"They can risk the ocean's storm- or they can risk mine," I said. He bowed his head and went aboard his vessel.
Among those glum soldiers and sailors, one fellow stood out: a tall, gangly man with, I believe, the longest neck I have ever seen. "Smash them all," he said, over and over. "Smash them all." Drawing his sword, he slashed at the air.
"Who is that?" I asked, pointing his way.
"He is one of Mauros's spatharioi," George the Syrian answered. "His name is John, like the city prefect's; they call him Strouthos."
"John the Ostrich, eh? I like that." Strouthos can mean either ostrich or sparrow; since there are many more sparrows than ostriches, that is the more common use of the word. Here, though, the other plainly applied.
George said, "He would make a good hound. He always does as he is told. Now he has been told to kill, which he enjoys."
"Good." I beckoned to the gangly man. "You! John! Come here."
He looked up in some surprise, having been locked in his own private reverie of death and devastation. When he recognized me, his eyes- pale eyes, unusual among us Romans- went wide. He walked over to where I stood and gave me the clumsiest prostration I have ever received in all my years on the throne.
"Rise," I said, and rise he did. I am not short, but he towered over me. "I hear you're quite a killer," I told him.
His face lit up, as if a beautiful woman had said, I hear you're quite a lover. "Emperor, I do my best," he said.
"I hope your best will be very fine indeed," I said. "Kherson has a whole host of men in it who want killing. When your officers point you at those men, I want you to dispose of them without even the sli ghtest thought of mercy. They deserve none. They are my enemies, and the enemies of the Roman Empire."
"They'll tell me what to do," John the Ostrich said, working it out in his mind ahead of time so he would know what to do when the moment came. Had he had to think at the moment of truth, likely he would have failed. "They'll tell me what to do, and I, I'll do it." He did not slash the air again with his sword; the bodyguard standing behind me wordlessly made it plain to even the dullest individual- from which John was not far removed- that doing so would prove fatally unwise.
Although he thought slowly, he had come up with the right answer here. "Obey your officers; they will obey me; all will be well."
John's head bobbed up and down on that long neck like a dandelion puffball in the breeze. "I'll do that, Emperor," he said. "I hope they give me plenty to kill." He prostrated himself again, then went back to his dromon.
"You see, Emperor?" George the Syrian said. "A hired murderer, nothing more, nothing less."
"So less as he is my hired murderer, I don't care," I answered. "Use him with care, lest he turn in your hand."
"Yes," George said heavily. "Too many tools have turned in our hands, there on the far shore of the Black Sea."
"That's why you're going out," I told him: "to turn them back the right way once more." He nodded and boarded ship himself. Seeing him go made me wish he cut a more properly martial figure; in the gilded mail-shirt that showed he was a commander, he looked more like a jumped-up tax collector decked out in armor than a warrior. He was a jumped-up tax collector, of course, but why did he have to look like one?
Betrayed! The Son of God had only one Judas to contend with. Lord, Lord, dear Lord I have worshiped all my life, why inflict them on by the scores? Are my sins so great?
I do not care. It does not matter. They may betray me, but they cannot beat me. Stinking fly-specked turds, they should know that already. If they are too stupid to remember my past, I shall remind them. Oh yes, I shall. I shall flay them and break their bones and slice their flesh and burn their privates with torches and red-hot iron. Then I will roll their bodies in vinegar and brine and draw out their guts a finger's breadth at a time. Last of all, only when they are at the point of death, I shall put out their eyes, that they may have seen what comes of disobedience.
Has Bardanes a wife and children here? Has Helias?
MYAKES
Ever since Justinian came back from Kherson, Brother Elpidios, I'd wondered now and whether he was drinking from a full jar of wine, if you know what I'm saying. I wondered more when he aimed everything he had at Kherson and the other towns on the far side of the Black Sea. Aye, some of the folks up there had done him wrong, but not that wrong. The one who'd done him real dirt was the khagan of the Khazars, but he let him live. Go figure.
When he got the news of what had gone wrong for the second fleet he sent up to Kherson, I really do think he went crazy for a while. What you were just reading there, it sounds like he went crazy, doesn't it?
It happened like this. I was-
What's that, Brother? Why did I keep on serving him if I thought he'd gone mad? No, it wasn't on account of I thought he'd take my head if I quit. I did think that, as a matter of fact, but it wasn't why I stayed. Why, then? You don't understand? I'll tell you why, Brother Elpidios. I guess the easiest way to put it is, I'd been serving him so long, it never even occurred to me I could do anything else. I'd been at his side thirty-five years by then, or maybe a bit more than that. Most marriages don't last so long. Somebody ups and dies, husband or wife.
And besides, every now and then he'd listen to me, a little bit, anyway, and what he'd do wouldn't be as horrible as what he might have done. And so I kept telling myself I was doing some good. And I was. Some good. Looking back, I've got to say it wasn't enough.
Does that answer your question? Good. Where was I, then? Oh, yes. I was heading up the throne-room guards when a messenger came running in. Poor bastard looked scared to death. I found out why a minute later, too- he was the one who had to break the news from across the sea to Justinian.
I've never seen a man who looked so much like he wanted to stay down there forever once he prostrated himself. Justinian had to tell him three different times he could get up before he finally went and did it. "Emperor," he said once he couldn't keep quiet any more, "it's all gone wrong up in Kherson."
"What do you mean, it's gone wrong?" Justinian's voice didn't have any feeling in it anywhere. His eyes, though- his eyes were measuring that messenger for a coffin. I've never seen anything like it in all my born days, and I never will now- that's certain sure.
"It's gone wrong," the messenger repeated, and then, the poor sod, he had to tell how. "We landed outside Kherson," he said, "and Helias and Bardanes and the Khersonites and the Khazars said they wanted a parley. So George and John and Christopher went into the city with the tudun and Zo\a239los- they were going to give them back anyway, you know- and-"
Justinian clapped a hand to his forehead. "Don't tell me they were such imbeciles as to go alone?" he said, like a man in pain.
"Emperor, they were," the messenger said miserably, "and the Khersonites slammed the gates shut on them, and there wasn't anything any of us could do about it, on account of we were outside and they were inside. And they didn't come out and they didn't come out, and then the gates opened up again all of a sudden, and our people didn't come out, but\a160… well, they did, because the Khazars had George's head on a pike and John's on another one, and we weren't ready to fight them, not really, so they must have captured a couple-three hundred of us, and then-"
"What of Christopher?" Justinian broke in.
"I don't know, Emperor," the fellow answered.
I didn't know then, either. Years later, cooped up here in the monastery, I found out. The Khersonites and the Khazars in Kherson sent the tudun and Zo\a239los and all the prisoners off to Ibouzeros Gliabanos. Along the way, the tudun died. They slaughtered Christopher and all the captured soldiers- I heard three hundred, but I don't know if that's right or not- to give him slaves in the next world. They aren't Christians, the Khazars, not even close.