Zoe Kalafatis is 15 years old this year, and is just about to bloom. The girl is praying to the statue of Christ in the cabin, with her long black shawl hair hanging on her back, and her prayer is that she hopes that her future husband will be able to
Treat yourself better.
Since she was in her cabin, she was only wearing underwear, which was a white dress made of Moria silk. The silk showed the luster of pearls under the shaky yellow light, which set off her even more.
The whiteness and delicateness of the skin make people marvel at the beauty of youth.
For many people, leaving Constantinople is unbearable. After all, it is the most developed city in the entire known world. Outside of it, the rest of Christendom looks like the countryside.
But for this girl, leaving that city was no big deal, after all, that city had never left her with any good memories.
Although Zoe is the daughter of Michael V, this status only brings her humiliation. After all, Michael V only served as emperor for one year, and then he was driven out and blinded, which made the Paphlagonia people
(Note 1) The decades of rule in Constantinople ended.
He himself was sent to a desolate island monastery, and as a family member, she and her mother also went there to live a difficult life.
During those days, she only had stones and beaches for company. The monks in the monastery would only look at a sinner's daughter like her with vigilance and contempt. As for the visitors, they were extremely respectful and completely approachable.
Can't get up.
Within a few years, the wound worsened and my father died, and my mother was dying due to acclimatization. They soon left one after another.
According to the custom, she should enter a monastery and become a nun serving God, but her father's loyal servants and remnants came to pick her up, and she was able to return to Constantinople.
Zoe was very happy when she first returned to Constantinople. After all, it was the center of Roman civilization, the last magnificent legacy of the classical era, and a glorious city unparalleled in the entire Christian world.
Leo, this Constantinople bureaucrat arranged a residence and education for her, allowing her to enjoy the education that only the noble ladies of the empire could receive. It also made her full of hope for the future. Maybe she could marry a good man in this city in the future.
I can live peacefully in the city.
But reality soon showed its cruelty. Although she just wanted to live a stable life, others had not forgotten it.
In any case, her father is the most rebellious emperor in the empire in the past hundred years. A sewing worker became the emperor under the control of the eunuch (note 2) who has been in charge of the central government for decades. In the past hundred years, the empire has not been of such low origin.
Where is the monarch!
After her origin was found out, discrimination was everywhere like a shadow. There were always people pointing fingers behind her back. Everyone knew that she was the seamstress (Michael V was a seamstress before he became emperor).
The daughter of the sinner.
As she became more and more successful, these accusations became obscene, and there were even rumors that she slept with dozens of men!
Growing up in this environment, Zoe gradually became resentful of Constantinople and even the entire Roman Empire. She wanted to leave here. She didn't want to see this damn place again. For this reason, she visited the place countless times.
She prayed late at night, asking God to take her away from this sinful city in her eyes.
And as if God accepted her prayer, the opportunity finally came. Leo, who raised her, would take her away from Constantinople, go north to Rus, and marry a Rus prince, just like Basil the Great.
Like my sister.
Zoe accepted all this without hesitation. On the one hand, it was out of her own wishes, but on the other hand, she knew that it was time to repay Leo's kindness.
When Zoe grew up, she understood that the bureaucrat named Leo did not raise her because of the so-called master's kindness, but rather to sell her at a good price. She had no complaints about this. This was the way the world was.
She is no longer naive.
After finishing her prayer, Zoe put on her warm coat, wrapped herself tightly and walked out of the hatch. She had to go out for some air.
The eunuch guards hurriedly followed their princess. They were once the emperor's guards for their father, but after his father's downfall, many of them left directly, but there are still loyal ones who follow them to this day.
The sailors were busy, and no one paid attention to the little girl who came out for air. The men who came and went only glanced at her and continued busy with their work. There were still many things to do.
There were no idle people on the deck. The weak clerk and the burly soldier were chatting on the side of the ship. The content of their discussion seemed to be various information about Northern Russia.
Zoe knows the origins of these people. The civil servants are basically junior officials who have been implicated and have been unable to be promoted because they or their parents had taken sides with their father.
As for the soldiers, most of them came from Southern Italy, where their families had made a lot of accumulation and arrangements. However, these people were not without options. It was just that the Normans' pressing step by step made some people embark on another path.
the way.
In the crowd, Zoe soon found the one she wanted to meet - Leo Pappas - the nominal adoptive father.
Leo is standing at the bow of the ship. He looks like a tough guy and is born to be a soldier, but in fact he is a top student who graduated from the University of Constantinople. He is from the same hometown as her father and he once held a high position.
, but with the fall of the Paphlagonians in Constantinople, Leo's bright future was also cut off.
However, the remaining power of the Paphlagonia people came under his leadership, but leading such a group of defeated soldiers was no different from having no future.
Zoe knew very well that the hundreds of people gathered on these ships were the last strength of her family. It could be said that Leo made a big gamble and bet on Northern Ross.
Zoe never cared about this. Anyway, these things have nothing to do with her, so why should she care.
"Your Highness."
Leo said respectfully that although her father had been expelled from the throne for ten years, at this moment she was the princess of Michael V.
"Why did you come out?"
"It's too stuffy in the cabin. Let me come out for some air. How long does it take to get to Kiev? And are there any dangers on the way?"
Zoe looked towards the river bank, and what she saw was a wild grassland. This was the most dangerous section of the Varangian Road. Nomadic tribes were scattered on both sides of the river. If they seized the opportunity, they would attack the fleet.
"Two or three hours at most."
Leo looked at the sun.
"You don't have to worry about the danger at all. I don't know what happened recently. The nomadic tribes along the river have disappeared, and the attacks have been reduced a lot."
"Really? Just two or three hours."
There was a hint of melancholy in Zoe's words, and the thing she had to face finally came.
"Let me see how Kiev is doing then."
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Note 1: Due to the power of John the Orphanage in the imperial capital, his fellow villagers from Paphlagonia occupied all aspects of the central empire, and this situation lasted for decades.
Note 2: Refers to John, the director of the orphanage, a powerful eunuch who has held power in Byzantium for decades.