Now I Rise (The Conqueror's Saga #2)(77)

Clarity finally caught Lada in its horrible grasp. “Oh.”

“So you will not find many men here to swell your ranks. Our boyar worm Silviu will agree with whatever you want because he is a coward, but he will betray you to the prince at the first opportunity. And he has nothing to offer. You should kill him. If not, then leave. These lands are a waste of your time.”

Lada felt anger rising within. “Why?”

“I told you, we have no men.”

“No. Why did you let this happen? Why did all of you let this happen?”

The girl’s face purpled with rage. “Let it happen? What choice did we have? We give ourselves or our families starve. What choice is there in that?”

“Does Silviu work the land?”

“No, of course not.”

“Does he tend the animals?”

“No.”

“Does he do a single thing that directly feeds you or your families?”

The girl looked as though she very much wanted to hit Lada. “He owns it. He owns it all.”

Lada paused, weighing her options. Then she shrugged. She would negotiate her own way. “Not anymore.”

They marched straight through the fields, past more than a dozen girls in the same condition as Daciana. The girls stood watching as the men passed. No one said anything.

Daciana walked next to Stefan’s horse. Lada could tell the girl made him nervous, which she found perversely delightful. She had once seen Stefan slit a man’s throat without blinking. That this pregnant slip of a girl could unnerve him when that had not was odd. Daciana talked softly to him. No one noticed Stefan until it was too late. But this girl had seen him, and would not stop seeing him.

Lada liked her.

An older woman ran from the middle of a field and caught up to them. She grabbed Daciana’s hand and halted her. Daciana leaned close, whispering. Apparently satisfied with Daciana’s explanation, the woman fell into step.

Silviu’s manor was tucked into the side of a hill overlooking the farmland. Ten guards stood in front. Their helmets were slightly askew, swords and spears clutched so tightly they shook. Lada stopped her horse directly in front of them, well within striking distance. She remembered Hunyadi riding into an enemy city, broad-shouldered and armed with unassailable confidence. She wrapped the same around herself.

“I am here to see Silviu.”

The guards looked at each other, at a loss.

Lada had seventy men at her back. The guards knew as well as she did that what she wanted, she would get. “Tell him I will receive him here. And then you are welcome to join my men, or to flee. Any other course of action will not end well for you.”

The shortest man, broad-chested and of middle years, gave her an ugly sneer. “I do not take orders from women.”

“My men do not have a similar problem.” Lada lifted a hand. The man fell, a crossbow bolt sticking out of his chest.

A harelipped guard jumped away as though death were contagious. Which, in this case, it was. “I will go fetch him, Miss! Um, Madam. My lady. I— Right now!” Two of the guards turned and ran. The rest began edging toward Lada’s men, hands far from their weapons.

“Hello, Miron,” Daciana said. She stepped forward, blocking the path of one of the guards. There was something verminous about his face and his beady eyes that darted around. “You remember when we used to play together as children?”

He did not look at her. She held her hand out to the older woman next to her. “You remember when my mother gave you some of our milk because you were starving?”

His lip curled in a snarl, but still he did not respond.

“You remember when I screamed and screamed, and you stood outside the door and did nothing? You remember when he offered you—what did he call them, ‘seconds’? You remember what you did?”

The man had the gall to finally meet her gaze. He shrugged, face set in cruel indifference. He shoved his shoulder into her, to push her out of the way.

“I remember that, too,” her mother said as she brought her hand between them. Lada’s view was blocked by the soldier’s body. He made an odd noise, twitching. Then he stumbled backward, blood-soaked hands tugging ineffectually at the rough wooden handle of a knife protruding from his stomach. He sank down against the stone wall of the house. His ratlike eyes looked up in shock and pain at the girl and her mother.

“And now we will never remember you again.” Daciana turned her back on him.

Stefan pulled a handkerchief from his vest and offered it to her. She passed it to her mother, who wiped the blood from her hands.

“What is the meaning of this?” A portly man, face veined and splotchy with age and alcohol, stumbled out of the manor. He wore a velvet vest with a gold necklace, and a black cap on his large head.

“Silviu?” Lada asked. “I am here to negotiate your support.” Lada drew her crossbow and shot him in the chest. One of Toma’s men shouted in surprise.

Lada turned her horse. “That went well. We have the full support of this estate now. It is yours.” She pointed to Daciana.

Daciana nodded, a dazed expression on her face. Her mother finished cleaning her hands and gave the handkerchief back to Daciana. “I will tell the men.”

“No,” Lada snapped. “I did not say the land was theirs. Or any of the fathers of this land. They forfeited their rights when they sold their daughters for food. Why did you let them live?”