Theophano

The Crusade of the Tenth Century

A Novel

By Frederic Harrison

New York and London Harper & Brothers Publishers 1904

Copyright, 1903, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All rights reserved. Published October, 1904.

Contents

CHAPTER

I. The Boy Basileus II. The Warden of the Eastern March III. The Betrothal IV. The Young Augusta V. The Dying Emperor VI. The Coronation VII. The Confession VIII. The Sacred Palace IX. The Muster of the Crusade X. The Conquest of Crete XI. The Storming of Chandax XII. Digenes and Fatima: Roman or Saracen XIII. The Caliph of the West XIV. The Conquest of Aleppo XV. Empress and Chamberlain XVI. Cæsar at the Rubicon XVII. The New Basileus XVIII. Emperor and Patriarch XIX. The Saracen Peril XX. An Emperor's Day XXI. Islam and Cross XXII. The Stars in Their Courses XXIII. The March on Antioch XXIV. Love and Falsehood XXV. Love and Troth XXVI. Old Rome XXVII. Old Rome and New Rome—Rivals in Empire XXVIII. Basileus in Council XXIX. The Rising Storm XXX. The Last Campaign XXXI. The Last Agony XXXII. Clytemnestra XXXIII. Retribution

I The Boy Basileus

Towards the close of the long reign of Constantine Porphyrogennetus, seventh of that historic name, a hunting-party from the royal capital of Constantinople was occupied in chasing the wild boar on the slopes of Mount Damatrys on the Asian side of the Bosphorus. This mountain, now called Bulgarlu, lay a few miles eastward of Chrysopolis, the modern town of Scutari, opposite the Golden Horn. In the middle of the tenth century of our era, when this story opens, the view from the mountain on the Asian side of the Bosphorus was, indeed, very different from that which delights the traveller to-day, but it was hardly less beautiful in its exquisite union of wood, sea, rocky headland, stately towers, and domes.

The sun was hardly risen over the eastern hills in a fresh morning of spring—it was the year of our Lord, 956—when a body of huntsmen, some on foot and some on mountain-ponies, were seen hastily emerging from the dense copse of the forest in the early dawn. Clothed in short, leather jerkins and banded leggings, with close skull-caps, some carried lances, some bows and arrows: three held in leash powerful hounds, and others were bearing stout nets and poles. They were evidently returning home in haste and with anxiety painted in all their movements. A mounted man of some authority now pushed his way to the front and bade them seek for the nearest house where help and shelter could be obtained. Coming at last to a woodman's half-ruined hut, he struck his hunting-spear thrice against the rude door of the hovel, and imperiously asked if any man was within. A scared, half-clothed old man unbolted the entrance, and stood with bare head, trembling before his questioner.

"Which is the nearest house wherein a wounded man can be sheltered, and who in this place has any art in stanching a flow of blood?" called out the horseman.

"St. Michael save us!" cried the old dotard; "has fighting begun in sight of the Sacred Palace itself?"

"Tush, old fool, there has been a hunting accident, and a noble youth is now bleeding to death! Where, I ask again, can we find him shelter and a leech?"

"The house there of Craterus, the Laconian, at the first turn of the path below, sometimes gives shelter and accommodation to belated travellers at need," quavered the terrified hind. "And his daughter has a gift for tending poor folk in sickness, and has been known to set a bone and bind up a broken head."

As he spoke, a small party of men in hunting-garb emerged from the dense copse and cautiously descended the mountain-path. They were bearing some burden on a rude litter, formed out of the stout poles and heavy net used to entangle the wild boar in the run from his lair. As they came down, it was seen that their charge was a tall and graceful youth, half wrapped in his hunting-cloak, deeply smeared with blood. He was not dead, but ghastly pale and almost insensible. His beautiful head, that might have served for a marble Antinous, lay white and motionless on a pillow of purple silk. On each side of him rode a horseman of noble bearing and athletic frame, both turning their eyes with a look of anxiety and pain from the fainting youth to each other, and then looking out along the path beyond. Close beside the litter walked another man, grasping with all his force the thigh of the wounded youth, and striving to stanch the blood that oozed from it with a folded cloth.

Guided by the horseman in front, they soon reached the house of Craterus, whom they succeeded in rousing from his bed with his household. It was a long, rambling edifice of no pretension without, but with an air of space and comfort within that no chance visitor would suspect. Craterus led the bearers and attendants to a spacious chamber in the rear of the house, where the youth was laid softly on a couch, and the old man bade his servants to summon his daughter and her maid with bandages to bind a wound. The master himself, with his snow-white beard, his delicate features, and lofty forehead, might have stood for some bust of an Attic poet had not his singularly handsome face been marred by keen, roving, and somewhat sinister eyes. With foxlike glances he scrutinized the youth and his companions, while actively busying himself with all that he could devise to save the sufferer's life.

At this moment there entered a girl closely veiled and shrouded in a long, loose wrapper, attended by her old nurse and a younger maid, bearing bandages and surgical appliances of a simple kind. The girl herself was so much concealed by her draperies that little of her could be seen, except some mysterious beauty like that of the veiled Isis; for her full wimple betrayed nothing but the perfect features of a Greek goddess, with lustrous eyes of deep sapphire. The old nurse removed the coverings from the limb of the youth, as he lay white and unconscious from loss of blood, and her trained hands laid bare the wounded thigh and leg which, but for the gash caused by the tusk of the boar, was of the faultless symmetry we see in the Hermes of Olympia, even as it left the chisel of Praxiteles. The maiden bent over him in pity and tenderness, and formed a group as if it were Aphrodite as she hung over the wounded Adonis. The nurse, directed by her, and aided by the nervous arm of the attendant, whose thumb so long had closed the wound, succeeded in passing a rude but effective tourniquet

round the femoral artery, and having checked the pumping of the blood downward, they dexterously bandaged the gaping wound.

A breathless silence ensued as they stood around with restoratives and strong scents and endeavored to restore consciousness to the youth. At last, a faint tinge of color returned to the marble cheeks, and his lips moved again in inaudible murmurs. Craterus moistened his mouth with a draught of strong Samian wine, in which he had mixed some aromatic spices of the East. With a prolonged sigh at length the boy again opened his eyes, and a faint smile played round his blanched lips as he murmured: "Let not my father know, but carry me to my own lodging before the news be abroad."

Slowly the wine and drugs that Craterus administered in measured sips began to tell on the splendid constitution of the athletic youth who was in the highest training of body. He held low converse with his two chief attendants while Craterus, his daughter, and her women withdrew to the end of the chamber.

"Where am I? Who are these? Whither are you bearing me?" he asked, in a faint whisper; and, turning his head, he perceived the master of the house and the women behind him. Then the young sufferer's eye caught sight of the veiled girl, whose close draperies seemed but to increase the grace of her figure. He saw her lustrous eyes beaming on him, as he lay, in pity, wonder, and admiration. In all his wanderings after beauty he had never in his life beheld such eyes. The fire, the passion, the profound mysteries they betrayed shot down to the marrow of his bones, and he sank back amazed and thrilled, exhausted with the spasm of enjoyment it had caused him. "Let me thank her who has dragged me from the jaws of death," he murmured; and with a feeble sign of his outstretched finger, as if he had been summoning a slave, he beckoned to the girl to approach.

He took her fingers in both of his own weak, cold hands; and, looking into her eyes with rapture, he said: "Who art thou that hast saved me? Is it some angel that follows Our Lady in heaven above, or, rather, I think, an oread from the train of our huntress Artemis. Complete my cure, and restore me to manhood by bending down and kissing me, as our poets say Artemis on Latmos would kiss her Endymion." And he drew her down till her lips touched his; and before she could speak he had slipped a ring into her hand, whispering: "Yes, we shall meet again!"

Craterus, who had but imperfectly noticed this scene, now advanced to his daughter, saying: "Anastasia, my child, withdraw now to your chamber with your nurse; you may safely leave the wounded youth to us, and we will send for you if need arise again." In fact, the potions of Craterus and the bandages of his daughter were now doing so much to restore the strength of the young patient that his companions agreed with the old man that all immediate danger to life was passed and that he might safely be transported home by water. The patient himself insisted—and that in a tone of imperious command—that he should be forthwith carried to his barge and conveyed across the Bosphorus to Constantinople before the city was astir or rumors of his accident were bruited abroad. With great care and adroitness the bandages were again tightened over his thigh; he was supplied with fresh restoratives and draughts of wine, and carried to the shore in the litter constructed out of the hunting net and poles.

As the party descended the hill-side, it was closely watched by inquiring eyes from the house into which it had entered so suddenly and with so much mystery. Neither Craterus nor any of his people had been able to learn the name or rank of the young huntsman, notwithstanding all their inquiries and the most curious search. All they knew was that some young sportsman from Constantinople had arrived in a barge the evening before, and had spent the night in the mountain forest in pursuit of wild boar. Just before dawn the pony of one of the hunters had fallen in a hole and thrown its rider, who had been deeply gashed by the boar, even in the act of spearing the brute to death. Neither names nor particulars of the party could be obtained, but suitable rewards had been left for the help and accommodation afforded them.

Breathless, behind the wooden lattice-work that formed the blind of her chamber, Anastasia watched the litter as it was borne down the path, and she fancied that she caught sight of a kiss wafted towards her window when the fingers of the helpless youth were faintly raised to his lips. From his own doorstep, also, Craterus saw the cavalcade disappear; and, as his foxlike eyes watched every detail of their dress and trappings, he shook his head and murmured that "It might bring him good, but it was wiser to keep silence and be careful what he did." As he slowly withdrew to an inner room he found his daughter waiting for him with eager looks, and ready to ply him with questions and suggestions. "Who was the wounded youth?—what did her father think he could be?—how came they to bring him to his house?—what did they say when they left?" These, and such questionings, the girl poured upon her father, who showed little inclination to answer her inquiries, even if he had known more than he did.

"Nay, my child, I have no means of satisfying your curiosity. They somewhat peremptorily declined to give me any kind of information, bidding our servants keep silence as to their visit, on pain of some harm to them if they pressed their inquiries. They told me that the youth was a gallant of the city, whose accident was not to be made known, lest it should alarm his parents, and they might prevent his following such dangerous sports."

"And why, my dear father, may I ask, why were you in such haste to bid me leave the chamber, even while the fair youth was still in need of our skill and comfort? We would gladly do our best for so gentle and comely a patient."

"Gentle and comely enough, my child, I do not deny, but you must try to forget him and his accident, for certain it is that you will never see him again, nor know his name or his rank."

"I am not so sure of that," she murmured softly to herself, as she fingered the precious ring which her father had failed to see given when she had stooped over the youth on his couch.

The keen eyes of the old man had noticed an expression on his daughter's face, and he rejoined, in an impressive tone, "Anastasia, my only child and dearest hope, I charge you to remember what we are now, and whence we came. This youth, for all his gentleness of speech, is proud and wild. He is evidently some slip of a wealthy, perhaps of a noble, family, and since he conceals his name and rank there is a mystery, if not a mischief, in his life. Be he what he may, he is wholly beyond our sphere. We shall never fall again in his way, and he would treat us with contempt if we did."

"Father," said the girl, proudly, her luminous eyes aglow with light, "have you not often told me of the race we spring from, and of the blood of heroes that I inherit from my sainted mother?"

"True is it, Anastasia, O thou glorified image of my dear departed wife; thou hast, indeed, the blood of kings of Lacedæmon in thy veins, as thou renewest the beauty of the goddesses of Greece. Fallen as I am now in estate, despoiled of my patrimony by the corsairs of Saracens from Africa, I cannot forget that I was born of noble race and am the equal of those minions there across the strait. In wedding your mother I rose to a height above them. She came from Lacedæmon, and could trace descent from the ancient kings of Sparta, who, crushed, plundered, and slain, as they have been for a thousand years by Romans, by Goths, by Armenians, Slavonians, and Isaurians, have maintained the purity of their blood. Cherish it in thy memory, my child, that my Anastasia comes of the royal stock which produced such heroes as Lycurgus, Leonidas, Agesilaos, and Lysander. When I laid thy mother to rest in the last remnant of her paternal estate by the banks of Eurotas, I swore by the Mother of God that I would keep her daughter worthy of her and worthy of the heroes from whom

both were sprung. Have I not done so, my child—have I not taught thee to hold thyself higher than these barbarians of Thrace and Anatolia? Nay, have I not taught thee to distrust the whining of their dirty priests and crazy hermits, and to cherish the purer fancies of our older faith, the inspiration of Apollo, the insight of Athene, the grace of Aphrodite? Thou knowest also the inner meaning of these primeval creeds, as expounded in the mysteries of Mithras and the Phrygian Mother."

"Would that thou hadst sworn by the Pallas of the Parthenon," his daughter broke in, "rather than by these idols worshipped by the mobs in the city. But am I not worthy then to mate with the son of the Autocrator himself, if Athene were to turn his eyes upon me so that he desired me for his wife?"

"His wife?—silly child, put away such absurd and unwholesome dreams. The Basileus, or the least minion of his court, would no more think of taking thee to wife than he would take the meanest scullion in his kitchen. No, girl, he would take thee for his plaything for a day, for a week or two, till he flung thee to some parasite of his own like a cast-off shoe. Wife! wife!" shrieked the old man—"say rather toy, lap-dog, slave—not wife! Shall the daughter of Craterus the Spartan, the descendant of a hundred kings, born of a mother compared to whom the blood of these Augusti, children of Basil the stable-boy, is ditch-water—shall she enter the harem of these vicious mongrels who cringe round the Sacred Palace? Never! my child, I would rather see thee dead. Thou art above them in godlike race as thou art in godlike beauty, thou child of Helen of Troy, more like to her than ever yet has been any of her children since. This lad, whoever he be, though not fit to be thy slave, is far above thee in legal rank, as he certainly is above thee in fortune.

Think of him no more. Thou wilt never see him again. And if thou didst, it would be to thy ruin."

Anastasia was not wont to discuss matters with her father when he had mounted his high horse about the kings of Sparta and the illustrious ancestry of her mother, whom she had almost forgotten. Still less did she take very seriously all his extraordinary ravings about the mysteries of Mithras and the eternal cult of Isis, which the old man had mixed up in a strange medley of occult superstitions. With her keen intellect and her aspiring temper, Anastasia had been nurtured by her father from childhood in proud disdain of the mongrel races of the capital which had now become a veritable colluvies gentium, as, indeed, from that day to this it has remained. From infancy she had been taught to look coldly on the endless ceremonies and miraculous paraphernalia of the Byzantine Church, though her practical mind had inclined her to but little interest in the esoteric mysteries of Mithraism in which Craterus would dream away whole days. She regarded these dreams as the unhallowed maunderings of a morbid mind. And while she outwardly conformed to the ceremonial cult of the Christians

around her, her maiden day-dreams would ever turn back to the immortal creations of Hellenic poetry and myth. She would conjure up to herself visions of a Helen of Troy, a Clytemnestra, a Medea, even an Aspasia, and a Thais; she knew the thrilling story of Byzantine palace history; how Athenais, the daughter of a philosopher of Athens, had blossomed out into Eudocia, the Empress; how Theodora had stepped from the dancing-stage to the throne of the world; how Irene had divided the Roman realm even with the mighty Charles himself.

Long after she had quitted her father, Anastasia sat musing in her own chamber, from time to time scrutinizing the ring which the wounded youth had given her, and which she had hastily concealed in her bosom. Again and again she turned the jewel to the light, and examined it on every side. Could it be, indeed, an emerald—a real emerald—of such a size and such lustre? If it were, indeed, a veritable stone, it was worth a king's ransom. Could the stranger lad have so magnificent a ring in his possession, and would he lightly hand it to an unknown girl? And yet—could a youth, evidently so noble, so wealthy, bear about on his finger a thing of paste? Anastasia knew something of jewels, antique enamels, and sardonyx cameos, as of reliquaries, crosses, and miraculous ikons, for her father was supposed to procure such things from time to time from correspondents he had in Asia Minor and to dispose of them successfully to the travellers who would come to his place on their way to the capital from the East. And Anastasia had half suspected that

the old Corinthian attendant who had charge of her father's curios had done something more than always repair or reset the pieces on which she saw him secretly engaged.