Şirin Hatun

They called her Şirin, which means sweetly-charming, because this
Circassian, rose-faced beauty was as gentle and kind as she was talented and
courtly. She was a great fan of poetry, particularly the flowing rhymes of
Mevlânâ Celâleddin Rumi and the Iranian poet Sadi, which she studied every
morning kneeling in front of her reading desk, committing the timeless verses
to memory. In 1482 she married Sultan Bayezid with a mutual love that was
meant to last forever. One year later, in a soft spring night of 1483,
Istanbul slumbers under a bright full moon. Şirin Sultana cannot sleep. She
walks through the rose and violet perfumed garden-paths with her favorite
odalisque in tow. She leans on a marble column. Her gaze wonders across the
Bosphorus to the blinking lights of Üsküdar that shine among the
centuries-old, tall and plentiful plane trees. Her pomegranate-red dress
reflects an anxiety in her soul that cannot be diminished by the golden satin
jacket, nor the priceless emerald of her ring, nor any of all the other
extravagant frills due her station in the palace as the wife of the Emperor.
She is perturbed and confused. Her palms are wet, her ears are buzzing, her
eyes begin to tear. She is ashamed to admit it, but she is jealous of her
Sultan husband. She falls to her knees, dragging the odalisque with her.
“Pray with me,” she mutters, “so Bayezid can hear us and be mine, only
mine...”