Harry Turtledove - Justinian

No one moved. I barked at my followers. Barisbakourios said, "Emperor, this is your city. We don't know which way to go." He kept looking around, even here down on the ground. "I don't think I believed all your stories of the imperial city, the ones you'd tell back in Kherson. But you meant them, didn't you?"

"Of course I did," I answered, setting out for the chief boulevard of the city. Myakes strode along beside me, Constantinople also being familiar to him. The others, even Leo, followed slowly, cautiously, as if on the verge of being overwhelmed by the size and magnificence of the city through which they walked.

They exclaimed in wonder at the length and width and paving of the Mese, and at so many people being on the street at an hour well past midnight. We were a large enough group to deter robbers, and also large enough for others to think us robbers and depart in haste. Grimy as we were, a couple of whores came up to us. They hissed curses at me when I sent them away; we lacked the time for even the most pleasant distractions.

While we were splashing water on our faces at a fountain, a squadron of horse came riding along the Mese toward the walls, their harness jingling. When the light from the torches they carried fell on us, their leader called, "Here, you men! Who are you?"

Had I listened to reason, I should have either fled or lied. If reason spoke to me, I heard nothing. At last back in my beloved city, I drew myself up proudly and said, "I am Justinian, Emperor of the Romans, the son of Constantine son of Constans son of Herakleios Constantine son of Herakleios. Who, sir, are you?"

The officer's chin dropped to his chest. So did Myakes'. Leo, I remember, clapped his hands together, once, twice, admiring my audacity. Had the officer and his soldiers been perfectly loyal to the usurper, they could have cut me down where I stood. The fellow's mouth worked. When he spoke, though, he gave no order to attack, instead whispering, "Holy Virgin Mother of God."

"I have returned to take back my throne," I said, and drew my sword. "Will you stand by me, or will you fight?"

Smashing a lump of quicksilver with a hammer could have created no greater scattering than did my words. A couple of the riders wheeled their mounts and galloped back toward the palace, crying, "Justinian is in the city! The Emperor is in the city!" They might have thought they were warning Apsimaros, but, by those cries, their hearts knew who their true sovereign was.

Others galloped away down side streets. Few of those said anything at all. My guess was that they aimed to sit out whatever turmoil sprang into being as a result of my sudden and unexpected arrival, then obey the orders of whoever finally seized control of the throne. Still others, that astonished officer among them, rode forward on the route the whole squadron had been taking. They too shouted my name, and some of them, intending to do so or not, also shouted that I was Emperor.

And eight or ten men did not ride off in any direction. Bowing in the saddle to me, one of them exclaimed, "Command us, Emperor!"

Over the long years of exile in Kherson, Myakes had rehearsed for me many times how Leontios and his henchmen had seized control of the imperial city the night I was overthrown. Now I could imitate the blow that had toppled me. "Ride through the streets of the city," I told the horsemen. "Shout my name. Raise a great commotion. Let everyone know I have returned and I am in the city. Tell anyone who wants to help to do as you are doing and rouse the people."

"Emperor, we will!" they declared as one man, and they rode off in all directions, shouting my name at the top of their lungs.

"What now, Emperor?" Myakes asked.

"First the palace," I answered. "Once we lay hold of the usurper, the game is ours. Then we seize Kallinikos." Hungry anticipation filled my voice.

We trotted along the Mese toward the palace, which lies close by the sea. As we moved, confusion spread all around us. People spilled into the street, many of them still in their nightshirts. More and more of them began shouting my name, some in disbelief, others in delight. We ran on.

Had the soldiers on the wall united against me, I still could have been thwarted. But some of them favored me while others did not, the result being that no one did anything. They did, I will say, maintain their watch against my Bulgar allies, that being a matter of most elementary prudence.

My comrades, all save Myakes, to whom the splendid buildings and plazas and monuments adorning the Queen of Cities were familiar, exclaimed again and again at them. They exclaimed at the column of Markianos, at the church of St. Polyeuktos on the other side of the street, at the Praitorion, at the round Forum of Constantine, at the church of St. Euphemia and the bulk of the hippodrome beyond it. I exclaimed at the hippodrome, too- in hatred, having last seen it when my blood spilled into the dirt there.

They were just beginning to exclaim at the Milion at the end of the Mese, and at the church of the Holy Wisdom not far past, when I, refusing to be distracted, led them south off the Mese toward the palace. "Gawk later," I said harshly.

Torches and bonfires blazed all around the palace, a low, rambling building. People streamed in and out, some soldiers, some not. I had never seen, never dreamed of such activity late at night; the palace might have been an anthill stirred by a stick. Before long, thanks to the abundant light, someone spied me and my followers and loosed a nervous challenge: "Who comes?"

"Justinian, Emperor of the Romans!" I shouted back. Audacity and only audacity had brought me so far. Never again would I put my faith in anything else.

Myakes plucked at my torn sleeve. "Emperor, they outnumber us a hundred to one. If they-"

"Shut up," I snapped, for everyone who had heard my voice was staring my way. I brandished my sword, as if to say I would cut down the first man who dared defy my right to rule.

Still sounding very nervous indeed, the fellow who had challenged me said, "The Emperor, uh, Tiberius, uh, Apsimaros, uh, the usurper, hearing you had somehow sneaked into, uh, come into the imperial, he, uh, well, he took flight is what he did. Half an hour ago- can't be more. So, uh, the palace is yours. Welcome, uh, welcome home, Justinian, Emperor of the Romans!"

"Tu vincas, Justinian!" people shouted, as if I were being acclaimed for the first time.

I waved the sword again. Silence fell; I might have slashed at speech. "I am not becoming Emperor of the Romans," I said. "I am Emperor of the Romans. I have been Emperor of the Romans. All this is mine by right." For ten long, lonely, dreadful years I had said that, in Kherson, in Doros, in Atil, in Phanagoria, in the land of the Bulgars. How many had believed me? I had half a dozen men at my back here, no more. But I had been right all along. BOOK D

As word spread from the palace that Apsimaros had run away, both those who had thought to stay loyal to him and the cursed lukewarm saw I looked like winning and came over to me. By sunrise, fighting had ceased.

By sunrise, also, I had ordered a house-to-house search for the fugitive usurper. Alas, it did not catch him in its net. A naval officer before presuming to advance his station, he escaped the city in a small boat. I offered a large reward to anyone who would bring him to me alive. "Or if not," I said, "his head will do." I laughed. How I laughed!

My mother wept to see me, even though, by the time she did, I had changed from the filthy tunic in which I entered Constantinople into a robe suited for the Emperor of the Romans. We embraced as if we had never exchanged harsh words. "My son," she said, and then, proving herself of my house in spirit if not in blood, "you are avenged."