I grew up somewhere in the eastern Roman world, in the lands we would now think of as the Middle East. My father was rich, pagan and frighteningly possessive. He wanted me hidden away from men, suitors and the outside world, so he built a tower and shut me inside it. It was meant to keep me obedient. It did the opposite. Servants smuggled Christian writings into the tower, and I read them in secret. While my father thought he had sealed me away from danger, I converted. When he found out, he was

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I was born a royal daughter, but never the one expected to rule. My childhood ran alongside religion, a fractured family, and a crown that kept sliding from one branch of us to another. My father lost his throne. My sister and her husband took it. I stood to one side while ministers and bishops and armies argued over what the kingdom would become. They died without children, and the succession came down to me. By then my own life had already gone wrong in the worst way. I was pregnant again and

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