With that he lifted me out of the way, but I gave a great shout and beat my hand upon the bronze images and cast them against the tiles so that they cracked.
Then they pulled me back, and I heard the nightingale grow louder, and I laughed with rage, for one struck me with a dagger.
I turned round and saw the Emperor Michael staggering in the carved wood doorway, the roses still clinging to his disordered hair. Seeing them, his wits cleared.
“Basil!” he shrieked. “I made you Emperor!”
They left me and turned on him, driving him back into the bedroom, and I lay along the floor with a dagger through my wrist, listening to his shrieks that hushed the nightingale.
Dragging myself to the door, I beheld Basiliskian struggling with the Persian, and saw him fall back across the couch with his scarlet-shod feet up and his mouth open, while the blood gurgled out and hid the wine-stains on his yellow robes.
I did not care for this, but looked for Michael and called loudly, so that they rushed out, drawing the curtains behind them and fled into the corridor.
Now none came, for tumults were such common things, and after a little Basil came back and looked about him; and after him followed Eudocia Ingerina in a green mantle with a lamp of bright enamel in her hand.
“Have you done it?” she asked, and I knew she had set Basil on, though the Emperor Michael had loved her. “Quick! Have you done it?”