When we marched, we marched without Tervel's cousins. Though my war against them after I had subdued the Sklavenoi lay many years in the past, the Bulgars inhabiting the lands near the former Sklavinias still remembered me with something less than fondness. "We do not trust the Emperor with the cut-off nose," one of them told Tervel. "If you are wise, you will not trust him, either."
Under other circumstances, I should have been flattered at the Bulgars' still fearing me after so long. As things were, I mourned the support I would not have. Tervel did not fret about trusting me. He had no need to fret. I was in his power. If I displeased him or alarmed him, he would put me to death, and that would be that.
The Bulgars who did ride with us, I am sure, had their minds more on loot and rape and murder than on restoring me to the throne of the Roman Empire. Any soldiers are more apt to dwell on the pleasures of their trade than on the purposes for which their rulers employ them.
As we rode south toward the mountains, the landscape took on a familiar look- or so I thought, at any rate, although I had seen a great many landscapes since. Not wanting to put the question to Tervel, I asked Myakes, "Are we not heading toward the pass we used to get back into Romania when we were campaigning against the Bulgars?"
"I think we are," he answered. "I'll tell you something else, too- I'm bloody glad we've got the Bulgars with us this time, not trying to keep us here."
"So am I," I told him. Instead of showing proper march discipline, the Bulgars straggled out across the land, as if they were the flocks they tended. If one of them spied a rabbit in the grass, he would ride off and try to kill it, eventually either rejoining his comrades or not, as he thought best. But the more I associated with the nomads, the more I came to respect them as warriors. Their horses seemed tireless, and subsisted on what they pulled from the ground as they traveled. The men were no less hardy, going on long after Romans or Arabs would have had to halt. Having noted this same endurance among the Khazars, I was pleased to have it at my disposal.
No. I overstate that. The Bulgars were not at my disposal. They were at Tervel's disposal. When we traversed the pass in the Haimos Mountains and entered Roman territory, he sent them out broadcast to plunder the countryside. He had made no promises to keep them from doing so before I had regained my throne. If I had to guess, I would say he did not expect me to regain it. I did not discuss this with him. The event would prove him right or wrong.
Roman frontier guards at the southern end of the pass rode forward to resist what they mistakenly took to be one of the many small Bulgar raiding parties that had so troubled the land in the quarter-century since the barbarians, as divine punishment for our sins, succeeded in establishing themselves south of the Danube. Now, though, I intended using the Bulgars as divine punishment for Apsimaros's sin of usurpation, and for that of Leontios as well, if he still lived.
On discovering we were a veritable army rather than a band of bandits, the Romans rode away far faster than they had ridden forward. Whooping, the Bulgars rode after them, slaying a few and bringing a few back for questioning. Most of them were Mardaites and other easterners whom I had resettled to hold this frontier. I was somewhat irked to see them so incontinently flee, but did not blame them overmuch, they being so outnumbered.
"Justinian! It is you!" one of them exclaimed in Greek with a guttural Syrian accent years on this chilly frontier had been unable to efface. "We heard they cut off your nose, not that they just smashed it. I saw you in Sebasteia when you arranged to move us here. Have you come to take back the throne?"
"I have," I declared, whereupon the Mardaite burst into cheers.
One of his companions, however, was imprudent enough to shout out, "Tiberius Apsimaros, Emperor of the Romans!" Two Bulgars were holding the man. I glanced at a third nearby, who was not at that moment tending to any prisoners. The Bulgar drew a knife. I nodded. He plunged it into the frontier guard's belly, again and again. The Bulgars holding him let him fall, writhing and shrieking, to the weeds and dirt.
With his screams as background, the rest of the Mardaites wasted no time in acclaiming me. Some, no doubt, were satanically dissembling, but I let them all go, to spread word of my coming and, I hoped and expected, to bring more Roman soldiers over to my side along with the Bulgars.
A few of the barbarians grumbled at watching the prisoners leave their hands still intact and breathing, but I said, "You have just entered the land of the Romans. Do you think you will have no chances for sport later?"
Tervel shouted something in his own language. The Bulgars calmed themselves. Shifting to Greek, Tervel told me, "You did right. You are right. The Romans you let go will do us more good alive than they would give us amusement."
"That was also my thought," I replied, and then, pointing southward, continued, "And now, shall we ride on?" Tervel dipped his head in agreement and waved to his host. We followed the frontier guards into Romania.
The main road running south and west from the pass toward Adrianople and away from the Queen of Cities, we abandoned it, traveling south along the seacoast toward Constantinople instead. Watching gentle waves slap against the shore, I found myself thinking of anything but the gentle waves I had survived out on that same sea.
As we came down toward Mesembria, the most northerly of the Roman coastal cities, we discovered that most of the villages in our path had been abandoned. Myakes snorted, saying, "Those frontier guards you let go, Emperor, they spread the news, all right- the news the Bulgars were coming. Nobody cared whether you were with 'em or not. People heard that, they ran."
"I fear you're right," I answered. "No help for it now."
A little later, Tervel rode up to me. "Shall we lay siege to Mesembria?" he asked.
I shook my head. "No. Taking it gets us no closer to seizing the imperial city, and besieging it wastes time we do not have."
"This is sense," he agreed after a moment's thought. "If you fail, we will capture this town on the way north." In his mouth, if you fail sounded like when you fail. As with most men, he did what he did primarily for his own purposes, not out of any special charity of soul.
That evening, we encamped only a couple of miles outside Mesembria. Some of the Bulgars rode out to pillage the suburbs beyond the wall. And, to my surprise, one of the locals rode into our camp. He did not come alone, either. but at the head of a flock of some five hundred sheep chivvied along by a couple of herdsmen who looked as if they wished they were somewhere, anywhere, else.
The man on horseback- a young fellow, probably born about the time I succeeded my father- dismounted and prostrated himself before me. In a loud voice, he said, "Emperor Justinian, I bring your army these sheep, and with them I bring myself." His Greek had some of the same Syrian flavor as that of the frontier guards the Bulgars had captured.
"Rise," I told him, and he did, with the fluid grace of a well-trained warrior. "I accept the sheep, and I accept you as well," I said. "Tell me your name, so that I may know whom I thank."
"Emperor," he said, "my name is Leo."
MYAKES
Yes, Brother Elpidios, that Leo, the one who's Emperor now. Up till then, nobody outside of Mesembria had ever heard of him, nor many folk inside Mesembria, either. But he found himself a way to get noticed, that he did. When everybody else was running away from Justinian, he ran toward him.
What? What would he have done if Justinian had lost? Probably gone back to Mesembria and tried like the devil to pretend he never had anything to do with him. He likely would have got away with it, too. Leo was the sort of fellow who could tell you the sun rose in the west, and you'd believe him.
Yes, you're right, Brother. It's just the same way as Leo has moved against the holy icons, as a matter of fact. When he took the throne, he swore he wouldn't fool around with the faith, didn't he? Of course he did. Every Emperor does. But then a few years later he started going on about whether it was proper to make images at all, and- what was it? last year? year before last?- didn't he toss the patriarch out on his ear and put in his own man?