They might have answered that question by drawing their swords, in which case I should not be scribbling now. One of the men who had shown he understood Greek answered, "Balgitzin say, you have Romans wanting to kill you. Is true?" It was my turn to nod; I could hardly deny it. The Khazar continued, "We are guards to you- for you- to be sure no Romans kill you."
"Oh," I said, and then, "Thank you very much." I could not object if Balgitzin set guards on me using such a pretext. For that matter, it might not have been a pretext: if Ibouzeros Gliabanos had rejected Apsimaros's request for my person or some significant fraction thereof, he would have reason to think the usurper might resort to more direct means of disposing of me. But if the khagan had decided to go along with the usurper, he gained a plausible excuse for placing warriors near me.
Which was it? I did not know. I could not know. I could only wait. I hated waiting. I had waited a decade for the slim chance I now had. How I hungered to slay them all! But they were many, and I had only faithful Myakes at my side. Suppose we did slay them? Balgitzin could summon soldiers without number. I could not.
I walked past them into the house. Myakes followed. The Khazars bowed to each of us in turn. I barred the door. That only made me feel more trapped, not more safe.
***
However much I desired to do so, the guards gave me no excuse to complain of their conduct to Balgitzin. When I stayed in the house to which the tudun of Phanagoria had assigned me, they remained outside. When I went out, one or two of them came along with me. I even found myself having trouble disliking them. They were but warriors, doing as they were ordered and doing it well.
No murderers with Apsimaros's gold in their belt pouches sprang out from behind a wall to try to slay me. Was that because the guards intimidated them or because they were not there? Again, how could I know?
A couple of weeks after Balgitzin gave me my armed guard, he invited Theodora and me to a feast at his residence that evening. "I thank you," I said. "What is the occasion?"
"A noble has come from the khagan's court at Atil to Phanagoria," he answered. "Of course you remember Papatzun."
"Of course," I lied. Back at Atil, one barbarian had seemed much like another. Those who did not speak Greek- which meant the large majority- might as well not have existed, as far as I was concerned.
But, as I had expected, my wife had no difficulty placing this Papatzun on my bringing her word of his arrival. She looked serious, saying, "This is a man my brother trusts."
"He has not come to Phanagoria now by chance, then?" I said.
"By chance?" Theodora frowned until she understood what I was driving at. "Oh. No. If anyone brings word from my brother to do this or not to do that, Papatzun is likely to be the one. I will learn from him what I can."
"Good." I kissed her, but then warned, "Don't let him know we suspect."
Amusement glinted in her dark, narrow eyes. "Do not fear about this. I will not ask him. I will not ask his friends, if any have come with him. I will ask his slaves. I know a couple of them well. They will tell me the truth."
I kissed her again. "I will not give you any more advice. You don't need it."
"You are my husband." She hesitated long enough to draw in a deep breath before going on, "You are my love. If I can help you, I will do it."
All I knew at that moment was gratitude. I may be reckoned unmanly for not disdaining a woman's help, but, considering how easily Theodora could have chosen the side of her brother and her tribe rather than mine, I knew how lucky I was in her. "You are my Empress, my Augusta, now," I said. "Soon you shall be my Empress in the Queen of Cities."
"God willing," she said once more, making the holy sign of the cross.
"As for the banquet," I said, "we shall see what we shall see."
On meeting Papatzun again, I discovered I did remember him after all: remember his face, at any rate, for we had not had much to say to each other, being largely without a common language. He was not very young, not very old, not very fat, not very thin, not very tall, not very shorta160… not very interesting. In Constantinople, I judged, he would have been a secretary in charge of some medium-sized bureau, a man doing a fairly large job well enough to avoid censure but not so well as to get himself promoted out of it.
In Constantinople, such quiet, competent men are common enough. No doubt being harder to come by in Khazaria, they must also have seemed more valuable than is the case within the boundaries of the Roman Empire. This rarity, I judge, accounted for the trust Ibouzeros Gliabanos reposed in Papatzun.
Khazar notions of banqueting require the celebrants to gorge themselves until they cannot move and drink until they cannot see. Having had my fill of fish, I ate beef and mutton. Perhaps having had his fill of beef and mutton, Papatzun ate mackerel, quite different from the sturgeon of Atil. He agreed with me in preferring wine to the drink his countrymen make from their mares' milk.
Despite Balgitzin's services as interpreter, Papatzun and I had little to say to each other. He was polite enough to me; I could no more fault his behavior than that of the guards with whom Balgitzin had saddled me. Every so often, I would glance over at him from the corner of my eye. Once or twice, I saw, or thought I saw, him glancing over at me in the same way. When that happened, each of us quickly looked away from the other.
Theodora, by contrast, enjoyed herself immensely. The banquet giving her the chance to speak her own language unmixed with Greek, she took full advantage of it, chatting animatedly with Balgitzin's wife (whose name I learned but have long since forgotten), taking part in the conversation of the men more freely than would have been reckoned proper at a Roman feast, and, by all appearances, enjoying her conversations with Balgitzin's and Papatzun's slaves as well.
Balgitzin swilled till he began to snore. Papatzun let out a sniff of contempt. I had been to enough Khazar banquets to have learned that the one who passes out first is often an object of contempt, being reckoned weak if not effeminate. In slow, bad Greek, with long pauses for thought between words, Papatzun said, "No- hold- wine."
"No, indeed," I answered. I was by then quite drunk, but not so drunk as to let down my guard. "You, now, you drink like a man." He smiled vaguely, understanding enough of the Greek to know I had not insulted him. I did my best to put the words into the Khazar tongue.
"I am a man," he said in his native language. "You are a man." I wondered if he would run through the conjugation of the verb to be, but he just studied me for a while, now making no pretense of doing anything else. After a couple of minutes of this intense scrutiny, he lifted his goblet in what was half salute, half challenge. I lifted mine as well. We drank at the same time, and drank deep.
Presently, Papatzun slumped over like a tree under the woodsman's ax. Having won the drinking bout, I looked around for Theodora. She was not there; she must have gone off with Balgitzin's wife. One of the Khazar's slaves came up to me when, vaguely surprised that I could, I got to my feet. "Take me to my wife," I said when he asked what I required.
Instead, he brought Theodora to me. She looked down at Balgitzin and Papatzun, both of whom sprawled snoring on the rugs. But for those snores, they might as well have been dead men. They would lie there unmoving till sunrise or longer. After that, for some hours they would wish for death rather than imitating it. Having lain as they lay, I knew this well.
Not even the stark shadows of lamplight fully defined the expression on Theodora's face, which, being flatter and smoother than those of Roman blood, had fewer sharp angles to build shadows. Her eyes went from the snoring Khazars to me. "Can you walk home?" she asked.
"I can do anything," I said grandly, which in truth meant I could do very little. Theodora smiled. She knew what kind of talk got poured out of the neck of a wine jar. I do remember that we got home, and I am too large for her to have carried me all that way, so logic compels me to believe I walked. Logic aside, though, I have no proof of this.
Thinking on it, I suppose the guards Balgitzin had g
iven me (or had set on me- I still did not know how to construe their presence) could have done the hauling. But Theodora would have chaffed me about that had it happened, so I still believe I did set one foot in front of the other all the way from Balgitzin's residence to my own.
Once there, I remember asking her, "What did you learn of Papatzun's slaves?"
She seemed impressed at my recalling Papatzun had slaves, let alone that they might know something important. But all she would say was, "I will tell you in the morning." I tried to argue with her. She lay down, as if for sleep. I lay down beside her to go on with the argument, and the wine overwhelmed me, as she must have known it would. Devious, was Theodora.
I have had thicker heads than the one with which I woke up the next day- a few. Headache or no, though, I remembered what Theodora had said before I passed out. We still lay side by side. Shaking her, I asked the same question I had put the night before: "What did you learn of Papatzun's slaves?"
She woke smoothly, as was her usual habit, nor, for that matter, had she drunk herself into crapulence. "You do recall." She sounded surprised. "If I thought you would, I would have told you last night. Papatzun has"- her face went cold and sad-"has brought Balgitzin orders to kill you whenever he gets the command from, from-"
"From your brother," I finished for her.
"Yes," she said, and looked away from me. I heard tears in her voice as she went on, "I knew he could do this. I did not think he would do this."
Not all the blood pounding in my head sprang from the hangover, not now. Part of that painful drumroll was fury. "Your brother can give orders, but he is in Atil, far away," I said. "His commands will take time to be obeyed. I am right here. I intend to be ready to move tonight."
She did not, at first, fully grasp what I was saying, being caught up in the choices she had made. "He is my brother," she whispered- probably to hers elf, for she used the Khazar tongue, "but you are my husband. You are my husband."
I took her in my arms. "And very glad of it, too," I said. Had it not been for her, no doubt Ibouzeros Gliabanos, Papatzun, and Balgitzin should have succeeded in making away with me. But that was not what I meant, or was, at most, a tiny part of it. I have never heard the act of love praised as a cure for too much wine, but it served me admirably.
Much improved, and knowing now what lay before me, I summoned Myakes. He and Theodora and I spent much of the morning making plans, finding holes in them, and making new ones. At last we had a scheme that satisfied everyone- except Theodora.
"You will leave me behind," she said bitterly.
I nodded. "I will. If I win after tonight, as God is my witness and my judge I will send for you. And if I lose, you will be able to go home safely to your brother. He will treat you well regardless of what happens here. You are blood of his blood, as I am not, and your child will carry my blood as well, which may prove useful to him one day. That, though, is only if I lose." I kissed her, right there in front of Myakes, and, I daresay, scandalized him. "I intend to win."
***
The feast I laid on that night rivaled the one Balgitzin had given the night before. The food, in my judgment, was better, being cooked in the Roman fashion rather than that of the Khazars. Papatzun might not have found it better, but he found no fault with it, either, not by how much he ate. He drank as heroically as he had the night before, too.
Through Theodora, who was interpreting between us, he said, "You drank me down last night, Justinian, but tonight you are not even in the race. Do you Romans save it up for one night and then give over? A true man is ready to drink every night!" He drained his cup and held it out for more.
I rose as if to fill it myself, carrying the wine jar as I went round behind him. But instead of pouring at once, I set the jar down on the table. Papatzun looked back over his shoulder at me, drunken puzzlement on his face.
Setting down the jar let me free the braided leather cord I was using as a belt for my tunic. His turning his head at just that moment gave me the perfect chance to whip that cord around his thick neck. I tightened it with all the strength I had in me.
Papatzun tried to cry out. He could not- I gave him no air. He tried to reach around himself to seize me and throw me aside, but could not do that, either. His feet thumped on the floor. They grew still surprisingly fast. His face went from the red of drunkenness to a purplish black I had not seen since the Sklavinian woman hanged herself in my pavilion.
Not until the stench of loosening bowels proved him dead did I relax my grip. Then, letting him topple over, I turned to Myakes and Theodora, belting the leather cord back around my waist as I did so. My grin might have been the one on my face after having a woman. "One traitor dealt with," I said. "Now for the other."
Before I could go out the door, Theodora embraced me, saying, "God with you."
"God with us all," I said, not knowing whether I would ever see her again.
When Myakes and I burst outside, the guards Balgitzin set over me, who had been drinking wine and shooting dice by torchlight, sprang to their feet. "What is wrong?" asked the one who spoke the best Greek.
I jerked a thumb back at the house. "Papatzun has been taken ill in there," I said, that bearing at least some nodding relation to the truth. I followed it with a thoroughgoing lie: "He's asking for Balgitzin- says it's life or death."
In the excitement of the moment, none of the guards asked any questions past that. They did what they usually did: told off a couple from their number to accompany me wherever I was going. One of them carried a torch, adding its light to that from the one Myakes carried.
We hurried through the streets of Phanagoria to Balgitzin's residence, where, arriving, we pounded on the door. One of Balgitzin's servitors answering, we told him the same tale we had given the guards.
Balgitzin came out a few minutes later. "What's wrong with Papatzun?" he asked as we started back to the house he had assigned me.
"His belly pains him," I answered. "He has been vomiting, and fears he might die. He says he needs to tell you something. I do not know what it is."
He sent me a hooded glance, wondering, no doubt, if the message pertained to me. Then we pressed on. As far as he knew, I was ignorant of the orders concerning me Papatzun had brought from Ibouzeros Gliabanos. I hid a smile, not that the torchlight was likely to betray it in any case. Soon enough, I would show him what I knew.
We passed the black mouth of an alley opening out onto the street along which we traveled. I stopped and recoiled. "What's that?" I exclaimed, pointing down the alley. "Something- someone- moved in there."
Balgitzin turned toward the alley. The Khazar guard held his torch higher, the better to see down the narrow, stinking lane. Out came Myakes' sword, as if to defend us from footpads.
While Balgitzin stood distracted, I undid my braided belt and whipped it around his neck without giving him the chance to cry out. Strangling is the best way to kill a man when one must be silent doing it. Balgitzin got out no more than one startled, almost inaudible grunt.
Myakes, being without a strangling cord, did the best he could with his blade. Using point rather than edge, he thrust deep into the guard's throat, blood thereby drowning whatever outcry the man might have made. The Khazar dropped the torch and tried to draw his own sword, but toppled into unconsciousness and death with a hand still on the hilt.
I choked the life out of Balgitzin. When his bowels voided their contents as Papatzun's had done, I let his corpse lie in the street along with the rest of the offal there.
Ever practical, Myakes slit his purse and the guard's. "Heh," he said, his whisper loud in the quiet night. "Even a little gold here. And they may think- for a few minutes they may think- somebody else killed these two and kidnapped us. The more time we can buy to get away, the better off we're going to be."
"No arguments," I said. We hurried off toward the eastern gate of Phanagoria- the direction opposite that in which we would have been expected to flee, our friends dwelling in Kherson to th
e west- and I put my head down to make my features harder to recognize, reeling along as if drunk.
"Here, what's this?" a guard called on our approach.
"Got to get my cousin here back to Tomin," Myakes answered, sounding drunk himself. "Tavern there weren't good enough for him, no, sir- had to come taste the big city, the damn fool. Well, he's still got to go out fishing tomorrow morning, yes he does, no matter how much he had tonight." His chuckle was full of malicious pleasure at my fate.
He sounded absolutely convincing. I almost believed him myself, and I knew better. The guards laughed and stood aside, letting us pass out into the night.
As a town, Phanagoria had little to recommend it, although I lived as well there as anyone was capable of living. Tomin, nowa160… if anyone who had to live in Tomin slew himself to escape, I doubt God would reckon his suicide a sin deserving damnation. It lay- and, worse luck, lies yet- about three miles east of Phanagoria: a miserable little place without a wall, without a church, and without a hostel, as I discovered on arriving. The couple of taverns the place did have were taverns only, not places where travelers might put up for the night. The publicans apparently never dreamt anyone might want to put up at Tomin for the night, an attitude for which I confess a certain amount of sympathetic understanding.
Tomin exists for one reason and one reason only: a tiny indentation in the seacoast offering ships a little shelter. "We have gold," Myakes said, as if reminding himself, when we lay down against the wall of a building to get out of a chilly breeze and try to rest before dawn. "We can hire a fishing boat to take us to Kherson."
"To somewhere near Kherson, anyway," I said. "I'm too easily recognized to go into the city, I fear, with Apsimaros and the rich men there wanting my head. But you're right, Myakes, we need to gather my followers now."
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