“We speak of this to no one.” Mehmed’s voice was a growl. If anyone looked too closely at the new concubines, they would doubtless be terrified of the murder they saw in their faces.

Lada said nothing, simply waited for the last of her men to finish scaling the wall and dropping over it into the winter-dimmed gardens of the harem complex. All told, she had brought only four: Matei, Nicolae, Stefan, and Petru. Radu could not get more women’s clothing than that, and the smaller the party, the less likely they were to draw attention. The others left the city to await Ilyas and inform him of the plan.

When everyone was over the wall, Lada pulled the rope back, coiled it, and tucked it beneath her sash. Though Radu did not want to, he could not help seeing the way Mehmed continuously observed her movements.

“They will be watching Huma,” Radu said. He had lied about a meeting with the ailing Huma to get into the harem, but in truth they were not involving her. She was too volatile, too unpredictable, and too obvious a choice. “The shortest distance between here and the palace is the sultan’s chambers. That may be our best entry point.” Radu rubbed his chin, then smiled. “I am well known to be a favorite of Murad’s. Follow me. And try to look like women.”

“How do I do that?” Petru grumbled.

“Watch Lada?” Matei suggested. Fortunately, the snorts of laughter were smothered by the veils, and Lada pretended not to notice. Something in the way her eyes tightened made Radu wonder if perhaps it bothered her, though.

“Short steps,” Lada said. “Make your body curve wherever you can. Shoulders rounded, hips swaying. Walk as though you have nothing between your legs, which should not be a problem for Nicolae or Petru.”

More gruff laughter.

“And perhaps stop laughing or speaking,” Radu said, shaking his head. He strode ahead, walking confidently in front of the procession. When they got to the gated entrance, he nodded at the guard.

The eunuch peered over his shoulder, raising his eyebrows.

“The doctors have suggested we try to arouse Murad’s senses in an attempt to wake him. I thought, well…” Radu gave a sheepish grin, gesturing back at the women.

The eunuch opened the gate, and they filed through. Radu prayed silently that the eunuch would not look too closely at the “women” or their feet. He had been unable to find slippers for them, and their leather boots were hardly standard for women who spent all their lives living in a single building and its surrounding gardens.

The next door was an entrance to Murad’s private apartments, manned by several Janissaries. Sweating profusely beneath his clothes, Radu gave the same explanation with the same knowing-but-embarrassed smile. He was met with shrugs, the Janissaries obviously bored with their role of guarding a nearly dead man.

And then they were inside.

“Do you want to see him?” Radu asked, pausing outside Murad’s chamber doors. He looked nervously down the hall, certain that at any moment the Janissaries would realize their mistake and storm in, swords drawn. Or a doctor would come, calling an alarm. Or Halil Pasha himself would be waiting.

But they were alone, for now.

Mehmed considered his father’s room, then shook his head. “I have no reason to.”

Radu was strangely tempted to go in and pay his respects. Whatever else he was, whatever else he had done, Murad was the reason they were here. And Radu would not change that. Murad had taken much, but he had also given him Mehmed and Islam.

Radu put his hand on Mehmed’s shoulder, squeezing once. Then he led the group through the sumptuous rooms to a little-used side chamber. It was too small to entertain, and with Murad dying, visitors were few and stuck to the main rooms.

With the door safely closed behind them, the men stripped off their disguises, some with more urgency than others. “I prefer your face veiled,” Nicolae said to Petru as the young man ripped his outer clothes off.

“I prefer your mouth shut,” Petru retorted.

There was an ease between them, a safeness that stemmed from knowing so much about one another. Perhaps not even liking each other, but being certain that if it came to it, they would defend one another with their lives.

Radu wondered what that would be like, a friendship with nothing else—no fears, no tangled and unwanted emotions. Kumal was more of a mentor than a friend, too much older to be a true peer. Radu trusted Lazar, but there was always a note of discomfort there, a hint of desire on Lazar’s part that left Radu constantly on the defensive. He kept his other men at a distance for fear they would see in him what Lazar had, what Huma had, what Lada had. What Mehmed had not.