"Yes, Emperor," they chorused. "As you command, so shall we do."
"Good, good," I said. "I have waited six years for this moment. You will understand that I want it done perfectly, just as I say it must be."
"Yes, Emperor," they repeated.
"Very well," I said. When they started to leave my presence, I held up a hand. "Wait. One thing more." They looked most earnest and attentive. I continued, "I have given Bardanes Philippikos leave to sail with you as an officer in charge of a troop of soldiers. Watch him closely. If he performs his duty well, I want to know of it. If he performs poorly or shows any sign of disloyalty, I want to know that, too."
"Yes, Emperor," they said yet again, knowing they held Bardanes' life in the hollow of their hands. Although I had permitted the exile to return from Kephallenia after I ousted Apsimaros, I had heeded Myakes to the extent of not entrusting him with any position great or small, merely suffering him to live in Constantinople as a private citizen. He having begged me to let him prove himself- I would die for you, Emperor, he wrote in his petition- I granted him this small boon. If he lied, he would indeed die for me.
At the harbor the next day, when the fleet was to sail for Kherson, Bardanes came up and prostrated himself before me. "Emperor, by God and His Son, I swear to you, you shall not regret this choice," he said.
"Words are free," I said. "Words are easy. Show me what you do, Bardanes. Deeds mark a man. Show me what you do, not what you say. Helias and the others proved themselves that way."
His handsome, swarthy face assumed an injured expression. "Did I not prove myself, Emperor, when I saved you from the Sklavinian hiding in the stream?"
"A lifetime ago," I told him, adding, "Before you began to dream of eagles." Swarthy though he was, he flushed. "Perhaps that was but happenstance. Perhaps it was but foolishness," I went on, thinking as I had always thought that ever mentioning it was certainly foolishness. "But, because of it, you shall have to earn your way into my esteem once more."
"Emperor, I will!" he cried, so fervently that he was either sincere or one of the worst actors ever born.
And so he accompanies the fleet, its commanders having been warned to take careful notice of everything he does. If he is indeed as devoted to me as he proclaims, he will make a useful servant, being a man both clever and daring. The only one who I am certain surpasses him in those regards is Leo, and Leo lingers yet in the Caucasus. If he were here, I think I would see how clever he was without a head.
Strange. When I took up this writing, recording what I recall of my deeds and my life, I was chronicling the distant past. Now at last, having spent more than a year and a half on the task, I have reached the present day. Having said everything I have to say, I can but set these words aside and await further occurrences.
And yet, having taken up the pen, I find myself loath to put it down. Writing has grown to be a habit as regular as a goblet of wine with my meals, and as pleasurable. Flipping through these leaves, I see I have been very frank- perhaps too frank. I suppose, to keep my pen busy, I could go through this volume and excise those portions not fully redounding to my credit. That, too, would be writing of a sort. But what point to it? No one's eyes but mine shall ever see these words, I am certain of that. Theodora and Myakes are the only ones who know the nature of this exercise. In the great scheme of things, Myakes is of no consequence, however agreeable he has been to me over the years. And my wife, I am certain, will let nothing damaging to me ever see the light of day.
Let the words stand, then. Let them stand. Now I wait, and shall write more as the stream of time brings fresh events to my view.
I was tempted to record the news from Kilikia, which is very much of a piece with that of the previous year. But the fortresses we Romans lost are of such small consequence that I need not waste ink setting down their names. In any case, I will set all that aright in next year's campaigning season, or at the latest two years hence. Kherson and the surrounding towns come first.
What does prompt me to take up the pen is the first word from the fleet that had crossed the Black Sea. The word is good. In high excitement, the messenger from the dromon newly tied up at the Golden Horn told me, "Emperor, Kherson is ours. The folk there weren't expecting us, and they didn't even try to fight back."
"Splendid," I told him. "What went on before you sailed back here?"
He began telling off points on his fingers. "We have the Khazars' tudun there, and a fellow named Zo\a239los-"
"I remember Zo\a239los," I said. "A rascal if ever there was one."
"Yes, Emperor," he said. "We also have forty other prominent men from Kherson, all of them in bonds the whole way across the Black Sea."
"Good enough, good enough," I told him. "The executioners have been pining for want of fresh meat, and now they have it. Well, go on."
"When Mauros and Stephen and Helias got Kherson in their grasp, Emperor, they took seven other rich men and roasted them on spits over a bonfire," the messenger reported. "I saw that with my own eyes. They screamed for a long time, and the smell of cooking meat made you hungry till you remembered what it was. And they-"
I held up a hand. "Wait." I tried to decide whether I wanted the executioners to imitate what my men in Kherson had done. The savor of roasting meat would be very fine, but giving such specific orders was liable to cramp the executioners' style, depriving them of the opportunity to exercise their ingenuity. Realizing I did not have to settle such affairs on the instant, I waved for the fellow to continue.
He said, "Emperor, then they took twenty more men, tied their hands behind them and put them on a ship out past the harbor. They cast boulders onto the ship till it sank and drowned the prisoners."
"That sounds like a lot of trouble for a small result," I said critically. "They could have tied each man to a boulder and pushed him off a gangplank to accomplish the same thing. If they'd set the boat on fire, now- but they were using fire for the other torture, weren't they?" I sighed. "Well, we can't have everything. I suppose they thought it made a good spectacle."
"I wouldn't know anything about that," the messenger said.
"All right. Let it go, let it go," I said, inclined to be generous. "In the general massacre, it wouldn't have mattered much, anyhow. Men, women, children-" Something changed in the messenger's face, although I doubt he was even aware of it. Sharply, I demanded, "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," he said, but then, seeing deception useless, he changed his tune: "Emperor, not all the children are dead. The soldiers and sailors saved some, because they were so young, you understand, to sell into slavery, and-"
"They did what?" I said, and the messenger turned pale. "They did what? They disobeyed my direct order? They ignored the will of the Emperor of the Romans? Have they gone mad?"
Miserably, the man said, "I don't think so, Emperor. It's just that- killing children is hard, even for soldiers with orders. If they were slaves – "
"Fools!" I shouted. "Blunderers!" I bellowed. "Idiots!" I screamed. "Is it so hard for them to do as they are told? No more, no less? Is it so hard?" I hit the messenger in the face. He staggered back, clutching at his mouth with both hands. "Answer me!" I roared.
I had split his lower lip; blood dribbled down his chin and into his beard. "For-for-forgive them, Emperor," he stuttered. "They meant no harm."
"So you say," I sneered. "I shall hear it from the lips of the men I sent to Kherson to do a simple job." After shouting for a scribe, I dictated an order to him: "Mauros, Stephen, and Helias are commanded to return to this God-guarded and imperial city with the flee t entrusted to them in order that they might attempt to explain to their sovereign the gross dereliction of duty of which they are guilty."