Seleuceia was Antioch’s outlet to the sea. Antioch was the Empire’s third greatest city, after Con-stantinople and Alexandria. Antonina did not take her troops into Antioch itself, but she spent the week parading about the streets of Antioch’s harbor. By the third day, most of the population—especially the Syrian commoners—were cheering her madly. Those who weren’t were huddling in their villas and monasteries. Thinking dark thoughts, but saying nothing above the level of a mutter.
On her seventh and last day in Seleuceia, a large contingent from the Army of Syria arrived from their fortress in Daras. Most of those soldiers boarded her ships. The rest—
With great ceremony, Antonina turned over to their safe-keeping the large band of artisans who would erect the semaphore stations between Antioch and Seleuceia. Those stations would serve as the link between the coastal network she would create and the Anatolian-Mesopotamian leg which Belisarius was constructing.
While Antonina engaged in public browbeating, Irene occupied herself with subterfuge. She traveled secretly to Antioch, and, by end of the week, had solidified the previously-shaky imperial spy network in Ephraim’s domain.
* * *
South, now, to Tyre. Stopping, if only for a few hours, at every port of any size along the way.
Showing the standard.
Tyre was a celebration. And a great, subtle victory.
The population of the city was out in force, packed into the harbor, awaiting her arrival. She and her soldiers could hear the cheering from a mile away. Standing on the docks, proudly drawn up, were another thousand Knights Hospitaler.
And, standing among them, the Bishop of Jeru-salem.
Theodosius, the newly-designated Patriarch of Alexandria whom Antonina was taking to Egypt, pointed him out to her as soon as her flagship drew near the docks. He began to whisper urgently into her ear, explaining the significance of the Bishop’s presence. On her other side, Irene was doing the same.
Antonina stilled them both with a gesture. “I know quite well what it means, Theodosius—Irene. The Bishop of Jerusalem has decided to break from Patriarch Ephraim’s authority and submit to that of the imperium’s church.”
She chuckled drily. “Of course, he has his own fish to fry. The See of Jerusalem has been trying to get official recognition as a Patriarchate for—what is it, now? Three centuries?”
Theodosius nodded.
Antonina’s chuckle turn into a little laugh. “Well, and why not? Isn’t Jerusalem the holiest city in Christendom, when you come right down to it?”
Theodosius stroked his beard furiously. “Well, yes, I suppose. But the Church councils have always ruled against Jerusalem’s claim, on the grounds—”
“—that it’s a dinky little border town. Filled—or rather, not so filled—by a bunch of sleepy provincials.”
Theodosius winced. “That’s putting it rather crudely. But—yes. In essence.”
“And what’s wrong with sleepy provincials? You won’t see them ruining a perfectly good afternoon nap by wrangling over the relationship between the prosopon and the hypostasis of Christ.”
She turned away from the rail, still smiling. “Patriarch of Jerusalem,” she murmured. “Yes, yes. Has a nice sound to it.”
In the end, she actually went to Jerusalem. Suspending her voyage for a full month, while she and her Theodoran Cohort—and all of the Knights Hospitaler from Constantinople, eager to finally see the Holy Land for themselves—marched inland.
A great, grand escort for the Bishop of Jerusalem in his triumphant return. Antonina found the bishop to be, in his person, a thoroughly obnoxious creature. Petty in his concerns, and petulant in his manner. But she took great delight in his persona. By the time she left Jerusalem, the Bishop—who was already calling himself the Patriarch—had given his complete and public blessing to her enterprise.
By tradition and church rulings, the Patriarch of Antioch had always held authority over that great area of Syria and the Levant which Romans called Oriens. No longer. In a week at Seleuceia, Antonina had undermined Ephraim’s prestige. Now, in a month in Palestine, she had cut his ecclesiastical territory in half.
A new council would have to be called, of course, to confirm—or, again, deny—Jerusalem’s claim. Antonina did not begin to have the authority to do so. Not even the Emperor, without the approval of a council, could establish a new Patriarchate. But any such council was far in the future. Theodora would stall, stall, stall. For years to come, the Bishop of Jerusalem would defy Ephraim and cling as closely as possible to the Empress Regent’s imperial robes.