“And even though you were coming for me, you did not wonder if the girl in the woods was the one you hunted?”
He did not meet her eyes. “We assumed you would be somewhere safe. In a carriage, with guards. You are not what I expected. The prince said it would be easy.”
“I am not so easy to get rid of.” She offered him a hand. “You can go back and tell him that. Or you can stay and join my men.”
He trembled from head to toe. “I will stay?” He finally glanced up to meet her eyes, and she knew he looked for confirmation of whether or not he had made the right choice. She had not lied to him—she would have let him go. But doubtless he thought that would have resulted in his death.
She nodded. “Very well.”
“That was lucky,” Nicolae said, leading Lada’s horse out of the trees alongside his own horse. “You were right. Sometimes you do need to be alone.”
Lada could not quite smile. It could have ended much differently. She pulled the reassuring weight of the chain mail around herself. Better to be a soldier than a woman.
Better to be a prince than anything.
“THIS MAN IS A snake and a liar,” Halil said, sneering at Radu. “I wondered where he had slithered off to.”
Radu took a steadying breath, reminding himself of all the times he had played a part to manipulate his old foe. He could do it here. He had to. “I should think, given your peaceful views of the city, you would envy those of us who had the courage to leave the tyrant sultan and serve the cause of the emperor.”
Halil snorted. “If you have courage, I am a donkey.”
“That has always been my personal opinion of you, but I never expected you to agree with me.”
Halil’s face turned a violent shade of red. “Get him out of here.”
Constantine held out his hands in placation. “I do not know your history, but Radu has been instrumental to us. His advice and information are testament enough of his loyalty.” Constantine raised a single eyebrow. “And he has no towers named after him in fortresses on my land.”
Halil’s scowl deepened. “You know I had no choice.”
“There is always a choice. We appreciate your information and friendship, but you remain safely outside the walls. Radu is here.”
“My position is not safe! No one’s is. The camp is on the edge of riot. Daily we meet, and I urge negotiating peace, while others demand we give no quarter. I could not do that if I had not stayed with the sultan!”
Constantine rubbed his face wearily. “Tell me why you are here.”
Halil threw a single piece of parchment on the table next to him. “Mehmed offers you terms of surrender. I will await your response.” Leveling a murderous glare at Radu, Halil stomped out of the room.
Constantine read the letter, scratching absently at his beard. Droplets of blood broke through the skin. “He will let me go into the Peloponnese and be a governor there.”
“We have wanted you to leave the city,” Giustiniani said gently. “We need you safe, and then we can gather allies.”
Constantine sighed. “If I leave the city, I am never getting back in. I cannot do it. But…” He paused, tracing a finger over the bottom half of the letter. “If we open the gates, they will march through peacefully, leaving all citizens and property unmolested.” He looked up at Radu. “Do you think he will honor that?”
“He will.” Radu felt the first true spark of hope in ages. He had been right not to kill Constantine! Another way to end this siege had been given to him. “It is Muslim law. If you surrender, they have to respect that. There will be no prisoners, no slaves, no looting.”
Giustiniani scoffed. “I doubt that very much.”
“You have seen the order of his camp, the control he has over his men. He wants the city itself, not anything in it. He does not want to destroy it—he wants to own it. I will stake my life on his truthfulness in this matter. He will honor these terms. All your people will be spared.”
“And the Christian capital of the world will be handed over to their god.”
Radu chose his next words carefully. “If they take the city by force, they have three days for looting and doing anything else they wish. But if you surrender, the Ottomans treat their vassal states well. We would all have to run or risk death, but your people would not suffer under the sultan’s rule.”
Constantine’s smile was as brittle as spring ice on a river. “The same cannot be said for my rule. How my people have suffered. How my city has darkened.” He looked at Cyprian, fondness in his expression. “What is your counsel, nephew?”
Today Cyprian’s eyes were not gray like the sea or the clouds. They were gray like the ancient, weary rocks of the city. Radu knew that the nameless child dead in the streets had come into the room with them. “We have lost so much. Perhaps this is a way to avoid losing everything. Our people would not be slaughtered or sold into slavery. You would live.” He put a hand on his uncle’s shoulder, his voice breaking. “I want you to live.”
Constantine looked to Giustiniani, the other reason the city had survived for as long as it had. “You?”
Giustiniani shook his head. “If Halil is right, all we need to do is hold on for a little longer and Mehmed will be forced to leave. He may even lose the throne.” After a pause, Giustiniani looked at the floor. “But I cannot promise we can hold on for even a day more. We have fewer than half of the forces we started with. The men are hungry and weary and frightened. The Venetians want to leave. My men do, too. I will not let them, but it may come to a point where I can no longer prevent them. With one victory, they could topple us—or with one victory, we could have enough momentum to sustain ourselves. We are balanced on the edge of a knife. I do not know whom the knife will cut. The choice is yours.”
Constantine sat, his broad shoulders sloping as he picked up a quill and stroked the length of it. “I cannot do it,” he said. Radu leaned heavily against the wall, all hope extinguished. “I will send Halil with an offer of peace. We will increase our tribute, and give the sultan the land under the Rumeli Hisari. We will give him Orhan, too, and abandon all attempts at destabilizing his throne.”
Constantine was willing to sacrifice Orhan, a man he had used to manipulate the Ottomans for decades, even though Orhan had chosen to stay and fight. He would sacrifice Orhan, but not his pride. Not his throne. Radu shook his head, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. “Mehmed will not accept.”
“I know. But I cannot abandon my city. I am sorry, my friends. I will fight until my last breath before I will see Ottoman flags in this palace and hear their call to prayer from the Hagia Sophia. It is in God’s hands now.”
But which god? Radu thought. With so many men on both sides sending up so many prayers, how could any god sift through the noise?
That night, the air was sweet with the promise of summer around the corner. The wind had blown strong from the horn, clearing the smoke from the city for once. Radu and Cyprian sat on the Blachernae Palace wall, facing the Hagia Sophia. Though they had not discussed it, neither man had gone to his scheduled position at the wall after leaving Constantine. They had ended up out here, silent, side by side.
It was almost quiet enough to pretend the world was not ending around them.
“The moon begins waning tonight,” Cyprian said.
Radu remembered the prophecy that the city could not be taken on a waxing moon. “Do you believe in that one?”
“I believe in very little these days.”
Radu looked toward the Hagia Sophia, where the full moon would rise over the city. A full circle of gold, like their coins, the moon was a protector of the city along with the Virgin Mary. Would the waning finally shift the tide of war?
Next to him, Cyprian sat up straight, a sharp intake of breath like a hiss puncturing the quiet of the night. In place of the full moon rising over the Hagia Sophia, there was only a sliver of a crescent moon.
The crescent moon of Islam.
“How is this possibl
e?” Cyprian whispered.
Radu shook his head in disbelief. The moon was full tonight—had to be full tonight. But slowly lifting itself above the city’s holiest building, the moon remained a crescent. The dark part was not as dark as normal, but rather a deep red. Stained like blood.
For hours Radu and Cyprian watched as the crescent moon hung over the city, promising an end to everything. Wails and cries from the streets drifted on the sweet breeze. For once the church bells did not ring warning. What could bells do against the moon? Finally, agonizingly slowly, the moon returned to the fullness it should have had all along.
“I might believe in prophecies now,” Cyprian said in awe and wonder. “But I do not think I like this one.”
Radu wondered what it must have been like to see the moon in the Ottoman camps. Surely Mehmed would have capitalized on it, claiming it as a prophecy of victory, even as the citizens of Constantinople saw it as a portent of doom.
It was just the moon. The moon did not take sides. But the blood-washed expanse of the Byzantine full moon seemed to promise otherwise.
They spent the night on the palace wall, not moving. Sometime in the small hours of the morning, clouds rolled in, obscuring the moon. “Where were you when we could have used you?” Cyprian muttered.
Dawn dragged itself free from sludge of night, bringing with it a smattering of rain and the promise of more to come. After Radu prayed in his heart, they began to walk toward a gate that would lead them to the wall over the Lycus River.
“Oh, hell.” Cyprian cringed. “Oh, damn, I am going to be damned for swearing about this.” They were near the monastery they had broken into that housed the Hodegetria. A massive crowd had gathered outside. Priests were already swinging censers, chanting and singing the liturgy. More people came in the street behind Radu and Cyprian, blocking them in.
“See if you can push through,” Cyprian said. “They are going to take the Hodegetria around the walls. If we get stuck in the middle, we will be trapped for hours.”
A team of men exited the monastery, the pallet lifted onto their shoulders. One of them nearly lost his grip, struggling to keep hold. Radu remembered Nazira wiping her hands clean of grease—on the poles of the icon.
“God’s wounds,” he whispered, fighting an urge to laugh born of nerves and exhaustion.
Another man’s hands slipped. He adjusted quickly, lifting the icon higher. A crossbearer in front began walking, followed by the priests. Men, women, and children surrounded them, all barefoot. A man near the front cried out in a voice loud enough to be heard over the low rumbling of thunder.
“Do thou save thy city, as thou knowest and willest! We put thee forward as our arms, our rampart, our shield, our general!”
Radu leaned close to Cyprian. “Someone should tell Giustiniani he has been replaced by a centuries-old painting.”
Cyprian snorted, covering his laugh behind a hand.
The man continued. “Do thou fight for our people!”
“Do you think she will take our place at the wall?” Cyprian whispered.
Radu laughed. A man nearby gave them a furious glare, crossing himself.
“We are going to hell for blasphemy,” Cyprian said.
“We are already in hell,” Radu said, shrugging. “And with so much company.” They tried to edge away from the crowd, but the street was narrow and clogged with people. The two men were carried forward in the surge of religious zeal, pushed along a seemingly random path.
“There!” Radu said, pointing to a narrow alley. If they could duck into it, they could wait until the crowd had passed and then backtrack.
Someone cried out in horror from the front. The Hodegetria was slipping. Though the men carrying it scrambled to counter its momentum, they could not get a good grip on the poles. The icon, the holiest artifact in the city, slid off into a thick patch of mud.
Everyone was silent for a few disbelieving heartbeats. Then the men sprang into action, trying to lift it. Though it was only a painting and there were several men, they could not seem to pull it up. The earth had decided to reclaim the Virgin Mary and would not relinquish her.
Several children started crying, their mothers doing nothing to shush them. A murmur like a tiny earthquake rolled through the crowd. Whispers of doom, damnation, the Virgin abandoning them. Of God judging them and deeming them unclean.
Radu was half tempted to tell them God had nothing to do with this—it had been a young woman with grease on her hands and sorrow in her heart. But it would do no good.
Finally, after far too long, the men managed to leverage the icon out of the mud and back onto their shoulders. A ragged cheer went up, but it would not have felt out of place at a funeral for all the happiness it held.
Then the world was lit for a single second in blinding white. Radu had time only to wonder if he truly was being struck down for blasphemy before a clap of thunder louder than any bombardment followed an instant later, shaking the ground. Screams and cries went up. A rushing sound moved toward them. Radu saw the rain before it hit. It was a solid wall of water, so thick and fast that it slammed into the crowd with the force of a river.
Something stung Radu’s face. He touched his cheek to make certain he was not bleeding. Then another piece of hail struck him, and another. The hail fell with more fury than the arrows of the Ottomans. Another brilliant bolt of lightning struck nearby, the thunder accompanying it so powerful Radu could hear nothing for nearly a minute afterward.
All around him people were falling to their knees, unable to see or walk in the middle of the tempest. Radu knew God had nothing to do with the icon slipping. This, however, was difficult to attribute to anything else. The water fell so furiously that it began streaming down the street, rising to Radu’s ankles and then to his knees. The narrow streets were funneling it, channeling it into a sudden river.
“We have to get out of this!” Cyprian shouted. Radu could barely hear him, though Cyprian’s mouth was right next to his ear. He pointed at the alley they had been aiming for. Because of the slope, the water did not travel far up it. The two men pushed through the street, mud sucking at their boots, the hungry water pulling eagerly. A child in front of them went down, disappearing beneath the brown water.
Radu dove to his knees, pushing his hands down blindly. He caught a foot and pulled the child into the air. A woman rushed toward them. Radu handed her the child. Cyprian shouted, pointing to an old man who had gone down. They hurried to him, helping him up and dragging him through the water to the alley.
“There!” Cyprian waved toward a woman in the middle of the street holding an infant to her breast and unable to move. He started forward, but another blinding flash of lightning and an overpowering burst of thunder cracked through the alley.
Some of the cracking noises were not the thunder. The stones from the roof above them that had been struck fell in a jumble, taking Cyprian down beneath them.
WALLACHIA WAS FATALLY FLAWED when it came to keeping princes alive. The boyars were tasked with protecting the prince. They controlled all the manpower, all the troops, all the blades that stood between life and death. In theory, the purpose was to keep the prince loyal to the country and the people whom he depended on for survival.
It may have worked, were the boyars ever loyal to a prince. But the roads were open and clear in front of Lada like a field after harvest. She was grateful now that the boyars were never loyal to a prince. The few men the prince had been able to rally were dead on the road behind them.
“So, what is the plan?” Nicolae asked.
Lada shrugged.
“That—that is not a plan. You have no plan? Really? None?”
“We go in. We take the throne. That is all the plan we need.”
“No, I definitely need more plan than that.”
Bogdan grunted. “She told you the plan. Shut up.”
Lada kept her eyes on the city growing ever larger in front of them. Homes were closer together as farmland gave way to
life clinging to the edge of the city and the opportunity it provided. Which, judging by the condition of the homes, was not much.
Lada did not smile at the people who huddled in the dark doorways, watching her procession. But she could feel their stares, feel their whispers. Nicolae shifted defensively. She shook her head at him. She would not cower.
“Look,” Petru said, pointing up at the sky.
Among the first stars beginning to pierce the night, there was one falling. It burned, light trailing behind it as it slowly moved through the gathering darkness.
“It is an omen,” Daciana said from her seat in front of Stefan on his horse, her voice quiet with wonder.
Lada closed her eyes, remembering another night when stars fell from the heavens. She had almost been happy then, with the two men she loved. Now she had neither of them. But she had known that night what she knew now: nothing but Wallachia would ever be enough.
The stars saw her. They knew.
She lifted a hand in the air toward the burning sign as she rode forward, letting everyone see her pointing to the omen of her coming. Everyone would witness it.
They were her people. This was her country. This was her throne. She needed no intrigues, no elaborate plans. Wallachia was her mother. After everything she had been through, all she had done in pursuit of the throne, she was left with one thing only: herself.
She was enough.
The gates to the city were closed when they came to them. Two men illuminated by torches stood at the top, a faint metallic clinking puzzling Lada until she realized they were trembling in their chain mail.
“Open the gates,” she said.
The men looked at each other, unsure what to do. They looked over her shoulder, where her men lined up behind her. A murmur of noise like pebbles signaling an avalanche accompanied her.
“I come like that star, burning in the night.” She raised her voice so everyone could hear. “Anyone on my side before I take the throne will be a salaried soldier. I reward merit, and there will be much opportunity for advancement of fortunes.”