position,” the empress said softly.
“I will be frank, lady. Is this treason you speak of?”
Verina paled even more. “No! No!” she gasped. “I do not explain well, I fear. The situation is embarrassing to me. Oh, how shall I say it?”
“Plainly,” he told her. “Whatever you say is between us alone, lady. I will grant you the privacy of the confessional this one time. If there is no treason involved, then you have nothing to fear from me. What is it that troubles you so that you seek my aid in secret?”
“It is certain of the priests who surround my husband,” Verina said. “They encourage him to believe I alone am responsible for the fact we do not have a son. I want a son! But how can we have one if Leo does not visit my bed? He has never been an overly passionate man, and in recent years he has ceased visiting my bed altogether.
“The priests have become his greatest confidants. They exhort him to greater prayer, and to almsgiving that God will give us a son, but unless my husband binds his body to mine again, there will be no child. I even brought Casia, the courtesan my brother favors, to the palace in secret to teach me her seductive wiles. I wanted to use them to entice my husband, but alas, it was to no avail!” the empress said, her blue eyes filling with tears. “Now there is a movement afoot among those same priests who influence my husband to put me away in a convent for the remainder of my days, that Leo might take a new, young wife who will, the priests assure Leo, give him the son I cannot.
“I am not a girl any longer, my lord,” Verina said with dignity, “but I am yet capable of bearing a child given the opportunity to do so. These wicked clerics really seek to give my husband a wife who will be in their debt, and who will spy for them!”
“What is it exactly that you want me to do?” Aspar asked her.
“Leo both fears and respects you, my lord,” the empress said. “The respect stems from his many long years in your service, and the fear stems from the fact you put him in his high place. He sometimes wonders if you might not be capable of also removing him from that place. He has quickly grown fond of his position.
“The priests fill his ears with cruel words about you, Flavius Aspar,” Verina continued. “They tell him you wish to rule through him, and that if you find you cannot, you will overthrow him and take the throne for yourself.”
“I do not wish to be emperor,” Aspar said. “In his rational moments Leo must know that. Had I wanted the imperial throne, it would have been mine. I had but to renounce my Arian beliefs for more Orthodox practices, and enough of the clergy would have supported me so that the imperial crown would have rested on my head.”
“I realize that, my lord, which is why I have come to you. Your motives are honest, and your loyalty is to Byzantium alone, not to any faction or single man. Help me to retain my place at my husband’s side despite the wickedness of those who surround him. If you aid and protect me against my enemies, I will see to it that Leo permits your marriage to Cailin Drusus.”
Aspar pretended to consider her offer, although he had already decided to help her. The emperor owed Flavius Aspar his position. If his wife was similarly bound to him, so much the better. His own position would be that much stronger. It was very unlikely that Leo would ever father another child on any woman. He had not the stomach for it. He preferred fasting and prayer to the hot, sweaty tangle of passion. Aspar suspected the emperor would actually be secretly delighted to be relieved of such a duty. Verina had always been a loyal wife to him. He would prefer the old and the familiar to anything new, and nubile.
No, Aspar thought. I do not want to be emperor: I want my son to be emperor. With both Leo and Verina in his debt, he would have the power to foster a betrothal between his younger son, Patricius, and the youngest imperial princess, Ariadne, in a few years’ time. First the marriage, and then afterward Leo would be convinced to name Patricius his heir.
“I