Empire_983
Legacy Name: Empire_983

"Veni, Vidi, Vici."
- Julius Caesar, 47 BCE

I lingered in the doorway of her private closet. It was an average sized room by palace standards, but the crowd of women fawning over the Empress made it feel claustrophobic and suffocating. The conversation and bustle halted with my entrance; it had not been my appearance that stopped the pandemonium, but a gesture from the Empress herself. As her childhood tutor I was not one whose presence created a stir—or lack thereof—of any kind. A relic of a time gone by, that is what I was. Times had changed from the days of my friendship and confidence of the dead King Leopold III and his late son and fourth in namesake. I represented that era of do-nothing patriarchy that leeched power and money from the people. For the citizens of the empire the world was reborn; there was a female ruler for the first time in history and progress was in vogue.

The Empress was a queen after her brother’s unexpected death, but her ambition had given birth to her empire. A flurry of skirts whisked past me and hurried out of the room; after the last one left, a noblewoman in her mid-thirties, I quietly shut the door behind me before I took a few tentative steps forward. The Empress was seated sideways on a small chair and draped one arm over the back of it. She offered me a smile and watched me as I moved towards her.

"Have you considered the two prospective suitors from Spain and Denmark?" I asked. The moment the words were out I knew it had been an unwise maneuver.

For a moment before she responded I caught a hint of sadness behind the eyes, betraying the neutral carved onto her face. In little more than a whisper I heard, "Et tu, Brute?"

“It’s hardly treason,” I began, “to bring up the subject of marriage, is it?”

“If I were a man the subject would not be urged as furiously as it is.” She replied brusquely. “It is as if my entire worth is dependent upon marrying some king or prince. From there my worth will be tied up in my ability to produce an heir. My empire, the political alliances I forged, the economic prosperity I brought to my people—it’s all worthless unless I debase myself by marrying and having children.” There was a brief pause before she continued in a softer tone, conveying a mixture of the suppressed sadness and bitter amusement, "A king is hardly fit to be a bride. I'll suffer no man to rule over me, but what patriarch would be satisfied to marry into an empire and have no authority in it? No, I will not trap myself as so many of my sex do in an unhappy marriage. I have enough worries with the damned rebellions in the east."

From there I could only back down and resolved not to press her any further on the subject. There was no sense in arguing with her. We had discussed this matter to some detail in the past; she was resolved to follow the lead of great Roman politicians such as Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus and adopt her heir from amongst her noble relations. As I stood drumming the toe of my boot into the marble flooring, I was simultaneously cursing myself for indulging her obsessive interest in Roman history as her tutor and searching for a way to broach the next topic: my retirement.

Coward. This was in no way complicated. I was exasperated with the chaos of palace politics and needed to escape from the demands of being her constant confidant. While I had been lost in thought she had shrugged off the cream-colored robe that cloaked the clothing she wore underneath. My attention was called back when I heard the soft "thud" of the sole of her sandal landing on the small chair she had previously been sitting on. She now stood and was leaning forward while she wound the brown leather laces around her ankle. I uttered the obvious, "You're in your military attire." It was meant to be a question, but I was too startled to remember to include the inflection.

“Yes,” she casually responded, “I’m heading the campaign to Constantinople. We’re riding out in a few hours and we’ll head them off on their march on the capital.”

“You’re saying that you’re riding out with them?” I asked, staggered by the prospect of the Empress heading an army for the first time in over three years. She had entrusted that responsibility to the military leaders, Barbatus, Priscus, and Cato. These men did not share the Empress’s ruthless vigor for empire building and since her departure from the battlefield the empire’s military was focused on maintenance rather than expansion. However, in maintaining the stability of the empire these men were failures; over the last two years nearly a dozen rebellions had broken out and had to be quenched. This rebellion marked the end of the Empress’s patience with her generals.

In truth this move was a display of foolish bravado on her part. Now was an inopportune time to abandon the political scene that depended upon her presence. All of this I would have shared with her, but as of late my confidence with the Empress was relegated to listening to her complaints and guiding her political maneuvers through carefully selected responses. She was getting more and more difficult to reason with as her confidence grew.

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Endless thanks to Kougs for allowing me to adopt Empire!