Vasiliki

Vasiliki is the beloved wife of Ali Tepelini, the powerful Pasha of Yanina, and the mother of Haidee. Her name, which Haidee explains means "royal," reflects her noble bearing and the deep affection Ali Pasha held for her. She is a Christian, and her faith sustains her through the catastrophic events that destroy her family. Her story is known only through the memories of her daughter, who was a young child at the time, but those memories paint a portrait of a woman of extraordinary courage, tenderness, and ultimately, tragic fate.

Life at the Court of Ali Pasha

Vasiliki lived a life of secluded splendor within the palace of Yanina, surrounded by the wealth and power of her husband. Haidee's earliest recollections are of sitting under sycamore trees by a lake, where her father reclined on cushions while Vasiliki sat at his feet. In these peaceful scenes, the young Haidee played with her father's long white beard or the diamond hilt of his scimitar, unaware of the political storms gathering around them. Vasiliki's role was one of devoted companionship, sharing in the quiet moments of her husband's life even as he issued commands of life and death to his Albanian soldiers. She was also a woman of deep piety and compassion; Haidee remembers her mother taking her by the hand, both of them veiled, to go and solicit alms for prisoners, saying, "He who giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord." This act of charity, performed when Haidee was only three years old, was a formative memory, demonstrating Vasiliki's active and principled faith.

The Flight and the Refuge

When the Sultan's forces, led by the Serasker Koorshid, closed in on Ali Pasha, Vasiliki's life was thrown into chaos. Haidee recalls being awakened in the night by her mother, who was in tears. Vasiliki carried her daughter through the palace, surrounded by servants hurriedly gathering valuables, and joined a flight of the household towards a kiosk on an island in the lake of Yanina. This kiosk was not merely a summer house; beneath it lay a vast subterranean cavern, a last refuge stocked with gold and gunpowder. Here, Vasiliki and her daughter were confined with the other women and the faithful guard Selim, who stood ready with a lighted match to blow up the entire island at Ali Pasha's signal. During this period of agonizing uncertainty, Vasiliki's primary role was to comfort her husband and protect her child. She prepared iced water for the feverish Ali, anointed his beard with perfumed oil, and lit his chibouque, performing these small domestic rituals in the face of impending doom. When Ali Pasha, watching the horizon, saw boats approaching and knew his fate was being decided, he ordered Vasiliki to descend into the cavern with Haidee. She refused to leave him, declaring, "If you die, my lord, I will die with you." Only when Ali commanded his Palikares to take her away did she finally submit, leaving her husband with a last, desperate kiss on Haidee's forehead.

Betrayal and Death

The hope of a pardon was a cruel deception. The French officer Fernand Mondego, whom Ali Pasha had trusted, had conspired with the enemy. He sent a false token of the Pasha's ring to Selim, who, believing all was well, extinguished the match that guarded the powder magazine. In that moment of vulnerability, Koorshid's soldiers stormed the kiosk. Vasiliki, hearing the sounds of battle and her husband's final cries, tried to force open a door to die with him, but it was fastened from the inside. She witnessed, through a crack in the boards, the final, brutal struggle as Ali Pasha was overwhelmed and killed. The shock caused her to faint. When she regained consciousness, she and Haidee were prisoners before the Serasker Koorshid. Her first and only plea was for the honor of her daughter and herself: "Kill," she said, "but spare the honor of the widow of Ali." Koorshid, however, told her she was no longer his concern but belonged to a new master—the very man who had orchestrated her husband's betrayal. This man, Fernand Mondego, did not dare to keep them, and instead sold them to slave merchants bound for Constantinople. The journey was a death march. Half-dead, they arrived at the imperial gates of Constantinople, where a crowd had gathered. Vasiliki, looking closely at an object of their attention, recognized it with a piercing cry: it was the severed head of Ali Pasha, displayed above the gates. The sight was too much for her shattered spirit. She fell to the ground, dead, leaving her young daughter Haidee orphaned and alone in the slave market.