Harry Turtledove - Justinian

I went into the monastery chapel to pray. A couple of monks there gave me approving looks. After noticing that, I ignored them, wondering how I should address the God Whom I had served all the years of my life, Who had rewarded me with rank and comfort and pleasure beyond those of which most mortal men can dream\a160… and Who had then cast me down.

Quoting the Psalmist, I said, "\a160'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'\a160" Though easy to say, that was hard to accept. The Lord had judged my family harshly: my brother, my father, my wife all struck down young, and now my own fall from wealth and splendor. God had let Satan inflict boundless suffering on Job, whose faith had not wavered.

In the end, God rewarded Job for his steadfastness. That thought helped me shape the rest of the prayer I sent up to the heavens: "Test me as You will, Lord; I am Your instrument. And if it should happen that You grant me return to the Queen of Cities, I shall glorify Your name unceasingly. But if it be Your will that I remain here throughout my span of days\a160… I shall glorify Your name unceasingly in that case as well." I crossed myself.

I stayed in the chapel a long time. Next to the church of the Holy Wisdom, it was a hovel, but a house of God is a house of God, no matter how humble. I did not need to think about what to do there; I already knew. And so I remained, while the sun wheeled across the sky.

As evening approached, Myakes returned. He stank of sweat but had money in his pouch. "I won't have any trouble keeping us in coins," he told me. "It was like they'd never seen anybody who wanted to do some work and wasn't going through the motions- or maybe I'm just used to moving faster than these people on account of all the years I've lived in the city."

"All right," I said, still obscurely troubled that he should have to labor with the sweat of his brow for our welfare. But what was the alternative? That I labor myself? For one thing, I had not yet fully recovered my strength after the fever that followed my mutilation. For another, should an Emperor of the Romans have become a common roustabout? I saw that as even less fitting than living off Myakes' stalwart efforts.

Every morning after that, he went off to the docks. Almost every evening, he came back with a full day's wages, sometimes in Roman folles and miliaresia, sometimes in silver minted by the followers of the false prophet, sometimes in coins I had never seen before, coins from out of the barbarous west of the world or the all but unknown east. Kherson was not a great trading center if only the number of merchants who called there was taken into account, but it did draw folk from every corner of the earth.

Myakes was generous in sharing with me what he earned. Though I continued to spend a good deal of time in the chapel, I was also able to make forays into the town and, if the impulse struck me, to buy for myself a cup of wine or some fried fish drenched in vinegar. I had, in fact, the illusion of freedom- freedom, that is, so long as I did not try to leave, or even think of leaving, Kherson.

It was not enough.

Do you know, Brother Elpidios, I wouldn't have minded so much if Justinian had decided to live out his days on the far side of the Black Sea. I'd be there yet, I expect, probably not working so hard now. I'd be an old man there, s ame as I am here, but I'd have my eyes, and that wouldn't be so bad. Like as not, I'd be sitting in a wineshop, or maybe out in front if the weather's fine like it usually is up there, and I'd watch the pretty girls go by. Every now and then, somebody'd ask me to tell a story of Constantinople, and folks would go ooh and ahh, and they'd buy me more wine. Doesn't sound so bad, does it?

Justinian might still be there, too- you never can tell. He'd be ugly, no doubt about it, but Kherson's not a big place. People would be used to him by now. Once you've seen somebody every day for years, what he looks like doesn't matter so much. He'd just be old Justinian, who used to be Emperor. And the stories he could tell- I'd have listened to those myself.

But that's not how things happened. They could have, easy enough, but they didn't. And so Justinian's twenty years dead, and I'm here, an old blind monk. You can't tell beforehand, Brother Elpidios. Only God knows beforehand, and He never, never, lets on.

While I stayed there in Kherson, days began to blur together in a fashion I had never known before. With nothing to distinguish one from another, they slipped past me without my fully realizing they had gone. I was taken by surprise when the first winter storm roared over the mountains north of the town. Surely only a month- six weeks at the most- had passed since the warm summer day when Leontios and his pack of traitors stole my throne from me. But no, looking at the position of the sun in the sky and the stars at night convinced me that storm was no freak, but came at its proper time.

Not many storms came roaring over the mountains. Although lying the breadth of the Black Sea north of Constantinople, Kherson has winters generally milder than those of the imperial city, this being due to the shielding effect of the high ground. Snow was more frequently an amusement for the children than a drudgery for their elders. And, in fact, Myakes and I had a fine time, or more than one, pelting each other with snowballs and then retreating into the comfortable warmth of the xenodokheion.

But, though I continued to live in the guesthouse attached to the monastery, I was no monk, lacking as I did the temperament for the solitary life. One day I borrowed some silver from Myakes- or rather, I asked it of him and he gave it to me- and went walking up into Kherson.

I knew the sort of place I was looking for, and expected to find such a place close by the harbor. Sure enough, when I came to a large two-story building with a muscular fellow lounging outside, a sword on his hip and a club in his hand, I suspected my search was done. Nodding to him, I said, "Are the girls pretty?" and pointed inside.

"Aye, they are," he answered- would a whorehouse bouncer deny it, thereby turning away trade? He looked at me in a thoughtful way. "I'm not so sure they'll think you're pretty, though."

I made the miliaresia jingle in my pouch. "They'll think these are pretty."

He surprised me then, saying, "Maybe, maybe not. This is a town full of sailors. Business is good enough, the girls can afford to be choosy."

He was not offensive about my mutilation, treating it as a simple business problem. That left me untroubled; indeed, it pleased me more than his simply ignoring it would have done. Responding in a like vein, I said, "May I try my luck?"

He studied me again. "You're not going to raise a fuss if they turn you down?"

"By the Mother of God, I swear it," I said, whereupon he started to laugh, as did I a moment later. An ordinary enough oath, yes, but not when offered outside a brothel. Not only did he wave me forward, he opened the door so I could enter.

I had never been inside such a place before. As prince and then as Emperor of the Romans, I had had women brought to me, and no need to go forth to seek them. Thus I looked around with some curiosity. It was as I might have expected: several women, some comely, some not, sat on chairs or lolled on couches, waiting for trade. They wore thin, clinging tunics cut very short; none of them bothered with drawers. Each and every one looked bored. The hall smelled of cheap scent and old sweat.

A plump fellow, evidently the master of the place, came up to me, looking very important. "What do you want here?" he demanded.

That question I had not expected. Others, perhaps, but not that one. I stared at him, then answered, "I've come to buy some paint."