And Radu remembered two young boys. Still in the church, where he had left them. You will protect us, John had said.
Radu looked at Nazira, and Valentin, and Cyprian, and he knew then that the scales would never be back in his favor. But he could do this one thing. He could die trying to save two boys who meant nothing to him. Who meant everything to him.
“I am staying,” Radu said.
“What? No!” Nazira grabbed his free hand, tugging him toward the water. “We need to leave now.”
“I have to go back.”
Her full lips trembling, Nazira nodded. “Fine. We go back.”
Radu kissed her hand, then held it out to Cyprian. “No woman is safe in the city. Not today, not for the next three days. I cannot let anything happen to you. I promised Fatima. You have to go home.”
Nazira stamped her foot, tears streaming down her face. “We have to go home together.”
“You cannot go back in.” Cyprian stepped past Nazira. He ignored her hand and grabbed Radu’s, the intensity of his gaze overwhelming. “You will die.”
“I know where John and Manuel are. I can save them.”
Cyprian looked as though he had been struck. He closed his eyes, then stepped even closer, pressing his forehead to Radu’s. “Their fate is in God’s hands now.”
“It was never in God’s hands.”
“No, it was in my uncle’s, damn him and his pride. He has killed them, not you. Not us. If you stay, Mehmed will find you, and he will kill you.”
Radu’s final punishment was announced by a new bell pealing nearby, harsh and unyielding. He would not be allowed any mercy for the things he had done. He could not escape, and he could not keep anything he hoped to. Radu shifted his face, resting his cheek against Cyprian’s for the space of one eternally breaking heartbeat. “He will not kill me,” Radu whispered. Then he pulled back, forcing himself to look Cyprian in the eyes. Those eyes that had caught his attention even when Mehmed was his whole world. Those eyes that had somehow become the foundation of a hope that maybe, someday, Radu could have love.
“He will not kill me,” Radu repeated, waiting for Cyprian to understand. The foundation in Cyprian’s eyes crumbled like the walls around them.
Cyprian stumbled back, shaking his head. “All this time,” he whispered.
“Will you still keep her safe?” Radu asked.
Cyprian stared at the rocks beneath them, as mute and stunned as he had been when lightning nearly killed him. “You could have escaped,” he finally whispered. “You did not have to tell me. I would have— We could have—we could have been happy. We could have?” he asked.
Radu knew what Cyprian was asking, and if he had not already lost all hope it would have ended him. “I do not deserve happiness.” The bells of the Hagia Sophia rang out more insistently. “John and Manuel are running out of time. Will you still keep Nazira safe?”
A single tear ran down Cyprian’s face. He did not look at Radu. But he nodded. “I will,” he said.
This one good thing, then, Radu had managed to do. He had not broken all his promises. Nazira threw herself forward, hugging him fiercely. “You come back to us,” she hissed in his ear.
“Be safe,” he answered. Then, his heart breaking all the more for knowing that he could trust Cyprian even now, Radu fled back into the city.
The street was slick beneath Radu’s boots. He slipped, going down on his hands and knees. When he rose again, his hands were bloody. He had not felt them get cut, had not thought he had fallen hard. Then he realized that the blood was not a result of his fall, but rather the cause of it. The streets ran with it.
And so he, too, ran. He ran past soldiers throwing everything portable out of houses. He ran past women and children being dragged screaming from hiding places. He ran, and he ran, and he ran. He tried his best not to look, but he knew that what he saw that day would be seared in his memory.
Today, he saw the true cost of two men’s immovable wills. He saw what happened when men were forced to fight each other for months on end. It was not merely sickness of the body that plagued sieges, but sickness of the soul that turned men into monsters.
Radu was nearly at the Hagia Sophia when he saw a boy thrown to the ground. A soldier flipped the boy onto his back, reaching down to undo his trousers. Radu slit the soldier’s throat from behind.
He reached down and hauled the boy up, only to see the tearstained face of Amal. “Why are you back here?” Radu asked, shocked and despairing.
Amal shook his head, unable to answer. Radu dragged him along. That, with his turban, bloody clothes, and sword, were enough to make him blend in with all the other soldiers dragging people and things through the streets.
In the square outside the Hagia Sophia, soldiers not interested in immediately partaking of spoils secured their prizes. Beautiful children, girls and boys, were highly prized as slaves, as were young women. Anyone who looked wealthy was also carefully bound for future ransom. All around them were the bodies of those deemed too old or too sick to be of any worth.
Radu dragged Amal through the center of the fall of Byzantium, through the center of prophecy. Everything was profaned and ruined. There was nothing holy in this victory. God had truly left the city.
God was not here, but Radu was. And he still had a mission. His suspicion that Mehmed would send men ahead to protect the Hagia Sophia had proved correct. Several Janissaries stood in front of the church’s barred door. But a growing mob of irregulars and other soldiers shouted and screamed for their right to three days’ pillaging of everything. The guards and the bar would not last long. If Radu was not in the first wave of men inside, he did not want to think what would happen to two small, beautiful boys. There was the side door he had broken in through, but there were too many soldiers around to do anything unseen.
He shoved directly through the mob to the Janissary guards. One lowered his sword at him, but Radu brushed it impatiently aside. “Do you know what is in this building?” he asked.
The Janissary hesitated. “We are to leave it unspoiled. Mehmed does not want anything burned.”
“All the wealthiest people in the city are hiding behind those doors. All the gold, the silver, the riches we were promised are behind those doors. We are not here to burn.” He raised his voice to a shout. “We are here to grow rich on the fat of these unholy infidels!”
The mob behind him roared, pushing forward. The Janissaries, smart enough to know when they were going to lose, ran. Radu himself hacked through the bar, then pushed the doors open. The looters were greeted with screams and shrieks of despair. The mob fanned out, running to be the first to grab someone or something worthwhile. Radu scanned the faces, looking for the two he had come for. Amal stayed on his heels.
In the corner near the stairs leading up to the gallery, Radu saw the two boys. They stood in front of their nurse with straight backs. Radu ran, shoving several others out of the way to get there first.
“Please.” The nurse pushed the two boys forward. “Spare me. These are the heirs! Constantine’s heirs. I give them to you.” The boys lifted their chins bravely.
A man nudged Radu. “They yours?” he asked, breathing heavily over Radu’s shoulder.
“The boys are. You can do whatever you want with that woman.” He reached out a hand to either boy, crouching down so he was eye level with them. Recognition dawned on their faces. Manuel burst into tears. John threw himself forward, looping his arms tightly around Radu’s neck.
“Come on,” Radu whispered. “We do not have much time. I know you are both very, very brave, but pretend you are scared and do not wish to go with me.”
John released him and took Manuel’s hand. Amal tentatively reached out and took John’s other hand. Radu walked behind them, pushing them toward the stairs. “Why are we going up?” John whispered as they climbed past the gallery.
“There is no way out of the city now,” Radu said. “I am going to hide you.”
Fortunately no one had made it past the main floor. With so many people in the Hagia Sophia, the soldiers were busy grabbing as many of them as they could. Radu ushered the boys down the hall, then up the familiar ladders until they passed through a trapdoor and onto the roof.