His arm slid around her, and he leaned over to kiss her. “Your mother,” he told Bajazet and Yakub, “used to dance for me alone.” He chuckled. “She was extremely skillful, as I remember.”

Adora laughed. “I am surprised you do remember, my lord, since you rarely allowed me to finish a dance.”

“Do you still dance for Father?” Bajazet enquired politely.

“Occasionally,” she answered, and laughed at his surprised look.

Murad was slightly disgruntled. “If you would ask my harem,” growled Murad to Bajazet, “you would find out that I am not quite dead, boy!”

“Peace, my lords,” Adora interposed between them. “Bajazet, Yakub, see that your troops are comfortable for the night, and pray with them for Allah’s blessing on us. Your father and I bid you both a good night.”

The two princes rose, kissed her, bid their father a good evening, and left the tent. She dismissed the musicians and the two dancers. “Would you be alone, my lord?”

“For now, my dove. Go to our bed. I will join you later.”

She left. For a while Murad sat in silence listening to the wind howling about the tent. The lamps flickered eerily. The camp was very quiet but for that wind. He must win tomorrow! And he would! Then he would return to Asia Minor and finally subdue the irritating emir of Karamania.

Slowly Murad rose and moved to his prayer rug. Kneeling, he touched his forehead to the ground three times. He prayed for heaven’s protection of his cause and for all the men who made up his army whether they were Christian or Muslim. He prayed that those of his men who would die tomorrow would die in the true faith of Islam. Murad then stood up and joined his wife.

She awaited him with a steaming wooden bathtub. Swiftly disrobing him, she helped him into the hot water and gently bathed him. Then she wrapped him in a large, warm towel. When he was dry, she slipped a silk robe on him.

Murad stretched out on their bed and gave himself over to the pleasure of watching her as she bathed. He marveled at the firm beauty of her body. As he gazed at his beloved Adora he felt his need for her growing, though he seldom indulged in sexual games before a battle.

Clean and dry, she reached for her robe. “Don’t!” he said.

“As my lord wishes,” she answered and lay down, naked, next to him.

“Why is it woman, that you still manage to please me?” he muttered, pulling her into his arms.

“Perhaps it is my familiarity.”

“In other words, I am getting old and do not like new experiences,” he teased, nibbling on her plump shoulder.

“We both grow old, my dear lord.”

“Not that old!” he answered, taking her with a suddenness that surprised her. When she gasped softly, he stopped her mouth with a burning kiss, then murmured against her ear, “Woman of my heart, I love you. I would lose myself in you this night.”

And when he finally slept, content, she lay awake keeping watch over him, feeling strangely protective of this man who was her whole life. Only when the sky began to lighten and turn gray with the coming dawn did she fall asleep.

When she awoke the sun was up, and she could hear the battle trumpets sounding. There was great activity outside her tent. Murad was gone, and the pillow where his head had so lately lain was cold. She scrambled to her feet, calling to her slaves.

“Has the sultan gone? Is the battle begun?”

“No, and no, my lady,” said Iris. “There is time yet.”

Adora dressed quickly and hurried outside. Messengers rushed back and forth between the sections of the army. She noted that the wind was gone. The day was warm and quite clear. Catching the cloak of a young Janissary she said, “Take me to the sultan.” She was immediately led to Murad, who was with his generals.

They had all grown so used to seeing her with him on campaign that her presence was barely noticed. The sultan casually put an arm about her, and continued giving orders. He, with his cavalry guard and his Janissaries, would occupy the center position. Prince Bajazet would command the newly reorganized European troops on the right flank. Prince Yakub, reassigned to command the Asian troops, would be on the left flank.

With the other officers now dismissed, Adora wished both her son and Yakub good fortune and a safe return. Both young men knelt for her blessing. Then she and Murad were alone for a few minutes.

“The wind went with the night,” he said.

“I know. Why did you not wake me before you left the tent? I had hoped to break my fast with you. Some friendly peasants brought a basket of newly ripened peaches for us.”

He smiled. “Peaches! Always your weakness, eh, my dove?” Then he sobered. “I did not awake you, Adora, because I know how these last-minute preparations for battle always worry you. I had hoped to be away before you awoke.”

“And what, Allah forbid, if something had happened to you?” she said reproachfully.

“It is not my fate to die in battle, Adora. I shall always come home to you reeking of blood, sweat, and dirt, and you will scold me as you do our children, overlooking the fact that one cannot stay clean in battle. Am I not right, my dove?” He held her gently against him, and she could feel the sure beat of his heart beneath her hot cheek.

“You make me sound like a foolish maid,” she protested.

“Never foolish, but always my naughty maiden, stealing peaches from the convent orchard.”

She chuckled, somewhat mollified. “What on earth made you think of that?” she asked. But before he could answer, the trumpets sounded and the armorer hurried in with the sultan’s breastplate. With nimble fingers she helped him close the fastenings, then buckled on his great sword. The armorer and his assistant stood waiting with the sultan’s helmet, shield, and heavy mace.

The sultan put his arm about his wife and kissed her deeply. He held her for a moment. “May Allah guard you and bring you safely back to me, my lord,” she said softly. He smiled a quick smile at her, then walked swiftly from the tent.

For a moment she stood quietly. Then she called out, “Ali Yahya! Come! We will go and watch the battle.” The eunuch approached silently from a room within the tent. He draped a light silk cloak about her shoulders. Together they walked through the nearly deserted camp, and ascended a small hill overlooking the plain of Kossovo, the Plain of the Blackbirds.

Below them, in perfect formation and facing each other, were the armies of the Pan-Serbian Alliance and the Ottoman Empire. She saw Murad give the signal to attack, and an advance guard of two thousand archers loosed their arrows. The enemy foot soldiers raised their shield in what appeared to be a single motion. There were few casualties, and they parted to allow their cavalry through. The Serbs charged, shouting wildly, and broke through the Turks’ left flank. Prince Bajazet came to Yakub’s rescue with a massive counterstroke. He fought valiantly, using his great mace with deadly accuracy. Adora, watching from her hill, thought that her son seemed almost invincible. She was not able to see that he bled from several small wounds.

The battle remained in doubt. The hours flew by, and the Ottomans were still on the defensive. Then suddenly a great shout went up from the Serbian side as Vuk Brankovitch and his twelve thousand men withdrew from the battlefield. Badly weakened by this defection, the remaining members of the Pan-Serbian Alliance broke their ranks and fled. With a whoop of triumph the Ottoman soldiers tore after them.

Murad had been correct about the Serbs. They could not remain united, even under dire circumstances. Satisfied that his armies could finish without him, the sultan withdrew from the field. Adora and Ali Yahya hurried down the hill to meet him. As the little group returned to camp, slaves ran to meet their master. They took his armor and weapons from him and seated him to draw off his boots. They brought him a basin of warm, scented water, and he washed his hands and face.

“You see,” he grinned up at Adora, “it is not my fate to die in battle.”

“Praise Allah!” she murmured, sitting on a stool by his feet and laying her head against his knee. He reached down and stroked her hair. A slave placed a bowl of peaches at his elbow, and Murad handed her one before biting into one himself. The sultan’s aid-de-camp entered the tent, prostrated himself, and then said, “We have a deserter of high rank from the enemy side, my padishah. One of Prince Lazar‘s sons-in-law. He asks to see you.”

“My lord,” protested Adora, “the battle has exhausted you. See this princeling tomorrow.”

Murad looked irritated by the interruption. But assuming it was Vuk Brankovitch, he sighed and said, “I will see him now and get it over with. Then we will spend a few quiet hours together before my generals come to give me their reports.”

Adora got up, and moved back into the shadows of the tent. The aide-de-camp left and returned quickly with a richly dressed young man who knelt in submission before the seated Murad. The man was not Brankovitch.

“Your name?” demanded the sultan.

“Milosh Obravitch, infidel dog!” cried the young man, jumping forward, his hand raised.

Adora screamed and leapt from the shadows, flinging herself in the direction of Murad. The aide-de-camp and the guards were as quick. It was too late. Milosh Obravitch twice plunged his dagger into the sultan’s chest, so hard that both times it went through his back. The Janissaries, streaming into the tent, grabbed the assassin. Spread-eagling him, they lopped off his head. Blood from the man’s severed neck gushed onto the rugs.

Heedless, Adora cradled her husband in her arms.

“Murad! Oh, my love!” she sobbed.

He struggled to speak, his face white, the light in his eyes fading rapidly. “Forgive…the cruelties. I love you…Adora…”

“I know, my love! I know! Do not speak. The physician is coming.” Oh, God! She felt so cold! Why was she so cold?

A sad smile flickered on his face, and he shook his head. “Kiss me farewell, dove.”

She bent her wet face and touched his cooling lips with hers.

“Peaches,” he said weakly. “You smell of peaches,” and then he fell back in her arms, his black eyes open and sightless.

For a moment she thought her heart would stop and that she might be granted the mercy of following him. Then she heard her own voice saying, “The sultan is dead. Notify Prince-notify Sultan Bajazet. No one else! No one must know yet!”

The Janissary captain stepped forward. “Prince Yakub?”

“See to it immediately after the battle,” she ordered. “Prince Yakub is not to return. Do not wait for word from my son. I will not have this decision on him. It is my responsibility.”

“To hear is to obey, Highness.”

“Ali Yahya!”

“Madame?”

“No one enters this tent until my son comes. Tell them the sultan rests with his wife after a hard battle and cannot be disturbed.”

“It will be as my lady says.”

Then she was alone, still cradling Murad’s body. Gently she drew his eyelids closed. He looked so relaxed, asleep. Slowly her tears fell on him. She made no sound. In the heat of the tent she could smell the nearby bowl of peaches, and she recalled his last words to her. “Peaches! You smell of peaches.” They had begun together with peaches stolen from St. Catherine’s orchard. Now it was ended in a tent smelling of peaches on a battlefield called Kossovo.

Throughout the rest of the day Theadora of Byzantium sat on the floor of the sultan’s tent holding her husband’s dead body. And while she sat, her numbed mind remembered their years together. It had not always been as easy between them as it had been in these last years. He had not always understood the passionate, intelligent woman whom he had moved heaven and earth to possess; and she had rarely been able to hide the woman she really was. But there had always, from their first moment, been love between them. Always, even during their fierce battles.

I have been blessed, she thought, in having such love. Then she thought again, But what will I do now? Bajazet respects me, but I do not think he knows how to love, even me. Zubedya certainly does not care for me, nor do her four sons, my grandsons. Once again I am alone. Murad! Murad! Why have you left me? She wailed her grief silently, and she rocked back and forth with her precious burden.

It was thus that Bajazet found her, her eyes swollen almost shut from weeping. He silently surveyed her. Her robe was covered with dried and blackened blood, her face puffy and streaked with tears. A wave of pity swept over him. He had never seen her other than elegant and beautiful. Bajazet had not yet found love, and did not understand the emotion, but he knew how his parents had loved one another. She was going to be lost.