I am Justinian, Emperor of the Romans, the son of Constantine, Emperor of the Romans, the son of Constans, Emperor of the Romans, the son of Herakleios Constantine, Emperor of the Romans, the son of Herakleios, Emperor of the Romans. Romania is mine.
MYAKES
You know, Brother Elpidios, when one of Justinian's slaves- maybe the last one who hadn't run away by then- brought word that he wanted to see me, I wondered if he was going to take my head- just to make sure he'd done it, you might say. That was about the only time when I really thought about running off. In the end, though, I didn't. I'd been doing what Justinian told me for too long by then to break the habit, I expect.
"Tomorrow we fight," he said when I walked into his tent. "Tomorrow Helias dies. He killed my son, sure as if he'd cut his throat with his own hands."
Justinian says we had a hundred men left? I don't think so, but all right. Helias had thousands- I know that. He could squash us like a man squashing a bug and never set eyes on Justinian himself. What's that, Brother? Had Justinian forgotten he'd killed Helias's children, or did he think it didn't matter because they deserved what they got and Tiberius didn't? Truth to tell, I don't know. It amounts to about the same thing either way, wouldn't you say?
He handed me the codex- the very one you've got there- and he said, "After I win tomorrow, give this back to me."
"All right, Emperor," I told him. I understood what he meant, even if he couldn't come right out and say it.
"Fight hard, Myakes," he said, and clapped me on the back like we were talking in a tavern. "Always fight hard." He knew all about that. Nobody can say anything different there. I nodded my head and went away. The book? I stowed it in my own knapsack.
By the next morning, we didn't have a hundred men left. I don't think we had fifty. To this day, Brother Elpidios, I don't know why we had any. A few people will stick to any cause, I suppose. What? Do I mean me? Who else would I be talking about?
We put on our armor and we waited: me, a couple of other stubborn excubitores, a few men from the military district of the Opsikion, a handful of crazy Bulgars, and Justinian. He trotted his horse back and forth in front of us as if we were fifty thousand. He looked splendid in his gilded chainmail. If only he'd had a real army to lead.
About halfway through the morning, up came Helias. He had a real army. I don't know how big it was- big enough and then some, I'll tell you that. But now he was as wild for revenge as Justinian ever had been. When he saw Justinian there in front of him at last, he forgot about all the soldiers h e was leading. "Murderer!" he screamed, and set spurs to his horse, and charged.
"Murderer!" Justinian screamed back at him, and he charged, too.
We all yelled ourselves hoarse, Justinian's little band. If he cut down Helias, who could say what that army would do? His own force had shrunk in a hurry. Who was to say it couldn't grow again in hurry, too?
Over on the other side of the line, all those however many thousand men Helias had with him went quiet as the tomb. They were thinking the same thing we were, sure as the devil, only our up was their down. If Justinian nailed Helias, everything was up for grabs again.
If. If, if, if. We were thinking with our hearts, the forlorn little guard Justinian had. Like he said himself, he was past forty by then, and he hadn't done anything you'd call fighting from horseback since before he got exiled. He'd exercised, yes, but it's not the same thing. Helias was, I don't know, fifteen years younger, something like that, and he really knew what he was doing.
We didn't need long to see that. The first pass they made at each other, Helias knocked Justinian's sword out of his hand. The next time around, Justinian went after him with a dagger. No quit in Justinian- never any quit in Justinian. He didn't try and run away. If he didn't have any weapons left, he'd fight barehanded and hope for a break.
He didn't get one. Helias hit him a whack with the flat of his blade that left him swaying in the saddle like he didn't know the difference between stew and Easter. When Helias saw he couldn't fight any more, he got an arm around his neck and dragged him out of the saddle. Then he jumped down himself, and drew his dagger.
Justinian tried to kick him. It didn't work. Helias knelt down beside him. Justinian started to yell something. It might have been, "Em-!" Maybe not, too. We'll never know now. Whatever it was, Justinian never finished, on account of Helias got to work with that knife.
A minute later, he stood up. He was holding Justinian's head by the hair. I think it tried to bite him. No, Brother Elpidios, not really- a joke. If Justinian could have, he would have, but he was done. It was over. At last, it was over.
Helias's men let out all the cheers they'd been holding back while they waited to see whether he'd live. They rolled forward over us. It wasn't a battle. It wasn't anything like a battle. Only a couple of us fought.
No, not me, Brother. I ran back to my tent and grabbed the knapsack with the codex in it. Then I tried to run. Why did I do that? If you'd asked me then, Brother Elpidios, I couldn't have told you. I just did it. Now, after all these years, the way it looks to me is, I'd been doing what Justinian wanted for so long that a little thing like him being dead wasn't going to change the way I acted.
I don't think it ended up hurting me. So I got caught a hundred cubits away from my tent instead of two hundred. So what? I wasn't going to get away. Nobody who stayed with Justinian till the end got away, I don't think.
Theodora? Now, that's a good question. I have to tell you, I don't know what happened to her. From that day till this, I've never heard. Maybe she's in a convent. Maybe they sent her back to her brother. Maybe they killed her, and kept quiet about it afterwards. Helias might have. Maybe she's somebody's concubine, or somebody's wife. Make up your own story. I can't help you there.
Me? Thanks to the fancy armor I was wearing, the lugs who had hold of me figured out who I was. They dragged me off to Helias. He already had Justinian's head mounted on a spear. "Ah, Myakes," he said. "So it comes to this."
"It comes to this, sure enough," I answered.
"What am I supposed to do with you?" he said.
"What are you asking me for?" I said to him. "If it had come down the other way, I'd've tried to see that you died faster than Justinian would have wanted, anyhow."
"Yes, I believe you would have," Helias said. "You never stopped Justinian from being vicious, but sometimes you stopped him from being as vicious. Does that make you better for doing something or worse for not doing more? Hard to say, isn't it?"
I looked over toward Justinian's head. His eyes were still open, but they were just dull glass. A fly was walking on one of them. I said, "He raised you up, too, Helias, and you bit his hand."
"He would have taken my head if I hadn't," he said. "You love him too well, Myakes- I don't want you running around loose. But I don't quite have the stomach to kill you, not when you did do something, anyhow, to make his evils less. I'll throw you in a monastery, and take your eyes to make sure you don't come out."
"If that's what you've got in mind, I'd sooner you did kill me," I told him.
He didn't listen. He didn't have to listen, not to the likes of me. He gave the orders, and his bully boys dragged me off to take care of 'em. It wasn't what you'd call a fancy job. They didn't bother with silver bowls and boiling vinegar, the way the executioner had with Felix. They hauled me over to a fire and heated up a couple of skewers, the kind you'd use to roast meat. Then one of them got a thick leather gauntlet from somewhere, grabbed a skewer, and burned out my left eye with it. He did that one first because it was on his right side, I guess.
What do you mean, what did I do? I did just what you'd think. I screamed and did my damnedest to get away, only I couldn't. Did it hurt? You bet your balls it hurt! It hurt worse than anything else that's ever happened to me. Then the fellow with the leather glove got the other red-hot skewer out of the fire. The very last thing I ever saw, Brother Elpidios, through the tears that were streaming down my face, was that glowing iron, c
oming right at me.
I heard the fellow who'd blinded me throw down the gauntlet. "Off to a monastery with him," he said, "and better than he deserves, too."
"Ahh, Myakes wasn't so bad," one of the others said, like I was dead instead of just wishing I was. "Here's his knapsack. Let him take it along." He must have opened it then, I suppose to see if anything in there was worth stealing. He saw the codex. "What's he doing with a book?"
The one who'd stuck skewers in my eyes- ugly bastard; I remember that, oh yes I do- he laughed like a jackal. "Who cares? He can keep it- it'll give him something to read." He thought that was the funniest thing in the world, and so did all his stinking chums.
But that's how Justinian's book got here, Brother Elpidios, in case you ever wondered. That's how you finally got to read it, even if I never have.
What can I say? The book is done. My story's done, because I haven't had any story to speak of since I came here. It's been the same thing over and over and over, and it'll keep on being the same thing till they wrap me in a shroud and lay me in the grave. I suppose, for a man with no eyes, it's better that way. No story, no, but no surprises, either.
And Justinian's done. Maybe it's better that way, too. I don't know. Justinian, he was nothing but surprises. For better and for worse, you never knew what he'd do next. Whatever it was, he went at it hard as he could. If he'd been better at choosing… ahhh, if he'd been better at choosing, he wouldn't have been Justinian.
And now that you've read the whole book and you've heard everything I've got to say about it, I suppose we're done, too, eh, Brother Elpidios? Brother? Are you there, Brother?
ELPIDIOS
I, Elpidios, the sinful monk, set down these words on the last leaf of the codex in which the Emperor Justinian recorded the deeds of his life, reckoning up and arranging what occurred in each period thereof without confusion, so that the reader might at once understand what events, whether warlike or ecclesiastical or of any other sort, occurred at any time during the Emperor's life on earth.
Not ignorant of my own lack of knowledge and paucity of expression, I hesitate now in the task I had previously set myself, of adding the events recounted in this life to the chronicle of the history of the world I have been contemplating. I hesitate also because of the multitude and variety of sins Justinian showed forth during his lifetime, sins of which any reader might better be left unaware.
For, as I think, in most circumstances one enjoys no small aid in reading of the deeds of those long ago. If I should write such a book and anyone was to find therein anything useful, he ought to give the appropriate thanks to God and pray for the Lord's aid to my lack of knowledge and sinfulness. Though I may be guilty in this regard of ignorance and of the laziness of a groveling mind, I think I shall set aside this life of Justinian, on the grounds that separating sin from virtue in the said life is beyond my poor talents. Let this codex go on a shelf in the monastic library, in the hope that, some day, a man with greater talent than mine may find for it a fitting use.
If I do come to write my chronicle, I shall craft it from sources more malleable and more in accordance with my own judgment and understanding. The Lord will surely forgive my errors, for working according to one's ability is pleasing to God. Amen.
HISTORICAL NOTE
Justinian II was born in 669 (or perhaps 668). He became Roman (as he styled himself) or Byzantine (as we would be more likely to call him) Emperor on the death of his father, Constantine IV, in 685, was ousted from the throne by Leontios in 695, regained it by overcoming Tiberius III Apsimaros in 705, and was again overthrown- and this time killed- by the forces of Bardanes Philippikos in 711.
Along with Justinian, the following people appearing in Justinian are actual historical personages: Abimelekh (Abd al-Malik, caliph, 685-705), Agathon (pope, 678-681), Anastasia, Apsimaros (Tiberius III- Emperor, 698-705), Arculf, Asparukh, Balgitzin, Bardanes Philippikos (Emperor, 711-713), Barisbakourios, Bas il (bishop of Gortyna), Benedict II (pope, 684-685), Boniface, Christopher, Constantine (pope, 708-715), Constantine IV (Emperor, 668-685), Cyrus (patriarch, 705-712[?]), Daniel, Epiphaneia (name fictional), Eudokia, Felix, Florus, George, George I (patriarch, 679-686), George the Syrian, Gregory the Kappadokian, Helias, Herakleios (Apsimaros's brother), Herakleios (Constantine IV's son), Herakleios (Constantine IV's brother), Ibouzeros Gliabanos, John (admiral), John (archbishop of Cyprus), John (bishop of Portus), John (eparch of the city), John Pitzigaudis, John Strouthos, John the cook (name fictional), John V (patriarch, 669-675), Kallinikos, Kallinikos I (patriarch, 694-705), Kyprianos, Kyriakos, Leo II (pope, 682-683), Leo (Leo III, Emperor, 717-741), Leo (mint functionary), Leontios (Emperor, 695-698), Makarios, Mauias (Muawiyah I- caliph, 661-680), Mauros, Moropaulos, Mouamet (Muhammad- Abimelekh's brother), Myakes, Neboulos, Nikephoros the patrician, Oualid (Walid I- caliph, 705-715), Papatzun, Patrikios Klausus, Paul (the monk), Paul III (patriarch, 688-694), Paul the magistrianos, Petronas, Polykhronios, Sabbatios, Sergios (officer), Sergios I (pope, 687-701), Sergios of Damascus, Sisinnios (pope, 708), Stephen the exarch, Stephen the patrician, Stephen the Persian, Stephen/Salibas, Tervel, Theodore I (patriarch, 677-679), Theodore of Koloneia, Theodore the patrician, Theodotos, Theophilos, Theophylaktos, Tiberius (Constantine IV's brother), Tiberius (Justinian II's son), Tzitzak/Theodora, Zachariah, Zoe (Helias's wife: name fictional), Zolos.
In addition, the following persons mentioned in the novel but dead before the time in which it is set are historical: Athalaric, Constans II (Emperor, 641-668), Constantine I (Emperor, 306-337), Eudokia (Herakleios's daughter), Herakleios (Emperor, 610-641), Herakleios Constantine (Emperor, 641), Heraklonas (Emperor, 641), Honorius I (pope, 625-638), John (bishop of Thessalonike), Justinian I (Emperor, 527-565), Kosmas, Leontios, Martin I (pope, 649-655), Martina, Maurice (Emperor, 582-602), Maximus the Confessor, Menander Protector, Mouamet (Muhammad), Paul II (patriarch, 64l-654), Peter (patriarch, 655-666), Phokas (Emperor, 602-610), Pyrrhos I (patriarch, 638-641, 655), Septimius Severus (Emperor, 193-211), Sergios (patriarch, 610-638). All others, including Brother Elpidios, are fictitious.
The two most important sources for the reign of Justinian II are the chronicles of Nikephoros and Theophanes. I have read both in the Greek. Both use some older common source; each also offers information the other lacks. Justinian's modern biographer, Constance Head, downplays some of the more horrific episodes in the Emperor's second reign, episodes recorded only in the chronicle of Theophanes. I must respectfully disagree with her interpretation. The kinds of things Theophanes has Justinian doing strike me as consistent with his actions and personality as described in the Liber Pontificalis and in the Syriac chronicle of Dionysius of Tel-Mahre, to which Head did not have access (although she did use the later Syriac chronicle of Bar-Hebraeus, who draws on Dionysius's work).
I have for the most part stuck very close to the historical record of Justinian's career, which is quite sufficiently amazing without embellishment. I altered the actual events of the sixth ecumenical synod in a couple of ways, first by having Makarios of Antioch present when his fellow monothelite Polykhronios tried to raise the dead (Makarios had actually been condemned and removed from office by then), and second by having Bishop Arculf of Gaul take part in the synod. Arculf was in fact in Constantinople at the time, but as a pilgrim on the way home from Jerusalem. His native town here is fictitious, and his meeting with Justinian II is conjecture on my part. I should note here that theology was so vital to the world of the late seventh and early eighth centuries, and so intimately intertwined with politics, that a novel of this sort, which appears to place undue stress on it, in fact severely understates its importance.
Most details of Justinian's private life are also conjectures. It is, however, worth pointing out that Theodora did act in her new husband's interest and against that of her brother on very short acquaintance with Justinian, which may perhaps speak well for him in that regard.
I have followed Richard Delbra's conjecture that Justinian had
his mutilated nose surgically repaired while in exile (in fact, I dare take the liberty of saying here that I made a similar conjecture myself before learning of Delbra's, which has- some- iconographic evidence to support it). Auriabedas is fictitious, but Indian surgeons at the time were in fact the world's leaders in what we would call plastic surgery, and could and did perform operations such as the one I describe Justinian submitting to. Details of the procedure are from Guido Majno, The Healing Hand: Man and Wound in the Ancient World (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1975).
The only place Myakes appears in history is in the melodramatic scene during the storm on the Black Sea. His relationship to Justinian and his ultimate fate are novelistic inventions.
FB2 document info
Document ID: fbd-9dfe99-eec3-ab44-9586-17a1-c803-a30f64
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 23.09.2010
Created using: Fiction Book Designer software
Document authors :
Source URLs :
About
This file was generated by Lord KiRon's FB2EPUB converter version 1.1.5.0.
(This book might contain copyrighted material, author of the converter bears no responsibility for it's usage)
Этот файл создан при помощи конвертера FB2EPUB версии 1.1.5.0 написанного Lord KiRon.
(Эта книга может содержать материал который защищен авторским правом, автор конвертера не несет ответственности за его использование)
http://www.fb2epub.net
https://code.google.com/p/fb2epub/
Justinian Page 64
