Page 227 of Dragon Slayer

38

THE CONQUEROR

Istanbul, capital of the Ottoman Empire

(formerly Constantinople)

1461

Mehmet had a new favored scribe, a fair-faced boy whose name Val refused to learn; he would have no more intimacies with slaves or servants, he’d decided, and also, he could tell by scent that Mehmet was fucking this boy, and he didn’t really want anything to do with that. Every night Mehmet went to someone else’s bed, it gave Val a chance to catch a few hours of actual sleep.

The scribe sat today at the sultan’s big war table, as Mehmet and Timothée the mage paced unhurriedly around the wide, marble-floored chamber, plotting a course for invasion.

“It will require toppling the pillars of European civilization,” Timothée cautioned. “Rome is the real prize; take the Vatican, seize the pope, and then France, Germany, and Britain will wish to negotiate.”

“I don’t want to negotiate.”

“Yes, but that’s how it begins. And then you can topple them one-by-one.”

“Yes, yes,” Mehmet mused, rubbing at his beard. He stood staring down at his largest map, other hand kneading at his lower back. He’d gone from thick to almost fat by this point; he huffed when he rode or walked long distances, and he groaned when he stood, complained always of aching joints and a sore back.

Gout, Val kept saying, just to needle him. But he’d gotten a taste of his blood during a vigorous night’s fucking, and he’d nearly vomited from the taste. This wasn’t gout. Whatever it was, something was wrong. Something about the vampire blood was breaking down, going rancid. He’d never heard of such a thing – a foul turning. He laid awake some nights, worrying that it was a family curse, wondering if maybe poor Arslan was out there somewhere, going through the same thing.

“But first we must get through the east,” Mehmet said, motioning to the map. “Hungary, Romania, Serbia.” He frowned.

Timothée flapped a dismissive gesture. “That won’t be difficult.”

Val barely restrained a snort.

That he didn’t like the mage was a given. That Mehmet actually respected and listened to the man was a shock. Then again, Timothée appealed to Mehmet’s vanity at every turn.

Val had found him unlikely. In his mind, he’d imagined mages to be tall, rail-thin fellows with long, pointed beards and stormy eyes. There might have been black cloaks, and long fingernails, and rolling trails of smoke involved, too. Childish wonderings. The reality was far more ordinary. Timothée, no surname to speak of, was French, and short, and a bit round in the middle. He had thinning salt-and-pepper hair, kept short, and a matching beard. Small eyes that looked like glass beads, and a ready laugh, and a face lined from smiling. He looked like someone’s grandfather, which didn’t make much sense to Val, since mages were immortals. Where was the ageless, smooth, sophisticated enchanter he’d expected?

He did stink like a campfire, though. And could conjure modest balls of flames in his hands. And talked often of the wife and son he’d left behind in France. Val was sick of hearing about “little Philippe.”

Mehmet lifted an unimpressed look. “Have you forgotten what I told you of Belgrade?”

Val’s stomach tightened with remembered excitement, just like it did every time Mehmet was forced to mention the disaster at Belgrade.

“John Hunyadi is dead, is he not? You shall take more men the next time, and be better prepared.”

“Hmph.”

Timothée stepped in closer to the table, voice lowering, growing serious. “Your Majesty, we stand now in the Palace at Blachernae. In a city that you took from the Romans. You conqueredConstantinople. What is Belgrade in comparison to that?”

Mehmet pursed his lips, not considering – he’d considered all of this before, at length, rambling about it to Val as he took him angrily from behind. But he was flattered. He had always been so easy to flatter.

Val was an expert at it, by now. And save the times he’d pushed Mehmet to the point of rape and brutality, he knew when he could flex his contrariness. Not that he had to, but because it was one small thing he could control.

“Forgive me,” he drawled, “but you’re both forgetting one very important factor in all of this.” He made a lazy gesture toward the map, leaned back in his chair, one leg kicked up over the arm.

Mehmet shot him a glare.

Timothée turned to him with his usual pleasantly bland smile, his eyes hard and bright as polished stone. Val knew the mage hated him, though he hadn’t figured out why yet. He didn’t think, though, that it was for any of the reasons the rest of the court did.

“And what is that?” he asked, hands folded together primly before him.

Val lifted a finger. “My brother.”

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