wife were a living hell for me. I maintained my sanity only by believing in the promise you once made to me in a moonlit garden: that one day I should be your wife. When you told me the other night that you would take no wife, but only keep a harem…” She paused, then said, “I am only a woman, my lord, and easily hurt. You know how hard it will be for me to accept your decision. My religion views an unmarried concubine as lower than a creature of the streets.”
“But
“Perhaps we Turks do treat our woman differently from the way the Greeks treat theirs, but we revere them for the one thing that only they can do. Only the female can accept and nurture the seed of life within her body. Only the female can bear that life safely, give it nourishment and care. It is his woman who provides a man’s immortality by giving him sons.
“You have a fine son, Adora. Can you honestly tell me that you have made any greater accomplishment in your lifetime than to give Halil life?”
She was amazed at the depth of his thoughts. And then she realized how little she actually knew the man. They had never really talked as they were doing now. She wondered whether he was aware of the sweet victory this was for her. It mattered not! For now, it was enough for her.
She smiled up at him and said quietly, “I suppose Halil has been my greatest accomplishment, and my life would have been very empty without him.”
“
She could not tear her eyes from his. She felt strangely weak, held a half-willing captive of those dark eyes that burned with little red and gold flames deep within. His fingers slipped the row of little gold knots that held her robe together and she felt the big hands gently stroking the swell of her breasts. For the first time she did not resist him, and a delicious, languorous feeling began to creep over her. His hands were those of a warrior, large and square, the fingernails cut short. The skin of his palms and fingers were neither rough nor smooth, but rather a combination of both, and the touch of it on her silken flesh made her shiver. He caught a hard little nipple between his finger and thumb and rubbed, delighting in her gasp of pleasure.
To his surprise, she opened his robe and placed her warm palms against him. Her slim fingers began to tease the hair on his chest, twining amid the soft, tight curls, pulling gently. Her eyes were soft with a growing desire.
He stood up and let his robe drop to the floor, pulling her after him. He drew the lilac-colored silk from her. Standing for a moment, they openly admired each other’s bodies. His hand reached out and gently caressed her. She returned the caress. Stepping forward, he gathered her up into his arms, her head nestled against his shoulder, and carried her slowly to their couch. Tenderly he placed her on the silken sheets, standing above her a moment. Then he eagerly joined her as she opened her arms to him.
His fingers removed the tortoise shell pins from her hair. Then he pulled the thick, lily-scented cloud down about the two of them. Only then did he seek her mouth, and she shivered for his kisses were sweet with remembrance, and spiced with expectation.
“You are perfection, my Adora,” he murmured softly. “And so there will never again be a misunderstanding between us, let me tell you plainly that I love you, my darling. The sultan of the Ottomans lays his heart at your slim, white feet, beloved, and humbly asks that you be the mother of his sons. I would fight with you no longer. Let me plant my seed deep within your fertile garden. Let me cherish you-and the new life that will grow within you.”
She was silent a moment. Then she asked, “And if I said ‘No’, my lord-what then?”
“I would send you from me, my dove, probably back to Constantinople. For I cannot remain near you and not want to make love to you.”
“You will not grow angry with me, as your father did, because I like to study and read?”
“No.”
“Then come, my beloved lord. The spring is almost upon us, and if we are to harvest a good crop before the year is out, we must begin.”
He was stunned by her frankness. Her laughter was mischievous. “Oh, Murad, you great fool! I love you! I admit to it, though I am not at all sure I should. I have always loved you. You were my first love, and now it seems you are to be my last. My now and forever love. And so it was written in the stars before either of us even took root in our mothers’ wombs. So Ali Yahya assures me.”
His eager lips found her equally eager ones and soon his mouth was scorching hers, then moving down her body, tasting of breast and belly. When finally he entered her she was but half-conscious: never, never had she known such sweetness. She cried with joy in his possession of her, and again as he released his seed within her. And in that single blazing moment before pleasure claimed her completely, she knew she had conceived a son.
Chapter Seventeen
After two years, the city of Adrianople had fallen to the Turks. There had been virtually no help from Constantinople. The emperor, being a vassal of the sultan, had simply not dared to send his troops.
The wealthiest of Constantinople’s merchants had raised a troop of cavalry and two troops of foot soldiers. Having outfitted them and paid them a year’s wages in advance, they sent them off to protect their vast investments in the Thracian city’s factories and export houses. Once within the city, however, the mercenaries were trapped, along with the inhabitants. The latter were not delighted by having to feed several hundred additional mouths.
Adrianople was one of the last real jewels in Byzantium’s crown. One hundred and thirty-seven miles northwest of Constantinople, it was set on the banks of the Tunja River where it met with the Maritsa River. Located in the center of the Thracian coastal plain, it was surrounded by fertile, well-watered valleys and a surprisingly barren upland. It was said to be located on the site of the ancient city of Uskadame. Certainly something had been there when Hadrian rebuilt the city in the year 125 B.C. Two hundred fifty-three years later the Roman emperor, Valens, lost the city to the Goths. They later lost it to the Bulgars, who lost it to the Byzantines, who lost it to the Crusaders, who lost it back to Byzantium. Byzantium had now lost it forever to the Turks.
There were several reasons for the desirability of possessing Adrianople. It was the marketplace for the entire agricultural region surrounding it, a region that grew fruits and vegetables of every kind, wine grapes, cotton, flax, mulberry bushes, and flowers-especially roses and poppies. The people produced silk, finished cotton cloth, linen of every grade, woolen goods, leather articles, and exquisite silk tapestries. Also produced and exported were rose water, attar of roses, wax, opium, and a red dye that was to be known as “turkey red”.
It was here that the Turks intended to move their capital from Bursa. Adrianople, soon to be renamed Edirne, was to be the Ottomans’ first capital city in Europe. Those sections of the city which had surrendered without a fight were spared the conqueror’s vengeance.
Those sections which had resisted once the Turks breached the city walls were subjected to the traditional three days of pillage and rape. The aged and useless were slaughtered or left to starve, unless they had relatives who could ransom them and remove them from the city. Pregnant and nursing women were the first to be sold into slavery, for a healthy, fertile female slave was a valuable possession. Stripped naked on the block, the way they carried their unborn was discussed knowledgeably by the interested buyers. The space between their hipbones was thought to be a good indication of how easily they would bear their young. Good breeders were welcome in a man’s house. Their unborn, especially sons, were an added bonus to the sale.
Those women who had already borne their babies and now suckled them, were examined for the heaviness of their breasts and even manually milked by the prospective buyers to check the richness of their milk. A woman with more rich milk than her own baby needed could suckle an orphan or the child of a dry mother. The weeping that
