The Purple Shroud: A Novel of Empress Theodora (40 page)

Theodora held up her hand and her husband stopped. ‘Law may try to run on truth, but politics thrives on rumour and supposition. And the rumours about Artebanes killing Sittas, even with no evidence, were rife.’

Justinian nodded. ‘True.’

‘More than that,’ she went on, ‘Narses agrees with me that Artebanes is too ambitious.’

‘So you’ve been working this up, between you?’

‘It’s my job to work with Narses. Artebanes will be too close to the purple if he marries your sister’s daughter.’

‘And he cannot marry Praejecta if he is still married to his wife?’

‘Correct. So we send him back to his wife’s family and keep him at a safe distance from Praejecta.’

‘I assume we don’t plan to leave her alone for long?’

Theodora smiled. ‘You know how young girls can be without a man.’

‘I believe I do,’ Justinian replied, smiling as he pictured the Theodora he had first met, fierce and opinionated and trying her hardest to control her passions.

‘Pompeius had a son. John. He’s good-looking, only a little older than Praejecta. I’m sure his mother will agree.’

‘You think so? The last time her family had any dealings with the Palace was when we put her husband to death.’

Theodora shrugged. ‘Nika was a hard time for us all.’

‘And this way we can link my sister’s family with the family of the old Emperor Anastasius, as well as the ties we already have through Ana and Paulus?’

‘Yes.’

‘Impressive.’

‘I do my best.’

The Empress bowed then and turned away, a middle-aged woman with an uncertain future and a great deal of hidden
pain, practically skipping off to make her arrangements. He watched her go, awed and grateful, as ever. And then he turned back to his papers, as ever.

Theodora lay on her bed. She had just sent away the servant who ran in, disturbed by her cries, telling her it was only a dream. It was no dream. The servant had left a light as instructed and Theodora reached her hand down the bed to feel the warm, sticky blood that was leaching from her. She was faint with both blood loss and the pain. It was worse than childbirth, worse than that she had experienced in the desert: this time it was pain so acute that there was no hope of falling unconscious and away from it, this was pain that held her, pinned to the bed, soaking in her own blood. A pain that ripped up and through her, with seemingly no central point. A pain that filled her belly, her gut, her torso, her back; her limbs and head becoming useless extremities as it surged through her core.

She lay there concentrating on her body, trying to clear her mind, trying to see her room through the tears that would not stop, muddying her vision. She began counting heartbeats as Menander had taught her, counting to one hundred and then again, slowing her racing heart with force of will. Seven times she did this until her heartbeat finally slowed; so too did some of the blood loss, and the pain receded to a point where she thought it might be possible to move away, lift herself up from the bed at least.

The first time she tried to sit up she fell back immediately. She counted another hundred heartbeats and tried again, rolling on to her side and sliding herself up, carefully, carefully. Tears and sweat poured down her face at the effort it took to bring herself upright. She pulled her night-cloak to herself, using it to soak up the blood that was still
coming away from her, no point in using the soaked bed sheets.

She had no idea how long she sat there, on the side of her own bed, whispering to herself, a mumble of prayers and incantations and orders, the kind of orders Menander would have barked at his girls when they were being lazy or crying at the pain his routines put them through.

Eventually the blood stopped. Theodora was able to stand. Dawn was breaking outside and she pulled the shutters back to let light into the room. When she turned back to see the bloody mess of the bed she bit her hand to stop herself crying out. It was impossible she could lose so much blood and still live, and here she was, living; the slow, soft pain in her belly and back assured her of that.

Quietly, carefully, Theodora went about clearing up the mess. She bundled the sheets together, ripped off her nightgown and threw it into the pile. She poured water over her body and washed away the blood on her stomach and thighs, now starting to stick, to cake. She wiped herself dry with a cloth that came away pink with sluiced blood and washed herself again. When she was clean, she pulled on an old, loved gown, one she could no longer wear in public because it was so out of fashion, but which gave her pleasure still, because it was so comfortable, had worn so soft.

She combed her hair, pulled it back, and opened her door, telling the servant to call Sophia to her.

By the time the girl arrived, the morning was well on its way. Theodora kissed her as she rose from her bow and pointed to the large bundle on her bed, bloody sheets and cloths now tied into an old woollen cloak.

‘Do you know your way to the furnace rooms, Sophia?’

‘I can ask,’ she answered.

‘No, I want you to go alone. I’ll tell you where, and you are to take this pile, give it to the slave who tends the fires. Only to him. Tell him to throw it into the fire. If anyone asks what you are carrying, tell them your Mistress is throwing out her old gowns to have a new spring wardrobe, that she doesn’t want anyone aping her style. They’re as likely to believe that as not.’

Theodora gave Sophia directions to the underground furnaces and then had her door servant call a housemaid to bring new sheets. Theodora made up the bed herself, and if the slave wondered about the comings and goings, the absurdity of the Empress making her own bed, she did not comment. She had seen far stranger things in her time.

The Empress finally took herself back to her bed. When Armeneus called on her she told him she had a light cold and wanted to sleep it off. When Sophia came back to see if her aunt was all right, she told the servant to send her away, she was fine, there was nothing to say. Theodora fell asleep worrying about how much she still needed to take care of, wondering when the next episode would come, wondering if she would survive another.

That night Justinian came late to Theodora’s rooms. He sent away her servants and climbed carefully into her bed.

She turned, half sleeping, ‘Master?’

He whispered, ‘Go back to sleep.’

Theodora groaned. Her fear that Justinian would know what was happening to her cut through the exhaustion and pain of the night before, and she sat up.

‘You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t want to speak to me, what is it?’

‘Nothing. Sleep.’

‘What is it?’

Justinian pulled her close and kissed her on the forehead, ‘Menas and Vigilius have agreed a reconciliation.’

She was fully awake now. ‘Really?’

‘The beginning of one. It’s not as neat as I wanted, and we’ve had to push them, hard, but both sides look as if they will come together, for now.’

Theodora got out of bed to bring the light closer, every step hurt her and she forced herself to walk slowly, carefully. She looked at her husband, twenty years Emperor and twenty years before that working in the Palace. His hair was mostly grey now, and receding. His eyes were, as always, heavy from lack of sleep, his lower lip calloused where he bit it when worried, and he had been greatly worried in the past few months.

‘An answer to our prayers.’

Justinian nodded. ‘Yes, but it’s also forced. And in the long run, I doubt it will stop the Egyptians or the Syrians or those in any of the Levant wanting their own faith, their own languages for prayer. It certainly won’t stop the rebels calling for their own nations and leaders.’

Theodora shivered and climbed back into bed beside him, pulling the covers closer. It was spring and the nights were less cool, but she found she was cold now, much of the time, no matter how warm the sun or the fire.

‘I support you,’ she said.

‘Yes, and that sometimes means you don’t say everything you believe.’

She laughed. ‘I wish you’d tell those who write so nastily about how I have you wrapped around my little finger.’

‘Oh, you have that, of course, but I don’t always have your real opinion.’

‘You don’t want it.’

‘I do. Tell me.’

Theodora shrugged. ‘I wish you would let it all go.’

‘Rome?’ Justinian’s voice was low, quiet, he was shocked already, she could tell.

She went on, speaking into the darkened room, glad the light was low.

‘I’ve lived in the Pentapolis, in the desert in Egypt and in Antioch, I prayed with the people there, believed with them. Those countries have never been truly Roman, no matter what the centre says, what the centre wants.’ She took a deep breath and continued, ‘I don’t believe Rome can hold those lands for much longer. The East is fractured and divided and, more importantly, it wants to be that way. They want their separate nations in a way the West doesn’t. Or doesn’t yet. I don’t believe we can hold them just by force of wanting.’

‘That’s what you want to tell me?’ he was asking Theodora who by now had her face hidden in his chest.

She spoke into his breastbone, feeling the rhythm of Justinian’s heavy heart against her mouth: ‘No, it’s not what I want to tell you, I want to say anything I can to support you, to help you continue in this work that drains you, exhausting and demanding still more of you, because you so firmly believe in the one Rome and the one Church. What I want to say …’ she looked up and was shocked to see they were both crying, ‘what I want to say is stop. Give it all up. Come away with me to Bithynia and we can be quiet there and rest, let Germanus or Belisarius have it, let them try to make it work. I want to make you sleep for a week and wake refreshed and delighted to do so.’

‘And yet you continue planning our succession, making betrothals and liaisons between our families?’

‘Yes, because even while I wish peace and ease for you, and for myself …’

‘You know there are things we must try to achieve, however impossible,’ he added the last phrase with a sigh.

‘And I don’t know how long we are here,’ she said very quietly, ‘how long I have.’

They were silent then. Justinian lay with one arm around her, holding her close, he took her hand, twisted the ring she wore, his ring. It was loose on her finger. He knew she had stayed in her bed all day, but had simply believed the servant who told him she wanted rest. He had seen that her belly was a little rounder and assumed when she pushed his hand away she was merely shy that age had finally caught up with her, that time had given her any woman’s body instead of that of the Hippodrome star she once was. Now, looking at the lines pain had carved into her face, feeling her body beside his, he realised what was happening.

‘I didn’t see …’

‘You weren’t supposed to. No one was. No one is.’

‘This may not be what you think.’

‘I saw it with my mother’s mother, have seen it take too many others.’

‘You might get better?’ Justinian’s tone betrayed a question.

‘I don’t think so.’ Theodora was shaking her head. Looking up, she said, ‘You could marry again, find a young wife, have children with her.’

‘I won’t,’ Justinian’s tone was certain. ‘I won’t. Have you spoken to Alexander?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘He knows too much, knows too much of me.’

‘Other physicians, then.’

‘So they can speak of it to others, and then the whole world will know? Then I become the focus, not our work, your work.’

‘You are my focus.’

‘I shouldn’t be, there’s too much still to do. I’m not sure I can trust Antonina to fulfil Joannina’s betrothal to Anastasius, and those two are very much in love. I need to make sure their union is solid.’

‘And Sophia,’ Justinian spoke quickly. ‘Sophia needs you.’

‘She does. I still have to arrange her marriage. Let’s wait to see what news Belisarius sends from Rome, shall we?’

Justinian nodded, holding his wife lightly, holding her with all of himself. ‘Let’s wait.’

T
he news from Italy came quickly. Totila and his forces had left Rome and left it undamaged, Belisarius entered the city with no fighting and he sent the keys of the old city back to the Palace in a gold-inlaid ebony box.

While Theodora was particularly pleased for Justinian, that his ambition of a united Rome appeared to have been realised, she was also aware that a triumphant Belisarius would soon return. Antonina had already arrived on the advance ship, singing her husband’s praises wherever she went and, Theodora had been told, suggesting that perhaps she had been too hasty in agreeing to her daughter’s betrothal to Anastasius.

Both mother and daughter were called to the Empress’s rooms. Theodora sat in the wide gallery overlooking the Palace courtyards, all the windows and doors thrown open, letting in both light and heat, along with the view. Sophia sat close by the Empress as she always did now, carefully sewing an embroidered hem, her work easy and lovely.

A young man stood against one wall, charcoal and paper in hand, making fast, light sketches of Theodora’s face, of her hands, the shape of her neck, her shoulders.

Theodora explained his presence: ‘The church in Ravenna is nearly finished, apparently they need a recent likeness to complete the finer points of my face – these sketches are to be sent to them.’

Antonina bowed beautifully to her friend, her daughter did so with only a little less grace. ‘I hope they do you justice, Mistress.’

‘Unlikely,’ Theodora replied, ‘I’m not feeling my best, but you look very well.’

‘I’m home, and delighted to be. Give me our own coastline any day.’

‘So Joannina, are you pleased to have your mother home? Looking forward to your father’s return?’

Joannina glared at her mother, who glared back and didn’t even try to hide the sharp pinch she delivered to the back of her daughter’s hand.

‘Thank the Augusta for her interest and answer her question,’ Antonina hissed.

Theodora smiled. ‘You’ve grown used to living as a woman, Joannina, it’s no surprise you find it a little difficult to live under your mother’s rule again.’