Bright We Burn (The Conqueror's Saga 3)

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Two weeks later, the Turkish ambassadors showed up unannounced and uninvited, complete with a Janissary escort. Lada had her own men line the room for a show of power. They outnumbered the Janissaries three to one. Her men, several of them former Janissaries, looked on coldly.

Lada lounged on her throne, one leg draped over its arm. She tapped her foot impatiently, bouncing it through the air. She could see in the puzzled looks and shuffling posture of the ambassadors that her lack of decorum made them nervous.

She smiled.

“This is Wallachia. Remove your hats out of respect.” Neither the Janissaries in their cylindrical caps with white flaps, nor the ambassadors in their turbans, made any move to follow her order.

The lead ambassador, an older man with a silver beard and shrewd eyes, raised an eyebrow dismissively. “We bring terms of your vassalage from our sultan, the Hand of God on Earth, Caesar of Rome, Mehmed the Conqueror.”

Lada tapped her chin thoughtfully. “What a burden, to be the hand of God! Which hand is it, I wonder? God’s right hand, or God’s left? If Mehmed cleaned his ass with the hand that is the hand of God instead of his own hand, would he be struck down for blasphemy?”

Many of her men in the room laughed raucously, and Lada flushed with pleasure. But Bogdan had his eyes averted. He hated it when she spoke this way about God. It was a good reminder. She had no use for God, but most of her people did, and anything that held faith and belief was a source of power. She had seen what Mehmed had accomplished because of his steadfast faith. She had seen that same faith steal her own brother from her. Faith was power. She knew she should not dismiss anything that gave her power over others. She sat

up straight. “Our god, the true God of Christianity, is without form and thus without hands. We reject your sultan’s title and his authority. You have no purpose here. Leave.”

“There is something else.” The Janissary captain stepped forward. He was compact and broad, years of training evident in every move. She had almost forgotten how perfect the Janissaries were. It made her uneasy, thinking back on the men she led now. They were nothing compared to these soldiers, who were trained from childhood to be weapons of the sultan. The captain continued, “On our journey here we passed through Bulgaria. It appears there have been some conflicts along your border. Several Wallachian villages were burned.”

Lada could not believe she was hearing about this now, from an enemy instead of her own people. She hated that he was showing her he had more information than she did. “I have not had reports of this yet.”

He did not change his expression, which was as sharp and unyielding as steel. “All the Wallachians were dead. It is unfortunate. Most likely due to a misunderstanding. But once your terms of vassalage are secure, Bulgaria will be a powerful ally and such conflicts will cease. The sultan protects his vassals.”

This man, this Ottoman, thought he could come here and tell her about attacks on her own country—slaughter of her own people—as a method of forcing her to agree to Ottoman rule? As though dead Wallachians somehow argued in favor of allying with those who killed them? And it did not make sense that he would have news of this before her.

Unless he had come directly from doing it himself. Lada leaned forward, her voice cold. “You killed my people.”

The Janissary captain flashed a smile that did not touch his eyes. “No. Bulgarians killed your people along a chaotic border. The sultan’s terms eliminate such chaos. A solid treaty, respectfully followed, will protect your people.”

Lada bared her small white teeth. It was not a smile. “I protect my people. I avenge them, too. And you have nothing to teach me about respect. After all, none of you showed me the respect of removing your hats.” She stood. “Bind them.”

Her men sprang into action. The Janissary captain and his soldiers put up a fight, but they had not been allowed to bring weapons into the throne room. Everyone was subdued, though not without a struggle and several broken noses.

The lead ambassador glared murderously at Lada. “You cannot harm us. You do not want to risk what it will bring.”

“You did not worry about what risk killing my own people would bring.” Lada seethed with rage. They had come into her land. Slaughtered Wallachians under her protection. Unlike letters, such a thing as this could not go unanswered. She would send a message the likes of which would echo through Mehmed’s empire and all of Europe.

She prowled in a circle around the ambassador, then tugged on the edges of his turban. “I am going to help you. If it was so important to you to leave your heads covered in my presence, so important that it was worth disrespecting a prince, then I will make certain you never have to uncover your heads again.” Lada turned to Bogdan. “Bring me nails and a hammer.”

Finally, the lead ambassador trembled. Finally, he saw how Lada answered disrespect and the deaths of her own people.

Lada stood in the corner of the throne room as her men drove nails into the heads of the Ottomans. As always, she made herself watch. It would have been easier to do in private. In some hidden dungeon. But no. She would bear witness to the things that had to be done for Wallachia to be secure. This was her burden, her responsibility.

Their screams were loud. In a bright, bloody flash, she remembered one of her many childhood trips to watch the sultan’s torturers’ brutal work. The price of stability was always paid with blood and flesh and pain.

She watched, but as though from a great distance.

They were not men. They were goals accomplished. They were not men.

A sudden wave of relief that Radu was not here washed over her. She did not like to imagine the look on his face if he were. She had always tried to protect him because he was her responsibility. Now all of Wallachia was. She would do whatever it took to protect her people.

The screams stopped. Which was good. She had other things to do.

“Send them back to their Hand of God,” she said, glancing over the bodies. Some were still alive. It was unfortunate for them but would not last long. “Tell him I will have his respect.”

She turned to Bogdan, whose hands were slick with blood. His mother, Oana, would be the one to clean it up. Some things never changed. “Send for Nicolae and our forces. We have business to attend to in Bulgaria.”

Constantinople