What would I have said, Brother Elpidios, if Justinian had asked me whether I thought he should let Leontios loose? I probably would have told him he had a pretty good idea there. Leontios mured up in jail made people pity him and try and work for him. Leontios gone, though, would have been Leontios forgotten after a couple of weeks.
But Justinian made one mistake, Brother. He gave Paul and Gregory the order releasing Leontios. That was fine. He had the little fleet waiting to take them to Thessalonike. That was fine, too. And he told the two monks, once they had Leontios, to take him down to the harbor and put him on one of those dromons. And even that was fine. But he didn't send any soldiers down to the harbor with them to make sure they put Leontios on the dromon and then got on themselves.
Would I have reminded him to do that? How can I say, after more than thirty-five years? I like to think so, but who can be sure of such things? Any which way, I never got the chance. The company I led wasn't at the palace that evening; we were scattered among several buildings. With a squadron from them, I was watching over the Praitorion, on the Mese not far west of the grand palace, to make sure nobody stole either the papyri or the prisoners stashed there.
The duty was about as exciting as watching paint dry: a dead quiet night if ever there was one. To liven it up, some of the boys and I were rolling dice. Yes, I know that's a sin. Yes, I know the fifth-sixth synod had said so not long before. I wasn't planning on living like a monk, not in those days I wasn't.
Where was I? Ah, that's right. Down on one knee in a back room. All of a sudden, somebody started banging on the front door. It was barred, of course. I'd just won three throws in a row, and I didn't feel like getting up while the dice were hot. I pointed to a new excub itor, a little skinny fellow named John- or maybe Theophanes. After all these years, I forget which. Anyway, I told him, "Go see what the devil that is and make it stop."
Off he went. I heard him talking, but I couldn't make out what he was saying- like I told you, we were in a back room. A minute later, he came running back. "It's the Emperor!" he exclaimed.
"What?" I said. "What's the Emperor doing here, this time of night?"
"Says he's got some business needs taking care of," answered John or Theophanes or whatever his name was.
"Business?" I scratched my head. The only business Justinian usually did in the nighttime had to do with serving girls, and he wasn't about to come to the Praitorion to take care of that. The pounding started up again. I stared at John. "Didn't you let him in?"
"Uh-" He was new, all right.
"Mother of God!" I scrambled to my feet. "He's going to be angry enough to eat us all without salt." John- Theophanes- whoever he was- started back toward the door. "Wait," I told him. "I'll take care of it. He isn't so likely to bite my head off."
Bang! Bang! Bang! From the racket out there, I wondered if Justinian had ordered whoever he had with him to break down the doors. "Open up in there, in the name of the Emperor!" someone shouted: not a voice I knew.
"I'm coming, I'm coming!" I shouted back. When I got to the doors, I slid the bar out of the brackets to either side of them and leaned it against the wall. Then I pulled the doors wide. "Come in, Emp-" I began.
A couple of dozen men stood out there. Several of them were holding torches. All of them but a couple of black-robed monks were holding swords. At their head was a tall, wide-faced fellow in a filthy tunic whose tangled beard reached halfway to his waist. After a couple of heartbeats standing there gaping, I recognized Leontios.
I was too startled to draw my own sword right away. That probably saved my life. Instead of running me through, the way they would have if I'd had a blade in my hand, Leontios and the gang of bully boys he'd scraped together just jumped on me and knocked me down. I tried to fight back, but they started pounding my head on the floor. After that, my arms and legs didn't want to do what I told 'em. They trussed me up like a hog they didn't plan on roasting right that minute.
The racket made the rest of the excubitores come running out to see what was going on. One of the monks shouted, "Many years to the Emperor Leontios!"
"Treason!" John (or was it Theophanes?) cried. He did yank out his sword, and rushed at the monk. A couple of guardsmen followed him. Most of them, though, only stood there. They weren't about to die for Justinian. John and his comrades did die, and in a hurry, too. My heart sank, and I hadn't thought it could go any lower.
"Now what, Emperor?" one of Leontios's henchmen asked. Hearing that title used for anybody but Justinian made my blood boil. I tried to break loose, but no luck. Whoever had tied me up, he knew what he was doing.
Leontios didn't answer for himself. One of the monks spoke up for him: "Now we open up the prison cells where the tyrant has hidden away so many good soldiers and noblemen for so long. With them free, we'll have the beginnings of a decent little army of our own- and one that won't be any too fond of Justinian."
They found the keys to the cells on their own, and didn't have to ask me where they were. I lay there with my hands and feet getting numb and thanked God for that. If they'd put the edge of a sword up against my throat- I don't think I would have betrayed Justinian, but who can know something like that for sure? And if I didn't, well, I wouldn't be sitting here talking with you now, Brother Elpidios.
Leontios's men were laughing and joking when they went downstairs to set the prisoners free. Leontios and the two monks, along with some of his ruffians, stayed in that front hall. He spoke to one of the monks: "Paul, I know you always told me the stars said I'd be Emperor one day. I never believed it. I couldn't believe it. I thought I'd die in jail and never come out alive. When Justinian let me out, I expected I'd be dying soon in a different way. Why would he make me general of that godforsaken military district if he didn't figure I'd get killed there?"
"What he thought matters no more," the monk- Paul, I guess it was- answered. "Don't hesitate now and you will seize power. Listen to Gregory and me, follow our advice, and everything you want will be yours."
First I heard the prisoners coming, then I smelled them, and then I twisted my neck so I could see them. They took the weapons away from the bodies of the excubitores who'd fought for Justinian, and then disarmed the ones who hadn't fought for him and sent them away. What's that, Brother? So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew thee out of my mouth? Thank you. That fits very well.
Some more men came into the Praitorion then, with swords and spears and clubs enough to fit out the prisoners who didn't have any. The monk who wasn't Paul- yes, Gregory; thank you again- said, "Here's what you'll do: go to all the districts of the city and spread the word that Justinian's gone crazy and aims to massacre everybody who lives inside the walls. People will believe it- people will believe anything about Justinian. Tell everybody to gather at the church of the Holy Wisdom. I'll go to the patriarch and tell him the same thing- except I'll say Justinian aims to start with him. Once we've done all that, Justinian will fall into our hands like a ripe fig."
I was lying there doing my best to be invisible. It didn't work. Somebody jerked a thumb at me and asked, "What about him?" I tried again to get free of the ropes. That didn't work, either.
But Leontios said, "Leave him be. He's Justinian's lapdog. If we fail, my head goes up on the Milestone come what may. But if we kill him and then fail, you'll all die. Not one of you will live. He's not going to hurt us lying there all tied up. When we win, we can figure out what to do with him."
So there I lay. Outside, on the Mese, the racket got louder than I'd ever heard it in the middle of the night. People were running back and forth, riding back and forth, and everybody who was going anywhere was yelling at the top of his lungs. Most of the yells were just yells, but then I heard someone shouting, "Dig up Justinian's bones!"
I felt the same sort of chill I had when most of my excubitores wouldn't fight for Justinian after Leontios and his toughs broke into the Praitorion. You shout "Dig up so-and-so's bones!" and you want the worst thing you can think of to happen to that person, whoever he is. And the more time went by, the more people were screeching, "Dig up Justinian's bones!"
Gregory came back then- it's not far from the Praitorion to the great church. He was grinning like he'd just tripped over a pound of gold in the street. "Kallinikos is with us!" he told Leontios. Everyone in the Praitorion- except me, and I didn't count- started cheering like a madman. Gregory waited till people calmed down a little, then went on, "Of course, Kallinikos is going to be with whoever talks to him last; we have to make sure none of Justinian's people- not that there are many left- gets near him. He's putting on his robes now. As soon as he's done that, he's going to preach in the great church."
More cheers. Leontios said, "I need to be there, then. Let's go." He started to leave, along with all his followers. For a minute there, I thought they were going to leave me all alone. I got my hopes up- maybe I could wiggle loose after all.
No such luck. Paul remembered me and said, "Now what do we do with him?"
"Sling a spear shaft through his arms and legs," Leontios said. "We'll haul him along with us. That way, he won't get into any trouble or any mischief." So that's what they did. Off I went, upside down, carried on their shoulders. Yes, like a pig heading for the roasting pit, Brother. I was thinking that very thing at the time.
The world looks pretty strange upside down, you know that? You never tried it, you say? I'll tell you, I wish I hadn't.
But while they were lugging me east up the Mese toward the church of the Holy Wisdom, I saw a couple of poor bastards in worse shape than I was. Along came this big bunch of laughing, shouting people, with screams coming out of the middle of it. The people thinned out a little when they recognized Leontios, so he could see what they were up to. That meant I got to see, too. They'd caught Stephen the Persian and Theodotos, who'd done so much to get Justinian hated, and tied their legs together, then tied ropes to their feet so they could drag 'em along the street.
"Mercy!" Stephen screamed. Theodotos screamed even louder: "Mercy, in God's name!"
"What are you going to do with them?" Leontios asked.
"Haul 'em down to the Forum of the Bull and burn 'em alive!" somebody told him, and that set the whole wolfpack baying again. By the sound of things, everybody liked the idea except Stephen and Theodotos. They kept bleating for mercy. Me, I was upside down. I was miserable. All the same, I wouldn't have minded seeing them burn, especially since they were the ones who'd landed Justinian in so much of his trouble.
But it wasn't up to me. It was up to Leontios. Everybody looked at him. He looked at the crowd, at all the eyes glittering in the torchlight. He looked at Theodotos and Stephen. He grinned. If they'd had any hope at all, that grin would have killed it. "Aye, burn 'em!" he shouted. Why not? That made the mob like him and hate Justinian, both at the same time. Off went the eunuch and the greedy monk, their heads banging the cobblestones. Their wails faded in the distance. So did the cheers of the mob, but a lot slower.
"On to the great church," Paul said. Leontios nodded, like he'd forgotten and was glad someone was reminding him.
The church and the courtyard around it were packed. "Make way!" Leontios's henchmen shouted. "Make way for the new Emperor!"
That got people to move aside, all right. Some were still yelling, "Dig up Justinian's bones!" More, though, started shouting, "Many years for the Emperor Leontios!" and "Tu vincas, Leontios!"- doing things properly, you see, in the middle of a usurpation.
"I think," Leontios said, "I shall rule as Leo."
"With your beard and hair so long, you certainly have the mane of a mighty lion, Emperor," Gregory said- currying favor in the middle of a usurpation.
Torches and lamps and candelabra made the inside of the church of the Holy Wisdom bright as day, though morning twilight was just beginning to stain the eastern sky. Because I was where I was, I didn't see Kallinikos till one of the ruffians who was carrying me almost trod on his toes. The patriarch wasn't up at the ambo where you'd expect him. He stood down by the baptistery instead.
Seeing Leontios, he bowed to him. "Hello, Emperor, and God bless you," he said. Yes, he'd trim his sail to fill with any wind. "I-" I don't know what he said after that, not for a while, because I got dropped on the floor like a sack of garbanzos, and I was too busy hurting to pay him any heed. For good measure, a couple of people kicked me and a couple more stepped on me, I don't think knowing I was there till their feet found out.
I'd landed on my back. I could look up and see Leontios and Kallinikos kiss each other on the cheek, a pair of smiling Judases. Paul came up and said something to the patriarch. Kallinikos's head went up and down, up and down. Whoever said anything to Kallinikos, he'd nod. He'd do it. If you got to him last, he was yours.
People started yelling: "The patriarch will speak! The patriarch will speak!"
It got quiet. Kallinikos filled himself up with air like a frog about to croak. Then he let it out, all at once: "This is the day the Lord has made! Let us give thanks and rejoice!" After that, he couldn't go on for a while, not through all the cheering. When he did, it was with about the drivel you'd expect: "This is the day of change, of freedom, of hope, of justice, of-"
He probably could have gone on for hours, but somebody outshouted him. Now, it's just as rude to interrupt the ecumenical patriarch as it is to interrupt the Emperor. But Kallinikos didn't care, not this time, and neither did anyone else, because what the fellow yelled was, "We have Justinian!"