Justinian

MYAKES

If it had been Leontios still on the throne down in Constantinople, Brother Elpidios, he would have sat on his backside till Justinian came to him. That was the way he was. Apsimaros stayed quiet too long for his own good, too, but he did finally get moving. I never had anything in particular against him. Up till then, he hadn't done anything to Justinian except hold onto the throne he'd taken from Leontios. He hadn't ruled too badly, either.

I thanked God we had people back there in Kherson. They let Justinian know what Apsimaros was up to, and he knew it before Ibouzeros Gliabanos did, too. Me, I couldn't imagine the khagan of the Khazars turning against the man he'd just married to his own sister.

Justinian, he'd always had more imagination than me.

Turning to Theodora, I asked, "How likely is your brother to betray me?"

"I do not know," she answered. Had she indignantly denied the possibility, I should have been certain her primary loyalty lay with him, not me. As things were, she went on, "If Apsimaros gives him enough, I think he will take it, though."

I wanted to kiss her for that answer, but would not because of the presence of Myakes and Moropaulos. "I think you are right," I said. "I think your brother would sooner align himself with someone calling himself Emperor who is in Constantinople than with a true Emperor in exile."

"That means trouble," Myakes said. "If the khagan tries to seize you or kill you, what do we do?"

"If that happens, we cannot stay any longer in lands the Khazars rule," I said, to which both Myakes and Theodora nodded. I looked toward Moropaulos. "God bless you for bringing this news. Tell my followers in Kherson to be ready for whatever may happen, and you be ready there to bring me word if Apsimaros sends more envoys to the khagan, or the other way round."

"I'll do it, Emperor," he promised. Dipping his head, he hurried out of the chamber. Though as thorough a supporter as anyone could wish, he was always shy in my presence.

"If we have to leave, where do we go?" Myakes asked. "Straight for Constantinople?"

My heart cried yes. Myakes' tone, though, suggested he did not think that a good idea. And the more my head examined the idea my heart loved, the more I was- reluctantly- inclined to agree with him. "If we show up outside the imperial city with no more force than a handful of men in a fishing boat, Apsimaros will crush us like a man smashing a cockroach under his heel," I said, hating what logic and reason told me.

Myakes let out a loud sigh of relief. "I think that's just right, Emperor. I don't know how to tell you how thankful I am you think the same way."

"You need men with you, to strike a blow against this Apsimaros," Theodora said- statement, not question- having followed our Greek. Her frown, which I had seldom seen, was amazingly like her brother's. After spending some little while in thought, she said, "Maybe, my husband, the Bulgars. They are not friends to the Romans, and they are not friends to the Khazars, either."

As I had started to say yes to Myakes' notion of sailing straight for the imperial city, so I started to say no to Theodora. Having fought against the Bulgars, I was not inclined to think of them as allies. But those wars, now, were more than a decade behind me. Asparukh, their khagan, had died while I was in Kherson. Of his son and successor, a certain Tervel, I knew little.

Glancing over to Myakes, I saw he liked the idea. The more I thought on it, the more I liked it, too- if it proved necessary. "Theou thelontos, we are worrying over nothing," I said. "If Ibouzeros Gliabanos shows proper loyalty to his family, I am perfectly safe here."

"Yes, God willing," Theodora said, making the sign of the cross; her acceptance of the true and holy orthodox Christian faith had sprung from deep conviction, not merely the desire to keep from hindering her brother's scheme. "Is it so in Romania, that all family is always loyal to all family?"

"No, it is not so," I said, remembering my father and my Uncle Herakleios and my Uncle Tiberius- and, before that, the struggle between my grandfather's backers and those supporting the descendants of my great-great-grandfather's second wife.

"It is not so among the Khazars, either," Theodora said.

"I didn't think it was," I answered. "We shall hope everything turns out for the best. And if everything does not turn out for the best- which God prevent- if that happens, we shall also be ready there."

Days flowed past, one after another. Having made the journey myself, I knew that Apsimaros's envoy, whoever he was, would be some time traveling across the plains to Atil. If he persuaded Ibouzeros Gliabanos to treachery, word that treachery had been ordained would have to make its way back to Phanagoria before any move against me could take place.

In the meanwhile, Theodora's belly began to bulge with the child she carried. She quickly reached the point of surfeit with salt fish and dried fish, a development surprising me not at all. Thanks to the money I had of her brother the khagan, we had no trouble affording better. The cook Balgitzin gave us also went out every so often and bought fresh fish from the men bringing them off the boats.

Theodora stared in some considerable dismay the first time he brought in a squid as long as his forearm. "You eat that?" she asked me incredulously. "It is not a proper fish. I do not like the way it stares at me, and I do not like all its-" She wiggled her fingers back and forth, lacking the proper word.

"Tentacles." I did my best to be helpful.

"Whatever they are." She made as if to push the squid away. But when, instead of seeing it whole, she ate slices of it fried in butter (a flavor I tolerated better than she did that of olive oil, to which she took years to become accustomed), she praised its delicate taste and grumbled only a little at its chewy texture. The cook bought more squid after that, and she ate them with good appetite. She did not, however, care to look at them before they were cooked. Nor does she even now, here on the day on which I set down these words.

Every time I saw Balgitzin after Moropaulos came to Phanagoria, I wondered whether the Khazar had yet received orders to make away with me. This was at first foolish, for I knew more about Apsimaros's effort against me than he did- unless, of course, the tudun at Kherson had sent him word at the same time as the fisherman came to me. I doubted that, Balgitzin remaining for some time cordial to me and not striking me as a man schooled in the art of dissembling.

And then one evening, having drunk myself cheerful if not sozzled at Phanagoria's finest tavern (a dubious commendation in such a limited field) along with Myakes, I discovered a squad of armed men- Khazars- outside the doorway to the house in which I and mine were living. They had not been there when the two of us left the place.

Myakes set a hand on my arm to hold me back, the Khazars having four or five presumably sober men to each of us. I shook him off and went straight up to them. "Any of you speak Greek?" I asked. When a couple of them nodded, I found the next logical question: "What's going on?"

They might have answered that question by drawing their swords, in which case I should not be scribbling now. One of the men who had shown he understood Greek answered, "Balgitzin say, you have Romans wanting to kill you. Is true?" It was my turn to nod; I could hardly deny it. The Khazar continued, "We are guards to you- for you- to be sure no Romans kill you."

"Oh," I said, and then, "Thank you very much." I could not object if Balgitzin set guards on me using such a pretext. For that matter, it might not have been a pretext: if Ibouzeros Gliabanos had rejected Apsimaros's request for my person or some significant fraction thereof, he would have reason to think the usurper might resort to more direct means of disposing of me. But if the khagan had decided to go along with the usurper, he gained a plausible excuse for placing warriors near me.

Which was it? I did not know. I could not know. I could only wait. I hated waiting. I had waited a decade for the slim chance I now had. How I hungered to slay them all! But they were many, and I had only faithful Myakes at my side. Suppose we did slay them? Balgitzin could summon soldiers without number. I could not.

I walked past them into the house. Myakes followed. The Khazars bowed to each of us in turn. I barred the door. That only made me feel more trapped, not more safe.

However much I desired to do so, the guards gave me no excuse to complain of their conduct to Balgitzin. When I stayed in the house to which the tudun of Phanagoria had assigned me, they remained outside. When I went out, one or two of them came along with me. I even found myself having trouble disliking them. They were but warriors, doing as they were ordered and doing it well.

No murderers with Apsimaros's gold in their belt pouches sprang out from behind a wall to try to slay me. Was that because the guards intimidated them or because they were not there? Again, how could I know?

A couple of weeks after Balgitzin gave me my armed guard, he invited Theodora and me to a feast at his residence that evening. "I thank you," I said. "What is the occasion?"

"A noble has come from the khagan's court at Atil to Phanagoria," he answered. "Of course you remember Papatzun."

"Of course," I lied. Back at Atil, one barbarian had seemed much like another. Those who did not speak Greek- which meant the large majority- might as well not have existed, as far as I was concerned.

But, as I had expected, my wife had no difficulty placing this Papatzun on my bringing her word of his arrival. She looked serious, saying, "This is a man my brother trusts."

"He has not come to Phanagoria now by chance, then?" I said.

"By chance?" Theodora frowned until she understood what I was driving at. "Oh. No. If anyone brings word from my brother to do this or not to do that, Papatzun is likely to be the one. I will learn from him what I can."

"Good." I kissed her, but then warned, "Don't let him know we suspect."

Amusement glinted in her dark, narrow eyes. "Do not fear about this. I will not ask him. I will not ask his friends, if any have come with him. I will ask his slaves. I know a couple of them well. They will tell me the truth."

I kissed her again. "I will not give you any more advice. You don't need it."

"You are my husband." She hesitated long enough to draw in a deep breath before going on, "You are my love. If I can help you, I will do it."

All I knew at that moment was gratitude. I may be reckoned unmanly for not disdaining a woman's help, but, considering how easily Theodora could have chosen the side of her brother and her tribe rather than mine, I knew how lucky I was in her. "You are my Empress, my Augusta, now," I said. "Soon you shall be my Empress in the Queen of Cities."

"God willing," she said once more, making the holy sign of the cross.

"As for the banquet," I said, "we shall see what we shall see."

On meeting Papatzun again, I discovered I did remember him after all: remember his face, at any rate, for we had not had much to say to each other, being largely without a common language. He was not very young, not very old, not very fat, not very thin, not very tall, not very short\a160… not very interesting. In Constantinople, I judged, he would have been a secretary in charge of some medium-sized bureau, a man doing a fairly large job well enough to avoid censure but not so well as to get himself promoted out of it.

In Constantinople, such quiet, competent men are common enough. No doubt being harder to come by in Khazaria, they must also have seemed more valuable than is the case within the boundaries of the Roman Empire. This rarity, I judge, accounted for the trust Ibouzeros Gliabanos reposed in Papatzun.

Khazar notions of banqueting require the celebrants to gorge themselves until they cannot move and drink until they cannot see. Having had my fill of fish, I ate beef and mutton. Perhaps having had his fill of beef and mutton, Papatzun ate mackerel, quite different from the sturgeon of Atil. He agreed with me in preferring wine to the drink his countrymen make from their mares' milk.

Despite Balgitzin's services as interpreter, Papatzun and I had little to say to each other. He was polite enough to me; I could no more fault his behavior than that of the guards with whom Balgitzin had saddled me. Every so often, I would glance over at him from the corner of my eye. Once or twice, I saw, or thought I saw, him glancing over at me in the same way. When that happened, each of us quickly looked away from the other.

Theodora, by contrast, enjoyed herself immensely. The banquet giving her the chance to speak her own language unmixed with Greek, she took full advantage of it, chatting animatedly with Balgitzin's wife (whose name I learned but have long since forgotten), taking part in the conversation of the men more freely than would have been reckoned proper at a Roman feast, and, by all appearances, enjoying her conversations with Balgitzin's and Papatzun's slaves as well.

Balgitzin swilled till he began to snore. Papatzun let out a sniff of contempt. I had been to enough Khazar banquets to have learned that the one who passes out first is often an object of contempt, being reckoned weak if not effeminate. In slow, bad Greek, with long pauses for thought between words, Papatzun said, "No- hold- wine."

"No, indeed," I answered. I was by then quite drunk, but not so drunk as to let down my guard. "You, now, you drink like a man." He smiled vaguely, understanding enough of the Greek to know I had not insulted him. I did my best to put the words into the Khazar tongue.

"I am a man," he said in his native language. "You are a man." I wondered if he would run through the conjugation of the verb to be, but he just studied me for a while, now making no pretense of doing anything else. After a couple of minutes of this intense scrutiny, he lifted his goblet in what was half salute, half challenge. I lifted mine as well. We drank at the same time, and drank deep.

Presently, Papatzun slumped over like a tree under the woodsman's ax. Having won the drinking bout, I looked around for Theodora. She was not there; she must have gone off with Balgitzin's wife. One of the Khazar's slaves came up to me when, vaguely surprised that I could, I got to my feet. "Take me to my wife," I said when he asked what I required.

Instead, he brought Theodora to me. She looked down at Balgitzin and Papatzun, both of whom sprawled snoring on the rugs. But for those snores, they might as well have been dead men. They would lie there unmoving till sunrise or longer. After that, for some hours they would wish for death rather than imitating it. Having lain as they lay, I knew this well.

Not even the stark shadows of lamplight fully defined the expression on Theodora's face, which, being flatter and smoother than those of Roman blood, had fewer sharp angles to build shadows. Her eyes went from the snoring Khazars to me. "Can you walk home?" she asked.

"I can do anything," I said grandly, which in truth meant I could do very little. Theodora smiled. She knew what kind of talk got poured out of the neck of a wine jar. I do remember that we got home, and I am too large for her to have carried me all that way, so logic compels me to believe I walked. Logic aside, though, I have no proof of this.

Thinking on it, I suppose the guards Balgitzin had given me (or had set on me- I still did not know how to construe their presence) could have done the hauling. But Theodora would have chaffed me about that had it happened, so I still believe I did set one foot in front of the other all the way from Balgitzin's residence to my own.

Once there, I remember asking her, "What did you learn of Papatzun's slaves?"

She seemed impressed at my recalling Papatzun had slaves, let alone that they might know something important. But all she would say was, "I will tell you in the morning." I tried to argue with her. She lay down, as if for sleep. I lay down beside her to go on with the argument, and the wine overwhelmed me, as she must have known it would. Devious, was Theodora.

I have had thicker heads than the one with which I woke up the next day- a few. Headache or no, though, I remembered what Theodora had said before I passed out. We still lay side by side. Shaking her, I asked the same question I had put the night before: "What did you learn of Papatzun's slaves?"

She woke smoothly, as was her usual habit, nor, for that matter, had she drunk herself into crapulence. "You do recall." She sounded surprised. "If I thought you would, I would have told you last night. Papatzun has"- her face went cold and sad-"has brought Balgitzin orders to kill you whenever he gets the command from, from-"

"From your brother," I finished for her.

"Yes," she said, and looked away from me. I heard tears in her voice as she went on, "I knew he could do this. I did not think he would do this."

Not all the blood pounding in my head sprang from the hangover, not now. Part of that painful drumroll was fury. "Your brother can give orders, but he is in Atil, far away," I said. "His commands will take time to be obeyed. I am right here. I intend to be ready to move tonight."

She did not, at first, fully grasp what I was saying, being caught up in the choices she had made. "He is my brother," she whispered- probably to hers elf, for she used the Khazar tongue, "but you are my husband. You are my husband."

I took her in my arms. "And very glad of it, too," I said. Had it not been for her, no doubt Ibouzeros Gliabanos, Papatzun, and Balgitzin should have succeeded in making away with me. But that was not what I meant, or was, at most, a tiny part of it. I have never heard the act of love praised as a cure for too much wine, but it served me admirably.

Much improved, and knowing now what lay before me, I summoned Myakes. He and Theodora and I spent much of the morning making plans, finding holes in them, and making new ones. At last we had a scheme that satisfied everyone- except Theodora.

"You will leave me behind," she said bitterly.

I nodded. "I will. If I win after tonight, as God is my witness and my judge I will send for you. And if I lose, you will be able to go home safely to your brother. He will treat you well regardless of what happens here. You are blood of his blood, as I am not, and your child will carry my blood as well, which may prove useful to him one day. That, though, is only if I lose." I kissed her, right there in front of Myakes, and, I daresay, scandalized him. "I intend to win."

The feast I laid on that night rivaled the one Balgitzin had given the night before. The food, in my judgment, was better, being cooked in the Roman fashion rather than that of the Khazars. Papatzun might not have found it better, but he found no fault with it, either, not by how much he ate. He drank as heroically as he had the night before, too.

Through Theodora, who was interpreting between us, he said, "You drank me down last night, Justinian, but tonight you are not even in the race. Do you Romans save it up for one night and then give over? A true man is ready to drink every night!" He drained his cup and held it out for more.

I rose as if to fill it myself, carrying the wine jar as I went round behind him. But instead of pouring at once, I set the jar down on the table. Papatzun looked back over his shoulder at me, drunken puzzlement on his face.

Setting down the jar let me free the braided leather cord I was using as a belt for my tunic. His turning his head at just that moment gave me the perfect chance to whip that cord around his thick neck. I tightened it with all the strength I had in me.

Papatzun tried to cry out. He could not- I gave him no air. He tried to reach around himself to seize me and throw me aside, but could not do that, either. His feet thumped on the floor. They grew still surprisingly fast. His face went from the red of drunkenness to a purplish black I had not seen since the Sklavinian woman hanged herself in my pavilion.

Not until the stench of loosening bowels proved him dead did I relax my grip. Then, letting him topple over, I turned to Myakes and Theodora, belting the leather cord back around my waist as I did so. My grin might have been the one on my face after having a woman. "One traitor dealt with," I said. "Now for the other."

Before I could go out the door, Theodora embraced me, saying, "God with you."

"God with us all," I said, not knowing whether I would ever see her again.

When Myakes and I burst outside, the guards Balgitzin set over me, who had been drinking wine and shooting dice by torchlight, sprang to their feet. "What is wrong?" asked the one who spoke the best Greek.

I jerked a thumb back at the house. "Papatzun has been taken ill in there," I said, that bearing at least some nodding relation to the truth. I followed it with a thoroughgoing lie: "He's asking for Balgitzin- says it's life or death."

In the excitement of the moment, none of the guards asked any questions past that. They did what they usually did: told off a couple from their number to accompany me wherever I was going. One of them carried a torch, adding its light to that from the one Myakes carried.

We hurried through the streets of Phanagoria to Balgitzin's residence, where, arriving, we pounded on the door. One of Balgitzin's servitors answering, we told him the same tale we had given the guards.

Balgitzin came out a few minutes later. "What's wrong with Papatzun?" he asked as we started back to the house he had assigned me.

"His belly pains him," I answered. "He has been vomiting, and fears he might die. He says he needs to tell you something. I do not know what it is."

He sent me a hooded glance, wondering, no doubt, if the message pertained to me. Then we pressed on. As far as he knew, I was ignorant of the orders concerning me Papatzun had brought from Ibouzeros Gliabanos. I hid a smile, not that the torchlight was likely to betray it in any case. Soon enough, I would show him what I knew.

We passed the black mouth of an alley opening out onto the street along which we traveled. I stopped and recoiled. "What's that?" I exclaimed, pointing down the alley. "Something- someone- moved in there."

Balgitzin turned toward the alley. The Khazar guard held his torch higher, the better to see down the narrow, stinking lane. Out came Myakes' sword, as if to defend us from footpads.

While Balgitzin stood distracted, I undid my braided belt and whipped it around his neck without giving him the chance to cry out. Strangling is the best way to kill a man when one must be silent doing it. Balgitzin got out no more than one startled, almost inaudible grunt.

Myakes, being without a strangling cord, did the best he could with his blade. Using point rather than edge, he thrust deep into the guard's throat, blood thereby drowning whatever outcry the man might have made. The Khazar dropped the torch and tried to draw his own sword, but toppled into unconsciousness and death with a hand still on the hilt.

I choked the life out of Balgitzin. When his bowels voided their contents as Papatzun's had done, I let his corpse lie in the street along with the rest of the offal there.

Ever practical, Myakes slit his purse and the guard's. "Heh," he said, his whisper loud in the quiet night. "Even a little gold here. And they may think- for a few minutes they may think- somebody else killed these two and kidnapped us. The more time we can buy to get away, the better off we're going to be."

"No arguments," I said. We hurried off toward the eastern gate of Phanagoria- the direction opposite that in which we would have been expected to flee, our friends dwelling in Kherson to the west- and I put my head down to make my features harder to recognize, reeling along as if drunk.

"Here, what's this?" a guard called on our approach.

"Got to get my cousin here back to Tomin," Myakes answered, sounding drunk himself. "Tavern there weren't good enough for him, no, sir- had to come taste the big city, the damn fool. Well, he's still got to go out fishing tomorrow morning, yes he does, no matter how much he had tonight." His chuckle was full of malicious pleasure at my fate.

He sounded absolutely convincing. I almost believed him myself, and I knew better. The guards laughed and stood aside, letting us pass out into the night.

As a town, Phanagoria had little to recommend it, although I lived as well there as anyone was capable of living. Tomin, now\a160… if anyone who had to live in Tomin slew himself to escape, I doubt God would reckon his suicide a sin deserving damnation. It lay- and, worse luck, lies yet- about three miles east of Phanagoria: a miserable little place without a wall, without a church, and without a hostel, as I discovered on arriving. The couple of taverns the place did have were taverns only, not places where travelers might put up for the night. The publicans apparently never dreamt anyone might want to put up at Tomin for the night, an attitude for which I confess a certain amount of sympathetic understanding.

Tomin exists for one reason and one reason only: a tiny indentation in the seacoast offering ships a little shelter. "We have gold," Myakes said, as if reminding himself, when we lay down against the wall of a building to get out of a chilly breeze and try to rest before dawn. "We can hire a fishing boat to take us to Kherson."

"To somewhere near Kherson, anyway," I said. "I'm too easily recognized to go into the city, I fear, with Apsimaros and the rich men there wanting my head. But you're right, Myakes, we need to gather my followers now."

"And after we do that, Emperor?" he asked, shifting around to try to get more comfortable- or at least less uncomfortable.

"After that?" I sighed. "After that, the Bulgars. Theodora was right: with Ibouzeros Gliabanos turned against me, I have no better choice." As I tried to sleep, I also tried not to think about how bad a choice the Bulgars were likely to be.

I do not remember dozing off, but I must have, for Myakes woke me at dawn by pounding on a tavern door. When the irate proprietor opened up, a show of coins salved his wrath and got us bread and wine, which we ate and drank picking our way through Tomin's muddy alleys to the seaside.

"Look!" I pointed. A real merchant ship was beached there, dwarfing the little fishing boats to either side of it. Some considerable trade exists among the cities and towns along the northern coast of the Black Sea. The only surprise was that this ship had put in at Tomin rather than the nearby Phanagoria. Caught by darkness, perhaps. "We can get out of here faster with him than with any fisherman."

"If he's westbound, aye," Myakes answered. "Probably will be, or we'd have seen him in port yesterday."

"Only one way to find out," I answered, and strode down toward the merchantman.

Her captain, a rough-hewn fellow named Peter, dickered a fare to Symbolon, the nearest port to Kherson, asking no questions once we had paid. I had been prepared to introduce myself as John and Myakes as Myron, but he proved interested only in money, not in names.

We sailed shortly thereafter, having had little intercourse with the folk of Tomin: wh en the Khazars came after us, as I am certain they must have done on discovering both Balgitzin and Papatzun slain, they might well have concluded Myakes and I had vanished into thin air. Whatever they concluded, they did not catch up to us before we had quitted that part of the world for good.

The one bad stretch I had on the three-day voyage to Symbolon came very early, when Peter put into the port of Phanagoria to unload wine and load smoked fish. Myakes and I spent all our time at the stern of the ship, staring out to sea. But the Khazars did not send men aboard to search for us. On our sailing out of that harbor, Myakes and I finished emptying the jar of wine he had bought in Tomin.

Apsimaros had captained the last ship upon which I had traveled, the one taking me from Constantinople into exile in Kherson. No doubt mercifully, I recall next to nothing of that voyage. I could here set forth the journey to Symbolon in exacting detail, but to what purpose? Only storms make travel by sea anything but dull. We had none, not on that journey. I thanked God, not yet aware of His plan for me.

Myakes and I left the merchantman at Symbolon, a town larger than Tomin but smaller than Phanagoria lying a few miles south of Kherson. There I took a room above a tavern (the folk at Symbolon at least entertaining the possibility of someone's wishing to do such a thing), and Myakes and I divided the money we had with us.

I told him, "Go into Kherson. If we're heading for the land of the Bulgars, we'll need Moropaulos's boat again. Anyone else who wants to come is welcome." I laughed. "One thing sure: I'll know who my true friends are."

"Some of them, Emperor, anyhow," Myakes said. "I've seen that boat Foolish Paul sails. It won't hold many, and that's the truth."

I waved that away. Some who said they backed me would find more excuses than Moropaulos's boat being small to avoid accompanying me on what they reckoned a forlorn hope. "Go on," I told Myakes. "I'll see you back here tonight or tomorrow morning, I expect."

"Aye, Emperor," Myakes said, and slipped away. I had no doubt he would slip into Kherson as readily. He had spent as long in exile there as had I, but I would have drawn notice even had I not been mutilated, and he, I think, would have remained inconspicuous even with a cut nose. Regardless of the setting in which he found himself, he had a knack for making himself at home without drawing undue attention.

Waiting came hard, as it always does for me. I went down into the tavern. I drank a good deal of wine. I ate salt-fish stew. Although having the money to pay for better, I forbore. Symbolon not being Kherson, I had some chance of going unrecognized there, and meant to foster that chance as much as I could. So far as I could tell, no one paid me any particular attention. I was ugly but not hideous, and thereby ideally suited for going unnoticed.

Evening came with no sign of Myakes. After another bowl of that stew- the last, praise God, I ever tasted!- I went up to the room I had bought for the night. Though taking no woman up there with me, I did not sleep alone. I crushed all the bugs I could, but, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, was defeated at last by superior numbers. Eventually, later than I would have liked, sleep found me.

I woke before dawn, whether from nerves or bedbugs I cannot say. Going downstairs, I discovered myself the only one awake in the place, and so, less than happy with the world, returned to my room once more until I heard someone moving about below. I went down again, and breakfasted on wine and an egg cooked with cheese, that being the only choice besides fish porridge.

Sometime during the second hour of the morning, Myakes strode into the tavern. I did not rise from my stool: I sprang from it. Had he waited any longer before arriving, I daresay I should have smashed the top of my head from leaping straight up into the ceiling.

His smile was impudent, he having known the state in which I would be. "Boat's at the wharf, Emperor," he said. "Let's go."

I left the tavern without a backward glance. When we were about halfway down to the harbor- a short journey, Symbolon hardly being any sort of metropolis- I asked, "How many companions have I?"

His face clouded. "Me and Moropaulos. Barisbakourios and Stephen. Theophilos. I thought he'd be up in Doros, but he was staying with Stephen. That's it."

"Not even Cyrus?" I said in dismay.

"Not his fault, Emperor," Myakes said. "I couldn't get word to him in the monastery- he got himself in trouble there for gallivanting off the last time without so much as a by-your-leave. Didn't want to wait around, spend any more time in Kherson than I had to."

"All right," I said. "Good enough. As for the others who would not come- a plague on them." More than a few had cheered me in Kherson when I declared I would take back the imperial throne. Cheering was easy. When it came to anything more than cheering, where were they? As if invisible. "I'll have my vengeance on them, too, by God and His Son. But first the Romans." I hurried down toward the fishing boat, Myakes half-trotting beside me.

Foolish Paul waved from the boat. I waved back, though my first sight of the vessel that would, I hoped, carry me to the land of the Bulgars made me wonder how it had sailed from Kherson to Symbolon, let alone from Kherson to Phanagoria bringing me news of Apsimaros's move against me.

I also cast aside some of my dismay at the failure of more Khersonites to rally to my standard. Moropaulos's boat was crowded with him and Theophilos, Stephen and Barisbakourios in it. Adding Myakes and me would make it very crowded. It did not look as if it had much room for provisions aboard, either. I shrugged. Other supplies failing, we could, I supposed, catch fish.

Moropaulos waved again. "Come on, Emperor," he called. "The sooner we leave, the sooner we get there." A broad, foolish grin spread over his broad, foolish face.

Two or three of the dockside loungers any harbor in the civilized world attracts turned curious eyes my way. I wished Moropaulos had not chosen that exact moment to address me by my imperial title. If searchers from Kherson or Phanagoria came to Symbolon, they would have no trouble learning I had been there. I consoled myself with the thought that they were unlikely to be able to find out whither I was bound.

Stooping on the edge of the pier, I scrambled down into Moropaulos's boat. The fisherman steadied first me and then Myakes. After undoing the lines holding the boat to the pier, Moropaulos and Theophilos plied a couple of long oars to get us out into open water. Once we were there, Foolish Paul, who struck me as being far less foolish now that I encountered him in his proper element, raised the sail, turned it to the best angle to take advantage of what wind we had, and sent us heading northwards.

When we sailed past the lighthouse with which Kherson feebly imitates fabled Alexandria, I shook my fist at the town. "May I never see you again!" I called across the water, a wish that has come true. "And may I punish you as you have tried to punish me!" I am still fulfilling that wish even as I write these words.

Above Kherson, the coast of the peninsula on which it lies curves up to the north and west. We stayed in sight of land at all times. As I had guessed, between tacks Moropaulos let his nets down into the water. The catch was small, but enough to keep us fed, each of us taking turns roasting his fish above a tiny brazier. A bucket of seawater always stood close by, lest a sudden great wave overturn the brazier and spill burning coals onto the deck.

Being small and lighter than the dromons in which I had previously traveled, the fishing boat had a motion on the water different from theirs. I felt every movement of the sea, and proved myself a man able to take such motions as they came. Poor Stephen, being less fortunate in that regard, ate little and spent a lot of time hanging over the leeward rail.

We traveled past the headland marking the westernmost extension of the peninsula on which Kherson lies, past the mouth of the Danapris, and then past that of the Danastris. Most nights, we simply beached the fishing boat, keeping watch alongside it till dawn. A couple of times, we put up in little trading towns by the edge of the sea. They were to Doros as Doros is to Constantinople; having said so much, I shall draw a veil of merciful silence over any further description of them.

From the mouth of the Danapris to that of the Danube, where the Bulgars live, is not a long voyage, and seemed all the shorter in comparison to the distance we had already come. Up to that time, the weather had been good. Oh, the winds for the most part blew from the northwest, requiring a good many tedious tacks if we were to beat our way westward, but they were not violent, and the sea, Stephen's opinion to the contrary notwithstanding, remained gentle.

All that changed two days after our sailing past the mouth of the Danapris. Clouds filled the sky, clouds so black and thick and roiling, I at first took them for the smoke of a great fire somewhere. The wind freshened and began to howl. The light chop in which the fishing boat bobbed turned into waves that first buffeted the boat and then began to toss it about the sea.

The storm blew up almost as fast as I can record its coming. Less than half an hour after I spied the clouds on the western horizon, rain started drenching us. The day went black as midnight. Every so often, a lightning bolt split the sky overhead, giving us all momentary, purple-tinged glimpses of the heaving sea. The roar of the thunder put me in mind of God's voice summoning us to judgment.

"Can you steer for shore?" I screamed to Moropaulos.

He shook his head. "No," he shouted back. "I don't even know which way the shore is, not for sure. Sea's doing the steering now, not me- s ea and the wind." He brailed up the sail. "I think the wind's still out of the west. Don't want to get blown too far away from land."

I shook my fist at the heavens, as I had at Kherson. Leontios had not been able to keep me down, not for good. The rich traders in Kherson had not been able to make away with me. When Apsimaros tried to move against me, he could not do so without my learning of it. When Ibouzeros Gliabanos sought to betray me, I learned of that, too, and struck first. Having escaped so much, having achieved so much, was I now to perish at God's hands?

"No!" I shouted, loud as I could, and shook my fist again.

The storm grew ever worse, despite my defiance. The fishing boat spun like a top, waves smiting it from every direction. The lightning showed those waves tall as hills, tall as mountains. Soon one would surely strike us wrong and capsize us, and then everything would be over.

After we went sliding down from yet another wavecrest deep into the trough behind, someone clutched the soaked sleeve of my tunic: Myakes. He had been fearless for so long, but now a flash of lightning showed the terror on his face. "We're going to die, Emperor!"

"No," I said, thinking him right. But then, the boat wallowing out of the trough, my spirits rose with it. I raised a defiant shout: "No!"

A wave broke over the bow, drenching both of us and almost sweeping me over the side. "We're going to die," Myakes insisted, spitting out saltwater. "I beg, you, Emperor, on my knees I beg you"- and he did fall to his knees-"promise God that if He spares you here, you'll have mercy on your enemies."

"What? Mercy?" I shook my fist at the heavens for a third time. "If I have mercy on even one of them, may God drown me now!"

And the storm stopped.