Chapter 71 : Volume 1 Epilogue: The Fall of Constantinople and the Rise of Azure Longsword
Author: Anna Comnena Achilles
Written in the year 6261 of the Sixth Age
…
In the year 273 of the Third Age, when Caesar crossed the Rubicon, history records him sighing:
“The die is cast.”
In fact, no one understood the meaning of this sentence better than Caesar.
Before he first became a priest, Caesar was the most seasoned gambler in Solomon City. Not only in the gambling dens, but also in the political arena of Solomon.
The Rubicon River, north of Solomon City, was his last psychological defense line. According to the ancient Republic of Solomon, any general who led troops across the Rubicon without the permission of the Senate was considered to have completely rebelled against Solomon City.
Crossing this river meant that he would either wipe out all the rebellious senators and become the supreme dictator of the Republic of Solomon, or become a traitor to Solomon and die a despicable death, despised by all.
If he chose not to cross the river, the outcome of his return would likely be assassination, or, more likely, reaching an agreement with some senators, stripping himself of his military power through a grand triumph, and becoming a “good dog kept by the senator daddies.”
In the end, he chose to cross the river.
…
According to a widespread saying: everyone has three or four chances in their life to “cast the die of fate.”
Each time, it will permanently change the person’s life.
Therefore, when many historians don’t understand why my mother chose to abandon her noble status, join a little-known small mercenary group, and leave the East, I hope that at least my dear readers will understand that she was actually just casting her own die.
Before the fall of Constantinople, the political situation in the imperial capital was already quite unfavorable for my mother.
Some nobles and bureaucrats believed that she should bear the responsibility for the Franks’ betrayal. Some records say that she went against the majority opinion and signed the treaty to bring the Frankish knights over with the Venetians alone.
Anyone with even a little common sense of imperial politics can see that if a treaty didn’t have the simultaneous approval of both co-ruling Empresses, how could the bureaucrats below follow it without any objection? The Venetians were not fools without diplomatic common sense.
The real reason for her downfall was the change in the Orthodox Church’s attitude.
Although the Orthodox Church at that time did not have the immense power of their Church brothers in the West, they still enjoyed a high reputation in the imperial capital.
At the national council meeting, facing Zoe’s coup attempt, the Orthodox Church remained strangely silent, which undoubtedly sent a signal to most neutral bureaucrats and nobles.
The Orthodox Church did not support Empress Theodora. This was the most fatal blow to my mother.
Regarding the Orthodox Church’s attitude, there were rumors that when my mother first ascended the throne, in order to seek help from the Western Church, she had considered promising to revise the classics according to the Western Catholic Church’s wishes.
I don’t think that was the real reason. Although His Excellency Alexius of the Orthodox Church might have considered this an offense to the Orthodox Church.
However, rashly deciding their attitude towards an Empress because of a casual remark that wasn’t even officially proposed was not the traditional way of doing things in the imperial political arena.
The main problem was that at that time, whether it was the bureaucrats, nobles, and priests of Constantinople, or most of the loyal citizens, they all believed that the empire urgently needed a male emperor.
Even in Solomon culture as a whole, women were synonymous with “irrationality” and “indecisiveness.”
Although the two co-ruling Empresses, relying on the political prestige inherited from the late Emperor Constantine, had temporarily achieved a delicate balance at the highest level of imperial power.
However, this balance was fragile. As long as Empress Zoe, who was already of age, chose to marry, the prestige and power would quickly gather around her husband, because that would be a male emperor in the true traditional sense.
For my mother, this was naturally the worst outcome of her downfall. And for Zoe, it wasn’t a very good outcome either, it was just changing from sharing power with her sister to sharing power with her husband.
And the latter was even more difficult to deal with than the former.
Therefore, the coup attempt launched by Zoe at the national council meeting was actually conveying an attitude to the Church and the bureaucratic aristocracy:
She was unwilling to share power with anyone, neither her sister nor her future husband.
Dear readers, if you were His Excellency Alexius of the Orthodox Church, you would definitely see the chaotic situation at that time.
When Zoe recklessly bared her fangs at the national council meeting, the delicate balance between the two Empresses had been broken.
In this situation, there could only be two outcomes: Zoe winning, Theodora losing; or Theodora winning, Zoe losing.
No matter which outcome, it would be extremely detrimental to the empire. While the Seljuks were aggressively encroaching on the empire’s flesh and blood in the East, the two Empresses were still foolishly hostile to each other.
Therefore, this political struggle had to be ended immediately.
If the Church supported Empress Theodora, then Empress Zoe would naturally be countered, or even immediately lose power.
However, my mother was only 16 years old at the time. Could an underage empress who had just ascended the throne really lead the entire empire alone to resist the grassland barbarians from the East?
Conversely, if they supported Empress Zoe, then Empress Theodora’s political life would naturally “end.”
According to imperial tradition, an emperor whose political life had ended would inevitably be eliminated root and branch by those in power.
Then, if the Church protected the deposed “former” Empress Theodora, Empress Zoe would quickly realize another fact:
Although she had won the political struggle, she was not the true victor.
Because whether in the Church or among the nobles and bureaucrats, Empress Theodora still enjoyed extremely high prestige, so much so that she couldn’t completely eliminate her sister.
Not being able to be eliminated meant that one day she might make a comeback.
Therefore, in order to consolidate her power, to offset the adverse effects of the coup and the remaining political prestige of Empress Theodora, Empress Zoe could only choose to get married as soon as possible, using her husband to strengthen the legitimacy of her rule.
Then the empire would once again have a male emperor.
A male emperor who, in the traditional sense, was more “rational,” “decisive,” and “ambitious” than a woman.
This was the result that the Church and the bureaucratic aristocracy wanted to see, and it was the real reason why they chose to do so.
…
Perhaps some readers still don’t understand the complex political logic here. Then please allow me to explain the political situation of the empire’s upper echelon at that time again in concise language:
Due to Empress Zoe’s rash hostility, the delicate balance between the two Empresses had been broken. The Church’s subconscious reaction was to quickly end this foolish political struggle and then quickly rebuild the balance.
Because my mother, Empress Theodora, was younger, the Church could only choose to support Empress Zoe, and in turn, put my mother under house arrest and protect her.
Once Empress Zoe realized that this desperate coup would not work, she could only resort to other, more stable means, such as marriage.
Therefore, if my mother hadn’t disappeared from the monastery, then according to the Church’s expectations, she would have faced several dangerous political attacks, slander, and even assassinations.
However, as a tool used by the Church to put pressure on Empress Zoe, my mother would be closely protected by the Church, and these assassinations would have no effect.
If necessary, she would even be released from the monastery and make brief appearances in the political arena to stimulate Empress Zoe’s nerves.
Until Empress Zoe gave up her attempt to monopolize power, finally giving in and choosing to get married.
Then the power would be concentrated in the hands of her husband. In the next few years, the situation in the imperial capital would be like a ship sailing dangerously in stormy waves amidst the power struggle between the Empress and the new Emperor.
As for my mother, the final outcome would naturally be losing all her cards and being completely eliminated from this game of power.
Everyone used her as a bargaining chip in the gamble, and no one would pity the fate of a chip.
Therefore, facing this extremely unfavorable situation, she chose to pick up the die of fate.
And then flip the entire table.
…
History records that when my mother disappeared from the monastery, the Orthodox Church immediately activated the Wall of the Life Cage.
This quickly caused chaos in the imperial capital. Because the Wall of the Life Cage did not allow any living beings to pass through, the inside and outside of the wall were almost completely isolated.
The Church set up twenty-eight checkpoints along the edge of the cage, allowing residents to enter and exit in queues.
Each checkpoint was guarded by at least one Church demigod, and anyone entering or exiting would be scanned with spirituality down to every cell in their body, ensuring that no hidden creatures could escape the Life Cage.
However, my mother understood that the Church couldn’t maintain the Wall of the Life Cage for long because the Franks across the Golden Horn were attacking the city.
It was absolutely impossible for the imperial capital to maintain wars on two fronts simultaneously.
Her guess was correct. Just on the fourth day, the Church was forced to remove the Wall of the Life Cage and switch to a more covert inspection method.
Many historians have various analyses and speculations about how the Azure Longsword mercenary group evaded the Church’s search and escaped from Constantinople. Here, I can only quote my actual conversations with my mother and reveal a few words here.
On a cargo ship heading for the port city of Rhaedestus, a tightly sealed box was filled with a large number of books printed in Constantinople’s printing workshops, about to be sent to Rhaedestus’ municipal library.
Because the ship was carrying too much cargo, the demigod couldn’t carefully inspect every item in every container (imagine, if a ship was carrying tens of tons of sesame seeds, would the demigod have to check every single seed?). Therefore, they could only roughly scan the living beings on the ship.
So the die of fate cast a good result. Empress Theodora briefly disappeared from the official history, and a small mercenary group named “Azure Longsword” gained a trainee mercenary who controlled arcane magic.
In the eyes of us later generations, the name “Azure Longsword” is undoubtedly already thunderous.
However, at that time, abandoning her noble royal status and choosing to join this small mercenary group and start from scratch required immense courage and decisiveness.
My mother often talks about the past these days, about her companions, about how she was full of doubts when she first joined, and even couldn’t sleep at night for a long time.
Occasionally, she would feel intense regret, but more often, it was confusion about the future, just like the thousands of people in this world holding the die of fate, hesitating and not knowing whether to cast it.
Fortunately, now that she looks back on the past, she has finally walked the path she wanted.
If my mother had chosen to stay in the empire at that time, her life would definitely have been different.
Whether it would have been good or bad, we can no longer know.
Here, I can only quote the poem by Frost that I love, to conclude this volume:
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
…
In the main storyline of the “Iron and Fire” game, players help Captain Michael of the Guard and Lady Varomina, the court official scribe, rescue Theodora from the monastery. And in this world, it was the protagonist and her companions who rescued Theodora.
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