years, less three months and thirteen days, the stars have shown in
the ascendant. Born under the culmination of Venus, coincident with
her superior conjunctions at every stage of life, this horoscope is
plainly that of a woman, of the most beautiful woman on God's earth,
a woman whose beauty has been one long triumph, with but one darker
sign in all its course."
"And that is what?" she asked, with an audible gasp.
"Lady, I hesitate to tell it; there is at this very time an ominous
sign. The gorgeous planet Venus, who rules the sky by her
brilliance, is passing now from east elongation towards inferior
conjunction. She is now being obscured by too close attendance on a
lower and less honorable star."
Theophano held her breath. "What comes after?" she whispered.
"Lady, the synodic period of Venus is almost complete, and it
portends a new epoch of effulgence. This woman, for these
conjunctions can belong only to a woman, is about to free herself
from an unworthy planetary connection, and will soon ascend again
into a house of glory and joy still greater than before."
"When shall that be?" she gasped.
"Lady, it may be retarded by events or it may be hastened by art."
"And what is destined to be this superior conjunction of which you
spoke?"
"Lady, the lore of astral combinations does not reveal such things.
But palmistry may give signs which the constellations disdain to
show. Deign to let me trace the lines in the palm of your hand."
Flinging aside all disguises, Theophano, in her eagerness, put her
palm in his. He bent over it with an air of profound mystery,
muttering, "the line of life, the line of love, the line of strength.
Lady, these lines make it manifest that you are mated to one unworthy
of you, and that your happiness will not be assured till you are the
bride of one who is more youthful, more glorious, more loving."
"But when--with whom--how will it be brought about?" she gasped.
"It is not revealed to man or to woman, when, with whom, or how
happiness can be won. But art may assist; it may hasten; it may cut
the knot which binds us to misery. Here, lady, are two rare drugs,
each worth a king's ransom, which I had from the great Abu Djafar
Achmed ben Ibrahim. One is in silver, one is wrapped in lead. The
silver charm is a love philter, the leaden packet will relieve one of
an enemy. No man on this side of the Orontes has these medicines, or
ever has had. Nothing less than the jewel on your arm to-night would
buy them," said Aaron, with a gleam of avarice in his eye.
"Give them to me," she said, in a cold, firm voice, and slipped the
ruby armlet from her wrist into his trembling fingers.
"Farewell, learned doctor," she added, with cruel abruptness, "guard
yourself with care, for the city is full of cutthroats." And she
summoned Psellus and her guards. "Conduct the learned doctor to his
rest, and be careful that _he sleeps soundly to-night_."
"Ashmodai, my lord and master, guards his servant, lady," said Aaron,
fawning, and yet with a certain subdued vein of menace.
Psellus looked steadily at his mistress, with inquiry for the
concerted sign. She did not blench, but repeated again, "_See that
he sleeps soundly to-night_. I am sure that Ashmodai longs to see
his own." She passed swiftly behind a curtain up the winding stair,
and Aaron allowed himself to be blindfolded with a heavy shawl, over
which Psellus and his assistants slipped a stout, silken noose. This
rapid manœuvre Aaron, busy with the fingering of his priceless
rubies, neither saw nor felt. Then they two passed into the night,
and the skiff shot away noiselessly into the blackness of the waters
of Propontis.
As the morning dawned, some fishermen, dragging their net for tunny
off the rock we call the "Tower of Leander," pulled up the body of an
old man clad in a loose Oriental gabardine. The city police found in
his wallet a purse of one hundred bezants, and also a bracelet of
rubies of the rarest water. At noon, the bazaars rang with the
gossip of the hour, that a thief, who had broken into one of the
imperial chambers, and stolen some jewels, had been caught, and flung
over the southern battlements, but some insisted that he had been
drowned in trying to escape with his plunder. The next day a new
crime and a fresh scandal occupied the forum and the wine-shops,
while Aaron Ben Ammon "slept soundly" forevermore, in the bosom of
father Ashmodai.
Theophano, who cared little for the mystical jargon of astrologers,
necromancers, or palmists, could not free her mind from dwelling on
prophecies which so curiously agreed with her inmost desires. The
ascetic nature of Nicephorus, his devoutness, his zeal in the great
work of the crusade to defend Christendom from Islam--all were
profoundly odious to his wife, and had turned her, by rapid stages,
from indifference to coldness, from coldness to contempt, and from
contempt to loathing. She longed for a life of youth, adventure,
gayety, and pomp. Romanus, with all his graces, had nothing heroic
about him but his passion for the chase. Nicephorus had nothing of
the lover, for night and day his thoughts turned to councils of state
and preparations for war. The dreams of Theophano were visions of an
Ares, who flung aside his weapons when he flew to the bower of his
own Aphrodite.
While the emperor was absent on his short Bulgarian expedition, he
had intrusted to his empress, the regent, full powers of authority.
And these she had used under various pretences to throw obstacles in
the way of the marriage of Princess Agatha and Basil Digenes, the
lord warden; as, being a princess of the royal house, and, indeed,
after her infant nephews, an heiress presumptive to the throne,
Agatha could not marry without the imperial consent, nor, in truth,
could the lord warden, as a great official, thwart their majesties by
acting in defiance of them. Consent had been withheld on various
pretexts from time to time, and no sooner was Nicephorus across the
Balkan frontier than the empress discovered a reason of state which
caused her to issue a peremptory rejection of the warden's demand.
Theophano insisted on marrying Agatha to the Magistros Sisinnios, one
of the imperial marshals, a man of birth and wealth, and now entirely
a creature of her own.
A stormy scene had just taken place between the princess and the
empress. Agatha refused pointblank to marry any one except the lord
warden. She insisted on knowing the ground on which their majesties
had withdrawn the consent, which had been virtually given long ago,
and on what charges the lord warden's suit had been rejected.
"His Imperial Majesty," said Theophano, "had now discovered the
dangerous ambition which his own indulgent favor had aroused in the
mind of his former favorite lieutenant. It was now seen that, in
aspiring to the hand of a Basilian princess, he was preparing a claim
to the throne itself."
"It is false," retorted Agatha, with passion; "let those who make so
infamous an accusation against the most loyal spirit in this empire
produce their evidence of any such thought or attempt."
"The emperor has had his eyes opened, and his ministers will in good
time produce the proofs which their vigilance has collected. He
cannot suffer an officer convicted of such dangerous ambition to
acquire the manifest advantage of alliance with the house of Basil."
"The lord warden can prove his innocence the instant he has audience
of his emperor. It will be easy to show him that his mind has been
abused with monstrous calumnies."
"Agatha, child, fool, listen to me," said Theophano, with a cruel
smile. "I am empress here. No man knows when Nicephorus will return
from the war. I and my council have resolved that Basil Digenes
shall never wed a daughter of our dynasty. The throne, the lives of
my young sons, would not be safe for an hour--"
"It is monstrous--it is inhuman--it is Satanic," broke out Agatha,
with passion; "the sons of my own brother, am I to be their
murderess?" and she sobbed with indignation and rage.
"Well, your husband might easily be their murderer. Uncles, and even
aunts, have been known to plot against the thrones of their nephews.
But listen, Agatha, there is another thing which has decided my
council. They hold that at the opening of a new crusade against the
Moslem it would be a scandal and a danger to show the court of
Byzantium mingling the race of the Constantines and the Basils with
that of a Saracen emir."
"Mother of God," cried Agatha, in her agony, "do you hear the
blasphemy and the calumnies they utter?"
"Agatha, listen to me, and cease these idle wailings and revilings,"
said Theophano, with cold and deliberate words. "On the third day
from this you marry the Marshal Sisinnios."
"Never!" burst in Agatha.
"Then our will is that you be made a nun and confined in a convent on
the coast of the Black Sea. Again I say--marry Sisinnios--or be for
life a solitary bride of Christ."
"Never!" she gasped. "I will choose death rather than such a
marriage. I will marry none but Basil Digenes."
"Basil Digenes," said Theophano, with her cold, cruel voice, as if
she enjoyed the torture she was causing--"Basil Digenes, let me
inform you, is now under arrest as a traitor to his sovereigns, and
will be dealt with as I and my council direct. You know what happens
to prisoners who are suspected of aspiring to the throne. You will
never see the Digenes again in this world--and be very certain that
he can never see you," and she laughed a cruel, mocking laugh, such
as comes from the devils when they seize their victim.
"Mother of God," shrieked Agatha, "dost thou hear this?"
"Marry Sisinnios," said Theophano, hoarsely.
"None but my Basil!" screamed Agatha, wild with horror and wrath.
The empress struck the door twice with her jewelled baton, and three
black cubiculars rushed in, seized Agatha, now speechless, and almost
fainting.
"Take her away, and carry out my orders," said Theophano.
"Fiend, I defy you!" shrieked Agatha, as the huge eunuchs carried her
off, and closed her mouth with their unholy hands.
After this stormy interview, which took place in the privy boudoir of
the empress, Theophano sent for her tiring women, and, having had
herself divested of the stately robes she had worn, she was bathed
with rose-water, and had her long tresses combed and plaited. Then
she was dressed in the diaphanous folds of silk gauze, which
displayed to the best her magnificent form, and left free the
dazzling whiteness of her neck and arms. It was little, indeed, that
art could do to enhance the radiance of that countenance which the
symmetry of a Greek bust and the glow of health and life had made a
model of perfect beauty. But all that the cosmetic art of Byzantine
luxury could achieve was now brought into play. And, as she watched
the effect in her steel mirror, with its enamelled frame, Theophano
felt conscious that she had never in her life looked so like a
goddess of the old Olympus.
"Bring in the prisoner," she said to her cubiculars, "if he has
tasted the cup I sent him to drink."
Two great palace guards accordingly led in a man heavily manacled
with a chain attached to the arm of each of his guards.
"Loose all these bonds," said the empress, imperiously.
"All, madam?" the attendants asked, as if in doubt of her meaning.
"All," she said, again. "Leave him quite free." It was done. The
attendants and guards stood alert and on the watch, for a state
prisoner quite unbound was an experience unknown in the Sacred Palace.
"All will leave us," she said, peremptorily. They looked at her with
inquiry and in surprise. "Leave us quite alone. Withdraw, and close
all doors," she added.
To leave the empress alone with a young and very powerful prisoner
was something strange and perilous, they thought. But she looked at
them steadily till every step was gone and all doors shut.
Theophano stood alone with Basil Digenes, "Gallant lord warden," she
began, in silvery tones, "our council here, in the absence of my
lord, the Basileus, have insisted on having you arrested on a charge
of aiming at the throne by pressing your claim to a marriage with the
Princess Agatha."
"Madam," said the warden, with a proud smile, "my beloved lord and
chief knows me too well to listen to suspicions so empty and absurd."
"You will never think, Basil," she said, in her most insinuating
tones, "that I who know you, I trust, quite as well as does my lord,
can personally believe such treason to be possible to the noblest
hero in the armies of Rome. I know you to be the most loyal servant
of your Basileus--ay, and of your Basilissa--" And she stepped
forward and offered him her hand to kiss.
The guileless warden bent on his knee, took those radiant and yet
deadly fingers in his own, put them to his lips, with the words,
"From all my heart, I thank thee, gracious queen."
"You may trust to my intercession with the stern Basileus to save you
from the charge of treason. Rely on my friendship, my Lord Basil,
for you little know how suspicious, how capricious, how resentful, is
Nicephorus Phocas. But I will save you, will protect you from his
vengeance, if any mortal can."
"My chief, my friend, my sovereign, will need little persuasion the
very moment he sees me before him," said the warden, with a sudden
air of disdain.
"You little know him," she said, bitterly. "But the danger is too
immediate to yourself. The council have already sealed an order that
endangers your life--at least, your eyes," she said, watching him as
a tigress might watch a kid.
"What!" cried the warden, with a start--"my life, my limbs, and
senses! Are they mad? Do they know who I am, and who is my liege
master, my comrade in a hundred fights?"
"Basil, I am your friend, and only I of those who rule here to-day.
Your liberty and life are in the hands of those who rule in the
absence of the Basileus himself. I can save you from their envy and
their malice, but on one condition alone. There is one thing that
they cannot yield, one thing wherein I could not save you."
"What is that?" he said, with a fierce air of resolution.
"You must renounce all thought of the princess. The council will
never suffer you, with your name and fame and birth--your glory, your
invincible charm, Basil, to be allied with the sister of the late
Basileus."
"Never will I renounce her--never! I will face death, imprisonment,
mutilation, torture, but never will I give up my Agatha in life."
"Basil, it is too late. She has renounced you; she consents to marry
the Marshal Sisinnios, and the ceremony takes place to-morrow."
"Impossible. I will not believe it. She is as true as steel, as
good as a saint, as brave as a virgin martyr. I must see her, must
hear this from her own lips. It is false."
"Would that I could think so, Basil, for her sake and for yours.
Listen to reason; hear the truth from one who admires your glory and
yearns to serve and to save you. You cannot save her, and you may
destroy the noblest Roman of this empire, which we all know you to
be. Agatha, poor child, is powerless here, and can do nothing to
save you, to help you, or to raise you. I have placed one soldier on
the Golden Throne. He has proved unworthy of it--"
Here Basil burst out into furious words, for the Jew's drug had begun
to excite and confuse his brain. Theophano drew back and fingered
the poisoned stiletto she had concealed in her bosom.
"Basil," she said, in a voice of deep feeling, "he may die--he may
become the hermit he desires to be--within a month. Where should
Rome find a Basileus then, save in the most noble, the most splendid
soldier of this realm? Where could I and my babes find a protector,
a friend, a counsellor--if it be not in the hero whom a thousand
bards have praised as the 'bravest of the brave,' whom all Byzantium
and the Golden Palace admire--and love--as the most brilliant
cavalier in this royal court? Basil, hear me, Rome and Rome's
mistress, all that is greatest and most beautiful on earth is yours!
Say but one word, and seal it with one kiss!"
He listened like a man in an evil dream, who cannot move or speak.
The drug had begun to make him delirious.
She advanced towards him, opening her white arms, that glistened with
jewels, and sought to wrap him round and draw him towards her.
He gasped with shame, awe, and rage, speechless with indignation and
amazement and stupefied with the potion. He staggered backward,
shrinking from her with loathing, as from something poisonous and
unclean. He stumbled back towards the door, which was violently
opened behind him. And as Digenes staggered back he fell against the
Basileus himself, who rushed into the arms of his wife, shouting, "My
queen, my wife, my love, I have hurried back without notice in
advance of my guard and men."
The unfortunate Digenes sank down exhausted and senseless. He was
now in high fever, delirious from the effects of the potion and the
spasms of fury and amazement through which he had passed. The
silentiaries called the guard, who bore away the unconscious chief to
a bed, whereon he long lay overcome with a dangerous illness, and
unable to remember what had happened. Nicephorus gave strict orders
to his own physicians and attendants to nurse him. He listened in
silence full of doubt and bewilderment to the artful story poured
into his ears from the ready brain of Theophano.
XXIII
The March on Antioch
The dawn had not appeared when the peace of Byzantium was roused by a
sudden commotion. The reveille was sounding from all the barracks of
the guards. Citizens rushed from their houses to the wider streets
and forum to hear the news. The beacon fire across the Bosphorus, on
the heights above Chrysopolis, was blazing in the sky. And the
palace and its precincts were bright with lamps and torches, as
messengers, troops, and attendants hastened through the corridors and
courts.
The young guardsman, Eric, hurrying to headquarters, chanced in the
crowd to meet his friend, Symmachos the silentiary, attended by Leo
the historian that was to be, then a young student at college. "What
does it mean?" he asked. "What does it mean?"--"Can you ask?" said
Symmachos. "Do you not see the blaze of the beacon across the
Bosphorus there? Do you not know that this is the signal from
Cæsarea in Cappadocia that the great army of the east is ready to
march, and awaits the coming of the Basileus?"
"I knew the signal was expected, but I did not understand it had
arrived."
"Yes!" said Symmachos, "it has come--just an hour ago, having started
from the banks of the Halys about this very midnight. I have just
been sent to summon General Bardas to the palace."
"You have never seen our telegraphs at work before?" said Leo, the
scholar, who was already well versed in all the machinery of the
empire. "Mount Argæus, whence this signal started, is full thirty
days' march from the city. In a few hours the beacon-fire has leaped
across that space."
"Yes," said Symmachos, "the palace pharos communicates with that of
Chrysopolis; thence it flashes to Nicomedia, Nicæa, Dorylæum,
Laodicea, till it reaches Mount Taurus, and from Taurus the concerted
signals are returned."
"Does it not remind you of the famous scene of the beacon-fire from
Troy, in the 'Agamemnon' of our Æschylus?" said Leo, with all the
conceit of a young student. "You know those glorious lines, my
lord?" he asked.
"Not I, my boy," said Colonel Eric, with a laugh, "Greek prose is too
much for me as yet, and as for your Æschylus, I would rather wrestle
with a Russian bear than struggle through his break-jaw lines."
"May Apollo and the Nine Muses forgive you, most terrible son of Thor
and Odin. Oh, listen to these majestic verses that the poet puts in
the mouth of Clytemnestra:
'From Ida's top, Hephæstus, Lord of Fire,
Sent forth his sign; and on, and ever on,
Beacon to beacon sped the courier-flame.
From Ida to the crag, that Hermes loves,
On Lemnos; thence, unto the steep sublime
Of Athos, throne of Zeus, the broad blaze flared
Thence, raised aloft to shoot across the sea,
The moving light, rejoicing in its strength,
Sped from the pyre of pine, and urged its way,
In golden glory, like some strange new sun,
Onward, and reached Macistus's watching heights.'"
As the young student, all aflame with his tragic enthusiasm, rolled
out these lines to the bewilderment of Eric, the courtier Symmachos
watched him sharply.
"Beware how you talk of Clytemnestra within sight of our palace, my
young friend, or you may be a Cassandra yourself," said he.
"Ah," said Leo, "how every line of the tragedy haunts one; of a
truth, there never was, there never will be again on this earth, such
a tragedy as that! But our Agamemnon, king of men, is going forth to
Asia to a triumph; he is not returning home after long absence. And
yet how the weird cries of the chorus ring in my ears:
"'Wherefore, forever, on the wings of Fear
Hovers a vision drear
Before my boding heart? a strain,
Unbidden and unwelcome, thrills mine ear
Oracular of pain.'"
"Keep your visions in your heart, as we do," said the silentiary,
sharply, "and do not let them pass your lips, or they will prove
oracular of pain, indeed, and you will have no eyes to see visions at
all. But come, enough of this; our friend the colonel here is not
listening to you. He is staring at the crowd before the Gate of
Bronze."
They pushed their way through the by-standers, who stood watching an
unwonted and stirring sight. On either side of the bronze door of
the palace stood two huge Varangian battle-axemen on guard,
motionless as statues. Above them, high on the face of the closed
doors, hung the gilded corselet of the emperor's armor of state, with
the sword and the shield. The crowd below came and went, gazing on
it with murmurs.
"And what means that?" Eric asked his guides.
"It is the ceremonial notice to his people," said Symmachos, "that
the emperor is about to march and take command of his army in person."
"An ancient custom?" asked Eric.
"From time immemorial--at least, since Theophilus the Magnificent
marched forth against the children of Hagar. The rite is all exactly
prescribed in the appendix to the first _Book of Ceremonies_ of our
ever-revered Constantine Porphyrogennetus," said Symmachos, with an
air of authority, as if that had settled the matter.
The day had now begun to break, and the streets were crowded with
long lines of guards hastening to the points of embarkation. The
forums were filled with eager sightseers, with caravans of beasts of
burden, orderlies flying in every direction with orders, and endless
processions of priests and acolytes to the shrines and miraculous
oratories and temples. The main army was already gathered round
Cæsarea. The intermediate camps were crowded with troops, stores,
ammunition, beasts, corn, and sheep, for food. Nothing remained to
be moved from Byzantium across the water except the strong body-guard
of the emperor, and the vast train and baggage apparatus, tents, and
servitors ordained in the _Book of Ceremonies_, when a Basileus takes
the field in person.
To carry all these across the straits to the Asian coast, there were
gathered a fleet of transports, barges, and galleys, which crowded
round the ports adjoining the palace, and again covered the Golden
Horn with their many-colored sails and long banks of oars.
In the mean time stormy scenes had been taking place within the
Sacred Palace, and, indeed, in the privy chambers of the emperor and
the empress themselves.
To explain the situation, it is necessary to go back somewhat in time
to the moment described at the close of the twentieth chapter, when
Nicephorus so unexpectedly burst out against the envoys from the king
of Bulgaria, and his sudden attack upon that kingdom.