Daphne & Sebastian: Part Five (Sebastian and the Frankish King)
a novella of war, politics, theater, sports, and religion
Daphne & Sebastian (all links)
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Daphne & Sebastian: Part Six (Daphne's revived theater dreams)
Daphne Contemplates a Return to Theater
Sebastian and the Franks
Soon after the sack of Rome and arrest of the pope, Sebastian led his army northward to find and destroy any remnant Lombard forces while journeying back toward Ravenna. The Lombards had long been the primary raiders of Ravenna’s surrounding farmlands and villages; to have seen them with an army so far south as Rome was alarming.
Meanwhile Trokandas led his forces southward in the hopes of raiding monasteries near Rome before returning to Ravenna with the pope as his captive.
With a patchwork of hostile territory standing between these two Byzantine forces and the Adriatic, no news had yet arrived to either Sebastian or Trokandas about events in Ravenna.
On the way back toward Ravenna, Sebastian’s forces found small detachments of Lombard raiders, made short work of them, and re-secured these areas of Italy. But all the while Sebastian could only think of what Daphne had said: the Empire was doomed. The Empire was going to destroy itself while barbarian forces swallowed up its territories. Even Trokandas, Sebastian reminded himself, the man who had been his salvation, could soon be his enemy, a perfect illustration of Daphne’s point.
During the long marches on old Roman roads, Sebastian often thought about Daphne. He hoped she was safe in Ravenna. He couldn’t be sure what those bishops were up to, and he knew Daphne’s prior reputation: the bishops would certainly have reason to go after her, maybe even to kill her as an example to anyone else thinking about a life in the theater. He was happy that their attention was so consumed by the icons.
Sebastian struggled against new feelings of hopelessness. The idea that Sebastian and Daphne would one day be ruling over Constantinople suddenly seemed absurd. Every patch of land Sebastian liberated from raiders would simply be swallowed up by them again, he knew, as soon as his forces were back in Ravenna, and the idea of uniting Italy, a peninsula with mountains running down its center, felt as hopeless as Daphne had promised, especially if Italy was to be united under the ultimate rule of an emperor so far away. The Byzantine armies that Sebastian and Trokandas led around Italy were miniscule compared to what had once been the Roman presence. To defeat enemies on the battlefield was insufficient; in order to keep control and maintain security, the Byzantines needed forces on the ground: they had nowhere near enough men to accomplish this. And with tensions boiling in Ravenna over the iconoclasm controversy, Ravenna itself would indefinitely require substantial garrisons, at least for as long as the emperor hoped to impose his crazed beliefs upon his subjects.
Then there was the reality that the Lombards were not Sebastian’s only problem. There were other forces, closer to Italy than the Byzantines, who were better positioned to seize control over much of Italy.
One morning when Sebastian’s forces were camped along the road, scouts returned with reports of a large Frankish force approaching from the north, moving in Sebastian’s direction. The scouts said that the Frankish King Pepin was leading them.
Sebastian turned to his second-in-command and trusted advisor, Lucas. “What are the Franks doing this far south?” he asked.
Formally the Empire had an alliance with the Franks, whose kings had long exchanged gifts with the Byzantine emperor.
From the perspective of Constantinople, the exchange of gifts was meant as a tribute from the Franks to the Byzantines, symbolizing the emperor’s authority over the whole entire world. But the Franks were much too far from Constantinople for any Byzantine emperor to ever hope to impose actual rule over them, and they knew this. They simply played along, Sebastian contemplated, with the emperor’s formalities.
While the emperor had never been to Italy and probably would never journey there, the country was just to the south of the Franks’ power base, right across the Alps.
“Why would they be here?” Sebastian asked Lucas. “We aren’t the only ones who want to conquer Italy,” he added with despair.
Lucas looked at Sebastian. “It was the last leader of theirs, Charles, who defeated the Muslims near Spain,” Lucas said, sounding nervous. “No doubt the new Frankish king hopes to expand his territory. They have a reputation here. They defeated the Muslims. Stopped them from conquering Europe. That’s the legacy of the last Frankish king and they must be expanding their territories on that reputation.”
“But Italy belongs to the Empire,” Sebastian said, knowing how absurd this sounded. Sometimes he forgot that conquering Italy was his own pet project rather than a goal the emperor had assigned to him. The emperor apparently only wanted to destroy as many monasteries on the peninsula as possible. “The Franks have agreed to our power here,” Sebastian said. “The Empire protects Christianity in Italy, not the Franks.”
Lucas shook his head. Sebastian immediately perceived the absurdity of his claim. The Empire protects Christianity in Italy, he thought, which apparently meant sacking Rome and arresting the pope while simultaneously destroying monasteries all across the peninsula. Other than his army, there was no sign of the Empire here.
“The Franks may have a better claim to that role,” commented Lucas.
Sebastian missed Daphne more than ever now. He wished he had brought her along and that she were at his side, but he had feared for her safety on campaign. Even so he missed their late-night conversations about Italian politics, and he knew that at this moment he needed her mind beside him more than ever.
Sebastian Meets with King Pepin
The Franks immediately agreed to a meeting with Sebastian, a representative of their theoretical overlord, the emperor, whose existence itself was beginning to feel like a figment to Sebastian. Soon Sebastian found himself sitting in a large tent pitched in a patch of grass between the two armies and filled with staff from both sides.
After presiding over the bickering of the officers, Sebastian requested he be left alone with King Pepin and each of their staff dispersed, leaving the two men facing off on either side of a table in the center of the tent.
“We are here to save the pope from outside interference,” King Pepin explained.
Sebastian shook his head. “It is we who protect this area from outside interference.”
Pepin raised an eyebrow. “So why did you sack Rome?” he asked, and Sebastian cringed that the news had already reached this man.
Sebastian felt like a man without a plan: first he had wanted to raid cities in Italy and build up support with gold for his men; then Daphne had taught him the importance of providing security for the people in order to make Italy his base of support; and now he was being questioned by a man who was ostensibly the emperor’s client king rather than a ruler in his own right.
“Why,” Pepin continued, “did you arrest the pope? Why are your forces destroying icons and monasteries?”
“My forces have not destroyed a single icon or a single monastery,” Sebastian said.
“You’re a Byzantine commander,” said Pepin. “Byzantine forces destroy monasteries.”
Sebastian fumed. “You are supposed to answer to us,” he said. “We are your overlords.”
Pepin chuckled. “Okay,” he said. “Yes, yes, I know about formalities.”
Sebastian had no response.
“We are here to liberate the pope from the eastern heretics,” Pepin said. “We are here to protect Italy from heretics just as we stopped the Muslims at Spain. We Franks are the saviors of Europe and of Italy. We are the ones, Commander, who keep Christianity safe in this area, not you. Had it not been for us, the Muslims would have conquered half of Europe. Where were imperial forces then?”
Sebastian, knowing all this was true, thought for a moment. He wondered what Daphne would tell him to do, and he felt certain he knew. She would want him to betray the emperor and join forces with Pepin. But after a lifetime of outward servility toward the emperor, this step was one which completely terrified Sebastian; even after dreaming of the moment for years, he was unable to embrace it now.
“We did not arrest the pope,” Sebastian said. “Those were Isaurian forces under Trokandas.”
“Isaurian forces!” Pepin exclaimed. “All the way from Anatolia where they should still be. They should be in Anatolia fighting the Muslims. Instead they are here killing monks. And yet from how far did they journey to come to Italy? Don’t you see it is you and your allies who are the outside forces. Look at yourself. You’re Greek!”
Sebastian was enraged. “The whole world falls under the rule of the emperor,” he said, clinging to his dreams of restoring the Roman world. “It does not matter if someone is Greek, Isaurian, Frank, or Lombard; all of us owe allegiance to the emperor, defender of Christendom.” He felt stupid as he said this.
“Now we are going in circles,” Pepin said. “I don’t want to speak in terms of these formal structures which have no reality on the ground in Italy. I want to speak in terms of reality. In reality, there is no Empire here. Where do you see the Empire here? The Empire is nowhere. I can see the icons the men in your camp cherish so deeply, same as many men in my own camp. And the reality is that your ally, Trokandas, took the pope prisoner for standing in favor of those same icons which aid so many in their worship. And what should Byzantine forces be doing? They should be fighting back the Muslim conquerors in the east! Instead they come and play games in Italy, murdering and stealing.” Pepin shook his head with visible disgust. “So we are here now,” Pepin continued, “to defend the pope and to defend icons, something you, Commander, have utterly failed to do. Because that isn’t your mission here. Your mission here is not to provide security or defend Christianity. Your mission here is to destroy Christianity on behalf of the emperor, all while you lose lands to the Muslims in the east. All this means that the world here belongs to the Franks, not you.”
Sebastian shook his head, overwhelmed by the situation. At this point, he had no idea what his mission was, but Pepin had provided a disturbingly compelling explanation. “I have not lifted a finger to destroy any icons,” Sebastain said. “My forces have never — ”
“This I know,” said Pepin. “I am informed of all that. That’s why I’m meeting with you. There is no reason for you to remain allied with the emperor.”
Sebastian stared silently. “You’re suggesting I commit treason.”
“I’m assuming,” said Pepin, “that treason has been your goal all along. Why else are other Byzantine forces raiding monasteries while you procrastinate? You aren’t loyal to your emperor. That’s simply a fact. Surely the emperor would want to see you destroying with the same zeal, and yet you don’t lift a finger. Of course, as I said, he wouldn’t see you anyway, because the emperor is not here. The Empire is nowhere.”
“Most of the men in my army cherish their icons,” Sebastian said. “The emperor simply does not understand this.”
Pepin jumped in his seat. “Is that the first time you speak against him?”
Sebastian groaned. He wished Daphne were here. She’d know what to do.
“And I’m assuming your men also cherish the authority of the pope,” Pepin said. “Even after sacking Rome. There must be guilt coursing through some of them, no?”
Sebastian hesitated. It was true that treason had been his goal all along. His dream since boyhood was to become the emperor who reunited the whole Empire, and now that seemed hopeless. Daphne, he thought, would want him to make an alliance with this man. Ravenna, he knew, would stay loyal to him, so long as he portrayed himself as a champion of their cherished icons. Were he to accuse the emperor himself of heresy in Ravenna, he had no doubt the city would exclaim its approval. And then a massive imperial force would surely arrive from the east to deal with him.
“Let me show you just how deep the pope’s authority runs,” said Pepin.
He called in some of his staff and they placed an enormous compendium on the table.
“These are papal and church records stretching back to the time of Constantine,” Pepin said. He opened the book to a wilted light brown page that looked to Sebastian like an imperial decree. “When Constantine left Rome to establish the new capital at Constantinople,” Pepin said, “he left authority over the entire western empire in the hands of the pope. The pope has the authority to crown the emperor of the west. Your own emperor’s dream that he has authority over the bishop of Rome is simply a delusion. He can no more dictate who is pope than he can maintain security in Italy. This was Constantine’s donation: he bequeathed the whole western empire upon the pope, and only the pope has imperial authority in Italy.”
Sebastian studied this document. Never in his life had he heard such a thing and he was deeply skeptical. I should have brought Daphne, he thought to himself again. She would know. He imagined she might tell him this was merely a forgery. If it weren’t, why would Daphne never have told him about such a critical event in Roman history? And yet some part of him believed in this decree, if only so that when he ran his fingers across the papyrus he could sense that somehow he was connected with his hero Constantine. Constantine was a man who had brought so much peace and stability to the Empire, and Sebastian had often thought of himself as a new Constantine. He knew from his lessons with Daphne that the division of the Empire into east and west had begun shortly before Constantine’s reign, and the idea of Constantine leaving the bishop of Rome in charge of the west made sense to him, although what made no sense at all was that he’d never heard of this before.
“All the western emperors,” Pepin went on, “received the pope’s blessing as a symbol of the donation of Constantine. And do you know what I am going to do?”
Sebastian looked up from the document at this ostensible client king, this barbarian who spoke so boldly. I should have the ability to kill this man for treason, Sebastian thought, and yet our forces are nearly equal. The Empire is nowhere, he quoted in his mind.
“I’m going to receive the pope’s blessing,” Pepin said. “My father stopped the Muslims, and now either myself or my grandchildren will revive the western roman empire with the pope’s blessing over our authority. The popes will anoint us holy roman emperors and we will protect Christendom in the west, not you. We are the ones who stopped the Muslims, and we have a mandate for power here with which you cannot compete. And,” Pepin grinned, “once I’ve saved the bishop of Rome from your friend Trokandas, we’ll see what the pope does for me.”
At that moment, a messenger burst into the tent. “My Lord,” he said to Sebastian, “there is news from Ravenna.” He carried with him a scroll bearing Daphne’s seal.
The messenger handed the scroll to Sebastian and left.
Once Sebastian read this message from his wife, which outlined the gruesome events in Ravenna and pleaded with him to return before the Isaurians came back, he knew that he had no choice but to agree to an alliance with the Franks.
“From your face I see that you’ve finally been informed of what happened in Ravenna?” asked Pepin. “All the bishops killed. That’s the power of a city mob. Stay loyal to this emperor and you’ll be maintaining order in Ravenna for the rest of your life before you conquer a sliver of Italy and hold it for more than a few years.”
Sebastian did not know what to say. Pepin’s assessment was completely correct.
For so long Sebastian had seen the orders of the emperor as impossible to ignore. Direct orders from the emperor, he had often thought, left him with no choice. This was why he had marched on Rome. And yet now, the king of the Franks, sitting right across from him and with forces nearly equal to his own, seemed much more real and tangible than the emperor, whom Sebastian hadn’t seen in years.
“Why don’t we form an alliance?” Pepin asked, leaning in. “I know about you. You’re an accomplished commander. What is it you want? We already know this. Maybe you dreamed about conquering the west, but you want to be emperor in Constantinople.”
Sebastian stayed still and did not contradict him.
Pepin continued, “and what do I want?” he asked. “I want the pope to crown me emperor of the west. You rule in the east; I rule in the west. Perhaps the pope won’t agree, but I’m laying the foundations now for a new western empire, and eventually the pope will turn to us to watch over him. What choice does he have? We are the ones who are capable of providing security to Rome, not you. So I’m in the process of resurrecting Rome in the west, just as you hope to resurrect Rome in the east.”
Sebastian sat silently in despair. Daphne had been right about Italy all along. Sebastian had wanted to resurrect Rome everywhere. He had wanted to be the next Aurelian, the man Daphne had taught him about months before. But Pepin was right: there was no hope for an empire ruled from Constantinople to hold much of Italy for very long. And he knew what Daphne wanted: Daphne thought the Empire was doomed. She only wanted to get to Constantinople, rule as empress while sustaining Byzantine lands in the east, and be luxuriously safe for the rest of her life.
“Of course, I understand formalities,” Pepin continued. “I understand the Byzantine ego. You can think of me as your vassal if you like. A king, not an emperor, until someone in my family is able to convince the pope to crown him Roman emperor. I know, I know,” Pepin laughed, “you’re an ambitious man and you wanted the whole thing. But welcome to reality. The Roman Empire was long divided into two before the western half collapsed. Now we will revive that empire in the west, and you will turn back the tide against the iconoclasts in the east.”
Sebastian went from feeling he had no choice but to follow the emperor in Constantinople to feeling like the wisest course of action was to cooperate with the king of the Franks, officially a barbarian, even to do as this man told him.
None of his men questioned the formalities that brought these two leaders together that day. Most of them had long been uncomfortable with the Isaurians and the arrest of the pope. Many had families around Ravenna who deeply cherished their icons. Any iconoclasts among them were severely outnumbered, although Sebastian would have to keep an eye on these fanatics lest they try to make a move against him. The risk of assassination would escalate with this betrayal.
That night Sebastian met with his leading officers in his camp. He did not get into the details of the meeting: the supposed donation of Constantine, the ambitions he held to take Constantinople, the plans he and Pepin made to intercept and save the pope, the alliance to which they’d agreed.
The emperor could have spies among his men, and he was already running risks that he would be recalled, forcing his men to make a choice between him and the emperor. Conditions were not yet right for that critical moment. So he only told them that the Franks, as “clients” over whom Constantinople formally ruled, had agreed to help maintain security around Ravenna. And then, to ensure that the many iconophiles among his officers would be ready for the critical moment, he told them that they were rushing back to Ravenna because an enormous crowd of demonstrators had killed the eastern bishops and the archbishop.
It was easy to see the pleasure in some of these officers’ faces.
But Sebastian was nervous. What would happen when the emperor found out? There was simply no world in which Sebastian would turn the sword against the people of Ravenna for protesting against iconoclastic bishops. A reckoning was coming, a moment: the moment Sebastian would officially defy the emperor, the moment that had once seemed so far away. Now that moment could come at any time.
Despite his worries about the future, Sebastian slept happily knowing Daphne was safe and the bishops were dead. He wished he were as bold and as ambitious as Pepin. What holds me back? he wondered. What holds me back when this other man can have so much confidence? What keeps me so servile and obedient to this stupid emperor?
The next day, he and his men would continue to Ravenna, hoping to reach the city before the Isaurians. Lingering in the shadows would be the Franks. A battle with Trokandas had become inevitable. The Empire really was nowhere, Sebastian thought with a chill. Sebastian only hoped that saving the pope and defeating the Isaurians would guarantee the loyalty of Ravenna and his men when he took the critical step against the emperor. He fell asleep and dreamed about his life with Daphne.
Daphne & Sebastian: Part Six (Daphne's revived theater dreams)
Daphne Contemplates a Return to Theater