Harry Turtledove - Justinian

This was a thinly veiled- indeed, an unveiled- invitation for me to match their offer. I would have, if I could. I knew how much money my followers had: not enough. I sighed. "What a pity," I said, adding, "This was such a nice little town."

The last sentence was a great whacking lie, but Totilas, as I had hoped he would, caught the past tense contained therein. "What do you mean, was?" he said, his nose going a couple of shades darker.

"What I said," I answered. "You don't think I haven't made myself ready for a day like this, do you? My friends and I have been here for weeks now, and made more friends in Doros. About every other building here has a little jug or barrel of oil hidden away in it. Try to seize me, try to do anything to harm me, and my friends- and you don't know who all of them are, I promise you- will go running through the town, tipping over those jars and throwing torches into them."

I have only rarely heard lies so big that did not come from the mouth of a follower of the false prophet. I had recruited one, count him, one follower in Doros, a certain Theophilos, who, while more clever than Foolish Paul, was not much more clever. Nor had my henchmen secreted fuel for incendiaries throughout the town.

But things like the vengeance I had taken on the Sklavenoi and my surviving a mutilation that might well have killed me had given me a reputation for single-minded determination and ferocity. Regardless of whether I had actually done what I claimed, Totilas knew all too well it was the sort of thing I might do. Did he have the nerve to call my bluff?

One glance at him proved he did not. His ruddy face went a dirty yellow. His dusky nose went pink. "You are a devil," he exclaimed. "You would not." But he thought I would. Thinking that, he was meat for the roasting.

"Leave me alone, and I shall leave you alone," I said. "Seek to betray me to my enemies and you become my enemy." That was true. If I helped him exaggerate in his mind my capacity to harm my enemies\a160… good.

I rose and went back to my lodgings. None of the Goths of Doros tried to stop me. For the next several days, though, men searched frantically through the town. Every container of oil they found was no doubt added to my account. For good measure, I sent Barisbakourios out to buy more fish oil. For some reason, no one in Doros would sell him any.

Totilas, now, was not the man to start precipitate action. In fact, had I not had the misfortune of knowing Leontios, I might have reckoned Totilas the most lethargic man charged with administering any sort of public affairs I had ever met. Nonetheless, he would conclude, sooner or later, that I was running a bluff. When he did, his likeliest action- averse to taking action as he was- would be to sell me to the Khersonites. Did he find the will, he could do it. I knew that better than he.

"Where is Stephen?" The question had been important before. Now, all at once, it was vital, and on our lips all the time, the only variation being Barisbakourios's occasional, "Where is Salibas?"

I was beginning to fear he had suffered misfortune either on the way to the court of Ibouzeros Gliabanos at distant Atil or, perhaps more likely, on the way back from that court: if Ibouzeros Gliabanos was not so well disposed to me as I had hoped, he might well deem it expedient to expunge from the landscape my envoy to him.

My landlord grew visibly more distressed at my presence under his leaky roof; if his distress did not grow voluble as well as visible, this was no doubt because my followers and I made sure to display ourselves, well armed, before him at frequent intervals.

But other armed men began displaying themselves, too, around the tavern where we were staying. For the time being, they fought shy of doing anything more than displaying themselves, that being certain to have caused the trouble Totilas dreaded. But these matters could not be indefinitely delayed.

Three or four days after beginning to muster his force, Totilas approached the tavern where I was for all practical purposes besieged. I expected this would be a demand for my surrender, his coming in person showing more spirit than I had looked for from him.

Myakes said, "He hasn't got a sword in his hand, Emperor, nor one on his belt, either."

He was right. Totilas advanced with both his hands held out before him so I could see they were empty, and carried not only no sword but no knife, either. "Parley!" he called loudly. "I want to parley with Justinian."

"Come ahead," I answered, not showing myself at a window lest he have a concealed archer awaiting the chance to puncture me.

Cyrus opened the door to admit the leader of Doros. Once inside, Totilas said, "Justinian, my men and I are holding a certain Salibas who also goes by the name of Stephen. He's one of your followers, not so?"

"Yes, he's mine," I said, as steadily as I could. Barisbakourios looked as if an arrow from a hidden archer had just pierced him. If Totilas had seized Stephen, he was indeed showing more initiative than the amount with which I had credited him.

Totilas licked his lips. "He says- he says he is coming back from seeing the khagan of the Khazars."

"That's true," I told him, and so it was.

"He also says\a160…" Totilas licked his lips. "He also says the khagan of the Khazars, who is my overlord, wants you to go to his court as fast as you can. Will you go?" He sounded pathetically eager, bringing his next words out all in a rush: "Will you please go? That way, I can tell the Khersonites the truth when I say you are not here any more, and they will go away and leave me in peace, and there will be, thank God, no trouble in Kherson. So, will you go?"

How strange, to hear him begging me to do that which I most wanted to do in all the world! Theophilos let out a whoop half the town must have heard- not that that is anything remarkable, considering what a miserable little town Doros is. Barisbakourios no longer looked wounded. By that time, however, I had learned better than to take anything this side of God's holy truths on faith. I said, "Let Stephen come here. If I hear this from his lips, I will go."

"Thank you, Justinian! God bless you, Justinian!" To my surprise, Totilas embraced me before lumbering out of the tavern. He shouted to his men something in which I heard Stephen's name, but I followed no more than that, the rest being in the Gothic tongue.

But he soon proved to have been telling the truth, for Stephen came running in with us. After embracing his brother, he turned to me and spoke in great excitement: "Emperor, Ibouzeros Gliabanos wants you with him. He can't wait to have you there. He says you're the perfect counterweight to Apsimaros."

"Does he?" To Stephen, that was good news unalloyed. To me, it meant the Khazar intended using me as a piece on a game board. I laughed. I intended using him the same way. "I think Ibouzeros Gliabanos and I shall get on very well indeed," I said. "Let's go find out whether I'm righ t."

Of the journey to the khagan's court I shall say little, little having occurred worthy of mention. I shall note, however, that, while riding up the narrow isthmus of land joining the peninsula on which Kherson lies to the plains north of it, I was able to see the Black Sea on my left and and the Maiotic Bay on my right, which strikes me as interesting enough to record here.

Those plains themselves are also noteworthy: endless undulating grass, as far as the eye can reach in any direction. In Europe, in Anatolia, land has limits and variety: forests and mountains and meadows and cultivated fields. Not there. The plains are vast past any possible imagining, and reach far beyond the relatively small stretch of them I traveled. I did not know whether to be awed or afraid of such unbounded immensity.