“Elizabeth is exactly why you need to stay,” Lada said, working her knife back and forth along the gash she was carving into the table.

“What do you mean?”

“Hungary is in turmoil. Ladislas will not live long, and Elizabeth knows you are a threat to her power. Matthias has a chance at the throne. Your son could be king.” She paused, letting the word hang in the air between them. “He will never have a better chance at the throne. If you go to Constantinople, Elizabeth will maneuver him out of the castle. You must see how much your strength and reputation buoy his popularity. All your toil and blood will be wasted if you shed it for misplaced loyalty to the emperor of a dead land.”

The lines in Hunyadi’s face deepened. “But I go for Christianity.”

“Serve Christianity here. Protect the borders. Keep Mehmed from pushing farther into Europe. He will not be satisfied with taking Constantinople. As soon as the city falls, his eyes will turn toward Hungary. You cannot leave it under a weak child king and his conniving mother.” Lada paused, as though thinking. “Besides, you will not make a difference at the walls.”

She knew that was false. If Mehmed was willing to trade troops for the promise that Hunyadi would stay out, he understood that Hunyadi’s experience and reputation were both weapons that could tip the city out of Ottoman reach forever. Hunyadi would absolutely make a difference to the defense of the city. And Lada could not let that happen.

“But the infidels—”

“If even the pope does not see this as a threat to Christianity, I hardly think you need worry about it. Cities fall. Borders change. God endures.” Lada finally dared look at Hunyadi, and what she saw nearly destroyed her resolve.

He looked older than he had when he began speaking, and infinitely more tired. “I already told Emperor Constantine I would fight for him. He depends on my aid. Matthias can manage without me.”

Lada saw her opening, and she struck deep. “Then you are no better than my father. He sold our future for his own selfish desires, just as you would sell Matthias’s to satisfy your soldierly pride.”

Hunyadi held his hands apart, palms up, and looked down at them. They were thick and callused hands, with knotted joints. Then he dropped them to his sides, his shoulders drooping. “You are right. It is selfish of me to seek glory elsewhere. My duty is here.”

Lada wanted to embrace him. She wanted to offer him comfort. She wanted to confess that she cared nothing for Matthias or Constantinople, but that she did care for Hunyadi. And she had manipulated him anyway.

Instead, she let him walk away, alone. Then she drafted her letter to Mehmed. His ambassadors were leaving the next day and would carry it to him. They would deliver her betrayal—and her future—to Mehmed.

Wallachia was waiting.

17

Late March

THE NEXT DAY they passed Rumeli Hisari, Mehmed’s new fortress. Radu strained his neck to see as much as he could from the road. The fortress loomed, three soaring towers watching over the Bosporus. Cyprian regarded it with sad, solemn eyes. Valentin spat in its direction. They paused as a series of stakes came into view. Lining the banks of the Bosporus, decapitated bodies stood sentry.

“What happened?” Nazira whispered.

Cyprian’s gaze darkened. “Someone must have tried to get through the blockade. This is the sultan’s warning that the strait is closed.”

They rode on, silent and disturbed. Radu remembered all too well his first lesson in Mehmed’s father’s court. He and Lada had been forced to watch as the head gardener had impaled several men. It was the beginning of many such lessons in the absolute rule of law. Radu had been able to forget them—mostly—since being taken under Mehmed’s wing. But apparently Mehmed had received the same tutelage.

It was not long before they saw the patrol riding from Rumeli Hisari. One of the ironies of a secret mission was that Radu was as liable to be killed by his own side as he was the enemy.

Cyprian drew his sword.

“No,” Radu said. “Let me talk to them. I think I can get us past.”

He scanned the soldiers’ faces desperately as they got closer, but he knew none of them. Radu sat as straight and commandingly on his horse as he could manage after three days on the road. They were not in open war with Constantinople yet. He could make this work.

He had to.

“Who is your commander?” he asked, his tone both lazy and imperious, as though he had nothing to fear and every right to make demands.

The men slowed, fanning out to surround the small group. Their horses trotted a slow circle around them. “What business do you have in the city?” asked a man in front. Missing teeth beneath his clean-shaven lip gave him a lisp. Under other circumstances, it might have struck Radu as funny. But the man had his sword drawn, which dampened any humor.

Radu lifted an eyebrow. “I bring a message to Constantine from our glorious sultan, the Hand of God on Earth, the Blessed Mehmed.”

“What message?”

Radu curled his upper lip, channeling Lada. “I was not aware you had been made emperor of Constantinople.”

The man jutted out his chin angrily. “How do I know you are telling the truth?”

“By all means, detain me and take the time to send word to the sultan. I am sure he will look kindly on you interfering with his express wishes.”

The soldier looked less sure of himself and pulled his horse back sharply. “Who are you, then? I will send a message that we have seen you.”

“My name is Radu.”

The man frowned, then a mean smile revealed all the gaps in his teeth again. “Radu the Handsome? I have heard of you.”

Radu pretended he was not surprised by this unusual title. “Then you know you should get out of my way.”

The man gestured to the other soldiers, and they moved to the side. The gap-toothed soldier spoke in a low, ugly tone as Radu rode past, “Are you sure you are not a gift for the emperor? Maybe he has a taste for pretty boys, too.”

The soldiers laughed, the sound hitting Radu’s back like blows. But he did not cringe and he did not turn around, riding straight and steady toward the city.

“Well done,” Cyprian said, alongside him. “I thought we were all dead.”

“There are some benefits to being notoriously handsome, after all,” Nazira said. She tried to pass it off as a joke, but Radu heard the strain beneath her voice.