It had been a simple enough task for Radu to shadow the men and find his target. But now the bigger question: how to eliminate it?
Lada would burn it down. Radu did not doubt that. But the warehouse was in the middle of a relatively populated section of the city. If he set the building on fire, the fire would spread. He could end up killing innocent citizens—and part of his motivation in doing this was to save them. He could not live with collateral damage.
Poison would have the same effect, because they would not know the food was poisoned until people were dead. And Radu had no real means of obtaining large quantities of poison, much less doing so in secret.
He was in the kitchen tearing apart bread, pondering the problem of the food, when Nazira shrieked in terror from their bedroom. He raced upstairs to find her standing on the bed. “A rat!” She pointed to a corner where a large, mangy rat seemed equally terrified of her. “Kill it!”
Radu sighed, looking for something large enough to smash the rodent. And then he stopped. A smile lit his face. “No. I am going to catch it.”
Though rats were in plentiful supply in the city, catching a significant number of them was no small task. Or rather, it was many, many small, wearying tasks. And because Radu could not risk being missed at the wall, he had to sacrifice sleep. Nazira loved the plan, but was physically incapable of interacting with rats without screaming. Screaming did not lend itself well to secrecy.
So Radu spent all night, every night, catching rats. It was a far cry from his life at the side of the sultan, but not so far from what his role had always been. Sneaking around, gathering supplies, building toward an ultimate goal.
It would have been thrilling if it did not involve so many damned rats.
“What happened to your hands?” Cyprian asked a couple of mornings into the rat adventures. He and Radu were eating together on the wall, shoulder to shoulder as they looked out on the empty field that was filled nonetheless with the looming threat of the future.
Radu looked down at his fingers. “Vermin cemetery residents do not like sharing gravestones with trespassers.”
Cyprian set down his bread and took Radu’s hands in his own. He carefully examined them. Radu’s stomach fluttered. It felt like something more than fear of discovery, but he could not say what.
“Be careful,” Cyprian said, running a finger as soft as a whisper along Radu’s palm. “We need these hands.” Cyprian looked up and Radu found himself unable to bear the intensity of his gaze. Cyprian released his hands, laughing awkwardly. “We need all the hands we can get.”
“Yes,” Radu murmured, still feeling Cyprian’s finger tracing his palm.
That night, Radu had enough rats. Any more and he would not be able to carry them in secret. He waited for Orhan’s men to finish their patrol past the back doors of the warehouse. They never went inside, only checked the locks. He crept silently across the street, a wriggling, repulsive burlap sack filled to bursting slung across his back. He set the sack down and picked the lock, cursing his bitten fingers for their slowness. Cyprian had been right. They needed these hands.
Finally, shivering with nerves, Radu got the door open. Slipping inside, he made his way to the center of the vast space. Crates and barrels loomed like gravestones in the darkness. Everything smelled warm and dusty. He had guessed right about the contents of the warehouse. He used the metal rod he had brought to pry open lids, then he dumped rats into crates and barrels until his sack held only the rats that had not survived captivity. But he had managed to hit barely a third of the containers. He would have to do this every night for weeks to actually destroy all the supplies.
Burn it, Lada whispered in his mind.
“There’s always another way,” Radu answered. Thunder rumbled overhead as though agreeing with him. The city was prone to torrential downpours. Radu would need to hurry home to avoid getting caught in one. He looked up at the ceiling—
And he had another idea.
Back out in the night, he examined his options. The buildings in Constantinople were old and built close together. He hurried down the alley, looking for what he needed. Three buildings over, he found it: a ladder. The first drops of rain hit him as he climbed onto the building’s roof. Taking a deep breath, he ran as fast as he could and jumped over the alley, slamming into the next roof so hard he nearly slid off. Lada would be so much better at this. But she also would not have bothered. Everything would already be burning.
Steeling himself against thoughts of his far more capable sister, Radu ran for the next roof and sailed over the alley. Landing softly this time, he collapsed onto his back and laughed as rain pattered down around him. Beneath him, warm and dusty and dry, was the city’s food.
He clambered to the peak of the shallowly angled roof. The key was to pry enough shingles and thatch free to make small holes, but not so many that the damage would be noticed until it was too late. The shingles were heavy and tightly nailed down. He used his lever to pry them up. He focused on areas where it was obvious water had pooled in the many years of the roof’s life.
The rain began pouring in earnest. The shingles were slick; Radu clung to them carefully. He could afford neither discovery nor injury. He allowed himself a few moments of quiet triumph as he watched water stream from the sky onto the roof and through the holes he had created.
Tearing up as many shingles on his way as he could, he crawled to the far end of the building. But he had a new problem.
He could not run to gather momentum. With the roof this slick, he would certainly slip and fall to his death. The drop to the ground was far—three times his height—and if he crashed down with any speed he did not like his chances.
There was a narrow ledge along the edge of the roof. Rain poured around him; the storm was picking up speed and force. He left the lever on the roof and grasped the ledge. Then he lowered himself, hanging on by only his fingertips. Praying silently, he dropped. When he hit the ground, he collapsed, trying not to let any one part of his body absorb too much of the impact. It was a trick he had learned long ago, running and hiding from his cruel older brother, Mircea. He had had to jump from many windows and walls in his childhood.
Mircea was dead now, and Radu did not mourn him. But as he stood, checking his body for injuries, he was momentarily grateful for the lessons. One ankle was complaining and would be sore in the morning. It was a small price to pay. Radu pulled his hood up over his head.
“Hey! You!”
Radu turned in surprise. It was too dark for them to see his face, but Orhan’s men had circled back on their patrol. And Radu was standing right next to the door of the storage warehouse. If they looked inside, all his work would be for nothing.
He quickly pulled a flint from his pocket and dropped it. Then, cursing loudly in Turkish, he ran.
“He was trying to burn the food! Spy! Sabotage!” The cry went up behind him, followed by the pounding of footsteps.
Radu ran for his life.
Bells began clanging the warning, chasing him with their peals. Radu cut through alleys and streets. He jumped over walls and kept to the darkest parts of the city. Soon he was in an abandoned area. But still he heard the sounds of pursuit. It was like a nightmare: running through a dead city, pursued in the darkness with nowhere to hide.
Desperate, Radu considered the outer wall. If he could make it to the wall, he could make it outside. He could find Mehmed.
But if he disappeared the same night a saboteur had been spotted in the city, it would not take much thought to connect the events. Nazira would be left in harm’s way. Radu turned and ran into an empty stable. Rain poured in from the collapsed roof. He huddled in the corner of a stall.
Once, he had hidden with Lada in a stable. She had promised no one would kill him but her. Please, Radu thought, please let that be prophetic.
After he had waited for so long that his heart no longer pounded and he shivered with cold rather than fear, Radu stood and crept through the night. The rain was tapering off as he slowly found his way from the abandoned section of the city back to a part with life. He left his long black cloak on a washing line and combed his hair into a neat ponytail. Then he walked, unhurried, hunched against the rain.
His hand was on the doorknob when someone grabbed his shoulder roughly from behind. He was spun around—and embraced.