Anyway, it didn't work. Helias had told John to get rid of Tiberius, and John wasn't about to change his mind once he got told to kill somebody. And Mauros hated Justinian almost as much as Helias did- you've seen why. He said, "Helias's children were too little to hurt anybody, too."
John the Ostrich didn't waste time arguing with Anastasia. He went into the church, broke Tiberius's grip on the altar, took the holy wood away from him and tossed it down on the altartop, and then put Tiberius's amulets around his own neck. I don't know why he bothered. They hadn't done Tiberius any good. He brought out the brat. Then he and Mauros took him over to a little porch close by, stripped off his robe, stretched him out like a sheep at slaughtering time, and cut his throat.
When the horseman told all this to Justinian, he just sat there on top of his own horse for the longest time. Then he said, "I will kill them all." He brought it out flat, the way I'd heard him do before, the way that would make you feel like somebody stuffed a handful of snow down the back of your tunic. Not this time, though. The words were there, but not the fury that made them frightening. Something had broken inside of Justinian. I don't know how to put it any better than that. For as long as I'd known him, he'd always been the one to grab fate by the balls and squeeze till things happened the way he wanted them to happen. Not any more. Not after that. He wasn't doing the moving. He was being moved instead.
I don't think I was the only one who felt that, or who felt something like it. I don't know how many men we had when we made camp that night, there under St. Auxentios's hill. I do know one thin g, though: the next morning, we had a lot fewer.
Justinian was going to talk about that, wasn't he? Why don't you pick up from where you stopped when I started running my mouth?
JUSTINIAN
Barisbakourios is gone. To think- I called him loyal. Many men from the military district of the Opsikion with him. And some of the Thrakesians. And some of the Bulgars, too. The ship sinks. The rats dive into the sea. Fools. No safe harbor near. Can the ship float? Does it matter?
I am forty-two. I think I am forty-two. My father did not live so long. Nor my grandfather. Nor my great-grandfather. I am old. I burn hard. I burn fast. Now I burn out.
Theodora beside me. She does not weep. She cuts her cheeks. Blood flows, not tears. Nomads mourn so. She forgets she is a Christian. God forgets I am a Christian.
Scouts must go forward. Rebels between us and Chalcedon? Followers of the usurper? Must know. Can we get to Chalcedon? Get to boats? Get to Constantinople? Must try. Mine.
Scouts back. Enemy soldiers not far west. I call the men together. I order the attack. The men stare. They mutter. They do not form by companies. Not by troops. They do not attack. I should kill them. How?
They do not seize me. They do not give me to Bardanes, to Helias, to Mauros. They stay with me. They will not attack. Maybe they will defend. Maybe they will defend and win and then attack. Maybe maybe maybe may-
Morning again. More men gone. Not so many. When I come out of my tent, Myakes orders a cheer. The men shout. The ones who are here. Not the others. A better cheer than the last one. A good cheer? A better cheer.
Maybe they will defend. The usurper's men do not attack. Maybe they fear me. They should fear me. If I can go forward, I will beat them. I order the men forward. They will not go.
More of the usurper's men about. Fewer of mine. Again, fewer of mine. They forsake me. God forsakes me. Five generations, all in ruins. The sixth generation, cut down in ruins. God forsakes me. I do not forsake God. I pray. Let me go on, I pray. Let me slay my enemies, I pray. I have enemies left alive. It is not right. How can I die with enemies left alive?
Avenge me, God. If it be Thy will that I die without slaying Ibouzeros Gliabanos, avenge me. I read once of a bishop who was a heretic, who suffered what the physicians called an abdominal obstruction and died vomiting shit out of his own mouth. If I must die, give the Khazar this death, I pray Thee.
Bardanes' men spying on the camp. Trying to see what I have left. My men shoot arrows at them. They ride away. A cheer, almost, that sounds like a cheer. My men can fight. They have fought. Will they fight? For me? How to make them?
Dead. Barisbakourios dead. The best of the ones from Kherson. Dead. Loyal. Loyal as could be, till these last days. Dead. Hunted down. Killed. Dead.
Do the rebels lie? No. They shout at our camp. They know. I have heard lies. I have told lies. I know lies. They tell the truth. A staff I hoped to lean on. First fled- now dead.
My men melt now like snow in spring. They trickle away. They dribble away. They stream away. Myakes comes to me. "Emperor," he says, "run away. Hide somewhere. Hole yourself up. Bardanes is nothing much. He won't find you."
"I never run away," I said. "I never did. I never will."
"What about when the Bulgars hit us outside Ankhialos?" he says.
"Not the same," I answer. "I never run away from the Queen of Cities."
He bows his head. "Never a dull moment around you," he says at last.
"Go on." I clap him on the back. "Save yourself. Go on. No one will look for you."
"I wouldn't know what to do without you," he says. "Maybe, some kind of way, we'll beat the bastards yet."
Someone stays loyal. A small miracle. One more miracle, God?
MYAKES
He's probably right, Brother Elpidios- I could have gotten away. It never would have occurred to me on my own. I turned him down without even thinking about it, same as I would have if he'd told me to worship Mouamet. I might still have my eyes if I'd run, but I don't suppose I'd be a holy monk now. What? It all worked out for the best, you say? I- oh, never mind.
The only time he had any juice in him was when he talked about revenge. That was what fed him, the last part of his life. He never quite figured out it could feed other people, too, though. He got his. He made other people want to get theirs. When they wanted to pay him back, he wondered why. But he didn't lay down at the end. He fought on. I give him that much.
Iwake to more desertions in the morning. Around the third hour of the day, with the sun halfway up the sky, a rider comes. "Truce!" he shouts. "Truce! Hear me out!"
I hope the bandits have fallen to fighting among themselves. If they have, I can play them off, this one against that. "Go ahead," I tell him. "Say your say."
"My commander is Helias, chief general to the Emperor Philippikos," he says. "By God and His Son, he swears that none of the soldiers who leave Justinian's army will be harmed in any way because they fought for him till now. He's lost; Philippikos has won. Anyone with eyes in his head can see that. Anyone who wants to keep eyes in his head had better see that. Day after tomorrow, Philippikos overruns this camp. Anyone who's still fighting for Justinian is going to pay."
"Helias leads that army?" I called to the horseman.
"Aye." He peered in at me. "You bloodthirsty madman, you'll pay, sure enough, when he catches up with you."
"Me?" I cried in a great voice. "That vile, murdering son of a whore you call your master, let him come. Let him come with an army of ten thousand against me alone. He wantonly murdered my son, and thinks to escape unscathed? Christ, let him come! Let him not wait so long! Let him come tomorrow. No- let him come today!" I drew my sword and brandished it. "Let him come this minute, and I will cleave his filthy head from his shoulders."