It was, no doubt, one of the stupider things I ever did, but war and wine and venery had their way with me. Had she so chosen, the Sklavinian woman could have found a knife, could have smashed in my skull with the wine jar, could have done any of a multitude of deadly things. Murder is easy. I should know.
On waking, some time in the middle of the night, I realized how lucky I was to wake. I had twisted so that I lay on my side, facing away from the Sklavinian woman: a posture not far from the one she had assumed. Since she had not slain me, I decided I would enjoy her again. Before I rolled over to do just that, though, I took a deep breath.
My nose wrinkled. "Ignorant barbarian," I muttered to myself. By the odor, either she had not know enough to put the lid back onto the chamber pot after she used it or she had not known enough to use it at all, but had done her business on the ground like an animal.
I did roll over then- and discovered she was not in the bed. Confused, I wondered where she had gone: she could not have escaped the tent, not with guards and servants all around, and what point to hiding anywhere inside? I sat up, and I saw her.
While I slept, she had taken her linen tunic, twisted it into a rope, tied one end to the bronze handle of my clothes chest, and tied the other in a noose around her neck. The handles were about at chest height; she had had to lie out at full length to strangle herself, which was exactly what, in grim silence, she had done. She must have been determined to perish, for she could have saved herself by getting up on her knees before consciousness left her. Her eyes stared sightlessly in a face almost black. What I had smelled was the result of her bowels letting go as she died.
"Mother of God, help me," I whispered, and made the sign of the cross. I started to shout for my servants, but then checked myself. What could be a greater rebuke, a greater humiliation, than a woman who killed herself after I brought her to my bed? The servants might never have the nerve to bring it up in my presence, but that would not keep them from spreading the tale when we returned to Constantinople. A servant who does not gossip is a servant who has had his tongue cut out.
Abruptly realizing I was naked, I quickly put on the robes I had doffed to have the Sklavinian woman. Then I undid the knot attaching her makeshift rope to the wooden chest, and after that the knot around her neck. Touching the dead flesh I had caressed not long before made my own flesh creep but, mastering my revulsion, I dragged her body behind the chest, where it would not be seen if I opened the tent flap.
And I did open the tent flap. A couple of excubitores stood guard in front of the pavilion- not too close, for they knew better than to eavesdrop on the Emperor, or rather, to risk getting caught eavesdropping on the Emperor. The moon, shining through scattered clouds, showed the night to be more than half spent. The camp was quiet, almost everyone asleep, for which I thanked God. "Is anything wrong, Emperor?" one of the guards asked as they hurried up to me.
"What could be wrong?" I answered, doing my best to sound bluff and cheerful. "One of you go fetch me Myakes. Something I need to ask him."
The excubitores looked at each other. I could read their thought: won't it wait till morning? But I was the Emperor. One of them trotted away, shrugging as he went.
He came back with my faithful friend almost as soon as I had hoped. As Myakes drew near me, I smelled stale wine on his breath. Even torchlight made him blink and squint: he had been celebrating our triumph himself. "Go off to bed," I told the excubitores who had been guarding the pavilion. "I'm safe enough with Myakes here."
They looked at each other again. Obeying might get them in trouble with their superior. Disobeying would get them in trouble with me, the Emperor of the Romans. Sensibly, they obeyed. "Thank you, Emperor," one of them called over his shoulder as they left.
I went into the tent, holding the flap open for Myakes to follow. As soon as we were both inside, he asked, "What's gone wrong, Emperor?" Though never what a pedant would call a clever man, Myakes was no one's fool.
Wordlessly, I pointed around behind the clothes chest. H e walked over to see what I meant, and suddenly stopped dead. As I had, he made the sign of the cross. "She did it herself," I said quickly, not wanting him to think I had killed her for the mere sport of it. I have done a deal of killing since, but never for the mere sport of it- which is not to say I have taken no pleasure in the destruction of my foes. In a few words, I explained how I had discovered her body.
He nodded, clicking his tongue between his teeth a couple of times. "She probably watched her man get killed earlier today," he said. "These Sklavinian women, they're not like Romans- they don't want to live without their husbands."
Having heard that more than once before, I accepted it all the more eagerly now. "Even if the blame does rest with her, though," I said, "the embarrassment will be mine. Unless- Has the grave in which we flung the bodies of the barbarians been filled in?"
"No, Emperor," he answered, and then, without so much as a hesitation, "You want me to toss her into the pit?" No, Myakes was no one's fool.
"That's just what I want," I said. "She's a pagan, and damned, and a suicide and so doubly damned; it's not as if I'm depriving her of Christian burial."
Myakes only grunted. That aspect of things worried him not at all. He picked up the linen tunic, untwisted it and shook it out as a washerwoman might a towel, and then put it back on the corpse, which turned out to be a harder job than I had thought it would. But when I said as much, he replied, "Be thankful she hasn't been dead long, and started getting stiff. That would really make things tough." He paused, then added, "It would be the devil's own time carrying her that way, too."
Having dressed her, he stooped, slung her over his shoulder, and, grunting again, rose. I nodded in approval. Her face lay against his chest, and her fair fell down over it, obscuring it further. And it would be dark outside. "If anyone stops you-" I began.
He followed my thought perfectly, interrupting, "I'll say she's drunk herself blind. Everything should be all right, Emperor. Will you open the flap for me? I ought to be back pretty soon."
Open it I did, and out into the night he went.
MYAKES
Well, Brother Elpidios, what the devil was I supposed to do? She was dead. I hadn't killed her, and Justinian hadn't killed her, either. She was a pagan who'd killed herself. What? She wouldn't have done it if he hadn't abused her? Maybe, but maybe not, too. It's not a lie, what I told him about Sklavinian women. If their husbands die, sometimes they will kill themselves. It's something they do, the way we Christians cross ourselves. Of course, they can only do it once.
No one did stop me till I got to the camp gate nearest the burial pit and the prisoner pen. I saw a couple of other soldiers carrying women through the camp, as a matter of fact; it was that kind of night. The ones in their arms probably were just drunk, though.
The gate guards laughed as I came near them. "Used her up, did you?" one of them said.
"You might say so," I answered. "What with the wine and everything else"- I grinned and rocked my hips forward and back-"she's gone." And Lord, wasn't that the truth?
All of a sudden, he made a nasty face. "Aii, get her out of here!" he exclaimed. "She stinks- she's gone and shit herself." His comrades all got out of the way then. They didn't want anything to do with me, not after that.
It was easy as could be. The moon ducked behind a cloud right after I walked out of the gate. The night turned black as the soot above a lamp that's been hanging in the same place for twenty years. Instead of going all the way out to the prisoner pen, I stopped by the burial pit. It was closer. Nobody saw me heave her in. Nobody heard the soft thud her body made, landing on the others. I waited long enough so it would seem I'd gone to the pen. Then I walked back to the gate. The guards jeered at me. I swore at them, enough to sound convincing. They laughed and waved me by.