Tales of Byzantium Read online

  Constantine peered out of a window to his view of the blue-gray waters of the Marmara beyond the city’s seawalls, eyes unfocused, drumming his fingers on the table. A rueful grin of realization spread across his face as he shook his head in seeming disbelief.

  “There’s one thing left they haven’t taken from me. I think that’s what she—or maybe her father—wants.”

  “What is that, sire?” Jacobus asked. He had his suspicions but kept his own counsel.

  “Something I have no intention of giving her.”

  ***

  Helena’s next opportunity came a few days later when Sophia took to her bed, complaining of fatigue from her pregnancy. Accompanied, as always, by an attendant, she made her way to Constantine’s palace. Jacobus happened to glance out the window as she approached and escorted her up to the room where Constantine worked on his book of ceremonies. The spacious room had a row of windows overlooking the garden, next to which sat Constantine at a desk, quill in hand, parchment before him.

  “Good morning, my lord husband,” Helena said, as though they were accustomed to seeing each other.

  “Ah, good morning, Lady Helena.” Constantine’s face lacked the wide-eyed surprise he had shown on her previous visit. He gave her a tight-lipped smile conveying more irritation than welcome.

  “Augusta Sophia did not require my company again this morning, and I thought to visit to see if you had finished any more of your drawings.”

  Constantine studied his wife while considering a response. The thought flitted through his mind that Jacobus was correct—his child wife had become a comely woman. However, she was still the daughter of the man who had bullied his way onto the throne, treating his son-in-law, the rightful emperor, as some sort of a half-wit invalid.

  He realized she had been looking at him for a response; perhaps she thought he was that half-wit after all.

  “No, I’ve set the paint pots aside for a few days. I’ve been writing out the order of the ceremony for greeting foreign dignitaries.”

  “Oh, to go with your drawing,” she said as she approached his desk.

  “Yes, but the ceremony involves much more than just what happens in the picture. As you know, there are ceremonial robes for the emperor and court officials, the crown the emperor wears, which room to use to greet them, who attends him on the dais when the visitors are presented. It all has an order to it that preserves the empire’s dignity as supreme in the world.”

  Helena peered over her husband’s arm at the parchment on the desk, neatly inked with his words.

  “If you’d like, I can read it to you,” he said and began to recite the words she could have read without difficulty, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

  Helena blushed. Her educated husband was implying she could not read, as her father could not, or would not if it were not a military dispatch. Perhaps she should have been used to being treated like a feather-headed fool, the way her father and Christopher treated her. This time, though, anger burned through her at being patronized. She stepped back from the desk, eyes hardened and small chin jutting out.

  Constantine looked up at her, pleased at her obvious irritation. Thinking to finish off any plans the girl had for his seduction, he condescended, “Am I reading too fast? Should I speak more slowly?”

  Helena shook her head. “No, thank you. I understood it all.” She made a small curtsy and strode out just as Jacobus was about to enter with refreshments.

  Jacobus stood at the doorway, stunned by Helena’s hasty departure. He glanced at Constantine, who stood with arms crossed over his chest, a look of harsh satisfaction on his face.

  “No need for all that,” he said, waving at the tray. “She’s gone; maybe this time she won’t be back.”

  “What happened?” His servant glanced disappointedly in the direction Helena had fled.

  “She looked insulted when I read what I had written to her.” Constantine shrugged and returned to his desk. “I don’t expect she can read any better than her father does.”

  Jacobus listened as the footfalls of Helena’s departure faded.

  “She can read. I know she can. I still worked in the gynaeceum when her mother was alive. Her mother made sure the empress, your wife, could read.”

  Constantine peered over at his servant before turning back to his work.

  “Well, perhaps I was rude to imply she could not read, but it doesn’t matter. I just want her to stop bothering me.”

  “Sire, may I ask why? She is your wife after all.”

  Constantine looked at the eunuch through narrowed eyes. “Jacobus, do you know any other servant would speak to me the way you do? I’m not sure why I put up with you.”

  The eunuch gave a halfhearted grin. “Because you have no one else as loyal to you as I am, that’s why. So why do you want her to leave you alone?”

  The emperor raised his voice in frustration. “Isn’t it obvious? For one thing, her father does not want us together; if he did, she would be living with me now instead of with her brother and his wife. Any other girl her age would be living with her husband. For another, I do not want to be tricked into bed by the daughter of the man who has relegated me to the third rung on the throne—that would be mortifying. Finally, she’s not interested in looking at what I’ve written or my drawings. She wants me for her own purposes. She probably thinks she will be in a stronger position if she has a child, and she needs me for that. And I will not be used that way.”

  “It sounds like you don’t want a wife or children, then. You might as well walk over to the Great Church and be tonsured now,” Jacobus said flippantly. “Or you could call the surgeon and have your balls cut off, like me.”

  Constantine snorted at the suggestion. “Of course I want a wife and children. Just not that wife and her children. My father refused to bed his first wife, the one his father chose. I will do the same.”

  “She looks reasonably healthy. You could be waiting a long time if you plan to wait until she dies, as he did,” Jacobus said laconically. He forbore to comment on how that worked out for Constantine’s father with his complicated marital adventures, sighing as he left the room. He thought it was fine for Constantine to have his drawings and writing to occupy his time, but an emperor, even third tier, needed a wife and children. Helena was not a bad sort for a Lecapena, not like the capricious and haughty Sophia. Jacobus rolled his eyes, wondering if Constantine would wake up and see Helena for the lovely young woman she was.

  ***

  Helena stayed away from her husband for the next few days. Her cheeks burned as she recalled his reading to her—as though she was incapable of doing so herself. Did that puffed-up man think that because he had been born in the purple room, the son of Emperor Leo, and could read and write, that he was somehow better than she was? Being able to read the instructions for a stupid ceremony was not as important as being able to lead men in battle, as her father did. After all, it was her almost-illiterate father who was ruling now, not her educated husband.

  That decision lasted until Sophia’s endless belittling and sniping at her reached its peak when the Emperors Romanus and Christopher returned from their Persian campaigning.

  “Helena, since Constantine was not out on campaign with Christopher and your father, and he won’t be at the ceremony welcoming them back, I don’t think you will need to be in attendance.”

  Helena bowed her head in submission to the augusta’s instruction, seething inside at this dismissal. She was the daughter of one of the returning emperors, and the sister of the other, and had as much right to be in attendance as Sophia did. Her only chance to be free of her petty sister-in-law was to bring her own marriage to fruition, which meant enticing Constantine to her bed. If she could put up with Sophia’s belittling, then she would put up with Constantine’s if that was what it took to get with child.

  A few well-placed coins among the servants alerted Helena to promising spots where her husband could be found during the day. One of the servants tol
d her of his afternoon excursions in one of the gardens overlooking the Marmara.

  A basket of sewing on her arm, Helena ventured into the garden when he was sure to be there and sat on a bench some distance from Constantine. Taking up her embroidering, she began to work while making sure to stretch out a long, graceful leg.

  Constantine was so engrossed in his work that he did not notice her at first. Then the flash of her red dress in the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he looked up.

  Helena sat on a bench in the sun, her red-gold hair falling around her face as she concentrated on her stitches, a slim ankle peeking out from beneath her dress. The artist in him wondered how to describe the colors of her—hair like the blaze of sunset and skin the pale shade of whitecaps on the Marmara. He shook himself free of those images.

  “Lady Helena,” he said.

  His wife looked up, feigning surprise. She stood and dropped into a curtsy.

  “My lord husband, I did not expect to find you here,” she said. “Augusta Sophia is again fatigued from her pregnancy and did not require my company. I thought to enjoy this pleasant weather.”

  “Ahh,” he said, giving her a skeptical glance before returning to his drawing.

  Helena gathered up her courage and put down her sewing. She approached her husband, peering over his arm at the drawing he worked on. This colorful depiction was of the crowning of an emperor along with the ceremonial oils anointing him and garb he must wear. Again, this drawing of the emperor was of a man resembling Constantine’s father rather than of either Romanus or Christopher or himself.

  “This one is better than the last,” Helena exclaimed, surprised at the graceful ambo of the Great Church he had sketched, with its black marble columns supporting it.

  Constantine just shrugged at her compliment.

  Helena boldly moved closer and placed a hand on his arm before saying, “I admire the way you’ve painted your father into these illustrations.”

  Constantine looked down at her hand resting on his arm and carefully moved it aside so they no longer touched. He glared directly into her eyes with the tension of a coiled snake about to strike.

  “Lady Helena, I realize what you are trying to do, but I will have none of it.”

  Helena blushed and stepped back, stuttering, “What? What am I trying to do? I don’t know what you’re speaking of.”

  She could see the anger flashing in his eyes.

  “You have no interest in me. You’re here for another reason—one I can guess. But I’m tired of being used—used by you and used by your father. He trampled me in his rush to the throne and treats me as less important than his hunting dogs.” The words tumbled out of him, almost spitting with white heat, years of resentment igniting. “The one thing I don’t have to give your family is a child of mine. You may want a child, but it won’t be from me,” he finished, shaking with outrage.

  She stood stunned at her husband’s words. They had spent so little time together over the years; she had no understanding of his feelings about her family. She had somehow imagined Constantine would be grateful to her father for taking on the responsibility of governing. Helena flushed red, swallowing hard at this uncomfortable revelation.

  Finally, before fleeing this humiliating episode, she said, “I’m sorry to trouble you, then, husband.” Turning to leave, she felt ashamed at his having discerned her intent and his scornful dismissal of it.

  Constantine watched Helena’s retreating figure before turning back to his painting. His hand shook still, and he threw down the brush in disgust. No matter how attractive the girl might be, the Lecapeni had taken enough from him. He would not give them his children.

  Jacobus, for once, kept silent.

  ***

  Helena had no difficulty avoiding her husband over the next few weeks. They saw each other for only brief periods at court ceremonies.

  Romanus always said he had only taken the throne because of Constantine’s youth and the ruinous incompetence of his regents. And given Constantine’s childhood sickliness, it made sense to make her brother Christopher co-emperor and provide for a stable succession. All this was true.

  Yet even now, with Constantine grown and healthy, Romanus conferred only with Christopher and Theophanes, his chief minister. They ignored Constantine, treating him like her two immature younger brothers despite his birthright. Helena could sympathize with how demeaning it was to wear a crown and be ignored.

  Romanus was a blunt man, even brutal at times. His harsh code of honor required unquestioned obedience from his family and the empire. At the same time, he gave unquestioning obedience to the Church. He had had her youngest brother, Theophylact, castrated to ready him for the patriarch’s chair, to save him from worldly temptations. No one could say he had ruled badly or spent frivolously. He used diplomacy as much as warfare to keep their borders secure. Her niece’s marriage, which had brought a peaceful resolution to the empire’s problems with Bulgaria, was evidence of that.

  Now, though, she recalled the perfunctory prayers said on the occasion of the death of Constantine’s mother several years earlier. The woman had been packed off to a monastery when Romanus had begun ruling, never to see her son again. Any other supporters or friends of Constantine had likewise disappeared into distant provinces, if not monasteries. She began to realize how alone her husband was, ignored and friendless, and how he must feel about her father.

  ***

  Constantine, meanwhile, began to feel remorse for his angry words with Helena. He made a habit of keeping his interactions with Romanus and his brood to a minimum, but his bothersome wife had gotten his unwilling attention. Now, for the first time, at the court ceremonies they both attended, he noticed Sophia’s snide insults and recalled Jacobus’s remark about the older woman’s treatment of Helena. He found he could empathize with his wife’s predicament.

  At heart a gentle soul, he rarely spoke in anger and regretted the scathing tone he had used. He may have been justified in his anger toward her family, but Helena herself had done nothing to warrant it. Well, except to try and lure him to her bed for her own purposes—that was aggravating. Even so, he felt his words to her had been harsher than imperial etiquette permitted.

  ***

  Weeks went by, and leaves fell as autumn began. In late October, an ambassador from the Pechenegs arrived in the city to meet with the emperor on a territorial dispute. Romanus would do the negotiating, assisted by Christopher, but there would be an elaborate ceremony in the Chrysotriklinos, the golden throne room, in which all five of the co-emperors would be in attendance, as would Helena. Sophia’s pregnancy was enough advanced that she was excused.

  Eunuchs maintained the exquisite silk raiment the imperial family wore on these grand occasions in great cedar closets packed with fennel leaves to prevent any damage from insects and other pests, moving them into the palace when the specific garments were needed. Servants dressed each of the emperors in a long gold-banded purple tunica cinched at the waist with a gold-link belt, and a maniakis, a heavily embroidered, gem-encrusted collar stretching over the shoulders and halfway down the chest. Each of the five emperors wore a crown, Romanus’s being the most impressive with enameling and cabochon rubies and amethysts encircling it.

  Helena’s tunica of gold-embroidered red silk with wide Dalmatian sleeves falling almost to the ground was no less impressive. At her throat, the servants placed a heavy gold-and-pearl collar before adding crescent earrings to her ears, heavy with many tiny pearls. Finally, a eunuch placed the gold crown on her head.

  Trumpeters in the throne room announced the entrance of the glittering imperial family. The waiting crowd of servants, courtiers, guests, and the Pecheneg ambassador fell silent, bending their heads and falling to their knees in obeisance. Helena’s two younger brothers, Stephen and Constantine, led them in, followed by Helena and her husband, and then by Romanus and Christopher, who took the two thrones centered on the dais. Helena’s younger brothers took the lower thrones
to their father’s left, while she and Constantine sat ensconced on thrones to Christopher’s right.

  A herald announced each of the various officials who approached the thrones to make their requests of Romanus. A court secretary stood discreetly behind Romanus, whispering advice to him as each supplicant approached. Helena distracted herself at these tedious ceremonies with examining the dazzling mosaics circling the walls and domed ceiling depicting the city’s founder, Emperor Constantine, and the law-giver, Emperor Justinian, and his empress, Theodora. Light streamed in through the high windows sheathed in the palest alabaster panes, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air.

  Helena glanced at her husband as the monotonous conversations continued and realized he was paying rapt attention. He may only have ranked in the third place among the five co-emperors, but he treated the position with respect. She glanced over at her two younger brothers, who were squirming and giggling over some crude joke, as was their way. At twelve and fourteen, they should have behaved better. The thought occurred to Helena that she had never seen her husband conduct himself indecorously at a court ceremony the way the two boys did.

  The time arrived for the introduction of the Pecheneg ambassador. The crowd parted to reveal a solitary dark figure approaching the dais. Helena thought she had never seen a man as dangerous as this ambassador to the Roman emperors. He advanced to them with the menacing grace of a panther before speaking the expected phrases of homage.

  The ambassador had a swarthy complexion and stood only middling tall. Black hair flowed down his back, and his pointed beard was oiled to a shine. While unarmed, as required for all in attendance with the exception of the imperial guards, he looked as though he could kill—had killed—with only his large hands. He wore a black leather knee-length robe embroidered and beaded with the pattern of a wolf, fangs bared and tongue lolling. A silver collar surrounded his throat, and wide bright silver bracelets on his arms glinted in the light. The grim set to his mouth suggested he did not smile often, and his dark eyes took in everything—her giggling brothers, the magnificent golden throne Romanus sat on, soft and beardless eunuchs, the formidable wealth displayed by the court, and scribbling secretaries. He reminded her of a ravenous animal eyeing its prey.