"Good," I said. "Now tell me exactly what that will be."
Hearing that, he grew evasive. Had I been khagan of the Khazars, I should have grown evasive then, too. Had he led an army down toward Constantinople, he would have had to fight his way through the country of the Bulgars and then through Roman territory before reaching the imperial city. Alternatively, he might have gone through the Caucasus and into Anatolia, but that would have weakened the Roman Empire against the followers of the false prophet and still would have left him on the wrong side of the Bosporos to take Constantinople, as the Persians were during the reign of my great-great-grandfather.
I should have thought this through more thoroughly before bearding him to make good on his promise. I should, for that matter, have thought it through more thoroughly before fleeing to his court in the first place. But what choice had I? I could not stay in Kherson, nor in Doros, either. Ibouzeros Gliabanos, at least, was not actively persecuting me.
On seeing that he had no intention of furnishing me with an army, I said, "Give me gold, then. With gold, I can get warriors." How good the warriors would prove was another question. I had given Neboulos and the Sklavenoi gold, but so had the accursed Arabs. But with gold, there were things I could do. Without it, my opportunities would be far more limited.
So much of the wealth of the Khazar khaganate depending on trade, Ibouzeros Gliabanos was an able bargainer. But I had learned a fair amount in my time of exile, and I was desperate, where he was not. I pressed him hard, finally persuading him to part with perhaps more gold than he had intended.
"Bah!" he said, and made a sour face. "Now that you have extorted this money from me, I ought to send you far away, so you do not come to think you can make a habit of it."
If he was angry at me, I did not want to stay close by him, lest he choose to vent that wrath. I doubted causing his sister unhappiness would stay him. And, if he was going to give me gold, I should have liked to be closer to Constantinople than was Atil. Atil, so far as I could tell, was close to nowhere worth reaching. Still, returning me to Doros or Kherson would have been a death sentence: a polite death sentence, but a death sentence nevertheless.
He might have been thinking along with me, for in musing tones he said, "Suppose I send you to Phanagoria. What do you think of that?"
"Phanagoria?" I pursed my lips while thinking. The town is situated next to the peninsula on which Kherson lies, just to the east of the narrow strait joining the Black Sea and the Maiotic Bay. It has some commerce with Constantinople, although less than Kherson enjoys. From it, though, I should likely have been in a good position to observe events at the Queen of Cities. I could hardly have been in a worse position for observing those events than from Atil. And no one in Phanagoria, so far as I knew, had any particular interest in killing me. I nodded to Ibouzeros Gliabanos. "Let it be as you say."
"Good, good," the khagan said expansively. "I shall give you the gold, as I said I would"- he forgot for the moment the difficulty with which he had just been persuaded to say he would-"and you will live like a king."
"No," I told him. He frowned. I explained: "I will live like an Emperor."
He liked that, laughing out loud. "You have the spirit of an Emperor," he said. "I have seen this, and seen it clearly. And Phanagoria is more like a Roman town for you. You will like living there, and my sister will see what living like a Roman is like."
"Yes, I want to show her that," I answered, though Phanagoria would be only a small, debased copy of true Roman life. Then, he having mentioned Theodora, I gave him news I might otherwise have held back for a day or two or let her pass on: "She is with child."
"Good, good," he said again. "This is why you marry."
"Your nephew will be Emperor of the Romans," I said, and watched his narrow eyes gleam as he contemplated the possibilities inherent in that. I contemplated those possibilities, too: having the vicegerent of God on earth be of their blood might bring the Khazars to Christianity wholesale, which would solidify their alliance with the Roman Empire against the deniers of Christ.
"For this news," Ibouzeros Gliabanos said, "I shall give you more gold." The news must have pleased him as greatly as appeared to be the case, for he kept his promise.
***
Again we traveled over the vast sea of grass. When the wind blew over it, it rippled and changed color, much as the waves did on the veritable sea. Our journey here was slower, though. Travel by land is always slower, save for couriers and others in a driving hurry, who constantly change mounts to speed themselves along.
Theodora rode on horseback, astride like a man. This would have startled me even had she not been carrying a child, but she took it as a matter of course. In a mixture of her tongue and mine, she said, "The baby is tiny yet. This does not hurt it. Khazars ride horses. I am a Khazar. I ride a horse." She had no need of my old pedagogue to teach her the elements of logic.
What was I do to? Beat her, make her stop riding, and slow us all down? I saw no sense in that. She kept riding a horse. Now that I think on it, whenever she has set her mind on doing a particular thing, she has in the end done it. Perhaps that is one of the reasons we get on so well.
Phanagoria, when we finally reached it, proved a town similar to Kherson, though smaller. It boasted several churches, better than half its populace being Romans. As with Kherson, though, it had a Khazar tudun or governor, a certain Balgitzin, who also ruled another nearby town but dwelt in Phanagoria. He dressed in Roman fashion, in a linen tunic, and spoke better Greek than his counterpart farther west.
"I am honored to have the Emperor of the Romans here as a guest in my city," he said when I presented myself to him on my arrival. "And you have wed the daughter of my splendid khagan. Will wonders never cease?" He bowed to Theodora, who had not followed everything he said. Seeing that, he spoke rapidly in the Khazar tongue.
"Yes, we are man and wife," she answered in Greek.
"I will give you a fine house, with many rooms," Balgitzin promised. He was full of promises, Balgitzin was. He was wasted as a tudun; he would have been a great success as a Constantinopolitan courtier. A man who made so many promises, though, was liable to have trouble keeping them all.
This first one, though, he kept. A minor noble of the imperial city would not have been ashamed of the house in which he installed us- not, at least, after the aforesaid noble had the house cleaned from top to bottom. Rats and mice and cockroaches and ants never stopped plaguing us as long as we lived there. Having lived much harder in Kherson, I made the best of things here.
Theodora, for her part, was enchanted. As I have previously mentioned, most of the dwellings in Atil are tents. Living within real walls and under a true roof made her feel as if she were inhabiting a palace. "Constantinople must be like this," she said one evening after we made love.
I fear I laughed at her. She got angry. I tried to explain what a small, mean, dingy town Phanagoria was when set alongside the Queen of Cities. She did not believe me. Having now seen one town, she imagined herself an expert on such things, and would not believe any city could exceed Phanagoria. Try as I would, I could not persuade her. She was stubborn in such matters, too.
Balgitzin fawned on us. We had gold from Ibouzeros Gliabanos. Theodora liked salted mackerel. To her, it was new and exotic and tasty. I paid for beef and mutton. I had had enough of salt fish and dried fish for a lifetime.
All my comrades but Myakes went back to Kherson, resuming the lives they had interrupted on my behalf and passing my regards on to Moropaulos and my other followers there who had not left. Once they were gone, I settled down to make myself as comfortable as possible in Phanagoria and to await any good news that might come from the Roman Empire.
Waiting came hard. Curiously, all the years I had passed in Kherson, up until the time when Auriabedas gave me back a nose of sorts, seemed to go by fast as a blink. However much I tried to keep my hopes burning, they had faded then. Now, with hope burning bright once more, each passing day s
eemed a wasted opportunity. I began spending time by the edge of the Black Sea once more, staring south and west across the water toward the imperial city as if my will could lift me and return me to my proper home.
Stephen, having returned to Kherson, sent me word that all my backers in the town where I had originally been exiled were also alert for any reports coming from Constantinople, and that they, like me, had their hopes aroused. Emperor, they cheered loud and long when I told them of your marriage to the daughter of the Khazar khagan, he wrote.
I cheered that marriage myself. After so much sorrow, I was now happy above the mean. When Ibouzeros Gliabanos proposed the marriage to me, I had wondered if I could stand being joined to his sister. Now I wondered how I had lived so long without her.
Her body suited me, her temper suited me, and the converse also held true. We had, in short, fallen wildly in love with each other, something far more likely to spring from the union of a taverner's daughter and the young fellow who sells her father olive oil than a mating between Emperor and princess arranged not with an y thought for the feelings of the parties most intimately involved but only to secure an alliance. Call it luck or the will of God: either will do. Whatever the reason, I reveled in something I had not known since my brief marriage to Eudokia, and something which struck me as superior to that.
Spending time with Theodora helped me keep my wits about me as day followed day in Phanagoria. I consoled myself for each day that passed without useful word from Romania either in her arms or simply in her company. Too soon, too soon, the peaceful rhythms of those few brief weeks passed away, never to return.
I was having bread and wine with Theodora one quiet, sunny midday when Myakes broke in on us. No matter how long he and I had been together, I looked up at him with some considerable annoyance; no man cares to be interrupted while in the company of his wife, nor is it proper for even a husband's closest companions to gaze on her overmuch.
Before I could reprove him, though, he said, "Emperor, I was down at the harbor, and Moropaulos just now sailed in from Kherson." We called him Foolish Paul among ourselves, too, the name fitting like a boot. Myakes went on, "I've got him waiting out in the hallway, Emperor. He's carrying important news, news you need to hear."
My annoyance melted like snow in spring. "Bring him in, then," I said. I turned to Theodora. She made no move to absent herself, as a properly modest Roman wife would have done. Being the khagan's sister, she was accustomed to taking part in such affairs. After a moment's hesitation, I decided not to order her away.
In came Moropaulos, twisting slightly to get his great shoulders through the doorway. After bowing to me and then, shyly, to Theodora, he said, "Emperor, that Apsimaros, he just sent a man to the khagan of the Khazars on account of you. Fellow came up to Kherson and then took horse, bound for Atil."
"Did he?" I turned to Myakes. "You were right. I do have to hear this." Back to Moropaulos: "What does Apsimaros's man have to say to the khagan, pray?"
"Emperor, he says Apsimaros will send him many presents if he sends you to Constantinople alive. If the khagan doesn't fancy that, Apsimaros says, your head will do."
MYAKES
If it had been Leontios still on the throne down in Constantinople, Brother Elpidios, he would have sat on his backside till Justinian came to him. That was the way he was. Apsimaros stayed quiet too long for his own good, too, but he did finally get moving. I never had anything in particular against him. Up till then, he hadn't done anything to Justinian except hold onto the throne he'd taken from Leontios. He hadn't ruled too badly, either.
I thanked God we had people back there in Kherson. They let Justinian know what Apsimaros was up to, and he knew it before Ibouzeros Gliabanos did, too. Me, I couldn't imagine the khagan of the Khazars turning against the man he'd just married to his own sister.
Justinian, he'd always had more imagination than me.
JUSTINIAN
Turning to Theodora, I asked, "How likely is your brother to betray me?"
"I do not know," she answered. Had she indignantly denied the possibility, I should have been certain her primary loyalty lay with him, not me. As things were, she went on, "If Apsimaros gives him enough, I think he will take it, though."
I wanted to kiss her for that answer, but would not because of the presence of Myakes and Moropaulos. "I think you are right," I said. "I think your brother would sooner align himself with someone calling himself Emperor who is in Constantinople than with a true Emperor in exile."
"That means trouble," Myakes said. "If the khagan tries to seize you or kill you, what do we do?"
"If that happens, we cannot stay any longer in lands the Khazars rule," I said, to which both Myakes and Theodora nodded. I looked toward Moropaulos. "God bless you for bringing this news. Tell my followers in Kherson to be ready for whatever may happen, and you be ready there to bring me word if Apsimaros sends more envoys to the khagan, or the other way round."
"I'll do it, Emperor," he promised. Dipping his head, he hurried out of the chamber. Though as thorough a supporter as anyone could wish, he was always shy in my presence.
"If we have to leave, where do we go?" Myakes asked. "Straight for Constantinople?"
My heart cried yes. Myakes' tone, though, suggested he did not think that a good idea. And the more my head examined the idea my heart loved, the more I was- reluctantly- inclined to agree with him. "If we show up outside the imperial city with no more force than a handful of men in a fishing boat, Apsimaros will crush us like a man smashing a cockroach under his heel," I said, hating what logic and reason told me.
Myakes let out a loud sigh of relief. "I think that's just right, Emperor. I don't know how to tell you how thankful I am you think the same way."
"You need men with you, to strike a blow against this Apsimaros," Theodora said- statement, not question- having followed our Greek. Her frown, which I had seldom seen, was amazingly like her brother's. After spending some little while in thought, she said, "Maybe, my husband, the Bulgars. They are not friends to the Romans, and they are not friends to the Khazars, either."
As I had started to say yes to Myakes' notion of sailing straight for the imperial city, so I started to say no to Theodora. Having fought against the Bulgars, I was not inclined to think of them as allies. But those wars, now, were more than a decade behind me. Asparukh, their khagan, had died while I was in Kherson. Of his son and successor, a certain Tervel, I knew little.
Glancing over to Myakes, I saw he liked the idea. The more I thought on it, the more I liked it, too- if it proved necessary. "Theou thelontos, we are worrying over nothing," I said. "If Ibouzeros Gliabanos shows proper loyalty to his family, I am perfectly safe here."
"Yes, God willing," Theodora said, making the sign of the cross; her acceptance of the true and holy orthodox Christian faith had sprung from deep conviction, not merely the desire to keep from hindering her brother's scheme. "Is it so in Romania, that all family is always loyal to all family?"
"No, it is not so," I said, remembering my father and my Uncle Herakleios and my Uncle Tiberius- and, before that, the struggle between my grandfather's backers and those supporting the descendants of my great-great-grandfather's second wife.
"It is not so among the Khazars, either," Theodora said.
"I didn't think it was," I answered. "We shall hope everything turns out for the best. And if everything does not turn out for the best- which God prevent- if that happens, we shall also be ready there."
***
Days flowed past, one after another. Having made the journey myself, I knew that Apsimaros's envoy, whoever he was, would be some time traveling across the plains to Atil. If he persuaded Ibouzeros Gliabanos to treachery, word that treachery had been ordained would have to make its way back to Phanagoria before any move against me could take place.
In the meanwhile, Theodora's belly began to bulge with the child she carried. She quickly reached the point of surfeit with salt fish and dried fish, a developm
ent surprising me not at all. Thanks to the money I had of her brother the khagan, we had no trouble affording better. The cook Balgitzin gave us also went out every so often and bought fresh fish from the men bringing them off the boats.
Theodora stared in some considerable dismay the first time he brought in a squid as long as his forearm. "You eat that?" she asked me incredulously. "It is not a proper fish. I do not like the way it stares at me, and I do not like all its-" She wiggled her fingers back and forth, lacking the proper word.
"Tentacles." I did my best to be helpful.
"Whatever they are." She made as if to push the squid away. But when, instead of seeing it whole, she ate slices of it fried in butter (a flavor I tolerated better than she did that of olive oil, to which she took years to become accustomed), she praised its delicate taste and grumbled only a little at its chewy texture. The cook bought more squid after that, and she ate them with good appetite. She did not, however, care to look at them before they were cooked. Nor does she even now, here on the day on which I set down these words.
Every time I saw Balgitzin after Moropaulos came to Phanagoria, I wondered whether the Khazar had yet received orders to make away with me. This was at first foolish, for I knew more about Apsimaros's effort against me than he did- unless, of course, the tudun at Kherson had sent him word at the same time as the fisherman came to me. I doubted that, Balgitzin remaining for some time cordial to me and not striking me as a man schooled in the art of dissembling.
And then one evening, having drunk myself cheerful if not sozzled at Phanagoria's finest tavern (a dubious commendation in such a limited field) along with Myakes, I discovered a squad of armed men- Khazars- outside the doorway to the house in which I and mine were living. They had not been there when the two of us left the place.
Myakes set a hand on my arm to hold me back, the Khazars having four or five presumably sober men to each of us. I shook him off and went straight up to them. "Any of you speak Greek?" I asked. When a couple of them nodded, I found the next logical question: "What's going on?"
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