"That's just what I'm going to do," I said. "He was loyal to me. How can I be anything but loyal to him? He's earned the patriarchal throne. He'll be glad to get out of Kherson, too- what man wouldn't? But first things first." I started out of the palace, on the mission I had begun when the matter of Kallinikos interrupted me. "I have to see Tervel."
Looking down from the wall at the khagan of the Bulgars, I saw him and his army in a light different from that in which I had viewed him when we marched on Constantinople together. All the gates of the imperial city remained barred against the Bulgars, as against any other barbarians.
From a couple of steps beyond the ditch in front of the wall, Tervel waved to me. "You are on your throne again! Well done!" The words were fulsome enough. The tone\a160… the tone was that a man uses when a friend has some unexpected piece of good fortune fall into his lap: he is glad for his friend, no doubt, but cannot help wondering why the good fortune did not come to him instead.
"I am on my throne again," I agreed, wishing I could repudiate every promise I had made. But, with Apsimaros uncaptured, with his brother Herakleios an important commander in Anatolia, I could not afford to affront the Bulgars. "Now I can give you what I swore would be yours."
Now he hesitated before speaking. He had not thought I should be in a position where I had to make good on my promises. In such a position, I think I startled him by doing so. Carefully, he said, "You will give me your daughter to wed?"
"No, I cannot do that," I said. "I learn that she is a nun, and does not wish to come forth from her convent. But I told you that, if the marriage could not be, I would make you Caesar, and that I will do, and gladly. Come into the city in a week's time, and I will grant you the robe and crown of your office, and rich gifts besides."
"My men, who have come so far for you, would like to see the city before then," he said.
"They may," I said, and he brightened, doubtless hoping I would be foolish enough to allow his whole army into Constantinople at once, thereby giving him the chance to seize it. Quickly, I laid that hope to rest: "They may enter in parties of a hundred, and two hundred may be in the city at any one time. I will stock taverns where they may drink their fill for free, but if they rob or rape or kill, I will punish them as if they were Romans. Agreed?"
"Agreed," he answered. I was not lavish, but neither was I so niggardly as to rouse wrath- and now I held the Queen of Cities.
To show him I would abide by my pledge, I ordered the Kharisian Gate opened at once, that he might send his first contingent of Bulgars into the city. The nomads stared in astonishment at Constantinople, they being even less prepared for its magnificence than my followers from Kherson. Seeing their wonder, I smiled and turned to Myakes, who had accompanied me out to the wall. "I wonder what Theodora will have to say about the imperial city here, thinking she knows all about cities because she has seen Phanagoria."
"That will be something, all right, Emperor," Myakes agreed. He was watching the Bulgars coming into Constantinople. When he saw Roman soldiers accompanying most of them as guides- and, though it remained unsaid, to keep them out of mischief- he relaxed. In thoughtful tones, he asked, "Have you talked to the lady your mother about marrying the Khazar?"
"Not yet," I answered. Then, thoughtful myself, I went on, "I think, for the time being, I shall dwell in the palace at Blakhernai, here in the northwestern part of the city. It will put me close to the encampment of my allies, the Bulgars."
"Uh-huh," Myakes said: a peculiar noise, difficult to transcribe in Greek letters. I took it to mean he was of the opinion I chose that course not because it left me close to the Bulgars but because it left me far from my mother. Such speculation I refused to dignify with a reply.
When I went to the palace in the Blakhernai district, I found only a handful of servants and slaves there, both Leontios and Apsimaros having been in the habit of residing in the grand palace. But many of the servitors there were men and women and eunuchs I had known before my exile. One of the eunuchs explained why that was so: "If we were thought to be loyal to you, Emperor, but the usurpers could not prove treason against us, they sent us away from their presence, to a place where nothing was ever likely to happen."
"They did the same to me," I exclaimed, and the chamberlain bowed low. My exile had been harsher than his, but not even Auriabedas could have repaired his mutilation.
I discussed with the eunuchs at the Blakhernai palace my plan for raising Tervel to the rank of Caesar. The one who had explained why I found so many familiar faces there, a certain Theophylaktos, said, "Where shall we get the proper regalia, Emperor? No one in your house has ever named Caesars, only junior Emperors. We have no proper crowns, we have no proper robes\a160…" Besides such concerns, that Tervel was a barbarous Bulgar faded into insignificance for him.
"Take one of my uncles' crowns and cut off the cross atop it," I said. "Tervel knows that's the difference between an Emperor's crown and a Caesar's, because I told him as much. Since we've had no Caesars for so long, no one in the imperial city will know any more than that."
"True," Theophylaktos said, sounding surprised at having the matter so abruptly settled. Then he looked worried once more. "But what of the robe this Tervel is supposed to wear? The moths will surely have had their way with-"
"So what?" I said. "We'll put him in an imperial robe. No one will know if that's not perfectly proper, either. And no one will care. We'll say it's a Caesar's robe, Tervel will be wearing a Caesar's crown, and we're proclaiming him Caesar. That should settle things."
"Most irregular," the eunuch muttered. But he bowed and composed himself to obey. My entire return to Constantinople had been most irregular, but he did not mention that. Since I was now undisputed master of the imperial city, anything I ordered became regular because I ordered it.
As I had commanded, so it was done. Tervel and his guards quietly came into the city two days before that on which I would fulfill my promise to him. During those two days, he rode through as much of the city as he could, so that I saw little of him. "I never believed my envoys," he said, as he had before. "Now I see they said less than they might have done."
Criers had also gone through the city, ordering the people to appear before the palace of Blakhernai at the start of the fourth hour of the day, to see me create the new Caesar. As my father had crowned me, so I intended to crown Tervel myself. Since I was setting the crown on his head in my capacity as Emperor, the patriarch's presence was superfluous and dispensable. As well, too, for Kallinikos, having tried and failed to reaccommodate himself to me after acquiescing in my overthrow and mutilation, had already sailed off, blinded, into exile at Rome. I felt sure the ship bearing him would reach its destination safe: with him aboard, it would sail before any breeze.
Palace servitors threw coins into the crowd around the rostrum the artisans had hastily erected in front of the Blakhernai palace. Already, the engraver Cyril had provided coins bearing my image and the number twenty, signifying the twentieth year of my reign. By my reckoning, I had never been rightfully removed, and I intended making my reckoning that of the whole Empire.
"Tu vincas, Justinian!" the people shouted as I strode forward to take my place on the platform.
They had acclaimed Leontios and Apsimaros as fervently as they now acclaimed me. How I longed to turn soldiers, Romans and Bulgars together, loose on them, to show them playing the prostitute had its price. Regretfully, I set aside the notion, having made other plans for the day.
"I have conquered," I said. "The wretch who stole my throne lies in prison, while the pirate who robbed him of it in turn has shown his cowardice by fleeing the imperial city. The house of Herakleios is restored, as God ordained."