“Bogdan.” Radu held up his hands helplessly. “The Janissaries took him.”
The bees turned into a swarm. Lada ran from the room, straight to her father’s study, where she found him bent over maps and ledgers.
“Father!” It came out breathless, desperate. Small. All her efforts to force him to see her as something other than a little girl unraveled in that single word, but she could not stop herself. He would help. He would fix this. “The Janissaries have kidnapped Bogdan!”
Her father looked up, setting down his quill and wiping his fingers on a white handkerchief. It came away smudged with black, and he dropped it to the floor, discarded. His voice was measured. “The Janissaries told me they had some trouble with one of the castle dogs. An injury to a soldier. They requested we supply a replacement who had been taught Turkish. It is a fortunate turn of events for the son of a nursemaid, is it not?”
Lada felt her lower lip tremble. That feeling she got in her heart when her father looked at her—that frantic, desperate pride—twisted and soured. He knew what Bogdan was to her. He knew, and he let the Janissaries take her dearest friend anyway.
He did not care. And now he watched for her reaction, weighing her.
She clenched her shaking hands into fists. She nodded.
“See that the dogs behave themselves from now on.” Her father’s eyes cut straight through her, releasing the bees and leaving her echoing and empty inside. She curtsied, then walked stiffly out, collapsing against the wall and shoving her fists against her eyes to push the tears back inside.
This was her fault. She could have walked away from the Janissaries. Radu would have. But not her. She had to defy them, had to taunt them. And one of them—the thin one—had known just by looking at her the best way to hurt her.
All her tiny threads snapped and circled back around her heart, squeezing too tightly. This was her fault, but her father had betrayed her. He could have said no—should have said no, should have stopped it, should have shown the Janissaries that it was he, not them, who ruled Wallachia.
He had chosen not to.
Her mind stuck on the image of his discarded handkerchief. Dirtied and dropped, forgotten now that it was not pristine. Her father was wasteful. Her father was weak.
Bogdan deserved better.
She deserved better.
Wallachia deserved better.
She went back to the mountain in her mind, stood on its peak, remembered the way the sun had embraced her. She would never toss aside her country the way her father had. She would protect it.
A small sob threatened to break free. What could she do? She had no power.
Yet, she vowed. She had no power yet.
RADU HAD ALWAYS HATED Bogdan, hated that he stole Lada’s time and attention, hated the way he tugged on Radu’s hair, or pulled his ear, or sneered when Radu scraped a knee and could not help crying.
Hated most of all that Bogdan ignored him the rest of the time.
And now Bogdan had stolen Radu’s nurse, leaving a hollow shell behind. It was Bogdan’s own fault he was gone. He had to ruin everything else on his way out, too.
Radu’s rooms were a suffocating sepulchre to Bogdan. His nurse wept in her chair, sewing basket dormant beside her. Lada was worse, though. Normally when something did not go her way, she became a torrent of rage, a sweeping storm that flew in and overwhelmed everything, working itself out as quickly as it had descended.
With Bogdan’s loss, however, Lada was silent. Staring. Calm.
It terrified Radu.
He tucked himself into a corner of the stables, a dark, musty spot where only someone looking could find him. No one was ever looking for Radu. A spider crawled down his hand and he lifted it, gently placing the spider on a wood beam where it would be safe.
Two swaggering Janissaries led their sweating and quivering horses into the stables. Radu watched through narrowed eyes as they efficiently wiped down the horses, watered them, and got them fresh feed.
When Mircea returned from riding, he always jumped down, threw his reins at a servant, and walked off. Mircea whipped his horses, too, the angry furrows in their flanks marking them as his favorites. Once, Radu had been watching when no stableboy was present. Mircea simply got off his horse, a long gash on its leg seeping blood, and left.
Radu wanted to hate all Janissaries out of loyalty to Lada, but he liked the way they took care of their animals. He also liked their funny hats, and the way they always had someone. There was never a Janissary by himself.
The two men had been talking in low, comfortable voices the whole time. “Have you noticed the new animal in here?” one asked. His back was to Radu.
The other Janissary, a young man with pockmarked skin and dark eyes, shook his head.
“A shy creature. I should think he’s very valuable, but I have yet to see anyone take him out for a ride. Pity.”
“Oh, do you mean the pale one? Big eyes? Curly hair? Hides in a corner?”
Fear seized Radu. They knew he was here. What would they do to him?
“Yes, that one! Seems a sad little thing. Perhaps if he made friends with some of the other animals…” The Janissary straightened, and turned his head, smiling with kind eyes at Radu’s hiding spot. “Would you like to help us with the horses?”
Radu did not move.
“This one is very gentle. See?” The Janissary nuzzled the horse’s head with his own. The horse huffed right in his face, and both soldiers laughed. “Come on, come meet your stablemate.”
Radu shuffled forward, pressed against the stall doors, eyes darting to the entrance.
The Janissary held out a stiff-bristled brush. “Here now, make yourself useful. We have to bend over so far to reach the lower spots. Help save our poor aching backs.”
The brush was heavy in Radu’s hand. He reached out with it, hesitant, barely touching the horse. He had been trained to ride, but Mircea had been in charge, which meant Lada became wild and competitive and Radu got yelled at the whole time. He still had a mark on the back of his neck from where Mircea whipped him once. Mircea claimed he had been aiming for the horse.
The kind-eyed Janissary put his hand over Radu’s, showing him how to stroke, how much pressure to use. “I take it you are not a stableboy.”
Radu shook his head, keeping his eyes down.
“Oh, I know who our little creature is!” The pockmarked Janissary grinned, a gap-toothed smile. “Do they keep all the little princes in the stables? What odd customs Wallachia has! I trust you like eating oats?”
Radu knew he was being teased, but it felt kind. Playful. He ventured a smile. “I prefer cake.”
Both Janissaries laughed, one patting him on the shoulder. Unlike when Mircea did it, it was simply a pat on the shoulder, and not a disguised blow.
Radu helped the soldiers with the rest of their chores, asking a few questions but mostly listening. When they were finished, they told him to meet them there earlier the next day to help exercise the horses. He practically skipped back to his rooms, breathless and flushed with happiness. Lada, thankfully, was nowhere to be found. His nurse was in her usual spot. Radu climbed onto her chair and snuggled into her side, putting his hand on the back of her neck. She sighed, not looking at him.
“Did you know,” Radu said, as carefully as he had set the spider down, “that Janissaries are very prestigious in Ottoman society?”
His nurse frowned, and looked at him for the first time in days.
“They are educated and trained and even paid. Everyone admires them. I was talking to one today who told me his mother gave him to the Janissaries to save him from a life breaking himself to bits against the rocky soil. He said…” Radu paused, his voice getting softer. “He said he was grateful. That it was the best thing that could have happened to him. He always has enough to eat, and he has plenty of friends, and money to spend when he wants to. He said he is smarter and stronger than he ever would have been. He says he prays every day, out of gratitude to and love for his mother.”