Harry Turtledove - Justinian

I slammed into the full meaning of that like a man running headlong into a wall. Myakes was right, of course. Leontios had not mutilated me only to imitate my father's mutilation of my uncles; he had done it for the same reason my father had mutilated them: to disqualify me from ever seeking to regain the imperial dignity.

Because the Emperor of the Romans and the Roman Empire are so intimately connected to each other, it stands to reason that a mutilation to one implies a mutilation to the other. For as long as the Empire has existed, a physically imperfect man has been reckoned unfit to rule. That is why Emperors commonly have eunuchs as their chamberlains- they know the servants in such intimate daily contact with them will not seek to take their place on the throne.

Of itself, my hand went to the part of me no longer part of me. My fingers jerked away from the crusted scabs they found.

Myakes had been watching me. "Now do you understand, Emperor?"

I understood. I understood all too well. I understood why he had hesitated before giving me my title, that first time he spoke upon my regaining my wits. I understood that, to him, it was now but a title of courtesy, a title of pity, not the title of respect it should have been.

That was what it meant to him. Not to me. Clenching my fists, I said, "By God and Jesus Christ His Son, I will take back the throne, Myakes. I don't care if I don't have this"- and now I made my hand linger where the fleshy part of my nose had been-"and I don't care about anything else. It- shall- be- mine- again."

"Yes, Emperor," Myakes said, but more as if humoring me than as if believing me. "How will you do it, though? And if, uh, when you do, how can you make people accept you?"

"How will I do it? I don't know yet," I answered. "Once I do, how can I make people accept me? That's easy, Myakes: I'll kill the ones who don't. Once I kill enough, the rest will get the idea, don't you think?"

"Yes, Emperor," he said again.

A couple of days later, having heard I was recovering from my wounds, the tudun of Kherson came to pay me a call. The Khazars have had their affairs intermingled with ours since the days of my great-great-grandfather, who persuaded them to join him in attacking the Persians. They also join us in opposing the followers of the false prophet, and have embarrassed the Arabs more than once.

To my way of thinking, they have no right to lord it over Kherson, which properly is, as it has always been, Roman. But the sword and the bow make their own law, and so Ibouzeros Gliabanos, khagan of the Khazars, is also overlord of Kherson.

The tudun, his governor here, was barbarously ugly and spoke a vile Greek, but I quickly discovered him to be no fool. "You are to me a problem, Justinian," he said, studying me with a curiosity that, I judged, had nothing to do with my mutilation. Unlike most, he was able to see past it to the man I remained.

"I do not wish to be a problem to you," I answered. However much I despised the necessity, I had to speak him soft, for he held the power here.

"Do you want to be Emperor again?" he asked.

"I am Emperor still," I said simply.

"Then you are to me a problem." He pointed a finger at me. "I do not want a problem with the new Emperor in Constantinople. He send his ships here, we have fighting, we have trouble, the khagan blame me." His nervous expression said more clearly than his words that such blame was liable to be lethal. My respect for Ibouzeros Gliabanos rose; a sovereign who could inspire such fear in his subjects was not to be despised.

"Leontios will do nothing," I said. "That is what Leontios does best: nothing."

The tudun's smile stretched across his wide face but did not reach his narrow eyes. "You say this? He cast you down, and you say this?"

"He did not move to cast me down. His friends moved him." I picked up a bowl and set it down a couple of feet away to show what I meant.

"Maybe they move him to fight, too," the tudun said.

Myakes let out a snort, showing he shared my opinion of Leontios. The tudun's gaze swung toward him. But the barbarian shook his head. "You say this. I do not know it is true. I do not want to find out." He pointed my way again. "Justinian, if you live in Kherson, you live quiet. You understand- live quiet?"

"I understand," I told him, and I spoke the truth. But understanding and agreement are not the same.

The tudun's narrow, dark little eyes glinted. He was not the least capable of men, nor the least suspicious. "You live quiet," he repeated. "You make trouble, we know who does." He touched his nose to show what he meant. "We not let you make trouble. We give you back to Roman Emperor." This time, he patted the back of his neck to show what would happen to me were I returned to Constantinople.

"I understand," I said again, though still knowing in my heart that I was the rightful Emperor of the Romans. A nomisma does not cease to be made of gold even if dropped into a latrine.

Those narrow eyes glinted again as the tudun studied me. I discovered for the first time the advantage of my mutilation: not only did it draw the gaze to it in horrified fascination, it also made my expression harder to read by changing the contours of my face. "You be good," the tudun said severely, as if to a naughty child. He strode out of the monastery, satisfied he had done his duty.

"You're going to have to be careful, Emperor," Myakes murmured. "You're going to have to be patient."

I knew those words, but had never thought they would apply to me. "God is teaching me humility," I said. Myakes nodded eagerly. He wanted me to stay quiet, too. That meant he could stay quiet along with me. He got his wish, though at the time I had not intended that he do so.

A couple of weeks passed before I was well enough to leave the xenodokheion. I thought I had most of my strength back, though by looking at my body I could see how much flesh I still needed to restore. But what sufficed for walking around in the monastery, I soon discovered, was less than adequate for the greater journeys required beyond its doors. Quickly growing winded, I had to rely on the strength of Myakes, who accompanied me, as much as on my own.

This was so despite Kherson's minuscule size. A healthy man could have walked from one end of the place to the other in half an hour. Even I would not have needed much longer, that first time. To one used to the marvels of the imperial city, being forced to live in Kherson was like having to drink water- and water of poor quality, at that- after wine.

The life of the town, such as it was, clustered close to the harbor. Though ships from the Roman Empire were few and far between, the little fishing boats kept sailing out onto the Black Sea to bring back the catch on which the life of Kherson depended. Many others depended on the boats for their livelihood: carpenters, netmakers, sailmakers, brothel-keepers, taverners.

Over everything hung the odor of fish. I discovered in Kherson that, whichever part of the nose is responsible for the sense of smell, it lies deep within the organ, not at the tip, which had been taken from me. I had no trouble whatever discerning the stinks of fish drying in the sun, fish pickling in salty brine, fish frying, and fish rotting. As time passed, I grew accustomed to those stinks, hardly noticing them. In the early days of my exile, though, they made their presence insistently felt.

A washerwoman emptied a barrel of water out onto the roadway in front of her shop. Soaking rapidly into the dirt- Kherson boasted no paved streets- the water soon vanished, leaving behind only a patch of mud to entrap unwary passersby, and perhaps to enhance the washerwoman's trade.

Seeing that brief puddle, though, gave me an idea. "She'll have more water in there, won't she?" I asked Myakes.