Harry Turtledove - Justinian

The tudun himself came down to the harbor to look us over. The tudun is like the eparch of the city, you might say, Brother. Kherson is a town where Romans live and Romans trade, but it's not exactly a Roman town. The tudun is in charge of it for the Khazar khagan. He has more say there than anybody else. The Khazars roam right next to Kherson, like I said, and the Roman Empire is across the sea. That would give the nomads every sort of edge in a fight, so there is no fight.

"Are you from Amastris?" the tudun asked us in Greek with a funny accent different than Apsimaros's. You know about Amastris, Brother? That's right- one of the towns in Anatolia right across the Black Sea from Kherson.

"No, we are from Constantinople," Apsimaros answered.

The tudun's eyebrows went up. He was a funny-looking fellow, fat as a eunuch, with a flat, swarthy face and scraggly whiskers, dressed all in furs and hides. "What do you bring us from Constantinople?" he asked. "We do not have ship from Constantinople for a long time."

"I bring you greetings from Leontios, er, Leo, Emperor of the Romans," Apsimaros told him. That was plenty to make the tudun and everybody else who understood Greek start hopping up and down like their tunics had just caught fire. Apsimaros had style. He waited, patient as you please, till they'd simmered down a little. Then he said, "And I bring you Justinian."

Justinian, right then, was lying on the deck. I had no idea whether he was going to live or not. Apsimaros didn't care. He pointed to Justinian, then to a couple of sailors. They hauled him up between them so the tudun and everybody else could see he was missing most of his nose.

Several of the dockworkers and touts and whores and such who had come down to see the ship crossed themselves. The tudun didn't. He wasn't a Christian. Some of the Khazars follow pagan gods, some follow Mouamet, and some are even Jews.

Whatever the tudun was, he asked Apsimaros, "What are we supposed to do with him?"

"If he dies, bury him," Apsimaros answered. "If he lives, let him live, but don't let him leave. Here he stays, for as long as he lives. Leontios"- he shook his head; he wasn't used to Leontios's new name-"Leo, I mean, will send you money to keep him here." I don't know whether that meant money for Justinian's upkeep or a bribe to make sure nobody let him leave. Probably both, I suppose.

"Who will take care of him?" the tudun said. "He needs someone to take care of him." By the way Justinian hung in the sailors' arms, limp as asparagus that's been boiled too long, that was plain to anybody with eyes.

Apsimaros pointed my way. "This is Myakes. He was one of Justinian's guard captains, and he went into exile with him instead of giving up his head."

"All right," the tudun said. "He is not the first exile here. He is not going to be the last exile here, either. We take him."

"The Emperor Leo"- now Apsimaros spoke carefully-"thanks you, and thanks the khagan of the Khazars, too." He turned to the sailors. "Put out the gangplank. Get him off this ship."

They didn't just obey him- they jumped. They wanted Justinian off that ship. I don't really suppose they could have imagined he'd do anything to them, not in the state he was in, but I don't know what else they could have been thinking, either. Apsimaros might have been convinced Leontios- no, I won't call him Leo- was Emperor now, but it didn't seem to have sunk in for the sailors.

They dragged Justinian up onto the wharf. I followed them. I hadn't made any trouble on the ship- didn't see any future in it- so they didn't give me a rough time, either. They even draped one of Justinian's arms around my neck. I'd figured they would dump him on the planks for me to pick up.

"You come with me," the tudun said. He pointed off to the south, toward a low building of the red-brown local stone. "We put Justinian there. It is a place for Christian monks, but it has a xenodokheion, a guesthouse, too. We see if he lives." He looked at Justinian. His eyes were narrow already. They got narrower. "Right now, I think he dies."

Right then, I thought Justinian was going to die, too. Fever came off him in waves. The wound where his nose had been was raw and inflamed. I wasn't going to admit what I thought, though. "Take me to the monastery," I said. "It's in God's hands, not mine." Yes, I said that. More pious back then than you thought, eh, Brother Elpidios? Well, I daresay we all have a surprise or two in us. Justinian, he had more than that. You'll see.

My first clear memory of exile is waking from deep sleep and seeing Myakes' face above me. Beyond me, and seeming miles above me, were the roof beams of an unfamiliar building. The straw of the mattress on which I lay was lumpy and scratchy; I had never been in such a disgraceful excuse for a bed in all my life.

With awareness came the return of pain. At first I reckoned that the lingering aftereffect of some dream I had been lucky enough to escape, but it persisted. Memory followed awareness by a few heartbeats. Leontios had done that to me in the hippodrome, while the people laughed and cheered. Intending to get a sword and kill him then and there, I tried to stand.

"Easy," Myakes said. "I just got done thanking God that you're a live."

I have never been one to heed advice. Here, however, I had no choice, discovering as I did that my limbs would not support me- would, indeed, barely move at my command. The coarse wool tunic I wore was soaked with sweat, not from the effort of attempting to rise, but as if I had just broken a fever. That, I realized, was exactly what I had just done.

Trying to speak, at first I produced nothing save a harsh croak. My mouth tasted of stale blood. The wounds there had trouble healing on account of the moisture from my saliva. But they were not the disabling wounds Leontios had ordered the executioner to inflict. I tried again, and this time made understandable words: "What is this place?"

"A monastery," Myakes answered, adding after too long a moment's hesitation, "Emperor." I forgave him the hesitation, given my state then. After another pause, he spoke again, modifying what he had said before: "A monastery in Kherson."

More memory returned. I needed a distinct effort to nod my head. "Yes," I said, speech coming easier now, "he said he would do that to me."

My voice sounded wrong in my ears, and not only because it was rusty from disuse or because I moved my tongue as little as I could. The tone, the timbre, was not what it had been. With a gaping hole in the middle of my face, I sounded different from the way I had when I was made like every other man.

Cautiously, I brought my hand up to the empty place where my nose had been. It still pained me, as I have said, but at a level far below the agony it had inflicted. It was a cut. It was healing. "How long have I been here?" I asked.

"Five days, Emperor," faithful Myakes said, this time without the hesitation over the title that was, of course, still rightfully mine. "The tudun and the monks thought you would die, but your fever ended last night, and now-"

"Now I want something to eat," I said. My insides were a vast rumbling cave. Looking at my hand and arm, I saw how much flesh I had lost- or rather, how much flesh had temporarily melted away from me. That melting, though, could be reversed. Lost flesh, as I and eunuchs will attest, is lost forever.

"I've been giving you watered wine," Myakes said. Stout fellow, he was probably the only reason I had not gone before the judgment of all-powerful God some days earlier. Now he got to his feet and hurried out of the chamber where I lay. From the other beds nearby, I realized this was not a monastic cell, but the xenodokheion attached to the monastery. None of those other beds had anyone in it. In Kherson, guests were few and far between.