“A trade?” I said, in disbelief. “After all he’d done, what could he possibly think—”
“You owe me that much.” The hate on Vlad’s face was palpable.
“I owe you? You can say that after—”
* * *
“Yes, I can say that after. After being thrown away as a boy, given as a guarantee of a treaty Father had no intention of keeping. After being beaten—and worse—once he broke it. After seeing my younger brother whore himself to get out of the Turks’ dungeons, the same ones I lived in for years, until the screams of the damned no longer woke me at night—yes, I can say it after!”
* * *
I snapped back to the present, stunned and breathless. It had been a long time since I’d had a vision, and I had forgotten how hard they hit. I’d just been reminded.
“A secret,” Mircea was saying, unaware. “Something he’d learned as a young man while serving as a page in Constantinople. Something I . . . did not know.”
He settled back into the chair, his eyes hooded and unreadable. “Did you know the Pythian Court wasn’t always in London?”
I cleared my throat. “Yes. It’s wherever the Pythia wants it to be.”
“When Vlad was a boy, it was in Constantinople. In a run-down house in an overgrown street that reflected the condition of the city. The second Rome had shrunk to almost nothing, its riches gone, its glory days long behind it. There was no reason for the Pythian Court to reside in such a place. But Berenice—the Pythia of the time—was stubborn, and no one could budge her.
“One day, the last emperor, Constantine XI, took his page on a clandestine late-night journey through the back alleys of the city—”
* * *
Starlight and moonlight and reflections off puddles in the broken street. Nothing else, nothing more, not even a lantern to light the way. At home there would have been torches accompanying such a procession, the common people lining the streets to see a great lord pass. But here, the lord might as well have been one of the beggars slumped in the doorways, reeking of alcohol and piss. This wasn’t how a king traveled, much less—
“Vlad! Keep up!”
“Apologies, Majesty.” He broke into an undignified jog. The emperor’s legs were longer than his, and he was practically running himself. At home, they had servants to run for them. At home, they moved with dignity, and left the running to lesser men. At home—
“Don’t apologize, just keep up! It’s too easy to get lost on these backstreets, young Vladimir.”
“It’s Vlad.”
“What?”
“My name. It is not Vladimir.”
“Isn’t it?” The emperor looked distracted, searching for the right run-down house on the run-down street. “What’s it short for, then?”
“Nothing. It’s just Vlad.”
“Really? I’ve not heard that one before.”
Someday you will, Vlad thought. Someday everyone will.
* * *
“—to see the doddering old woman in her decrepit house,” Mircea said as I jerked back to the present again. “Berenice never cared about money, and received them in her kitchen, while feeding dozens of stray dogs she’d adopted out of the back door. Vlad was not impressed, but the emperor didn’t seem to care.
“He was there to beg for aid against the Turks, who were encroaching closer every day, and swore to give her whatever she wanted in return. Berenice said that she had all she needed, and that he should keep what gold he had and leave the city. That it would fall soon, and him with it.”
“And did he?”
Mircea nodded. “He died dressed as a common soldier, fighting on the ramparts. He refused to leave, despite her warning, just as he refused to leave that night, staying and arguing with her for some time. During which time Vlad picked up several useful bits of knowledge, which he offered in trade to me, more than thirty years later.”
“What useful bits?”