Jackson was trapped in his apartment in the Great Palace of Konstantinopolis. He never stopped thinking of escape, even though he felt like a dog chasing a car. If he caught it—if he broke free from his apartment—what then? Where would he go? What would he do?
Out of curiosity he had once watched a YouTube video about lock picking, and although he lacked hands-on experience, he thought it was worth a try—if he had the right tools. Plus, as a princess experienced with palace intrigue, the voice told him he possessed Beginner Level lock picking skills. Needles or hair clips of some kind might do the trick. In a room adjoining the bedroom the princess had a kind of makeup station—for lack of a better word—where her various cosmetics were stored inside little golden pots and wooden drawers. These were oriented around an ovular polished steel shield which served as a mirror. Jackson could barely discern his warped reflection there, but he could tell that he was a beautiful Greek woman with pale moon skin, angular facial features, and eyes as sharp and black as obsidian. She—he?—was also covered in scratches and bruises. Some of these made him wince with pain when he touched them.
Inside the drawers and pots were white powders as well as several frightening black powders. At least one must have been lead. Some perfumes smelled like nectar. Rouge was also present in addition to all kinds of mysterious creams. Lipstick was missing, however, which was peculiar. He would have to check if the people around here were wearing any.
But his primary concern was searching for tools he could use to escape. In one drawer he found combs, hair clips, and sewing needles. Most of these were made from ivory or even jade—which might have come from China—but he also found some that were metallic. Because he worried that these were lead, he handled them with his silk sleeves. Was that even enough to protect his skin?
A board game teleported me to medieval Byzantium and all I got was this lousy brain damage.
At that moment someone unlocked the apartment entrance and walked inside carrying a literal silver platter—one piled with food. Jackson tucked the needles into a pocket. Time had gotten away from him. It was strange, too, that the servant—probably a slave—was a white woman with braided blond hair. He guessed that she was German, Slavic, or Scandinavian.
Not a bad place in some ways, he thought. White people can get a little taste of slavery.
The servant set the platter down on the dining room table. Then she turned to Jackson and spoke Greek with an accent that sounded French, German, and Italian at the same time. “Forgive the interruption, my lady, but your lunch has arrived. Or would you prefer I fetched your stylists?”
“My stylists?” Jackson said.
He glanced at the makeup. The array of cosmetics was so bewildering that rich women here must have used multiple people to apply it for them. They had their own private makeup artists. This was a relief. Except for a few mild indiscretions in his youth, Jackson had never worn makeup before. He would look terrible if he tried. Being a woman was hard!
“Right,” Jackson said. “My stylists. I thought you said—never mind. Um, no, no stylists needed right now, thanks.”
The servant stepped back to the wall, bowed her head, and clasped her hands together.
Hesitantly Jackson sat on a couch beside the table. The food could have come from an expensive Greek restaurant, except for the conspicuous lack of tomatoes. An enormous salad was covered in feta cheese, olives, vinegar, and what might have been fish oil. One plate was of grape leaves stuffed with garlic, onions, and ground lamb. A pile of cold sliced pork lay beside a bowl of what might have been baba ghanoush, itself positioned near little slices of pita bread for dipping. Another kind of bread which reminded Jackson of focaccia—a kind of thick warm bread drenched in garlic and butter—was next to a bowl of olive oil. A wine goblet was made of gold, glass, and jewels. All the food came on golden plates with silk napkins. Dessert consisted of sliced apples and honey pastries which might have been baklava.
“Jesus Christ,” Jackson said.
His servant crossed herself.
“Sorry,” Jackson said. “Excuse me. I didn’t mean to, uh, blaspheme. It’s just a lot of food. And it looks amazing.”
His servant said nothing. This made Jackson feel awkward—on top of all the awkwardness he felt at eating while someone else just stood and watched.
“Hey,” he said. “You know, if you want to join me, you’re welcome to.”
“My lady?” the servant said.
“I mean—uh, there’s just too much food for me here. There’s no way I can finish.”
The servant kept silent.
Jackson shrugged. Well, I tried.
He dipped a slice of pita bread into the baba ghanoush, but he couldn’t take a bite while his servant stood there. He just wasn’t impolite enough. The voice warned that politeness worked differently in Romanía, but Jackson was still too modern to let this one go.
“Hey, look,” he said. “I’ve been gone a long time, haven’t I? Didn’t I go pretty far away for awhile?”
“My lady traveled all the way to Sera.” The servant glanced back and forth in confusion.
“Right. So while I was there, I learned a few things. In Sera, everyone eats together. There aren’t any servants or slaves or anything like that. They think it’s impolite for a person to just stand there while everyone else sits and eats.”
The servant was silent.
“What I’m trying to tell you is that this is super awkward,” Jackson said. “I can’t eat while you just stand there. I know you must be hungry. Have you even had lunch? So please join me. I promise I won’t tell anyone. I’m guessing it’s against the rules, right?”
The servant was picking her fingernails.
“I command you to sit and eat,” Jackson said with a sterner tone.
You must be forced to be free! he thought.
The servant sat on a couch before the table. Her green eyes flashed at him like glass mirrors. Yet she refused to take any food.
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“Eat,” Jackson said. “Drink. Be merry.”
“Forgive me, my lady, but I cannot,” she said.
“Why? What’s wrong? It’s just food!”
“My lady has changed,” the servant said. “She never would have acted like this in the past.”
“You can say that again. How would she—uh—I have acted?”
“Not like this, my lady.”
“Was I a bitch?”
The servant snorted, but stopped herself from laughing. “No, my lady. Of course not.”
“Alright,” Jackson said. “I was a bitch. Well, I’m not a bitch anymore. Or at least—I’m not going to punch down. Things are going to change around here. I’m guessing they didn’t lock me up in my own apartment back in the good old days, did they?”
The servant shook her head. “No, my lady.”
“So you can see the powers-that-be aren’t really too happy with me,” Jackson said. “Whatever I did, it’s pissed them off.”
The servant still wouldn’t touch her food. Jackson guessed that she had learned the hard way never to do things like this. Most masters beat their slaves for even thinking about stealing food.
“Fine, suit yourself,” Jackson said, digging into his lunch. “I’m starving.”
He ate for a moment, then looked at the servant, whose head was still lowered. “You got a name?” he said.
“Clotilda, my lady,” she said.
“Clotilda?” Jackson said. Before he could stop himself, he added: “What kind of a name is that? I mean, sorry, that was rude. What I meant to say is—where are you from?”
“A place called Bourgogne, my lady,” Clotilda said.
“So, like, France? And look, when nobody’s around, don’t worry about calling me ‘my lady’ all the time. You don’t need to do that.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Yes to—”
“Burgundy is within the Kingdom of the Franks, my lady. The Greeks—er, Romans—call all such lands ‘Gallía.’ But I have not been there in a long time.”
“How long have you worked here?”
Clotilda looked away. “I was sold into slavery as a child. My parents could not take care of me.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Clotilda wiped a tear from her eye. Jackson watched for a moment, then pushed the goblet of wine toward her.
“I was never much of a day drinker anyway,” he said.
Clotilda looked at him, then at the wine. With her eyes shining with sadness, she gulped the wine down.
“Thank you, my lady,” she said.
“Another thing. I’m not your lady. Actually, I’m not anyone’s lady. I’m a dude. A guy, I mean. A man.”
“My lady?”
“I might look like a woman. But on the inside—”
“We have known each other all our lives, my lady,” Clotilda said, staring at her. “We used to bathe together…”
“Oh, you mean—my vagina?” Jackson said. “Yeah, I have a vagina. I have tits. I have curvy thighs. Let’s face it: I’m hot. But I’m a guy.”
Clotilda nodded and sipped her wine. “Very well, my lady. May I ask—have you told anyone else about this—change in your opinion of yourself?”
“Nope. And it’s not an opinion. It’s a fact. But if I did tell them, they’d probably kill me.”
“If I may, my lady, I suggest keeping it a secret. The priests will make you do penance.”
“You mean, like, burn me at the stake?”
“No, my lady, they won’t go that far. But if you persist, they may send you to a monastery.”
“A monastery? Aren’t those places just for monks? Aren’t there nunneries?”
“Sometimes men and women live together in monasteries, sometimes separately. The royal women are usually sent to Kecharitomene Monastery. It is inside the City.”
“Well, thanks for letting me know. I’m glad you’re here to tell me these things. Otherwise I might have gotten hitched to Jesus!”
Clotilda snorted with laughter, sipped more of the wine, and snatched a piece of baklava.
“I’m guessing you and your buddies usually only eat this stuff when no one’s around,” Jackson said.
“We would never dream of doing such things, my lady.”
“Right, of course not,” Jackson said. “So listen. You must have gathered that I’m under house arrest here.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“The people who put me here seem like pretty bad dudes. They killed one of my friends out there. They’re looking for something called a manual, but I don’t know anything about it. Anyway, I want to get out of here, since I think eventually they’re going to torture me or kill me or something. Whatever they do, it won’t be good.”
“Do you wish me to help you escape, my lady?”
“You could say that. I just don’t know where I’d go once I get out of here.”
“My lady is rumored to be one of the leaders of the uprisings,” Clotilda said.
“You mean like the riots I’ve been hearing about?”
“My lady doesn’t need to feign ignorance. Since the accession of His Majesty the Emperor Nikephoros and the unfortunate passing of His Majesty the Emperor Anastasios, may he rest in peace, people have been rising up across Romanía. As daughter of the previous emperor, may God rest his immortal soul—”
“Wait a minute. I’m the dead guy’s daughter?”
Clotilda stared at her. “Are you joking, my lady?”
“Right, right, I remember. Sorry. Yeah, I got hit kind of hard on the head out there.” Jackson showed the welt on his forehead where he’d struck that tree branch right after being sucked into the game. “So they killed my dad?”
Clotilda hesitated, then said: “Yes, my lady.”
“Why?”
“You must follow the money, my lady. The rich have grown too rich, the poor have grown too poor. His Majesty the Emperor Anastasios saw himself threatened by rich and powerful rivals in the army, the church, and the bureaucracy. We call them the dynatoi.”
“You seem to know a lot about this.”
“I’ve lived in the palace many years, my lady.”
“Oh.”
“At the same time,” Clotilda continued, “Emperor Anastasios felt connected to the people and supported by them—especially the poor. He decided to announce reforms. He was fond of saying that the last shall be first, and the first shall be last—that all belongs to all. He began learning about new ideas coming from the East, my lady. The monk Dionysios taught him.”
“What do you mean?”
“He wanted to break the power of the dynatoi,” she said. “He wanted every family in Romanía guaranteed their own land—enough to live good lives. ‘A chicken in every pot.’ When he spoke with me once, he told me that he wished to free the slaves. He wanted to build a democracy, after Spartakos or the Brothers Gracchi from before the days of Caesar—where those who did the work would rule.”
“Sounds like you guys talked a lot about this.”
Clotilda blushed and looked away. Then she drained the last of the wine.
“The workers got wind of these ideas, I’m guessing,” Jackson said.
“Everyone did. He was ordering criers to proclaim the new policies across Rome. The poorest peasants and workers started taking over farms, towns, cities. Then the rich struck back and killed your father.”
“So the uprisings came a little too late,” Jackson said.
“No one can predict such things, my lady. No one except God.”
“Right, of course. Well, listen. I need to get out of this palace, and these uprisings sound like a good place to run to. Would you like to come along? Maybe we could find a way to send you home, if you’d like to go.”
Clotilda looked at Jackson, and her green eyes pierced him like glass shards. “I’m not sure if I wish to return home, my lady. I’ve forgotten everything, even my own language. As for my parents, I cannot speak of them. But I do know that I would like to leave this place.” She looked around for a moment, then whispered: “I would like to fight the emperor, but I am not sure if I would win.”
Jackson smiled. “We can find out together.”