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And the poor young girl married to "Vatacio the heretic," by a father in need of political alliances had lived long years in the Orient as a basilisa or empress, arrayed in garments of stiff embroidery representing scenes from the holy books, shod with buskins laced with purple which bore on their soles eagles of gold, the highest symbol of the majesty of Rome.
His daughter had married an Emperor of Byzantium, Juan Dukas Vatatzés, the famous "Vatacio," when he was fifty and she fourteen. She was a natural daughter soon legitimized like almost all his progeny, a product of his free harem, in which were mingled Saracen beauties and Italian marchionesses.
Oh, Doña Constanza!..." And night overwhelmed him, cuddling his pillow as when he was a child, and falling asleep enraptured with thoughts of the young widow of "Vatacio the Heretic." When he met Freya again the next day, he felt attracted by a new force, the redoubled interest that people in dreams inspire.
At first she had reigned in Nicaea, refuge of the Greek Emperors while Constantinople was in the power of the Crusaders, founders of a Latin dynasty; then, when Vatacio died, the audacious Miguel Paleólogo reconquered Constantinople, and the imperial widow found herself courted by this victorious adventurer.
In the poverty of this recently founded convent, the poor Empress lived until the following century, recalling the adventures of her melancholy destiny and seeing in imagination the palace of golden mosaics on Lake Nicaea, the gardens where "Vatacio" had wished to die under a purple tent, the gigantic walls of Constantinople, and the arches of Saint Sophia, with its hieratic galaxies of saints and crowned monarchs.
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