Bright We Burn (The Conqueror's Saga #3)(44)

Mehmed laughed, startling them and drawing their attention to the other end of his sumptuous tent, where he sat, apparently engrossed in a book about the life of the Prophet, peace be upon him. “Why would she? We have all the men and force on our side. But on her side she has time. She will wield it against us in whatever ways she can.”

Ali Bey frowned, his bushy eyebrows drawing so low Radu wondered whether they tickled his eyes. “It sounds as though you admire her.”

“Should I not admire excellence wherever I find it? I am certainly not finding any to admire in my current company.”

The other men flinched. Radu felt the sting of the words, but they did not wound him as deeply as they once might have. There was something to be said for having his heart broken so many times. Broken things healed thicker and stronger than they were before. Assuming one survived long enough to heal.

“The sultan is right,” Radu said. “Lada is using every advantage she has. But she does not have many at her disposal. We have to find the weak points and press them as hard as she has pressed ours.” He stared at the annotated map and the story it told. It was Wallachia, turned into a weapon. Lada was using their country the way she had always worshipped it: completely and viciously.

Aron threw down his pen with a splatter of ink. “What are her weaknesses, then?”

“People.”

Hamza Pasha, the oldest man in the tent and leader of ten thousand spahi forces, snorted. “We have taken prisoners, and they are all mindlessly devoted to her, to the point of lunacy. We will find no weakness to exploit there.”

“Not those people. Our people.” Radu turned to Aron and Andrei. “She has killed many boyars. Those that remain are loyal to her, but they cannot truly trust her. Not after what she has done. She is giving land and power to whomever she chooses. They must know their titles—their lives—are not safe so long as she is prince. She has too little regard for tradition and blood.”

Andrei lifted an eyebrow. “It seems to me she has tremendous regard for blood. She simply prefers it spilled on the ground.”

Mehmed gave a small laugh from the corner, but continued to keep his eyes on his book as though he were not following the conversation.

Radu resisted the impulse to defend his sister. She did not deserve it, and she could defend herself. She had proved as much. “I have sent out men to find the remaining boyars. I will offer them an alternative to Lada’s reign of terror, and they will betray her.”

“How can you be sure?” Ali Bey’s turban had come loose, revealing silver streaks in his black hair. He had lived far past the average Janissary life expectancy. Perhaps that was why he was leader—because of his experience, and his knack for not dying.

“They are boyars,” Aron said with a wry smile. “It is what they do. They betrayed Radu’s father in favor of mine. They betray the memory of my father in favor of a prince they hate. If we offer them security and power, they will betray her. And, eventually, they will betray me.”

Radu placed a hand on Aron’s shoulder. “We will see you on the throne. We will fix this.” Radu hoped that Aron could restore some of the balance Lada had upset. Although the more Radu saw of the country, the more he questioned how long it would take to return things to the way they had been. Lada had done so much in such a little time. Not only the destruction of the land—though that would take time to repair—she had also introduced her rebellious ferocity into a people long accustomed to accepting what was offered them and never demanding more. That infection of ideas would be far harder to recover from.

And, perhaps, it should not be recovered from. Radu would suggest to Aron that he should capitalize on the new social structures, rather than immediately dismantling them. Lada focused only on common Wallachians, not the nobility. It was her weakness. But the nobility had proved their own weakness in so long ignoring the potential of their own people. If anything, Lada had proved Wallachians could do great things under the right leader.

“Radu?” Andrei prodded.

“Sorry, yes?” The conversation had continued, leaving him behind.

“We have had outbreaks of sickness,” Hamza Pasha said. Even now he hung back, fanning his face though the tent was not overly warm. At these strategy meetings he was often quiet. Not out of reticence, but because he apparently thought himself above discussing strategy with three outsiders and a Janissary. The Janissary-spahi rivalry was maintained for a couple of reasons—so that neither group got too powerful, and so that they never banded together against the sultan—but it was deeply inconvenient at times like this.

“And I should …” Radu trailed off, unsure what Hamza Pasha thought he should do about it.

“It is your country making them ill. Perhaps you know something about it.”

Radu recognized a power play when he saw it. Hamza Pasha knew Mehmed was listening, and wanted to remind them all that Radu, though a bey, was not and would never be one of them. That it was Radu’s country costing them so much. And that he was intimately tied to the person doing it all.

Radu smiled sweetly. His handsome face earned him no advantage here, but old habits were difficult to shake off. “It made me sick having to live here, too. I was not whole until I found my home at our sultan’s side.” Certain that his own point had been made—he had more of the sultan’s ear than the pasha did—Radu stood. “But I will go see what needs to be done. Do tell me if this map reveals any secrets while you continue staring at it.”