Theophano
The Crusade of the Tenth Century
A Novel
By Frederic Harrison
New York and London
Harper & Brothers Publishers
1904
Copyright, 1903, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
_All rights reserved._
Published October, 1904.
Contents
CHAPTER
I. The Boy Basileus
II. The Warden of the Eastern March
III. The Betrothal
IV. The Young Augusta
V. The Dying Emperor
VI. The Coronation
VII. The Confession
VIII. The Sacred Palace
IX. The Muster of the Crusade
X. The Conquest of Crete
XI. The Storming of Chandax
XII. Digenes and Fatima: Roman or Saracen
XIII. The Caliph of the West
XIV. The Conquest of Aleppo
XV. Empress and Chamberlain
XVI. Cæsar at the Rubicon
XVII. The New Basileus
XVIII. Emperor and Patriarch
XIX. The Saracen Peril
XX. An Emperor's Day
XXI. Islam and Cross
XXII. The Stars in Their Courses
XXIII. The March on Antioch
XXIV. Love and Falsehood
XXV. Love and Troth
XXVI. Old Rome
XXVII. Old Rome and New Rome--Rivals in Empire
XXVIII. Basileus in Council
XXIX. The Rising Storm
XXX. The Last Campaign
XXXI. The Last Agony
XXXII. Clytemnestra
XXXIII. Retribution
Theophano: The Crusade of
the Tenth Century
I
The Boy Basileus
Towards the close of the long reign of Constantine Porphyrogennetus,
seventh of that historic name, a hunting-party from the royal capital
of Constantinople was occupied in chasing the wild boar on the slopes
of Mount Damatrys on the Asian side of the Bosphorus. This mountain,
now called Bulgarlu, lay a few miles eastward of Chrysopolis, the
modern town of Scutari, opposite the Golden Horn. In the middle of
the tenth century of our era, when this story opens, the view from
the mountain on the Asian side of the Bosphorus was, indeed, very
different from that which delights the traveller to-day, but it was
hardly less beautiful in its exquisite union of wood, sea, rocky
headland, stately towers, and domes.
The sun was hardly risen over the eastern hills in a fresh morning of
spring--it was the year of our Lord, 956--when a body of huntsmen,
some on foot and some on mountain-ponies, were seen hastily emerging
from the dense copse of the forest in the early dawn. Clothed in
short, leather jerkins and banded leggings, with close skull-caps,
some carried lances, some bows and arrows: three held in leash
powerful hounds, and others were bearing stout nets and poles. They
were evidently returning home in haste and with anxiety painted in
all their movements. A mounted man of some authority now pushed his
way to the front and bade them seek for the nearest house where help
and shelter could be obtained. Coming at last to a woodman's
half-ruined hut, he struck his hunting-spear thrice against the rude
door of the hovel, and imperiously asked if any man was within. A
scared, half-clothed old man unbolted the entrance, and stood with
bare head, trembling before his questioner.
"Which is the nearest house wherein a wounded man can be sheltered,
and who in this place has any art in stanching a flow of blood?"
called out the horseman.
"St. Michael save us!" cried the old dotard; "has fighting begun in
sight of the Sacred Palace itself?"
"Tush, old fool, there has been a hunting accident, and a noble youth
is now bleeding to death! Where, I ask again, can we find him
shelter and a leech?"
"The house there of Craterus, the Laconian, at the first turn of the
path below, sometimes gives shelter and accommodation to belated
travellers at need," quavered the terrified hind. "And his daughter
has a gift for tending poor folk in sickness, and has been known to
set a bone and bind up a broken head."
As he spoke, a small party of men in hunting-garb emerged from the
dense copse and cautiously descended the mountain-path. They were
bearing some burden on a rude litter, formed out of the stout poles
and heavy net used to entangle the wild boar in the run from his
lair. As they came down, it was seen that their charge was a tall
and graceful youth, half wrapped in his hunting-cloak, deeply smeared
with blood. He was not dead, but ghastly pale and almost insensible.
His beautiful head, that might have served for a marble Antinous, lay
white and motionless on a pillow of purple silk. On each side of him
rode a horseman of noble bearing and athletic frame, both turning
their eyes with a look of anxiety and pain from the fainting youth to
each other, and then looking out along the path beyond. Close beside
the litter walked another man, grasping with all his force the thigh
of the wounded youth, and striving to stanch the blood that oozed
from it with a folded cloth.
Guided by the horseman in front, they soon reached the house of
Craterus, whom they succeeded in rousing from his bed with his
household. It was a long, rambling edifice of no pretension without,
but with an air of space and comfort within that no chance visitor
would suspect. Craterus led the bearers and attendants to a spacious
chamber in the rear of the house, where the youth was laid softly on
a couch, and the old man bade his servants to summon his daughter and
her maid with bandages to bind a wound. The master himself, with his
snow-white beard, his delicate features, and lofty forehead, might
have stood for some bust of an Attic poet had not his singularly
handsome face been marred by keen, roving, and somewhat sinister
eyes. With foxlike glances he scrutinized the youth and his
companions, while actively busying himself with all that he could
devise to save the sufferer's life.
At this moment there entered a girl closely veiled and shrouded in a
long, loose wrapper, attended by her old nurse and a younger maid,
bearing bandages and surgical appliances of a simple kind. The girl
herself was so much concealed by her draperies that little of her
could be seen, except some mysterious beauty like that of the veiled
Isis; for her full wimple betrayed nothing but the perfect features
of a Greek goddess, with lustrous eyes of deep sapphire. The old
nurse removed the coverings from the limb of the youth, as he lay
white and unconscious from loss of blood, and her trained hands laid
bare the wounded thigh and leg which, but for the gash caused by the
tusk of the boar, was of the faultless symmetry we see in the Hermes
of Olympia, even as it left the chisel of Praxiteles. The maiden
bent over him in pity and tenderness, and formed a group as if it
were Aphrodite as she hung over the wounded Adonis. The nurse,
directed by her, and aided by the nervous arm of the attendant, whose
thumb so long had closed the wound, succeeded in passing a rude but
effective tourniquet round the femoral artery, and having checked the
pumping of the blood downward, they dexterously bandaged the gaping
wound.
A breathless silence ensued as they stood around with restoratives
and strong scents and endeavored to restore consciousness to the
youth. At last, a faint tinge of color returned to the marble
cheeks, and his lips moved again in inaudible murmurs. Craterus
moistened his mouth with a draught of strong Samian wine, in which he
had mixed some aromatic spices of the East. With a prolonged sigh at
length the boy again opened his eyes, and a faint smile played round
his blanched lips as he murmured: "Let not my father know, but carry
me to my own lodging before the news be abroad."
Slowly the wine and drugs that Craterus administered in measured sips
began to tell on the splendid constitution of the athletic youth who
was in the highest training of body. He held low converse with his
two chief attendants while Craterus, his daughter, and her women
withdrew to the end of the chamber.
"Where am I? Who are these? Whither are you bearing me?" he asked,
in a faint whisper; and, turning his head, he perceived the master of
the house and the women behind him. Then the young sufferer's eye
caught sight of the veiled girl, whose close draperies seemed but to
increase the grace of her figure. He saw her lustrous eyes beaming
on him, as he lay, in pity, wonder, and admiration. In all his
wanderings after beauty he had never in his life beheld such eyes.
The fire, the passion, the profound mysteries they betrayed shot down
to the marrow of his bones, and he sank back amazed and thrilled,
exhausted with the spasm of enjoyment it had caused him. "Let me
thank her who has dragged me from the jaws of death," he murmured;
and with a feeble sign of his outstretched finger, as if he had been
summoning a slave, he beckoned to the girl to approach.
He took her fingers in both of his own weak, cold hands; and, looking
into her eyes with rapture, he said: "Who art thou that hast saved
me? Is it some angel that follows Our Lady in heaven above, or,
rather, I think, an oread from the train of our huntress Artemis.
Complete my cure, and restore me to manhood by bending down and
kissing me, as our poets say Artemis on Latmos would kiss her
Endymion." And he drew her down till her lips touched his; and
before she could speak he had slipped a ring into her hand,
whispering: "Yes, we shall meet again!"
Craterus, who had but imperfectly noticed this scene, now advanced to
his daughter, saying: "Anastasia, my child, withdraw now to your
chamber with your nurse; you may safely leave the wounded youth to
us, and we will send for you if need arise again." In fact, the
potions of Craterus and the bandages of his daughter were now doing
so much to restore the strength of the young patient that his
companions agreed with the old man that all immediate danger to life
was passed and that he might safely be transported home by water.
The patient himself insisted--and that in a tone of imperious
command--that he should be forthwith carried to his barge and
conveyed across the Bosphorus to Constantinople before the city was
astir or rumors of his accident were bruited abroad. With great care
and adroitness the bandages were again tightened over his thigh; he
was supplied with fresh restoratives and draughts of wine, and
carried to the shore in the litter constructed out of the hunting net
and poles.
As the party descended the hill-side, it was closely watched by
inquiring eyes from the house into which it had entered so suddenly
and with so much mystery. Neither Craterus nor any of his people had
been able to learn the name or rank of the young huntsman,
notwithstanding all their inquiries and the most curious search. All
they knew was that some young sportsman from Constantinople had
arrived in a barge the evening before, and had spent the night in the
mountain forest in pursuit of wild boar. Just before dawn the pony
of one of the hunters had fallen in a hole and thrown its rider, who
had been deeply gashed by the boar, even in the act of spearing the
brute to death. Neither names nor particulars of the party could be
obtained, but suitable rewards had been left for the help and
accommodation afforded them.
Breathless, behind the wooden lattice-work that formed the blind of
her chamber, Anastasia watched the litter as it was borne down the
path, and she fancied that she caught sight of a kiss wafted towards
her window when the fingers of the helpless youth were faintly raised
to his lips. From his own doorstep, also, Craterus saw the cavalcade
disappear; and, as his foxlike eyes watched every detail of their
dress and trappings, he shook his head and murmured that "It might
bring him good, but it was wiser to keep silence and be careful what
he did." As he slowly withdrew to an inner room he found his
daughter waiting for him with eager looks, and ready to ply him with
questions and suggestions. "Who was the wounded youth?--what did her
father think he could be?--how came they to bring him to his
house?--what did they say when they left?" These, and such
questionings, the girl poured upon her father, who showed little
inclination to answer her inquiries, even if he had known more than
he did.
"Nay, my child, I have no means of satisfying your curiosity. They
somewhat peremptorily declined to give me any kind of information,
bidding our servants keep silence as to their visit, on pain of some
harm to them if they pressed their inquiries. They told me that the
youth was a gallant of the city, whose accident was not to be made
known, lest it should alarm his parents, and they might prevent his
following such dangerous sports."
"And why, my dear father, may I ask, why were you in such haste to
bid me leave the chamber, even while the fair youth was still in need
of our skill and comfort? We would gladly do our best for so gentle
and comely a patient."
"Gentle and comely enough, my child, I do not deny, but you must try
to forget him and his accident, for certain it is that you will never
see him again, nor know his name or his rank."
"I am not so sure of that," she murmured softly to herself, as she
fingered the precious ring which her father had failed to see given
when she had stooped over the youth on his couch.
The keen eyes of the old man had noticed an expression on his
daughter's face, and he rejoined, in an impressive tone, "Anastasia,
my only child and dearest hope, I charge you to remember what we are
now, and whence we came. This youth, for all his gentleness of
speech, is proud and wild. He is evidently some slip of a wealthy,
perhaps of a noble, family, and since he conceals his name and rank
there is a mystery, if not a mischief, in his life. Be he what he
may, he is wholly beyond our sphere. We shall never fall again in
his way, and he would treat us with contempt if we did."
"Father," said the girl, proudly, her luminous eyes aglow with light,
"have you not often told me of the race we spring from, and of the
blood of heroes that I inherit from my sainted mother?"
"True is it, Anastasia, O thou glorified image of my dear departed
wife; thou hast, indeed, the blood of kings of Lacedæmon in thy
veins, as thou renewest the beauty of the goddesses of Greece.
Fallen as I am now in estate, despoiled of my patrimony by the
corsairs of Saracens from Africa, I cannot forget that I was born of
noble race and am the equal of those minions there across the strait.
In wedding your mother I rose to a height above them. She came from
Lacedæmon, and could trace descent from the ancient kings of Sparta,
who, crushed, plundered, and slain, as they have been for a thousand
years by Romans, by Goths, by Armenians, Slavonians, and Isaurians,
have maintained the purity of their blood. Cherish it in thy memory,
my child, that my Anastasia comes of the royal stock which produced
such heroes as Lycurgus, Leonidas, Agesilaos, and Lysander. When I
laid thy mother to rest in the last remnant of her paternal estate by
the banks of Eurotas, I swore by the Mother of God that I would keep
her daughter worthy of her and worthy of the heroes from whom both
were sprung. Have I not done so, my child--have I not taught thee to
hold thyself higher than these barbarians of Thrace and Anatolia?
Nay, have I not taught thee to distrust the whining of their dirty
priests and crazy hermits, and to cherish the purer fancies of our
older faith, the inspiration of Apollo, the insight of Athene, the
grace of Aphrodite? Thou knowest also the inner meaning of these
primeval creeds, as expounded in the mysteries of Mithras and the
Phrygian Mother."
"Would that thou hadst sworn by the Pallas of the Parthenon," his
daughter broke in, "rather than by these idols worshipped by the mobs
in the city. But am I not worthy then to mate with the son of the
Autocrator himself, if Athene were to turn his eyes upon me so that
he desired me for his wife?"
"His wife?--silly child, put away such absurd and unwholesome dreams.
The Basileus, or the least minion of his court, would no more think
of taking thee to wife than he would take the meanest scullion in his
kitchen. No, girl, he would take thee for his plaything for a day,
for a week or two, till he flung thee to some parasite of his own
like a cast-off shoe. Wife! wife!" shrieked the old man--"say rather
toy, lap-dog, slave--not wife! Shall the daughter of Craterus the
Spartan, the descendant of a hundred kings, born of a mother compared
to whom the blood of these Augusti, children of Basil the stable-boy,
is ditch-water--shall she enter the harem of these vicious mongrels
who cringe round the Sacred Palace? Never! my child, I would rather
see thee dead. Thou art above them in godlike race as thou art in
godlike beauty, thou child of Helen of Troy, more like to her than
ever yet has been any of her children since. This lad, whoever he
be, though not fit to be thy slave, is far above thee in legal rank,
as he certainly is above thee in fortune. Think of him no more.
Thou wilt never see him again. And if thou didst, it would be to thy
ruin."
Anastasia was not wont to discuss matters with her father when he had
mounted his high horse about the kings of Sparta and the illustrious
ancestry of her mother, whom she had almost forgotten. Still less
did she take very seriously all his extraordinary ravings about the
mysteries of Mithras and the eternal cult of Isis, which the old man
had mixed up in a strange medley of occult superstitions. With her
keen intellect and her aspiring temper, Anastasia had been nurtured
by her father from childhood in proud disdain of the mongrel races of
the capital which had now become a veritable _colluvies gentium_, as,
indeed, from that day to this it has remained. From infancy she had
been taught to look coldly on the endless ceremonies and miraculous
paraphernalia of the Byzantine Church, though her practical mind had
inclined her to but little interest in the esoteric mysteries of
Mithraism in which Craterus would dream away whole days. She
regarded these dreams as the unhallowed maunderings of a morbid mind.
And while she outwardly conformed to the ceremonial cult of the
Christians around her, her maiden day-dreams would ever turn back to
the immortal creations of Hellenic poetry and myth. She would
conjure up to herself visions of a Helen of Troy, a Clytemnestra, a
Medea, even an Aspasia, and a Thais; she knew the thrilling story of
Byzantine palace history; how Athenais, the daughter of a philosopher
of Athens, had blossomed out into Eudocia, the Empress; how Theodora
had stepped from the dancing-stage to the throne of the world; how
Irene had divided the Roman realm even with the mighty Charles
himself.
Long after she had quitted her father, Anastasia sat musing in her
own chamber, from time to time scrutinizing the ring which the
wounded youth had given her, and which she had hastily concealed in
her bosom. Again and again she turned the jewel to the light, and
examined it on every side. Could it be, indeed, an emerald--a real
emerald--of such a size and such lustre? If it were, indeed, a
veritable stone, it was worth a king's ransom. Could the stranger
lad have so magnificent a ring in his possession, and would he
lightly hand it to an unknown girl? And yet--could a youth,
evidently so noble, so wealthy, bear about on his finger a thing of
paste? Anastasia knew something of jewels, antique enamels, and
sardonyx cameos, as of reliquaries, crosses, and miraculous ikons,
for her father was supposed to procure such things from time to time
from correspondents he had in Asia Minor and to dispose of them
successfully to the travellers who would come to his place on their
way to the capital from the East. And Anastasia had half suspected
that the old Corinthian attendant who had charge of her father's
curios had done something more than always repair or reset the pieces
on which she saw him secretly engaged.
And while she turned the jewel round and round, she fancied she could
read some letters engraved, but her untrained eye, for all her
curiosity, was not able to put the words together. She called her
nurse, the aged woman who had been about her since her mother's
death, and in whose fidelity she was sure she could confide.
"Charmion," she said, "dear old girl, here is an adventure. As I was
turning over the old jewel-case of my sainted mother in heaven I
found this ring which had been strangely overlooked by my father for
years. Take it to Leontius in his workshop, and ask him to tell us
what it is, and if he can read these words that are engraved around
the setting. But be sure you charge him, as he values my favor, to
breathe not a word of it to man or woman--least of all my father. It
would break his heart to think that he had neglected so dear a relic
of my mother--and thou knowest that all she had of jewels are mine."
The crone eyed the ring with keenness, and her eyes then fell on her
lovely mistress, who bore her scrutiny with a tranquil smile. She
hurried off to Leontius, who was preparing to "reset" an _encolpion_
that was destined for a great ecclesiastic. The old engraver took
the ring and examined it with attention and no small wonder. Then he
scrutinized it through a crystal lens, and tried it against some
pieces that he had in a case by his side. He looked hard at the
nurse, and she looked at him. Neither spoke. "Nurse," he said, at
last, "the ring is one of the finest and largest emeralds I ever
beheld, and it is set in a rare enamel of exquisite work. Yes, words
have been engraved within the margin, and I will write them on this
slip of parchment." He took his style, and, peering closely with his
crystal lens to the minute letters in the ring, he wrote,
Κυρει Βοηθει Ρωμανω. "No!" said he, "the last letters must be
somewhat defaced. It must be Ρωμαιοις--Lord! Help the
Romans! It could hardly be Roman! Could it be?" said the old artist
in cameos, talking to himself.
Old Charmion hurried back to Anastasia, too eager that she might
report her news and ply her young mistress with questions to notice
the intense agitation of mind that Anastasia concealed under her
outward ease. "How came she to find it?" asked the crone again and
again. "How was it overlooked? How had her mother obtained it?
What would she do with it?" and a thousand similar questions, which
Anastasia put off with affected indifference and studious silence.
Nor could the girl rid herself of the nurse's importunate curiosity
until she had peremptorily insisted on the attendant leaving her
alone in order to prepare her bath in another chamber.
Left alone, Anastasia sprang up in a whirlwind of emotion, pacing the
room, and flinging up aloft her shapely arms in the attitude of a
priestess at the shrine of the Delphic Apollo. "Mother of God!
Daughter of Zeus! Queen of Love! Where am I? What is this? What
will come of it? An emerald of priceless worth! Why, who could wear
such a thing but one from the Palace of Cæsar--wear it--nay, wear it
in a forest chase, in a wild night on the mountain? 'Lord! Help the
Romans!'--who could bear about such a meaningless prayer? 'Help the
Romans!' Yes, the priests and monks whine out these litanies in
their daily canticles. But does a youth who looks like a young
prince engrave on his seal so stupid a motto? Prince! ah, what am I
saying? Why, what other prince is there but Romanus, son of our
purple-born Constantine, Basileus of the Romans? Queen of Paphos,
and of the world! He _was_ Romanus--the young Basileus
himself--lovely as Adonis--and he loves me--he shall love me.
Augustus that is to be--and why should not I, too, be Augusta, by
divine right--of beauty?" And the girl flung herself down on a couch
and buried her face in her hands, as if she needed to shut out from
her eyes the excess of light which beamed down on her, even as Zeus
descended upon Semele in a shower of burning gold.
II
The Warden of the Eastern March
While this was passing, the party which was bearing the wounded young
Basileus moved on with haste and care to the shore of the Bosphorus,
where the barge was moored. The two leading horsemen pressed on a
little in advance to secure the embarkation with speed. The foremost
was a man not yet of middle life, the very model of chivalrous
strength, audacity, and animation. He was dark of hue, even for an
Eastern Roman, with fiery black eyes, and raven hair, chiselled
features, and an aquiline nose, and a complexion of clear and
delicate olive, just tinted with color. He wore a hunting-suit, and
bore a short weapon of exquisite form and mounting chased in gold, of
Persian design. His whole bearing was that of a leader of men, the
ideal of a cavalry commander, or of some knight-errant bent on
romantic adventures, such as those heroes we now read of in the
_Arabian Nights_. His companion, an older and graver man, who
treated him as of higher rank than himself, now rode up to the
leader, and in low tones seemed pressing on him some urgent counsels.
"My Lord Basil Digenes, the accident of to-day may be of deep moment
to the whole Roman Empire. If the bandages of the old Greek and his
daughter should fail to hold, our young charge may yet slip through
our fingers before we can reach the palace. What would be our fate
if we brought home to our king of kings his only son a corpse?"
"Nay, Theodore, my good man, we shall save the boy; the Augustus
himself is too just and reasonable a king to suppose that you and I
would neglect his heir. He knows that we would risk our lives rather
than a hair of his head should be harmed."
"His Majesty Born-in-the-Purple is, indeed, a most upright judge, and
as kind a master as Rome ever saw. But are you sure that the feeble
empress might not be worked on by women and eunuchs, and our rivals
seek to strike us down in a palace plot?"
"What care I for rivals!" cried Basil, with a smile of triumph. "I
fear no man, and no man of all Rome fears me. From Cæsar to
handmaiden they love me and know me to be their friend and protector."
"True, indeed! most noble akritas, and therein lies a matter that is
worth thy thought. Hast thou not noticed how our most illustrious
sovereign lord, after forty-four years of the burden of state, has
begun to weary on his throne? He may--well!--he may abdicate," he
whispered in the ear of Basil, "in favor of his heir. Our young
Basileus has entered on his eighteenth year, but he may not survive
his father. My Lord Basil, you know his way of life as well as I do.
He will never live to see his father's years. He may die of this
very wound--may the saints save him, and us, too!--he may die this
very day--he may meet such another chance ere the year is out. What
then? Where will the throne of Rome be then, most illustrious
commander and victorious warden of the marches? What will happen
then?"
"Most sapient chamberlain," said Basil, "his Sacred Majesty will name
a worthy successor, and honor him with the hand of one of the five
princesses, his daughters. And if the Basileus were to die without
such nomination, the Senate and army chiefs would find such an
emperor themselves as they have so often done of old."
"And where would they find such a chief?" murmured the chamberlain,
in the insinuating voice of the courtier; "where but in the person of
the most valiant hero, lord warden of the eastern frontier,
victorious in a hundred fights, the Achilles of our warlike
odes--Basil, of royal name and royal race, offspring of a Roman
princess and a Syrian emir, who had come to Christ. Basil Digenes, I
tell thee, potent akritas and chief, should the throne of Rome become
vacant we should all look to thee to mount and hold it!"
"Retro! Satanas!" cried out the akritas (_i.e._, the warden of the
marches), with a gay gesture of scorn; "tempt not the most loyal
servant of our most High Sovereign Lord! If his son were not to
reign, I tell thee again, it would have to be some ennobled husband
of one of his Majesty's daughters."
"And who would that be," said the wily chamberlain, "save that chief
on whom the loveliest of them all, the gentle Agatha, her father's
favorite, casts such looks of tenderness? Why, the Sacred Palace
rings with gossip of her sighs and blushes when the harpers sing the
deeds of 'The Flower of Our Roman Chivalry,' as the poets name the
warden of the eastern march!"
"A truce to thy jests, my lord of the chamber, and profane not with
thy court scandal the name of the sweetest, purest, most modest
virgin in your city of sin and folly. Things are too serious for
idle jesting, and the fate of Rome and our Holy Church is even now
hanging in the scales of the angel of judgment. A man who has lived
as I have since boyhood, in the saddle and on the borders, knows what
are the perils and the trials which are gathering round the empire
from the east and from the north."
"Oh, forbear such ominous words, most noble lord warden!" cried the
chamberlain, crossing himself more from habit than from superstition;
"was Rome ever so great and glorious as she is to-day? Behold in the
morning light the splendor of our Eternal City--we can see afar
across the straits the gilded dome of the Holy Wisdom and of a
hundred fanes. Was any autocrator more truly worshipped and more
worthy of our worship than our Most Majestic Sovereign
Born-in-the-Purple? What invincible armies does he send forth? What
fleets and merchandise crowd the Golden Horn? What multitudes from
all parts of this earth swarm in the streets of our matchless
capital? What a galaxy of treasure, pomp, and beauty amazes all who
are admitted to the Sacred Palace of our king?"
"Vanity of vanities!" groaned the great soldier, more to himself than
to the chamberlain; "it is thus that courtiers beguile our Sacred
Majesty by idle vaunts. We who in the distant marches have to bear
the brunt of the enemy, who have to rule those provinces which he
drains to the bone by his ravages--we know all the peril that
encompasses our empire and threatens its ruin. Egypt, Syria, Sicily
have been torn from it by victorious Saracens and worshippers of the
Prophet. Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria have forsworn Christ and
Rome, and for centuries have submitted to Allah and the Caliph. On
the Cilician frontier we hold the passes by daily combats, wherein
to-day we find our match--it may be to-morrow our masters. The
savage corsairs, who have seized Crete and Cyprus, tear to pieces the
seaboard of Asia and of Greece at their own sweet will. Italy is
lost to the empire forever, and these Teutons and Latins are boasting
already that the empire of Rome is one, and is theirs, not ours.
Within a few days' march of Constantinople itself there is a
Bulgarian kingdom which may pour on us again in an avalanche at any
hour. And beyond them are Slavs, Russ, Petzinacs, Chazars, and
Turks, and many a barbarous horde beyond. I tell thee, chamberlain,
as I have come hither to tell our sovereign Augustus and his council,
that the empire can be saved no longer but by great and thoroughly
equipped armies of stalwart Romans, not of hired barbarians--but
above all can be saved only by a mighty soldier, by a great general,
by a hero whom his men will follow to the death."
"And where shall his Majesty and his valiant soldiers find such a man
but in the victor of a hundred fights, the hero of a thousand
war-songs, the glorious lord warden of the eastern marches--our
commander-in-chief that must be--our sovereign Augustus that might
be--if God in His inscrutable purposes took to Himself our Sublime
Majesty and his adorable son and heir"--fawned the chamberlain as he
stole nearer to the ear of the akritas, and crossed himself again and
again in contemplation of the twofold imperial obsequies.
"That can never be," replied Basil Digenes, with an air of deep
conviction and thought; "my birth has made it impossible,
inconceivable, almost a sacrilege to contemplate. My very name
reminds the Romans that I am but half a Roman, and bear in my blood
and skin the color of the Prophet. My noble father, Mousur, emir of
Edessa as he was, born a Syed of the sacred stock of Islam, and from
early youth a hostage at the court of the governor of Cappadocia, the
illustrious Ducas, forsook his people and his faith for the love of
my mother. Yes, Eudocia Ducas was as noble as he, fair and good
enough to make a saint forswear heaven to win her. My father made me
a soldier of Christ and of Rome, and such I will live and die. But
the blood of the emirs of Edessa stirs in my veins to-day, even when
I am leading the charge upon their ranks. And I have seen in the
armies of the Prophet courage as high and hearts as pure as any who
worship the cross. Never will I stoop to join in the insults that
your craven mobs in the city delight to cast at the children of
Hagar. I trust in Christ, but I will not revile the Prophet or his
servants. And now tell me, most illustrious and most politic lord of
the purple chamber, do you think the patriarch and his priests and
acolytes will ever consecrate under the dome of the Holy Wisdom me,
Digenes--'the half-breed,' the son of the Saracen, with the blood of
the Prophet of Mecca darkening my very cheek?"--he ground out these
words between his teeth--and then he added with the ringing voice
that was natural to him: "No! my Lord Theodore, tempt me not with
these palace intrigues. I am proud to serve our Basileus as the
warden of the marches. I will fight--I will sweat and die for Rome
and for Christ. But I am not of the mould in which your cubicular
conspirators are cast."
"Oh, dream not that I am capable of hinting at such treason, my Lord
Basil! I sought counsel only in the lamentable yet conceivable
chance that might befall this empire and our sacred and imperial
stock. On whom, then, would your Eminence propose that we should
turn our hopes, if God in heaven were indeed to afflict us so sorely?"
"How can you ask?" shouted the lord warden, almost bounding from his
saddle; "there is but one, and he fills every mouth with his glory.
There is but one man who can save Rome, but one man whom every Roman
warrior will follow, as if he were St. Michael, with the sword of
heaven in his hand. Whom could I mean but Nicephorus, the
commander-in-chief of the forces of Asia, the greatest hero of the
heroic race of Phocas, son, grandson, brother, and kinsman of the
most valiant commanders whom Rome has ever known. Ah! had you ever
seen our glorious Nicephorus at the head of his army; had you ever
heard the roar of his men as his eagle eye swept along their ranks;
had you ever watched him as I have, chamberlain, in the storm of a
bloody fight, firm as a rock, alert as a young lion, keen as a hawk,
and sublime master of the whole battle array--had you ever seen him
in the hour of victory, directing all men to his will, like Homer's
Zeus presiding over the shock of earthly men below--you would not
ask, most eminent lord of the sacred chamber, who was the destined
savior of Rome--under God and His mother, be it said--who is our born
chief! Why, man alive--Nicephorus Phocas--whom to follow is to be
blessed--whom to know is to honor and to serve."
The supple chamberlain was well aware of the enthusiasm for the
Armenian chief, in which all the fighting men of the empire were
agreed; and he knew how deeply the autocrator himself valued--if he
also feared--the genius of his great captain. But he also knew how
sorely the palace held Nicephorus in dread. They knew him to be
stern, just, of unimpeachable honor, of almost fanatical piety, and
of a loyalty that neither flattery nor prize could seduce. This
terrible soldier, with his inexorable justice and his inevitable
insight, would be a grievous burden to the palace, and to the silken
minions who thronged its halls. The ingenious Theodore accordingly
made haste to drop the subject and efface from the mind of the
gallant warden the impression he had sought to instil into it. And
as they had now reached the shore, the whole attention of the party
was occupied in placing the young Cæsar in safety and in comfort on
his luxurious barge.
The task was rapidly and skilfully accomplished under the masterly
care of the lord warden, and soon the imperial barge was being
swiftly oared across the two or three miles of sea which divided the
palace from the Asian shore. The young Basileus lay peacefully on
purple cushions beneath a rich awning of silk, tended by his
body-servant, who from time to time moistened his lips with sorbets
and cordials, while the keen glances of Basil watched over his charge
as he directed the course of the boat. Both he and the chamberlain
seemed lost in thought, though the nature of their meditations was
somewhat unlike.
The sun had now risen in a dazzling May morning, and was bathing in
its light that most glorious of all earth's landscapes. As they
rounded the headland of Keras, that we now call Seraglio Point, the
barge was in the centre of that scene which the ancient and the
modern world has agreed to be the most imposing and most beautiful
that Europe and Asia can show. The profusion of form and color is,
indeed, quite dazzling to those to whom it is unfamiliar. Bays,
gulfs, creeks, and seas were stretched in endless vistas On every
side, the gentle rippling of those azure waters glancing with joy in
the morning sun. Out of the waters, from point to point there rose
terraces, gardens, towers, palaces, and churches, radiant in marble
and gold, thickly strewn with groves of beech, acacia, arbutus, and
cypress, dotted about with fruit trees, now in their snowy blossom.
Northward the grand "river" of the Bosphorus swept slowly down in the
majestic tide of its blue stream, stately cliffs and wooded crags
rising on either side of the strait, and these were clothed with
countless towers, villas, monasteries, and temples.
On their right the Golden Horn ran up far into the land. This branch
of the sea was crowded with every kind of floating ship--dromons, or
warships of the state, with their brazen beaks, banks of long oars,
and high masts fitted to hurl the shells of Greek fire--the
bright-sailed merchant vessels from west and east: from Amalphi,
Venice, Durrachium, Bari, Naupactus, Cherson, the Ægean, the
Propontis, Smyrna, and Rhodes. Thousands of busy craft were moored
in the great harbor, while light caiques and skiffs scudded across
the narrow seas. In front of the returning barge rose the tremendous
ramparts, towers, and gates of new Rome, encircling the vast city
with that massive range of fortifications which for eight centuries
flung back the most valiant assailants, whether from the north or
from the east--those fortifications of which the pathetic ruins and
remnants to-day are the most majestic memorial of its forces which
the ancient world has left to us.
And behind those miles and miles of wall, battlement, tower, and gate
the Seven Hills of New Rome rose into the morning sky, one after the
other, in picturesque confusion of terrace, dome, tower, cloister,
and palace, all bowered in groves of flowering shrubs and avenues of
acacia and tall, dark cypress. And all around this vast and
variegated pile--this, the central city of the world, as all who saw
it felt it to be, whether they were Latin or Greek, Russ or African,
Christian or Moslem, philosopher or barbarian--there mounted up into
the blue welkin countless ranges of wooded hills, crags, headlands,
and far-off mountain outlines, softly folded in pencilled lines and
mists of white haze. Southward the eye ranged across the Propontis,
that immense inland lake girt with smiling bays, inlets, and cliffs,
with the nine islands we now call the "Princes' Isles," each clothed
with villas, convents, gardens, and forests. And far beyond, across
the sea and hill, rose dazzling white in the morning sun, in long,
broken ranges of snow, that glorious Bithynian Olympus which ever
looks down over the imperial city like the heavenly throne of its
guardian God.
III
The Betrothal
In the wooded slopes on the Asian side of the Bosphorus it was a
sultry evening of midsummer. The sun had already descended behind
the mountains of Thrace, in a deep glow which was reflected in the
glassy sea. A single worshipper was prostrated before the chief ikon
in the tiny shrine of St. Demetrius that stood in the forest not far
from the house of Craterus the Laconian. The humble dome, lit only
by one struggling lamp beneath the image, was dark and silent. The
eye that had become accustomed to the gloom could have perceived at
last the figure of a girl at her devotions, completely enveloped in a
long, dark cloak. "Mother of God, be of help to Anastasia," she
murmured again and again; then she listened, now she waited in
silence, and at last she drew furtively from her bosom a slip of
writing that had been flung at sunset into the open casement of her
chamber--"Be to-night at the shrine of Demetrius."
Yes, at last a light step was heard; and though she forbore to raise
her eyes from the altar and remained in prostration before it, the
worshipper's eager ear perceived the alert pace of a man who swiftly
came up beside her. It was the tall and graceful youth whose wound
she had tended, now restored to health, in all the glow of his young
beauty and the graceful assurance of his high estate. He was again
in hunting garb, but round his neck and on his fingers glittered
jewels which even to the rustic eye of Anastasia seemed worthy of a
king's son; and his dagger was of the most exquisite Damascene work
mounted with precious stones and enamel. He raised her from the
ground with smiles of mingled triumph and admiration, as if he were a
young god who had descended to toy with an earthly lover. "I told
you, my nymph of the woodman's hermitage, that we should meet again.
And now that they have put back into my veins all the blood that I
lost that night, I come to present my thanks to the beautiful nurse
to whom I owe my life. Tell me, my lovely wood-nymph, what gift
would please thee most." And, without waiting for an answer, he
threw his powerful arm round the girl and pressed on her lips a
passionate kiss.
Anastasia flung herself out of his arms and started back, the long,
dark cloak falling from her shoulders to the ground. She stood there
in flowing robes of pure-white gauze that clung to her rounded form
and made her look like the Virgin as she stood abashed and listened
to the angel at the Annunciation. Her bosom heaved with emotion and
indignation; her cheek was pale but lovely in its pallor, her eyes
glowed with fire, and her open lips seemed to tremble with unspoken
words. At last she found voice to speak: "Forbear, rude man, to
insult a maiden whom our Lady of Mount Damatrys has taken under her
holy keeping." The gay youth laughed aloud. "Why, my forest beauty,
I thought you knew me! I am Romanus, son of the Basileus, at your
service, to give you whatever you please to ask--be it jewels, robes,
or charms, but in any case the love of a king's son," he murmured,
seizing her again, and with a look of genuine rapture.
"This to me, thy consecrated maiden, O Holy Theotokos!" shrieked
Anastasia, with an air of frantic disdain, as she sank to the
pavement and flung herself down sobbing before the image of the
saint. Her agony and outraged modesty quite touched the young Cæsar,
who, profligate as he had already become, was still very young and
had gentle feelings by nature. In all his experience of the houris
of the palace and the city, he had met nothing like this before, and
the sight of such wonderful beauty, united to such miraculous
modesty, filled him with a new love, such as he had never dreamed of
in all the adventures of his gay young life. "Nay," he said, at
last, after trying in vain to alleviate her sobs, "I mean not to
offer you any offence, nor am I such a brute as could give a moment's
pain to the loveliest woman in my father's empire--to her who has
saved my life. Anastasia, I have loved you since that hour when you
seemed to have come down like the angel who comforts a dying man. I
love you now; I love you to distraction. I would fling away empire
itself if I might keep you. I swear by our own St. Stephen of the
Daphne that I will give thee a palace near the Augusteum, and thou
shalt have the establishment of a princess. I will have thee
acknowledged by the palace as the chosen love of Cæsar; and when I am
autocrator myself thou shalt ask of me what thou wilt, O thou most
lovely and dearest of women! I will--"
"Ah, saints in heaven, and thou, Holy Mother of God!" shrieked
Anastasia again, with a fresh outburst of convulsive sobs, "must I
listen to such insults? If thou art, indeed, Romanus, son of
Constantine Born-in-the-Purple, thou knowest not to whom thou darest
to offer thy dishonorable love. No breath of scandal has ever
tainted me or mine. My birth is, indeed, far above thine, proud as
thou boastest thine. My ancestors were kings in Greece when all in
this land were barbarians. My blood for a thousand years has run in
royal houses--fallen, despoiled, forgotten, but pure as the snow on
Mount Olympus. Who was thy great-grandfather's sire, O Romanus of
the race of Basil the Macedonian? Did he know himself--did any man
know--or his own mother? And thou, his direct descendant, offerest
outrages to me, the daughter of a hundred kings, the chosen maiden of
Our Lady here!"--and she sank back exhausted with her passion,
sobbing aloud--"because I am lonely, poor, an orphan, and unprotected
by man, though watched over by the Queen of Heaven above."
And here she broke away with a faint scream; and, whirling around her
limbs the flowing draperies of white gauze, like a mænad chased by a
satyr, she rushed across the chapel, and, dashing into a small, dark
oratory at the other side, she seemed to seize the ikon of Our Lady
with her hand as if claiming sanctuary of her patron divinity.
Romanus followed her as soon as his eyes could detect her in her
retreat; and, panting with his effort, he cried: "Anastasia, listen
to me again, and forgive my words of mad love! I swear by the saints
above that I will make you my wife, so soon as I am seated on the
golden throne," gasped Romanus, now wild with love, passion, and
excitement.
"Swear that we are betrothed this moment in the sight of God and His
saints. Swear it with thy hand placed on the ikon of Our Lady here,
as God shall save thy soul in the last judgment. Swear thus--'I,
Romanus, take thee, Anastasia, for my wedded wife, till death do us
part.' Swear it with thy hand on this ikon, made, as thou knowest,
by no earthly hand. Swear as I tell thee, or never see me again!"
Mad with love and half intoxicated with adventure as he was, Romanus
uttered the sacramental words half in jest and half in earnest; he
hardly knew what he was doing. And as he spoke, the venerable hermit
whose cell adjoined the chapel, a priest who had long forsaken the
world, stepped forth in his ceremonial robes from the dark corner in
which he had been on his face at his devotions quite concealed from
view. "Amen, amen," the venerable man of God said, with profound
solemnity in the ritual chant. "Those whom God hath joined together
let no man put asunder. My son and my daughter, go your ways in
peace. Ye are betrothed husband and spouse. May Mary the Divine
Mother and St. Demetrius guide ye both in blessed wedlock."
And as he spoke Anastasia slipped back into the arms of her old
nurse, Charmion, who was holding her cloak hard by in another dark
corner of the chapel. The hermit and the two women passed
noiselessly out into the night; and the young Romanus stood alone in
the dark chapel, revolving in his mind what it meant and what was to
be the end of this amour. He had caught sight of the girl already
once or twice in the three months that had passed during his
convalescence, but always in presence of her nurse or father, and he
felt himself to have sunk madly in love with her marvellous beauty
and queenly air. Of a truth, she could be no burgher's daughter: he
had already heard vague rumors about Craterus and his royal
ancestors. And where had he seen that old hermit who had so
mysteriously sprung up out of the dark cell beside the altar of Our
Lady? He thought he had once before met those foxlike eyes and that
lofty brow. But the long, white beard and priestly robes? Priest,
monk, hermit! Had he sworn wedlock before the priest of the Most
High? Betrothed! Married! Was it a jest or something more? And
the wild lad laughed, and then he drew a deep sigh, and then again he
laughed, and as he left the sacred spot he swore a deep oath by the
saint to whom he never was forsworn that Anastasia should be his,
come what might. And as he passed on to his attendants who waited
for him in the copse hard by he determined to call to his counsels
the chamberlain, the Lord Theodore, whose skill in intrigue he knew
to be unrivalled, and of whose fidelity to himself he was entirely
assured.