"I shall make a fair copy of that, Emperor, and-" the scribe began.
"Never mind." I snatched the papyrus from his hands, scrawled my signature below the order, and thrust it at the messenger. "Take this back to your ship. Take it across the Black Sea. Deliver it to the officers there. It requires immediate obedience."
Even then, the scapegrace tried to argue with me: "Emperor, it's late in the sailing season. If a storm comes up on the sea-"
"It will drown a lot of whoresons who deserve nothing better," I said. "Now get out of my sight, while you still have a head on your shoulders." He fled. So did the scribe.
Dear God, how am I to carry out my vow of vengeance for Thee if the men through whom I must do my work thwart me at every turn?
"The fleet from Kherson is returning, Emperor." The messenger spoke the words, then withdrew from my presence as quick as boiled asparagus. I terrify everyone these days: my power is very great.
Riding out to the harbor to meet the incoming dromons, I saw but a remnant of the great expeditionary force I had sent forth. I went out to the very end of a pier and shouted a question at the closest ship: "Where is the rest of the fleet?"
"Sunk or scattered, Emperor." The answer came faint and thin over the sea. "We fought through a storm, and we must have lost thousands."
I threw back my head and laughed till the tears came. "Just what you deserved," I said. "See how God punished your disobedience to me? If you'd done as you were told, you will still be safe and comfortable in Kherson."
What was left of the expedition against Kherson limped into port. I confess to exulting on seeing the poor, mean state they made: a visible exemplification of what fate reserves for those who heed not the commands of the Emperor of the Romans.
From one of the battered dromons came Mauros. Seeing me waiting for him on the pier, he fell to his knees and then to his belly. With his face still pressed to the tarred planks, he said, "Forgive us, Emperor- I beg you! We did not fully grasp the depth of your wrath against the Khersonites."
Instead of giving him leave to rise, I kicked him in the ribs, as I had with the rebellious bishop, Flavius. "Lackwit!" I shouted, and kicked him again. "Cretin!" Another kick. "Jackass!" Another. "All you had to do was do as you were told. I wanted everyone in Kherson dead, every building wrecked. Now I'll have to send out another expedition to do a proper job of smashing things up."
He did not move as I kicked him; had he moved, I should have ordered him put to the sword on the spot. "Mercy, Emperor!" he gasped on my falling silent. "Mercy, I beg of you."
"That depends on whether you deserve it," I answered. "Where are Helias and Stephen? Did they drown? Are they here?"
"Neither one," he said. "They're still back in Kherson. When your order to return reached us, they didn't dare come back to the Queen of Cities to face you. I dared, and here I am."
For that, I let him get to his feet. "What of Bardanes?" I asked him.
"He is staying in Kherson, too," Mauros replied, adding, "and he was the one who kept us from killing the children there, as you commanded."
"A rebel, in other words," I said, and Mauros nodded. "And Helias and Stephen are either rebels, too, or will be rebels in short order." Mauros nodded again, as if to say he himself was the soul of virtue. That I discounted, though his presence in Constantinople spoke better of him than the others' ominous absence. "The next force I send will bring them all back in chains for my judgment."
"Emperor, you should know you've frightened all the towns in those regions," Mauros said. "The next fleet you send may find nowhere to land, and the men may have to fight their way ashore if by some chance it does gain an anchorage. The Khazars can send soldiers to those parts faster and easier than we can."
"And I let Ibouzeros Gliabanos live!" I cried, striking my forehead with the heel of my hand in bitter repentance for that folly.
"No doubt you thought it was best at the time," Mauros said, giving me what sympathy he could.
I would not hear him. Every curse I had hurled at the army he and Helias and Stephen commanded, I now rained down on my own head. Slowly and with no small struggle, I returned to myself. "If those traitors refuse to do my will," I ground out, "I shall have to force them to obedience, as I aimed to force Kherson and the other cities up in the north to obedience."
"What shall I do?" Mauros asked.
"You?" I withered him with a glare. "You'll stay here in the city, that's what, and better than you deserve." He bowed his head. Seeing the nape of his neck, I nearly ordered his head stricken from his shoulders on the instant. He had, however, returned to Constantinople in the face of my known displeasure, this bespeaking a certain basic loyalty to my cause. On account of it, I let him live, and am still wondering whether I made the proper choice.
"Punishment," I said.
The men whom I had summoned to the Blakhernai palace nodded solemnly. So much military talent having been invested in the previous expedition against Kherson, I was reduced to leaders I should not otherwise have chosen. Christopher, the officer whom I had recently sent to command the new military district of the Thrakesians, chanced to be in the imperial city. He at least was certain to know his business. With John, the city prefect, and George the Syrian, my minister of public finance, I fear that their undoubted loyalty counted for more than their military talent.
George had a guttural accent that put me in mind of Pope Constantine's. "How are we to bring back Helias and Stephen and Bardanes?" he asked.
"However seems best once you've crossed the Black Sea," I answered. "I can't give you a large army- I don't have a large army to give you- but the rebels will not have any great force behind them, either."
"What about the Khazars, Emperor?" Christopher asked. A sensible soldier, he studied the ground before advancing over it.
The question was sour as vinegar in my ears, and burned my wounded spirit as vinegar burns wounded flesh. "I will give you the tudun to restore to his place," I said. "And I will even give you that whoreson Zo\a239los, to sweeten up the Khersonites and help detach them from the rebels."
"I hope that works," John said. "By God, I hope that works. What sort of shape are the two of them in, Emperor?"
"No one has been carving pieces off them, if that's what you mean," I told the city prefect. By the way he nodded, that was exactly what he had meant.
"You are merciful, Emperor," George the Syrian exclaimed.
"I am not," I said indignantly; given my vow on Foolish Paul's fishing boat out on the Black Sea was an insult, implying as it did that I was failing to fulfill my promise to God. I went on, "It's only that the executioners and I have been talking about how to make them last longest and hurt most, and haven't got round to working on them yet."
"Whatever the wherefores, they're here, they're whole, and we'll use them," Christopher said. I was glad to have found him within the Queen of Cities; he showed a quick pragmatism that looked like being very useful.
"If you see Ibouzeros Gliabanos, or treat with an envoy of his," I added, "explain that I do not wish to harm him. I could have harmed him here, had I had that in my mind. My aim is to punish Kherson and the other towns in that part of the world for what they did to me when I was exiled to those regions."
"I hope he hears us," said John, who was something less than filled with optimism as to his prospects for success.
"He will hear you," I said. "He will hear you because you speak for me, for Justinian, Emperor of the Romans. He knows my might."
When John, George, and Christopher sailed for Kherson a few days later, I went out to the harbor to watch them depart. The men were quieter than I should have liked. "They aren't happy about sailing at this season of the year, Emperor," one of the ship captains said. "They know how easily it can storm."