Theadora sobbed. “Helena said the sultan likes little girls in his bed. She said he would hurt me! That when a man loves a woman it hurts her, and with little girls it is worse! I am not yet a woman, Mother! I will surely die!”

“Your sister is deliberately cruel, and she is also badly informed, Theadora. Yes, you are to marry the sultan. Your father needed the aid Orkhan could give him, and you were not yet betrothed. It is the privileged duty of a princess to serve her family by an advantageous marriage. What other good is a woman?

“However, you will not live in the sultan’s house until you have begun your womanly show of blood. Your father has arranged it that way. If you are lucky Orkhan will die before then, and you will come home to make a good Christian marriage. In the meantime, you will reside in your own house, safe within the walls of St. Catherine’s Convent in Bursa. Your presence there will guarantee your father Ottoman aid.”

The child sniffed and nestled close to her mother. “I do not want to go. Please don’t make me, Mama. I would sooner take the veil and remain here at St. Barbara’s.”

“My child!” Startled, Theadora looked up into her mother’s shocked face. “Have you heard nothing I have said?” exclaimed Zoe. “You are Theadora Cantacuzene, a princess of Byzantium. You have a duty. That duty is to aid your family as best you can, and you must never forget that, my daughter. It is not always pleasant to do one’s duty, but our duty separates us from the rabble. They exist merely to satisfy their base desires. You must never shirk your duty, my dearest daughter.”

“When must I go?” whispered the child.

“Your father now besieges the city. When it is taken, we will see.”

But Constantinople was not easily taken, not even by one of its own.