The Purple Shroud: A Novel of Empress Theodora (16 page)

Even in her distress, Theodora smiled, shaking her head. ‘Nice phrasing.’

Justinian frowned, chewing on his bottom lip. ‘Sorry. But it would be the right thing to do, yes?’

Theodora shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’ Her energy was too low, her grief too powerful for any other response.

‘And I’ll rebuild Hagia Sophia, for you, I promise. It will be a monument and a symbol into the future. It will be astonishing.’

‘Will it bring back my friend?’

Justinian kissed the top of her head. ‘No.’

‘No,’ Theodora said. She shook herself, stood straight again. ‘Then we should get on with it.’ She looked down into the arena, then out across the still-smouldering City. ‘But there’s clearing to be done first, we’ll need to lay the foundations well. Hypatius and Pompeius must go.’

All through the night, mothers, wives and lovers searched among the bodies for their husbands, their brothers and sons. The tens of thousands dead were Blue and Green, Church and state, Roman and Barbarian. There were even women, corpses of those who had decided to join their rioting brothers, women who had trespassed on the Hippodrome’s arena and had paid for that trespass with their lives. It was said that neither Belisarius nor Mundus would have allowed their troops to kill a woman, even in battle – not in the City itself, not Roman women – but the men they commanded were not Roman, and locals did not expect such niceties from Goths and Herules. The soldiers themselves said the women were more likely to have been crushed in the stampede when the fighting broke out, and it was clear when dawn finally came that if many of the rioters had been killed by the sword, just as many had been broken underfoot; whether by soldiers under Imperial command or by the flailing terror of others trying to escape, it was impossible to say. The riots that burned and scoured the City found their end in the crucible of the sand-covered, blood-covered arena.

*

As citizens and slaves picked their way through a cold morning of reclamation and burial, the brothers Hypatius and Pompeius were condemned to death. Neither Justinian nor Theodora usually favoured execution; Theodora had spoken eloquently for the alternative of banishment in the past, but this was not an ordinary time. Anastasius’ great-nephews did not fight their case, there was no point. They were led silently from the great chamber and hanged with the minimum of fuss and no spectators, their bodies thrown into the sea, the better to stop their graves becoming places of attraction for any remaining dissent. Their land and goods were, of course, confiscated, though Justinian let it be known their families could expect the return of the properties – most of them, at least – in a year or so.

Narses laid out the plans for the future. ‘Everything will be done with the best attention to form, and to order. No corners cut, no jubilation shown in victory. I want no glorying on our part, nothing to give them any reason to rise again. This is not a Triumph. There will be services in whichever of the churches are unharmed, and the Emperor and Empress will attend as many as possible – we want them out among the people. They’ll dispense alms to the hardest-hit areas, we already have temporary shelter going up for the newly homeless. As for the Senate, they’ll meet wherever they can, we’ll resume normal City and State business immediately. The delegates will be back to negotiating peace with Persia before spring. There was a moment of wavering. It’s over: now we move on. I have no intention of losing this momentum.’

He did not say it was Justinian’s wavering, his fear, they had all shared in, or that Theodora had pulled them back from
terror and flight. He did not need to.

*

For the next two months Narses worked Justinian and Theodora tirelessly, sending them out on an endless round of local pilgrimages, visits to the sick and injured. Justinian attended public discussions about the best way to rebuild, Theodora was seen more often than ever, praying with her reformed women, praying with her sister, or with Mariam and Ana, praying at the newly cleared site of the old Hagia Sophia. The people did not need to know she prayed in bitterness and hate as often as she found charity or compassion, nor did they need to know that she and Justinian were already commissioning architects to rebuild the old church, not just as a monument to God, but as a monument to their reign – something that would stand for ever for the two of them, no matter the inconsistencies of the people.

Theodora said to Narses, ‘The people are the same whether viewed from the Kathisma or the stage: they say they prefer to love the generous prince, but everyone most enjoys jeering the wicked king. They’ve had their say. Now we’ll get on with the job.’

‘The Emperor is still angry, Mistress.’

‘Yes, but he knows an angry ruler looks ugly on our coins, and there are better ways to show our power. He’s fallen out of love with the people, which makes the purple more attractive to him. But we need the people to like the look of it as well, and so we smile.’

‘And you, Mistress? What about your love for the people?’

Theodora looked at Narses and shook her head; she would not put words to the sting of betrayal she felt.

In his role as Chief of Staff, Narses cloaked the Imperial couple’s sharpened energy in even greater ritual and an elaborate playing out of the prescribed court and Church
calendar. The ceremonial looked good, and gave the people confidence in the rulers they believed they had allowed to stay in charge. It was only behind closed doors that Theodora permitted herself to weep for her lost friend, to despise those who had taken Sophia from her. When Comito gave birth, Theodora was by her side, holding her sister’s hand throughout. And when she held the tiny Sophia for the first time, still bloody, not yet bawling, and pulled the caul from her face to allow the child her first breath, she promised herself she would be a real mother to this baby.

T
hree days before the Easter festival Justinian stood in the Kathisma. Again he held the Gospel, this time with Theodora by his side, and now they were cheered by the crowd. It was a small crowd, admittedly: the building work in the Hippodrome meant that most of the bench seats had to be replaced, and even those delighted to see the Imperial couple back in place were well aware of the blood that had soaked into the ground in winter. By the time of the City’s own festival in mid-spring many of the worst-hit areas had been cleared for rebuilding, and work had started on the Baths and the Senate. Several new statues had been erected where those of the old gods had been torn down. Also in piety, the religious advisers in Justinian’s office began a campaign hoping to bring both sides of the Chalcedonian split together, united against the Arian heretics.

Hurrying in opposite directions, Narses and Armeneus met in a corridor. The procession of a saint’s holy thigh-bone down in the courtyard below was a reason to stop by a window and stand together for a moment.

‘If we’re lucky this anger against the Arians will narrow the Chalcedonian division a little,’ said Narses.

‘The Arians are rebelling?’

‘They are not. But the people will think a war waged merely to return Carthage to the map of Rome is too costly. If we tell them we’re fighting Gelimer and his Arian Vandals, or the Arian Goths in Italy, and if they worry that those Arian heretics would force us to believe as they do…’

‘Then they’re happier to pay.’

‘Much happier,’ Narses agreed.

The men touched hands then, carefully, and parted. The work of rebuilding the City and the Emperor’s reputation was too demanding to allow them any longer together.

Throughout the long hot summer that followed, Justinian and Narses continued their negotiations with the various Persian delegations, consulting their own spies, both among the Persian military and from deep inside Khusro’s court. They had no doubt Khusro was doing exactly the same, though since Hypatius’ body had finally washed ashore, there was a sense that those who might previously have been tempted to sell information to the Persians should be more worried about their own future than anything they could earn from the enemy. Justinian also picked up his work on The Digest again, to bring all Roman laws together. Tribonian continued assisting him. He did so with no title and no official payment, but given that the alternative was exile, the Pagan lawyer was happy enough.

After the rebellion Theodora had more influence in the Palace than ever before. Justinian and many others were clear that the Empress had not only saved their skins when she persuaded her husband to stay with the purple, but she might have saved the Empire as well. Had they caved in and allowed Hypatius to become August, the Sassanid rulers of Persia would have
seen it as their opportunity to try those borders even more fiercely, just as the Vandals now threatened in Carthage. There were many who now saw Theodora as the ruler to watch. So when she called for Sophia, her sister handed the baby over. It was not much of a hardship, Comito had raised Indaro and cared for Ana, she had done so while maintaining a successful singing career, supporting their mother and stepfather and the five step-brats until their mother’s death. If Theodora now wanted to play mama, she was welcome to it. In her mid-thirties, with no work but to attend her sister first, and her husband second, Comito was happy to put herself in third place – not her new child.

One late summer morning, seeing the now heavily pregnant Pasara struggle to rise from her deep bow, in a room full of people sticky with heat and bad-tempered already, well before noon, Theodora was surprised to find herself feeling compassion for the woman. She supposed the grief she felt for Sophia or the tenderness for her namesake baby must explain it, and leaned down to help. The younger woman shook off her hand.

‘You seemed uncomfortable, cousin,’ Theodora said quietly.

‘Oh no, Empress,’ Pasara answered, both hands holding her belly now, her eyes locked on Theodora’s, ‘it’s Justin here who was uncomfortable.’

‘You’re naming the child Justin?’

‘Why not? He’ll be related to the old Emperor after all, Germanus was Justin’s nephew, just as, through my own family line, we are related to the Emperor Anastasius.’

‘I know who your relatives are, Pasara.’

‘Then you know how fully noble my son will be.’

‘Assuming it is a boy.’

Pasara shrugged. ‘Even if I give birth to a daughter, at least she’ll be of the purple from the inside out.’

Theodora leaned in closer, her voice quieter still. ‘As opposed to?’

‘From the outside in, of course, Mistress. The purple will not be a cloak used to cover and to hide. But still,’ she said, smiling lightly, ‘I’m sure it is a boy. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I should rest.’

Theodora nodded permission for her to leave, aware that reports of the Empress physically attacking a pregnant woman might not sound very promising to the newly placated people, but when she heard Pasara’s final, half-whispered remark as she left the room, she wished she had slapped her, and publicly.

‘After all, exhaustion might cause any kind of deformity. Just imagine if my child was born a dwarf!’

Pasara’s ladies giggled and shushed her as they swept from the room, and Theodora whispered to Comito who stood closest, ‘Do you think the people would understand if I smacked the arrogant cow in the face? They loved Sophia almost as much as I did.’

Comito nodded. ‘I’m sure it’d be fine as long as you avoid kicking her in the belly. It’s not the baby’s fault its mother is a bitch.’

Theodora shook her head and with gentle concern in her voice, spoke up to the room of interested women: ‘Pasara’s concerned about her child’s health. Given the heat this year, I’m sure she does need rest, it will be better for them both if she goes nowhere at all.’

Mariam leaned forward to whisper, ‘Mistress, there are Germanus’ birthday celebrations next week, a procession’s been arranged to his house in Bithynia, it’s far more pleasant over there, less building work, less dust…’

‘Yes, it is.’ Theodora cut her off. ‘Still, I’ll have to insist Pasara doesn’t leave her room for at least the rest of the summer. If she’s worried about deformity, then it’s better she runs no risk of exposing the child to dirt and dust. I’m sure we can find someone to entertain Germanus in Bithynia – the soldier’s nowhere near as fussy as his wife.’

A brief ripple of laughter went round the room and Theodora got on with the rest of her day’s business, petitions to hear, alms to grant, young working girls to free from sex slavery to the marginally less restrictive confines of the Metanoia convent. Pasara was horrified to find the Empress’s household guards blocking her doors later that afternoon, and more furious still when Germanus said it was her own fault for baiting the Empress and stayed away three full days celebrating his birthday.

The baby boy was duly born, after Pasara had spent the last five weeks of her pregnancy in the heat of her inner rooms and, while she smiled from the women’s gallery as the baby Justin was baptised, she made sure to say nothing the Empress might overhear.

Two months later when Ana’s son was born, Theodora insisted he was named Anastasius, both after her own dead sister for whom Ana was named, and after the old Emperor Anastasius. Later still, when Justinian’s sister gave birth to a son, he was also named Justin. Theodora said the name both honoured the current Emperor and recalled the child’s great-uncle; the baby was, therefore, twice-purple. And she made sure to say so, very clearly, the next time Pasara was in court.

Theodora was also insistent about another matter.

‘Armeneus, I want you to do something and I don’t want you to tell Narses about it.’

Armeneus raised an eyebrow and continued his totalling of his mistress’s accounts. ‘Yes, Augusta?’

‘I’m serious. Narses is not to know.’

Armeneus put aside the papers he was working on, motioned the door slaves to stand outside, and then turned back to Theodora. ‘Always best to make sure we’re private, in that case.’

Theodora shrugged. ‘I don’t mean Narses is never to know, I’m not stupid enough to think that I can ask you to bring something into the Palace without it getting back to him eventually.’