Bulgaria and Serbia had similar arrangements with the sultan, paying money and boys to the Ottoman Empire in return for stability, while Hungary and Transylvania fought to avoid being vassals. The tension between borders demanded Vlad’s constant attention, forced him to leave for weeks on end, and gave him pains in his stomach that made him nasty and irritable.
Lada hated the Ottomans.
One of the Janissaries raised a thick eyebrow. Though he looked Bulgarian, maybe Serbian, he spoke Turkish. “Ugly thing, the girl. The prince will be lucky to find her a match. Or perhaps a nunnery with low standards.”
Lada continued as though she had not heard, but Bogdan stopped. He bristled. The soldier noted his understanding and stepped toward them in interest. “You speak Turkish?”
Lada grabbed Bogdan’s hand, answering with perfect pronunciation. “One must learn Turkish if one is to command the castle dogs.”
The soldier laughed. “You would be right at home with them, little bitch.”
Lada had her knife out before the soldier or his companion noticed. She was too short to reach the man’s neck, so she satisfied herself with a vicious slash across his arm. He shouted in pain and surprise, jumping back and fumbling with his sword.
Lada gestured, and Bogdan threw himself at the soldier’s legs, tripping him. Now that he was on the floor, his neck was an easy target. Lada pressed the knife beneath his chin, then looked up at the other soldier. He was a pale, lean man—almost a boy, really—with shrewd brown eyes. He had one hand on his sword, the long, curved blade favored by the Ottomans.
“Only a fool would attack the prince’s daughter in her own home. Two soldiers against a harmless girl.” Lada bared her teeth at him. “Very bad for treaties.”
The lean soldier took his hand off his sword and stepped back, his smile a perfect match to his weapon. He bowed, sweeping out an arm in deference.
Bogdan jumped up from the floor, trembling with rage. Lada shook her head at him. She should have left him out of this. Lada had a sense for power—the fine threads that connected everyone around her, the way those threads could be pulled, tightened, wrapped around someone until they cut off the blood supply.
Or snapped entirely.
She had few threads at her disposal. She wanted all of them. Bogdan had almost none, and what threads he did have were his simply by virtue of his being a boy. People already respected him more than they did his mother the nurse. It made Lada’s jaw ache, the ease with which life greeted Bogdan.
She jabbed her knife, poking the prone soldier once more for good measure, but not quite hard enough to break the skin. Then she stood straight, smoothing the front of her dress. “You are slaves,” she said. “There is nothing you can do to hurt me.”
The lean soldier’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he looked over Lada’s shoulder, where Bogdan loomed. She grabbed his arm and walked out of the room with him.
Bogdan was fuming. “We should tell your father.”
“No!”
“Why? He should know how they disrespected you!”
“They are beneath our notice! They are less than the mud. You do not get angry at the mud for clinging to your shoe. You wipe it off and never look at it again.”
“Your father should know.”
Lada scowled. It was not that she feared punishment for her actions. What she feared was that her father would find out how the Janissaries viewed her and realize they were right. That she was a girl. That she was worth less than the castle dogs until the day she could be married off. She had to be the smartest, constantly surprising and delighting him. She was terrified that the day she stopped amusing him would be the day he remembered he had no use for a daughter.
“Will we be punished?” Bogdan’s face, as familiar and beloved as her own, wrinkled in concern. He was growing like a spring shoot, so much taller now. As far back as she could remember he had been at her side. He was hers—her playmate, her confidant, her brother in spirit if not blood. Her husband. Where Radu was weak, Bogdan was steady, strong. She tugged one of his big ears. They stuck out from his head like handles on a jug, and were more precious to her than any of the fine things in the castle.
“The Janissaries have only what power we decide they do.” She meant it as a reassurance, but her mind stuck on the curved sword that hung above her father’s throne. A gift from the sultan to her father. A promise and a threat, like most things in Tirgoviste were.
The next morning Lada awoke late, eyes heavy with sleep and mind muddled by nightmares. There was a strange noise, a hiccuping sort of moan, coming from the other side of her bedroom door. Angry, she stomped out into the chambers that connected her room to Radu’s, where their nurse slept.