Anna of Byzantium

by Tracy Barrett

  Finally she managed to sputter, “But—but—you wouldn’t be emperor if it were not for me! I put you on that throne!”

  “For which I thank you,” he said, as though this were an ordinary conversation. “But I have no need of your services at this moment, and I command you to withdraw.”

  She stood stock-still, whether from shock or from a refusal to move, I do not know. John made a small motion with his hand, and a guard stepped forward. Surely she would not suffer the indignity of being forced from the room. She must have had the same thought, for she began to leave.

  “And Grandmother …” John called after her.

  She looked over her shoulder.

  “You forgot your bow,” he said. She hesitated, then stiffly inclined her head, and strode from the room. I stifled a laugh. Not bad, Little Brother, I thought.

  John turned his attention back to me and proceeded as though nothing had happened.

  “Although you have shown yourself unworthy of any consideration, you once were my sister. I will allow you a certain measure of comfort above that of the nuns in the abbey. You may bring warm clothes and have a fire every day in the winter, and I will allow you one of your slaves.”

  “One slave?” I said. “Just one?”

  He barked a short laugh. “Just one. You can learn to take care of yourself.”

  I ignored his jibe, although I had heard that he himself required three attendants just to get robed for an ordinary day. “Will this be one of your slaves that you allow me to take, or will she still belong to me?”

  He waved his hand, clearly bored by the question. “What does it matter? Whichever you prefer.”

  His ministers nodded, and whispered to each other. I could hear one of them saying, “Such generosity!” Well, if he was generous, he was the victor, and could afford it.

  “I choose the girl Sophia,” I said.

  “As you wish.” He turned to one of his ministers and said, “See to it.”

  “Just one moment.” I held up my hand. “It is clear that the slave Sophia is my property, to dispose of as I will?”

  “Yes, yes,” he said, impatience making his voice rise. “What do I care what you do with your maid?”

  “Then hear me,” I said. “I will go without servants to the convent. From this moment forth, the girl Sophia is to be free. She can never be claimed as anyone’s slave.”

  I wheeled and strode out of the throne room, being careful not to make any motion that might be interpreted as a bow. I must have taken my guards by surprise, because they had to make little hopping strides so that they could catch up to me without breaking into an undignified run. As I passed Sophia, I saw her muddy brown eyes round and staring, her face shining as she returned my glance. I wondered why I had ever thought her ugly. I knew I would never see her again.

  The journey to the convent took several days. As we passed through the city walls in the closed coach, I thought that surely now I would die; I had never been outside the walls before. Fields, farms, hills—they went past the window of the carriage. These sights were so strange to me that despite my gloom I kept the window-curtain pulled open so that I could look out, except when curious villagers tried to peer in at the deposed princess. Then I pulled the curtain closed and sat huddled in a corner.

  The scenes outside the carriage window looked nothing like the bright illustrations I had seen in the psalm-book that Sophia had been so fond of, with their bright colors and busy figures. Most of what I saw was dreary. Rain fell almost continuously, and at the inns where we stopped, the stench of damp made me ill.

  Eventually the flat plains turned into hills, and the hills into rocky mountains. There was no longer anyone to stare at me as I went past, so I kept the curtains open and watched the mountains as they grew nearer. But the closer we got, the less I liked the view. The mountains were hard and gray; they looked like cold shoulders turned against me. I pulled the curtains again and slept as much as I could to pass the time.

  The horses labored climbing up the slopes, and on the way down the brakes were set against the wheels to prevent the beasts from being run over by the carriage. Up, up, up, and then down, down, down, until finally there were several days of more up than down.

  On the afternoon of a particularly wet day, one of the grim-faced women assigned to travel with me said with distinct satisfaction, “There is your new home.” I looked out and saw that we were pulling into the courtyard of a large gray building, made of stone and wood. The nuns who were gathering to see the newcomer wore habits of the same color, and any hair they had was covered by gray scarves. They blended in well with their surroundings. I descended stiffly from the carriage, and, followed by the two women carrying the possessions I had been allowed, I entered the convent.

  And here I stay. Two years have passed since my arrival, and since I am only seventeen, many more years will pass before I move on to my next home, which will be the grave.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  t is cold here. Despite the concession of a fire each day, and the warm clothes allowed me, I never feel entirely warm. The only place where I can forget the cold is in the copying-room. Lately, after many weeks of irksome practicing under Sister Thekla, I have been given some actual documents to copy. They are private family papers, copied over for use in a lawsuit. It almost makes me laugh to see the petty matters in which these local lordlings are engaged. No Comnenus would lower himself to squabble over an inheritance, or over ownership of land. We would just take what was ours, or die in the attempt. Or be sent into exile.

  In the months I have been writing here in my room, and enduring Sister Thekla’s tutelage in the copying-room, I have learned the names of some of the nuns. The little novice with the runny nose is Honoria. She was sent here as a tithe, she tells me. The peasants often vow one tenth of all they own to God, and since she was her parents’ tenth child, they dedicated her as a nun. She is not unhappy with their choice, having grown up with the knowledge that this is what her life would be. Besides, she tells me, it is much more comfortable in the convent than in the farmhouse where she was born, and here no one beats her.

  Others of the nuns have different reasons for being here. One, something of a celebrity in the small community, fled marriage with a man of superior rank to dedicate herself to Christ. The others speak of her with awe, as someone who had the courage to stand up to her father. Most were simply the younger daughters in a family with no means of providing a dowry for all the girls, and so had to come here for lack of any other way to live. A few, like Sister Thekla, are widows, and hold the novices, who have come without any knowledge of the world, in some contempt.

  Mother Superior often summons me to her room, where there are comfortable chairs and a few rugs to keep the cold of early spring from one’s feet. She is an affectionate person who treats all the sisters as her daughters. She calls me to her room on some pretext, but then keeps me there talking about history, about my mother, about the Franks who overran our country during the Crusade, about anything she can think of. She is more educated than the rest of them (except Sister Thekla), and I think her mind is as starved as mine for intelligent conversation.

  Lately I have been attending some of the nuns’ services. At first a few curious glances turned my way as I sat on my bench, but now they seem accustomed to my presence. I find their singing soothing. A few evenings ago they sang a hymn I did not remember having heard before, either in the palace or here. The melody was unremarkable, but the words were unusual. The next morning I asked Mother Superior what it had been. She called over Sister Theodora, the choir-mistress, and put my question to her.

  “It was about Mary the Egyptian, whose feast-day it was yesterday,” she answered. “If you like, Sister, you may borrow the hymnal and read it for yourself.”

  I nodded assent, and Theodora left, reappearing a few minutes later with her hymnal. She turned to a page marked “April 1: Mary the Egyptian,” and I read:

  “You severed the temptat
ions of the soul

  and the passions of the body

  with the sword of temperance;

  the crimes of the mind

  you choked with the silence of spiritual discipline,

  and with the streams of your tears

  you watered the entire desert,

  and made to grow in us the seeds of repentance:

  therefore we celebrate your memory, holy one.”

  I admired the warlike imagery of the opening. I knew all about fighting my passions as though in a battle. At the bottom of the page was the name Kassia.

  “Kassia,” I said.

  “A nun,” Theodora replied. “She lived hundreds of years ago and wrote many hymns and verses.”

  “I have heard of her,” I said. I asked no more questions, and Theodora, accustomed to the convent’s rule against unnecessary conversation, volunteered no more information.

  A few weeks ago, I noticed that there were fewer women than usual at the table one evening. Mother Superior noticed my inquiring look and after the meal was over she said to me, “I’m afraid that some of the sisters have been taken with an illness.”

  “What kind of illness?” I asked.

  “They ache in all their joints and are unable to take nourishment,” she replied.

  “Are they feverish?” I asked.

  “Yes, but not severely,” she answered.

  “May I see them?” I asked. She hesitated. “I have some skill in medicine,” I told her, and after considering for a few minutes, she nodded and led me to the infirmary.

  There, four nuns lay on little cots, three of them asleep, the fourth praying. I walked down the row, took their pulses, felt their foreheads for fever, and looked into the eyes and mouth of the one who was awake. Then I turned to the mother superior.

  “It is nothing serious,” I told her. “The important thing is for them to take in liquid. Not wine, but water, or if they can keep it on their stomachs, weak broth. Have them take a tiny sip, then wait a few minutes, and then take another. In that way their stomachs should be able to stay easy and not spew it all forth again.”

  The infirmary nun was listening eagerly, and when the mother nodded to her she bustled out of the room, I suppose to tell the kitchen nuns to prepare broth.

  “They should continue to rest,” I went on. “Do not bleed them, but make them stay in bed until they say they feel well, and then one day more. This fever returns easily and is more difficult to get rid of the second time.”

  “I thank you, daughter,” she said.

  In a few days, the four sisters were about their duties again, and a fifth who had taken ill recovered much faster than the others for having been started on my regimen earlier. The sisters started coming to me with their little ills (due mostly to boredom and inactivity), and I even started to treat the beggars who gathered in the courtyard seeking aid from the convent. The convent library had a few medical books, some of which were new to me, and I read them eagerly, immersing myself in study the way I had not done since the days when Simon and I would spend long hours in the library together. His round face appeared suddenly in my mind as I came upon a book he had once urged me to read, despite my reluctance. The book had looked dry, and was so old that the pages were brittle and hard to handle.

  “Sometimes wisdom is hidden in an unattractive form,” he had told me. I had rolled my eyes at the triteness of his words, and he had laughed. “And sometimes truth is hidden in clichés!” he had added. It was my turn to laugh, and I had picked up the book, studied it, and learned a great deal.

  I felt a jolt when I realized that for the first time since my exile I had thought of Simon without pain. Where was he now? I wondered. Was he thinking of me, too? Or had he been killed at my brother’s orders?

  Soon the villagers were looking on our convent as a kind of infirmary, and would bring me the ill and injured to receive aid. Yesterday, I had more than usual to deal with. Aside from the ordinary colds, fluxes, and scrapes and bruises, I had two wounds to treat. With the coming of spring, the farmers are working past their fatigue, and often make mistakes. I treated a deep gash from a scythe on a young man’s leg, and set the arm of a boy who had fallen from a tree where he had been egg-hunting.

  After I had received their thanks and their blessings, I watched the last of them depart through the gate. From the courtyard, I could see out to the fields. Spring was not yet in full flower, but the day was warm. On an impulse, I followed the peasants through the gate to stand on the grass immediately outside the convent walls. At first I felt giddy at not being enclosed by walls, but told myself not to be silly, that ordinary people stood out in the open every day. After a few minutes, I felt more relaxed, and looked down across the fields. What I saw delighted me. Far off, tiny figures were bending low, planting. Horses pulled plows, and the sound of birdsong reached my ears. The mother superior joined me, her hands tucked in her wide sleeves.

  For a few minutes we stood in silence. Then I said impulsively, “It looks just like Sophia’s favorite picture!”

  “Who is Sophia?” she asked.

  I didn’t know how to answer. Finally, “A friend,” I said.

  “And what was her favorite picture?”

  “An illustration in one of my mother’s psalm-books,” I explained. “It showed a spring day, with people planting, just like this. And over the city …” I stopped. I knew it was foolish, but before I could stop myself I had craned my neck to look back over the convent. Of course, there was no golden-winged angel hovering there, just as there had not been over the palace all those years before. But for a moment I had thought I would see one.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  returned to my room to find an unexpected pleasure: a letter from Maria. It was brief, and she was obviously writing cautiously. No doubt my brother had someone read letters before allowing them to be sent to me. She said she was well, and happily establishing herself in her new home several days’ ride from Constantinople, where her husband’s family resided. I missed her and could tell, even from her carefully worded sentences, that she must miss me too. I was somehow comforted by the thought that even if I had remained in the palace, I would hardly have seen her again, given her new home and my duties. So circumstances would have separated us, even if John had not.

  I had barely finished the letter and folded it back up when Mother Superior sent a sister with word that I had a visitor. I was sure this was another patient, and was raising myself wearily when the nun said, “No, she’s coming here,” and stood back to admit a small figure wrapped in a brown cloak, the hood pulled up to keep the wearer from the cold of the spring evening. The woman pulled her hood off her head, and a pair of familiar brown eyes beamed at me.

  Sophia. Sophia had come. I reached out for her hands, suddenly blinded by the tears stinging my eyes. For once I was glad I was no longer a princess and had no need to hide what I was feeling.

  “I am glad to see you,” I said.

  “And I you,” she answered.

  “What brings you here?” I asked.

  “After you—left,” she said, and I smiled inwardly at the discretion of that neutral word, “Malik and I came to this region to live with Malik’s brother. I have only just heard that a princess was living in the convent and knew it had to be you. The mother superior says you still have no maid, so I am here to offer you my services.”

  I looked around the meager room. Sophia’s gaze followed mine, and surely she could see that there were no chests of silken robes to keep in order, no huge, roaring fire to stoke, no meals to arrange on a tray. I indicated my linen gown, and my simply dressed hair. She smiled, remembering, no doubt, how I used to complain at the hours it took to plait my hair into dozens of tiny braids and wind them in complicated patterns across my head.

  “I have no need of a maid,” I said. “But I do need a friend.”

  Before I knew it, Sophia’s arms were around me and we were both laughing and crying at the same time. We stood so for a few mome
nts, and then Sophia pulled away. “Have you heard the latest news from the palace?” she asked.

  “No,” I answered. “I hear nothing from there. What has happened?”

  “Your grandmother,” she said.

  I turned away as a bitter taste rose in my mouth at the mention of that woman. “What about her? Has she finally died?” I asked when I could control my voice.

  “No,” said Sophia, “but I wager she would rather be dead. Your brother has divested her of all power. She stays only in the women’s wing now and daily petitions him to return her to her position as chief counselor. But I understand that he refuses even to see her.”

  Well, that was something, anyway. Maybe there was hope for John. Although I doubted it.

  Sophia suddenly smiled and reached for my hand. “Come—there is someone here who wants to meet you,” she said.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Come see,” she replied, and pulled me through the doorway. We descended to the courtyard. It was the only place in the convent where men were allowed, and I was not surprised to see Malik, who was sitting on a box. He was holding a bundle in his arms. Sophia dropped my hand and took the bundle from her husband, passing it on to me.

  Wrapped in the blanket was a tiny baby. It had Malik and Sophia’s light-brown skin, and curly brown hair covered its head. It was a wonder to me. “A girl?” I asked.

  “A girl,” Sophia replied. “Our daughter, Anna.”

  For the second time that day my eyes clouded over, and a large tear splashed on the baby’s face. Sophia reached for her. “Malik,” she said, “the box.”

  Malik, silent as always, stood up and bowed shyly to me, motioning to the box he had been sitting on. I went to it and removed the top. There, arranged in neat bundles, were the papers I had been working on that last day in the library, along with my pens, bottles of fine ink, and many books. I picked one up. It was a chronicle of the Crusade, and would provide me with many of the names and dates I needed to complete my story of our father.