Harry Turtledove - Justinian

"I must think on this." After widening, Tervel's eyes narrowed. "Does it mean that, if you die, I become Emperor of the Romans?" His smile said this was not intended to be taken altogether seriously, but the hungry expression that followed said he wished it were.

Shaking my head, I replied, "I will not lie to you," by which I meant I saw no profit in lying. "For one thing, my wife is with child. For another, if you are not a Christian, you will never be Emperor of the Romans."

"You speak freely," he observed.

"I could tell you any number of pretty lies," I said. "They might make you help me now, but they would make you hate me later."

"You tempt me, Justinian," Tervel said. "I will not tell you yes now, and I will not tell you no, either. I will think on this, as I said I would, and I will give you my answer when I decide. Until then, you are my guest."

"You are kind beyond my deserts," I replied. That was probably a lie, but a lie I was obligated to tell. Tervel gave not a hint of what he would do with me if he decided not to give me the soldiers I had asked of him. I did not inquire. If he would not aid me, I cared little as to what happened next.

He set me up in a tent surprisingly similar to the one in which I had dwelt by the palace of Ibouzeros Gliabanos. Slaves- Romans- tended to my needs. After the first couple of nights, I took a good-looking woman named Maria into my bed. I loved Theodora no less, but she was far away, the slave woman close by. Maria was resigned rather than eager, but one seldom finds more in a slave.

A week after my first coming before him, Tervel summoned me to his tent once more. I went with outward impassivity as complete as I could muster, but with my heart pounding and my stomach knotted within me. How strange, how grim, that my fate should depend on the whim of a barbarian chieftain who was a lifelong enemy of the Roman Empire.

I bowed before him, as I had bowed before Ibouzeros Gliabanos: he was master here, not I. More often than not, I scorned the nomads for their lack of anything approaching proper ceremonial. This once, I welcomed their barbaric abruptness, for with it I learned more quickly what I wanted to- what I had to- know.

Without preamble, Tervel said, "I will give you soldiers. We will go down to Constantinople together, you and I, and see if we can set you back on the throne you lost."

My heart pounded harder than ever, but now from joy rather than concern. "If I reach Constantinople with an army at my back, I shall rule again."

"May it be so." Tervel sounded polite, but not altogether sincere. A moment later, he explained why: "If you win, everything will be as you said. Either I will have your daughter or I will be Caesar. And if you lose, my armies will still have their chance to plunder the Roman lands between here and Constantinople."

"That is true," I said. "But if I win, as I expect to do, your armies will have to come back here without plundering their way home. We will be allies then, and allies do not ravage each other's lands." And then, unable to contain my eagerness another instant, I burst out, "When shall we move against the Queen of Cities?" Nomads, I knew, were always ready to ride out at a moment's notice.

But Tervel said, "In ten days, or perhaps half a month. I have sent messengers to my cousins to the south and west, asking them if their men will ride with us."

"You cannot simply order them to ride?" I said in some surprise.

"If you Romans invaded us, we would all stand together," he answered. "But I cannot tell them to take their men to war outside their grazing grounds. I hope they will join us, though."

"I will reward them if they do," I said. Bowing again, I added, "But not so richly as I will reward you."

"Good enough," Tervel said. "May it be so." Again, though, he sounded less concerned than he might have. As Ibouzeros Gliabanos had before him, he purposed using me for his own ends. His lands marching with those of the Roman Empire, he could use my cause as a plausible excuse for what would in fact be an invasion. I regretted the evils the Empire would suffer as a result, but saw no alternative. I had come too far to go back. Forward was the only way left.

When we marched, we marched without Tervel's cousins. Though my war against them after I had subdued the Sklavenoi lay many years in the past, the Bulgars inhabiting the lands near the former Sklavinias still remembered me with something less than fondness. "We do not trust the Emperor with the cut-off nose," one of them told Tervel. "If you are wise, you will not trust him, either."

Under other circumstances, I should have been flattered at the Bulgars' still fearing me after so long. As things were, I mourned the support I would not have. Tervel did not fret about trusting me. He had no need to fret. I was in his power. If I displeased him or alarmed him, he would put me to death, and that would be that.

The Bulgars who did ride with us, I am sure, had their minds more on loot and rape and murder than on restoring me to the throne of the Roman Empire. Any soldiers are more apt to dwell on the pleasures of their trade than on the purposes for which their rulers employ them.

As we rode south toward the mountains, the landscape took on a familiar look- or so I thought, at any rate, although I had seen a great many landscapes since. Not wanting to put the question to Tervel, I asked Myakes, "Are we not heading toward the pass we used to get back into Romania when we were campaigning against the Bulgars?"

"I think we are," he answered. "I'll tell you something else, too- I'm bloody glad we've got the Bulgars with us this time, not trying to keep us here."

"So am I," I told him. Instead of showing proper march discipline, the Bulgars straggled out across the land, as if they were the flocks they tended. If one of them spied a rabbit in the grass, he would ride off and try to kill it, eventually either rejoining his comrades or not, as he thought best. But the more I associated with the nomads, the more I came to respect them as warriors. Their horses seemed tireless, and subsisted on what they pulled from the ground as they traveled. The men were no less hardy, going on long after Romans or Arabs would have had to halt. Having noted this same endurance among the Khazars, I was pleased to have it at my disposal.

No. I overstate that. The Bulgars were not at my disposal. They were at Tervel's disposal. When we traversed the pass in the Haimos Mountains and entered Roman territory, he sent them out broadcast to plunder the countryside. He had made no promises to keep them from doing so before I had regained my throne. If I had to guess, I would say he did not expect me to regain it. I did not discuss this with him. The event would prove him right or wrong.

Roman frontier guards at the southern end of the pass rode forward to resist what they mistakenly took to be one of the many small Bulgar raiding parties that had so troubled the land in the quarter-century since the barbarians, as divine punishment for our sins, succeeded in establishing themselves south of the Danube. Now, though, I intended using the Bulgars as divine punishment for Apsimaros's sin of usurpation, and for that of Leontios as well, if he still lived.

On discovering we were a veritable army rather than a band of bandits, the Romans rode away far faster than they had ridden forward. Whooping, the Bulgars rode after them, slaying a few and bringing a few back for questioning. Most of them were Mardaites and other easterners whom I had resettled to hold this frontier. I was somewhat irked to see them so incontinently flee, but did not blame them overmuch, they being so outnumbered.

"Justinian! It is you!" one of them exclaimed in Greek with a guttural Syrian accent years on this chilly frontier had been unable to efface. "We heard they cut off your nose, not that they just smashed it. I saw you in Sebasteia when you arranged to move us here. Have you come to take back the throne?"