My mother, normally of sunny disposition, made the sign of the cross and burst into tears. One of the golden-haired Sklavinian maidservants the khagan of the Avars had presented to my father, a pretty little thing who had been baptized under the name of Irene, dropped the goblet of wine she had been carrying to him.

Some of the wine splashed the robe of Stephen the Persian, who was standing near my father. The eunuch stared down at the red stain for a moment, then, quite coldly, slapped her across the face. "Clean up the mess, you clumsy whore," he hissed in a voice that might have been chipped from ice.

I gaped again; the imperial court was never subjected to such unseemly displays. But my father, lost in his rage and misery, said nothing. Irene stood stock-still long enough for the print of Stephen's hand to form itself in red on her cheek. Then, bowing, she said, "I sorry. I fix," in the broken Greek she had learned, and hurried away. Coming back with rags, she began mopping up the wine on the floor.

No one save Stephen and I looked at her, he in satisfaction, I in stupefaction. Everyone else formed a tableau as frozen as the mosaic scene Irene labored on hands and knees to clean. When my eyes moved away from her, I found myself, as it were, turned to stone as well, for my father was staring at- trying to stare down- his two younger brothers.

Herakleios and Tiberius had not burst into tears when my father admitted his defeat. Far from it. By their gloating expressions, they had everything they could do to keep from cheering out loud, or perhaps even from turning handsprings like acrobats earning coppers in the Forum of Theodosios. All three of them had been crowned Emperor, but all power had been in my father's hands since my grandfather was murdered in Sicily: thirteen empty years for my uncles. Now my father, instead of moving from triumph to triumph, had blundered. His brothers had to be wondering, could they strip that power from him?