Harry Turtledove - Justinian

"Some of them, Emperor, anyhow," Myakes said. "I've seen that boat Foolish Paul sails. It won't hold many, and that's the truth."

I waved that away. Some who said they backed me would find more excuses than Moropaulos's boat being small to avoid accompanying me on what they reckoned a forlorn hope. "Go on," I told Myakes. "I'll see you back here tonight or tomorrow morning, I expect."

"Aye, Emperor," Myakes said, and slipped away. I had no doubt he would slip into Kherson as readily. He had spent as long in exile there as had I, but I would have drawn notice even had I not been mutilated, and he, I think, would have remained inconspicuous even with a cut nose. Regardless of the setting in which he found himself, he had a knack for making himself at home without drawing undue attention.

Waiting came hard, as it always does for me. I went down into the tavern. I drank a good deal of wine. I ate salt-fish stew. Although having the money to pay for better, I forbore. Symbolon not being Kherson, I had some chance of going unrecognized there, and meant to foster that chance as much as I could. So far as I could tell, no one paid me any particular attention. I was ugly but not hideous, and thereby ideally suited for going unnoticed.

Evening came with no sign of Myakes. After another bowl of that stew- the last, praise God, I ever tasted!- I went up to the room I had bought for the night. Though taking no woman up there with me, I did not sleep alone. I crushed all the bugs I could, but, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, was defeated at last by superior numbers. Eventually, later than I would have liked, sleep found me.

I woke before dawn, whether from nerves or bedbugs I cannot say. Going downstairs, I discovered myself the only one awake in the place, and so, less than happy with the world, returned to my room once more until I heard someone moving about below. I went down again, and breakfasted on wine and an egg cooked with cheese, that being the only choice besides fish porridge.

Sometime during the second hour of the morning, Myakes strode into the tavern. I did not rise from my stool: I sprang from it. Had he waited any longer before arriving, I daresay I should have smashed the top of my head from leaping straight up into the ceiling.

His smile was impudent, he having known the state in which I would be. "Boat's at the wharf, Emperor," he said. "Let's go."

I left the tavern without a backward glance. When we were about halfway down to the harbor- a short journey, Symbolon hardly being any sort of metropolis- I asked, "How many companions have I?"

His face clouded. "Me and Moropaulos. Barisbakourios and Stephen. Theophilos. I thought he'd be up in Doros, but he was staying with Stephen. That's it."

"Not even Cyrus?" I said in dismay.

"Not his fault, Emperor," Myakes said. "I couldn't get word to him in the monastery- he got himself in trouble there for gallivanting off the last time without so much as a by-your-leave. Didn't want to wait around, spend any more time in Kherson than I had to."

"All right," I said. "Good enough. As for the others who would not come- a plague on them." More than a few had cheered me in Kherson when I declared I would take back the imperial throne. Cheering was easy. When it came to anything more than cheering, where were they? As if invisible. "I'll have my vengeance on them, too, by God and His Son. But first the Romans." I hurried down toward the fishing boat, Myakes half-trotting beside me.

Foolish Paul waved from the boat. I waved back, though my first sight of the vessel that would, I hoped, carry me to the land of the Bulgars made me wonder how it had sailed from Kherson to Symbolon, let alone from Kherson to Phanagoria bringing me news of Apsimaros's move against me.

I also cast aside some of my dismay at the failure of more Khersonites to rally to my standard. Moropaulos's boat was crowded with him and Theophilos, Stephen and Barisbakourios in it. Adding Myakes and me would make it very crowded. It did not look as if it had much room for provisions aboard, either. I shrugged. Other supplies failing, we could, I supposed, catch fish.

Moropaulos waved again. "Come on, Emperor," he called. "The sooner we leave, the sooner we get there." A broad, foolish grin spread over his broad, foolish face.

Two or three of the dockside loungers any harbor in the civilized world attracts turned curious eyes my way. I wished Moropaulos had not chosen that exact moment to address me by my imperial title. If searchers from Kherson or Phanagoria came to Symbolon, they would have no trouble learning I had been there. I consoled myself with the thought that they were unlikely to be able to find out whither I was bound.

Stooping on the edge of the pier, I scrambled down into Moropaulos's boat. The fisherman steadied first me and then Myakes. After undoing the lines holding the boat to the pier, Moropaulos and Theophilos plied a couple of long oars to get us out into open water. Once we were there, Foolish Paul, who struck me as being far less foolish now that I encountered him in his proper element, raised the sail, turned it to the best angle to take advantage of what wind we had, and sent us heading northwards.

When we sailed past the lighthouse with which Kherson feebly imitates fabled Alexandria, I shook my fist at the town. "May I never see you again!" I called across the water, a wish that has come true. "And may I punish you as you have tried to punish me!" I am still fulfilling that wish even as I write these words.

Above Kherson, the coast of the peninsula on which it lies curves up to the north and west. We stayed in sight of land at all times. As I had guessed, between tacks Moropaulos let his nets down into the water. The catch was small, but enough to keep us fed, each of us taking turns roasting his fish above a tiny brazier. A bucket of seawater always stood close by, lest a sudden great wave overturn the brazier and spill burning coals onto the deck.

Being small and lighter than the dromons in which I had previously traveled, the fishing boat had a motion on the water different from theirs. I felt every movement of the sea, and proved myself a man able to take such motions as they came. Poor Stephen, being less fortunate in that regard, ate little and spent a lot of time hanging over the leeward rail.

We traveled past the headland marking the westernmost extension of the peninsula on which Kherson lies, past the mouth of the Danapris, and then past that of the Danastris. Most nights, we simply beached the fishing boat, keeping watch alongside it till dawn. A couple of times, we put up in little trading towns by the edge of the sea. They were to Doros as Doros is to Constantinople; having said so much, I shall draw a veil of merciful silence over any further description of them.

From the mouth of the Danapris to that of the Danube, where the Bulgars live, is not a long voyage, and seemed all the shorter in comparison to the distance we had already come. Up to that time, the weather had been good. Oh, the winds for the most part blew from the northwest, requiring a good many tedious tacks if we were to beat our way westward, but they were not violent, and the sea, Stephen's opinion to the contrary notwithstanding, remained gentle.

All that changed two days after our sailing past the mouth of the Danapris. Clouds filled the sky, clouds so black and thick and roiling, I at first took them for the smoke of a great fire somewhere. The wind freshened and began to howl. The light chop in which the fishing boat bobbed turned into waves that first buffeted the boat and then began to toss it about the sea.

The storm blew up almost as fast as I can record its coming. Less than half an hour after I spied the clouds on the western horizon, rain started drenching us. The day went black as midnight. Every so often, a lightning bolt split the sky overhead, giving us all momentary, purple-tinged glimpses of the heaving sea. The roar of the thunder put me in mind of God's voice summoning us to judgment.