Anna of Byzantium (19 page)

“Alexius! You must listen to me,” my mother said. The motion of his head ceased, and he fixed her with a glassy stare.

“Husband!” she tried again. “What of the succession? Will you not repent of your foolishness and name Anna your successor, as you first promised?”

He moaned again, and shook his head vehemently. Even I had to admit that this was a denial and not a movement of pain. His mother turned on mine and seized her arm. “No more!” she spat. “The succession is determined!” She flung my mother from the bed.

Becoming more agitated, my father clawed with his left hand at his right, where the imperial ring had been since before I was born. He forced out a name. “John,” he said, and from the shadows stepped my brother.

“Yes, Your Majesty, I’m here,” he said. “What is your will?”

“John,” he repeated, and finally managed to pull the heavy gold ring from his finger. He thrust it into the boy’s hand, and before anyone could say or do anything, John had seized it and disappeared from the room.

I sprang to my feet to follow him, but guards barred the way. Defeated, I turned back to where my father was lying still now, his breathing labored, sweat pouring down his face. I had loved him more than I had loved anyone else, even Constantine, and he had failed me. He had had the chance to right his wrong, and had not done it. All was over. I did not blame him, but I could not forgive him either.

My mother was crying, huddled on the floor. “Mother—there’s nothing we can do about John,” I said. “Let us ease my father’s way out of this world while we can.”

“Do what you like,” she said in a flat voice. So for an hour I moistened my father’s brow with wet cloths, wiped the sweat from his face, tried to help him drink some wine. But of a sudden his breath stopped, and we knew he was dead.

My mother let out a harsh cry, almost inhuman in its despair. She leaped to her feet, seized a knife, and before anyone could stop her she had hacked off her long red hair, throwing it on the floor. She kicked off her slippers of imperial purple, and with her fingernails tore at her silken gown. Maria and I watched helplessly, afraid to approach her, but Father Agathos seized her hands and held them still, speaking soothingly into her face.

“Daughter—daughter—” he said. “You will see him in Heaven. All will be made new then.”

“What care I for Heaven?” she spat in his face. My sister and I gasped; never would I have imagined that our pious mother would speak thus, even in her despair. “What good will Heaven do if this Earth is Hell?”

I agreed with her silently. But I could not give way to hopelessness, as she had; I knew that there was much to do. Even now the maids were closing in on the bed, linen cloths in their hands. My grandmother had withdrawn into a corner, her face white and rigid. My mother and I moved back out of the way of the maids, my mother reluctantly, still sobbing, and held by the priest. We watched as the women stripped the soiled garments off my father and cleansed his body with fragrant water, and then dressed him for the last time in his imperial robes, with his ornate crown and purple slippers. In silence we stood as his body, seeming suddenly shrunken, was carried out of the sickroom by two young priests. Father Agathos followed, repeating the ancient formula, “Depart, Emperor: The King of Kings, Lord of Lords calls you.”

My mother, weeping hard now, leaned on me as we followed the procession to the Hall of the Nineteen Couches, where for centuries the body of the emperor has lain in state before burial. I felt my grandmother try to push past us, but I blocked her. Here, at least, the widow must take precedence, even over the mother. John, I suddenly realized, was not there. Everything had happened so fast that I had hardly had time to wonder where he had fled to. Later we found out that he had run to the church
of St. Sophia, where he had been crowned emperor in a hasty ceremony.

The following days are a blur in my memory. We had to postpone the funeral until dignitaries and ambassadors from many lands could arrive. Each morning I rose from my bed and attended services, Masses for the repose of my father’s soul. I resisted the idea that he needed any intercession to enter Heaven, but participated as was expected of me. I had no need to upset my mother further or to anger my brother. I know that several nights I awoke, screaming with nightmares, to find Sophia’s soothing arms around me, her quiet voice hushing me back to sleep.

The day of the funeral was appropriately dreary. Rain fell in torrents, and a wind whipped the procession. My brother led the long funeral train, accompanied by our mother, who looked dazed. Nicephorus Bryennius had hastened home and was at my side, although I hardly noticed his presence. After the services, long and incomprehensible, we were to return to our chambers and rest until the funeral feast, the last of the ceremonies we had to perform.

I was alone in my chamber, for Maria was taking her turn keeping vigil over my father’s body in the chapel. Sophia and Dora, along with all the other slaves, were helping prepare for the funeral feast. As I lay on my bed, I heard a stealthy sound at the door. My heart pounding, I waited to see who was coming in.

It was my mother, although I hardly recognized her. Her dress was disheveled, her short hair in disorder
around her lovely face, her blue eyes dim with weeping and circled with red. She crept up to my bed, and said, “Oh, Anna, you’re awake.” I sat up.

“Mother—” I started.

“Hush!” she whispered. Her swollen eyes stared wildly around the room. “We don’t have much time.”

“Time for what?” I asked, but she clapped her hand over my mouth.

“Don’t let anyone hear you!” she whispered. “Do you know what he is calling me?” I did not need to ask “Who?” for it could only be John. I shook my head. “He is calling me an adulteress. He says that your father never wanted to marry me, that he was forced into it. He reminded me that when Alexius was crowned emperor he refused to have me named empress, and when I told him that that was all the doing of that demon, that witch, that Anna Dalassena—oh, forgive me that I ever consented to give you her name!” She stopped talking, and impatiently dashed away the tears that had sprung from her eyes. I was too terrified to say anything, and waited until she had composed herself and started speaking again.

“He is not my son,” she whispered vehemently. “No son could say such things about a mother. A devil slipped into my son’s cradle when he was a baby and took his place. And we cannot allow him to continue saying these things.”

“But, Mother,” I said, “how can we stop him?”

She turned her eyes on me, and I could see that they had changed. They were flat and lifeless, and had lost their light, and I shuddered.

“He must die,” she said.

ie?” I whispered.

“He must be struck down at the funeral banquet,” she went on, as though she hadn’t heard me. “That way everyone will know that he took the throne wrongfully, and that it is not God’s will that he rule. I will do it myself—this hand will strike him down with a dagger as he feasts on what should be yours.” She raised her trembling right hand in the air, fingers curled as though clutching a knife.

I crept to the door and looked out, to make sure that no one was listening. The corridor was empty, save for guards standing at the far end.

“You can’t,” I said, turning to face my mother. “You will be executed—probably blinded and tortured first.”

“I don’t care,” she said. “There is no reason for me to live. The witch and her familiar will torture me anyway, just by being alive and ruling the empire that should be yours and mine.”

Silently, I agreed with her. The mere presence of John on the throne, doing everything Anna Dalassena told him, would be intolerable. Only by John’s death would life be made bearable again. I pictured myself on the throne, the gold ring on my finger, the crown on my head. I pictured my grandmother prostrate at my feet, begging for mercy—which I would refuse to grant. I saw my mother restored to her high place at banquets.…

But if she were caught and executed, I would take no joy in my rule. I looked at her thoughtfully. She was trembling, and her hands were roaming shakily through her hair, as though looking for the tresses she had flung on the floor in my father’s death room. I made a decision.

“No, Mother,” I said. “I will do it.”

She clutched me eagerly. “You will? You could? How will you do it?”

“Never mind,” I said. “But I will take care not to be found out. Now, return to your room before anyone comes in and accuses us of conspiracy.” Rightly accuses us, I thought. She nodded. Her lips, as they pressed on my forehead, were hard and cold.

I knew what I had to do.

Even as I thought this, Sophia entered the room. She looked exhausted. But I took no pity on her.

“Find Simon,” I said. “Find Simon immediately, and tell him he must come here. After you have delivered this
message, find me a dress such as the kitchen-women wear.” Obedience was by now such a habit with her that she had already started for the door without questioning me. “And Sophia …” She turned. “Tell Simon he must bring the flask. You know which flask I mean.” She hesitated and seemed about to say something, but instead went out the door.

I paced up and down, waiting impatiently. I had no clear plan in mind, but one was starting to form.

After what seemed an eternity, Simon appeared. He put his bald head in at the door and looked around, obviously uncomfortable at the thought of entering my bedchamber. I seized his arm and dragged him in.

“Did you bring it?” I whispered, after making sure that there was no one in earshot. He nodded, pulling the flask from his sleeve.

“Give it to me!” I commanded, grabbing at his hand. But he evaded my grasp.

“What do you want it for?” he asked.

“I do not have to explain my actions to you, slave!” I said, and saw him wince as the blow hit home. But I had no time to waste on pity, for at that instant Sophia entered, carrying a plain brown shift and wooden shoes.

“You may leave,” I said to Simon. “You may not tell anyone what you have seen or done today.”

Still silent, Simon bowed and went to the door. As Sophia had done earlier, he hesitated.

“Well?” I said, impatient to get on with it.

He looked at me, his round face pale. “Little Beetle—” he began.

“Stop calling me that!” I said.

He bowed once more. “Your Majesty—Princess Anna,” he said, his voice quivering. “Think before you act. Remember Atreus. Remember Agamemnon.”

“They are dead,” I said. “I cannot change the past. But I can change the present. Now leave me before someone comes.”

He stood for a moment longer, then went through the door. His footsteps receded down the corridor.

“Dress me!” I commanded Sophia. Her hands trembled as she did so and as she slid the heavy shoes onto my feet. I pulled the brown hood up over my head. “Hand me a mirror,” I said. Sophia gave me a heavy bronze hand-mirror, and I examined myself. No one would know me in that disguise.

“Go to my mother’s apartments,” I instructed Sophia. “Tell her not to worry; tell her that by tonight we will be free.”

Suddenly Sophia was on the floor, clutching my ankles with both her hands. “Princess,” she was sobbing, “you can’t do this! You will be caught, and tortured, and executed!”

“I will not be caught,” I said. “I am much more intelligent than that—than that thing that calls itself the emperor. He will never find out.”

“But you can’t kill your own brother,” she wailed. “It is against nature, and the laws of your God. Your God will punish you.”

“So you expect his guardian angel to look out for him?” I asked. I would have laughed if I hadn’t been in such
haste. “Don’t believe fairy stories, Sophia. Now let go of me.”

She did not, and I had to bend down and loosen her hands from around my ankles. Leaving her crying on the floor, I slipped out the door and made my way down the corridor. Empty a few minutes before, it was now filled with servants, some going to their masters’ and mistresses’ bedrooms to robe them for the feast, others hastening to the kitchen and the banquet hall to make final preparations for that evening. I kept close to the wall, head down, trying to imitate the walk of the slaves. It proved easier than I had thought, since the wooden shoes made it difficult to take long steps. At the door leading out of the section of the palace where the bedchambers were, I saw two guards. One of them was the man who had been ordered to keep me out of the library. I was suddenly afraid he would recognize my face, even with the hood over my head. I pulled back into the shadows. After counting to one hundred, I looked out again. He was still there.

Time was running short. I had to enter the banquet hall before the guests arrived, so I decided to fetch Sophia and have her distract the guard while I slipped past. Retracing my steps, I returned to my bedchamber, but the room was empty. Now what? I pulled my courage together and went out into the corridor again.

Once more I made my way down the hall, and as I neared the guard, I saw he had been pressed into carrying a wooden bench into the kitchen. Taking advantage of his absence, I entered the banquet hall.