He rose from his prostration. He was a frightened man. I could see white all around the irises of his eyes. "You summoned me, Emperor," he said. "I am here to serve you." His voice did not waver. I give him so much.
"And serve me you shall," I said. "You came back when the others stayed in Kherson to betray me. I thank you for that. Now you shall be the instrument through which I chastise them."
"Tell me what you require, Emperor, and I shall give it to you. You need have no doubt of that." Again, Mauros sounded sure of himself.
I was also sure of myself. "I shall give you another fleet, Mauros," I told him. His eyes kindled. I give few men the chance to redeem themselves. He knew it full well. "Along with the fleet, I shall give you catapults and rams and every sort of siege engine we have stored here in our armories and arsenals."
"You will want me to take Kherson, then," he said.
"Not only that. I want you to raze the walls to the foundations. It will never close itself up against me again."
"I am here to serve you," Mauros repeated.
I held up my hand. "I was not finished," I told him. He hung his head in sorrow because he interrupted me. I gave him time to reflect on his many sins. He may have sinned against God. He had surely sinned against me. I went on, "I intend for you to slay every man, woman, and child inside the walls."
"I understand, Emperor," he said.
"You had better." I know I sounded angry. I was angry. Mauros cringed. That pleased me. "If you and Stephen and Helias had done what I ordered you to do in the first place, we would not have trouble now. The Khersonites would be dead. They deserve death. Helias would be my governor in that part of the world. Any number of unfortunate things would not have happened. They would have had no need to happen."
Mauros licked his lips. He knew how I had punished Helias through his children and through Zoe. "You will have no cause to be disappointed in me, Emperor," he said.
"I expect to be pleased with you, Mauros, not disappointed," I replied. "In fact, I can think of only one thing that would disappoint me."
He licked his lips once more. With great care, he said, "Since I do not wish to disappoint you in any way, Emperor, please tell me what that one thing is, so I may be certain to avoid it."
"Failure," I said.
"Emperor?" His face went blank. Artfully blank? I do not think so. I think he simply did not understand.
"Failure." I said it again. "Carry out your orders as I have given them to you and all will be well. Do anything but carry out my orders, fail in any particular, and by God and His Son, Mauros, I swear you will end up envying Helias before I am through with you. I will slaughter every kinsman of yours, no matter how distant. I will kill every friend you have. I will kill every shopkeeper you ever met. Every one of them will have a long, hard time dying. You will watch them with the one eye I leave you after the executioners do their first work. Then, maybe, if you are lucky, you will- eventually- die, too."
He quivered. "Emperor, I have already told you I will do everything in my power to see your will is done in Kherson. But, but-"
"I shall accept no excuses here, Mauros," I broke in. "None. Do you hear me? Succeed, and I will reward you richly. Fail, and you pay the price of failure. Sometimes the world is a very simple place."
"But, Emperor, God is greater than I am," he said. "God is even greater than you, Emperor. It is possible, by His will, that I fail through no fault of my own. What if the Khazars come back to Kherson? How can I fight them and the Khersonites at the same time?"
"I did not summon you here to listen to excuses," I snapped. "If you do not command this expedition, you shall be judged to have have failed in advance. Everything of which I spoke just now will fall due. Shall I have the excubitores lay hold of you, so I can begin on your relatives?"
"Have mercy, Emperor!" he wailed. "I shall do as you bid me."
"Good. As I said, it is very simple. Avenge the Roman Empire- avenge me, the Emperor of the Romans- on Kherson and the Khersonites. It should not be difficult in any way. The town is small and half barbarous. Only if you fail me have you any need to fear. And you shall not fail me, shall you, Mauros?"
"Emperor, I dare not," he said. I nodded in approval. At last, he understood everything he needed to understand.
Mauros's fleet is now sailing for Kherson. I wish it had left a few days sooner. Loading the necessary siege gear onto the transports did take time. If I had only wanted to execute Mauros, I did not need to send him on an expedition bound to fail to give myself an excuse. I could have taken his head and had done. I care nothing for Mauros, one way or the other. I want Kherson in ruins and its people dead. They deserve to be dead.
With the fleet sail a number of light, swift vessels. Through them, I shall learn everything that happens in the northern region. "The season is late, Emperor," Myakes said when he heard me order them along. "We've already had storms. You're liable not to see some of those little fellows again."
"I don't care," I answered. "Some will get through. They will tell me what I need to know. The rest can sink, and their sailors drown." I glared at him. "Are you a traitor, too? Do you want to keep me in the shadows of ignorance? I know there are traitors everywhere, Myakes, but I had not suspected you."
"If you think I am a traitor, you know you can take my head," Myakes said stolidly. "I won't run away."
I let him live. Perhaps it is a mistake. So many have betrayed me lately, why not Myakes as well? But I would, I think, sooner suspect Theodora, her brother after all being the altogether unreliable Ibouzeros Gliabanos, whose eyes I should have burned from his head when he dared show his altogether despised countenance here in the Queen of Cities, whose skin I should have flayed from his shrieking, bleeding carcass in digit-wide strips, whose life I should have taken from him as he purposed taking mine from me.
Well, if I should change my mind and decide the captain of excubitores needs death, he was right to remind me I can give it to him at any time. I shall sleep on it and see what I decide in the morning.
MYAKES
So he was thinking of getting rid of me, was he, Brother Elpidios? It makes me sad, I won't say it doesn't. But if I told you it surprises me, I'd be lying. There at the end, nobody and nothing was safe from him. His mind must have been slipping- do you notice how his writing is different all of a sudden? These last few sections, the only time he wrote fancy was when he was thinking of how he wanted to torture his brother-in-law before he killed him.
Remember, a lot of people had betrayed him by then. Of course, one of the reasons they betrayed him was that they hadn't done or hadn't been able to do what he'd ordered. They figured he'd kill them if they came home after that, so why not rebel instead? If they won, they'd live, and if they didn't, he couldn't kill 'em any deader than he would have otherwise.
And once the first people started betraying him, he thought everybody would. That just made things worse. He didn't pick what you'd call smart ways to stop it, either, did he? That business with Mauros, now. Any which way, it was going to make Mauros hate him. If Mauros takes Kherson and slaughters everybody in it, he still comes back hating Justinian. And if he doesn't take it\a160… He'd come back once after things went wrong, and look at the thanks he got for it. Would you call twice tempting fate? Would Mauros? How much could Justinian expect any man to bear?
He'd borne a lot himself. It made him expect a lot, too.
JUSTINIAN
God and His Son Jesus Christ be praised, the accursed usurper and traitors and rebels in Kherson shall soon receive some of the punishment they deserve; even though death in battle is a quicker end than they deserve, I trust the Lord Almighty to make their eternal fate correspondingly more painful as recompense for His mercy in this transient world.