Mehmed’s tent might as well have had his name painted on it. It was the largest, made of sumptuous cloth in what she assumed would be red and gold in the sunlight. That was another mistake. If she were in charge, he would be sleeping in one of the small, anonymous tents. Make an assassin look through every tent, rather than boldly advertising the target.

He really did make this too easy.

Lada peered around the edge of a soldier’s tent from which gentle snores emanated. The entrance to Mehmed’s grand tent was manned by two Janissaries, both awake and alert. Lada slipped around to the back of the tent, which was guarded only by her friend darkness.

She darted forward, not hesitating as she stabbed a knife into the tent and dragged it down. With only the barest whisper of material, she had her own private entrance.

Inside, it was dim, a coal brazier in the corner giving only a faint glow. Lada wondered who had to carry the furniture Mehmed traveled with: a desk, a stool, a full table, an assortment of pillows, and a bed. No bedrolls for the sultan, whose body was too precious for the ground.

And whose body was in that bed, breathing softly.

Lada crept forward with her knife raised. And then she stopped, looking down at Mehmed.

She had forgotten the thick sweep of his black lashes. His full lips were turned down at the corners, as though his dreams troubled him. His hair, so often covered by turbans the past few years, was draped on his pillow, one strand lying across his forehead. Lada was filled with a sudden tenderness. She reached out and brushed the hair from his skin.

He awoke with a start, grabbing her wrist. His eyes were wide, body tensed for a fight. Lada leaned closer. She had never seen this ferocity in his face. She wanted to taste it.

Mehmed kept his painful grip on her wrist. “Lada?” he asked, blinking rapidly.

“I have just killed you. Again.”

He pulled her down, meeting her lips with desperate hunger. She dropped the knife. She had forgotten what it was to be kissed, to be desired. She had thought she did not need it.

She had been wrong.

Mehmed moved from her lips to her neck, his hands in her hair. “When you left, you took my heart with you. Kill me, Lada,” he said, with so much longing she could not keep her own hands off him. He rolled so she was beneath him. His hands explored her body, alternating between rough greediness and softness so gentle it nearly hurt her.

He put his mouth against her ear. “I have learned some things,” he said, voice teasing, “about pleasure.”

Before she could wonder where he had learned those things—things she had accused him of not caring about aside from his own satisfaction—he moved down her body. Her back arched as his hands slid under her tunic and up her torso. She grabbed his hair, not knowing whether she wanted to pull him away or draw him closer. She feared if he continued, she would lose control. She had never let herself lose control before.

His hands found the space between her legs and she cried out with the shock and intensity of it. He responded with greater eagerness, kissing her stomach, her breasts. He pulled her tunic up higher, and, impatient with his clumsiness, she tugged it off herself. They had done this much before, but absence had made every sensation stronger. This was where she had always stopped him, where she had always drawn the line so that she stayed in charge of what they did. So that she remained hers, and hers alone.

She did not stop him.

He pulled off his own nightshirt. He wore nothing underneath.

He unlaced her trousers and pulled them off. She thought he would try to put himself inside her, and thought—maybe—she wanted him to.

Instead, he lifted her legs and kissed her, and kissed her, and kissed her where she had never imagined being kissed. Lada’s control fled on the wave of pleasure, and she did not miss it. She cried out like a wounded thing, but Mehmed put a hand over her mouth as he shifted on top of her.

She let him.

21

Late March

“HOW MANY ANGELS can dance on the head of a pin?” a man shouted, a sneer deforming his pockmarked face.

Another man jabbed his finger into the first man’s chest, screaming something about the Father and the Son. The pockmarked man threw a punch, and then they were wrestling on the muddy street, biting and kicking.

Cyprian did not even pause as he steered Radu around them.

“People here are very … religious?”

Cyprian laughed darkly. “To all our downfall. There she is.” He pointed. With nothing else to do for the day, Radu had asked to see more of the city. He wanted to see the fabled Hagia Sophia cathedral in particular. Mehmed had told him to visit. It had been his only actual instruction. And until Constantine called for him again, there was not much he could do besides wander with his eyes and ears open.

The street led to a courtyard, where the massive cathedral loomed. It was darker than Cyprian’s laugh. Everywhere they had passed churches with bells ringing, a near-constant stream of people going in and out. But the Hagia Sophia, the jewel of Constantinople, the church so magnificent that stories said it had converted the entire population of Russia to Orthodoxy, sat cold and empty in the late-afternoon rain.

“Why is no one here?” Radu asked. They walked up to the gate, and Cyprian pushed experimentally against the door. It was locked.

“We had Mass in Latin here a few weeks ago.”

Radu knew that Orthodox services were conducted in Greek, but he did not follow Cyprian’s meaning.

A dog ran past them, followed by a young boy with bare feet. “Rum Papa!” he shouted. “Stop, Rum Papa! Come back right now!”

“Did that boy call his dog the Roman pope?”

Cyprian rapped his knuckles against the beautiful lacquered wood of the Hagia Sophia door. “Yes. Half the dogs in the city are called that. While my uncle appeals to the pope for help, people curse his name. My uncle pushed for union between the two churches, and even held Mass here to celebrate the official reunion, the ending of the schism between East and West. And now the most beautiful church in Christendom is silent and abandoned because it was tainted by watered wine, Catholic wafers, and worship in Latin.” Cyprian sighed, resting the palm of his hand reverently against the door. “And for all her sacrifice, the Hagia Sophia brought us nothing. The pope sends no aid.” He shook his head. “Come. We can see some relics. That is always fun.”