Page 202 of Dragon Slayer

The truth, at last.

Val caught the eye of one of the slaves. “More wine, please,” he requested through a dry throat.

Mehmet chuckled.

~*~

The next morning, Arslan dressed him in armor, and Val emerged from his tent to find two janissaries awaiting him, his mare already saddled, pawing at the ground impatiently.

“We’re to take you to your men, your grace,” one of the janissaries informed him.

“Alright.” He couldn’t seem to swallow, hands shaking as he took the reins and swung up into the saddle. His mare danced beneath him, reading his nerves, and he couldn’t soothe her as he normally did, with a few strokes along her arched neck.

The janissaries walked just ahead of him on foot, so that he was forced to keep a tight rein not to run them over, and led him through a camp bustling with activity. The sun flirted along the tree tops, its first rosy blush painting the undulating line of the Theodosian walls in stripes of ivory and crimson, so that it already looked blood-drenched. Val didn’t need to ask where they were going: he saw the men, arranged already, with sharp-tipped lances, in perfect company formation; and, ahead of them, the gun.

It was an ugly, unwieldy war machine. Cast of bronze, and drug all the way from Edirne on overtaxed wagons pulled by teams of mules, horses, oxen, and men, it dwarfed the regular Ottoman cannons, at least five times the size of the typical guns. Its designer, Orban, had gone first to Constantine, and, when denied a commission, had come all the way to the palace at Edirne, where Mehmet had gladly heaped gold upon his head.

Val’s breakfast curdled in his stomach as he laid eyes upon the beastly thing now. It had been propped up on boulders and wooden blocks, a team of operators bustling about, fussing with the preparation. If the thing blew – and there was every chance it would – it would kill anyone within a dozen yards of it, and the shrapnel would reach farther.

But if it didn’t blow. And if its massive ball reached its target of the wall…

Val swallowed and closed his eyes a moment, willing his stomach to settle.

“Your grace.”

His horse pulled up, and he opened his eyes to find his core knot of janissaries standing at attention, awaiting instruction.

“I shall so enjoy throwing a Western prince at the walls of Constantinople.”

Mehmet had kissed him that morning, only minutes ago; shoved his tongue into his mouth, and nipped his lower lip until Val tasted his own blood. Heated and thrilled for battle.Make me proud, Radu.

Val looked up at the walls, and watched the colors shift and bleed like the patterns of sand at a river bottom, as the sun climbed, higher every moment. He saw the snapping pennants, and the archers along the wall-top, and the men in polished helmets awaiting their siege towers.

IamRadu, he thought.If I ride against that wall, and put Roman blood on my sword, then I am Prince Radu, and not Valerian at all.

He cleared his throat. “Gentlemen. The most pressing matter is to protect the gun,” he said, projecting his voice.

A murmur of assent went up from them all. They looked up at him, most of them blank-faced in a way that he read as careful; but a few sneered. Probably they thought he couldn’t see.

He was, after all, a hostage. A Western prince, and not of their blood, nor did he worship their god. And he shared the sultan’s bed; bore the marks of his teeth even now on his throat. A foreigner, and, worse, a whore. Doubtless they hated him.

Just as the archers waiting along the wall hated him. They didn’t know his name, or his lineage, nor care how many times the sultan had fucked him. He was merely an enemy captain, leading a host against them, standing on the wrong side of a gun built to blast their walls to bits.

It struck him, then; left him breathless. He was a villain on both sides of this war.

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