Lada seeped like a shadow out of the palace grounds and into the nearest quarter, where the wealthiest and most powerful pashas and viziers lived. Halil Pasha’s home was massive, a towering testament to his influence and to his regard within Murad’s reign. Avoiding the gate, Lada found a narrow alley between Halil Pasha’s wall and the next compound where she had enough leverage to climb the rocks and boost herself into Halil Pasha’s grounds. Dropping down, she crouched in stillness, the flagstones beneath her still smelling of sun-warmed dust.
A bright mess of voices drifted from the back of the building. Sliding along the wall, she came around a corner to find a courtyard. Lamps were strung like beads, dangling over a gathering still going strong despite the hour. It was smaller than the wedding feasts and dances, obviously a more intimate affair. Lada had no idea what to do with it. It was a waste of her time. She looked toward the main house, which would probably be nearly empty.
/> Going back to the side of the building, she found a small door, with piles of vegetable skins and refuse in baskets haphazardly placed near it. Inside was a narrow hallway, the end leading to an overtaxed and exhausted kitchen, still limping along late into the night. To her right was a narrow set of stairs. She took those to the next floor, where she opened a door. This hallway was broad with high ceilings and thick carpets. Lada strode along it, not knowing what she was looking for but desperate to find something.
Low laughter warned her a second too late that she was not alone. She stopped as two men, one facing her and the other looking away, came out of a room.
She locked eyes with Radu.
His face froze in horror, then smoothed into a smile as he put his hand on his companion’s back and pointed at something in the opposite direction of Lada. “Have you ever noticed this portrait of the pasha? It looks as though it were painted by an elephant. A very old, sick elephant.”
The other man laughed, not turning around, and Radu directed a pained and panicked look at Lada, jerking his head toward the servant staircase.
She was through it before Radu and his friend reached the painting, then outside and off Halil Pasha’s grounds before humiliation finally came crashing down around her. She had found nothing. Worse, she had been caught. By Radu. What was he doing there? Why did he act as though he knew the house? As though he belonged there?
She returned to the palace. Instead of going to her own room, she went to Radu’s, where she paced like a caged animal. Alternate rounds of fury and embarrassment warred within her, suspicions rising and then summarily dismissed. Finally, when she thought she would go mad, Radu came back. He closed the door behind himself and then leaned against it, rubbing his head wearily. Lada opened her mouth to berate him, but he beat her.
“What were you thinking, Lada?”
“What do you mean, what was I thinking? I was thinking that Halil Pasha threatened Mehmed once before, and he may very well do it again!”
“Yes! But what were you trying to accomplish sneaking around his home at night?”
“I—I thought, if I could catch him before…if I could discover something, so we would know…” She stopped. She did not know what she had hoped to accomplish. She had simply wanted to act, wanted to do. Wanted to do something other than stand in a room full of glittering strangers, watching Mehmed with another woman.
“Did you take note of Halil Pasha’s inner circle?” Radu raised his eyebrows, began pacing around her. “Who was at the gathering, who talked to whom, who lingered in conversation with Halil?”
Lada scoffed. “I could never have seen that much and remained hidden.”
“No, you certainly could not. You would need an invitation. You would need to have befriended all the pashazadas, especially Halil Pasha’s son Salih. You would need to be liked and trusted well enough to be welcomed into the rivers of influence that flow around Halil Pasha.”
“So you are his friend now, are you? Have you forgotten what he tried to do?”
Radu threw up his hands, then sat heavily on his bed. “He has never spoken to me. I doubt he even realizes who I am. But because of his son, I am welcome in his home. I am invited to his gatherings. I can drift around Halil, I can listen, I can watch, I can trade false secrets for real ones, I can keep my finger on the pulse of life in that wretched man’s plans. You were skulking in his hallway like a thief while I was sitting in his personal study like the adored friend I am to his oft-forgotten middle son.”
“But you never said anything.”
“I tried to. You would not let me.”
It was true. Lada had been so absorbed in her misery, so jealous of how happy Radu seemed, that she had pushed him away that night he wanted to dance and talk to her. But that had been four weeks ago. And how could she have known he would be up to something like this? “You— It does not seem like you. I never thought you could do something like this.”
Radu stiffened. “You may have been the one who stopped the dagger last time, but I am the one who will know before the dagger ever comes close to Mehmed.”
Lada shook her head in numb disbelief. Radu had come to the same conclusion she had—Halil Pasha was still a threat to Mehmed—and instead of running around in the dark, climbing walls, prowling aimlessly through a house, he had figured out a way to protect Mehmed. A way that Lada, for all her training and ferocity, could never accomplish. No wonder he had not involved her in his plans.
“What can I do?” she whispered.
Radu’s voice was strained with exhaustion. “Stay out of my way.”
Lada stumbled to the door, ignoring Radu’s hastily called-out apology. She crossed the thankfully empty hallways to her own room, locked the door behind herself, and curled up on her bed.
She wanted to dream of Wallachia.
She failed at even that.
RADU LOVED DANCING.
The beat, the music, feeling it from his head to his toes as he twirled around the room in perfect synchronization with the other dancers. There was something achingly right about moving together, guided by sound, everyone part of something bigger, giving up individuality to create something beautiful. He did not have to think or feel or be anything other than movement. It was almost like prayer.