They were just beginning to exclaim at the Milion at the end of the Mese, and at the church of the Holy Wisdom not far past, when I, refusing to be distracted, led them south off the Mese toward the palace. "Gawk later," I said harshly.
Torches and bonfires blazed all around the palace, a low, rambling building. People streamed in and out, some soldiers, some not. I had never seen, never dreamed of such activity late at night; the palace might have been an anthill stirred by a stick. Before long, thanks to the abundant light, someone spied me and my followers and loosed a nervous challenge: "Who comes?"
"Justinian, Emperor of the Romans!" I shouted back. Audacity and only audacity had brought me so far. Never again would I put my faith in anything else.
Myakes plucked at my torn sleeve. "Emperor, they outnumber us a hundred to one. If they-"
"Shut up," I snapped, for everyone who had heard my voice was staring my way. I brandished my sword, as if to say I would cut down the first man who dared defy my right to rule.
Still sounding very nervous indeed, the fellow who had challenged me said, "The Emperor, uh, Tiberius, uh, Apsimaros, uh, the usurper, hearing you had somehow sneaked into, uh, come into the imperial, he, uh, well, he took flight is what he did. Half an hour ago- can't be more. So, uh, the palace is yours. Welcome, uh, welcome home, Justinian, Emperor of the Romans!"
"Tu vincas, Justinian!" people shouted, as if I were being acclaimed for the first time.
I waved the sword again. Silence fell; I might have slashed at speech. "I am not becoming Emperor of the Romans," I said. "I am Emperor of the Romans. I have been Emperor of the Romans. All this is mine by right." For ten long, lonely, dreadful years I had said that, in Kherson, in Doros, in Atil, in Phanagoria, in the land of the Bulgars. How many had believed me? I had half a dozen men at my back here, no more. But I had been right all along. BOOK D
JUSTINIAN
As word spread from the palace that Apsimaros had run away, both those who had thought to stay loyal to him and the cursed lukewarm saw I looked like winning and came over to me. By sunrise, fighting had ceased.
By sunrise, also, I had ordered a house-to-house search for the fugitive usurper. Alas, it did not catch him in its net. A naval officer before presuming to advance his station, he escaped the city in a small boat. I offered a large reward to anyone who would bring him to me alive. "Or if not," I said, "his head will do." I laughed. How I laughed!
My mother wept to see me, even though, by the time she did, I had changed from the filthy tunic in which I entered Constantinople into a robe suited for the Emperor of the Romans. We embraced as if we had never exchanged harsh words. "My son," she said, and then, proving herself of my house in spirit if not in blood, "you are avenged."
"Not yet," I answered. "Not fully. Not till Apsimaros stands before me, loaded with chains. But he will." I smacked one fist into the other palm. "And Leontios and Kallinikos are already in the hollow of my hand." I smiled, anticipating.
"Your face," she said sadly. "Your poor face."
"It could be worse," I told her. "Leontios is uglier than I am these days, by all I hear. And he'll be uglier yet when I'm through with him." I changed the subject: "Tell me- my daughter Epiphaneia, is she well?"
My mother's face glowed as if a lamp shone through it. "She is indeed. Do you know, I think this may be the first time you have ever asked after her."
"Is she wed?" I persisted, wondering which half of my bargain I would have to keep with Tervel.
"No," my mother replied. "Neither of the usurpers would permit her betrothal. They feared any man who married her would plot against them because of who she was. And, of course, she was still very young while Leontios disgraced the throne. In fact, she-"
"Good." I interrupted her. "If she is unwed, I can marry her off to Tervel the Bulgar, to repay him for the men who helped put me back on the throne." Without those men, I never would have been able to approach the city and enter the pipe that brought me into it. Tervel might not have been confident of my triumph, but had helped make it possible- and his army remained encamped just beyond the wall. Keeping our bargain seemed the better part of wisdom.
"You would give the child of your flesh to minister to the lusts of a barbarian?" my mother whispered, turning pale. "It cannot be."
"If she is still unmarried, it shall be," I said. "It's either that or let Tervel tear up the countryside- and break my oath to him, too."
"It cannot be," my mother repeated, more firmly this time. "As she judged herself unlikely to be allowed to wed a man, she became a bride of Christ year before last, and dwells in the nunnery dedicated to the Mother of God near the Forum of Arkadios."
"In that case, you're right- it cannot be," I agreed. "I'll have to name the Bulgar Caesar instead." She began to gabble at that, too, so I left her. Not even the Emperor's mother may scold him against his will, a telling proof of the power inherent in the imperial dignity.
On leaving her, I intended to go and speak with Tervel, but Leo and some city folk I did not know hailed Kallinikos before me. "Emperor!" cried the patriarch, prostrating himself before me when his captives released him so he could do so. "Congratulations on your glorious return to the imperial city!"
I stared at him. He was, I saw to my astonishment, so base of soul as to be absolutely sincere. He had abandoned me to consecrate Leontios, abandoned Leontios to crown Apsimaros, and now stood ready, or rather sprawled ready, to abandon Apsimaros for me once more. He had the perfect temperament for a whore. A patriarch, however, needed judging by different standards.
"Wretch!" I shouted, and kicked him in the face- not hard, not even hard enough to break his nose. "You are the spineless slug who announced Leontios's accession with the opening words of the Easter service, as if he were Christ come again. And now you think you can serve me once more? You have never been so wrong in all your life, and that says a great deal."
"Mercy!" he wailed, as he should have done from the beginning- not that it would have helped him, not that anything would have helped him.
"When I was coming down to Constantinople, I swore a great oath to have mercy on none of my enemies," I replied. He shrank in on himself, like a loaf of bread falling when the oven door opens at the wrong time. Then, thoughtfully, I asked, "Has the pope in Rome yet accepted the canons of my fifth-sixth synod?"
Blood dripped down his cheek where I had kicked him. Though he still groveled on his belly before me, his face showed sudden hope. "No, Emperor, the wicked, stubborn fellow has not. He still thunders defiance at the synod inspired by the Holy Spirit. Only spare me, and I shall send anathemas against him that-"
"Be silent," I told him, and he was silent. After some little while passed in thought, I snapped my fingers and smiled. "I have it! The very thing!"
"Excommunication?" Kallinikos asked. "A drastic step, Emperor, but, should you require it, I-"
"Be silent," I said again, and then spoke to Leo: "Take him to the executioners. Let him be blinded with red-hot irons, and then let him be exiled to Rome. Thus I not only punish his betrayal but also warn the pope, whatever his name is these days…" Kallinikos did not answer, past bleating like a ram as it is made into a wether. No one else knew. Shrugging, I went on, "Whoever the pope is, he needs to remember I have my eye on him." I pointed to Kallinikos. "Take this offal away."
Away he went, still bleating. I never saw him again. He never saw anything again. Leo was laughing as he led him thither. "You'll need a new patriarch now," Myakes remarked.
"I know," I answered. "I have the man, too: one who was loyal to me at cost to himself, not disloyal at gain for himself."
Myakes looked sly. "I know what you're going to do: you're going to name Cyrus."