Harry Turtledove - Justinian

Neboulos looked at me. By his expression, he thought I was lying to impress him. Then he looked from me to the marvels of Constantinople once more. They presented a better argument as to my truthfulness than any I could offer, for no barbarians, their thoughts rooted only in the present, could have conceived of them, let alone built them. When he turned back to me, his face was troubled. "How do you stand living in shadow your ancestors cast?" he asked.

"They are our guides," I said. "We follow them as best we can. And, because we know Christianity, whe re they were mired in pagan falsehoods, we have surpassed them."

"This god who gives you fire is strong," he admitted. "He drives away all other gods you used to have?"

"Yes, you might say that," I answered: how to put it any more clearly to a letterless barbarian ignorant of the true and holy faith except insofar as he might have delighted in plundering a church of its treasures should he have managed to take a Roman city.

"And I," he said, thumping his thick chest with a big square fist, "I will be strong for you. I drive away all enemies you have now."

He had not pestered me about that notion of his, not in Thessalonike, not in the Bulgars' country, not on the return from that country to the imperial city. Had he pestered me about it, I should naturally have come to suspect him. But now, when we were just across the Bosporos from the many Sklavenoi I had resettled in northwestern Anatolia, seemed an equally natural time for him to inquire about my plans for him. In my mind's eye, I saw him leading a force of fair-haired warriors combining Sklavinian cunning and Roman discipline. Further, I saw myself loosing him, like an arrow from a bow, straight at Abimelekh's heart.

Not yet having learned the full depths of Sklavinian cunning, I said, "So you will make me an army from among your fellow tribesmen, will you?"

"Yes, I will make you army," he said, and his eyes glowed bright as stars. "I will make you special army. You show me your enemies. You take me to them. I drive them all away."

That fit in so perfectly with my own thought of a moment before, I said, "Let it be so. I shall send you to Anatolia. Make me an army. Make me a special army, Neboulos, and I will show you all the foes you want."

"I am your slave," he said.

Stephen the Persian prostrated himself before me, as he had in the days when he served in the palace rather than the treasury. "Emperor," he said in his eunuch's voice on arising, "I have seen how much gold your campaign against the Sklavenoi and the Bulgars cost, and I am pleased to be able to tell you that, when the tribute from the Arabs and the taxes collected within the Roman Empire are both taken into account, we have gathered in more than you expended."

"That is good news," I replied. "Your predecessor always seemed to be finding reasons for me not to do the things the Roman Empire requires of me. You, now, you find the gold with which I can do those things. That is what I want in a sakellarios, Stephen."

"So I have interpreted my duties from the beginning," Stephen said. "I should also like to commend to your attention a certain Theodotos, a former monk from Thrace, who has ably served your cause, being most ingenious in sniffing out those who would keep from the fisc monies rightfully belonging to it."

"If he does that, he is truly given by God," I said, playing on the meaning of Theodotos's name. Stephen's beardless cheeks plumped as he smiled. I went on, "Bring his name to me again, that I may reward him for his diligence."

"I shall send you a written memorandum, Emperor, detailing his contributions in full," Stephen said.

"Better yet," I told him, and he bowed his way out of the throne room.

That evening, I took supper with my mother. I had, I confess, been avoiding her since my return to Constantinople, for she kept assailing me with the multifarious virtues of my daughter Epiphaneia, a subject on which I remained resolutely deaf. The more she praised the child, the less desire I had to learn whether any of the praise was true.

Indeed, the only reason I consented to dine with her was her promise not to raise the subject of Epiphaneia at the meal. That promise she kept… in a way. Instead of talking about Epiphaneia, she talked instead about prospects for my remarriage. "How happy you will be," she said, "when you hold a child in your arms and give it all the love that pours from your heart."

"You know, Mother," I said, "if you were looking for a way to put me off the idea of remarriage for good, you couldn't have found a better one, not in a year of trying." For I heard all too clearly the unspoken reproach that I did not hold Epiphaneia in my arms and give her my love.

I now realize my mother was right; I had an obligation to my family and to the Roman Empire to remarry and to produce an heir as soon as possible, thereby securing the succession and reducing the risk of civil war. But I still mourned Eudokia, and the thought of yoking myself to a new wife held no appeal. And if I lost a second wife as I had the first, grief, not love, would pour from my heart. The previous few years, I had had enough of grief and to spare.

And I was still very young. When you are twenty or so, an endless sweep of years seems to stretch out before you. Ignoring the past history of my family, I was certain I had all the time in the world to marry again and get an heir. Little did I know then the fate God, in His ineffable wisdom, had decreed for me.

And further, not to put too fine a point on it, I was and am a man of my house, meaning a man of strong will. The quickest way to set me against an idea forever was and is to urge it on me too strongly. No donkey or mule could dig in his heels more stubbornly than I under such circumstances. The course my mother advocated was one for which I did not care, the more vehemently and persistently she advocated it, the less I cared for it.

She was stubborn herself, no doubt having acquired the trait from my father if it was not inborn in her. All through the time before my throne was stolen from me, she kept urging- no, she kept nagging- me to wed again. I can think of no more important reason for my failure to do so then.

Thinking to distract her so I could finish my supper in peace, I said, "I hope you don't miss Stephen the Persian too much here in the palace. He is as good in the treasury as I hoped he would be, and the hopes I had for him were of the highest."

Distract her I did. "That eunuch is a shark in man's clothing," she said, her eyes flashing angrily. "Were it not for his robes, you would see the pointed fin on his back. He has not held office long, but already everyone in the city hates him."

"What better recommendation for a tax collector?" I said with a smile.

"Don't joke about it," my mother snapped. "He goes too far- he goes much too far. Anyone who dares protest either how much he collects or how he collects it suffers. He is fond of the switch and, if that fails, the whip."

I shrugged. "The fisc must be fed, or the Roman state starves."

"He is a bloodsucking wild beast, and he thinks the fisc is the soul of the Roman state, not its belly. I told him as much, to his smooth, fat, evil face. I told him he was making you hateful to your subjects, too."

"And what did he say to that?" I asked.

"He said that, if he didn't collect all he could, he would make himself hateful to you," my mother replied, "and that is not all-"

"And do you think he was wrong?" I broke in.

My mother held up her hand. "You are the Emperor now, and so you may speak when you like. But you are also my son, and so you will hear me out. I had not finished." She paused, waiting to see how I would respond. She was indeed my mother, no matter how annoying to me she made herself at times, so I waved for her to go on, which she did: "As I was saying before you interrupted me, that is not all your precious Stephen the Persian said, nor all he did. He said I should mind my own business and let him mind his-"