Just One Iota

by Stephen Bondar

Part 1 appears in this issue.

conclusion

Oblivious, Isaac replied, “The Patriarch, like you said—”

“Because you never said a word in opposition!”

The hammering became even louder and more insistent.

“God curse it!” Euphrosyne spat. “Servants! Push everything you can move against the main doors. NOW!”

All of us, even the maids, hastened to obey her command. She herself, gripping the banister with her left hand, began to descend the stairs with an assuredness that belied her limp. Only Isaac remained frozen to the spot.

“They’ll be through the gate any moment now and at the main doors right there.” She pointed with her free hand for emphasis, speaking through clenched teeth. “They’ll have brought tools for breaking through heavy wood, locks and metal bars. It’ll take them a while, but they’ll get through. We needn’t worry about them firing it; they can’t risk that, as they’ll be wanting live prisoners to torture. Probably with their own filthy hands, maybe even in public.”

One of the maids looked back at her mistress in horror, but Euphrosyne answered her question before she could even voice it. “Yes, you, too, my dear. Do you think that beast would have any mercy on you? Or that he wouldn’t give you to his dogs? The ones outside right now, I mean?”

She had reached the bottom of the stairs. “Do any of you girls have anything with which to safeguard your honour?”

The one she had just spoken to directly pulled a small knife from the folds of her robe, her hands shaking so badly that she almost dropped it.

Still gripping the bottom post of the banister so hard her knuckles were white, Euphrosyne barked out a laugh that was almost maniacal. “See, now we have a man in the house! Anna, I hereby promote you to captain of the guard!”

She blew her breath out through her teeth and looked at her son. “Do you remember what happened afterwards at Nicaea?”

“Of course I do,” Isaac replied in a hoarse whisper.

“After all his promises, all his goddamn lies, even though he let you return to the City unharmed — if you think the conditions of this, this... house-arrest add up to ‘unharmed...’” She snorted. “That’s why they’re through the outer gate already; because there was no guard on it, because we’re not allowed to keep guards. Wake up! He only wanted you out of the way until he could finally get around to you. Or let his lackeys do it.”

Outside, we could hear the first sounds of splintering wood and the voice of Hagiochristophorites shouting for Isaac Angelus to come out and surrender himself in the name of the Emperor or be dragged out.

“You weren’t there anymore, but you know what he did to those people as well as I do. The leading citizens were marched up and thrown from the tops of the walls. And every Turk that had fought in your employ, though promised amnesty and free passage, was impaled. All in a circle, outside the walls.” Tears welled up in her eyes, and she said quietly, looking down, “I know I owe my life to some of those men, heathen though they were. I pray that their souls found their way to their own Paradise.”

“Mother!” Isaac gasped.

Her head snapped up, and she almost strode towards her son, despite her limp. “Why should I not? That very... man out there consorts with fortune-tellers and sorcerors.” She jabbed her finger at the door. “And all on behalf of his master. Even though Andronicus tortures people with his own hands, there is some dirty work that he considers beneath even him, but there is no deed beneath Stephen Hagiochristophorites.”

“Why do you think Andronicus withdrew yesterday with all his favourites — all except that Antichrist out there — across the Bosphorus to Oianon? So that you could be arrested in his absence on some fabricated charge that he already has evidence of in waiting.”

“But I have done nothing!” Isaac protested. “How could—”

“How could he consider you a threat, boy?” Euphrosyne smiled grimly. “Have you forgotten the ‘prophecy’ of that filthy soothsayer whose every word he dotes on? Only through Hagiochristophorites, of course, because he hasn’t the guts to be direct about it. When they had their ‘secret’ midnight divination wherein that... that ‘magician’ Skleros Seth looked at the reflection of the moon in his magic basin to answer the question Andronicus put to him through Hagiochristophorites? Regarding the name of who would succeed Andronicus on the throne? And of course, as with all such charlatans and dissemblers, he came up with an answer sufficiently vague as to fool those idiots into believing in his powers, given what everybody already knew was going on.”

“Of course I know about it, Mother, but—”

“But nothing! He claimed that all he could see clearly was just a single iota and what looked like a part of a sigma, the first two letters of your name. But at the time, everyone was in an uproar about the rebel Isaac Comnenus, who had seized Cyprus for himself and virtually made himself an independent king.

“But time has passed, without that Isaac doing anything further, so now they are looking at a different Isaac: you. And if you think old Andronicus has forgotten what you did while basking in the reflected courage of Manuel Comnenus, you are dead wrong. Nor that you had originally dared to resist him at Nicaea.”

At that time none of us knew that Andronicus, in his paranoia, had asked for a second prophecy: an answer as to when this unknown successor whose name began with an iota would actually succeed him. Again resorting under cover of night to his bowl or basin, the magician Seth returned an answer that severely alarmed Andronicus and his supporters. He foretold that it would take place within the week of the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, which was only three days hence at the time of which I write.

There had been further omens supporting instability and catastrophe for those who look to such things. There had recently been a comet visible for a day and a half that had had a fiery tail that twisted like a serpent. Also — and I do not believe a single word of this, as it is entirely based upon the testimony of Hagiochristophorites — to whom lying came as naturally as does breathing to other men — that an icon of St. Paul in the Church of the Forty Martyrs, which Andronicus had especially venerated by enhancing its frame with gold plating, had recently shed tears. Of course, it had been Hagiochristophorites up on the ladder attending to the image when this took place, and it was he who had wiped the “miraculous” tears away.

The noise and shouting from outside were getting a lot louder.

“Mother, I have forgotten nothing—”

Euphrosyne suddenly slapped him, hard. “They’ll be in here any minute, and you stand rooted to the spot like a cabbage! Do you not yet realize that the fate of our family — the lives of everyone in this house down to the least servant — depends on what you do, what you do in the next five minutes?”

“I—”

“Shut up, damn you!”

Her words seemed to sting him more than the blow. She went to the wall and seized his sword from where it hung, along with belt and scabbard. She returned to her son and shook them in his face. “I am your mother, and I am taking charge of my own house, so you don’t have to worry about making any more decisions.” A grim smile played across her lips. “I am the general now. I just gave myself a battlefield promotion. You know how to fight, I’ll give you that, as long as someone else tells you — no, gives you permission to. Well, I give you permission today, boy. You will be the arm, and I will provide the spine you lack.”

Tears of frustration and rage were flowing freely down her face now as she thrust the sheathed weapon into his hands. “They think you’re a threat because you are a threat. It may be diluted by only the Devil knows what, but the blood of Alexius Comnenus runs in your veins. And, as his great-grandson, you are going to claim the throne in his name. Otherwise we all die.”

There was a stunned silence among us. The only sounds were those of the doors just a moment shy of giving way. Then, to everyone’s surprise, Isaac Angelus said, “My armour—”

“No time, son,” his mother interrupted him. “Sword, surcoat and a charger. We’re going around back to the stables. Antichrist is too stupid to have posted anyone to watch them, too sure of himself. And too sure of you. Well, he’s going to see a different Isaac Angelus today.”

She grasped him by the shoulders and stared him straight in the face. “Make no mistake, boy. I love you. Now, today, I want you finally to make me proud of you.”

She pushed him in the direction of the back of the house. “Now, to the stables. Anna — guard-captain — you and Sophia with me. The rest of you hold the doors as long as possible, then get as high up in the house as you can just before they get in.”

Everyone made to obey and, as they moved away, I saw Isaac buckling his blade in place over a split riding surcoat he had donned and heard his mother saying, “Once you’re in the saddle, that’s it. We’ll open the doors used to bring horses round to the main gate, and the instant I call ‘Clear!’ you ride — and I mean ride — full speed up the Mese. You draw your sword and raise it high, stand in the stirrups, if you can. There will be people about. That bastard has to have drawn a crowd.

“As soon as you get through that stable-door, anyone who tries to stop you is your mortal enemy, a threat to all our lives. You do not stop, you ride them down or cut them down. You shout at the top of your lungs that the Antichrist has come to murder you and your mother.

“Ride straight for Hagia Sophia — straight into it — right over the goddamned Patriarch if you have to. And you claim sanctuary in the Great Church and denounce the lawless murderer and usurper and his deeds. You claim the throne of the Roman Empire in the names of your forebears Alexius, John and Manuel so everyone in the damned City can hear it. They’ve had enough of Andronicus and will support us, especially with all of his people away at Oianon.”

We did as bidden, the old cook leading us in a prayer for the intercession of St. Demetrius and the two holy Theodores, the patron saints of soldiers. I was terrified but also young and excited. I had to run upstairs to see. I was just in time to see Alexius Angelus charge out of the side gate, sword in hand.

Hagiochristophorites and two of his followers were still mounted while the others worked on the doors. One unarmed man was in Isaac’s path; Isaac sideswiped and expertly unhorsed him with an empty-handed left-arm blow. An armsman tried to intercept him and swung at his head, but Isaac deflected his blade and, in the same motion, sliced off his ear, sending him tumbling to the ground.

Hagiochristophorites, despite having weapon in hand, turned to flee, but Isaac struck him a ferocious blow, shearing off a third of his head and felling him instantly dead into the street, blood and brains spilling onto the cobbles.

Isaac rode, shouting as his mother had told him to, and I lost sight of him when he galloped under an archway. The others gave up on the door and remounted in order to pursue him, but they were too far behind.

The rest I only know from what I heard afterwards, but Euphrosyne had been right: the populace rose in favour of Isaac, especially when further roused by prominent aristocrats who were broken out of the places Andronicus had imprisoned them. They were rescued by the friends Euphrosyne still had in the City, to whom her maids Anna and Sophia carried messages successfully and at great peril to themselves, having been despatched by Euphrosyne to do so on the alleys and byways as soon as Isaac had mounted his charger. The Patriarch — whom Isaac and Euphrosyne soon replaced — was forced to crown him Isaac II the next day.

Andronicus and his entourage returned to the Palace to find it was too late. The Varangian Guard, many of whom had served under Manuel, refused to obey him. He was forced to flee but was captured. He was tortured for several days, before being turned over to the mob, who tore him apart.

Euphrosyne died the following year, having seen her son on the throne for one year. Perhaps that was best, as aside from victory over the Normans, which was accomplished without his presence by his general Alexius Branas, who soon rebelled against him. Isaac turned out little better than his predecessors and was himself overthrown, blinded and imprisoned, after reigning for ten years. He was deposed by the same elder brother whom he had welcomed back from exile.

As I stated earlier, I was an eyewitness to these events but, afterwards, in the ensuing confusion, fled to and sought refuge at the monastery of the Peribleptos. There I served as a novice for many years, before becoming a lay brother. My aptitudes fitted me for the scriptorium, hence my opportunity to pen this account.

I not only improved my letters but had the benefit of many patient masters and the opportunity to read many books, both sacred and otherwise. All know the horrors that have befallen the Romans over the last decades, and they are well-attested in the History of a certain Nicetas, which I have had the benefit of consulting in the Anatolian monastery that I now inhabit, but shall not name.

Nor need I name myself, now a prematurely decrepit old man living under the protection of the Nicaean — that is to say Roman — Emperor Theodore Lascaris, the Sultan-slayer and sole beacon still burning in the blackest of nights and the one hope that God has left us for the restoration of our Empire that had endured for over a thousand years before the sins of its rulers and people brought it to this pass.