Just like an Anatolian peasant boy who's come to join the army- like me, say, getting close to forty years before then- he kept ohing at this and ahing at that as we rode down the Mese toward the house of Placidia near the church of the Holy Wisdom, where he'd stay till Justinian got word he was there.
He wasn't a bad fellow- Constantine, I mean. Put three or four cups of wine in him and he got friendly, same as anybody else. Put a little more in him and he wanted to wrestle. He'd been a pretty fine wrestler in his younger days, especially, I guess, if you listened to him tell it. Only trouble was, he hadn't seen his younger days any time lately.
What's that, Brother? A bishop wrestling? Well, he did. And do you know what he'd say? He'd say that if it was good enough for Jacob, it was good enough for him. I couldn't figure out any way to argue against that, and I'll bet you won't, either.
Anyhow, Constantine and the rest of the churchmen from Rome had a fine old time in Constantinople. They'd visit a new church or two every day, and at night- ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies, Brother Elpidios.
Some of them were downright disappointed when Cyrus's messengers finally tracked down Justinian. Sure enough, he was in Nikaia, on his way from Kyzikos down to Nikomedeia. He sent the messenger who'd caught up with him back to Constantinople with a letter telling Pope Constantine to meet him in Nikomedeia.
Off went the pope. Off went the bishops and priests who'd come along with him. They were getting what they'd come all the way from Rome for, and do you know what? Most of 'em really did look as if they could have waited another couple of weeks to have it.
JUSTINIAN
My expeditionary forces against Kherson being nearly ready to sail, the arrival of Pope Constantine in the imperial city proved more nearly a nuisance, an interruption to that important business, than anything else. But, having granted him leave to come, I could hardly refuse to treat with him once his journey was completed.
Nikomedeia made a good enough place for the two of us to meet. Although damaged by Arab and Persian invaders, it has been repaired and refortified, its hilltop stronghold being especially difficult to capture. And the harbor there, though not large, is well sheltered from the elements.
Constantine, however, chose to travel by land. We met not far outside the wall. He dismounted from the post-horse lent him, approached me, and prostrated himself as any other Roman subject would have done. "Emperor, I thank you for calling me to the Queen of Cities," he said in a Greek rather harsh.
He being no ordinary Roman subject, I waited until he had risen and then prostrated myself before him in turn. "Holy Bishop of Rome, I thank you for coming here and restoring perfect peace in the church," I replied, rising myself.
We beamed at each other. I would have treated Felix of Ravenna harshly in any case, and was glad to see myself reaping such a large profit thereby. Constantine said, "Even this small city of Nikomedeia bustles with such activity as is rarely seen in Italy and the other western regions."
You are in a civilized land now, I thought, but did not say as much out loud. What I did say was, "I am glad Romania pleases the bishop of Rome"- a subtler reminder of the same thing.
Constantine said, "I, for my part, am glad we have been able to agree on the canons of the holy synod you summoned twenty years ago, and that you recognize the need for abandoning the thirty-sixth, which is odious in the eyes of the episcopal successors of Saint Peter."
Few of the bishops under the jurisdiction of the patriarchate of Constantinople would have dared be so free-spoken with me. Indeed, Constantine took his prerogatives as seriously as I took mine. "I have been persuaded that canons from two previous ecumenical synods cover the same ground, yes," I replied, yielding his immediate point but not the larger issue.
The immediate point sufficed. "Let us rejoice in our peace and unity," Constantine said. "If I celebrate the divine liturgy here, Emperor, will you take of the Lord's body and blood from my hands?"
"I should be honored," I replied; I should have been slighted had he made no such suggestion. "The church of the Holy Wisdom is the finest in Nikomedeia."
Constantine's face lit up. "I have seen the church of the Holy Wisdom in Constantinople. If this one is anywhere near so fine-"
"Hardly," I said, laughing. "No church I have ever seen comes close to the great church in the Queen of Cities."
"God forbid that I should disagree," Constantine exclaimed, "lest I be revealed in His eyes as a liar."
"The church of the Holy Wisdom here is no mean hovel," I assured him, "and of course the presence of the pope of Rome ornaments any church." We smiled at each other, both of us intent on wringing maximum advantage from our meeting. I went on, "Nikomedeia's other accommodations should also suit you, even if they prove less splendid than those you enjoyed in Constantinople."
"I am sure I shall be contented here," he said. "I have had only comfortable lodgings and courteous dealings with Roman officials. Your governor Theophilos was particularly generous of his substance and his time."
"I am glad to hear he gave you the honor you deserve," I said. Theophilos, though not the brightest man God ever made, had shaped better as the commander of the Karabisianoi than I looked for on naming him to the post. Though relying on his advisers, he did not hesitate to overrule them when he judged them mistaken. More than that, one could hardly ask from any man.
I quartered the bishop of Rome and his followers in a wing of the hilltop stronghold in which I was also residing. He grew quite merry over wine. I said, "At the divine liturgy tomorrow, I want you to pray for the success of the fleet I am going to send against Kherson to avenge myself upon the rich merchants there."
"a160'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,'a160" he said, and then giggled. "Not mine, mine, but mine, the Lord's, you understand." Like a lot of men with a deal of wine in them, he was more precise than he needed to be.
"a160'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' The Lord says that, also," I reminded him.
"He doesn't say anything about a nose for a nose." The pope giggled again. I let him live, he being obviously drunk and I having in any case long since avenged myself upon Leontios, who wounded my nose. Constantine held up his hands, as if to make scales. "One passage here, one passage there. Which with more weight?" He shrugged. "Emperor, I did not come here to quarrel with you. I shall pray for your fleet."
"Good," I said. "For that, you and the church can keep all your privileges in Italy." He was effusively grateful, but giving him what he already had cost me nothing, whereas extracting more from him would have required troops and poisoned the ecclesiastical peace we were confirming here.
As the evening wore on, Constantine not only challenged one of my guardsmen to wrestle, he broke the fellow's collarbone. He was most contrite, and prayed over the excubitor afterwards, but poor Paul's arm is not all it should be even on the day I set down these words.
The bishop of Rome was somewhat the worse for wear the next morning, but did nonetheless celebrate the liturgy as we had arranged. Nor did he use the excuse of the previous night's drunkenness to evade the promise he had made there. Before everyone in Nikomedeia's church of the Holy Wisdom, he asked God's favor for my "expedition to punish the wicked Khersonites for their numerous sins."
When I came up to take the miraculous bread and wine from him, I said, "Pray also that I may be forgiven my sins."
"I shall, Emperor," he answered, "in the same breath I use to pray for the forgiveness of my own."
He stayed in Nikomedeia another few days, then set out for the distant and backwards west once more. Word recently came to me that he was stricken ill on his journey; I do not know whether he has reached Rome safely. If not, I shall have the nuisance of beginning afresh with a new pope once the matter of Kherson is settled.
***
Mauros, Stephen, and Helias were all sailing with that portion of the naval expedition departing from Constantinople, giving me the opportunity of reminding them one last time of their or
ders: "When you get to Kherson, put everyone you can catch there and in the cities nearby to the sword. Spare no one. They had scant mercy on me; I have none on them. Is it understood?"
"Yes, Emperor," they chorused. "As you command, so shall we do."
"Good, good," I said. "I have waited six years for this moment. You will understand that I want it done perfectly, just as I say it must be."
"Yes, Emperor," they repeated.
"Very well," I said. When they started to leave my presence, I held up a hand. "Wait. One thing more." They looked most earnest and attentive. I continued, "I have given Bardanes Philippikos leave to sail with you as an officer in charge of a troop of soldiers. Watch him closely. If he performs his duty well, I want to know of it. If he performs poorly or shows any sign of disloyalty, I want to know that, too."
"Yes, Emperor," they said yet again, knowing they held Bardanes' life in the hollow of their hands. Although I had permitted the exile to return from Kephallenia after I ousted Apsimaros, I had heeded Myakes to the extent of not entrusting him with any position great or small, merely suffering him to live in Constantinople as a private citizen. He having begged me to let him prove himself- I would die for you, Emperor, he wrote in his petition- I granted him this small boon. If he lied, he would indeed die for me.
At the harbor the next day, when the fleet was to sail for Kherson, Bardanes came up and prostrated himself before me. "Emperor, by God and His Son, I swear to you, you shall not regret this choice," he said.
"Words are free," I said. "Words are easy. Show me what you do, Bardanes. Deeds mark a man. Show me what you do, not what you say. Helias and the others proved themselves that way."
His handsome, swarthy face assumed an injured expression. "Did I not prove myself, Emperor, when I saved you from the Sklavinian hiding in the stream?"
"A lifetime ago," I told him, adding, "Before you began to dream of eagles." Swarthy though he was, he flushed. "Perhaps that was but happenstance. Perhaps it was but foolishness," I went on, thinking as I had always thought that ever mentioning it was certainly foolishness. "But, because of it, you shall have to earn your way into my esteem once more."
"Emperor, I will!" he cried, so fervently that he was either sincere or one of the worst actors ever born.
And so he accompanies the fleet, its commanders having been warned to take careful notice of everything he does. If he is indeed as devoted to me as he proclaims, he will make a useful servant, being a man both clever and daring. The only one who I am certain surpasses him in those regards is Leo, and Leo lingers yet in the Caucasus. If he were here, I think I would see how clever he was without a head.
Strange. When I took up this writing, recording what I recall of my deeds and my life, I was chronicling the distant past. Now at last, having spent more than a year and a half on the task, I have reached the present day. Having said everything I have to say, I can but set these words aside and await further occurrences.
And yet, having taken up the pen, I find myself loath to put it down. Writing has grown to be a habit as regular as a goblet of wine with my meals, and as pleasurable. Flipping through these leaves, I see I have been very frank- perhaps too frank. I suppose, to keep my pen busy, I could go through this volume and excise those portions not fully redounding to my credit. That, too, would be writing of a sort. But what point to it? No one's eyes but mine shall ever see these words, I am certain of that. Theodora and Myakes are the only ones who know the nature of this exercise. In the great scheme of things, Myakes is of no consequence, however agreeable he has been to me over the years. And my wife, I am certain, will let nothing damaging to me ever see the light of day.
Let the words stand, then. Let them stand. Now I wait, and shall write more as the stream of time brings fresh events to my view.
***
I was tempted to record the news from Kilikia, which is very much of a piece with that of the previous year. But the fortresses we Romans lost are of such small consequence that I need not waste ink setting down their names. In any case, I will set all that aright in next year's campaigning season, or at the latest two years hence. Kherson and the surrounding towns come first.
What does prompt me to take up the pen is the first word from the fleet that had crossed the Black Sea. The word is good. In high excitement, the messenger from the dromon newly tied up at the Golden Horn told me, "Emperor, Kherson is ours. The folk there weren't expecting us, and they didn't even try to fight back."
"Splendid," I told him. "What went on before you sailed back here?"
He began telling off points on his fingers. "We have the Khazars' tudun there, and a fellow named Zoa239los-"
"I remember Zoa239los," I said. "A rascal if ever there was one."
"Yes, Emperor," he said. "We also have forty other prominent men from Kherson, all of them in bonds the whole way across the Black Sea."
"Good enough, good enough," I told him. "The executioners have been pining for want of fresh meat, and now they have it. Well, go on."
"When Mauros and Stephen and Helias got Kherson in their grasp, Emperor, they took seven other rich men and roasted them on spits over a bonfire," the messenger reported. "I saw that with my own eyes. They screamed for a long time, and the smell of cooking meat made you hungry till you remembered what it was. And they-"
I held up a hand. "Wait." I tried to decide whether I wanted the executioners to imitate what my men in Kherson had done. The savor of roasting meat would be very fine, but giving such specific orders was liable to cramp the executioners' style, depriving them of the opportunity to exercise their ingenuity. Realizing I did not have to settle such affairs on the instant, I waved for the fellow to continue.
He said, "Emperor, then they took twenty more men, tied their hands behind them and put them on a ship out past the harbor. They cast boulders onto the ship till it sank and drowned the prisoners."
"That sounds like a lot of trouble for a small result," I said critically. "They could have tied each man to a boulder and pushed him off a gangplank to accomplish the same thing. If they'd set the boat on fire, now- but they were using fire for the other torture, weren't they?" I sighed. "Well, we can't have everything. I suppose they thought it made a good spectacle."
"I wouldn't know anything about that," the messenger said.
"All right. Let it go, let it go," I said, inclined to be generous. "In the general massacre, it wouldn't have mattered much, anyhow. Men, women, children-" Something changed in the messenger's face, although I doubt he was even aware of it. Sharply, I demanded, "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," he said, but then, seeing deception useless, he changed his tune: "Emperor, not all the children are dead. The soldiers and sailors saved some, because they were so young, you understand, to sell into slavery, and-"
"They did what?" I said, and the messenger turned pale. "They did what? They disobeyed my direct order? They ignored the will of the Emperor of the Romans? Have they gone mad?"
Miserably, the man said, "I don't think so, Emperor. It's just that- killing children is hard, even for soldiers with orders. If they were slaves – "
"Fools!" I shouted. "Blunderers!" I bellowed. "Idiots!" I screamed. "Is it so hard for them to do as they are told? No more, no less? Is it so hard?" I hit the messenger in the face. He staggered back, clutching at his mouth with both hands. "Answer me!" I roared.
I had split his lower lip; blood dribbled down his chin and into his beard. "For-for-forgive them, Emperor," he stuttered. "They meant no harm."
"So you say," I sneered. "I shall hear it from the lips of the men I sent to Kherson to do a simple job." After shouting for a scribe, I dictated an order to him: "Mauros, Stephen, and Helias are commanded to return to this God-guarded and imperial city with the flee t entrusted to them in order that they might attempt to explain to their sovereign the gross dereliction of duty of which they are guilty."
"I shall make a fair copy of that, Emperor, and-" the scribe began.
"Never m
ind." I snatched the papyrus from his hands, scrawled my signature below the order, and thrust it at the messenger. "Take this back to your ship. Take it across the Black Sea. Deliver it to the officers there. It requires immediate obedience."
Even then, the scapegrace tried to argue with me: "Emperor, it's late in the sailing season. If a storm comes up on the sea-"
"It will drown a lot of whoresons who deserve nothing better," I said. "Now get out of my sight, while you still have a head on your shoulders." He fled. So did the scribe.
Dear God, how am I to carry out my vow of vengeance for Thee if the men through whom I must do my work thwart me at every turn?
***
"The fleet from Kherson is returning, Emperor." The messenger spoke the words, then withdrew from my presence as quick as boiled asparagus. I terrify everyone these days: my power is very great.
Riding out to the harbor to meet the incoming dromons, I saw but a remnant of the great expeditionary force I had sent forth. I went out to the very end of a pier and shouted a question at the closest ship: "Where is the rest of the fleet?"
"Sunk or scattered, Emperor." The answer came faint and thin over the sea. "We fought through a storm, and we must have lost thousands."
I threw back my head and laughed till the tears came. "Just what you deserved," I said. "See how God punished your disobedience to me? If you'd done as you were told, you will still be safe and comfortable in Kherson."
What was left of the expedition against Kherson limped into port. I confess to exulting on seeing the poor, mean state they made: a visible exemplification of what fate reserves for those who heed not the commands of the Emperor of the Romans.
From one of the battered dromons came Mauros. Seeing me waiting for him on the pier, he fell to his knees and then to his belly. With his face still pressed to the tarred planks, he said, "Forgive us, Emperor- I beg you! We did not fully grasp the depth of your wrath against the Khersonites."
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