Harry Turtledove - Justinian

The chief quartermaster, an officer named Makarios, approached me with a worried look on his face. "Emperor, we have campaigned all through the summer," he said. "We have not the supplies, especially for the horses, to go on in the face of snow."

"We'll take what we need from the peasant villages, and-" I broke off. I had already seen how peasant villages, there north of the Haimos range, were few and far between. I had not intended in any case to winter north of the mountains; ordering an army to winter in barbarian territory was what had brought Maurice down in ruin and set in train the events that raised my family to the throne. I did not aim to start some other family's rise to power at my expense. But having to withdraw with my attack barely begun also galled me. I said, "We will go on for another few days and see what happens." Makarios bowed and withdrew.

What I hoped would happen was that we might get a break in the weather, another week or two of mild days after that snowstorm, in which we could strike at the Bulgars, plundering their herds if nothing else. Instead, less than half a day after the first snowstorm ended, another blew in.

This time, it was Myakes who came to me. As perhaps no one else would have dared, he told me the truth, straight out: "Emperor, even the excubitores are starting to grumble at staying here so long. And if we're grumbling, the cavalry from the military districts has to be fit to be tied. They've already missed the harvest, and they didn't like that. They aren't fond of being stuck up here, not even a little they aren't."

Not only had unhappy soldiers overthrown Maurice, they had also murdered my grandfather and ruined my father's campaign against these same Bulgars, inspiring his brothers to try to cast him down from the throne. An Emperor whose soldiers were unhappy with him was an Emperor whose throne shook under him.

"Thank you, Myakes," I said. Not getting everything I wanted was always hard for me. Here, though, I saw I had no choice. "We'll go on for today, and see what we can do. Come tomorrow, it's back to the imperial city."

We did little that day, seeing neither Bulgars nor their herds. When we encamped for the evening, I announced our return to the whole army. They could scarcely have been more joyful had I told them Christ was coming back day after tomorrow. Their delight showed me Myakes had been right, and also showed me I would have had little service from them had I insisted on continuing the campaign.

They did not complain about going through Bulgar-held territory on the way to a pass through the mountains closer to Constantinople than the one by way of which we had entered the chilly northern land. Nor did they complain about acting like soldiers on the march, which is to say, about plundering and burning everything in their path. They would have burned for the sport of it, arson being deeply ingrained in the warrior's soul, but they did so all the more enthusiastically for being able to warm themselves at the fires they set.

As before, the Bulgars ran away from us. Their rule, when fighting Romans, seemed to be to advance when we retreated but to retreat when we advanced. Oh, a few of their scouts always hung close to the army, now and then exchanging arrows with our own outriders, but they always fled when we sent larger detachments after them. By the time we started traversing the pass that would take us back to Romania, I took them for granted, as a man takes for granted the taste of the pitch that makes his wine keep longer than it would otherwise.

That quickly proved a mistake, as did my earlier contemptuous estimate of the barbarians' strategy. They had placed an army in the pass, intending to block our way south. Their standards were horses' tails- one, two, three, or more- mounted on poles. Behind their line, drums thumped, echoing and reechoing as the khagan of the Bulgars shifted his men to meet our dispositions. As we drew near, the barbarians screeched what were surely insults at us in their unintelligible language.

My own speech to hearten the soldiers was simplicity itself. Pointing south, I said, "There lies the Roman Empire. There lies the God-guarded imperial city. There lie your homes. And there stand the Bulgars, between you and those homes. Will you let the barbarians keep you from them?"

"No!" the men shouted with all their might. Their outcry startled the Bulgars and silenced them, if only for a moment.

"Then forward!" I said, waving toward the foe. "We shall ride through them, we shall ride over them, and we shall return to our own land once more." At my command, the horns blew the order to advance.

Thud! Thud! went the Bulgars' drums. Shouting their war cries, they rode at us, too. Both sides loosed arrows, which began to fall like deadly rain. Hearing thousands of men shouting my name as a war cry made the hair on my arms and at the nape of my neck prickle up in awe.

The fight was very simple, the Bulgars wanting to trap us and crush us, our own men battling bravely to return to the Roman Empire after having traversed a large part of the enemy's territory. We were better horsed than the Bulgars, and wore iron while they were in leather. And so we broke through, scattering them before us and leaving large numbers of them dead on the ground. I drew from this combat an important lesson: never to let the foe place himself between my army and my own heartland.

Why am I coughing, Brother Elpidios? Being an old man isn't reason enough? Justinian's right: that was a good lesson to learn. He forgot it once, years later, and paid dear for forgetting.

But that's not all. You've been reading a good many days now, Brother. I haven't often heard Justinian shade the truth, but he does here. Aye, we broke through, but to hear him talk about it, it was as easy as smashing up the Sklavenoi. It wasn't like that, not even a little bit. I wish it had been.

The Bulgars' horses were little and scrubby, but they were fast. Their bows shot farther than ours- not a lot, but some. And the leather they wore had been boiled some kind of way, till it was almost as hard as iron. As for the damned Bulgars themselves, they were as tough as you could want. Still are, I guess, come to that.

Does Justinian say how many dead Romans lay on the ground? No, eh? Well, there were plenty. If we hadn't outnumbered the Bulgars, I think they would have beaten us. We made it into Thrace, aye, but we weren't a happy bunch afterwards. Just as well winter came down hard; we went home, the men from the military districts back to Anatolia and the excubitores to Constantinople, and the Bulgars, they stayed home, for which we were all duly grateful, especially, I think, Justinian.

All the while we were traveling through the country the Bulgars had stolen from my father, during the battle against them, and on the road through Thrace back to the imperial city, I studied Neboulos. He affected not to notice me, but his blue eyes were watchful, too. Yet he said nothing, knowing, I suppose, his fate was not in his own hands.

Like any barbarian seeing Constantinople for the first time, he gaped at the city's walls and then, all over again, at the wonders they contained. "So many people, all in one place," he marveled, and then, in his clumsy Greek, asked me, "With so many people here, why do you want us Sklavenoi, too?"

"The countryside is emptier," I told him. "Even Constantinople has fewer people and more open spaces than it did a hundred years ago."

"Hundred years?" He shook his head. "Who remembers so long ago?"

"Augustus, the first Emperor of the Romans, ruled in the time of our Lord, Jesus Christ, almost seven hundred years ago," I replied. "God has never allowed a break in the line of Emperors from that time to this."