The Purple Shroud: A Novel of Empress Theodora (18 page)

‘Not usually in ceremonial purple.’

‘No, and I don’t imagine your neck can take that headdress for much longer.’

‘This is an important celebration, you’ve worked hard for it.’

‘Yes. And now the peace is settled, we’ll look to the west. We’re doing well.’

‘We can do better.’

‘And we’ll do better still with this gentleman’s help.’

Justinian reached out a hand to a young man who had arrived to bow before them, elegantly kissing Theodora’s foot. Standing tall and smiling proudly, he showed no sign of the nerves that often affected those new to the Palace, though Theodora knew she hadn’t seen him before – she would definitely have remembered him if she had.

Justinian introduced him. ‘Anthemius of Tralles. He has plans for a new church and, if we like what he builds there, perhaps for a new Hagia Sophia,’ the Emperor leaned in to his wife and said, more quietly, ‘rebuilding your church.’

Theodora smiled politely and nodded to the young man. ‘I apologise, I was about to go inside. Will you meet with me tomorrow? The old church was a favourite of mine, and I would very much like to know your plans.’

Anthemius agreed to come to her rooms, Justinian wished his wife a good night, and Theodora walked back into the Palace, her entourage reluctantly following.

Much later that night, when the guests had either left the grounds or returned to the Palace rooms where they were staying, when the heavy scullery doors were closed so the noise of the massive clear-up operation disturbed no one but the servants, Narses lay in his bed, Armeneus by his side.

‘You can’t blame her for liking the look of him,’ the younger eunuch said.

‘I don’t,’ Narses said. ‘Architects are all too often effete artists, this one looks like he knows how to dig foundations and lay the stone himself. Which is just as well, if Justinian gives him the Hagia Sophia commission he’ll need to create
something astonishing and in record time. The Emperor wants a church to stun the world and he doesn’t want to wait.’

‘What about the partner?’ asked Armeneus.

‘Isodore is bright as well, perhaps too arrogant to be truly good-looking.’ Narses smiled, kissing the shoulder of the tall, dark-skinned man by his side. ‘But it’s not misplaced, they have wonderful ideas, that’s why I brought them to Justinian’s attention.’

‘But not Theodora’s?’

‘I’d rather she hadn’t met him quite so soon.’

‘She could have taken a lover before now and she hasn’t.’

‘There’s no guarantee she’ll want the architect either,’ Narses said, ‘but I watched her tonight. Theodora usually loves or hates on first sight and rarely bothers to hide her feelings. It was a studied indifference she showed Anthemius.’

‘And that’s a problem?’

‘I don’t know, but it’s certainly new.’

In her own room Theodora lay wide awake, thinking of Macedonia, wondering when she would contact her, and how. She was consciously not thinking about the young architect. She was consciously not comparing how both Macedonia and Anthemius made her feel, how awake both made her feel.

‘Y
ou look well.’

‘I look more than a decade older, Mistress,’ Macedonia said, smiling up at Theodora from her bow.

‘We all look that,’ Theodora said, gesturing for Macedonia to rise and follow her.

They were at Metanoia, having arranged, through messages passed to unknowing servants, to meet in the grounds, the better to speak privately.

‘No, you don’t, your skin is as fine as it was when we were last together.’

Theodora nodded. ‘Perhaps. I do have certain comforts in the Palace – a protection from the elements that was never available in the desert. I’ve become a cosseted wife, Macedonia.’

Macedonia laughed, shaking her head. ‘I can’t believe that.’ She paused, then said, ‘nor do I believe you would have called me here if you didn’t have a task for me.’

‘I might have just wanted to see you.’

Macedonia looked at the ex-lover who was now her Empress. ‘I think, in many ways, I am one of the last people you’d want to see here, in your new life, reminding you of the freedoms of the old.’

‘You know me well.’

‘I did once. I imagine, Mistress, that you have called me to work for you.’

‘I have.’

Theodora explained her dilemma, the need to be out among the people, the need to truly know what they were thinking, and the impossibility of getting close to them again, both as Empress who could never again be a commoner, and also since Nika.

‘I find I have lost some of my love for the people since Sophia’s death, since the riots. I’m not sure I want to be of them any more, even if they do appear to want us. So yes, it is to do with people, how distant I now feel, but it’s also…’

‘The faithful?’ Macedonia asked and continued, when Theodora nodded her agreement; ‘You know my faith is as yours, with the Patriarch Timothy, and with Severus.’

‘And the state is formally Chalcedonian in belief, and Justinian would have the state and the Church be one. I am the Emperor’s support in all his work, but it suits the Palace sometimes to allow us to speak against each other.’

‘And sometimes your stance has very little to do with actual belief?’

‘Yes,’ Theodora said. ‘We can argue about the nature of the Christ’s divinity until we exhaust ourselves, but the Egyptians and the Syrians, those in the Levant, will continue to share the belief you and I hold in His single nature, the belief Rome rejects. They will continue to press for prayer in their own languages and, no matter how much they – or we in the Palace – claim it is to do with faith, it has always been as much about their relationship with Rome as anything else.’

‘And what is it exactly you want me to do?’

Theodora shook her head, ‘There is no “exactly”. I have my position in this Palace, I am Augusta, can influence a little,
either through my own pressure or by encouraging the Emperor to hear my views, but in the Church…’

‘You are still a woman.’

‘A prominent woman.’

‘Where I am not,’ said Macedonia.

Theodora agreed. ‘And those men, despite their faith, have the appetites of men, not saints.’

‘Ah. You would like me to whore myself to the priests in the City and discover their plans?’

‘No, I know what the priests here plan. It’s the priests in Rome, in Italy, I’d like you to whore yourself to.’

‘That’s asking a lot, Mistress,’ Macedonia said.

Theodora looked squarely at her ex-lover. ‘No more than you once asked of me.’

‘True.’

‘And it may not come to that. We will send you to Rome. Justinian has spies there, of course, but sometimes there is information he does not share with me. And there is also information I want for myself I would rather not discuss with him.’

‘Such as?’ Macedonia asked.

‘I hear the Goth Regent Queen is very beautiful.’

‘I see. And there may be those who think Amalasuntha would be a politic partner for your husband?’

Theodora shrugged. ‘I would not be the first wife divorced to make way for a new marriage that is also a peace treaty.’

They had come to the end of the long walk away from the main house. Before them was a low wall, and the rocky shoreline, the Palace and the City far distant across the water. It was time to turn back.

Macedonia stretched her arms high above her head and then brought her hands together in a loud clap. ‘Good. Good. Thank you, my friend. Mistress,’ she corrected herself, ‘I
thought I had resigned myself to convent life, but now I feel it, here, a real joy –’ she brought a fist to her breastbone. ‘I’m excited to travel, work, do what I’m good at.’

‘Then you’ll go?’ Theodora asked.

‘I have a choice?’

‘No.’

Both women laughed and Theodora linked her arm with Macedonia’s. They walked back to Metanoia together, Theodora’s boat took her immediately back down the Bosphorus, back to the Palace, and the following morning another boat picked Macedonia up before dawn and carried her south, where she transferred to a larger ship bound for Rome, away from the interested stares of the busy Constantinople docks. In the tiny cabin Macedonia was to share with five other women, all travelling alone, all religious acolytes among whom she could hide herself, she unpacked the trunk that had been left for her. It contained maps, letters of introduction to fellow believers in Rome, and a brief list of the few spies and messengers she should trust to bring messages back directly to Theodora. There was nothing to indicate the trunk had been sent by the Empress, until Macedonia opened the coin purse tucked into a small pile of plain, warm clothes. As well as a collection of very useful gold, she pulled out a long string of fine pearls. Macedonia put them around her neck and thought she could smell Theodora’s perfume on them.

With Macedonia safely dispatched to be her spy in Rome, Theodora went back to another pressing matter, one she had been trying to ignore – the young architect. Narses had been right in his observation to Armeneus, Theodora’s apparent indifference was studied and she worked to keep it that way. She maintained her distance when Anthemius began
attending the Palace weekly with plans for the rebuilding of Hagia Sophia, even as every new draft delighted her more. Justinian would take a quick look, listen to one or two of the more technical explanations about the shape, the façade, or the huge excitement that was the proposed dome – vast and impossible and very real – and then leave the finer points to Theodora. Preoccupied with his attempt to close the gap between the disagreeing factions in the Church, and with the pressing plans for war against Gelimer’s Vandals in Carthage, Justinian had simply asked Anthemius and the engineer Isodore to praise the Christ in the design and to astound him in the ambition of the project. He left the finer points of artistry, budget and workforce to his wife. Theodora knew how to lead a company, understood better than most what would please the people, and had always been good with budgeting, albeit on a much smaller scale. Justinian hadn’t seen her as interested in anything since Sophia’s death; with this project, and with Comito’s baby in the Palace, he was pleased to see his wife active and engaged again. As time passed, first into deep winter and then the hope of spring, Theodora could have wished for a less thoughtful husband.

Still, she kept herself at a slight remove, even when, after Isodore had left their meetings, Anthemius would stay on and tell her about the practical jokes he played on his friends.

‘Your jokes are beautifully cruel, Anthemius.’ Theodora laughed as he spoke of the wizened old Zeno running naked from his house in the middle of the night, an arrangement of lamps and mirrors persuading him that midday had come at midnight, the Apocalypse was now.

‘The best comedy always has some peril, you’d agree, Mistress?’

The Empress nodded but chose not to follow him into a
conversation about the attraction of danger. She also turned down his offer of site visits to their two building projects for the August. Anthemius and Isodore were given the commissions once Justinian and Theodora saw their plans for the little church of Sts Sergius and Bacchus, and then for the new Hagia Sophia itself.

The night came when Anthemius burst in on them at the evening meal, ignoring protocol to speak without bowing and share the news of the astonishing find at the great church site.

‘The coffins have been found. The apostles’ coffins.’

‘The coffins laid by Constantine?’

‘Yes, Master,’ Anthemius answered, offering up a clumsy half-bow as the Emperor’s voice reminded him where he was and whose meal he had just interrupted.

Justinian rushed out of the room with Anthemius to inspect the site, and Theodora watched them go, conflicting emotions dulling her appetite for the tart of pears and eggs before her. She ate on anyway – their chef knew she enjoyed the dish, any change in routine would be noted – but somehow both the pepper and the cumin lacked flavour and the soufflé of risen eggs might as well have sunk to a flatbread for all the attention she paid it.

Two days later the coffins were moved using Isodore’s elaborate arrangement of cranes which meant the old bones in the crumbling coffins did not even tremble as they were lifted from the earth. Justinian, full of praise for the architects, gave the dead saints their full religious ceremony and an honour guard of his own men.

If Theodora had not found Anthemius attractive already, her husband’s enthusiasm for the young man and all his works would have forced her to applaud him.

And Theodora did find him attractive. As she came to
know the architect better, his mind appealed as much as his face, his humour, his workman’s body. Her union with Justinian had been arranged to suit many parties, and the younger Theodora had not expected to find sexual satisfaction in the liaison. At that stage in her life, broken by rejection, pacified through her conversion, and simply wanting to do Timothy’s bidding, she agreed to be introduced to the Emperor and also agreed to find any way she could to make him like her. She had been delighted to discover that Justinian was clever, perceptive and hugely ambitious. Later she was even more pleased to find that despite his scholarly reputation, he was also a good lover, passionate, considerate and skilled.

Anthemius too was clever, perceptive and ambitious – and he had a very fine face. Fine arms, legs, back, chest, head, feet, body. It was only his hands that were not quite so lovely. The architect had the hands of a man who spent as little time as possible at a desk, too engaged in his own work to direct from an office, too interested in what he was creating to delegate the dirty work. Anthemius had bitten fingernails, ingrained, at all times, with a layer of marble dust or City earth or stone dirt. More often than not they were also cut or bruised from his hunger to pick up his men’s tools, to show an apprentice a cleaner line to cut, or learn from a master craftsman how to lay a deeper foundation, build up a smoother surface. The architect did not mind if he was learning or teaching: all he wanted was perfect workmanship.

Theodora was glad of his workman’s hands, because Justinian’s hands were lovely. Anthemius’ less than perfect hands kept him from Theodora’s bed for quite some time. But not for all time.