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From my window I can see the encampment of the
Ottoman Sultan himself. His tent
is red and gold. The huge canon shakes the walls outside the palace seven
times a day.
If I could, I would go home again. I was brought from Trebizond when the Emperor Constantine could not arrange a betrothal between himself and my Lady, the Sultana Maria. At night the Emperor comes to my rooms. He brings verbena, stares out the window at the fires on the plain beyond us. His grief for his city and his people is deep, and he is a kind man. But I am not a stranger to the infidel foot on my neck.
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ASCENSION SUNDAY :: The Trebizond Concubine Speaks |