Harry Turtledove - Justinian

Military districts need generals at their head. This was especially true of one such as Hellas, with barbarians to the north and to the west. Leaving a vacancy there would have invited the Sklavenoi in the area to make trouble, perhaps negating everything my campaign against them had accomplished a few years before.

As one must do in such circumstances, I pondered whom to appoint as Dorotheos's successor. None of the other officers in Thessalonike at that time had particularly impressed me (nor, for that matter, had Dorotheos; his virtue, such as it was, lay in avoiding serious error, not in accomplishing anything great). That meant I would need to choose a general either in Constantinople or from one of the Anatolian military districts. Who, I wondered, would be willing to leave the imperial city or the long-civilized lands of Anatolia for a frontier district like Hellas?

And then I had what struck me as a happy inspiration. Having a pretty good notion of where the monks Paul and Gregory the Kappadokian were to be found, I sent messengers thither, summoning them to the throne room. While waiting for their arrival, I sent other messengers to the Proklianesian harbor in the southern part of the city.

The monk and the former kleisouriarch did not reach the palace until late afternoon, coming in with the stink of prison still clinging to their clothes. Ignoring that, I waited until they had prostrated themselves before me and arisen before saying, "You want Leontios free, not so?"

Their eyes widened. They glanced at each other, though neither of them turned his head. Cautiously, Paul said, "Emperor, that is so." He could scarcely deny it, but, for all he knew, I was about to order their heads taken for persisting in a desire I had no wish to fulfill.

Instead, I said, "Take him, then, and go." I held out an order to them. "This will authorize his release. You may tell the guards they shall answer to me if they fail to obey my command."

Now they were both frankly staring. Gregory took the sheet of papyrus from my hand as if afraid it would burst into flame if he touched it. His lips moving, he read it to assure himself it was what I had said. When he saw it was, he blurted, "What made you change your mind, Emperor?" The order said nothing about that, concerning itself only with Leontios's release from imprisonment.

"I am naming him general of the military district of Hellas," I answered. "Three dromons wait in the Proklianesian harbor to take him- and you- to Thessalonike. Once you get him from the prison, go to the harbor without delay. If you are in Constantinople when the sun comes up tomorrow, you are dead men. Do you understand?"

"We do," Gregory said with a crispness proclaiming him a former officer.

"We thank you for your mercy, Emperor," Paul added.

"Go," I told the two of them, "and remember what I have said." They hurried out of the throne room. I never expected to see them or Leontios again. What I hoped was that Leontios, trying to accomplish something great and redeem himself from exile (not that I ever expected to allow him to return to the imperial city), would make the intimate acquaintance of a Sklavinian arrow and die a slow, painful, lingering death. I was pleased at my cleverness in sending him away; not only was he likely to perish, but I would get some use from him before he did. Not even Stephen the Persian could have found a more economical solution- so, at any rate, I told myself.

But the dawn of each new day does not necessarily bring that which one expected the afternoon before, nor that for which one had hoped.

What would I have said, Brother Elpidios, if Justinian had asked me whether I thought he should let Leontios loose? I probably would have told him he had a pretty good idea there. Leontios mured up in jail made people pity him and try and work for him. Leontios gone, though, would have been Leontios forgotten after a couple of weeks.

But Justinian made one mistake, Brother. He gave Paul and Gregory the order releasing Leontios. That was fine. He had the little fleet waiting to take them to Thessalonike. That was fine, too. And he told the two monks, once they had Leontios, to take him down to the harbor and put him on one of those dromons. And even that was fine. But he didn't send any soldiers down to the harbor with them to make sure they put Leontios on the dromon and then got on themselves.

Would I have reminded him to do that? How can I say, after more than thirty-five years? I like to think so, but who can be sure of such things? Any which way, I never got the chance. The company I led wasn't at the palace that evening; we were scattered among several buildings. With a squadron from them, I was watching over the Praitorion, on the Mese not far west of the grand palace, to make sure nobody stole either the papyri or the prisoners stashed there.

The duty was about as exciting as watching paint dry: a dead quiet night if ever there was one. To liven it up, some of the boys and I were rolling dice. Yes, I know that's a sin. Yes, I know the fifth-sixth synod had said so not long before. I wasn't planning on living like a monk, not in those days I wasn't.

Where was I? Ah, that's right. Down on one knee in a back room. All of a sudden, somebody started banging on the front door. It was barred, of course. I'd just won three throws in a row, and I didn't feel like getting up while the dice were hot. I pointed to a new excub itor, a little skinny fellow named John- or maybe Theophanes. After all these years, I forget which. Anyway, I told him, "Go see what the devil that is and make it stop."

Off he went. I heard him talking, but I couldn't make out what he was saying- like I told you, we were in a back room. A minute later, he came running back. "It's the Emperor!" he exclaimed.

"What?" I said. "What's the Emperor doing here, this time of night?"

"Says he's got some business needs taking care of," answered John or Theophanes or whatever his name was.

"Business?" I scratched my head. The only business Justinian usually did in the nighttime had to do with serving girls, and he wasn't about to come to the Praitorion to take care of that. The pounding started up again. I stared at John. "Didn't you let him in?"

"Uh-" He was new, all right.

"Mother of God!" I scrambled to my feet. "He's going to be angry enough to eat us all without salt." John- Theophanes- whoever he was- started back toward the door. "Wait," I told him. "I'll take care of it. He isn't so likely to bite my head off."

Bang! Bang! Bang! From the racket out there, I wondered if Justinian had ordered whoever he had with him to break down the doors. "Open up in there, in the name of the Emperor!" someone shouted: not a voice I knew.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" I shouted back. When I got to the doors, I slid the bar out of the brackets to either side of them and leaned it against the wall. Then I pulled the doors wide. "Come in, Emp-" I began.

A couple of dozen men stood out there. Several of them were holding torches. All of them but a couple of black-robed monks were holding swords. At their head was a tall, wide-faced fellow in a filthy tunic whose tangled beard reached halfway to his waist. After a couple of heartbeats standing there gaping, I recognized Leontios.

I was too startled to draw my own sword right away. That probably saved my life. Instead of running me through, the way they would have if I'd had a blade in my hand, Leontios and the gang of bully boys he'd scraped together just jumped on me and knocked me down. I tried to fight back, but they started pounding my head on the floor. After that, my arms and legs didn't want to do what I told 'em. They trussed me up like a hog they didn't plan on roasting right that minute.

The racket made the rest of the excubitores come running out to see what was going on. One of the monks shouted, "Many years to the Emperor Leontios!"