We have no reason to doubt the statement of Cantacuzenus that, when Andronicus lay dying, Apocaucus urged him, directly and through his mother, to seize the crown, and that he refused. He was not in the habit of acting so promptly. He went to the palace in which Anna wept with her boys, assured her that he would protect them, and placed five hundred guards about the palace. It may have occurred to Anna that there was no one, except himself, from whom they needed to be protected. Andronicus died on the following day, and she went (as Cantacuzenus would have foreseen) to spend the customary nine days in mourning by the remains of her husband. What Cantacuzenus might have done while she kept her dreary vigil in the monastery we cannot say, for his plans were interrupted. On the fourth day Anna surprised him by breaking the sacred custom and returning to the palace. It argues some strength of character in her that she should take this step, though it was not an original inspiration. Apocaucus had changed sides, and had gone to warn Anna that his rival aimed at the throne and she must return to watch him. But Cantacuzenus was even more surprised and baffled when the patriarch now came forward with the will of the late Emperor, and read from it that he, the patriarch, was to be guardian of the young princes and their Empire. The maze of intrigue that followed can very well be imagined, and is fairly described in the chronicles. In fact, Gregoras and Cantacuzenus profess to give verbatim reports of the very lengthy speeches which, it seems, took the place of conversation in those days. The three aspirants to power besieged the chamber of Anna in turns, and each spent many hours in assuring her of his loyalty, and of the disloyalty of all the others. Though the strain made the Empress ill, she seems to have acted almost throughout with good judgment. The patriarch was her safest supporter, since each of the other two really aimed at the throne, and to the patriarch she clung, only tempering his advice by a fear of angering the two nobles and driving them to a coalition, which would be fatal to her. The patriarch urged her to crown her elder boy John at once; it would be an effective step, but when Cantacuzenus and Apocaucus protested that it could not be done in a time of mourning, she thought it best to refrain. At last some kind of settlement was reached. Cantacuzenus was to be the Magnus Domesticus (or “major-domo” on an imperial scale), and to lead out the troops to check the advancing Bulgarians and Turks in Thrace.