The Purple Shroud: A Novel of Empress Theodora (15 page)

While Theodora took in the news about Sophia, the servant who had brought Hypatius’ message was trying to speak to Narses, but Narses was busy watching his mistress and pushed the nervous servant away, told him to wait. Then, when Theodora fell to her knees, all her women falling at the same time – whether to comfort her or simply because they were not permitted to stand while the Empress knelt – Narses was too busy trying to read Justinian’s reaction to his wife’s collapse
to listen to the servant muttering about Hypatius. The riot had entered the room, leaked into the one place they’d felt safe.

The Empress was sobbing silently, her body rocking, her face contorted as she tried, and failed, to hold in her grief, to maintain the composure of her rank. Her pregnant sister raged against City, state, and people alike. Ana and Indaro fell wailing to the floor, Mariam holding them both, and then, in the middle of it all, as the women wept and the men rushed to hold them, the rumble that had been growing outside became louder still, seemed to bounce off the walls and into the Palace itself. It was the sound of the people calling Nika, calling Hypatius for Emperor, acclaiming their own victory.

Justinian looked at his wife, his rock, heartbroken. He saw his men bewildered; Belisarius all for action, Germanus still against. He turned, at last, to Narses for an answer and when, for once, he was offered none, the old eunuch as uncertain as the Emperor, Justinian made his decision.

‘Call a boat, for the Empress and myself. For all of us. We’ll go to the Augusta’s estate in Bithynia. The people do not want us dead, they want change. We’ll give them change. We will leave.’

He looked around at the shocked advisers, some relieved the August had finally made a choice, others horrified it was the choice to run, still others delighted, glad to finally get away. The Emperor clapped his hands and people sprang into action.

Action that stopped almost immediately. The Empress, speaking from the floor, from the mess of purple silk she twisted in her hands, lifted her head just high enough to say:

‘We are going nowhere.’

Theodora pulled herself up, her women stumbling to their
feet with her. Slowly she walked to Justinian, becoming steadier with every step. She pulled him close, far closer than they usually stood in public, and spoke quietly to him.

‘I apologise, sir. Do you remember, after the coronation, when we wept together? I promised you I would never show my distress so openly again. You told me we were August, that we must give the role its due respect, we agreed we would keep any fear, any upset, only for each other, you remember?’

Justinian nodded.

‘You said then, Master, that the purple was bigger than either of us.’

‘I did,’ he agreed. ‘It is.’

‘Then we cannot run from it.’

Turning to the whole room, the Palace guards awaiting orders, the generals ready to fight or to flee, their only job to do the August’s command, to Narses and Armeneus pushing the fearful servant from the room, and turning also to her women, who were still crying but more quietly now, Theodora spoke, specifically to Justinian, and through him to them all.

‘I am your Empress, sir. I stand in the purple beside you, here with your men, your advisers, your generals. I know it has been said that too often I speak where a woman should remain silent. It may be inappropriate, but this crisis does not call for what is appropriate, it calls for what is right.’

Her voice was quiet and calm, and while they could plainly hear the growing chant of Nika outside, everyone in the room was drawn to Theodora’s words. They moved closer and she went on.

‘I will give you my opinion –’ there were several raised eyebrows at this, but not a word to stop her, and she continued: ‘this is not the time to flee. Even if perfect safety were to welcome us with open arms on the other shore, we should not
run. We know it is impossible for anyone living to escape death in the end. And we know it is impossible for an Emperor to become an exile.’

She turned as she spoke, so that now she stood beside her husband, facing the generals and the guards who had come together, around their women, and she switched from Latin to a more impassioned Greek to add, ‘You’ve all listened to me before now, and trusted me – sometimes. I’ve helped you understand the people, and have been useful in that, I hope. But I am more than the young woman who came to the Palace eleven years ago. I am married, anointed, crowned. I wear the purple. And I will not be separated from it. I will never be called anything but Mistress.’

She took her husband’s hand, speaking quietly again, as if only to him, but turning out to the room, ensuring everyone could hear: ‘Master, if you truly mean to leave, go to our harbour. We have gold, coin, there is a world that will receive you. But who will you be, if you go? There is an old saying – purple makes the perfect burial shroud.’ Then Theodora turned back to stand before Justinian, whispering so that only he could hear her, ‘I intend to wear it until I die.’

T
he day turned on Theodora’s speech.

Justinian agreed. His wife’s words, flowing from Greek to Latin and back again convinced him. This was the way she spoke to him privately, the way they spoke to each other, using the language, the words, that best conveyed the deepest, clearest meaning. She rarely spoke this way in public: for years Theodora had schooled herself to show disagreement with her husband only when it was in both their interests to do so, when it was useful for the people to assume that one or other of the Imperial couple were on their side. If they could not have both, then most would be satisfied with August or Augusta speaking for them.

Theodora had missed the stage, but she had not missed its intrusions. Showing her private self here, in the very centre of government, was a huge risk. Justinian knew this, was grateful to her for it, and heard her words as the challenge they were. He stood beside her and now seemed to fill his purple robe where a moment before he had appeared diminished by it. Those men present who had, like their master, contemplated running away, were shamed into action. Those who had been aching to fight all day,
Belisarius in particular, were grateful for the spur to begin final preparations.

Narses’ assistants were sent out to judge the current state of affairs and quickly returned to report that Pompeius had now joined Hypatius in the Imperial Gallery, they were protected by a group of Palace guards who had turned against Justinian. The two brothers were waiting to be welcomed by the crowds massing in the Hippodrome. Narses heard this, grimly pleased he hadn’t taken Hypatius’ earlier reassurances seriously, all too aware that had they paid attention to that communiqué, rather than to the messenger who’d brought the news of Sophia’s death, they might be preparing for exile instead of readying themselves for a decisive battle with the rebels. There were one or two in the chamber who queried if there might not be clemency yet. Narses dismissed their concerns with a fist smacked against his open palm and a quick retort.

‘The people demanded the dismissal of senior government figures, and even when we met their demands they kept on with their aggression, firing our churches and burning the sick in their hospital beds. The Augusta has reminded us of our strength. Mercy is not an option.’

Narses sent out a group of eunuchs to go among the people in the Hippodrome and the many still swarming around the gates and remind them of centuries-old factional divisions. To Greens they would acknowledge the long-standing Green affiliations of Hypatius’ family, undermining Blue confidence in Hypatius as August; to Blues they were to offer bribes, generous sums that would recall the continued support Justinian’s regime had given the Blues. They would point out that the Emperor’s family had always been Blue, and that the child Theodora, along with her newly widowed mother and sisters,
had been cruelly rejected by the Greens when they most needed help. Would the Blues do the same now that she was their Empress, begging support?

The eunuchs, given an hour among the people, did their best work, starting with a whisper here, a mutter there, then a faked fight.

‘My master Hypatius’ wrath will be bitter if we cannot persuade the people to back the Emperor,’ said one of the eunuchs.

‘Your master is a fraud,’ the other answered. ‘Everyone knows Hypatius is with the people and only pretending to back the Emperor to fool the court.’

It was an old tactic, acting out the wider issues between just two protagonists, forcing the people closest to think more clearly about why they were there – and then in came the rest of the eunuchs with coin and promises, pulling fine threads of dissent and confusion among the crowd. Though the majority still clamoured for Hypatius, and while the rumbling chant of Nika continued, sparking from one section of the Hippodrome to another, the eunuchs returned to the Palace to report a real sense of frustration among the people, alongside a growing irritation that Hypatius had not been made ruler more quickly.

While the eunuchs worked the crowd, Narses directed two very different operations. First he ensured that the Palace guards loyal to Justinian – and there were many more since the Emperor had reasserted his strength – took over from those who had sided with Hypatius. It was a simple matter of sending in men who could act a little, well enough to convince their over-excited friends that since most of the guards were now prepared to stand with Hypatius and Pompeius, they could take the waiting in shifts. Soon enough it would be time to follow the new leader through to the Kathisma,
bringing him out to the people, where he would be lauded and welcomed. As the earlier shift happily left the Imperial Gallery, each guard was silently slaughtered, his throat skilfully cut within a dozen steps of the door. In no time a pile of bodies lay at one end of the long corridor to the gallery, while every man inside the room – with the exception of Hypatius and Pompeius – was true to Justinian.

With Hypatius and Pompeius unaware they were now under guard, and the first stirrings of dissent and mistrust among the rebels gathered in the Hippodrome, it was time for the second phase. Belisarius and Mundus led their men out from the Palace and around the Hippodrome. They entered through two different gates – Belisarius and his Goths used the gate usually reserved for chariots, Mundus and the Herules came through the Nekra Gate. Most of the people inside were readying to crown their new Emperor, congratulating themselves on the task achieved. Many were sitting back; days of rioting had brought them here, and now they waited among the broken seats and burnt stages of the damaged arena. Not one had any idea what was coming.

It took a few moments for those in the centre of the vast space to realise something was wrong, a little longer to understand they were in danger. Full awareness of their terrible predicament came only when other bodies smashed into them. It took screams and full-throated, quickly-throttled cries. It took the smell of fresh blood, the sound of snapping bones, the stink of men losing control of bladder and bowel. There was a human stampede to the gates – but the gates were blocked by Belisarius and Mundus and their soldiers. They were currently in use for entry only.

In the Imperial Gallery, Hypatius and Pompeius heard the screaming outside and rushed to the doors to find themselves
locked in with men who no longer behaved like guards, men who were suddenly, and quite obviously, gaolers.

Justinian and Narses waited. Their work would come when the bloodletting was done.

In one of the small Palace chapels, Theodora and Comito carefully washed Sophia’s shattered body, while Ana cried for the woman who had been more mother to her than Theodora, and Mariam and Indaro kept up a prayer chant on their knees. When the fierce north wind whipped the screams from the Hippodrome in through the chapel windows, the women shivered in the candlelight.

Theodora spoke as she stroked her old friend’s bruised and broken face: ‘Comito, if the baby you’re carrying is a girl, you will call her Sophia.’

And her sister, washing the cold, bloodied feet, said, ‘Yes.’

Just three hours later, Theodora stood beside Justinian, looking down into the Hippodrome from the Kathisma. They were not wearing the purple, neither stood there to be presented to the people, there were no torch lights to pick them out, illuminate their status. They stood back a little, in the shadows, wanting to see and wanting not to see. Mundus estimated twenty thousand dead, Belisarius believed the total would rise higher through the night as the piled-up bodies were moved to reveal more beneath.

‘A capacity crowd.’ Theodora’s voice was less than a whisper.

‘What?’ Justinian was finding it hard to take in what he saw.

‘Thirty thousand. When the arena is full to capacity, for the big races, the big festivals, there’s not really room for a proper show. The most we can offer them is a few speeches, a poem. They used to go down well with a full house, the old poems.’

She sighed, rubbed her eyes with her hands and her palms came away wet.

Justinian was looking at her, waiting for her to help him make sense of what had happened.

‘I dreamed this, years ago,’ she said, ‘I dreamed the Hippodrome full of blood.’

‘What came next?’

Theodora shook her head. ‘I woke up, woke myself up. It was too awful.’

‘It is too awful,’ her husband agreed.

‘And it’s done.’

‘But not finished.’

‘Hypatius and Pompeius?’

Justinian nodded, frowning. ‘I would let them leave, if I could. They could go into exile. I believe Hypatius, the message he sent. I believe he meant to hold the purple for us.’

‘Yes, he probably did, but it’s too late now. We took our stand, Justinian. We stood up to the rioters, we had to, they wouldn’t stop. Until this…’ she gestured out to the arena where exhausted soldiers were already moving among the bodies, ordering slaves, beginning the work of clearing the ground. ‘They burned down half the City, the Baths, the Senate, Hagia Sophia…Sophia…’

Theodora started to cry again.

Justinian reached for his wife, pulled her close to him, turning her face from the carnage below. ‘We’ll build it again. And better. We’ll bring them with us, they’ll want to rebuild, it’ll be our City, theirs and ours, the people and the purple.’