Ivan’s glare as he pushed himself off the floor promised a future of violence.
She met his stare with an unflinching one of her own.
RADU WAITED, BREATHLESS WITH excitement as he watched the caravan approach the keep. There was a fine carriage in the center, with twenty Janissaries and a couple of mounted eunuchs, which Radu thought odd. However, the presence of the eunuchs was explained when the carriage opened to reveal a different member of the sultan’s family than the one Radu was desperate to be reunited with.
Huma stepped out, distaste written across her features as she took in Amasya clinging to the river beneath them. The sight of her after two years—knowing what their last meeting had been about—filled Radu with fear.
“Radu! Look how you have grown.” She held out her arms and Radu took her hands in his, unsure of how to greet her.
“You look well.”
She laughed, the sound low and itching, like a breath full of smoke. “Appearances are deceiving. He is not with me, so you can stop watching over my shoulder.”
Radu gave a false smile. “What brings you to Amasya, if not returning with Mehmed?” He wanted nothing more than to ask her when Mehmed would be returning, what the delay was. But he felt it important to appear calm.
“I am here on family matters.”
“But…Mehmed is still in Edirne? What family matters do you have here without him?”
Huma watched his face for a few heartbeats and then laughed again. “You really do not know much about my son’s life, do you? Sweet boy.” She patted his cheek, her hand dry and soft. “Come, take me inside. We will catch up. Call for your charming sister so we can reunite our happy band.”
“She will be with the Janissaries. Since they returned, I have hardly seen her.”
Huma made an interested sound in the back of her throat but said nothing. After she was settled in one of the keep’s nicest apartments, Radu went to find Lada. He could have sent for her, but he did not want to stay in Huma’s company alone. The secret between Lada and himself felt like a burden but still a bond. With Huma here, it felt like a threat.
The Janissaries who had arrived with Huma were unloading gear. “Can you show us the barracks?” one asked.
“I am going there now. You can follow.” He turned to gesture to the soldier, then froze, trying to place how he knew him. The man’s face was round, with full lips over gapped teeth; it promised a heaviness that was at odds with his long limbs and slim build. He looked much younger than Radu had remembered, now that Radu was nearly as tall as him. “Lazar!”
Lazar smiled, puzzled. “Do we know each other?”
“I have looked for you ever since we got here! I cannot believe this!” Radu grasped Lazar’s shoulders, and finally Lazar’s face erupted in the warm, open smile Radu had found such comfort in a lifetime ago.
“The little boy from the stables! Can it be?”
“What are you doing here?”
“I have been reassigned to Ilyas’s men. We all have.”
“I am so glad! It is a joy to see you. It truly is.” Radu could not take his eyes off Lazar’s face, could not believe this friend lost to him so long ago was back. It softened some of the sting of his disappointed hopes for Mehmed’s return.
“My presence does not usually elicit such joy. I will make a point of disappearing from your life for years only to surprise you again more often.” Lazar put an arm around Radu’s shoulders, and they walked to the barracks together.
Lazar was quickly drawn away by logistical duties, but with a promise that they would be seeing much of each other. Humming with happiness, Radu found Lada. His mood fell as he remembered why he was there.
“Huma is here,” he said without preamble.
Lada flinched, putting away the sword she had been sharpening. “Mehmed?”
“No. She wants to see us.”
“I do not wish to see her.”
“Lada,” Radu said, and Lada hung her head, resigned. She had to know, as he did, that Huma could always have whatever she wanted of them.
When Radu and Lada entered the sitting room, Huma had her hands buried in a large piece of carefully embroidered cloth. She looked up, smiling brightly. “Lada, dear girl. Do you have any thread?”
Radu did not understand the humorless, near-hysterical laugh that burst out of Lada’s mouth. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I have no threads. Not a single one.”
Huma raised an eyebrow at Lada’s outburst, then swept her eyes up and down Lada as though she were a crumb on the floor. “I see you have not given up your pursuit of becoming a man.”
“I have no desire to be a man,” Lada snapped, coming back to herself.
“And yet you wear trousers and train with the Janissaries.”
“Yes, when otherwise I could be sitting in this room with you, invisible, sewing and growing old. How strange I should choose something else.”
Huma tsked. “There is great power in being a woman. You are ruining your chances. There is much I could do with you, if you chose to let me.”
Lada turned to leave, but Huma cleared her throat, patting the space beside her. Scowling, Lada slouched against the wall, watching with hooded eyes.
“What did you want to talk about, Huma?” Radu asked. The longer she was here without telling them the reason, the more nervous he became. Why was Mehmed not back yet? Had something happened in Edirne? Was Huma here to tell them their plot had been discovered and Mehmed hated them?
Radu clutched his hands together, knuckles white.
Huma ignored him, picking at colored strands that trailed from her embroidery. “Tell me, have you ever heard of Theodora of Byzantium?”
Lada leaned her head back, raising her eyes in exasperation. “Does she sew, too?”
“Actually, she was a prostitute.”
Radu sat on a bench near Huma, confused but intrigued. This did not sound like the beginning of a way to tell them that Mehmed wanted them dead for taking the throne from him.
“She lived nearly a thousand years ago in Byzantium, when Byzantium was still Byzantium and not a single, sad city clinging to life behind its walls. Her father trained bears, and her mother was an actress.” Huma said the word actress with a knowing smirk that implied all the other duties an actress would have had. “Theodora followed in her footsteps, becoming quite accomplished at everything she did. There are some interesting stories about her early life. But I will skip those, as they are not polite for mixed company.” She glanced at Radu, who looked away, trying not to blush. Why she would think those stories fine to share with Lada but not him, he did not know.
“Why are you telling us this?” Lada said, her voice flat.
“I am doing you a favor. Be gracious. Theodora, after many years, ended up accepting Christianity and living an honest but simple life of spinning wool near the palace. That is where she met Justinian. Emperor Justinian. Perhaps it was her cleverness that attracted him, her humble roots, her…experience. Regardless, he fell in love with her. He threw out the laws that prevented him from marrying an actress, and she was crowned empress. Not empress consort, mind you. Full empress, full partner with her husband. Imagine.” Huma paused, her gaze going far away and soft. Then, she returned to herself. “She went from entertaining men on stage and behind it, to ruling all of Byzantium. She crushed a rebellion when her husband would have run, she improved laws for all women under her rule, and she helped build the most beautiful cathedral in all the world—the Sancta Sophia. It stands in Constantinople to this day as a testament to what Theodora and her husband accomplished together.” Huma leaned forward. “She never picked up a sword, but thirty thousand traitors died under her command. She was a prostitute, bowing to any man with enough coin, then a woman who never again bowed to anyone. And do you think she did that wearing trousers?”