My expeditionary forces against Kherson being nearly ready to sail, the arrival of Pope Constantine in the imperial city proved more nearly a nuisance, an interruption to that important business, than anything else. But, having granted him leave to come, I could hardly refuse to treat with him once his journey was completed.
Nikomedeia made a good enough place for the two of us to meet. Although damaged by Arab and Persian invaders, it has been repaired and refortified, its hilltop stronghold being especially difficult to capture. And the harbor there, though not large, is well sheltered from the elements.
Constantine, however, chose to travel by land. We met not far outside the wall. He dismounted from the post-horse lent him, approached me, and prostrated himself as any other Roman subject would have done. "Emperor, I thank you for calling me to the Queen of Cities," he said in a Greek rather harsh.
He being no ordinary Roman subject, I waited until he had risen and then prostrated myself before him in turn. "Holy Bishop of Rome, I thank you for coming here and restoring perfect peace in the church," I replied, rising myself.
We beamed at each other. I would have treated Felix of Ravenna harshly in any case, and was glad to see myself reaping such a large profit thereby. Constantine said, "Even this small city of Nikomedeia bustles with such activity as is rarely seen in Italy and the other western regions."
You are in a civilized land now, I thought, but did not say as much out loud. What I did say was, "I am glad Romania pleases the bishop of Rome"- a subtler reminder of the same thing.
Constantine said, "I, for my part, am glad we have been able to agree on the canons of the holy synod you summoned twenty years ago, and that you recognize the need for abandoning the thirty-sixth, which is odious in the eyes of the episcopal successors of Saint Peter."
Few of the bishops under the jurisdiction of the patriarchate of Constantinople would have dared be so free-spoken with me. Indeed, Constantine took his prerogatives as seriously as I took mine. "I have been persuaded that canons from two previous ecumenical synods cover the same ground, yes," I replied, yielding his immediate point but not the larger issue.
The immediate point sufficed. "Let us rejoice in our peace and unity," Constantine said. "If I celebrate the divine liturgy here, Emperor, will you take of the Lord's body and blood from my hands?"
"I should be honored," I replied; I should have been slighted had he made no such suggestion. "The church of the Holy Wisdom is the finest in Nikomedeia."
Constantine's face lit up. "I have seen the church of the Holy Wisdom in Constantinople. If this one is anywhere near so fine-"
"Hardly," I said, laughing. "No church I have ever seen comes close to the great church in the Queen of Cities."
"God forbid that I should disagree," Constantine exclaimed, "lest I be revealed in His eyes as a liar."
"The church of the Holy Wisdom here is no mean hovel," I assured him, "and of course the presence of the pope of Rome ornaments any church." We smiled at each other, both of us intent on wringing maximum advantage from our meeting. I went on, "Nikomedeia's other accommodations should also suit you, even if they prove less splendid than those you enjoyed in Constantinople."
"I am sure I shall be contented here," he said. "I have had only comfortable lodgings and courteous dealings with Roman officials. Your governor Theophilos was particularly generous of his substance and his time."
"I am glad to hear he gave you the honor you deserve," I said. Theophilos, though not the brightest man God ever made, had shaped better as the commander of the Karabisianoi than I looked for on naming him to the post. Though relying on his advisers, he did not hesitate to overrule them when he judged them mistaken. More than that, one could hardly ask from any man.
I quartered the bishop of Rome and his followers in a wing of the hilltop stronghold in which I was also residing. He grew quite merry over wine. I said, "At the divine liturgy tomorrow, I want you to pray for the success of the fleet I am going to send against Kherson to avenge myself upon the rich merchants there."
"\a160'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,'\a160" he said, and then giggled. "Not mine, mine, but mine, the Lord's, you understand." Like a lot of men with a deal of wine in them, he was more precise than he needed to be.
"\a160'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' The Lord says that, also," I reminded him.
"He doesn't say anything about a nose for a nose." The pope giggled again. I let him live, he being obviously drunk and I having in any case long since avenged myself upon Leontios, who wounded my nose. Constantine held up his hands, as if to make scales. "One passage here, one passage there. Which with more weight?" He shrugged. "Emperor, I did not come here to quarrel with you. I shall pray for your fleet."
"Good," I said. "For that, you and the church can keep all your privileges in Italy." He was effusively grateful, but giving him what he already had cost me nothing, whereas extracting more from him would have required troops and poisoned the ecclesiastical peace we were confirming here.
As the evening wore on, Constantine not only challenged one of my guardsmen to wrestle, he broke the fellow's collarbone. He was most contrite, and prayed over the excubitor afterwards, but poor Paul's arm is not all it should be even on the day I set down these words.
The bishop of Rome was somewhat the worse for wear the next morning, but did nonetheless celebrate the liturgy as we had arranged. Nor did he use the excuse of the previous night's drunkenness to evade the promise he had made there. Before everyone in Nikomedeia's church of the Holy Wisdom, he asked God's favor for my "expedition to punish the wicked Khersonites for their numerous sins."
When I came up to take the miraculous bread and wine from him, I said, "Pray also that I may be forgiven my sins."
"I shall, Emperor," he answered, "in the same breath I use to pray for the forgiveness of my own."
He stayed in Nikomedeia another few days, then set out for the distant and backwards west once more. Word recently came to me that he was stricken ill on his journey; I do not know whether he has reached Rome safely. If not, I shall have the nuisance of beginning afresh with a new pope once the matter of Kherson is settled.
Mauros, Stephen, and Helias were all sailing with that portion of the naval expedition departing from Constantinople, giving me the opportunity of reminding them one last time of their orders: "When you get to Kherson, put everyone you can catch there and in the cities nearby to the sword. Spare no one. They had scant mercy on me; I have none on them. Is it understood?"
"Yes, Emperor," they chorused. "As you command, so shall we do."
"Good, good," I said. "I have waited six years for this moment. You will understand that I want it done perfectly, just as I say it must be."
"Yes, Emperor," they repeated.
"Very well," I said. When they started to leave my presence, I held up a hand. "Wait. One thing more." They looked most earnest and attentive. I continued, "I have given Bardanes Philippikos leave to sail with you as an officer in charge of a troop of soldiers. Watch him closely. If he performs his duty well, I want to know of it. If he performs poorly or shows any sign of disloyalty, I want to know that, too."
"Yes, Emperor," they said yet again, knowing they held Bardanes' life in the hollow of their hands. Although I had permitted the exile to return from Kephallenia after I ousted Apsimaros, I had heeded Myakes to the extent of not entrusting him with any position great or small, merely suffering him to live in Constantinople as a private citizen. He having begged me to let him prove himself- I would die for you, Emperor, he wrote in his petition- I granted him this small boon. If he lied, he would indeed die for me.
At the harbor the next day, when the fleet was to sail for Kherson, Bardanes came up and prostrated himself before me. "Emperor, by God and His Son, I swear to you, you shall not regret this choice," he said.
"Words are free," I said. "Words are easy. Show me what you do, Bardanes. Deeds mark a man. Show me what you do, not what you say. Helias and the others proved themselves that way."
His handsome, swarthy face assumed an injured expression. "Did I not prove myself, Emperor, when I saved you from the Sklavinian hiding in the stream?"
"A lifetime ago," I told him, adding, "Before you began to dream of eagles." Swarthy though he was, he flushed. "Perhaps that was but happenstance. Perhaps it was but foolishness," I went on, thinking as I had always thought that ever mentioning it was certainly foolishness. "But, because of it, you shall have to earn your way into my esteem once more."
"Emperor, I will!" he cried, so fervently that he was either sincere or one of the worst actors ever born.
And so he accompanies the fleet, its commanders having been warned to take careful notice of everything he does. If he is indeed as devoted to me as he proclaims, he will make a useful servant, being a man both clever and daring. The only one who I am certain surpasses him in those regards is Leo, and Leo lingers yet in the Caucasus. If he were here, I think I would see how clever he was without a head.
Strange. When I took up this writing, recording what I recall of my deeds and my life, I was chronicling the distant past. Now at last, having spent more than a year and a half on the task, I have reached the present day. Having said everything I have to say, I can but set these words aside and await further occurrences.
And yet, having taken up the pen, I find myself loath to put it down. Writing has grown to be a habit as regular as a goblet of wine with my meals, and as pleasurable. Flipping through these leaves, I see I have been very frank- perhaps too frank. I suppose, to keep my pen busy, I could go through this volume and excise those portions not fully redounding to my credit. That, too, would be writing of a sort. But what point to it? No one's eyes but mine shall ever see these words, I am certain of that. Theodora and Myakes are the only ones who know the nature of this exercise. In the great scheme of things, Myakes is of no consequence, however agreeable he has been to me over the years. And my wife, I am certain, will let nothing damaging to me ever see the light of day.
Let the words stand, then. Let them stand. Now I wait, and shall write more as the stream of time brings fresh events to my view.
I was tempted to record the news from Kilikia, which is very much of a piece with that of the previous year. But the fortresses we Romans lost are of such small consequence that I need not waste ink setting down their names. In any case, I will set all that aright in next year's campaigning season, or at the latest two years hence. Kherson and the surrounding towns come first.
What does prompt me to take up the pen is the first word from the fleet that had crossed the Black Sea. The word is good. In high excitement, the messenger from the dromon newly tied up at the Golden Horn told me, "Emperor, Kherson is ours. The folk there weren't expecting us, and they didn't even try to fight back."
"Splendid," I told him. "What went on before you sailed back here?"
He began telling off points on his fingers. "We have the Khazars' tudun there, and a fellow named Zo\a239los-"
"I remember Zo\a239los," I said. "A rascal if ever there was one."
"Yes, Emperor," he said. "We also have forty other prominent men from Kherson, all of them in bonds the whole way across the Black Sea."
"Good enough, good enough," I told him. "The executioners have been pining for want of fresh meat, and now they have it. Well, go on."
"When Mauros and Stephen and Helias got Kherson in their grasp, Emperor, they took seven other rich men and roasted them on spits over a bonfire," the messenger reported. "I saw that with my own eyes. They screamed for a long time, and the smell of cooking meat made you hungry till you remembered what it was. And they-"
I held up a hand. "Wait." I tried to decide whether I wanted the executioners to imitate what my men in Kherson had done. The savor of roasting meat would be very fine, but giving such specific orders was liable to cramp the executioners' style, depriving them of the opportunity to exercise their ingenuity. Realizing I did not have to settle such affairs on the instant, I waved for the fellow to continue.
He said, "Emperor, then they took twenty more men, tied their hands behind them and put them on a ship out past the harbor. They cast boulders onto the ship till it sank and drowned the prisoners."
"That sounds like a lot of trouble for a small result," I said critically. "They could have tied each man to a boulder and pushed him off a gangplank to accomplish the same thing. If they'd set the boat on fire, now- but they were using fire for the other torture, weren't they?" I sighed. "Well, we can't have everything. I suppose they thought it made a good spectacle."
"I wouldn't know anything about that," the messenger said.
"All right. Let it go, let it go," I said, inclined to be generous. "In the general massacre, it wouldn't have mattered much, anyhow. Men, women, children-" Something changed in the messenger's face, although I doubt he was even aware of it. Sharply, I demanded, "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," he said, but then, seeing deception useless, he changed his tune: "Emperor, not all the children are dead. The soldiers and sailors saved some, because they were so young, you understand, to sell into slavery, and-"
"They did what?" I said, and the messenger turned pale. "They did what? They disobeyed my direct order? They ignored the will of the Emperor of the Romans? Have they gone mad?"
Miserably, the man said, "I don't think so, Emperor. It's just that- killing children is hard, even for soldiers with orders. If they were slaves – "
"Fools!" I shouted. "Blunderers!" I bellowed. "Idiots!" I screamed. "Is it so hard for them to do as they are told? No more, no less? Is it so hard?" I hit the messenger in the face. He staggered back, clutching at his mouth with both hands. "Answer me!" I roared.
I had split his lower lip; blood dribbled down his chin and into his beard. "For-for-forgive them, Emperor," he stuttered. "They meant no harm."
"So you say," I sneered. "I shall hear it from the lips of the men I sent to Kherson to do a simple job." After shouting for a scribe, I dictated an order to him: "Mauros, Stephen, and Helias are commanded to return to this God-guarded and imperial city with the flee t entrusted to them in order that they might attempt to explain to their sovereign the gross dereliction of duty of which they are guilty."
"I shall make a fair copy of that, Emperor, and-" the scribe began.
"Never mind." I snatched the papyrus from his hands, scrawled my signature below the order, and thrust it at the messenger. "Take this back to your ship. Take it across the Black Sea. Deliver it to the officers there. It requires immediate obedience."
Even then, the scapegrace tried to argue with me: "Emperor, it's late in the sailing season. If a storm comes up on the sea-"
"It will drown a lot of whoresons who deserve nothing better," I said. "Now get out of my sight, while you still have a head on your shoulders." He fled. So did the scribe.
Dear God, how am I to carry out my vow of vengeance for Thee if the men through whom I must do my work thwart me at every turn?
"The fleet from Kherson is returning, Emperor." The messenger spoke the words, then withdrew from my presence as quick as boiled asparagus. I terrify everyone these days: my power is very great.
Riding out to the harbor to meet the incoming dromons, I saw but a remnant of the great expeditionary force I had sent forth. I went out to the very end of a pier and shouted a question at the closest ship: "Where is the rest of the fleet?"
"Sunk or scattered, Emperor." The answer came faint and thin over the sea. "We fought through a storm, and we must have lost thousands."
I threw back my head and laughed till the tears came. "Just what you deserved," I said. "See how God punished your disobedience to me? If you'd done as you were told, you will still be safe and comfortable in Kherson."
What was left of the expedition against Kherson limped into port. I confess to exulting on seeing the poor, mean state they made: a visible exemplification of what fate reserves for those who heed not the commands of the Emperor of the Romans.
From one of the battered dromons came Mauros. Seeing me waiting for him on the pier, he fell to his knees and then to his belly. With his face still pressed to the tarred planks, he said, "Forgive us, Emperor- I beg you! We did not fully grasp the depth of your wrath against the Khersonites."
Instead of giving him leave to rise, I kicked him in the ribs, as I had with the rebellious bishop, Flavius. "Lackwit!" I shouted, and kicked him again. "Cretin!" Another kick. "Jackass!" Another. "All you had to do was do as you were told. I wanted everyone in Kherson dead, every building wrecked. Now I'll have to send out another expedition to do a proper job of smashing things up."
He did not move as I kicked him; had he moved, I should have ordered him put to the sword on the spot. "Mercy, Emperor!" he gasped on my falling silent. "Mercy, I beg of you."
"That depends on whether you deserve it," I answered. "Where are Helias and Stephen? Did they drown? Are they here?"
"Neither one," he said. "They're still back in Kherson. When your order to return reached us, they didn't dare come back to the Queen of Cities to face you. I dared, and here I am."
For that, I let him get to his feet. "What of Bardanes?" I asked him.
"He is staying in Kherson, too," Mauros replied, adding, "and he was the one who kept us from killing the children there, as you commanded."
"A rebel, in other words," I said, and Mauros nodded. "And Helias and Stephen are either rebels, too, or will be rebels in short order." Mauros nodded again, as if to say he himself was the soul of virtue. That I discounted, though his presence in Constantinople spoke better of him than the others' ominous absence. "The next force I send will bring them all back in chains for my judgment."
"Emperor, you should know you've frightened all the towns in those regions," Mauros said. "The next fleet you send may find nowhere to land, and the men may have to fight their way ashore if by some chance it does gain an anchorage. The Khazars can send soldiers to those parts faster and easier than we can."
"And I let Ibouzeros Gliabanos live!" I cried, striking my forehead with the heel of my hand in bitter repentance for that folly.
"No doubt you thought it was best at the time," Mauros said, giving me what sympathy he could.
I would not hear him. Every curse I had hurled at the army he and Helias and Stephen commanded, I now rained down on my own head. Slowly and with no small struggle, I returned to myself. "If those traitors refuse to do my will," I ground out, "I shall have to force them to obedience, as I aimed to force Kherson and the other cities up in the north to obedience."
"What shall I do?" Mauros asked.
"You?" I withered him with a glare. "You'll stay here in the city, that's what, and better than you deserve." He bowed his head. Seeing the nape of his neck, I nearly ordered his head stricken from his shoulders on the instant. He had, however, returned to Constantinople in the face of my known displeasure, this bespeaking a certain basic loyalty to my cause. On account of it, I let him live, and am still wondering whether I made the proper choice.
"Punishment," I said.
The men whom I had summoned to the Blakhernai palace nodded solemnly. So much military talent having been invested in the previous expedition against Kherson, I was reduced to leaders I should not otherwise have chosen. Christopher, the officer whom I had recently sent to command the new military district of the Thrakesians, chanced to be in the imperial city. He at least was certain to know his business. With John, the city prefect, and George the Syrian, my minister of public finance, I fear that their undoubted loyalty counted for more than their military talent.
George had a guttural accent that put me in mind of Pope Constantine's. "How are we to bring back Helias and Stephen and Bardanes?" he asked.
"However seems best once you've crossed the Black Sea," I answered. "I can't give you a large army- I don't have a large army to give you- but the rebels will not have any great force behind them, either."
"What about the Khazars, Emperor?" Christopher asked. A sensible soldier, he studied the ground before advancing over it.
The question was sour as vinegar in my ears, and burned my wounded spirit as vinegar burns wounded flesh. "I will give you the tudun to restore to his place," I said. "And I will even give you that whoreson Zo\a239los, to sweeten up the Khersonites and help detach them from the rebels."
"I hope that works," John said. "By God, I hope that works. What sort of shape are the two of them in, Emperor?"
"No one has been carving pieces off them, if that's what you mean," I told the city prefect. By the way he nodded, that was exactly what he had meant.
"You are merciful, Emperor," George the Syrian exclaimed.
"I am not," I said indignantly; given my vow on Foolish Paul's fishing boat out on the Black Sea was an insult, implying as it did that I was failing to fulfill my promise to God. I went on, "It's only that the executioners and I have been talking about how to make them last longest and hurt most, and haven't got round to working on them yet."
"Whatever the wherefores, they're here, they're whole, and we'll use them," Christopher said. I was glad to have found him within the Queen of Cities; he showed a quick pragmatism that looked like being very useful.
"If you see Ibouzeros Gliabanos, or treat with an envoy of his," I added, "explain that I do not wish to harm him. I could have harmed him here, had I had that in my mind. My aim is to punish Kherson and the other towns in that part of the world for what they did to me when I was exiled to those regions."
"I hope he hears us," said John, who was something less than filled with optimism as to his prospects for success.
"He will hear you," I said. "He will hear you because you speak for me, for Justinian, Emperor of the Romans. He knows my might."
When John, George, and Christopher sailed for Kherson a few days later, I went out to the harbor to watch them depart. The men were quieter than I should have liked. "They aren't happy about sailing at this season of the year, Emperor," one of the ship captains said. "They know how easily it can storm."
"They can risk the ocean's storm- or they can risk mine," I said. He bowed his head and went aboard his vessel.
Among those glum soldiers and sailors, one fellow stood out: a tall, gangly man with, I believe, the longest neck I have ever seen. "Smash them all," he said, over and over. "Smash them all." Drawing his sword, he slashed at the air.
"Who is that?" I asked, pointing his way.
"He is one of Mauros's spatharioi," George the Syrian answered. "His name is John, like the city prefect's; they call him Strouthos."
"John the Ostrich, eh? I like that." Strouthos can mean either ostrich or sparrow; since there are many more sparrows than ostriches, that is the more common use of the word. Here, though, the other plainly applied.
George said, "He would make a good hound. He always does as he is told. Now he has been told to kill, which he enjoys."
"Good." I beckoned to the gangly man. "You! John! Come here."
He looked up in some surprise, having been locked in his own private reverie of death and devastation. When he recognized me, his eyes- pale eyes, unusual among us Romans- went wide. He walked over to where I stood and gave me the clumsiest prostration I have ever received in all my years on the throne.
"Rise," I said, and rise he did. I am not short, but he towered over me. "I hear you're quite a killer," I told him.
His face lit up, as if a beautiful woman had said, I hear you're quite a lover. "Emperor, I do my best," he said.
"I hope your best will be very fine indeed," I said. "Kherson has a whole host of men in it who want killing. When your officers point you at those men, I want you to dispose of them without even the sli ghtest thought of mercy. They deserve none. They are my enemies, and the enemies of the Roman Empire."
"They'll tell me what to do," John the Ostrich said, working it out in his mind ahead of time so he would know what to do when the moment came. Had he had to think at the moment of truth, likely he would have failed. "They'll tell me what to do, and I, I'll do it." He did not slash the air again with his sword; the bodyguard standing behind me wordlessly made it plain to even the dullest individual- from which John was not far removed- that doing so would prove fatally unwise.
Although he thought slowly, he had come up with the right answer here. "Obey your officers; they will obey me; all will be well."
John's head bobbed up and down on that long neck like a dandelion puffball in the breeze. "I'll do that, Emperor," he said. "I hope they give me plenty to kill." He prostrated himself again, then went back to his dromon.
"You see, Emperor?" George the Syrian said. "A hired murderer, nothing more, nothing less."
"So less as he is my hired murderer, I don't care," I answered. "Use him with care, lest he turn in your hand."
"Yes," George said heavily. "Too many tools have turned in our hands, there on the far shore of the Black Sea."
"That's why you're going out," I told him: "to turn them back the right way once more." He nodded and boarded ship himself. Seeing him go made me wish he cut a more properly martial figure; in the gilded mail-shirt that showed he was a commander, he looked more like a jumped-up tax collector decked out in armor than a warrior. He was a jumped-up tax collector, of course, but why did he have to look like one?
Betrayed! The Son of God had only one Judas to contend with. Lord, Lord, dear Lord I have worshiped all my life, why inflict them on by the scores? Are my sins so great?
I do not care. It does not matter. They may betray me, but they cannot beat me. Stinking fly-specked turds, they should know that already. If they are too stupid to remember my past, I shall remind them. Oh yes, I shall. I shall flay them and break their bones and slice their flesh and burn their privates with torches and red-hot iron. Then I will roll their bodies in vinegar and brine and draw out their guts a finger's breadth at a time. Last of all, only when they are at the point of death, I shall put out their eyes, that they may have seen what comes of disobedience.
Has Bardanes a wife and children here? Has Helias?