“Pasha Halil will not be showing up to any more dice games, then. And, I think, neither shall I.”
“A reasonable decision,” the astrologer said quietly. “Though if you change your decision, it might let you make friends more easily.”
“You mean that it might let you use me more easily,” I retorted, then immediately regretted the heated volume of my reply as several curious pairs of eyes turned in my direction. While the crowd had thinned after the departure of the sultan himself, the sultan’s court still hosted an ample population of curious courtiers who had come to see and be seen—and just as importantly, to chat and eavesdrop.
The astrologer smiled, stepping closer and speaking quietly enough not to be overheard easily. “Friends use each other all the time—it came out all for the best for you, did it not? Eight ducats is a tidy sum, and Bey Ishak declaring you an honest man who would not cheat at dice is worth ten times that much. The story of the late Pasha Halil cheating at dice has been told a hundred times in a hundred hallways by now, and Bey Ishak is not readily thought a fool.”
“Are you claiming we are friends?” I said, quietly this time, holding out ten ducats in my hand. “Doing me two favors does not make you a friend.”
“More, I think. Have you enjoyed your time living in the lighthouse?” The astrologer smiled; I nodded, and he continued. “And did you need to spend time late away from the ugly woman you hid up in said lighthouse because she was in her unclean phase? You told me you needed a distraction, and I also provided that. If the ducats and Bey Ishak vouching for your honesty count separately, then I think I have done you five good turns. And here is a sixth—you may have all of your winnings.”
“Fine. I will just repay you your stake, then.” I pocketed eight ducats, then held out the remaining two.
“If you will not count me as your friend, then I can hardly accept repayment of a loan to a friend.” The astrologer shifted from one foot to the other, looking away from me uncomfortably for a moment.
“Why do you insist on becoming my friend? And why should you want me to make more friends?” I could not deny that the astrologer had done good for me, but I still did not trust the man. Following the direction of his look, I glanced over at the Illyrian pasha who had embraced being Osman, who was in turn sitting on the throne that had once belonged to a Greek emperor who had called himself Roman. Pasha Mustafa stood nearby, addressing the tall Illyrian vizier. I gestured at the vizier. “I am not even a convert, like him—I am one out of several heirs to a dead and deposed prince, a pocket pretender.”
“It would be useful for you if you did convert,” the astrologer said. “Advancement to high office within the Sultanate is far easier if you do.”
“If I were to convert,” I told the astrologer, “then the possibility of the Vlach people accepting me as their prince in place of Vladislav becomes remote. I should think my usefulness becomes considerably less in such a case as I convert—the sultan may as well install a foreign governor to rule directly as to prop up a converted pretender as a vassal; I imagine the people would be as restive in either case.”
The astrologer frowned. “I do not know the sultan’s thinking, as he has thus far declined to call upon my services as an advisor. Who has given you the notion that the sultan might use you as a replacement for Vladislav?”
As crediting Helena would have shaped neither of our reputations in a direction I like, I shrugged off his question. “As my father’s heir, should I not wish to someday reclaim his usurped throne? I am the Dragon’s son. What other reason would Pasha Mustafa have for ordering you to try to befriend me?”
The astrologer stared at me for a moment of surprise, his expression wordlessly confirming the answer to my real question, the one I had not asked: Pasha Mustafa had, in fact, ordered him to befriend me. “The pasha did not order me to put you up in the lighthouse—I thought that best on my own account,” the astrologer said. “And I do think you worth befriending on your own account—”
“Tell the pasha that if he wishes to use me as a pawn,” I said, “he will need to offer a better exchange for my services next time.”
Tossing the coins away, I turned abruptly and walked away, the coins chiming as they struck the intricate mosaics on the floor. I had no business with the court that I was aware of other than being seen, so I weaved my way through the courtiers and out the silver doors.
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“You should apologize to him,” Helena told me, stirring the remains of a spinach pie one last time around her plate before setting the fork down on her plate and turning it to the left. “Treating him with contempt like that risks making him your impassioned enemy independent of what his master bids him. While his worship of the Osman’s preferred prophet is misguided both morally and theologically, he is a scholar and a wizard of modest capacity with neither a noble nor a military rank, and reading fortunes in the stars is not the sort of profession that helps one make friends. I can believe he wants for a real friend.”
“He manipulated me into a dangerous situation,” I said. “And guilefully persuaded me to fall into sin.”
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“Gaming is not a sin, precisely,” Helena said. “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, but if you approached the game with neither greed nor covetousness in your heart and told no lies, you did nothing wrong.”
I recalled the possessive sensation I had felt staring down at the small gleaming hoard of coins in front of me—even when I did not intellectually consider it entirely my possession, it was hard to consider parting with it. I had definitely felt greed, a love of treasure for no other reason than it gleamed and felt right. And to gamble for higher stakes, as was often the pleasure of the high nobles of the court, was unthinkable: My great treasure was Helena, and I could not stand the thought of risking her in a wager. Nor did I want to wager her jewelry, even if those were technically valuable and separable parts of the prize granted to me by Pasha Mustafa; my boast to my brother that Helena’s jewelry was worth the price of two comely female slaves was an accurate one, even if I had deceived Radu by not telling him I valued Helena far more than I valued her jewelry.
“Have your wits left you behind?” Helena’s words interrupted my reverie. “What are your thoughts?”
“I was enraptured by your beauty,” I said, reaching out to gently touch her face with my fingers. “And thinking about how precious you are to me.”
She flushed pink, cheeks dimpling in a smile. “And you think I am moon-headed,” she said teasingly. “Think on what I have said—he cannot be too angry if you apologize on the morrow, and perhaps he even could become a true friend to you, as much as one can have a true friend in the Osman court.”
I sighed as I stood, circling the table to stand behind her. “I shall give it a try,” I said in her ear, my hands slipping over her shoulders and down her sides.
She leaned into me affectionately, then squeaked with surprise as my hands slipped under her knees and I lifted her up from behind, her weight divided between her knees and armpits as I cradled her like a barrel.
“Would you like to sit somewhere more comfortable now that we are finished with dinner? Perhaps the couch?” I asked.
Helena craned her neck sideways. “I had thought that you might like a second helping for dinner.”
“I am not hungry for spinach pie,” I said, staring down at the lovely brunette cradled in my arms.
Helena giggled, her feet fluttering as she kicked off her slippers. “I have sat so much of the day tidying up my notes that my seat is sore. As you are so kindly offering your assistance, you may transport me to bed—I would rather lie down.”
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“What is it that you want?” The astrologer stepped back from the window quickly, either repelled by what he had seen in the nighttime sky or concerned he might succumb to the disease of defenestration. A prophylactic measure was not unreasonable; continued contagion had been exhibited lately, the death toll having expanded to include two generals and a very comely new blonde imperial concubine that the sultan’s men had bought off a Dalmatian galley, a Venetian of good breeding originally destined for an arranged marriage with one of Negroponte’s triarchs, supposedly an expert in warding off hexes and curses.
The Venetian woman would doubtless have fetched a handsome ransom returned to her own people, but the Dalmatian captain had guessed from her exceptional beauty, fine breeding, and talents that the sultan’s price would be more generous. Rumor had it that she was an immediate favorite of the sultan for the three days and nights before her sudden demise. While the sultan—or at least, the vizier speaking on behalf of the still-secluded sultan—still maintained that the earlier defenestrations were accidental, the more recent deaths were considered officially suspicious, and I had approached the astrologer at a time and place where privacy might be expected—in a dark hallway in a part of the palace not yet put to a permanent purpose by its new occupants.
“I wish to apologize for my earlier rudeness,” I said. “You did not deserve my scorn—you have done me several kind turns, and all I gave you in turn was a pledge to avoid playing dice with you in the future.”
“Is that all?” The astrologer edged two steps farther away from the window. “Or have you come to use me, as friends often do to one another?”
I bit my lip. “There is a favor I would beg humbly, knowing that I have not repaid your last favor with kindness. I know you are fluent in Persian—there are some accounts I wish to read but cannot.”
“And you wish me to read to you? Or write out a translation?” The astrologer frowned. “Depending on the length of the accounts, that could take a considerable length of time.”
“Yes,” I said. “But I will play at dice with you, provided the stakes are not too rich for my purse, and you may tell Pasha Mustafa that you have succeeded in befriending the prickly Vlach prince.”
The astrologer chuckled, then held out his hand. “And someday, when you can do me a kind turn, you will, because we are friends. What accounts are these?”
“I wish to read the accounts of how the old sultan pressed my father,” I said. “I know only part of the story, and while I dearly love my departed father, I expect his account to have been partial to his own interests and incomplete in certain important strategic particulars that the sultan’s generals knew and that he did not.”
The astrologer looked suddenly nervous again, throwing another glance at the window. “General Turhan died three days ago—are you speaking of his papers?”
“I did not know that General Turhan was involved,” I said. “I was looking at accounts that I found after speaking with some of the lesser officers—there was a bound volume on my father’s defeat in the collection that came on the latest boat from Orestias. However, it is compiled in courtly Persian.”
“Turhan’s sons are away—near Trebizond by now, depending on whether or not Trebizond’s fleet sallied out to intercept ours.” The astrologer paused. “Is it revenge that you seek?”
I shook my head. “What I want is to understand are tactics and strategies—a prince must also be a general, and a dispossessed prince might only be a general. My brother is obtaining practical experience in the field with the sultan’s half-brother even as we speak, and I do not wish to seem useless in comparison.”
The astrologer smiled. “Pasha Mustafa is of a similar opinion. I will help you with your court Persian when I can and also see if I can get ahold of Turhan’s accounts. He was a very literate man.”
I absently rubbed the iron cuffs under my sleeves, wondering what Turhan might have written about my father’s feats. “You are too kind,” I said.
“It is all in my own interest,” the astrologer said, a wry smile quirking the corners of his mouth. “But I hope we are now friends.”
“Yes.” After a moment of deliberation, I clasped the smaller man in a hug, as if the gesture of affection would make the sentiment real. “I will be off on my way, then. See you soon, friend.”