The Purple Shroud: A Novel of Empress Theodora (22 page)

Theodora reached out an open palm, offering permission, ‘Say it.’

The priest kept his dark eyes trained on the wall, he rubbed his forehead and as he did so, Theodora noticed flecks of grey in the hair at his temples, grey she had not seen before, age she had not noticed in this man, born within a year of her husband. ‘Narses is far over the water, Mistress, it’s not now, nor has it ever been, his role to advise on the Augusta’s spiritual well-being.’

‘You wouldn’t have him judge me?’

John looked at her then and Theodora was taken aback by the anger on his face: ‘I wouldn’t have him persuade you that guilt can be assuaged with gold.’

There was silence until Theodora said quietly, ‘I’m not sure I do feel guilt.’

‘Or shame?’ And now his hooded eyes were staring into hers.

Theodora looked away, the gaze too close. ‘No. Nor shame either.’

John rose and bowed, ready to leave. ‘In that case, it doesn’t matter how much you pay, or what’s depicted in the mosaic, but I’m sure our Eastern Church would be cheered by your support.’

The mosaic artist received his larger commission.

As much as the Augusta’s caravan of litters, sedan chairs, carts and carriages carrying gold and cloth and food, and slowly divesting itself of a stock of alms, was a symbol of the power of the state, and as much as Justinian and Narses counted on it being so, the time away from the Palace was also a rest for Theodora. She who had worked since she was five years old spent long days simply playing with the babies, more time with Comito than usual, and found she was happy to do so, the sisters laughing in a way they had not done since they were girls. In each new town Theodora met with local dignitaries and with local performers, encouraging both to speak with her priest, a safe way to assure them of her religious support.

After a month of travelling Theodora took three days for herself in a small monastery. She went to the room the priests gave her, tiny and sparse by Palace standards, palatial compared to the shadow of a rock in which she’d spent her desert years.
Asking only for fresh water to be brought morning and evening, she began to study herself closely as her mentor had taught.

Theodora slept, dreamed, woke and slept again. Her dreams were of purple and power. The power she enjoyed and the power that scared her; scared to use it, tempted to use it, tempted to abuse it. When awake she studied her more recent actions, as Empress, as wife, as lover. In prayer and then in trance, she gave time to the desires she rarely had time to express, let alone to take seriously; the desire to dance, to laugh drunkenly with Sophia, to stay awake all night and sleep all morning if she wanted to, with no one calling her to a meeting or procession, correcting her on protocol. She weighed her previous freedoms against her current privilege. She listened late at night for the owl and was sorry she heard it only in her dreams. She remembered her father, his life ripped from him by the claws of his own bear, the bear he loved. She thought about her mother who had buried two husbands and two children before her own death, Anastasia and a little stepbrother Theodora had never really known, and in thinking about Hypatia was surprised to find a compassion she had not noticed before. On the last night alone, Theodora prepared to sit awake as she had done in the desert. She prayed to the emerald Virgin which travelled with her always, and then sat, silent and waiting. An hour before dawn she finally heard the owl in reality, not dream, and nodded to herself. She would have stayed longer if she had not heard it, would have been happy to wait, but the owl had always been an alarm for her, it was time to go.

Theodora stood and stretched back into her body. There was plenty to do – the religious schism to negotiate, fractious priests to placate. Belisarius would no doubt return
triumphant from Carthage in time; if she took charge of the Triumph on his return, she could ensure he was praised and yet kept in his place at the same time. All that, and she missed Justinian, wanted his intelligence and his conversation and his body. She stretched again and heard a last owl screech as the sun finally back-lit the tip of the trees in the monastery’s orchard. Theodora acknowledged the morning and, as her mentor had taught her, gave up her last insight to the new light – she missed Anthemius too.

She walked back to the encampment where her entourage were just waking and as she did so she realised there was another secret, an understanding darker than her desire for Anthemius. She had to do something about Pasara. Comito was right, there was no point persuading Justinian to cling to the purple if that purple was to go to Pasara’s brat. Perhaps there were some things she could just make happen. It was time to go home.

T
he Augusta’s homecoming was welcomed with public ceremony and personal fanfare. Justinian was on the dock to greet her, as were several priests, the small group of her household staff who had been left behind with Mariam, and Narses, standing beside his master, ready to bow to his mistress but keener still to see Armeneus after the long drought of the past weeks. The Empress’s ships sailed into harbour, and Theodora’s spirit was caught again, as always, by the sight. Her City, the seven hills, the landscaped terraces holding the villas of the rich, their wide balconies and perfect sea views, places marked by half-arcs of walls that spread north and east from the Palace, counting the ages of the City like rings in tree trunks. Hidden away at the base of the hills was the distant chaos of tenement housing where she had grown up, barely hinted at from the sea, leaving the full panorama of Constantinople as enticing as it had been for any of the seafaring refugees and fortune-seekers who had poured in since Constantine remade it in his own name. Even in her pleasure at coming home, the sight of Hagia Sophia’s building works reminded her of the losses, and she held the little Sophia tighter. Then the City rushed closer, the ship was tied in, there was a precarious lean
landward as women ran to the shoreside deck, waving to their husbands and their older children. The Empress’s name was called and Theodora handed the baby to Comito, walked out of the crowd on the deck, head and neck fully weighted with all the ceremonial jewellery she had taken with her. She stepped carefully on to land. The Empress Theodora lowered herself steadily, elegantly in the perfect bow she reserved for her husband and the waiting crowd cheered.

That evening there was a feast, a dozen courses of the kitchen’s finest dishes with well-matched drink to celebrate the travellers’ return, City flavours and Palace wines welcome in their mouths after the simpler tastes of the Bithynian monasteries. That night Justinian was also welcome in Theodora’s bed, in her body. In the morning, lying alone, her husband gone to his office before first light, she listened to the waking Palace and the constant murmur of the City beyond the walls, then she bathed and dressed and told Armeneus she wanted to visit the building sites, see the progress made in her absence. She did not mention Anthemius. When she was ready to leave the Palace complex she found Justinian waiting for her at the path to the Chalke.

‘You’re coming with me?’

‘I’ve missed you.’

‘Don’t you have work to do?’

‘This is also my work.’

Theodora smiled. ‘Inspecting the building work or accompanying me?’

‘Both. And we have a lot to catch up on.’

‘We can do two things at the same time.’

‘We can.’

They toured the building sites together. The newly completed Baths were the perfect combination of cool marble and
elegant lighting, with beautifully moulded oil lamps carefully recessed both to protect them from the humidity and to give the most subtle illumination.

Theodora picked up one lamp, studying the assembly of half-naked charioteers on the relief. ‘Have you seen these?’

Justinian took it from her, peered at the scene and then handed it back, shaking his head. ‘Narses suggested a Greek artist.’

‘Obviously.’

They laughed and moved on, the lamp-maker in question following behind with the other designers, pleased his provocative image had not caused any greater interest, and relieved he’d allowed Narses to persuade him not to use the more explicit lamps in the Baths. The lamps that now graced Narses’ private rooms.

The water had yet to run through the piping, the heating mechanisms still to be tested, but it was clear that, no matter how fine the new Senate buildings, the new Baths would be, once again, where the City’s real business was conducted. The August couple applauded the builders, praised the site supervisor for bringing the project in on budget, and then moved on to the Hagia Sophia site.

The great foundations had been completed in Theodora’s absence and Isodore stood at the edge of what would be the southern entrance, arguing with his foreman over the exact date the cranes would arrive for the next phase of construction. Justinian and Theodora moved quickly on, not wanting to halt proceedings with the formalities their presence demanded. Back in front of the Chalke they spoke to several recently engaged mosaic artists who were preparing to decorate the last sections of the formal entrance as soon as they were completed. Finally they headed on to the site of the Church of Sts Sergius and Bacchus, where Justinian promised
Theodora would be delighted with the building and with its architect.

They made their way slowly downhill, a street-sweeper ahead of them, a retinue all around, constantly stopped by alms-seekers or those who asked for the August’s blessing. The gentle walk from Hagia Sophia to the smaller church site gave Justinian plenty of time to share the details of Belisarius’ preparations for war against the Vandals in Carthage, to tell his wife about the fleet of ships they were readying for his command, the Roman treasure they hoped to bring back to its rightful home.

‘Will Antonina go too? Neither she nor Belisarius are keen sailors.’

‘I know, but the generals agree this is the best way to attack Gelimer, and Belisarius’ men will follow him wherever he leads.’

‘Then I wish him success.’

‘But not too much success?’

‘No, just enough.’

Theodora was easy with her husband, she knew they made a good team. Although the nickname was rarely whispered these days, if Theodora-from-the-Brothel could be their ruler’s guide and adviser, then the poor and the nonconformist faithful, the refugees and the outsiders who also made up Rome, trusted she might speak for them. Theodora knew this, and Justinian knew it, and they walked on, well aware of the image they presented.

They were also aware of the man they were about to meet. Both husband and wife felt the tension rise. Theodora’s colour became a little warmer, Justinian’s hand held hers more tightly, as they rounded the corner to the site of the church of Sts Sergius and Bacchus, Anthemius and Isodore’s prototype for the new Hagia Sophia.

And then neither Theodora nor her husband thought of the people. They were thinking about the young architect – nothing like the idea of a mathematician, a worker in abstractions – charging towards them, fitter and leaner than ever, dirtier too, covered in fine dust from the stonecutters’ workshops in the west of the City, out of breath from running to the building site when he’d only just been told the Emperor and Empress were coming to inspect his work. Anthemius flew at them, arms outstretched, hands ready to hold them back. The ceremonial guards accompanying the Imperial couple looked to each other wondering if they were finally meant to use the weapons they carried as part of their costume, and if so, how.

‘No!’ Anthemius was shouting. ‘You can’t look yet, not here.’

Theodora stopped, and Justinian held out a hand to the jittery guards as Anthemius threw himself into a hasty bow on the dusty ground; the road leading to the church was also part of the renovation work, and not yet finished.

‘No?’ Justinian enquired quietly, lightly.

Anthemius spoke from his knees: ‘Master, the view is better from the other approach, they shouldn’t have brought you this way. Please, if you will …’ he hesitated, ‘if you’ll both close your eyes, I’ll show you the proper vantage point, the best impression.’

Justinian, laughing, closed his eyes and held out his arm to be led. Theodora had no choice. Anthemius stood between them and took both their hands. Theodora felt his gritty palm in hers, and bit her tongue to keep from speaking. Anthemius walked them a hundred paces to the east, carefully guiding them, aware that no matter how ceremonial the guard, the swords they carried were very real.

‘You can look now.’

They blinked and looked past the scaffolding that created the shell of the little church, the perfectly formed baby sister to their great church on the hill. When Justinian applauded the work and Theodora nodded, Anthemius again fell to his knees, kissed Theodora’s foot and then looked up, utter joy in their appreciation of his work, of his paper plans made real, shining on his sun-darkened face.

‘It was as if we’d never been lovers,’ Theodora complained to Antonina.

They were seated in the long sunny room looking down to the shore and the lighthouse, the Bosphorus sparkling against the green backdrop of Chalcedon.

Antonina shifted her sleeping daughter against her shoulder. ‘Did you want him to slaver all over you in front of the Emperor?’

‘Of course not. I just …’

‘Wanted him to give his attention to you, only you, with no interest in the August’s opinion of his work, his art?’

‘Yes.’

‘Theodora, for an ex-whore, you really have very little understanding of men.’

‘I hate to disillusion you, Antonina, but whoring has very little to do with understanding men.’

Her friend reached for another stuffed fig, felt the baby begin to wriggle herself awake and passed her quickly over to Mariam, the feeding and cleaning of children never her speciality. ‘Then it’s your loss. You can’t expect to go away for six weeks and not have your lover—’

‘Keep your voice down,’ Theodora snarled, watching Mariam blush.

‘Mariam doesn’t mind what I say about you, she’s the perfect servant, devoted and silent. Aren’t you, dear?’