And I Darken (The Conquerors Saga #1) - Kiersten White Page 0,91

of Kruje. And Skanderberg repaid Murad’s generosity by betraying him and claiming that section of Albania as his own. Twice now we have made attempts to reclaim it and been repulsed.” He paused to give Radu a poisonous smile. “Favorites can fall far.”

Murad shifted in his chair, face deepening to red. If Radu could hear the talk of Skanderberg, surely Murad could. It had to be a source of tremendous embarrassment for him.

Seeing an opportunity to insinuate himself further into Murad’s good graces, Radu stood.

All eyes turned to him, but he bowed toward Murad. “If it pleases you, my father, I have written a poem about the glory of your rule.”

It was one of the many weapons in his arsenal, one he had hoped to keep sheathed for a while longer. But Murad was primed for a strike. The sultan beamed, gesturing for Radu to stand on a platform in the corner of the room.

Radu had practiced the poem so often he could recite it in his sleep. He had stolen shiny bits from famous Arabic poems, gathering them like a raven to line his own nest. The language was dense and flowery, hyperbolic in the extreme. Murad listened, enraptured, as his reign was likened to the ocean and his posterity a mighty river.

While Radu performed the many long stanzas, he watched as the meal was finished and men began to move around the room. While Murad sat, untouchable, nearly everyone of any importance eventually followed the pull to Halil Pasha to pay their respects. He sat in the center of a vast web of influence.

Radu smiled and spoke in brighter tones to cover the despair he felt watching his enemy, the spider, and wondering how he ever thought he could hope to defeat him.

Lately, prayer brought Radu little comfort. Even joining five times a day at the dizzyingly beautiful mosque, surrounded by his brothers, Radu felt alone. Heart heavy and head hanging, he trudged out onto the steps of the mosque, evening already eating away the blue of the sky. If he lost his faith, what was left to him?

“Radu?”

He looked up to find a man staring at him, arms open, face wide with wonder. “Can this be the lost little boy I prayed with so long ago?”

Recognition dawned on Radu, warming him like the sun. “Kumal?”

With a laugh, the older man threw his arms around Radu, drawing him into an embrace. It was the first sincere physical affection Radu had had since that horrible night with Salih. Something in his chest broke free, and he hugged Kumal too tightly, clinging to him.

Kumal’s voice was as tender as his touch on Radu’s back. “Are you still lost, then?”

“I think I am.”

“Come, let us take a meal.” Keeping an arm around Radu’s shoulder, Kumal shepherded him as he had when Radu was so much younger. They found an inn serving supper. Plates of spiced meat, steaming with fragrant warmth, were set before them.

“Where have you been?” Radu asked. “I have not seen you in the courts.”

“I do not visit often. There is too much to do in my vali, and I have always preferred filling my duties there to spending time here.”

Radu nodded. He had seen much of the striving of valis and beys, local rulers abandoning or neglecting their duties in hopes of being given even more.

Kumal’s beatific smile lit up their dim corner. “And I have just returned from umrah in Mecca.”

Radu leaned forward, drawn by the brilliance of Kumal’s smile. “You made the pilgrimage to Mecca? And for umrah, not hajj. So you have been before!” The hajj, traveling to the birthplace of the Prophet at Mecca, was one of the five pillars of Islam. Along with prayer, fasting during Ramadan, giving charity to the poor, and declaring that there is no God but God, it made up the simplest base of being Muslim. It was the one that Radu knew the least about and doubted he would ever be able to fulfill. But here, in front of him, was the man who had helped him truly find himself in Islam, who had filled the hajj and returned to worship further. “I do not know enough about the umrah. Tell me everything.”

Kumal described the long journey, exhaustion and excitement warring with each other. The city of Mecca where the Prophet, peace be upon him, had walked, and where pilgrims participated in the circling of the Kaaba. It was the most sacred site in the world, the place