“We’re in the jailhouse now,” went that song from the old world. “We’re in the jailhouse—now!”

But Herakleia’s current “jailhouse” was an improvement over the dark dungeon in Konstantinopolis from last summer, the mere mention of which made her shudder. This is what she kept telling herself, in any event, as Chlotar of Metz left her in her room alone with her thoughts.

She often struggled to avoid thinking of her imprisonment in Konstantinopolis. This meant, of course, that the darkness filled her dreams, as did the laughter of the men who had tortured her—men like Narses, Paul the Chain, or even the usurper himself. Sometimes the smell of fetid water, a man laughing like Paul, a torch burning just the right way—little things like these would instantly transport her to the past. People in the present would stare and ask if she was alright, and when she escaped her memories and returned to reality her mood would be ruined for hours if not days.

Even now, as she stood in her cold bare chamber in the Trebizond citadel with its spartan furniture and bare walls, she found herself inhabiting the present with difficulty. The past pulled at her. First came the dinner of only days ago, in which she had nearly cut Narses’s throat.

Next time I’ll get him, she thought. If next time ever comes.

Before that dinner came the moment when she had realized, on the ducal balcony near this very room, that the city was lost to the Latins, who had won by gambling on the inexperience of Trebizond’s army and outflanking them.

All the months of building up the city that had come before—the arguing with the council and the workers and peasants, the work in the mines, the delivery of Fatima’s baby, blacksmithing in Jamshied’s shop, the great labor of uniting the world’s exploited classes in one place—these had been for nothing.

Artemia the midwife, Fatima the mother, the miners Ghiyath al-Din and Masud and Hagop, the warriors Ra’isa and Qutalmish, Samonas the paper-pusher, Jamshied, her friends Gontran and Diaresso and Alexios—where were they now? What had happened to them?

Then the battles in which she had fought flashed through her mind. She felt no regret about killing people who had sought to kill her, despite the horrors of war, the blood spurting from wounds, the limbs gouged from bodies, the corpses coating the battlefield. It was so awful she had vomited after some of those fights. Gasping for breath, alone in her bed, those images burned in her mind had sometimes made her feel like she was going to die.

But there were better times, too. She had made love to Alexios on the deck of the Paralos with the wind in the sails and the sun shining on the green mountains passing by. They had fought a sea monster together—a ketos the size of a river—and it had swallowed her into its belly, but Alexios had followed her inside and freed her. He had rescued her, too, from the torturous imperial palace, smashing through the locked door in a blaze of light and pulling her from darkness.

Multiple times Alexios had risked his life to help her. Now he was gone. She had sent him away. Who knew if he was even alive? He had left for the south only days ago. It would be months, at the earliest, before he returned, if he ever did.

All she possessed, now, was a blue satin dress she hated, and a bare chamber to stand in, staring into space like a fool.

She approached the window to look through the ice-fogged glass at the city and the sea. It was almost nightfall. The sunset had nearly faded beneath the stars emerging from the darkness sweeping over the sky, but people, horses, mules, and carriages still crowded the streets. The Upper and Lower Town was bright; the Daphnous suburbs were not. Fishing boats prowled the waves as merchantmen glided back and forth, guarded by the Venetian armada, most of which was moored at the pier, though some ships were still lying on the distant beach, tied to bare trees to keep the white foaming tide from sweeping them away. Aside from a few black scars on the city walls and brown stains on the snow in the countryside, you would never know a siege had just taken place here.

Everything in Trebizond was back to normal—the pre-uprising normal. A Venetian woman wrapped in an ermine coat standing in the palace courtyard laughed as a Latin guard—was it Chlotar of Metz again?—cracked jokes and nudged her ribs.

Maybe what they say is true, Herakleia thought. Only peaceful incremental change is possible. Big violent uprisings either destroy themselves or become the exact thing they were fighting against.

In any event, Trebizond had suffered a major setback, and may have been lost. At the moment it only lived in the hearts of those who wished to bring it back to life—people like Ra’isa. But how many more of those people were there? And how could they hope to contend with the Latins?

As for Herakleia’s own life, maybe it was over. Many good people had died in the second siege. She worried in particular for Qutalmish, who had fallen in the courtyard when the Latins were bursting through the gate, and about whom she had heard nothing since. The truth was that Herakleia had brought these calamities upon them all. Two years ago, back in Konstantinopolis before her flight to Serindia, if she had just accepted Nikephoros as emperor, none of this would have happened. The people who had died in the siege would be breathing—back in their homes, living their lives, as imperfect as those lives may have been.

What a disaster.

Herakleia remembered from the old world that in some countries, when people were overcome with shame, when they accepted that they themselves were responsible for a catastrophe, suicide was a way to atone, express regret, and perhaps even work toward setting things right.

Looking down over the snowy rooftops and the icy cobblestones and Chlotar and the Venetian woman wrapped in ermine furs laughing in the courtyard—their laughter growing happier and more uproarious, echoing off the walls, shaking the stones so that the whole citadel might have collapsed—Herakleia felt the world drawing herself inside like a whirlpool. In a sudden wave of dizziness she even stumbled forward as though the ground was shifting beneath her feet and tipping her through the window.

It’s hopeless. She gripped the cold stone windowsill. They won.

Herakleia unlatched the window and pushed it open, thinking that she needed to go quickly before she lost her nerve, that she might even land on the laughing couple in the courtyard and take them down with her. To her surprise, however, the window was locked. She pushed it back and forth as hard as she could, but it was impossible to break through—the small thick glass panes were set inside a frame of metal and wood. She bashed the window, bloodied her hands, reduced her health to 95/100, screamed and cried, then slumped to the floor, the couple in the courtyard laughing as though nothing had happened.

So incompetent I can't even kill myself, she thought.

She looked around the chamber. Maybe she could hang herself with her blanket, but there was nothing to tie it to. The ceiling was too high, and it was all stone, with no wooden rafters. Her only option was to bash her head against the wall, a clownish way to die.

At some point the cold forced her into bed, and she lay under the covers. Every thought or memory which flew into her mind caused pain. Sometimes she would clutch her head, groan, grit her teeth, and turn over as her past lives in Konstantinopolis and the old world reasserted themselves. Even happy memories hurt as they throbbed between her temples. Those times were inaccessible, the faces she saw belonged to good people who were now dead. And besides, what had all of that led to except this?

Guards paced the corridor outside her door. Scullery maids whispered to serving boys in the shadows. Laughter roared from other rooms where hearth fires whirled with sparks. Herakleia even heard dogs growling over the scraps thrown to them from the banqueting tables. Romans always fed their pets outside, but barbarians hardly distinguished between indoors and outdoors.

The world went on without her.

After a long time of tossing and turning in the dark, she finally found herself thinking about Duke Robert’s proposal. What had he said?

Perhaps I shall even make you duchess of this place, and leave you to your own devices. You can play your little games in Trabzon, so long as you render tribute to us, and pay your taxes to the emperor.

But what had he meant? That the Republic of Trebizond could survive, so long as it paid protection money to the Romans and the Latins? It seemed too good to be true. If the usurper had captured her instead of Robert, she would have been burned alive in the Hippodrome, or dragged to death behind a chariot, or pulled apart by horses, her various body parts nailed to city gates across Romanía…

Dekarch Ra’isa had also told Herakleia that they should organize a resistance, and wait for the right time to strike. When the Latins were drunk and sleeping, when they had forgotten to lock the workers’ chains, then the time for vengeance would come. It might be easier to bring that about if Herakleia pretended to work with Robert. Eventually he would let down his guard. Yet she shuddered at the thought of speaking with him again. He never stopped talking about the most inane things, starting the moment he woke up in the morning and only finishing when he passed out at night.

That was her choice. If she remained in this room, nothing would happen. But if she acceded to Robert’s advances, maybe she could supply insurgents in the city, especially with Ra’isa’s help. But it meant that she needed to humor Robert, at the very least.

Herakleia clutched her fists and gritted her teeth. It was so unfair. She had done everything possible to make the uprising work, and Trebizond had come so far. They had achieved so much, only for their shining beacon of light to be smothered in just a few days by this barbarian invasion. The usurper might have only a few thousand legionaries who were willing to fight for him with the chi-rho on their shields, but his money was limitless, the excise taxes he levied on ships passing through the Golden Horn went on forever, there were chambers piled with mountains of gold coin under the Great Palace. If you destroyed one army, he just paid another to assault you while you were still licking your wounds and catching your breath.

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She stared up into the darkness, then laughed. Anyone listening outside the door would think she had lost her mind. And who could blame her if she had? All these ups and downs were absurd. Not long ago, the usurper had locked Herakleia in what might have been the darkest dungeon in the world, in a pit in the Earth’s depths, a place most slaves, peasants, and workers would call horrifying. No dog would ever willingly inhabit such a place, nor could any insect or plant survive there, yet she had remained there for weeks. Conversely, it wouldn’t surprise her if she found herself back in the Great Palace one day, sitting on the sacred throne, decked in bejeweled robes, a gem-studded bible in one hand and an orbus terrarum topped with a diamond cross in the other, making the bronze lions gush with roaring steam and the sparrows on the brazen tree tweet and flash their eyes red to terrify visiting dignitaries. Such were the ups and downs in the eleventh century. She had sunk lower than most people would think possible, and who knew? She could rise to the top again.

Taking a deep breath, she decided she would make up her mind about Robert in the morning.

Somehow, eventually, she fell asleep, or she thought she did. When she opened her eyes to the cloudy morning light shining through the glass—another day in paradise!—her first thought was relief that the window had been locked.

Herakleia sat up, resolute, and decided that she would do anything for the uprising.

The Trapezuntines will never doubt my credentials again, she thought. They’ll never call me a princess after this.

Climbing out of bed, she washed her face with the water in the basin on the table—the air so cold she needed to crack the thin ice that had formed on the surface. Then she washed the blood from her hands, and chewed some ground cardamom seeds to improve her morning breath.

I’m just going to talk to him, she thought. If he tries to touch me, I’ll leave.

She pounded on the door and shouted for the guard. A hungover man reeking of wine who was named Hilduin Venator—“the hunter”—shoved his heavy rusted key into the rattling lock, turned the cranking handle, and shoved the heavy door so that it slammed against the stone wall.

“Robert.” Herakleia pointed into the hallway. “Can you take me to Robert?”

Venator spoke no Roman, but nodded and grunted in response.

Moments later they found Robert upstairs through the administration offices in the ducal chamber, lying in Bagrationi’s enormous bed beneath silk covers and staring at Sikelgaita, who was standing before a mirror of beaten, polished brass—nude, her skin pale as milk in the winter morning that shone through the windows—examining her damascened reflection. Fire roared in the fireplace. The air was hot as an oven.

Hilduin knocked, entered the chamber, bowed, announced Princess Herakleia, and then stepped back against the wall and stood there like a statue as she walked inside. Gasping and averting her eyes from the nude Sikelgaita, Herakleia cleared her throat, then said good morning. She had never thought she would return to this room after fleeing during the siege. It had changed, in the mean time.

Sikelgaita ignored Herakleia’s greeting, turning to admire her shapely body, and her golden braids swung back and forth. Robert had been watching his wife with sleepy bemusement, but he glanced at Herakleia when she repeated her greeting.

“Ah, my dear princess, so you deign to join us,” he said.

“I told you—no Greeks today,” Sikelgaita said. “I want one day free of Greeks! No Greek slaves, no Greek whores—”

“Be silent, my love,” Robert said. “Go to the kitchen and find yourself a morsel to eat. It will improve this foul mood of yours.”

Sikelgaita glared at him. “I will take my dowry. My father knows the Lord Pope. He will allow divorce.”

Robert nodded. “I’m sure he will, my love. Lord Popes are notoriously amenable to such things. Now go.”

Swearing in the Longobard language, Sikelgaita walked past Herakleia without looking at her and left the ducal chambers, still undressed.

“If this is a bad time,” Herakleia began, “I can—”

“It is a most perfect time.” Robert widened his muscular arms. “For now, as you can full well see, we are quite alone—as alone as the sun and moon.”

Herakleia looked at Hilduin, who was still standing against the wall.

Not exactly, she thought.

“Come here,” Robert said.

“I only came to talk.”

“Oh really? Are you quite certain you wouldn’t prefer spending most of your time with me staring at nothing whilst I inadvertently find myself speaking in a monologue rather than a dialogue?”

Herakleia was silent.

“You may talk,” Robert said. “Here on this bed.”

Glancing back and forth, Herakleia approached him, and noticed that he was erect beneath his blanket.

Anything for the uprising, she repeated to herself. It took all her effort to keep from bolting out of the room.

“You are a most lovely girl. A most beautiful girl.” Robert sipped some wine from a glass goblet left on his bedside table. “I have been saving myself for you. Come closer. Join me here in this very comfortable bed! We have nothing quite so soft in Italía—this bed alone provides the reason for your defeat. For how can men fight when beds are so soft?”

Herakleia sat beside Robert, who then insisted that she lie under the blanket. When he lifted it she saw that he was nude.

“I will not bite,” Robert said. “We will only talk here today, for I genuinely enjoy your company and could speak with you for many hours. It is just more comfortable this way—for both of us. Do not be afraid.”

You’ve already destroyed my life, she thought, forcing herself to lie down. You work with a man who murdered my sister.

“I will do nothing without your explicit permission,” Robert added.

Of course, this is a completely equal relationship, she thought. It’s not like you said you’d imprison me in my room until I agreed to sleep with you. It’s not like you’re a colonial occupier, and I’m a colonized sex object. Taking advantage of poverty to pay for sex—nothing could be more normal.

Lying back in the bed, Herakleia found that there was little to look at in this room save shelves full of codices and scrolls, the doorway to the office, and—again—Hilduin, who was still absurdly standing against the wall.

The garish decorations the Latins are known for must be coming in the next supply convoy, she thought.

This left her unsure of where to turn her attention, as she was also trying to keep from looking at Robert. She pretended to be interested in the cloudy morning outside the windows, even as the awkward silence in the room grew with every passing moment. Robert wrapped his muscular arm around her shoulder, and she tensed up as his body odor flooded her nostrils. He sniffed her.

“You smell like…spices,” he said.

“It’s cardamom,” she said. “We use it so our breath doesn’t stink.”

Robert raised his eyebrows. “Cardamom? A new silly Greek word, is it? A bit decadent, wouldn’t you say? We Normans prefer to wash our mouths with wine—in the manner of the real royal men that we are.”

He leaned over, sipped more wine from the goblet, swished the wine around in his mouth, swallowed, and gasped with pleasure as he lay back again.

“You Greeks have a great deal to learn from us,” he said.

No more, she thought.

“So,” she said. “Last night you told me—”

“Ah, yes, about our little arrangement,” he said. “As promised, we shall discuss it further now, for I am a man of my word, am I not?”

She turned away to hide her disapproval.

“At times I try to ponder the reasons for bargaining with you in the first place,” he continued. “Men like me, you know, we take what we please, for we are quite ambitious, we shake the very foundations of the world. My father before me began this life with only a diminutive plot of land in Normandie, and I, not being satisfied with this, left for the land of opportunity—for Italía, you see. There I had many sanguine adventures, and rose to become the duke you behold before you today, sanctioned by Holy God, granted extensive lands and fiefs by the Holy Father in Rome.” He bowed his head for a moment and shut his eyes.

“We were talking about our arrangement,” Herakleia said.

“Ah, yes, right, well. I could take you now, you know. I would very much enjoy it. Nothing excites me more than a woman who fights. You see, my wife, ma belle Sikelgaita, she is like a—how do you say in this wretched tongue of yours—we call such women valkyrja in the old language of my ancestors—”

I don’t want to hear about your wife, Herakleia thought.

“—for they believed that in a place called the Halls of the Slain, where the great warriors drink golden mead for all time with the dark wizard Woden, that the high-bosomed valkyrja would choose them for their fell deeds on the battlefield, and carry them up through the raging skies of the Great Hunt to eternity. Sikelgaita is the image of such women, for verily she is more beautiful by far than any carving, painting, or work of art I have ever beheld, even in your fair Constantinople. No tale, no song ever possessed such glorious tits tipped with those rosy pink nipples of hers, nor such a shapely arse, nor such a finely proportioned face, prettier than the moon at the harvest. I have ordered my engineers, you know, to measure ratios using her face. And she is a finer warrior than most of my men, to boot.”

Jesus, enough!

“Ah, but I do apologize, for you too, my dear Herakleia, have the look about you of the painted ikons, the wide dark spiritual eyes that seem as though they are ready to swallow the world entire, the dark skin which marks your sin, your schismatic turning away from the One True Faith. You too I should like to sample, for to tell you the truth, at times I think I should like to lie with every woman in the world—even the ugly ones. I should like to love every woman in the world, hear every last secret of every woman in the world. Since childhood I have loved women, I have always wanted to be around women, I love their company, I love listening to them, talking with them, bringing them whatever it is that they desire, and freeing them from their troubles so that they have nothing to do but grow bored and scheme against me like in the Saracen harems of Turkdom. That is what you intend, is it not?”

“No.”

“That is not a very convincing answer! Your plans are obvious to me. The mighty Herakleia, the warrior queen of the east, will never surrender so long as she still draws breath inside those lovely lungs of hers. This submission in this room is only for appearances, of that I full well know. Yet I am foolish enough—I suppose—to believe that I can change your mind. I can show you how our ways are better by far than this devilish nonsense you have embraced here in Trabzon. You belong in your proper place, princess, at the top of the pile, dressed in the finest jewels, sitting on a golden throne, surrounded by loyal servants and family—with a strong male heir ready to defend your legacy and your lands, a good tall youth who makes you proud and fights for truth and honor, a man with my blood in his veins. God himself chose you to lead these wretches lost in the wilderness of the Greek Empire, to keep them from embracing the darkness of the Saracens which even now corrupts your mind, and in your confusion you rejected this mighty gift. But you need not worry, for I shall show you what real love is.” He leaned in close to her. “I will show you what a real man is. I will give you everything you have ever desired.”

With his muscular arms he pulled her close and kissed her. And Herakleia, to her surprise, found herself kissing him back.