Justinian

by Harry Turtledove

  Some of the wine splashed the robe of Stephen the Persian, who was standing near my father. The eunuch stared down at the red stain for a moment, then, quite coldly, slapped her across the face. "Clean up the mess, you clumsy whore," he hissed in a voice that might have been chipped from ice.

  I gaped again; the imperial court was never subjected to such unseemly displays. But my father, lost in his rage and misery, said nothing. Irene stood stock-still long enough for the print of Stephen's hand to form itself in red on her cheek. Then, bowing, she said, "I sorry. I fix," in the broken Greek she had learned, and hurried away. Coming back with rags, she began mopping up the wine on the floor.

  No one save Stephen and I looked at her, he in satisfaction, I in stupefaction. Everyone else formed a tableau as frozen as the mosaic scene Irene labored on hands and knees to clean. When my eyes moved away from her, I found myself, as it were, turned to stone as well, for my father was staring at- trying to stare down- his two younger brothers.

  Herakleios and Tiberius had not burst into tears when my father admitted his defeat. Far from it. By their gloating expressions, they had everything they could do to keep from cheering out loud, or perhaps even from turning handsprings like acrobats earning coppers in the Forum of Theodosios. All three of them had been crowned Emperor, but all power had been in my father's hands since my grandfather was murdered in Sicily: thirteen empty years for my uncles. Now my father, instead of moving from triumph to triumph, had blundered. His brothers had to be wondering, could they strip that power from him?

  He knew what they were thinking. How could he not have known what they were thinking? Had he been born second or third rather than first, he would have been thinking the same thing himself.

  My brother Herakleios let out a loud, wet cough. Even he had been watching my father and my uncles trying to stare one another down. His name, as I have said, was a bone my father had tossed to my uncle after one of their earlier fights. Most of the time, though, my father did not deign to toss bones. He was the Emperor, after all, and commonly was to be appeased, not the appeaser.

  But today, sensing his weakness, his younger brothers gave as good as they got. Instead of breaking under his gaze and slinking off with shoulders slumped and eyes downcast, they stood straight against him. Nor did they glance suspiciously at each other, as sometimes happened: they knew that, if they cast down my father, only one of them could take up the reins of power they both wanted. Without casting him down, though, neither of them could seize those reins, and for once they remembered as much.

  My little brother coughed again, and again, and again, and began to turn blue. That drew my father's notice. He went over to young Herakleios and took him in his arms, which made me angry and jealous. My uncles Herakleios and Tiberius strode away, as if they had won a victory, and so, perhaps, they had.

  Herakleios- my brother, not my uncle- slowly came out of his paroxysm and, rather to my disappointment, regained his natural color. My father ruffled his hair, which was darker than mine, and sent him on his way, then turned to me. "Speak of the synod," he said.

  I did, retailing to him the arguments over the anathemas and how I had kept the names of our ancestors from being maligned for all eternity. He nodded to me: for the first time in my life, as one man to another. "You did well," he said, "in that and in the matter of Pope Honorius. Misbelief must be uprooted no matter where it hides. Even if the affairs of men suffered, those of God went well, and for that I thank you. It's more than my brothers would have done, Lord knows."

  "Thank you, Father," I said, probably sounding surprised, for I was unused to praise from him.

  "You're growing up," he said. His tone too was less certain that it might have been; I daresay he found the idea startling. But he faced it head-on, as was always his way. "High time you wore an Emperor's crown on your head, not just a prince's circlet. If you can do the work, you deserve the rank."

  Now I know I stared. If he crowned me Emperor, that pushed Herakleios and Tiberius even further into the background, for my rank would vault over theirs, and I would be my father's formally designated heir. In a small voice, I asked, "What will my uncles say to that?"

  "I will tend to your uncles, never fear," my father promised.

  ***

  Herakleios and Tiberius tried to tend to my father first. I think they might have done it anyhow, but hearing that he intended to acclaim me Emperor- for he made no secret of that: to the contrary- forced their hand.

  Soldiers from the Anatolian military districts- the men who had run away from the Bulgars rather then routing them while they had the chance- began trickling into the imperial city, seeking passage back to the farms they worked when not summoned to war. They blamed their ignominious defeat not on their own vile cowardice, but on my father's having abandoned them: fools, wretches, liars, knaves! My uncles went out among them, not to calm their discontent but to fan it.

  MYAKES

  They tried to get us excubitores to go against Constantine, too. That didn't go far; we knew why the Emperor had had to sail away to Mesembria. Then they tried saying things like, "Do you want that spoiled brat telling you what to do when Constantine is gone?"

  Now, not everybody got on with Justinian as well as I did. He wasn't shy about saying just what was on his mind, and who would talk back to the Emperor's son? Nobody, or nobody with any brains, anyhow.

  But the thing of it was, what had Herakleios and Tiberius done to show they were anything much, either? They hadn't done a thing. Of course, one reason they hadn't was that Constantine never gave them the chance to do anything. Still, when you got down to it, they hadn't proved themselves. And, by the way they whined about Constantine and Justinian, they were on the bratty side themselves. So we excubitores, we listened but we made no promises.

  The troops from the military districts, now, they were another matter.

  JUSTINIAN

  Herakleios and Tiberius flattered the soldiers who stamped through the streets of Constantinople and crowded the barracks at Sykai, across the Golden Horn from the imperial city. To hear them talk, the men had had victory in their grasp until my father snatched it away. The troops from the Anatolian military districts lapped that up like porridge sweetened with honey. Far easier for them to believe their failure someone else's fault than their own.

  Rumors of what my uncles were about did not take long to reach my father. "I'll settle them," he told me. "If they think I'm a poor excuse for an Emperor, let's see how they like life without the title."

  He summoned the nobility of Constantinople to the palace. As if nothing were amiss, he also summoned my brothers, who sat in their accustomed places at his left hand. More excubitores than usual stood close by my father, and they wore mailshirts, which was not common practice, but neither was it unknown.

  Rising, my father said, "We all look with pride on what Prince Justinian has accomplished these past months for our holy and orthodox church." He walked over, stood beside me, and set a hand on my shoulder. "For his work, and to make clear my will as to the succession, I intend to proclaim him Emperor."

  "Tu vincas, Justinian!" I think the first to make the ancient Latin acclamation was faithful Myakes, although, as he stood behind me, I cannot be certain. I am certain the excubitores raised the shout before the assembled nobles did. I saw that some of the imperial guards, off to either side of the throne, raised their weapons as well. In a moment, the palace rang with my name and the wish that I conquer.

  Ceremony's iron law kept me from turning my head, but I let my eyes slide over to my uncles. They too joined in the acclamations- what choice had they, being where they were?- but their faces declared the words they mouthed lies.

  And worse lay ahead for them, for my father went on, "And, since my God-guarded brothers during this same time did nothing save sluggishly eat and drink, and since they aligned themselves with heterodox frauds anathematized by the sixth ecumenical synod, they have brought the imperial house into as much disrepute as
my son will bring luster to it. Is it your will, then, powerful men of Constantinople, that I revoke the imperial rank my father conferred upon Herakleios and Tiberius?"

  Again, the excubitores cried out first: "Let it be revoked!" Again, the nobles my father had gathered could follow or risk their riches and perhaps their lives. Cowed, they followeda160… all save one.

  There was a stir in the brightly clad rows of prominent men as a certain Leo, a functionary in the imperial mints, came forward to stand before my father. True to his calling, he reached into the leather pouch he wore on his belt and drew from it a gold coin, which he held up so the torchlight flashed from it.

  "Emperor, this is a nomisma of Carthage," he said in a loud, harsh voice; Carthage then remained under the sway of the Roman Empire, not yet having been fecklessly thrown away by the bungling brigand who stole my throne from me. "Do you see the stamp on it? You and your brothers, Emperors all three. Do not cast them down now. That would be treason against them, for they were raised up at the same time you were."

  From that day to this, I have wondered what Leo thought he would accomplish with such foolish freedom of speech. Was he in the pay of my uncles? I had never seen him around them before. Or did he think his simple words would make my father change his mind? Could he have been so naive?

  Whatever he was, he paid for it. My father turned to a couple of the excubitores nearest him and said, "This dog's tongue is too forward. Seize him and take him to the executioner, so he can cut it out."

  Leo did not even try to flee. He stood staring till the guardsmen laid hold of him and, amid awful silence, began to drag him away. Then, seeming to regain some of his senses, he cried out, "We confess a Trinity in heaven. Let there be a trinity on earth as well!"

  Up to that moment, my father had dealt with the unseemly interruption as smoothly as might be expected. Hearing his brothers compared to Persons of the holy Trinity, though, enraged him, and he shouted to the excubitores, "That will cost him his hands and feet along with his tongue! Tell the executioner."

  After Leo got what he so richly deserved for his insane insolence, my father looked around the throne room again, as if seeing whether anyone else had the temerity to challenge him. The nobles all tried to pretend they were elsewhere, none of them anxious to meet Leo's fate. Then my father turned his terrible gaze on his brothers.

  Tiberius quickly bowed his head. My uncle Herakleios was made of sterner stuff, which was, I suppose, why my father occasionally had to placate him but always rode roughshod over Tiberius. Today, though, my father would placate no one. At last, Herakleios too lowered his eyes in submission.

  And then my father looked at me. I met his gaze unflinching. Partly this was pride- was I to humble myself when he had just cleared the way to exalting me above everyone else in the Roman Empire save him alone? And partly, I admit on this page where I must be truthful before the Lord, it was calculation. Having just degraded my two uncles, my father could hardly take vengeance against me. Upon whom would he then rely? My brother? Little Herakleios was not even in the throne room, being confined to his bed by yet another sickness. He had already come close to dying several times in his short, unhappy life. He would have to succeed only once to ruin all my father's plans if he set me aside along with my uncles.

  Whatever my reasons, I had gauged my father aright. When he saw I would not bend my neck before him, he nodded and said, "This is the spirit an Emperor must have to rule, yielding to nothing and no one until he is dead."

  I have remembered those words all my life, and lived by them.

  ***

  My uncles, also being of the line of the great Herakleios, had their share of his indomitable spirit. Had they accepted their demotion and lived quietly afterwards, I think my father would have left them at peace: had he wished to inflict harsh punishment on them, he could have done so at the outset, rather than merely depriving them of the imperial dignity.

  But Herakleios and Tiberius, having had the title of Emperor since they were children, had never lost the appetite for the power accruing to the title, power they had never tasted but always seen, just as in the pagan myth Tantalos never ate the grapes that hung always barely out of reach.

  And so, rather than choosing retirement, they slipped out of the palace before dawn broke the next morning and rowed in a small boat across the narrow water of the Golden Horn to Sykai. Forgetting what had happened to Leo in the throne room, they used his argument with the soldiers from the Anatolian military districts, and succeeded with it better than they deserved.

  My father and I had our first inkling of this at breakfast, when a servant, looking apprehensive (and rightly so!), reported to us that Herakleios and Tiberius were neither in their bedchambers nor, so far as anyone could tell, anywhere within the great palace. The eunuch said, "Perhaps they have withdrawn to a monastery, there to pursue a contemplative life."

  "I don't believe it," I said loudly. "They're plotting against me."

  "I don't believe it, either," my father said; he knew what spirit his brothers had in them: one all too much like his own. He dipped the bread he was eating in fine olive oil, then took a sip of wine. "I don't think we'll have to wait long to find out, one way or the other."

  He soon proved right. A great many ferries pass back and forth between Sykai and the Queen of Cities, and this day those entering Constantinople were filled with soldiers from the Anatolian military districts. Some of them brandished swords, not knowing or not caring that the penalty for rioting with swords was the amputation of their thumbs. Their cry was the same as that Leo's had been: "We believe in a Trinity: let us crown the three"- by which they meant my father and both my uncles.

  Had they been a true army, they could have launched civil war within the walls of the God-guarded and imperial city that had repelled all foreign foes. But they were not an army, and Herakleios and Tiberius, who had never commanded soldiers (their function in the Empire having been purely ceremonial), could not make them one. They were only a mob. When my father heard reports that they were robbing shops and sacking taverns, he smiled from ear to ear.

  I did not understand. "This makes them worse, not better!" I cried. "Not only are they traitors, they are criminals, too."

  "Criminals are easier to deal with," he answered, then turned to Stephen the Persian. "Bring Theodore of Koloneia to me."

  The eunuch bowed and soon returned with the patrician. Theodore was a blocky, muscular man with features that looked chiseled from granite- if you allow that the sculptor, after thinking he was done, went back and started several new cuts he then decided not to finish: half a dozen scars seamed Theodore's cheeks and nose and forehead. Although he was only the mandator- the chief deputy- to Christopher the count of the excubitores, he had far more to do with commanding them from day to day than the count did.

  MYAKES

  Ah, Theodore. Been a good many years since I thought of him, and that's a fact. What? Justinian mentioned him before? I missed it. I am sorry. I am old. He was one harsh man, every bit as rough as Justinian makes him out to be here. A few years after this, still far from an old man, he retired to a monastery. I wonder how he fared as a monk: he was used to having people obey him, not to obeying other folk himself.

  But if he was harsh, he was also able. He had to be, to rise so high with a nature like that. Give him time in a monastery and he'd probably wind up the abbot there. And then Kyrie eleison on all the monks under him! He'd enforce every last rule St. Basil ever thought of, and likely a good many Basil never imagined.

  Unseemly levity, Brother Elpidios? What? You think I was joking? Read on about Theodore, then. Did I tell you he was sneaky, too? You don't have to believe me. Justinian will tell you. He was there, along with me.

  JUSTINIAN

  My father and Theodore put their heads together. My father was all for mustering the excubitores and turning them loose on the Anatolian rabble. "If they ran away from the Bulgars, they'll shatter like glass facing real soldiers,
" he growled.

  But the patrician said, "Emperor, I'll do that if you command it, but it's a waste of lives on both sides. I can do it for you cheaper, if you'll let me." He spent the next little while explaining how.

  My father was not a man greatly given to laughter, but he laughed then, loud and long. "By the Virgin, Theodore, I should have left you in command against the Bulgars, not those blockheads who called themselves generals. How many men will you need, do you suppose?"

  "A troop's worth, to make sure the soldiers don't mob me before I can harangue 'em," Theodore answered. Then he turned to me. "If the prince comes with me, too, it will make the offer look better."

  I very much wanted to go; if I could do anything to keep my uncles from stealing my rightful place in the succession, I would. But I looked for my father to hesitate: if Theodore betrayed him and handed me over to Herakleios, Tiberius, and the soldiers they led, that would greatly aid their cause and hurt his.

  He, however, nodded and replied at once: "Yes, take him." Not until years later, when the throne was mine, did I realize he dared not let any doubt he might have had show. That could have put doubt in Theodore's mind as well, which was the last thing my father wanted. The best way to keep your subjects from doubting you is to look sure, regardless of whether you are.

  Theodore of Koloneia was like my family and unlike most other men I have known in that he made up his mind quickly and wasted no time in acting upon whatever he decided. By the time the sun reached its high point in the sky, he, I, and the troop of excubitores he had asked for had left the palace and were on the way to the Forum of Constantine, the plaza commemorating the founder of the imperial city, the Emperor who, like a thirteenth Apostle, made the Roman Empire Christian.