Anna of Byzantium (4 page)

This situation was entirely to my liking; I was used to babies and usually enjoyed playing with them, but this little boy irritated me. He was a whiny child, who screamed for what he wanted until the indulgent nurse gave in. His sharp eyes never missed anything, and we soon learned to hide toys and sweets away when he was present, for we would be forced to hand them over to him if he caught sight of them.

So I was more familiar with my sister and cousins than with my brother. There were many cousins, some close to my age, and we played ball, ran races, and had make-believe games of Byzantine knights conquering hordes of infidel Turks. When it was cold or rainy, we stayed indoors, playing dice and hiding from each other in the palace’s many rooms. We also had lessons together. I had started studying with Simon when I was four years old, learning the rudiments of reading, mathematics, logic, and other studies suitable for imperial children. Simon set us difficult lessons, but he was a kind master, and those of us who applied ourselves received our share of praise.

I enjoyed all these pursuits, especially my letters, but was not pleased on those occasions when my father’s mother, Anna Dalassena, appeared in the schoolroom to inspect us. Since we were all children except for the harmless Simon, she would come with her face unveiled. Her
long lips always curved into a satisfied smile when we stood up from our benches and bowed deeply to her. She asked us many questions, and her manner was so severe that the answers to even the easiest questions would flee our minds under her interrogation. Even worse than a wrong answer was none at all, and I heard my cousins in their desperation give ridiculous answers, such as “seven,” when asked how many popes there had been up to the present, or “air, fire, water, and wine” when queried as to the four elements, rather than show their ignorance.

One day, two years after I had first met my brother, we older imperial children were engrossed in the study of astronomy when our grandmother appeared. We had our backs to the door and knew of her arrival only when Simon stopped speaking in midsentence and prostrated himself on the floor. We all knew what that meant, and without looking around, leaped to our feet and bowed our heads as low as we could.

Grandmother walked slowly into the room, her long robes swishing and her shoes clicking on the hard floor. We all stood still, scarcely daring to breathe. As she passed me, I glanced up under my eyelashes, expecting to see her back as she continued her inspection. Instead, I found that she had turned and was looking at me. My face burned when I realized that she had caught me acting less than respectful, and I was thankful that I had not inherited my mother’s pearly skin, as Maria had. Perhaps in the shadows she could not see how red I was turning. But I knew that punishment was sure to follow. I was the oldest, and was expected to set a good example for the younger children.
And my grandmother often seemed to turn her wrath on me more than on the others. What would it be this time? A caning? Fasting on bread and water? Please, I prayed inwardly, do not make me kneel on the stone floor of the chapel during the afternoon rest. My knees ached as I remembered the cold roughness pressing into my bare skin just the month before, when I had been punished for not knowing the names of my paternal ancestors for seven generations back.

“Why do you look at me?” she demanded, her voice even.

I knew that my grandmother admired boldness and that hesitation was a sin in her eyes, so I answered promptly, even though I hardly knew what I was saying.

“I was hoping you had passed me and would find someone else to criticize,” I said.

She let out a snort that might have been laughter, except that her face did not change into a smile, as my father’s would have done.

“Do you think I criticize too much?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered. “You let pass faults in others that you punish in me.”

“And why do you think that is?” she persisted.

Although I knew it would be better to answer immediately, I was afraid to tell the truth.

“Tell me,” she said.

Reluctantly, I spoke. “I think you don’t like me very much.”

Silence. My eyes were fixed on the floor once more, and this time I did not dare to look up. The silence grew
longer and more uncomfortable. I heard my sister and cousins shift their weight as they grew tired of standing still. I wondered where Simon was, and if, like the rest of us, he had his face turned downward, or if he had the courage to watch what was happening. I resigned myself to at least a few hours on my knees, and perhaps no real food for a few days.

Finally, I could bear it no longer. I raised first my eyes, then my chin, and found that my grandmother was looking me full in the face. Her expression was hard to read—was it pity? Sorrow? And mixed with what—triumph? Joy?

“There you are wrong,” she said, with an unexpected gentleness that startled me. “I treat you with more strictness because more is expected of you. Come.” She strode back out the door she had entered, forcing me to sidle out from my bench and break into a trot as I went. I glanced back at Simon, knowing that I was breaking his cardinal rule of not cleaning my work space before leaving, but what could I do? And in any case, I feared my grandmother many times more than I feared the little tutor.

As I entered the corridor, I could see the end of my grandmother’s long gown as she swung around a corner. I ran, hoping no one would see me behaving in such an unseemly manner indoors. Where could she be going?

I received my answer as I turned the next corner and saw her waiting for me, at the entrance to the throne room. Her hand was on the hanging, holding it open. The guards on either side of the door were standing stiffly erect, although I was sure they must be wondering what
was going on. “Come in,” she said impatiently, as though she had been waiting for hours instead of seconds.

I passed through the hanging and entered the vast hall. The throne room was dark, since the torches were lighted only when the emperor was present. The light that shone in the windows made strange patterns on the multicolored floor. It all looked dead, somehow, without my parents and the attendants that accompanied them wherever they went.

The two thrones stood side by side on a low platform, my father’s with its ornate carving and rich gold ornamentation, and my mother’s, more simple, but no less beautiful. They looked strange and oddly shaped when empty. Aside from my parents’ seats at the banquet table, these were the only chairs with backs and arms I had ever seen.

“Come closer,” my grandmother said. Hardly daring to breathe, I took a step forward, then another, expecting at any moment to see my father burst in and demand to know what I was doing there. I almost hoped he would; his anger was easy to bear, and it would free me from whatever it was my grandmother was planning. With an impatient sound, my grandmother reached out a hand and pulled me up the step to the thrones themselves.

“There,” she said. “There you see what awaits you.”

Puzzled, I looked more closely at the thrones. The sweet smell of cedar reached my nostrils and made me sneeze. Even in the dimness, the gold glinted, and the ornate carving cast complicated shadows. But I could not see what she meant about what awaited me. There were no
words carved into the wood, and the designs were abstract geometric shapes, not scenes of any future life.

“Sit down,” commanded my grandmother.

How could I? I was sure that if I so much as touched the wood an earthquake would shake me to the depths of the earth, or lightning would strike through the window and sizzle me where I stood, or a giant eagle would seize me in its talons and bear me to Hell. But as I hesitated, I saw her brows draw together and her face begin to scowl. Eager to do anything to avoid her anger, I walked to my mother’s throne and moved to sit in it.

“Not there!” she snapped. “That throne is for the follower! It is for the Ducas!” She spat the last word with such venom that I shrank back, terrified. She must have seen how afraid I was, for she softened somewhat, and said in a milder tone, indicating the larger of the thrones, “You must sit here. You must sit where a Comnenus sits, see what a Comnenus sees, think what a Comnenus thinks.”

My heart raced as I approached the imperial throne. I hesitated, swallowed, then said to myself what I imagined Simon would say to me if he were there, “Come, it is but a chair, and you have sat in many chairs.” I stood on the footstool, grasped the throne’s arms, covered in purple velvet, and pulled myself up, then sat and looked out over the throne room. The seat cushion that discreetly raised my father to nearly my mother’s height was missing, and the hard wood felt cold on my body. I gripped the armrests to keep from slipping to the back.

Why did it all look different? I had been there hundreds
of times, usually mere inches away from where I was sitting. But something had changed. Everything was now below me, including the tall figure, robed in black, that was Anna Dalassena.

“See,” she said, “see how it will appear to you,” and she walked back to the door, then made a pretense of entering, walking with the small, hesitant steps of a frightened supplicant. I stifled a laugh, but she must have heard, for she looked up quickly and smiled at me as though in complicity. Her footsteps rang hollowly in the empty room as she approached the throne, then bowed low, as a courtier does to his lord.

After a moment she raised herself up again. “See how they will bow to you, how they will worship you, how they will fear you. A word from you can bring death, or can bring an end to war. Your enemies will tremble, and your friends will tremble too, because they know how quickly the empress’s friendship can turn to enmity.”

Her voice was lulling me into a trance. I saw myself, looking like my father but for the beard, short and dark, yes, but who saw that when you sat on the imperial throne? I saw the heavy crown glitter on my head, the purple slippers on my feet being kissed by kings and princes. I saw my word starting wars and ending them. I saw great churches rise where I so commanded, and ships depart from port on my order.

She stopped talking, and with the silence I woke from my reverie. I sat, a seven-year-old girl, on a throne that was so big for me that my feet did not even reach the purple cushion placed in front of it to disguise how short my father’s
legs were. How could I ever learn what to do? The hugeness of the task terrified me.

“But, Grandmother,” I said, my voice croaking. I cleared my throat and started again. “But, Grandmother, I don’t know how to do all those things.”

She came closer and bent down to me, her nose nearly meeting mine. I willed myself to hold still, to return her gaze without flinching. Suddenly she smiled, not a joyous smile, but one I could surely read as triumphant this time.

“But I do,” she said.

nd so my real education began. My grandmother had a little room set up for us near the schoolroom, and several times each week she would interrupt my lessons with Simon and take me there. I would rise from my books, feeling the eyes of the others on me, and conscious of my own superiority, would follow my grandmother into our study. I always left my books and papers in disarray, knowing that my grandmother would not permit me to delay long enough to clean them up, and also knowing that no one would dare complain about the extra work of clearing my space.

My grandmother never referred to books in her tutoring. Rather, she spoke rapidly, telling me about the
different countries surrounding our empire, about their rulers, about who was related to whom, about what languages they spoke. She told me about battles, about weapons, about warriors—she had been on so many campaigns with my grandfather and his brother that she knew almost as much about warcraft as any soldier did. My head reeled as I tried to take it all in, frantically scribbling notes that I would consult later in the classroom after the other children had been dismissed to play. It was difficult, but I was proud that it was I, not John, who was learning all this. No one would ever think he was the heir again!

My training did not stop there. When I was ten, my grandmother convinced my father to allow me to gain some practical knowledge at his side. I learned how difficult it was to govern an empire as vast as ours. My father rose before dawn every morning and started seeing ambassadors, kings, courtiers, and petitioners before the rest of the family had even had breakfast. On the days when he permitted me to attend, I stood behind a screen on my father’s left, so that the eyes of men would not fall on me. When the light was right, I could see through the screen’s fine fabric. I got to know all my father’s advisors by sight, mostly gray-headed old men in long robes who didn’t look very interesting. But my eyes were always drawn to a tall young man with golden hair who stood close to my father on his right hand. The youth dressed like an athlete in a short tunic and high boots, and he carried himself with grace.

One day, in the summer when I turned eleven, I had spent the hot afternoon indoors. My father had had no
pressing affairs of state, so I had not attended the audiences in the throne room. John had as usual not come to the schoolroom, and my cousins had finished their work the day before while I had been learning statecraft, so I was alone with Simon. He had finally relented when I told him how my head ached over the geometry problems he had set me, and said I might rest while we talked.