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“You sent for me. To discuss my future, the messenger said.”
“Yes.” Mehmed nodded, gesturing for her to sit. He gave Lada and Radu a puzzled look when her back was turned. “Yes, your future. Are you well?”
“I am, thank you.”
“And little Ahmet?”
Her face transformed with eager joy. “He has much spirit. I think he and Beyazit are nearly the same age.”
The name of Mehmed’s son stabbed Lada in a place other than her side. She shifted uncomfortably, wishing Halima would leave.
“Oh!” Halima put a hand to her mouth in embarrassment. “I have not offered my congratulations on the birth of Mustafa. Two sons! What good fortune.”
“Another son?” Lada spoke before she could stop herself, the words leaving her more wounded than Ilyas had.
Another son.
And this one not conceived before their first kiss, before Mehmed made her feel as though she were the only woman in the world who mattered.
Another son.
Radu was all false cheer. “With so much excitement, you must have forgotten to mention it.”
Mehmed cleared his throat, not looking at them. “Yes, Gulsa had to stay behind in Amasya. It was not safe for her to travel so far into her confinement. I received word only yesterday. How did you know?”
Halima tipped her head conspiratorially. “Huma told me. She knows everything.”
“Yes, she does. Well, I am afraid I have nothing official to tell you. If I can do anything for you while we arrange for your future, please let me know. You are welcome to stay here as long as you wish. This is your home.”
Lada wondered why he had not yet sent Ahmet away and separated him from his mother. But even that was quickly pushed aside. Gulsa. Who was she? What did she look like? When had Mehmed visited her? What had he thought about while he planted his seed in yet another woman?
Halima bowed prettily, and Lada caught a flash of relief in the other woman’s face that the interview was over. After Halima left, Lada kept her eyes fastened on the door. Drowning in her own pool of misery, she could not look at Mehmed. How could she continue to ignore the harem if its occupants did not stop giving birth to Mehmed’s sons?
No one spoke.
As though Lada’s obsessive thoughts of the harem summoned her, Huma appeared in the doorway.
“Mother.” Mehmed said the word with tiredness, not reverence. “I did not send for you.”
“Just as you did not send for me when Ilyas tried to kill you.”
“How did you—” Mehmed sighed, rubbing his forehead. “I have taken care of it.”
“No, you foolish boy. You have not. I have taken care of it.”
Mehmed’s exhaustion gave way to barely concealed anger. “What do you mean?”
“When will you realize that they see you as expendable because there is another option living under your very protection? If you can be replaced, they will try to do it. Again and again and again. And all it will take is one dagger, one poisoned meal, one moment where you are not on guard, and then my sacrifice will be for naught.”
“It is not your concern.”
“It is my only concern! But never worry, my stupid little boy. I have done what all your guards could not. I have made you irreplaceable.”
Lada sat up, previous conversations with Huma humming through her mind with sudden intensity. A wrongness seized her stomach and would not release it. “Mehmed did not send for Halima,” she said.
Huma lifted her emaciated shoulders dismissively. “While she was meeting with the sultan, her son was drowned.”
Mehmed exploded across the room, pressing his mother against the wall. “What did you do?”
