the city.” Her young voice shook. “I may never see it again.” She turned, but could see nothing more than the great walls and towers, dark against a darker sky. Sighing with disappointment, she said sadly, “Let us go on.”
The windy rain was falling harder now. They walked and walked. Their heavy robes grew heavier with the rain and their shoes were soaking. Each step was torture. Then suddenly, ahead of them, they saw bobbing lights. And soon they were surrounded by soldiers and there was Leo’s friendly face.
“Majesty! Praise God you are finally safe with us, and the princesses too! We were not sure you would come tonight because of the weather.”
“The weather was God’s blessing on the venture, Leo. There was no one on the streets to observe our passage. We have seen only three people since we left the convent. All soldiers.”
“There was no difficulty, Majesty?”
“None, Leo. But I am eager to see my husband. Where is he?”
“He is waiting at his main camp a few miles from here. If Your Majesty will allow me, I will help you into the wagon. I regret the crude transport, but it is better than walking.”
The next few days were a blur for Theadora. They had arrived safely at her father’s camp where warm, dry clothes and hot baths waited. She slept a few hours and then was awakened for the march to Selymbria, where her father had his temporary capital. The journey took two long days in the wagon, plowing through muddy paths beneath torrential rains.
It had been almost six years since she and her father had seen one another. John Cantacuzene embraced his daughter and then held her back so he could look at her. Satisfied with what he saw, he smiled and said, “Orkhan Gahzi will be very pleased with you, Thea. You are becoming a real beauty, my child. Have you yet begun your show of blood?”
“No, Papa,” she said calmly.
“A pity,” replied the emperor. “Perhaps I should send your sister instead. The Turks like blonds, and she is now a woman.”
Yes! Yes! thought Theadora. Send Helena!
“No, John,” said Zoe Cantacuzene, looking up from her embroidery. “Thea is content to do her duty by our family. Are you not, my love?”
“Yes, Mama,” came the whispered reply.
Zoe smiled. “The young Paleaologi is seventeen-a man ready to bed his wife. Helena is fourteen and ready to receive a husband. Leave things as they are, my lord.”
“You are right, my love,” John said, nodding. And several days later Theadora’s wedding took place.
The bridegroom was not present but was represented by a Christian proxy. Afterward, the bride was taken to the emperor’s military encampment where she ascended a jeweled throne atop a carpeted pavilion sent by the sultan for the occasion. The throne was surrounded by curtains of red, blue, green, silver, purple, and gold silk. Below, the armies of Christian and Muslim soldiers stood proudly under arms. Only John, as the emperor, was on horseback. At his signal the curtains of the pavilion were opened to reveal the bride surrounded by kneeling eunuchs and hymeneal torches.
Flutes and trumpets proclaimed that Theadora Cantacuzene was now Sultan Orkhan’s wife. While the assembled choir sang joyous songs of the bride’s happiness, of her great charity, and of her devotion to her church, Theadora stood quietly, alone with her thoughts. In the church she had been sulky, but her mother warned her afterward that if she did not appear happy she would disappoint the troops. So she wore a fixed smile.
The following morning, as she was about to be taken away, she had a fit of weeping and was comforted by her mother one last time.
“All princesses feel this way when they leave their families for the first time,” said Zoe. “I did. But you must not give in to self-pity, my child. You are Theadora Cantacuzene, a princess of Byzantium. Your birth sets you above all others, and you must never show weakness to your inferiors.”
The child shuddered and drew a deep breath. “You will write to me, Mama?”
“Regularly, my dearest. Now, wipe your eyes. You would not insult your lord by weeping.”
Theadora did as she was bid and was then led to a purple and gold draped palanquin. This litter was to carry her to the ship, which would then take her to Sultan Orkhan who awaited her across the Sea of Marmara in Scutari. The sultan had sent a full troop of cavalry and thirty ships to escort his bride.
Theadora looked small and vulnerable in her pale blue tunic dress, despite the elegant gold floral embroidery adorning it at the cuffs, hem, and neck. Zoe nearly wept at the sight of her child. The girl seemed sophisticated and yet touchingly young!
Neither the emperor nor his wife accompanied their child to the ship. From the moment Theadora entered the royal palanquin, she was alone. It was to remain that way for many years.
One year later the gates of Constantinople opened to John Cantacuzene. Several weeks after that, his daughter Helena was married to John’s young co-emperor, John Paleaologi. The wedding was celebrated with the full pomp offered by the Orthodox Church.
PART I
Chapter One
The Convent of St. Catherine in the city of Bursa was a small one, but it was rich and distinguished. It had not always been so, but the recent prosperity was due to the presence of one of the sultan’s wives. Princess Theadora Cantacuzene of Byzantium lived within the convent walls.
Theadora Cantacuzene was now thirteen, and quite capable of childbearing. Sultan Orkhan, however, was sixty-two and had a harem full of nubile females both innocent and experienced. The little Christian virgin in the convent had only been a political necessity after all. And so she remained there, forgotten by her Ottoman husband.
Had he seen her, however, even the jaded Orkhan could not have ignored Theadora. She had grown tall and had long, beautifully shaped arms and legs, a slender torso, firm, high, cone-shaped breasts with long pink nipples, and a beautiful heart-shaped face. Her skin was like smooth cream, for although she enjoyed the outdoors, she never tanned. Her dark mahogany-colored hair with its golden lights hung straight down her back to just above the soft swell of her sweetly rounded buttocks. The violet eyes were startlingly clear, and as candid as they had always been. Her nose was small and straight, her mouth lush with a full lower lip.
Within the convent grounds, she had her own house consisting of an antechamber for receiving guests-though none came-a dining room, a kitchen, two bedchambers, a bath, and servants’ quarters. Here she lived in isolated semisplendor-lacking nothing. She was well-fed, well-guarded, and very bored. She was rarely allowed to leave the convent grounds and when she did she was heavily veiled and escorted by at least half a dozen sturdy nuns.
In the summer of Theadora’s thirteenth year her life changed suddenly. It was a hot midafternoon, and all the servants lay dozing in the sticky heat. Theadora was alone, for even the nuns slept as she wandered the deserted, walled convent garden. Suddenly a small breeze brought to her the scent of peaches ripening in one of the convent orchards, but the door to the orchard garden was locked. Theadora was annoyed, and as her desire for a peach became overwhelming she looked for another means of entry into the orchard, and she found it.
Where the garden wall met the orchard wall along the street side of the convent property, there was a thick gnarled vine. Tucking up her simple lime green cotton tunic dress Theadora clambered up the vine to the top. Then, chuckling gleefully to herself, she walked carefully along the wall looking for a similar vine so she might get down into the orchard. Finding it, she descended, picked several of the plumpest fruits, and put them in her pockets. Then
