Tales of Byzantium Read online

  TALES

  OF

  BYZANTIUM

  A SELECTION OF SHORT STORIES

  EILEEN STEPHENSON

  Copyright © 2015 by Eileen Stephenson.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at [email protected].

  Eileen Stephenson

  Rockville, MD

  www.eileenstephenson.com

  Publisher’s Note: Tales of Byzantium is a work of historical fiction. Apart from the well-known actual people, events, and locales figuring in the narrative, all names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Book Layout ©2013 BookDesignTemplates.com

  Cover Design: Jennifer Toney Quinlan

  Tales of Byzantium / Eileen Stephenson. -- 1st ed.

  ISBN- 13:978-1511741507

  ISBN- 10: 1511741503

  Contents

  Ceremony of the Emperor

  The Red Fox

  Alexiad

  To Kenneth

  This world … ever was, and is, and shall be, ever-living Fire, in measures being kindled and

  in measures going out.

  ―Heraclitus, c. 480 B.C.

  Ceremony

  of the

  Emperor

  The Great Palace, Constantinople, 928

  Helena sat sewing next to her sister-in-law, Sophia, in the palace’s women’s quarters, the gynaeceum. She stretched her legs out, feeling cramped on the short stool she was relegated to as junior empress. She stifled a bored sigh and glanced sidelong at Sophia, eyeing the elevated chair the shorter woman sat in by right as the senior empress. Sophia’s plump ankles dangled just above the floor. Sophia, five months into her pregnancy, looked even more lethargic than the rest of the court ladies on that warm late summer day.

  “Helena, you really shouldn’t stretch your legs out so far. You’ll trip someone,” sniffed Sophia, stirred from her torpor at this opportunity to correct Helena. The sharp edge of the older woman’s domineering voice almost scraped against Helena’s skin.

  Sophia’s correction might have been needed if someone had been walking in front of her then, but as no one was passing at that moment, it hardly seemed necessary. Helena murmured an apology, pulled in her legs, and bent her head to her needlework. She counted it as at least the third trivial criticism that day. If it was not her legs stretched out, it was a strand of her red-blond hair coming loose or crumbs in her lap.

  Sophia’s pregnancy at the age of thirty-four, after only two children and many failed attempts, left her testier than usual. Worries for her daughter, wed a year earlier to the Bulgarian emperor, had not improved her disposition. Helena’s father and brother, the Emperors Romanus and Christopher, were in the east trying to drive off the Persians, leaving the Augusta Sophia as the senior family member in their absence.

  Both women were empresses, as both were married to emperors—Sophia to Helena’s older brother, Christopher, and Helena to Emperor Constantine—but Sophia carried the title of the senior empress and augusta. Helena thought that was out of order since it was her husband, Constantine, who had inherited the throne when he was a child. Romanus Lecapenos, Helena’s father and then admiral of the imperial fleet, took control of the empire from Constantine’s feckless pack of regents years later. Romanus had elevated his daughter-in-law to augusta and senior empress after his wife’s death six years ago.

  Helena had infrequent contact with her husband. He tended to reticence in the company of his wife and her boisterous father and brothers. She had never heard him complain about his tertiary status—ranking behind Romanus and his oldest son Christopher, but ahead of Helena’s two younger brothers, Stephen and Constantine. While the empire had often had more than one emperor, for one reason or another, Helena wondered if it had ever had so many as the five now clustered on its throne.

  A palace eunuch entered the room, bowing repeatedly as he approached the Augusta Sophia.

  “My lady, a messenger has arrived from Bulgaria with urgent news. Will you receive him?”

  Sophia paled and her hand trembled at the announcement. Her daughter would have given birth in recent weeks.

  “Yes, show him into my reception room. I’ll receive him there,” she said, a tremulous tone to her voice.

  Helena rose with Sophia, offering her arm to lean on as they made their way down a corridor to hear the news. Sophia, pregnancy amplifying her already plump girth, dressed in a fine red silk dalmatica embroidered with a profusion of green leaves, and with numerous gold bracelets jangling on her arms, looked to Helena like nothing so much as a large pomegranate as she waddled down the hall.

  “God willing, she and the child are well,” Sophia whispered.

  Helena glanced down at her worried sister-in-law, patting her arm. “I am sure they are, and no need to worry.”

  “Peter, Emperor of all the Bulgars, announces the birth of a son, Boris, for him and his wife, your daughter. The child was born ten days ago, and mother and son were in good health when I left,” the herald announced.

  The news was everything Sophia could have wished for. Sophia visibly relaxed, her face glowing at the happy tidings. She nodded to the eunuch in attendance to reward the herald generously.

  Helena felt relief, too, at hearing of her niece’s successful delivery. Marie was only two years younger than she was, and they had been more like sisters than aunt and niece.

  Sophia, unburdened by the herald’s news, walked unaided by Helena on their return to the gynaeceum.

  “See, I told you there was nothing to worry about,” Helena said confidently as they walked. This shared joy might be the start of a friendship between them.

  “Of course, there was much to worry about. You wouldn’t know; you’ve never had a child,” came Sophia’s stinging response.

  Helena slowed as they reached the entrance to the gynaeceum, wondering what she had done to deserve such condescension. Only an idiot would not realize the dangers a woman faced in childbirth; she had only been trying to ease Sophia’s worries. She hung back a moment, trying to regain her aplomb, and almost missed Sophia’s final muttered remark.

  “And if I have anything to say about it, you never will.”

  ***

  Helena lay in her bed that night, kicking herself for not seeing what had been in front of her face all along. Her father had married her to Constantine as a stepping-stone to the throne. Now that he was emperor, he must want only his sons and their children to succeed him. She and Constantine no longer mattered. In fact, if she and her husband had children, they would, by rights, come before her brothers and their children, which explained Sophia’s remark. She wanted no competition for her own son, little Michael. There could be no other reason why her father had never allowed them to consummate their marriage, though Helena was now eighteen and had been married nine years.

  Helena tossed angrily in her bed. Her overbearing sister-in-law wanted nothing more than for Helena to fade into the background, childless and unimportant. Her place in the palace could only be secured if she had children. In the dark, she considered her possibilities and began to form a plan.

  ***

  It might have been difficult to f
ind a way to extricate herself from Sophia’s company the next day since Helena was always expected to be with Sophia. But Sophia’s son, five-year-old Michael, had taken ill and cried for his mother to sit beside him.

  The Great Palace complex held dozens of buildings, some dating back to the days of Emperor Justinian, others of more recent vintage. In the nine years of their marriage, Helena had spent almost no time with her husband and had no certain knowledge of which building he lived in. It took her some time and judicious questioning of the various servants scurrying about its premises to finally locate the garden where her husband was ensconced.

  Helena rarely encountered Constantine—just at court ceremonies and in processions to and from the Great Church of Holy Wisdom. In all the years of their marriage, they had never spent time alone together. Helena had never wanted to before, although she always expected some day they would. Constantine had been a gawky boy of fourteen when they wed, thin and pimply with shaggy black hair half covering his face. He had contrasted poorly when seen beside her robust, energetic father and her vigorous, much older brother, Christopher. Even now at twenty-three, he rarely went riding or hunting and had never used a sword, unlike the men in her family.

  Helena, accompanied by her maid, stood in the shade of the peristyle surrounding the garden of the building to which Constantine was consigned. Her plan of enticing her husband into her bed seemed more daunting now, confronted with this man she barely knew, than it had in the night. She almost retreated to the gynaeceum before the memory of Sophia’s callous remark returned her resolve.

  She motioned to her attendant to wait on a bench along the palace wall and stepped onto the yellow brick path leading to where Constantine sat, bending over something. The soft rustle of her silk skirt caught his attention and he looked up, blinking in surprise at seeing her.

  “Good day, my lord husband,” Helena said as she dipped into a low curtsy.

  He stumbled to his feet, putting aside the portable desk he had been using before responding, “Good day to you, Lady Helena.”

  They stood awkwardly, staring at each other before Helena stammered out her excuse for this first visit to her husband’s environs.

  “My nephew, Michael, has taken ill and desires his mother’s company, so I thought I might call on you today. It has been some time since I saw you and . . .” Her voice drifted off, unsure of how to explain her sudden appearance. She had forgotten to plan exactly what excuse she would give for this intrusion.

  Constantine looked at her with a puzzled expression on his face. For the first time, she really looked at this man she had been married to for half of her life. He had become an attractive, even desirable, man—a head taller than she was with a full dark beard and intelligent blue eyes. Helena could see in those eyes that he was trying to discern her purpose for being there.

  Finally, he spoke and gestured to the bench where he had been sitting.

  “Please, sit down. I’m just working on a drawing. Jacobus?” he called, and a eunuch with a mischievous face and ready smile appeared at his elbow.

  “Here, sire.” The beaming man bore a tray with a pitcher, cups, and apples.

  “Could you bring—?” Constantine broke off, looking confused. “Oh, you already have something.”

  “Yes, sire. I saw the empress, your wife, approaching and thought you would want to share some refreshment with her.” Jacobus set the tray down on a table, bowed, and slipped away.

  Constantine looked after his servant with a raised eyebrow before shrugging and turning back to the wife he had been forced to wed. He sat down awkwardly at the far end of the bench from Helena.

  Helena wondered what to say next. It did not seem appropriate to simply come out and say, “It’s time we went to bed so I can get with child and not have to put up with Sophia so much.” So much bluntness might scare this reclusive man away. Instead, she latched on to the one item he had mentioned.

  “You said you were drawing. What have you been drawing? May I see it?”

  He frowned slightly. “It’s nothing, really. Just some pictures I will use to illustrate court ceremonies.”

  His words perplexed Helena. “Court ceremonies? What do you mean?”

  Constantine bent over his sheets of parchment, small pots of paints, quills, and brushes, tidying the assembled implements. He was dressed in a simple but formal tunica with the imperial purple sandals on his feet. Helena’s father and brothers, when not on court business, dressed in the short tunics and braccae favored by the peasants they had grown up with.

  “Each court ceremony has a prescribed order. If they aren’t followed properly, it can lead to confusion. I’ve written down descriptions of the order each should be in to eliminate that confusion.” He spoke with a calm dignity that quashed any amusement Helena felt at the risible idea of writing down the order of court ceremonies, much less illustrating them.

  “Hasn’t anyone ever written this down before?” she asked.

  “Not in centuries. Most are passed down by word of mouth. It’s a problem with a change of minister or if a ceremony occurs infrequently. If performed incorrectly, it reflects badly on the empire. Also, there are certain protocols for how the rulers of other peoples are to be addressed—archon or king or emperor or emir. The Persian emir would be insulted if addressed as an archon of the Pechenegs. Wars have started with less reason,” he finished drily.

  Helena was intrigued by this lesson in court ceremonials. She had been empress for nine years and found the ceremonies tedious, something to be endured. Perhaps she should have paid more attention.

  “I’d never thought of court ceremonies that way before,” she said.

  He gave a slight shrug and inclined his head to her. “You have never been taught about them. My own father, before he died, explained many of them to me.”

  He poured the dark wine into two exquisite rock crystal cups carved with a vine-and-leaf pattern and handed one to her. She sipped pensively and slid closer to the center of the bench where his drawings lay.

  “May I see your drawings? I’d like to see how these ceremonies should look.”

  Constantine frowned, unused to anyone else viewing his efforts, but he picked up a sheet and handed it to her.

  “This one is finished. It depicts a ceremony for a visiting ruler who is almost the equal of the Roman emperor, such as the emir of Persia.”

  She glanced over the parchment filled with its small painted figures.

  “Is there one for a ruler equal to the Roman emperor?” she asked absentmindedly.

  “Of course not.” He looked startled. “We have no equal in status in the world.”

  Helena blushed; she should have known that. She turned her attention to the drawing. The colorful images depicted an emperor, court officials, eunuchs, and a finely dressed visiting entourage. The visitor appeared much like a Persian visitor from several years past, one of the court officials resembled the herald who announced all visitors, and a eunuch in attendance bore the impish face of Jacobus, who had attended them that day.

  She smiled in delight at recognizing so many of the figures, but then her gaze returned to the figure of the emperor, who bore no resemblance to any of the five now crowding the throne.

  “I can see where you got your inspiration for many of the people you’ve drawn, but not for the emperor. Who does he resemble?”

  “I drew him from my memory of my father,” Constantine said in a muffled voice. He turned back to finish packing up his tools and the drawings he had worked on, his jaw set tight.

  Helena looked up from the drawing, embarrassed she had asked. Still, there was no way she would have known what old Emperor Leo looked like. Her husband may recall his father, but few others would around Romanus Lecapenos.

  “I think your picture is beautiful. You have a talent for drawing; the people look almost real, and the colors are so vibrant. Have you others I could see?”

  He stood up, eyes dark, appearing ready to leave the garden.
<
br />   “None I’ve finished yet, my lady,” he said, cutting short their conversation.

  Helena rose too, disappointed to see the meeting end so soon.

  She reached out and laid a hand on his wrist. “Perhaps another day, then. When you’ve had time to finish them.” Constantine would not meet her eyes.

  She dipped into a curtsy and turned to leave. The maid attending her stood by the door, chatting amiably with Jacobus, but left to join her mistress. It may not have been the most propitious encounter, but they had to start somewhere.

  ***

  That evening, Jacobus served Constantine dinner in the undistinguished palace building he lived in, a minor dwelling built by Constantine’s grandfather, Emperor Basil. Emperor Romanus dwelled in the grand Boukoleon Palace while Emperor Christopher’s was the older but still exquisite Daphne Palace.

  “The empress, your wife, is a comely woman,” said Jacobus, trying to approach the subject with tact.

  “I suppose,” Constantine said morosely as he forked an olive on his plate. “But she’s still one of them, and I’ve had enough of Romanus Lecapenos and his ravenous brood. I cannot imagine why she sought me out today.”

  “I don’t know,” Jacobus said, pausing before continuing in a casual vein. “But her maid told me that the Augusta Sophia picks on Lady Helena all the time. Maybe she just wanted to get away from that.”

  Constantine snorted. “If that’s the case, I wish she’d find someone else to pester.” He scowled while contemplating his wife’s visit. “I suspect Lady Helena decided to pay me a visit today for some other reason. She wants something from me, just like her family always does. There’s just not much left of me to take.”

  Jacobus arched an eyebrow at his master’s cynicism. Romanus had turned Constantine into a shadow emperor over the past nine years. Even his image on the empire’s coins showed him as a beardless child rather than the grown man he was. Constantine still lived and was in good health, though, which was more than some of his predecessors in similar situations could say. Jacobus had grown fond of this solitary, bookish emperor who wielded a paintbrush and quill instead of a sword, and whose solitude cried out for a companion.