1078 - 1079
The dreary winter days, cold and rainy, lifted no one’s spirits. It was just after Epiphany that more rumors circulated about Botaneiates. Emperor Michael was still on the throne, but the rebel troops had again acclaimed Botaneiates emperor. They’d again presented him with the purple robes and shoes of a ruler after their bloodless capture of Nicaea. His slow progress in Anatolia, gaining supporters as he went, was indeed avoiding the divisive battles that my brother-in-law had fought.
The rebellion in the west was a different story. Bryennios’s supporters took up arms against their fellow Romans, who were led by Alexios. They scurried through the countryside from Dyrrachion to Thessalonike to Adrianople battling in their bid to unseat the emperor. Bryennios did not gain supporters the way Botaneiates did. The rebels burned one village to the ground in anger after they arrived to find it emptied of people and the supplies gone that they had hoped to expropriate.
The weary and hungry people of Constantinople cared little where relief from their incompetent ruler came from, whether from the west or the east. Emperor Michael belatedly became aware that his seat on the throne was becoming precarious. At the end of January, he sent an army of men to Nicaea to stop Botaneiates. Those men promptly threw in with the rebels. The army Alexios led in the west, on the other hand, remained loyal.
Alexios came home in early February for a few days, looking for money and equipment from the emperor. He returned from the Great Palace with an unexpected guest.
“Mama, let me introduce you to an old acquaintance of mine. Roussel de Bailleul.”
This infamous Frank stood a head taller than Alexios, with sandy-colored hair and a red beard. His clothing was shabby, and he carried no weapons. He was thin, his wrists red and scabbed. He didn’t resemble the fearsome warrior I’d heard so much about.
“Lady Anna, it is a pleasure to meet the woman who raised such a clever son. If it weren’t for him, I would have long since ceased looking upon the world,” he said in his barbarian-accented Greek.
“Lord Roussel, he’s an obedient son, and he knows how I feel about blinding men,” I said. “How is it that the emperor released you?”
“I suggested it,” said Alexios. “I told Michael that Roussel was a brilliant fighter who could help us stop Bryennios. Michael agreed after Roussel swore an oath that he will join me in this fight. If you approve, I thought he could stay with us for a few days until I’m ready to leave, to get him some clothes, armor, weapons, a horse. I’ve space to put a camp bed for him in my room.”
The Frank remained with us for less than a week, keeping close to Alexios. He did spend one afternoon with Judge Attaleiates, reminiscing about Romanus’s last campaign against the Turks and what had gone wrong that fateful day. Both of them felt some remorse over those events, although neither had done wrong themselves.
The judge had become a frequent visitor to our house, serving as a kind of grandfather to the three granddaughters I shared with Romanus. It was also evident that he and Theodora had become fond of each other, but with Attaleiates already twice widowed, the Church would not permit a marriage between them.
Alexios and Roussel left the second week in February, with snow swirling around them, leading fifty men and dozens of wagons full of weapons and other supplies. I spoke with Alexios just before they left.
“How much do you trust this Frank?”
He shrugged. “He gave me his word. He’s beyond grateful to be out of the emperor’s foul prison and the shackles he was kept in, so I’ll trust him for now. But he hates Michael for keeping him in chains. He’d rather have been dead, I think.”
I visited the palace at the end of February, taking a ferry to the quay at the Boukoleon harbor, with the excuse of seeing Isaac’s wife, Irene, and her sons. She had given birth to her second boy a few weeks earlier. He was named Alexios after his uncle. Thomas had told me Emperor Michael paid little attention to Empress Maria, leaving her adrift. As the mother of Irene’s husband, I was probably the only woman from outside the palace to whom she could turn for advice. The two young women were in the nursery with their sons, speaking in hushed tones, when I arrived. Irene gave me a look of relief when I entered the room.
“Lady Anna,” she began while snuggling her baby, “the empress and I know so little about what’s happening beyond the palace walls. Is it true what they say about rebels approaching the city?”
I looked at Empress Maria, her pretty heart-shaped face wearing a worried frown and circles under her eyes.
“Augusta, Irene is correct. The rebels get closer every day.”
“But isn’t my husband doing anything about it?”
I reached for my grandson, John, a sturdy four-year-old so much the image of his father, and held his warm body close. “He’s trying, but he ignored the problems for far too long. You haven’t been outside the palace walls in months; you haven’t seen the people suffering, the starvation I’ve seen. The emperor did nothing to help them, and now they want him gone.”
“It’s that wretched Nikephoritzes,” she said, frowning. “Michael listens to no one but him, never to me. I hate that eunuch.”
“Lady Anna, what would you counsel the empress to do?” asked Irene, putting a calming hand over Maria’s.
I sighed and smoothed the soft fine hair that rubbed against my cheek. Little John stared up at me before wriggling away to play with Maria’s son, Constantine, whom everyone called Tino.
“Augusta, I have seen the downfall of several emperors in my life. I cannot give you hope that Emperor Michael will rule for much longer.” In truth, Michael had never truly ruled at all since he’d had either his mother, Romanus, John Ducas, or Nikephoritzes ruling for him. “As a mother, though, you know you must protect your son, do whatever you have to do for him.”
Maria looked down at Tino, a handsome child of three who had inherited his mother’s good looks. “What do you suggest?” she asked.
“Augusta,” I said, “is your loyalty with your husband or your son?” I had to hear her say it.
She flushed pink but looked straight into my eyes. “With my son.”
“I can’t be sure, but I can tell you what I think will happen. I believe General Botaneiates will reach the city and claim the crown first. You know he was recently widowed and has no children? I suggest writing to him to let him know you will support his bid for the throne if he marries you and agrees to make your son his heir. He’s from a noble family, wants no bloodshed, and the prize of a purple-born heir would ease his path to the palace.”
She rubbed her hands nervously on her fine embroidered silk gown, trying to decide. “How can I be sure such a letter won’t fall into the hands of Nikephoritzes? He has his spies, and he’d use it against me.”
“Write the letter,” I told her. “I’ve got someone I can trust to get it to him safely.”
Michael Attaleiates left for Nicaea with Empress Maria’s letter, along with one from me, vouching for him. I knew the esteemed judge would make a favorable impression on Botaneiates. He would be gone for two or three days.
In the meantime, I received a letter from Alexios recounting his battle against Bryennios outside a town on the coast of the Sea of Marmara. Roussel fulfilled his oath to Alexios in the battle, but then that rogue slipped away during the night with what he considered was his share of the plunder. Bryennios also managed to escape, making his way back to his family’s stronghold in Adrianople.
Attaleiates returned from the errand to Botaneiates with other news.
“The general appeared favorably inclined to the empress’s letter. He wouldn’t commit to anything, but he said the empress’s offer was a good one, one that would help him.”
“That’s the best we can expect. Any difficulties on the journey?” I asked.
He raised an eyebrow at that. “We had no trouble on our way to Nicaea, but on our return we were stopped by men loyal to the emperor.”
“Who?” I asked, surprised anyone still was.
“Your son-in-law, Niko Melissenos, and his men. Fortunately, I had your note to show him, so he let us through. But he says he’s holding true to his oath of loyalty to Emperor Michael. Honor-bound to it.”
“Honor is important, but the emperor is also honor-bound to care for his subjects. He’s not doing that. Michael is not capable of doing that. I hope for Donya’s sake that Niko comes around.”
“He seemed the stubborn type,” said Attaleiates.
Botaneiates’s response was not strong enough to completely allay the empress’s anxiety. Crowds began gathering outside the palace by the middle of March, calling the emperor “unworthy,” calling to “dig up his bones” and throwing stones at the walls, even into all hours of the night. No one called him by his name or title anymore, just by his nickname that meant “minus a quarter,” Parapinakes. Maria lived in fear that a mob would break through the gates and slaughter everyone in their path.
Alexios was back in the city, summoned by the terrified Michael. He arrived in mud-splattered armor, irritated by the emperor’s demands.
“I don’t know what he wants me to do. Stay here to stop the rioters from throwing rocks or go to Adrianople and make an end to Bryennios? I can’t be everywhere. Shouldn’t the Varangians be scaring off the mobs?”
We sat in my office, trying to warm up next to the brazier on a chilly spring day.
“They tried, but it’s no use. They scatter for a time before starting again,” I said.
Alexios looked thoughtful. “Maybe Parapinakes should just leave the palace for a while? Go someplace no one expects him to go? Let the mobs die down, then return?”
Even my own family called Michael by that unfortunate nickname. “Son, that won’t fix the problems he’s created.”
He bent forward, elbows on his knees, looking me in the eye. “Mama, I know Parapinakes is an awful ruler and that his ridiculous Nikephoritzes could not be more of a thief. I know all that, and I wish he wasn’t emperor. But I’ve sworn an oath of loyalty to him, and breaking my word, my oath, would make me into something far worse than he is. It would make me into a man with no honor. I can’t do that.”
Alexios was the man I’d raised him to be. I was never more proud of him than I was at that moment. And yet Michael’s fate was already a boulder tumbling down a mountainside.
“Then you must get him off the throne without breaking your word. The people don’t want him as emperor. Michael is a frightened and foolish boy. And Botaneiates does not want to shed blood unless he has to. The usual answer to this problem is the monastery.”
Alexios was forced to hire a boat to take him to the Boukoleon harbor since the mobs controlled the streets in front of the Great Palace. It took a couple of days before he could convince Michael to leave.
He arrived breathless at the house just after dawn the next morning.
“He’s at the hunting lodge here in Blachernae.”
“That’s the farthest you could get him to go? I hope no one saw you,” I said. It took no more than a few minutes to walk there from our house.
“We sailed at night. He was unwilling to go farther,” he said raking a hand through his red hair. “He insisted Nikephoritzes come with us, more worried about that miserable little eunuch than he was about his lovely wife and child.”
Alexios had never described a woman as “lovely” before. “Where are Maria and her son, Eudokia’s children, and Irene and her boys?” I asked.
“Back at the palace. I told Maria I’d be back today. Not sure what to do with them, though. They can’t stay there with the mob getting wilder all the time.”
I thought for a minute. It would be best to have Empress Maria and the rest close, should they have to leave together.
“I’ll come with you. We’ll bring them to the Petrion monastery. Old Empress Theodora lived there for a long time after her sister Zoe pushed her out of the palace. They’ll have rooms suitable for the empress. Should we go now or wait till dark?”
Alexios frowned while he considered the risks. “Go now. Clouds are blowing in. I think a storm’s coming, and it won’t be safe for them to wait longer. The Varangians still control the seawalls near the palace; no one will notice a few women and children. We can be back by midday.”
“One more thing, or rather, two more things.”
Alexios looked at me quizzically.
“We need to send out two messengers. One to John Ducas, telling him he’s needed at the lodge. Send the other messenger to the Stoudion monastery. We need the hegoumenos at the lodge to be ready to tonsure Michael.”
We sailed in one of the ordinary ferry boats that ply the waters of the Golden Horn. The sky was an ominous gray, and the gusting wind almost blew my maphorion off my head several times. Irene was waiting on the quay outside the Boukoleon when we tied up there.
“The children are almost ready. The littlest ones were just napping when I saw you.”
Maria stepped out, bundled in a heavy mantle and holding the hands of two little boys, her son, Tino, and Irene’s son John. She was followed by three others—Zoe, Eudokia’s thirteen-year-old daughter with Constantine Ducas, holding the hands of her half-brothers, Leo and Nikephoros Diogenes. Alexios paid solicitous attention to Maria, helping her and the two toddlers into their seats on the rocking boat while I assisted Zoe and the Diogenes boys. Irene had her new baby held tight in her arms. We wrapped blankets around the children when rain began pelting us.
The swelling sea churned as the ferry slowly made its way into the Golden Horn’s waters. The sea spray and rain drenched me to the skin, and my maphorion hung limply around my face. A mist rose, a blessing that veiled us from those who might try to stop or follow us. By the time we reached the Gate of St. John the Baptist in the seawall, Tino and John were soaked and whimpering in panic over the violent rocking of the boat. Zoe and her little brothers shivered in the cold and damp, but they were calm.
Alexios paid the ferryman and we hastened to Petrion, a few minutes’ walk from the watergate. Irene carried her mewling baby son in her arms in the pouring rain while Alexios picked up and carried young Tino for Maria. Zoe grasped the hand of Leo Diogenes, while I held John’s and Nikephoros’s. Before long, our bedraggled party reached the monastery, and Alexios pounded on its gate.
The door hole opened to reveal the sallow face of a rawboned nun looking surprised that any would be knocking in such a storm.
“Sister, we must speak with your hegoumena,” said Alexios.
The nun gazed at Alexios with suspicion. “On what business?”
I spoke up then. “Sister, we have the empress and the imperial children with us. They are in need of shelter.” I pulled Maria forward. Her aristocratic bearing, exquisite face, and fine garments gave evidence of her high position, even if the nun had never seen the empress. She took stock of us all before deciding we posed no threat. She grudgingly pulled back the two bolts securing the gate.
“Wait here,” she said after escorting us to an entrance hall where we could stay out of the rain.
The nun returned a few minutes later with a companion who looked at Maria with recognition. She nodded to the first nun and said, “Sister Alethea, wait here with the others. I’ll escort Empress Maria to the hegoumena.”
The two of them disappeared around a corner.
Irene was sitting in a chair, hugging John and the baby to her and trying to warm them.
“Irene, would you want to come with me and stay at our house rather than here?” I asked.
She flashed me a grateful smile but shook her head.
“I’ve been Maria’s companion since we were children. I can’t leave her now.”
Maria returned with the hegoumena’s decision.
“Irene and I may stay here with our children and with Zoe. But she says that Leo and Nikephoros are too old for the monastery.”
“They’ll come home with us, then,” I said. “They’ll be with their sister, Thea, there.”
The fatherless boys had rarely been outside the palace walls without Zoe and almost wept when bidding her farewell. They were like driftwood, fallen into strong currents pushing them toward rocky shores. My house would be a safe harbor for them.
Thea greeted us on our return, quickly taking charge of Leo and Nikephoros. She also handed me a message from Thomas telling me that the rioters had gone to the Hagia Sophia, compelling the patriarch’s presence, and in that church of Holy Wisdom he had acclaimed Nikephoros Botaneiates our new emperor.
The messenger sent to John Ducas waited in our hall with the news that the Caesar was at the emperor’s lodge. Alexios and I changed into dry clothes before leaving again.
“This is when you’ll need to persuade Michael to abdicate,” I told him before we left. “He thinks you’re loyal to him, but you are fighting for the empire, the Roman people. Michael has forgotten about them. Think of this as just a chess game where the king has lost all his men except one knight—you. Michael’s lost his queen, his castle, his bishop, and he’s cornered. It’s checkmate. He cannot win. His game is finished.”
Alexios set his jaw and gave me a reluctant nod of acknowledgment. “Yes, it is finished.”
The rain had stopped outside and the wind blew scudding clouds across the sky. It was midafternoon when we reached the hunting lodge where Michael had taken shelter. Inside, we found John Ducas pacing irritably in a reception room, growling at the servants for more wine. The hegoumenos from Stoudion waited quietly in a corner.
“I don’t know why I’m here. My nephew refuses to see me,” John Ducas said.
“He’ll see you,” I said. “Alexios will convince him to see you, and then you must tell him to abdicate.”
“Abdicate? Why should he? He’s not that bad,” Caesar John said, waving me off as though unimportant.
“That’s what you think? That he’s not that bad?” I said in an angry outburst. “When people all over Anatolia are swarming into the city to escape the Turks he can’t be bothered to fight, when people are starving to death in the city’s streets? Don’t you realize that your nephew, your precious brother’s oldest son, will be destroyed by the mobs rampaging in the streets the way the caulker’s son was destroyed? Do you want to see Michael blinded the way that other Emperor Michael was? Blinded to die the way Romanus did?”
“Why do you always have to bring up Romanus? Just let him rest in peace,” he grumbled.
I stared at John Ducas in stony silence while Alexios put a hand on my arm.
“Caesar John,” he began, “my mother is correct. We all know the mobs at the Great Palace are calling for the emperor’s death. He can’t even enter the Hagia Sophia without worrying he’ll be attacked. We just received the news that the patriarch acclaimed Botaneiates emperor in the Hagia Sophia today, and the new emperor is just across the water in Nicaea. If something happens to him, there’s Bryennios rebelling in the west and camped in Adrianople. You know those two weren’t the first to rebel, and if neither of them succeeds, others will rise up to replace them. We can end the fighting now. We all know Michael was never suited to being emperor. The hegoumenos can tonsure him, and Botaneiates will let him live out his days safely in Stoudion as a monk. You know it will be the best for him and everyone else.”
“No, it won’t be for the best,” said John in a voice that quavered. “I can’t agree.”
“I do agree,” said another voice. “The emperor must agree to the tonsure. The sooner the better, before anyone finds out where he is and there is bloodshed,” said the hegoumenos, Michael Kourkouas. The respected priest in his black robes and long gray beard looked sternly at Caesar John. “If we do it quickly and a new man takes the throne, then Michael will be forgotten and he can live undisturbed. If we wait, people will be killed, and Michael will be one of them.”
“Botaneiates told me he does not want to shed Roman blood, and so far he hasn’t,” I said. Then I dangled a carrot before Ducas. “I know he’s also prepared to be generous to those who help him take the throne without a fight.”
Caesar John blinked, looking at each of us in turn. The truth of Michael’s plight stood in stark contrast to the lies John Ducas had told over the years to prop up Michael. He looked suddenly shattered, like an urn fallen to the ground and broken into small pieces. He nodded finally.
“So we’re agreed, then. We’ll persuade Michael to be tonsured,” said Alexios. “I know he’s waiting for me, so when I see him, I’ll convince him to agree to see you, Caesar. We won’t push him, just make him understand he has no other choice.”
“I’ll come with you,” I said. “Michael is fond of me; he won’t mind if I come with you.”
John Ducas gave an irritated grunt at that but said nothing.
The emperor’s apartments had the feel of a deathbed watch. A few servants hovered about, watchful as vultures trying to decide whether to leave their still-breathing prey or remain to feast over the corpse.
Michael’s face held the same blank look it so often did, as though he was always unprepared for what was happening. Nikephoritzes stood nearby, gold bracelets jangling on his wrists and a jeweled collar around his throat that I had last seen years earlier on Eudokia.
“Your Majesty, I’ve received word from the palace that the rioters went to the Hagia Sophia and acclaimed Botaneiates emperor in the presence of the patriarch who confirmed it,” said Alexios. “The word is they are prepared to fight in the streets to remove you.”
Michael gulped loudly, taken aback at this. “But, Alexios, you have soldiers; you can stop them, can’t you?” His voice sounded pitifully plaintive. He reached out a hand to grip the eunuch’s arm.
Alexios appeared to consider this request. “Of course, Your Majesty, I could do that. It will end up in much bloodshed, many Romans killed in the fighting, I’m sure. If you desire that, I can do it.”
Michael looked hesitant.
“Your Majesty, I saw your Uncle John when we came in. I think his advice would help you come to a decision,” I said.
Michael’s face turned red, but then he nodded and sent a servant to fetch his uncle.
Nikephoritzes’s feral eyes darted back and forth between Alexios and myself, judging his situation. He then made the excuse of needing to relieve himself to depart.
“Caesar John,” said Alexios when John Ducas arrived, “the emperor seeks your opinion on whether I should take my troops to the Great Palace to stop the rioting. I told him there would likely be many people killed if I did that, and he was concerned about so many deaths. It does him great credit that he is so disquieted at the thought of killing his own people despite their fickleness.”
John Ducas looked thoughtful for a minute before speaking.
“Your Majesty, my dear nephew, General Comnenus is right in saying your care for your people does you great credit. You have always had such a kind soul, more like that of a monk or saint of old. I think if the people of the city acclaimed General Botaneiates as their emperor, then perhaps it is time for you to set down your burdens and allow him to rule.”
Michael rubbed his forehead, trying to understand what he was being urged to do. “Where’s Nikephoritzes? Someone get him and bring him to me. Immediately. I need his advice.”
A servant scurried off in the direction the eunuch had taken.
“Nephew, it happened that on my way here I encountered the hegoumenos of the Stoudion monastery. You recall that that’s where Emperor Isaac lived out his final years? The hegoumenos is waiting just outside the door here. It would take just a few minutes for the tonsure. All your cares will drop away as your shorn hair falls to the floor.”
The servant returned without Nikephoritzes. “I-I can’t find him anywhere,” he stammered.
Michael looked panicky. Nikephoritzes had always been at his side for over five years, but John Ducas would not wait any longer.
“Bring in the priest,” said Caesar John to the servant.
Michael’s mousy brown hair was soon scattered on the floor around him. The hegoumenos led him outside, where, as a new monk, he was given a donkey to ride to his monastery of Stoudion.
“Do we have any idea where Nikephoritzes is?” I asked.
“If I had to guess, he’s off to some far corner of the world where he can enjoy whatever wealth he’s managed to carry with him,” said Alexios. “Good riddance.”
Botaneiates entered Constantinople two days later, the proud bringer of victory riding a magnificent stallion and attired in the imperial purple garments of an emperor. The patriarch crowned him in the Hagia Sophia, and the new emperor moved into the Great Palace. Nikephoros, the third emperor of that name, soon discovered the bulging treasury that Michael had hoarded. Thomas said he believed Michael had no idea how much was there, allowing Nikephoritzes to squander it as he wished. The new emperor used it to buy the affections and gratitude of his army, the city’s dynatoi, the palace servants, and the Roman fleet, bestowing the largesse on one and all. The new ruler was hailed as peace-loving and generous.
Unfortunately, my daughter Donya’s husband, Niko Melissenos, refused to accept the new emperor and even dared to oppose him while he was still in Nicaea. Donya came to me in tears.
“Mama, Niko was just being loyal to Emperor Michael. He’d sworn an oath of loyalty to him. Now, we’re being exiled to the island of Kos.” She wiped back her tears.
I put an arm around my daughter, trying to comfort her. I hated to see her and her son leave the city.
“Botaneiates probably doesn’t see it as being harsh. New emperors don’t want to encourage opponents, and Niko was an easy target to make an example of. Give it a little time; he could reconsider after a year or two.”
It was difficult to send them off, but I consoled myself that I had suffered exile and survived. Kos was much closer than Amasea had been for us. They would survive too.
Donya left in mid-April, and the next day a visitor arrived at my door. Eudokia. Emperor Nikephoros had sent word to her that she was free to return to the city. The seven years spent in the remote monastery had added lines to her face, but she wore her widow’s black dress and maphorion with the same grace she’d worn an empress’s jeweled gowns.
“The emperor is considering remarriage,” she told me. “He wants the legitimacy that a marriage to me or my daughter-in-law would give. I told him to marry Maria. I have no wish to marry again. I’m done with that. I was glad to return, though. I’ve missed my children.”
“You’ve seen Zoe?” I asked. “You know your sons, Romanus’s boys, are here?”
She nodded and started to cry. “I didn’t think I’d ever see them again. They were just babies when Michael sent me away. They won’t remember me. I’m afraid they won’t forgive me either.”
I embraced my old friend, patting her back. “They remember you. I often tell them about you and their brave father. They know you had no choice; they know their father was a hero. Let me bring them to you.”
Eudokia nodded, teary-eyed.
I retrieved Nikephoros, now almost ten years old, and Leo, who was eight, from the room where they studied with their tutor and brought them to her. I pulled the curtain across the doorway to give them privacy for their reunion, but it was no barrier to the sounds of this joyful homecoming.
Eudokia stayed with us for a few weeks that spring while she found a new place to live with her sons and Zoe, a new place that held no painful memories for her. At the same time, Botaneiates married Empress Maria. John Ducas pushed the new emperor to choose her and name her son, Tino, as his successor since Botaneiates had no children of his own. Beautiful Maria, a woman of twenty-seven, was now married to another emperor, a man old enough to be her grandfather. Her one consolation was that her son would not lose his right to the throne.
Alexios was still in the field with the army the rest of that spring, trying to defeat Bryennios, who persisted in his efforts to take the throne. The emperor tried to appease this stubborn rebel by offering him the title of Caesar with all the rights that involved, including the right to succeed Botaneiates on his death, something he had earlier promised to Maria’s son. Bryennios refused the offer.
“The empress was livid when she learned what the emperor offered Byrennios,” said Thomas one warm June morning after escorting Martina to our house.
“I can’t blame her. Maria married him with the understanding that Tino would succeed his stepfather. I’ve known the emperor a long time, and he’s not one to make promises he won’t keep. Maybe he didn’t expect Bryennios to take the offer.”
Thomas scowled. “Maybe. Did you know the emperor brought a couple of servants with him to the palace, name of Borilos and Germanos? They’re the usual Scythe types—big and hairy, loud and crude. I don’t know what he sees in them. They’re constantly whispering in his ear, and he seems to trust them, but no one else does. A couple of court jesters, really.”
“How are relations between the emperor and empress?”
Thomas paused and looked me in the eye. “Uh, not warm. He’s polite with her, respectful, but no more. I don’t think they’ve shared a bed more than a couple of times. The two Scythes make fun of her. In fact, I think the empress is afraid of them. She insisted that Lady Irene, as well as Tino and Irene’s boys, sleep in her rooms whenever the emperor doesn’t, which is all the time now.”
Roussel was dead. I had no great fondness for the man—he’d done the Roman Empire no good—but the final twist to his story almost beggared belief.
The Frank made for eastern Anatolia after abandoning Alexios, to the castles where his men and family were, aiming to reclaim the territory he had before my son arrested him. He was there just a few weeks when who should turn up at his gate but Nikephoritzes, carrying what bags of gold he’d managed to purloin from the treasury. The wily eunuch thought Roussel would be the perfect man to lead an army back to Byzantium, rescue Michael, and put him back on the throne. He had somehow forgotten that Michael left Roussel in chains moldering away in prison for three years. A man like Roussel would always remember that painful humiliation, and he declined, with great clarity, to do anything ever to restore Michael to the throne.
So what did that miserable eunuch do? He poisoned Roussel, killing him. Roussel’s men were livid at this treachery, tied up Nikephoritzes, and turned him over to the emperor’s soldiers. They dragged him to the island of Prote in the Marmara, where the emperor’s men tortured him until he revealed where his large stash of gold was hidden at Hebdomon, a few miles outside Byzantium. The greedy little man eventually died under torture. I suspect the new monk, Michael, was the only one who mourned him.
And so ended the lives of two troublesome men.
Alexios sent messengers ahead to let the emperor know he had finally defeated Bryennios in mid-August and was sending the rebel back to the city. The emperor sent his Scythe servant Germanos to take charge of the prisoner and return him to the city. Germanos blinded his captive before they even reached the city, without the emperor’s authorization. The emperor forgave his servant’s premature action and still permitted Bryennios and his family to retain their estates.
My son was miserable at this news. He had promised me to never allow such a punishment, and his captive was now deprived of his sight.
“I should never have let that barbarian take possession of Bryennios. I could tell he was a brute when I met him. He’s not the kind of man I expected Botaneiates to put his trust in,” he said.
I shook my head. “You couldn’t have known what he would do. You hardly know Germanos.”
I felt sick about Bryennios—blind and the only family he had left was his late brother’s young son, also named Nikephoros. How would they end up after this? Emperor Nikephoros Botaneiates was turning out very different from the general I once knew.
Empress Maria was even more frightened when she learned what happened. Germanos had made the decision to blind Bryennios on his own, without the emperor’s consent, leaving her to wonder what he might do to her or her son.
We were sitting in one of the palace’s gardens, watching Tino and my grandson John running and kicking a ball back and forth. The joy on their sweaty faces as they played made me realize they were each other’s best friend. Servants brought us iced pomegranate juice to enjoy on that hot summer day.
There were dark circles under Maria’s eyes.
“I feel like I’m constantly in danger,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “The two of them take turns trying to frighten me. They pinch me or throw things at me when the emperor isn’t watching, ridiculing me to him. The emperor says I exaggerate, they’re only teasing me, so I think he cares nothing for me. I try avoiding them, but I can’t always do that. It’s worse than when Nikephoritzes was still here.”
I put an arm around Maria, trying to reassure her, but I could feel her trembling.
“How is the emperor with you?” I asked. Maria was a beautiful woman, patient and affectionate, with the perfect manners of a woman raised to be an empress.
Maria blushed, but her cousin spoke for her.
“The emperor is an old man with an old man’s abilities.” Irene winked at me.
My eyes widened when I realized what was wrong. He was a proud man, a leader of men, and embarrassed because he could not perform in the bedroom at his age. Like many proud men, he blamed the woman for his own failing. I felt bad for Maria, her first husband uninterested, the second one incapable.
“Isaac will be home soon. We can continue to live in the palace. That should deter them,” said Irene, patting her cousin’s hand.
I sipped the bright red juice, trying to avoid the inevitable pomegranate seeds. Like life’s troubles, the seeds were always there. I looked at Maria’s troubled face. I could think of only one viable solution to her situation.
“Augusta, it sounds like you need someone to protect you from these Scythes. Your son is not old enough to take on that responsibility. But suppose you had another son?” I asked.
“Another son, Lady Anna? What do you mean?”
“You need someone who will intimidate those two barbarians into leaving you alone. Your husband is disinclined to do so. You have no father or brother close by. You need a son, one who is old enough to protect you.”
Maria raised a curious eyebrow.
“What would you think about adopting my son Alexios?”
Maria and Irene gaped at me.
“Before you discount the idea, as your son he could be here at the palace at any time. He’s a soldier, physically strong and experienced at war, leading men in battle and frightening enemies. The emperor values him. He’s betrothed to your son’s cousin, Irene. If the emperor questions this, you can tell him it is to bind the two families closer.” I didn’t really want to bind the two families closer, but it was a convenient reason she could give the emperor. “Or tell him you wanted an older brother for Tino to rely on should anything happen to you.”
The young women looked at each other, their faces both skeptical and hopeful.
“Have you spoken to Alexios about this? You know he’s only a few years younger than Maria,” Irene asked.
“No. I know it isn’t common to adopt someone so close in age, but it does happen. I’ll explain why he needs to do this, and the two of you will have to convince the emperor.”
“If you can get Alexios to agree first, then I’ll approach the emperor with the request,” said Maria.
Alexios looked at me as though I had lost my mind when later I told him my suggestion. We sat alone on the terrace behind the house, catching the evening breeze after supper. Thea and Theodora were putting their daughters to bed.
“You know she’s just five years older than I am, don’t you? It’s ridiculous to think of her adopting me,” he said.
“Attaleiates has spoken of court cases he’s judged where there were adoptions between two people close in age. It’s usually for matters related to inheritances, but it does occur,” I said. “The empress is terrified of those two barbarians the emperor keeps around him. She’s worried they will hurt her or her son. She has no father or brother or son to stop them. Do you have a better idea?”
He sighed and walked over to a rosebush whose branches climbed the sides of the trellis above our heads. I needed to water the red flowers; they looked a little wilted from the hot days we were having. Alexios brushed his hand against the bush before pulling it back sharply and sucking on the blood a thorn had drawn.
“You don’t think she’s exaggerating?” he asked.
“Irene agreed with everything Maria said. And as bad as Nikephoritzes was, Maria said she never felt frightened this way when he was still around.”
Alexios eyed the little scratch on his hand, gave it another suck, and turned to me, his eyes in dark shadows.
“Mama, if this is the best solution, the only solution, then I will agree to it.”
Emperor Nikephoros was distracted with another rebellion when Maria came to him with her request to adopt Alexios. The new dux of Dyrrachium, Basilakes, was making an attempt to seize the throne.
“He just said, ‘Of course, I have no objections,’ and turned back to the report he was reading,” Maria said a few days later. “I’ve arranged for a priest to officiate at the church of Saints Sergios and Bacchus tomorrow.”
The next day, we stood inside that little church, a quiet miniature of the much larger Hagia Sophia, situated just outside the palace walls. A glittering mosaic of the Theotokos in blue and gold robes sitting with her Son on her lap gazed down on us from the dome. A gold-clad icon panel of St. Sergios in his armor was on one side of the royal door in the iconostasis, and one of St. Bacchus similarly clad was on the other side. The capitals on the columns held the monograms of Emperor Justinian and Empress Theodora, who had built this gem of a church five hundred years ago. The bright summer morning light shone in the arched windows.
A gray-bearded priest entered in his red vestments, lavishly embroidered with gold crosses and other holy symbols. Acolytes followed him carrying heavy lit candles, standing on either side of the priest as he began intoning his prayers. Alexios and Maria faced each other in front of the royal door. First, the priest asked Alexios and Maria both to consent to the adoption.
“I do,” responded Alexios, pale and staring at his adopted mother.
“I do,” said Maria, looking into her adopted son’s eyes, a slow flush rising on her cheeks.
Maria reached up to slip a chain with a jeweled cross pendant over his head, a symbol of her care for her new son. Alexios then put his two strong hands between her delicate ones, and swore his oath to be an honest and true son to her, with all the rights and obligations that entailed.
The priest said a final blessing on them, and the brief service was done.
It wasn’t long before Alexios had to demonstrate his protective devotion of his adopted mother. He stopped to see the empress on his way to meet with the emperor about preparations for the army being sent to end Basilakes’s rebellion. The emperor’s two Scythe servants, Borilos and Germanos, were tormenting her.
“They were making fun of her accent, taunting her,” said Alexios, “and grabbing little Tino, scaring him and throwing the child back and forth between them, just out of his mother’s reach. The boy was sobbing, and Maria was begging them to stop.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I came up behind Borilos, grabbed him by the neck, threw him so he banged his head against the wall. Hard. That took the fight out of him. Germanos had the boy and was looking pretty surprised to see me. He put Tino down and started mumbling some excuses for what they did. Said it was just fun. I told him I didn’t want to see or hear of them ever bothering the empress again. Then I made sure he had a few bruises to help him remember.”
I held his face between my hands and eyed the side of it that had a new purplish tinge. “It looks like he didn’t want that help remembering.”
Alexios grinned and waved it off. “He hardly touched me.”
“Thank you for doing this, son. I’m sure Maria appreciated it.”
“She did, she thanked me many times over,” he said and paused. “Mama, she’s such a beautiful woman. It’s terrible she was wed first to someone like Michael Ducas with no interest in her, and then to Botaneiates who is so old that he can’t. . .” Alexios looked at me with anguished eyes.
Too late I realized he was in love with her, probably in love for the first time in his young life. In love with an empress, someone he could never have.
“Alexios, she’s the empress, she’s lived a good life, and she’s the mother of the emperor’s heir. That would be enough to satisfy most women. Marriages are complicated; I don’t know that she’s unhappy with her lot in life.”
He shook his head and turned away. “I don’t know either.”
Isaac returned from Antioch in mid-October after two long years away in that easternmost outpost. The fighting there was a constant low-level thrum, with spurts of more intense battles with the Turks. The empire had held it for over a hundred years, but it wasn’t clear how much longer it could afford the men and money it required. The emperor was pleased, though, with his accomplishments.
Isaac lived at the palace since Irene continued as Maria’s companion. Isaac and Alexios spent the next couple of weeks catching up before Botaneiates sent Alexios to fight the new rebellion led by Basilakes. The two brothers stayed up late into the night during those few days, talking and enjoying the company of Irene and Maria. The emperor joined them two or three times, but at his age he was more inclined to sleep than talk.
Alexios was walking on air for those weeks before he left. He was happy to see his brother, but their evening gatherings with the two women put him in a more euphoric mood than I had ever seen him in. I had to talk to him.
“There had better not be anything happening between you and Maria,” I said in my sternest voice.
He blanched. “No, Mama, of course there isn’t.”
“You don’t think I’m blind, do you? I’m your mother. I can see perfectly well what is right in front of me.”
“Mama, I wouldn’t ever. . .” he began, backing up from me, voice quivering.
“Do you have any idea what would happen to you if anything did? And what would happen to Maria would be even worse. I would be so ashamed, so ashamed, if a son of mine got into trouble like that with the empress. How happy do you think those two barbarians the emperor clings to would be to tell him some story that compromised both of you? You are never to be alone with her. Never. Am I clear?” I had never had to speak to one of my children like that before, but I was frightened to think what the consequences could be.
He flinched at my words.
“Mama, we aren’t ever alone.” But his guilty look said that it wasn’t for lack of desiring it.
“I would hope not. You haven’t seen Irene Ducaena since you’ve been back,” I said, bringing up his betrothed. I had no fondness for the girl, but she would distract Alexios from Maria. Or so I hoped. “You need to see her today. Remind yourself of whom you will be marrying.”
My son looked pale and nodded at me before scrambling to get away.
1079
Alexios spent the winter months chasing the rebel Basilakes around Greece until the man finally holed up in Thessaloniki. The man unwisely ventured out one night only to have Alexios and his men capture him. He was quickly put in chains and returned to Constantinople by the end of March. My son had no choice but to send him to the emperor, even though it was a foregone conclusion that the man would be blinded. The emperor rewarded Alexios with the title of Grand Domestic of the West, putting him in charge of the Roman army in the west. At the same time, he named Isaac the Grand Domestic of the East.
My sons’ promotions to these highest of military titles were great honors but came with great risks. I had no doubt Alexios and Isaac earned the recognitions bestowed on them through their diligence on the battlefield, and their loyalty to Emperor Nikephoros. It meant, however, that for them to rise in the emperor’s favor, others fell. Borilos and Germanos fought back with a fury, using every opportunity to criticize my sons to the emperor, especially Alexios.
Maria and Irene met me with tight-lipped expressions in the palace gardens when I visited one June day.
“There’s a new child in the palace,” said Irene. “The emperor brought his nephew, Synadenos, here.”
“Oh?” I asked.
Maria and Irene exchanged a glance.
“The boy, the son of the emperor’s sister, is almost fourteen. A handsome boy, but he has the manners of a peasant. He’s never lived in the city, just in Chonai, where it seems he spent most of his time hunting, with little time in the schoolroom. I’m not sure he can even read,” said Maria with a sniff, barely disguising her outrage.
Irene smoothed a wrinkle out of her skirt and added, “We believe he is being groomed as the emperor’s successor.”
I winced at that. The emperor was trying for a second time to supplant Maria’s son with another candidate of his own choosing despite the oaths he’d made to Maria before their marriage a year earlier. The two women had nowhere else to turn since Alexios was in Bulgaria repelling a Pecheneg incursion into the empire and Isaac was fighting Turks in the east.
“Lady Anna, there’s more,” she said. “I’ve only been married to the emperor for a year, but he’s not the man he was even then. He gets up during the night, wandering the halls. He looks at me as though he doesn’t recognize me sometimes. He’s bent over when he walks and now he’s never without a cane. He’s always spending time with those two Scythes.”
The two women looked at me for an answer I didn’t have.
“There may not be anything we can do. The emperor has not announced the change, has he?” I asked.
“Not yet,” said Maria. “But I expect it any day.”
“I recommend you continue as though nothing is amiss and that you be sure to befriend the Varangians, give them gifts, especially their leader. If the emperor dies, you’ll need them to protect Tino.”
Maria put her hands to her head, rubbing the sides of her face in frustration. “Caesar John said to marry this man, said he’d protect Tino. Instead, I have more concerns than before.”
The poor woman was in an impossible situation.
The emperor summoned me to the palace a week later. I hadn’t seen him in almost a year, and I could see what Maria meant when she’d described his growing infirmity. Botaneiates was in the old office that my brother-in-law, Isaac, had used, and that Romanus had used. The emperor’s face was that of a soldier—but an old one: a set jaw, rheumy eyes, the line of an old scar half-hidden beneath a sparse gray, almost white, beard. His shoulders were still square, even though his back was noticeably bent beneath his purple robes. A tremor in his hand. Time had sliced away at him in a way a sword never had.
“Lady Anna, you may have heard I’ve summoned my nephew, Synadenos, here,” he began.
“Your Majesty, yes, I did hear about your nephew.”
“Yes, well, I’ve decided to name him as my successor. He’s fourteen and a fine young man, sits a horse well, but lacks the polish of the city-bred men. That’s where you come in, if you agree.”
I peered at the emperor, wondering what he needed from me.
“You have several granddaughters, I believe. Granddaughters of Romanus Diogenes who live with you. I want Synadenos betrothed to one of them. It would help him to be married to another emperor’s granddaughter, not just succeed as my nephew. You can decide which one.”
I blinked at him in astonishment. “Your Majesty, that is such an honor, but I thought you designated the empress’s son as your successor.”
“That boy’s too young; he’s only five years old,” he said in a gruff voice, as though trying to ignore the subject.
In truth, it was clear the subject was as much the emperor’s age as it was the boy’s age. Even he, with his infirmities and spotty memory, knew a man in his late seventies could not expect to live long enough for a five-year-old to reach manhood. The emperor had to be feeling Death’s hot breath on his neck, and this nephew was close to maturity. Looking at Botaneiates, though, I was not sure he would live even long enough to see Synadenos ready to rule.
“I understand.”
“Yes, and I want him to move in with you once they are betrothed. You’ll see to the raising of Synadenos, teaching him what he needs to know. My sister didn’t have the best teachers available for him in Chonai. Your boys turned out well. Just keep doing what you did with them.”
His choice of one of my granddaughters as a wife for his nephew spoke well for the trust he had in my family’s loyalty. The empress would have a very different opinion.
“Thank you, Your Majesty.” I made my obeisance and departed.
Maria wept when I told her the news. She had done everything she could for her son, and it was burning into ash. I thought of Maria’s plight, all her dreams coming to naught, as I rode in the jostling sedan chair on the way home. She’d been born a beautiful princess and had married two emperors, and was faced with disillusionment and disappointment at every turn.
I sat down later with Thea and Theodora to discuss the situation.
“This is a great honor the emperor has bestowed on us.” I looked at Thea. “Since your Anya is nine and the oldest, her age makes her the most likely candidate. How do you feel about that?”
Thea frowned and rubbed her hands together. She had no love of palace intrigues. “She’s still so young. I’d rather not see her betrothed yet at all, but she would be the most acceptable choice. Even so, I don’t like the idea of him living in the same house as our girls.”
Theodora looked at her sister-in-law with a crafty expression. “I think our house would need to add another wing for this boy. The emperor’s nephew and heir would need servants of his own as well as his own private rooms. You can tell the emperor we will need to add that space before the betrothal is finalized.”
“That’s a reasonable request,” I said, looking at Thea. “It may not delay the betrothal for long, but it would solve your concern about the boy’s presence in the household.”
The emperor quickly agreed to the request and saw that builders were at our property within a few days. As I had expected, though, the construction was completed quickly and the two children betrothed by the end of November.