Chapter XXIV: Love and Falsehood

By rapid, preconcerted stages, the imperial headquarters was moved on from Dorylæum and the valley of the Sangarius into that of the upper Halys, and soon round the salt lake of Tatta to Cæsarea, where a halt was made. It was practically the military route long before traversed by Alexander, and so many chiefs of old and new Rome, and in part by the Crusaders under Walter the Penniless, and Godfrey, more than a century afterwards, when their bones whitened the plain. Cæsarea had been refortified and crowded with immense contingents and vast stores as the grand base of the expedition into Syria. There Nicephorus held a series of inspections, musters, and reviews. At many of these Leo the student was present, under the guidance of his friend, Joannes, and he occupied himself with careful notes as to all the nations and tribes which he there saw in arms. The musters of the Charsian, the Armenian, the Cappadocian, and Anatolian themes were there gathered--and with them contingents from the independent Armenians, Georgians, Abasgians, and Iberians. Beside them marched men from Europe, Dalmatian Highlanders, Calabrians, and Beneventan levies, and a strong force sent from the vassal republics of Venice and Amalphi, from the lords of Gaeta, and Naples. Here, too, the emperor rejoined John Tzimisces and his somewhat exhausted force, which had been for a year engaged with the Saracens on the Syrian frontier, meeting alternate success and reverse. That army was, indeed, so much shaken and reduced by its hard service, that Nicephorus was compelled to leave John at Cæsarea to recruit his men and to organize the reserves that were to follow as required. Against this the ardent John protested in his own furious way, but the Basileus forced him to submit.

From Cæsarea the army prepared to enter an enemy's country, and the imperial paraphernalia, state tents, baggage and equipment, had been left behind. Nicephorus was now in active campaigning order. All the heights and forts commanding the passes of Mount Taurus had been occupied in strength, and the main army descended into the plains through the tremendous defiles of the Cilician Gates. This narrow gorge, cut through the limestone precipices of the range by the headwaters of the Cydnus, was just such a defile as are those which we all know to-day in the Alps, having a furious torrent roaring over huge rocks, crowned by jagged pinnacles, and clothed with pines, junipers, and cedars. Through these sombre gorges, amid the thunder of incessant cataracts and rapids from the melted snows, the whole army poured with ease and safety, for it was summer, and every point commanding the pass was already defended by a fort amply manned and provisioned. The passes once surmounted, the whole army was at last securely concentrated and posted in the broad and teeming valleys of the Cydnus, the Sarus, and the Pyramus. The whole of this rich country fell into the hands of the Romans. Anazarba, Adana, Mopseutia, and twenty strong places, as Leo recounts, were taken by storm. Placing a strong force to invest Tarsus, Nicephorus pressed on to Issus. This captured, the road was open at last to Antioch.

The triumphant march of this army corresponded with its numbers, which Leo seriously placed at the enormous total of four hundred thousand. They ravaged the country far and wide, driving the wretched inhabitants before them into the fortified places, or reducing them by myriads into slavery. Leo the historian gives us a terrible picture of the campaign and all its horrors. The followers of the Prophet fought on with courage and obstinacy behind each fortress; they had neither numbers nor equipment able to meet the Romans in the field. Famine, pestilence, and the tremendous engines of the invaders slew the Saracens by thousands. When cities were taken by storm, all soldiers in arms and still resisting were butchered; and the civic population, women and children, were expelled by force, sometimes into captivity, sometimes into exile. Nicephorus sternly refused conditional terms of capitulation to a besieged city proposing surrender. "A venomous serpent," said he, "in the winter season lies torpid--one would think it dead; the warmth of summer returns, and it is alive and as dangerous as ever. These inveterate enemies of Christ and of His people must be crushed once and forever!" So the work of slaughter and extermination went on till the conquering host had reached the confines of Syria and the Amanus.

This career of sanguinary triumph was now suddenly arrested by a cause the truth of which was never allowed to be known, and for which both in that day and since many different explanations have been given. It was rumored through the host that the emperor had countermanded the advance, and gradually the news spread that he himself was retracing his steps. One night, as Nicephorus had presided at the storming of a fortress on the coast, and had with difficulty made an end to the orgy of pillage and slaughter, an urgent petition was brought to him from an officer of rank, who pressed for a private interview on a matter of life and death to the welfare of the empire. Nicephorus bade them admit him to his tent. It was Joannes, "the Geometer," who had been left with the reserves at Cæsarea, and had now hastened up to headquarters.

"My gracious sovereign," said John, "let me speak freely of matters of high treason and your own life. I answer for my truth and loyalty with my head, which I place in your hands."

"Speak," said Nicephorus.

"John Tzimisces, sire, whom you ordered to remain at the base to recruit his own army and to reorganize the reserves, has conceived the most passionate wrath against your order and even against yourself," said Joannes.

"He broke out upon me with tears, and almost with curses, when I gave him the order," said Nicephorus; "it is the way of our fiery John. He will cool down in time."

"Sire, he has not cooled down; he has flamed up more fiercely than ever; he has been tampering with the loyalty of the troops."

"Your proofs," said the emperor, sternly.

"Sire, I have brought you copies of two missives that have been secretly passed round the two new battalions of Armenian levies. I was present myself when Tzimisces reviewed them, and I saw him smile with joy and without a word when the ranks saluted the commander to the cry of 'John, our Basileus!' I have been through their camps and round their watchfires, and I have heard them say, 'Our John has been betrayed--Nicephorus is jealous of him. Down with Nicephorus--Long live John!'"

The Basileus listened in silence, read and re-read the circular appeals. "Ay," he said, to himself, "it is ever so. The new levies go after a new man--and they ever follow a man of their own tribe. What is the evidence, my young friend, that John Tzimisces has lent himself to treachery, or has ceased to be my loyal colleague and officer?"

"Only this," said Joannes, at last. "Some devoted servants of yours, sire, watched the quarters of Tzimisces, and one night there was found a man near it whom we knew to be an emissary from your imperial retinue. We seized, searched, and, as he resisted with weapons, we slew him. In a fold of his belt we found this writing. We do not understand it, nor do we know whence it comes." He handed a slip of parchment to the emperor.

Nicephorus understood it. He knew whence it came. He knew what it meant. It was in the Armenian tongue. It was in a handwriting that he knew well. It ran thus: "_From the prison of Drizibion, one who has need of thee, and one who can serve thee, calls thee to come at once, for counsel and for protection._"

Nicephorus was struck dumb with horror and indignation, and hardly maintained his footing or his senses. But he concealed his spasm of shame and wrath from his visitor. "We will reflect on this. Keep absolute silence as to all you know and all that has passed," said he, slowly. With assumed calm he dismissed Joannes for the night.

When Nicephorus was alone he passed some terrible hours of agony and despair, turning over in his mind every catastrophe that threatened the army by a revolt in his rear--and the wickedness of the false wife for whom he had suffered so much--whom even now it racked him to believe so cruel and faithless. After hours of a storm of passion and perplexity he summoned his confidential secretary--and gave orders for preparation to be made for his own return by forced posts to Cæsarea at daybreak the next day.

What had happened was this. During the halt at Cæsarea, the emperor, being his own commander-in-chief and superintending every stage of the expedition, had been incessantly occupied by his duties and had little communication of any kind with Theophano. More than once he had noticed her presence at the inspections and parades held by Tzimisces, and he had been glad to see her take new interest in the army, and even admit to her court so gallant a soldier and so true a friend as the "domestic of the eastern armies." As these visits became more frequent, Nicephorus resolved to carry on the empress and her sons, and not to leave them as intended at Cæsarea. Against this resolution Theophano had vehemently protested, but in vain. But her indignation was unbounded when, after penetrating a day's march into the northern defiles of the Taurus, she found that she was to be left in the rocky fortress of Drizibion. This was a castle of impregnable strength, perched on a precipitous cliff in the centre of the pass that led to the Cilician Gates. A stormy interview had passed between Basileus and Basilissa:

"What!" she said. "Am I, the Augusta, to be a prisoner in this wild mountain den? Am I to be hidden out of sight, as if it were a convent of nuns? Are my poor children to be shut up in this dreary fort, to pine away in exile, perhaps to be murdered?"

"Madam," said the Basileus, gently, and yet with decision, "in such a campaign as that which is before us, with all its perils, fatigues, and hardships, it would be cruel to expose a lady and two children to such a life. When we have conquered a safe and fitting place for you and the little ones, you will follow. I and my army will not be so very far. But your safety and that of the young Basileis is my first care. Here you will be in absolute security, and, indeed, in luxury--in a place which, in this season, has everything pleasant. You will have all the retinue you brought hither, and the whole of your attendants and staff."

"Why was I dragged from Cæsarea?" she asked, with bitterness.

"Cæsarea to-day is a mere camp of exercise. It is no place for the court of an empress."

"Am I a prisoner?" she asked again.

"You are the wife of the Roman emperor," said Nicephorus, with firm voice, "and while I live his word shall be law." With this he closed the interview, and went forth with a weight as a stone upon his heart.

Theophano watched him as he left her with eyes flaming with rage. From that hour she nursed in her heart plans of implacable revenge.

On the morning of the third day after the dreadful revelations given him by Joannes, Nicephorus approached the castle of Drizibion. He had hurried on in front of his escort, almost unattended, travelling night and day, and torn with contending emotions. Passionate love, indignation, jealousy, pity, shame, and horror, filled his soul by turns. Even now he could hardly resolve upon a course of action. Should he confront Theophano with the evidence of her guilt? Should he discard her and immure her in a remote convent? Should he seize and execute Tzimisces? Would the faction of the Basilissa in the capital raise an insurrection in his absence? Would the army, or half of it, side with the brilliant and popular Tzimisces? Should the chiefs of Rome in this death-grapple be fighting each other? What then would be the issue to the crusade against the Saracens? What would be the future of the motherless children--of the heirs of Constantine and Romanus--of the Roman empire itself?

He was still revolving in his mind all these questions when, about noon, he reached the foot of the outer bulwarks of Drizibion. He amazed the guard to whom he disclosed himself, and ordered them to remain silent, as he intended a surprise visit to the empress. He was told she was now in the garden of the castle with her children. With a sign to the door-keepers Nicephorus passed in. It was a lovely spot. Perched five hundred feet above the bottom of a mountain valley, along which the military road was cut beside the tumbling waters of the torrent, the garden was shaded with chestnut and limes and beech trees, adorned with flowers and blossoming shrubs. It commanded a varied spectacle of jagged pinnacles of limestone, forests of pines and larches, and in the far distance peaks of snow. 'Twas a glowing day of summer. Nicephorus paused. And now he saw his Theophano in all the blaze of her beauty, in her airy robes of silk gauze, sitting in the shade of a chestnut-tree and caressing her younger child. Basil, the elder boy, was in his little uniform of a cataphractic trooper, playing with his toy sword and slaying the heads of the poppies. The mother gazed on the children with delight, fondling the weaker one by her side, and watching the martial spirit of her Basil.

"One day, my darling," she was saying to the elder boy, "they will let us go away from this dull place, and we will all be back again at the palace at home, where you shall be treated again as the Roman Augustus, and your mother will again receive the homage of a civilized people, and not of these uncouth barbarians, such as you can see on guard below."

"No, mother," cried the little Basil, "I do not care for civilized people! I want to lead these splendid fellows in battle. I want to use a real sword. I want to be with father in the front!"

The mother smiled, much as if she had the soul of an Irene within. It was a scene of pure beauty, peace, and love. It struck Nicephorus to the heart with a new flood of pity, of affection, and pride.

Who was he to consign such loveliness and motherly instinct to a cold convent? Could such grace, such tenderness, be treacherous and false? Could he blast the young lives of these children by destroying their home and driving their mother into exile? Still uncertain what he would do, Nicephorus stepped forward, and stood before her with a look of profound sadness and reproach.

"My lord, my sovereign, my deliverer," cried Theophano, rushing forward to her husband when she saw his look of sad and stern reproof, "you have come to take me away from this prison, this exile, this wilderness, where I and my babes have lived in sorrow, while you have been adding fresh glory to your name, and new life to Rome?"

The little Constantine climbed his knee, and the boy Basil pulled his arm to show his father how many stalks of the enemy he could slash off with a single blow.

He stood irresolute and confounded. Theophano fell on his neck, and, weaving her arms round him, she sobbed on his breast, murmuring, "Take us from this prison."

"Whom did you count on to take you from this prison, to whom did you write to deliver you?" said Nicephorus.

"To whom but to you--to my sovereign--to my husband," she said, quickly--"to whom else could I look? You had all the urgent letters, petitions, messages I despatched to you in the field?" Nicephorus looked silently and sternly, and said not a word.

"No?" she said, with a gasp; "you did not receive them?" And then she added, "You did not receive even my last short summons in Armenian, in the form in which I used to write when I made you Basileus of Rome?" she said, proudly. "You did not even receive that love-letter of mine? I thought it might touch you at last."

"Do you mean this?" said he, and took from his bosom the Armenian script--"'_From the prison of Drizibion, one who has need of thee, and one mho can serve thee, calls thee to come at once, for counsel and for protection._'"

"Ah!" she cried in triumph; "then you did have the last, and it brought you! My lord, my husband, and my consoler!"

And she moved to embrace him again.

"Madam," he said, quietly, "this was sent not to Tarsus, where I was in the field at the siege, but to Cæsarea, to the camp of reserve."

"Yes! the messenger whom I sent was an attendant of my own; he had orders, if he could not learn where the emperor was in the field, to go on to Cæsarea to ascertain from the officers in command where the emperor could be found. By the Holy Spirit, I swear that he had strict orders to hand this writing to no one but the Basileus himself. You see he has done so, and you have come."

"Madam," said Nicephorus, at last, slowly and calmly, "I have come, and I have come as the result of this very message. But your messenger did not hand it to me. He died in the execution of his orders. The parchment was handed to me by the man who killed him, and who found it in his belt."

A long and terrible silence ensued. At last Nicephorus spoke. "I have come to take you back to Cæsarea, and to place you there in safety, till this war is settled, and we can return to the capital. We will say no more. There is the miserable thing," and, tearing it to fragments, he flung them over the precipice into the cataract below.

"Nicephorus," said she, in a voice of intense anxiety and fear, "you will not slay me--nor mutilate my children--nor put us away in exile?"

He turned from her in stern silence, and now almost with loathing and scorn. At last the fire of love that consumed him was almost burned out to its embers.

Having given orders for the guards, retinue, and attendants of the empress and of her sons to be at once moved down to Cæsarea, Nicephorus hastened thither in person by forced marches, and straightway summoned John Tzimisces to his quarters.

Tzimisces came dashing in with that jovial air of hearty good-fellowship which made him the idol of the army. He was still chafing under the injury the emperor had done him by ordering him to remain behind in camp, but he recovered his temper on learning that Nicephorus now ordered him to start for Tarsus at the front, while the emperor in person remained at Cæsarea to organize the levies. He admitted that his Armenians had raised disloyal cries at parade, but he satisfied the emperor that he, John, had been no party to the movement. "Examine my staff officers," said Tzimisces, "and see if you can find a trace of treason on my part against my sovereign, my chief, my friend. It is true that he cruelly wronged me in keeping me here like a raw recruit, while he revelled in glory himself. It was a burning shame, and I have told my own comrades all the bitterness I feel. But as to plotting treason to overthrow the Basileus--no! I am not yet come to that! John has a hot temper and a sharp tongue, and will strike when he is struck, but he is not a back-stairs conspirator like those eunuchs and cubiculars of the palace."

"You have had no cubicular at your own quarters?" asked the Basileus.

"What, I?" replied the fiery John. "He would be kicked forth like a dog if he came to my tent," said John, hotly and frankly.

"You had no missives from Drizibion?" asked Nicephorus.

"From Drizibion?" said John. "What is that? The castle that commands the pass north of the Cilician Gates? I know not who commands there, nor what can he want from me. From Drizibion? Who was stationed there?"

"The Basilissa and her sons," said the emperor, "and all their guards and retinue."

"What!" said Tzimisces--"the empress at Drizibion? I thought you carried her and all her retinue across into Cilicia, and kept her beside you at headquarters." And John looked straight into the eyes of Nicephorus, with such a genuine face of frankness and truth that the Basileus now saw that Tzimisces, at any rate, was no party to the plot--if plot there were--was not guilty of dishonoring his sovereign and his friend.

Nor was John false, nor as yet at all seduced by the arts of Theophano. Nicephorus reflected that, according to the story he had heard, Tzimisces had never received the intercepted missive. There was no undoubted proof that it was addressed to Tzimisces at all. No name was written, and Theophano had sworn that it was addressed to her own husband. Be this as it may, there was no proof that Tzimisces had anything to do with it, nor that he had, either before or since, received anything of the kind. No proof; but doubt, gloom, and despair, lay ever deep down in the inmost soul of Nicephorus Phocas. At all times he was rarely seen to smile. He never smiled again in life.