The Purple Shroud: A Novel of Empress Theodora (36 page)

‘Of your delight in torture?’

‘That and the poisoning skills I picked up in Alexandria, the witchcraft I learned in Antioch …’

‘The sexual slavery in which you keep all your lovers?’

Theodora’s head whipped round and Peter Barsymes saw the mask of Empress slam down on the face of the woman who had been joking until now.

‘Sorry, too many years as a traveller, I always go too far …’

Then Theodora smiled and he realised her game, shook his head and grinned. ‘Of course Mistress, you do little to dispel these rumours. You could let Bouzes out, show the people he’s been perfectly well kept.’

‘I could, but Narses taught me long ago that while compassion and empathy are fine skills for the August, a little fear can be useful too.’

‘So it’s Bouzes who is afraid?’

‘Yes. And we just can’t shut him up on the matter of Belisarius’ private funds.’

Far below the Empress’s rooms, in a tiny cell off a dark corridor where no light entered, a man stood, chained to the wall. Stood where he had been chained for weeks, stood in sea water, his feet rotting on his body.

W
hen Justinian woke fully it was not immediately clear that his mind was saved. Whatever had caused him to beat his head during the bouts of agony between long periods of unconsciousness might well have damaged his sense. Only Theodora, Narses and the Patriarch Anthimus were allowed near him for the first ten days, and even then, on Alexander’s orders, there was to be no talk of state business.

‘You can sit beside him, quietly, as a good wife should,’ said Alexander, gaining a brutal glare from Theodora, and a hidden grin from Narses.

And so they sat, quiet hours at a time, the Empress and her Chief of Staff, hushing Justinian’s concern, assuring him all was well, all would be well, and paying no attention to his slurred speech and the words that were missing, either from his sentences or his mind; ignoring, too, the constant tremor in both of his hands. Theodora kept the emerald Virgin close. Prayer was her only relief.

Armeneus found her, late one evening, standing in the Church of Hagia Sophia, the evening sun angled high through the windows at the base of the dome, the gold and
glass mosaics spinning their soft amber light through the whole building. The candles were not yet lit and, but for a few priests muttering quietly among themselves, the great church was almost empty. Once inside, the shouts from the market beyond the square – each day more full, each day more lively – were muffled, and he spoke quietly as he approached.

‘Mistress?’

Theodora turned and her face was bright with tears, eyes swollen and red. ‘We may need to tell the Persian ambassador I’ll be late for dinner,’ she said. ‘It’s a shame Mariam is still at Hieron, she’s always been better at applying the makeup mask that makes me look like an Empress.’

‘You are Empress, Mistress, it doesn’t matter how you look.’

‘You know that’s not true, and certainly not now, when I’m meeting men who would rather meet my husband, who are here purely to decide whether or not we return to full war.’

‘I’ll tell them you’ve been delayed. You know you enjoy it once you’re in the room with them, you do it well.’

Theodora smiled. ‘Your lover’s lover gave me a rigorous training.’

‘Narses says Menander would have been proud of what you’ve achieved these past months.’

‘He does?’ she asked.

‘He didn’t tell you?’

‘He wouldn’t, Narses has always been keen for me to know my place.’

‘He’s that hard?’

‘You know he is. And I’ve thought about nothing but my place since Justinian began to recover. I have enjoyed some of the power while he’s been ill, I’ve liked being able to make my own decisions.’

Armeneus peered at her. ‘You’re not crying because you have to share power again?’

‘No,’ she smiled, shaking her head, ‘I’m crying because I’m relieved to find I’m not the woman some think I am. I’ve had no chance to question what I felt, other than my fear of losing Justinian, my worry that Belisarius and the others might push him out. These past few months everything else has been about the day to day, keeping it all going.’

‘And now?’

‘Now, yes, I feel some reluctance to hand over the full extent of this power, but my greater feeling is relief, gratitude that he’s alive, that he’ll recover.’

‘He is your husband.’

‘And there are many who’ve accused him of being less of a man because his choice was to share with me, accused me of being not enough of a woman to yield to him. In twenty-one years I’ve become used to our partnership and these past months by myself have been exhausting, but they’ve also been thrilling. Half a lifetime of hearing those stories about myself from those who call me all ambition, all power-hungry, sometimes I’ve wondered if they were right.’

Theodora stopped, taking in the surprise on her assistant’s face. ‘Even I experience self-doubt occasionally, Armeneus, it’s just not very useful to show it in public. You and I watched Hecebolus become so preoccupied with his lack of power in the Pentapolis that he became a different man. We saw the Empress Euphemia’s face turn from plain to plain ugly when she believed me her usurper. I know what power can do, and I know it often does so without the powerful noticing.’

Armeneus frowned. ‘So you’re crying because you’re relieved you aren’t the woman that those who dislike you believe you to be?’

‘At least not entirely, yes.’

He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Mistress, but while other men rate their balls higher than gold, I’ve always been grateful
I was made a eunuch. I could never have married a woman. I don’t understand your thinking at all.’

Theodora nodded, rubbed her hands together, and turned to leave the gallery, speaking over her shoulder: ‘And I’m sure there’s a woman somewhere, unaware of her good fortune that she was saved having you as a husband.’

Theodora’s stature was straight, her speech clearer; even with her red cheeks and swollen eyes she was now every step the Empress. The muttering priests below suddenly realised the Augusta was in the building and were immediately on their knees, just as she had intended.

It was another two weeks before Alexander allowed Justinian to sit up, a full month before he finally allowed Theodora to carefully, quietly, explain the true state of the nation to her husband.

The Emperor listened in silence as she talked.

‘There are businesses shattered. Families broken too, and faith – there must be many who find their faith damaged. When things are back to normal we’ll need their belief, in us as well as the Christ.’

She paused, sipped from a glass of wine, undiluted for the courage she needed to tell him the rest.

‘And there’s been a count, not a formal one, it’s not been possible, we don’t have the staff to do it, but from what we can tell, from the numbers we have … there are, perhaps, three hundred thousand dead.’

Justinian began to cry softly and Theodora felt she was punishing him even more by telling him the rest, but when his crying turned to agitation, to a mouthing and stuttering as he tried to ask what else had happened, she knew she had to say it all.

‘We think three hundred thousand, and many more
exhausted from fighting disease, plenty of walking wounded in half-empty streets. All of Italy, other than Rome and Ravenna and a few of the port towns, is ruled by the Goths again. Totila has a new strategy of expelling landlords and freeing slaves, he’s good to the peasant farmers and has the smallholders on his side. We have your spies to tell us so, and also Macedonia, who returned to the City this week: she says the people there are happy to be with the Goths.’

Then Theodora held the hands Justinian still fought to stop trembling, and promised life had begun again. ‘We’ve started negotiating a new peace with Khusro, the Persians are as battered by disease as Rome. There are shops opening all along the Mese, one at a time yes, but they’re open, we are trading. There aren’t many stalls yet in the markets, and the goods on offer are sparse. Narses was complaining only yesterday about the lack of meat. But it’s a start, it’s a good start.’

The Emperor, exhausted, relaxed as she spoke and allowed Theodora to quiet his worries with careful words that neither fully believed.

As the dregs of summer gave way to the welcome cool of autumn, the stench from the towers finally began to recede, heavily pregnant women gave birth to perfect babies who had miraculously survived the deaths of their fathers and whole families of siblings, and the many who believed the illness was a punishment from God now considered that perhaps they had been spared for a reason. And if they had been saved for a reason, then surely the Emperor had too.

Justinian and Theodora walked through the corridors to the Chalke, heading across Augustaion to Hagia Sophia for a service of thanksgiving, both for the Emperor’s life and for the new life, the saved life, of Rome. Later there would be speeches from the Kathisma, the Emperor using the Mandator
to speak for him. Protocol certainly allowed it, and though his speech was improving, both Theodora and Narses advised against risking his voice, still hoarse from weeks without use. The people would be pleased to see their Emperor, whole and standing, able to walk to church and wave to them. That was plenty. No one needed to hear the Emperor’s voice croak or – and Justinian knew this was Narses’ real concern – watch him grope for the right word, his fine legal mind too often confusing leg for hand, paper for water, wine for chair. There seemed no reason for the confusion in his mind and Alexander had promised all would be well eventually.

‘Master, you need to give yourself time, you have survived a brutal illness and, with the greatest possible respect, you are no longer a young man.’

‘He’s only sixty,’ Theodora interrupted, glaring at Alexander and looking to Narses who, although already seventy, seemed not to have aged a day in years.

‘Yes, Mistress,’ said Alexander, ‘I just meant …’

‘The Emperor needs rest,’ said Narses. ‘We know, but Rome needs her Emperor.’

‘And Rome … comes … first.’ Justinian spoke, clearly but very slowly, underlining both physician and Chief of Staff’s concerns.

After the speech from the Kathisma, the Emperor would stay to watch one race, and then rest until the evening when Theodora was hosting a celebration for all the Palace staff and servants, a gesture of thanks to those who had worked so hard during the time of disease. The inner courtyards were already set up with lights for the evening, braziers laid against the evening chill. Theodora gave one of the theatre troupes a list of routines she wanted them to perform. The set list contained several songs well known as accompanying pieces for the Empress in her Hippodrome heyday, all of them from the
respectable end of her repertoire, but nonetheless, there was excitement among those readying the Palace, hoping that perhaps tonight, after all this time, they might finally see the Empress doing what she was famed for – playing Theodora, rather than acting Empress.

Theodora was shaking. Breathing with the control and calm Menander had taught all his girls didn’t seem to work, and slapping herself all over lightly as she used to before entering the stage space only had her skin on fire with more goose bumps, her hands quivering, her breath coming in tighter, shorter bursts.

She turned to her husband, horrified. ‘I don’t think I can do it.’

Justinian reached out a trembling hand of his own, ‘We walked to … Hagia So … Soph … Sophia,’ he finally completed the word, and his pleasure in doing so made the next phrase easier, as Theodora had known it would. Even in her agitated state, she knew better than to undermine him by helping, filling in the gaps.

‘I stood alone and you waited …’ he shook his head, ‘watched me, from the top. The up. The there …’ again Justinian struggled for the word and again Theodora waited, ‘the gallery,’ he sighed having found it and thanked her with a lopsided smile, ‘then the Kath … is … ma. They … applauded and I … spun … spoke.’

‘Even though we’d all agreed it would be better for you not to.’

‘I didn’t get it … wrong.’

‘No, you didn’t,’ Theodora conceded.

‘I did … everything you and … him … him, eunuch … Nar … ses asked. I did it all this day. Now. Today. Now you …’

‘Yes.’

‘Now you have to do, as you … promised.’

Justinian was shaking even more with the effort of getting his words out in the right order, small beads of sweat on his brow.

‘Yes, I have to do what I said I’d do, but please, take your seat? The whole point of this event is to encourage the people to believe all is well, not confirm the rumour of your imminent demise.’

Theodora called over the slaves who now waited close to Justinian at all times, ready to help him whenever needed, as unobtrusively as possible. As they walked their master to his seat, the crowd of Palace slaves, staff and civil servants assembled in the courtyard became quiet and bowed to the August. Theodora, her thoughts on Justinian, forgot her own stage fright and gave her concentration to her husband. Which made it all the more surprising when she watched him shake off the slaves on either side and move to his seat with ease and almost grace, his still hand carefully placed over the one that was trembling. Armeneus arrived to give Theodora her cue and caught her grinning at the sight before her.

‘You’re less nervous now, Mistress?’

‘I was forced to think about something else and my nerves disappeared entirely, which I’m sure is exactly what Narses and the Emperor intended.’

‘I don’t know what you mean, Mistress.’

‘Liar.’ Theodora glared at him. ‘Come on then, announce my entrance, the sooner this is over, the better.’

Mariam and Ana entered first, dressed as handmaidens of Leda. Even the lowliest of the Palace staff guessed what was coming: everyone knew this was the beginning of the scene for which the Empress was famed, the woman who had
been Theodora-from-the-Brothel. Comito sang and the connoisseurs in the crowd praised her choice to sing with no backing; it was exactly right, her voice had matured well. Mariam and Ana reached into their robes and pulled out golden bags, slowly turning a full circle and spilling streams of silver-covered grain. Mariam played her part quietly, with the elegance she was now noted for. Ana surprised everyone by actually engaging with her audience, smiling at those she knew in the crowd, apparently enjoying her moment on stage, applauded by her laughing, loving husband. A bell chimed, Comito repeated the note, the younger women joined in harmony, and finally Theodora entered.