Chapter VII: The Confession

The young viking had been dismissed from his attendance on General Bardas; and, stunned as he had been by the noise and marvellous sights of the day, his senses reeling from the fumes of the incense and his eyes aching from the incessant panorama he had witnessed, he ventured to enter the great temple alone that he might recall his thoughts from the whirl in which they swam. The crowd had left the building; a few sacristans here and there were extinguishing the last lights; the air within was heavy with the scent of flowers and incense. The young soldier raised his eyes from the checkered floor to the walls resplendent with the most magnificent marbles cut from the Eastern and African quarries, and thence to the enormous monoliths crowned with capitals of intricate work of acanthus and vine leaves. He little understood the nature of the mighty dome under which he stood; still less, how the marvellous pictures in gold and colored glass which filled the vaults had been made. To his untutored eye, the figures of the archangel Michael, of the Mother of God, and of the Saviour of Mankind seemed to him miraculous appearances of these sacred and divine beings in their proper persons. Fainting under the sense of superstitious terror, exhausted in body and mind by all the excitements of the day, the young Norwegian, whom neither man nor brute had ever dismayed for an instant, sank down beneath an ikon in a dark corner of the aisle, and, striving in vain to utter a few coherent prayers, he bowed himself to earth, muttering, "God, be merciful to one of the least of Thy servants!"

How long he remained in this posture he never knew; but when coherent thought returned to him again he saw by a dim lamp two men in a distant corner of the aisle: one a priest in his seat of confession, the other a bronzed veteran, wrapped in a long military cloak, on his knees before the man of God. The priest was a young monk whose emaciated face bore witness to a life of austere sacrifice. The warrior bore the look of the illustrious stratelatos--Nicephorus Phocas--a look which no man who had ever seen it could forget.

The young soldier was thunderstruck to see at such a moment, in such a place and with such a look, the chief whom he believed to be within the Sacred Palace in the place of honor at the coronation feast. The mighty general was on his knees before the monk; his proud countenance was now wrung with remorse and some dark purpose within his mind. To Eric's heated imagination it seemed as if he had intruded on some hallowed scene, as if he were watching his Saviour in the Garden of Gethsemane awaiting his hour of passion. The guardsman stole away in the gloom of the side aisles, muttering prayers to all the saints whose names and offices he knew or could remember.

A severe struggle was, indeed, passing between the anchorite and the general--a critical moment in the life of the mighty commander of the Eastern armies. The monk, Abraham, had been made known to Nicephorus by his venerated uncle, Maleinos. The monk was now known as Athanasius. His eloquence, zeal, and saintly character had deeply impressed Nicephorus, who held him in profound veneration. This monk was the sole confessor of the general.

"Holy father," he was saying, in a hoarse whisper, "I have lived from youth upward as a man of war, to which I was bred by my father and my grandfather of noble memory; and, if I have done deeds of blood, it was in obedience to the orders of my commanders and of our lord the Basileus. But Christ has said that they who take up the sword shall perish by the sword. I have always hoped to die in some glorious field, my sword red with the blood of followers of the False Prophet. But now I, who never feared mortal men, tremble to think of myself as standing at the judgment-seat of a God of love and mercy. I feel at last--too late, alas!--how a life such as mine has dishonored the gospel of Christ. And if He spare me a few years longer, they will be too short to wipe out my sins by penance and groans and the solitary life of a hermit. Father, I have come to ask from thee a blessing, and thy good word to the monks of St. Demetrius on Olympus, whither I am about to withdraw forever to a cell."

"My son," replied the monk, "if God has given thee success as a soldier, it was to serve some wise purpose of His own. Thou hast neither that humility nor that patience which it becomes an eremite to possess, and without which all penances and prayers are in vain. Thou art too old to learn our hard and cheerless way of life. Thou hast no experience of the raptures of the soul when it communes with the beings above in glory. Thou art not the stuff of which saints are made or with which the saints can hold converse."

"Ask my troopers," said the hero, proudly, "if I have not lived a life as hard as any hermit of Mount Athos!"

"And of humility and peace and meditation such as theirs?" said the monk, with a gentle sadness that entirely covered the sarcasm of his question.

"Show me how I can humble myself more than I do at this hour, at the feet of thee and of Christ. It is peace that I ask. And as to meditation--how often in the watches of the night, in the tented field, have I lain awake seeking the Lord and His blessed saints, till I had a vision of the Babe smiling in His mother's arms, and I knew by that sign that in the morning I should win a new fight for the Cross."

"Ay, Christ means thee to win yet other fights in His name, for the peril of the Cross was never greater than it is now. But how comest thou to be here at this hour? Will not the Basileus and his courtiers mark thy absence from the feast and accuse thee of treason against the throne?"

"Does Nicephorus Phocas care for the yelping of these parasites and eunuchs? Is he anything to-day to the Basileus himself or to the crowds in the Golden Palace? Can you think that the Basileus is troubled at his absence--ay--or the--the--the he-women or the she-men who prowl about the imperial koiton?" he added at last, after a broken sentence wherein he seemed to choke down some words that rose to his lips.

"I know of many she-men in that court, but of only one he-woman," said the subtle priest, suddenly catching at a new thought and casting on the soldier a piercing glance. "What! Has the proud Basilissa dared to affront the first soldier of the empire and maddened him to forswear the service of his Majesty in his wrath? I thought a Phocas was of too stern a mould to be goaded or turned from his duty by the insolence of a spoiled beauty!"

"Father, it is done. And neither man nor woman in the court will miss Nicephorus or wonder at his absence. I have sent a trusted messenger to the lord high chamberlain to beg from his Sacred Majesty permission to retire from all my offices and leave to enter a hermitage. And his lord high eunuchship will take good care that his Majesty grants my prayer. That is how I come to be here. My sovereign lord Romanus will be glad to be rid of his gloomy commander-in-chief, and our sovereign lady Theophano will jest about the surly monster in the blood-stained tunic as she is unrobing with her maids of honor; and she will finish the epigram she was beginning to-day."

"What! Did she address thee in public?"

"She beckoned me towards her side as the procession was forming, and called out, so loud that the wife of Lord Demetrius and others could hear, 'Wear not so gloomy a countenance, for my sake, lord commander of the eastern themes, or our loyal Byzantines will fly from the sight of thee, as they say the Hagarenes so often fly when thy plume is to the front!' These were her very words--I hear them ringing in my ears; and then she smiled on me the smile that no man forgets."

"And is it possible that the 'Terror of the Hagarene,' as they truly name thee, will suffer the idle word of a woman to turn his life, to break the keenest sword in Christendom, if not to put in peril this empire of Rome and of Christ?"

"Father, I tell thee it is done. My life as a layman is ended. My surrender of office is already in the hands of our autocrator. I am no longer a soldier. I am a postulant for the holy life--in what remains to me on this earth," he muttered, with a deep sigh.

"Nicephorus, my son in God," said the monk, with solemnity that was almost stern, "thou art hiding the truth from thy father-confessor. To mislead the priest in confession is to seek to mislead God Himself. And He who reads all thoughts and sees to the heart of man will surely avenge the insult to His servant who is betrayed in his holy office. Nicephorus, I charge thee, in the name of the Mother of God, hide not the truth from me as thou canst not hide it from God! Thou art bewitched by a woman! Who has seduced thee to sin?"

"Father, as I live by bread, I have never sinned with woman, nor has woman ever sinned with me! My sins, as God knoweth, are sins of violence and wrath and blood and pride; but of love never, of lust of the flesh nothing, ay, of self-indulgence, I may say without a boast, not an hour since I first grew a beard. Monk, I tell thee that of woman I am as pure as thou--ay," he added, with a bitter word, "much more worthy of the crown of virginity than are many monks of East and of West."

"Nicephorus Phocas, palter not with words in this sacred office," rejoined the monk, now rising to stern authority in exercise of his divine mandate, and addressing the great soldier with such power as he himself was wont to use in giving his orders on the field. "I said thou art bewitched by a woman. Again I ask thee in confession, what woman has bewitched thee so to change thy life?"

The chief answered not a word; but he sank down flat on the marble pavement, and lay prostrate, writhing in agony and shame and despair, his huge limbs convulsed and his powerful hands clinched in his passion. A long silence ensued, hardly broken by the sobs and groans of the chief, as his frame was shaken with a tumult of emotions.

"God gives me no right to grant His absolution till the truth is confessed and penance is prescribed," said the monk at last, in measured and solemn tones, and he waited till the storm of feeling had grown calm.

"Holy father," said the chief at last, rising from the pavement but still on his knees, his head bowed down and his hands clasped under him, speaking in a low and broken voice, "my sin is in thought, as yet known only to God and to my heart. I have done no act of wrong. I will do no act of wrong. But I am consumed with a fire within me, and I must be far away from this city of sin--this palace of folly and lust and vanity--this pandemonium of eunuchs, pimps, and panders. I must flee from this woman--this new Theodora--this second Irene. The thought of her haunts me day and night. When she first began to mock the battered warrior, whose grisly boar's head, she said, might well be used to frighten the Hagarene babies when they whined, a thrill went through me--no! not of pain or anger--no! not of shame--no! rather of pleasure. I found myself waiting in the portico where she would take the air with her girls and creatures, and she would pinch my rough cheek and call me Vulcan, looking herself, indeed, the Goddess of Beauty, as fabled by those pagan poets that the courtiers still love to recite."

"Well, why this to me?" broke in the monk, in manifest disgust. "What matters all this to thee or to me? Quit this city of folly and sin, and be off hence to thy command in the marches of Taurus, to stop the ravages of the Hagarenes who threaten the people of Christ."

"Thou hast not heard all, holy father, or I should not now be here and on my knees. I tell thee the woman has seen her power. These subtle daughters of Eve know by instinct when the sons of Adam begin to feel weak. The flashing rays from those eyes burn me. They pierce my eyes with fiery points, as it were when some royal traitor is blinded by red-hot needles. She smiles triumphant when she sees me quiver, and, woman-like, she loves to see me quiver again before her."

"Leave her, and begone to the East," broke in the priest, with no little impatience and contempt in his voice.

"That I cannot do while I remain an imperial officer of state. She has her purposes: she means to make me her creature, her tool, her lover--her--I know not how--I know not what is in her thought. She despises her own lord; she tempts him to wallow further in the mire of his harlots, eunuchs, and catamites. She has great designs and aspiring thoughts. She needs a commander who has the trust of our troops. Father, I tell thee, she has need of me; and I burn for her. She knows her power and my shame."

A long pause followed, and neither spoke. The monk meditated in silence. At last he spoke.

"Nicephorus Phocas, it cuts me to the heart to hear a warrior of high renown confess to being tempted into the toils of a woman such as this. I judge it to be a passing madness, which distance and thy own great duties and labors alone can cure. The monks of St. Demetrius shall not be poisoned by the presence among them of thy fevered soul. Thou art not fit in the sight of God and His Mother for the spiritual life; thou art sorely needed by God and His Son for the martial life. Rome and Christ can be saved from Mohammed only by thee. Thou hast sinned against Christ and His Virgin Mother by idly toying with the imperial temptress. See her no more, but hasten to thy post in the Anatolian Mountains. There, in thy lonely tent, pray nightly to the immaculate one for her blessing and pass the day in the saddle among the scattered outposts of thy menaced command. On this condition alone can I give thee absolution for thy sin--sin as black in the sight of Christ and His Mother as if thou hadst been taken in open adultery and dragged to execution as a traitor. Accept this penance, or remain unanealed in thy sin and thy shame!"

The silence lasted for a space, till it grew acutely painful to both. With groans and tears and writhings, the chief at last uttered the fatal words, "I obey the Holy Mother Church!"

Then the monk rose to his full height; and, with a look of triumphant authority and a voice of thrilling power, as he placed his long, thin, emaciated hands on the bare head of the chief, he said: "Christ absolves thee from thy sin, and accepts thy obedience and service. Pass to thy appointed command, and do thy duty as a soldier of Rome and of Christ. I purge thee of thy sins in the name of the Trinity and of the Mother of God, into whose holy keeping I now commit thee! Nicephorus Phocas, go in peace, and may God be with thee!"

"I go," murmured the chief, exhausted by his long agony and strife; "I go to my ruin--to my shame--to my death."