Anna of Byzantium (12 page)

“Indeed so,” answered my grandmother. “We have much to be proud of, and it is plain to see that the Ducas blood has not tainted you very deeply.” She smiled at me, but instead of feeling proud of the compliment, I suddenly grew enraged at the insult to my mother and to my betrothed. What was there about Ducas blood that would dishonor me, or anyone? And who was she to say
we
have much to proud of? She was not a Comnenus, not even half a Comnenus, as I was.

“One thing Grandmother has not told me much about,” I continued, as though I had not heard her, and my father leaned forward, obviously relieved that I was finally speaking of my own volition, “is the history of her own Dalassena family.” I turned to my grandmother, and was
startled at the venom in her eyes. But I made myself go on, as though I had not noticed, keeping my face expressionless, as I did when playing chess. Don’t let your opponent know that her king is in danger, I reminded myself. “There was a Dalassena who married into the Ducases, was there not, Grandmother, a Eudocia Dalassena? Was she a close relation of yours?”

“Hardly,” she answered, her face turning dark as she glared at me. “A distant cousin.”

“And what,” I pursued, “were the Dalassenas doing while the Comneni were increasing their power and the Ducases were consolidating their own?”

My father leaned back and looked at his mother. As she struggled to come up with an answer, he appeared to take pity on her.

“The Dalassenas are an ancient family, too,” he replied. “It is through no fault of their own that they were not able to rise to the station that befitted them until—”

“Until they married into it?” I asked, my voice reflecting an innocence that I knew my grandmother would recognize as feigned. Fortunately, my father did not know me so well.

“Indeed,” he said, smiling. “And they proved themselves worthy of their new station, and aided it well. You say that your grandmother has told you of her assistance to me in attaining the throne—”

“Oh, she told me that she did more than that, Father,” I said in my sweetest voice. I felt myself move across the chessboard until the king was in my sight. “She said that
she alone was responsible for your attaining the throne. I assure you, I was fascinated by the tale.”

“That is not what I said!” exclaimed my grandmother. “The child has misunderstood me!” A weak attempt to escape checkmate, I thought.

“It would be difficult to misunderstand words like ‘
I
did it,’ Grandmother,” I said.

“What are you trying to say?” she asked. I saw her king topple and moved in to capture him.

“Merely that you told me—” but I could not finish the game, for my father raised his hand. He was laughing.

“Enough, enough, ladies! I see that you are two of a kind,” he said as we fell silent, glaring at each other. “Neither one of you will admit to being wrong, and neither one of you will change your mind. I see, Mother, that you will have a struggle to maintain your influence if I fall in battle and it is Anna, not I, who sits in this throne!”

I made the sign of the cross to avert the evil omen of his words. My grandmother did not, but regarded me levelly. “Yes,” she said finally. “I will indeed.” And after making a low, formal bow to my father, she swept from the room without waiting for his permission to withdraw.

fter Anna Dalassena left, there was silence in the throne room. I sat frozen to my stool, breathless at the chance I had taken in provoking my grandmother, and giddy with relief that she had not lashed out at me with her tongue. I prayed silently that my father would dismiss me quickly, and he did so after a few moments, murmuring a blessing and kissing me on the forehead. I bowed as quickly as I dared, and entered the corridor, intending to go to my bedchamber. Instead, I felt my arm grasped by a hand. What now? I asked myself wearily, and turned to see who had hold of me. To my relief, it was Simon.

“Little Beetle!” he exclaimed, his ready grin spreading across his round face. “You must see the new additions
to the library!” And without waiting for an answer, he bustled off toward that wing of the palace with his characteristic waddle. He didn’t wait for me, but if he had been assuming that I would follow, he was right, for I was eager to distract myself with study.

Several open boxes sat on the floor, and Simon bent over one of them, pulling out its contents for me to see. He held a scroll and unrolled it partway to show me the contents. I saw nothing fancy, no illuminations, but beautiful, clear handwriting that filled the page.

“Where did these come from?” I wondered aloud. “Surely it’s not booty—the infidels do not write in Greek and Latin.”

“In a way, they’re booty,” Simon said, searching for the perfect place on the shelves to set the scroll he had showed me. “With some of the gold and other treasures your father seized, he ordered that scrolls and books be bought. See—most of them are history.”

I bent down in my turn and pulled something out of the wooden box. No scroll, but a bound book, heavy and interesting-looking. It also seemed newer than some of the others. I read the author’s name out loud, “Nicephorus Bryennius,” and looked up at Simon. “Who is Nicephorus Bryennius?”

“There!” he said with satisfaction, having slid the scroll into what must have been exactly the right spot. “What were you saying?”

“Can’t you ever listen to me?” I asked, but Simon was busy examining a new book. “I said, who is Nicephorus Bryennius?”

Simon came over and looked at the book with satisfaction. “This is a real treasure,” he said. “Not many of them have been copied yet. It must have cost a pretty penny. The author is a Byzantine, Princess, and a soldier. He knows your father well. He is also a historian, and someday his name will be spoken in the same breath with the names of the greatest historians of the past, like Thucydides and Herodotus.”

I examined the book with even more interest. I admired anyone who could unravel the complicated stories of the past and show them in clear form to a reader.

“Someday I too will write history,” I said.

Simon chuckled. “More likely to cause history than write it,” he said. “Perhaps someday this Bryennius will write a history of the greatest empress that the Byzantine Empire ever knew, Her Imperial Majesty Anna Comnena.” He swept a deep bow to me, which I returned to him.

“And of course my chief advisor, Chancellor Simon, will be shown as the great mind and counselor he really is!”

“Unlikely, Little Beetle. Can you imagine your grandmother allowing a slave to advise you along with her?”

“What will she have to say about it? I will be empress, and I will do whatever I want, just as my father does.”

“Your father does little without consulting his mother, Princess.”

“True,” I admitted, sitting down on one of the unopened boxes. “But I won’t have to do that. My father is not as strong as I am. He does not see how she manipulates
him.” I slid my eyes toward Simon to see how he reacted to this treasonous talk, but he made no reaction, so I went on. “I won’t have to listen to anyone I don’t want to. Anyway, you’re a lot more intelligent than that old woman. And I like you much more.”

“And what will be your first act as empress?” he inquired, still busily examining and shelving books.

I did not need to think; I had already planned this for years.

“I will exile John,” I said. “I will send him to a cold place, like the mountains, and not allow him ever to enter the city again.”

“That seems rather harsh, don’t you think?”

“It’s not as harsh as what I would really like to do. I would like to have him blinded and executed. Did you know that the very day I first saw him I tried to kill him?”

Simon’s attention had been drawn back to his new books, and I could see that he was no longer paying attention to me, for he merely murmured and continued in his work. I went on.

“And then, I would make my grandmother fall to her knees in front of me and swear that the Dalassena family is nothing, that the Ducases are far superior to them. And then I would wed Constantine, and I would allow him to be crowned emperor, and we would rule together and undo all the evil that my grandmother has done.”

Simon merely grunted again, so I left him to his pleasurable task. I returned to my chamber, bearing Bryennius’ book with me, feeling more cheerful than I had since my father’s return, and awaited the summons to dinner.

I became absorbed in the book and did not notice how late it had gotten until I realized that it was getting dark, and difficult to read the words on the page. As I made my way to the door to find out why I had not been called to the meal, the hanging swung open, and in burst my grandmother, followed closely by my father, who was clutching John by the hand. The two adults looked furious, but John had such a smug expression that I feared something dreadful was about to happen.

And I was right. My grandmother seized me by the shoulders and shook me until my teeth rattled. “You dare!” she gasped, as though she could not catch her breath. “You dare conspire against me! You dare threaten to kill your brother, the only son of your father?”

Stunned, I looked from her to my father. He was shaking. “Anna, explain yourself immediately!” he said.

“C-C-Conspire?” I stammered. “Kill? What are you talking about?”

My father pushed John forward. “Tell her what you heard,” he commanded, “and you, Anna, contradict him if you dare.”

“I had been studying alone in the library,” he said, and with that last word, my heart sank, and the world turned ashen. I hardly heard the rest of his words as they came glibly off his forked tongue. I wanted to ask how he could have been studying—he who could not even read. But I knew I had to be silent until he finished his story.

John went on, “I had been studying so hard and for so long that I fell asleep behind one of those big boxes that arrived there today. But voices woke me up. Anna was saying
that she had already tried to kill me once, and that she was going to do it again. She also called my grandmother evil, and said that the Dalassenas were nothing. She also said—”

“Enough,” my father interrupted, fixing me with his dark eyes. “Anna, is this true?”

What could I say? I had never told my father a lie in my life. Feebly, I tried to excuse myself. “Father, when I said I tried to kill John, I didn’t mean it, it was the first time I ever saw him, and I was just a child, and I resented the way he took everyone’s attention. I never touched him—I have never harmed him, you can ask anybody!”

“I will,” my father said grimly. “These are serious charges, Princess. Rest assured that I will find out the truth behind them.” He turned back to the door. “Guard!” he said. One of the huge doormen appeared. “Let no one enter or leave this room, except for the Princess Maria and the two maids that attend on the princesses.” The guard nodded and withdrew.

I sat on the edge of my bed, utterly defeated. Tears started from my eyes and went down my cheeks in silence, as I refused to allow John and my grandmother the satisfaction of seeing me wipe my face like a child.

There was nothing I could do. But my mother—surely she had some influence on my father. When she spoke to him, all would be well. My mother always made everything well.

“Anna,” said my father, bending down now. I dared not look at his face, so kept my own downturned. “If it is true that you were a small child when you threatened your
brother, your life will be spared. I will make inquiries tonight and decide what is true and what is not. Your punishment will be considered tomorrow at first light. A guard will come to escort you to the throne room, where you will hear your penalty.” And he wheeled from the room, followed by Anna Dalassena, and John, whose face was full of mocking triumph.

I tried to follow them out, but the guard blocked my way.

“Father!” I called down the hall after his retreating back. “Father!” And then in desperation, “Grandmother!” But it was no use; neither one turned around.

The only thing for which I was thankful was that no one had thought to ask me who I had been talking to in the library. I could not tell my father a lie, and I could not refuse to answer him without risking my very life—for he was my emperor before he was my father—but I could never betray Simon, I thought, as my tears turned to sobs.

Now I could only wait for the first light to reveal my fate.

hardly slept all night, and when the maids awoke, I rose with them. I knew that my father would already be up and would expect me soon, and I did not like the idea of postponing the ordeal. Sophia dressed me in one of my simplest outfits, and together we awaited the summons. We did not have long to wait, for barely had my untasted breakfast been cleared away before a guard appeared at the door. He had no need to say anything, so I rose, and with Sophia as chaperone, made my way down the familiar corridors to the throne room.