Justinian

MYAKES

That he did, Brother Elpidios, that he did. You should have heard people grumble, too. You tell your Constantinopolitan he can't have his shows, you tell him he can't throw the dice, and he won't be very happy. I'd be lying if I said I never got down on my knees in the dirt myself, matter of fact. Yes, I was at the sessions. Yes, I heard gambling with dice condemned. Why did I do it? It's fun, that's why. I'm a sinner? Now give me news I haven't heard.

Eh? What do you want to know? Did Justinian leave off his drinking and fornicating after he set his signature on all those canons? He was twenty-two years old, give or take a year, and Emperor of the Romans. What do you think he did?

You're right. That's what he did. If you already know the answers, why ask the questions?

As I urged it to do, the synod condemned certain practices followed by the Armenians and by the barbarians in the west. The Armenian bishops raised no objection to the four canons that sought to regulate affairs in their church, nor, at the time, did the few clerics who had come from the west complain about the forbidding of fasting on Saturdays during the Lenten season, about prohibiting the eating of meat from strangled animals, or about other small-souled, exotic, and newfangled usages prevailing in that part of the world.

And so the synod moved on to consider canons pertaining to marriage. It affirmed that men previously married who were ordained as deacons or priests could, and indeed were required to, keep the wives with whom they had exchanged the holy and sacred vows of matrimony.

Here Basil, the bishop of Gortyna on the island of Crete, who, being under the jurisdiction of the pope of Rome, had also helped represent Rome at the sixth ecumenical synod, protested, saying, "The custom in the west is different, and requires complete celibacy of priests and deacons. Those there who have wives must put them aside to be ordained."

"This is but another barbarous error on the part of western clerics," the ecumenical patriarch said. "Have they forgotten the words of the book of Matthew: 'What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder'? For your reference," he added slightingly, as if Basil could not be expected to know, "this is the sixth verse of the nineteenth chapter."

Paul spoke as if explaining proper doctrine to a child, not to a fellow churchman. The bishops under the jurisdiction of the see of Constantinople made only the slightest efforts to conceal their amusement, having long since wearied of the arrogant pretensions of the popes, who, dwelling in the ruins of what was once a great city, think to dictate doctrine to the entire civilized world.

Basil of Gortyna held his temper. He said, "Practice in the west differs, and the differences are of long enough establishment to be tolerated under the principle of economy."

George and Daniel, Pope Sergios's regular legates in Constantinople, nodded in agreement. But Paul shook his head, saying, "The principle of economy covers differences of ritual without doctrinal importance. That cannot be said of rules pertaining to the proper ordination of priests and deacons."

Basil looked mournful. "The holy pope will not care to set his signature on canons going dead against the custom in his patriarchate."

He and the papal legates wrangled on with the ecumenical patriarch and the bishops from within the Roman Empire for some time over this matter and others, such as the canon that- only reconfirming the acts of the second and fourth ecumenical synods- placed Constantinople with Rome in patriarchal privilege, ranking after it only in the listing of the patriarchates.

I heard much of this later, for I did not attend all these sessions of the fifth-sixth synod, having other matters to occupy my attention. Chief among these was the return of the Cypriots, who again petitioned me to let them leave their island and settle within territory under the sole rule of the Roman Empire.

Where I had refused them before, I now accepted their pleas, resettling a good many of them in Bithynia, not far from the imperial city. Thanks to Abimelekh's insolent provocations with his coins and papyrus sheets, I was more inclined toward war than I had been previously, and, thanks to the exertions of Neboulos, who to my amazement was building his army to the size he had promised, more confident of the outcome.

In my honor, the Cypriots renamed the town in which I resettled them New Justinianopolis. This touched me even more than it might have otherwise, for their luck during the resettlement was not good: a storm sank some of the ships carrying them to their new home, while a pestilence raged among them after the transfer. But they sent John, whose acquaintance I had already made, to the fifth-sixth synod. Despite his previous foolishness, I was glad to see him there, as a sign of their making themselves at home.

Not long after the Cypriots had been moved to New Justinianopolis, Cyril the engraver asked for an audience with me. "Emperor, I have it!" he cried upon rising after prostrating himself.

"Splendid," I said agreeably, pleased to see one of my subjects so diligent in his service to me. I have it! being imperfectly informative, though, I asked, "What do you have?"

"The way you were seeking, Emperor; to show the deniers of Christ the folly of the ways and the glory of the true and holy faith," he answered.

I leaned forward on the throne; he had indeed engaged my interest. "Show me what you have," I said, and beckoned him to me, a rare privilege for an artisan, even one so skilled as Cyril.

As he approached, he reached down to a pouch he wore on his belt. A couple of the excubitores who stood nearest the throne stepped between him and me, pointing their spears at him with warning growls. But he had not come with assassination in mind; all he drew from the leather pouch was a sheet of papyrus on which he had been sketching in charcoal.

The papyrus, I saw, was one of the new sheets from Egypt, one on which the customary cross had been replaced by verses from the work of the Arabs' false prophet. That made Cyril's sketches all the more glorious, for they could have been taken to symbolize Christianity's triumph over the wicked doctrines Mouamet preached.

One sketch showed a Roman Emperor recognizably resembling me standing by and holding a step-mounted cross, a cross such as had been commonplace on the reverse of Roman nomismata for centuries. Cyril had lettered an inscription around the rim of the circular sketch: D. IUSTINIANUS SERVUS CHRISTI. Most of the letters were Latin, only a few Greek. "Lord Justinian, servant of Christ," he said, translating it into the tongue that had replaced Latin for most purposes in the Empire.

I nodded, but absently, for I was looking at the other sketch, which was of our Lord. Cyril had portrayed Him as Christ Pantokrator; the Ruler of All, His right hand flexed in a gesture of benediction, His left holding a book. The cross on which He was crucified appeared behind His head. Here the inscription read, again in a mixture of Latin and Greek letters, IES. CRISTOS REX REGNANTIUM. "Jesus Christ, King of Rulers," Cyril translated. He looked up at me. "Emperor, a nomisma with this on it will tell the followers of the false prophet what we think of him and of them."

"It will," I breathed. Coins go everywhere within the Roman Empire, and, thanks to the unchanging fineness of our gold, far beyond as well. A story told by a certain Kosmas, who sailed to India during the reign of my namesake, a century and a half before my time, comes to mind. An Indian prince asked him and a Persian merchant who was also present at his court which of them had a mightier sovereign. The Persian, of course, at once claimed his king was the mightier.

But Kosmas told the Indian prince, "Both rulers are here. By their coins shall you judge them." The Persian's silver was not bad in its way, but could not stand comparison to the gleaming Roman nomismata. And so the prince rightly judged the Emperor of the Romans mightier than the Persian King of Kings.

"One thing concerns me," I told Cyril. "These drawings are large"- each was broader than the palm of my hand-"but a nomisma is small, scarcely the width of my thumb. Will you be able to reproduce them accurately in that cramped space?"

He drew himself up, the picture of affronted pride. "Emperor, my work satisfied your father, and it has always satisfied you up to now. Do you think I would do anything less than my best when making an image of our Lord?"

"I'm sorry," I said, one of the few times- in fact, thinking back, the only one I can remember- I ever apologized while sitting on the imperial throne. "How soon can you strike examples to show me?"

Cyril got a faraway look in his eye. "I would say three days, Emperor, but, like I told you, I want this to be my very finest work. Will five days do?"

"That will be fine," I said, having expected some considerably longer time. Looking back, I should have known better, for some of the coins the palace servitors threw to the crowds of Constantinople at my coronation bore my image, not my father's. The engravers could, at need, work very fast indeed.

And Cyril proved as good as his word- in fact, one day better. When he handed me the first five nomismata he had struck, I brought them close to my face and squinted at them, hardly believing he had managed to include so much in so small a compass. I could make out the individual hairs, long and flowing, on Christ's head and in His beard and mustache; I imagined I could read (though in truth I could not) the words on the book He was holding. On the reverse, my own image was also impressively detailed, down to the three jeweled pendants dangling from the fibula that held my chlamys closed.

I passed one of the nomismata to Myakes, saying, "Tell me what you think of this."

"I always think well of gold, Emperor," he answered with a smile, which I knew to be true, though he was not madly greedy for it as some men are. I had given him the coin with the side upward that showed me standing and holding the cross. He looked at it, nodded in a businesslike way, and turned the nomisma over. He studied the image of our Lord in silence for some little while, so long that I began to wonder whether he had caught some flaw I missed. Then, softly, he said, "Ahh."

My gaze went to Cyril. His expression was the one he might have worn had some beautiful woman come up to him and begged him to take her to his bed that very instant. With the possible exception of something like that, no artisan could have got higher praise than Myakes' murmur of awe had just given him.

To Myakes, I said, "Keep that coin for yourself." I gave Cyril back the other four nomismata. "And you keep these. You did everything I wanted my coinage to do, and did it better than I imagined it could be done."

"I thank you, Emperor, for letting me turn my wits loose and not ordering me to do the other," he answered, "and I thank God for letting my wits come across this idea- for putting it in my mind, you might say. He knows how to watch over His faith better than any of us does, I expect."

"You might as well be a bishop," I told him.

He held up his scarred, callused hands. "I'm better at what I do," he said. "Maybe one day, when I'm too old to use the awl and the punch and the chisel and the hammer as I should, I'll seek the quiet of the monastery. But not yet."

"Good enough," I said. "You can make me more splendid coins, then." He nodded, almost- although not quite- as happy as he had been when Myakes' involuntary, startled praise turned him to a bowl of barley mush.

I looked out at the bishops, each in his finest vestments, who had come to this God-guarded and imperial city at my urging. "You are agreed, then, holy fathers, that these canons complete and perfect the work of the last two ecumenical synods?"

"Emperor, we are," they chorused as one.

"Then let my signature and yours on the canons of this synod be proof of that." And, so saying, I dipped a pen into a jar of the crimson ink reserved for Emperors alone and set my name on each of the six copies scribes had prepared of the canons: one copy for the imperial chancery, and one each for the patriarchs of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.

Paul the ecumenical patriarch affixed his signature next after mine, leaving a blank space on each parchment wherein Sergios, the pope of Rome, might set his name. After him came the three patriarchs whose sees still unfortunately groan under the heel of the Arabs' miscalled commander of the faithful.

And after them I had the pleasure of summoning John, the bishop of New Justinianopolis, who had been translated with his flock from Cyprus to Bithynia. His signature went immediately below those of the patriarchs. "Thank you for the honor you show me and my new city, Emperor," he said, bowing.

"I take great pleasure in seeing you here," I answered, and we beamed at each other. He might have been foolish, but our thoughts now ran in the same channel.

After John, the rest of the bishops who had attended my fifth-sixth synod queued up to sign the canons to which they had agreed. As more than two hundred had come to the imperial city, and as each man had to write his name half a dozen times, the ceremony took some time.

Among those signing their names were George and Daniel, who regularly represented Pope Sergios in Constantinople, and Basil of Gortyna whose see, as I have said, fell under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the see of Rome. George and Daniel signed without hesitation, as I saw with my own eyes. Bishop Basil also set down his name, but, having done so, said, "Emperor, I fear the holy pope will find some of the canons here hard to bear."

"If he knows what is good for him," I said, pitching my voice so all the assembled bishops could hear, "he will give his assent, and waste no time doing it. I have great things in mind in the east, and have no intention of wasting my time enforcing discipline on a barbarous, backwoods province like Italy. If the bishop of Rome withholds his signature, he shall be punished quickly and severely."

The bishops from within the heartland of the Roman Empire nodded, knowing they had to accommodate themselves to their sovereign's wishes. Of the far smaller number of western bishops, some looked alarmed, others indignant. The latter, I suppose, failed to remember how my grandfather, as other Roman Emperors had done before him, had used the exarch of Ravenna to seize a pope who flouted his wishes and send him off to imprisonment, exile, and torture. Although not eager to do such a thing, I aimed to if Sergios decided to be troublesome. Having him inflame dissent and argument was the last thing I needed when I was about to go to war against Abimelekh.

Leontios's broad, earnest face puckered into a frown. "Emperor, your father would never have done a thing like this," he said. "I fought the Arabs a lot of times for him, but he would never have done anything like this."

He had not lost his habit of repeating himself, but that was not why I glared at him. I had, by then, been Emperor of the Romans for seven years. Being told what my father would have done rankled. "He is dead," I answered, my voice cold. "I choose war against the followers of the false prophet, not this odious treaty of peace, which they have violated and under which the Roman Empire suffers. I thought of you to command my army and chast ise them as they deserve. You have succeeded against them before. Are you afraid you cannot again?"

"I'm not afraid of anything," he said, puffing out his massive chest. "Not of anything. But it won't be as easy as it was before. Abimelekh's finally put down all the rebellions that plagued him, so it won't be easy, no indeed."

"That only means he'll be able to put a few more men in the line against us," I said. "We'll have the troops from the military districts, we'll have Neboulos and his special army of Sklavenoi-"

"Useless barbarians," Leontios muttered, which made me glare again, Neboulos having, to my continuing astonishment, trained up as many Sklavenoi as he had promised me. "Barbarians," Leontios said again. "Emperor, if you beat them with a Roman army, what makes you think Abimelekh won't beat them with an Arab army?"

"They fought well against us," I answered, exaggerating only a little, "and since then they've had a taste of proper Roman discipline," which was true. "Put them in the line with Roman soldiers to help stiffen them, and they'll do well, I feel sure. And besides," I went on, flattering him a little because, thanks to his previous victories, I did want him to command the army, "with you leading the host, how can we possibly fail?"

In due course, Leontios would show me how we could possibly fail. At the moment, the glow that lighted his features did not spring from the reflection of lamplight off his rather greasy skin. Like a sponge, he sucked up compliments. "Ah, Emperor, you honor me more than I deserve," he boomed, which also turned out to be true.

"I don't think so," I said, showing how little I knew of the future. "Now, let's decide how best to strike the Arabs a hard blow. When we do strike them, it should be in a way they'll remember for years."

"We'll hit 'em a good lick, Emperor, that we will," Leontios said. "A good lick, yes indeed."

"You have no more objections?" I asked.

"I wouldn't do it, Emperor," he said. "I wouldn't. I already told you that. But if we are foolish enough to do it- uh, that is, if we are going to do it- you're right, and we should hit 'em as hard as we can. I'll do my best to strike a hard blow against 'em, that I will."

I weighed him in the balance and did not find him wanting. Continuing to speak against my point of view, I told myself, took a certain amount of courage, courage that could also be usefully employed against the Arabs. I said, "Send out orders for the armies from the military districts to gather at their assembly points. Send orders to Neboulos and the special army, also. I shall personally lead forth the imperial guards to join them."

He bowed. "Emperor, everything shall be as you say."

While I contemplated war against the followers of the false prophet, Abimelekh contemplated desecrating a famous and holy Christian shrine. I learned of this as the result of an unexpected embassy from the lands controlled by the miscalled commander of the faithful.

Both ambassadors, as often happens, were Christians: Sergios of Damascus, the son of the Mansour with whom my father had often dealt, who served Abimelekh as finance minister; and Patrikios Klausus, the leader of the Christians of Palestine. "Emperor, we are in sore need of your aid," Sergios said after he and Patrikios had prostrated themselves before me. "Abimelekh, my ruler, plans to restore the temple at Mecca, which suffered in the Arabs' late civil war."

"Why is this a concern to me?" I asked with genuine curiosity. Though the center from which the Arabs' false prophet sprang out like a wolf, Mecca had never been under the dominion of the Roman Empire.

Patrikios answered me: "Emperor, for the restoration he plans to take columns from the grotto of Christ's agony at holy Gethsemane."

"An outrage!" I shouted. Had I not already decided to go to war against the Arabs, learning of the wickedness Abimelekh planned on perpetrating would have impelled me in that direction.

But Mansour held up a soothing hand. "We asked him not to do this, Emperor, hoping you might supply us with other columns to use in their stead."

"That I can do," I said at once. "This I shall do." In my mind's eye, I saw the fortress of Ankyra in central Anatolia, and what had been the city and was now the field of ruins below. Abimelekh could have a hundred columns from those ruins alone without making anyone notice they were missing. And Ankyra was but one of the scores of cities that had shrunk or died in the incessant warfare of the past ninety years. The miscalled commander of the faithful was welcome to our rubbish, even if I was about to go to war with him.

Sergios and Patrikios were effusive in their thanks. "We knew your generosity would let us preserve the holy place undisturbed," Patrikios said.

"No matter what happens," I promised, "I will send these columns to Abimelekh for his false temple at Mecca, so that he need not trouble a shrine belonging to the true faith." This promise I kept, preventing the desecration of the church at Gethsemane.

Perhaps I should not have said no matter what happens: in so doing, I gave a sort of warning of what I intended in aid of my campaign in the east. Sergios, however, took it a different way, saying, "Emperor, on our journey hither, we saw your new nomismata, and very beautiful they are, too."

"They are indeed," I said, "and show, as they should, Christ protecting the Roman Empire and the Roman Emperor."

"There is only one difficulty with them," Sergios said, "and that is that I fear my master, the caliph Abimelekh, will not accept them in his realm, since they contradict the teachings of his religion. He will have to pay you the agreed-upon tribute in coins of his own minting."

"We agreed it should be paid in nomismata," I reminded him.

He looked worried. "The weight of gold would be the same, Emperor, so you would not suffer any loss as a result of this. Only the images and legends of the coins would change."

"That was not part of the agreement we made."

Sergios looked unhappier yet. "Is this the word I should convey to the caliph? He will not be pleased to hear it, not even when I have the joy of telling him you have made arrangements to spare Gethsemane."

His words showed me courtiers in Damascus played the same games as did those of Constantinople, using good news to offset the bad and to keep their sovereign in as sweet a temper as they could. It is probably the same among the blond barbarians of the west. It is surely the same among the Khazars, who roam the plains north of the Black Sea. I have seen that with my own eyes.

To Sergios, I said, "If this message so distresses you, you need not deliver it to Abimelekh." Hearing that, he brightened. But I had not finished: "I shall give it to him in person," I said.

Sergios's face fell. So did that of Patrikios Klausus. Myakes suffered a coughing fit. If I had it to do over again, I would have held my tongue. But I did not have it to do over again. Abimelekh would be warned.