A series where my guests are female writers
talking about their female characters
(and yes, I'll be doing the chaps next!)
Continuing Marian L. Thorpe's
The Ladies of Empire’s Legacy III:
The Empress Eudekia
The Empress enters the story about two-thirds of the way through the third book in the Empire’s Legacy series, Empire’s Exile, which follows the narrator Lena from a tiny fishing village into…well, adventure!
We knew more, now,
from the trader who had given the map and his advice. Casil had an Empress, Eudekia, ruling as
regent for her baby son after her husband had died last year. They were at war,
he said, a long-standing conflict with an eastern neighbour that didn't seem to
affect trade, but treaty negotiations had begun before the Emperor's death, and
he thought they probably were at peace now.
Casil, the fabled centre of the Eastern Empire
in my series, is a mix of Rome and Byzantium: Rome in its physical appearance;
Byzantine in some of its politics. Eudekia is the first female character in my
series to be loosely based on a real person: the 9th Century Empress
Theodora (not Justinian’s Empress – that was 300 years earlier), wife to the
Emperor Theophilus. Theophilus died in 842 and Theodora ruled as regent for her
infant son until 856.
“She carried on the government with a firm and judicious hand; she replenished the treasury and deterred the Bulgarians from an attempt at invasion.”[i]
Much the same can be said of Eudekia. Here she
is through the eyes of Lena, the narrator and protagonist of the Empire’s
Legacy series:
The Empress sat at the end of a long table,
littered with scrolls, a large map taking up a portion of the space. Her hair
was the deep red of copper, and simply twisted and pinned on the back of her
head. She wore a long tunic of a deep bluish-green, trimmed with gold, and her
shawl reversed the colours. No jewels, except for earrings of gold set with a
green stone. I did not think her beautiful, but her face showed intelligence,
and good humour, and she was younger than I had expected.
Eudekia is an intelligent and educated woman,
working hard to keep the enemies of her land controlled. She knows the history
of her Empire, and the strategies of earlier rulers – and she is looking for an
advantageous marriage alliance to further her goals. Lena has reached Casil in
the company of a man she is deeply in love with. Eudekia cares nothing for
that, and she is intrigued by Lena’s lover, both as a man and as someone who
can help her with her plans.
The Empress must balance her own wishes against
those of her powerful advisors: it will take only one misstep, one decision
that they see as disadvantageous to Casil, for them to depose her. She is
walking a knife-edge of politics, and she sees these newcomers to her city as
both possible allies and possible problems. Unlike her historical counterpart
Theodora, Eudekia will not be overthrown and sent to a monastery, but will make
her presence – and influence – known again in later books.
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