Bright We Burn (The Conqueror's Saga 3)

Oana put her hands over Lada’s. “I am alive, yes. They tried to get information from me, but I am an old woman who knows nothing and can barely speak Wallachian, much less understand Hungarian. All I know how to do is sew. I have certainly never been privy to any of your plans.”

Lada grinned, relieved that at least Oana was doing well in captivity.

“And now?”

“Now, at the insistence of Mara Brankovic, who has written several times, I have finally been permitted to bring you your food. Matthias says you are not eating much.”

“He is poisoning me.”

Oana peered down at whatever she carried. “I will eat some of it. Then we can know for certain.”

Lada shook her head. “No reason for us both to die.”

“Lada, my child, I have been with you since you were born and I do not want to live after you die.” She leaned against the door and picked at Lada’s food.

“Tastes fine,” she said.

Lada wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Do you have any weapons? Those will serve me far better than food, poisoned or otherwise.”

“They checked me very thoroughly. Actually, it is the most interested any man has been in my body for nearly twenty years now. I invited him back to my chambers, but he did not seem to understand.”

Lada laughed, unable to help it. She was more profoundly grateful for Oana, here in the midst of her despair, than she had thought possible. She would even consent to having her hair combed if such a thing were possible through the door.

Oana glanced casually to the side. “Good. The guard does not speak Wallachian. He did not so much as flinch at my filthy implications.” She began passing the food to Lada. “I feel fine. I will let you know immediately if I die, though.” Oana stopped, staring into the dim cell. “What the devil is that?”

Lada followed Oana’s gaze to the tableau she had built along the edge of her cot.

“Oh. The guards think it is funny to bring them to me. They say it will remind me of home and keep me from getting too sad.” Several rats had been impaled on tiny stakes and pinned into grotesque positions. The stakes, unfortunately, were too small and flimsy to serve any practical purpose. “They are trying to upset me, so I display them instead.”

Oana wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Pass them here. I will get rid of them.”

Lada leaned against the door to rest. She needed to move more, to be active even in these confined conditions. “I will keep them. I can show no weakness to these worms. But enough about my cell. Tell me what is happening out there.”

“You will not like it.”

“Tell me.”

“Radu is in Tirgoviste. He has put Aron Danesti on the throne.”

Lada’s jaw ached, but she could not unclench it. “Our men in the mountains?’

“We hear nothing of them, which is good. It means they have not been found or betrayed us.”

“And what of the rest of Europe? How do they respond to Matthias’s bold move in taking me prisoner?”

“No one knows.”

Lada sighed. She had hoped that Mara would tell Radu, or someone who would spread the news. But Mara was Mehmed’s, and would do what she was told because that was how she stayed free and powerful. How different the world would be if only merit and skill were rewarded, if only ambition created results. Instead, it was a tangled mess of threads. Lada had tried so hard to stay out of that web, to owe her power to no one. But the closer she got to transcending the strands that had bound her throughout her whole life, the more the web tightened around her.

Oana continued. “As far as everyone else knows, you are still hiding in the mountains. Or underneath the beds of small children who refuse to obey their parents. But at least Matthias cannot kill you and risk the ire of your fan the pope.”

Lada pushed her head against the wood door, wishing the planks would part and allow her through. “Does the pope know where I am? Is there help there?”

“No. He thinks you are hiding as well.”

“How do you know all this? Have you taken a lover here? Are you playing spy?” Lada could not imagine such a thing, but then again, Oana was always surprising her.