Justinian

MYAKES

So he was thinking of getting rid of me, was he, Brother Elpidios? It makes me sad, I won't say it doesn't. But if I told you it surprises me, I'd be lying. There at the end, nobody and nothing was safe from him. His mind must have been slipping- do you notice how his writing is different all of a sudden? These last few sections, the only time he wrote fancy was when he was thinking of how he wanted to torture his brother-in-law before he killed him.

Remember, a lot of people had betrayed him by then. Of course, one of the reasons they betrayed him was that they hadn't done or hadn't been able to do what he'd ordered. They figured he'd kill them if they came home after that, so why not rebel instead? If they won, they'd live, and if they didn't, he couldn't kill 'em any deader than he would have otherwise.

And once the first people started betraying him, he thought everybody would. That just made things worse. He didn't pick what you'd call smart ways to stop it, either, did he? That business with Mauros, now. Any which way, it was going to make Mauros hate him. If Mauros takes Kherson and slaughters everybody in it, he still comes back hating Justinian. And if he doesn't take it\a160… He'd come back once after things went wrong, and look at the thanks he got for it. Would you call twice tempting fate? Would Mauros? How much could Justinian expect any man to bear?

He'd borne a lot himself. It made him expect a lot, too.