Harry Turtledove - Justinian

"I remember." I had tried to stir up trouble for the wicked usurpers- first Leontios, then Apsimaros- from the moment I arrived at Kherson. Because of my mutilation, I had failed. Now, like Lazarus, my hopes were reborn.

The tudun pointed at me. "You raise trouble, any kind, even smallest bit"- he held his hands close together to show how small a small bit could be-"I tell Emperor Tiberius, see if he still want you to stay here."

That brought me up short. I had not known Apsimaros well (I refused to call him Tiberius, even to myself) before my throne was stolen from me, and word of his deeds that reached Kherson was bound to be sketchy and inaccurate, but he, unlike Leontios, seemed to be no sluggard, and to have a fitting concern for maintaining his place, usurped though that was: why else would he have sent Bardanes Philippikos into exile on the strength of a dream?

"You hear me?" the tudun asked. "You understand me?"

"Oh, yes," I assured him. "I hear you and I understand you very well indeed." I understood I would have to be careful as I planned my return to Constantinople. I had understood from the beginning that I would be returning to Constantinople.

Still looking at me in the most dubious fashion, the tudun went on his way. I, for my part, returned to the monastery. A monk, not a man I knew, waited in the xenodokheion. "Emperor, I greet you!" he exclaimed, and prostrated himself before me on the guest-house floor.

No one, not Myakes, not Barisbakourios, not his brother, had prostrated himself before me in Kherson. Because of that, and because I was just arrived from seeing the tudun and listening to his warning to me not to act the part of the Emperor, I stared down at this fellow in some suspicion, wondering if he might not be a stalking horse, intended to goad me into publicly claiming the imperial dignity and thereby giving the tudun an excuse to move against me.

"Get up," I told him, and then had an inspiration. "In lands attached to a monastery, all men are equal before God."

He rose, his face wreathed in smiles. "Emperor, how glad I am to see that your reputation for piety is nothing less than the truth."

If he was a traitor, he was an enthusiastic traitor. "Who are you?" I demanded. I did not reach for the knife I wore, but my hand knew with the body's knowledge where it was.

"My name is Cyrus, Emperor," he said, smiling more broadly yet: if a traitor, genial as well as enthusiastic. "I have sailed from Amastris to Kherson for, among other reasons, the pleasure and honor of making your acquaintance."

"And why is that?" I was determined to play my own game at my own speed. If this Cyrus proved the tudun's agent, he would get nothing from me.

He looked around, although the two of us were alone in the large hall. Dramatically lowering his voice, he answered, "Because I have seen in the stars that you are destined to rule the Roman Empire once more."

Again, I did not know how to take that. A man in the tudun's pay would say the same thing, seeking to entice me. And, even if Cyrus was sincere, I still did not know how to respond to his words. That one can foresee the future in the stars violates the proved fact of God's omnipotence, and for that reason is condemned by the holy church. But Cyrus was far from the only churchman to have dabbled in such waters; Leontios's puppetmaster, Paul, also claimed to have seen in the heavens his patron's rise.

Cyrus suddenly seized my hands in his. "Emperor, have faith in me," he said. "When I sailed from Amastris, I had no idea how what I had seen might come to pass, you having suffered such cruel injuries at the hands of your foes. And here I meet you and find you"- he cast about for a word, and found one-"restored. Is it a miracle?"

Gently, I touched my new nose. Flat, aye. Ugly, aye. A nose? Unquestionably. How to explain to a monk I had received it thanks to the arts of a little brown man who scoffed at the notion of Christ's being the Son of God, or even of there being but one God? I did not explain. If Cyrus wanted to reckon it a miracle, I would let him.

"When do you intend to go back to Amastris?" I asked.

"Go back?" He shook his head in puzzlement. "Emperor, I do not intend to go back. I aim to make myself a place here, and to aid you in recovering your throne in every way I can. Once that is done, I shall return to Romania, but not until then."

If he spoke the truth, he easily passed the test I had set him. Over the next few days, I learned from longshoremen that he had indeed disembarked from a ship from Amastris. "He was an abbot there, I hear," one of them said, which explained how Cyrus had got permission from his superior to abandon his monastery for another, or rather that he had needed no one's permission. Oh, he might have asked his bishop, but then again, he might not have, too, abbots being largely autonomous within the ecclesiastical hierarchy.

In Kherson, he lived as a monk among other monks. If taking orders when he had once given them troubled him, he showed no sign. He spoke more openly about my return to Constantinople than I did. Sometimes he did so within the hearing of Khazar soldiers. I saw how they glared. If he was an agent of the tudun's, either they did not know it or they made a better show of hypocrisy than I suspected to lie within the abilities of such barbarians. I was convinced.

And so, little by little, was Myakes, who initially had distrusted Cyrus even more than I had. "He's the straight goods, Emperor," he said one day when we were drinking wine in a tavern. "I wouldn't have believed it, but he is. Nice to have a man of God who's on our side seven days a week."

"Yes," I said, drawing the word out into a hiss. Kallinikos had been perfectly happy to work with me- and to bless Leontios in my place\a160… and to bless Apsimaros in Leontios's place. If I regained the throne, no doubt he would bless me again\a160… for a while.

Barisbakourios and Stephen- I more often thought of him that way than as Salibas, Stephen being the good Greek name it was- walked into the tavern. They hurried over to the table where Myakes and I sat. "That monk of yours, Emperor, he's something!" Barisbakourios exclaimed. "You listen to him, the devils of hell already have Apsimaros on their forks, and they're toasting him over the fire." His eyes glowed. He was ready for anything, was Barisbakourios, the best of the handful who had rallied to my side in Kherson.

"People were listening to Cyrus, too, and nodding at everything he said," Stephen added. Had his brother gone against me, I think he would have, too. Though lacking the spark of Barisbakourios, he was brave and- because his brother was- loyal. Not all can lead, and without followers a leader is no more than a voice that crieth in the wilderness.

"Were any Khazars there?" I asked.

"No, no Khazars, but a couple of the rich merchants' bodyguards were hanging around the edge of the crowd," Barisbakourios answered. "The longer they listened, the unhappier they got. They're afraid of Apsimaros, the fools."

What they were afraid of was the wrath of the Roman Empire, which, even when the Empire was headed by a usurper so little Roman that he had to change his name to have one fit for putting on his nomismata, was nothing to be despised. I also took the bodyguards' unhappiness to mean that their masters would be unhappy when Cyrus's words were reported to them, and very possibly that the tudun would be unhappy, too. If he was, odds were that Cyrus truly did support me.

My other choice in looking at Cyrus was to reckon that he sought to incite me to actions by which the Khazars or the rich merchants (whom I had not previously considered) could justify taking my head. The more I pondered that, the less likely it seemed. The merchants' reach did not extend to Amastris, whence Cyrus had indubitably come. And, if the Khazars intended taking my head, they could do it. They needed no justification: to the contrary. If they did do it, they had no need to fear the wrath of the Roman Empire: again, to the contrary. Apsimaros would shower them with presents on learning they had killed me.