Page 194 of Dragon Slayer

“Gout,” he said, again, pronunciation crisp. “It’s a malady that affects the joints of–”

“I know what it is,” Mehmet snapped, color blooming in his cheeks. He left off rubbing his knees, though his brows stayed pinched together. “I meant it isn’t possible that I have it. Not after I was…turned.” The last he merely breathed, a whisper. Still a superstitious human, despite his powers.

“Hmm,” Val murmured. “And the cold shouldn’t bother you either.” Inwardly, his thoughts raced. Mehmet was right; thiswasimpossible. But Father had always said Romulus couldn’t turn a person properly. Val had never understood what that meant, but he thought that was what he saw now. That wrongness. “Did you know that my uncle has never had a proper heir?”

“What?” He frowned, and touched his own chest. “No, that’s why–”

“Excluding you, of course. You’re his heirnow. But my uncle is very old, you know.Veryold. I wonder why he never had an heir before now. Do you wonder, too?”

“No.” His frown deepened to a scowl. “Give me that.” He reached for the wine.

Val took one last sip before handing it over. “I just think it’s interesting, is all. We have no way of knowing how potent Uncle’s blood is – whether it would prevent against normal human sicknesses.”

Mehmet downed the wine in a few long swallows, breathless afterward, hand shaking as he set the cup aside on the bedside table. “Enough chattering,” he decreed. “People have been talking at me all day, and I don’t need it from you, too.”

“Of course, Your Majesty,” Val said, and Mehmet didn’t seem to notice his mocking tone.

He patted one thigh. “Come here, I’m afraid you’ll have to do most of the work tonight.”

“Don’t I always?”

And Val tucked all his questions about Romulus’s blood, and Mehmet’s health, away in a safe place in his mind, where he could ruminate over them properly later.

~*~

It should have been a restful winter…but it wasn’t.

The sultan didn’t know how to rest.

Near the end of November, Mehmet dragged Val from bed one morning and told him to dress for riding.

Val loved riding, but the command chafed at him, as did the earliness of the hour. “There’s frost on the ground outside,” he complained, peering through the window at the dawn-silvered morning.

“It won’t be there by the time you get your ridiculous hair braided. Come on.”

They dressed warmly, and rode with a full honor guard to Didimotkon, not far from Edirne. They sat astride their horses in the square, waiting, and finally a bedraggled group of men in chains was led out for the sultan’s inspection. One was younger than the others, his features fine even beneath a layer of sweat and dirt, and Val watched Mehmet’s gaze settle on him a long moment. Too long.

“Your Majesty,” the captain of the local guard said, and bowed deeply to the sultan. “I present to you the blockade runner, and criminal, Antonio Rizzo, and his crew.”

Val tensed, and his mare shifted beneath him uneasily. He’d heard Mehmet give orders to the skeleton crew they’d left at the Throat-Cutter, to set up a blockade at the head of the strait, and toll every Latin merchant who attempted to pass through. This man, Rizzo, head held high despite the iron collar around his neck, had attempted to outrun the sultan’s ships, and avoid the toll. Doubtless he was one of the few brave ones attempting to take grain into Constantinople. Last he’d visited Constantine, the emperor had been massaging his temples, stressed, fearing a famine in his city.

Mehmet swung down out of his saddle, and two janissaries fell in beside him, spears raised and ready. He ignored them, and passed down the line of captives, inspecting each one. He stood longest before the boy; twitched a smile and reached with a jeweled hand to chuck the boy under the chin.

“The captain’s clerk, Your Majesty,” the captain of the guard said.

Mehmet motioned over his shoulder, and more janissaries stepped forward. The boy was unhooked from the others, and led toward one of the spare horses they’d brought. He would be cut and go to the seraglio, same as all the boy captives Mehmet took a fancy to.

Then Mehmet paced back to the captain, Rizzo. The man stared him in the eye.

“Bold,” Mehmet told him.

The captain spoke with a raspy voice, his throat doubtless dry. “I figure I’m already good as dead. Boldness won’t hurt me now,” he said in Latin.

Mehmet grinned. “No, no, you’re right.” He stepped back, and nodded to the guard captain. “Kill his men. Make an example of the good captain here.”

Later, as they rode out of the city, the clerk in tow, Val twisted around in his saddle to look back. He didn’t want to, but he felt compelled to do so; to show some sign of respect to the man who’d defied the sultan.

Antonio Rizzo had been impaled on a long wooden spike, and mounted on the walls. Still alive – sunlight glimmered off the blood that dripped down the spike – but the crows waited, already cawing in anticipation.

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