At Bardanes' peremptory command in the Sklavinian language, the man came up onto the bank of the stream. Water dripped from his long yellow hair and from his beard. He was naked but for a sword belt. Bardanes spoke again. The Sklavinian loosed the belt and let it fall. A couple of the excubitores came hurrying up to take him away. He went off between them, careless of his unclothed state.
"How did you know he was lurking there?" I asked Bardanes.
"Emperor, hiding in the water is a favorite Sklavinian trick," he answered. Picking up the reed, he showed me its entire length had been hollowed out. "They'll stay down there for hours, even a day, at a time, breathing through one of these, waiting till their enemies go away. But you can usually spot them, because they cut the ends of the reeds straight across, where a naturally broken reed"- he pointed to a couple-"has a jagged end."
"Cunning," I said. "Barbarously cunning. With tricks like that, no wonder they've given us Romans so much trouble down through the years."
"I'm glad I spied this one," Bardanes said. "Who knows what mischief he might have done had you come here alone?"
"Who indeed?" I said. "Thank you, Philippikos."
MYAKES
So that was how Bardanes Philippikos caught Justinian's eye, was it? I didn't happen to be one of the excubitores who came and got the Sklavinian, so I couldn't have told you the tale for certain. He saved Justinian's life, eh? Or he made Justinian think he had, which amounts to the same thing.
Philippikos turned out to be more dangerous than any dripping Sklavinian, to Justinian and to me, but that tale is a long way down the road as yet. We haven't even got to Thessalonike, have we? No, I didn't think so. Still a good ways to go yet.
JUSTINIAN
On our entering the country Neboulos claimed as his own, opposition from the Sklavenoi did become fiercer, as the men he had sent to me warned it would. Bands of barbarians, some armed with shields and javelins, would burst from the woods and undergrowth and rush the lines of Roman horsemen, shouting horribly. When we stood fast, they would melt away as quickly as they had advanced. I do not care to think what might have happened had we shown flight during any of these attacks: that would have fanned the fire of Sklavinian impetuosity, where in fact our steady demeanor damped that fire.
Skirmishes though these were, in them we both gave and received wounds. In them, too, I learned hard lessons about the aftermath of battle, where the cries most commonly are not, as the poets would make you think, the exultant shouts of the victors but the groans and screams of hurt men from both sides.
I went with the physicians as they did what they could to repair the damage edged metal had wrought. But, though churchly law forbids it as murder, the kindest thing a physician can do for a Sklavinian with his guts spilled out on the ground is to cut his throat and let him die at once, and, while cauterizing the stump for a Roman who has lost a hand may perhaps, if God so wills, save his life, the fresh torment the hot irons inflict will make him wish for a time it had not.
After the first small battlefield, I was simply numb with disbelief. After the second, I drank myself into a stupor to keep from thinking about what I had seen. After the third, I summoned Myakes to my pavilion.
When he came in, he had a blood-soaked bandage on his left arm. "You're hurt," I exclaimed. That he could be hurt made the horrors of battle even more immediate than they had been: if such a thing could happen to him, it might even happen to me.
But he shrugged off the wound, saying, "You should see the damned Sklavinian." His voice was thick and rather slurred; he had had some of the physicians' poppy-laced wine to ease his pain while his injuries were sewn up.
"How can you go into a fight, knowing something like this or worse is liable to happen to you?" I asked, meaning not that alone but also, How can you obey the orders of superiors who send you into fights?
He shrugged again. "You can die of the plague, you can cough yourself to death, you can get a flux and die of that the way your father did, the way I almost did last year, you can be smashed in an earthquake or burn up in a fire, you can get a scratch and have it fester and rot. You go into a battle, either you win or you have a fair chance of dying quicker and easier than a lot of other ways."
I had not looked on the matter from that point of view. Having lost my brother, my father, and my wife in quick succession, I thought of death as something to be avoided, averted, shunned. Myakes' way made more sense. Sooner or later, I would die, try as I would to flee my fate. Furthermore, as a Christian, I knew in my heart the world to come was far preferable to the one in which I passed my bodily existence.
Making the sign of the cross, I said, "You are wiser than I." I doubt I ever sounded humbler than at that moment.
"Me?" Myakes first stared, then started to laugh- yes, he was drunk. "There's a joke for you, Emperor. All I am is a half-bright soldier who wasn't smart enough to keep a howling barbarian from taking a slice out of hi m. If that's wise, Christ have mercy on the foolish." He crossed himself too.
Superficially, he was right. But that did not make me wrong. He accepted the world as it was and did his best within those confines. I have often wished my nature were more easygoing. But it is not, and I have come to accept that.
***
We pressed deeper into the shadowy realm Neboulos had built up within the confines of the Roman Empire. I say shadowy not only because his rule had no right to exist, but sprang like a toadstool from the shadow of Roman weakness, and also because, in the forests the Sklavenoi infested, we were literally in shadow so much of the time that we once got east and west confused and cried out in fright to discover the sun, as we thought, rising in the west one morning. But it was no prodigy, only our own error.
Captured Sklavenoi told us where Neboulos made his headquarters. When- after some fumbling and mistakes, as I have said- we came to that valley, we found what was not quite a town and not quite a nomad encampment like that of the Bulgars which my father had assailed. The Sklavinian kinglet had circled the huts of his people with a number of wagons, making a fortified position of no small strength.
From inside those wagons, and from behind them, and from below them, the Sklavenoi howled defiance at the Roman host. Brandishing their javelins, they screamed what had to be bloodcurdling threats in their revolting dialect. And, indeed, had we had to storm our way past those wagons, it might well have cost us dear.
But the Sklavenoi, in their barbaric ignorance, did not yet fully understand all that facing Romans entailed. We won our wars not merely thanks to the courage of our soldiers (though when that was lacking we failed, as my father had against the Bulgars) but also by using the wits God gave us. And so, seeing the wagons full of fair-haired savages, I said, "Let the liquid fire be brought forth."
Acting on my command, my officers determined the best way to employ the fearsome fire that had routed the followers of the false prophet when they sought to capture Constantinople. The wind was blowing out of the west, so they chose to use the fire-projecting tubes and bellows on the western side of the Sklavinian position, to let the breeze spread the flames it created. The one drawback to the liquid fire was that it had to be projected onto the target to be burnt from a range far shorter than bowshot. The corresponding advantage, this first time, was that the Sklavenoi would not know what we were doing with the fire until we had done it, by which time it would be too late.
To distract them further, a large contingent of cavalry from the Anatolian military districts delivered a spirited attack against the eastern side of their wagon wall. If our men broke in there, well and good. If not, they would at least help distract the barbarians from the truly important point.
Distract them they did; through the gaps between wagons, we saw hide-clad barbarians carrying throwing spears and bows and arrows rushing toward what looked to be the most threatened area. At my signal, the excubitores advanced on foot against the barrier the Sklavenoi had thrown up, their shields protecting the relative handful of artisans who
trundled along the carts that carried the liquid fire and the bellows and bronze tubes through which it was projected.
My greatest fear had been that the Sklavenoi would swarm out from their wagons and try to overwhelm the excubitores by weight of numbers. But we had cavalry on either wing to protect the imperial guards, and they, with their mailshirts, helms, and shields, and with their spears and swords, had to be foes to make unarmored barbarians think twice about engaging in close combat with them.
MYAKES
If Justinian was nervous, Brother Elpidios, I have to tell you I was about ten times worse than that. The Sklavenoi were screeching and shrieking louder than anything you can imagine. Boys- maybe girls, too, for all I know- kept running up and bringing them bundles of javelins and whole great sheaves of arrows.
I was in the front rank as we marched up to the wagons. That's what I got for being an officer, that and a fancier shield and a helmet with a tuft of red-dyed horsehair sticking up out of the top. So the Sklavenoi didn't want to kill me just on account of I was there, the way they did your ordinary excubitores. They especially wanted to kill me because I was close to 'em and I looked important. Lucky me.
By the time we got near enough their wagons for the clever lads with the liquid fire to do their work, my fancy shield had so many javelins and arrows stuck in it, it looked like it was practicing to be a hedgehog. One javelin hit me square in the chest, but my mailshirt- Mother of God, thank you- didn't let it through. And a couple of arrows clattered off my helmet, too.
Some good men weren't so lucky. My chum Anastasios, who'd eaten beans with me ever since I joined the imperial guards, took an arrow right in the eye. Like I told Justinian, not the worst way to go. He never knew what hit him, anyhow- that one would have killed him whether it was poisoned or not. And he was far from the only one who fell, too.
The biggest thing we had going for us was that the Sklavenoi didn't know-
What? Justinian says the same thing? All right, then, tell me what he says. He'll probably put it better than I could, anyway.
JUSTINIAN
Our greatest advantage, as I have said, was that the barbarians, being ignorant of the liquid fire, did not fully grasp why this body of foot soldiers was approaching the wooden rampart from which they were conducting their defense. Like the Achaeans when the warriors of Troy reached their beached ships, they aimed to keep fighting against us as fiercely as they could.
But we Romans had rather better incendiary tools at our disposal than our Trojan ancestors had known in that earlier age. A trumpet blared a command. The excubitores in the front rank stepped hastily to one side or the other, exposing the tubes and bellows and the men who worked them.
Eager as a small boy, I watched events unfold. Truly, I felt swept back to my own boyhood, having last seen liquid fire employed against a foe in the final year of the Arabs' siege of the imperial city. "Now!" I shouted to the military engineers. "Burn them now!"
They could not have heard me, not from so far away through the din of battle. And the Sklavenoi were showering them with missiles of every sort. Without the protection of the excubitores' shields along with their own, several of them were struck down in quick succession. But, having prepared for that case as well as every other, they brought up replacements and went on with their work.
Torchbearers sprang out in front of the mouth of each of the half-dozen bronze tubes aimed at the enemy. A javelin knocked one of them down, but a brave military engineer snatched up his torch in the nick of time and held it to the tube's mouth. Thus all six streams of flame were projected together against the wagons of the Sklavenoi.
Great, thick clouds of stinking black smoke rose from the streams of flame. The barbarians' shrieks of horror were as sweet as honey, sweet as wine, in my ears. I shouted with glee to watch some of the heathen Sklavenoi, caught in the fire, twist and writhe and burn, gaining for themselves in this world a tiny foretaste of the eternal flames of hell they would assuredly know in the next.
They were brave. Some of them, careless of our soldiers, rushed out between burning wagons to pour buckets of water on the liquid fire to try to douse it. But their efforts led only to fresh cries of dismay, for the Sklavenoi discovered, as had the followers of the false prophet before them, that the liquid fire continued merrily burning even though soaked with water.
We had at first set four wagons ablaze. God, in His kindness to us Christians, then granted that the breeze from the west, which had been fitful, began to blow more strongly. It carried flames and burning embers not only to the wagons close by those we had ignited, but also to the thatched roofs of the huts in the village the wagon circle had been made to protect. Along with the guttural shouts of Sklavinian men, the high, shrill cries of women and children came to my ears.
The fire reaching the huts, the battle was as good as won. While some of the Sklavenoi did continue trying to withstand us, others turned instead to fighting the fires, and still others, abandoning fight and fire both, ran for the shelter of the woods. Our soldiers were hunting them like partridges, having great sport. I let that go on for a short time, but then sent forth a new order: "If the barbarians wish to surrender, let them. The more captives we take, the more we can resettle in the empty lands of Anatolia." After a moment, I had another thought: "A pound of gold to the man who brings me Neboulos, the so-called kinglet here."
Because the village was burning, the Roman soldiers herded the prisoners into the fields nearby. They had to keep some of the Sklavinian women from slaying themselves because their husbands had been killed; officers familiar with the character of the Sklavenoi told me their women were more tender in this regard than those of any other people we know. Our men threw the corpses of those husbands- and of the women and children who died in the village- into a large pit they made some captives dig.
No one brought me Neboulos. I hoped he had fallen in the fighting and been burned beyond recognition but, on questioning Sklavenoi through men who knew their tongue, discovered no one who admitted having seen him go down. Disappointed, I concluded he might well have escaped as Sklavinian resistance crumbled.
Commanders were busy rewarding Roman soldiers who had fought well: some with promotions, some with money, and some with their pick of the Sklavinian women among the prisoners. One of the barbarians tried to keep his attractive wife from going off with the soldier who had chosen her for his enjoyment, and was promptly speared to death. The woman shrieked and wailed; the soldier led her away anyhow. As someone- as I write these words, I cannot remember who- said in the early days of Rome, "Woe to the conquered."
One of the prisoners, a yellow-haired woman of outstanding beauty despite a large smudge of soot on her cheek, struck my fancy. Approaching an officer who was making sure the Romans did not quarrel over their rewards, I asked, "May I be considered to have fought well?"
He looked startled for a moment, then bowed and replied with a smile: "Emperor, without your orders, we would not have fought at all. Since we won, you must have given good orders, which is surely the same thing as fighting well."
He could hardly have said no, but I liked the way he said yes. Pointing to the woman I wanted, I said, "Have her brought to my pavilion."
When the Emperor of the Romans travels, even to war, he travels with as close a reproduction of the comforts of the grand palace as his servants can give him. At the time, never yet having traveled as a mutilated exile on the deck of a miserable little ship with only bandages and a loincloth to call my own, I took for granted such luxuries as a wide, soft bed, hanging lamps, and a tall, heavy wooden chest that held not only my robes but also a gilded suit of mail in case I wanted to join in the fighting myself.
I also traveled with a large retinue of palace servants, some eunuchs, some whole men. I ordered them to bring me a jar of good wine and two cups, and then to go away and stay away till morning: "I shall be entertaining tonight," I said grandly.
My servants retired, sniggering. "Entertaining, eh?" I heard
one of them say to another. "He'll be entertained, is what he'll be." His friend laughed. I paced impatiently about the pavilion, waiting for the Sklavinian woman.
The soldiers did not take long to fetch her. They had scrubbed the soot from her face, but she still wore the same smoke-stained wool tunic, decorated at the bodice with flowers and fantastic birds embroidered in red and blue thread, she had had on when I first saw her.
She stared around the pavilion in dull wonder. Lamps of glass and silver, a bed that stood off the ground on legs, my own gorgeous raiment, perhaps even the tall chest- all these must have been strange and splendid to her. I had by then seen the inside of Sklavinian huts. Only the richest of the Sklavenoi were well enough off to be reckoned poor. The rest had less, much less, than that.
"Do you speak Greek?" I asked her. She shook her head. I shrugged. What we would be doing did not require much in the way of words.
I poured her wine with my own hands. Not even my generals enjoyed such an honor. She stared down into the cup. Except when they got it by trade or theft from the Romans, the Sklavenoi did not drink wine, having instead a barley brew of their own, so she may not have known what it was. After a taste, though, she gulped the cup dry. I drank a little more slowly. When I held out the jar to her, she nodded. I filled her cup again. She drained it as quickly as she had before.
I pointed to the bed. She looked at it, at me, at it again. She must have known why I had summoned her to my pavilion. She must have known, too, I was no man of ordinary or even of merely high rank; whether, in her barbarian ignorance, she realized I was the Emperor of the Romans, I cannot say.
She held out the wine cup to me. I poured for her once more, willingly enough; if that would make her tractable, all the better. I had been wondering if I would have to fight her or beat her into submission, and wondering also whether that would kill my enjoyment or spike it.
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