Glarentza, August 1435
Katarina woke to the hush before sunrise. The place beside her was already losing its warmth; only the faint crease of his head on the linen remained, a ghost of weight and warmth. Through the open shutters, the gulf breathed slow salt into the room. Beyond the gardens and tiled roofs, the forges dozed under banked coals, their smoke thin and blue as if the night itself exhaled.
She lay still and listened, the tread of the watch, a gull's cry, the drip from the eaves. Her body felt different: heavier in the loins, the breasts tender, a mild queasiness that settled like a veil over appetite. It had come and gone these past days; now it cleaved into certainty. She put her palm to her belly, as if to still a small bird there.
Not pain. Knowing.
She swung her feet to the rug and crossed to the window. Dawn had not yet burned the color from the sea; it lay like watered wine, faintly ribbed by a breeze still offshore. She remembered her mother's voice once, in the dim of Smederevo, speaking a psalm over her fear: He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.
She pressed her hand again, scarcely breathing. "Holy Mother," she whispered, and felt foolish but steadied. She turned and saw his things as if for the first time: the belt on the chair, a garment with lampblack at the cuff where he'd leaned over a plan, the lamp still faint with last night's flame. Traces of him, and now one of both of them within her.
Danica scratched lightly at the door. "My lady?"
"Come," Katarina said, her voice calm.
The girl entered with a basin. "Shall I open the shutters when the sun comes?"
"Not yet." The smell of water in the copper eased her. When Danica looked too closely, Katarina took the cloth and cooled her cheeks, something to keep her hands from trembling.
"Has His Majesty gone to the study?"
"Before first light," Danica said, half admiring. "Master Theophilus sent a boy, some paper from the press. And a rider from Mystras arrived in the night."
"Very well." She set the cloth aside. She was already learning what to hide and what to show. She lifted a slice of bread from the tray. The smell turned her, but she kept the bite down. "Bring me a little mint," she said. "Fresh, if possible."
"Yes, my lady."
When the girl had gone, Katarina went to the window. The forges stirred, the first lifting of dampers, a hammer ringing once, then again. The city below began to clear its throat. She rested her forehead to the stone until it no longer felt cold.
The day passed as days do when one carries a secret, too swift and too slow at once. She sat with the steward over household matters she barely heard. Later, she could not have said what she had agreed to.
In the afternoon, she sat in the garden, where water whispered under laurel and bees worked the thyme, and felt that every sound had edges. Twice she set a page before her to write to her mother; twice she put it aside. He must know first. A wife does not send the first news of a child by courier.
That night Constantine returned late, smelling faintly of ink and brass. He spoke lightly, as if testing the air. There had been some word from Thessaloniki, something about Sphrantzes, and the work they had begun. Whatever it was, it had gone quietly; no shouting, no broken doors.
"They'll come to it," he said. "Habit's a slow beast, but it moves."
She watched his mouth as he spoke and felt a tenderness so sharp she had to look away. When they lay together, he was gentle without knowing why, and when he slept, it was with the exhaustion of a man who had stood too long. She listened to the hush between his breaths until sleep found her, too.
On the third day, she found him in his study while the heat still clung to the floor. The shutters were open to the harbor, and a breath of tar and sea came through. His sleeves were rolled, papers spread before him, sketches of the strange devices he was often drawing, neat with lines and circles she could never quite follow. He looked up and smiled as a man does when the doorway holds simple joy, then checked himself and stood, remembering he was emperor.
"My lady," he said, and there was no court in the words.
She closed the door behind her. "I have to tell you something," she began, and the rest caught in her throat. Her hand went to her gown without thinking.
He came around the table. "What is it? Are you ill?"
"No," she said. "Only… changed."
She drew a breath. "I think I'm with child."
He did not breathe for a heartbeat. The lines of his face seemed to loosen, as if something long held had let go. He reached for her, stopped short, then set his hands on her shoulders with a care that was almost reverence.
"Are you—" His voice caught. "Are you certain?"
She nodded. "I know it as I know I stand here."
He laughed softly, and the sound turned into something like a prayer. Then he went to his knees and set his brow against her. For an instant, a shadow crossed him—the memory of another chamber, another cry that had ended in silence, Theodora's hand going cold. He drew breath and set the thought aside. She laid her hand on his hair.
"A child," he said. "Here. In this house."
"In this house," she echoed.
He stood, his eyes wet. She had never seen it. He did not wipe them. He said nothing of names or councils or priests; he was quiet. When he found speech, it came low.
"You will not carry this alone," he said. "I'll send for a midwife from the nuns; Theophilus will see to it. We'll build—" He stopped and smiled, surprised. "We'll open the east shutters of your room and make a space for light."
She smiled back before she could school her face. "My mother," she said. "I must write her."
"Write," he said. "Tell her your husband is a man undone and made whole in an hour."
He took her hand, turned it palm up, and kissed the center of it like a vow.
That evening, before the lamps were lit, she sat at the small desk in their chamber. Danica had left her with a clean quill, a dish of warm sand for drying, and a sprig of mint in a cup. The icon-lamp before the Virgin made a low radiance. Through the shutters the sea had lost its glare and lay pewter-colored, the sound of it like breath within breath.
She began slowly, as if stepping through water.
To my most dear Mother,
May the Lord keep you and watch the river by your walls. I write from Glarentza with news that I had not the courage to send before I had spoken it to my husband face to face. Mother, life has quickened in me. I am as certain of it as I am of our faith. Pray for me as you prayed for me when I was a child afraid of the thunder; pray for this little one who knows nothing yet of men's banners and their noise.
When I told him, he grew very still. Then he laughed like a man who has found water after a long march. He spoke little and wisely. We will keep the matter close for a time. He said only that he will open the east to light. You will understand this better than most—the heart of a man who orders books as carefully as he orders guns. You once said to me: Men who make books are gentler than those who burn them. Mother, I think you were right.
I am not fearless. You know my memories. But I am not alone. Give my father my dutiful greetings and tell him that if he boasts, he must do it under his breath. Kiss my siblings. Keep Smederevo in prayer, as I keep you.
Your daughter who owes you everything,
Katarina
She let the sand take the wetness from the lines, then tipped the page and watched the grains run, tiny bright stones sliding from the black. She sealed the letter with her ring, the wax a small red pool that took her mark cleanly.
Constantine came to the doorway, not entering, as if the act of writing were a sacrament he should not disturb. "Shall I send it with the ship tonight?" he asked.
"Tonight," she said.
He crossed the room and set a hand on her shoulder, its weight gentle and sure. They stood for a time, looking out at the gulf. The bells of Compline sounded from the lower church, climbing the hill and slipping through the shutters. Below, a hammer tapped twice and was still.
She touched her belly without thinking. He did not look, but she felt him notice and be glad.
"Sleep," he said.
"In a moment," she said.
As he drifted into sleep, she knelt before the icon and made the sign of the cross, brow, breast, right shoulder, left. "Holy Mother," she said, and smiled at the folly of telling the Mother of God what she already knew. "Keep us."
She rose and opened the shutter to the east. The night wind came in, soft with salt and fig and the cooled iron of tools set down for the day. She breathed it as if it came from within.
Glarentza, Late August 1435
The sea wind pressed against the shutters, carrying lime dust and resin from the shipyards below. Inside, the air was cooler, heavy with parchment and ink. Theophilus Dragas stood beside the long table, a ledger open before him, his fingers faintly smudged with graphite. Across from him, Emperor Constantine leaned forward into the morning light.
"The book trade holds steady," Theophilus said, his tone measured. "Sales of the Psalters and the Bibles remain constant. The new compendium of Homeric excerpts, your idea, Majesty, has done well among the nobles; they keep it for luck."
He turned a page with deliberate precision. "Paper and ink sales continue to climb, thanks to orders from the merchants of Venice and Florence. We've begun exporting ink as far as France now, small batches, but profitable. Yet there are costs." He tapped a column of numbers. "The flagship under construction in the western drydock, her keel alone has drained enough silver to roof a monastery twice over. And the three smaller ships are demanding pitch, tar, hemp, and bronze fittings faster than our suppliers can keep pace."
Constantine's gaze swept the figures, lips pressed in faint amusement. "You would have me think we are beggared."
"Not beggared," Theophilus replied evenly. "Not yet. But it is wise to remind even emperors that the purse is not bottomless. We are growing, yes, but growth can starve itself if the roots outrun the soil."
The remark might have stung from another man. From Theophilus, it was respect in disguise. Constantine smiled faintly and lifted the parchment closer to the window's light.
"You've kept the budget steady, Theophilus. I see the discipline here. A cautious hand at the rudder steadies a ship more than a strong one. Well done."
He lowered the sheet. "But we will need the ship itself, not only the rudder. If we mean to command the sea, the empire must build for it. Without the sea, every campaign begins already half-lost."
Theophilus inclined his head. "Caution is a cheaper virtue than boldness, Majesty, but often pays longer dividends."
A low chuckle rose from the far corner. Plethon, wrapped in his simple wool mantle despite the heat, looked up from where he sat by the map chest. "So the philosophers and the accountants are in accord, for once," he said. "A miracle."
Constantine turned toward him, amused. "And what of the philosophers' accounts, Master Plethon? You look as if your columns are less tidy than ours."
The elder sage set aside the letter he'd been holding, his movements deliberate. The light from the open shutters caught the snowy edge of his beard and the dark intensity in his eyes. "Indeed, my ledgers are of a different sort," he said. "I've had dispatches from Bessarion, fresh from Rome. And from Naples."
He paused, and his voice dropped to a grave register.
"King Alfonso of Aragon has been defeated and taken at sea, at Ponza."
Theophilus looked up sharply. "Taken? The King himself?"
"Captured with nearly his entire fleet," Plethon said. "The Genoese triumphed. Some say Alfonso was wounded and may yet die of his hurts; others that he is held aboard ship, his pride more injured than his flesh. Either way, the lion of Aragon is struck down. His Mediterranean dreams are ended, at least for now."
He rose, the stiffness of age giving way to the current of his speech. "You grasp what this means, of course?"
Constantine's fingers stilled upon the ledger. "Say it plainly."
"The lion of Aragon is caged. His conquest of Naples is finished. That kingdom will slide back into Angevin hands, a French inheritance once more. With that, the balance of the West tips again toward Paris and Rome. Venice, freed from the shadow of Aragon's fleet, will turn her gaze eastward, even toward us." His hand traced a slow arc over the map of the Aegean. "The eyes of Saint Mark will seek new goals, new dominions."
"And in Iberia?" Theophilus asked, already calculating.
Plethon lifted a hand, as if weighing distance. "Unclear. Alfonso's fall leaves threads untied. His brother takes Aragon and Navarre, but the lords there have long memories. Catalonia murmurs again, though whether it rises or only fumes, none can say."
He turned toward Constantine, the light catching the planes of his face. "Majesty, whatever follows, it weakens the Western order. Their princes turn inward; the Papacy will preach concord and be ignored; France will posture, Hungary remains in turmoil. None of them will look eastward, or speak of a new crusade, for a while yet."
Constantine listened in silence. At length, he said, "The vacuum Alfonso leaves won't stay empty long. Naples will draw the Italians like carrion draws crows. While they quarrel, and the Turks chase their own wars, we build."
Theophilus nodded. "Then we use that quiet. The fleet, the shipyards, the grain routes, everything that lasts."
Plethon's eyes caught the light. "You speak of walls and waters. I speak of what endures behind them. Empires built on appetite always turn inward; reach becomes ruin. Alfonso's fall is only another turn of the wheel. Call it Providence or the nature of things, it's all the same. The West burns through its own strength; it cannot hold what it takes."
For a brief moment, they stood in silence, broken only by the hiss of wind through the shutters. Constantine's gaze drifted to the harbor, where the unfinished hull of the great ship rose like a dark spine against the scaffolds.
Then he turned back, his expression easing. "There is more I must tell you," he said, his voice quieter now, almost reverent.
Plethon studied him. "You have the look of a man bearing tidings greater than those of kings."
Constantine smiled; the light in his eyes gave it away before the words. "Katarina is with child."
Theophilus blinked, then let a rare smile break through. "By all the saints, truly?"
"Truly," Constantine said, and the word steadied him. "Few beyond these walls know. I would have my trusted friends hear it first."
Plethon exhaled softly, half laughter, half prayer. "At last. A seed for the tree. The empire has waited long for such news."
Theophilus bowed his head. "May God grant her strength, and the child wisdom and years. You know how sorely we need an heir."
"I know," Constantine said. "That thought has not left me since she told me."
Plethon stepped closer, his beard catching the light. "Do not think only of inheritance. This child is not just blood continued, it is the world daring to begin again. You build ships, you print books; now life itself builds within your house."