Part 2 - Simon fits right in to Eunuch life in Byzantium.
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Phantom Castrato, Part 2
I know I’m telling you more than you probably wish to hear,
but then you can always stop reading, can’t you? You don’t
actually believe any of this, do you? Well, if you do, then hold
on – it’s just going to get worse. If we’d had computers back then…
A few days after Matt broke his arm, I did something that I
probably shouldn’t have. Matt was in a cell next door to Philos
and I, all alone. I requested a temporary cell reassignment, on
humanitarian grounds. It was granted. I should also mention now
that my interests were not purely out of regard for this frail
little eunuch’s well-being. I think you can see where this is
going. Matt was fresh out of the Palace, I was a sinkhole of
information through my pilferings with my Uncle, and I was also
very ambitious. It was no surprise to me WHY Matt was there with
us. He was illegitimate, his father was the Emporer, so Matt had
been carefully disposed of. According to the laws of the time, no
one who was mutilated or disabled in any way could ever become
Emporer. Michael I had had his own son castrated and packed off to
boarding school to insure his own dynastic security. If he’d been
a bit more clever, he’d have sent the puny boy to a remotre
mountain monastery. There would have been no intrigues there, and
the climate would have killed him during the first winter. That
ego of mine that I have already mentioned was only growing larger.
I knew Matt’s identity, and was fairly certain that very few others
did. What I did to him is almost unspeakable, so I’ll try to sum
it up briefly. I used him. And when I was done with him, I threw
him to the wolves.
One reads in history today about how corrupt some eunuchs
became. I think they must be talking about me.
After Matthias came, things didn’t change too much at first.
My cheat ring was still running well, my bribes were still coming
in, and my supply of information was undiminished. My Uncle still
spent as much time with me as he could, and after he healed, I took
to letting Matt tag along. (For some reason, thinking of him
as ‘Matt’ and not ‘Matthias’ brings tears to my eyes now. A bit
late in the game for conscience.) He was so small and self-
effacing that no one noticed him. He made no friends, and kept to
himself. He was ill a great deal of the time as well, so when he
WAS able to be out and about, he ate up what I threw at him. I
don’t think that his castration helped matters any. If anyone ever
needed to grow up into a man and not a eunuch, it was Matt. I
often wonder what kind of man Matthias would have been.
Sorry, I’m digressing again.
The first time he accompanied me to work withUncle, it raised
a few startled looks. Obviously there were a few higher-level
eunuch functionaries who knew who Matt indeed was. However, not a
one of them said a word, and a level, cold look from Uncle silenced
any whispers. Matt proved to be a great asset in my information
theft ring, though. No one noticed him, and if they did, they were
half-afraid to confront him. It is amusing to think that that
frail little fellow was so intimidating. By the end of that
semester, with Matt’s help, we were all living well. Actually,
living better than usual. We were all living well at the time.
School was great, our lives orderly, our futures almost seeming to
be set in stone. Constantinople was a shining treasure with lands
reaching far about the known world. We thought that it would
certainly last forever.
In case you are no student of history, dear Reader, it didn’t.
I think the trigger to the whole orgy of destruction was
Philos. In aiding him, I believe I was slitting my own throat.
Add to that that he knew everything I was up to and kept the older
and stronger eunuchs off of my back. Hell, I was in deep and I
wasn’t big; I needed protection. But I didn’t see it in his eyes
until it was too late. As I had mentioned, my former cellmate had
arrived at the Academy and been castrated late. Once, after a bit
of pilferred wine late one Friday evening, we had had an extended
discussion on his family life. It was a bit of a shock to see this
well-built and healthy boy, with a promising military future ahead
of him, drop his goblet and begin to cry. I had been castrated
without my consent or approval, finding myself at the end of a well-
baked plan. All in all, I had accepted it. I saw the logical side
of it, and moved on. I made the best of it. Philos had merely put
on a good mask. Loosing his manhood, as he called it, had hurt him
more deeply than anything else could have. I think a sword thrust
through his heart would have been kinder than the small and sharp
knife that he received between his legs. Most of our eunuch
classmates had been cut well before puberty, myself included.
Philos’ voice, I think I mentioned, had already begun to break.
Chastity and purity, protection from Sins of the Flesh, and the
fact that it would be for his own good were not in his family’s
list of reasons for Philos’ castration.
He had come from a lower class family, one with a history of
military careers. None of them were by any means on par with
General Narses, but they were ferocious fighters and very handy to
have around. Philos was simply a victim of being in the wrong
place at the wrong time. His father and several other male members
of the household were Imperial Guards and veterans. In Byzantium,
there was always a fight going on somewhere. Soldiers were always
in demand. I’m not sure who came up with the bright idea that a
eunuch is a better soldier, but enough people believed it. Not all
the army were eunuchs, certainly not, but several key officers
were. Even after all these centuries, I’m still trying to figure
out just who the hell thought that Philos, my cellmate and personal
bodyguard, was cut out to be an officer. To think that he was the
brains of his family is frightening. (No pun intended. I never
liked castration jokes.)
Where was I? Oh yes. We got drunk, he told me his story, and
he cried. He cried for a long time. It was a very disturbing
thing to see. Philos was not only the victim of being in the wrong
place at the wrong time, he was also a nervous wreck over failing
and dishonoring his family AND he had the problem of his late
castration to deal with as well. Losing his testicles when he did
had left him with the problem of being interested in sexual matters
and not being able to do much about it. He had the drive, but not
much in the way of ability. Of course we knew the technical
mechanics of lovemaking; just because we were eunuchs in the
Academy doesn’t mean that we thought that babies grew under cabbage
leaves, or arrived via storks. In his drunken stupor and fit of
emotion, Philos also confessed his worst secret to me.
He was gay.
Personally I think HE only believed that he was gay. He said
he didn’t think of women much, since he couldn’t father children.
That had hurt him as well, but he admitted that he always seem to
spend more of his attention on boys than girls, even before he
became a eunuch. Of course, by this time, we had both been eunuchs
long enough to realize how things were going to go for us. I knew
I didn’t have any interest in carnal activities at all,
masturbation included. Philos did, and he was frustrated over his
hit-and-miss abilities, which couldn’t hope to keep up with his
desires. He was sort of like a chariot with a sick horse, or to be
more modern, a car full of watery gasoline. That night, he told me
he had never actually been with anyone, but that someone new had
caught his eye.
That someone was Matt.
We tried to get over Philo’s confessions as best we could, and
when we had both sobered up, we unspokenly agreed to drop it. I
mentioned to him that he was NOT a small boy, and that Matt was.
And, even if the slighter eunuch didn’t run straight to someone
crying rape, Philos would probably hurt him during the act. He
seemed to realize that, once it soaked into his thick head. Yet I
should have acted, done more. Too much went too wrong too
quickly. Looking back, I think it had to have been Divinely
inspired. There’s simply NO way a man could have put this all
together. Naturally, it all came to a head during Services one
fine Sunday morning in the late Autumn. That was our first real
look into the nature of the human heart and the feelings that many
people had for us. ‘Us,’ as in eunuchs. I can’t say now as I
blame them though. We were rotten little scoundrels, and the
Empire probably would have collapsed sooner had WE come into
power. Still, it came as a shock to us, being the boys that we
still were, as to how so many people could hate us so. Many of us
had had neither say nor choice in our situations. I did a bit of
asking, and I can count on one hand the number of eunuchs in our
Academy who volunteered for their date with the knife. It was this
very thing that was eating away at Matt, who had just started
working his arm again.
At the close of those services that fateful Sunday, Matt had
gone down to the altar to pray. He was trembling. Badly. Even
from the back of the Church I could see it. I had taken to sitting
far in the back, mainly due to my own guilt. I was becoming one of
those eunuchs that made the general populace hate us, yet I still
felt this pull towards the Lord. I should have seen this coming as
well. Our usual priest knelt, prayed with Matt for a while, and
held the sobbing and shaking boy close to him for the longest
time. Everyone knew that there was a great deal wrong with Matt,
but they didn’t know the half of what I knew. Something told me
that Matt had just let slip something that he should not have.
It took an eternity for the frail child to regain his
composure, but when he did, a chill passed through the church when
he stood up and pushed the priest away from him. He turned, his
pale face livid in sudden rage and his nearly white eyes flashing.
His teeth were bared, like a wolf about to strike. His breathing
was fast and irregular, and his fists were clenched. He was
shaking his head, clearly in a state of inarticulate rage.
I should probably mention here that Matt was fascinated by
language. Since he couldn’t compete in the more physical
activities with the rest of us, he used his extra time to study
them. He was fluent in Latin, Spanish, and even German. English
was giving him problems, but he was keeping with it. I’ll admit I
hate this stupid language. It has no patterns at all. Yet when
the small eunuch got a grip on his tongue, he ran with it. He
opened his mouth and demons, almost literally, came out. He began
to swear in all four languages at once. With one sweep of his good
arm, he knocked the priceless ornaments of the altar to the floor
and began kicking them. One of the eunuchs on the front row
narrowly missed having the head of Holy Mary, Mother of God hit him
in the face. As his tirade cooled just a bit, Matt became
coherent. I can still hear his words echoeing down to me through
the Corridors of Time:
“And do they know?” he shouted, waving at all of us in the
pews, “Do they know what you dare to tell me? That I, a small
sickly eunuch who arrived here not of his own will or choice,
cannot be baptized nor blessed? You would exclude ME from the
Lord’s Communion? Day after day we study, we read, we are told how
to live in the Lord, and now THIS?” Most eunuchs have high voices
anyway, but Matt was very close in his screaming to rivalling the
great castrati singers of Italy who would come centuries later.
Centuries later, Farinelli and the lot would have been afraid of
this little fellow, I think.
“And who tells you this, Father?” he continued, his face
turning redder and redder, “God?! I think not. Did I ask for my
own father to conceive me out of wedlock? No. Did I ask to be a
bastard son? No. Did I want to be castrated and sent away from my
home to live with strangers and to face an uncertain future alone?
NO!” I noticed that his tears had begun anew.
“I came here, not even daring to hope, Father. In all of my
short life, no one has wanted me. My own father ordered me cut and
exiled. My mother paid no attention to me. The servants who
raised me didn’t care about me. Yet all of this time I was taught
that God would love me no matter what, that HE would accept me for
who I am. And now you tell me this? That I am unfit for His
blessings, because no one loved me and someone ordered me mutilated
to keep me off the throne of Byzantium? You would throw me away
just as all the others have, because I am a eunuch? Then to Hell
with YOU and your damnable Church!”
And with that, Matt bolted for the door, stumbling as he ran.
I followed him out without thinking. In his condition, he couldn’t
run far and the emotional explosion we had just witnessed had
drained him. I found him about halfway back to our dormitory,
hiding under a bush and panting. I suppose this only made what I
did to him all the worse, but I still needed him. I was having
some problems with some older students and one administrator in
general, and I knew that Matt could get me some suitable dirt on
them. In his present condition, he was worthless to me. Something
deep inside of me screamed a warning, but I chose to ignore it.
Perhaps the chill that had passed through the Church had been the
true turning point, the one point of no return that we had just
passed.
I took him in my arms, hauled him to his feet, and half
dragged him back to his room. Had Philos not shown up to help, I
don’t think I could have managed it. Matt was wheezing terribly
and shaking again, but he had also started talking. Philos carried
him up the stairs and helped undress him. He didn’t protest; it
was like handling a rag doll. He was a eunuch, we were eunuchs …
there was no shame in it. We slid him into bed and tucked him in.
I think Philos knew what was going on. No one was that stupid.
Yet if he did, he didn’t let on. I, on the other hand, was too
cold-hearted to care. When Matt lifted that white-blonde head of
his off of his pillow and extended that small, thin hand to take
mine, I felt little or nothing for him. In short, our priest had
just destroyed Matt’s last hope and I didn’t care. I still needed
him. He knew the Palace too well.
“At least I have two friends, “ he whispered, “Even if God
doesn’t want me.”
And with that, the fragile little eunuch collapsed into
exhausted sleep. Philos smoothed his hair out of his eyes, and
took his hand. I remember how small it looked in his larger
calloused palm. “I don’t think we should leave him, “ he
suggested. I nodded and quietly left them in the room.
They next morning, Assembly was called off. The rest of our
class time was spent in vain attempts to explain the excitement and
Matt’s outburst in Church. It didn’t work. What Matt had said had
struck too many nerves, and the damage he had done wasn’t going to
go away overnight. Never mind the fact that he had announced to
the entire school that he was the bastard son of the Emporer. The
next morning, as fate would have it, Uncle showed up. Someone had
obviously taken him the news, and he came to make sure that I was
all right. He had arranged for me to come home with him for a few
days, and I prudently asked if Matt might come along as well. I
must have put on a good show, because he seemed impressed at my
compassion. We found Matt in his cell with Philos. They both
looked a bit rumpled, and Philo’s face was a bit flushed. I don’t
know what they had been talking about, but Matt seemed to be in a
much better humor. His face lit up when Uncle and I arrived, and
he was overjoyed to come with us. Fortunately, Uncle had arrived
in a coach. There was no way Matt could have made the hike down
the hill and across town to my Uncle’s home. Of course, we werent’
the only ones leaving that day. Several of the eunuchs were going
home for a few days until Matt’s storm blew over.
Old habits die hard, though, and by that night Matt and I were
rummaging around to see what we could find. He took a nap that
afternoon, and that night we slipped out of Uncle’s house and made
our way to the Palace. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that an
unwanted boy raised in a huge home would know all the ins and
outs. Within the course of an hour, Matt was back with a scroll in
his small sweaty hands. It contained everything I wanted, and some
things that I didn’t. I was impressed.
“How did you get this?” I asked in astonishment.
He shrugged. “Stratos, as we called him, the Chief Black
Eunuch of the ladies quarters, owed me one,” he replied.
Even I wasn’t going to pursue that one.
Fortunately for Matt, Uncle lived close to work. The small
eunuch wasn’t looking too good when I got him back home and put him
to bed. I however, was too excited to sleep. The documents
contained enough dirt on the administrator who was giving me grief
to bring him down – or if not that – to get some heavy bribes.
Uncle returned us to the Academy the following evening, and I
began working to set my most grand plan into action. Matt went
straight to his room, and as soon as I arrived, Philos went to
him. I didn’t see it. I should have, but I didn’t. Matt was
pushing himself, and he just wasn’t able to tolerate the kind of
exertion he had put himself through. He also wasn’t capable of
dealing with what he and Philos were up to. Had I known then, I
think I might have tried to stop it. I really don’t know.
You sit here for a thousand years with the blood of an
Innocent on YOUR hands and see what it does to YOU…
I’ve tried to be brief, but I can’t be. I had serious chats
with several older eunuchs and teachers. I even went after the
damn priest. Vows of celibcay – ha! I laid it all before them. I
hadn’t made any mistakes that I could see, and nothing important
happened for several weeks. Yet Philos had taken a liking to
Matt. Matt was an abandoned child who had just been consigned to
Hell by our own priest. He wouldn’t baptize a eunuch, and we
didn’t partake of communion. This was one of the things that I
kept hanging over that damn priest’s head, but it didn’t appear to
be working. It was beginning to worry me a bit. Pulling the
religious rug out from under Matt had left him wide open, and
Philos took the opportunity, despite my warning, when it presented
itself. I guess there was still some shred of decency left in me,
because when I recalled Matt’s outburst in Church, it still made me
angry.
To be blunt, Philos gave in to his own lusts and limited
abilities, and Matt embraced anything that came his way that looked
like love. I don’t mean to sound crude, but the unusual little
limp that Matt had after spending any length of time with Philos
afterwards should have been a signal. His rumpled appearance upon
being surprised should have been another. It seemed that anywhere
they went together, the bigger eunuch had his arm around the
smaller’s shoulders. Matt was also becoming more open and happier,
although he still refused to set foot in the Church or even speak
to the priests.
More and more I think that that cold chill in the Church that
Sunday blew out my own desire to become closer to God. I showed my
distaste for Matt’s religious treatment by refusing to sing, which
had become a staple of Sunday services. After all, I was a eunuch
as well, and if God didn’t want an Innocent victim of Life, then He
probaby didn’t want a eunuch that had put up no fight against his
own surprise cutting. Besides, I had more worldly things on my
mind. I had a school to ‘run’ and a future to think of. The
entertainments of my “employees” were really none of my concern. I
had my own ambitions and goals, and no one was going to stand in my
way. Matt didn’t stand in my way, though. He laid down and DIED
in it…