Anna of Byzantium Read online

  One day the baron of some small province had come to ask my grandmother for a reduction in taxes. As I listened to his pleas, and to my grandmother’s skillful way of rejecting them, I began to see the encounter as a kind of game. A new game called chess was wildly popular in the palace. The rules were not very complicated, but there were endless strategies for dealing the death blow to the opponent’s king. I pictured the baron, dressed in his shabby best, as a weak little pawn on a chessboard as he pled his pitiful case.

  “Your Majesty,” he said, facedown on the floor, “the crops have been poor after a long drought in our province. My people have been starving. Most of the men have left for the war, and there are few to work the fields. The foreigners have brought illness with them, and many of my people have died. What little they have managed to grow, they have eaten, with nothing left over to pay taxes.”

  “This is not the emperor’s concern,” responded my grandmother. “Your farmers must have committed some sin for God to punish them by withholding the rain.” Aha, I thought—her bishop has attacked the pawn.

  “Indeed not,” protested the baron, daring to look up. “We are a God-fearing folk.”

  “Then why do you ask me to reduce your taxes at a time when the emperor needs all the funds he can raise to win the Holy City of Jerusalem back from the infidels?” she questioned him. Now her knight was on the attack. The baron was silent. I wondered if, like me, he could see chess pieces, one by one, being swept off the board.

  “And besides,” added my grandmother, “I have no power to reduce the taxes. This is in the emperor’s hands, and I would be stealing from him if I allowed you to pay less than your requirement.”

  Shah mat, I thought. Checkmate. The king is dead. The baron probably knew as well as I did that whenever my father left the country, he signed a proclamation giving my grandmother imperial powers. But the baron did not dare contradict her to her face, so he left defeated.

  After this I started looking forward to the audiences, to see what weapons my grandmother would pull out. Sometimes she was a chess player, and other times she reminded me of a fencer, probing the enemy’s weak spots until she could lunge in with the kill. But no matter what tactic she took, she always won.

  Once, as I was leaving the audience room, she unexpectedly called me over to her. I approached in a seemly manner and knelt at her feet. She pulled me up, putting her hand under my chin and forcing me to look at her. She stared into my eyes with her dark strange ones until I squirmed inside. But I did not look away.

  “What do you think of all this?” she asked, waving her hand at the huge room, the thrones, the tapestries, the glittering mosaics on the walls and ceiling.

  I shook my head, not knowing what to say.

  “Come, child,” she said impatiently, her bony hand still clutching my chin. “Surely you have some opinion.”

  I opened my mouth, not knowing what I was going to say until the words spilled out. “I think it’s wonderful,” I answered.

  She barked a short laugh. “Wonderful, is it?” She finally let go of my chin. “And what is it you find so wonderful?”

  “The throne—the p-p-power—” I stammered. “When I am empress, I will be able to deal with people the way I want to. I won’t have to listen to anyone.”

  “Anyone? Will not your husband have something to say about it?”

  I shrugged, feeling myself relax as she seemed interested in what I had to say. “Constantine will be emperor only because he is married to me. If he disagrees with me, I will still be able to have my way.”

  “And other counselors?”

  I considered the question seriously before answering. “I suppose I’ll listen to their advice and then make up my own mind.”

  She stared into my eyes still, tapping her hand lightly on her knee. Finally, “Leave, child; go back to your studies,” she said, and turned away.

  I bowed again, rose, and walked away, managing to keep from running until I was out of the room. Once out of her sight, I tore to the library, where I found Simon at his books, and breathlessly related the conversation.

  “What do you think she meant?” I asked.

  He looked away from me and was silent for so long that I thought he hadn’t heard me. At last, “Don’t fly too near to the sun, Little Beetle,” he said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ow my lessons with Simon became even more important to me. I knew that my grandmother had never learned to read, but she had not been raised in a palace, as I was, and so had not had the opportunity. But if I were to learn the wisdom in Simon’s books, and could combine that with the wisdom of my grandmother—ah, there would never be a wiser ruler!

  John, by contrast, rarely made an appearance in the classroom. But one day, Maria and I were hard at our geometry when we heard a commotion outside the classroom door. It was John’s voice, and as usual, he was crying and protesting. My sister and I exchanged glances, and though we kept our heads down as though concentrating on our circles and triangles, we got no work done, but waited to see what was happening.

  The door burst open, and a guard came in, leading John by the hand. Close behind them was our mother, her mouth set grimly. John was digging his nails into the guard’s huge wrist in an attempt to free himself, but the guard ignored the scratches as though he did not even feel them. John shouted up to his expressionless face, “I will have you put to death! I will have you blinded and your hands cut off and your tongue cut out and your head cut off!” The guard stood impassively as Simon watched the scene quietly, his hands tucked in his long sleeves. Maria and I had given up all pretense of working and stared at the red-faced little boy.

  Our mother moved in front of John, who was trying to spit in the guard’s face. He was so small, though, that his efforts fell far short of their goal.

  “John!” she said firmly. He ignored her. “John!” she repeated. “You must be quiet! The empress commands it!”

  “But—” he wailed.

  “Silence!” She glared at him, and he finally fell silent, trembling with rage, tears staining his cheeks.

  My mother waited a moment, then went on in a gentler voice. “Simon tells me,” she said, “that you have not been in this classroom for weeks. Don’t you know that it is the wish of your father, the emperor”—she emphasized this last word—“that you learn to read?” John turned his head away but did not say a word. Our mother sighed, then motioned to Simon. “Bring him a book,” she said, “the book that Anna first learned to read.” Simon turned and rummaged in a box, pulled out a little psalm-book, and placed it, open, on the desk in front of the boy.

  “Read it, child,” went on my mother in a gentle voice. John stared down at the page, but did not say a word. My mother turned to Simon.

  “You are the imperial tutor,” she said, “and have taught all the children to read. Tell me, why has John not learned?”

  “I do not know,” said Simon. “The boy is not unintelligent.” He shot an apprehensive glance at John, as though worried that the boy might start screaming again at this weak praise. But John made no reaction. Simon moved in front of John and pointed to the page. “What letter is this?” he asked. “Zeta,” said John sullenly. “And this?” Simon pointed out several letters in a row, and each time John identified it correctly. “And the word it spells is …?” asked Simon.

  John stared down at the page and his face grew more and more red. Suddenly he stood up, threw the book across the room, and shouted, “I don’t know! I don’t know! And why do I need to read anyway? I’m going to be a soldier, and I will have scribes to read to me! Reading is not for soldiers! It is for women and slaves!” And with that he ran from the room, with the guard in hot pursuit.

  My mother stayed where she was. She seemed to have forgotten that the rest of us were there. “Simon,” she said, “I do not understand.”

  “Nor I,” said Simon ruefully, rubbing his bald head as he did when worried. “There were some children who were pupils of my father’s
.” He paused, and I sat still, hoping he would forget my presence and go on. Simon rarely mentioned his boyhood, at least in front of us children, and it was mysterious and exotic to me. He went on, “Not frequently, but once every few years, my father would tell my mother about his great frustration in not being able to teach some children how to read. Dunces he could understand and even teach, after a fashion, but some of the others baffled him. He said it was as though they had a blind area in their minds.”

  “And how did he finally teach them?” my mother asked.

  Simon shook his head. “He didn’t, Your Majesty,” he said. “He would refund the school fees to their parents and send them home.” My mother shook her head, looking out the door through which John had run. And without a word to the rest of us, she too left.

  I never saw John in the classroom again. Maria later told me that he never returned, but as time went on I spent more and more of my day with my grandmother and probably would not have seen him anyway.

  My grandmother was an excellent storyteller. I would sometimes sit with my hand idle, forgetting to take notes, while she told me of campaigns she had gone on with her husband, my grandfather. My mother had also accompanied my father to several battles, but unlike my grandmother, she did not like to tell of what she had seen in war. She said that war was a necessary evil, and that the sooner humans learned to do without it, the better.

  My grandmother was evidently not of that opinion. Her descriptions of complicated battle-engines, of glorious charges, of strange foreigners who used different weapons that we could adapt to our own purposes made her eyes glitter with joy as she remembered them.

  But we also had less exciting pursuits to study. Diplomacy, she assured me again and again, was even more effective than war. I had to learn, she informed me, to get what I wanted out of people in such a way that not only did they not know that I was taking something from them, but that they would be eager to give me what I wanted.

  “Negotiation, that’s the key,” she said. “Promise what you must, and keep only those promises that benefit you.”

  “My mother says that if I tell lies, I will go to Hell,” I answered.

  “Your mother has no knowledge of statecraft,” she retorted. “If the Ducas family knew how to rule, how did your father take over the throne from them?”

  “How did he, Grandmother?”

  Her stool was near the wall, so she leaned back and considered me thoughtfully. “Did you never hear how that occurred?” she asked. I shook my head. “I did it,” she said softly, seeming to look past me now.

  “You did it, Grandmother?” I asked, astonished. I knew that my father was a great general, that he had started his military career at the age of fourteen, and had never been on the losing side in a battle. I thought that he had merely ordered his soldiers to depose the old emperor, and that they had done so.

  “It is not simple to remove an emperor and take his place,” my grandmother said. “There is more to it than that. You need friends, allies, supporters. Your father is the greatest general in the world, but like all soldiers, he is used to just taking what he wants. You can’t always do that. Sometimes you have to use diplomacy, as I have been teaching you.”

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  “I convinced the Ducas clan to support us, saying that Alexius would marry a Ducas princess—I did not care which one, and your father’s fancy was taken with young Irene, so I agreed—and that the Ducases would retain their importance in the court. They had lost the support of the people and were afraid for their very lives. I think the old emperor was actually relieved to have us approach him.

  “Once they saw that it was to their advantage to support us, they helped enormously. Your mother’s brother-in-law George Palaeologus bribed the guards at the gate of the city, and they opened the gate to your father and his forces.”

  “No need for a Trojan horse,” I said, struck by the similarity to the story told by Homer. How much easier to bribe, make promises, and form alliances, than to besiege a city for years and then be reduced to the stupid trick of a horse filled with soldiers!

  “Did the soldiers conquer right away?” I asked.

  “Indeed they did. Your father is a great leader. He allowed his soldiers their reward, and they ran through the city, taking whatever they liked, breaking into houses, taking women against their will, filling their pockets with coins, with jewelry, with whatever they could carry. In that way he assured their loyalty.”

  I was shocked. How could my father have allowed that? I pictured the terrified people running away from leather-clad warriors, knowing that wherever they went, they would encounter more. Surely this was not an honorable way to proceed.

  “And did he keep his promises to the Ducas family?”

  She gave the odd little snort that I had learned indicated amusement. “He had to keep some,” she said. “He married your mother, didn’t he?” I nodded. “But I convinced him that it would be foolishness to elevate her to the position of empress. She was only fifteen years old, and I was not besotted with her pretty face, the way your father was, in the way of young men. I could see through her, and I knew that there was little intelligence there, and no spirit.”

  I shook my head, trying to clear the confusion I felt. Everyone knew that my mother was as strong and wise as she was beautiful. But I did not dare contradict my grandmother, despite my indignation. I felt cold as I remembered the punishments that she had made me suffer in the past. She went on.

  “But it seems that some of the people of Constantinople still had a soft spot for the Ducas family, despite their ineffective rule, and they were unhappy when your father excluded her from his coronation. I told him that it was better to keep the people satisfied, and after all, it was no large matter, so he soon had a separate coronation for her. That is why she now has a throne next to your father’s, although everyone knows she has not the wit to rule.”

  A sound at the doorway made me turn around. I felt a chill when I saw my mother standing there, her face grim. I expected my grandmother to act embarrassed when she realized that my mother had overheard her, but for some reason she did not.

  “Do you have a reason for interrupting?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said my mother in a hard voice. “I wanted to see what you were teaching my daughter. And I am glad I did.” She approached me, holding my gaze with her own. I grew warm again, knowing that what my grandmother had said was false, that behind my mother’s lovely face was a strong mind and a firm will. I wondered that Grandmother could not see it.

  “She did not tell you the complete story, Anna,” she said. “Your father did not wish his soldiers to terrorize the city. Indeed, he tried to stop it—”

  “If he had tried to stop it, he would have been successful,” interrupted my grandmother, but my mother went on as though she hadn’t heard her.

  “His soldiers were excited at the ease with which they had conquered,” she said, “and many of them were from barbarian countries where the victorious side customarily destroys the town and inhabitants they have beaten. They did not speak Greek, and could not understand the orders to cease.” She paused.

  “I remember that night well,” she went on softly. “I was in our villa outside the city for safety, and could hear the shrieks and alarm-bells even from that distance. I could smell the smoke as it rose from burning houses. That whole side of the sky was lit with a deep red glow. I thought it was Hell, that we were all going to burn there forever as punishment for the sins of our soldiers. It was not glorious!” she suddenly said vehemently, turning to my grandmother. “War is never glorious!”

  My grandmother did not answer.

  In a calmer tone, my mother continued. “When order was finally restored, your father had his soldiers confined to quarters for a day to make them calm down. After that, all was peaceful. But your father was not happy. He knew that what had happened was his responsibility as the leader, even though he had tried to stop it, and he confess
ed the sin to the patriarch. That wise man agreed that your father was guilty, and so was everyone else who had participated. We all”—she emphasized the word while glancing at my grandmother, who still sat like a statue—“we all had to fast for forty days, eating only bread, drinking only water. Your father had to wear sackcloth that irritated his skin so that for weeks after the penance had ended I was rubbing it with ointment.”

  I tried to picture my proud father wearing sackcloth, which I had seen on the bodies of condemned prisoners and the penitent sinners over whom I had to step when entering the church. The image was impossible for me to conjure up.

  “But Mother,” I said. “Why did Father not want you to be empress?”

  A bitter laugh came from her lips as she swung to look at my grandmother, who did not return her gaze. “You mustn’t believe everything she tells you,” she said. “Your father did want me to be empress.” A snort from my grandmother. “His mother convinced him that if he had me crowned, the Ducas family would see that as a sign of weakness on his part and would rise in rebellion against him. But out of love for me and out of respect for his word, he delayed only a month before recognizing that he had to do what was right, and had me crowned. Many times he has apologized for not doing so immediately.

  “And now, Anna,” she continued, “I want you to come with me. Enough studying for one day.”

  My grandmother rose quickly to her feet. “I have not finished with today’s lesson,” she said.

  “And I say you have,” answered my mother.

  “The emperor commands that she learn what I have to teach her,” was the reply.

  “And the empress commands that you cease.”

  They appeared to be at an impasse.

  “Wait,” said my grandmother. “Let the child decide. It is, after all, her future that is at stake. Anna, when you are empress you will need to know how to rule. You will also need someone who is experienced in statecraft to guide you. I have knowledge of all areas of rule—war, peace, diplomacy, economy—what do you have to offer?” She wheeled on my mother.