Justinian

JUSTINIAN

All the bureaucrats who had refused my invitation to dine having been assembled, I inspected them. One, a thin, pale fellow with shadows under his eyes, coughed wetly, rackingly. Thick yellowish mucus kept streaming from his nose, which he wiped on the sleeve of his tunic.

"You are\a160… John son of Eusebios, the customs inspector, not so?" I said.

"Yes, Emperor." He coughed again. "I am sorry I could not"- still more coughs-"join you tonight, but may I ask why your men hauled me from my bed?"

"No, you may not," I told him. He bowed his head, whereupon snot dripped down onto his sandals. "Go home and go about your business." I turned to Myakes. "Give him an escort, so no footpad falls on him in the night." To Theophylaktos, I added, "See that John is sent fifteen nomismata in the morning."

"Yes, Emperor." The eunuch bowed. John, afflicted or not, suddenly walked with longer, straighter strides as the excubitores led him out of the palace.

My giving him presents eased the minds of the other guests brought so late to the dining hall. John having departed, however, I said to those bureaucrats, "One of your number truly was ill. What have the rest of you to say for yourselves? When the Emperor of the Romans summons you to a feast, should you not make every effort to attend him?"

They all began talking at once, some trying to justify claiming illness while hale, others still trying to claim illness despite healthy appearance. In the course of a day's work, the Emperor of the Romans normally hears a good many lies. In the course of a few minutes, I heard as many lies as I normally do in a day's work.

"Enough!" I said at last, whereupon the bureaucrats mercifully fell silent. "The plain and simple truth is, you did not come because you were afraid of what I might do to you."

"After what happened at your last feast, Emperor," one of them blurted, "can you blame us?"

"Of course I can blame you," I answered. He cringed. They all cringed. "The men I had killed after my last feast were every one of them traitors," I went on. "Are you traitors? Do you think I think you are traitors? Do you think you are traitors? Is that why you stayed away from me?"

I listened to denials as empty and pointless and useless as their pretenses at sickness had been. Had I believed them, the only course left open to me would have been to promote every one of the rascals making them, or perhaps to order Cyrus the patriarch to declare them numbered among the saints.

But I did not believe them. Their evident good health and their equally evident fear of me convicted them all. "Liars!" I shouted, cutting through their babble. "By your own actions shall you be judged. If you do not trust me, how can I be expected to trust you? You are all sacked, every last one of you."

This they bore up under with equanimity. I heard one of them mutter to another, "Better to lose my position than my neck." Doing their deceitful best to appear dejected, they turned and made for the door of the dining hall where they had not eaten.

"Stop!" I said sharply. "I did not give you leave to go. When I say you are sacked\a160…" Now I stopped. They would find out soon enough. Meanwhile, at my order, the excubitores bound their wrists behind them. "Is everything in full readiness?" I asked Myakes.

"Oh, yes, Emperor," he answered, rare in that he was loyal and obedient even when not altogether happy with my purposes. "What with that John who really was sick, we even have one left over."

"Fine. Let's get on with it, then," I said. At swords' point, the excubitores made the functionaries leave the palace of Blakhernai. We marched them to a dromon moored on the Golden Horn not far from the palace: not far from the pier at which Theodora had reached the imperial city, either.

Torches blazed by and on the galley, which carried a full crew of oarsmen and sailors. Two piles of coarse canvas, smaller than the sail, stood on deck. So did stacked stones, as if for a catapult. One by one, the miscreants I had seized stumbled up the gangplank onto the dromon. The captain was a young fellow named Stephen, whom I had recently raised to the dignity of patrician. He prostrated himself on the deck as soon as I came aboard.

"Rise," I said impatiently. "I want this done."

"Shouldn't be too hard, Emperor." He looked at the prisoners, nodding on approval on seeing them already in bonds. "No, shouldn't be too hard. They aren't going anyplace." His smile gleamed in the torchlight.

At his orders, the sailors cast off the lines mooring the dromon to the wharf. The rowers backed oars, then turned and took us out of the Golden Horn, past the lighthouses marking the channel, and into the middle of the Sea of Marmara. Lamps and torches and candles made Constantinople glow and twinkle far more brightly than the star-strewn sky overhead.

"What are you going to do to us, Emperor?" asked one of the bureaucrats who had not cared to enjoy my hospitality. "Are you exiling us to Anatolia?"

"You'll know soon enough," I answered, "you before all the others." That did little to reassure him, but reassuring him was not my object. To Stephen, I said, "Have we gone far enough yet?"

"Should be fine, Emperor," he answered. "We're about halfway between the city and the other shore." He pointed east toward Chalcedon, whose lights were far fewer and of smaller extent than those of the imperial city.

"Well, then," I said, and nodded toward a couple of the excubitores who had boarded the dromon with us. "Deal with the curious one first."

Going over to the piled canvas, they picked up one of the sacks there and threw it over the bureaucrat's head. Before he let out more than one startled squawk, they knocked him down, tying the mouth of the bag securely shut with a length of rope. The other end of the rope they tied to one of the stones. Ignoring the frantic kicks from within the sack, they pushed it and the stone into the Sea. It sank very quickly.

"No, Emperor!" the other disloyal bureaucrats shouted. "Not us, Emperor!" "We didn't do anything!" "We're innocent!" "Have mercy!"

At my nod, the excubitores popped the second one into a sack, tied the sack to a stone, and shoved sack and stone and all into the water. The outcries from within cut off as abruptly as if the fellow had been decapitated.

Bawling like steers, the rest of the bureaucrats tried to break away from the guardsmen who hemmed them in. One succeeded and, being chased by two excubitores, leaped into the Sea of Marmara of his own accord. I wondered if he could swim with his hands tied behind his back. By his floundering, I doubt he could have swum had they been untied. He spluttered a couple of unintelligible curses or pleas before his head sank beneath the surface and did not rise again.

Methodically, the excubitores threw sacks over the other bureaucrats and flung them into the sea. "There goes the last of them," Myakes said when it was done. He rubbed at his calf; one of the men being sacked had managed to kick him. "What now?"

"A good night's work," I answered. "Now we go back to the palace, of course, unless you know of someone else who needs killing so badly, it won't keep till morning."

He shook his head. "That's not what I meant, Emperor. What now? What comes next? You'll have people afraid to come to your feasts and even more afraid not to. Is that what you want?"

"Of course that's what I want," I answered; Myakes was not usuall y so dim. "People who fear me will be too afraid to plot against me. They'll obey instead."

"Unless you make them so afraid, they think striking at you is a better bet than waiting to see what you do next," Myakes said.

"If I kill enough of them- once I kill enough of them- the rest will be too cowed to let a thought like that enter their minds," I said. Myakes looked as if he wanted to argue further; I cut him off by saying to Stephen, "Take us back to the harbor. We're through here."

"Yes, Emperor," he said, and gave the oarsmen their orders.

On my return to the Blakhernai palace, Theodora asked, "All good?"

"All good," I answered. "We have a couple of sacks left over, as a matter of fact." I explained about the bureaucrat who leaped into the sea before the excubitores could give him his new, all-encircling cloak, and wondered whether God would condemn him as a suicide. That done, I finished, "If you have anyone in mind for a leftover, let me know, and I'll tend to it."

"I think about it," she answered seriously.

Having made it clear to the people- and, most of all, to the people possessed of authority- in Constantinople that I aimed to rule as King Stork rather than King Log, I was afforded few opportunities over the next couple of years to exhibit storklike behavior, as no one dared risk my displeasure in any way. Life was good.

This is not to say the executioners spent those two years drowsing in the sun and letting their swords rust. Traitors kept emerging, some being denounced to me while others I ferreted out on my own. A few heads were usually on display at the Milion. But I saw no further need for such salutary and sanguinary lessons as I had administered after my banquets.

Matters touching on the neighbors of the Roman Empire also remained largely quiet during that time. The Bulgars came south over the border into Romania a couple of times, but the raids were no more than nuisances. I wondered if they were Tervel's way of gaining some of the booty my successful return to the throne had cost him. Whenever I sent complaints, the raids stopped\a160… for a while.

In the east, Oualid proved a less aggressive ruler of the deniers of Christ than Abimelekh had been before him. He did despoil the churches of Damascus of their wealth, and also, in his arrogance, supplanted Greek in his chancery with the Arabs' own barbarous and guttural tongue. The previous miscalled commander of the faithful had attempted the same measure, only to abandon it on discovering how ill-suited to the task Arabic was. Oualid, with barbarous presumption, has persisted and persists even as I write.

Here in the imperial city, Tiberius learned to walk and to talk. He soon proved as strong-willed as any member of my house, shouting "No!" whenever he found himself checked in any way. When shouting failed, he screamed or threw things or tried to bite. Albeit the despair of the servants, he made me quite proud.

The popes of Rome still refused to subscribe to the canons of the fifth-sixth synod. But when Sisinnios, an ancient monk from Syria, died a mere twenty days after being selected bishop of Rome, his successor, Constantine, another Syrian, proved more reasonable in these matters than several of his predecessors had been.

And Constantine and I discovered a common interest not long after he became bishop of Rome. The bishop of Ravenna having joined the majority, Constantine ordained a certain Felix as his successor.

It had long been the custom for each new bishop of Ravenna to give the pope a written pledge of obedience on assuming office. This Felix refused to do, claiming that, Ravenna being the capital of Roman Italy and Rome, as he put it, merely a backwater, he would do as he saw fit, not as Constantine saw fit for him to do. In this assertion he had the strong backing of Stephen, the exarch of Ravenna, the Roman viceroy in Italy.

Just as Felix presumed upon his dependent relationship with the bishop of Rome, so Stephen presumed on his dependent relationship with me. The exarchate of Ravenna by its nature gave the holder of the officer considerable autonomy, but Stephen, far more than other exarchs before him, forgot he was merely the viceroy of the vicegerent of God on earth. Had Felix's rebellion against Constantine succeeded, the next rebellion would have been against me.

Still, I might have been inclined to sit idly by and let Constantine fight his own battles had not Leo said, "Emperor, if you can rid him of this turbulent priest, won't he be more reasonable about your synod?"

"A reasonable pope?" Almost, I was moved to laughter. But Constantine had not made himself nearly so hateful to me as some earlier bishops of Rome- and I had already discovered Leo's talent for underhanded dealings of all sorts. "Well, we shall see."

Ravenna, lying as it does in the middle of a swampy bog, is as nearly impregnable by land as makes no difference. If I was going to bring Stephen and Felix under my control, it would have to be by sea. The nearest Roman ships were in Sicily, under the command of the patrician Theodore, and to him I wrote of my requirements.

He followed my orders perfectly, or better than perfectly. Sailing up to Ravenna with a fleet of dromons, he invited Stephen, Felix, and other local dignitaries to a feast outside the walls. All unsuspecting, they came, whereupon he seized them, got them back to his ship without a man of his being hurt, and brought them to Constantinople.

On their reaching the imperial city, I had them brought to the throne room in the grand palace, which, being far more magnificent than any chamber at the Blakhernai palace, was far more suitable for occasions of solemn grandeur such as this. Theodore, a big, bluff man with a bushy black beard, led in the captives, who were weighted down with chains that clanked at each step they took.

Felix and the other villains threw themselves down on their faces before me, grizzling out cries for mercy. I descended from the gold and emerald-encrusted throne, the pearl prependoulia that dangled from my crown brushing against my cheeks. I kicked Felix in the ribs as he crouched in the posture of prostration. "Mercy?" I shouted, standing over him. "I have no mercy on any of my enemies, and anyone who rebels against the authority of the Roman Empire is an enemy of mine. Look at Leontios. Look at Apsimaros. Look at them and think how easy their ends were next to those you shall have. You knew better, and flouted my will regardless. Death for you- death for you all!"

My courtiers clapped their hands at the sentence. The miscreants from Ravenna groaned and trembled. Theodore, sounding interested, even eager, asked, "What sort of death, Emperor?"

"I'll leave my executioners to please themselves," I replied. "With fire and knives and weights and water, they can make each death different, and every death take a long time. Tomorrow is time enough, though. For tonight, let them- let everyone- think on the fate awaiting them. Take them away!"

Away they went, moaning. Away I went, well pleased with the day's ceremony. They, no doubt, lay on the filthy straw of their cells, their heads full of nightmares over what was to come. I lay on soft linen- and I also dreamt of what lay ahead for them.

In my dream, I saw Bishop Felix as an old man, which he surely would not become did I slay him, his beard being as black as Theodore's. He stumbled toward me, hands outstretched, groping for me, calling my name, begging for continued existence. He touched me- and I awoke.

Theodora's small hand rested on my arm. But I lay some time awake, pondering the message of the dream, and reluctantly concluded I had no choice but to let Felix live, lest I go against God's will by destroying the possibility of his older self. Very well, I said to myself. He shall live. But he shall not go unpunished. I slept soundly the rest of the night.

When morning came, I made the arrangements necessary for my changed plans, then had Felix brought to the Blakhernai palace. The excubitores pushed him down on his face in front of me. "I have decided to spare your life," I said without preamble.

"God bless you, Emperor," he said. "I pray that-"

I cut him off. "Instead of executing you, I shall have you blinded and exiled to the regions of Pontos." Having listened to Cyrus, I knew how dreary a place it was. Without his sight, Felix would find it drearier still.

He coughed and spluttered. I might have let him keep his life, but nothing that made it worth living. "Please, Emperor\a160…" he managed at last.

"Take him to the kitchens," I told the excubitores. "The executioner will be waiting for us." The guardsmen hauled Felix to his feet and herded him down the passageway. I followed, curious to witness the process the executioner had described for me earlier in the day.

In the kitchen, the cooks were curious, too, crowding around the executioner until he had to shoo them back to give himself room to work. Among the cooks was Helias's black slave John, who looked like a shadow of the men of normal hue.

"All ready, Emperor," the executioner said on seeing me come in behind the prisoner.

"Then go ahead," I said.

He had the excubitores stand Felix next to a high table where the cooks did their mixing and kneading. While the traitorous bishop of Ravenna dolefully waited, the executioner picked up a long wooden peel and thrust it into the oven in which my daily bread was baked. Instead of drawing forth a loaf, however, he took out a silver bowl that had been heated almost red-hot. Handling the peel as skillfully as any baker, he set the bowl in front of Felix, who tried to recoil from its heat but was prevented by the guards.

The executioner poured a jar of hot vinegar into the bowl. A great cloud of noxious vapor rose from it. Into this vapor the executioner had the excubitores bend Felix's head. He himself, w ith the skill he had learned as part of his trade, forced the recalcitrant bishop to open his eyelids, so that the surface of his eyeballs was exposed to the caustic fumes. Felix howled like a wolf and did his best to twist away. He could not.

After what the executioner judged sufficient time, he let Felix lift his head from the fumes of the boiling vinegar. Felix's whole face was red, as if scorched. His eyes looked as if the executioner had scraped their surface with a file, or perhaps as if they had been rubbed with sand, as a mason will sand down marble to make it smooth. But they were not smooth: on the contrary. I could tell at a glance Felix would not see again.

"Well done," I told the executioner. "Just as I desired." Felix would have been weeping, I think, but no tears flowed from his eyes, which were horribly swollen along with being blistered and abraded. To the excubitores, I said, "Take him to the harbor and put him aboard the ship waiting there to take him to Amastris." Which place, from what Cyrus had said, was as close to living death as made no difference. "He shall never trouble Ravenna again." And off into exile Felix went.