Radu wondered why Murad would direct his anger toward Lada and not Mehmed, when it was his son who was embarrassing him.
Radu bitterly wanted the truth, even as he desperately wished for something else. Lada, however, said simply, “Following Mehmed.”
“And why would you do that?”
“To protect him.”
“At his own wedding party? What harm did you think could befall him?”
She finally changed her stony expression, raising a single eyebrow in disgust. “A knife in the dark. The exact harm I prevented.”
“We found no knife on the man you killed.”
Mehmed spoke. “Several people got to the body before the Janissary guards did. Anyone could have removed the weapon.”
Murad turned toward Mehmed. “Did the man attack you?”
“He was looking for me.”
“And no one could have been looking for you at your own party with anything other than murderous intentions?”
“I am not that popular,” Mehmed answered, his voice dry.
Murad’s face turned a deeper shade. He jabbed a finger toward Lada. “Why did you kill that man?”
“I saw him stalking Mehmed. I saw a glint of metal in the darkness. I acted without hesitation to protect Mehmed, just as I have done before.”
Murad tilted his head. “What do you mean?”
Radu cringed at her error, and saw Lada blanch. The attempt on Mehmed’s life during his time as sultan was secret. She could not claim it now. She shook her head, stammered, “I—I mean, just as I have been trained to.”
“Trained to?”
“I am a Jani—” She stopped, as shocked by what she was about to say as everyone else was. All the training in the world would not make her a Janissary. And it left her without a clear reason for taking it upon herself to kill a man.
“You are not a Janissary. Who are you?”
Lada looked at Murad with cold fury, her voice trembling with pain. “You do not remember?”
Radu leaned heavily against the wall, a bitter laugh trapped in his throat. The man who had stolen them, the man they had lived in terror of all these years, the man who had destroyed their lives did not even remember them. The secret to their survival, then, revealed: not Mehmed, not the grace of God, but rather an oversight by a man who could not be bothered to keep track of them.
“I know who she is.” The crowd parted to let Halil Pasha through. He looked around, and Radu knew whom he was searching for. He shifted and Lazar casually stepped in front of him, blocking him from Halil Pasha’s view. “She is Ladislav Dragwlya, daughter of Vlad, the treacherous vaivode of Wallachia. The treaty breaker. Was it not part of the terms of his princedom that he maintain loyalties to you? In exchange for the lives of his children?”
Mehmed stepped forward. “That is not at issue here! We are talking of the attempt on my—”
Halil Pasha waved a dismissive hand and continued talking. “How many times now has Wallachia gone against our interests? Should we not take this opportunity to remind Vlad of the consequences of disloyalty?”
A cold clarity fell on Radu like the first frost of autumn. Just as it signaled the coming winter, he could see what was happening. Halil Pasha did not want further inquiries into the incident in the garden. He was distracting Murad by bringing up a larger issue, that of their father’s betrayal. And in doing so, he was eliminating the girl who had twice disrupted what Radu suspected were Halil Pasha’s own attempts at ensuring Mehmed never ruled.
Lada was going to die tonight.
Murad was examining her with narrowed eyes, the Field of Blackbirds where they had fought rising again in his memory. Now, no doubt, that memory was filled with the Wallachian soldiers who had defied him—and here was Lada, representing the whole country.
Radu took a step nearer the door. He had gifts from Mehmed and others, things that could be sold. He had a horse and traveling clothes. He could slip into the night and disappear. He looked at Mehmed, who was looking at Lada.
Only ever looking at Lada.
Bitterness so heavy he could taste it welled within Radu, and he turned to leave. But as he did, he caught a glimpse of Lada. Instead of seeing the girl Mehmed had chosen, instead of seeing the girl who had failed him time and again by never being what he needed her to be, he saw the same expression she wore that day so long ago when she crawled out on the ice to rescue him. At the time, he had thought it was anger. He saw now that it was terror, and defiance in the face of her own all-consuming fear.
He hung his head. She had ventured onto the ice for him to spite death. And he knew she would do it again without hesitation.