Among the most consistently pro-Roman tribes in the Caucasus is that of the Alans. The followers of the false prophet, however, had recently extended their influence over the Alans' neighbors, the Abasgians. Fearing they would be next, the Alans sent an envoy to me, seeking aid against their neighbors, who now had Arab soldiers alongside them.
"I know the very man to lead your resistance against the deniers of Christ," I exclaimed. "I shall give you my own spatharios, Leo, who by his nature is well suited both to war and to complex bargaining." I spoke with vehemence enough to impress the Alan greatly, nor was I telling him anything less than the truth. "With him I shall send the sum of five thousand nomismata, that he may hire soldiers or make bargains"- a euphemism for pay bribes-"as he sees fit."
"God bless you, Emperor!" the Alan exclaimed. "You have given me and my prince more than we dared expect."
"Leo shall sail for Phasis, the Black Sea port onto which your country opens, no later than next week. I am confident he will do great things for you."
If Leo suspected he was being banished, he gave no sign of it. "I'll tie their tails in knots, Emperor," he said. "Send me after them. I haven't been on that side of the world since I was a little boy, and never up in those mountains." He smiled. "I hear the women in the Caucasus are pretty, too."
"Business before pleasure," I said sternly.
"Oh, of course," he answered, as if surprised I could have thought anything else. "But if pleasure comes along, I won't send it packing." Given his philanderings here in the imperial city, I believed him.
He sailed for Phasis a few days later, along with the Alan envoy and the gold. In due course, he reached the town on the eastern shore of the Black Sea and wrote to me that he was going into the interior of the country there, leaving the money behind so that it would remain safe until such time as he decided exactly how it might best be disbursed.
Having heard that much from him, I put him out of my mind. The Caucasus being so remote, his success, if he found some, would be gratifying but not vital, while his failure would not send an Arab host storming toward Constantinople, as had happened in the days of my youth. I wondered if he would prove as ingenious as he appeared.
And then, a few weeks later, Helias brought before me a little old wrinkled man who stank of leather. "Emperor, this is Theodoulos, the bootmaker who fashions the imperial footgear. Tell the Emperor what you've told me, Theodoulos."
"Yes, yes," Theodoulos said- thickly, for he had only a few teeth. "This Leo, this spatharios"- a word on account of which he sprayed me with spittle-"he came into my shop, and he asked me, he did, he asked me\a160…"
"What did he ask you?" I demanded.
"Yes, yes, that's right. He did ask me," Theodoulos said. "He asked me, he did, all right-"
"The dye," Helias prompted.
"No, no, not ready to die yet," Theodoulos said, though at that moment he was closer to dying than he knew. But then, somewhere in the darkness of his wits, a lamp was lighted. "Oh, the dye. Yes, yes. Leo, he asked me, he did, what dye it was I used to get just that shade of, shade of, shade of, of red on the imperial boots."
"Did he?" I said. "He had no business asking you that." That shade of red is reserved for the Emperor alone. Had Leo not been interested in becoming Emperor, it would not have concerned him.
"Emperor, you should recall him and strike off his disloyal head," Helias said.
"I should like to recall him and strike off his head," I answered, "but, if I should, do you think him more likely to come back to the imperial city or go over to the Abasgians?" Helias's face told me what he thought. Thinking the same thing myself, I went on in meditative tones: "A man with his gift for intrigue could severely trouble the Roman Empire."
"That is so, Emperor," Helias admitted, "but will you let him go free and show others closer to home a man can prosper through treason?"
"He shall not prosper," I said, and then again, in an altogether different, almost startled, tone of voice, "He shall not prosper."
"What will you do?" Helias asked me.
"That is my affair," I answered, not wanting him to get a glimpse of the way my mind worked: though dispraising Leo's disloyalty, he might have some of his own. To Theodoulos, I said, "Half a pound of gold to you for what you have told me of Leo."
"God bless you, Emperor," the bootmaker exclaimed, and prostrated himself again.
Dismissing him and Helias, I called for a secretary. The man having arrived, I dictated a letter. When I had finished, I said, "I shall want a fair copy of that before noon, so that I can sign it. It must be on a dromon bound for Phasis this afternoon."
"Yes, Emperor," the scribe replied. "Of course, Emperor." He knew perfectly well what would happen to him did he fail. But, being employed to write, write he did, and I affixed my signature in the scarlet ink reserved for the holder of the imperial dignity. A courier on a fast horse took the letter to the harbor and stayed there until with his own eyes he had seen the dromon depart.
It returned to this God-guarded city within three days of the time I had reckoned to be the fastest possible. Its captain, a weatherbeaten veteran named Agapetos, hastened to the Blakhernai palace as soon as it tied up at one of the quays along the Golden Horn. On being told he had come, I summoned him directly into my presence and even forgave him the time-wasting ritual of prostration. "Tell me at once whether you have accomplished the task I set you," I said.
"Emperor, I have," Agapetos answered. "The gold the spatharios Leo left behind in Phasis was still there. Obedient to your command, I took charge of it and have returned it to Constantinople. Even as we speak, it is being carried back to the imperial treasury."
"Splendid," I said, and then again, "Splendid. Pharaoh of Egypt set the Israelites to making bricks without straw, and an ambassador without money is as useless as a brick that has no straw. The native tribes of the Caucasus will surely complete Leo's ruination."
"Yes, Emperor." Agapetos did not ask why I wanted Leo ruined. That was not his affair, and he knew it. He made the perfect sort of servant for me: he did exactly as he was told, he did it well, and he never, ever, asked why.
I always kept close track of the ships coming to this God-guarded and imperial city from Kherson, Phanagoria, and the other towns on the northern coast of the Black Sea. I had scores still unsettled with the folk of those regions; the more I learned of their doings, the better I could prepare my own when that time came.
Not long after I gave Leo his comeuppance, a ship captain out of Phanagoria sought me out, coming to the palace at Blakhernai. When the eunuch Theophylaktos learned what message he bore, he passed him on to me. "Say on," I told the captain after he had prostrated himself.
"Thank you, Emperor," he answered. "As I said to your steward here, along with my usual wax and tallow and hides, I have a message from the khagan of the Khazars for you."
"Do you?" I murmured. "Ibouzeros Gliabanos has not had much to say to me since I returned to Constantinople. I thought he owned a sense of shame. Maybe I was wrong. Well, what does he say?"
"Emperor," the captain said uncomfortably, "he asks your leave to come to Constantinople himself, to visit his sister and you."
Had I been drinking wine, I daresay I should have choked. As it was, I coughed a couple of times before saying, "He does, does he? He dares?"
"Aye," the unhappy emissary answered. "He told me to tell you he didn't kill you when you were in his capital, and he thought you'd do him the same favor. He's camped on the steppe near Phanagoria, waiting for your word. If I tell him you grant him leave, he'll sail with me, my next trip into the city."
For one of the rare times in my life, I was not instantly certain what to do. Tell Ibouzeros Gliabanos to stay far away? Tell him to come and then slay him? Had he not been my wife's brother, I should have done that, but he was. Tell him to come and let him escape? I had gone safe out of Atil, regardless of what happened later. But letting anyone escape my vengeance had become bitter as wormwood, bitter as myrrh, to me.