Radu was hurt because Mehmed had not told him of this development. That was why. That was the reason for this horrible, clawing feeling.
Lazar’s knowing smile.
The door opened, and Radu cried out with relief. Mehmed was here, he would explain, it would make sense, and things would go back to how they had been. Radu would know how to feel again.
Lada, too, stood, leaning forward. Her face was a mask.
Mehmed’s face, however, was like the desert during a windstorm. Everything in his features was ripped away to one raw expression of rage. He threw a heavy piece of parchment onto the floor in front of them.
Lada picked it up. She frowned, etching her own trails of rage. “What is this? Are you mocking me?”
Mehmed shook his head. “I assure you, I am as surprised as anyone.” He held a hand up and out toward her, as though calming a spooked horse. Radu looked from one to the other. There was something off there, something new. Something he had missed while lost in his own swirl of confusion. What was it? What had happened?
Panicked, Radu tried to snatch the parchment from Lada, but her grip held tight.
A smile twisted Mehmed’s lips as his words came out in the same manner. “From my father. Apparently, I have been invited to my own wedding.”
Edirne, Ottoman Empire
THERE WAS GOLD EVERYWHERE.
Gold on fingers fat and thin, gold in noses long and stubby, gold in ears and on foreheads and necks and wrists, gold on arms, gold on ankles. The most gold on a pair of delicate ankles peeking out from beneath silk trimmed with gold threads, weak ankles that could never carry their owner in a fight or keep up in a race.
Sitti Hatun, Mehmed’s bride, had detestable ankles.
They were two days into the monthlong wedding celebrations, and already Lada had a headache from the perfume, the rich food, and the incessant music. She wanted to use the harpist’s instrument as a bow and fire arrows of burning incense into the beating gold hearts of everyone here.
She had not had even a moment to speak with Mehmed, had not been alone with him once since the pool, since the kiss, since everything became tangled and confusing. And Mehmed smiled and laughed and sat with his slender-ankled bride, his achingly beautiful bride, leaving a charred hollow where he had ignited something deep inside Lada.
A young man, as curved and gleaming as a Janissary sword, stood on a dais nearby, reciting poetry. His voice was a river, pulling her along, slipping her under the current and spinning her until his tales of valor and love and triumph felt like they were drowning her lungs so she could not breathe.
She grabbed a goblet from a meek-eyed servant and drank the sour wine as quickly as she could, trying to wash away the taste of the poet’s passion. It surprised her that Mehmed would have wine served at his wedding, when he refused to drink on religious principle. But she was very, very glad to have it.
On the other side of the cavernous room, beneath a shimmering drape of silk, propped up on velvet pillows, Mehmed and his bride reclined. Everyone pulsed out from them in streams. The beating heart of the empire, fed by the love and adoration of the vessels in the room.
Lada would rather bleed out than pretend to be happy for him.
“Lada!” Radu’s face was as bright as the lamps overhead. “May I have this dance? We should talk.”
“I would sooner let the head gardener take me for a walk in the courtyard,” she snapped.
Radu’s face fell. “But I had something I wanted to ask you about.”
A young woman passed deliberately close, looking up at Radu through her eyelashes and smiling so demurely it was almost obscene. Lada realized she had seen Radu dance with nearly every woman present. He had never pursued anyone in Amasya, but there had not been any opportunity. She felt the wine slosh sickeningly in her empty stomach.
If Radu wanted advice on courting Ottoman women, he should know better than to come to her. “I am sure you can manage perfectly well on your own,” she said, sneering.
Radu looked hurt, but then his jaw set and he walked away. Frustrated with him, frustrated with herself, Lada turned to flee and found herself face to face with Huma. Her lips were stained a deep red that matched the cloth she was draped in. She looked like a glittering wound.
“Walk with me,” Huma said, holding out a hand.
Scowling, Lada let Huma take her elbow and lead her to the far edge of the room, a corner not quite blazing with light from the dangling chandeliers. So many burned so brightly that the ceiling was obscured by a haze of smoke, the patterns there shifting and blurring.
Or perhaps Lada had finally had too much to drink.
“You seem troubled, little one.”
Lada laughed bitterly, picking at her clothes. She had been dressed by servants every day this week. Though she had tried to insist that she wear the same style of clothes as the Janissaries, she had been provided with draped dresses and silk shoes. Tonight her dress was a red so deep it looked nearly black, cut lower than she cared for, with a white sash. Her hair had been tamed and pulled back into a series of braids and curls that trailed down her back. She wore her boots, at least.
Huma traced a finger along Lada’s collarbone. “You ought to have a necklace here, to draw attention.” She pointed at Lada’s breasts.
Lada would shoot an incense arrow at Huma first.
But looking at the older woman’s face, Lada realized Huma was not pleased to be here, either. Lada had assumed Huma would be thrilled—in her element as the mother of the groom, preening and parading her new power. She had not wanted Lada to marry Mehmed, and here he was, married to another.
Instead, Huma surveyed the room with narrowed eyes.
“I have not offered my congratulations,” Lada said.
Huma huffed, waving a hand sharply. “Let us not pretend. I was not consulted on any of this. It is a political alliance chosen by Murad to secure the eastern borders. An odd move if he was planning to abdicate the throne again soon, now that Mehmed is older.”
Lada looked at the room through new eyes. None of Mehmed’s teachers were here, none of his favorite holy men. No one he had worked with during his brief time as sultan. And yet Kazanci Dogan, who had been the head of the revolt, was here. Surely Mehmed would not have invited him. The veins of power were not, as she had thought, radiating out from the beating heart of the newlyweds. They were radiating out from…Murad.
“But I thought with the marriage, and Mehmed having an heir…”
Huma laughed darkly. “A baby with a concubine is hardly a guarantee. And a marriage to a Turkmen tribe we are already allied with? This is a move of strengthening, not building. Not expanding or creating power and connections for Mehmed. This strengthens Murad and gives no benefit to Mehmed. The baby and this bride mean nothing. They change nothing.”
Something in Lada’s chest loosened, made it easier for her to breathe in the cloying atmosphere.
Huma looked at where Sitti Hatun’s father was talking with inebriated passion to several pashas who stared over his shoulder at where they would rather be.
“Did you know Murad welcomed a son two months ago?” Huma asked. “Such a blessing to have produced yet another boy.” In the pause, Lada heard a horrible grinding noise she suspected came from Huma’s teeth. “And such timing, staging a marriage so soon after, so that everyone can learn of the new heir from Murad himself. Who is to say that, with the heavy encouragement of his trusted Halil Pasha, Murad has not decided to wait out another decade or two in favor of a more pliable heir?”