Val felt lighter. Comparatively. A faint nausea still tinged his belly, but that was normal by now; he wasn’t sure what he’d do without that sensation, truth told.
“Have our horses saddled,” Mehmet said to one of his slaves. “And gather our clothes. We’re going riding.”
“Riding where?” Val asked with raised brows.
“You’ll see.” He sounded far too pleased with himself.
An hour later saw them riding up to the tiny square of one of the little farming villages that lay between the Throat-Cutter and the outpost of Galata, just across the straight from Constantinople. Ottoman soldiers lined both cross streets – no more than dirt footpaths – that met at the square, and at the center, a huddle of village men, farmers in roughspun with falling-apart shoes. They ranged in age from barely ten, to barely alive, white-haired and stooped. Val thought it might be the entirety of the village’s male population.
He reined his horse up and turned a dark look toward Mehmet. “What is this?”
Mehmet smiled at him. “A bit of sport. Come, Radu.” He slid out of the saddle and tossed his reins to the soldier who’d stepped up to hold the stallion’s bridle.
Val’s chestnut mare fidgeted beneath him, and he laid a quelling hand on her neck.
“Radu,” Mehmet called over his shoulder, sing-song – he never liked to shout or scowl at him in front of witnesses.
With a bitten back groan, Val dismounted and handed his reins off; followed the sultan the short distance to the knot of men.
Mehmet’s janissary guards fell in around the two of them as a physical barrier – not that any of the villagers seemed wont to launch an attack. They all cowered, big-eyed, shaking, fathers held the shoulders of young sons, keeping them tucked in tight against their bodies, as if they could spare them. Most were rough-featured, but a few of the teenagers bore softer profiles, almost pretty under the dirt of farm work.
Val’s breakfast curdled in his stomach.
Mehmet stepped forward, janissaries clearing a path with gauntleted hands and upheld spears. He leaned in to expect the most beautiful of the boys, the one with a cap of tight black curls and big amber eyes. He was maybe fourteen or fifteen, with an elfin face and thin, shaking shoulders.
Mehmet smiled to himself. “Yes, this one.”
Two soldiers reached in and seized the boy by the arms.
“No!” A man – his father; he had the same eyes – shouted, trying to shove forward through the crowd. His friends held him back, though he clawed and scrabbled to get loose. “No! Please! He’s my only son!” Tears shone in his eyes.
“You’re spirited,” Mehmet told him. He jerked his head to another pair of soldiers. “He’ll make a good slave. Put him in irons.”
“No!”
The boy began to cry as he was led away, and a clanking set of chains and cuffs was hauled from a saddlebag for his father.
“That one,” Mehmet said, pointing out another boy, who was grabbed and pulled from another pleading father. He turned to Val. “I’ll give you your pick, Radu. Any of the rest to replace your boy who was damaged.”
Val clenched his hands until his nails bit into his palms. “No. Arslan is all I need.”
Mehmet shrugged. “Suit yourself.” And went back to his sorting.
Three other young ones joined the first two, and the able-bodied fathers and husbands were shackled and smacked into submission with spear butts.
Val was just starting to wonder where the women were hiding when the door of a homely little cottage flew wide, and a plump woman in a white apron came flying out, skirt flaring all around her, face red and wet with tears.
“No!” she cried. “No, my baby–”
A soldier tripped her with the end of a spear, and she collapsed in a pitiful sprawl, sobbing.
Mehmet turned to the captain of his janissary guard. “Take these back. Keep the men chained. The boys will be castrated. Kill the rest here.”
Val rode ahead, grinding his teeth together, body drawn so tight he ached. His mare danced beneath him, and though he patted her, he couldn’t calm himself.
Mehmet caught up to him, probably much to the relief of the two guards who’d felt the need to flank Val, wide-eyed and worried; having their noble charges split up left them on-edge.
“Do you like any of them?” Mehmet asked when he’d reined in close beside Val, tone unworried, and conversational. “I’ll share them with you, if you like.”
