Justinian Read online

  "I know the very man to lead your resistance against the deniers of Christ," I exclaimed. "I shall give you my own spatharios, Leo, who by his nature is well suited both to war and to complex bargaining." I spoke with vehemence enough to impress the Alan greatly, nor was I telling him anything less than the truth. "With him I shall send the sum of five thousand nomismata, that he may hire soldiers or make bargains"- a euphemism for pay bribes-"as he sees fit."

  "God bless you, Emperor!" the Alan exclaimed. "You have given me and my prince more than we dared expect."

  "Leo shall sail for Phasis, the Black Sea port onto which your country opens, no later than next week. I am confident he will do great things for you."

  If Leo suspected he was being banished, he gave no sign of it. "I'll tie their tails in knots, Emperor," he said. "Send me after them. I haven't been on that side of the world since I was a little boy, and never up in those mountains." He smiled. "I hear the women in the Caucasus are pretty, too."

  "Business before pleasure," I said sternly.

  "Oh, of course," he answered, as if surprised I could have thought anything else. "But if pleasure comes along, I won't send it packing." Given his philanderings here in the imperial city, I believed him.

  He sailed for Phasis a few days later, along with the Alan envoy and the gold. In due course, he reached the town on the eastern shore of the Black Sea and wrote to me that he was going into the interior of the country there, leaving the money behind so that it would remain safe until such time as he decided exactly how it might best be disbursed.

  Having heard that much from him, I put him out of my mind. The Caucasus being so remote, his success, if he found some, would be gratifying but not vital, while his failure would not send an Arab host storming toward Constantinople, as had happened in the days of my youth. I wondered if he would prove as ingenious as he appeared.

  And then, a few weeks later, Helias brought before me a little old wrinkled man who stank of leather. "Emperor, this is Theodoulos, the bootmaker who fashions the imperial footgear. Tell the Emperor what you've told me, Theodoulos."

  "Yes, yes," Theodoulos said- thickly, for he had only a few teeth. "This Leo, this spatharios"- a word on account of which he sprayed me with spittle-"he came into my shop, and he asked me, he did, he asked mea160…"

  "What did he ask you?" I demanded.

  "Yes, yes, that's right. He did ask me," Theodoulos said. "He asked me, he did, all right-"

  "The dye," Helias prompted.

  "No, no, not ready to die yet," Theodoulos said, though at that moment he was closer to dying than he knew. But then, somewhere in the darkness of his wits, a lamp was lighted. "Oh, the dye. Yes, yes. Leo, he asked me, he did, what dye it was I used to get just that shade of, shade of, shade of, of red on the imperial boots."

  "Did he?" I said. "He had no business asking you that." That shade of red is reserved for the Emperor alone. Had Leo not been interested in becoming Emperor, it would not have concerned him.

  "Emperor, you should recall him and strike off his disloyal head," Helias said.

  "I should like to recall him and strike off his head," I answered, "but, if I should, do you think him more likely to come back to the imperial city or go over to the Abasgians?" Helias's face told me what he thought. Thinking the same thing myself, I went on in meditative tones: "A man with his gift for intrigue could severely trouble the Roman Empire."

  "That is so, Emperor," Helias admitted, "but will you let him go free and show others closer to home a man can prosper through treason?"

  "He shall not prosper," I said, and then again, in an altogether different, almost startled, tone of voice, "He shall not prosper."

  "What will you do?" Helias asked me.

  "That is my affair," I answered, not wanting him to get a glimpse of the way my mind worked: though dispraising Leo's disloyalty, he might have some of his own. To Theodoulos, I said, "Half a pound of gold to you for what you have told me of Leo."

  "God bless you, Emperor," the bootmaker exclaimed, and prostrated himself again.

  Dismissing him and Helias, I called for a secretary. The man having arrived, I dictated a letter. When I had finished, I said, "I shall want a fair copy of that before noon, so that I can sign it. It must be on a dromon bound for Phasis this afternoon."

  "Yes, Emperor," the scribe replied. "Of course, Emperor." He knew perfectly well what would happen to him did he fail. But, being employed to write, write he did, and I affixed my signature in the scarlet ink reserved for the holder of the imperial dignity. A courier on a fast horse took the letter to the harbor and stayed there until with his own eyes he had seen the dromon depart.

  It returned to this God-guarded city within three days of the time I had reckoned to be the fastest possible. Its captain, a weatherbeaten veteran named Agapetos, hastened to the Blakhernai palace as soon as it tied up at one of the quays along the Golden Horn. On being told he had come, I summoned him directly into my presence and even forgave him the time-wasting ritual of prostration. "Tell me at once whether you have accomplished the task I set you," I said.

  "Emperor, I have," Agapetos answered. "The gold the spatharios Leo left behind in Phasis was still there. Obedient to your command, I took charge of it and have returned it to Constantinople. Even as we speak, it is being carried back to the imperial treasury."

  "Splendid," I said, and then again, "Splendid. Pharaoh of Egypt set the Israelites to making bricks without straw, and an ambassador without money is as useless as a brick that has no straw. The native tribes of the Caucasus will surely complete Leo's ruination."

  "Yes, Emperor." Agapetos did not ask why I wanted Leo ruined. That was not his affair, and he knew it. He made the perfect sort of servant for me: he did exactly as he was told, he did it well, and he never, ever, asked why.

  ***

  I always kept close track of the ships coming to this God-guarded and imperial city from Kherson, Phanagoria, and the other towns on the northern coast of the Black Sea. I had scores still unsettled with the folk of those regions; the more I learned of their doings, the better I could prepare my own when that time came.

  Not long after I gave Leo his comeuppance, a ship captain out of Phanagoria sought me out, coming to the palace at Blakhernai. When the eunuch Theophylaktos learned what message he bore, he passed him on to me. "Say on," I told the captain after he had prostrated himself.

  "Thank you, Emperor," he answered. "As I said to your steward here, along with my usual wax and tallow and hides, I have a message from the khagan of the Khazars for you."

  "Do you?" I murmured. "Ibouzeros Gliabanos has not had much to say to me since I returned to Constantinople. I thought he owned a sense of shame. Maybe I was wrong. Well, what does he say?"

  "Emperor," the captain said uncomfortably, "he asks your leave to come to Constantinople himself, to visit his sister and you."

  Had I been drinking wine, I daresay I should have choked. As it was, I coughed a couple of times before saying, "He does, does he? He dares?"

  "Aye," the unhappy emissary answered. "He told me to tell you he didn't kill you when you were in his capital, and he thought you'd do him the same favor. He's camped on the steppe near Phanagoria, waiting for your word. If I tell him you grant him leave, he'll sail with me, my next trip into the city."

  For one of the rare times in my life, I was not instantly certain what to do. Tell Ibouzeros Gliabanos to stay far away? Tell him to come and then slay him? Had he not been my wife's brother, I should have done that, but he was. Tell him to come and let him escape? I had gone safe out of Atil, regardless of what happened later. But letting anyone escape my vengeance had become bitter as wormwood, bitter as myrrh, to me.

  Instead of giving the fellow his answer on the spot, I spoke to Theophylaktos: "Put him up for the night here in the palace. In the morning, I shall tell him what I have decided."

  "It shall be as you say, Emperor." If my indecision startled Theophylaktos, I never knew. He prided himself
on his imperturbability, the only time I saw it breached being when he returned to the imperial city after the ill-fated journey to get Theodora back from her brother.

  As he went off with the ship captain, I went back to talk the news over with Theodora, whom I found spinning flax into thread with three or four of her serving women. Having dismissed them, I told her of Ibouzeros Gliabanos's desire to visit Constantinople.

  "My brother to come here?" she said, her narrow eyes widening. "He puts his head in the mouth of the wolf." Her Greek had grown much more fluent in the time since her arrival in Constantinople, but she still flavored it, as she does to this day, with turns of phrase calling to mind the steppe whence she sprang.

  This one struck me as particularly apt. "Yes, he does," I replied with a certain amount of anticipation. "How shall we requite him for trying to have me killed in Phanagoria?"

  Theodora looked troubled. "He let you live before," she said. "He wed me to you. When you killed his men and fled to the Bulgars, he cared for me and for Tiberius. He has treated you badly, but also well. And," she added, "he is my brother."

  I sighed. "For your sake, then, you want me to let him come and to treat him well? I love you, but God will turn away from me if I do not avenge myself on all my enemies."

  "If my brother were truly your enemy, you would be dead now, and I would be back at Atil." Theodora looked a challenge at me, as if daring me to deny her words. Seeing I could not, she went on, "And the saddlebags- no, you would say the scales- are even on both sides. He has done you well and harm both. It is a balance. God will forgive you."

  What she was also saying was that she would not forgive me if, having invited Ibouzeros Gliabanos to the imperial city, I then turned on him. I sighed again, having feared that would be her response. "Very well. He may come. I will remember the good he has done me, especially since you are the biggest part of that good."

  "Thank you!" she exclaimed, and, casting her arms around my neck, kissed me until I could hardly breathe. Shortly thereafter, we adjourned to the bedchamber, where she threw herself on me and rode me as a jockey rides a racehorse. Such immodest and unfeminine aggression was on occasion extremely enjoyable and even complimentary, she having learned from me everything she knew of love between men and women.

  Having been thus persuaded both intellectually and lectually, I summoned the ship captain when morning came and told him Ibouzeros Gliabanos was welcome to visit the imperial city. "And I swear by God and His Son that no harm will come to the khagan of the Khazars through any action on my part or on the part of my servants," I added.

  "I shall tell him you have taken this oath, Emperor," the seaman said. "He did not insist on it as a condition for coming, but wanted to learn whether you would offer it of your own free will."

  Had I not already known Ibouzeros Gliabanos was a canny, cautious man, his behavior in this regard would have instructed me. He did not demand the oath, which would have implied he failed to trust me. He did not even mention it, which proved the best way to extract it from me. Though a pagan and a barbarian, the khagan of the Khazars was no fool.

  ***

  The ship bearing the khagan and his retinue sailed into Constantinople a bit more than a month later. I greeted him at the Golden Horn, as I had his sister on her arrival, and, as I had done with her, brought a troop of excubitores both to protect myself and for the sake of pomp. Having made the acquaintance of the khagan in Khazaria, Myakes was the logical choice to head the troop.

  Ibouzeros Gliabanos strode up the quay toward the excubitores, Theodora, and me. A little man I correctly assumed to be an interpreter walked a pace behind him and to his left. The rest of the Khazars followed. All of them, the khagan included, kept looking this way and that, as if having trouble believing what they saw.

  Having bowed to me and embraced his sister, Ibouzeros Gliabanos spoke in his own language, the interpreter rendering his words into Greek for me: "I thought I knew what a city was, but I see I was wrong."

  Theodora clapped her hands together. "I said the same thing when I came here," she exclaimed- in Greek.

  The interpreter having performed his office, the khagan spoke with a hint of sadness perceptible even though I did not grasp his words until they were translated: "You have become a Roman, my sister."

  "I have," Theodora said in Greek, and then went on in the Khazars' tongue. She translated for me: "I told my brother he gave me to a Roman as a wife, and that I have become of my husband's people, as a wife should."

  "I knew that already," Ibouzeros Gliabanos answered, and Theodora nodded proudly. Had she not warned me against her brothe r's myrmidons, I should not have survived to return to this God-guarded city. The khagan then spoke to me, saying, "Now I understand why you wanted so much to come back."

  "For the sake of the city, do you mean?" I asked, and he nodded- I shall henceforth omit mention of the interpreter, a man scarcely memorable. I said, "Yes, I am glad to live here again, but I came back because it is mine."

  "You are a king," he said, and it was my turn to nod. Turning to the excubitores, he recognized Myakes. "A king who is a good king will have good subjects. Is it well with you, Myakes, who traveled with your king when only you thought he was one?"

  "It is very well with me, Ibouzeros Gliabanos," Myakes answered, with a bow for the khagan.

  "Do I guess rightly that you had somewhat to do with the passing of Balgitzin and Papatzun?" Ibouzeros Gliabanos asked.

  Myakes shrugged, his gilded scalemail jingling slightly at the motion. "They obeyed their rulers. I obeyed mine." Had I known he could give answers as diplomatic as that, I might have sent him to Damascus to dicker with the miscalled commander of the faithful.

  Ibouzeros Gliabanos dipped his head, also appreciating the reply. To me, he said, "While I waited to hear if you would receive me, I had word of another of your servants. Because he knew you and some of your followers had spent time with me, the prince of the Abasgians sent to me, asking if I knew a Roman spatharios named Leo. But he was not with you then."

  "No, he wasn't," I agreed. "What did the Abasgian say of him?"

  To my surprise, the Khazar grinned at me. "He said you did not have anyone else in the whole Empire who was as big a liar as this Leo."

  "Did he, by God?" I said. "Well, he wasn't far wrong."

  "He said this Leo was still leading the Alans in war against his people, even though he had no money to pay the Alans, as he'd been claiming. The prince said he'd captured this Leo-"

  "Good!" I exclaimed.

  This seemed to disconcert Ibouzeros Gliabanos, but he went on, "But the Alans rescued him and they're still fighting the Abasgians. The prince's messenger was confused, which means the prince was likely confused, too."

  "I'm rather confused myself," I told the khagan, and then, in a low voice, I said to Theodora, "It is as well that I sent Leo to the edge of the world. Were he closer to the imperial city, he would be too dangerous to trust. In the Caucasus, at least, I have some use from him."

  "Yes," she said. "His eyes look every which way at the same time."

  Ibouzeros Gliabanos said, "You must show me this city, Justinian. I have heard so much of it. Now I see I did not hear enough."

  "Tervel the Bulgar said the same thing," I answered. "So did your sister. So does everyone who has heard of the marvels of Constantinople without having seen them."

  "Ah, Tervel the Bulgar," the khagan of the Khazars said. "We do not always get on well with the Bulgars, either those to our north or those to our west. How do you like Tervel as a neighbor?"

  "Without him, I'd not be here talking with you today," I said, "but that does not mean he has not been difficult sometimes." Bulgar raiders had begun harassing Thrace in larger numbers lately. The embassy I sent to Tervel to complain of that had, for the first time, returned without obtaining satisfaction of any sort.

  "Maybe we could both fight him at the same time," Ibouzeros Gliabanos said, "and squeeze him between us like a seed between thu
mb and forefinger."

  "Maybe," I said unenthusiastically. Having the Khazars on the northern border of the Roman Empire struck me as being no more desirable than having the Bulgars there. My preference would have been for all the steppe nomads to vanish off the face of the earth and, in so doing, to take the Arabs with them.

  I installed Ibouzeros Gliabanos and his retinue in the Blakhernai palace. Aside from scandalizing the servants with demands for fermented mare's milk and molesting one of the maids, they behaved well enough. The khagan spent much of his time talking with his sister and making the acquaintance of his nephew. Having had any number of children by his retinue of wives, he knew well how to ingratiate himself with Tiberius.

  Not caring to be in his company more than necessity demanded, I dedicated to others the task of showing him around the imperial city. I did have hopes that encountering Cyrus, whom he had met in Atil, in the splendid surroundings of the great church might cause him to be persuaded as to the truths of our holy and orthodox Christian faith, as his sister had been. In this, however, I was disappointed. I consoled myself by remembering how richly he deserved to burn in hell for eternity for having tried to slay me. God's justice surely would not be denied in the world to come.

  If Ibouzeros Gliabanos intended any moves in concert with the Roman Empire, as I believe he did, he also was disappointed. I tolerated him on account of past favors and his relationship to my wife, but I would never, ever, trust him.

  He realized this after a time, saying, "I could give you all the herds and all the gold I have, and you would not send me a single soldier in exchange."

  "That is true," I replied. "Tell me, though, whom you would rather have for a neighbor: a man who will do nothing against his will even in exchange for gold, or a man who will do anything at all, so long as he is paid for it."