She ordered food to be served and we ate in her presence, and when we desired to leave she said “Do not sever relations with us, but come often to us and inform us of your needs.” She showed great kindness to us and after we had gone sent us food, a great quantity of bread, butter, sheep, money, a magnificent robe and thirteen horses, three good ones and ten of the ordinary sort. It was with this khatun that I made my journey to Constantinople the Great, as we shall relate hereafter.
The fourth khatun is one of the best, most amiable and sympathetic of princesses. We visited her and she showed us a kindness and generosity that cannot be surpassed. By the sultan’s daughter however we were treated with a generosity and kindness that no other khatun showed us; she loaded us with surpassing favours, may God reward her!
Ibn Battuta leaves the steppe kingdom of Uzbeg Khan with the retinue of Uzbeg’s wife the khatun Bayalan, a Byzantine princess.
We set out . . . in the company of the khatun Bayalun and under her protection. The sultan [Uzbeg] escorted her one stage then returned, he and the queen [the khatun Taytughli] and the heir to the throne; the other khatuns accompanied her [the khatun Bayalan] for a second stage and then returned.
The amir Baydara with five thousand troops travelled with her, and her own troops numbered about five hundred horsemen, two hundred of whom were her attendant slaves and Greeks, and the remainder Turks. She had with her also about two hundred maidens, most of whom were Greeks, and about four hundred carts and about two thousand draught and riding horses, as well as three hundred oxen and two hundred camels.
She had also ten Greek youths and the same number of Indians, whose leader-in-chief was called Sunbul the Indian; the leader of the Greeks was a man of conspicuous bravery called Michael, but the Turks gave him the name of Lu’lu’ [Pearl]. She left most of her maidens and her baggage at the sultan’s camp, since she had set out only to pay a visit [to her father the emperor].
The khatun is met at the border of her father’s territory
The Greeks had heard that this khatun was returning to her country, and there came to this fortress [at the Byzantine border] to meet her the Greek Kifali [Greek kephale, meaning chief] Nicolas, with a large army and a large hospitality-gift, accompanied by the princesses and nurses from the palace of her father, the king of Constantinople.
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