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Lada nodded, realizing it had been Nicolae’s voice she had heard her home’s tones in. “Ladislav Dragwlya.”
Lada felt a pang at saying her name out loud. They had not been allowed to write their father, nor had they received any letters from him. She did not know if he knew where they were, that they had left Edirne.
She did not know if he would care.
Radu still worried about their nurse. She had lost her son and now her charges to this wretched empire. Lada wondered if she had found other work. She hoped so. She did not bother hoping that her father would think to take care of the woman who had raised his children. But she never said these things to Radu. It would do him no good to dwell on their nurse.
And Lada did not like the discomfort of remembering the woman who had always been so kind to her for so little thanks. If she ever got back to Wallachia, she would remedy that.
“The daughter of the Dragon?” Nicolae laughed, but it sounded good-natured, rather than mocking. “No wonder poor Ivan was no match for you. What brings you here, little dragon?”
“Not whoring.” She kicked Ivan’s prone backside.
“I would be terrified to take a dragon into my bed. Even the little zealot must feel the same.”
“Molla Gurani is your zealot? I think he is made of parchment, not flesh.”
Nicolae laughed, shaking his head. “No, ‘the little zealot’ is our name for Mehmed.” The other soldiers nodded, giving each other wry smiles.
Though she knew from experience that Janissaries were far from decorous, she was surprised to hear such open mockery of the son of their sultan. She tucked it away as information she hoped to be able to use someday. “I am here with my brother. We are Mehmed’s companions, studying with him.”
“You must be dreadfully bored, then. Come on.” Nicolae stood up, dragging Ivan along with him. “You can watch me teach Ivan to respect scholars.”
As another infinite afternoon dragged on, Lada stared out the window, straining for a breeze to cool her skin. Mehmed rarely interacted with her now except to glare when she bested him in their studies. She often caught him staring intently at her, as though willing her to accomplish some mysterious task. She always met his gaze with her own unflinching one.
Radu followed Mehmed like a lapdog. Even now he sat on the floor by Mehmed’s feet, poring over the same texts Mehmed ha
d studied a hundred times.
“You see, there.” Mehmed pointed at a passage. “The Prophet, peace be upon him, speaks of the man who will conquer Constantinople and what a wonderful leader he will be.” Mehmed’s eyes went faraway and soft.
“But there have been attempts,” Radu said.
“Yes. Even my father tried. But now he is tired from fighting his brothers’ challenges to the throne, from spending his reign merely maintaining what we already have. He loves to talk and philosophize, but he fails to see the calling of duty his faith has given him. My elder brothers might answer the call, but they are less than devout. The Prophet, peace be upon him, mandated that we should not have a state but an empire. We should be so much greater than we are, and my father refuses to—”
Lada let the door slam behind her. She was quivering with rage from listening to them talk yet again about the glories of the Ottomans, and their destiny to spread across the world. The Ottomans had already seeped like a poison into her own world, pulling her away from everything she loved. How much farther would they go? She stormed through the keep and into the small armory. It was abandoned, the barracks holding most of the actual weapons, but there were a few items left that she made free use of.
“Are you well?”
She spun, surprised to find Mehmed standing in the doorway. “What are you doing here?”
“You seemed unhappy when you left.”
Lada laughed, as bitter as the skin of the Amasya apples. “I seem unhappy? Pardon me if I do not delight in listening to you extol the virtues of your glorious empire and what a favor you will be doing to spread it by the sword.”
Mehmed’s narrow eyebrows, finely shaped like his father’s, drew low over his eyes. “You have seen my country. Where are the poor, suffering, and starving in the streets? Where is the crime? Radu told me that you cannot go into the streets of Tirgoviste at night for fear of thieves and murderers. Yet one can walk in Edirne without assault.”
“Yes, but—”
“And our roads are safe for trade, which means our people have what they need to buy and sell, to live on what they have been given. They are free from hunger and poverty.”
“But you oppress those who do not believe in your god!”
Mehmed shook his head in anger. “We do not act as your precious Christians do, slaughtering other Christians for believing the wrong way. Yes, we ask for payment. That is the price of safety. But we allow all people under our rule to believe what they will, so long as they do not disturb the peace.”
“I am here as evidence of the peace your father instills, the freedom he grants others. My father is free to rule his people, so long as he rules them the way the sultan sees fit! And if not, his children suffer the consequences.”
“Do you know what kind of man your father is?”
