Page 35 of The Book of Heartbreak

‘I was an idiot who hoped, until my unheard prayers diminished all the light I had in me. Even my name abandoned me, canim. It’s been a long time since I remembered I was Eudokia.

Almost a thousand years, yet I can close my eyes and my name rises in my mind.

Eudokia of the House Doukas, I was. My father was a nobleman in the court of the Emperor Alexios.

I was the youngest of his two daughters.

‘My sister Theodora was two years older than me and—’ A shadow grows on her face as she pauses.

‘My sister’s tongue was a silk ribbon; once she began to speak, it could cover anyone’s eyes, especially mine.

She was beautiful and I always trusted her, never once thinking she could ruin me.

I must show you, canim, for there is no way to tell what she did to me.

Close your eyes,’ Munu mutters. ‘I promise, it will be quick and painless.’

I obey her command, as I’ve done countless times before, not certain why I still trust her. I hear the flap of her wings, then she places her hands on my eyelids.

‘I always wished to get rid of these memories,’ Munu whispers. ‘I didn’t understand they’d be worth carrying their weight, for a day like this.’

A flash of light blinds me, and when I open my eyes, there’s no sign of Munu. I find myself in a room with a four-poster bed, where two girls with ribbons in their hair are racing around.

‘Theodora,’ the shorter one says. I barely recognise Munu. She has no wings, and she’s the size of a normal child. Her face brims with the innocence of childhood. ‘I’m scared alone in my room.’

‘Then stay here,’ replies the older girl, cradling an enormous white cat in her arms. ‘Eudokia can stay with us, can’t she, Cleo?’

Theodora resembles me so closely that, if it weren’t for their attire and the furnishings, I could easily mistake the scene for one of my own childhood memories.

The cat jumps down out of her arms, darting towards me. The light flashes and the room shifts.

It’s the same room, but the girls are not around the bed any more, and something feels different . . .

‘Theodora!’

I turn to see Eudokia emerging from the wooden door with a sense of urgency. She appears as old as I am now, taller than I’ve ever seen her. Dressed in a blue gown cinched at the waist with a golden belt, and her hair adorned with a pearl tiara, she is a striking beauty.

‘I’ve been searching for you everywhere.’ Eudokia hurries over to Theodora, who is seated on a windowsill with Cleo nestled on her lap. ‘You missed the banquet.’

‘I’m not feeling well,’ Theodora murmurs, though there is no visible sign of illness on her. Through the window, the sea stretches out dark and expectant beneath the night sky. I forget to breathe when I see the Maiden’s Tower in the distance, as oblivious as a mere lighthouse.

‘You won’t believe what happened,’ Eudokia squeaks, her excitement palpable as she fumbles through her garments to retrieve a piece of parchment and a gemstone ring. ‘Papa allowed me to dance with Lazarios, and then Lazarios gave me a letter . . . and his ring.’

‘A ring?’ Theodora flinches as her gaze drops to the ring in Eudokia’s hand. The cat meows softly in her lap.

‘Oh, he loves me, Thea!’ Eudokia gushes with joy as she slips the ruby ring on her finger. Then she passes the note to Theodora. ‘He swore his undying love to me.’

With that, Eudokia begins to dance around the room, as if still in Lazarios’s arms. A brief flicker of hurt crosses Theodora’s face before she carefully folds the letter again.

The cat drops to the ground and bolts towards me. The moment she hits me with a hiss, the light flares and I’m pulled into another memory.

Theodora and Eudokia are huddled together in a vast, echoing hall, with stone walls decorated with vivid tapestries.

Eudokia’s pale skin is almost translucent against the dark green of her plain dress, while Theodora’s red gown seems to glow in the dim light.

Two men are in the room with them, their voices echoing off the vaulted ceiling.

One, a man with a salt-and-pepper goatee, has a haunted look in his eyes.

The other, younger and with raven-black hair, speaks with a chilling intensity.

‘When dreams speak, they never lie,’ he declares, pointing a long finger at Eudokia. ‘I saw it. Your youngest will be the downfall of your great family, if you don’t lock her away. Her freedom will cost your house dearly.’

A shiver runs down my spine. He is a seer, I realise. His prophecy dragged Munu to this dark place. It’s why she hates seers so much.

‘You must cease all contact with her,’ the man says flatly.

‘Eudokia— I can’t,’ the other man – clearly the girls’ father – protests, his voice trembling. ‘How can I?’

‘You must,’ the seer insists, his eyes filled with a grim determination. I catch Theodora giving him a subtle nod, her expression unreadable. ‘Think of your other children.’

‘The tower,’ Theodora suggests, her voice barely a whisper. ‘Can’t she stay in that tower?’

‘I will, Papa,’ Eudokia says, her voice filled with a strange resignation. She steps forward, her gaze meeting her father’s. ‘I’d rather live in isolation than bring about the fall of our victorious house.’

I want to cry out, to beg her to reconsider.

But I’m frozen in place, a helpless spectator.

I watch as Eudokia agrees to walk into her prison, of her own free will.

Theodora embraces her, tears streaming down her face.

They weep together, their sobs echoing through the empty hall.

And then the light flashes again, and I am transported to the tower.

The structure feels different, more fragile. Eudokia is alone on the rotunda, her only companions are doves, kept in a cage like herself. Gulls whirl around the tower, the sun rises and falls, Eudokia drops to her knees and unites her hands in prayer.

‘Saints and angels, I pray to you,’ she begs on her knees, her hands clasped tight. ‘Either return my freedom, my family, my love, or let Death claim me.’

The sea is silent. So is the sky. I watch Eudokia as years fade her away. The doves are her only companions. She buries them on the islet when they die, digging graves with her bare hands. The servants who bring her food arrive with new birds.

The light flashes again.

I glance down from the window with Eudokia as Theodora disembarks from a boat. She climbs up to the tower with hurried steps, and emerges at Eudokia’s door. I watch Eudokia shrink away, unable to return her sister’s embrace.

She must be so starved of human touch, she has forgotten intimacy.

‘Sister,’ Theodora says. ‘Our father has been laid to rest, and since the earth took him, I haven’t known peace. I cannot sleep, for he visits me day and night, Eudokia – so I came to beg for your forgiveness.’

‘Why, sister?’ Eudokia asks. ‘Why should I forgive you? You haven’t wronged me.’

Upon Eudokia’s words, Theodora collapses in the centre of the room, huddled inside her skirts.

‘Sweet Eudokia.’ She lifts her head. But Eudokia’s face darkens, her eyes fixed on Theodora’s hand. And then I notice the ring Lazarios had once given Eudokia, shining on Theodora’s finger like a bead of blood.

‘Where did you get that?’ Eudokia frowns.

‘Don’t you understand? I loved him too. I loved him incurably.

I loved him so much I thought I’d die from it.

I loved him until I forgot who I was. And I made a pact with the devil.

I paid the seer to whisper a false prophecy into our father’s ears.

I betrayed you. It’s I who imprisoned you here. There was no prophecy.’

Something sinks in me with this confession, but Eudokia doesn’t move. A minute passes, with soft sobs of Theodora, and silence from Eudokia.

‘Theodora,’ Eudokia says. ‘With whom I shared my childhood, my heart, my meals, as well as the void left by our mother’s absence.

My sister. Did you really betray me? No, it cannot be true.

Perhaps I’ve gone mad, after all these years.

’ Eudokia closes her hands to her eyes. ‘Perhaps I am seeing nightmares awake.’

‘Forgive me.’ Theodora creeps to Eudokia’s legs.

‘Father is now beyond the border where no secrets can be kept. He knows what I’ve done.

I’ve become a creature tormented by guilt for wronging you.

I swear on my children, regret rules my heart.

Love blinded me, my passion made me a fool.

I implore you, with all the kindness in your heart, to forgive me.

Father won’t leave me alone until I set you free.

Please, please, Eudokia. You were always good and kind. I came here to seek your mercy.’

And just then, in the wake of Theodora’s words, as if the fury seeps into the land beneath the sea, Constantinople begins to tremble, gripped by the tremors of a mighty earthquake.

The earthquake terrorises Theodora, she claws her sister’s skirts like a child. ‘Mercy, Eudokia,’ she cries as if she were the one causing the earth to shatter.

Eudokia tugs at her skirts to get rid of her, and then she walks to the doves’ cage. She cracks the cage open, ignoring her sister’s pleas, and releases the birds. But they shy away from flying.

‘Unlike me, they don’t know freedom,’ Eudokia tells her sister. ‘It’s harder when you do know, sister.’

She stands against the open window and thrusts a white dove into the air, and the rest follow with their flickering wings.

Theodora, seemingly hopeful of Eudokia’s kindness to the birds, begs again. ‘Eudokia, let’s leave this place . . .’

The earth groans as if it too saw the silent fury in Eudokia’s face.