Book Read Free

Justinian

Page 61

by Harry Turtledove


  Instead of giving him leave to rise, I kicked him in the ribs, as I had with the rebellious bishop, Flavius. "Lackwit!" I shouted, and kicked him again. "Cretin!" Another kick. "Jackass!" Another. "All you had to do was do as you were told. I wanted everyone in Kherson dead, every building wrecked. Now I'll have to send out another expedition to do a proper job of smashing things up."

  He did not move as I kicked him; had he moved, I should have ordered him put to the sword on the spot. "Mercy, Emperor!" he gasped on my falling silent. "Mercy, I beg of you."

  "That depends on whether you deserve it," I answered. "Where are Helias and Stephen? Did they drown? Are they here?"

  "Neither one," he said. "They're still back in Kherson. When your order to return reached us, they didn't dare come back to the Queen of Cities to face you. I dared, and here I am."

  For that, I let him get to his feet. "What of Bardanes?" I asked him.

  "He is staying in Kherson, too," Mauros replied, adding, "and he was the one who kept us from killing the children there, as you commanded."

  "A rebel, in other words," I said, and Mauros nodded. "And Helias and Stephen are either rebels, too, or will be rebels in short order." Mauros nodded again, as if to say he himself was the soul of virtue. That I discounted, though his presence in Constantinople spoke better of him than the others' ominous absence. "The next force I send will bring them all back in chains for my judgment."

  "Emperor, you should know you've frightened all the towns in those regions," Mauros said. "The next fleet you send may find nowhere to land, and the men may have to fight their way ashore if by some chance it does gain an anchorage. The Khazars can send soldiers to those parts faster and easier than we can."

  "And I let Ibouzeros Gliabanos live!" I cried, striking my forehead with the heel of my hand in bitter repentance for that folly.

  "No doubt you thought it was best at the time," Mauros said, giving me what sympathy he could.

  I would not hear him. Every curse I had hurled at the army he and Helias and Stephen commanded, I now rained down on my own head. Slowly and with no small struggle, I returned to myself. "If those traitors refuse to do my will," I ground out, "I shall have to force them to obedience, as I aimed to force Kherson and the other cities up in the north to obedience."

  "What shall I do?" Mauros asked.

  "You?" I withered him with a glare. "You'll stay here in the city, that's what, and better than you deserve." He bowed his head. Seeing the nape of his neck, I nearly ordered his head stricken from his shoulders on the instant. He had, however, returned to Constantinople in the face of my known displeasure, this bespeaking a certain basic loyalty to my cause. On account of it, I let him live, and am still wondering whether I made the proper choice.

  ***

  "Punishment," I said.

  The men whom I had summoned to the Blakhernai palace nodded solemnly. So much military talent having been invested in the previous expedition against Kherson, I was reduced to leaders I should not otherwise have chosen. Christopher, the officer whom I had recently sent to command the new military district of the Thrakesians, chanced to be in the imperial city. He at least was certain to know his business. With John, the city prefect, and George the Syrian, my minister of public finance, I fear that their undoubted loyalty counted for more than their military talent.

  George had a guttural accent that put me in mind of Pope Constantine's. "How are we to bring back Helias and Stephen and Bardanes?" he asked.

  "However seems best once you've crossed the Black Sea," I answered. "I can't give you a large army- I don't have a large army to give you- but the rebels will not have any great force behind them, either."

  "What about the Khazars, Emperor?" Christopher asked. A sensible soldier, he studied the ground before advancing over it.

  The question was sour as vinegar in my ears, and burned my wounded spirit as vinegar burns wounded flesh. "I will give you the tudun to restore to his place," I said. "And I will even give you that whoreson Zoa239los, to sweeten up the Khersonites and help detach them from the rebels."

  "I hope that works," John said. "By God, I hope that works. What sort of shape are the two of them in, Emperor?"

  "No one has been carving pieces off them, if that's what you mean," I told the city prefect. By the way he nodded, that was exactly what he had meant.

  "You are merciful, Emperor," George the Syrian exclaimed.

  "I am not," I said indignantly; given my vow on Foolish Paul's fishing boat out on the Black Sea was an insult, implying as it did that I was failing to fulfill my promise to God. I went on, "It's only that the executioners and I have been talking about how to make them last longest and hurt most, and haven't got round to working on them yet."

  "Whatever the wherefores, they're here, they're whole, and we'll use them," Christopher said. I was glad to have found him within the Queen of Cities; he showed a quick pragmatism that looked like being very useful.

  "If you see Ibouzeros Gliabanos, or treat with an envoy of his," I added, "explain that I do not wish to harm him. I could have harmed him here, had I had that in my mind. My aim is to punish Kherson and the other towns in that part of the world for what they did to me when I was exiled to those regions."

  "I hope he hears us," said John, who was something less than filled with optimism as to his prospects for success.

  "He will hear you," I said. "He will hear you because you speak for me, for Justinian, Emperor of the Romans. He knows my might."

  ***

  When John, George, and Christopher sailed for Kherson a few days later, I went out to the harbor to watch them depart. The men were quieter than I should have liked. "They aren't happy about sailing at this season of the year, Emperor," one of the ship captains said. "They know how easily it can storm."

  "They can risk the ocean's storm- or they can risk mine," I said. He bowed his head and went aboard his vessel.

  Among those glum soldiers and sailors, one fellow stood out: a tall, gangly man with, I believe, the longest neck I have ever seen. "Smash them all," he said, over and over. "Smash them all." Drawing his sword, he slashed at the air.

  "Who is that?" I asked, pointing his way.

  "He is one of Mauros's spatharioi," George the Syrian answered. "His name is John, like the city prefect's; they call him Strouthos."

  "John the Ostrich, eh? I like that." Strouthos can mean either ostrich or sparrow; since there are many more sparrows than ostriches, that is the more common use of the word. Here, though, the other plainly applied.

  George said, "He would make a good hound. He always does as he is told. Now he has been told to kill, which he enjoys."

  "Good." I beckoned to the gangly man. "You! John! Come here."

  He looked up in some surprise, having been locked in his own private reverie of death and devastation. When he recognized me, his eyes- pale eyes, unusual among us Romans- went wide. He walked over to where I stood and gave me the clumsiest prostration I have ever received in all my years on the throne.

  "Rise," I said, and rise he did. I am not short, but he towered over me. "I hear you're quite a killer," I told him.

  His face lit up, as if a beautiful woman had said, I hear you're quite a lover. "Emperor, I do my best," he said.

  "I hope your best will be very fine indeed," I said. "Kherson has a whole host of men in it who want killing. When your officers point you at those men, I want you to dispose of them without even the sli ghtest thought of mercy. They deserve none. They are my enemies, and the enemies of the Roman Empire."

  "They'll tell me what to do," John the Ostrich said, working it out in his mind ahead of time so he would know what to do when the moment came. Had he had to think at the moment of truth, likely he would have failed. "They'll tell me what to do, and I, I'll do it." He did not slash the air again with his sword; the bodyguard standing behind me wordlessly made it plain to even the dullest individual- from which John was not far removed- that doing so would prove fatally unwise.r />
  Although he thought slowly, he had come up with the right answer here. "Obey your officers; they will obey me; all will be well."

  John's head bobbed up and down on that long neck like a dandelion puffball in the breeze. "I'll do that, Emperor," he said. "I hope they give me plenty to kill." He prostrated himself again, then went back to his dromon.

  "You see, Emperor?" George the Syrian said. "A hired murderer, nothing more, nothing less."

  "So less as he is my hired murderer, I don't care," I answered. "Use him with care, lest he turn in your hand."

  "Yes," George said heavily. "Too many tools have turned in our hands, there on the far shore of the Black Sea."

  "That's why you're going out," I told him: "to turn them back the right way once more." He nodded and boarded ship himself. Seeing him go made me wish he cut a more properly martial figure; in the gilded mail-shirt that showed he was a commander, he looked more like a jumped-up tax collector decked out in armor than a warrior. He was a jumped-up tax collector, of course, but why did he have to look like one?

  ***

  Betrayed! The Son of God had only one Judas to contend with. Lord, Lord, dear Lord I have worshiped all my life, why inflict them on by the scores? Are my sins so great?

  I do not care. It does not matter. They may betray me, but they cannot beat me. Stinking fly-specked turds, they should know that already. If they are too stupid to remember my past, I shall remind them. Oh yes, I shall. I shall flay them and break their bones and slice their flesh and burn their privates with torches and red-hot iron. Then I will roll their bodies in vinegar and brine and draw out their guts a finger's breadth at a time. Last of all, only when they are at the point of death, I shall put out their eyes, that they may have seen what comes of disobedience.

  Has Bardanes a wife and children here? Has Helias?

  MYAKES

  Ever since Justinian came back from Kherson, Brother Elpidios, I'd wondered now and whether he was drinking from a full jar of wine, if you know what I'm saying. I wondered more when he aimed everything he had at Kherson and the other towns on the far side of the Black Sea. Aye, some of the folks up there had done him wrong, but not that wrong. The one who'd done him real dirt was the khagan of the Khazars, but he let him live. Go figure.

  When he got the news of what had gone wrong for the second fleet he sent up to Kherson, I really do think he went crazy for a while. What you were just reading there, it sounds like he went crazy, doesn't it?

  It happened like this. I was-

  What's that, Brother? Why did I keep on serving him if I thought he'd gone mad? No, it wasn't on account of I thought he'd take my head if I quit. I did think that, as a matter of fact, but it wasn't why I stayed. Why, then? You don't understand? I'll tell you why, Brother Elpidios. I guess the easiest way to put it is, I'd been serving him so long, it never even occurred to me I could do anything else. I'd been at his side thirty-five years by then, or maybe a bit more than that. Most marriages don't last so long. Somebody ups and dies, husband or wife.

  And besides, every now and then he'd listen to me, a little bit, anyway, and what he'd do wouldn't be as horrible as what he might have done. And so I kept telling myself I was doing some good. And I was. Some good. Looking back, I've got to say it wasn't enough.

  Does that answer your question? Good. Where was I, then? Oh, yes. I was heading up the throne-room guards when a messenger came running in. Poor bastard looked scared to death. I found out why a minute later, too- he was the one who had to break the news from across the sea to Justinian.

  I've never seen a man who looked so much like he wanted to stay down there forever once he prostrated himself. Justinian had to tell him three different times he could get up before he finally went and did it. "Emperor," he said once he couldn't keep quiet any more, "it's all gone wrong up in Kherson."

  "What do you mean, it's gone wrong?" Justinian's voice didn't have any feeling in it anywhere. His eyes, though- his eyes were measuring that messenger for a coffin. I've never seen anything like it in all my born days, and I never will now- that's certain sure.

  "It's gone wrong," the messenger repeated, and then, the poor sod, he had to tell how. "We landed outside Kherson," he said, "and Helias and Bardanes and the Khersonites and the Khazars said they wanted a parley. So George and John and Christopher went into the city with the tudun and Zoa239los- they were going to give them back anyway, you know- and-"

  Justinian clapped a hand to his forehead. "Don't tell me they were such imbeciles as to go alone?" he said, like a man in pain.

  "Emperor, they were," the messenger said miserably, "and the Khersonites slammed the gates shut on them, and there wasn't anything any of us could do about it, on account of we were outside and they were inside. And they didn't come out and they didn't come out, and then the gates opened up again all of a sudden, and our people didn't come out, buta160… well, they did, because the Khazars had George's head on a pike and John's on another one, and we weren't ready to fight them, not really, so they must have captured a couple-three hundred of us, and then-"

  "What of Christopher?" Justinian broke in.

  "I don't know, Emperor," the fellow answered.

  I didn't know then, either. Years later, cooped up here in the monastery, I found out. The Khersonites and the Khazars in Kherson sent the tudun and Zoa239los and all the prisoners off to Ibouzeros Gliabanos. Along the way, the tudun died. They slaughtered Christopher and all the captured soldiers- I heard three hundred, but I don't know if that's right or not- to give him slaves in the next world. They aren't Christians, the Khazars, not even close.

  "Emperor," the messenger said after a little while, "that's not the worst of it."

  "God and His Son, what could be worse?" Justinian said, still in that toneless voice, like he couldn't take in what he was hearing. But he took it in, all right. He wasn't giving anything back, that's what it was, nothing at all.

  The messenger licked his lips. I remember that. I was thinking, This is what he really, really doesn't want to tell. But he didn't have any choice, not any more he didn't, and so he blurted it out in a rush: "Emperor, they've declared Bardanes Emperor up there."

  After that, nobody said anything for- oh, I don't know how long. If anybody breathed during however long it was, it must have been by accident. Theophylaktos the eunuch's eyes got big as hen's eggs. If he were here, he'd probably tell you mine were the same size.

  Or maybe not, on account of maybe all he was doing was watching Justinian. That was most of what I was doing, too, but every now and then my eyes would move away for a heartbeat or two. Believe me, Brother Elpidios, that was most of what everybody in the Blakhernai throne room was doing.

  Justinian couldn't very well watch himself. He watched the messenger instead, till the poor son of a whore must have thought his head would be the next one on a speak in front of the Milion. And then, in a quiet, even voice, Justinian said, "By the time I am through with them, Bardanes and Helias will wish they were Leontios and Apsimaros."

  I think that was the most frightening thing I ever heard in my life, Brother Elpidios.

  And then, just like he wrote it, Justinian asked, "Does Helias have a wife in the city? Does Bardanes?"

  He didn't need long to find out.

  JUSTINIAN

  Ha! Helias did have a wife in the city, a woman named Zoe. He had a couple of brats, too. I sent soldiers to fetch them all to the Blakhernai palace. I sent a man to bring Cyrus the ecumenical patriarch here, too, to pronounce her divorce from her husband. Conspiracy against the Emperor has been a legal ground for dissolving a marriage from very ancient days.

  And then I had another happy thought and made another summons. I thought it was particularly fitting.

  One of the traitor's children proved to be a nursing babe, the other a toddler. Zoe held them both in her arms while I told her the crime of which her husband was guilty. She hung her head. False tears streamed from her eyes.

  Cyrus droned out t
he formula of divorcement, along with all the whys and wherefores that made it binding straightaway. Now Zoe wept in earnest, at being sundered from the man who had betrayed me. The patriarch had done his job. He left.

  "Now," I said to Zoe, "you are in law free of the man who was your husband."

  "Your will be done, Emperor," she whispered.

  "Oh, my will shall be done in this matter," I said, "in every way." I pointed to the children she still held. "They are of the traitor's blood. His line shall not continue."

  Zoe began to scream. She turned, as if to run. Excubitores blocked her path. More excubitores advanced on her, seized her, and took the infants from her. Her shrieks grew loud. They echoed sweetly from the roof of the the throne room. They redoubled yet again when a man dressed all in black and wearing a black hood strode into the chamber.

  Zoe saw him going over toward the guardsmen who held her children. She screamed, "No, Emperor, not them! Kill me instead! Not them!"

  "They are of the seed of the traitor and rebel," I said. "You are not. Now that you are divorced from him, you need have no more concern for him and his."

  "My babies!" Zoe cried. The excubitores held her fast when she tried to break free and run to them.

  I nodded to the executioner. He did his job smoothly and with great dispatch- he cut the throat of the older child and then, a moment later, of the baby as well. They did not suffer. They died almost before they knew they were hurt. Their blood poured down onto the tesserae of the throne-room floor. Not nearly so much blood as a full-grown man holds, I noted. The servants would have no trouble cleaning up the mess.

  Zoe's wails went on and on. "Hear me!" I said sharply. For a moment, she quietened. I went on, "Now that you have no children and are also bereft of your husband, you stand in need of consolation. Surely the love of another man will make up for your small losses here today."

 

‹ Prev