"Good, good," he said again. "This is why you marry."
"Your nephew will be Emperor of the Romans," I said, and watched his narrow eyes gleam as he contemplated the possibilities inherent in that. I contemplated those possibilities, too: having the vicegerent of God on earth be of their blood might bring the Khazars to Christianity wholesale, which would solidify their alliance with the Roman Empire against the deniers of Christ.
"For this news," Ibouzeros Gliabanos said, "I shall give you more gold." The news must have pleased him as greatly as appeared to be the case, for he kept his promise.
Again we traveled over the vast sea of grass. When the wind blew over it, it rippled and changed color, much as the waves did on the veritable sea. Our journey here was slower, though. Travel by land is always slower, save for couriers and others in a driving hurry, who constantly change mounts to speed themselves along.
Theodora rode on horseback, astride like a man. This would have startled me even had she not been carrying a child, but she took it as a matter of course. In a mixture of her tongue and mine, she said, "The baby is tiny yet. This does not hurt it. Khazars ride horses. I am a Khazar. I ride a horse." She had no need of my old pedagogue to teach her the elements of logic.
What was I do to? Beat her, make her stop riding, and slow us all down? I saw no sense in that. She kept riding a horse. Now that I think on it, whenever she has set her mind on doing a particular thing, she has in the end done it. Perhaps that is one of the reasons we get on so well.
Phanagoria, when we finally reached it, proved a town similar to Kherson, though smaller. It boasted several churches, better than half its populace being Romans. As with Kherson, though, it had a Khazar tudun or governor, a certain Balgitzin, who also ruled another nearby town but dwelt in Phanagoria. He dressed in Roman fashion, in a linen tunic, and spoke better Greek than his counterpart farther west.
"I am honored to have the Emperor of the Romans here as a guest in my city," he said when I presented myself to him on my arrival. "And you have wed the daughter of my splendid khagan. Will wonders never cease?" He bowed to Theodora, who had not followed everything he said. Seeing that, he spoke rapidly in the Khazar tongue.
"Yes, we are man and wife," she answered in Greek.
"I will give you a fine house, with many rooms," Balgitzin promised. He was full of promises, Balgitzin was. He was wasted as a tudun; he would have been a great success as a Constantinopolitan courtier. A man who made so many promises, though, was liable to have trouble keeping them all.
This first one, though, he kept. A minor noble of the imperial city would not have been ashamed of the house in which he installed us- not, at least, after the aforesaid noble had the house cleaned from top to bottom. Rats and mice and cockroaches and ants never stopped plaguing us as long as we lived there. Having lived much harder in Kherson, I made the best of things here.
Theodora, for her part, was enchanted. As I have previously mentioned, most of the dwellings in Atil are tents. Living within real walls and under a true roof made her feel as if she were inhabiting a palace. "Constantinople must be like this," she said one evening after we made love.
I fear I laughed at her. She got angry. I tried to explain what a small, mean, dingy town Phanagoria was when set alongside the Queen of Cities. She did not believe me. Having now seen one town, she imagined herself an expert on such things, and would not believe any city could exceed Phanagoria. Try as I would, I could not persuade her. She was stubborn in such matters, too.
Balgitzin fawned on us. We had gold from Ibouzeros Gliabanos. Theodora liked salted mackerel. To her, it was new and exotic and tasty. I paid for beef and mutton. I had had enough of salt fish and dried fish for a lifetime.
All my comrades but Myakes went back to Kherson, resuming the lives they had interrupted on my behalf and passing my regards on to Moropaulos and my other followers there who had not left. Once they were gone, I settled down to make myself as comfortable as possible in Phanagoria and to await any good news that might come from the Roman Empire.
Waiting came hard. Curiously, all the years I had passed in Kherson, up until the time when Auriabedas gave me back a nose of sorts, seemed to go by fast as a blink. However much I tried to keep my hopes burning, they had faded then. Now, with hope burning bright once more, each passing day seemed a wasted opportunity. I began spending time by the edge of the Black Sea once more, staring south and west across the water toward the imperial city as if my will could lift me and return me to my proper home.
Stephen, having returned to Kherson, sent me word that all my backers in the town where I had originally been exiled were also alert for any reports coming from Constantinople, and that they, like me, had their hopes aroused. Emperor, they cheered loud and long when I told them of your marriage to the daughter of the Khazar khagan, he wrote.
I cheered that marriage myself. After so much sorrow, I was now happy above the mean. When Ibouzeros Gliabanos proposed the marriage to me, I had wondered if I could stand being joined to his sister. Now I wondered how I had lived so long without her.
Her body suited me, her temper suited me, and the converse also held true. We had, in short, fallen wildly in love with each other, something far more likely to spring from the union of a taverner's daughter and the young fellow who sells her father olive oil than a mating between Emperor and princess arranged not with an y thought for the feelings of the parties most intimately involved but only to secure an alliance. Call it luck or the will of God: either will do. Whatever the reason, I reveled in something I had not known since my brief marriage to Eudokia, and something which struck me as superior to that.
Spending time with Theodora helped me keep my wits about me as day followed day in Phanagoria. I consoled myself for each day that passed without useful word from Romania either in her arms or simply in her company. Too soon, too soon, the peaceful rhythms of those few brief weeks passed away, never to return.
I was having bread and wine with Theodora one quiet, sunny midday when Myakes broke in on us. No matter how long he and I had been together, I looked up at him with some considerable annoyance; no man cares to be interrupted while in the company of his wife, nor is it proper for even a husband's closest companions to gaze on her overmuch.
Before I could reprove him, though, he said, "Emperor, I was down at the harbor, and Moropaulos just now sailed in from Kherson." We called him Foolish Paul among ourselves, too, the name fitting like a boot. Myakes went on, "I've got him waiting out in the hallway, Emperor. He's carrying important news, news you need to hear."
My annoyance melted like snow in spring. "Bring him in, then," I said. I turned to Theodora. She made no move to absent herself, as a properly modest Roman wife would have done. Being the khagan's sister, she was accustomed to taking part in such affairs. After a moment's hesitation, I decided not to order her away.
In came Moropaulos, twisting slightly to get his great shoulders through the doorway. After bowing to me and then, shyly, to Theodora, he said, "Emperor, that Apsimaros, he just sent a man to the khagan of the Khazars on account of you. Fellow came up to Kherson and then took horse, bound for Atil."
"Did he?" I turned to Myakes. "You were right. I do have to hear this." Back to Moropaulos: "What does Apsimaros's man have to say to the khagan, pray?"
"Emperor, he says Apsimaros will send him many presents if he sends you to Constantinople alive. If the khagan doesn't fancy that, Apsimaros says, your head will do."
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.