Come nearer, for my voice is very weak. What if this was the last night of all for me and I should wake to see the banners of God blowing about His throne?
So write, for I know more than I have ever told.
It was the year 866 that the Emperor Michael surnamed the Drunkard, took for his fellow Emperor Basil the Macedonian groom. This was reward for what Basil had done at Kepos, where he had stabbed the Cæsar through the back. This Cæsar Bardas was a clever man, but Basil was more cunning; this Bardas the Cæsar was uncle to the Emperor, and had in his time slain Theoktistos, so he, too, is in Hell, for he died without a prayer. But I have prayed before the images and given them robes of silk pleasant to handle. Basil the groom had come to Constantinople on foot with a wallet on his back and become a stable boy to an officer of the court, and once when the Emperor was driving his own white horses in the Hippodrome, he saw this Basil wrestle with a Bulgarian and overthrow him; the Macedonian had great credit for this, and Michael took him into his service, for he was a man of wonderful strength.
I never saw one taller; his hair was very thick bright brown and curling, his face had a look of hideous power and his neck was massive as the trunk of a young tree.
He had a great gift with horses, for there was never one whom he could not subdue with a touch and a whisper; soon, it seemed, he had this power with the Emperor, too, for Michael made him Chamberlain and cast money into his lap as gifts are cast before the Images.
Who knew what went on outside the mighty palace? I tell you none could guess.… But you have heard of Eudocia Ingerina; she was a daughter of the Martinakes, and the Emperor would have married her, but because her family was so mighty his mother, Theodora, prevented this, and he married Eudocia, the daughter of Dekapolitas.…
Then there was Thekla, the sister of Michael, and she loved Basil, but the Emperor married him to Eudocia, who would be Empress some way; she never forgave it, for he had resigned her for fear of his mother, vanished now to Gastria, afterwards to Anthimos.
It was their women behind it all.… Those were great golden days. Eudocia Ingerina, with the Emperor for her lover and the groom for her husband, kept the splendid revels gorgeously, but in her heart she waited for vengeance on Michael and his mother, on all of them who had debarred her from the throne–I knew it always.
At one time I was her chamberlain. She was a woman beautiful and vain; in my perpetual darkness I can see her features, her black hair clinging to her white shoulders, the plates of gold and clanging metal, of wine-red and serpent-green stones about her brow, her long, long eyes and small mouth, expressionless–her perfumed linen and her mantles of furs and silver.…
It was worth living then; it is worth living now to think of it. Write, write the colour, the glitter, the glory and the power of it, the days burning into the nights with the lights of a thousand jewelled lamps glowing behind screens of silk, the marble halls strewn with flowers, the slaves with bands of scarlet on their foreheads, the chariot races, the shouting crowds, the taste of wine and fruit, the perfect women with heavy hair, the churches shining with burnished bronze and gold.… Sometimes I dread that Heaven cannot be so delicious.…