Cyprian at least was comfortable in Wallachian clothes, as they were similar to styles he had worn in Constantinople. He had stopped wearing the Janissary uniform—where Nazira had gotten one for him, Radu did not know, though he suspected somewhere was a Janissary still too charmed by her to bother being angry that he was walking about naked.
After issuing instructions to the guards, they walked to the rickety dock. It was apparent that the previous dock had been burned and dismantled. The replacement was just a few planks nailed together, but there was a boat waiting. With a queasy lurch, all Radu’s thoughts twisted away.
“Oh, a boat! Radu loves boats,” Nazira teased.
Radu climbed gingerly into the back, with Cyprian sitting at his side. Nazira and Fatima took a nearby bench, and the rest of the guards filled in where they could. They helped row, following the increasingly annoyed directions of the Wallachian-speaking ferryman. Radu translated as best he could in between trying not to vomit.
When they reached the island, Radu nearly fell over in his haste to rejoin firm ground. Cyprian leaned close and whispered, “Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps the real reason you stayed behind in Constantinople was not out of altruistic duty to my little cousins, but because you knew you could not survive a boat ride.”
Radu laughed weakly, and Cyprian joined him. That Cyprian could not only forgive his past but also find ways to joke about it was deeply reassuring. It would always be a tender spot—but as a scar, not an open wound.
After his stomach had settled, Radu finally took a look at the island. It was tiny, the borders marshy and overgrown. Insects droned, lending the humid and heavy air its own music. Short but dense trees offered the promise of shade, and a path led to carefully tended garden rows. The monastery rose in the distance, pale-red stone towers marking its place. Though the guards around them were on high alert, the monk ambling toward them seemed utterly unconcerned by the appearance of this many armed men.
“Hello,” Radu said. “I am…” He paused, unsure whether Radu Bey or Radu Dracul would get a better reception. He had already dressed the part of Wallachian nobility, though. May as well continue to play it. “I am Radu Dracul, here on behalf of Prince Aron Danesti, vaivode of Wallachia.”
The monk, his face lined and tanned with years of being outdoors, did not smile. But something in the lines around his eyes shifted with amusement. “Prince Aron? I was not aware we had a new one. Or that we needed one.”
“Yes.” Radu smiled, though he did not quite know where he stood with this man. “He sends his greetings and asks that a priest join him in Tirgoviste to take over the cathedral.”
“Hmm. Well, come along with me to the monastery. We can offer you food and rest.” The monk turned back down the path. Radu walked by his side, the others falling in behind.
“Have you been to our island before?” the monk asked. “You seem familiar.”
“Not since I was a small boy.”
“Ah yes. I remember now. Your sister told me.”
“Lada has been here?”
“She came last autumn. In fact, look there—” The monk pointed to the spires of the church, nearly finished, with men on ropes clinging to the outside and hammering in shingles. “She donated the funds for the new building. She has been a good patron to us.”
Radu frowned, puzzled. The church was functional and elegant with dusty stone that would age in beauty the way all churches here did.
“You seem surprised,” the monk said.
“I never knew my sister to be particularly concerned with the welfare of her soul.”
The monk smiled slyly. “Are we not all? Besides, as she put it, our church is Wallachian and thus deserves more glory and trappings than other gods.”
“Ah, that makes more sense.” If it was done for Wallachia in competition with other countries, then Radu could understand Lada’s desire to improve the island. In fact, he was surprised she had not made the church much larger. And spikier. “What did you think of her?”
“She is singular. I have never encountered her like—though I have lived the last twenty years on this island, and we do not have many visitors. Still, while I was initially skeptical, reports from the countryside indicate that your sister is a leader of remarkable vision and strength.”
“Was,” Radu gently corrected.
“Oh?” The monk’s face twisted playfully. “Mircea!” he called out. Radu cringed involuntarily, hearing his cruel older brother’s name. But Mircea was dead, and his name common. One of the men working on the church turned his head. “Who is prince of Wallachia?” shouted the monk.
“Lada Dracul, may she spit ever in the faces of the Turks!”
The guards around Radu shifted uneasily, but none of the workers moved aggressively, or even paid them much mind.
“Does he not know a new prince has been crowned?” Radu asked. Maybe people had not returned to their towns because they were unaware.
The monk opened the church’s doors, the dim interior cool and inviting. “I think, my son, that he does not care.”
* * *
Lunch was fish with summer vegetables and rough bread. The monks were polite and kind, patiently disinterested in anything Radu had to say. And even less interested in taking a position in the capital.
“Perhaps check in one of the village churches,” the monk that had led him here suggested.
“Everyone is afraid to come to Tirgoviste,” Radu confessed, staring up at a mural of Christ. “Most are still hiding in the mountains. Those that have come down are much like your man on the roof. They do not care about the new prince. We cannot even begin to collect taxes. We are mostly just praying they plant fields so we will have a harvest.”
“It is a different country now. Your sister offered them change. They will not give it up easily.”
“But she is not even here.”
The monk lifted his hands as though offering evidence. “She is, though. As long as she is alive, so are the changes she wrought. The gates have been flung open, and the sheep have wandered. I suspect this Aron is not up to the task of shepherding them back in.”
Radu could not argue with that. He said nothing, and studiously avoided Nazira’s pointed look.
The monk stood. “Would you like us to do anything for you before you leave?”
Radu did not want to tell the monk that this religion had nothing he wanted any longer. They were good people—and he wished them all the best in living their faith—but it was only a childhood memory for him. He felt nothing for it, either good or ill. That, he supposed, was a blessing of sorts. It was nice to have something in Wallachia that he was neutral toward, something that caused no pain.
“Will you tell me if my sister visits again?” His own visit had given him the clarity that he was not only fighting his sister—he was fighting the very idea of her. And that was just as, if not more, elusive and difficult to target. Aron was not likely to inspire devotion or encourage a change of loyalties in anyone who had responded to his sister.
The monk gazed up at the same mural. “She did say she enjoyed being here. She found something as close to peace as a creature like her ever can, I think. I hope she will come again. And if she does, she will be welcomed, and none of her enemies will be warned.” The monk looked at Radu, lifting an eyebrow. “Are you her enemy?”
Though Radu had no attachment to this religion, it was more than he had in him to lie to a man who had devoted his life to God. “I do not know. I think I might be.”
The monk nodded, no reproach in his face. “You should spend the night. See if you can find some of the peace here as well.”
No matter what he did, this country still belonged to Lada. He had never been able to take away something once she claimed it. Not their father, not Mehmed, and now not Wallachia. “Maybe,” Radu said, but he knew there would be no peace for him here. Lada had seen
to that.
Town of Arges
LADA HAD BEEN TOO miserable during their escape to think about much of anything. Stefan had gotten horses somewhere, and it had all been accomplished silently and swiftly. No one looked twice at a man riding next to a hunched-over, shawl-wrapped woman. Even if she was dirty and barefoot.
Once out of the city, it was all countryside and farmland. Summer had passed its zenith and was slipping from its muggy, warm haze toward autumn. Lada should have been overwhelmed with joy to be outside again, but she found herself aghast and resentful. How dare the seasons change, how dare nature continue its trek forward, when she had been so cruelly stalled? And how dare anything be so soul-nourishingly lovely when she had left behind her nurse in order to save herself?
She rejected the beauty of the Hungarian landscape, ignored the vibrant green warmth of Transylvania, and let herself take in only a little relief and happiness when they finally crossed into Wallachia. Even in this state, she could not resist loving her country. But she feared what she would find when she got there. Ahead of them loomed the mountains along the Arges, where she would return to her fortress. To Bogdan.
Without his mother.
Lada did not think Matthias would kill Oana. Or at least she hoped he would not. He seemed the type of person to think a servant woman inconsequential enough that he might not have truly noticed her. Besides, Oana had been nowhere near when Lada had escaped. Surely that would be in her favor. Still, Lada had to add one more name to the list of those who were not at her side.
Matei. Traitor, still missed as her first meaningful Janissary loss.
Petru. Murdered, avenged.
Nicolae. Died for her, which was perhaps why he haunted her most.
Oana. Sacrificed, which would doubtless haunt her.
And always, ever, the phantom presences at her right and her left: Mehmed and Radu. Someday she would grow old enough that she would no longer care about the two best companions of her childhood.
She hoped.
Both that she would no longer care, and that she would grow old. Neither seemed likely on that dazzling summer afternoon. Huddled and hunched in the saddle, Lada was bothered not only by what nature was flagrantly displaying but also by what it was not:
Farmland. They rode through acres and acres of unplanted land. Last fall, this very stretch had provided ample crops. This fall, there would be nothing. Which meant that the coming winter would be far deadlier than the previous spring. The Ottomans could be tricked, defeated, turned away. Starvation was the world’s most patient and unrelenting foe. What had she done? How could she fix it?
Stefan drew his horse to a stop. “I am not going to Poenari.”
Lada sighed. Another name to add to the list of those she had lost, and with him, Daciana. He had warned her; apparently that time was here. “Are you certain?”
He nodded gravely. “My debt to you is fully paid.”
Lada lifted an eyebrow. “Well, not quite.”
“Oh?”
“My debt for freeing you from the Ottomans, yes. But do not forget it was my choice to allow Daciana to remain with our company. If I had refused her, you would still be a shadow of a man, untethered, mine.” Lada scowled. “I should not have let her stay.”
Stefan rewarded her with the barest of smiles, and she looked away so she would not get emotional. At least this one friend she was losing to life, not death.
Lada brushed off her heavy emotions and made her tone befitting that of a prince. “Do one more task for me, and then I will tell you where Daciana is.”
“What task?”
“There are usurpers in my castle. Kill Aron and Andrei Danesti, so it is clear that I am the only prince Wallachia has or needs. It should not be too difficult for you.”
“It will be done.” He turned his horse away. “One last favor between friends.”
“Do you not want to know where Daciana is?” Lada called.
Stefan looked over his shoulder, and, for the first time ever, Lada caught the full power of his smile. She understood what Daciana had seen, and why it might be worth having more than just the military loyalty of such a man. “I would not be a very good spy if I had not already figured it out on my own.”
Lada laughed, undone by that smile. “Then why did you stay?”
“I told you: I am grateful. I wish you well, my prince. It has been an honor.”
If Lada were not so weary and ill, she might have been angry at his departure. But the ghost of Nicolae was heavy at her side, reminding her it was not so bad to lose Stefan this way. There were worse things. “You had better raise your own little Lada to be a terror.”
“I expect nothing less.”
Lada watched as the last of the men she had trained with, the last of her core group of loyal allies and followers—friends—rode away. It was the end of an era. She did not know if she would be weaker for it. She decided she would not be. Each of them had, in one way or another, been sacrificed for the greater good of Wallachia. Had she not decided she would sacrifice everything it took?
Pulling the shawl tighter around her, she rode forward, toward her fortress and toward the last remaining friend of her youth. But what was she really riding toward?
She took account of her resources.
The only member of her inner circle left was Bogdan. She had a few other men she knew to be good, but it was not the same. With Daciana and Oana lost from her household, she would never again trust anyone in the castle—assuming she got it back. After all, she had seen how easy it was for a servant to be someone else entirely.
Hungary was against her, though she knew Matthias would not fight her outright. She probably should have sent Stefan to kill him, but Wallachia always had to be her first priority. Regardless, there would be no conflict but also no aid from Hungary.
Moldavia was not against her, but her cousin King Stephen had taken land from her. That had to be answered with blood, so they would not be allies in the future. Maybe before then she could maneuver him into helping her. She could delay revenge for now.
Bulgaria, of course, hated her and would for some time. Albania and Serbia were firmly Ottoman vassals. She had no love for or from the Transylvanians or the Saxons.
The pope held her in esteem, but her country was not Catholic and he would only praise them, offering no real help. What help he had sent had gone through someone he trusted more—for all the good that did them. She would most certainly write of Matthias’s deceit, though. Let him explain his crown to the papal treasury that bought it.
And even in her own country, her resources were sparse. Her brother had been helping the Danesti usurper. Tirgoviste would be fortified. Any boyars left would have flocked to him. Assuming Galesh Basarab and his men were dead—she hoped they were, but did not count on it considering the information had come from Matthias—Radu would not have gotten a huge influx of men from the remaining scattered boyars. But still, she did not relish the idea of besieging her own capital.
So: enemies within and without. All men in power set against her. Almost no one she could trust. A country in disarray. A fall without a harvest. A people hidden in the mountains. A capital filled with snakes.
There was only one solution.
She had been too kind, too gentle. She had tried keeping what she could intact, tried building on what was already there. But the entire foundation was rotten. She could not build a strong kingdom by removing only a few of the most decay-ridden stones. She would have to dismantle the entire thing.
She would have to burn it—all of it—to the ground. Only then could Wallachia rise anew from the ashes.
She sat straighter, eyes on the horizon. There was no room for kindness, no room for mercy. Matthias had proved that she could not play by any rules that already existed. She would have to become something altogether new.
The countrysid
e around her was hushed, quiet, as though even the insects and wind recognized the passing of a great predator. She again imagined wings unfurling behind her, covering all the land in shadow and fire. There would be no more order, no more structure. She would kill the leaders of every country on her borders, and all their heirs. She would sow absolute chaos and destruction.
And she would be there, in the center, curled around her own land. Wallachia would survive. It always survived. But with her there, and everything around them descended into deadly disorder, Wallachia would finally thrive.
After all, fire and blood and death were nothing to a country led by a dragon.
Tirgoviste
RADU STOOD AT THE top of the tower. This tower had heralded so much change in his life. First, when he and Lada watched Hunyadi ride into the city, signaling the end of their lives here as their father petitioned the Ottomans for support—and traded their lives as collateral. Though it had been terrifying at the time, it had been the best thing that could have happened to Radu. And now the tower had been the site of the most unexpected and joyful reunion of his life.
As though called by his thoughts, Cyprian joined him. The air was sharp with the first hints of impending autumn. Radu shivered, and Cyprian put an arm around him as they looked out over the dawn breaking soft and gentle through the mist. All the scars of the past few months had blended with the green, leaving everything muted and peaceful. The fields around Tirgoviste were full and almost ready for harvest. It had been an unconventional use of trained killers, but thanks to Radu’s Janissaries working under the direction of a few grizzled farmers, there would be enough food to see Tirgoviste—and any refugees that joined them—safely through the winter. He had been stationed here to protect the city, after all.
Radu was proud of those fields. Aron had demanded Radu send his men into the mountains to hunt down Lada, but Radu had known there were more important things. And when Aron did not starve to death over the coming long winter, he would be grateful. Or if not grateful, at least resentful that Radu had, once again, been right.