Anna of Byzantium

by Tracy Barrett

  It was my mother, although I hardly recognized her. Her dress was disheveled, her short hair in disorder around her lovely face, her blue eyes dim with weeping and circled with red. She crept up to my bed, and said, “Oh, Anna, you’re awake.” I sat up.

  “Mother—” I started.

  “Hush!” she whispered. Her swollen eyes stared wildly around the room. “We don’t have much time.”

  “Time for what?” I asked, but she clapped her hand over my mouth.

  “Don’t let anyone hear you!” she whispered. “Do you know what he is calling me?” I did not need to ask “Who?” for it could only be John. I shook my head. “He is calling me an adulteress. He says that your father never wanted to marry me, that he was forced into it. He reminded me that when Alexius was crowned emperor he refused to have me named empress, and when I told him that that was all the doing of that demon, that witch, that Anna Dalassena—oh, forgive me that I ever consented to give you her name!” She stopped talking, and impatiently dashed away the tears that had sprung from her eyes. I was too terrified to say anything, and waited until she had composed herself and started speaking again.

  “He is not my son,” she whispered vehemently. “No son could say such things about a mother. A devil slipped into my son’s cradle when he was a baby and took his place. And we cannot allow him to continue saying these things.”

  “But, Mother,” I said, “how can we stop him?”

  She turned her eyes on me, and I could see that they had changed. They were flat and lifeless, and had lost their light, and I shuddered.

  “He must die,” she said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  ie?” I whispered.

  “He must be struck down at the funeral banquet,” she went on, as though she hadn’t heard me. “That way everyone will know that he took the throne wrongfully, and that it is not God’s will that he rule. I will do it myself—this hand will strike him down with a dagger as he feasts on what should be yours.” She raised her trembling right hand in the air, fingers curled as though clutching a knife.

  I crept to the door and looked out, to make sure that no one was listening. The corridor was empty, save for guards standing at the far end.

  “You can’t,” I said, turning to face my mother. “You will be executed—probably blinded and tortured first.”

  “I don’t care,” she said. “There is no reason for me to live. The witch and her familiar will torture me anyway, just by being alive and ruling the empire that should be yours and mine.”

  Silently, I agreed with her. The mere presence of John on the throne, doing everything Anna Dalassena told him, would be intolerable. Only by John’s death would life be made bearable again. I pictured myself on the throne, the gold ring on my finger, the crown on my head. I pictured my grandmother prostrate at my feet, begging for mercy—which I would refuse to grant. I saw my mother restored to her high place at banquets.…

  But if she were caught and executed, I would take no joy in my rule. I looked at her thoughtfully. She was trembling, and her hands were roaming shakily through her hair, as though looking for the tresses she had flung on the floor in my father’s death room. I made a decision.

  “No, Mother,” I said. “I will do it.”

  She clutched me eagerly. “You will? You could? How will you do it?”

  “Never mind,” I said. “But I will take care not to be found out. Now, return to your room before anyone comes in and accuses us of conspiracy.” Rightly accuses us, I thought. She nodded. Her lips, as they pressed on my forehead, were hard and cold.

  I knew what I had to do.

  Even as I thought this, Sophia entered the room. She looked exhausted. But I took no pity on her.

  “Find Simon,” I said. “Find Simon immediately, and tell him he must come here. After you have delivered this message, find me a dress such as the kitchen-women wear.” Obedience was by now such a habit with her that she had already started for the door without questioning me. “And Sophia …” She turned. “Tell Simon he must bring the flask. You know which flask I mean.” She hesitated and seemed about to say something, but instead went out the door.

  I paced up and down, waiting impatiently. I had no clear plan in mind, but one was starting to form.

  After what seemed an eternity, Simon appeared. He put his bald head in at the door and looked around, obviously uncomfortable at the thought of entering my bedchamber. I seized his arm and dragged him in.

  “Did you bring it?” I whispered, after making sure that there was no one in earshot. He nodded, pulling the flask from his sleeve.

  “Give it to me!” I commanded, grabbing at his hand. But he evaded my grasp.

  “What do you want it for?” he asked.

  “I do not have to explain my actions to you, slave!” I said, and saw him wince as the blow hit home. But I had no time to waste on pity, for at that instant Sophia entered, carrying a plain brown shift and wooden shoes.

  “You may leave,” I said to Simon. “You may not tell anyone what you have seen or done today.”

  Still silent, Simon bowed and went to the door. As Sophia had done earlier, he hesitated.

  “Well?” I said, impatient to get on with it.

  He looked at me, his round face pale. “Little Beetle—” he began.

  “Stop calling me that!” I said.

  He bowed once more. “Your Majesty—Princess Anna,” he said, his voice quivering. “Think before you act. Remember Atreus. Remember Agamemnon.”

  “They are dead,” I said. “I cannot change the past. But I can change the present. Now leave me before someone comes.”

  He stood for a moment longer, then went through the door. His footsteps receded down the corridor.

  “Dress me!” I commanded Sophia. Her hands trembled as she did so and as she slid the heavy shoes onto my feet. I pulled the brown hood up over my head. “Hand me a mirror,” I said. Sophia gave me a heavy bronze hand-mirror, and I examined myself. No one would know me in that disguise.

  “Go to my mother’s apartments,” I instructed Sophia. “Tell her not to worry; tell her that by tonight we will be free.”

  Suddenly Sophia was on the floor, clutching my ankles with both her hands. “Princess,” she was sobbing, “you can’t do this! You will be caught, and tortured, and executed!”

  “I will not be caught,” I said. “I am much more intelligent than that—than that thing that calls itself the emperor. He will never find out.”

  “But you can’t kill your own brother,” she wailed. “It is against nature, and the laws of your God. Your God will punish you.”

  “So you expect his guardian angel to look out for him?” I asked. I would have laughed if I hadn’t been in such haste. “Don’t believe fairy stories, Sophia. Now let go of me.”

  She did not, and I had to bend down and loosen her hands from around my ankles. Leaving her crying on the floor, I slipped out the door and made my way down the corridor. Empty a few minutes before, it was now filled with servants, some going to their masters’ and mistresses’ bedrooms to robe them for the feast, others hastening to the kitchen and the banquet hall to make final preparations for that evening. I kept close to the wall, head down, trying to imitate the walk of the slaves. It proved easier than I had thought, since the wooden shoes made it difficult to take long steps. At the door leading out of the section of the palace where the bedchambers were, I saw two guards. One of them was the man who had been ordered to keep me out of the library. I was suddenly afraid he would recognize my face, even with the hood over my head. I pulled back into the shadows. After counting to one hundred, I looked out again. He was still there.

  Time was running short. I had to enter the banquet hall before the guests arrived, so I decided to fetch Sophia and have her distract the guard while I slipped past. Retracing my steps, I returned to my bedchamber, but the room was empty. Now what? I pulled my courage together and went out into the corridor again.

  Once more I made my way dow
n the hall, and as I neared the guard, I saw he had been pressed into carrying a wooden bench into the kitchen. Taking advantage of his absence, I entered the banquet hall.

  No one was about. Final preparations had been made,and the servants must have been in the kitchen helping to get the food and drink in order. I walked as quietly as I could across the great hall. The tapestries glowed on the wall. The floor had been polished until it gleamed, and my wooden shoes slid on it until I was afraid I would fall. All was in readiness at the long tables, too. The bronze dishes, which I had last seen at my betrothal feast, were shining on the white cloths. Bread was already laid out, and artful arrangements of fruit on every table added color. The goblets were in place, and the servants had already poured wine in them. I felt weak with relief. No one would notice a few more drops of dark liquid in one of the cups. Most of the guests would be drinking from bronze cups, while silver was reserved for the imperial family. At the high table, a gold goblet encrusted with gems awaited the emperor.

  I knew what I had to do. I moved toward the high table, flask in hand. Up a step to the throne I went—moving it back so that I could reach the table. My heart stopped at the squeak the wooden legs made on the marble floor. The smell of cedar rose to my nose, bringing hot tears to my eyes as I remembered how the scent used to cling about my father for hours after he left his seat. My knees felt weak, and I sat on the high seat of the throne to recover.

  But I couldn’t wait. Even as my head swam and I was afraid I would faint for the first time in my life, my hands were busy uncorking the flask. The smell that rose from it was not particularly strong, and I thought I could risk a fairly large dose without its being noticed. I tipped the flask, and the dark liquid splashed into the wine.

  At that moment, a slight breeze reached me as the tapestry moved. I froze.

  From behind the tapestry stepped John. With him was Anna Dalassena, her face so bright with triumph that I could not bear to look at it. John’s face mirrored hers.

  I could not move.

  Another tapestry shook, and from behind it came four guards, swords drawn, faces grim.

  “Seize her,” said John.

  As they moved in my direction, he added, his voice thick with gloating, “I hope you are comfortable. That is the last time you will ever sit on that throne.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  had never seen the dungeons before, but they were as I had always pictured them. The walls and floor were rough stone, and mildew grew over them in damp patches. A torch in the hall cast only a feeble light through a slit in the door, but I had no need to see anything. I supposed my mother was somewhere in the dungeon too, for whoever had betrayed me must have known that she was involved as well. I was certain I was going to be executed, and that my mother would be too. After all, what good would it do John to get rid of me if she was still alive?

  I spent a long time—I’ll never know how long exactly—in the cell. I wondered if the funeral feast had gone on as planned, or if my actions had disrupted it. I slept on the hard pallet on the floor, glad of the servant’s woolen clothes I had on, since they were warmer than the thin silk I would have been wearing otherwise. I did not miss food, but I was growing increasingly thirsty, and wondered if John was going to let me die of neglect. I did not mind death—in fact, I embraced the idea. But I did mind wasting away. I had the right to die as a royal, by execution. The cold thought struck me that John would perhaps officially declare me illegitimate, and so unworthy of the executioner’s steel.

  As I considered this possibility, the door swung open, pushed by the burly arm of a guard. The guard stepped back to admit someone, and Sophia entered, carrying a tray.

  I seized her arm, causing the tray to spill its contents.

  “You!” I spat. “Traitor!”

  “No, Princess—” said Sophia, trying to back away from me, but I held her tight.

  “What did they offer you? Your freedom? So you could marry that man?”

  “No, it wasn’t me, I swear it!”

  “Who else could it have been? No one else knew!”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know—I admit that I did not want you to do it, that I would have stopped you if I could, but I didn’t betray you. I didn’t tell anyone!”

  “If you didn’t, who did?”

  “I did,” said a familiar voice. I dropped Sophia’s arm and she spun around, so we were both facing the door. There, tears streaming down his face, stood Simon.

  “No,” I whispered. “No, it couldn’t be you.”

  He stepped toward me, and stretched out a hand in my direction. I slapped it away before he could touch me.

  “Why?” I said. “Why?”

  He tried to speak, but was choked with tears. Finally, “Atreus,” he said. “Agamemnon. I couldn’t stand by and see that happen to you.”

  “And will you stand by and see what happens to me now?” I asked. “Will you come to the Purple Chamber and watch me blinded? Or will you hold my head in your lap as the executioner’s sword slices through my neck?” He turned white.

  “No, Princess …” he beseeched me. “This will not happen. He gave me his word—I made him swear on your father’s soul—I told him that there was to be an attempt on his life but that I would not tell him who was behind it unless he swore neither to torture nor to execute the person involved. I told him that even under torture I would never betray who it was unless such assurance was made first. He didn’t want to, but your grandmother realized the need for haste and forced him.”

  “And my mother?” I asked.

  “No one knew she was involved until you were captured, when she went raving to the banquet hall, a drawn knife in her hand. She screamed that his life would be forfeit. The guards easily overpowered her. She is obviously mad; even the emperor recognizes it. He has agreed to send her to a convent in the mountains, where she will be looked after. Her servants are packing even now. She doesn’t remember what has happened, and thinks she is going to join your father on campaign, the way she used to before you were born. She seems quite content.”

  That was some consolation. If she never regained her senses, she would never realize her situation. I was not so fortunate. When the guards had seized me, the flask had dropped from my hand and shattered on the floor, taking with it any chance I had to escape my fate.

  And it was Simon’s fault that I was here. I turned from him in loathing. “Go away,” I said.

  “Princess—Anna, my more-than-daughter—” he was sobbing now. I refused to look at him, and the guard ordered him out. The door closed, and I could finally allow myself to weep. I sat on the edge of the pallet, but no tears came. I was alone, for Sophia must have left when Simon did.

  Several more days passed. I was finally allowed nourishment. I drank the water, but felt no desire for the bread and hard cheese that came on the tray. The days melted together. One of the guards was friendlier than the others, and told me that my mother had departed, locked in a carriage, laughing and having long, one-sided conversations with my father, with me, with her long-dead parents. He also told me that Simon had left the palace and no one knew where he was, although the emperor had instituted a search for him. I suspected that John had had him killed and ordered a search to cover his tracks. The thought made me feel a lead weight in my chest, although I tried to push it away, saying, “Traitor! Traitor!” to myself.

  Finally, just as I had begun to think that I was going to finish my life in prison, a guard told me I had been ordered to the throne room. I was filthy and half starved. I knew that my miserable appearance would be a triumph for my brother but did not know what to do about it.

  As I stood shakily on my feet, a knock came at the door. “You may enter,” I said, knowing only one person knocked these days. It was Sophia. She was carrying a clean gown, which she helped me put on, and I sat on the edge of my cot as she washed and brushed my long hair, now bound back simply. I had no shoes, but cared little. At least I was neat and presentable.


  I stepped out of the cell, leaning on Sophia’s arm. The dim light of the one torch was painfully bright after weeks, I supposed, of near-total darkness. Four large guards accompanied us. I smiled inside at this ostentatious show of force, thinking that even if I had somewhere to go, I could not overpower one guard, much less four.

  Sophia left me at the door and I stood in front of the throne while my brother pronounced sentence on me, our grandmother seated to his right. I was dismayed, but not surprised, to see Nicephorus Bryennius behind John. He avoided looking at me. But he need not have feared my hatred; I had no ill will toward him, and wished I could tell him so. He was loyal to his emperor, and after Simon’s treachery I appreciated the quality of loyalty.

  John was pronouncing my fate, and I pulled my attention to his words. To a Kecharitomene convent. In the mountains. It was fitting. And it was a good plan on his part. Far away, surrounded by religious women, I would find no allies to support me in any bid to regain the throne. It was all over, and for good.

  He was speaking again, but suddenly Anna Dalassena stepped from behind the throne. Her face was distorted with anger.

  “You have not listened to my command!” she said to John, ignoring me. “She deserves death.”

  John looked calmly into her face. “We do not do things that way anymore,” he said. “Don’t you remember what my father said when Anna talked about killing me for the first time? And in any case,” he went on, “you cannot command me. I am emperor, not you.”

  It was as if a little cub had turned into a lion and bitten its trainer. Even in my misery, I enjoyed her look of disbelief as she struggled to speak. Now you see him for what he really is! I thought. You are rarely deceived in people, Grandmother, but this time he managed to conceal his true nature from you. Not the puppet you thought, but one who will do as he wants, despite what you tell him.