I remember little of my arrival at Kherson. No, I shall be honest: I remember nothing of my arrival at Kherson. I had taken a fever in my wounds while sailing across the Black Sea, and recall only scattered patches of the journey. That may be as well, many of the memories I have lost surely being ones filled with torment.
I wonder what the Khersonites made of my sudden appearance on their distant shore. Till that ship reached them, I was, so far as they knew, Emperor of the Romans. In fact, when conscious I still considered myself Emperor of the Romans. The rest of the world, however, had a contrary opinion for the time being, and I was in no position to demonstrate how wrong it was.
Matter of fact, Brother Elpidios, Kherson isn't quite the end of the world, even if it is a long ways off and tucked up against the Khazars and the other barbarians who roam over the steppe with their herds. Sailing into it is even kind of pretty. It sits in a curved bay on the west side of the peninsula that sticks down into the Black Sea. The land rises up, almost like a stairway, toward the hills that keep the worst of the winter away.
When we came into the harbor, though, the whole place stank of fish. A lot of what they live on there is dried and salted fish. You hear people talking about bread, but you don't see it all that often. Sometimes they even grind up the dried fish into a kind of meal and bake it into wafers and sheets. They aren't so bad as they sound, not once you get used to them.
Church bells were ringing when we pulled up to their quays. They'd seen us from a long ways off, and they knew we weren't one of the little fishing boats that dot their waters like pepper on top of a stew. We were a real ship, from a real civilized place, and they were greedy not only for whatever we might have brought 'em but for whatever gossip we had, too.
The tudun himself came down to the harbor to look us over. The tudun is like the eparch of the city, you might say, Brother. Kherson is a town where Romans live and Romans trade, but it's not exactly a Roman town. The tudun is in charge of it for the Khazar khagan. He has more say there than anybody else. The Khazars roam right next to Kherson, like I said, and the Roman Empire is across the sea. That would give the nomads every sort of edge in a fight, so there is no fight.
"Are you from Amastris?" the tudun asked us in Greek with a funny accent different than Apsimaros's. You know about Amastris, Brother? That's right- one of the towns in Anatolia right across the Black Sea from Kherson.
"No, we are from Constantinople," Apsimaros answered.
The tudun's eyebrows went up. He was a funny-looking fellow, fat as a eunuch, with a flat, swarthy face and scraggly whiskers, dressed all in furs and hides. "What do you bring us from Constantinople?" he asked. "We do not have ship from Constantinople for a long time."
"I bring you greetings from Leontios, er, Leo, Emperor of the Romans," Apsimaros told him. That was plenty to make the tudun and everybody else who understood Greek start hopping up and down like their tunics had just caught fire. Apsimaros had style. He waited, patient as you please, till they'd simmered down a little. Then he said, "And I bring you Justinian."
Justinian, right then, was lying on the deck. I had no idea whether he was going to live or not. Apsimaros didn't care. He pointed to Justinian, then to a couple of sailors. They hauled him up between them so the tudun and everybody else could see he was missing most of his nose.
Several of the dockworkers and touts and whores and such who had come down to see the ship crossed themselves. The tudun didn't. He wasn't a Christian. Some of the Khazars follow pagan gods, some follow Mouamet, and some are even Jews.
Whatever the tudun was, he asked Apsimaros, "What are we supposed to do with him?"
"If he dies, bury him," Apsimaros answered. "If he lives, let him live, but don't let him leave. Here he stays, for as long as he lives. Leontios"- he shook his head; he wasn't used to Leontios's new name-"Leo, I mean, will send you money to keep him here." I don't know whether that meant money for Justinian's upkeep or a bribe to make sure nobody let him leave. Probably both, I suppose.
"Who will take care of him?" the tudun said. "He needs someone to take care of him." By the way Justinian hung in the sailors' arms, limp as asparagus that's been boiled too long, that was plain to anybody with eyes.
Apsimaros pointed my way. "This is Myakes. He was one of Justinian's guard captains, and he went into exile with him instead of giving up his head."
"All right," the tudun said. "He is not the first exile here. He is not going to be the last exile here, either. We take him."
"The Emperor Leo"- now Apsimaros spoke carefully-"thanks you, and thanks the khagan of the Khazars, too." He turned to the sailors. "Put out the gangplank. Get him off this ship."
They didn't just obey him- they jumped. They wanted Justinian off that ship. I don't really suppose they could have imagined he'd do anything to them, not in the state he was in, but I don't know what else they could have been thinking, either. Apsimaros might have been convinced Leontios- no, I won't call him Leo- was Emperor now, but it didn't seem to have sunk in for the sailors.
They dragged Justinian up onto the wharf. I followed them. I hadn't made any trouble on the ship- didn't see any future in it- so they didn't give me a rough time, either. They even draped one of Justinian's arms around my neck. I'd figured they would dump him on the planks for me to pick up.
"You come with me," the tudun said. He pointed off to the south, toward a low building of the red-brown local stone. "We put Justinian there. It is a place for Christian monks, but it has a xenodokheion, a guesthouse, too. We see if he lives." He looked at Justinian. His eyes were narrow already. They got narrower. "Right now, I think he dies."
Right then, I thought Justinian was going to die, too. Fever came off him in waves. The wound where his nose had been was raw and inflamed. I wasn't going to admit what I thought, though. "Take me to the monastery," I said. "It's in God's hands, not mine." Yes, I said that. More pious back then than you thought, eh, Brother Elpidios? Well, I daresay we all have a surprise or two in us. Justinian, he had more than that. You'll see.