The Suliote Maiden

When Nathan first met the Suliote maiden, Malina, he wasn’t certain she wouldn’t kill him. Neither was she.

His odyssey began when the British invaded the Chesapeake in the War of 1812. Dreaming of heroic deeds, thirteen-year-old Nathan ran away to join the American forces. He did not imagine that in the confusion of the shameful American defeat at the Battle of Bladensburg, he would make a mistake he couldn’t live down.

Scorned by his neighbors, Nathan had little choice but to leave home in the company of a British colonel. Their ultimate destination was the Greek-Ottoman city of Salonika.

Nathan earned the friendship of Ahmet, the son of a powerful janissary. Known as the ‘young stallions,’ Nathan and Ahmet hunted and hawked in the wilds of Greece and feasted into the long evenings. It was a life beyond anything Nathan had ever imagined. Malina, who knew not the meaning of moderation in love or hate, completed this perfect life.

Yet discord simmered just underneath the surface. Brigands infested the roads. Greeks milled gunpowder for revolution. Muslims and Christians damned each other to their respective hells. All detested the arrogant janissaries. With a Greek mother and a powerful janissary father, Ahmet was torn by these controversies.

As the Greek-Ottoman world splintered into warring factions, Nathan, Malina, and Ahmet must decide whether love, devotion, and friendship were a means to survival or a barrier to survival.

Therein hangs this tale.