Who knew what went on outside the mighty palace? I tell you none could guess.… But you have heard of Eudocia Ingerina; she was a daughter of the Martinakes, and the Emperor would have married her, but because her family was so mighty his mother, Theodora, prevented this, and he married Eudocia, the daughter of Dekapolitas.… Then there was Thekla, the sister of Michael, and she loved Basil, but the Emperor married him to Eudocia, who would be Empress some way; she never forgave it, for he had resigned her for fear of his mother, vanished now to Gastria, afterwards to Anthimos. It was their women behind it all.… Those were great golden days. Eudocia Ingerina, with the Emperor for her lover and the groom for her husband, kept the splendid revels gorgeously, but in her heart she waited for vengeance on Michael and his mother, on all of them who had debarred her from the throne–I knew it always. At one time I was her chamberlain. She was a woman beautiful and vain; in my perpetual darkness I can see her features, her black hair clinging to her white shoulders, the plates of gold and clanging metal, of wine-red and serpent-green stones about her brow, her long, long eyes and small mouth, expressionless–her perfumed linen and her mantles of furs and silver.… It was worth living then; it is worth living now to think of it. Write, write the colour, the glitter, the glory and the power of it, the days burning into the nights with the lights of a thousand jewelled lamps glowing behind screens of silk, the marble halls strewn with flowers, the slaves with bands of scarlet on their foreheads, the chariot races, the shouting crowds, the taste of wine and fruit, the perfect women with heavy hair, the churches shining with burnished bronze and gold.… Sometimes I dread that Heaven cannot be so delicious.… In May, then, Michael made Basil Emperor with him, joint ruler of the Eastern Empire, sharer of the throne of the Cæsars, and in the winter of that year he gave the imperial title to a third, Basiliskian. Now there were glorious orgies and splendid riotings of feasts and games; and each wondered which Emperor would first slay the other; and Michael was grown to be afraid of Basil, who was changed from a drunken groom into an Emperor and a graver man. With this terror on him, he came to Eudocia Ingerina.… Do you think I hear the monks chanting and see darkness? No, I hear the trumpets; I see the Emperor Michael with his black hair unbound and his whip in his hand as he has returned from the Hippodrome standing against the leopard cat couch, while the sun embraces the snakes on his buskins. And she, Eudocia Ingerina, seated on a stool inset with opal holding lilies in her hand. “So,” he said, “I am afraid of this Basil whom I took from the kennels; he must go swiftly as he came, Eudocia.” “You made him my husband,” she answered, and threw the lilies down.