Empress & Soldier: Chapter 11 part 2
In which Eudekia learns what it is to be a piece in a game.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6 part I
Chapter 6 part 2
Chapter 7
Chapter 8 part 1
Chapter 8 part 2
Chapter 9 part 1
Chapter 9 part 2
Chapter 10 part 1
Chapter 10 part 2
Chapter 11 part 1
I BREAKFASTED — LATE — WITH MY GRANDMOTHER. “Yes, I saw the Emperor,” she said. “Later, child. Yesterday was a long day, and I have a headache. When your father is free, I will tell you both. Be patient.”
She would tell me no more, and I could not decide from her manner if what she had to say was good or bad. My father was not at the palace, but seeing clients this morning. I would not have to wait too long.
I left my grandmother resting, and sat down to read. The day was drizzly and grey, and before long I was yawning.
“Eudekia.”
My eyes opened. Nishan held out a note. I took it, blinking. The seal bore the imperial eagle. I broke it open.
I am glad to know you have returned to Casil. I will see you this afternoon. There is news. Philitos.
I couldn’t stop the smile. I thanked Nishan, who gave me a disapproving look as he left. Did Philitos’s news have to do with my grandmother’s visit to his father? Surely she could not have convinced the Emperor so quickly? I read the words again, and my initial elation faded. News. Not ‘good news’.
I pulled a strand of hair from its clip and wound it about my fingers. He was coming here to tell me something. He hadn’t been forbidden to see me, but the tone of the note was so cool. I tugged at my hair so hard it hurt.
Oh, this was ridiculous. I tossed the note onto a table, put the book I’d been reading beside it. I’d review the household accounts. At least that would be useful.
~
My father excused the servants once the food for midday had been served. “What have you to tell us, Matra?” he asked, his voice level.
She took a bite of food, chewing deliberately. Only after she had swallowed and taken a sip of wine did she answer. “Oppelius has aged badly,” she said.
“The cares of office weigh heavily on him,” my father said. “But you did not go to judge his vigour.”
“Did I not? An unwell man should not offer himself in marriage, and I could not suggest an alliance between him and the Qipërtan princess were he—incapable. But he is not, and so he listened to what I had to say.”
I blinked. The Emperor was considering a third marriage for himself as a solution to the political crisis? Leaving Philitos free? I glanced at my father. His expression, as he looked at his mother, was one of disbelief, and something more. Almost revulsion.
You did not go to judge his vigour. I heard again her answer, and this time its implications. Not incapable.
“Varos, do not look so horrified,” she said impatiently. “Oppelius needed reassurance that his virility does not rely on the skills of the highest-paid scraptae. He knows that now. Words are not the only tool of diplomacy.”
I didn’t know where to look. I heard my father exhale, and then, in tight, measured tones, say, “What of Eudekia?”
My grandmother put down her silver spoon. “I was less successful there.”
“As I expected,” my father replied.
“I said I was less successful, not that I failed.” She turned to me. “Do not give up hope, child. Oppelius heard me out. He made no promises, but neither did he refuse to consider a marriage between you and the prince.”
“Philitos is coming here this afternoon,” I said. “He sent a note.”
“I will chaperone,” my grandmother said, before my father could comment.
“Be sure you do,” my father said. He rose, his food unfinished. “I will be reviewing accounts with Mahir, and unavailable.” He stalked from the room, every line of his body telling me how much he disapproved.
“He’s angry,” I whispered.
“But he did not forbid the meeting. Finish your meal, and then prepare for the prince.”
~
It was my grandmother who helped me choose a tunic, and who dressed my hair, leaving strands loose on my neck. Who applied the hint of red to my lips, and the perfume she had given me to my neck and wrists. “Your maid is competent,” she said, as she stepped back to look at me, “but the arts of seduction need an experienced woman to teach.”
Was I meant to be seducing Philitos? Not truly, surely? I frowned, and my grandmother laughed. “Seduction has many steps,” she said. “Being desirable but out of reach is the first.” She touched my cheek. “I remember doing this for Cencia. She too had no mother to instruct her, and she so wanted Varos. He barely saw anything but his books, but I made sure he saw her.” She took a step back, tilted her head. “You have her eyes, and her hair.”
“Did he love her?”
“Beyond a doubt. I am sure it is why he has never remarried.”
How deep his pain at losing my mother must have been. Was that why he rarely mentioned her? The thought was new. Did I want to be that vulnerable, that much in another’s power? Even Philitos’s?
~
Because of the rain, we met in the sitting room. I had xache set up on a table, but from the moment Philitos entered I knew we would not play. His face, usually either thoughtful or teasing, was angry, his lips thin, his jaw set. Although the tension relaxed a little when he saw me, a faint smile appearing.
He walked straight to me, holding out his hands. I gave him mine, his fingers curving over them, squeezing almost to the point of pain. He said my name.
“Prince,” I murmured. “What is wrong?”
“I am being sent away,” he said, meeting my eyes. “Far away, to Odïrya. To take my father’s place in a ceremony.”
His hands still held mine. Little distance separated us, half a step, less. I tried to order my thoughts. “Why?”
He laughed, a bark of anger. “My father claims his health, and problems that need his presence in Casil. It is an excuse. The real reason is you.”
I parted my lips to speak. Took a breath, hesitant. “I was sent away too.”
“I know,” he said, and then almost before I knew what was happening, he kissed me, lightly, a brush of his lips, and then again, longer, deeper, until my grandmother cleared her throat and he pulled away. I was trembling. “Prince,” I whispered. He smiled.
“I have a name.”
“Philitos,” I said, barely forming the sounds. He smiled.
“Do you love me, Eudekia?” Did I? I knew what my body felt. Words wouldn’t come. I managed a nod.
“Then shall we announce ourselves as quincalae, so that our fathers can betroth us to no others?”
Quincalae? Sworn partners, a form of marriage usually undertaken by two men, or two women, but also by those who could not, for any reason, take the higher vows. It needed nothing but a declaration between the lovers, renewed—or not—every five years. Among the dignitasi, it was unheard of between a man and a woman.
I turned to speak to my grandmother, sliding my hands away. Why had she not suggested this might happen, guided me in my response? My eyes fell on the xache pieces awaiting play.
The game board of the world, I had thought last night. I turned back to Philitos. “What is the ceremony in Odïrya?”
He frowned. “The granting of a city to the Trakïyani king, to placate him for the damage a previous governor did to him and his people.”
Bringing them back into Casil’s fold, and perhaps influencing Qipërta, regardless of its new ties with the Boranoi. I looked into the eyes of the man awaiting an answer. I still trembled. “We cannot,” I said. Behind me, my grandmother exhaled.
“Cannot? Why not?” Philitos spoke sharply, the anger he had damped down flaring again.
“Because you are the prince of Casil,” I said, “and your marriage might be needed to serve a purpose.”
“You sound like my father,” he said. “I thought you loved me.”
“I—I do,” I said, forcing my voice not to rise. “But you are a royal piece on the xache board, Philitos. You cannot move the way you wish. And I am only a minor piece, easily sacrificed.”
“Prince.” My grandmother’s voice. She moved closer. “Do you love my granddaughter?”
“Yes.” Impatience, barely controlled.
“Then listen to her. Declaring yourselves quincalae is not the answer. There is a political crisis developing; go back to the palace and demand your father explain it to you. Or knock on my son’s door and ask it of him, if you prefer.”
Uncertainty crossed Philitos’s face. “What has that to do with us?”
“You are no fool,” my grandmother said. “Why did you ask Eudekia to bind herself to you? So your father can betroth you to no other, you said. If declaring yourself quincalae made that impossible, and as a result forced Casil into war, even into siege or sacking, what do you think the people would say of her? Or even do to her? If you love my granddaughter, Prince, agree that she is right.”
I watched comprehension slowly appear in Philitos’s eyes, the look of pain as he realized the truth of my grandmother’s words. He closed his eyes tightly; shook his head. Swore, just audibly.
He opened his eyes. Took my hands again. “Eudekia. I would never hurt you.” He pulled me into his arms. “I love you,” he murmured. “May the fates be kind.” I turned my face to his, offering my lips, holding myself tight against him.
He broke the kiss. “I must see my father,” he said. And then, unexpectedly, he bowed to my grandmother. “My lady Venustia. Thank you for your wisdom. Keep Eudekia safe for me.”
I watched him leave. My grandmother placed a hand on my shoulder. “So very well done, child.”
“Was it?” I said, before the sobs started. I didn’t even know why I was crying. Nothing made sense.
My grandmother took me in her arms, rocked me gently. “Worthy of an Empress,” she said.
Xache - pronounced in my mind as zah-chee - is another invention, but you can imagine it as a version of chess, a game played to teach strategy and the idea of acceptable losses. I derived xache from the early German word for chess: Schach. The Roman equivalent was Ludus latrunculorum. Its play is described in the 1st-century AD Laus Pisonis:1
When you are weary with the weight of your studies, if perhaps you are pleased not to be inactive but to start games of skill, in a more clever way you vary the moves of your counters on the open board, and wars are fought out by a soldiery of glass, so that at one time a white counter traps blacks, and at another a black traps whites. Yet what counter has not fled from you? What counter gave way when you were its leader? What counter [of yours] though doomed to die has not destroyed its foe? Your battle line joins combat in a thousand ways: that counter, flying from a pursuer, itself makes a capture; another, which stood at a vantage point, comes from a position far retired; this one dares to trust itself to the struggle, and deceives an enemy advancing on its prey; that one risks dangerous traps, and, apparently entrapped itself, counter traps two opponents; this one is advanced to greater things, so that when the formation is broken, it may quickly burst into the columns, and so that, when the rampart is overthrown, it may devastate the closed walls. Meanwhile, however keenly the battle rages with cut-up soldiers, you conquer with a formation, that is full, or bereft of only a few soldiers, and each of your hands rattles with its band of captives.2
A first-century Latin poem.
Richmond, John, The Ludus Latrunculorum and Laus Pisonis 190-208, 1994, Museum Helveticum, via Wikimedia.
Io Saturnalia! This is the last post in Empress & Soldier until January 6, 2025. I wish everyone who celebrates a blessed solstice, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, or however you acknowledge, in the northern hemisphere, the long nights and the gradual return of the light.
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I enjoyed the increased pace of this chapter.