The Byzantine Wager

Chapter 29 - Once Upon Time in a Dungeon

Chapter 29

Once Upon Time in a Dungeon

The relationship between Stephen and Andronikos had an unusual beginning. Twenty-four years earlier they had met and spoken at length for several weeks without ever having once set eyes on one another. They were able to talk, but because of the placement of their prison cells they could not see one another.

Andronikos had been in his chamber for several years. It was larger than the one Stephen was tossed into, further along the corridor, and at least had fresh air coming in from a thin skylight. The window was hardly more than an arrow slit, set high - very high - in the wall - too narrow for anyone to get through - and ironbound by bars from without in any event. Emperor Manuel knew how tall and strong his cousin was and had ordered the vaulted tower cell secured specifically to contain him.

Stephen's lightless cell in the baked brick tower of the Anemas dungeon was closer to the stairs, but on the day the guards tossed him in Andronikos guessed that the new prisoner was not going to be there for long. He was a temporary resident - only passing through - on his way to a public flogging and nasal amputation. Stephen was terrified and wept openly. When Andronikos asked (out of boredom, not concern), "What is it that you have been accused of?" Stephen could not stop talking: about the injustice of it all, about the cruelty of Emperor Manuel, about the perfidy of the court. He found sympathetic ears and a reciprocal tongue in his fellow prisoner. They were both at low points in their lives. Andronikos was nearly out of his mind with boredom and glad of a chance to talk to anyone.

From his fellow prisoner Andronikos learned that the Hagiochristophorites family (the name meant "Bringer of Christ") originally hailed from Lycia where they held minor magistracies. Stephen's father was a tax farmer. He would buy a contract from the treasury to gather the expected taxes for the province - in effect covering the taxes for the province up front - and then later recovering his outlay by collecting monies and goods from the citizens. His profit came from any extra he could gather, through fines, intimidation, bribes, or extortion. To help him in this end he had five stout and brutish sons. Stephen was the second son, but being the most clever, he was sent to the queen of cities for further training in finance and to enhance the family's fortunes by gaining a position in the bureaucracy.

Andronikos surmised from Stephan's drawn out sobbing story that the transition to the capital had not gone well. Like a chariot horse who owned fame in the provinces but was not fast enough to meet up to expectation at the Hippodrome - Stephen was not clever enough to stand out. At mathematics he was hopeless - could barely remember by rote even the most common of the psalms, and of social graces he had none. He was not perceptive enough to see that although he was the son of a feared and respected man in Lycia - the sense of dread and deferment did not extend to Constantinople. He felt excluded from the future which his father had promised to him and to which he was entitled.

Stephen decided that the court would be forced to accept him and take him seriously if he had a noble bride. Listening in his cell Andronikos understood, of course, that no family of noble blood would marry a daughter to - who? A Hagiochristophorites? From where in Anatolia? A man holding which position? None?

Stephen told of how he managed to get himself invited to a fete at the home of Leon Oxeites only to get so drunk that he forgot the difference between seduction and rape, but not so forgetful that he was unable to recount the details to his fellow prisoner - late at night in the dark - when the right questions were asked. Andronikos would have him describe the act over and over in detail on many nights thereafter. Also, as Stephen's reasoning seemed to go, with a child growing in some noblewoman's belly, a wedding would be assured. Andronikos shook his head at the man's folly. This was why the court was staffed by eunuchs and chariot horses were gelded.

Commiserating with the new prisoner Andronikos said he could understand how problems of the heart could bring a man to grief. He himself was imprisoned on the whim of Emperor Manuel simply for being in love with a woman and having her love him back.

That and treason. He was also in prison for plotting against Manuel's life.