Roxelana & Suleyman

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

For the remainder of that moon Haseki’s nights were consumed with nightmares. She tossed and turned on the divan in her private suite. Now and then she would wake with a start and run over to the cradle to ensure Mehmet was unharmed.

On the night before Suleyman was due to return to Istanbul, her mind swam through a sea of horror. She pulled the divan throw-rugs over her face in an unconscious tormented fever....

Mehmet was missing and she could not find him. Drenched in sweat and fatigued from the fever, she ran through the corridors and empty rooms of the palace. She searched frantically. Becoming lost in the maze of darkness—lit by the flickering light of a torch—she came to an open garden terrace. She heard the cry of her child from above. Looking up she saw a dark silhouette throw him from an upper balcony. She could do nothing but scream as the small figure fell through the air, toward the hardness of the marble pavement at her slippers. Her horrified thoughts followed the tiny bundle down until she could bear it no longer... Covering her face she slumped to her knees in grief.

She stopped.

Parting her fingers, she peered between them. A young man stood before her—a young white man within the confines of the harem where no white man should be. Her heart beat anxiously in her chest as she saw Mehmet unharmed in the man’s grasp. She stood as he approached. The flickering torchlight lit his face—the mop of thick brown hair; the thick lips and beautiful hazel eyes.

“Dariusz, my love...” she muttered.

“Wake up, my tulip, you are fevered,” Suleyman breathed in the dim of the suite.

Haseki awoke in confusion as she pulled herself from her dream. The comforting arms of Suleyman were around her, his concerned face touching hers.

“Oh, my Sultan; I have missed you so. Please hold me. Don’t let me go.” Haseki’s grief overwhelmed her. She cuddled deep into her love and cried.

“I am here for you, my darling. There is nothing to worry about.”

Suleyman lay with Haseki in his arms throughout the night. He listened intently to her worries until her breathing shallowed and she fell to sleep. He caressed her and brushed his lips against her cheek and neck. He delighted in the beauty of her slumber—overawed by it when the new day’s sun glimmered in the flames of her hair. Past the shimmering curls, no more than a few feet distant, the pearl-encrusted cradle stood in shadow. He did not approach it to observe his son. Instead he closed his eyes and placed his lips to Haseki’s brow. A tear rolled from the corner of his eye.

“You are correct, my darling. There will come a time when there can be only one son.”