Stories Thread

[TheFlax]

Constantinople 1101

Anna fidgeted with her dress as she eyed the assembled crowd with apprehension. Her gold silk gown was decorated with pearls and gemstones. Over her shoulders she wore a semi-circular cloak lined in cerise silk, featuring a tablion of pearls and jewels. Her long raven hair and pale round face was revealed to all on this sacred day of matrimony.

Having just cleared the narthex with her attendants, she was now crossing the naos, where everyone was assembled in anticipation for the wedding. She noticed Ioannis Kalameteros waiting for her near the abside and slowed her pace. He looked slightly uncomfortable and nervous in a dark short tunica with embroidered sleeves over his light-colored camisa and cloth leggings. His mantle had a richly embroidered border and tablion and was fastened with a fibula. Ioannis could wait a little longer.

Anna let her gaze take in the majesty of Hagia Sophia which was covered by a central dome of more than a 100 feet across and nearly as high as the sky itself. It seemed rendered weightless by the unbroken arcade of arched windows under it, which helped flood the colorful interior with the light of the Heavens. The dome was carried on pendentives—four concave triangular sections of masonry which solved the problem of setting the circular base of a dome on a rectangular base. It's weight passed through the pendentives to four massive piers at the corners and, between them, the dome seemed to float upon four great arches. At both ends of the great church, the arched openings were extended by half domes carried on smaller semidomed exedras. Thus a hierarchy of dome-headed elements built up to create a vast oblong interior crowned by the main dome.

Finally, she joined him in abside, near the altar, and awaited for the priest to begin the ceremony. Anna was lost in her thoughts for most ceremony, trying to figure out how she could possibly endure sharing a bed with the man beside her. Nevertheless, when the two crowns where brought into view, she snapped back to attention. A discrete smiled made its way on her thin lips as her head was adorned with a gem-encrusted crown complemented by pearl dangles. Ioannis' crown in comparison was much plainer and bore no gems or pearls.

The assembled crowd fell silent as the priest intoned the ritual of matrimony. "O Holy God, You formed man out of the dust of the earth, You fashioned a woman from his rib and joined her to him as a helpmate, for it pleased your great generosity that man should not be alone upon the earth. Now, O Master, stretch forth your hand from your holy dwelling place and join these your servants Anna Komnenos and Ioannis Kalameteros, for You alone join the wife to her husband. Unite them in one mind and in one flesh, granting them fruitfulness and rewarding them with good children. For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and ever, and forever. Amen."

The ceremony lasted a while longer, but Anna's thoughts wandered once more until it was time to for the heart of the wedding ceremony to take place. Most of the guests present at Hagia Sophia took the streets of the capital in a noisy procession led by the newly wed who guided them to their new home, where festivities awaited.

((On to the Wedding party here: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=105625))