“Did you know?” Lada’s voice came from far away, from underwater, from a cavern the depths of which would never see the light.
“No.”
It was an age before Radu realized the sun was setting and he was alone, still standing, staring at the gate and the mystery of the Mehmed he had seen inside. The Mehmed who had left him behind.
That night, Radu and Lada sat alone in Mehmed’s chambers, waiting far past the normal time when he usually met them for a late meal. Neither spoke nor looked at the other. Radu was cloaked in a suffocating blanket of misery and hurt. How could Mehmed have done this? How could he be a father?
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.