Adora (39 page)

Thamar was not having an easy time. She was small, and her baby was big. She had refused to have the midwife, Fatima the Moor, because she was Adora’s “minion”. She could not, Thamar claimed, feel safe under such circumstances. The insult was uncalled for and Murad was angered. But Adora shrugged and sighed.

“She may be endangering not only herself but the child also, my lord. But if you force Fatima upon her, the result of the fear might be worse. She is young and healthy. She should do well.” Theadora did not believe for one minute that Thamar was afraid of her. This was probably the start of a campaign on the Bulgarian’s part.

The result of Thamar’s attitude was that, in the end, Fatima had to be called to save both mother and child. The midwife pulled the baby from the exhausted girl’s body, but the delay cost Thamar further children. She was badly torn. Only Fatima’s skill prevented her reluctant patient from bleeding to death.

Following the birth, the Court of the Blue Dolphins became an armed camp with entry practically impossible. Thamar had taken some of her bridal allowance and bought herself two dozen fighting eunuchs who allowed only the sultan free access to the Bulgarian. Those serving Thamar had either come with her from Bulgaria or were newly purchased. They were allowed no contact with the rest of the inhabitants of the Island Serai. Food for the court was purchased daily by the old crone who had been Thamar’s nurse.

Three days after the birth Adora arrived at the Court of the Blue Dolphins laden with gifts for the new mother and her child. The gifts were taken from the sultan’s bas-kadin, but Adora was refused admittance to the court. Furious, she sought out Murad. “She is attempting to make it appear that I would harm her or her child,” said Adora. “It is a terrible insult to cast such suspicion on my good name!”

The sultan agreed. There had been peace in his house until Thamar had come. He now regretted having been overcome with lust. He did not intend to allow her to harm his beloved Adora by innuendo. Taking his favorite by the hand, he walked with her to the Court of the Blue Dolphins. The eunuchs quickly opened ranks to admit them.

They found Thamar settled comfortably on a couch in her garden, the child in his cradle by her side. Her look of joy at seeing Murad quickly disappeared when she saw Adora.

“How dare you refuse admittance to the woman who rules this harem?” he thundered.

“I am your kadin too,” quavered Thamar, “and this is my court.”

“No, you are not a kadin. I have not given you that honor. I am the master in this house, and I have made Adora the mistress here. She has been more than kind, even begging this court for you. In return you attempt to slander her unjustly.”

“It is not unjust! Because of her I can have no other children. Her evil Moor saw to that! No doubt the witch would have strangled my son as well had not the entire harem been present!”

“My God!” gasped Adora, whitening. “You are mad, Thamar! The birth has addled her wits, Murad.”

“No,” said the sultan, his black eyes narrowing, “she knows exactly what she says. Now hear me, Thamar! Your own stupidity and stubbornness has rendered you sterile. It was a miracle you did not kill the child. Fatima saved your life. Your child is my fourth acknowledged son. There is very little possibility of his ever ruling. Adora has no reason to fear you or your child and is no danger to either of you. To suggest such a thing is slanderous and unforgivable. If you persist in this charade I will remove Yakub from your care. My kadin will always be allowed immediate entry to this court. Do you understand me?”

“Y-y-yes my lord.”

“Good,” said Murad firmly. “Come, Adora. We will leave Thamar to rest now.”

But the battle lines had been drawn, and Adora now faced two enemies within the house of Osman: Thamar and the evil Prince Cuntuz. For the present, she left the Bulgarian alone. She hoped a time of quiet would alleviate Thamar’s fear. Thamar was not devious, so her fear was real enough, though unjustified.

Prince Cuntuz was a different matter. He learned to read and write in the prince’s school, but higher learning escaped him. The one thing he had inherited from his father was his ability with weapons. He quickly became skilled with knife and dagger, sword and scimitar, lance and bow. He swam and wrestled well and was an excellent horseman. But his lack of intellect prevented his ever being a commander, for he could not grasp tactics. It was yet another cause for bitterness in Cuntuz, who did not mellow as the years passed.

Though he was treated like a prince, though he was reputedly the oldest of Murad’s sons, his mother’s reputation was costing him his rightful place in history. Or so be believed. If his four younger brothers were out of the way, his father would have to turn to him. There would be no other choice.

Cuntuz set about to make friends with Adora’s sons, who were now ten and nine.

Generously he helped to teach his younger siblings horsemanship and weaponry. Adora watched Bajazet, Osman, and Orkhan nervously, for some instinct warned her against Cuntuz. But as she had no proof to back up her fears, she pushed them away. Tall, slender boys with dark hair, fair skin, and black eyes like Murad’s, her sons were so handsome. If only they weren’t so enamored of Cuntuz! But with nothing to put her finger on, she had no grounds to destroy the relationship. Murad was pleased that Cuntuz finally seemed at home. The sultan even began including him in family evenings.

Here was the one area where Adora and Thamar agreed; neither liked Cuntuz. Once when Murad had been momentarily called away by a messenger, Adora turned back into her dimly lit antechamber and found Cuntuz blocking her way. When he made no move to step aside, she said quietly, “I would pass, Cuntuz.”

“You must pay me a toll,” he leered.

Adora felt the anger well up in her. “Step aside!” she hissed.

He reached out and grasped her right breast, squeezing it so tightly that she winced. Adora’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Take your hand from me,” she said coldly, forcing herself to remain still and straight, “else I tell your father of this incident.”

“Your sister, Helena, liked it when I did this to her,” he murmured low. “In fact, she liked it when I…” And here Cuntuz began a catalogue of perversions so foul that Adora almost fainted. Instead she made herself stand very still. And when he had finished, inquiring lasciviously, “Would you not like to taste such delights?” she fixed him with a cold stare. For a moment their eyes remained locked. Then Cuntuz released her.

“You will not tell my father,” he said smugly, “if you do I will deny the incident and say you seek to discredit me.”

“Rest assured, Cuntuz,” she said calmly, “that if I tell my lord Murad, he will believe me.” Then she brushed past him. Behind her, his eyes blazed hatred, but she did not see.

Several days later Adora sought for her sons late in the afternoon. They had, she was told, gone riding with Cuntuz. A prickle of apprehension ran through her, and she hurried to find Ali Yahya. A troop of Janissaries was sent after the princes. An hour into the hills they met with Cuntuz who claimed that they had been attacked by bandits. His three younger half brothers had been taken captive, though he had managed to escape. The trail was clear, he claimed, so he
would return to the Island Serai to get more aid. Having no real reason to doubt him, they let him go.

The trail was clear. And because it was late spring, the light remained. At no point could the Janissaries find the tracks of more than four horses. And when they found all three of the younger princes’ horses wandering, the soldiers became suspicious.

“Do you think he’s killed them?” asked the second-in-command.

“Probably,” said the captain grimly, “but we must find them before we return. We cannot go back without the bodies as proof.”

It was growing dark, and they stopped to make torches so that they might continue to follow the trail. Eventually the flickering torchlights led them up a small hill into a rock-strewn clearing. There they found the boys. They had been stripped naked and staked out in the cold night air. Their young bodies had been lashed with a metal-tipped whip, opening several bloody stripes which eventually would have attracted wolves. They had been doused with icy water from a nearby stream.

Young Osman was dead. Orkhan, his twin, was unconscious. But Bajazet was conscious, shivering, and furious with himself for having been taken in by his older half brother.

The Janissaries built a huge fire and, finding the boys’ clothes, dressed them quickly. Bringing them to the roaring blaze, they rubbed their hands and feet in an effort to stimulate their circulation. Orkhan remained unconscious, despite their efforts. But Bajazet couldn’t stop talking, and when one Janissary remarked that the deceased prince had a bruise on the side of his head, the boy burst out, “Cuntuz kicked him there when Osman cursed him for what he was doing to us. My brother never spoke again. That accursed spawn of a Greek whore boasted that with us dead, he would next poison little Yakub, and see that our mother was blamed! He said our father
would have no choice but to make him his heir. We must get back to the Island Serai!”

“Dare we move Prince Orkhan, Highness?” questioned the Janissary captain.

“We must! You cannot possibly get him warm here. He needs our mother’s touch.”

It was well past midnight when they returned to the Island Serai. Five-year-old Prince Yakub was safe: Prince Cuntuz had never returned to the palace to carry out his plans. Adora’s grief over the dead Osman had to wait while she attended to his twin. But at dawn Orkhan opened his eyes, smiled at his parents and Bajazet, and said, “I have to go now, Mother. Osman is calling me.” And before any of them could say a word, the boy died.

For a moment all was silent. Then Adora began to wail. Clutching the bodies of her twin sons, she wept until she thought she could weep no more—but wept again. Murad had never felt so helpless in his life.

They had been his sons too, but he had not nurtured them within his own body or suckled them.

“I will avenge them, I swear it,” he promised her.

“Yes,” she sobbed, “avenge them. It will not bring my babies back to me, but avenge them!”

And when he had left her she called her surviving son to her. “Listen to me, Bajazet. This tragedy could encourage Thamar to act against you, but I will see you are protected. Someday you will be sultan, and when that time comes you will not allow sentiment to overrule you. You will instantly destroy your rivals, whoever they may be. Do you understand me, Bajazet? Never again must you be threatened!”

“I understand, Mother. On the day I become sultan, Yakub will die before he can act against me. This empire will never be divided!”

Clasping the boy in her arms, Theadora began weeping afresh. Bajazet looked grimly over her shoulder at the bodies of his twin brothers. Slowly, silently, the tears ran down the boy’s face. No, he vowed silently, he would not forget.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Prince Cuntuz fled to Constantinople where he begged asylum of the empress. Her cold blue eyes took in the boy who had briefly been her lover. In the years away he had become a man, and had probably learned many an interesting trick. The Turks were known for their licentiousness.

“Why should I take you under my protection?” she demanded of him.

“Because I have done something that should please you greatly.”

“What?” She was not particularly interested.

“I have killed your sister’s sons.”

“You lie! Did you really? How could you?”

He told her, and Helena mused aloud, “The sultan will most certainly demand your return.”

“But you will not give me up,” he said, softly caressing the tender inside of her arm. “You will hide me, and protect me.”

“Why on earth would I do that, Cuntuz?”

“Because I can do things for you that no other man can. You know that well, my wicked Byzantine whore. Don’t you?”

“Tell me,” she teased provocatively, and so he did.

Smiling, she nodded and agreed to hide him.

John Paleaologi was furious. But for once, Helena correctly understood the situation. “The sultan has bigger things to do than besiege this city to obtain his wayward son,” she said. “Cuntuz has behaved badly. But his mother is my friend, and Murad would be overly harsh with the boy.”

The emperor turned purple with anger and choked. “Either I am mad,” he said, “or you are! Cuntuz has behaved badly? Cuntuz is responsible for the brutal, premeditated murders of two nine-year-old boys and the attempted murder of a ten-year-old boy. His own half brothers!
If
Mara is correct about her son’s paternity.”

“They are not all dead?”

“No, my dear. Bajazet, the eldest, survived. He is as filled with plans for revenge as his father. Cuntuz is not even safe within the walls of this city. I will certainly not protect him from Murad. Where is he?”

“He is under the protection of the Church,” she answered smugly. “He never gave up his religion, and his grandparents raised him in our true faith. You cannot violate the laws of sanctuary, John.”

Boxed in by the Church, the emperor wrote his overlord an apologetic letter filled with his personal sympathy, explaining the difficulty of his situation. Murad wrote back absolving his vassal, but warning him to keep Cuntuz under constant observation, and not allow him to leave Constantinople. Thus the renegade prince—drinking, gambling, and wenching about the city with his boon companion, Prince Andronicus—thought himself quite safe.

As Murad began a new western advance, Thamar’s father, Tsar Ivan, launched a campaign against him. Joining with the Serbians, he attacked the Ottoman forces and was quickly and soundly defeated at Samakov. Ivan fled to the mountains leaving the passes to the Plain of Sofia open to the Turks. And he left his unfortunate daughter, Thamar, very much in disfavor with her lord.

Murad was in no hurry to take the city of Sofia. He was no longer a tribesman on a swift raid for quick booty. He was an empire builder, and as such he moved to secure his left flank. The valleys of the Struma and the Vardar were to be occupied as quickly as possible.