Justinian Read online

  A washerwoman emptied a barrel of water out onto the roadway in front of her shop. Soaking rapidly into the dirt- Kherson boasted no paved streets- the water soon vanished, leaving behind only a patch of mud to entrap unwary passersby, and perhaps to enhance the washerwoman's trade.

  Seeing that brief puddle, though, gave me an idea. "She'll have more water in there, won't she?" I asked Myakes.

  "I expect so, Emperor," he answered. After a brief hesitation, he asked, "Are you thirsty? There will be wineshops for that."

  I was not thirsty. I had no doubt he knew I was not thirsty. He was trying to protect me from myself, always a losing battle. I went into the washerwoman's shop. She looked up from the tunics she was wringing out. Her mouth twisted. Then, of a sudden, her faced cleared, or nearly cleared. "You're him, aren't you?" she asked in strangely accented Greek. "Justinian, I mean."

  "Yes, I am Justinian." Till that moment, I had never had to humble myself before anyone but my father, and found the experience both strange and unpleasant. Nevertheless, I persisted. Pointing to a wooden hogshead, I asked, "Is there water in that barrel?"

  "There is water," she agreed. Then she went on as Myakes had: "Are you thirsty? I will get you a cup."

  "No, I am not thirsty," I said. "I want to see myself. May I look?"

  She hesitated. Her lip curled again, which should have told me everything I needed to know. But I had been polite. Though she looked troubled, she nodded to me. Nodding my thanks in return, I went over to the hogshead and peered down into it.

  In the grand palace in Constantinople, I had a mirror of polished silver as tall as I was, in which I could examine my magnificence when decked out in the imperial regalia. A handsome man had always stared back at me from that gleaming surface. My regalia now consisted of a dirty wool tunic. I had been disfigured. The water in that miserable old barrel seemed an appropriate instrument in which to view myself.

  It was dim inside the shop, and dimmer within the hogshead. For a moment, I thought I would see nothing. Then, my eyes having adapted to the gloom, I wished nothing was what I had continued to see.

  Everyone knows the seeming of a man new-recovered from illness that all but took his life: the sunken eyes, the skin stretched tight across cheekbones, the expression that says- and says truthfully- he has won a battle against a foe as deadly as any who roars on the battlefield, sword and bow to hand. All that I expected; all that I found. In my imagination, I had subtracted from my appearance most of my nose- or, at least, I had thought I had done so.

  I have many times been reminded imagination and reality are not identical, but never more forcibly than on that quiet morning in that humid little shop. In my imagination, the wound was neat and precise, with pink flesh appearing under where my nose had been. In fact, my face took on the aspect of a skull, with a large, dark opening in the center. The presence of my eyes above it could not overcome the horrific, skeletal impression I created even on myself.

  Sickened, I turned away from the hogshead, for the first time understanding in my belly why ancient custom forbids the imperial throne to a mutilated man. Who, I wondered, could bring himself to obey the commands of an Emperor whom good fortune had so conspicuously abandoned? What disasters would the reign of such a one bring down onto the Roman Empire?

  Turning toward Myakes, I saw he had long ago grasped what I was realizing only now. "You see, Emperor?" he said, meaning the word in its most literal sense.

  "Yes, I see," I answered, and, for a moment, despair threatened to overwhelm me. "I see," I repeated heavily, and, after thanking the washerwoman for what she imagined to be her kindness, I spoke again to Myakes, in listless tones: "Let's go."

  "Aye, Emperor," he said, compliant as always.

  And by that unquestioning compliance he saved me. I strode out of the washerwoman's shop into the warm, bright sunshine. Myakes followed without hesitation. He need not have followed. He need not have accompanied me to Kherson at all, or nursed me when fever from my wounds nearly took my life. Better for him had he stayed behind in Constantinople.

  But he had followed and cared for me. He followed still. If he followed me, mutilated as I was, others would follow as well. The logic was as inexorable as any the pedagogue whose name I have long since forgotten tried to inculcate in me, as inexorable as the logic demonstrating the hypostatic union of the two natures of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

  "I will be Emperor again," I murmured, and then, "I shall be Emperor again," which partook of more of the flavor of inevitability building in my mind.

  Myakes said nothing. I daresay he thought I was mad. But if he thought me mad, why did he still call me Emperor? Humoring a madman, perhaps? Perhaps. But why would he have gone on serving a madman? As exile, I had no claim on him; he could have done better for himself had he abandoned me. To the bottom of my soul, I believe something in him still sensed the power of the imperial dignity clinging to me even in Kherson, as the scent of perfume clings to a woman long after she sets aside the jar from which it has come.

  I did not traverse Kherson end to end, not that first day. The smell of fish frying in hot oil wafting out of a tavern near the washerwoman's shop made my stomach growl like a bear. I pointed to the tavern, saying, "Let's get some of that. It will be better than the salt fish they'll give us back at the monastery." I had already had plenty of that.

  Myakes looked down at the ground. "How do you propose paying for it, Emperor? At the monastery, they don't ask for money- or they haven't yet, anyhow. If we stay there much longer and Leontios doesn't send any, they will, I expect."

  Was I more astonished than I should have been? Maybe I was, but in all my life I had never once had to pay for food, and the idea that I might need to do so now had never entered my mind. Almost as much as the glimpse of my appearance, it brought home to me the brute reality that, in the eyes of the world, I was Emperor of the Romans no more. Well, the world was and is an ignorant place, and I have had occasion to teach it more than one lesson.

  Nor had I ever had to worry about money for myself before: for the Roman Empire, yes, but not for myself. I had had everything. I now had nothing. Realizing to the fullest how far I had fallen was dizzying. I found myself swaying on my feet. This, I judge, was also due in no small measure to my remaining bodily weakness. Having recovered from that in part, I had imagined it completely overcome, and now discovered I was in error.

  "Let's head back," Myakes said, seeing both my discomfiture and my weakness. And, indeed, he took my arm and bore some of my weight when I faltered. The salty stew was waiting for us when we arrived. I ate of it, then crawled under my blanket and slept like a little child after a hard day's play.

  When I woke, I was stronger.

  ***

  One day not long after that, Myakes said to me, "I expect you'll be all right here for a spell, Emperor. I'm going up into the town."

  "What are you going to do there?" I asked.

  "Look for work on the docks," he answered. "We'll both be better off if we have a bit of cash jingling in our pouches." He slapped the one he wore on the belt round his tunic. Nothing jingled there, it being empty.

  "But-" I began. I can name no rational reason for the pained embarrassment I felt. Myakes had been serving me since I was hardly higher than his knee. He had risked his life more than once on my behalf. Why his proposing to labor so that I might have money so affected me, I cannot say. That it did, I cannot deny.

  Myakes, however, would hear none of my inchoate protest. "Got to be done," he said cheerfully. "I've been a farmer and I've been a soldier. After those, dockwalloper won't be so much of a much."

  He poured down the wine the monks had given us with our morning porridge- salt-fish porridge, of course- and went out, whistling a dirty song whose tune our pious hosts fortunately did not recognize. That left me with nothing whatever to do and with no one with whom to talk, the monks being occupied after breakfast with their own concerns.

  I went into the monaster
y chapel to pray. A couple of monks there gave me approving looks. After noticing that, I ignored them, wondering how I should address the God Whom I had served all the years of my life, Who had rewarded me with rank and comfort and pleasure beyond those of which most mortal men can dreama160… and Who had then cast me down.

  Quoting the Psalmist, I said, "a160'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'a160" Though easy to say, that was hard to accept. The Lord had judged my family harshly: my brother, my father, my wife all struck down young, and now my own fall from wealth and splendor. God had let Satan inflict boundless suffering on Job, whose faith had not wavered.

  In the end, God rewarded Job for his steadfastness. That thought helped me shape the rest of the prayer I sent up to the heavens: "Test me as You will, Lord; I am Your instrument. And if it should happen that You grant me return to the Queen of Cities, I shall glorify Your name unceasingly. But if it be Your will that I remain here throughout my span of daysa160… I shall glorify Your name unceasingly in that case as well." I crossed myself.

  I stayed in the chapel a long time. Next to the church of the Holy Wisdom, it was a hovel, but a house of God is a house of God, no matter how humble. I did not need to think about what to do there; I already knew. And so I remained, while the sun wheeled across the sky.

  As evening approached, Myakes returned. He stank of sweat but had money in his pouch. "I won't have any trouble keeping us in coins," he told me. "It was like they'd never seen anybody who wanted to do some work and wasn't going through the motions- or maybe I'm just used to moving faster than these people on account of all the years I've lived in the city."

  "All right," I said, still obscurely troubled that he should have to labor with the sweat of his brow for our welfare. But what was the alternative? That I labor myself? For one thing, I had not yet fully recovered my strength after the fever that followed my mutilation. For another, should an Emperor of the Romans have become a common roustabout? I saw that as even less fitting than living off Myakes' stalwart efforts.

  Every morning after that, he went off to the docks. Almost every evening, he came back with a full day's wages, sometimes in Roman folles and miliaresia, sometimes in silver minted by the followers of the false prophet, sometimes in coins I had never seen before, coins from out of the barbarous west of the world or the all but unknown east. Kherson was not a great trading center if only the number of merchants who called there was taken into account, but it did draw folk from every corner of the earth.

  Myakes was generous in sharing with me what he earned. Though I continued to spend a good deal of time in the chapel, I was also able to make forays into the town and, if the impulse struck me, to buy for myself a cup of wine or some fried fish drenched in vinegar. I had, in fact, the illusion of freedom- freedom, that is, so long as I did not try to leave, or even think of leaving, Kherson.

  It was not enough.

  MYAKES

  Do you know, Brother Elpidios, I wouldn't have minded so much if Justinian had decided to live out his days on the far side of the Black Sea. I'd be there yet, I expect, probably not working so hard now. I'd be an old man there, s ame as I am here, but I'd have my eyes, and that wouldn't be so bad. Like as not, I'd be sitting in a wineshop, or maybe out in front if the weather's fine like it usually is up there, and I'd watch the pretty girls go by. Every now and then, somebody'd ask me to tell a story of Constantinople, and folks would go ooh and ahh, and they'd buy me more wine. Doesn't sound so bad, does it?

  Justinian might still be there, too- you never can tell. He'd be ugly, no doubt about it, but Kherson's not a big place. People would be used to him by now. Once you've seen somebody every day for years, what he looks like doesn't matter so much. He'd just be old Justinian, who used to be Emperor. And the stories he could tell- I'd have listened to those myself.

  But that's not how things happened. They could have, easy enough, but they didn't. And so Justinian's twenty years dead, and I'm here, an old blind monk. You can't tell beforehand, Brother Elpidios. Only God knows beforehand, and He never, never, lets on.

  JUSTINIAN

  While I stayed there in Kherson, days began to blur together in a fashion I had never known before. With nothing to distinguish one from another, they slipped past me without my fully realizing they had gone. I was taken by surprise when the first winter storm roared over the mountains north of the town. Surely only a month- six weeks at the most- had passed since the warm summer day when Leontios and his pack of traitors stole my throne from me. But no, looking at the position of the sun in the sky and the stars at night convinced me that storm was no freak, but came at its proper time.

  Not many storms came roaring over the mountains. Although lying the breadth of the Black Sea north of Constantinople, Kherson has winters generally milder than those of the imperial city, this being due to the shielding effect of the high ground. Snow was more frequently an amusement for the children than a drudgery for their elders. And, in fact, Myakes and I had a fine time, or more than one, pelting each other with snowballs and then retreating into the comfortable warmth of the xenodokheion.

  But, though I continued to live in the guesthouse attached to the monastery, I was no monk, lacking as I did the temperament for the solitary life. One day I borrowed some silver from Myakes- or rather, I asked it of him and he gave it to me- and went walking up into Kherson.

  I knew the sort of place I was looking for, and expected to find such a place close by the harbor. Sure enough, when I came to a large two-story building with a muscular fellow lounging outside, a sword on his hip and a club in his hand, I suspected my search was done. Nodding to him, I said, "Are the girls pretty?" and pointed inside.

  "Aye, they are," he answered- would a whorehouse bouncer deny it, thereby turning away trade? He looked at me in a thoughtful way. "I'm not so sure they'll think you're pretty, though."

  I made the miliaresia jingle in my pouch. "They'll think these are pretty."

  He surprised me then, saying, "Maybe, maybe not. This is a town full of sailors. Business is good enough, the girls can afford to be choosy."

  He was not offensive about my mutilation, treating it as a simple business problem. That left me untroubled; indeed, it pleased me more than his simply ignoring it would have done. Responding in a like vein, I said, "May I try my luck?"

  He studied me again. "You're not going to raise a fuss if they turn you down?"

  "By the Mother of God, I swear it," I said, whereupon he started to laugh, as did I a moment later. An ordinary enough oath, yes, but not when offered outside a brothel. Not only did he wave me forward, he opened the door so I could enter.

  I had never been inside such a place before. As prince and then as Emperor of the Romans, I had had women brought to me, and no need to go forth to seek them. Thus I looked around with some curiosity. It was as I might have expected: several women, some comely, some not, sat on chairs or lolled on couches, waiting for trade. They wore thin, clinging tunics cut very short; none of them bothered with drawers. Each and every one looked bored. The hall smelled of cheap scent and old sweat.

  A plump fellow, evidently the master of the place, came up to me, looking very important. "What do you want here?" he demanded.

  That question I had not expected. Others, perhaps, but not that one. I stared at him, then answered, "I've come to buy some paint."

  The whores realized I was jesting before their pimp did. At their laughter, he pasted a broad, insincere smile across his broad, insincere face. "I don't know, friend," he said- when a man like that calls you friend stand with your back to a wall and keep one hand on your belt pouch and the other on your knife. He went on, "You're not the prettiest fellow who ever came in here, you know."

  I daresay he was not the prettiest fellow who had ever come in there, either, but if I angered him, I would not get what I had come to pay for. And so, as I had for the bouncer outside, I showed I had money to spend. "The silver looks the same any which way."

/>   He ran his tongue over broad, fleshy lips. Even so, he spread his hand. "If I order one of the girls to serve you, I'll make all of them angry- you see how it is? If one of them will go to you by herself, fine. Otherwisea160…" He let that hang.

  I turned to the women, not pleading- if I had not pleaded for Leontios, I would not plead before a pack of prostitutes- but showing myself to them and waiting to learn what they would do. What they did was nothing. Not one made any move to join me. I jingled the pouch again. "Twice the money," I said, but, one by one, they shook their heads.

  "You see how it is," the brothel keeper said again.

  "I see," I said, less angry than I had thought I would be. Like the muscular lout outside, they were matter-of-fact, not scornful. That gave me an idea: "What if I come back after dark, and we go to a dark room?"

  "For twice the usual?" one of the girls asked. Yes, it was business.

  "A deal," I said at once. She was thin and rather plain, but not outright ugly. And, if she would not be able to see me in the night, I would not be able to see her, either. There in the blackness, I could imagine her as I pleased.

  When I went outside after completing the bargain, the ruffian out there said, "No luck, eh?" Seeing me doing as I had sworn, he was inclined to be sympathetic rather than harsh.

  "They told me to come back after dark," I answered.

  "Ah," he said understandingly. "I'll see you then, I guess." As I started to go, he added a question: "Is it true what they say, that you used to be Emperor of the Romans?"

  "No," I replied. I saw that I had disappointed him, but I had not finished: "It's not true I used to be Emperor of the Romans. I am the Emperor of the Romans."