Justinian Read online

  JUSTINIAN

  My first clear memory of exile is waking from deep sleep and seeing Myakes' face above me. Beyond me, and seeming miles above me, were the roof beams of an unfamiliar building. The straw of the mattress on which I lay was lumpy and scratchy; I had never been in such a disgraceful excuse for a bed in all my life.

  With awareness came the return of pain. At first I reckoned that the lingering aftereffect of some dream I had been lucky enough to escape, but it persisted. Memory followed awareness by a few heartbeats. Leontios had done that to me in the hippodrome, while the people laughed and cheered. Intending to get a sword and kill him then and there, I tried to stand.

  "Easy," Myakes said. "I just got done thanking God that you're a live."

  I have never been one to heed advice. Here, however, I had no choice, discovering as I did that my limbs would not support me- would, indeed, barely move at my command. The coarse wool tunic I wore was soaked with sweat, not from the effort of attempting to rise, but as if I had just broken a fever. That, I realized, was exactly what I had just done.

  Trying to speak, at first I produced nothing save a harsh croak. My mouth tasted of stale blood. The wounds there had trouble healing on account of the moisture from my saliva. But they were not the disabling wounds Leontios had ordered the executioner to inflict. I tried again, and this time made understandable words: "What is this place?"

  "A monastery," Myakes answered, adding after too long a moment's hesitation, "Emperor." I forgave him the hesitation, given my state then. After another pause, he spoke again, modifying what he had said before: "A monastery in Kherson."

  More memory returned. I needed a distinct effort to nod my head. "Yes," I said, speech coming easier now, "he said he would do that to me."

  My voice sounded wrong in my ears, and not only because it was rusty from disuse or because I moved my tongue as little as I could. The tone, the timbre, was not what it had been. With a gaping hole in the middle of my face, I sounded different from the way I had when I was made like every other man.

  Cautiously, I brought my hand up to the empty place where my nose had been. It still pained me, as I have said, but at a level far below the agony it had inflicted. It was a cut. It was healing. "How long have I been here?" I asked.

  "Five days, Emperor," faithful Myakes said, this time without the hesitation over the title that was, of course, still rightfully mine. "The tudun and the monks thought you would die, but your fever ended last night, and now-"

  "Now I want something to eat," I said. My insides were a vast rumbling cave. Looking at my hand and arm, I saw how much flesh I had lost- or rather, how much flesh had temporarily melted away from me. That melting, though, could be reversed. Lost flesh, as I and eunuchs will attest, is lost forever.

  "I've been giving you watered wine," Myakes said. Stout fellow, he was probably the only reason I had not gone before the judgment of all-powerful God some days earlier. Now he got to his feet and hurried out of the chamber where I lay. From the other beds nearby, I realized this was not a monastic cell, but the xenodokheion attached to the monastery. None of those other beds had anyone in it. In Kherson, guests were few and far between.

  I had made it up to one elbow by the time Myakes and a monk came back into the xenodokheion. The monk carried an earthenware bowl on a wooden tray. I had already resigned myself to fare far rougher than the tender viands I had enjoyed back at the palace, and was expecting something like barley porridge. That, however, was not what the aroma rising from the bowl suggested. I pointed to it, asking, "What's in there?"

  "Fish stew, Justinian," the monk answered. How could I upbraid him for failing to use my proper title when, out of charity, he was feeding me?

  "It smells wonderful." With no small effort, I sat up straight. My head swam, but I did not let myself topple over. He handed me the bowl, and a wooden spoon wherewith to eat from it.

  The stew was hot and salty and rich. The fish in it was either dried or salted, but I did not care, feeling myself restored with every mouthful I swallowed. The salt stung my wounded mouth, but I had lately known worse hurts than that. I did not look up from the bowl until it was empty.

  "Thank you," I said to the monk then. "That may be the most delicious meal I've ever eaten."

  "God bless you for your kindness in saying so," he replied, sounding not merely surprised but astonished. At the time, I did not understand. Before long, I did. The first bowl of fish stew I ate was surely made with the ambrosia of the pagan gods for a spice. The fifth bowl- no different from the first- tasted good and sated my hunger. The fiftieth bowl- no different from the first- I ate with resignation rather than relish. By the time I ate the five hundredth bowl and then, I think, the five thousandth- no different from the first- I loathed it with a loathing I had thought reserved for an unloved wife. But, in Kherson, eating all too often meant eating fish stew.

  I spent nine years in Kherson. The monk, I found later, had lived his whole life there, and he was not a young man. I daresay he had had a surfeit of fish stew by the time he finished cutting his milk teeth. No wonder he was startled to discover anyone with a good opinion of it.

  "Wine?" I asked.

  "I shall bring you some," the monk said.

  When he returned, it was my turn to be surprised. The wine, sweet, fruity, was an excellent vintage, and not one with which I had previously been familiar. "Where does this come from?" I wondered aloud. "I have never drunk of it in Constantinople."

  "We make it here; the hillsides are suited to the grape," the monk answered. "We make it mostly for ourselves. It is not a famous wine, so shipping it far across the sea does not pay."

  I drained the wooden cup he had given me, wishing for more. Over the long years that followed, I drank a great deal of the sweet red wine of Kherson. Unlike the stew of salted fish that seemed the characteristic local food, it never bored me. But then, the most the stew brought with it was a bellyache. The wine, if drunk in sufficiency, brought oblivion. To an exile in Kherson, oblivion was sometimes the most precious gift God could grant.

  I did not know then I would spend so many years away from the imperial city, for I did not fully understand how isolated from the rest of the civilized world- or perhaps I should simply say, from the civilized world- Kherson was. My thought then was to heal, to raise a force, and to return to Romania to cast down Leontios. In the bright glow of returning awareness, it all seemed very easy.

  Intending to ask for another cup of wine, I found myself yawning instead. Was the vintage of Kherson so strong? No, I was weak, and had not realized how weak I was. However much I wanted to remain sitting, I could not. As a man will after waking from a fever, I quickly fell back to sleep.

  "He's going to make it," I remember Myakes saying. Of course I am, I thought, and thought no more.

  ***

  When my eyes came open again, it was night. Somewhere not far away, a single lamp burned, so the chamber in the xenodokheion was not absolutely dark. I remembered at once where I was. I also realized at once I was stronger. This is not to say I was strong; a boy whose beard had not yet sprouted could easily have laid me low. It is a measure of how near heavenly judgment I had come.

  Beside me, someone was snoring. At first, I thought it was a carpenter sawing through a thick log. I had no trouble picking out the rhythm: push-pull, push-pull, push-pull. But the fellow was no carpenter, and had no saw. It was only Myakes. I wondered how little sleep he had got while I lay in feverish delirium. Having served me so well through that, he deserved to recover now.

  Next to his pallet lay a stout cudgel. Leontios's men had robbed him of his sword, and he must have had neither chance nor money to get another since arriving at Kherson. But he aimed to protect me as best he could, and a club was better than nothing.

  I sat up. It was easy, this time: I was stronger. Myakes might have fed me as best he could, but he hadn't fed me much. One real meal counted for more than whatever he'd managed to spoon into me while I lay delir
ious. And, encouraged by how easily I had succeeded in sitting, I stood.

  During the time when I was out of my head with fever, someone seemed to have stolen my legs, replacing them with half-baked dough that wanted nothing so much as to buckle under my weight. I swayed like a ship on a tossing sea. No doubt I should have been wiser to lie down again, but that would have been as much as admitting defeat. Besides, I needed to piss.

  Breathing hard, I looked around for a chamber pot. The mere act of breathing felt different after my mutilation, and not only because the wound, while beginning to heal, still festered. Air seemed to strike the interior of my body too soon, so that it felt harsh and raw even when it was not. And, when I exhaled, my breath no longer came down over my mustache and lips, something I had not noticed with the topmost part of my mind until its absence brought it to my attention.

  Spying the pot at last- one lamp was not enough to illuminate so large a chamber- I made my way toward it. Myakes and I being the only ones in the xenodokheion, the monks could have placed it near us, but had not done so, I suppose for no better reason than that they had not thought of it. They were there to give their guests food and shelter, not convenience.

  Standing had been hard. Walking was harder. I thought I would fall over at every step; I have had a far easier time managing while drunk. Stooping down to pick up the chamber pot was also anything but easy. But I managed to ease myself without getting the floor too wet, then returned to bed.

  Myakes had not wakened when I rose, but the rustle of straw under my body as I lay back down made him open his eyes. Glancing my way, he saw I too was awake. "You all right, Emperor?" he asked.

  "With this for my palace, how could I be anything but delighted?" I answered, startling a grunt of laughter out of him. Then I responded to what he had really meant: "I'm better than I was, at any rate. I walked across the room and back just now." I spoke with some small pride, as if I were Pheidippides still alive after having run from Marathon to tell the Athenians of their victory over Xerxes.

  "Eat and sleep and rest- that's what you've got to do for a while," Myakes said. "Once you have your strengt h back, you'll-" He broke off. My likely future must have looked bleak to him.

  Not to me. "I'll go back to the imperial city and reclaim my throne," I declared. "How long can Leontios last as Emperor? He's a joke, and not a funny one."

  In the dim, dim lamplight, I could not see Myakes' expression well. He must have known that. Even so, he looked away from me, perhaps to give himself a moment in which to gather his thoughts. When at last he spoke, his voice was sadder and more gentle than I had ever heard it: "Emperor, Leontios didn't cut your nose off just for the sake of hurting you, you know."

  I slammed into the full meaning of that like a man running headlong into a wall. Myakes was right, of course. Leontios had not mutilated me only to imitate my father's mutilation of my uncles; he had done it for the same reason my father had mutilated them: to disqualify me from ever seeking to regain the imperial dignity.

  Because the Emperor of the Romans and the Roman Empire are so intimately connected to each other, it stands to reason that a mutilation to one implies a mutilation to the other. For as long as the Empire has existed, a physically imperfect man has been reckoned unfit to rule. That is why Emperors commonly have eunuchs as their chamberlains- they know the servants in such intimate daily contact with them will not seek to take their place on the throne.

  Of itself, my hand went to the part of me no longer part of me. My fingers jerked away from the crusted scabs they found.

  Myakes had been watching me. "Now do you understand, Emperor?"

  I understood. I understood all too well. I understood why he had hesitated before giving me my title, that first time he spoke upon my regaining my wits. I understood that, to him, it was now but a title of courtesy, a title of pity, not the title of respect it should have been.

  That was what it meant to him. Not to me. Clenching my fists, I said, "By God and Jesus Christ His Son, I will take back the throne, Myakes. I don't care if I don't have this"- and now I made my hand linger where the fleshy part of my nose had been-"and I don't care about anything else. It- shall- be- mine- again."

  "Yes, Emperor," Myakes said, but more as if humoring me than as if believing me. "How will you do it, though? And if, uh, when you do, how can you make people accept you?"

  "How will I do it? I don't know yet," I answered. "Once I do, how can I make people accept me? That's easy, Myakes: I'll kill the ones who don't. Once I kill enough, the rest will get the idea, don't you think?"

  "Yes, Emperor," he said again.

  ***

  A couple of days later, having heard I was recovering from my wounds, the tudun of Kherson came to pay me a call. The Khazars have had their affairs intermingled with ours since the days of my great-great-grandfather, who persuaded them to join him in attacking the Persians. They also join us in opposing the followers of the false prophet, and have embarrassed the Arabs more than once.

  To my way of thinking, they have no right to lord it over Kherson, which properly is, as it has always been, Roman. But the sword and the bow make their own law, and so Ibouzeros Gliabanos, khagan of the Khazars, is also overlord of Kherson.

  The tudun, his governor here, was barbarously ugly and spoke a vile Greek, but I quickly discovered him to be no fool. "You are to me a problem, Justinian," he said, studying me with a curiosity that, I judged, had nothing to do with my mutilation. Unlike most, he was able to see past it to the man I remained.

  "I do not wish to be a problem to you," I answered. However much I despised the necessity, I had to speak him soft, for he held the power here.

  "Do you want to be Emperor again?" he asked.

  "I am Emperor still," I said simply.

  "Then you are to me a problem." He pointed a finger at me. "I do not want a problem with the new Emperor in Constantinople. He send his ships here, we have fighting, we have trouble, the khagan blame me." His nervous expression said more clearly than his words that such blame was liable to be lethal. My respect for Ibouzeros Gliabanos rose; a sovereign who could inspire such fear in his subjects was not to be despised.

  "Leontios will do nothing," I said. "That is what Leontios does best: nothing."

  The tudun's smile stretched across his wide face but did not reach his narrow eyes. "You say this? He cast you down, and you say this?"

  "He did not move to cast me down. His friends moved him." I picked up a bowl and set it down a couple of feet away to show what I meant.

  "Maybe they move him to fight, too," the tudun said.

  Myakes let out a snort, showing he shared my opinion of Leontios. The tudun's gaze swung toward him. But the barbarian shook his head. "You say this. I do not know it is true. I do not want to find out." He pointed my way again. "Justinian, if you live in Kherson, you live quiet. You understand- live quiet?"

  "I understand," I told him, and I spoke the truth. But understanding and agreement are not the same.

  The tudun's narrow, dark little eyes glinted. He was not the least capable of men, nor the least suspicious. "You live quiet," he repeated. "You make trouble, we know who does." He touched his nose to show what he meant. "We not let you make trouble. We give you back to Roman Emperor." This time, he patted the back of his neck to show what would happen to me were I returned to Constantinople.

  "I understand," I said again, though still knowing in my heart that I was the rightful Emperor of the Romans. A nomisma does not cease to be made of gold even if dropped into a latrine.

  Those narrow eyes glinted again as the tudun studied me. I discovered for the first time the advantage of my mutilation: not only did it draw the gaze to it in horrified fascination, it also made my expression harder to read by changing the contours of my face. "You be good," the tudun said severely, as if to a naughty child. He strode out of the monastery, satisfied he had done his duty.

  "You're going to have to be careful, Emperor," Myakes murmured. "You're going
to have to be patient."

  I knew those words, but had never thought they would apply to me. "God is teaching me humility," I said. Myakes nodded eagerly. He wanted me to stay quiet, too. That meant he could stay quiet along with me. He got his wish, though at the time I had not intended that he do so.

  ***

  A couple of weeks passed before I was well enough to leave the xenodokheion. I thought I had most of my strength back, though by looking at my body I could see how much flesh I still needed to restore. But what sufficed for walking around in the monastery, I soon discovered, was less than adequate for the greater journeys required beyond its doors. Quickly growing winded, I had to rely on the strength of Myakes, who accompanied me, as much as on my own.

  This was so despite Kherson's minuscule size. A healthy man could have walked from one end of the place to the other in half an hour. Even I would not have needed much longer, that first time. To one used to the marvels of the imperial city, being forced to live in Kherson was like having to drink water- and water of poor quality, at that- after wine.

  The life of the town, such as it was, clustered close to the harbor. Though ships from the Roman Empire were few and far between, the little fishing boats kept sailing out onto the Black Sea to bring back the catch on which the life of Kherson depended. Many others depended on the boats for their livelihood: carpenters, netmakers, sailmakers, brothel-keepers, taverners.

  Over everything hung the odor of fish. I discovered in Kherson that, whichever part of the nose is responsible for the sense of smell, it lies deep within the organ, not at the tip, which had been taken from me. I had no trouble whatever discerning the stinks of fish drying in the sun, fish pickling in salty brine, fish frying, and fish rotting. As time passed, I grew accustomed to those stinks, hardly noticing them. In the early days of my exile, though, they made their presence insistently felt.