The Byzantine Wager

Chapter 12 - The Blood Prophecy

Chapter 12

The Blood Prophecy

The two beautiful dark haired boys, Andronikos and Manuel, grew up together in the extended royal family which occupied the palace. As infants they had shared the same crib - shared the same wet-nurse's tit. Andronikos was scant weeks older than his first cousin Manuel. They toddled around the nursery together. They were both dressed up like little dolls in brocaded robes with ornate crowns of golden leaves as they took part in the Imperial processions from the palace to the basilica on Easter and saints' days. Manuel had four older sisters and three older brothers while Andronikos had two older sisters and one older brother, so both were the youngest in their families. They were princes of the blood - born to the purple - but far down the line of succession. They were raised to serve the family and the empire. Neither of them would ever rule, but they would have important functions at court, perhaps govern a province, or even command an army in the field should the need arise.

Their early years consisted of their education. They were taught their prayers. They were taught the words of Homer, and swordsmanship, math, and how to ride and hunt. They practiced with shield and javelin on the sand of the Varangian guard's drill yard. They learned how to care for their weapons and armor and how to sew up a wound. Knowing that they may be used as ambassadors or emissaries one day, they were taught the languages of all the surrounding lands. Manuel took to medicine, Andronikos to astronomy. Andronikos excelled Manuel in almost every endeavor their hands were set to. Stronger, bolder, taller - much taller - by the time he was twelve Andronikos was taller than his own father. Manuel lacked his cousin's physical bearing, but he was more intellectual, and pious. They grew up as best friends.

Their grandfather, Alexios, had founded a dynasty and for almost forty years he outwitted crusaders and conspirators, fighting off invaders and revolts to pass the tenuous reigns of power to the hands of his eldest son John.

John, thanks to strong support from his younger brother, Issac, and his best friend, John the Persian, ascended to the throne in the same year that his son Manuel and nephew Andronikos were born. When the boys were growing up, learning their math and their catechism, the Emperor was frequently in the field with the army defending its borders against the Seljuq Turks, the Pechenegs, the Serbs, and the Hungarians. Assisting him in this was the commander-in-chief of the Byzantine Army, John Auxouch, the Megas Domestikos.

John Auxouch was called John the Persian, because he had been a slave from the land of the Turks. As a child he had been captured near the city of Nicea by Frankish warriors who were traveling to the Holy Land. The boy was given, in an exchange of gifts, to the Emperor. For their part, the Franks were given money, horses, and supplies to encourage them to keep moving and not stop within the empire's borders. The Emperor Alexios gave the slave boy in turn to his eldest son as a companion. He was raised in the Imperial household, and the two Johns grew up to be closer than brothers.

Since John the Emperor and John the Persian were off on campaign so often, most of the day to day running of the empire was left to the Emperor's actual brother, Issac, who remained at the capital. Issac was granted the title of Sebastokrator, which made him chief minister, but in the complicated hierarchy of the Imperial court, he was still inferior to the Megas Domestikos. He - the son of an Emperor - was required to make obeisance to one who had once been a slave.

This was, to be sure, galling. However, it was not the favor shown to John the Persian which turned Issac against his brother. Issac knew, deep in his heart, that the Emperor had made the correct choice by appointing John the Persian as head of the army. He was hearty and loyal. A fine commander - well loved by the men. Issac knew himself to be a creature of the palace. He enjoyed his luxuries and his comforts. He was a patron of the arts and a scholar of literature. The saddle and the camp tent were not for him. No, the thing which finally turned Issac against his brother was the Blood Prophecy; that and iota, the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet. The letter which began his own name.

Perhaps it was boredom, or perhaps Issac's love for the poetry of Homer which began to awaken a desire in him, like the Greeks of old, to see beyond the world at hand. He began to read other things than his beloved Illiad. Scrolls and treatises on magic were examined - nothing maleficent or sinister - but still... writings that were banned by Holy Mother Church.

Late at night in his private apartments at the palace Issac and his wife hosted a party for some of Issac's closest supporters. The invited guests included several notables of the court and mingling among them were astrologers, diviners, a sorcerer of some note, and an apotropist learned in the Kabbalah and skilled in warding off curses and the evil eye. Palms were read, birthmarks examined, bones were tossed, everyone had a fine time. At some point during the evening Issac asked a soothsayer skilled in the Lekanomantic school of water scrying to tell him who would next sit on the throne. A copper basin etched with Egyptian glyphs was filled with holy water. To this were added a handful of dirt from a graveyard, the tip of a candle wick which had been burning before an altar of the Holy Virgin, twenty-four bone tiles each marked with a letter of the Greek alphabet, and a reed straw. Issac was instructed to blow through the straw until the marked tiles bobbed to the surface. The letters would answer his question. Drawing a great breath Issac began to blow a long steady stream of air which bubbled up through the graveyard mud in the bottom of the bowl, burbling and plopping, as the tiles bearing the letters alpha, iota, mu, and unmistakably alpha again were carried to the surface of the water. To the Lekanomancer the reading was obvious. AIMA was the Greek word for "blood" and the letters indicated who in the current bloodline would rule. The first alpha clearly referred to Issac's father Alexios who began the dynasty. The iota indicated John, or Ionnes in Greek, the current emperor. No one could guess who the mu referred to. Andronikos, present at the party - although only a child - pointed out to the guests that his best friend, the emperor's fourth son was Manuel.

"A mu to be sure," noted one courtier. That Manuel would have to lose quite a few brothers before being hailed as Emperor remained unspoken.

Issac, however, could not see past the iota. Iota for Ionnes. Yet iota was also for Issac. That night he began to conceive that it was his destiny, not his brother's, to sit on the throne. It gnawed on him. John was short, ugly, and dark of skin. Pious it was true, but also boorish. And he had elevated John the Persian above his own family.

Issac's coup against his brother, when it eventually came, was ill conceived, ill timed, and ill managed. He was forced to go into exile along with his two sons. His wife and daughters would of course remain protected and cared for. It would be over eight years before Andronikos would return to Constantinople, son of a disgraced and disloyal father. All of his teenage years were spent traveling from city to city as his father sought support. Issac felt that if he could unite John's foreign enemies and secretly gather support in the capital, he would still be emperor one day.