He looked a question at me. I nodded, as reassuringly as I could. After a moment, he nodded, too. I have always wondered whether he believed me.
My father's next attack of stone came halfway through the spring.
MYAKES
Those last four years of his life, Constantine wasn't the same man he'd been before. Better? Worse? I don't know, but different. Maybe some of it had to do with losing to the Bulgars. Up till then, he must have thought he was invincible. And why not? He'd beaten every foe he faced, and the Arabs seemed more dangerous than anyone imagined the Bulgars could be. So what happened with the barbarians likely had something to do with clipping his feathers.
But it wasn't only that Constantine didn't go to war with his neighbors any more. He softened, you might say: the bursts of temper he'd loose against anyone who got in his way- the same sort Justinian had and, from what I heard, the same sort Constans had had, too- they stopped coming.
Again, part of the reason for that may be that he didn't have to worry about his brothers any more. But more of it, I do believe, sprang from his being sick so much of the time. He suffered a lot from stone. From all I've heard, there's no worse pain a man can know. A woman in childbed, maybe, but not a man.
I must say I don't see the justice of it. Never have. He knew what he'd done. Justinian puts the words in his mouth: he'd saved the Roman Empire and reunited the church. And what did he get? Hell on earth and an early grave. No, I don't see any justice there.
What's that, Brother Elpidios? Who am I, to question God's judgment? Nobody at all- just an old blind man. And I don't question, not really. But I don't understand, either.
JUSTINIAN
Between my father's first attack of stone and his second, I grew taller by the breadth of a couple of fingers, nor did my growth slow after that: I was entering my thirteenth year, and making the passage from boy to man. My shoulders thickened (though I have always been slim), my muscles hardened, I began to have more than down on my cheeks and around my private parts, and my voice, absurdly, was a boyish treble one moment and the next the deep note I have struck every since.
In the course of those few months, the world became a different place. My brother Herakleios was suddenly not just smaller than I but on the the far side of what seemed an unbridgeable chasm. My father and I, by contrast, constantly butted heads, as if we were an old ram and a young charging at each other in springtime. If he said it, I was certain it was wrong, for it came from his lips. And what I was certain of, I said- in no uncertain terms. He did not take kindly to that, something I understand better now than I did at the time.
And, like a young ram, I began to take notice of the ewes. I had known for some time what passes between man and woman, but when I was a boy it struck me as so absurd and unlikely that I could not take the notion seriously, though both my father and Myakes assured me it was true. Why on earth would any man want to do that, and why would any woman let him if he did?
Then one day, in a hallway in the palace, I walked past a serving girl who was carrying some freshly washed bed linen out to dry in the sun. Being still wet, the bedclothes had also wet her tunic, which clung to and revealed the shape of her breasts and nipples. I gaped at them, and my body stirred in a way I had not known before.
I stopped and stared after her. I had, of course, seen how women walk before that day, but I had never seen it till then. Perhaps noticing that my footsteps no longer sounded in the passage, the serving girl looked back over her shoulder. When she saw how I was looking at her, she smiled saucily, then turned a corner and disappeared.
That night (or was it the night after?- so many years have gone by, I confess I am not certain) I had a dream unlike any I had ever dreamt. Not surprisingly, the serving girl was in it. Somehow she was dry and wet, in her tunic and bare, all at the same time. I moved toward her\a160… and then I was awake, alone, in my bed in the darkness.
My nightshirt and the bedding were wet. I thought for a moment I had pissed myself in the night like a baby, but quickly realized it was not urine that had spurted from me. My body still glowed with the remembered sweetness. Wishing I could remember the dream of the serving girl in more detail, I rolled over and went back to sleep.
MYAKES
Oh, don't cough and splutter so, Brother Elpidios. Yes, of course I know it's Satan who sends such dreams, seeking to lead men away from virtue and toward sin and lasciviousness. But they are sweet while they last, as Justinian says, aren't they?- and this was his first one.
You say you don't think they are? Well, you can say what you like, Brother. God gave us free will, after all, didn't He? Aye, you can say what you like, but that doesn't mean you can make me believe it.
Is there going to be more of such filth? How should I know? When Justinian gave it to me, I never saw anything but the outside, and I'm not likely to set eyes on anything more than that now, am I? Do you want to stop reading? Your purity and chastity wouldn't be challenged then.
Ah, you think you can overcome any challenge you find? I'm glad to hear it, that I am. Read some more, then.
Am I laughing at you? Brother Elpidios, like I said, I'm an old blind man. Would I do such a thing? I'll keep all my snorts to myself from now on, I promise.
JUSTINIAN
I had looked at the serving girl, and she had smiled at me. I wondered how to proceed from that point to the operation that, although it still struck me as preposterous, might in fact perhaps have had something to recommend it.
Before this time, as I have written, the only times I had anything to do with the serving women in the palace was when I wanted them to fetch me something or to take something away. Except for those times, I had, like any foolish boy, done my best to pretend they did not exist.
Now, awkwardly, I began to change my ways. Having gained one smile with a smile, I started smiling more, especially at those among the serving women whose smiles I most wanted in return. And, indeed, I did win some of those smiles. Looking back, I marvel that I should have been so anxious. Not only was I young and reasonably well favored, I was also the Emperor's son and likely heir. The combination should have made me irresistible. In fact, it did, but I took a while to reali ze that.
About a week later, I had another of those disturbing, delightful, and messy dreams. I do not remember what happened in that one so vividly as I do the first, but when I awoke from it I understood what had happened more quickly and with less confusion than before. I vowed to myself that the next time I found such pleasure, it would not be in a dream.
One of the serving girls at whom I had formed the new habit of smiling was the yellow-haired Sklavinian who had been baptized as Irene. She was, I think, closest to my age of all the servants the khagan of the Avars had given to my father three years before. She, to my disappointment, did not smile back, but would nod and say "Good day" in her halting Greek.
Then one day a couple of days after that second dream, I happened to be coming back from the kitchen, where I had just absconded with a bun stuffed with raisins and honey and chopped nuts, when she came out of a storeroom and almost ran into me.
"I sorry," she said nervously. Even the higher-ranking servants could beat her if she did something wrong; Stephen the Persian, no doubt among others, had taught her as much. If she displeased me, she must have thought I would have her tied in a sack and chucked into the Bosporos, as I suppose I could have.
But I said, "It's all right. No harm done." And, indeed, none had been. To prove I meant it, I smiled at her. As usual, she did not smile back. Then I had a better idea. I tore the sweet bun in half, giving her the larger piece.