Harry Turtledove - Justinian

She said, "Thank you for inviting us into the city, Emperor. Because of my father's post, I come here less often than I would if I could." When she smiled- not brazenly, but not as if in apology, either- she showed good teeth. I liked her voice, too: not squeaky, not raspy, but smooth like well-aged wine.

"But do you come less often than your father would like?" I asked. "Out in Thrace, you have less chance to spend his money."

"If you marry her, Emperor, that'll be your worry, not mine," Philaretos said with a laugh: more than most men would have dared, sitting where he was.

"He'll be able to afford it better than you can, Father," Eudokia said, which was also daring- though certainly true.

The feast, and the talk afterwards, went on longer than they had when I was meeting Zoe or Anna. The servants kept bringing in wine, and we kept drinking it. Philaretos did a hilarious impression of a Bulgar with a hangover. Even my mother and his wife, in mourning though they were, laughed till they had to hold on to each other to stop.

When, sometime close to midnight or perhaps after it, we rose from the table, Eudokia said, "Thank you again for inviting my family and me here, Emperor. I enjoyed myself."

I realized I had enjoyed myself, too. I had not particularly expected to; I had looked on the dinner as something I needed to do, not something I wanted to do. A woman with whom I could enjoy myself- if that was not a recipe for a wife, what was?

My mother was in a sour mood the next morning, probably from too much wine and not enough sleep. "Are you trying to imitate Philaretos's Bulgar?" I asked, and won from her half a smile. Then I said, "Of the three of them, I choose Eudokia."

That did lighten her mood. "Oh, good," she said. "I hoped you would, but I wondered if you would rather have Anna because of her looks. Not that Eudokia isn't a nice-looking young girl," she added hastily, as if afraid she might make me change my mind.

"I like the way she smiles," I said.

"The night I met your father, I was too nervous to smile," my mother said; by the look in her eye, that night was very close to the present in her mind. "He forgave me." She seemed to come back to thinking about me. "May God grant you and Eudokia many years, many children, and much happiness." She crossed herself. So did I.

God has His own purposes. He must weigh the happiness of my family against other matters in His scales, and find it comes to not so much. Of course, He has all of His plan before His eyes at all times, where for us humans it unfolds bit by bit.

Justinian hit too close to the mark there, Brother Elpidios. And he didn't see all of it, though he heard the last. Anastasia had to witness every bit of that house's misfortune, right down to the end. I wonder how she bore so much sorrow, and what happened to her at last. So many things we never get to know.

Stephen the Persian conducting the negotiations over Eudokia's dowry, those went quickly and were settled to my entire satisfaction. "Maybe I ought to put you in charge of the treasury," I told him. I was joking at the time, but remembered the words later, he having proved himself both skilled and diligent.

We announced the betrothal just after the end of summer, with the wedding to be held in November. At my mother's invitation, Eudokia and her family were installed in the great palace, Philaretos delegating his duties to a subordinate until the wedding. Before my father died, he had paid the Bulgars their yearly tribute, so we had no reason to expect trouble either from them or from the seven Sklavinian tribes they had brought under their control- and, indeed, all remained peaceful in the north, as it did with the Arabs. Their misnamed commander of the faithful sent an ambassador congratulating me on my accession, I suppose in the hope I would continue my father's policy on that frontier as well. I did not say no. I did not say yes.

Having Eudokia in the palace was awkward in a way my mother might not have considered on inviting her. On the wedding night, Eudokia needed to show herself a virgin, which meant I could not indulge myself with her beforehand. But with her there, I hesitated to take the serving girls to bed, lest they bring back tales to her or, foolishly, put on airs before her. And so, till the wedding day, I lived a nearly monkish existence, and was often short-tempered- no, angry- on account of it.

Everything concerning the Emperor must be magnificent, with his wedding no exception to the rule. Servants set up tables in every forum in the imperial city, to feast the people. I ordered chariot races for the amusement of the city mob. Though such amusements are no longer the all-consuming passion of the city as they were in the days of my namesake a century and a half ago, the people would have thought me mean and niggardly had I omitted them.

As Stephen had said, all this took large sums of gold. I wished my father had not paid the Bulgars, and I wished we collected more in tribute from the followers of the false prophet, for most of what the Empire raised in taxes on land and crops and commerce was promptly spent again on soldiers and dromons and buildings. But, despite dark mutterings from my ministers, we had enough.

The day we had set dawned crisp and cool and clear. "A good omen," I said to my mother as we got ready to parade to the church of the Holy Wisdom so the ecumenical patriarch could perform the marriage ceremony. "The way it's rained the past week, I was afraid we'd have to splash through puddles all the way there."

"Your bride will be lovely," she answered, and then went on, "You chose well, son. Eudokia is a fine girl; the more I see of her, the more I see to like."

"Yes," I said enthusiastically, responding more to the first part of that than to the second, though I was looking forward to seeing far more of Eudokia than I had yet. I was also curious, as the only virginity I had been involved in losing up till then was my own.

Stephen the Persian came in and fussily adjusted the way the ends of my loros crossed each other. I wore the same regalia as I had to my coronation, and, as I had then, I went bareheaded. Today I would don, not the Emperor's crown, but that of the bridegroom.

I could not see how Eudokia looked as we left the palace (which served for her in place of her parents' home), for, as was customary, she was veiled against all intrusive eyes, mine included. Her white silk gown, though, fit tight enough to give me a new idea of her figure, and I liked what I saw there.

When we got to the church of the Holy Wisdom and walked up to the altar, George struggled to his feet to perform the marriage service. He was, by then, almost literally on his last legs, but still managed to make his voice carry as he asked us if we both consented to the marriage.

"Yes," I said, and then had to repeat myself so anyone but he and Eudokia could hear me.

Her voice was not loud, but very clear: "Yes."

One of the priests attending the patriarch handed him a sheathed sword on a belt. Swollen fingers fumbling, he girded it round my waist, a symbol of imperial power. Then, slowly, he turned to the altar and lifted the crowns of marriage from it. Where most folk make do with tinned copper, ours were of gold. He set one on my head, the other on Eudokia's. Between where the crowns had lain stood a golden goblet. The patriarch offered it first to me, then to my bride. We shared the wine the goblet held, Eudokia lifting her veil just enough to drink.

George read from the letter to the Ephesians, and from the book of John. He prayed for long years together for us, for happiness, for children, for prosperity-"for you and for the Empire," he said, as he would not have at a wedding for bride and groom of lower rank.