Harry Turtledove - Justinian

I passed one of the nomismata to Myakes, saying, "Tell me what you think of this."

"I always think well of gold, Emperor," he answered with a smile, which I knew to be true, though he was not madly greedy for it as some men are. I had given him the coin with the side upward that showed me standing and holding the cross. He looked at it, nodded in a businesslike way, and turned the nomisma over. He studied the image of our Lord in silence for some little while, so long that I began to wonder whether he had caught some flaw I missed. Then, softly, he said, "Ahh."

My gaze went to Cyril. His expression was the one he might have worn had some beautiful woman come up to him and begged him to take her to his bed that very instant. With the possible exception of something like that, no artisan could have got higher praise than Myakes' murmur of awe had just given him.

To Myakes, I said, "Keep that coin for yourself." I gave Cyril back the other four nomismata. "And you keep these. You did everything I wanted my coinage to do, and did it better than I imagined it could be done."

"I thank you, Emperor, for letting me turn my wits loose and not ordering me to do the other," he answered, "and I thank God for letting my wits come across this idea- for putting it in my mind, you might say. He knows how to watch over His faith better than any of us does, I expect."

"You might as well be a bishop," I told him.

He held up his scarred, callused hands. "I'm better at what I do," he said. "Maybe one day, when I'm too old to use the awl and the punch and the chisel and the hammer as I should, I'll seek the quiet of the monastery. But not yet."

"Good enough," I said. "You can make me more splendid coins, then." He nodded, almost- although not quite- as happy as he had been when Myakes' involuntary, startled praise turned him to a bowl of barley mush.

I looked out at the bishops, each in his finest vestments, who had come to this God-guarded and imperial city at my urging. "You are agreed, then, holy fathers, that these canons complete and perfect the work of the last two ecumenical synods?"

"Emperor, we are," they chorused as one.

"Then let my signature and yours on the canons of this synod be proof of that." And, so saying, I dipped a pen into a jar of the crimson ink reserved for Emperors alone and set my name on each of the six copies scribes had prepared of the canons: one copy for the imperial chancery, and one each for the patriarchs of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.

Paul the ecumenical patriarch affixed his signature next after mine, leaving a blank space on each parchment wherein Sergios, the pope of Rome, might set his name. After him came the three patriarchs whose sees still unfortunately groan under the heel of the Arabs' miscalled commander of the faithful.

And after them I had the pleasure of summoning John, the bishop of New Justinianopolis, who had been translated with his flock from Cyprus to Bithynia. His signature went immediately below those of the patriarchs. "Thank you for the honor you show me and my new city, Emperor," he said, bowing.

"I take great pleasure in seeing you here," I answered, and we beamed at each other. He might have been foolish, but our thoughts now ran in the same channel.

After John, the rest of the bishops who had attended my fifth-sixth synod queued up to sign the canons to which they had agreed. As more than two hundred had come to the imperial city, and as each man had to write his name half a dozen times, the ceremony took some time.

Among those signing their names were George and Daniel, who regularly represented Pope Sergios in Constantinople, and Basil of Gortyna whose see, as I have said, fell under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the see of Rome. George and Daniel signed without hesitation, as I saw with my own eyes. Bishop Basil also set down his name, but, having done so, said, "Emperor, I fear the holy pope will find some of the canons here hard to bear."

"If he knows what is good for him," I said, pitching my voice so all the assembled bishops could hear, "he will give his assent, and waste no time doing it. I have great things in mind in the east, and have no intention of wasting my time enforcing discipline on a barbarous, backwoods province like Italy. If the bishop of Rome withholds his signature, he shall be punished quickly and severely."

The bishops from within the heartland of the Roman Empire nodded, knowing they had to accommodate themselves to their sovereign's wishes. Of the far smaller number of western bishops, some looked alarmed, others indignant. The latter, I suppose, failed to remember how my grandfather, as other Roman Emperors had done before him, had used the exarch of Ravenna to seize a pope who flouted his wishes and send him off to imprisonment, exile, and torture. Although not eager to do such a thing, I aimed to if Sergios decided to be troublesome. Having him inflame dissent and argument was the last thing I needed when I was about to go to war against Abimelekh.

Leontios's broad, earnest face puckered into a frown. "Emperor, your father would never have done a thing like this," he said. "I fought the Arabs a lot of times for him, but he would never have done anything like this."

He had not lost his habit of repeating himself, but that was not why I glared at him. I had, by then, been Emperor of the Romans for seven years. Being told what my father would have done rankled. "He is dead," I answered, my voice cold. "I choose war against the followers of the false prophet, not this odious treaty of peace, which they have violated and under which the Roman Empire suffers. I thought of you to command my army and chast ise them as they deserve. You have succeeded against them before. Are you afraid you cannot again?"

"I'm not afraid of anything," he said, puffing out his massive chest. "Not of anything. But it won't be as easy as it was before. Abimelekh's finally put down all the rebellions that plagued him, so it won't be easy, no indeed."

"That only means he'll be able to put a few more men in the line against us," I said. "We'll have the troops from the military districts, we'll have Neboulos and his special army of Sklavenoi-"

"Useless barbarians," Leontios muttered, which made me glare again, Neboulos having, to my continuing astonishment, trained up as many Sklavenoi as he had promised me. "Barbarians," Leontios said again. "Emperor, if you beat them with a Roman army, what makes you think Abimelekh won't beat them with an Arab army?"

"They fought well against us," I answered, exaggerating only a little, "and since then they've had a taste of proper Roman discipline," which was true. "Put them in the line with Roman soldiers to help stiffen them, and they'll do well, I feel sure. And besides," I went on, flattering him a little because, thanks to his previous victories, I did want him to command the army, "with you leading the host, how can we possibly fail?"

In due course, Leontios would show me how we could possibly fail. At the moment, the glow that lighted his features did not spring from the reflection of lamplight off his rather greasy skin. Like a sponge, he sucked up compliments. "Ah, Emperor, you honor me more than I deserve," he boomed, which also turned out to be true.

"I don't think so," I said, showing how little I knew of the future. "Now, let's decide how best to strike the Arabs a hard blow. When we do strike them, it should be in a way they'll remember for years."

"We'll hit 'em a good lick, Emperor, that we will," Leontios said. "A good lick, yes indeed."

"You have no more objections?" I asked.

"I wouldn't do it, Emperor," he said. "I wouldn't. I already told you that. But if we are foolish enough to do it- uh, that is, if we are going to do it- you're right, and we should hit 'em as hard as we can. I'll do my best to strike a hard blow against 'em, that I will."