The city was besieged for a year. And for a year its gates remained closed to John Cantacuzene. But the presence of his army on the landward side of the town and the sultan’s fleet sitting off the harbors were beginning to take a toll. Food and other supplies began to dwindle. Cantacuzene’s forces found the source of one of the city’s main aqueducts and diverted it so that Constantinople’s water supply was cut.
Then the plague broke out. The infant daughter who Zoe Cantacuzene had borne in sanctuary died. Frantic that he might lose Theadora and, thus, lose the sultan’s aid, John Cantacuzene arranged an escape from the city for his wife and two youngest daughters.
At the Convent of St. Barbara only two people knew of the departure—the Reverend Mother Thamar and the little nun who kept the gate. The night chosen was during the dark of the moon and, by a fortunate coincidence, there was a storm.
Dressed in the habit of the order that had sheltered them, Zoe and her daughters slipped out into the night and walked to the Fifth Military Gate. Zoe’s heart was hammering wildly and her hand, holding the lantern that lit their way, shook uncontrollably. All her life she had been surrounded by slaves. She had never walked through the city at all, much less gone out unescorted. It was the greatest adventure of her life and, though frightened, she walked with determination, breathing deeply, mastering her fear.
The wind whipped their rough, dark skirts about them. Large fat raindrops were beginning to spatter them. Helena whined and was firmly told to be quiet. Theadora kept her head down, walking doggedly along. The months during which her father had besieged the city had been a blessed reprieve for her. At the final end of this journey waited her bridegroom, the sultan. Theadora dreaded it. Despite her mother’s reassurances she could not rid herself of Helena’s evil words, and she was frightened. She did not reveal it, however. She would neither give Helena the satisfaction nor grieve her mother further.
The tower of the Fifth Military Gate loomed above them, and Zoe fumbled in her robes for their pass. It had been signed by a Byzantine general within the city—a man friendly to John Cantacuzene. Zoe checked to be sure that the girls’ faces were covered by their heavy black head veiling. “Remember,” she warned them, “keep your eyes lowered at all times, your hands hidden in the sleeves of your robes, and speak not! Helena, I know that you have reached an age where young men fascinate you, but remember that nuns are not interested in men. If you flirt, if you attract attention, we will be captured. You will never get to be empress then, so mind my words.”
A moment later came the challenge, “Halt! Who goes there?” A young soldier blocked their way.
They stopped. Zoe said, “Sister Irene of St. Barbara’s Convent. My two assistants and I are bound outside the walls to help a woman in labor. Here is my pass.”
The guard glanced briefly at the parchment, then said, “My captain will see you in the guardroom, good sister. You and your nuns may pass through my checkpoint,” and he pointed the way up the steps of the tower to a landing with a door.
They climbed the unrailed stone steps slowly, clinging in the strong wind, to the side of the tower. Once Helena slipped, and she whimpered in fright. Theadora grasped her older sister and shoved her to her feet. Finally they reached their goal. Pushing the door open, they entered the guardroom.
The captain took the parchment from Zoe’s slim white hand.
“Are you a doctor?” he asked. In Byzantium it was not unusual for women to be doctors.
“Yes, captain.”
“Would you look at one of my men? I think he may have broken a bone in his wrist today in a fall.”
“Of course, captain,” said Zoe kindly, and with more assurance than she felt. “But might I do so on my return? Your man’s case is not desperate, and the woman we go to attend is the young wife of a childless old merchant. The gentleman has always been very generous to St. Barbara’s, and his anxiety is great.”
Theadora listened in utter amazement. Zoe’s voice was calm, and her story plausible. At that moment Theadora’s respect for her mother increased a hundredfold.
“He is in pain, sister,” said the captain.
Zoe drew a small box from her robes and shook out two small gilded pills. “Have your man take these,” she said. “It will ease his pain, and he will sleep until I return.”
“My thanks, good sister. Trooper Basil! Escort the doctor and her nuns out the moat postern.” Saluting neatly, the captain bade them a safe journey.
Silently they followed the soldier down several flights of stairs into a long stone corridor, the walls of which were wet and green with slime. It was damp and bone-chilling cold in the tunnel. The corridor was lit at intervals by smoking pitch torches stuck into rusting iron wall holders.
“Where are we?” asked Zoe of their guide.
“Beneath the walls, sister,” came the reply. “I’ll let you out a small postern gate on the other side of the moat.”
“We pass beneath the moat?”
“Aye, sister,” he grinned at her. “Just a couple of feet of dirt and a few tiles between us and nearly a sea of water!”
Plodding along behind her mother, Theadora felt a swelling of panic in her chest, but she bravely fought it down. Beside her, a white-faced Helena was barely breathing. That’s all we need, thought Theadora, Helena fainting! She reached out and pinched her older sister hard. Helena gasped and shot her a venomous look, but the color began to creep back into her face.
Ahead of them was a small door set into the wall. The soldier stopped, relit Zoe’s lantern, fit a large key into the lock, and slowly turned it. The door swung silently open, allowing the wind to rush into the tunnel, blowing their robes about them. The lantern flickered.
“Good luck, sisters,” said the soldier as they stepped out into the night. The door closed quickly behind them.
For a moment they stood silent, then Zoe raised her lantern, and said, “Here is the path. Your father said we were to follow it until we were met by his men. Come, my daughters, it cannot be far.”
They had walked a few minutes when Theadora begged, “Stop a moment, Mama. I would look a final time upon 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. And may I not for many years, she thought!
“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
Theadora
1350 to 1351
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 she climbed back up to the top of the wall.
The wall, however, was old, and worn away in several places. Its only traffic for many years had been the cats of the city who frequently courted the privacy of the convent gardens. Flushed with her success, Theadora did not watch her footing and suddenly she found herself falling. But, to her surprise, she did not hit the ground. Instead, she fell—shrieking—into the strong arms of a laughing young man.
The arms cradled her, gently but firmly, and seemed in no hurry to release her. Jet-black eyes looked her over thoroughly, admiringly. “Are you a thief? Or merely a naughty little nun?” he asked.
“Neither.” She was amazed to find she still had a voice. “Please put me down, sir.”
“Not until I learn your identity, violet eyes. You are not veiled, so you cannot be Turkish. Who are you?”
Theadora had never been this close to a man other than her father. It was not unpleasant. The man’s chest was hard, somehow reassuring, and he smelled of sunshine.
“Have you lost your tongue, little one?” he queried softly.
She blushed and bit her lip in vexation. She had the uncomfortable feeling that he knew what she had been thinking. “I am a student at the convent,” she said. “Please, sir, would you help me back up onto the wall? If they find me gone, I shall be scolded.”
Setting her down, he quickly climbed onto the wall. Leaning over, he pulled her up onto the wall. Then, leaping lightly into the convent garden, he held out his arms to her. “Jump, violet eyes.” He caught her easily and set her on her feet. “Now you won’t be scolded,” he chuckled. “What on earth made you climb the wall?”
Feeling more secure now, she looked up at him mischievously. Reaching into a pocket of her tunic dress, Theadora drew out a peach. “I wanted one,” she said simply, biting into it. The juice ran down her chin. “The gate was locked, so I climbed the wall.”
“Do you always get what you want?”
“Yes, but I do not usually want very much,” she answered.
He laughed. “My name is Murad. What’s yours?”
“Theadora.”
“Too formal. I shall call you Adora, for you’re a most adorable creature.”
She blushed, then gasped in su
rprise as he bent and kissed her. “Oh! How dare you, sir? You must not do that again! I am a married woman.”
The black eyes twinkled. “Yet, Adora, I will wager that was your first kiss.” She flushed again and tried to turn away from him, but he gently caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “And,” he continued, “I will also wager that you’re wed to an old man. No young man with blood in his veins would leave you languishing in a convent. You are quite outrageously fair.”
She raised her eyes to him, and he saw with amazement that in the sunlight they shone an amethyst color. “It is true that I have not seen my husband for several years, but you must not speak thusly to me. He is a good man. Please go now, sir. If you were caught here, it would not go well for you.”
He made no move to leave. “Tomorrow night begins the week of the full moon. I shall wait for you in the orchard.”
“I will certainly not come!”
“Are you afraid of me, Adora?” he taunted.
“No!”
“Then prove it—and come.” Reaching out he caught her to him, kissing her slowly with a gentle, controlled passion. For the briefest moment she yielded to him, and all the things she and her classmates had discussed with regard to kissing flashed through her mind, and she realized that they knew nothing of the truth. This was sweetness beyond belief, ecstasy beyond her wildest imaginings, and honeyed fire poured through her loins, making her weak.
Releasing her mouth, he held her gently to him Their eyes met for a moment in a strange understanding. Then, suddenly terrified by her response to him, Theadora tore herself free and fled down the neat gravel path. His mocking laughter followed her. She heard his voice. “Tomorrow, Adora.”
Gaining the sanctuary first of her house, and then of her bedchamber, she collapsed on her bed, trembling violently, ignoring the peaches that spilled from her pockets and bumped across the floor.
She had not known that a kiss could be so—she sought for the right word—so powerful! So intimate! That was certainly what it had been. Intimate! An invasion of her person. And yet—a little smile played about her lips—and yet she had liked it.
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