“She is no wife to Murad,” snarled Helena. “She is his slave and his concubine. He has not even elevated her to the status of kadin.”
“Neither has he elevated anyone else, my dear. He has, however, publicly acknowledged Thea’s son as his son and his heir. That, my dear, is the greatest public declaration of his love for her that he can make. She is well aware of that and is content. You have lost, Helena. By merely being herself, Theadora has won. Cease this war on your sister. You have done enough. You tried to murder her and her oldest son, Halil, but the pirates of Phocaea held them for ransom. When the sultan learned of your involvement, the ransom cost me money I could not afford. Far worse, it cost me our beloved daughter, prestige, territory, and soldiers’ lives.
“When Thea came to us after Alexander’s death you violated our family’s honor by betraying her and selling her into slavery. When will you stop? When, Helena?”
“Never! Will you not understand, John? Thea and her sons are a terrible threat to us! They can even claim your throne through her!”
The emperor laughed heartily. “No, Helena, they cannot. Nor would Murad ever resort to such a silly ploy. My empire is in its decline. I know that. But it will not fall yet, not in my lifetime. I will do whatever I must to see to its continuation. As to our sons, only time will tell their strength as rulers.
“Helena, in our lifetime together, I have rarely forbidden you anything. I have turned a blind eye to your many lovers. Now, however, I do forbid you! Cease this vendetta against your sister. I have sent our new nephew a large two-handled gold cup encrusted with diamonds and turquoises, his birthstone. I had to levy a special tax on the churches of the city in order to raise the money for it. So poor is the royal credit that the goldsmiths would not make the cup without being paid in advance.”
“It’s disgusting,” said Helena. “Poor Sultan Orkhan dead so short a time, and his grieving widow marries once, has twins, is widowed yet a second time, becomes the sultan’s whore, and spawns yet another man’s bastard.”
“At least Thea confines herself to one man at a time, my love,” said John Paleaologi softly.
Helena’s sky blue eyes widened in shock as her husband continued, “Is one young stud at a time not enough for you, Helena? Playing the bitch in heat to an entire pack of young officers, even in the privacy of your own apartments, isn’t wise. Gossip spreads faster from six mouths than from one, and you must have performed remarkably. The accolades you received were truly marvelous.”
The empress swallowed hard. And John Paleaologi chuckled at her obvious discomfort.
“Why don’t you divorce me?” she whispered.
“Because, my dear, I prefer the known quantity. Like my father, I am lazy by nature. You have all the attributes of a good empress, my dear. You’ve given me sons who I know are mine. You are beautiful. And though you nag me constantly, you do not interfere in my government. I am not a man who adapts easily to change, and so I would prefer that you remain my wife. But if you cause any further scandal, Helena, I will dispose of you. You do understand that, don’t you, my dear?”
She nodded slowly, as surprised as she always was when he was masterful with her. Still, she would have the last word. “I know you have a mistress,” she said.
“Of course I do, Helena. You can hardly deny me my little diversion. She is a nice, quiet woman whose discretion I value highly. You could learn from her, my dear. Now remember what I have told you. Stop your battles with Theadora. Murad loves her-make no mistake about that-and her new son is the joy of his life.”
Helena said nothing further, but her mind was busy. Theadora was like a damned cat, emerging whole and with another life each time Helena struck at her. The empress of Byzantium valued her position highly, and for years her dreams had been haunted by a childish voice saying, “If I marry the infidel, I shall see he brings his army to capture the city. Then I shall be its empress, not you!”
That Theadora’s threat had been made in a fit of childish pique, and had been long forgotten by its originator, did not occur to the empress. In her tortured mind she could see only that, as the boundaries of the sultan’s empire widened, the boundaries of her empire shrank. The sultan’s beloved was Thea. So Helena, who had never been particularly bright, believed that if she could destroy Theadora, the Ottoman advance would stop.
In the short time Murad had been sultan, the Turks had gained effective control of Thrace, its key fortresses, and its rich plain which spread to the very foot of the Balkan mountain range. They had spread terror of the Ottomans throughout southeastern Europe by their deliberate massacre of the Chorlu garrison, whose commandant had been publicly beheaded. Adrianople had then fallen and was now the Turkish capital.
The Ottoman armies next moved westward. They bypassed Constantinople, but their emissaries were already with the emperor. Once again, John Paleaologi was forced to sign a treaty that bound him to refrain from regaining his losses in Thrace. He could not support his fellow Christians, the Serbians and the Bulgars, in their resistance against the advancing Turks. And he must support Murad militarily against his Muslim rivals in Asia Minor.
And though his own church condemned him, his ministers wailed, and his wife raged at him, John knew that he had bought more time for his city. He realized that Murad could probably take Constantinople. By acquiescing to his brother-in-law’s demands he saved the city. The Turks now went on to tougher challenges, thus allowing John the opportunity to secretly seek help elsewhere.
But he could not seem to convince the rulers of western Europe that if Constantinople fell, they themselves would be in grave danger. The old and foolish rivalry between the Roman and the Greek churches was partly at the bottom of western Europe’s reluctance to aid Byzantium. Then too, the Latin Christians fought among themselves. The great Italian banking houses which had financed everything from trade with the East to religious crusades began to fail. Recession and social crisis followed in Europe. The peasants revolted against their landlords whether these were feudal or monastic. Workers disputed with their merchant masters. The bubonic plague appeared from the East to ravage all of Europe. Discovery of the new world turned the youth of the old world westward, leaving Europe open to the Ottoman conqueror.
Murad’s armies penetrated deeper into Europe, to Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia. Then, suddenly, they appeared in Hungary, a stronghold of the Roman Church. Pope Urban V made several desperate attempts to unite the various Christian powers under his banner, even going so far as to include the Greeks, in his effort to defend Christendom. A mounted force of Serbs and Hungarians foolishly crossed the Maritza River heading toward Adrianople. They were swiftly wiped out. Further combined efforts were hampered by the conflict between the Greek and the Latin Churches.
“The Osmanlis are merely enemies,” wrote Petrarch to the Pope, “but the schismatic Greeks are worse than enemies.”
“Better a sultan’s hat than a cardinal’s hat,” was the Greek reply.
Murad moved back and forth between the various battle fronts and his capital, Adrianople. He had planned his expansion carefully and had several competent generals who followed his orders to the letter-thus, he had the freedom to pursue his goal of building a carefully chosen and disciplined infantry force which would serve the sultan alone. Recruited from among his young Christian subjects, they were to become the Corp of Janissaries, began first by his father.
Murad now developed and enlarged this force, begun by Orkhan as a personal bodyguard. It became a small army designed to maintain his law and order and to defend his newly conquered European territories. They were loyal to Murad alone.