A rider went ahead to announce my arrival to Tervel. The fellow came back with permission for me to go on and meet the khagan. Omurtag, knowing which was Tervel's tent, led me to it. A couple of slaves- Romans, by their looks and by the Greek they spoke with each other- tended to the party's horses. Perhaps having learned who I was, they stared and stared at me.
I wonder whether Tervel's curiosity would impel him to come out and greet me, but he waited for me to go to him, he being after all sovereign in this place. The interior of his tent glowed with lamps of glass and silver- Roman plunder- till it was almost bright as day, though the lamps burned butter rather than oil as they would have done in Romania. More plunder- golden bowls, silver wine pitchers- gleamed in the lamplight.
Tervel, sitting there cross-legged on the carpet, wore plunder, too: a woman's jeweled earring in each ear and a necklace of nomismata. Since he had succeeded his father not long before, I expected him to be hardly more than a youth, as had been true for me. But he was a man of close to my own age, a battle scar seaming his right cheek, his face almost as lined and weathered as that of any other nomad.
My followers prostrated themselves before him; I bowed, as I had to Ibouzeros Gliabanos. When I straightened, he was studying me through narrow eyes like those of the Khazar khagan. "I think you really may be Justinian," he said in Greek as fluent as mine. "I guessed some mountebank was coming to fool me, but you have not only the wound- fixed some sort of way, I see- but also the look of the man I remember seeing."
"Have we met?" I asked. "Were you on an embassy to Constantinople? I hope you will not be angry if I say I do not remember you there."
"We have met." His smile showed excellent teeth. He somehow contrived to make them look very sharp. "It was not in Constantinople. I have never been inside Constantinople. But you have come here before. I saw you then. I fought your men, to try to keep them and you from getting back inside the Roman Empire. We failed"- he shrugged-"but not by much."
"No, not by much," I admitted. "That was half a lifetime ago for me." Much of my reign had been half a lifetime ago for me. "You would have been young to fight then."
"My first battle," he agreed. "You Romans should never have got away. We should have trapped you and killed every one of you."
I should be stretching a point if I said I liked Tervel from the outset. But I could tell at once that he and I, agreeing or not, would always be able to understand each other. We thought alike: half-measures satisfied neither of us.
I said, "When my father came here with his army, he should have destroyed every one of you Bulgars. Then my campaign would not have been needed."
"When your father came, and all the ships vomited out their soldiers, we thought he was the most fearsome man in the world," Tervel answered, smiling that unpleasant smile once more. "Then we found the soldiers only knew how to run away from us. They fought better with you leading them, I must say."
"Why- thank you," I said in some- more than some- surprise. Up till that moment, whenever people compared me to my father, they always found me the lesser. So much had I come to take that for granted, the possibility it might not be so smote me with the force of Paul's revelation on the road to Damascus.
Tervel either did not notice my confusion or controlled himself so well, he revealed nothing of his thoughts. He said, "And now you come to me without an army at your back, Justinian. Tell me why this is. Did I not hear you married the daughter of the Khazar khagan? Is he not your friend?"
"I married his sister," I said. He inclined his head, accepting the correction. I went on, "I think he would be my friend, if he did not think being Apsimaros's friend counted for more."
"Ah," Tervel said. "He can afford to be Apsimaros's friend. The Khazars have no borders with the Roman Empire. We Bulgars do. We have never been friends with the Emperors of the Romans: not with Constantine, not with Justinian"- one eyebrow lifted ironically-"not with Leontios, not with this Apsimaros, either." He folded his arms across his chest, waiting to see what I would say next.
"That will change, if an Emperor of the Romans owes his return to his throne to the khagan of the Bulgars." I was careful to use the indicative, not the subjunctive, Tervel having shown he grasped subtle shades of meaning.
"Taking Constantinople would not be easy." He used the subjunctive. "My countrymen who have seen the city do nothing but talk about how strong its walls are."
"Apsimaros got into the city," I returned. "I too shall find a way."
"Maybe," he said. "Maybe." He stretched, lithe as a wildcat. "I need not decide this at once. Drink and eat with me, and tell me of how you came here from Kherson. Unless I am wrong, this will be worth hearing."
Clapping his hands together, he shouted for slaves. Like the others I saw in the country of the Bulgars, they were Romans, poor souls. They brought us roast mutton and wine, the khagan preferring it to his people's native strong drink.
Tervel had me speak in some detail on the repair of my nose, the Bulgars being more ignorant of surgery of any sort than we Romans. "Do you think you could teach my people to cut so?" he asked when I was through.
"I doubt it," I answered. "I paid as little attention as I could to what Auriabedas was doing to me. Myakes here watched. He'd have a better notion of how the operation was done than I do."
"Not good enough to teach it to anybody else," Myakes said quickly. "What I was trying to do was not to puke."
"Too bad," Tervel said. "Noses get lopped often enough, it would be worth knowing what this foreigner with the name I cannot say did. But go on, Justinian."
I told of traveling to the court of Ibouzeros Gliabanos, and of my marriage to Theodora, with which he had shown himself somewhat familiar. Then I spoke of my journey to Phanagoria, of the khagan's betrayal, and of how I had dealt with Papatzun and Balgitzin. Tervel and the other Bulgars who understood Greek clapped their hands at that.
I also told them of how God had chosen to spare me out on the sea as I was sailing to their land, finishing, "And so you see, O Khagan, I am truly destined to enter the Queen of Cities and avenge myself on all who wronged me."
"So you say," Tervel replied, voice betraying nothing. He was no more a Christian than Ibouzeros Gliabanos- less, in fact, for the khagan of the Khazars tolerated all faiths, including the true one, in the lands he ruled, while the Bulgars saw Christianity as connected with Roman rule, and so suspect.
"With your help or without it, I am going on to Constantinople," I said.
"I believe you," Tervel said. "You are a man who keeps promises- I see that. If you go without my help, though, I do not think you will have a glad time of it."
Although thinking him likely to be right, I would sooner have had my new nose cut off than admit as much. "I would like your help," I said, "but I will go on without it." This ignored what had to be as evident to Tervel as it was to me: that, should he order, I would go nowhere but into whatever grave the Bulgars gave me.
He also ignored the fact, perhaps deeming its mention impolite, perhaps finding it too obvious to need mention. As Ibouzeros Gliabanos had before him, he said, "If you win, you will be inside Constantinople, and you are liable to forget whatever help you had getting there. How do we seal this bargain so I will get the reward I'd deserve?"
"I cannot marry your sister," I said, "nor even your daughter." In theory, I suppose, I might have done that, Emperors tending to make their own law on such matters, but I had no wish to put aside Theodora. On the contrary. And then, as I seldom did, I remembered Epiphaneia. "I cannot marry your daughter," I repeated, "but I can give you mine."