Harry Turtledove - Justinian

He looked startled for a moment, then bowed and replied with a smile: "Emperor, without your orders, we would not have fought at all. Since we won, you must have given good orders, which is surely the same thing as fighting well."

He could hardly have said no, but I liked the way he said yes. Pointing to the woman I wanted, I said, "Have her brought to my pavilion."

When the Emperor of the Romans travels, even to war, he travels with as close a reproduction of the comforts of the grand palace as his servants can give him. At the time, never yet having traveled as a mutilated exile on the deck of a miserable little ship with only bandages and a loincloth to call my own, I took for granted such luxuries as a wide, soft bed, hanging lamps, and a tall, heavy wooden chest that held not only my robes but also a gilded suit of mail in case I wanted to join in the fighting myself.

I also traveled with a large retinue of palace servants, some eunuchs, some whole men. I ordered them to bring me a jar of good wine and two cups, and then to go away and stay away till morning: "I shall be entertaining tonight," I said grandly.

My servants retired, sniggering. "Entertaining, eh?" I heard one of them say to another. "He'll be entertained, is what he'll be." His friend laughed. I paced impatiently about the pavilion, waiting for the Sklavinian woman.

The soldiers did not take long to fetch her. They had scrubbed the soot from her face, but she still wore the same smoke-stained wool tunic, decorated at the bodice with flowers and fantastic birds embroidered in red and blue thread, she had had on when I first saw her.

She stared around the pavilion in dull wonder. Lamps of glass and silver, a bed that stood off the ground on legs, my own gorgeous raiment, perhaps even the tall chest- all these must have been strange and splendid to her. I had by then seen the inside of Sklavinian huts. Only the richest of the Sklavenoi were well enough off to be reckoned poor. The rest had less, much less, than that.

"Do you speak Greek?" I asked her. She shook her head. I shrugged. What we would be doing did not require much in the way of words.

I poured her wine with my own hands. Not even my generals enjoyed such an honor. She stared down into the cup. Except when they got it by trade or theft from the Romans, the Sklavenoi did not drink wine, having instead a barley brew of their own, so she may not have known what it was. After a taste, though, she gulped the cup dry. I drank a little more slowly. When I held out the jar to her, she nodded. I filled her cup again. She drained it as quickly as she had before.

I pointed to the bed. She looked at it, at me, at it again. She must have known why I had summoned her to my pavilion. She must have known, too, I was no man of ordinary or even of merely high rank; whether, in her barbarian ignorance, she realized I was the Emperor of the Romans, I cannot say.

She held out the wine cup to me. I poured for her once more, willingly enough; if that would make her tractable, all the better. I had been wondering if I would have to fight her or beat her into submission, and wondering also whether that would kill my enjoyment or spike it.

She drank down the cup, then said something in her own language. I knew none of that, but from the flat, resigned tone could guess what she meant: something on the order of Might as well get it over with. She pulled the long tunic off over her head, let it fall to the ground, walked over to the bed, and lay down.

I stared at her a moment before undressing myself; she was as well made as she was beautiful, which says a great deal. When I lay down next to her, she did not turn her head toward me, but kept looking straight up at the poles and ropes supporting the pavilion and the silk cloth stretched over them.

I bent my mouth to hers. She let me kiss her, but her lips did not respond in any way. She lay there, still, unmoving, expressionless, as I kissed and fondled that splendid body. Even when I brought my tongue down to her hidden parts, she did not stir. I thought she thought she might escape by not responding. That angered me.

Roughly, I pulled her legs apart and poised myself between them. Roughly, I thrust myself into her. She was wet enough, from my spittle if nothing else. I forced myself hilt-deep, drew back, rammed again. All the while, I watched her face. She might not have been there with me at all, but somewhere far, far away.

I took my pleasure, and did not withdraw afterwards. Being a young man, I knew I would soon rise again. And so I did, and began the act once more. Save that she was warm and breathing, it was like carnal congress with a corpse. Only after I spent myself a second time and pulled out of her did she move: she rolled onto one side and drew up her legs. I thought about taking her again, this time from behind, but before I could, I stretched out to rest a bit and let my spear regain its strength\a160… and I fell asleep.

It was, no doubt, one of the stupider things I ever did, but war and wine and venery had their way with me. Had she so chosen, the Sklavinian woman could have found a knife, could have smashed in my skull with the wine jar, could have done any of a multitude of deadly things. Murder is easy. I should know.

On waking, some time in the middle of the night, I realized how lucky I was to wake. I had twisted so that I lay on my side, facing away from the Sklavinian woman: a posture not far from the one she had assumed. Since she had not slain me, I decided I would enjoy her again. Before I rolled over to do just that, though, I took a deep breath.

My nose wrinkled. "Ignorant barbarian," I muttered to myself. By the odor, either she had not know enough to put the lid back onto the chamber pot after she used it or she had not known enough to use it at all, but had done her business on the ground like an animal.

I did roll over then- and discovered she was not in the bed. Confused, I wondered where she had gone: she could not have escaped the tent, not with guards and servants all around, and what point to hiding anywhere inside? I sat up, and I saw her.

While I slept, she had taken her linen tunic, twisted it into a rope, tied one end to the bronze handle of my clothes chest, and tied the other in a noose around her neck. The handles were about at chest height; she had had to lie out at full length to strangle herself, which was exactly what, in grim silence, she had done. She must have been determined to perish, for she could have saved herself by getting up on her knees before consciousness left her. Her eyes stared sightlessly in a face almost black. What I had smelled was the result of her bowels letting go as she died.

"Mother of God, help me," I whispered, and made the sign of the cross. I started to shout for my servants, but then checked myself. What could be a greater rebuke, a greater humiliation, than a woman who killed herself after I brought her to my bed? The servants might never have the nerve to bring it up in my presence, but that would not keep them from spreading the tale when we returned to Constantinople. A servant who does not gossip is a servant who has had his tongue cut out.

Abruptly realizing I was naked, I quickly put on the robes I had doffed to have the Sklavinian woman. Then I undid the knot attaching her makeshift rope to the wooden chest, and after that the knot around her neck. Touching the dead flesh I had caressed not long before made my own flesh creep but, mastering my revulsion, I dragged her body behind the chest, where it would not be seen if I opened the tent flap.

And I did open the tent flap. A couple of excubitores stood guard in front of the pavilion- not too close, for they knew better than to eavesdrop on the Emperor, or rather, to risk getting caught eavesdropping on the Emperor. The moon, shining through scattered clouds, showed the night to be more than half spent. The camp was quiet, almost everyone asleep, for which I thanked God. "Is anything wrong, Emperor?" one of the guards asked as they hurried up to me.