"And after we do that, Emperor?" he asked, shifting around to try to get more comfortable- or at least less uncomfortable.
"After that?" I sighed. "After that, the Bulgars. Theodora was right: with Ibouzeros Gliabanos turned against me, I have no better choice." As I tried to sleep, I also tried not to think about how bad a choice the Bulgars were likely to be.
I do not remember dozing off, but I must have, for Myakes woke me at dawn by pounding on a tavern door. When the irate proprietor opened up, a show of coins salved his wrath and got us bread and wine, which we ate and drank picking our way through Tomin's muddy alleys to the seaside.
"Look!" I pointed. A real merchant ship was beached there, dwarfing the little fishing boats to either side of it. Some considerable trade exists among the cities and towns along the northern coast of the Black Sea. The only surprise was that this ship had put in at Tomin rather than the nearby Phanagoria. Caught by darkness, perhaps. "We can get out of here faster with him than with any fisherman."
"If he's westbound, aye," Myakes answered. "Probably will be, or we'd have seen him in port yesterday."
"Only one way to find out," I answered, and strode down toward the merchantman.
Her captain, a rough-hewn fellow named Peter, dickered a fare to Symbolon, the nearest port to Kherson, asking no questions once we had paid. I had been prepared to introduce myself as John and Myakes as Myron, but he proved interested only in money, not in names.
We sailed shortly thereafter, having had little intercourse with the folk of Tomin: wh en the Khazars came after us, as I am certain they must have done on discovering both Balgitzin and Papatzun slain, they might well have concluded Myakes and I had vanished into thin air. Whatever they concluded, they did not catch up to us before we had quitted that part of the world for good.
The one bad stretch I had on the three-day voyage to Symbolon came very early, when Peter put into the port of Phanagoria to unload wine and load smoked fish. Myakes and I spent all our time at the stern of the ship, staring out to sea. But the Khazars did not send men aboard to search for us. On our sailing out of that harbor, Myakes and I finished emptying the jar of wine he had bought in Tomin.
Apsimaros had captained the last ship upon which I had traveled, the one taking me from Constantinople into exile in Kherson. No doubt mercifully, I recall next to nothing of that voyage. I could here set forth the journey to Symbolon in exacting detail, but to what purpose? Only storms make travel by sea anything but dull. We had none, not on that journey. I thanked God, not yet aware of His plan for me.
Myakes and I left the merchantman at Symbolon, a town larger than Tomin but smaller than Phanagoria lying a few miles south of Kherson. There I took a room above a tavern (the folk at Symbolon at least entertaining the possibility of someone's wishing to do such a thing), and Myakes and I divided the money we had with us.
I told him, "Go into Kherson. If we're heading for the land of the Bulgars, we'll need Moropaulos's boat again. Anyone else who wants to come is welcome." I laughed. "One thing sure: I'll know who my true friends are."
"Some of them, Emperor, anyhow," Myakes said. "I've seen that boat Foolish Paul sails. It won't hold many, and that's the truth."
I waved that away. Some who said they backed me would find more excuses than Moropaulos's boat being small to avoid accompanying me on what they reckoned a forlorn hope. "Go on," I told Myakes. "I'll see you back here tonight or tomorrow morning, I expect."
"Aye, Emperor," Myakes said, and slipped away. I had no doubt he would slip into Kherson as readily. He had spent as long in exile there as had I, but I would have drawn notice even had I not been mutilated, and he, I think, would have remained inconspicuous even with a cut nose. Regardless of the setting in which he found himself, he had a knack for making himself at home without drawing undue attention.
Waiting came hard, as it always does for me. I went down into the tavern. I drank a good deal of wine. I ate salt-fish stew. Although having the money to pay for better, I forbore. Symbolon not being Kherson, I had some chance of going unrecognized there, and meant to foster that chance as much as I could. So far as I could tell, no one paid me any particular attention. I was ugly but not hideous, and thereby ideally suited for going unnoticed.
Evening came with no sign of Myakes. After another bowl of that stew- the last, praise God, I ever tasted!- I went up to the room I had bought for the night. Though taking no woman up there with me, I did not sleep alone. I crushed all the bugs I could, but, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, was defeated at last by superior numbers. Eventually, later than I would have liked, sleep found me.
I woke before dawn, whether from nerves or bedbugs I cannot say. Going downstairs, I discovered myself the only one awake in the place, and so, less than happy with the world, returned to my room once more until I heard someone moving about below. I went down again, and breakfasted on wine and an egg cooked with cheese, that being the only choice besides fish porridge.
Sometime during the second hour of the morning, Myakes strode into the tavern. I did not rise from my stool: I sprang from it. Had he waited any longer before arriving, I daresay I should have smashed the top of my head from leaping straight up into the ceiling.
His smile was impudent, he having known the state in which I would be. "Boat's at the wharf, Emperor," he said. "Let's go."
I left the tavern without a backward glance. When we were about halfway down to the harbor- a short journey, Symbolon hardly being any sort of metropolis- I asked, "How many companions have I?"
His face clouded. "Me and Moropaulos. Barisbakourios and Stephen. Theophilos. I thought he'd be up in Doros, but he was staying with Stephen. That's it."
"Not even Cyrus?" I said in dismay.
"Not his fault, Emperor," Myakes said. "I couldn't get word to him in the monastery- he got himself in trouble there for gallivanting off the last time without so much as a by-your-leave. Didn't want to wait around, spend any more time in Kherson than I had to."
"All right," I said. "Good enough. As for the others who would not come- a plague on them." More than a few had cheered me in Kherson when I declared I would take back the imperial throne. Cheering was easy. When it came to anything more than cheering, where were they? As if invisible. "I'll have my vengeance on them, too, by God and His Son. But first the Romans." I hurried down toward the fishing boat, Myakes half-trotting beside me.
Foolish Paul waved from the boat. I waved back, though my first sight of the vessel that would, I hoped, carry me to the land of the Bulgars made me wonder how it had sailed from Kherson to Symbolon, let alone from Kherson to Phanagoria bringing me news of Apsimaros's move against me.
I also cast aside some of my dismay at the failure of more Khersonites to rally to my standard. Moropaulos's boat was crowded with him and Theophilos, Stephen and Barisbakourios in it. Adding Myakes and me would make it very crowded. It did not look as if it had much room for provisions aboard, either. I shrugged. Other supplies failing, we could, I supposed, catch fish.
Moropaulos waved again. "Come on, Emperor," he called. "The sooner we leave, the sooner we get there." A broad, foolish grin spread over his broad, foolish face.
Two or three of the dockside loungers any harbor in the civilized world attracts turned curious eyes my way. I wished Moropaulos had not chosen that exact moment to address me by my imperial title. If searchers from Kherson or Phanagoria came to Symbolon, they would have no trouble learning I had been there. I consoled myself with the thought that they were unlikely to be able to find out whither I was bound.
Stooping on the edge of the pier, I scrambled down into Moropaulos's boat. The fisherman steadied first me and then Myakes. After undoing the lines holding the boat to the pier, Moropaulos and Theophilos plied a couple of long oars to get us out into open water. Once we were there, Foolish Paul, who struck me as being far less foolish now that I encountered him in his proper element, raised the sail, turned it to the best angle to take advantage of what wind we had,
and sent us heading northwards.
When we sailed past the lighthouse with which Kherson feebly imitates fabled Alexandria, I shook my fist at the town. "May I never see you again!" I called across the water, a wish that has come true. "And may I punish you as you have tried to punish me!" I am still fulfilling that wish even as I write these words.
Above Kherson, the coast of the peninsula on which it lies curves up to the north and west. We stayed in sight of land at all times. As I had guessed, between tacks Moropaulos let his nets down into the water. The catch was small, but enough to keep us fed, each of us taking turns roasting his fish above a tiny brazier. A bucket of seawater always stood close by, lest a sudden great wave overturn the brazier and spill burning coals onto the deck.
Being small and lighter than the dromons in which I had previously traveled, the fishing boat had a motion on the water different from theirs. I felt every movement of the sea, and proved myself a man able to take such motions as they came. Poor Stephen, being less fortunate in that regard, ate little and spent a lot of time hanging over the leeward rail.
We traveled past the headland marking the westernmost extension of the peninsula on which Kherson lies, past the mouth of the Danapris, and then past that of the Danastris. Most nights, we simply beached the fishing boat, keeping watch alongside it till dawn. A couple of times, we put up in little trading towns by the edge of the sea. They were to Doros as Doros is to Constantinople; having said so much, I shall draw a veil of merciful silence over any further description of them.
From the mouth of the Danapris to that of the Danube, where the Bulgars live, is not a long voyage, and seemed all the shorter in comparison to the distance we had already come. Up to that time, the weather had been good. Oh, the winds for the most part blew from the northwest, requiring a good many tedious tacks if we were to beat our way westward, but they were not violent, and the sea, Stephen's opinion to the contrary notwithstanding, remained gentle.
All that changed two days after our sailing past the mouth of the Danapris. Clouds filled the sky, clouds so black and thick and roiling, I at first took them for the smoke of a great fire somewhere. The wind freshened and began to howl. The light chop in which the fishing boat bobbed turned into waves that first buffeted the boat and then began to toss it about the sea.
The storm blew up almost as fast as I can record its coming. Less than half an hour after I spied the clouds on the western horizon, rain started drenching us. The day went black as midnight. Every so often, a lightning bolt split the sky overhead, giving us all momentary, purple-tinged glimpses of the heaving sea. The roar of the thunder put me in mind of God's voice summoning us to judgment.
"Can you steer for shore?" I screamed to Moropaulos.
He shook his head. "No," he shouted back. "I don't even know which way the shore is, not for sure. Sea's doing the steering now, not me- s ea and the wind." He brailed up the sail. "I think the wind's still out of the west. Don't want to get blown too far away from land."
I shook my fist at the heavens, as I had at Kherson. Leontios had not been able to keep me down, not for good. The rich traders in Kherson had not been able to make away with me. When Apsimaros tried to move against me, he could not do so without my learning of it. When Ibouzeros Gliabanos sought to betray me, I learned of that, too, and struck first. Having escaped so much, having achieved so much, was I now to perish at God's hands?
"No!" I shouted, loud as I could, and shook my fist again.
The storm grew ever worse, despite my defiance. The fishing boat spun like a top, waves smiting it from every direction. The lightning showed those waves tall as hills, tall as mountains. Soon one would surely strike us wrong and capsize us, and then everything would be over.
After we went sliding down from yet another wavecrest deep into the trough behind, someone clutched the soaked sleeve of my tunic: Myakes. He had been fearless for so long, but now a flash of lightning showed the terror on his face. "We're going to die, Emperor!"
"No," I said, thinking him right. But then, the boat wallowing out of the trough, my spirits rose with it. I raised a defiant shout: "No!"
A wave broke over the bow, drenching both of us and almost sweeping me over the side. "We're going to die," Myakes insisted, spitting out saltwater. "I beg, you, Emperor, on my knees I beg you"- and he did fall to his knees-"promise God that if He spares you here, you'll have mercy on your enemies."
"What? Mercy?" I shook my fist at the heavens for a third time. "If I have mercy on even one of them, may God drown me now!"
And the storm stopped.
MYAKES
A miracle, Brother Elpidios? I don't know if it was a miracle, or if we'd come out the other side of the squall line or whatever it is sailors call those sudden storms that blow up out of nowhere, or what. I do know it happened just the way he writes it, though. He's right. I was frightened to death. You can fight a man. How do you go about fighting the sea? One minute I was certain sure we were sunk and drowned and food for the mackerel and the squid and the tunny that had been feeding us for so long up in Kherson. The next-
The next minute, Brother Elpidios, the clouds were flying away to the east, and the rain went from sheets to spatters and then stopped, and all at once when we were in the trough of a wave the crest of the next one wasn't higher than the top of our mast, and the sun came out, and-
It sounds like a miracle to you? If you think I'm going to argue very hard, you can bloody well think again.
JUSTINIAN
From that moment forward, I knew I should prevail, God having by sparing me given an indubitable sign He approved of my purposes.
All of us, working with buckets and cups and a small bronze cooking pot, bailed as much of the sea as we could from the fishing boat. By the time the long, weary task was done, we stood ankle deep in water. Having been knee deep before, we reckoned that great progress.
By God's providence, the rigging had survived the storm. Like our tunics, it flapped wetly. But the sail filled with the gentle breezes following the storm, and let us sail slowly toward the west, the direction in which the sun was now setting. We were out of sight of land, and spent a chilly night on the sea. Making sail again the next morning, though, we spied the shore no later than the third hour.
On our sailing closer to that shore, we discovered we had reached one of the several mouths of a considerable river. "Does the Danube break up before it flows into the sea, the way the Volga does?" Barisbakourios asked, the simple word delta evidently being unfamiliar to him.
He, his brother, Theophilos, and Foolish Paul all looked toward Myakes and me. None of them had been in his part of the world before. We being Romans and this having been Roman territory before the Bulgars raped it away from my father, they expected us to know the answer.
And Myakes, who had accompanied my father on his ill-fated campaign against the Bulgars, did know. "Aye, that's the Danube, all right," he said. "All we have to do now is sail up it a ways and wait for the Bulgars to notice us." He shook his head. "No, that's not all. We have to hope they feel like talking with us instead of killing us for the fun of it."
"A point," I admitted. I had been so full of thought for what the Bulgars might do for me, I had not asked what I might do for the Bulgars. After a moment's doubt, though, I straightened in the battered fishing boat. "I do not- I will not- believe God, having spared me from the storm, will let me perish at the hands of the barbarians."
"Here's hoping you're right." Myakes was seldom inclined to take on faith the goodwill of potential foes.
With Moropaulos skillfully using the steering oar and turning the sail so as best to catch the wind, we made our way up one of the channels of the Danube, waiting to be noticed. I began to wonder whether any Bulgars lived in that part of the land until I saw a large herd of cattle grazing in the distance. Where there were animals, there their masters would also be found.
And, before long, one of the Bulgars riding with the cattle spied the boat on the river and c
ame riding up to the riverbank for a better look at us. Barisbakourios and Stephen called to him in the language of the Khazars, and he shouted back to them, but neither side could understand the other.
My turn, then. "Do you speak Greek?" I called across the water. Some Bulgars did, I knew, having acquired the tongue either from the luckless Romans who had inhabited the land they now ruled or from traders coming up out of the Roman Empire.
The good fortune that had smiled on me since the storm abated continued. "Greek? Yes, I speak little Greek," the horseman answered. "Who you? What you want here?" He leaned forward on his horse like a hound seeking a scent. Every line of his body seemed to shout, Are you fair game? Can I slay you?
"I am Justinian, Emperor of the Romans, the son of Constantine, Emperor of the Romans," I answered, and had the satisfaction on watching his jaw drop and him go slack with astonishment on the ugly little pony he rode. I continued, "I have come to see your khagan, Tervel. Will you take me and my friends to him?"
For all I knew, the barbarian might have thought I still sat on the throne in Constantinople. True, I had been cast down ten years before, but who can say how swiftly, if at all, news reaches a Bulgar herder? Maybe he thought I had come to take supper with my fellow sovereign, and would then return to the Queen of Cities.
On the other hand, maybe he merely thought me a liar. But if I lied, I lied on a scale greater than he had ever imagined. "You stay," he said. "Not go. I bring you another man. He talk toward you." Riding away, he booted the pony up into a gallop, getting a better turn of speed from the animal than I had expected.
"Shall we beach the boat, Emperor?" Moropaulos asked.
"Yes, do," I said. "We've come to see the khagan. If the Bulgars fall on us before we can do thata160…" I did not go on. But if the Bulgars chose to fall on us before I could see the khagan, I had no place else to go in any case. Tervel was, and how well I knew it, my last hope.
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