Her eyes, which had been closed, opened. She looked up at me. I was intent on my own pleasure then, having given her hers, but not so intent that I failed to worry whether the sight of my face would curdle her joy. Perhaps my rhythm faltered. She smiled at me, and I stopped worrying.
Having completed the act, I got up off her and looked at the square of cloth. Sure enough, she had been a virgin; she had not bled much, but enough to confirm that. She burrowed under furs while I put my tunic back on and went out into the night to display the proof of what we had done.
Loud, drunken cheers greeted me. "How many rounds tonight?" Barisbakourios whooped, ready to translate my answer for the nomads without Greek.
"The Khazar language doesn't have numbers so big," I boasted. He translated that. The khagan and the other Khazars standing there laughed loud and long. That kind of bragging on that kind of night amused them rather than insulting them, as it might have done under different circumstances at another time.
I went back into the tent, as I had gone back into the palace bedchamber with Eudokia. Then I had gone several rounds before bothering to come outside and display the bloody trophy of conquest. Now, while confident of a second round, I was anything but for the third and beyond. Thus time robs us of our powers, my brash words to the men waiting outside the tent notwithstanding.
When I returned to her and let the tent flap fall behind me, Theodora flipped off the furs under which she had hidden. I took her willingness to show herself to me naked as a good sign; she might easily have retained a larger portion of virginal modesty- or, indeed, she might have been repelled by what we had just done and wanted no part of it thereafter, or as little part of it as she could manage.
That proving not to be the case, I wasted no time in divesting myself of the tunic once more. I caressed her with hands and mouth, as I had done before. Proving slower to rise than I had then (ah, the years!), I taught her what a woman could do with her mouth. That was a time when I wished we had more words in common, although, after some initial hesitation, she grasped the principle with pleasing- very pleasing- speed.
When I went into her, I stroked her tender little button with my finger while thrusting in and out. After a very short time, she gave a mewling cry so loud, I feared the torn edges of her maidenhead pained her. It was not pain, though, but pleasure. I spent myself a moment later, groaning half with delight, half with exhaustion.
We lay side by side afterwards. Her skin was slick with sweat, as was mine. I fell asleep for a while. When I woke, the lamps were guttering. Theodora's motion had disturbed me. She was pouring wine into two cups. I think she would have wakened me once it was poured, had I not stirred sooner. Seeing my eyes open, she smiled and handed me one of the cups.
We managed a third round then, with her proving she had not forgotten the lesson I had given her not long before. I managed thanks to that, coupling with her in the laziest fashion possible, her on her side and me taking her from behind. I gasped, sighed, pulled out of her, and fell back to sleep. She may have tried to waken me again that night. If she did, she failed.
We have done well together, Theodora and I, from our wedding night onward. She took to lovemaking as if, having gone so many years without (for I do not think she was far from thirty when we married), she intended making up the lost time as quickly as she could. With that at bedrock, we found we got on well in other ways, too.
Out of need, we soon learned to speak to each other. She picked up Greek fast, and I learned such Khazar words as I could. I still found the nomads' speech ugly, but now I also found it useful, which made a great difference.
"Now I will give you everything I can," Ibouzeros Gliabanos promised when I spoke to him a couple of weeks after having wed his sister.
"Good," I said. "Now tell me exactly what that will be."
Hearing that, he grew evasive. Had I been khagan of the Khazars, I should have grown evasive then, too. Had he led an army down toward Constantinople, he would have had to fight his way through the country of the Bulgars and then through Roman territory before reaching the imperial city. Alternatively, he might have gone through the Caucasus and into Anatolia, but that would have weakened the Roman Empire against the followers of the false prophet and still would have left him on the wrong side of the Bosporos to take Constantinople, as the Persians were during the reign of my great-great-grandfather.
I should have thought this through more thoroughly before bearding him to make good on his promise. I should, for that matter, have thought it through more thoroughly before fleeing to his court in the first place. But what choice had I? I could not stay in Kherson, nor in Doros, either. Ibouzeros Gliabanos, at least, was not actively persecuting me.
On seeing that he had no intention of furnishing me with an army, I said, "Give me gold, then. With gold, I can get warriors." How good the warriors would prove was another question. I had given Neboulos and the Sklavenoi gold, but so had the accursed Arabs. But with gold, there were things I could do. Without it, my opportunities would be far more limited.
So much of the wealth of the Khazar khaganate depending on trade, Ibouzeros Gliabanos was an able bargainer. But I had learned a fair amount in my time of exile, and I was desperate, where he was not. I pressed him hard, finally persuading him to part with perhaps more gold than he had intended.
"Bah!" he said, and made a sour face. "Now that you have extorted this money from me, I ought to send you far away, so you do not come to think you can make a habit of it."
If he was angry at me, I did not want to stay close by him, lest he choose to vent that wrath. I doubted causing his sister unhappiness would stay him. And, if he was going to give me gold, I should have liked to be closer to Constantinople than was Atil. Atil, so far as I could tell, was close to nowhere worth reaching. Still, returning me to Doros or Kherson would have been a death sentence: a polite death sentence, but a death sentence nevertheless.
He might have been thinking along with me, for in musing tones he said, "Suppose I send you to Phanagoria. What do you think of that?"
"Phanagoria?" I pursed my lips while thinking. The town is situated next to the peninsula on which Kherson lies, just to the east of the narrow strait joining the Black Sea and the Maiotic Bay. It has some commerce with Constantinople, although less than Kherson enjoys. From it, though, I should likely have been in a good position to observe events at the Queen of Cities. I could hardly have been in a worse position for observing those events than from Atil. And no one in Phanagoria, so far as I knew, had any particular interest in killing me. I nodded to Ibouzeros Gliabanos. "Let it be as you say."
"Good, good," the khagan said expansively. "I shall give you the gold, as I said I would"- he forgot for the moment the difficulty with which he had just been persuaded to say he would-"and you will live like a king."
"No," I told him. He frowned. I explained: "I will live like an Emperor."
He liked that, laughing out loud. "You have the spirit of an Emperor," he said. "I have seen this, and seen it clearly. And Phanagoria is more like a Roman town for you. You will like living there, and my sister will see what living like a Roman is like."
"Yes, I want to show her that," I answered, though Phanagoria would be only a small, debased copy of true Roman life. Then, he having mentioned Theodora, I gave him news I might otherwise have held back for a day or two or let her pass on: "She is with child."