Harry Turtledove - Justinian

"Can you steer for shore?" I screamed to Moropaulos.

He shook his head. "No," he shouted back. "I don't even know which way the shore is, not for sure. Sea's doing the steering now, not me- s ea and the wind." He brailed up the sail. "I think the wind's still out of the west. Don't want to get blown too far away from land."

I shook my fist at the heavens, as I had at Kherson. Leontios had not been able to keep me down, not for good. The rich traders in Kherson had not been able to make away with me. When Apsimaros tried to move against me, he could not do so without my learning of it. When Ibouzeros Gliabanos sought to betray me, I learned of that, too, and struck first. Having escaped so much, having achieved so much, was I now to perish at God's hands?

"No!" I shouted, loud as I could, and shook my fist again.

The storm grew ever worse, despite my defiance. The fishing boat spun like a top, waves smiting it from every direction. The lightning showed those waves tall as hills, tall as mountains. Soon one would surely strike us wrong and capsize us, and then everything would be over.

After we went sliding down from yet another wavecrest deep into the trough behind, someone clutched the soaked sleeve of my tunic: Myakes. He had been fearless for so long, but now a flash of lightning showed the terror on his face. "We're going to die, Emperor!"

"No," I said, thinking him right. But then, the boat wallowing out of the trough, my spirits rose with it. I raised a defiant shout: "No!"

A wave broke over the bow, drenching both of us and almost sweeping me over the side. "We're going to die," Myakes insisted, spitting out saltwater. "I beg, you, Emperor, on my knees I beg you"- and he did fall to his knees-"promise God that if He spares you here, you'll have mercy on your enemies."

"What? Mercy?" I shook my fist at the heavens for a third time. "If I have mercy on even one of them, may God drown me now!"

And the storm stopped.

A miracle, Brother Elpidios? I don't know if it was a miracle, or if we'd come out the other side of the squall line or whatever it is sailors call those sudden storms that blow up out of nowhere, or what. I do know it happened just the way he writes it, though. He's right. I was frightened to death. You can fight a man. How do you go about fighting the sea? One minute I was certain sure we were sunk and drowned and food for the mackerel and the squid and the tunny that had been feeding us for so long up in Kherson. The next-

The next minute, Brother Elpidios, the clouds were flying away to the east, and the rain went from sheets to spatters and then stopped, and all at once when we were in the trough of a wave the crest of the next one wasn't higher than the top of our mast, and the sun came out, and-

It sounds like a miracle to you? If you think I'm going to argue very hard, you can bloody well think again.

From that moment forward, I knew I should prevail, God having by sparing me given an indubitable sign He approved of my purposes.

All of us, working with buckets and cups and a small bronze cooking pot, bailed as much of the sea as we could from the fishing boat. By the time the long, weary task was done, we stood ankle deep in water. Having been knee deep before, we reckoned that great progress.

By God's providence, the rigging had survived the storm. Like our tunics, it flapped wetly. But the sail filled with the gentle breezes following the storm, and let us sail slowly toward the west, the direction in which the sun was now setting. We were out of sight of land, and spent a chilly night on the sea. Making sail again the next morning, though, we spied the shore no later than the third hour.

On our sailing closer to that shore, we discovered we had reached one of the several mouths of a considerable river. "Does the Danube break up before it flows into the sea, the way the Volga does?" Barisbakourios asked, the simple word delta evidently being unfamiliar to him.

He, his brother, Theophilos, and Foolish Paul all looked toward Myakes and me. None of them had been in his part of the world before. We being Romans and this having been Roman territory before the Bulgars raped it away from my father, they expected us to know the answer.

And Myakes, who had accompanied my father on his ill-fated campaign against the Bulgars, did know. "Aye, that's the Danube, all right," he said. "All we have to do now is sail up it a ways and wait for the Bulgars to notice us." He shook his head. "No, that's not all. We have to hope they feel like talking with us instead of killing us for the fun of it."

"A point," I admitted. I had been so full of thought for what the Bulgars might do for me, I had not asked what I might do for the Bulgars. After a moment's doubt, though, I straightened in the battered fishing boat. "I do not- I will not- believe God, having spared me from the storm, will let me perish at the hands of the barbarians."

"Here's hoping you're right." Myakes was seldom inclined to take on faith the goodwill of potential foes.

With Moropaulos skillfully using the steering oar and turning the sail so as best to catch the wind, we made our way up one of the channels of the Danube, waiting to be noticed. I began to wonder whether any Bulgars lived in that part of the land until I saw a large herd of cattle grazing in the distance. Where there were animals, there their masters would also be found.

And, before long, one of the Bulgars riding with the cattle spied the boat on the river and came riding up to the riverbank for a better look at us. Barisbakourios and Stephen called to him in the language of the Khazars, and he shouted back to them, but neither side could understand the other.

My turn, then. "Do you speak Greek?" I called across the water. Some Bulgars did, I knew, having acquired the tongue either from the luckless Romans who had inhabited the land they now ruled or from traders coming up out of the Roman Empire.

The good fortune that had smiled on me since the storm abated continued. "Greek? Yes, I speak little Greek," the horseman answered. "Who you? What you want here?" He leaned forward on his horse like a hound seeking a scent. Every line of his body seemed to shout, Are you fair game? Can I slay you?

"I am Justinian, Emperor of the Romans, the son of Constantine, Emperor of the Romans," I answered, and had the satisfaction on watching his jaw drop and him go slack with astonishment on the ugly little pony he rode. I continued, "I have come to see your khagan, Tervel. Will you take me and my friends to him?"

For all I knew, the barbarian might have thought I still sat on the throne in Constantinople. True, I had been cast down ten years before, but who can say how swiftly, if at all, news reaches a Bulgar herder? Maybe he thought I had come to take supper with my fellow sovereign, and would then return to the Queen of Cities.

On the other hand, maybe he merely thought me a liar. But if I lied, I lied on a scale greater than he had ever imagined. "You stay," he said. "Not go. I bring you another man. He talk toward you." Riding away, he booted the pony up into a gallop, getting a better turn of speed from the animal than I had expected.

"Shall we beach the boat, Emperor?" Moropaulos asked.

"Yes, do," I said. "We've come to see the khagan. If the Bulgars fall on us before we can do that\a160…" I did not go on. But if the Bulgars chose to fall on us before I could see the khagan, I had no place else to go in any case. Tervel was, and how well I knew it, my last hope.

The fishing boat glided up onto the muddy bank of the Danube. We all got out of it as fast as we could. Solid ground, however muddy, beneath my feet for the first time since escaping the storm felt monstrous fine. I walked up from the mud to the grass beyond and lay at full length upon it.