"your office to-day is twofold. First you will unite me and this
royal lady beside me in holy matrimony, and then you will pronounce
us to the Roman world as anointed Augustus and Augusta."
"That shall never be!" rang out the clear voice of the aged
patriarch. "We acknowledge thee Lord John Tzimisces, our sovereign
autocrator, and I will anoint thee with the blessing of God and his
Begotten Son; but never shall that woman be thy consort on the
throne, nor will I join her in holy marriage to thee or any other
man. She, the adulteress, the murderess, the profaner of the altar
and the Church--she shall not pollute the Sacred Palace again. Drive
her forth, in the name of Christ and His Mother, drive her forth from
the Sacred Palace, or cease to pretend to it thyself. Choose between
God and this woman, John, son of Theophilus. I have spoken in the
name of the saints who watch over us."
Theophano shrieked with rage, and John foamed at the mouth in his
indignation and wrath. But, as he looked around him in the vast hall
and closely scanned the looks of his officers and soldiers, he
perceived but too clearly that the patriarch had the whole audience
in his power. Balantes thrust himself through the crowd of grandees
around the expectant emperor, and whispered in a voice of intense
excitement in the ear of Tzimisces. "John, son of Theophilus, listen
to me--it is life or death to us both. The patriarch has already
suborned the most powerful of the nobles and officials about you, and
he will anoint Bourtzes as autocrator if you refuse to put away the
woman. Choose, then, between her, with a dungeon and mutilation to
her portion, or the throne of Rome and the world. To hesitate is to
be lost!"
As he spoke, Theophano could no longer be held back by the eunuchs
around her, and she forced her way to the side of Tzimisces. "John,
my own hero, my love, my king, I have loved you wildly since my eyes
first saw you. I have sacrificed my life, my soul, my children for
you. If I have sinned, it was for love of you, that I might have you
to myself, and be free from the monster who outraged us both at once,
whom you can only torture any more, now that he is in hell, by
letting him see me in your arms and proving to him at last what is
the real love of a woman. Save me, John--take me and hold me. You
owe all to me--your life that I saved from his vengeance, your
revenge which you have yet to complete, the throne of Rome, from
which this wretched monk would debar you, the noblest Roman of them
all. We have won it together. We will mount it and hold it
together. Come to me; be the man, the hero that you are. Love me,
and you shall see how I can love."
Again the patriarch spoke in a voice of awful solemnity amid the most
profound silence in the vast hall: "John Tzimisces, thou shalt not
pollute the consecrated throne of our imperial line by dragging into
it this unholy woman. Order her this instant into captivity in a
convent to be dedicated to God for what remains to her of life on
earth. Failing this, with the assent of the chief notables of Rome,
I consecrate another as autocrator and Augustus, vicegerent and tutor
of Basil and Constantine, grandsons both of our venerated Constantine
Porphyrogennetus. Priests of God and His Mother, nobles and soldiers
of Rome, do I speak the words of justice, of Rome, and of Holy
Church?"
A deep murmur of assent rang through the hall, and the keen eye of
Tzimisces saw the inevitable sentence on the woman in the
countenances of all around. The young princes, Basil and
Constantine, shrank from their mother's women, and took their place
by the side of the patriarch, as fully comprehending the nature of
his threat. At that sight Theophano sprang forward like a tigress,
struck the child Basil twice across the mouth till his blood gushed
forth over her royal robes, screaming, "Are ye all curs and traitors
together? Mongrel priest, bastard child, false lover, slaves,
eunuchs, I defy ye all, I curse ye all!" And with these words she
fell forward fainting in the arms of the black guards, who seized her
and held her in their unsparing grasp.
John Tzimisces heaved a deep groan, and at last, raising his hand
high above his head, in a voice of subdued passion and fierce
command, he cried: "Holy patriarch, ye servants of the Most High,
chiefs, nobles, and soldiers of Rome, I acknowledge my sin in that I
was seduced by the woman. Take her into strict imprisonment, and let
her be immured in a convent in a distant island of the Euxine, so
that she never again persuade man to evil, as she was about to
persuade myself. Venerable patriarch, do thy office as of right.
Your words have triumphed. The evil one is put away from Rome
forever."
THE END