Justinian

MYAKES

Justinian hit too close to the mark there, Brother Elpidios. And he didn't see all of it, though he heard the last. Anastasia had to witness every bit of that house's misfortune, right down to the end. I wonder how she bore so much sorrow, and what happened to her at last. So many things we never get to know.

Stephen the Persian conducting the negotiations over Eudokia's dowry, those went quickly and were settled to my entire satisfaction. "Maybe I ought to put you in charge of the treasury," I told him. I was joking at the time, but remembered the words later, he having proved himself both skilled and diligent.

We announced the betrothal just after the end of summer, with the wedding to be held in November. At my mother's invitation, Eudokia and her family were installed in the great palace, Philaretos delegating his duties to a subordinate until the wedding. Before my father died, he had paid the Bulgars their yearly tribute, so we had no reason to expect trouble either from them or from the seven Sklavinian tribes they had brought under their control- and, indeed, all remained peaceful in the north, as it did with the Arabs. Their misnamed commander of the faithful sent an ambassador congratulating me on my accession, I suppose in the hope I would continue my father's policy on that frontier as well. I did not say no. I did not say yes.

Having Eudokia in the palace was awkward in a way my mother might not have considered on inviting her. On the wedding night, Eudokia needed to show herself a virgin, which meant I could not indulge myself with her beforehand. But with her there, I hesitated to take the serving girls to bed, lest they bring back tales to her or, foolishly, put on airs before her. And so, till the wedding day, I lived a nearly monkish existence, and was often short-tempered- no, angry- on account of it.

Everything concerning the Emperor must be magnificent, with his wedding no exception to the rule. Servants set up tables in every forum in the imperial city, to feast the people. I ordered chariot races for the amusement of the city mob. Though such amusements are no longer the all-consuming passion of the city as they were in the days of my namesake a century and a half ago, the people would have thought me mean and niggardly had I omitted them.

As Stephen had said, all this took large sums of gold. I wished my father had not paid the Bulgars, and I wished we collected more in tribute from the followers of the false prophet, for most of what the Empire raised in taxes on land and crops and commerce was promptly spent again on soldiers and dromons and buildings. But, despite dark mutterings from my ministers, we had enough.

The day we had set dawned crisp and cool and clear. "A good omen," I said to my mother as we got ready to parade to the church of the Holy Wisdom so the ecumenical patriarch could perform the marriage ceremony. "The way it's rained the past week, I was afraid we'd have to splash through puddles all the way there."

"Your bride will be lovely," she answered, and then went on, "You chose well, son. Eudokia is a fine girl; the more I see of her, the more I see to like."

"Yes," I said enthusiastically, responding more to the first part of that than to the second, though I was looking forward to seeing far more of Eudokia than I had yet. I was also curious, as the only virginity I had been involved in losing up till then was my own.

Stephen the Persian came in and fussily adjusted the way the ends of my loros crossed each other. I wore the same regalia as I had to my coronation, and, as I had then, I went bareheaded. Today I would don, not the Emperor's crown, but that of the bridegroom.

I could not see how Eudokia looked as we left the palace (which served for her in place of her parents' home), for, as was customary, she was veiled against all intrusive eyes, mine included. Her white silk gown, though, fit tight enough to give me a new idea of her figure, and I liked what I saw there.

When we got to the church of the Holy Wisdom and walked up to the altar, George struggled to his feet to perform the marriage service. He was, by then, almost literally on his last legs, but still managed to make his voice carry as he asked us if we both consented to the marriage.

"Yes," I said, and then had to repeat myself so anyone but he and Eudokia could hear me.

Her voice was not loud, but very clear: "Yes."

One of the priests attending the patriarch handed him a sheathed sword on a belt. Swollen fingers fumbling, he girded it round my waist, a symbol of imperial power. Then, slowly, he turned to the altar and lifted the crowns of marriage from it. Where most folk make do with tinned copper, ours were of gold. He set one on my head, the other on Eudokia's. Between where the crowns had lain stood a golden goblet. The patriarch offered it first to me, then to my bride. We shared the wine the goblet held, Eudokia lifting her veil just enough to drink.

George read from the letter to the Ephesians, and from the book of John. He prayed for long years together for us, for happiness, for children, for prosperity-"for you and for the Empire," he said, as he would not have at a wedding for bride and groom of lower rank.

Eudokia set a golden ring on my finger, its bezel showing Christ joining a couple together in marriage. I gave her an iron ring in return; a golden wedding belt waited at the nuptial chamber. George took the crowns of marriage off us and handed them to Myakes, who, despite my mother's grumbles and Stephen's sniffs, served as my groomsman. He hurried off to set them on the posts of the marriage bed for luck.

Once the crowns were off, George blessed us one last time, bent his head in silent prayer, and then, with an effort, straightened. "Justinian and Eudokia are wed," he said. "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."

After that, we paraded back to the great palace, to the cheers of the nobles and officials and officers who had filled the church of the Holy Wisdom, and to those of the common folk of Constantinople as well. No sooner were we out of the church than the epithalamia began. The farther we went, the louder and bawdier the wedding songs got. If Eudokia had not known what we would soon be doing- and, since she was a well-brought-up maiden, she might not have- she would have been left in little doubt by the time we got to the palace.

The wine was already flowing freely there; mimes and dancing girls entertained the guests. My mother being the only family I had left in the world, she and I and Eudokia went into an antechamber for the ceremony of removing the bride's veil. I had, of course, seen Eudokia's face before, but in theory I might not have.

Seeing my mother nod encouragement, Eudokia took off the veil. Under it, her cheeks were flushed, perhaps from the crisp breeze outside, perhaps from excitement, too. "My husband," she said, sounding proud of herself, as well she might have.

"My wife," I answered, and then added, "My beautiful wife." She looked down at the floor for modesty's sake- she had indeed been properly brought up. But she was smiling.

"God and the Virgin bless both of you, my children," my mother said.

I was not thinking of God at that moment, and of no virginity save my bride's. "Fix your veil again," I told Eudokia, "so I can lead you to the nuptial chamber." So I can make you truly my wife, was what I meant. As the white veil concealed her features once more, I thought she looked nervous, and wondered what, if anything, her mother had told her of what happens on a wedding night.

Everyone cheered when my mother and Eudokia and I came out, because everyone knew where Eudokia and I were going and what we would be doing once we got there. A good many people followed us down the hall, bawling out epithalamia on that very theme. Some were far more specific than any sung on our way back to the palace. I wondered what Eudokia made of such gleeful obscenity. Just before we reached the door to the bedchamber, she giggled. That seemed a good sign.

Even after we went inside and closed the door behind us, the loud, lewd racket went on. The bed had on it only a plain white linen sheet. On the posts, faithful Myakes had hung the marriage crowns. "Take off your veil," I said to Eudokia. "We're alone now." Soon she would take off more than the veil, but maybe she did not want to think about that yet.

And I still had to give her the marriage belt, which lay, wrapped in white silk, on a table by the bed. I unwrapped it. How the bright gold glittered!- twenty-one small medallions and two large ones on either side of the clasp showing Christ joining the right hands of bride and groom together. I carried the belt over to Eudokia and put it round her waist. It fit perfectly: a maidservant must have measured her for the jeweler. She looked down at herself and at the splendid ornament. "How beautiful," she whispered.

This was the first time I had touched any part of her but her hands. I let my own hands linger on her hips. "How beautiful," I said in an altogether different tone of voice.

She cast down her eyes once more- a modest bride indeed. But there is also a time when modesty should end, and that time had come. Leaving one hand where it was, I raised the other to her chin and tilted her face up to mine. She looked nervous but determined, which, under the circumstances, was as much as I could expect.

I quickly discovered she knew nothing about kissing of the sort in which a new groom and his bride are apt to engage. She learned fast, though. My own first instructions in these mysteries were close enough in time that I remembered them and used them as a guide in teaching her.

While we kissed, we clung to each other ever more tightly. My manhood rose. As it was pressed between us, she must have noticed, but she gave no sign that she did, perhaps again from modesty, perhaps because she simply did not know what to do. I took one of her hands in mine and guided it down there. She started to pull away when she felt the bulge, but I held her hand there.

"That is-" she said, and then stopped: half a statement, half a question in two words.

"Yes, it is," I answered, my voice full of what I would rather call enthusiasm than raw lust. I took my hand away; after a tiny hesitation, she left hers where I had put it. I nodded: another lesson learned. I needed both hands to undo the catch of the marriage belt. My fingers trembled as I worked it. "A pity to take this off so soon after putting it on you, but\a160…"

Then I had to step away from her for a moment, to set the belt on the table once more. When I came back to her, I began to undo the catches that held her wedding gown closed. She stood very still under my hands. I slid the gown down off her. It puddled at her feet. The small nipples on her breasts were tight and hard, more, no doubt, from nervousness than passion. I bent my mouth to them, first one, then the other. Her breath caught. "That feels-" Again, she did not finish, but she put on hand on the back of my head to keep me at what I was doing.

Presently, I pulled her drawers off her, so that she stood naked before me. "I am a lucky man today," I said, and smiled the smile I had been practicing since before the little Sklavinian girl took me into the storeroom.

Then it was my turn to divest myself of my robes. When I was through, Eudokia stared at me. I knew how women were made, and had learned from her nudity only the particulars of her body. In my nakedness she saw for the first time the generality of maleness. My erection stood out as straight as if I were about to fence with it.

"I'll try not to hurt you," I said, taking her hand and walking with her to the bed, "though it may, the first time." I spoke as if I knew in detail, wanting to make her feel easy, although, as I have said, the only virginity I knew was my own. Losing that had not hurt- by no means!

We lay down together. I did not go into her at once, but kissed her and caressed her with my hands. When I stroked her secret place, she sighed and her legs, which she had held tightly closed till then, opened of themselves. After a while, my mouth followed my hand. A maidservant had taught me that a year or so before- sucking the fig, she called it. She and several others had seemed to like it more than a hand stroking the same place, and so, by her little gasps, did Eudokia.

Without my asking, she took me in her hand, and laughed to feel me throb against her palm. Then, on hands and knees, I got up over her and guided myself inside her. She being wet, I went in easily- until, all at once, I was halted. Eudokia's face, which had been full of surprised delight, twisted in pain. She was indeed a maiden. I had not had any serious doubts on that score, but proving it was a relief.

"We must finish what we've begun," I said, and she nodded. I thrust with all my strength, and broke through the barrier. Eudokia did not cry out, but her breath hissed through her nostrils. I have heard soldiers make that sound when they take a wound. "Is it all right?" I asked after a moment. She nodded again. Slowly, I began to move inside her.

Bu t as my own heat built, I forgot about restraint, and soon gasped out my spasm of delight. When I came back to myself, I saw her eyes were tightly closed. A tear had run down the side of her face from each of them. She hissed again when I slid out of her. I looked at myself, at her, at the stained sheet, and nodded, happy with the world. No one would have cause to doubt I had taken her maidenhead.

She too sat up and looked at the blood that had come from between her legs. "You are truly my wife," I said.

"Yes." Eudokia got off the bed and, walking as if she had been on horseback for a long time, poured some water from a pitcher into a basin, soaked a rag in it, and washed her private parts. After a moment, I did the same. A wedding night of one round only is a poor wedding night indeed, and I had in mind teaching her some things I had not shown her before our first joining. Being clean would help.

If I had the stamina now that I did then, or if I had known then what I know now, the night might have been even more memorable, but it was quite fine enough as things were. Some time along toward midnight, I stripped the sheet from the bed, put on my robe, and displayed the trophy to all the wedding guests who had not yet drunk themselves to sleep or gone off with a dancing girl. Loud, raucous cheers greeted me. "What are you going to do now?" someone shouted.

"Go back in there and put some more stains on it," I answered, and the shouts that came echoing back were even more raucous than before. To whoops of laughter, I shut the door and proceeded to do as I had said.

I woke the next morning to sunlight streaming into the bedchamber. Eudokia lay naked beside me. I thought about waking her with the same music to which we had fallen asleep: when you are but sixteen, you can contemplate such things after a night like the one we had had. But even at sixteen, that next round was far from urgent. I rolled over and yawned and stretched, feeling lazy and contented.

Eudokia's eyes came open. She let out a startled squeak at finding herself in bed with a man, but quickly remembered how and why that had happened, proof of which being that, although she started to cover herself with her hands, she stopped with the motion half begun and let me look all I pleased.

"My husband," she said. Her eyes traveled from my face downwards. Sure enough, I had begun to rise again. I do not know whether she was impressed; being ignorant of the ways of men, she had no standard for comparison. Looking back across a quarter of a century, I am certainly impressed. And so we did play that same sweet tune over again.