Adora

“I merely thought you would enjoy having your own private court, as I do,” replied Adora. “If you would prefer to remain in your apartment in the harem you are welcome to do so.”

“You need not have bothered to speak to my lord Murad on my behalf, but if this is truly my own domain then get out! I do not want you here! If this is mine I don’t have to have you here! Get out!”

The attending slaves were shocked. They waited, frightened, to see what would happen next. But Adora dismissed them with a wave of her hand. Then she turned to face her young antagonist. “Sit down, Thamar,” she commanded.

“I prefer to stand,” muttered the girl.

“Sit down!” Seeing the fury of Adora’s face, Thamar obeyed. “Now, Thamar, I think it is time we discussed this situation. From the moment you entered our lord Murad’s house I have treated you with kindness. I have offered my friendship. Perhaps there is something about me that prevents our being friends but there is no excuse for this hostility and rudeness. Tell me what it is that troubles you. Perhaps together we can ease your misery.”

“You would not understand.”

“You cannot know that unless you tell me.” Adora smiled encouragingly.

Thamar shot her an angry look, and then the words burst forth. “I was raised to be the wife of a Christian lord. To love him. To support him in all things. To bear his children. To be his only chatelaine. Instead I am sent to an infidel’s harem. Very well, I told myself, it is God’s will and I will accept it meekly as a good Christian daughter. What I cannot accept, however, is that on my wedding night, at the height of our passion Murad cried out your name! Not only once! I will never forgive either of you for that! Never!”

Oh, God! thought Adora, her heart constricting painfully. Thamar had been so needlessly hurt. And Murad was apparently still preoccupied by her virginity. That it had been lost to another man was still hurting him. She reached out and touched the girl’s arm. Wet-eyed, Thamar looked angrily at her. “It will not help,” said Adora softly, “but I am truly sorry you have suffered on my account. But you must forgive Murad, Thamar. He is, it seems, haunted by the ghost of something that cannot be changed, but he is a good man, and he would be grieved to know that he has hurt you.”

“You are right,” said Thamar bitterly. “Your words do not help. I can understand his loving you. You are so beautiful, and so assured. But why can he not love me a little also?” she wailed. “I carry his child too!”

“Perhaps if you will stop snarling at everyone, he will. Give him time, Thamar. I have known my lord Murad since I was younger than you. I was the last and the youngest of his father‘s wives. I left Byzantium when I was but a little maid. I had been married to Sultan Orkhan by proxy in Constantinople. Like you, I was not required to renounce my religion. And until I was old enough, and the sultan took me to his bed, I lived in the Convent of St. Catherine in Bursa. Murad’s younger brother, Prince Halil, is my son. After Sultan Orkhan died I was remarried to the lord of Mesembria, and when he died Sultan Murad offered me his favor.”

“Having been a wife, you became a concubine?” Thamar was incredulous.

“Yes.”

“But why? Surely if Emperor John had insisted, Sultan Murad would have married you.”

Adora laughed gently. “No, Thamar, he would not. He did not have to, you see. In the beginning the Ottomans wed legally with Christian royalty in order to further their cause. Now, however, the Ottoman is stronger than the Christians around him, and though he may take their daughters into his bed as a bribe, he feels he need no longer formally wed with them.

“My brother-in-law, Emperor John, is as much a vassal to my lord Murad as is your father, Tsar Ivan.”

Thamar looked discomfited. “How did you reconcile yourself to this situation?” she asked.

“Firstly,” answered Adora, “I love my lord Murad. Secondly, I daily practice my faith, which gives me strength. I accept the fact that I am still naught but a woman, and ‘tis the men who rule this world. I do not believe God will hold either of us responsible for the situation our families have placed us in. By obeying them, we are only being good Christian daughters. If what they have done is wrong, then it is they who will suffer-not us.”

“But should we enjoy our situation, Adora?”

“I do not see why not, Thamar. After all, if we are not pleasant and loving we will displease the sultan who is a very intuitive man. This will make him unhappy with our families who have sent us to him to please him. It is our duty to enjoy our life in our lord Murad’s house.”

If the sultan had heard Adora’s conversation with Thamar he would have laughed at first, and then he would have accused her of being a devious Greek. If there was one thing Adora did not accept it was the fact that women were the inferiors of men.

Though Murad did not hear the conversation, he did benefit from it. Thamar had taken Adora’s words very much to heart, and the young Bulgarian took on a very different attitude.

She was brighter than the harem beauties, but she had very little wit and was therefore a natural foil for the clever Murad. He delighted in teasing her just so he might see her cheeks turn rosy in pretty confusion. She took to treating the sultan as a demigod. This attitude soothed Murad, but infuriated Adora, especially when Murad began referring to Thamar as his “kitten” and to Adora as his “tigress”.

Then too, as Adora’s pregnancy advanced she became pear-shaped while Thamar barely showed her condition.

“She looks as if she has swallowed an olive,” said Adora petulantly to her son, Halil, “while I appear to have consumed a giant melon!”

He laughed. “I don’t suppose, then, that this is the time to tell you that you are to become a grandmother.”

“Halil! How could you? You are only sixteen!”

“But Alexis is almost eighteen, mother, and very eager to begin our family. She is such an adorable creature that I could not refuse her. And,” his eyes twinkled, “quite frankly, I enjoyed filling her request by filling her belly.” He ducked as she swatted at him. “Besides, I was Bajazet’s age when you were eighteen.”

Theadora winced. “Try,” she said through clenched teeth, “not to crow too loudly to your half brother about your wife’s state. Your place in life is still partially dependent on my favor with Murad. It is difficult enough to cope with a silly girl of sixteen without you telling my lord that I am to be a grandmother! My God, Halil! I am not yet thirty. My little sons are but five and three-and-a-half. Thank heavens you are in Nicea and not here in Adrianople. At least I need not be reminded daily of your perfidy.” Then, seeing her son’s woebegone expression, she relented. “Oh, very well, Halil! When is the child due?”

“Not for seven months, Mother.”

“Good! By that time I shall have borne my lord another one. I shall tell him of your child while I nurse my own. It will not seem so bad then.”

Halil laughed again. “So you carry another lad, eh?”

“Yes! I birth only sons,” she said proudly.

It was not to be, however. This time Adora gave birth on an unusually cold and rainy summer’s dawn. It was a daughter. Worse, the child came feet first, and only the skill of Fatima the Moor saved both mother and baby. The birth was, as usual, witnessed by the women of the harem. When the sex of the child finally was announced Thamar smiled triumphantly and folded her hands complacently over her belly. Weak as she was, Adora felt the strong urge to rise from her bed and rake her fingernails down her face.

Afterward, they tucked her into her bed and brought her daughter to her, but she would not even look at the baby. “Get a wetnurse for it,” she commanded. “I give suck only to princes, not female brats!” The infant whimpered as if sensing the rejection. Theadora’s face softened. Slowly she lifted the blanket and gazed on the face of her new daughter. It was a smooth, heart-shaped face with two large and beautiful blue eyes fringed in thick lashes. The child had a headful of thick, shining dark-brown curls, a rosebud mouth, and high on her left cheekbone an unusual birthmark: a tiny dark crescent above which rode a little star mole.

Iris, Fatima, and the other slaves watched Adora expectantly.

“She may have given a bit of trouble in the birthing,” said the midwife quietly, “but she’s the loveliest babe I’ve seen in many a day, my lady. Your three boys will spoil her terribly.”

“And so will her proud father.” Murad had entered the room unobserved. He bent and kissed Adora. “Once again you have done the thing that pleases me the most. I wanted a daughter!”

“But I wanted to give you a son,” she said softly.