“You may have him, and gladly,” Bianca said. “I have told him I will not wed him, and that he should wait for you.”
“You told him that? Bianca, that is wonderful! Oh, you are the best sister in the world! I knew you could not be so cruel as to take the man I love from me.”
“Now we must convinceNonnothat you are the better bride,” Bianca told her younger sister. “Your prince wants a wedding at summer’s end.”
“When is your prince coming?” Francesca wanted to know. “If he does not come and take you before then, they will force you to the altar.”
“They can’t,” Bianca replied serenely.
“Nonnoalways gets what he wants,” Francesca said. “Everyone wanted him to marry when his last wife died, but he said he had had enough of wives; he would be content with a mistress from then on. He has prevailed in that, and if your prince does not come to rescue you, he will prevail in this.”
“Amir will come,” Bianca said assuredly.
And indeed, Amir ibn Jem was preparing to go to Venice. He had been brought to his grandfather, Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror, upon his return home. The sultan had greeted him warmly.
“I never thought to see you again in this life, Amir. What exactly did you do that required I ask you to return from Florence? Certainly you didn’t kill one of those fat and proud merchants?”
“Worse, Grandfather,” Amir said. “I fell in love with a silk merchant’s daughter and planned to bring her home.”
“Ahhh,” the sultan said. “Yes, if the silk merchant was influential—and he obviously was, since it was Lorenzo di Medici himself who requested your recall—that would present a problem. Ah, well, you will soon find another lovely woman to please you, and I am happy to have you back with me.”
“But this is the one I want above all others,” Amir told his grandfather. “I have fallen in love with her. I must have her!”
Sultan Mehmet looked at Amir. This was the one grandson who had never caused him a moment’s concern, unlike Amir’s father, Jem, who was forever quarreling with his brother, Bayezit, who had sired three sons on his wives. “How much trouble will it cause if you steal this woman?” the sultan asked.
“I don’t know,” Amir answered honestly. “She is one of four sisters. She has been widowed. I know her family has sent her to her maternal grandfather in Venice in hopes of finding a second husband for her. They would not allow her to see me when I was imprisoned, but when I departed Florence she managed to come and stand by the road. I swore I would find her, Grandfather. I do not doubt that her love for me has not wavered in the months we have been apart.”
“What if, by the time you reach her, she has been remarried?” the sultan asked.
“I don’t know, but I do know she will do everything she can to avoid any marriage to another man,” Amir replied.
“So you mean to make her your third wife?”
“Yes. I took Maysun and Shahdi to my bed, and made them my wives at your request. They are good women, but I love neither. Taking Bianca as my wife will not lessen their position within my house. I know their fathers are not very important to you, but I will not shame their families or endanger the loyalty you have from those men,” Amir told the sultan. “But I want Bianca for the wife of my heart.”
“What if you have a son?” the sultan wanted to know. “I would be in no danger from such a child, but he would be considered a danger by my heir, or his heir.”
“If Bianca were to give me a son, he would be taught loyalty to his sultan, but if I sensed danger to my family, I would remove them from your realm.”
“You cannot go west again,” the sultan told his grandson. “They would never accept an infidel with a Christian wife in the West.”
“No, but I could go east or north or south if it were required of me,” Amir said. “If the choice were mine, however, I should retire to the Moonlight Serai with Bianca, who shall be called Azura, and my other two wives. I will only journey to the city when my business demands it, or the sultan wishes my presence in his house. You know I am not a man for power, Grandfather. I hope I have not disappointed you too greatly by being more like my English mother’s merchant forebears than my warlike Ottoman ancestors. I know my father is baffled to have sired such a son.” He smiled at his grandfather.
The sultan nodded. “We get ahead of ourselves,” he told the younger man. “I have many days ahead of me, Allah willing, and you do not have your woman back yet.”
“With your permission, I will make plans to fetch her,” the prince said.
“I know nothing about such a venture, Amir, nor do I want to know. If you are successful, Venice will complain, and perhaps even Florence. I would tell them with a clear conscience that I know nothing of what you planned,” the sultan said with a chuckle, and he stroked the beard on his long face with a long hand. “They will not want her back once you have stolen her, even for all their protests.”
“I understand, Grandfather,” Amir responded with a smile.
“I am sorry to lose you in Florence. The information you were able to send me regarding the French, the Germans, and the rest of the western lords was very helpful. You were well liked, Lorenzo di Medici wrote me.”
“The Florentines seem to be a clearinghouse for all the gossip in Europe. All the armies going back and forth seem to pass through the city. It is enormously prosperous, although probably second to Venice, since they have no port like the Venetians do.”
“The Venetians have grown fat with their shipping. Much of Florence’s goods go through Venice. The merchant families there are just as influential as the merchant families in Florence, if not more so,” Sultan Mehmet observed. “I should really like to have Venice for myself, but it is better to let them have the illusion of being a republic. The doge does what I want, and so I must be satisfied with that.”
“So you are still conquering,” Amir said.
