Olga Hatun

It’s dusk and the first stars have appeared on the pale sky. A grey fog is blowing in from the east and descends on Bursa like a fine rain of ash. Olga Sultana paces the length of the vast hall like a tiger. She is glorious in a tight red dress that echoes the carnation designs on the ceramic tiles of the walls. Youthful and comely, her vitality is barely contained by the fluid lines of her elegant body. The pearls of the necklace on her graceful neck sparkle as they reflect the flickers of light from the golden chandeliers.

She is impatient for the homecoming of her Sultan. Olga is the daughter of a Bulgarian nobleman. She is only seventeen, but she has been wedded to Sultan Bayezid, known as Thunderbolt, for more than a year. They are devotedly in love with each other, but Bayezid, has been waging war in the Balkans for many months. He hurries to his beloved Olga upon his return to the palace in Bursa. She is overcome with emotion.

She kisses the hem of Bayezid’s red velvet caftan many times. She murmurs: “My master, my Sultan, my husband, being far from you was an unbearable pain!” She is speaking liltingly in her charming accent. “My Lord, please believe me that I have no life when you’re not by my side. I’ve been crying every single day that you have been away. My love for you is like an illness with only one cure, and that cure is you.”

Bayezid is humbled by her ardour. He embraces her with urgency. He too has been ill with longing for his Olga. “You are the light in my eyes and the flower of my life! And like all lovers who await the sunset to be with their beloved in the moonlight, I too have been waiting through this overlong sunset to be with you. A raging fire of desire has been scorching my heart, a flame so mighty that not all the rivers of this world could put it out!”

The fog has encircled the palace and made it invisible. The lovers are all alone with each other under a full moon they cannot see. Finally their night can begin…