No one argued with me. I was in the lead. I had a plan, where the rest had none. And I was the Emperor. Muttering under my breath to keep the count straight, I moved on once more. They followed.
If my beginning guess was right, we should have been approaching the outer wall. Setting my ear against the rough side of the pipe, I tried to find out whether I could hear the Romans who were resisting the Bulgars' onslaught. All I could make out was my own blood pounding. Sighing, I went on.
At the count of, I believe, three hundred seventeen, my hand came up against an obstruction. A moment later, my head ran into it, too. "Hold up," I said to Myakes and the rest behind me. I felt of the obstruction. It was an iron grate, rough and scaly with rust under my fingers. At some time after the Avars had worked their destruction, then, Roman engineers had done their best to make sure no one could do as I was doing. By the feel of the iron, though, it had been a long time ago, and forgotten since. Explaining what I had found, I ordered, "Pass the pry bar up to me."
Leo, who was still carrying it, handed it to Stephen, from whom it went to Barisbakourios, Myakes, and me. The artisans who had installed the grating had cut holes into the channel, in which they inserted the ends of the bars of the grill. Working as they had been doing under cramped, difficult circumstances, they had not made the fit perfect, as they otherwise might have done. That carelessness, and perhaps the feeling that they were taking needless precautions, caused them to leave space into which I could set the pointed beak of the pry bar.
Using it was not easy, even after having set it in place. If I could have stood on my knees, I would have been in excellent position to exert full leverage. The pipe was too low and narrow to permit that, however. I had to lie at full length, as both my arms, which otherwise would have supported me, were engaged in prying.
With a sharp snapping sound, a piece of the grate flew off. It hit me in the back, and then hit Myakes in the head. We both cursed, there in the cramped blackness. I tugged at the grate. It still refusing to come free, I used the pry bar once more. When the next chunk of rusted iron broke away, it hit me in the head; I felt blood trickling through my scalp.
I tugged again. The grate shifted under my hands, but remained in place. I had to break off two more pieces of iron before I could wrestle it out of its position. Even then, it being essentially as wide as the channel in which it was set, I could not simply put it to one side. I and my followers had to scramble over or under it to advance. Moropaulos, the bulkiest of us, had a dreadful time. I feared he might prove a cork in the bottle for Theophilos, but at last he made it past the grate.
Then I had to remember the count of cubits. In my exertions, I had for the moment lost the exact number, but I did not admit that to Myakes and the rest of them. On we went, one obstacle overcome. Forty-seven cubits, or rather, forty-seven advances of my right leg, later, I ran headlong into another grate. I hissed in pain, it having struck close by the place where the chunk from the first grate had hit me.
This new grate was as scabrous with rust as the first had been. Since I now carried the pry bar, I went straight to work. I needed to break the grate at only three places before becoming able to shift it. Once we had all struggled past, I said, "If my reckoning is true, we've passed beyond the inner wall and are now inside the city."
Theophilos started to raise a cheer. Myakes hissed, "Shut up, curse you, or we're all dead inside the city."
We crawled on. Having come so far, I began to wonder how I would be able to leave the aqueduct. Dropping down into a cistern half full of water from other sources, although it might clean us of the filth through which we had been traveling, struck me as being less than ideal.
But God, Who had heard my pledge and saved me from the storm, provided for me once more. Looking ahead, I spied on the inside of the pipe a short strip of light in what had been darkness absolute and impenetrable. Hurrying to it, as best I could hurry in that cramped place, I discovered a door had been set into the roof of the channel, no doubt for the convenience of workmen who might have to enter to clear obstructions. Like everything else pertaining to the aqueduct, the door had not been cared for since my great-great-grandfather's day. Its timbers had shrunk and split, allowing a little moonlight to pierce the darkness. I wondered if we had crawled past other doors in better repair, but then decided I did not wish to know.
Crawling past this door, I rolled over onto my back, using my legs to push up against the boards. Had it been latched, I would have attacked it with the pry bar. But it swung back easily. I stood upright, savoring that position, and looked around to get my bearings. Considering how far we had come in the blackness, my reckoning proved quite good. We were about a bowshot inside the inner wall, and considerably less than that distance from a large cistern. As well I had found the doorway, I thought.
"Anyone trying to find out what that noise was?" Myakes hissed from inside the pipe.
"I can't see anyone," I answered. "Pass me the rope. I'll make it fast to one of the hinges here, and we can all climb down."
"No. I have a better idea," Myakes said. "Moropaulos is a big, strong fellow. Let him hold the rope while the rest of us go down. Then he can tie it to a hinge and climb down himself. That way, we only have to trust the old iron once, not seven times."
His plan indeed being better than mine, we adopted it forthwith. The rest of us crawled up onto the top of the aqueduct. Moropaulos stood in the doorway, the better to brace himself. I had intended to be first man down, but Myakes again took the lead from me. I do not know to this day whether he was testing Foolish Paul's strength or making sure no opposition waited below.
Whichever it was, he soon called, "All's well, Emperor. Your city's here waiting for you."
I went down hand over hand, having first wrapped the rope around my leg and over the top of my instep to give myself some additional purchase should a hand slip. A minute later, I stood in an unpaved alleyway in Constantinople, a stone's throw north of the Mese. "I've returned," I whispered, as if saying it was what made it true.
Leo descended next, then Stephen, Barisbakourios, and Theophilos. Foolish Paul's feet were a man's height above the ground when the iron hinge to which he'd tied the rope tore free of the cement and bricks under his weight. He landed with a thud and a shout, the rope streaming down after him. He scraped one knee- through all our knees were already raw from a longer crawl than ever we had done as infants- but, praise God, was otherwise unhurt.
I looked at all my companions in the moonlight. The pale radiance sufficed to show how filthy and tattered they were, which doubtless meant I was filthy and tattered as well. Seven men to overthrow the greatest city in the civilized world! One of the pagan dramatists of Athens wrote a play about seven men against a city, but I recall neither the playwright nor the city the seven men opposed.
"We'll go to the Mese," I said. "We'll find a fountain on a street corner and clean ourselves as best we can. Then we'll go to the grand palace. We'll get inside any way we can, and then we'll slay Apsimaros." With my rival dead, I reasoned, no one would oppose my reassuming the throne rightfully mine.
No one moved. I barked at my followers. Barisbakourios said, "Emperor, this is your city. We don't know which way to go." He kept looking around, even here down on the ground. "I don't think I believed all your stories of the imperial city, the ones you'd tell back in Kherson. But you meant them, didn't you?"
"Of course I did," I answered, setting out for the chief boulevard of the city. Myakes strode along beside me, Constantinople also being familiar to him. The others, even Leo, followed slowly, cautiously, as if on the verge of being overwhelmed by the size and magnificence of the city through which they walked.
They exclaimed in wonder at the length and width and paving of the Mese, and at so many people being on the street at an hour well past midnight. We were a large enough group to deter robbers, and also large enough for others to think us robbers and depart in haste. Grimy as we were, a couple of whores came up to us.
They hissed curses at me when I sent them away; we lacked the time for even the most pleasant distractions.
While we were splashing water on our faces at a fountain, a squadron of horse came riding along the Mese toward the walls, their harness jingling. When the light from the torches they carried fell on us, their leader called, "Here, you men! Who are you?"
Had I listened to reason, I should have either fled or lied. If reason spoke to me, I heard nothing. At last back in my beloved city, I drew myself up proudly and said, "I am Justinian, Emperor of the Romans, the son of Constantine son of Constans son of Herakleios Constantine son of Herakleios. Who, sir, are you?"
The officer's chin dropped to his chest. So did Myakes'. Leo, I remember, clapped his hands together, once, twice, admiring my audacity. Had the officer and his soldiers been perfectly loyal to the usurper, they could have cut me down where I stood. The fellow's mouth worked. When he spoke, though, he gave no order to attack, instead whispering, "Holy Virgin Mother of God."
"I have returned to take back my throne," I said, and drew my sword. "Will you stand by me, or will you fight?"
Smashing a lump of quicksilver with a hammer could have created no greater scattering than did my words. A couple of the riders wheeled their mounts and galloped back toward the palace, crying, "Justinian is in the city! The Emperor is in the city!" They might have thought they were warning Apsimaros, but, by those cries, their hearts knew who their true sovereign was.
Others galloped away down side streets. Few of those said anything at all. My guess was that they aimed to sit out whatever turmoil sprang into being as a result of my sudden and unexpected arrival, then obey the orders of whoever finally seized control of the throne. Still others, that astonished officer among them, rode forward on the route the whole squadron had been taking. They too shouted my name, and some of them, intending to do so or not, also shouted that I was Emperor.
And eight or ten men did not ride off in any direction. Bowing in the saddle to me, one of them exclaimed, "Command us, Emperor!"
Over the long years of exile in Kherson, Myakes had rehearsed for me many times how Leontios and his henchmen had seized control of the imperial city the night I was overthrown. Now I could imitate the blow that had toppled me. "Ride through the streets of the city," I told the horsemen. "Shout my name. Raise a great commotion. Let everyone know I have returned and I am in the city. Tell anyone who wants to help to do as you are doing and rouse the people."
"Emperor, we will!" they declared as one man, and they rode off in all directions, shouting my name at the top of their lungs.
"What now, Emperor?" Myakes asked.
"First the palace," I answered. "Once we lay hold of the usurper, the game is ours. Then we seize Kallinikos." Hungry anticipation filled my voice.
We trotted along the Mese toward the palace, which lies close by the sea. As we moved, confusion spread all around us. People spilled into the street, many of them still in their nightshirts. More and more of them began shouting my name, some in disbelief, others in delight. We ran on.
Had the soldiers on the wall united against me, I still could have been thwarted. But some of them favored me while others did not, the result being that no one did anything. They did, I will say, maintain their watch against my Bulgar allies, that being a matter of most elementary prudence.
My comrades, all save Myakes, to whom the splendid buildings and plazas and monuments adorning the Queen of Cities were familiar, exclaimed again and again at them. They exclaimed at the column of Markianos, at the church of St. Polyeuktos on the other side of the street, at the Praitorion, at the round Forum of Constantine, at the church of St. Euphemia and the bulk of the hippodrome beyond it. I exclaimed at the hippodrome, too- in hatred, having last seen it when my blood spilled into the dirt there.
They were just beginning to exclaim at the Milion at the end of the Mese, and at the church of the Holy Wisdom not far past, when I, refusing to be distracted, led them south off the Mese toward the palace. "Gawk later," I said harshly.
Torches and bonfires blazed all around the palace, a low, rambling building. People streamed in and out, some soldiers, some not. I had never seen, never dreamed of such activity late at night; the palace might have been an anthill stirred by a stick. Before long, thanks to the abundant light, someone spied me and my followers and loosed a nervous challenge: "Who comes?"
"Justinian, Emperor of the Romans!" I shouted back. Audacity and only audacity had brought me so far. Never again would I put my faith in anything else.
Myakes plucked at my torn sleeve. "Emperor, they outnumber us a hundred to one. If they-"
"Shut up," I snapped, for everyone who had heard my voice was staring my way. I brandished my sword, as if to say I would cut down the first man who dared defy my right to rule.
Still sounding very nervous indeed, the fellow who had challenged me said, "The Emperor, uh, Tiberius, uh, Apsimaros, uh, the usurper, hearing you had somehow sneaked into, uh, come into the imperial, he, uh, well, he took flight is what he did. Half an hour ago- can't be more. So, uh, the palace is yours. Welcome, uh, welcome home, Justinian, Emperor of the Romans!"
"Tu vincas, Justinian!" people shouted, as if I were being acclaimed for the first time.
I waved the sword again. Silence fell; I might have slashed at speech. "I am not becoming Emperor of the Romans," I said. "I am Emperor of the Romans. I have been Emperor of the Romans. All this is mine by right." For ten long, lonely, dreadful years I had said that, in Kherson, in Doros, in Atil, in Phanagoria, in the land of the Bulgars. How many had believed me? I had half a dozen men at my back here, no more. But I had been right all along. BOOK D
JUSTINIAN
As word spread from the palace that Apsimaros had run away, both those who had thought to stay loyal to him and the cursed lukewarm saw I looked like winning and came over to me. By sunrise, fighting had ceased.
By sunrise, also, I had ordered a house-to-house search for the fugitive usurper. Alas, it did not catch him in its net. A naval officer before presuming to advance his station, he escaped the city in a small boat. I offered a large reward to anyone who would bring him to me alive. "Or if not," I said, "his head will do." I laughed. How I laughed!
My mother wept to see me, even though, by the time she did, I had changed from the filthy tunic in which I entered Constantinople into a robe suited for the Emperor of the Romans. We embraced as if we had never exchanged harsh words. "My son," she said, and then, proving herself of my house in spirit if not in blood, "you are avenged."
"Not yet," I answered. "Not fully. Not till Apsimaros stands before me, loaded with chains. But he will." I smacked one fist into the other palm. "And Leontios and Kallinikos are already in the hollow of my hand." I smiled, anticipating.
"Your face," she said sadly. "Your poor face."
"It could be worse," I told her. "Leontios is uglier than I am these days, by all I hear. And he'll be uglier yet when I'm through with him." I changed the subject: "Tell me- my daughter Epiphaneia, is she well?"
My mother's face glowed as if a lamp shone through it. "She is indeed. Do you know, I think this may be the first time you have ever asked after her."
"Is she wed?" I persisted, wondering which half of my bargain I would have to keep with Tervel.
"No," my mother replied. "Neither of the usurpers would permit her betrothal. They feared any man who married her would plot against them because of who she was. And, of course, she was still very young while Leontios disgraced the throne. In fact, she-"
"Good." I interrupted her. "If she is unwed, I can marry her off to Tervel the Bulgar, to repay him for the men who helped put me back on the throne." Without those men, I never would have been able to approach the city and enter the pipe that brought me into it. Tervel might not have been confident of my triumph, but had helped make it possible- and his army remained encamped just beyond the wall. Keeping our bargain seemed the better part of wisdom.
"You would give the chil
d of your flesh to minister to the lusts of a barbarian?" my mother whispered, turning pale. "It cannot be."
"If she is still unmarried, it shall be," I said. "It's either that or let Tervel tear up the countryside- and break my oath to him, too."
"It cannot be," my mother repeated, more firmly this time. "As she judged herself unlikely to be allowed to wed a man, she became a bride of Christ year before last, and dwells in the nunnery dedicated to the Mother of God near the Forum of Arkadios."
"In that case, you're right- it cannot be," I agreed. "I'll have to name the Bulgar Caesar instead." She began to gabble at that, too, so I left her. Not even the Emperor's mother may scold him against his will, a telling proof of the power inherent in the imperial dignity.
On leaving her, I intended to go and speak with Tervel, but Leo and some city folk I did not know hailed Kallinikos before me. "Emperor!" cried the patriarch, prostrating himself before me when his captives released him so he could do so. "Congratulations on your glorious return to the imperial city!"
I stared at him. He was, I saw to my astonishment, so base of soul as to be absolutely sincere. He had abandoned me to consecrate Leontios, abandoned Leontios to crown Apsimaros, and now stood ready, or rather sprawled ready, to abandon Apsimaros for me once more. He had the perfect temperament for a whore. A patriarch, however, needed judging by different standards.
"Wretch!" I shouted, and kicked him in the face- not hard, not even hard enough to break his nose. "You are the spineless slug who announced Leontios's accession with the opening words of the Easter service, as if he were Christ come again. And now you think you can serve me once more? You have never been so wrong in all your life, and that says a great deal."
"Mercy!" he wailed, as he should have done from the beginning- not that it would have helped him, not that anything would have helped him.
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