Justinian Read online

  Among those signing their names were George and Daniel, who regularly represented Pope Sergios in Constantinople, and Basil of Gortyna whose see, as I have said, fell under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the see of Rome. George and Daniel signed without hesitation, as I saw with my own eyes. Bishop Basil also set down his name, but, having done so, said, "Emperor, I fear the holy pope will find some of the canons here hard to bear."

  "If he knows what is good for him," I said, pitching my voice so all the assembled bishops could hear, "he will give his assent, and waste no time doing it. I have great things in mind in the east, and have no intention of wasting my time enforcing discipline on a barbarous, backwoods province like Italy. If the bishop of Rome withholds his signature, he shall be punished quickly and severely."

  The bishops from within the heartland of the Roman Empire nodded, knowing they had to accommodate themselves to their sovereign's wishes. Of the far smaller number of western bishops, some looked alarmed, others indignant. The latter, I suppose, failed to remember how my grandfather, as other Roman Emperors had done before him, had used the exarch of Ravenna to seize a pope who flouted his wishes and send him off to imprisonment, exile, and torture. Although not eager to do such a thing, I aimed to if Sergios decided to be troublesome. Having him inflame dissent and argument was the last thing I needed when I was about to go to war against Abimelekh.

  ***

  Leontios's broad, earnest face puckered into a frown. "Emperor, your father would never have done a thing like this," he said. "I fought the Arabs a lot of times for him, but he would never have done anything like this."

  He had not lost his habit of repeating himself, but that was not why I glared at him. I had, by then, been Emperor of the Romans for seven years. Being told what my father would have done rankled. "He is dead," I answered, my voice cold. "I choose war against the followers of the false prophet, not this odious treaty of peace, which they have violated and under which the Roman Empire suffers. I thought of you to command my army and chast ise them as they deserve. You have succeeded against them before. Are you afraid you cannot again?"

  "I'm not afraid of anything," he said, puffing out his massive chest. "Not of anything. But it won't be as easy as it was before. Abimelekh's finally put down all the rebellions that plagued him, so it won't be easy, no indeed."

  "That only means he'll be able to put a few more men in the line against us," I said. "We'll have the troops from the military districts, we'll have Neboulos and his special army of Sklavenoi-"

  "Useless barbarians," Leontios muttered, which made me glare again, Neboulos having, to my continuing astonishment, trained up as many Sklavenoi as he had promised me. "Barbarians," Leontios said again. "Emperor, if you beat them with a Roman army, what makes you think Abimelekh won't beat them with an Arab army?"

  "They fought well against us," I answered, exaggerating only a little, "and since then they've had a taste of proper Roman discipline," which was true. "Put them in the line with Roman soldiers to help stiffen them, and they'll do well, I feel sure. And besides," I went on, flattering him a little because, thanks to his previous victories, I did want him to command the army, "with you leading the host, how can we possibly fail?"

  In due course, Leontios would show me how we could possibly fail. At the moment, the glow that lighted his features did not spring from the reflection of lamplight off his rather greasy skin. Like a sponge, he sucked up compliments. "Ah, Emperor, you honor me more than I deserve," he boomed, which also turned out to be true.

  "I don't think so," I said, showing how little I knew of the future. "Now, let's decide how best to strike the Arabs a hard blow. When we do strike them, it should be in a way they'll remember for years."

  "We'll hit 'em a good lick, Emperor, that we will," Leontios said. "A good lick, yes indeed."

  "You have no more objections?" I asked.

  "I wouldn't do it, Emperor," he said. "I wouldn't. I already told you that. But if we are foolish enough to do it- uh, that is, if we are going to do it- you're right, and we should hit 'em as hard as we can. I'll do my best to strike a hard blow against 'em, that I will."

  I weighed him in the balance and did not find him wanting. Continuing to speak against my point of view, I told myself, took a certain amount of courage, courage that could also be usefully employed against the Arabs. I said, "Send out orders for the armies from the military districts to gather at their assembly points. Send orders to Neboulos and the special army, also. I shall personally lead forth the imperial guards to join them."

  He bowed. "Emperor, everything shall be as you say."

  ***

  While I contemplated war against the followers of the false prophet, Abimelekh contemplated desecrating a famous and holy Christian shrine. I learned of this as the result of an unexpected embassy from the lands controlled by the miscalled commander of the faithful.

  Both ambassadors, as often happens, were Christians: Sergios of Damascus, the son of the Mansour with whom my father had often dealt, who served Abimelekh as finance minister; and Patrikios Klausus, the leader of the Christians of Palestine. "Emperor, we are in sore need of your aid," Sergios said after he and Patrikios had prostrated themselves before me. "Abimelekh, my ruler, plans to restore the temple at Mecca, which suffered in the Arabs' late civil war."

  "Why is this a concern to me?" I asked with genuine curiosity. Though the center from which the Arabs' false prophet sprang out like a wolf, Mecca had never been under the dominion of the Roman Empire.

  Patrikios answered me: "Emperor, for the restoration he plans to take columns from the grotto of Christ's agony at holy Gethsemane."

  "An outrage!" I shouted. Had I not already decided to go to war against the Arabs, learning of the wickedness Abimelekh planned on perpetrating would have impelled me in that direction.

  But Mansour held up a soothing hand. "We asked him not to do this, Emperor, hoping you might supply us with other columns to use in their stead."

  "That I can do," I said at once. "This I shall do." In my mind's eye, I saw the fortress of Ankyra in central Anatolia, and what had been the city and was now the field of ruins below. Abimelekh could have a hundred columns from those ruins alone without making anyone notice they were missing. And Ankyra was but one of the scores of cities that had shrunk or died in the incessant warfare of the past ninety years. The miscalled commander of the faithful was welcome to our rubbish, even if I was about to go to war with him.

  Sergios and Patrikios were effusive in their thanks. "We knew your generosity would let us preserve the holy place undisturbed," Patrikios said.

  "No matter what happens," I promised, "I will send these columns to Abimelekh for his false temple at Mecca, so that he need not trouble a shrine belonging to the true faith." This promise I kept, preventing the desecration of the church at Gethsemane.

  Perhaps I should not have said no matter what happens: in so doing, I gave a sort of warning of what I intended in aid of my campaign in the east. Sergios, however, took it a different way, saying, "Emperor, on our journey hither, we saw your new nomismata, and very beautiful they are, too."

  "They are indeed," I said, "and show, as they should, Christ protecting the Roman Empire and the Roman Emperor."

  "There is only one difficulty with them," Sergios said, "and that is that I fear my master, the caliph Abimelekh, will not accept them in his realm, since they contradict the teachings of his religion. He will have to pay you the agreed-upon tribute in coins of his own minting."

  "We agreed it should be paid in nomismata," I reminded him.

  He looked worried. "The weight of gold would be the same, Emperor, so you would not suffer any loss as a result of this. Only the images and legends of the coins would change."

  "That was not part of the agreement we made."

  Sergios looked unhappier yet. "Is this the word I should convey to the caliph? He will not be pleased to hear it, not even when I have the joy of telling him you have made arrangements t
o spare Gethsemane."

  His words showed me courtiers in Damascus played the same games as did those of Constantinople, using good news to offset the bad and to keep their sovereign in as sweet a temper as they could. It is probably the same among the blond barbarians of the west. It is surely the same among the Khazars, who roam the plains north of the Black Sea. I have seen that with my own eyes.

  To Sergios, I said, "If this message so distresses you, you need not deliver it to Abimelekh." Hearing that, he brightened. But I had not finished: "I shall give it to him in person," I said.

  Sergios's face fell. So did that of Patrikios Klausus. Myakes suffered a coughing fit. If I had it to do over again, I would have held my tongue. But I did not have it to do over again. Abimelekh would be warned.

  MYAKES

  A coughing fit? I hope I did, Brother Elpidios. I like to have swallowed my tongue, is what happened. Lord have mercy, Brother, the only quicker way Justinian could have given Abimelekh the news that he was going to war with him would have been to send his own messenger.

  Why did he do it? No, not stupidity, I don't think. Justinian was a lot of things, but not stupid. What's the word I want? The one left over from the old pagan dramas the fifth-sixth synod condemned? It means overweening pride, something like that.

  Hubris? Thank you, Brother. Aye, that's it. He'd beaten the Sklavenoi, Leontios had beaten the Arabs, he had Neboulos and the special army, he didn't think he could possibly lose. So why not let Abimelekh know he was coming? He figured Abimelekh would spend that time shivering in his shoes.

  Sounds like Leontios tried to warn him about Abimelekh. I don't have a whole lot of good things to say about Leontios, but he did try. Justinian wouldn't listen to him. He wouldn't listen to people, Justinian wouldn't. He went ahead and did what he thought he ought to do. When that worked, it worked fine. When it didn'ta160… well, see what happened when it didn't.

  JUSTINIAN

  I ordered Neboulos's special army and the armies of the military districts to assemble at Sebastopolis, in the military district of the Armeniacs. Those soldiers having begun to move before I could, the excubitores and I traveled by sea to Amisos and then went down to Sebastopolis rather than making the whole long, slow journey by road.

  As I left the ship that had brought me to Amisos, the officer in charge of the fleet said, "Good fortune go with you, Emperor, and God bless you and your army."

  "Thank you, Apsimaros," I said. "May you have safe winds back to the imperial city." He nodded. His face was long and thin and pale. I believe he had German blood of some sort in him, which accounted not only for his looks but also for his peculiar name, one without meaning in either Greek or Latin.

  The excubitores and I rode toward Sebastopolis the next day. I looked back and saw Apsimaros's fleet sailing west toward Constantinople. I sighed a little. If we could travel by land as readily and cheaply as by sea, governing the Roman Empire, feeding the cities, and collecting taxes would be far easier than they are. But even a paved highway like the Via Egnatia, while allowing soldiers to move rapidly from one part of the Empire to another, does not let good travel cheaply. Take grain in carts more than a couple of days' journey and its price doubles or worse. And so, very often, inland districts are more isolated than islands.

  Too much time wasted on a wish that is and must for all time be idle. When, with the excubitores around me, I rode into the camp, I glowed with pride at the size of the army I had caused to be assembled. The tents of the cavalry forces from the military districts stretched over a wide expanse of dusty plain. Off to one side were other tents and huts, these run up in a less orderly fashion. I pointed them out to Myakes: "See how large Neboulos's special army is? As many men there as in the contingents from the military districts, I'd say."

  "Looks that way," he answered, peering toward the Sklavenoi. "But how many of 'em there are is only half the question. The other half is, how well will they fight?"

  "They fought us well enough when they didn't have to face the liquid fire," I said, nettled. "The followers of the false prophet can no more make the fire than the Sklavenoi can. What would keep the special army from fighting well, then?"

  "Nothing I can think of," he said, which pleased me, but then he added, "Of course, the Arabs might think of something I can't," which did not.

  Leontios rode out from the camp to greet me. "Here we are, Emperor, gathered together at your order and as you commanded," he proclaimed, redundant as usual.

  I waved toward the half-separate camp of the special army. "As you see, we have the men we need to hit the deniers of Christ harder than they expect."

  His round face went mournful. "Oh, aye, so we do, provided we don't come to blows and start fighting among ourselves first."

  "What do you mean?" I demanded.

  "The Sklavenoi are cursed thieves, is what I mean," he said. "Every time one of them gets near my Romans, he steals something: a knife, a chain, some money, it doesn't matter what."

  Neboulos came up then, riding on a pony that struggled under his bulk. "Emperor," he cried, "these cavalry, they hate your special army. They taunt us. They say they screw our wives, screw our sisters, screw our daughters, when they fight us before. They laugh. They make us hate them worse than your enemies."

  Both Leontios and Neboulos started shouting at me, forgetting my station in their quest for advantage. Then I shouted, too: "Silence!" Leontios remembered himself first, and bowed his head. Neboulos, less used to having anyone over him, went on for another sentence or two before realizing he was doing his cause more harm than good by such rudeness. When he quieted, I pointed to him and said, "Are your men stealing from the cavalry of the military districts?"

  "Soldiers always steal," he said.

  That had a good deal of truth in it, which I declined to notice. "Soldiers loot from enemies," I said. "They do not steal from their comrades. The warriors from the military districts are the comrades of the special army. Do you understand that?"

  "Yes," he said, giving Leontios a look anything but comradely.

  "Good," I told him. "You had better. The next Sklavinian who steals from a comrade will have his hand cut off. Do you understand that?" He nodded sullenly. I said, "Good. See that your men understand it, too."

  "That's fine, Emperor," Leontios said, beaming. "That's fine and dandy."

  I turned my gaze on him. "Are your men taunting the Sklavenoi, as Neboulos says?"

  He looked less happy. "Urra160… ahha160… Some of them, maybe, Emperor. Some. A few."

  "That must also cease," I declared. "All of us here in this camp must join together against the common foe: the followers of the false prophet. Tell the men from the military districts that any of them caught obscenely mocking their comrades in the special army will be given a choice." I smiled unpleasantly.

  "A choice, Emperor? What kind of choice?" Leontios was not so swift to follow my thought as I would have liked.

  "A choice of the part he would sooner lose," I answered: "his tongue, with which he boasted of the lewdness he had committed, or his prick, the instrument of that lewdness."

  "You Romans, you like to cut things," Neboulos observed.

  I ignored him, watching Leontios. The general's round face (which he was not good at keeping closed) said he had not truly reckoned the men of the special army his comrades. "I will make certain the cavalry from the military districts knows of this choice," he said at last.

  "See that you do." When assembling my army, I had not considered that its separate parts might find each other as inimical as the Arabs. If making them all fear me more than they hated each other yoked them in common cause, make them fear me I would.

  ***

  For all his former bold attacks against the Arabs, Leontios proved a cautious, even an apprehensive, commander. Instead of setting out at once and storming into territory held by the deniers of Christ, he spent day after day drilling the cavalry from the military districts and Neboulos's special army.

&n
bsp; I chafed at the delay, but did not follow my first impulse and order him to advance. The reason he adduced for waiting was plausible enough: planning cooperation between the Sklavenoi, who were foot soldiers, and the mounted men from the military districts. He tried several different formations, at last settling on one that placed the special army in the center of the line with cavalry on either wing and a body of horsemen behind the Sklavenoi as a reserve.

  "The cursed butterheads can't move very fast, anyhow," he said to me. "We'll let them hold the Arabs and use the cavalry to get round the foe's flanks."

  "Don't call them butterheads," I said. Two Romans had lost their tongues for taunting the Sklavenoi; four men from the special army had had their hands cut off for theft. The rest of the Romans, understanding they had been warned, accepted their fellows' punishment as something they had earned. I was less confident of the effect of my order on Neboulos's men, who were unused to discipline from their chieftains or anyone else save possibly their wives. I went on, "I wish we were already in combat with the followers of the false prophet. That would help pull us together."

  "Soon, Emperor, soon," Leontios said soothingly. "Won't be long. We have to be ready. We have to prepare." Again he repeated himself. Again he said the same thing twice in slightly different ways.

  I do not know whether Sergios and Patrikios, on their return to Damascus, told Abimelekh enough to let him anticipate my intentions, or whether the spies the Arabs keep in Roman territory (just as we keep spies in the lands they rule) sent word that our men were on the march. However he learned of it, the misnamed commander of the faithful hastily gathered together his soldiers and treacherously invaded Romania before we began our stroke against him. Thus was my wish for a speedy meeting with the Arabs granted, though not in the way I had intended.

  Frontier guards all but killed their horses galloping back to Sebastopolis with word of the invasion. "It's a big army they have, Emperor," one of the men said on being brought before me. "I didn't reckon they could put so many men in the field so fast, but I was wrong."