Harry Turtledove - Justinian

I cheered that marriage myself. After so much sorrow, I was now happy above the mean. When Ibouzeros Gliabanos proposed the marriage to me, I had wondered if I could stand being joined to his sister. Now I wondered how I had lived so long without her.

Her body suited me, her temper suited me, and the converse also held true. We had, in short, fallen wildly in love with each other, something far more likely to spring from the union of a taverner's daughter and the young fellow who sells her father olive oil than a mating between Emperor and princess arranged not with an y thought for the feelings of the parties most intimately involved but only to secure an alliance. Call it luck or the will of God: either will do. Whatever the reason, I reveled in something I had not known since my brief marriage to Eudokia, and something which struck me as superior to that.

Spending time with Theodora helped me keep my wits about me as day followed day in Phanagoria. I consoled myself for each day that passed without useful word from Romania either in her arms or simply in her company. Too soon, too soon, the peaceful rhythms of those few brief weeks passed away, never to return.

I was having bread and wine with Theodora one quiet, sunny midday when Myakes broke in on us. No matter how long he and I had been together, I looked up at him with some considerable annoyance; no man cares to be interrupted while in the company of his wife, nor is it proper for even a husband's closest companions to gaze on her overmuch.

Before I could reprove him, though, he said, "Emperor, I was down at the harbor, and Moropaulos just now sailed in from Kherson." We called him Foolish Paul among ourselves, too, the name fitting like a boot. Myakes went on, "I've got him waiting out in the hallway, Emperor. He's carrying important news, news you need to hear."

My annoyance melted like snow in spring. "Bring him in, then," I said. I turned to Theodora. She made no move to absent herself, as a properly modest Roman wife would have done. Being the khagan's sister, she was accustomed to taking part in such affairs. After a moment's hesitation, I decided not to order her away.

In came Moropaulos, twisting slightly to get his great shoulders through the doorway. After bowing to me and then, shyly, to Theodora, he said, "Emperor, that Apsimaros, he just sent a man to the khagan of the Khazars on account of you. Fellow came up to Kherson and then took horse, bound for Atil."

"Did he?" I turned to Myakes. "You were right. I do have to hear this." Back to Moropaulos: "What does Apsimaros's man have to say to the khagan, pray?"

"Emperor, he says Apsimaros will send him many presents if he sends you to Constantinople alive. If the khagan doesn't fancy that, Apsimaros says, your head will do."

If it had been Leontios still on the throne down in Constantinople, Brother Elpidios, he would have sat on his backside till Justinian came to him. That was the way he was. Apsimaros stayed quiet too long for his own good, too, but he did finally get moving. I never had anything in particular against him. Up till then, he hadn't done anything to Justinian except hold onto the throne he'd taken from Leontios. He hadn't ruled too badly, either.

I thanked God we had people back there in Kherson. They let Justinian know what Apsimaros was up to, and he knew it before Ibouzeros Gliabanos did, too. Me, I couldn't imagine the khagan of the Khazars turning against the man he'd just married to his own sister.

Justinian, he'd always had more imagination than me.

Turning to Theodora, I asked, "How likely is your brother to betray me?"

"I do not know," she answered. Had she indignantly denied the possibility, I should have been certain her primary loyalty lay with him, not me. As things were, she went on, "If Apsimaros gives him enough, I think he will take it, though."

I wanted to kiss her for that answer, but would not because of the presence of Myakes and Moropaulos. "I think you are right," I said. "I think your brother would sooner align himself with someone calling himself Emperor who is in Constantinople than with a true Emperor in exile."

"That means trouble," Myakes said. "If the khagan tries to seize you or kill you, what do we do?"

"If that happens, we cannot stay any longer in lands the Khazars rule," I said, to which both Myakes and Theodora nodded. I looked toward Moropaulos. "God bless you for bringing this news. Tell my followers in Kherson to be ready for whatever may happen, and you be ready there to bring me word if Apsimaros sends more envoys to the khagan, or the other way round."

"I'll do it, Emperor," he promised. Dipping his head, he hurried out of the chamber. Though as thorough a supporter as anyone could wish, he was always shy in my presence.

"If we have to leave, where do we go?" Myakes asked. "Straight for Constantinople?"

My heart cried yes. Myakes' tone, though, suggested he did not think that a good idea. And the more my head examined the idea my heart loved, the more I was- reluctantly- inclined to agree with him. "If we show up outside the imperial city with no more force than a handful of men in a fishing boat, Apsimaros will crush us like a man smashing a cockroach under his heel," I said, hating what logic and reason told me.

Myakes let out a loud sigh of relief. "I think that's just right, Emperor. I don't know how to tell you how thankful I am you think the same way."

"You need men with you, to strike a blow against this Apsimaros," Theodora said- statement, not question- having followed our Greek. Her frown, which I had seldom seen, was amazingly like her brother's. After spending some little while in thought, she said, "Maybe, my husband, the Bulgars. They are not friends to the Romans, and they are not friends to the Khazars, either."

As I had started to say yes to Myakes' notion of sailing straight for the imperial city, so I started to say no to Theodora. Having fought against the Bulgars, I was not inclined to think of them as allies. But those wars, now, were more than a decade behind me. Asparukh, their khagan, had died while I was in Kherson. Of his son and successor, a certain Tervel, I knew little.

Glancing over to Myakes, I saw he liked the idea. The more I thought on it, the more I liked it, too- if it proved necessary. "Theou thelontos, we are worrying over nothing," I said. "If Ibouzeros Gliabanos shows proper loyalty to his family, I am perfectly safe here."

"Yes, God willing," Theodora said, making the sign of the cross; her acceptance of the true and holy orthodox Christian faith had sprung from deep conviction, not merely the desire to keep from hindering her brother's scheme. "Is it so in Romania, that all family is always loyal to all family?"

"No, it is not so," I said, remembering my father and my Uncle Herakleios and my Uncle Tiberius- and, before that, the struggle between my grandfather's backers and those supporting the descendants of my great-great-grandfather's second wife.

"It is not so among the Khazars, either," Theodora said.

"I didn't think it was," I answered. "We shall hope everything turns out for the best. And if everything does not turn out for the best- which God prevent- if that happens, we shall also be ready there."

Days flowed past, one after another. Having made the journey myself, I knew that Apsimaros's envoy, whoever he was, would be some time traveling across the plains to Atil. If he persuaded Ibouzeros Gliabanos to treachery, word that treachery had been ordained would have to make its way back to Phanagoria before any move against me could take place.

In the meanwhile, Theodora's belly began to bulge with the child she carried. She quickly reached the point of surfeit with salt fish and dried fish, a development surprising me not at all. Thanks to the money I had of her brother the khagan, we had no trouble affording better. The cook Balgitzin gave us also went out every so often and bought fresh fish from the men bringing them off the boats.