Page 58 of Bright We Burn
“We have Tirgoviste, but it does not matter.” Mehmed’s voice was as haunted as his eyes. “I do not know how to fight a war where tactics are useless, where numbers gain me no advantage, where gates are left open and cities are guarded only by the accusing dead of my people. Tell me how I can fight this.” He looked up, pleading.
“You cannot.” Radu knelt in front of Mehmed. His friend leaned forward, resting his head on Radu’s legs and curling in around himself. Radu put a hand on Mehmed’s turban. Radu’s fierce desire was gone, his passion dulled by the long, heavy wear of time and disappointment. But his tender affection and deep respect for his friend, for the sultan, would not leave him without a fight.
“If we stay,” Radu said, “we will have to chase her into the mountains. It will be months. Perhaps even years. She will wear down your men with time and starvation, sickness and frustration. We cannot fight on her terms and win.”
“What should I do, then?”
The eyeless face of Kumal rose unbidden in Radu’s mind. He closed his own eyes. It did not help.
Lada could not win this. Radu would not let her. “Go back to Constantinople. Burn the cities you pass, take whatever livestock is left, and, everywhere you can, exaggerate the numbers. Have Mara tell all her contacts what a great victory this was, how easily you restored Wallachia to its vassal status and put Aron on the throne.”
“But Lada won!”
“And who will tell that story? Her peasants? Her hordes of landless, nameless people? How will they travel to the pope, to the Italians, to the rest of Europe to tell of her victory? Rumors will spread, certainly, but all evidence will be in our favor. Our man on the throne in the capital. Our triumphant march home.”
“If we go, we leave Lada free to do it all again.”
“No.” Radu let out a heavy breath and smoothed the edge of Mehmed’s turban. “I said we could not fight on her terms. We fight on mine, instead. With your permission, I will keep my men and stay behind to work. I can steal the country from my sister through the one thing she never could beat me at.”
“Archery?” Mehmed said, his dark attempt at humor acknowledged by both men with wry smiles that faded as soon as they appeared.
“Sheer likability. I will defeat her through manipulation. Politics. Saying the right thing at the right time to the right people.”
“She will fight you.”
“She can try, but she will fail. She tried to dismantle the foundation of a building she was still living in. She tried to be prince while taking apart the entire system that supported the prince. I will find every enemy, every boyar who has lost a son or cousin or brother, every noble who rightly fears for their place in her new world. I will use Transylvania and Hungary and Moldavia. I will steal every stone of support she has until she is standing alone in the ruins of the new Wallachia she tried to build.”
“And then?” Mehmed sat up, locking his eyes onto Radu’s. “She will never stop. She does not have it in her. And what foolish hopes I nurtured that she could return to us are gone.” Mehmed had been firmly against killing Lada. Radu saw that his position had changed. They had so much in common, his sister and his sultan. And now they hated with as much determination as ever they had loved.
The bodies were piling up because of it.
Radu knew he had faced this before, knew he had been too weak to make the right decision, knew he could not afford to do so again with so many lives at stake. It had been selfish of him, avoiding what had to be done. What Lada would do in his place. Radu could be strong for this one terrible task. It would destroy him, but he could no longer ask thousands to pay the price of his tender conscience. “Then I will do what must be done. I will finish it.”
Poenari Fortress
LADA LEANED OVER THE stone wall where it jutted past the edge of the cliff. The Arges River curled distant and silver beneath her. Her fortress was finally complete. It would be her refuge, her sanctuary, her rallying point. Breathing deeply of the cold air still wet with morning mist, Lada fortified herself with the same unassailable strength as her fortress.
There was work to do.
Her men and women were scattered through these mountains in groups of two hundred. It was easier that way, both logistically with camps and strategically with remaining hidden from enemies. Even if one camp was discovered, they would not decimate Lada’s reserves. She and her followers could hide here for months.
Not that she had plans to do that.
She turned to Bogdan and Grigore. She had promoted Grigore after his success in defending Bucharest, though he annoyed her. Everyone annoyed her for not being someone else she loved better. “Have word sent to the pope of our victory,” she said. “Make certain he knows what we did. Fifteen thousand of their men dead, and the entire army turning tail and running. Perhaps with these kinds of results, he will send us more than praise. Praise neither feeds men nor kills enemies. I want money and soldiers.”
Grigore shuffled his feet in obvious discomfort. “I cannot read. Or write.”
“Where is Doru?” Lada asked with a sigh. “He can write.”
Bogdan’s blocky features twisted in awkward confusion. “He died. During the night attack.”
Lada had not noticed. She waved, irritated with herself for not knowing and with Doru for dying. “Then you write it, or find someone who can. The pope must help us. I want real power behind us when we return to Tirgoviste. We have to plan for taking it back.” She knew the bodies had been removed and that a small force had been left behind. But surely they did not think a few thousand Ottomans could stop her. Not now.
Lada’s fingers tapped the sheathed sword at her side. “And I want all of the Basarab boyars’ men.” It had been the Basarabs, led by a man named Galesh—weak, faithless Galesh—who had held their forces back and cost her a true victory during the night attack. They were hiding somewhere in the mountains, too, using her same strategy. That would not work out as well for them. She had briefly considered killing them, but it was a waste of resources. She would just cut off the head and absorb the body. “I want all of the Basarabs’ men. Along with Galesh’s head. That is our first priority.”
“Clean your own house before helping the neighbors,” Oana said with a pleasant smile, passing Lada a steaming bowl of mush and a side of dried meat.
“Or, in our case, clean our own house before attacking the neighbors for trying to steal our things. We also need to retake Chilia from my cousin to teach Moldavia that our borders are inviolable.”