November 1059 to May 1062
I painted a smile on my face and congratulated Eudokia, but I could not look at the new emperor. I returned to our rooms with John trailing behind me. Once inside, I shut the massive oak door and locked it.
“What happened in that room with Isaac? How is it you’re not emperor now? You are, or were,” I said with disdain, “the Caesar.” My voice was cold with the effort to control it, to not scream at him.
“Isaac tried to stand this morning and walk across the room but couldn’t manage it. He spoke with the hegoumenos later and made his decision. He . . . he said he didn’t think he’d ever recover the strength to rule again.” John was pale, stumbling over his words as he tried to placate me.
“So why not you, then? Or one of your sister’s boys? Theodore is certainly of an age. Why that disgusting man and not a Comnenus?”
John’s eyes shifted away. “It’s not my fault. I would have suggested Theodore after I told Isaac I did not want the throne,” he pleaded.
“You what? You turned him down?” His words made me sick with disappointment. I should have expected that, but I still could not believe the words I heard.
John turned red with anger. “Anna, you know I didn’t want to be emperor. Isaac wasn’t surprised when I told him. And then . . . and then Psellus spoke up before I could say anything else and suggested Ducas. The men there all seemed to like his suggestion well enough, and before I could say anything it was decided. It wasn’t my fault that Isaac chose Ducas.”
I looked at him as though I’d never seen this man before. I thought I had married a soldier like the men in my family, willing to take on whatever task the empire asked of him. Not someone trying to escape blame by saying it wasn’t his fault. I looked at him: It wasn’t his fault. My disappointment in John was far greater than knowing Constantine Ducas was about to be emperor.
I put my head in my trembling hands, so aghast was I at his words. “How could you do this? What man turns down the throne and lets someone like Ducas take it?”
“Why is it so hard to believe?” he shot back. “You know I didn’t want to rule. Not everyone wants power, wants a throne. Besides . . . what about your own Uncle Costas?” he added with a furious voice. “He turned it down when Empress Zoe wanted him to be her husband. I just made the same choice.”
I had forgotten that incident in the white heat of my anger, forgotten that my dear uncle had turned down a throne just as my husband had.
“Don’t you dare compare yourself to Uncle Costas. My uncle was an old man, over seventy and feeling too old to rule. That’s not you.”
“I don’t think it’s different,” he said, chin jutting out.
We stood glaring at each other for a long time before I finally turned away and said, “I’m returning home. I need to think of our children.” I turned away, thinking I had to get back to my sons. I would raise them to never shirk their responsibilities.
John did not immediately respond.
“I need to stay here. Ducas has asked for my help with the transition.”
I almost laughed at that foolishness. “You think he wants your help?” I asked bitterly. “You don’t think he’s just keeping an eye on you, Emperor Isaac’s brother, in case you have second thoughts?”
He blinked at me. “Ducas will see only a loyal subject in me, not a rival,” John said defensively.
I’d had enough of my oblivious husband.
“I’ll be at home,” I said. “I’ll send a message to Thomas for anything I leave behind.”
John’s face flushed, and a tremor shook his hands. “I’m not sure when I will be back,” he mumbled.
“Don’t rush,” came my cold response.
I spent the first few days at home trying to calm myself and grappling with the terrible fact that Constantine Ducas was now emperor. Thomas sent my things home along with a note about what Catherine and Marika had decided. They had entered the Myrelaion monastery, not far from the Great Palace, and a place where other empresses had retired to. The monastery overlooked the Marmara and held some lovely gardens, but that would be a small consolation for Catherine who born the daughter of the Bulgarian king and had been the wife of a Roman emperor. She and I had never been close, but the two of us now shared the sting of social obsolescence since both our husbands had given up the crown. Perhaps we could commiserate with each other.
Their rooms were those of castoff royalty—large, airy, and reasonably comfortable. A carpet softened the stone floor, and cushioned chairs were ready for visitors. A warm glow came from a brazier. The last imperial residents had been the daughters of Constantine VII, the one called Porphyrogenitus, a hundred years earlier, who had been put away there by their own brother. It was a comfortable setting but modest compared to the opulent Great Palace. Catherine and Marika had enjoyed the palace’s luxuries for only two years but had lived lavishly even before that.
Marika’s tranquil greeting at the monastery’s entrance surprised me. Her face showed little anguish or grief, and she had not been tonsured, her hair in a braid hanging over her shoulder. She was dressed soberly but not in the typical attire of the nuns in this monastery.
“Thank you for visiting, Auntie. Mama will be happy to see you.”
“How are you both?” I asked quietly. “Ducas certainly made sure you moved here quickly.”
She raised an eyebrow at that. “I was more than happy to get away from that man and his pawing hands. I don’t know how Eudokia manages him; she’s a saint. At least here he won’t bother me anymore.”
I eyed her neatly plaited hair. “But no tonsure?”
She gave a wistful smile. “I’m not sure I’m ready to take that step. Mama was tonsured right away, but I want to wait.”
Marika was only twenty-three. There was no rule that she had to have her hair cut and take vows; many women moved to monasteries to live out their days without it, not taking the final step until they were on their deathbed.
Catherine entered the room then, looking smaller than she had in the fine embroidered silks she had always worn, even before Isaac became emperor. The nun’s black garb covered all of her except face and hands. Her only ornament was an enameled and jeweled cross hung around her neck on a thick gold chain that she nervously fingered, rubbing the gems in it as if praying for good luck to appear.
“Anna, so kind of you to visit,” she said before the tears started falling.
“Catherine, I’m so sorry. I know this has been a terrible trial for you and Marika.”
I spent the next hour sympathizing with her on the unfortunate events of the past few weeks. She had lost not only her position as empress, but her husband. They were both committed now to celibate life in their own monasteries, apart, even though Stoudion was just a mile or so away. She could not visit him, nor could he see her. After years of those two trading barbed comments, it seemed Catherine had finally recognized her love for Isaac, and it was far too late.
Yet my sympathy for Catherine ebbed by the end as her conversation became a monologue of complaints about the accommodations, the food, the hegoumena’s expectations for her attendance at multiple services each day. I made my excuses to return home and stood up to leave.
“I’ll accompany you to the gate, Auntie.”
Marika closed the heavy oak door behind us and we walked down the deserted peristyle to the entrance. The center garden had rosebushes, now dormant for winter, a few frostbitten cabbage plants, and the subdued gray-green of sleeping lavender. The sounds of the nuns’ hymns came from the monastery’s church.
“Auntie,” Marika began, then stopped.
I looked at my niece, wondering why she hesitated.
“Marika, what is it?”
She stopped and looked at me, a plea in her eyes.
“Do you think he remembers me? Ever thinks of me?”
She could only have been speaking of Michael Maurex.
“I . . . I don’t know. I haven’t seen him in at least a year,” I stuttered.
We began walking again and reached the gate. She leaned close and whispered.
“If you see him, please tell him I think of him. I think of him fondly. Promise me you’ll tell him that.”
Marika’s face hungered for hope.
I embraced her, “Of course, dear, I will.” There seemed little chance I would see him and less chance that my telling him would help matters. At that moment, the world looked filled with little but misery.
John was home and glared angrily at me when I arrived back. After a quick glance, I brushed past him into the workroom that held my household account books and sewing. He would be unhappy with me ignoring him, but then, at that moment, I wasn’t happy either.
He followed me in, shutting the door behind him.
“The emperor’s coronation is tomorrow.”
I opened one of my leather-bound account books, pretending to peruse its columns of numbers, and then looked up at him.
“We are expected to be there for it. Both of us.”
“You’ll have to make excuses for me. I won’t be able to attend.” My voice sounded icy, even to my own ears.
“There can be no excuses, Anna. If we aren’t there, talk will be that we don’t support Ducas. He’ll become suspicious of our intentions, the intentions of the former emperor’s family.”
“Perhaps you should have thought of that sooner. I still don’t want to attend this farce. You know as well as I do that Ducas is not qualified to rule. The Comnenus family are not puppets to be pulled on a string hither and yon.”
“Eudokia specifically asked for you,” he said.
“She will understand why I can’t be there.”
“She might. But she needs you now. She’s pregnant and overwhelmed. She has no idea how to manage as empress.”
She had long been my closest friend, and I knew she was a dreamy sort, not one to take control or even delegate to me, as Catherine had done. The silence drew out between us as I thought about Eudokia’s request, my eyes not seeing the numbers anymore. Ducas would be preening like a rooster, strutting as though he’d actually accomplished something other than manipulate that social-climbing bureaucrat Psellus into suggesting him as Isaac’s successor. Eudokia, on the other hand, was a gentle dove trying to keep her husband satisfied, though easily overwhelmed. I had to grit my teeth when I spoke.
“I will return to the palace, but only until her child is born.”
John was visibly relieved. “Excellent. Get the children ready, and we can be there before dark.”
John did not mention it then, but the title of Caesar had already been taken from him. The new Caesar John was the emperor’s younger brother, another man I had no love for. I’d known his wife Irene since childhood but never really liked her. She was a whiny sort who would never be much help for Eudokia.
The coronation of Constantine X Ducas went smoothly. The gown I was given to wear at the ceremony was not as fine as the one I’d worn just over two years earlier, but I was no longer the emperor’s sister-in-law. John’s place in the procession to the Hagia Sophia was distant from the new emperor’s. It looked like an afterthought that he was included, a cursory demonstration of the former emperor’s family’s support for the new ruler. My husband professed no concern about the snub but flushed angrily when I brought it to his attention.
I brought Thomas to Eudokia’s chambers for an introduction a few days after the coronation. I recounted my first meeting with Thomas in his small office and assured her he was someone she could rely on once I returned home.
“Thomas, I’m feeling a little restless today. I think I’d like to take a walk to see where you work,” the new empress said, standing slowly with her hand pushing against her back, as many pregnant women did. “Anna, will you join us?”
The three of us strolled along the pathways between the palace’s many grand old buildings to the modest structure Thomas worked in. The two of them were soon engrossed in lively conversation and I dropped behind them. The mid-December gray sky felt heavy, and glancing down, I saw my painful knuckles were red with chilblains. I tucked my hands closer into my heavy woolen mantle and watched the other two slip around a corner out of sight. I stopped, suddenly too discouraged to want to keep walking. The entrance to the Chrysotriklinos, the emperor’s golden reception hall, was in front of me, the symbol of my defeat, my enemy’s victory.
My grandfather’s words flashed through my head like a sudden vision. Words he said in a history lesson about Emperor Basil when he already suspected our family was about to be exiled.
“Basil was young then, not much experience. Good soldier, yes, but he didn’t know the enemy’s tricks. Learned them at Trajan’s Gate. Never made those mistakes again.”
Trajan’s Gate had been a terrible defeat for Emperor Basil, but he recovered and defeated the Bulgarians years later. Was this my Trajan’s Gate? Grandfather also said, “The key to eventual victory is to survive and learn from defeat.”
I still lived. I would learn from this defeat. I would pray that victory would someday, somehow, be mine. I would look ahead.
Heartened with the memory of my grandfather’s words, I walked over to join the two people I trusted most: Eudokia, my enemy’s wife, and Thomas, my enemy’s servant.
Eudokia soon agreed to dismiss some of the servants Psellus had managed to bring back into the palace. It was impossible to be rid of them all since Psellus was like a snake whispering in the emperor’s ear and would not hesitate to cause trouble for her if all were gone. He was a leech, stuck to Ducas’s side constantly, always praising the emperor for his “wise” rulings without advising wise decisions.
The Nativity passed, and in the time between the Epiphany and the start of Lent an announcement was made that little Marie of Bulgaria would be betrothed to Caesar John Ducas’s son, Andronikos. Marie was a great heiress, inheriting lands and wealth from both her parents and had remained in the palace when her Aunt Catherine and cousin Marika left for Myrelaion. The child seemed a bit bereft, with what family she had now gone, so perhaps this betrothal was for the best. Andronikos was about sixteen, just getting his first wispy beard, and a nice-looking but nervous lad. They seemed to like each other, but the betrothal would last for several years until Marie was old enough to wed.
By Epiphany, I had news of a different sort. I was pregnant with our eighth child. It must have happened just before Isaac’s accident, and I can’t say I was as overjoyed with it as I had been with our other children. It did little for my vanity to be nauseous in the early months of pregnancy and relegated to the lower ranks at court. Eudokia remained a great friend and never condescended to me, as some might have. But John’s refusing the throne still embarrassed me. I wasn’t vain about clothes or cosmetics, the way women often were. No, my vanity was that I had presumed I had defeated Ducas, never expecting that Isaac would abdicate and John prove to be so feckless. Instead, Ducas had won, and now I had to live with that defeat.
Eudokia’s child was born in late March, just after Pascha in the imperial birthing chamber with its walls of purple porphyry marble. The emperor arrogantly named this third son Constantios, the same name as a son of Constantine the Great, as though he was just as great a ruler as that first Constantine. The boy was the first porphyrogenitus, a child of the emperor born in the purple room, in a hundred years, and Psellus chortled that it was a good omen for the dynasty. Constantine strutted around about it, preening like a peacock.
A month later, the imperial family attended the Divine Liturgy at the great church of St. George of Mangana on St. George’s feast day, April twenty-third. The emperor and his family and favorites traveled on the magnificent imperial galley moored at the quay beside the Boukoleon Palace. They sailed around the cape to St. George’s church, making a grand appearance for the populace. John and I were required to attend the services but we were not invited to travel on the galley. I was more than happy to be in my sedan chair, enjoying the mild spring air, while John followed nearby on horseback.
Traveling through the streets in the rose-colored hours of dawn felt odd that morning. My glimpses through the chair’s curtains showed groups of burly men in clusters. Some stood by the Milion monument outside the Hagia Sophia, then others gathered near the Hospital of Sampson, the Hagia Irene, and farther along the road to St. George’s. It seemed odd that they were doing nothing, not going about morning work routines, just waiting and watching, but we arrived at the church without any difficulties.
Two hours later, the services in the church were coming to a conclusion when the low rumble of voices in the distance floated through the windows of the women’s gallery, where I stood with the other women near Eudokia. In the nave below, a red-faced senator approached the emperor and Caesar John Ducas, whispering urgently. The three men rushed out of the service, and Varangians soon appeared to collect the empress and her children, sweeping me along in the confusion.
Outside, the shouting grew louder, accompanied now by the clamor of metal striking metal. Men with short swords were skirmishing with the emperor’s guards in the street outside the church. A few of Eudokia’s other women began whimpering. Eudokia gathered her frightened children close as we were hurried down to the quay where the anxious emperor searched in vain for the imperial galley. It had inexplicably disappeared.
“Your Majesty,” called a young magistrate I recognized as Joseph Trachaneiotes. “Sire, here, please get on my boat. We can get you away safely from this mob faster than waiting for your galley.”
Constantine Ducas turned back to see the fighting between Varangians and the mob, his face pale and terrified.
“Yes, let’s go,” he said in a shaky voice. The frightened man boarded the boat with alacrity, leaving others to help Eudokia and her children.
John pushed me onto the boat before it pulled away from the shore, then going back to join the fight. Several of the rebels raced to the quay thinking to stop us from leaving but they were too late and were cut down by the guard.
This attempt at rebellion lasted less time than a race day in the hippodrome. Caesar John marched up the Mese that afternoon arresting the leading conspirators. Many were dynatoi from the wealthiest aristocratic families in the city. Even the city’s eparch, its most senior administrator, had joined it. Unfortunately for them, none had the least idea how to execute a rebellion.
The emperor sat as judge at the trials that started a week after St. George’s Day and gained a reputation for generosity. He was praised for not using the death penalty for the rebels. Of course, all of the convicted—and all were convicted—relinquished to the crown all of their property and wealth, their wives barely allowed to hold onto their dower properties. The amateur rebels at least had their lives, poverty-stricken though they might be. Ducas’s reputation as a greedy miser began then with all those confiscations. He feared another rebellion and became suspicious of the people of Constantinople after that, rarely showing himself in public.
John convinced me that for our own safety we should remain at the palace until after our child was born. Best to wait until the dust settled from that failed rebellion to be certain the emperor knew we were not involved. John also hoped for a military assignment, but no emperor would be foolish enough to give it to him, Isaac’s brother, especially after just putting down an uprising. Instead, the rest of the court treated him as the political non-entity he had become.
Our son, named Nikephoros after an uncle of John’s, arrived in late July. We remained in the palace until the end of the summer’s heat in September.
I sat down with Thomas the day before returning home. We’d been working together for several years now, and trusted each other’s judgment. Thomas’s growing responsibilities meant a move to better offices than he’d had when we first met. With his support, Eudokia became more confident in her ability to manage the palace’s operations with his support.
“Thomas, after I’m back at my house, you know you can talk to me anytime if you have any concerns. The empress is my closest friend, and I would want to know if she’s having any difficulties. I know you’ll be a great help to her. Still, unusual circumstances could occur, and I would want to know, even need to know.” I wondered if he understood what I was asking.
Thomas blinked at me, his brown eyes searching my face for a minute before responding. “Lady Anna, you know I’ll keep you informed. It’s the least I can do.”
I visited Isaac once at Stoudion for news I could give to Catherine and Marika. I knocked at the monastery’s gate in early October and was surprised to see the former emperor’s face appear in the portal.
“Isaac, it’s me, Anna,” I said. “I wanted to see how you are.”
“Anna?” He squinted at me, and his face broke into a broad smile. “Of course, come in. I’ll ask someone to watch the gate for me.”
I slipped in through the gate while Isaac spoke to another monk. I shook my head at the thought of my brother-in-law, once the mightiest ruler in the world, deciding it was better to be a doorkeeper in a monastery than to live in a golden palace. How things had changed in just three years, but other emperors had come to far worse ends.
“Anna, let’s walk in the garden.” He stood there, leaning on a cane, beckoning me.
The autumn leaves drifted down from trees while the other plants looked bedraggled and tired at the end of the growing season. I gave Isaac news of Catherine and Marika, and of my own family. I noticed how his right leg was still not recovered from the fall from his horse when the lightning had dealt him a glancing blow. He stopped every few steps from the pain it caused. Eventually we settled onto a bench.
“Congratulations on the new son,” Isaac said. “John visits me every few weeks and told me of little Nikephoros. That’s a fine name for the lad.”
John had not mentioned those visits, although I had suspected them.
Isaac paused before continuing. “Anna, I hope you can forgive John for declining the throne. John told me it disappointed you.”
He looked into my eyes. “I should have realized it years ago. He wasn’t made for ruling an empire. Some people are; John isn’t one of them. You would have been a fine empress, but we both know he could not have been emperor.”
Isaac’s face showed the fatigue of age and living with an injured leg that would not heal. He peered at me now, looking for a sign that I understood. I realized he didn’t know how Ducas had driven my cousin to her death. How much I desired to avenge Xene. How sick I felt to see Ducas as emperor.
“I expect you’re right, Isaac.” I knew in my heart that he was right. John was not meant for a throne. But Ducas was worse; he only ruled because he lusted for the throne and had done whatever was necessary to get it.
A glance at the sky showed heavy dark clouds rolling in. I would have to hurry to get home before the downpour started. We said our good-byes. My last sight of him was his peaceful face in the portal before it was shut. The first frost arrived a few weeks later and we were told he came down with a fever and a bad cough. John rushed to the monastery’s infirmary and sat beside his brother when the former emperor was released from his earthly bindings.
My anger and disappointment with John waned, watching him play with our children and I began to understand the wisdom of Isaac’s words. Our children filled our days with their needs and John was a wonderful father.
Manuel turned fifteen and began training with the emperor’s tagmata troops. He’d grown as tall as John, with dark reddish-brown hair and freckles across his cheeks, now partly hidden with his first beard. He was soon bringing home tagmata friends, other young men training with him. Most I did not know, but one looked familiar to me.
“Lady Anna, do you remember me?” asked a tall brown-haired boy, thin, with an angular face.
Searching his face reminded me of a long-ago night when I’d had to pay to get our warehouse manager, Samuel, released from another emperor’s custody on trumped-up charges. This young man had needed my help when one of the eparch’s men had tried to pilfer some of the coins he’d brought.
“Michael Taronites? Yes, I do remember you,” I said, embracing him. “It is wonderful to see you again. How is your family?”
We exchanged pleasantries, and he joined us for dinner that night and soon became a regular visitor. The reason was not difficult to fathom. Our oldest daughter, Marina, was almost fifteen and had blossomed into a lovely young woman with wavy chestnut hair and a fair complexion. I noticed how they often managed to sit beside each other at meals and how attentive he was to whatever she said.
“How well do you know Gregory Taronites?” I asked John one afternoon.
He looked up from the repair he was making to a table leg our five-year-old Alexios had managed to damage while playing.
“Taronites? Well enough. A good sort; got into a bit of trouble with the Orphanotrophus back in the day. But didn’t everyone?”
“I’ve been wondering if his son, Michael, might be a good husband for our Marina. You know she’s of an age to be betrothed.”
He gave me an incredulous look, like any father contemplating the loss of a daughter to another man.
“Yes, she’ll be fifteen next year, a good age to be wed. I always promised myself that my daughters would not wait as long as I had to. Michael seems a fine young man, and he comes from a good family. I have the feeling he and Marina will be pleased about it. They always seem to be glancing at each other. Don’t you think his family will be happy to have a connection with us since Isaac was emperor? The connection would be a mark of prestige for them.” I stopped, letting him think about it for a minute.
“Do you really think Marina is ready to be married?” he asked.
“Most girls are at her age.” I paused. “Why don’t you discuss it with Gregory and see what he thinks?”
My cousin Romanus Diogenes served under Isaac’s old friend Nikephoros Botaneiates and was stationed in the borderlands of Bulgaria near the Danube. He returned to the city in time for Marina and Michael’s wedding at the end of April and stopped by our house before returning to Bulgaria, as angry as a hornet’s nest. My cousin was still the handsome man he’d been as a youth, but ten years as a soldier had left him lean and muscled, tanned and tense.
“All I hear from people in the city is about how high the taxes are. If that’s the case, then why can’t the emperor send my men the pay they are owed and the equipment they need? I just met with him and received a pittance of what I needed and what my men were owed. Does he want to see what happened to Belgrade happen to the rest of Bulgaria?”
Belgrade stood near our border with Hungary. Isaac had decisively put down an attack from the Hungarians on his last fateful campaign, pressuring their king into signing a treaty. Emperor Constantine Ducas, however, neglected the borderlands, leaving them open to attack. It wasn’t long before the Hungarian king realized Ducas would not respond as Isaac had and recaptured the city.
John reddened as he explained the venality of the man on the throne. “The emperor has favorites. He promotes them to positions with generous allowances. His brother gets especially generous payments, twice as much as Isaac paid me when I was Caesar. I suspect the emperor sees these as a hedge against another St. George’s Day rebellion.”
Romanus rolled his eyes. “He has to pay for loyalty?”
“The money goes both ways. Did you know the emperor sits as the judge at trials?” I asked.
“I’d heard that. Ridiculous,” answered Romanus, shaking his head. Then he gave me a second look and asked, “But wait, he’s doing it for the money?”
John cleared his throat and explained, “Rumor has it favorable decisions go to the highest bidder. Some people even bring lawsuits to win favor with the emperor, leaving the loser impoverished.”
Romanus’s face turned red. “What kind of justice is that?”
“Corrupted justice, which is no justice.” I said tartly. John avoided my eye at that.
My cousin shook his head, looking sick at heart. “I don’t know what I’ll tell my men when I get back. They’re loyal to me, but they need to eat, they need equipment. I promised I’d return with more than just the trivial bag of coins the emperor gave me.”
John frowned and said, “How much longer before you leave? I may know some people who can find what you need. No guarantees, but I’ll see what I can do.”
In the end, John’s contacts did find much of the equipment Romanus needed, but no additional gold. The emperor kept a miserly eye on the treasury, as though its contents were only for himself. I couldn’t help but think of how little Constantine Ducas cared about his soldiers compared to how much Romanus did.