Not long after the letter to Zachariah started on the long journey to Ravenna, I was startled to receive a request for an audience from the monk Paul, who had been identified to me as a warm friend of Leontios's. Not only was I surprised, I was intrigued. This Paul must have known I knew of his attachment to a man who, to put it mildly, I did not find pleasing. Under those circumstances, asking for an audience with me took a certain amount of what was either courage or hubris. Trying to learn which, I granted the request.
Paul put me in mind of my Theodotos: he was intensely certain of his purpose. Also like Theodotos, he wasted no time in small talk. Having risen from his prostration, he said, "Emperor, I have come to ask you to free the brave general Leontios."
"Why should I?" I demanded, my tone halfway between anger that he should dare to say such a thing and curiosity as to why he said it.
"First and foremost, from simply Christian charity," he answered. "No man deserves to be caged like a wild beast, and Leontios less than most."
I shook my head. "As a man, I might do this," I said. That left open the possibility I also might not do it, which was far more likely. I continued: "As Emperor of the Romans, I cannot. By his bungling, Leontios cost the Roman Empire far too much to let me casually forgive him."
"But, Emperor, in his earlier campaigns he gained great glory and advantage for the Roman Empire," Paul said. "Should you not weigh the one in the pans of the balance against the other?"
"When he won victories, he was promoted. He was rewarded. How else did he become a rich man, and a general to whom I entrusted a great army?" I said. Paul remained silent- what could he reply to that? Leaning forward on the throne, I asked him, "Are you telling me a man who is rewarded for his successes should not be punished for his failures?"
"No, Emperor," he said; had he said anything else, I would have had him thrown out of the throne room. He had spirit, though, continuing, "But does he deserve to be punished so harshly for a misfortune that partly sprang not from any error of his own but from the treachery of the barbarous Sklavenoi?"
As he had been nowhere near the field by Sebastopolis, he must have spent a lot of time listening to Leontios in his cell. I answered, "I have punished the Sklavenoi, or such of them as I have laid hands on, as they deserved. Shall I treat Leontios as I treated them?"
"No, for he was no traitor, only a man brought down by the treachery of others," Paul said, arguing like a lawyer.
"That is not so; he disobeyed my orders, which, had he followed them, might have brought us victory in spite of the Sklavenoi," I told the monk. He looked down at the floor, again not knowing how to respond. I daresay Leontios, doing his utmost to show himself in the best possible light, had never bothered to mention that small detail. Scowling down from the throne at Paul, I said, "Can you still honestly tell me this wretch deserves his freedom?"
To my surprise, he nodded. "As I said before, Emperor, a tiny, stinking cell is no fit home for a man. If you cannot find it in your heart to forgive him, would you be generous enough to commute his sentence from imprisonment to exile?"
That, I must say, was clever, exile being a common punishment for those who have offended their sovereign. After some thought, I answered, "I shall not do that at this time. I do not reject it out of hand, though. Should I change my mind, or should a proper situation arise, I will think on it again."
"You are gracious, Emperor," Paul said. I did not feel particularly gracious; part of the reason I had said what I said was to make him go away without committing myself to anything. He added, "Leontios will be glad to hear he has some hope of seeing the light of day once more."
I started to tell him not to let Leontios get his hopes up, but then held my tongue. For Leontios to be in prison was torment, as Paul rightly said: I had intended it to be such. But for Leontios to be in prison, thinking each day might be the one on which he was set free, disappointed each night when he lay down on his pallet, hope building again the next morning, only to be dashed once more: was that not torment more exquisite? If Paul wanted to inflict it on his friend, he was, as far as I was concerned, welcome and more than welcome to do so.
"I am glad to see you smile so, Emperor," Paul said. "It gives me hope you will soon show my friend the light of your mercy."
"Does it?" I said, and smiled more broadly.
I walked through the gardens around the palace with Kallinikos. It had rained earlier in the day. Drops of water still glistened here and there on leaves and flowers, and all the trees and shrubs and plants glowed with the special green they take on just after a rain.
My mind, however, was not altogether on the garden. I pointed to an old, run-down church dedicated to the Mother of God that stood near the palace. "Hardly anyone goes in there these days," I remarked.
"A pity," the patriarch said, trying as usual to guess my mood and to accommodate himself to it.
This time, he guessed wrong. "What I have in mind," I told him, "is tearing it down and putting up a fountain and some seats there, so I can have a convenient place to receive the nobles when the weather is fine."
"You want to- tear down the church?" he said, frowning. This was not the sort of request he received every day.
But I nodded. "You can rebuild it somewhere else- in the district of Petrion, say. There aren't that many churches near the Golden Horn now. You need not pay for this," I added. "Since I am tearing this one down, I'll pay for the replacement."
That put a different light on things, as I had thought it might. Now Kallinikos almost purred: "Of course, Emperor. It shall be just as you say." I could see from the gleam in his eye that the church he would build in Petrion would be far grander than the one already crumbling to ruins of its own accord here.
"Oh," I said, as if just thinking of it. "One thing more: I want a public prayer from you as the workmen start to tear down this church." I pointed again toward the tumbledown building.
The ecumenical patriarch frowned again. "A- prayer, Emperor? We have many prayers for the construction of a church, but I do not know of any for the demolition of a church." He risked a jest: "I am certain the followers of the false prophet know several."
I looked down my nose at him, being more than a palm's breadth the taller of us two. "I daresay you can devise one," I said coldly.
Kallinikos's coughing fit would have done credit to his predecessor, although Paul, being consumptive, had the better excuse for suffering such a spasm. "Emperor, if you require this prayer of me-"
"Would I have asked you for it if I did not require it?" I demanded. "I am not in the habit of making jokes, particularly in matters of piety."
Kallinikos stopped coughing. He started shaking. That suited me better. "If, as I say, you require this prayer of me, you shall have it."
"I hoped you would say that," I told him, smiling in such a way as to make him shake even more.
We held the ceremony for the demolition of the church a few days later. Splendid in his patriarchal regalia, Kallinikos raised his arms to the heavens and intoned, "Glory to the long-suffering God at all times: now, forever, and through eons upon eons. Amen." God certainly must be long-suffering, for Him to have put up for so long with such a lump of suet on the patriarchal throne.
Having knocked down the church, I duly erected the fountain and the reception area around it. There, on pleasant days, I passed time with aristocrats from the old families, many of whom affected to regard Constantine the Great as an upstart. We drank wine. We ate sweet cakes. Occasionally, when they felt bold, they would complain to me of the tax assessments Stephen the Persian and Theodotos levied on them. Since the occasions were social, I pretended to listen.
What did my forbearance gain me? Only betrayal.