Justinian Read online

  "When I was coming down to Constantinople, I swore a great oath to have mercy on none of my enemies," I replied. He shrank in on himself, like a loaf of bread falling when the oven door opens at the wrong time. Then, thoughtfully, I asked, "Has the pope in Rome yet accepted the canons of my fifth-sixth synod?"

  Blood dripped down his cheek where I had kicked him. Though he still groveled on his belly before me, his face showed sudden hope. "No, Emperor, the wicked, stubborn fellow has not. He still thunders defiance at the synod inspired by the Holy Spirit. Only spare me, and I shall send anathemas against him that-"

  "Be silent," I told him, and he was silent. After some little while passed in thought, I snapped my fingers and smiled. "I have it! The very thing!"

  "Excommunication?" Kallinikos asked. "A drastic step, Emperor, but, should you require it, I-"

  "Be silent," I said again, and then spoke to Leo: "Take him to the executioners. Let him be blinded with red-hot irons, and then let him be exiled to Rome. Thus I not only punish his betrayal but also warn the pope, whatever his name is these days…" Kallinikos did not answer, past bleating like a ram as it is made into a wether. No one else knew. Shrugging, I went on, "Whoever the pope is, he needs to remember I have my eye on him." I pointed to Kallinikos. "Take this offal away."

  Away he went, still bleating. I never saw him again. He never saw anything again. Leo was laughing as he led him thither. "You'll need a new patriarch now," Myakes remarked.

  "I know," I answered. "I have the man, too: one who was loyal to me at cost to himself, not disloyal at gain for himself."

  Myakes looked sly. "I know what you're going to do: you're going to name Cyrus."

  "That's just what I'm going to do," I said. "He was loyal to me. How can I be anything but loyal to him? He's earned the patriarchal throne. He'll be glad to get out of Kherson, too- what man wouldn't? But first things first." I started out of the palace, on the mission I had begun when the matter of Kallinikos interrupted me. "I have to see Tervel."

  ***

  Looking down from the wall at the khagan of the Bulgars, I saw him and his army in a light different from that in which I had viewed him when we marched on Constantinople together. All the gates of the imperial city remained barred against the Bulgars, as against any other barbarians.

  From a couple of steps beyond the ditch in front of the wall, Tervel waved to me. "You are on your throne again! Well done!" The words were fulsome enough. The tonea160… the tone was that a man uses when a friend has some unexpected piece of good fortune fall into his lap: he is glad for his friend, no doubt, but cannot help wondering why the good fortune did not come to him instead.

  "I am on my throne again," I agreed, wishing I could repudiate every promise I had made. But, with Apsimaros uncaptured, with his brother Herakleios an important commander in Anatolia, I could not afford to affront the Bulgars. "Now I can give you what I swore would be yours."

  Now he hesitated before speaking. He had not thought I should be in a position where I had to make good on my promises. In such a position, I think I startled him by doing so. Carefully, he said, "You will give me your daughter to wed?"

  "No, I cannot do that," I said. "I learn that she is a nun, and does not wish to come forth from her convent. But I told you that, if the marriage could not be, I would make you Caesar, and that I will do, and gladly. Come into the city in a week's time, and I will grant you the robe and crown of your office, and rich gifts besides."

  "My men, who have come so far for you, would like to see the city before then," he said.

  "They may," I said, and he brightened, doubtless hoping I would be foolish enough to allow his whole army into Constantinople at once, thereby giving him the chance to seize it. Quickly, I laid that hope to rest: "They may enter in parties of a hundred, and two hundred may be in the city at any one time. I will stock taverns where they may drink their fill for free, but if they rob or rape or kill, I will punish them as if they were Romans. Agreed?"

  "Agreed," he answered. I was not lavish, but neither was I so niggardly as to rouse wrath- and now I held the Queen of Cities.

  To show him I would abide by my pledge, I ordered the Kharisian Gate opened at once, that he might send his first contingent of Bulgars into the city. The nomads stared in astonishment at Constantinople, they being even less prepared for its magnificence than my followers from Kherson. Seeing their wonder, I smiled and turned to Myakes, who had accompanied me out to the wall. "I wonder what Theodora will have to say about the imperial city here, thinking she knows all about cities because she has seen Phanagoria."

  "That will be something, all right, Emperor," Myakes agreed. He was watching the Bulgars coming into Constantinople. When he saw Roman soldiers accompanying most of them as guides- and, though it remained unsaid, to keep them out of mischief- he relaxed. In thoughtful tones, he asked, "Have you talked to the lady your mother about marrying the Khazar?"

  "Not yet," I answered. Then, thoughtful myself, I went on, "I think, for the time being, I shall dwell in the palace at Blakhernai, here in the northwestern part of the city. It will put me close to the encampment of my allies, the Bulgars."

  "Uh-huh," Myakes said: a peculiar noise, difficult to transcribe in Greek letters. I took it to mean he was of the opinion I chose that course not because it left me close to the Bulgars but because it left me far from my mother. Such speculation I refused to dignify with a reply.

  When I went to the palace in the Blakhernai district, I found only a handful of servants and slaves there, both Leontios and Apsimaros having been in the habit of residing in the grand palace. But many of the servitors there were men and women and eunuchs I had known before my exile. One of the eunuchs explained why that was so: "If we were thought to be loyal to you, Emperor, but the usurpers could not prove treason against us, they sent us away from their presence, to a place where nothing was ever likely to happen."

  "They did the same to me," I exclaimed, and the chamberlain bowed low. My exile had been harsher than his, but not even Auriabedas could have repaired his mutilation.

  I discussed with the eunuchs at the Blakhernai palace my plan for raising Tervel to the rank of Caesar. The one who had explained why I found so many familiar faces there, a certain Theophylaktos, said, "Where shall we get the proper regalia, Emperor? No one in your house has ever named Caesars, only junior Emperors. We have no proper crowns, we have no proper robesa160…" Besides such concerns, that Tervel was a barbarous Bulgar faded into insignificance for him.

  "Take one of my uncles' crowns and cut off the cross atop it," I said. "Tervel knows that's the difference between an Emperor's crown and a Caesar's, because I told him as much. Since we've had no Caesars for so long, no one in the imperial city will know any more than that."

  "True," Theophylaktos said, sounding surprised at having the matter so abruptly settled. Then he looked worried once more. "But what of the robe this Tervel is supposed to wear? The moths will surely have had their way with-"

  "So what?" I said. "We'll put him in an imperial robe. No one will know if that's not perfectly proper, either. And no one will care. We'll say it's a Caesar's robe, Tervel will be wearing a Caesar's crown, and we're proclaiming him Caesar. That should settle things."

  "Most irregular," the eunuch muttered. But he bowed and composed himself to obey. My entire return to Constantinople had been most irregular, but he did not mention that. Since I was now undisputed master of the imperial city, anything I ordered became regular because I ordered it.

  ***

  As I had commanded, so it was done. Tervel and his guards quietly came into the city two days before that on which I would fulfill my promise to him. During those two days, he rode through as much of the city as he could, so that I saw little of him. "I never believed my envoys," he said, as he had before. "Now I see they said less than they might have done."

  Criers had also gone through the city, ordering the people to appear before the palace of Blakhernai at the start of the
fourth hour of the day, to see me create the new Caesar. As my father had crowned me, so I intended to crown Tervel myself. Since I was setting the crown on his head in my capacity as Emperor, the patriarch's presence was superfluous and dispensable. As well, too, for Kallinikos, having tried and failed to reaccommodate himself to me after acquiescing in my overthrow and mutilation, had already sailed off, blinded, into exile at Rome. I felt sure the ship bearing him would reach its destination safe: with him aboard, it would sail before any breeze.

  Palace servitors threw coins into the crowd around the rostrum the artisans had hastily erected in front of the Blakhernai palace. Already, the engraver Cyril had provided coins bearing my image and the number twenty, signifying the twentieth year of my reign. By my reckoning, I had never been rightfully removed, and I intended making my reckoning that of the whole Empire.

  "Tu vincas, Justinian!" the people shouted as I strode forward to take my place on the platform.

  They had acclaimed Leontios and Apsimaros as fervently as they now acclaimed me. How I longed to turn soldiers, Romans and Bulgars together, loose on them, to show them playing the prostitute had its price. Regretfully, I set aside the notion, having made other plans for the day.

  "I have conquered," I said. "The wretch who stole my throne lies in prison, while the pirate who robbed him of it in turn has shown his cowardice by fleeing the imperial city. The house of Herakleios is restored, as God ordained."

  They cheered, loud and long. They dared do nothing less. Some of them, no doubt, were examining their memories and their consciences, wondering if I could learn they had cheered my overthrow ten years before. They had been fools to cheer then, but were not so foolish if they wondered thus. I intended trying to learn exactly that. When vengeance is God-ordained, it must be thorough.

  "I have conquered," I repeated, and then made my voice go hard: "No thanks to you, no thanks to any Romans, that I have. My one true ally was Tervel son of Asparukh, khagan of the Bulgars. Upon him, then, I confer the rewards you Romans might otherwise have claimed. Attend me, Tervel!"

  Clad in a plain white tunic, the khagan joined me on the platform. He stared out in wonder at the multitude there to witness his aggrandizement. In a soft voice, he said, "I have never seen so many people gathered together in one place in all my life. How do you feed them all?"

  "We manage," I answered, and raised my voice once more: "People of Constantinople, I now raise Tervel the Bulgar to the rank of Caesar, in recognition of his services to me." Theophylaktos the eunuch draped an imperial robe, glittering with pearls and gems and golden threads, around the Bulgar's shoulders.

  Tervel grunted in surprise. "This thing is as heavy as armor." He looked down at himself. "Prettier than armor, I will say." He smiled.

  With my own hands, I set on his head the crossless crown of the Caesar. "Behold Justinian Emperor of the Romans and Tervel Caesar!" I shouted to the gaping mob. "We are friends and allies, joined against thieves and robbers."

  With one accord, the people prostrated themselves before the two of us, men, women, and children alike, so that we saw only their backs and the napes of their necks. A headsman would have had an easy time of it, striding through the crowds lopping heads as a farmer with a scythe cuts down wheat. Most of them, I daresay, deserved nothing better.

  "Arise!" Tervel shouted in a great voice, his first- and last- command as Caesar. The people hastened to obey. Some of them shouted the acclamations traditional upon the accession of a Caesar, wishing him many years and good fortune. Those acclamations sounded thin, though, and not only because of going so long unused as to be half-forgotten: some Constantinopolitans, I thought, did not care to lavish such praise on a barbarian.

  I had no great delight in doing as I did, but, having begun it, did it as thoroughly as I could. "When Tervel Caesar returns to his own country," I told the people, "we shall honor him with many presents: gold and scarlet-dyed skins and pepper." Such are the presents that have pleased barbarians for hundreds of years. Tervel proved no exception to the ancient rule, puffing out his chest and looking pleased.

  The people cheered, which made him even prouder than he had been. I hid a smile. He thought they were cheering his rank and my munificence. Knowing the city mob as I do, I knew also that what delighted them most was the announcement that he would be leaving Constantinople for his homeland.

  That announcement delighted me less than it did the mob. Tervel's having a country of his own, a country carved out of Roman territory, remained galling a quarter of a century after the Bulgars, humiliating my father, established themselves south of the Danube. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven, says the Book of Ecclesiastes. For now, Tervel remained my friend and ally. Latera160… later would be a different season.

  A few days later, the khagan rode north, his saddlebags nicely heavy with gold, bulging with skins, and packed with pepper. The latter he reckoned as much a marvel as anything else he found in Constantinople. "It bites the tongue!" he exclaimed, on my serving him a kid roasted with peppercorns. The sharp flavor made him drink immoderately, a benefit he also appreciated.

  I having kept my promise, he kept his as well, and restrained the Bulgars from plundering as they rode north. And why not? He had made more profit dealing with me than he could have got by stealing from me. That he kept his pledge by withdrawing peacefully also helped me secure my hold on the heart of the Roman Empire, no small matter with Apsimaros still at large. Rumor said he had sailed up toward Thrace, but rumor was not enough. I wanted the usurper.

  ***

  But Apsimaros was not the only illegal ruler about whom I concerned myself. One of my first actions on returning to the imperial city was to order Leontios's guards not to tell him I had reclaimed that which was mine. Tervel having departed, I went in full imperial regalia to the monastery of Delmatos and commanded the usurped usurper brought before me.

  "Down on your belly before the Emperor of the Romans!" my excubitores shouted, and Leontios prostrated himself in his filthy tunic. The prison stench came off him in waves.

  "Rise," I said.

  Clumsily, he got to his feet. Not only was he covered with dirt, but his shaggy, unkempt hair and beard, which had had only a light frosting of gray ten years before, were now snow but lightly dusted with soot. In the center of his broad face was a broad hole. The executioner had done a more thorough job on him than on me, which disheartened me not in the least.

  Imprisonment having done nothing to quicken his wits, he stared at me some little while before saying, "You're not Apsimaros," and following that a moment later with, "You're someone else." Finding he remained not only fatuous but also redundant made me laugh out loud. A frown turned his features even uglier than they had been before. "I know your voice, don't I?"

  "I should think you would, Leontios," I replied. "Or shall I call you Leo, the Lion?" I shook my head. "No. No one else did."

  His eyes went wide, but not so wide as the hole where his nose had been. "Justinian!" he exclaimed, and made the sign of the cross, as if he had seen a ghost. "But it isn't- you can't- you aren't- you've got-"

  I affirmed every one of his incoherent denials: "It is I. I can rule. I am Emperor. I've got a nose." I smil ed at him. "You look remarkably hideous without one."

  "Kyrie eleison," Leontios gasped, turning pale beneath his grime. "Christe eleison."

  "God and Christ may have mercy on you," I said, "but I shall have none, and, since that is at God's command, my own guess is that the demons in hell will torment you through all eternity: what you deserve, for raising your hand against the Emperor of the Romans."

  "I spared your life," he said. "I did not kill you."

  "You did not think you needed to kill me," I told him. "The lesson I draw from that is not to make such mistakes myself. Having lost your nose, you shall lose your head as well." I gestured to the guards. "Take him back to his cell. Now, instead of every day being the same as the one before and the one
after it"- a condition I knew all too well from my weary years in Kherson-"he has something to look forward to."

  The guards laughed. Myakes laughed. I laughed. Leontios, the humorless wretch, failed to see the joke.

  ***

  A few weeks after my return to the imperial city, a messenger still stinking of horse sweat dashed into the Blakhernai palace, shouting, "Emperor! Emperor! We have Apsimaros!"

  Although normally reckoning highly important the dignity of my office, on that glad occasion I took no notice of it whatever, letting loose a whoop of delight that made the tax official with whom I was talking jump in alarm. "Is he alive or dead?" I demanded. "Where was he taken?"

  "Up in Apollonias, on the coast of Thrace," the messenger answered- rumor, for once, had spoken truly. "He's alive- in chains and on the way down to the imperial city. What happened was, he paid for lodging up there with a nomisma that had his own face on it. The tavern keeper recognized him and gave the word to the city garrison-"

  "Which had already declared for me," I interrupted happily.

  "Which had already declared for you," the messenger agreed. "Apsimaros was taken by surprise- he never got his sword out of the scabbard."

  "A pound of gold for the news," I said, whereupon the messenger let out a whoop even louder than mine. He started dancing where he stood.

  The bureaucrat said, "Emperor, this news should also end any difficulties you have with Herakleios, Apsimaros's brother."

  "By the Virgin, that's true," I exclaimed. Apsimaros, it turned out, had summoned Herakleios from the military district of the Anatolics on receiving word that the Bulgars and I were advancing on Constantinople, intending to use his brother to command an army against me. But, by the time Herakleios got the news and the force he brought with him sailed from southeastern Anatolia, the imperial city lay in my hands. Unable to land in the vicinity, he had come ashore at Abdera, about halfway between Constantinople and Thessalonike. I had feared he and the usurper would be able to unite against me, but that would not happen now.