In May, then, Michael made Basil Emperor with him, joint ruler of the Eastern Empire, sharer of the throne of the Cæsars, and in the winter of that year he gave the imperial title to a third, Basiliskian.
Now there were glorious orgies and splendid riotings of feasts and games; and each wondered which Emperor would first slay the other; and Michael was grown to be afraid of Basil, who was changed from a drunken groom into an Emperor and a graver man.
With this terror on him, he came to Eudocia Ingerina.…
Do you think I hear the monks chanting and see darkness?
No, I hear the trumpets; I see the Emperor Michael with his black hair unbound and his whip in his hand as he has returned from the Hippodrome standing against the leopard cat couch, while the sun embraces the snakes on his buskins. And she, Eudocia Ingerina, seated on a stool inset with opal holding lilies in her hand.
“So,” he said, “I am afraid of this Basil whom I took from the kennels; he must go swiftly as he came, Eudocia.”
“You made him my husband,” she answered, and threw the lilies down.
The fine silk curtains were lifting in an Eastern wind; the sun slipped under them and gilded the sloping orange walls of Numidian marble and the girdle of turkis round her waist.
“I am afraid of him,” repeated the Emperor, and he shook.
She looked away and he went on his knees and laid his head on her lap, dropping the whip stained with the blood and foam of his horses. Neither of them had any heed of me standing in the outer peristyle where the bronze pots of roses were, nor of the two slaves in tiger skins.