Constantinople

971 AD. The Roman Empire fell 300 years ago. In Constantinople, the Byzantine Empire is flourishing; it has recently once again become the greatest power in the known world. But ambitious peoples come from the West - peoples who claim the glorious inheritance of the Roman Empire for themselves. Many wars are fought between the Byzantine Emperor and the Saxon King, who calls his lands nothing less than "The Holy Roman Empire." But now the Saxon King wants peace for good. He suggests that his sixteen-year-old son should be married to the little daughter of the Byzantine Emperor Romanos, who was murdered six years before. He firmly believes that he has the right to demand the hand of a porphyrogenata - a "born-in-the-purple," the daughter of an Emperor - for his kin. But the new Emperor, Tzimiskes, has other ideas...

News spread fast in Constantinople. Long before the bells of Hagia Sophia began to sing of the misery of the city and the empire suddenly being orphaned, a whisper went from the Golden Gate up to Galata: the inn-keeper's girl had done it again. She'd poisoned Emperor Nikephoros, her husband, just like she had done to Emperor Romanos. In back streets and shadowy doorways, people began to place bets on who would be pronounced the new Emperor - and would thus reveal himself to be the Empress's lover. The winners put their money on General John Tzimiskes, the late Emperor's nephew.

*

"Yes, she could be very charming if she wanted."

Theophano stood in front of the mirror as the servant crowned her long black hair with a golden ribbon to match the one around the girl's thin waist. It was a very hot day, like the one three years ago, when she had learned that her beloved uncle Nikephoros had been murdered. She had cried then as bitterly as a twelve-year-old girl can cry, and she was glad that her parents had stopped visiting the Great Palace since.

Yet now she had been summoned to stand face to face with the Emperor. She could guess why, and the very thought of it made her both anxious and angry. Maybe they wouldn't like her? But no, the reflexion in the mirror left no doubt about that. Time to put the smile on. Yes, she could be very charming if she wanted. You cannot afford to behave ill-humouredly around the Emperor. She smiled once again, she sighed. It's time.

Stepping into the splendid building, Theophano trembled. It seemed to her that the bright light in the palace only made the shadows darker, that the marvellous perfumes spread in every room were there to cover the scent of death - the death which had glittered in a glass of poisoned wine, reflected in the greedy eye of an assassin, omnipresent.