No one needed to tell Alev why it was necessary to deceive the Polish noble she, in the guise of Alessandra d’Este, was not a suitable match for him. The chosen method Bona Sforza had chosen to convince the man it was in his best interests to break the contract between the d’Este family, not so much.

For the third time in less than half an hour, Alev sat bolt upright in her bed with eyes bulging and cheeks puffed out as she fought to hold back a fresh wave of nausea boiling up from a stomach that refused to give her a moment’s rest. Alert and ever attentive, Ceren shoved a clean basin before her mistress, holding it out at arms’ length in the hope the coming torrent would not splatter her as previous eruptions had. Lady Katherine, Bona Sforza’s youngest daughter, was less circumspect as she reached out with both hands and gathered up Alev’s hair, least its ends cascade down about her face and fall into the soon to be filled basin.

Oblivious to all but the need to rid herself of the vileness welling up from the pit of her stomach, Alev paid no heed to the presence of Bona Sforza and Stephen Grabski as the two watched from just inside the room. For her part the Queen said nothing as she watched the red haired girl who was the Haseki Hürrem Sultan’s representative violently convulse and heave. As pleased as she was by the way the draught she had given the girl was working, the impact it was having on the nobleman at her side was even more gratifying.

Repulsed by what he was seeing and what this meant to him was reflected by the disgust and horror his expression betrayed. “How often is she stricken like this?” he asked in a shaky voice.

“Not often,” Bona Sforza replied with a casualness so at odds with the scene playing out before them. “Seldom more than once a week.”

Shocked, Grabski slowly turned to face his Queen. “Once a week?”

“Yes, provided she’s not been exposed to too much excitement and has been allowed to rest,” Bona Sforza replied calmly as she glanced over at him. “Is that a problem?”

The Polish nobleman’s mouth opened, but no words came forth as he stared, wide-eyed at a woman whose imperious manner and ambitions caused him and his fellow nobles to despise and distrust her. Unfortunately for Grabski, the King’s inability to rule as he should, and his habit of deferring to his Italian born wife left the nobleman little choice but to seek her assistance in renegotiating his betrothal to one of her blood relatives. Bowing his head, he dropped his gaze. “Your majesty, I cannot marry that girl,” he muttered under his breath.

“But you must,” Bona Sforza counted without hesitation. “You have already accepted the dowry which, if my sources are to be believed, has been put to good use by you,” she stated firmly as she made something of a show inspecting his richly appointed attire.

Unable to help himself, Grabski met Bona Sforza’s steady, unflinching gaze. The temptation to say something was checked by the knowledge the Queen would never had said what she just had if she had any doubt as to the validity of the information her sources provided her with. Besides, he would need her assistance and blessing in renegading on his betrothal to the wretched young woman who was, at that moment, violently emptying the content of her stomach into a basin splattered with vomit.

“The girl is of no use to me, not if she is unable to shire children,” he declared as assertively as he dare.

“We do not know that yet, my dear lord.”

Unhinged, as much by the ungodly sounds his bride-to-be was making as she heaved uncontrollably as the prospect of being saddled with such a pathetic creature, Grabski did something he was loathed to do, he took to pleading with Bona Sforza. “There must be something you can do that would spare me without bringing dishonor to my family’s revered name.”

With well practiced ease, Bona Sforza was able to stifle a smile as she turned to the nobleman and nodded. “Perhaps there is,” she murmured as if considering Grabski’s desperate plea. “Come, let us adjourn to my chambers where we can discuss the matter in private.”

At the moment the gratification Grabski felt had nothing to do with the prospect of being free of the sickly Italian girl. It was the thought of escaping the stench of fresh vomit and the sounds his soon to be former betrothed was making that caused him to scurry out of the room as if the Devil himself was nipping at his heels. That the price he would need to pay to break his engagement would be steep was a given. When it came to such things, Bona Sforza heart was as cold and unfeeling as the very rock upon with Wawel Castle was built. But after being privy to spectacle he had just borne witness to, any price was acceptable, even one set by the Devil’s own daughter.

“I envy you,” Katherine murmured longingly as she gently mopped Alev’s brow with a cool, damp cloth. “You are free to go back to Italy where, God willing, you will find a man who loves you for who you are, not what you can bring to the marriage.”

Far too exhausted from her earlier exertions and still not feeling well, Alev made no effort to respond as the Queen’s youngest daughter ever so carefully touched on a subject she often brought up whenever the two of them were alone. Unable to do little more than focus on her own efforts to keep what little remained in her stomach from coming up, Alev simply lay there, eyes closed, half listening as the foolish young woman seated on the edge of her bed prattled on.

“The thought of marrying someone for no other reason than it is politically advantageous to my parents is distressing beyond words,” Katherine opined as she dipped the cloth she had been using to mop Alev’s brow in a basin set on the bed. “I crave to be loved as Bradamante was by Ruggiero, the founders of your noble house.”

Even if she had the strength to inform Katherine that the two lovers in Orlando Furioso, an epic poem written by Ludovici Ariosto, were as fictitious as the hippogriff Ruggiero slays, Alev would have demurred. Of Bona Sforza’s daughters, Katherine was both the youngest and most passionate. She was also closest thing to a friend Alev had ever had. To tell her the secretive rendezvous she engaged in with a young courtier was as foolish as it was dangerous was not something Alev thought to be her responsibility. The girl would learn just how cruel life could be in time, if not from her mother, than at the hands of men who saw her as nothing but chattel, to be bartered and traded as they would a horse or a cow.

It was close to a week before Alev felt well enough to discuss her future plans with Bona Sforza. As with all such meetings, they took place in the Queen’s private chambers in an atmosphere that was as chilled as the early fall air. “I have received instructions from Haseki Hürrem Sultan that I am to proceed to Venice,” Alev declared after the briefest of preliminaries had been concluded.

While she was well aware of the messages Alev sent and received using the Hungarian Janissaries who had accompanied her, Bona Sforza’s minions were unable to break the code Ceren used to encrypt her mistress’ outgoing dispatches and decrypt responses to them. Not that it mattered. The Polish Queen had long ago concluded that every possible benefit that could be derived by keeping her at court had been wrung from her. With the Polish nobles becoming increasingly hostile to her efforts to subvert their prerogatives and authority, the discovery that she was harboring an agent of the Turk was fast becoming a risk that far outweighed its benefits.

Her joy at hearing the girl would soon be going was short lived as Alev informed her she expected the Queen to turn over the amber Stephen Grabski was sending in lieu of Alessandra d’Este’s dowry. “By what right do you claim it as yours,” Bona Sforza demanded.

Alev paid no heed to the Queen’s strident tone. “Does not the dowry belong to Alessandra d’Este?” she replied with a calmly.

“Alessandra d’Este is dead,” the Queen shot back. “You yourself told me as much.”

“That cannot possibly be true, your majesty. I am here as you guest, am I not?”

The anger Bona Sforza felt over this unexpected and highly inappropriate impudence was checked by an appreciation the girl would not dare challenge her in such a manner unless she was doing so from a position of strength. Before dismissing Alev’s claim to the amber Grabski was using to repay his debt, Bona Sforza needed to find out just what the girl thought she knew by issuing a warning. “You do appreciate I can see to it you share that girl’s fate.”

Alev nodded. “I expect that is true. But then, so could you, your majesty.”

At this, Bona Sforza sucked in a deep, audible breath as she drew herself up. “You dare threaten me?”

“Yes.”

Unused to being challenged in such a manner by a girl she had, until that moment, thought was little different than one of her own daughters, Bona Sforza was not at all sure what to do.

Taking advantaged of the tense silence that followed her crisp response to the Queen’s threat, Alev put forth an idea that would make her demands palatable. “In exchange for the amber, I will render a service to you that I am uniquely qualified to handle.”

“What possibly could you do for me?”

“There is a young courtesan who has designs on your daughter that run counter to your majesty’s best interests.”

Bona Sforza was well aware of the young man Katherine was fond of, a courtier who was the eldest son of the Marshal of the Sejms. As much as she wished she could, she could not lift a hand against the boy, not without risking providing the nobles, who were already at odds with her, with another reason for moving against her. “What of it?” she asked cautiously.

“I expect it will be necessary to send an emissary with me to Italy, a representative of the King to explain in person to the d’Este patriarch why a member of his house has been rejected by the man she was betrothed to.”

“That would be expected,” Bona Sforza replied warily.

“Travel along the Amber Road is hazardous, particularly when a great deal of amber is being transported south to Italy, is it not?” Alev asked as she cocked a brow.

A glimmer of understanding suddenly up ended Bona Sforza’s frown. “Yes, it can be very hazardous. Many have perished along the way.”

“Then we understand each other,” Alev offered without further explanation.

“Perfectly.”

Alev waited until they were out of Poland, had passed through the Moravian Gate, and were in the mountains of Noricum before asking the young Polish noble if he would ride on ahead with two of her Hungarian escorts to secure lodgings for the night. Having done so several times before, the Pole thought nothing of it. An affable young man who spoke of nothing but his love for the Queen’s daughter with Alev in the belief she was Katherine’s trusted confidant, a belief Alev happily encouraged, complied without hesitation. The only difference on this night was the instructions Alev gave to the pair of janissary she sent along with him. The first, who went by the name János, was directed to make his way back to Constantinople with her latest dispatches after he and Kristof, a hard, humorless veteran of many wars and the most senior of Alev’s three Hungarians, had taken care of another, more pressing matter. “It is important that you bring me back the ring bearing the Royal seal,” Alev reminded Kristof as he was preparing to ride off. “It is the key that will open many doors to us in Venice.”

“And the rest?” Kristof asked cautiously.

‘The rest,’ as the gruff Hungarian put it, were the numerous bobbles and jewels the young Pole wore on his person or carried in his baggage and the bulging purse he’d need to cover the expense of a return journey he would never make. Knowing the best way to keep soldiers like Kristof content was to permit them to share in the spoils of war, Alev shrugged. “I am only interested in the ring. Whatever else the boy possess belongs to you and János by right of battle.”

The gleam in Kristof’s eyes and his humorless smile served as a reminder to her that the trio of Hungarians had been hand picked by the Haseki Hürrem Sultan. While they obeyed her every command without question, she had little doubt their loyalties were with their true mistress, a woman who would not hesitate to dispose of anyone who was a threat to her ambitions.

With that chore taken care of, Alev was able to turn her full attention to how she would go about returning to her homeland, a homeland that, due to a childhood cloistered within the confines of a monastery, was as foreign to her as Kraków had been. Whether life there would be as cruel as it had been when she had been a child remained to be seen. She hoped this would not be the case. She hoped the city so many held up as the jewel of the Western world was everything those who had visited it claimed it was. Alev was ready, or as ready as she could be, to open a new chapter in her life, one she and she alone would write. Yet she was not foolish enough to expect it would be to be any different than those that had preceded it. Hope, she had come to discover, was a pretty bobble used to entice the unwary and the naïve and not a foundation upon which one could build a meaningful life. For that, you needed to rely on a heart as cold and unfeeling as the stones men like the King of Poland used to build the fortresses needed to protect his holdings and Bona Sforza relied on to keep from being used by men like him.