Harry Turtledove - Justinian

The people cheered, which made him even prouder than he had been. I hid a smile. He thought they were cheering his rank and my munificence. Knowing the city mob as I do, I knew also that what delighted them most was the announcement that he would be leaving Constantinople for his homeland.

That announcement delighted me less than it did the mob. Tervel's having a country of his own, a country carved out of Roman territory, remained galling a quarter of a century after the Bulgars, humiliating my father, established themselves south of the Danube. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven, says the Book of Ecclesiastes. For now, Tervel remained my friend and ally. Later\a160… later would be a different season.

A few days later, the khagan rode north, his saddlebags nicely heavy with gold, bulging with skins, and packed with pepper. The latter he reckoned as much a marvel as anything else he found in Constantinople. "It bites the tongue!" he exclaimed, on my serving him a kid roasted with peppercorns. The sharp flavor made him drink immoderately, a benefit he also appreciated.

I having kept my promise, he kept his as well, and restrained the Bulgars from plundering as they rode north. And why not? He had made more profit dealing with me than he could have got by stealing from me. That he kept his pledge by withdrawing peacefully also helped me secure my hold on the heart of the Roman Empire, no small matter with Apsimaros still at large. Rumor said he had sailed up toward Thrace, but rumor was not enough. I wanted the usurper.

But Apsimaros was not the only illegal ruler about whom I concerned myself. One of my first actions on returning to the imperial city was to order Leontios's guards not to tell him I had reclaimed that which was mine. Tervel having departed, I went in full imperial regalia to the monastery of Delmatos and commanded the usurped usurper brought before me.

"Down on your belly before the Emperor of the Romans!" my excubitores shouted, and Leontios prostrated himself in his filthy tunic. The prison stench came off him in waves.

"Rise," I said.

Clumsily, he got to his feet. Not only was he covered with dirt, but his shaggy, unkempt hair and beard, which had had only a light frosting of gray ten years before, were now snow but lightly dusted with soot. In the center of his broad face was a broad hole. The executioner had done a more thorough job on him than on me, which disheartened me not in the least.

Imprisonment having done nothing to quicken his wits, he stared at me some little while before saying, "You're not Apsimaros," and following that a moment later with, "You're someone else." Finding he remained not only fatuous but also redundant made me laugh out loud. A frown turned his features even uglier than they had been before. "I know your voice, don't I?"

"I should think you would, Leontios," I replied. "Or shall I call you Leo, the Lion?" I shook my head. "No. No one else did."

His eyes went wide, but not so wide as the hole where his nose had been. "Justinian!" he exclaimed, and made the sign of the cross, as if he had seen a ghost. "But it isn't- you can't- you aren't- you've got-"

I affirmed every one of his incoherent denials: "It is I. I can rule. I am Emperor. I've got a nose." I smil ed at him. "You look remarkably hideous without one."

"Kyrie eleison," Leontios gasped, turning pale beneath his grime. "Christe eleison."

"God and Christ may have mercy on you," I said, "but I shall have none, and, since that is at God's command, my own guess is that the demons in hell will torment you through all eternity: what you deserve, for raising your hand against the Emperor of the Romans."

"I spared your life," he said. "I did not kill you."

"You did not think you needed to kill me," I told him. "The lesson I draw from that is not to make such mistakes myself. Having lost your nose, you shall lose your head as well." I gestured to the guards. "Take him back to his cell. Now, instead of every day being the same as the one before and the one after it"- a condition I knew all too well from my weary years in Kherson-"he has something to look forward to."

The guards laughed. Myakes laughed. I laughed. Leontios, the humorless wretch, failed to see the joke.

A few weeks after my return to the imperial city, a messenger still stinking of horse sweat dashed into the Blakhernai palace, shouting, "Emperor! Emperor! We have Apsimaros!"

Although normally reckoning highly important the dignity of my office, on that glad occasion I took no notice of it whatever, letting loose a whoop of delight that made the tax official with whom I was talking jump in alarm. "Is he alive or dead?" I demanded. "Where was he taken?"

"Up in Apollonias, on the coast of Thrace," the messenger answered- rumor, for once, had spoken truly. "He's alive- in chains and on the way down to the imperial city. What happened was, he paid for lodging up there with a nomisma that had his own face on it. The tavern keeper recognized him and gave the word to the city garrison-"

"Which had already declared for me," I interrupted happily.

"Which had already declared for you," the messenger agreed. "Apsimaros was taken by surprise- he never got his sword out of the scabbard."

"A pound of gold for the news," I said, whereupon the messenger let out a whoop even louder than mine. He started dancing where he stood.

The bureaucrat said, "Emperor, this news should also end any difficulties you have with Herakleios, Apsimaros's brother."

"By the Virgin, that's true," I exclaimed. Apsimaros, it turned out, had summoned Herakleios from the military district of the Anatolics on receiving word that the Bulgars and I were advancing on Constantinople, intending to use his brother to command an army against me. But, by the time Herakleios got the news and the force he brought with him sailed from southeastern Anatolia, the imperial city lay in my hands. Unable to land in the vicinity, he had come ashore at Abdera, about halfway between Constantinople and Thessalonike. I had feared he and the usurper would be able to unite against me, but that would not happen now.

I had given Barisbakourios a small army of my own, drawn from the city garrison, to maneuver against him and keep him from advancing toward the Black Sea coast, the direction in which I believed (accurately, as it fell out) Apsimaros had fled. When I shouted for couriers, they came in exclaiming, having heard the news the messenger from the north had brought. I told them, "Send word at once to Barisbakourios. Let him make it known to the soldiers following Herakleios that the false emperor they supported is now in my hands. We shall see how long they go on following the fallen usurper's brother."

The couriers rode out within the hour. I also sent riders to the military districts in Anatolia with the same news, so that any generals thinking of rising in support of Apsimaros would be persuaded to think again. I bade those latter riders learn which officers in the military districts were most favorably inclined toward the usurper and, so long as they were able to do so without touching off rebellion, arrest the traitors and send them back to Constantinople for punishment.

Apsimaros came into the city a few days later. Apollonias lying by the sea, I had thought the men of the garrison would put him on board ship so he might get to Constantinople faster, but the commander of the cavalry company explained why they had not: "The son of a whore used to be a ship captain, Emperor. Who can say whether some of the sailors used to serve with him? They might have helped him get loose. My boys- I know them, Emperor, and I picked the best ones."

"Good enough," I said on his explaining himself. "Better than good enough, in fact." I turned to Apsimaros. "Have you got anything to say before I give you what you deserve for stealing my throne?"