Strategos: Rise of the Golden Heart

5. Death of an Emperor

Eudokia gripped the edge of the balcony. Her ivory skin and fine-boned features were expressionless. Her silver-flecked, blonde locks were tied up in a swirl as she drew her bloodshot gaze over the eastern gardens of the Imperial Palace.

Here, the incessant babble of Constantinople was little more than a dull murmur. The morning sun bathed the vast and verdant space, edged with a marble colonnade and studded with ornate carvings and fountains. A web of paved footpaths picked their way through pockets of exotic blooms that lent their honeyed scents to the air. There were orange trees studded with fruit, palms that stretched high overhead, a family of parakeets flitting between them, and jasmine and wisteria that yawned across the marble walls.

A slave boy and a girl of similar age, thinking themselves unobserved, took a moment to rest in the shade under one orange tree. Eudokia saw them smile as they chatted. Their bodies bore the bruises of their master’s wrath, and their lot was meagre. Yet still they found time to sit together and smile, taking turns to offer seed to a mother parakeet, which would peck at the seed then swoop back up to her nest and feed her three screeching hatchlings. Eudokia looked to her hands, creased with age, and remembered the lost days of her childhood when she had last known such companionship. Her gaze was fond momentarily, then it turned stony as she remembered how that had played out.

She turned away from the balcony edge and faced the black silk curtain that separated her from the bedchamber. She steeled herself as she stepped towards it. For while outside was verdant, vibrant and abound with life, inside was rife with the stench of death.

She brushed through the curtain, the silk cool on her skin. Instantly, the baritone chanting of priests met her ears and echoed around the cavernous and ornate bedchamber. The gilt frescoes tried in vain to spice the room with vitality. The fine sculptures in brass, porphyry and veined marble portrayed muscular men in the prime of their youth and health, as if mocking the shrivelled figure on the bed at the centre of the chamber.

This was Emperor Constantine Doukas, the ruler of all Byzantium. God’s chosen one. He was bald, and what little hair remained was plastered to the back and sides of his scalp with sweat. His beard was unkempt and he was dressed only in a linen shirt that failed to hide his jutting ribs.

His emaciated form was a pitiful sight, yet she was bereft of pity for him. Indeed, she had never loved him, and it was all she could manage not to fear him. Their marriage had been more of a business arrangement between their families — wine and oil magnates of Paphlagonia and Ephesus — and they had barely met before the wedding ceremony. Regardless, she had hoped they would learn to love one another early in their marriage, but that hope had quickly dissolved when, pressed by his father, Doukas set out to ascend to the imperial throne. He swiftly became a guarded and devious creature, suspicious of all around him, sure they were eager to snatch his power away. She had hoped this was just a carapace he had adopted on his quest for power. But when he had found her writing a letter to her family in Ephesus, she realised his ambition had truly pickled his soul. He had torn the half-written letter from her, his eyes bulging, accusing her of plotting to ruin his bid to become emperor. He had ripped the paper in half, pinned her by the throat to the wall and then pulled out a dagger, pressing it to her breast until a droplet of blood darted from the skin. Never before had she seen such coldness in another’s eyes as he glared at her. You have no family. You are mine and mine alone. You will provide me with heirs. You will obey me.

When he had taken the imperial throne, Constantine’s advisers played upon his fears, whispering suggestions of duplicity in his ear, and these ideas burrowed like the tentacles of a parasite into his mind. Members of the court were tortured and executed on the merest hint of subterfuge or resistance to his designs. She shuddered, remembering the time he had summoned her into the underground torture chambers to watch one mild-mannered senator having his rib cage prised open and his lungs plucked from his chest to be held before his disbelieving eyes.

Equally, the populace hated him as much as they feared him. At first, the bravest of the citizens heckled him at the races in the Hippodrome, their cries vociferous. But then they were bundled away by his loyal garrison, never to be seen again. Soon the cries stopped altogether, and an air of oppression settled across the city. A stifling air that had remained ever since.

Until today, she thought without a hint of emotion.

An audience watched the emperor’s last moments in silence. A pair of red-haired and white-armoured varangoi stood either side of the bed. These loyal Rus axemen were good-hearted yet bound to serve the emperor, whoever he may be, to the last. A handful of slaves and attendants knelt by the foot of the bed, cradling bowls of hot and cold water, salves and tinctures. Xiphilinos, the Patriarch of Constantinople, stood at the head of the bed, flanked by sceptre-wielding priests, leading them in their incantations.

At the near side of the bed stood her three sons: broad and tall Michael, young Andronikos, barely ten, and little Konstantious, just seven years old. Michael bore the cold scowl he had learned from his father, while Andronikos and Konstantious wore wrinkled looks of fear and sadness.

At the far side of the bed, the emperor’s brothers, advisers and sycophants clustered like a colony of vultures, watching the body of the man whose death they waited on like a fresh meal. For once her husband was dead, the dice of power would be cast into the air.

The emperor looked up at this point, pinning her with his bloodshot glare. His breath was shallow and his skin bathed was with sweat as he reached out a hand to her. ‘Come to my side, my dear,’ he croaked. ‘I fear that my time is short. I have something I must tell you.’

Eudokia saw the fear in his eyes, and for the first time in so many years, her heart responded with just a trace of pity. At first she was disgusted with herself. After all he has done? She looked to his outstretched hand and thought of the two slaves sitting outside. It was too late for any notion of companionship. But could this be one final act that would set her free? An apology for his deeds? She strode forward, hiding her emotion impeccably as she had learned to do, then sat on the bedside. She took his hand. ‘My Emperor?’

‘We have had many years together, Eudokia,’ He held her gaze, his eyes moistening, ‘and in that time I have been a poor husband to you.’

That does little justice to your foul deeds, Eudokia thought, keeping her face expressionless. Then she leaned in to whisper in his ear. ‘Do not trouble your mind with what has gone before, just tell me you are sorry. Just once.’ She even squeezed his hand just a fraction in reassurance, leaning back.

But the emperor continued as if she had not spoken. ‘I expect that you will seek such companionship when I am gone by marrying another.’ At this, he tightened his grip on her hand. The grip was fierce and belied his frailty, his bloodshot and bulging eyes searching hers. It was that look again. Colder than a winter’s night.

Constantine hauled himself to sitting, his face only inches from hers. ‘But you must not!’ his teeth were rotten and his breath reeked of decay. ‘Any stranger in this palace is a threat to the Doukid line, a line that must. . will continue to sit on the imperial throne!’ He said, a hint of his old booming tones breaking through his infirmity. But it was fleeting, and he collapsed back in a fit of coughing and wheezing, his eyes glazing over from the effort.

Eudokia’s breath grew short and she felt numb inside. Across from her, she sensed the barely disguised grins from the watching vultures. Then an adviser sidled over to her and thrust a sheaf of paper before her. She did not look up.

‘Make the oath that your emperor asks of you,’ the adviser purred.

Eudokia snatched at the paper and scanned the wording of the agreement; she was to remain a widow. Her son, Michael, was to take the title of emperor. That alone would have been palatable, but the document also stated that Constantine’s brother, John, was to be Michael’s chief regent. The first inchoate tears blurred her vision as she realised that this was the parting demand of her husband — to have their son as a puppet and his vile brother and his advisers as the masters. Then she bit back on the urge to let her sorrow flow freely. Stay strong, she chided herself as she signed the document, pledging her acceptance of this.

She took a deep breath, blinked her eyes clear and then shot to standing. Rage pounded through her veins. But she was statue-still and unflinching as she glared across at those on the opposite side of the bed. John and his colony of advisers replied with barely disguised sneers. You arrogant fool,when the husk of man who calls himself my husband breathes his last, power will go not to those with sheaves of paper. It will go to the strongest.

Then, without another glance at the dying emperor, she strode from the room.