Despite their swarthy cast, his cheeks flushed red. Having taken Apsimaros's gold in payment for the blood of his own brother-in-law, myself, he recognized the point of the gibe.
Perhaps that was what made him decide to take ship once more a few days later. But the sailing season was drawing to an end, and I can understand his desire not to be away from his barbarous people through the winter season. Were one of them to prove as devious and disloyal as he was himself, he might have found himself in a predicament with which experience had made me entirely too familiar.
Then again, too, he might have wondered whether, if I had him in Constantinople the whole winter long, I would yield to temptation and arrange for his sudden, untimely passing from this life to that of eternity. I confess I was wondering the same thing myself. Had he not been Theodora's brothera160…
But he was, and so I had to let him go, however much I regretted it. Not even the Emperor of the Romans realizes every dream in full.
Before boarding the ship that would take him across the Black Sea, he embraced his sister and said to me, "I thank you for letting me live."
Since he chose not to dissemble hypocritically, I followed the same course, answering, "Thank your sister, not me."
"I have already thanked her. I thank you as well." All his retinue had gone aboard the ship by then. He hurried after the rest of the Khazars, as if worried yet that I might change my mind.
With Theodora beside me, I could not. But, as I watched his ship sail toward the Bosporos, I regretted not having had the foresight to post a couple of dromons at the strait's outlet to the Black Sea so they might incinerate the vessel, him in it, with liquid fire. A storm at sea would almost surely have been blamed for his demise. The sailors who did the deed would not have blabbed, knowing as they must how I requited those betraying me.
For my wife's sake, I let him go: such are the follies of uxoriousness. He is khagan of the Khazars even yet. Once I settle with Kherson and the other cities thereabouts, that will be time enough to deal with him.
***
The Bulgars' raids having grown intolerable, I resolved to punish them as they deserved despite their being ruled by a man whom I had myself created a Caesar of the Romans. Assembling the cavalry forces from the military districts of Anatolia, I ordered them to cross into Thrace so they could teach Tervel that his exalted rank did not bring with it the privilege of preying on the Roman provinces adjacent to the lands he ruled, lands themselves Roman by right. This was in the twenty-fourth year of my reign, the fourth since my return from unjust exile.
When I returned to the imperial city, I-
MYAKES
Wait a minute, Brother Elpidios. Where's the rest of it? What do you mean, what do I mean, the rest of it? The part where Justinian talks about the campaign against the Bulgars, that's what. Didn't you skip a leaf or two or three in the codex there?
What? You didn't? That's all he says? Well, I will be- no, that's something I've finally learned it's better not to say in a monastery. But it's hard to believe, all the same. Up till now, he's pretty much told the whole story, even if he and I don't always remember things the same way. There's a lot missing here, though, one devil of a lot.
What do you mean, why didn't he tell it? How should I know? I'm not Justinian. I can think of a couple of reasons off the top of my head, though, that might have something to do with it. For one thing, this part would have been written right near the end of his reign. Revenge was all he had in his mind, or pretty close to all, anyhow. He didn't get much revenge against the Bulgars.
And that ties in with the other reason I can think of. Justinian botched this campaign every way you can think of. He was never a man who was easy to embarrass, but when he looked back on things here, if he wasn't embarrassed, he bloody well should have been.
Was I there, Brother Elpidios? Oh yes, that I was. I saw the whole mess, right up close. I was lucky to get away with my own neck. So was Justinian.
All right, I'll tell you about it, since Justinian didn't, and since most of the people who were there are bound to be dead by now. So Justinian didn't let out a peep, eh? Isn't that something? I can hardly believe it, and that's a fact.
Like he says, the cavalry from the military districts crossed over from Anatolia into Thrace. They rode up the Black Sea coast. Justinian sailed up to Ankhialos, just south of Mesembria, to meet them there. He brought the excubitores along, which was how I got lucky enough to come.
Ankhialos, of course, means "next door to the sea." If the place weren't next door to the sea, there'd be no reason for it to exist. Now that I think about it, there isn't much reason for it to exist anyhow. Why anybody would bother having it and Mesembria both is beyond me. Yes, I know nobody asked my advice. Justinian sure didn't, for true.
Anyway, there we were, waiting for the cavalry from the military districts to come up and join us so we could attack the Bulgars. You can see the Haimos Mountains, the border between Thrace and the Bulgars' country, from Ankhialos, and you can see Ankhialos from the mountains, too, because they dip south close to the coast. The Bulgars were watching us, though we didn't know it yet.
Ankhialos wasn't what you'd call ready to have an army show up on its doorstep. God in heaven, Brother Elpidios, we excubitores drank the taverns out of wine in three days all by our lonesome. Justinian had to detach a couple of dromons to go on up to Mesembria and bring back more before his guards started fighting each other instead of the Bulgars.
One by one, the regiments of cavalry from the military districts trickled up the road to Ankhialos. Justinian wanted to wait till he had everybody there before he hit the Bulgars a lick. "Concentration, Myakes," he said to me, till I got sick of hearing it. "One strong blow is better than half a dozen puny ones."
"That's so, Emperor. No doubt about it," I finally told him. "If we wait around too long, though, the barbarians are going to know we're up to something, and have a pretty good idea of what. We've got a lot of soldiers here already. If we take 'em by surprise-"
"Concentration," he said again, and I shut up. Trying to tell Justinian anything he didn't want to hear wasn't easy and wasn't particularly safe even before he got his nose slit. Afterwards- well, I could get away with a lot with him, because I'd been through so much with him. But I didn't want to push it, if you know what I mean. Concentration he wanted, and concentration he got.
But it wasn't very concentrated concentration. What do I mean? It's like this: there's a fair-sized plain west of Ankhialos. That's where the troops from the military districts made their camps. But they camped the same way they'd come up from Constantinople: by regiments, one here, one there, one over yonder. Yes, somebody should have been in overall charge and made them all join together and turn into a proper army. But the only somebody who could have done that was Justinian, and he didn't bother.
The other thing he didn't do was keep enough sentries out around the camps. "You worry too much," is what he said to me when I complained about that. "The Bulgars will be shaking in their shoes when they find out I've brought a proper Roman army against them. They won't fight. They'll run away."
"That's what your father said, almost thirty years ago," I answered. "Look what it got him."
For some reason or other, that made him angry, and he dismissed me. Once he had an idea in his head, you couldn't knock it out with a hammer. I thought about asking him why he'd thought the Bulgars could fight Romans when he'd come south with Tervel, but figured they couldn't when he was coming north against Tervel. I didn't bother. It wouldn't have done any good.
Like I said, Ankhialos wasn't as ready as it should've been to supply that "proper Roman army" Justinian was so proud of. The granaries emptied out as fast as they would have if locusts had got into them, and some of the cavalry regiments hadn't even got there yet. Some of the people in the town complained to Justinian that he was eating them out of house and home.
What? How much good did that do? How much do you think, Brother Elpidios? He onl
y killed one of them, I will say that for him.
Where was I? Oh, yes, that's right- we were starting to run out of grain. We were running low on fodder for the horses, too, now that I think about it. And so what happened was, the army started wandering over that plain west of Ankhialos, trying to keep themselves and their animals fed. They might have been a flock of sheep, the way they ate everything down to the ground.
What? Oh. Yes, Brother, one of the farmers complained to the Emperor. He hung him on a gibbet. After that, the farmers did what farmers always do when soldiers come robbing: they ran for the hills and took whatever animals they could with 'em.
I wished Leo was there, instead of off in the Caucasus. Christ, I even wished Helias was there, instead of back in Constantinople minding the store for Justinian. The Emperor had made it very clear he wouldn't pay any attention to me. Both of them were sneaky enough, they might have found some way to get him to listen.
But they weren't there. Justinian didn't listen to anybody. He'd go from one scattered camp to the next. He said he was inspecting the regiments. Maybe he even thought that's what he was doing. It looked like wasting time to me, and I was starting to think we didn't have much time left to waste.
I was right, too. Much good it did me.
The day I'm thinking about, Justinian was visiting the camp of the soldiers from the military district of the Opsikion. He'd gone to them before. He trusted them further than he did a lot of the other troops there, I suppose because Barisbakourios was their commander. He wasn't with the army either, though, which was a cursed shame, because he was one more Justinian might have heeded.
Barisbakourios had sent his lieutenant general to Thrace instead- a weedy little fellow named Theodotos. He wasn't worth much, as far as I was concerned. Some of the men in his regiment had been trained to do acrobatics on horseback. He had them showing off for Justinian when some sort of commotion started in the camps north of his.
"What's going on?" Justinian asked. It was, at least, the right question.
Theodotos didn't even try to find out. "Probably nothing, Emperor," he said indifferently, and then, to his pet acrobats, "Keep on, boys." He turned to Justinian again. "You'll like this next bit, I promise you."
But we never got to see the next bit. A couple of horsemen who weren't acrobats came pelting down toward the camp of the men from the military district of the Opsikion. They were screaming something. It didn't take us long to find out what, either. "The Bulgars!" they shouted. "The Bulgars are attacking! All's lost! Run for your lives!"
Brother Elpidios, you never saw people disappear so fast in all your born days as those cursed acrobats. One moment they were there, the next they were nothing but little dots on the southern horizon- and getting littler faster than you'd believe.
If Theodotos had been worth a follis, he would have rallied his men and sent them off to drive the Bulgars back. If he'd been worth half a follis, he would have rallied them and used them to protect the Emperor. What he did do was squeak "We're ruined!" and then jump on his own horse and gallop off almost as fast as those acrobats.
Well, that did it. That did it and then some, as a matter of fact. "Hold, men!" Justinian shouted, but the soldiers from the military district of the Opsikion weren't about to hold. They'd seen their friends run away, they'd seen their commander run away, and the only thing they wanted to do was run away, too. And that's what they did. They figured Justinian couldn't stop the lot of them, and they were right.
And they weren't the only ones. Everywhere I looked, I saw Romans running or riding south, fast as they could go. Tents in some of those other encampments were going up in flames. Justinian, I suppose, had been right about concentration after all. One strong blow had turned out better than half a dozen weak ones. Only trouble was, the Bulgars gave instead of getting.
A few of the troops from the Anatolian military district did put up a fight. The battle was lost before it got started, though. The Bulgars just ignored the Romans who were fighting back- weren't very many of 'em, Lord knows- and went after the ones who were running. They killed some of those, and plundered what the rest left behind. When a man's decided he's going to run, he'll throw away anything he's got so he can run faster. All the Bulgars had to do was follow along and pick up the flotsam and jetsam, you might call it.
Near as I could see, Justinian was going to stay there cursing the Roman soldiers up, down, and sideways till the Bulgars noticed him and scooped him up. I wondered what Tervel would do with him if they carried him north of the mountains. I wondered, but I didn't really want to find out, because I figured whatever Tervel would do to Justinian, he'd probably do to me, too.
And so, when Justinian showed no signs of going anywhere on his own, I said, "Emperor, we'd better get back to Ankhialos. Once we're inside the walls, the Bulgars won't be able to do anything to us."
"That's true," he said, as if it hadn't occurred to him- and it hadn't, either. So off we went, heading east and a little north over the plain toward the town. I wasn't the only one who'd had that same idea. The Romans who weren't fighting and weren't running south as fast as they could were making for Ankhialos.
Pretty soon, we made up a good-sized band. The horsemen pulled me and the rest of the excubitores up behind them, so we rode double. That let everybody move faster, which made all of us happier, let me tell you. The sooner we got some nice tall stonework between the Bulgars and us, the better we'd like it.
I was riding near Justinian a couple of furlongs from Ankhialos when his horse quit on him. Poor beast must have hurt itself, lamed itself some kind of way, because it just wouldn't go on no matter how he swore at it and no matter how he booted it.
"Another traitor!" he shouted, and leaped down out of the saddle. His sword was already in his hand. If the Bulgars had come at him, he'd've fought hard- nothing wrong with his courage. If you haven't seen that by now, Brother, you're blinder than I am.
But he would not stand being crossed, not for a moment, not even by a horse. Slash, slash, and he cut both the animal's hamstrings. Beast screamed like a woman as its back legs went out from under it. "If I can't have you, the Bulgars will get no joy of you," Justinian said, as if it was a woman. He scrambled up onto somebody else's horse and rode pillion the rest of the way to Ankhialos.
The Bulgars, thank God, didn't try storming the town. If they'd tried, they might have done it. The soldiers who were in there, I don't think they would have put up much of a fight. When you got down to it, though, it didn't matter much. Tervel had done what he'd set out to do. We weren't going to invade the Bulgars' country, not after he'd stomped the cavalrymen from the military districts we weren't.
More Romans got into Ankhialos after the band that had formed around Ankhialos. They'd had to do real fighting to reach the city. Some of them brought in trophies: a few heads, bows and arrows, a couple of the boiled-leather shirts the Bulgars wear instead of chainmail.
Justinian ordered the excubitores to confiscate all those prizes. "What for, Emperor?" I asked.
"We'll display them on the walls of Ankhialos, to impress the Bulgars with our might," he answered. With anyone else, I would have laughed. It made a pretty fair joke, after what Tervel had just done to us. But he wasn't joking. I could see that. He wanted trophies up there, just as if we'd won the battle. Maybe he thought we did. I tell you, Brother, I didn't have the nerve to ask.
We stayed in Ankhialos till the third day after the fiasco. Then the Roman troops in the city boarded the ships moored in the harbor and sailed back to Constantinople. We never tried fighting the Bulgars again, not as long as Justinian lived. That's the story he didn't want to tell there. I guess now you can see why. I wouldn't have been very proud of it either.
Now that I've yattered away for a while, Brother Elpidios, your voice should be all fresh and rested. What did Justinian like well enough to admit in writing he'd done it?
JUSTINIAN
I received from Cyrus the ecumenical patriarch word I had long
been awaiting, namely, that he and Constantine the bishop of Rome had at least the beginnings of an understanding concerning Constantine's acknowledgment and acceptance of the canons of the fifth-sixth synod I had summoned before being sent into exile.
"Excellent," I told Cyrus. "About time we see some sense from a Roman pope."
"Yes, Emperor," he said, nodding. "I think your treatment of Felix made Constantine see cooperating with the Roman Empire is a wiser course than opposing its might."
"A good thing for him he has seen it," I answered. "If I weren't busy elsewhere, I'd use him as I used Felix. Or rather, I'd use him as I would have used Felix if I hadn't had that dream that told me to spare his useless life."
"A dream may be the voice of God, Emperor," Cyrus said. "You were wise not to risk divine anger."
"I thought the same," I said. Why God thought the rebellious bishop of Ravenna deserved to remain among the living was beyond me, but no mortal man could oppose His desire and hope to prevail. Shifting my thoughts from what I had been unable to prevent to what I might be able to accomplish in times to come, I asked Cyrus, "How close, precisely, has Pope Constantine come to accepting the canons of the fifth-sixth synod?"
"He does still have reservations on a few of them, Emperor, but expresses those much more temperately than have previous bishops of Rome," the patriarch replied. "He may, if God be kind, accept those canons almost in their entirety."
Almost complete acceptance was indeed more than any previous bishop of Rome had shown himself ready to grant, but struck me as inadequate nonetheless, being a partial rejection of canons inspired by the Holy Spirit. "To which of them does he still object?" I asked.
"In particular, the thirteenth and the thirty-sixth," Cyrus said. "To refresh your memory, Emperor, these are-"
"I know what they are," I snapped. "The thirteenth requires a married man ordained a deacon or priest to keep on cohabiting with his wife rather than putting her aside, as is the ignorant practice throughout the patriarchate of Rome. The other states that your rights as patriarch of Constantinople are the same as those of the arrogant bishops of Rome, their primacy to be due solely to seniority. How can the popes object to that, it having been stated in the acts of the first ecumenical synod of Constantinople and in those of the ecumenical synod of Chalcedon?"
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