Chapter IV: The Young Augusta

The lord chamberlain was not the man to disappoint the young prince, his future master; and for some months he had carried on a most elaborate series of schemes and intrigues. He plunged into these all the more that he perceived how rapidly the health of the emperor was sinking day by day. Constantine Porphyrogennetus was himself aware of his decline. One night he had received a solemn embassy from Olga, the czarina of the Russ, with more than usual ceremonial. A great feast had been celebrated in the golden banqueting hall, or chrysotriklinos. This gorgeous chamber was roofed by a spacious dome of rich mosaic designs and lighted by sixteen windows ranged around the base of the dome. In the centre hung a vast chandelier of silver, while the walls were decorated with figures of saints on a background of golden mosaic. The floor was paved with precious marbles, now covered with rare carpets and rugs, and the emperor, with the patriarch and three other great officers, had dined at the golden table of high state.

The feeble emperor, who had struggled to go through all the appointed offices of a ceremonial banquet, had been borne by his cubiculars of the chamber through the great silver gates that led into the Long Saloon; and, while dessert and condiments were served to his guests in the Aristaion, he was carried into the imperial bedchamber and laid upon a couch.

There the most majestic autocrator sank down with so much exhaustion that the Augusta and her son, Romanus, were summoned to his side.

It was a scene that night in the innermost privy chambers of the sovereign to point an epigrammatic essay on vanity or a pathetic sermon upon death. While the rude envoys from the Russian capital in Kiev were conducted, open-eyed and stolid as they were, from one gorgeous hall to another, and were plied with every sight that could fill them with awe of the autocrator of the Romans; while the marble corridors, anterooms, and portals that surrounded the Golden Banqueting Hall were crowded with senators, cubiculars, proto-spathaires, acolytes, and patricians, all in state robes, with chains and badges of office, and with them in picturesque confusion were mixed the guard of honor and the quaint uniforms of the Varangian battle-axemen, the Mighty Lord of the World and King of Kings lay faintly reclining on a couch. His head was supported by his youngest daughter, Agatha, who hung over her father with loving care. Beside him, on a low stool, sat the aged Empress Helena, herself not much stronger than her husband, and by her side the tall, handsome figure of the young Basileus, in all the glow of his youthful grace and the jewelled robes of state in which he now was arrayed.

"Our son has come, my lord and august spouse," the Augusta began, in winning tones, "to ask a blessing of his imperial father, and to pray for his sanction to the marriage as to which our Romanus has already spoken to us both. The noble lady Euphemia, the wife of our lord chamberlain, is the kinswoman of the beautiful Theophano, and has duly presented her at my court. The Lord Theodore himself has made ample inquiries, and finds that this lady is of royal descent from the ancient kings of Sparta, and is herself as acccomplished and discreet as she certainly is surpassingly beautiful. If it be the will of my lord the sovereign, the Lady Euphemia, who is now, with her fascinating kinswoman, in my private apartments, will introduce her to your Sacred Majesty, and she will ask a blessing on her betrothal to our son."

"We have long desired to see our son well wedded before we are called to Christ ourselves," the gentle emperor began, "and have long felt grieved that he could never decide on his choice. But so all-important is the conduct of the future Basilissa that perhaps he did well to wait. If this lady be of royal birth, and if our trusty Theodore and his virtuous lady are fully assured of her discretion, deportment, and breeding, our son shall have his way and his father's blessing. How is she named, my son, and since when and from whence has she come to our court?"

"She is called Theophano, my royal father, a name we all love and honor as that of my darling sister. And this wonder of the world is but recently arrived at the palace of her kinswoman, the Lady Euphemia, from the banks of the Eurotas, in the Peloponnesus, where her father once held a now decayed principality. Let me bring her to the presence of your Majesty; and your profound understanding of ceremonial deportment will perceive how truly this royal lady was designed by Heaven itself to be a Basilissa."

With the emperor's consent, the chamberlains and ladies of the court at once summoned the Lady Euphemia, accompanied by her kinswoman Theophano. The young Basileus himself stepped forward as the lord cubicular-in-waiting announced the noble ladies in due form, and led his Theophano to the couch of his father, himself beaming on her with admiration and love. As she slowly advanced, with the three appropriate reverences in use, the serene composure of her countenance just mantling over with subdued blushes, all eyes in the chamber were bent on her, and every soul felt a thrill of wonder and admiration. Theophano was now arrayed in silk-embroidered robes, the most sumptuous which the art of Constantinople could provide, and adorned with priceless jewels which Romanus and Theodore had managed to procure from the recesses of the sacred treasure-cell in the chapel of St. Theodore behind the Chrysotriklinos.

In casting off the virginal simplicity of Anastasia, the aspirant Theophano had taken on a new bearing along with the change of name. Her manner was that of a queen, and of a queen who was wont to bend all men to her slightest caprice. She took her place in the imperial circle as if she herself had been born in the purple chamber. And even the lovely Agatha, the princess by her side, seemed more fit to be her lady-in-waiting than her sister-in-law. Never had the imperial palace been graced by such dazzling beauty and such royal grace. And even the autocrator himself, oracle of dignity and behavior as he was, was bewitched into the pleasant belief that at last his truant son had, indeed, found a royal lady worthy to continue the race of the Constantines Born-in-the Purple.

"Approach, royal maiden of the Spartan line," said the easy and affectionate Augustus, enchanted with the beauty and dignity of the girl; "come and kiss thy father that adopts thee, and perform the ceremonial obeisance in use to our queen, the Augusta, whose daughter thou art to be."

Theophano moved forward gently, with every eye on her steps, radiant and majestic as if Here were entering the expectant circle of Olympus. During the three months that she had passed in the palace of the lord chamberlain, where she had been under the protection of the Lady Euphemia and had accepted nothing but the ceremonial courtship of the infatuated prince, Theophano had been carefully trained in all the minutiæ of the etiquette of that most ceremonious of all imperial courts. Her genius for seduction had made her a consummate mistress of all the graces of a court. And born actress as she was, she went through the ordeal of these formal obeisances with such perfect dignity and charm that, while the whole company were delighted with her bearing, the emperor himself was in uncontrollable raptures which his own fine manners could hardly conceal.

To the morbid imagination of the now enfeebled emperor, whose innermost religion had long been the maintenance not so much of the empire itself as of the traditions of the imperial ceremonial, the prospect of a marriage of the youthful Basileus to a magnificent woman, worthy indeed of the golden throne, was an event of the first magnitude and of almost divine dispensation. "And thinkest thou, my sweet Basilissa-elect, that thou wilt have strength to comport thyself exactly in all the appointed usages of an imperial marriage?" said the doting Constantine Born-in-the-Purple, "for it needs the memory of a proto-cubicular to go through the ceremonials without a slip, and the majesty of St. Helena herself, our imperial ancestress, to bear thyself fitly in that day of days."

"Most august sovereign lord and father," softly murmured Theophano, in an attitude of profound reverence, "I have been permitted by her Sacred Majesty's favor to offer up my prayers for help to our most Holy Lady in the Daphne here, and a special assurance has been vouchsafed to me that by her aid I shall be equal to the duties that will devolve on me on that auspicious day."

"Thou shalt hear in the authentic words of the autocrator himself how the marriage ceremonial of a Basileus is performed," said Constantine, quite roused to infatuation at the prospect of seeing his own court ritual enacted in his presence. "Send for the reader-in-waiting, and let them bring in the roll of my book on the _Ceremonies in Use at Court_. I will have the chapter of 'Royal Marriage' rehearsed this very night in presence of the royal bridegroom and bride that are to be."

The parchment roll, the scribe, and the reader (never far from the side of the imperial pedant) were at once in attendance.

"Here, here is the passage," cried the feeble despot, foolishly fumbling the rolls in his eagerness to turn to his own much-treasured revelations of deportment. "Give me the first book of our _Basileia Taxis_--turn to Chapter XXXIX.--on the 'Ritual for an Imperial Marriage.' Now read--where we say how the divine service is held in the shrine of St. Stephen the Proto-martyr in our Daphne, and so on."

The reader approached, and amid profound silence read as follows, the imperial dotard nodding and smiling feebly to his family as each passage gave him new delight:

"When the imperial pair have been duly diademed in the Sacred Office, they pass though the Octagon and the Augusteum and by the Golden Hand, and they are received by the magistroi and patricians in the Œnopodium, and the ceremonial procession is formed. The Factions are arranged in the Triclinium on both sides near the stairs of the Magnaura. Then the choirs of the two Factions chant, 'Long, long, long,' and all respond, 'Long, long life: long and for evermore!' Then the solos take it up--'Our Saviour, preserve our Lords: Holy Ghost, protect our Augustus! Sovereign Bridegroom, may God have thee in His holy keeping! May God in heaven give thee grace abounding in thy wedlock! May He who of old time blessed the marriage in Cana bless thy marriage also, and may He visit thy spouse, so that offspring may be born of thee in the Purple Chamber. This day is a festival of joy to the Roman people, wherein our Lord (Romanus) is espoused to our Lady (Theophano), our most blessed Augusta.' Then the wedded pair pass on to the hall where the Factions are feasted, and again the two choirs renew their chants, singing 'Hail! All hail! Sovereign of the Romans, blessed be thy coming and that of thy consort!' And the people shout, 'Blessings on thee, joy of the Romans, glory of the Purple. Blessings on thee, lady, whom all desire to behold! May God hear the prayers of thy people!' And thence the wedded pair proceed to the nuptial alcove, where they lay down their diadems on the bridal bed of state; and hence they pass through the portico to the Hall of the Nineteen Couches, where the feast is spread."

The younger members of the family now began to show visible signs of fatigue as the reader poured out the interminable catalogue of salaams, processions, chants, and antiphones prescribed in the imperial _Manual of Etiquette_. And the exhaustion of the invalid emperor was so obvious, in spite of his enthusiasm and elation, that the Augusta induced her lord to command the close of the reading and to retire to rest in the Sacred Chamber.

The marriage of the young Basileus Romanus with the illustrious Princess Theophano of Lacedæmon was celebrated with all the splendor of that age of pomp and all the elaborate ceremonial ordained by that most rigid of all imperial purists. Constantine Porphyrogennetus, who was now become little more than the grand master of the ceremonies in his own palace, the veritable "Grand Monarque" and "Roi Soleil" of the tenth century, seemed to have recovered something of his strength from the supreme satisfaction of seeing one of his own highest functions carried out to perfection in every detail, and by the prospect of an assured succession to the Basilian dynasty in the fruitful marriage of his only son. The birth of another Basil, hereafter to be known as the mighty warrior, "The Slayer of the Bulgarians," was soon followed by that of another Constantine, destined to be eighth emperor of that glorious name. The Basilian dynasty seemed saved; and the Sacred Palace was the scene of an endless round of magnificent ceremonies, fantastic amusements, incessant scandals, and sinister intrigues.

Marriage, alas! seemed only to have given the young Basileus increased zest for wild sports and scandalous adventures, which were rapidly destroying his health and sapping what was left in him of moral fibre. Now he plunged into the forests of Thrace, now into those of Bithynia, to hunt the boar or the bear, exhausting himself in midnight fatigues and exposure to all weathers and seasons. From time to time he was seen in the Tzykanisterion, or polo-ground, in the east side of the palace between the pharos and the sea-wall. Here the young nobles, having the _entrée_, were wont to engage in polo and other exercises on horseback. This spacious practising-ground had been extended and levelled by the Emperor Basil. And here his royal descendant loved to exhibit his prowess as a player in that manly game of polo which the Byzantines had adopted from the Persians. The young prince had been trained from boyhood in the game by the noble Basil Digenes, who had an hereditary gift for this sport, and who alone was regarded as the match of Romanus. It was no flattery when the best players in the kingdom yielded the victory to the splendid horsemanship and keen eye of the imperial athlete, while the courtiers and ladies of the royal households surveyed the games from arcades of the terrace above. First one and then another of the beauties who thronged those gay companies would be chosen by the gallant prince to receive the crown or garland which was the winner's prize; and the vagrant amours of his insatiable fancy gave as much ceaseless gossip to the witty and frivolous court as ever did a Louis at Versailles or a Charles at Whitehall. Not that the adventures of Romanus were confined in any sense to the Sacred Palace, nor his love-making to maids of honor or high-born dames. Frolics, sports, orgies, carouses of all kinds--wine, women, mummers, acrobats--all came alike to Romanus with his thirst for excitement and pleasure. Old soldiers and the wary administrators of the government looked sad and doubtful. But Theophano herself, whose discreetness and virtue had been so fully approved and certified by the Augusta and by the Lady Euphemia, was not seen to complain of or even to perceive the excesses of her boy lord. Indeed, some scandalous old dames who attended on the aged Empress Helena had been heard to insinuate (with much shaking of heads and many a "My dear, if I only could speak") that Theophano had more than once flung into the arms of her lawful mate a pretty young thing about her own person, who in no way thereby seemed to forfeit her mistress's favor.