Nigar Hatun

We are in the Sultana’s private apartments. Precious Persian carpets are
bordered by thick velvet curtains that shut away the night. It is bright
inside and gently warm from a thousand flickering candles on the chandeliers.
The music of the sweet strings of the rebab echo from a neighbouring room.
Virginal, delightful Nigâr is riddled by an anxiety the likes of which she
has never felt before. Her hands are cold as ice, her heart thumps ominously,
she is barely able to contain her tears. Her eyes dance on the jewels and the
silver of the room’s decorations, but they give her no solace. And then the
door opens slowly. She gasps and falls to the ground prostrate. Sultan
Bayezid, the Emperor of all the Ottomans, enters and towers over her. He is
the son and successor of Mehmed II, the Conqueror of Constantinople. Nigâr
peeks discreetly up towards him. His expression is serious, almost fearsome,
as he looks her over. She is devastated, and doesn’t know what she should do.
She touches the hem of the Sultan’s kaftan with her lily-white forehead, to
mask her agitation, to appeal for his mercy. She needn’t have worried so. The
Sultan is enchanted. He is staring at her not in disfavour but in admiration.
She seems a fine painting to him, a perfect flower. He bends to her and
holding her hands he helps her up. He seems lost in her youthful face. He
murmurs: “You are so beautiful! You are silk and you are golden. You are
indeed Nigâr, my tenderly sculpted beloved.” The year was 1483… The moon.
lazily rising in front of the Palace, was inching towards the clouds up
above. By the time it could hide behind them Nigâr Sultana would already be
pregnant with Crown Prince Korkut and the Ottoman throne would be assured of
its dynasty.