A long time ago

Theodore and Nikolai Hrisilievci, the two brothers of Agatha Samuilova, arrived unexpectedly in Ohrid. They arrived with horses and four servants by the old road from Drach. They passed through the town with closed, haughty faces and rode their horses confidently - they knew where they were going and whom they would meet. It was evident from afar that they were Romans, by their dress, by the dress of their servants, by their whole appearance. Even the hair of all these people was cut in a different, Roman way, but there also seemed to be some invisible wall separating them from the outside world. The people of Ohrid looked at them with curiosity, stopping to look at them. The Romans were unarmed, but it was evident that the two sons of Chrysillius were men of rank. Their servants also drove several horses loaded with plated coffins, full sacks and goatskins. Some of the people of Ohrid recognized Theodora Chrysilias, who had come to Ohrid before.

The two Chrysilii went upstairs, into the inner fortress, and stopped in front of the district headquarters. One of the scribes came out, gazed at them haughtily, but Theodore Hrisilius beat him to it:

- We are brothers of the wife of the great voivode Samuel the Wet. We come from Drach.

The scribe did not understand his language, glared at him, and just as he turned, he re-entered the government. A little later he returned with another one of the scribes who knew the language of the Romans. Theodore Chrysilius repeated his words and asked casually:

- Is the great commander in the city?

- ‘The Grand Voevoda is not in the city,’ replied the scribe, echoing, and adding helpfully, ’The Grand Voevoda lives more in Prespa.

Theodore Chrysilius silently pulled the bridle of his horse, his younger brother followed him, and their servants also followed him. The brothers had appeared at the government, had asked about the great voevoda, which they had to do as strangers and relatives, and had turned their backs on the two scribes. They knew their way well, but did not want to arouse suspicion.

In the courtyard of the inner fortress stood the town house of Samuel the Wet, which was enclosed by a second wall and had its own gate. The two Romans spurred their horses on. The sun had already set and they had to knock on the closed gate of the soldier’s house.

Agatha Samuila welcomed her brothers straight into the dining room. She also brought the children to see their uncles, to dine with them. Before the hosts and guests were seated at the table, servants brought two coffins and placed them in the middle of the room. Theodore Chrysilius made a sign to the servants to come out, and turned to his son, Samuel, and his daughters:

- Draw near. Bring also a light nearer.

Samuel’s two older daughters, Ripsimia and Theodora-Cosara, each took a candlestick and approached. The other two girls approached as well, and Gavril-Radomir stepped forward, prompting a sharp nod of his large blond head, and Ivana-Vladislav, who had stood farther away than everyone. The two Chryssilievs seemed only now to notice Aron’s son, and looked at each other for a moment. Agatha stepped forward at last; her face had barely brightened from an indefinite smile, or perhaps curiosity. She had been very glad to see the two unexpected guests, and had wept heartily on the shoulder of one, as well as on the shoulder of the other.

Theodore, the elder brother, opened the coffins one after the other, and presented his sister first with many gifts. He also presented fine gifts to each of the children, costly Oriental cloths, spices, and ornaments; to the girls, weapons and the war-garments of Gavrila-Radomir. He set aside a few of these things for Ivana-Vladyslava as well, cleverly concealing the fact that he was only now deciding what to gift Aron’s son with. The two sons of Chrysiliev, in going on, had not thought that Ivan-Vladislav, who was the only survivor of Aron Mokri’s family, was now living in Samuel Mokri’s house.

At the table Agatha put the brothers on either side of her. On Theodora Chrysilia’s right sat Gavril-Radomir, and next to Nicholas Chrysilia, on the left side of the table, sat Samuil’s eldest daughter, Ripsimia. The other children took their places according to their sex and age. Ivan-Vladislav sat in the last place at this family table. Ever since he had come to his uncle’s house, the son of Aronov always sat in the last place. Agatha did not receive him either as a member of the family or as a distinguished guest, but put him at the end of her table - that he might know that he was brought to this house by grace.

That evening, for the first time in a long time, she brightened and visibly stirred as she sat between her two brothers. She hadn’t seen them for a long time, and somewhere in her heart she felt them somehow closer than her own children as well. They were a living, visible link to her former life in her father’s home, to her native land. They brought her back to her former life, awakened her heart, enlightened her shadowed memory. Even the children noticed her revival, first of all Ivan-Vladislav, who never let anything out of his sight.

The older brother was more affectionate to his sister. He kept helping her at meals, and on several occasions took food from the hands of the servants and served it to the patron himself. All the time he was telling her news from home, reminding her of incidents from their former life. The patron listened to him eagerly, even forgetting to eat, and now her eyes were blurred with tears, now she laughed a low, rich, sweet laugh, and her double goose, yea, her whole snatch swayed like a full moss. Watching her, the children laughed too, though the reasons for her great joy were foreign to them. Gavril-Radomir hummed most to his mother’s merry laugh; he had never seen her so amused, but he was like that at heart, too-always inclined to laugh, loudly, thunderously, so that his broad young chest rumbled. Only Ivan-Vladislav laughed not once at his sister-in-law’s joy and mirth, but looked at her often from under his black brows. Nor did Nicholas Chrysilius laugh or cheer. He ate silently, slowly, in small bites, with downcast eyes. His thoughts, it seemed, were elsewhere, and only twice did he lift his glass, and knock with his sister, but still so, without a smile, as much to show respect to the hostess as to observe the proper decorum of the table.

Soon after dinner Agatha Samuilova and her brothers were alone in the dining-room. Agatha’s joy at the meeting had already subsided. Now she sat silent and motionless on a high-backed wooden chair close to the wide hearth where several lamps were burning, and from there a pleasant warmth was wafting. Agatha was hibernating, and the early autumn rains had passed, and so had the Nativity Day, and the nights were cool, though the days were still sunny and warm in these southern places. The night wind whistled high in the chimney. But the two men had not come all the way from Drach to sit with their sister by the hearth and listen, dozing after a hearty supper, to the lingering song of the autumn wind. For a time they were silent, too, seated on similar wooden chairs on either side of their sister; waiting for the servants to set the table, for the great stone house to quiet. Then Theodore Chrysilius went to see that the door was closed and that no one was listening behind it. His hair had grown more gray and matted in the last few years, his forehead stretched yellow against his elongated skull, and his whole face looked gaunt, with thinning eyebrows, a thin drooping moustache, and a short, parted beard, even more thickly matted. Bloodless, transparent yellow was his face too, all covered with fine wrinkles, but with that bare face he looked younger for his age. His dark eyes, just as vivid and young, played among a dense network of wrinkles. His body had emaciated even more, so that his garments of silk and well-made soft wool gathered on him in wide folds. Theodore Chrysilius stopped before his sister, laid his hand on her shoulder, and leaned toward her smiling.

- ‘Dear Agatha, dear sister,’ he said in a voice that quavered with affection and sympathy. So was his smile, but at the same time his eyes watched Agatha’s face intently. Theodore Chrysilius continued: ’We have not forgotten you. We all in Drach love you and remember you. Yes, yes... - He stroked her soft withered cheek and faced her, his smile fading, his voice harder: - We know all about you and we have come to help you.

Agatha only now understood his words, her whole face changed, her chin quivered, her eyes swam with tears. But she answered nothing, and only sobbed softly, brokenly. Theodore Chrysilius shook his head, wrung his hands back, and started to walk from wall to wall.

- ‘Your...’ he stammered for a moment, ’your man has crossed every boundary. He humiliates you, dishonours you. Lives with his mistress. He left you to look after his children, so he brought his nephew to you. We heard he reached out and hit you. No! That can’t be tolerated any longer...

Agatha sobbed louder, tears also flowed down her cheeks, but still she said nothing in reply. With her silence, she approved of her older brother’s words and did not deny what was false in them.

Not far from her sat the younger brother, Nicholas Chrysilius. He waited patiently for the elder to finish, but annoyance was written across his swarthy face. His black eyebrows were slightly knitted, his lips were pursed, he had intercepted his black glossy beard with a large, hairy, also shaggy hand and was looking intently before him. Nicholas Chrysilius was not more than thirty-five years old, and had only a week ago returned from Constantinople, where he had been on royal service. At last he decided that he had waited long enough, and turning an indifferent, even stern face upon Agatha, he said:

- ’It is not only your personal accounts with this man. They are second. Today he is the most dangerous enemy of our Empire. That is more important. That is why I have come all the way from Constantinople. On the express orders of the Vassal. There’s an order for you too, sister.

Agatha flinched and leaned toward him, eyes wide:

- What commandment... to me? From the Basileus?

Nicholas Chrysilius nodded silently. Then he said in an even voice, and a faint threat sounded in his words:

- I hope you haven’t forgotten your Vasileus. You have not forgotten that you are a Romeo. That you are the daughter of John Chrysilia, Prothebon of Drach.

Agatha’s eyes opened even wider, and now they expressed confusion, fright. She murmured softly:

- No... I haven’t forgotten.

Theodore Chrysilius sat on her other side, his dry white hands clasped piously, and seemed only to want to reassure his sister:

- Yes, you haven’t forgotten, of course. Not with this wild barbarian... We have come to help you. And he is indeed very dangerous to all of us, to Vasileus too, to our empire, sister.

- ‘What can I do...’ Agatha muttered, turning now to one brother, now to the other. Then, unexpectedly quickly, she turned all over to the older one, spreading trembling fingers, ’He’s scary! He killed our cousin... Well, he killed his own brother!

- ‘Don’t worry, don’t worry,’ Theodore Chrysilius held up both his hands to her, waving them reassuringly, ’Impossible things are not asked of you. Thou must take thy place as his wife. Nothing more. Thou hast feared him, thou hast given up everything, and he before thy eyes with an illegitimate woman... Thou shalt have thy claim, nothing more is needed.

- ‘No, no,’ the younger man shook his head sharply, ’you must not deceive her. To take her place, of course. But by standing so close to Mokria, she should be useful to the Empire as well.

- ‘Well, it goes without saying,’ Theodore Chrysilius raised his thin eyebrows high, so that his whole forehead wrinkled; ’she, being so near him, will know all about him. And what she knows, we shall know, and the Vassileus will know. Nellie, sister?

- But, how... I...′ Agatha Samuilova murmured hesitantly.

- ‘Well, well... Never mind,’ smiled Theodore Chrysilius, ’we’ll be somewhere near you. We’ll advise you on everything. You will lean on us, sister.

Agatha turned to the younger man, and he met her gaze with the same stern eyes and said:

- You must know that such is the will of the Vassileus also. You must listen to us. Such is his command to thee. If thou hast not yet forgotten that thou art a Romei.

The fear and embarrassment in Agatha’s eyes did not disappear, but she asked:

- What should I do now?

Nicholas Chrysilius nodded to his brother, and Theodore Chrysilius began as apparently agreed, rubbing his hands together with scarcely a hand, his yellow face shining all over, with all its wrinkles, against the light of the few candlesticks in the dining-room:

- ’We, sister, will be your guests as long as we can, even if we abuse your hospitality a little, and the... hospitality of your husband. Nelly you see how everything will work out well. We will guide your every step and you will make no mistake about anything. Now, first of all, thou shalt get thee up from hence with all thy children, and go to him there on the island, in the lake, where he lives with that…

- No, no...

- Why not? You go to your husband. You take his children. Now, while the weather’s still nice. He hasn’t been here for how long?

- He hasn’t come here soon...

- You see? So what if you take the children to see their father? And then you don’t quite know, you can’t quite believe that he’s living there with another woman, with some woman of his... But, sister! Come to your senses, for God’s sake!

Agatha Samuilova really seemed to be waking from a heavy sleep. They were waking her with loud blows, and she was coming more and more to herself. She was reminded of her humiliating position as an abandoned woman, and was handed an important command straight from Vasilev. She had grown accustomed to her present situation, had resigned herself. Deep down in her soul, jealousy of the other woman and a fierce resentment of the destruction she had had to endure had not ceased to smoulder all the time, but, on the other hand, her hatred of Samuel dulled the sharpness of these feelings. The wicked one had dragged him, and let him go with him! She was old, too, her children were with her, she lived in Ohrid as the greatest mistress...

So far no one had ventured to speak to her directly about her relations with the unfaithful man. She had heard here and there uncouth jibes, but they annoyed her more as attempts to disturb the peace she had created for herself, and she did not want to hear them, dismissed them, closed her ears. She could see her humiliation, her shameful resignation, clearly now. The dull ache in her heart was intensifying. Her brothers knew all, her people in Drach knew of her humiliation, all that city, her birthplace, knew of it, even the Vassilæus knew of her disgrace. She could endure no more, and her two brothers were by her side, ready to help her; she felt the distant might of the Emperor.

After a long silence Agatha boomed in a fixed voice:

- ‘Let me go at last, let me go to Prespa, if you say--’ Then she added in a new hesitation: ‘What if you banish me, if you shame me in the sight of that one...’

Her two brothers confronted her.

- ‘Thus, thus, sister,’ said Theodore Chrysilius, ’go. ’He will dare to do nothing to you.

- “And can’t you spit right back in his shameless face?” said Nicholas Chrysilius.

- ‘No, no,’ continued the elder brother, ’let us not provoke his wild fury. You go there with your children, and that will be your first step. Invite us both to the island, for we are not your brothers, and we are guests to you both. That’s all for now, sister. And... cunningly, cunningly, and bolder, bolder!

When, a little later, the two Chrysilievs, on their way to their bedrooms, ascended the second cathedral of this house, led by a servant with a lighted candlestick, they met Ivan-Vladislav, Aron’s son, in a passage. The boy retreated respectfully along the wall to make way for them, though a bold curiosity and a certain obstinacy, or perhaps haughtiness, shone in his dark eyes. Theodore Chrysilius stopped in front of him; he had just caught that light in his gaze. The servant stopped, and Nicholas Chrysilius stopped impatiently.

- ‘Why are you not asleep yet?’ asked Theodore Chrysilius, measuring the boy with his eyes.

- ‘I don’t go to bed so early,’ replied Ivan-Vladislav, in quite correct Roman tongue, and quickly added: ’I am no longer a child.

- ‘And what are you doing up so late?’ asked the older Chrysilius again.

- ‘I read scriptures,’ replied Ivan-Vladislav.

Theodore Chrysilius looked at him for another moment in silence, nor did the son of Aron take his eyes from his face. The two Chrysilievs passed silently down the gloomy corridor. A few steps ahead of them, the flame of the candlestick in the servant’s hands swayed and flickered, their revealed shadows creeping behind them.