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Radu smiled wickedly, holding out a hand to help Nazira up. “Your uncle will not demand anything, nor will he take it. I know my way around a foundry.”
Cyprian bit his lips, his gray eyes dancing in delight. “I know where they mint the royal coins. It has not been in operation much lately.”
“I know someone who is very adept at picking locks.”
Nazira laughed, grabbing a black shawl and draping it over her head. “And I know someone who will be cleaning the churches, should anyone happen upon our merry band of thieves.”
It was foolish, but it felt so good to be doing something other than fighting at the walls or hating himself. Radu practically skipped through the streets. Nazira was on one side, Cyprian on the other, and the night was as sweet as any he had known. They found a dim, unused church not far from Cyprian’s house.
Nazira held her bucket of supplies in plain view, tapping a foot impatiently as though she wanted to get on with her work. The bucket conveniently blocked any view of Radu’s lock picking. The door clicked open and they tiptoed inside. Radu loved churches best when they were dark. The lavish, sumptuous decorations were muted, the silence holier than any liturgy could be.
Cyprian made his way confidently to the altar, where he pulled out a plate and held it up in triumph. Nazira tucked it into the bottom of her bucket and covered it with rags.
Within three hours they had hit several churches. Nazira’s bucket was nearly full. Radu was too tired to skip, but he and Cyprian kept laughing at the other’s fumbling in the dark. In one church, Cyprian tripped and fell backward over a bench, his legs straight up in the air. Radu held himself, bent over, trying not to laugh so loudly that they got caught. Rather than getting up immediately, Cyprian had remained on his back, kicking his legs, until tears streamed down Radu’s face.
When the tenth church was stripped, they agreed to one more. They weaved through the streets with secret laughter as muffled as the city by fog. Radu did not know how it felt to be drunk, but he suspected it felt something like this.
“I need it!” a woman screamed. They stopped, startled. Two women pulled at a basket. Each had a child or two at their legs, tugging on their skirts and crying. “My children are starving!” one of the women shouted.
“We are all starving!” a man said, shoving between the two women. One of them fell into the muddy street, taking a child down with her. The other scrambled for the basket, but the man got to it first.
“Give it to me,” she begged, picking up her small child and holding him in front of her as proof of her desperation.
“I have my own hungry children.”
Cyprian and Radu stepped forward, unsure what to do but knowing something needed to be done. “You should be at the walls,” Cyprian said to the man.
The man’s face shifted into something ugly and brutal. “So you can take this food for your own? I will go back to the wall when I know my family is eating.” He shoved past them, nearly knocking Nazira down. He did not so much as look back at the women he had stolen the food from. The one still standing stomped away, one child in her arms and the other hurrying after her.
Radu reached out to help the fallen woman up. She took his hand and stood, brushing off her skirt and using a clean section to wipe her child’s face.
“You should go to Galata,” Radu said, as gently as he could. “They have more food there, and your children will be safer.”
“God will protect us,” she said, and Radu did not know if it sounded like a prayer or a condemnation.
“But God is not feeding you.”
She looked at him, aghast, then bundled her child into her skirts and hurried away, as though Radu’s blasphemy were contagious.
She might as well have carried off all their easy happiness, too. But at least they knew this night was worthwhile. Necessary. “One more,” Cyprian said, sounding tired. He pointed the way. “The monastery where they house the Hodegetria.”
“What is that?” Nazira asked, linking one arm through Radu’s and the other through Cyprian’s. It did not feel quite right, with her in the middle. Less balanced. Radu had preferred when he was between them. But he carried the now-heavy bucket.
“The Hodegetria is the holiest icon in the city,” Cyprian said. “A painting of the Virgin Mary holding the child Jesus at her side. Said to be brought back from the Holy Land by the apostle Luke. They parade it around the walls sometimes as protection, though the monks have been withholding it as punishment for my uncle’s dealings with the Catholics.”
“Do they really think a painting will save them?” Nazira asked, no sting in her criticism, merely curiosity. Radu cringed at her choice of words—them instead of us—but Cyprian took no notice. At least Radu was not the only one too comfortable around Cyprian.
“They say it has saved the city before,” Cyprian said.
“Do you believe it?” Nazira asked.
Cyprian looked up at the stars peeking through the low cover of cloud and smoke that never really cleared. “I believe that the Virgin Mary would rather see us take care of our own than take care of a painting of her. Which is why I am going to go distract the guard so you two can sneak in and take what silver you find.” He bowed jauntily, trying to recapture some of their fun, then walked around the corner of the monastery.
Radu leaned up against a small outer door, working the lock as quickly as he could. They entered through a pitch-dark back hallway. Feeling their way along the wall, they came to another door. It was locked.
“That is promising,” Nazira whispered.
Radu picked this last lock. The air inside stung his nose with the remains of censer smoke. Radu dared to light a candle in the windowless room. As the light flared to life, the image of the Virgin Mary appeared in front of them. The icon, nearly as tall as Radu, was mounted on a pallet with poles extending for carrying.
