Adora

by Bertrice Small

  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.

  The Struma River Valley was part of Serbia. The Vardar was in Macedonia. Both areas were as torn with internal troubles as Bulgaria had been. The Serbian army marched to the Maritza River to engage the Ottoman forces. They were defeated at Cernomen and three of their princes were killed.

  Thus the Serbians were conquered as easily as the Thracians had been some ten years earlier. The two major cities of Serres and Drama were swiftly colonized, the main churches turned into mosques. The smaller cities and villages of the Struma Valley accepted and acknowledged the sultan’s sovereignty. The mountain chieftains became Ottoman vassals.

  The following year Murad’s armies crossed the Vardar River and took the eastern end of its valley. Now Murad paused in his campaign of western expansion, and turned his eyes back to Anatolia.

  By this time, John Paleaologi had decided that the time was right to seek aid from western Europe. Murad was far too occupied to notice his scholarly brother-in-law, so John traveled quietly to Italy to warn of the growing Ottoman menace.

  Once before the emperor had sought aid of his western neighbors. He had made a secret visit to Hungary two years prior and, by swearing the submission of the Greek Church to the Latin, he was promised aid against the Turks. On his return home, however, he was captured and held by the Bulgarians who objected to what they considered the emperor’s betrayal. This gave a fine excuse to John’s Catholic cousin, Amedeo of Savoy, to invade Gallipoli. Having captured it, he sailed into the Black Sea to fight the Bulgarians, and gained his cousin’s release.

  Freed, John Paleaologi made for Constantinople. When his cousin insisted on his acceptance to Rome, John refused. Ange
red, Amedeo fought the Greeks.

  Now, John ventured to Rome where he once again foreswore the Orthodox faith in favor of the Roman Church. In exchange he was to receive military aid from his fellow Catholic princes. When the aid was not forthcoming, John sadly departed for home. In Venice he was detained for “debt” and forced to send to his elder son for the ransom. Andronicus had been left as regent in his father’s absence.

  Helena saw an opportunity to be free of her husband, and Andronicus saw his opportunity to be emperor. He refused to aid his father. But John’s younger son, Manuel, saw his opportunity to get into his father’s favor, thus supplanting his older sibling. Manuel raised the ransom and personally brought his father home to Constantinople.

  John Paleaologi faced the sad truth. The city of his ancestors was doomed to fall to the Turks. Perhaps not today, or tomorrow, but sometime in the near future the city would change hands. Those who worshiped in the Greek Church were in the minority, and would get no help from their Catholic brethren.

  Wiser and wearier than he had ever been, the emperor of Byzantium reaffirmed his oath of vassalage to his brother-in-law, the sultan. Never again would he seek aid against the Ottoman whom he found to be a better friend than his Christian associates.

  Though the Pope and the princes of western Christendom were not aware of it, their shabby treatment of Byzantium’s ruler would one day have far-reaching effects. It meant that each eastern-European grouping—Greek, Serb, Slav, or Bulgar—would prefer the rule of the Ottoman Muslims who offered them religious freedom to that of the western-European Catholic Christians who tried to force them to the Latin Church.

  John Paleaologi settled down to what he hoped would now be a quiet life. His wife, involved as usual in her many love affairs, was being discreet and offered him no current trouble. His older son, Andronicus, in total disgrace and sulking, spent all of his time with Prince Cuntuz, following his unpleasant nature. Manuel had been elevated to the position of co-emperor as reward for his aid. John Paleaologi knew Manuel’s motives, but at least the boy had brains, really loved his father, and was eager to learn the business of ruling. Unlike Andronicus, Manuel understood that leadership involved responsibility as well as privilege.

  For a short time all was quiet in the Byzantine Empire. And then one day the emperor and his younger son awoke to find that Andronicus and Cuntuz were leading a rebellion against their respective fathers. Where they had gotten the money to finance such a venture was a puzzle to everyone but the emperor.

  The emperor’s spies were swift and thorough. The money had come originally from the papacy which had tithed the rulers of western Europe to pay for their meddling. It was next transferred to the Hungarians who passed it on to the two renegade princes. These two had both foresworn the Greek Church in favor of the Latin and had promised to bring their subjects to Catholicism, once they overcame their fathers.

  Neither John nor Murad could believe that the leaders of the West actually expected two such inept fools as Andronicus and Cuntuz to deliver what they promised. The real reason they had been set to rebellion was probably the hope of stirring dissension between Constantinople and the sultan.

  Murad’s response to the plot was characteristically swift.

  He trapped the two miscreants and their ragtag army in the town of Demotika. The townspeople were hardly overjoyed to find themselves caught in the midst of this siege. They had no interest in the rebellion. They smuggled out a message to the sultan, disclaiming any responsibility for the plot and begging the sultan to free them of Andronicus and Cuntuz.

  Murad quickly complied with the wishes of his loyal subjects: he took the town with a minimum of bloodshed and damage. The Greek rebels who had aided Andronicus and Cuntuz were bound together and flung living from the city walls to drown in the Maritza River below. The sultan ordered the young Turks involved to be executed by their own fathers.

  Now the two rulers turned to their own offspring. Looking on Cuntuz with contempt, Murad said, “This is not the first time you have earned my anger. The last time you fled rather than face the consequences of your terrible crime. You will not flee me now, Cuntuz. If it were up to me I know the punishment I should inflict on you, but judgement belongs to the mother of my dead sons and my living heir.”

  Cuntuz’s composure slipped. He could face a swift death, but the vengeance of a mother for the murder of her young sons was a frightening thing. The Byzantines were noted for particularly exquisite tortures.

  From behind the sultan’s throne stepped Theadora and Bajazet. The boy had grown in the last four years. He was almost a man, and there had been talk of an alliance with the heiress-princess of Germiyan. Suddenly the sultan’s voice boomed, “Theadora of Byzantium, what sentence will you pronounce on this man for the murder of your sons, Osman and Orkhan?”

  “Death, my lord, preceded by blinding,” came the reply.

  “So be it,” said the sultan. “On you Cuntuz of Gallipoli I pronounce the sentence of death by beheading for your rebellion against me. First, however, your hands will be cut off, and you will be blinded for your crime of fratricide. This is my judgement.”

  “A boon, my lord!”

  “Yes, Theadora?”

  “I would blind him myself. And my son, Bajazet, would perform the beheading.”

  “The law forbids the taking of a brother’s life by another brother.”

  “Do not the prophets say an eye for an eye, my lord? And, too, this man’s mother was a known whore. The mullahs and ulemas forbade his inclusion on the list of your legal heirs. I see nothing of you in him, and I do not recognize him as either your son or a half brother to Prince Bajazet. If by wildest chance your blood does flow in his veins, then his fratricide and his rebellion against you negate any relationship between the Ottoman and him. Therefore my son breaks no law.”

  A very faint smile touched the sultan’s lips, and he leaned over to his brother-in-law. “Does she not reason like a Greek advocate?” he asked softly.

  “She is her father’s daughter,” said John, “knowing when to press the advantage and when to retreat.”

  Murad turned back to his favorite. “It will be as you wish, Adora. But are you sure you wish to blind this renegade yourself?”

  Her amethyst eyes darkened and grew hard. “For four years my children have cried daily to me from their graves to avenge them. They will not rest until I do—and neither will I. Having someone else perform the deed is not enough. Bajazet and I must do it ourselves, else we condemn Osman and Orkhan to wander forever in the half-world between life and death.”

  “So be it,” pronounced Murad, and the mullahs and ulemas sitting cross-legged about the judgement hall nodded their agreement. Vengeance was something they could understand. That Theadora and her son wished to perform this act of vengeance they approved. Bajazet had already shown his courage by fighting with his father against the rebels. It was good to know that his mother, female though she was, also possessed courage.

  Now all eyes turned to the emperor of Byzantium to see what judgment he would pass on his own son. John could do no less than his overlord, and so Andronicus was also condemned to mutilation, blinding, and beheading. First, however, he would watch his friend die.

  A small, flat brass brazier was brought forth by a slave. It glowed red with burning coals. Seeing it forced Cuntuz to reality, and he tried to run. Two young Janissaries leapt forward and dragged him back. He pulled away from them with the superhuman strength of a desperate man and threw himself at Adora’s feet.

  “Mercy, lady,” he babbled. “My life I forfeit, but blind me not!”

  She drew back as if his very touch would contaminate her. Her voice was icy, toneless. “Did you show my babies mercy when you brutally murdered them? They trusted you. You were a man to whom they looked up, and they were but impressionable little boys. If I had my way, Cuntuz of Gallipoli, I should have you flayed alive and then thrown to the dogs!”

  A block and a kettle of boiling pi
tch were added to the brazier. Cuntuz was dragged screaming to his knees by the brawny Janissaries. His hands were forced onto the block and, before he could scream again, they were removed from his body by the swift blade of a sword. The stumps were thrust into the hot pitch to prevent bleeding. Shocked into silence he could only stare in horror at his arms. Now he was dragged backward, his handless arms pinioned to his sides, his body straddled, his head held in the iron grip of a large Janissary.

  A slave handed Adora a small pair of iron pincers. Seeing her hand tremble slightly, the sultan moved to her side. “You do not have to do this yourself,” he said softly. Her face was very pale.

  She looked up, her violet eyes tearing. “When he murdered my children he was not content to simply leave them to die on the mountain. He opened bloody wounds on them to attract wild beasts. Had the Janissaries not arrived in time, they might have been torn to pieces. What a terrible death for anyone, let alone little boys! Not satisfied, he poured icy water on them and they nearly froze in the night air. Bajazet still catches cold easily because of that.”

  “My lord Murad, I cringe at the thought of causing anyone pain, but I will be revenged! My children, both living and dead, demand it!”

  And before anyone realized what she was doing, Adora took a live coal from the pan with the pincers and touched it to Cuntuz’s right eye. He made no outcry for he had fainted. She repeated her action on the left eye when it was opened by the Janissary.

  No sound was heard except a pitiful whimpering from the throat of Prince Andronicus. Adora lay the pincers carefully on the side of the pan. Heedless of the roomful of people, Murad put an arm about her and led her to a stool.

  “You are a brave woman,” he said softly.

  “I did what must be done,” she answered. Then, in a low voice, “Reprieve the death sentence and the mutilation for my nephew, my lord. Have his blinding done with boiling vinegar. That will make it only a temporary condition.”

  “Why?”

  “Because then Andronicus will remain capable of continuing to quarrel and scheme against his father and brother. That will keep them so well occupied that Byzantium will not bother us further. Your vengeance here has been swift and fair. We need not the death of an unimportant princeling. It accomplishes nothing.”