Ha! Helias did have a wife in the city, a woman named Zoe. He had a couple of brats, too. I sent soldiers to fetch them all to the Blakhernai palace. I sent a man to bring Cyrus the ecumenical patriarch here, too, to pronounce her divorce from her husband. Conspiracy against the Emperor has been a legal ground for dissolving a marriage from very ancient days.
And then I had another happy thought and made another summons. I thought it was particularly fitting.
One of the traitor's children proved to be a nursing babe, the other a toddler. Zoe held them both in her arms while I told her the crime of which her husband was guilty. She hung her head. False tears streamed from her eyes.
Cyrus droned out the formula of divorcement, along with all the whys and wherefores that made it binding straightaway. Now Zoe wept in earnest, at being sundered from the man who had betrayed me. The patriarch had done his job. He left.
"Now," I said to Zoe, "you are in law free of the man who was your husband."
"Your will be done, Emperor," she whispered.
"Oh, my will shall be done in this matter," I said, "in every way." I pointed to the children she still held. "They are of the traitor's blood. His line shall not continue."
Zoe began to scream. She turned, as if to run. Excubitores blocked her path. More excubitores advanced on her, seized her, and took the infants from her. Her shrieks grew loud. They echoed sweetly from the roof of the the throne room. They redoubled yet again when a man dressed all in black and wearing a black hood strode into the chamber.
Zoe saw him going over toward the guardsmen who held her children. She screamed, "No, Emperor, not them! Kill me instead! Not them!"
"They are of the seed of the traitor and rebel," I said. "You are not. Now that you are divorced from him, you need have no more concern for him and his."
"My babies!" Zoe cried. The excubitores held her fast when she tried to break free and run to them.
I nodded to the executioner. He did his job smoothly and with great dispatch- he cut the throat of the older child and then, a moment later, of the baby as well. They did not suffer. They died almost before they knew they were hurt. Their blood poured down onto the tesserae of the throne-room floor. Not nearly so much blood as a full-grown man holds, I noted. The servants would have no trouble cleaning up the mess.
Zoe's wails went on and on. "Hear me!" I said sharply. For a moment, she quietened. I went on, "Now that you have no children and are also bereft of your husband, you stand in need of consolation. Surely the love of another man will make up for your small losses here today."
"No!" she screamed, and much abuse of which I took no notice.
I clapped my hands together, once, twice, three times. Into the throne room came John, Helias's Ethiopian cook. "Behold," I said, "your new husband."
John leered at Zoe. I had not thought she could shriek louder than she already had done, but I was wrong. A weedy little priest named Basil tiptoed in after John. He was another of those useful people who did as they were told.
Now, as he had been instructed, he read the marriage service before John and Zoe. John's responses were eager nods. Zoe's were screams or noes. I told Basil, "The woman is distraught. She does not know what she is saying. You are to interpret those as affirmatives."
"Yes, Emperor," he said dutifully. The crowns of marriage- cheap copper ones; no point wasting better on the likes of them- were set upon their heads, and Basil pronounced them man and wife.
I nodded to John. "Consummate your marriage." His Greek was not up to that. I simplified the matter: "Now you take her." Those words he had no trouble understanding. I had earlier urged him to seal their union in the throne room itself. Even though he was only a black barbarian, he did not want to do that. I had set aside a chamber nearby instead. To this he now led- dragged- his bride, while I led the party of well-wishers shouting bawdy advice as they went.
The door slammed shut. Presently, after some small commotion within, Zoe began to scream on a note different from the one she had used up until that time. The excubitores and courtiers standing in the hall with me took this as a sign the marriage union had been accomplished, and so did I. We burst into cheers.
After a while, the door opened and John came forth. Zoe was no virgin. I had not given him a square of linen with which to prove he could show he had taken her maidenhead. But his smugly satisfied expression proved all that needed proving: this despite a couple of clawmarks on one cheek.
Behind him, I saw Zoe, loosely wrapped in the tunic he must have torn off her. She sat on the edge of the bed. Her feet dangled down toward the floor. Her face was buried in her hands. Racking sobs shook her body.
"What kind of bridegroom thinks one round is enough?" I demanded of John. "Remember, she is yours. Go back and do your duty to her properly."
He was a young man, so he needed little urging. He looked thoughtful for a moment. Maybe he wondered whether he was ready to rise again so soon. Then he grinned- he was ready. His teeth, as always, seemed especially white because they were seen against his dark skin. He closed the door. The well-wishers and I waited until Zoe started to scream again. Then we applauded to drown out her racket.
After I encouraged John to show his paces, he proved a man of formidable stamina. No doubt he had suffered long deprivation in such matters because he had been a slave. Perhaps, too, he was excited because he got to swive the woman who had ordered him about.
However that was, I decided not to wait around outside the bedchamber until his first night- or rather, his first day- was done. Let him have his good time. I had other things to do. And for now, Helias was punished as well as he could be until he himself fell into my hands.
Now to accomplish that- and to deal with Bardanes the usurper.
"Get up, Mauros," I said roughly.
He rose from his prostration. He was a frightened man. I could see white all around the irises of his eyes. "You summoned me, Emperor," he said. "I am here to serve you." His voice did not waver. I give him so much.
"And serve me you shall," I said. "You came back when the others stayed in Kherson to betray me. I thank you for that. Now you shall be the instrument through which I chastise them."
"Tell me what you require, Emperor, and I shall give it to you. You need have no doubt of that." Again, Mauros sounded sure of himself.
I was also sure of myself. "I shall give you another fleet, Mauros," I told him. His eyes kindled. I give few men the chance to redeem themselves. He knew it full well. "Along with the fleet, I shall give you catapults and rams and every sort of siege engine we have stored here in our armories and arsenals."
"You will want me to take Kherson, then," he said.
"Not only that. I want you to raze the walls to the foundations. It will never close itself up against me again."
"I am here to serve you," Mauros repeated.
I held up my hand. "I was not finished," I told him. He hung his head in sorrow because he interrupted me. I gave him time to reflect on his many sins. He may have sinned against God. He had surely sinned against me. I went on, "I intend for you to slay every man, woman, and child inside the walls."
"I understand, Emperor," he said.
"You had better." I know I sounded angry. I was angry. Mauros cringed. That pleased me. "If you and Stephen and Helias had done what I ordered you to do in the first place, we would not have trouble now. The Khersonites would be dead. They deserve death. Helias would be my governor in that part of the world. Any number of unfortunate things would not have happened. They would have had no need to happen."
Mauros licked his lips. He knew how I had punished Helias through his children and through Zoe. "You will have no cause to be disappointed in me, Emperor," he said.
"I expect to be pleased with you, Mauros, not disappointed," I replied. "In fact, I can think of only one thing that would disappoint me."
He licked his lips once more. With great care, he said, "Since I do not wish to disappoint you in any way, Emperor, please tell me what that one thing is, so I may be certain to avoid it."
"Failure," I said.
"Emperor?" His face went blank. Artfully blank? I do not think so. I think he simply did not understand.
"Failure." I said it again. "Carry out your orders as I have given them to you and all will be well. Do anything but carry out my orders, fail in any particular, and by God and His Son, Mauros, I swear you will end up envying Helias before I am through with you. I will slaughter every kinsman of yours, no matter how distant. I will kill every friend you have. I will kill every shopkeeper you ever met. Every one of them will have a long, hard time dying. You will watch them with the one eye I leave you after the executioners do their first work. Then, maybe, if you are lucky, you will- eventually- die, too."
He quivered. "Emperor, I have already told you I will do everything in my power to see your will is done in Kherson. But, but-"
"I shall accept no excuses here, Mauros," I broke in. "None. Do you hear me? Succeed, and I will reward you richly. Fail, and you pay the price of failure. Sometimes the world is a very simple place."
"But, Emperor, God is greater than I am," he said. "God is even greater than you, Emperor. It is possible, by His will, that I fail through no fault of my own. What if the Khazars come back to Kherson? How can I fight them and the Khersonites at the same time?"
"I did not summon you here to listen to excuses," I snapped. "If you do not command this expedition, you shall be judged to have have failed in advance. Everything of which I spoke just now will fall due. Shall I have the excubitores lay hold of you, so I can begin on your relatives?"
"Have mercy, Emperor!" he wailed. "I shall do as you bid me."
"Good. As I said, it is very simple. Avenge the Roman Empire- avenge me, the Emperor of the Romans- on Kherson and the Khersonites. It should not be difficult in any way. The town is small and half barbarous. Only if you fail me have you any need to fear. And you shall not fail me, shall you, Mauros?"
"Emperor, I dare not," he said. I nodded in approval. At last, he understood everything he needed to understand.
Mauros's fleet is now sailing for Kherson. I wish it had left a few days sooner. Loading the necessary siege gear onto the transports did take time. If I had only wanted to execute Mauros, I did not need to send him on an expedition bound to fail to give myself an excuse. I could have taken his head and had done. I care nothing for Mauros, one way or the other. I want Kherson in ruins and its people dead. They deserve to be dead.
With the fleet sail a number of light, swift vessels. Through them, I shall learn everything that happens in the northern region. "The season is late, Emperor," Myakes said when he heard me order them along. "We've already had storms. You're liable not to see some of those little fellows again."
"I don't care," I answered. "Some will get through. They will tell me what I need to know. The rest can sink, and their sailors drown." I glared at him. "Are you a traitor, too? Do you want to keep me in the shadows of ignorance? I know there are traitors everywhere, Myakes, but I had not suspected you."
"If you think I am a traitor, you know you can take my head," Myakes said stolidly. "I won't run away."
I let him live. Perhaps it is a mistake. So many have betrayed me lately, why not Myakes as well? But I would, I think, sooner suspect Theodora, her brother after all being the altogether unreliable Ibouzeros Gliabanos, whose eyes I should have burned from his head when he dared show his altogether despised countenance here in the Queen of Cities, whose skin I should have flayed from his shrieking, bleeding carcass in digit-wide strips, whose life I should have taken from him as he purposed taking mine from me.
Well, if I should change my mind and decide the captain of excubitores needs death, he was right to remind me I can give it to him at any time. I shall sleep on it and see what I decide in the morning.