Anna of Byzantium by Tracy Barrett

Author:Tracy Barrett [Barrett, Tracy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-78900-6
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2011-04-12T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

fter Anna Dalassena left, there was silence in the throne room. I sat frozen to my stool, breathless at the chance I had taken in provoking my grandmother, and giddy with relief that she had not lashed out at me with her tongue. I prayed silently that my father would dismiss me quickly, and he did so after a few moments, murmuring a blessing and kissing me on the forehead. I bowed as quickly as I dared, and entered the corridor, intending to go to my bedchamber. Instead, I felt my arm grasped by a hand. What now? I asked myself wearily, and turned to see who had hold of me. To my relief, it was Simon.

“Little Beetle!” he exclaimed, his ready grin spreading across his round face. “You must see the new additions to the library!” And without waiting for an answer, he bustled off toward that wing of the palace with his characteristic waddle. He didn’t wait for me, but if he had been assuming that I would follow, he was right, for I was eager to distract myself with study.

Several open boxes sat on the floor, and Simon bent over one of them, pulling out its contents for me to see. He held a scroll and unrolled it partway to show me the contents. I saw nothing fancy, no illuminations, but beautiful, clear handwriting that filled the page.

“Where did these come from?” I wondered aloud. “Surely it’s not booty—the infidels do not write in Greek and Latin.”

“In a way, they’re booty,” Simon said, searching for the perfect place on the shelves to set the scroll he had showed me. “With some of the gold and other treasures your father seized, he ordered that scrolls and books be bought. See—most of them are history.”

I bent down in my turn and pulled something out of the wooden box. No scroll, but a bound book, heavy and interesting-looking. It also seemed newer than some of the others. I read the author’s name out loud, “Nicephorus Bryennius,” and looked up at Simon. “Who is Nicephorus Bryennius?”

“There!” he said with satisfaction, having slid the scroll into what must have been exactly the right spot. “What were you saying?”

“Can’t you ever listen to me?” I asked, but Simon was busy examining a new book. “I said, who is Nicephorus Bryennius?”

Simon came over and looked at the book with satisfaction. “This is a real treasure,” he said. “Not many of them have been copied yet. It must have cost a pretty penny. The author is a Byzantine, Princess, and a soldier. He knows your father well. He is also a historian, and someday his name will be spoken in the same breath with the names of the greatest historians of the past, like Thucydides and Herodotus.”

I examined the book with even more interest. I admired anyone who could unravel the complicated stories of the past and show them in clear form to a reader.

“Someday I too will write history,” I said.

Simon chuckled. “More likely to cause history than write it,” he said.

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