Daphne & Sebastian: Part Eight (The Currents of History)

*inconsistency corrected in written version

“Icon with the Crucifixion” (met open access)

Sebastian and Pepin discuss their plans

Sebastian was hungry for Daphne but first he needed to meet with the Frankish king who rode up to him on the corpse-strewn battlefield outside the walls of Ravenna. King Pepin claimed that his delayed approach from the north was unintentional, vaguely blaming the poorly maintained old Roman roads, and Sebastian knew the man was lying but was primarily relieved he would not actually have to fight the Franks immediately after battling the Isaurians.

After an awkward initial exchange in which Sebastian did not try to hide his annoyance, Pepin accepted Sebastian’s refusal of entry for even a fragment of Pepin’s army into Ravenna. The Frankish army would remain camped outside the walls, as would most of Sebastian’s own army in order to check any potential Frankish siege, while Sebastian and his most trusted officers, alongside several hundred soldiers, made an initial entry into Ravenna.

“I have other schemes,” Pepin told him. They were walking alone together in a clear area of grass just outside the heart of the battlefield. Many of Sebastian’s men were in the city helping to put out the fires. “You think I was lying,” Pepin continued, “about wanting to divide the resurrected empire in two so that you rule in the east and I rule in the west. But I wasn’t. You’ve just defeated the main forces of iconoclasm in Italy. You’re better positioned than ever to claim the Byzantine throne in the name of defending the Faith.”

Sebastian knew he was right. At this point there was no purpose in hiding his intentions. As soon as the news of this battle and all that had happened beforehand in Ravenna reached Constantinople, there would doubtless be an order for Sebastian’s execution. Under the watch of he and his wife, eastern bishops had been killed and a whole imperial army lost.

“Let’s wait a bit and see,” Sebastian said.

“Events will proceed whether you want them to or not,” Pepin said. “The entire iconophilic component of the eastern empire will be looking to you now as their savior. After this battle they’re going to declare you emperor and you will be able to march into Constantinople with an invitation to your name.”

“There are still large iconoclastic forces in the east,” Sebastian pointed out.

“It does not matter,” Pepin said. “There must be some faction in Constantinople itself that was waiting for something like this. You think your capital is at peace? No. I guarantee you there have been riots there just like those that came over Ravenna. I want what you want. I want to defend what our enemies call ‘graven images’ and I want to be emperor. We are both going to get what we want.”

“Italy belongs to Constantinople,” Sebastian said. “You have all of Germany.”

“We discussed this,” Pepin said, sighing. “Constantinople does not have the resources to maintain power in Italy and you know this. But I do. I can protect the pope.”

“Well, you didn’t today,” Sebastian said. “Trokandas fled, probably with the pope in-hand.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Pepin said with a chuckle. “The Roman senate will elect a new one. They’ll declare him unable to fulfill his duties and elect a new one. And I will allow the pope to rule in Italy while my army protects him from the Lombards.”

“Did the Lombards not just try and protect the pope too?” Sebastian asked.

“The Lombards did, sure,” Pepin said, “but historically they have raided the Papal States. Historically they’re the biggest threat to the pope’s independence and power, and if they were trying to protect him it’s only because they wanted to control him and take away chunks of his land forever. What kind of treaty would the Lombards have made the pope sign had they somehow defeated you? They only wanted to turn the pope into their client.”

Sebastian laughed. “And you? You don’t want to control the pope?”

Pepin looked offended, but there was a glimmer of humor in his eyes. “No,” he said, “I want the pope to anoint me holy roman emperor, reviving the western empire. You know Aachen was one of the old roman capitals. We will rule from the north this time around.”

Sebastian shook his head. He saw how officers from both sides were watching them and he had the sense that he was in the midst of a conversation that would make history. Yet even so he felt like he was not in control of events, like he was drifting with the current. He had always dreamed of power, and now that he supposedly had power, he felt as though he had none. Every step he’d recently taken felt that way: the invasion of Rome, the arrest of the pope right in front of him while he’d sat with Trokandas, and even the Battle of Ravenna itself, an event that only emerged due to the riots that prevailed in Ravenna during his absence. There was only one decision he’d taken recently that felt like a real choice: his marriage to Daphne.

“We can talk later,” Sebastian said. “I’m entering the city.”

“And me?” Pepin asked, looking offended but still with the humor in his eyes.

Sebastian hesitated. “I will arrange quarters in the palace for you and some of your bodyguards, but not many. The people of Ravenna would be terrified by a Frankish — ”

“Say no more,” Pepin said. “We will be discreet. Only think of all I’ve said. And remember that in this religious conflict, we are on the same side. We both want to restore the icons. We are both defenders and champions of the monasteries Trokandas ransacked. Remember.”

“I will,” Sebastian said, and his heart ached for his most trusted advisor: Daphne.

Sebastian enters Ravenna

Sebastian entered Ravenna in marching order with seven hundred soldiers. As he approached the gates, already opened to the soldiers now putting out fires, he saw Daphne back up there on the ramparts just above him. She smiled and held up her icon, then she rushed with the image of Jesus to the inner side of the wall, and as soon as he passed beneath her he was overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of the people. He noticed how good Daphne smelled: he knew she must have rushed back for a bath before returning to the ramparts and he chuckled at this.

The wooden buildings near the walls had collapsed and were smoldering. Some of Sebastian’s men were working with locals to put out the embers and to extinguish the still large fires engulfing a few tenement buildings. Smoke seemed to rise up from everywhere and groups of men were working frantically with buckets of water to put out the fires. Dying citizens screamed out in agony from the rubble in which they lay. Immediately, under Sebastian’s orders, the bulk of the forces he’d brought with him through the walls dispersed into the city to help put out the fires.

He was concerned he’d find a city in chaos, but many of the people of Ravenna had lined up along the road to welcome their saviors. On either side of the road people were holding up icons of Jesus, Mary, and the saints. The smoke blowing around in the wind hardly seemed to bother them. Sebastian paused the march to the palace just inside the walls, and Daphne rushed down to him. When she embraced him the crowd erupted into louder cheering and thrust their icons into the air even as another wooden building collapsed. Then Daphne, after hugging Sebastian, turned to the people and held up the same face of Jesus which she had shown them the day of the riot. The people cheered.

Sebastian wondered at this: Daphne in his mind had been an actress who would never be able to win the confidence of the faithful. But the moment Daphne appeared was the moment the street before them filled up with the people who had been orderly waiting on either side to greet Sebastian and his forces. He heard the chant of her name, “Daphne! Daphne! Daphne!”, and soon the faithful were beginning to press in on her and Sebastian, desperate apparently to touch Daphne and paying almost no attention to Sebastian himself. A few of her fans reached her and grasped at her clothes before being beaten back by Sebastian’s men. Soon many of Sebastian’s soldiers were running ahead of Daphne and Sebastian, forming a protective circle around them for the rest of the march. Even so some people continued to press against the soldiers. Everywhere Sebastian looked, someone was reaching out for Daphne and crying out her name.

“I have many updates,” Daphne shouted into Sebastian’s ear over the roar of the crowd.

“I believe you,” Sebastian said. Then he grabbed her and kissed her quickly on the lips.

The crowd erupted with cheers. “Daphne and Sebastian!” someone screamed. “Emperor and Empress!”

And at this the crowd erupted into more chanting. Some said “Daphne,” others said “Sebastian,” some said “Daphne and Sebastian,” but eventually the chanting unified into one steady chant that followed them all the way to the palace: “Emperor! Empress! Emperor! Empress! Emperor! Empress!”

There was less smoke the closer they got to the palace. Just before entering the palace, Sebastian turned around to see the smoke still rising up from closer to the walls.

“Did I not tell you?” Daphne whispered to him once they were inside the palace. She lowered her voice, not wanting the dozens of soldiers who had come with them into the palace to hear her. “I’m a saint now.”

Outside, in the palace square, an enormous crowd continued chanting “Emperor! Empress!” Fifty of Sebastian’s soldiers stood on duty just outside the palace. All joined in the chanting. These soldiers of Sebastian’s were all of them iconophiles, to the point that they carried small icons into battle with them, and soon these soldiers, whose discipline was lax in the aftermath of battle, were not only joining the crowd’s chants but were also holding their icons in the air.

When Sebastian and Daphne looked out the window from Daphne’s bedchamber, the crowd became louder and more frenzied. Hundreds of icons glittered in the sun. Smoke continued to rise from smoldering buildings in the south, but from what Sebastian could see his men had succeeded in putting out the main fires. Daphne and Sebastian backed away from the window.

“Tell me everything that’s happened here,” Sebastian said. He wanted to be emperor, but he had a sensation that he controlled nothing in his own life; external forces were pushing him along. His boyhood dreams of conquering Italy seemed more foolish than ever with the Frankish king asserting his own rights. His soldiers and the people were proclaiming him emperor now whether he was prepared for it or not, whether there was any hope of taking the throne in Constantinople or there wasn’t. He hadn’t chosen this moment to take the risk of a usurper, but now he was a usurper: the emperor would have every right to execute him. “Tell me everything,” he said again.

“Can’t we have sex first?” Daphne asked, grabbing him and pulling him toward the bed. “I’m so hot for you after seeing you in that battle. You killed all those men like it was nothing.”

They stripped each other and soon they were having sex on the bed.

Daphne updates Sebastian

“What happened when the bishops were killed?” Sebastian asked after they’d finished and were lying naked in the bed together.

“What do you mean?” Daphne asked with a giggle. “The people rose up and killed the bishops. It was just like in the history books: Christians were rioting in the streets over ecclesiastical appointments. And we should be happy they were killed.”

Sebastian wasn’t so sure. “A whole second imperial army could arrive here against me. It will be much larger than what Trokandas had to offer.” He didn’t trust the Frankish king’s optimism about factions in Constantinople proclaiming him emperor. Even if such factions did do so, there were other iconoclastic factions there who could counter them.

“Sebastian,” Daphne said, “the bishops were planning on having witch trials. My spies told me so. They were planning on witch trials where they could have me killed.”

Sebastian looked knowingly at her. “So you used your spies to orchestrate their deaths by spreading rumors among the people,” he suggested. When she didn’t respond, he continued, “it’s too obvious not to be true,” he said. “Look how the people worship you. What did you do?”

“During the riot,” Daphne said, “I calmed the people by holding up an icon of Jesus. I told them how I’d been saved by the blood of Jesus right after I’d seen him on the icon.” She got out of bed and grabbed the icon off her dresser. “See?” she said, holding Jesus up for Sebastian to look at. “I walked out into the square while they had the archbishop with them. I held this icon in the air and I told them how Jesus had saved me from a life of sin in the theater.”

“But you love the theater,” Sebastian said.

Daphne hesitated. The train of thought was too painful. “Yes,” she said. “I even wanted to stage a play in the amphitheater, David and Goliath, to encourage the people during the siege.”

Sebastian’s head spun. He was angry about the bishops; he believed that those fanatical men would have conducted witch trials and murdered his wife. But he was happy that Daphne had somehow managed to keep herself safe.

“We’re going to be emperor and empress now,” said Daphne. “Didn’t you hear the crowd? By popular acclamation! Emperor and empress!”

“This is why you married me,” Sebastian said, “isn’t it? To push me onto the throne where you’d take your place by my side.”

Daphne frowned. “I thought that’s what you wanted,” she said.

“It has been,” said Sebastian, “but I don’t feel anything like an emperor. All these events, everything that’s happened, it doesn’t feel like I’m making any choices.”

“You’re not,” said Daphne.

Sebastian looked at her with annoyance in his face.

“You’re taking advantage of the currents of history,” Daphne said. “That is the only way to become emperor.”

“You scheme all the time,” countered Sebastian. “You devise plans and execute them. You orchestrated the deaths of those bishops. You used icons to build up your image.”

“And your army saved us all,” said Daphne.

Sebastian groaned. “I want power,” he said, knowing Daphne shared his love for power. “I want to actually feel like I have power. Instead I’m waiting on events in Constantinople. I’m meeting with the Frankish king about reviving the western empire with him in control rather than me.”

“Wait, what?” Daphne asked.

Sebastian sighed. “The Franks say only they have the power to hold Italy, with the Papal States as their allies.”

“And they’re right,” Daphne said. “We can’t hold Italy. But we can use it.”

“What do you mean?” Sebastian asked.

“Recruit an entire army from all over Italy,” Daphne suggested. “Look at our position now! We are the saviors of icons and the people love us! The Isaurians hired mercenaries who only wanted to get rich. That’s why they fled the battlefield the moment you corralled Trokandas’s main forces. But we can raise an army of iconophiles and march toward Constantinople. I’m a saint now, Sebastian! The people love me!”

“And yet even you have lost something,” Sebastian said. “You’ve lost your entire art. If you’re a saint, it means you can’t take the stage as a half-naked goddess ever again.”

Daphne lowered her eyes. “I know that, Sebastian,” she said. “But that would be true in the other world too, the world where I stayed in the theater. The same type of riot that killed the bishops could have eventually killed me.”

“So are you not sad?” Sebastian asked. “Are you not sad about everything you’ve given up in the name of power? It seems like we’ve both given up our freedom to make real choices.”

“Of course I’m sad,” Daphne said. She thought back on the moment when her old city was destroyed by the Byzantines. She had seen them murder her father, right in front of her. She tried not to think about the rest. “But in this world,” Daphne said, “power is the only way to keep safe.” She sighed. “And that,” she said, “is why we have no choice. Without power, those bishops would have killed me. Without power, this city would have fallen to the Isaurians. Without power, you’d never even be having these conversations with the Franks.”

“It was my dream from boyhood,” Sebastian said, “to conquer Italy. And not only Italy, but the entire space of the old Roman Empire. I was supposed to conquer not only Italy but half of Europe. I was supposed to take all those lands back from the Muslims. I wanted since I was so little to be the man who did all that. You have to understand, Daphne, this was my boyhood dream.”

Daphne stared at him in disbelief. “A boyhood dream!” she repeated. “Every man in this world wants to conquer as much as possible, wants to be the next Alexander the Great. Do you know what happened to him in the end? He drank himself to death! You can conquer Italy but — ”

“But,” Sebastian interrupted, “I can’t hold it. I know, I know. I’m only able to do what you tell me I can do.” Daphne saw him cringe at himself then.

“How can you speak to me like that?” Daphne asked. “After all my help.”

Then Sebastian lay there inertly staring up at the ceiling. Daphne was in disbelief at his behavior. This man had just saved Ravenna, saved her even, and he was moping because the Franks would get Italy and all he’d get was an eastern emperorship.

“I want power,” Sebastian said sadly. “And I don’t have it. You were supposed to be my advisor, but instead you’re directing events.”

“I’m not directing anything!” Daphne exclaimed. “I heard that the bishops were trying to kill me and I took action. I’m responding to events as much as you are. That is all we can do: see the currents of history, the currents of each day, and grab hold of them. That’s what real power looks like. We can’t magically live in a world where we lead an empire with the resources to conquer Europe or hold Italy!”

“But what I want,” Sebastian said, still staring at the ceiling, “is real power.”

Daphne started putting on her clothes. She missed Lucille, who never had any so-called “boyhood dreams” of conquering a specific city or reuniting the old empire.

“What are you doing?” Sebastian asked, finally looking at her.

“I’m going to go be alone in one of my rooms,” Daphne said.

“Please stay,” Sebastian implored.

“No,” Daphne said, and she left the room, leaving Sebastian to mope alone.

Daphne knew what she needed now, knew who she needed. She needed Lucille.