"I shall do as you say, Emperor," Cyrus assured me. He looked sly. "And when news of this wedding, and of the name of the bride, reaches the Roman Empire, I have no doubt that it will create considerable\a160… excitement there."
"It had better," I said. "I intend that it should." I wanted Apsimaros to feel himself assailed by great names from out of the Roman past, and thus to feel himself all the more a parvenu, all the more illegitimate, all the more a usurper. Any means I could find to fill him with uncertainty and fear, I would use.
Tzitzak accepted the name Theodora without hesitation, and henceforth I shall refer to her by that name. Her baptism, at a small church used by Christian merchants in the Khazar capital, was by Cyrus's account and that of Ibouzeros Gliabanos a splendid affair (though not so splendid, unfortunately, as to tempt the khagan himself toward Christianity). The Khazar custom I have mentioned precluded my presence.
That accomplished, no impediment remained to our marriage. By the standards of Constantinople, it was celebrated with almost indecent haste. I, however, cared little for the standards of Constantinople, having been away from the imperial city for most of a decade. What I cared about was the chance to return to Constantinople. The marriage seeming necessary for that, I allowed no further delays.
Next to the church of the Holy Wisdom, even next to the churches of Kherson, that in which I was wed was a hovel. I think it was a furrier's warehouse before acquiring its present purpose. The crowns of marriage that went on my head and Theodora's were made of tin, the marriage belt I slipped round her waist (publicly here, again yielding to Khazar usages) of brass.
And yet, somehow, none of that mattered. With Cyrus officiating and the priest whose church it was assisting, the ceremony struck me as even more solemn and splendid than it had when I had wed Eudokia all those years before. I had been but a youth then. Now, half a lifetime later, I brought more of myself to the wedding, so to speak. That may have had something to do with it.
Here, too, I had caused a new soul to accept our saving Christian faith. That mattered very much to me. I also strongly felt the importance of renewing the alliance with the Khazars that had helped save the Roman Empire in the days of my great-great-grandfather and would now, God willing, help save it from the clutches of the usurper.
At last came the moment when, Theodora and I having given each other our vows, I could part her veil and see for myself what sort of bargain I had made with her brother the khagan.
Cyrus had told me I would find her acceptable. Taking another man's word in such matters, though, and especially the word of a celibate, is in itself a sort of act of faith, and not one I could easily or casually make. And so I examined her with no small curiosity and, at first, with something approaching dread.
By the standards of Constantinople, she was not a beauty. She had something of her brother's aspect: her face was flat and round, with high cheekbones, a rather low nose, and dark, narrow eyes set almost at a slant. But, having been in Atil for some time by then, I realized that, by the standards of Khazaria, she was, as Cyrus had assured me, an attractive woman. Her eyes, though narrow, were bright and clear, and she had a fine pointed chin (if Ibouzeros Gliabanos had the same, his beard concealed it).
She was also studying me, as no doubt she had been throughout the ceremony. She had not seen me until then, either, and must have heard of my mutilation and its repair. I wondered what she thought.
She surprised me by speaking in Greek obviously memorized and now parroted: "I shall try to be a good wife for you, Justinian Emperor of the Romans."
I wished I had learned more of the language she spoke. I had picked up a few words since arriving at her brother's court, but for the most part had relied upon Barisbakourios and Stephen to interpret for me: what point to the Emperor of the Romans' acquiring a barbarous tongue? Since the bargain with her brother, I had seen a point, and tried to gain more knowledge of the Khazar speech. "Good," I said now. "I too. For you. Thank you."
It was not a whole sentence, as hers was, but she understood and nodded and smiled, perhaps in some relief. Women of high blood know they are tokens in a game their menfolk play, passing from one house to another as suits the needs of the moment. This marriage, unusually, had been required of me no less than of her. We would both have to make the best of it.
The feast following the ceremony was lavish, in the nomad style: roast mutton and beef, a great plenty of fermented mare's milk and wine both, and a honeycomb which, by their ritual, Theodora and I shared in the hope that our union would be sweet.
Presently I took my bride to the tent appointed for the first night. My companions shouted the usual bawdy advice in Greek. The Khazars were also shouting. I had come to understand a couple of those words, too, from the women Ibouzeros Gliabanos had furnished me before yoking me to his sister. As best I could tell, they were saying the same sorts of things as Myakes and Theophilos and the rest.
A couple of lamps burning butter lighted the inside of the tent, which was piled thick with carpets. In the center, though, lay a square of white cloth about a cubit on a side. All nations except the utterly depraved cherish the proof of a bride's maidenhead.
Pointing to the lamps, I mimed blowing them out and asked, "Yes? No?" in her language. With my scarred forehead and flat, repaired nose, I knew I was no longer handsome. The whores at Kherson had let me couple with them in the light after Auriabedas cut on me, but Theodora might well have had taste more refined than theirs.
But she said, "No," in Greek and then something in the Khazar tongue I did not understand. She tried to turn that into Greek, but could not; her face twisted in frustration. Then she started to laugh. So did I. We would, I was sure, face the struggle often in times to come.
There are, though, ways of gaining understanding that require no words. I set my hand on her shoulder. She came to me. I held her. She felt like a woman in my arms. Her eyes closed when she kissed me. I thought- I made myself think- nothing of that, it being common among women.
Running over her body, my hands were pleased with what they found. And, when I took from her the long coat and tunic she wore, my eyes discovered my hands had not been mistaken. She was slim, with small breasts and nipples surprisingly dark for those of a woman who had not borne a child. I would have been more surprised- and more suspicious of her virginity- had the Khazar girls with whom I had amused myself not been similarly made. Like them, too, she had only a small, thin tuft of dark hair at the joining of her legs.
Having undressed her, I undressed myself as well. I was ready for her. Her narrow eyes widened to see how ready for her I was. I waved for her to lie down on the square of white cloth. Still nervously watching me, she did so. I knelt beside her, caressing her bare body as I had done while it was clothed.
Patience came easier than it had on my first wedding night, not least because I did not burn so hot as I had in my youth. I took my time, trying to excite Theodora or at least to make her less afraid both of me and of what we were about to do. After a while, clumsily and in unpracticed fashion, her hands began to imitate what mine were doing.
My mouth eventually went where my hand had gone. She sighed. Women encountering that caress for the first time, I have found, are astonished at how sweet it can be. I thought at first to give her full pleasure that way before taking her maidenhead, but then had a different notion. Bringing her nearly to the brink, I kept her there for some little time before entering her.
She was well and truly ready; I slid in with ease until the membrane stopped me. I thrust hard then. Beneath me, her face twisted in pain, but not for long: breaking through, I fleshed myself to the root. As I drew back and then thrust home once more, her face twisted again, this time in a way with which I had long been intimately familiar. She gasped and quivered; her inner muscles squeezed me.