many years, ended up accepting Christianity and living an honest but simple life of spinning wool near the palace. That is where she met Justinian. Emperor Justinian. Perhaps it was her cleverness that attracted him, her humble roots, her…experience. Regardless, he fell in love with her. He threw out the laws that prevented him from marrying an actress, and she was crowned empress. Not empress consort, mind you. Full empress, full partner with her husband. Imagine.” Huma paused, her gaze going far away and soft. Then, she returned to herself. “She went from entertaining men on stage and behind it, to ruling all of Byzantium. She crushed a rebellion when her husband would have run, she improved laws for all women under her rule, and she helped build the most beautiful cathedral in all the world—the Sancta Sophia. It stands in Constantinople to this day as a testament to what Theodora and her husband accomplished together.” Huma leaned forward. “She never picked up a sword, but thirty thousand traitors died under her command. She was a prostitute, bowing to any man with enough coin, then a woman who never again bowed to anyone. And do you think she did that wearing trousers?”
“She still needed a man,” Lada said, her eyes slits.
Huma showed her teeth in a predatory approximation of a smile. “You understand the story perfectly.” She coughed, a dry, rattling sound, and it was a while before she could speak again.
“Can I get you anything?” Radu asked.
She waved him away. “I understand your position, better than you know,” she said to Lada. “But you are holding Mehmed back. Make a decision, Lada. If you do not wish to marry my son, release him.”
Lada stood straight, sputtering. “I have no hold on Mehmed!”
Radu, too, could not believe what he was hearing. “There has never been talk of marriage, to anyone!” He looked to Lada for confirmation. It was the three of them—together—and had always been. There was no love between Lada and Mehmed that Radu and Mehmed did not also share. No, he would have seen it. And Radu and Mehmed shared the bond of a brotherhood of faith, which surely drew them closer than any bond Mehmed shared with Lada.
Huma shook her head. “Mehmed wanted to return to Amasya immediately. I persuaded him to stay in Edirne to create connections, build a foundation of strength. Little has changed since he left. I have nothing, not the esteem of my husband”—she spat the word like a fig gone rotten—“and not the promise of a son who will ever be able to keep the throne I have secured for him. He should be capitalizing on his success against Hunyadi, not yearning to return to this forsaken place. But he has been so content with his dear, faithful friends here that he has not been paying attention to the things that matter. So I tell you again: let him be free of your hold.”
A chill flowed from Lada’s mouth, her cold fury palpable. “You will have to excuse my confusion. Freedom is not something with which I am well acquainted.”