“Yes! Yes. I am simply nervous. I meet with Kumal and Nazira today.”
“Why would that make you nervous?”
Radu realized with a pang that although he and Mehmed were together nearly every day, they had not fallen back into their comfortable ease of telling each other everything. Radu had too many secrets he could not afford to reveal, and so he spoke as little as possible. It was easy. Mehmed always had people around him. Even now there were two guards in the room and a squat, thick-fingered man who held a stool for Mehmed’s feet. Their presence did not lend itself to intimacy, which might have hurt Radu before, but now seemed a tender mercy.
“Did I not tell you? Kumal wants me to marry Nazira.”
Mehmed sat back as though struck. The stool-carrier jumped forward, but Mehmed waved him away. “Marry her? You would leave me?”
Radu felt a flutter of something—not quite hope, but its darker, more desperate cousin. Perhaps the disbelief and hint of anger from Mehmed was jealousy. “Am I not allowed to marry? I know the Janissaries cannot, but I am not clear on what, exactly, I am here.”
Mehmed’s face softened. “You are my friend. You are certainly not a slave. If you want to marry her…” Mehmed trailed off, his eyebrows lowering as he examined Radu with an intensity that made it difficult for Radu to breathe.
“I do not love her.” The words tumbled from his mouth like pebbles in a stream, cold and clacking together. He did not know where they would land, but he kept talking. “I care about and for her, and Kumal has been very kind to me. I am not certain I am a good match for Nazira, though. I think she could marry higher and be better off. And my first duty—my only duty—will always be to you. No one could take me from that.”
No one could take me from you.
Please, Radu thought, please know what I am saying.
Mehmed’s eyes widened, pupils dilating almost imperceptibly. Then a smile shifted the intensity and sincerity away from his eyes. “I will leave it up to you, then. Kumal Vali is a good man. I will make him Kumal Pasha. You are free to do whatever you wish, as long as Nazira knows I require you by my side.”
Radu clasped his hands together behind his back, away from Mehmed, so tightly they ached. “There is no place I would rather be.”
The words caught in his throat, trying to pull more out. Radu knew if he started, he would never be able to dam the flow of honesty that would pour forth, drowning him in its wake.
So he bowed and walked from the room, breath shaking and pulse pounding.
Love was a plague.
He was meeting Nazira and Kumal in the same garden where he had first seen Mehmed.
They found Radu standing in front of the fountain, staring at ghosts, wondering: If he had not met the crying boy here, would he be able to love Nazira?
“Radu!”
He turned, still tangled in the past, and embraced Kumal. His friend was thinner than he had been. A lingering shade of death’s touch deepened the shadows beneath his eyes and the hollows of his cheeks. But he was alive.
“I am so glad to see you well.” Radu hugged him tightly before releasing him.
“It is only thanks to you.”
Radu turned to Nazira. She wore a sunrise-pink scarf over her black hair; her soft, dark eyes turned up at the outer corners and made her look pleasantly teasing. Her lips were so full, they were nearly a circle, but she pulled them apart into a smile. “Radu.”
Radu bowed. He was happy to see her, but uncertain how to act around her. Where before they had had the easy rapport of friendship, siblings even (as Radu imagined sisters who were not Lada to be), now there was a chasm he did not know whether to cross or flee from. He had wished her his sister, and she, apparently, had wished for more.
“I see an interesting shrub over there.” Kumal pointed, beaming. “I will go examine it for a while, I think.”
Radu could not bear to sit at the fountain, so he led Nazira to a stone bench beneath a broad tree. Its branches were bare for the winter. They sat, shielded from view. Radu did not know what to say.
Nazira stared straight ahead when she finally spoke. “I want to marry you.”
Her directness disoriented Radu, who had become so used to the angling and meandering communication of the courts. “I— You are very— You see, I—”
She turned to him and smiled, putting her hand on top of his. “Radu, sweet Radu. When you look at me there is no hunger in your gaze. I have spent a good deal of time observing men and the way they look at women, and you do not look at me as a man looks upon something he desires.”
Fear blossomed, its dark petals spreading wide. “You are very beautiful, and—”
She squeezed his hand, shaking her head. “It is not a hunger I welcome. That is why I picked you. You are kind and smart and you are…alone. And you will, I think, always have to be alone.” She formed it almost as a question, her eyes searching his for a truth he did not want them to find. “Do you remember our dance?”
Radu shook his head.
“At Mehmed’s wedding to Sitti Hatun.”
“Ah, yes.”
“Half the women in the room watched you move, craving your attention, waiting for their turn. And you looked at none of them. I knew then. I understand. I understand what it is to look upon what you are supposed to have and feel nothing.” She waited, then whispered, “I understand.”
Radu realized tears had formed in his eyes. “You do?”
“I do. As your wife, I would expect only your friendship. Nothing more.” She looked at the ground, and a blush spread across her cheeks. “And I would request that my maid, Fatima, be allowed to accompany me. Always.”
“Fatima.” Radu sat back, remembering. The way Nazira’s gaze always followed the maid wherever she went, the day he found them in the gardens, breathless and flushed, their hair askew from being chased by a bee.
A cloud passed from the sun, bathing them in warmth and light. With it came surprising clarity. Radu smiled. “You were happy to have been stung by that bee in the garden. You have found happiness, then.”
She nodded. “I have. Will you—please, will you help me protect it? Will you let me be your friend, your true friend who knows you and loves you?”
Radu leaned his forehead against hers, closing his eyes. He could not help the welling of jealousy that filled him. Nazira had found her happiness and, miraculously, Fatima felt the same. But his bitterness was brushed away by genuine love for Nazira. If she had what he feared he never could, he would do whatever he could to help her.
“Nazira, it would be my greatest honor to be your husband.”
She let out a burst of laughter mingled with a sob of relief and threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you, thank you, sweetest Radu. Thank you.”
He placed a gentle kiss on her forehead.
When they rejoined Kumal, he took in Nazira’s tear-streaked face with alarm before noticing their clasped hands.
“Brother!” He took them both in his arms. Nazira’s frame trembled as she cried and smiled, and Kumal began making wedding plans.
“We can invite the sultan!” he said.
“No,” Radu said, too quickly and with too much force. Nazira’s eyebrows raised knowingly. Radu nodded his head, a tiny movement only she would catch. She squeezed his hand, and he was surprised by how much comfort it was to be understood.
This time when he spoke, Radu was careful to sound calm and unaffected. “He is burdened so heavily right now. He would feel guilty for being unable to attend. It is best not to invite him. I will ask him for an estate nearby, but out of the city. Closer to you. It will be healthier air for Nazira, and I can travel between her and my duties to the sultan with ease. I would like to marry in a simple ceremony, as soon as possible.”
“That is my wish, too.” Nazira glowed, outshining the sun.