The Purple Shroud: A Novel of Empress Theodora (33 page)

‘The patient is an older gentleman, blatantly lacking both sleep and regular exercise. Even if he were in the peak of physical fitness there’d be no guarantee of his escaping death.
This disease has no set paths, no clear pattern, all we can do is try various known remedies and pray.’

Theodora, furious that he had so far ignored her, spoke up from her seat beside Justinian’s bed: ‘Physician, you’ve been asked here to heal your Emperor. Your response offers little hope that you’ll give your best to this task.’

Alexander stared across the bed at the Augusta and Theodora felt sure he was appraising her as his brother’s former lover as well as his Emperor’s wife.

‘Mistress, I’ve seen the progress of this disease as it killed my neighbour’s entire family, yet left him unscathed. I’ve read accounts of those mown down and then waking from a week of sleep to perfect health, of bodies bursting with vile liquids and yet surviving, and of others, with no symptoms at all one morning, dead that night. What I know best is how little I know. I’ll treat your husband’s body as well as I can. I cannot promise cure, survival, or even full health if he does survive. Now that I’ve seen the nature of his illness, I’ll send one of your servants to fetch the instruments and salves I may need as time goes on. Allowing protocol and status – anyone’s status – to get in the way of my work will do him no good at all.’

Alexander opened the door to call a servant, rattled out instructions on washing the semi-conscious Justinian hourly with a solution of rosemary and camomile, on massaging with bergamot and orange oils, and then left to look through the Palace medicine stores, in too much of a hurry to bow as he went.

When the door was closed behind him, Theodora carefully covered her sleeping husband.

Eventually Narses spoke up. ‘He doesn’t quite have the charm of his little brother.’

‘I don’t think he approves of me,’ said Theodora, smiling, grateful to Narses for making light of the situation.

‘As he said,’ Narses replied, ‘his work is better served by a concentration on the illness, not the patient. I’m sure he can be encouraged to extend that courtesy to the patient’s wife as well.’

Theodora would have been grateful for Narses’ discretion had she had time to think, but there was no time, Justinian’s condition quickly worsened. A fever burned for three days, the Emperor slipped in and out of consciousness, boils and pustules broke out all over his body, spreading up his belly and down his legs from the groin, across his chest from the armpits. When the buboes were at their worst, Alexander burst them, draining out the thick blood and stinking pus, trying always to draw off as little as possible of what he called ‘good blood’. His was the new method from Egypt and one the Palace physicians disagreed with. Theodora chose to trust the brusque, disapproving man. Just as his brother’s plans for the astonishing beauty of their great church had made possible an impossible dream, perhaps Alexander would also be proved right. The Hagia Sophia dome stayed in place above the prayers now being said hourly for the Emperor’s health, but Justinian’s body continued to deteriorate.

Justinian had not eaten for over a week, had barely taken water or wine for four days, his skin was now a mess of lanced boils and scars that refused to heal. On the increasingly rare occasions he woke from groaning sleep or rambling delirium long enough to form a sentence, it was more often than not to demand that Narses dispatch messengers to Belisarius with orders to take full advantage of this disease, the Persians must be sick too – now was the chance to move on them, and on Totila in the west as well. One evening he spent the whole night shivering so violently in his sleep that Theodora, sure he
would crack his teeth, held his jaw steady until her own hands were so cramped that Narses had to massage the blood back into them. When the trembling subsided, and Justinian woke, it was simply to remind his wife that the cistern should be protected, no one knew how the contagion was spreading, the City’s water supply was always a lifeline.

Alexander was treating Justinian when the Emperor spoke, heard him speak to Theodora more as a clerk than a wife.

Seeing a quick look of pity cross his face, Theodora said, ‘My husband was married to Rome long before we met.’

The physician looked at her, frowning as he washed his hands in the orange-water he always carried with him. ‘That would make you his mistress?’

‘I’m no one’s mistress, doctor, I am his Empress.’

He had seen that she didn’t sleep, barely ate or drank herself, was continually either nursing or praying her husband back to health, while all Justinian spoke of was his work, his Empire, not a word of his love for her. Knowing he’d gone too far, and knowing too that Theodora spoke her own truth, Alexander of Tralles bowed to his Empress for the first time since entering the sickroom.

‘It’s likely the August’s fever will worsen over the next few hours. I need to fetch more medicine, a poultice I’ve been preparing. I’ll be as quick as I can. If he survives this evening, if we get him through the night, then he might fall into the heavy sleep. If that happens, and as long as we can force liquid into him without choking, he may wake and be well.’

‘Or he may wake insane?’

‘If he wakes. If he survives the height of his fever and makes it through to sleep, yes, then it’s possible he may already have lost his reason.’

Theodora hated Alexander then, for speaking her fears so plainly. Not that Justinian would die, that had been a
possibility since he noticed the first swelling, but the dragging, deeper fear that haunted her prayer, that this fine man with his bright, sharp mind, might lose his sanity. Losing his life was one thing. Theodora knew that for Justinian to lose his mind would be a living hell.

For the rest of the night, she sat beside her husband’s bed, the emerald Virgin held tight in one hand, the other resting lightly on his arm, praying she might feel the hot clamminess recede. Alexander dozed on a divan near the window, Narses stood against the wall where he had stationed himself days ago, never moving, dismissing all other servants and slaves from the entire wing. Narses was posted on one side of the door, Armeneus on the other. If the worst should happen, death or insanity, he wanted to be the first to know, and to be sure he controlled who found out.

Several hours before dawn the door opened and Armeneus let in an old man dressed in ragged clothes and carrying a bunch of dusty herbs. Alexander woke and jumped up to prevent him reaching his patient, but was held back by Narses, who introduced the two men.

‘Physician, this is the priest, Baradaeus; Jacob, this is Alexander of Tralles.’

Theodora came out of her prayer-trance to hear her friend the priest approve the physician’s method of opening the August’s boils, to see him nodding as he went through the long list of herbal tinctures they had forced down Justinian’s parched throat. Jacob offered just one more, the ragged bunch of herbs he held in his hand, herbs he had brought all the way from Tarsus when the news first broke that sickness was in the City.

‘How did you know he would need it?’ Theodora asked as Jacob added hot water to the dry twigs and swirled them around in the cup.

‘I didn’t know the Emperor would, Mistress, I knew someone would. There is always someone who needs healing.’

Alexander stepped back, reluctantly giving his patient over to this beggar of a priest who had such presence that he fully commanded the Empress’s attention, and also her confidence. Across the darkened room, neither the doctor nor the eunuch were able to see what Theodora saw, that Jacob Baradaeus made no attempt to pour the liquid down the Emperor’s swollen throat. He simply leaned in with the cup as an excuse to get close to the sweating, wheezing man, grey-skinned but for those parts of his body marked by vibrant sores. With no concern for his own health, Baradaeus first stroked the Emperor’s face, and then, carefully wafting the fumes from the cup close to Justinian’s clogged mouth and nose, he began a litany of prayer in Coptic, Greek, Aramaic, Syriac and Latin.

He was finished before the liquid lost its steam, and offered it to Theodora, ‘Drink this. It will help you later, when you need your strength,’ he told her.

Theodora took the cup and did as she was told without question, and Narses silently offered up his own prayer – the Emperor on the edge of death, the Empress drinking a cup of some unknown herb, both attended by a beggar-priest most of western Rome’s faithful would happily run out of the City, let alone trust with the well-being of their rulers. Alexander’s horrified face confirmed that if ever the Chief of Staff should have intervened, this was the moment. Narses did nothing and the four continued, each in their own way, to pray for the desperately ill man in the centre of the room.

Justinian did not die. His fever broke in the very early morning, by which time Jacob had left as quietly as he’d arrived.

Theodora noticed a slight temperature change beneath the
hand she kept on her husband’s arm. ‘Alexander, come here,’ she whispered.

Narses was beside her before the doctor stood up and Theodora shook her head. ‘He’s alive, and cooler, I think.’

Alexander pulled back the sheet, checked his patient’s heart, his pulses. Justinian’s fever had, indeed, broken. There were no new buboes and the burning red rash around the site of those that had burst or been lanced appeared a very little paler.

‘This is a good start. You must try to make him drink. Now that he’s in a deeper sleep, he can fully rest. His throat will still swallow if you help him. His body may begin to heal.’

Theodora didn’t want to ask, but Narses had to. ‘And his mind?’

The doctor shook his head, reaching for the thin pipe and funnel to pour liquid into his patient’s gullet. ‘We’ll know when he wakes. It’ll be several days yet, if then. You should all sleep, and then you should look outside the Palace. The August is not the only patient in Rome.’

T
heodora did sleep, but in her husband’s room, on the divan the doctor vacated. There was no point leaving; she had not contracted the disease when Justinian’s symptoms were at their height, all the signs were that she now never would. She lay with the emerald Virgin held close, praying her gratitude for Justinian’s life and what she hoped had been Jacob’s healing. The last thing she heard, as she finally gave in to the sleep that had been dragging on her back for days, was the call of an owl over the City, the last call before dawn.

When she woke, half a day later, she was more exhausted than when she had fallen asleep.

As she sat up, the servants in the room made to bow and she brushed away the gesture. ‘How is he?’

‘He’s slept, Mistress,’ the most senior answered. Senior compared to the others but, like most of the skeleton staff now running the Palace, not used to being in the Emperor’s bedchamber and certainly not used to speaking directly to the Empress.

‘He took a little honeyed water again, using the pipe and funnel as the physician showed us.’

‘So we’re waiting?’

‘Yes, Mistress.’

‘And Narses?’

‘He asked that you attend him as soon as you are ready.’

The servant was well aware that in normal circumstances the Empress would not appreciate being told to call on Narses. That the circumstances were far from normal was confirmed as Theodora simply nodded, picked up her cloak and, having checked Justinian’s colour and temperature for herself, did as she was asked.

‘You didn’t sleep at all?’ she asked Narses.

The eunuch shook his head. ‘Mistress, we’ve been neglecting our people while we attended the Emperor.’

‘You’re his Chief of Staff, it’s your duty to be beside him.’

‘It’s my duty to make sure the Palace runs smoothly. I should probably have paid more attention to what else was going on, not that I have any solutions …’

Narses held up his hands and Theodora realised that the man she had seen as invincible for more than twenty years was both exhausted and unsure. She listened as he explained what he now knew. The world outside had continued while they had spent a week waiting to see if Justinian would live or die. The world outside had been dying in that time. The City cemeteries had been over-full for weeks and already the bodies shipped across the water for burial were starting to overflow from those cemeteries too. The lack of regular gravediggers and priests for the funeral rites, neither vocation granting immunity to disease, meant the bodies could not be buried fast enough, nor granted the dignity of full rites. Mass graves had been dug, but another solution was needed and soon.

‘We’ve lost over a quarter of our resident staff to illness or
death, and another quarter of the staff who live outside the Palace walls are reported dead anyway,’ Narses said. ‘People have taken to wearing tags around their necks, bearing their name and address, in case the disease takes them while they’re in the street.’

‘Why are they leaving home, if it’s safer to stay inside?’ asked Theodora.

‘The sickness has gone on too long. Even a well-stocked house finds its cupboards close to empty after a fortnight.’

‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Theodora was annoyed with herself, too used to the endless supplies of the Palace. ‘So the City’s stocks must also be low?’

Narses nodded. ‘We’ve had virtually no grain shipments in three weeks. The few ships that have come in haven’t always been able to unload – often there aren’t enough dock-workers to do the job. The army and police are sending men where they can, unloading grain and food, keeping the cisterns full and working, helping in the graveyards, but their numbers are as low as ours, and everyone’s been waiting for news of the Emperor. Decisions need to be made.’

‘Then I’ll make them; with your assistance, of course.’

‘Well, yes Mistress, or …’

‘Or what?’

Narses took a deep breath before he spoke. ‘Belisarius returned to the City two days ago. He called a council of generals first thing this morning.’

‘Did you attend?’

Theodora’s tone was light, but her manner was not.

‘No, Mistress.’

‘You weren’t invited?’