Bertrice Small - Adora

“You were more than fair, my lord,” she answered.

“Have you no feeling for your people, Mother?” asked Bajazet.

Murad stifled a smile at Adora’s frown of annoyance. “My dear son,” she replied, her voice dripping sarcasm, “though I am but an infidel dog, and a lowly female at that, I am still an Ottoman. Your uncle John legally ceded Philadelphia to your father for certain aid and favors. Its governor chose not to obey his overlord, and incited the people to resistance. They have only reaped the rewards of their disobedience. If we had chosen to let them defy us until they chose to stop, it would have cost many Ottoman lives in the future. Though it is not so, many people believe that to show mercy is a sign of weakness. Therefore we can rarely allow ourselves that gentle luxury. Remember, Bajazet, always strike quickly, before your enemies have a chance to think, else they defeat you.”

Murad nodded. She had learned a great deal of battle strategy from him, he thought. He was surprised and flattered. “Listen to your mother, my son,” he said, and his eyes twinkled teasingly, “for though she is but a woman, she is a clever Greek. And her words are given weight by virtue of her vast age.” And he laughed as she launched herself at him.

Prince Bajazet looked horrified as his parents wrestled together amid the pillows. He was a grown man with a pregnant wife and did not think of his mother and father as being physical with each other. To be sure, his father kept a harem, and his mother was yet young, but-they were his parents!

“Scoundrel!” hissed Adora, yanking at Murad’s thick silver-black hair.

“Witch,” murmured the sultan, “how is it you still have the ability to inflame me?”

“My vast age has given me the power to stir the watery blood of an older man!” she retorted wickedly.

He laughed again. Then he found her angry mouth and kissed it thoroughly before moving on to more interesting parts of her anatomy. Adora began to make soft, contented noises. Flushing crimson, Prince Bajazet fled the room. His parents never noticed that he had gone.

The Ottomans now ruled Asia Minor, except for the emirate of Karamania and the small Greek Christian kingdom of Trebizond. Murad now turned his eyes back to Europe. He saw that he needed three additional cities if he were to secure his position in the Balkans. These were Sofia in northern Bulgaria, which would extend his rule to the Danube; and Serbian Nish and Monastir, to establish his rule west of the Vardar River. Murad and his entire household returned to his European capital, Adrianople, from there to direct the new campaigns.

While he occupied himself with his campaigns, Adora occupied herself with their growing family. Zubedya had quickly produced four sons who were named Suleiman, Isa, Musa, and Kasim. Adora did not like the Germiyan. The closeness she had hoped would develop between them had not. The Germiyan was a proud, cold woman who gave only what she had to and no more. She did not love her husband. In fact, Adora did not believe she had any affection at all for Bajazet.

Her son was a brilliant, mercurial man very much like his maternal grandfather, John Cantacuzene, but with a dangerous streak of pride and rashness that worried Adora. He had, she knew, never felt anything but the mildest affection for any woman. Yet she knew that he had never had a man for a lover, either. There had never been any grand passion in Bajazet’s life. And Adora felt that he needed the stabilizing influence of a beloved woman. Neither Zubedya nor the few silly girls he kept in his small harem filled this need.

It seemed that, unlike his parents, Bajazet was not a sensual man. He did not seem to feel the lack of a passionate love. His life was completely taken up by the military.

This did not bother his wife. She seemed to have no interest in anything having to do with Bajazet, and that lack of interest applied to his sons. No sooner had she produced them than they were turned over to wetnurses and slaves.

Bajazet returned to Asia on his father’s orders in order to help Murad take Karamania. Germiyan had been Zubedya’s dowry. Hamid had been purchased from its ruler who preferred gold and peace of mind to the nervous strain of having the Ottoman Empire on his doorstep. To the south, the emir of Tekke had fathered a son in his old age. He fought hard with the sultan to retain his lands. The result was that Murad gained Tekke’s uplands and lake region, leaving the emir, for the present, with the southern valleys and the lowlands between the Taurus mountains and the Mediterranean.

Only Karamania stood in Murad’s way. Despite his large army, the left wing of which was under Prince Bajazet’s command, the battle of Konya ended in a draw. Both sides claimed victory. Murad had gained neither territory nor booty, tribute nor military aid. The emir of Karamania kissed his hand in a public gesture of reconciliation, but that was all Murad achieved.

Murad had fought his war on two fronts, and had been generally victorious. But he had met his match in one Muslim ruler, and could not extend his dominion any further into Asia. He had, however, gained his objective in Europe: Sofia, Nish, and Monastir, along with the city of Prilep to its north, were now Ottoman strongholds.

Back in Asia Minor, Murad had trouble with his army. In an effort not to irritate the Asian Muslims, he ordered his troops to refrain from looting the countryside about the city of Konya. The Serbian troops fighting with Prince Bajazet were furious. They considered themselves cheated, as looting and rape were a soldier’s reward. They disobeyed the sultan. Murad could not allow such a breach of discipline in his ranks. The Serbian contingent was lined up, and every sixth man executed on the spot. The rest returned to Serbia raging over what they considered unjust treatment.

Never one to miss an opportunity, Thamar’s uncle, Prince Lazar, emerged from hiding. Using the incident at Konya, Lazar fomented Serbian resistance against Murad. With the Ottomans in control of Nish, upper Serbia and Bosnia were now threatened. Lazar and the prince of Bosnia formed the Pan-Serbian Alliance.

Murad’s younger son, Yakub, had been left in charge of the Ottoman troops in Europe. His answer to Lazar was to take his army across the Vadar and invade Bosnia. Unfortunately, the majority of the Ottoman army was in Asia with the sultan. Prince Yakub, badly outnumbered, was defeated at Plochnik. He lost four-fifths of his men.

There was wild rejoicing among the Serbs, Bosnians, Albanians, Bulgarians, and Hungarians. The invincible Turks had finally been defeated! Immediately the Balkan Slavs rallied about Lazar’s banner, determined to drive the Ottomans from Europe.

Murad showed no great haste to avenge Plochnik.

“How long will they remain united?” he asked Adora. “They have never before been able to stay together. Soon one of them will be insulted by another, or else they will start fighting over religion.”

“But you cannot ignore the insult these Slavs have given us,” she fumed.

He smiled. “I shall not be idle, my dove. Thamar’s father grows old. I think before his sons get any ideas about ruling and join the Pan-Serbian alliance, I must relieve Ivan of his territory.”

At the first sign of Ottoman troops Tsar Ivan withdrew to his castle-fortress on the Danube and sued for peace. Then, suddenly, he changed his mind and attempted a last, desperate resistance. One of his two sons died in the fighting. The survivor was strangled by Janissaries at the sultan’s victory. Murad was now content to leave his father-in-law as his governor in the new territory. Ivan was a broken man, and in no position to aid his fellow Slavs in their new alliance.

Thamar, wild with grief over her brothers’ deaths, privately vowed vengeance on Murad. Over the last few years the eunuch, Demetrios, had held her complete confidence. But now she shut even him out of her thoughts. Demetrios worried. Though he reported his mistress’s actions to Ali Yahya, he loved the Bulgarian princess greatly. She was, he knew, her own worst enemy. On several occasions he had stepped in just in time to prevent her from destroying herself in some futile plot.

Thamar, with the slyness of the half-mad, managed to enter into another secret correspondence. This time it was with her uncle, Prince Lazar, head of the Pan-Serbian Alliance. The letters flew between them. Murad and Bajazet would die, assassinated by some means. Prince Yakub was to be the next sultan. Her son would, Thamar promised, be converted to Christianity. He would lead his people out of darkness and into the true faith. Islam would soon be wiped out.

The time, of course, was not right yet, Prince Lazar wrote to his demented niece. He would tell her when it was. Lazar was pleased by this chink in the sultan’s camp. He wanted the deaths of the sultan and both his sons. Leaderless, the Ottomans could be destroyed. Thamar’s madness was the key to success here. Yes, Lazar was delighted.

Thamar hugged her secret to herself, occasionally breaking into a wild laughter that frightened her slaves. Frantic, knowing that something was seriously wrong, Demetrios tried to find out what she hid. He applied to Ali Yahya for aid, but the chief eunuch was busy making preparations for Adora to accompany Murad on his campaign against the Pan-Serbian Alliance.

“Your mistress is merely suffering shock over her brothers’ deaths,” he told the anxious Demetrios.

“No! No! It is more than simply her old bitterness. She is plotting something, but I cannot find out what. She says her actions will elevate her to sainthood, and be the ruin of Islam.”

Ali Yahya made an impatient noise. “What can she possibly do, Demetrios? She never leaves her apartments except to travel between palaces. She hasn’t had a visitor in years. Rest easy. The lady Thamar babbles with frustration. She is helpless.” And he dismissed his worried slave.

Several weeks later the armies of the Pan-Serbian Alliance faced the sultan’s armies across a desolate mountain field known as the Plain of the Blackbirds. Above the tents at the western end flew the flags of Serbia, Bosnia, Albania, Hungary, Herzegovina, and Wallachia. Flags of the Papacy and of the Orthodox Churches could also be seen.

At the eastern end flew the flags of the Ottoman sultan. The sultan was outnumbered, but the morale and confidence of his men were great. Murad was so sure of victory that he gave orders that no castles, cities, or villages in the territory be destroyed. It was a rich land he was fighting over, and it was not in his interest to ravage it.

Hearing of this Prince Lazar felt his confidence draining away. He began to panic. Why, he asked himself, did Murad feel so confident when he was so badly outnumbered? There was treachery within his own camp! He sensed it. But who would betray him? His glance fell upon one of his sons-in-law, Milosh Obravitch, who had recently criticized him. Of course!

“Traitor!” Lazar shouted at the startled young man. “It is you who has betrayed us!”

Amazed, Milosh Obravitch protested his innocence. He was hustled out of Prince Lazar’s tent by his brother-in-law, Vuk Brankovitch. Brankovitch’s heart was pounding. He had come as close to fainting a few minutes back as ever in his life. When Lazar had shouted “traitor”, he had thought his game was up, but had kept his calm long enough to realize it was the hapless Milosh who was being accused. Brankovitch rushed Milosh from the tent and Lazar’s wrath before his denials could be believed. He did not want Lazar turning his suspicions elsewhere. For Brankovitch knew that tomorrow, when the battle began, he would be withdrawing his twelve thousand men from the fighting, mortally weakening the Pan-Serbian Alliance.

Vuk Brankovitch did not believe that the Pan-Serbian Alliance would prevail over the Ottoman Turks. After several years of marriage and eight daughters, Brankovitch finally had a healthy, infant son. The prearranged withdrawal of his troops would guarantee that his lands would remain his. Thus, they would pass to his son.

In the Ottoman camp the sultan worried, for the wind was blowing strongly from the west. Come morning, his troops would be at a disadvantage, fighting with dust in their eyes. He must pray to Allah for a change in the wind.

Murad sat cross-legged in his luxurious tent, eating supper with his two sons. Behind them Adora directed the slaves and nibbled a bit when she could. Three musicians played quietly. When the meal had been cleared away, the sultan motioned to his favorite wife to sit with him. Placing two small bowls of sugared almonds on nearby tables she settled herself by his side to watch the dancing.