Safe behind the walls of St. Barbara’s Convent, little Theadora knew nothing of her impending marriage to a man fifty years her senior. But her mother knew, and Zoe wept that her exquisite child should be sacrificed. Such was the lot, however, of royal princesses, whose only value was in a marriage trade. Zoe actually believed that the sultan had helped John simply because he desired Theadora. Zoe was a devout woman-and the church kept alive the stories of the infidel’s evil ways. It did not occur to the anxious mother that Tzympe was what the sultan was really after.

It was Helena who maliciously broke the news to her younger sister. Four years older than Theadora, she was as beautiful as an angel with her golden hair and lovely blue eyes. But she was not an angel. She was selfish, vain, and cruel. The gentle Zoe had no influence over Helena.

One day when Mother Thamar had left the girls to practice a new embroidery stitch, Helena whispered, “They have chosen you a husband, sister.” Then, without waiting for Theadora to ask who, Helena continued, “You are to be the old infidel’s third wife. You will spend the rest of your days locked up in a harem…while I rule in Byzantium!”

“You lie!” accused Theadora.

Helena giggled. “No, I don’t. Ask Mother. She weeps often enough about it these days. Father needed soldiers he could depend on, and he offered you in exchange for troops. I understand the Turks love little children in their beds. Even boys! They…” And Helena lowered her voice while she described a particularly nasty perversion.

Theadora paled and slowly crumpled to the floor in a faint. Helena regarded her curiously for minute, then she called for help. When questioned by her mother she blandly disclaimed any understanding of why her sister had fainted-a lie that was quickly exposed as Theadora returned to consciousness.

Zoe rarely chastised her children physically, but this time she angrily slapped Helena’s smug face several times. “Take her away,” she told the servants. “Take her from me before I beat her to death!” Then Zoe gathered her youngest daughter into her soft arms. “There, my little one. There, love. It is not so bad.”

Theadora sobbed. “Helena said the sultan likes little girls in his bed. She said he would hurt me! That when a man loves a woman it hurts her, and with little girls it is worse! I am not yet a woman, Mother! I will surely die!”

“Your sister is deliberately cruel, and she is also badly informed, Theadora. Yes, you are to marry the sultan. Your father needed the aid Orkhan could give him, and you were not yet betrothed. It is the privileged duty of a princess to serve her family by an advantageous marriage. What other good is a woman?

“However, you will not live in the sultan’s house until you have begun your womanly show of blood. Your father has arranged it that way. If you are lucky Orkhan will die before then, and you will come home to make a good Christian marriage. In the meantime, you will reside in your own house, safe within the walls of St. Catherine’s Convent in Bursa. Your presence there will guarantee your father Ottoman aid.”

The child sniffed and nestled close to her mother. “I do not want to go. Please don’t make me, Mama. I would sooner take the veil and remain here at St. Barbara’s.”

“My child!” Startled, Theadora looked up into her mother’s shocked face. “Have you heard nothing I have said?” exclaimed Zoe. “You are Theadora Cantacuzene, a princess of Byzantium. You have a duty. That duty is to aid your family as best you can, and you must never forget that, my daughter. It is not always pleasant to do one’s duty, but our duty separates us from the rabble. They exist merely to satisfy their base desires. You must never shirk your duty, my dearest daughter.”

“When must I go?” whispered the child.

“Your father now besieges the city. When it is taken, we will see.”

But Constantinople was not easily taken, not even by one of its own. On the land side, the walls-twenty-five feet thick-rose in three levels behind a moat sixty feet wide and twenty-two feet deep. Normally dry, the moat was flooded during siege by a series of pipes. The first wall was a low one used to shield a line of archers. The next wall rose twenty-seven feet above the second level and sheltered more troops. Beyond lay the third, and strongest, bulwark. The towers-some seventy feet high-held archers, Greek fire machines, and missile throwers.

On the sea side, Constantinople was protected by a single wall with towers set at regular intervals which also enclosed each of its seven harbors. Across the Golden Horn was stretched a thick chain, which prevented unwelcome ships from sailing up the horn.

And across the horn the two sub-cities of Galata and Pera were also well-walled.

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?”