The Purple Shroud: A Novel of Empress Theodora (5 page)

With that the Empress marched from the room, calling after her that Armeneus should also set up the contract for the artist, make sure the architects in Ravenna knew her wishes, arrange for the seal to be given, then grant whatever the last three petitioners were there for, she didn’t care what it was,
she was tired of this now and she assumed everyone else was too. Her women followed in her wake, Armeneus was left to follow her commands.

Theodora walked quickly through the corridors, hurrying away from a memory of herself at eighteen, betrayed by the friend who had replaced her in her lover’s bed, exhausted, alone, seeking solace in the Church in Alexandria, the last place she would have expected to find comfort, the only place left to her. She charged down corridors and pathways and walked back into herself as Augusta, Empress, as one who might not have all the freedom she wished, but who certainly did have the power – and the right – to make another’s livelihood, possibly his life.

T
he meal was a success. Antonina happily commandeered the visitor, leaving the Emperor entirely to his conversation with Belisarius. Justinian, no soldier himself and painfully aware that his precursor in the purple had been a favourite with the troops, was always keen to have the best advice on military matters. And Belisarius had plenty of ideas, too many for Theodora’s comfort.

Theodora did not doubt the young general’s courage or his military wisdom or his honed, toned good looks; what she didn’t like was the way everyone else treated him as some kind of demigod. Sittas believed Belisarius one of the best strategic minds of the age, an opinion echoed by Germanus. As Justinian’s cousin, Germanus had been annoyed but accepting when the Emperor Justin chose the scholar nephew Justinian as his successor, rather than himself, the military man. Germanus knew his greatest skills lay in soldiering, not diplomacy or the back-room discussions that were so much a part of government and bored him senseless. His wife Pasara however, had made no secret of her disgust when Theodora was raised to patrician, and subsequently made Empress. And yet, even with these old hurts rankling, both Sittas and
Germanus, and all the disapproving women, roundly applauded Justinian’s admiration for Belisarius.

Theodora knew from her stage career that the public could be fickle. Today they were pleased with their studious Emperor, enthusiastic about his many building projects. On another day however, there would be incursions from the Persian border, or stories of Vandals and Goths attacking in the west, or the Green faction might again whip up rumours that Justinian, from the opposing Blues, was showing favouritism; on that day the people might prefer the idea of a soldier Emperor again, someone to maintain order at home and abroad. Justinian did not see the young and successful Belisarius as a rival. Theodora thought it fortunate for both of them that she did.

The meal was ending and Antonina and Belisarius were keen to take Stephen home for more wine and stories of Italy. Belisarius because he believed the Ravennese’s experience of living so close to Goth rule would be more useful than the information he had at second hand from their spies; Antonina simply because the much-praised young general she already had as husband was never quite enough for her. Not that Belisarius noticed; on the rare occasions he tore himself away from military matters he was as besotted with his wife as everyone else was with him. Or perhaps, as Theodora once remarked, he was simply too damn in love with his own image to notice that Antonina didn’t gaze after him as often as everyone else did.

One by one the guests left, each careful to bow before the August and Augusta as they did so. Theodora took special delight in Pasara’s evident dislike of the gesture, keeping her low in the bow as she spoke to her.

‘Pasara, I hope you enjoyed your meal?’

‘Yes, thank you…Mistress.’

There was the slightest hesitation before she spoke the demanded title, and Theodora noted it, as Pasara no doubt meant her to. Germanus caught his wife’s hand and the exalted, but not Imperial, couple left together. Pasara might be an aristocrat, comfortable with the intrigue and doublespeak of court, but her husband understood that Theodora had been raised in the Hippodrome; even without the purple on her back the Empress would always win in a war of words.

Theodora was impressed to hear Stephen turn down the invitation to spend a few more days in the City in Antonina’s care. He pleaded the need to make as many sketches of Theodora as possible before he took his place on board a ship leaving in two days’ time, and while Antonina was obviously disappointed, she didn’t press her case. She had the golden warrior at her side after all; a last late drink would suffice. The artist’s own goodnight was full of gratitude. Theodora knew the exhaustion of poverty, and understood exactly why Stephen was so moved. He had journeyed to Constantinople purely on hope: he could now go home and get on with his life, marry, start a studio, take on an apprentice or two, secure in the knowledge that one day his name would be made. Most of the Palace staff wouldn’t have noticed, but Theodora had changed his life this afternoon. It occurred to her that she had probably changed the fat patrician’s life as well, and she was quite pleased about that too.

Theodora waited until Narses was busy farewelling Belisarius before she turned to Justinian. ‘Are you working tonight?’

‘Tribonian has some papers for me to look over,’ Justinian said.

Theodora smiled.

‘What is it?’

‘You,’ she said, ‘your leniency, just because he’s a good lawyer.’

‘A brilliant lawyer.’

‘Yes, but any other Pagan would have lost their job. Most of them have. Yet he’s allowed to keep on with his gods and goddesses…’

‘I thought you liked Tribonian?’

‘Like hardly comes into it where your staff are concerned. Unlike the Cappadocian drunkard, he is polite to me. Unlike Belisarius, I trust he’s truly on your side. Unlike Germanus he has no thought that your title might have been his.’

‘And unlike Sittas?’

‘Unlike my brother-in-law, he’s not a bore.’

‘Because he likes to talk strategy? It’s his job, you were once devoted to your work.’

‘Not quite, I loved my work, but I’ve always had a deeper devotion to living my life. I wanted to do it all, experience it all.’

‘Most people think you did.’

‘Most people would – mostly – be right,’ she smiled.

‘Maybe that’s why Tribonian annoys you less than the rest of them: his paganism reminds you of your old world?’

‘I think it’s more that I know he has no designs on your position. And even if he did, the people would never allow one scholar to take over from another.’

‘So it’s only military men I need worry about?’

‘Yes.’

‘Wise of me to keep them close, then.’

‘Perhaps. But you don’t often work late with Tribonian, what else is there?’

Justinian shook his head. ‘I don’t want to bother you.’

Theodora looked squarely at her husband. Justinian talked to her about everything, used her as his voice of the people,
and not without reason. Now forty-six, the Emperor’s life had been centred on the Palace since he was eleven years old, Theodora, still two years off thirty, had lived, worked, struggled and survived in the Empire they now ruled over, had travelled from Constantinople to Cyrenaica on the northern shore of Africa, through Alexandria and Antioch, all the way back to the slums of their city.

‘What is it?’ she pressed him.

Justinian darted a glance at Narses, but Theodora saw the look and raised herself on her toes to stand more squarely in his eyeline. ‘The eunuch’s busy. I’m here, and yet you don’t want to talk to me about it, so I can only presume it’s the Church?’

Justinian sighed, rubbed his heavy-shaded eyes, a gesture that always made her wince as he rubbed them redder still. ‘Isn’t it always and ever the Church?’

Theodora nodded. ‘Our curse to be born in a time of such faithful confusion.’

If the August couple’s building programme had created consternation among those who worried it was costing the state too much, there was even more interest in Justinian’s swiftly enacted religious laws. Within months of taking office, the Emperor banned Jews, Pagans and Arians from holding many official positions. It was hardly unusual to attack the Jews, or the small but defiantly separate Christian sect of Arians, the Pagan bans were more problematic. While the City was nominally Christian, there were many still praying to the old gods as Tribonian did. But Justinian was adamant: if he was to achieve his dream of a revitalised Rome, then all must be one – one Empire, one Church. More recently he had, to a muted outcry from some academics, and loud applause from his chief priests and theologians, closed down the Academy in
Athens. He felt it both a grand and a depressing gesture at the time, but it was also important in uniting Christians under his rule, uniting believers still profoundly divided over the most basic of questions; five hundred years since the death of the Christ, the Church was still trying to specify the nature of His divinity. The Emperor believed in the Council of Chalcedon’s ruling, that the Christ was both divine and human, a union, but not a mingling, of divinity and humanity. A smaller number, including Theodora, disagreed, and were equally sure that while the Christ possessed both states, His divinity and His humanity were entirely and inextricably mingled.

The distinction echoed across the Empire. Those in the West leaned towards Chalcedon, many of those in the East against. What really worried Justinian was that the anti-Chalcedonians in Syria, the Levant and Egypt – including Theodora’s mentors Severus and Timothy, Patriarch of Alexandria – were more interested in self-determination than in one Empire with one Church. As Timothy’s acolyte, living in the desert under Severus’ rule, Theodora had converted to the anti-Chalcedonian belief and its more esoteric rites, not least because the rituals and gesture of the practice appealed to her sense of theatre. The politicians and churchmen who, through Narses, had brought Justinian and Theodora together had hoped to effect a union between both sides. They trusted that leaking the truth of the Augusta’s faith would convince the anti-Chalcedonians they had someone on their side within the ruling elite. New-nation preachers in the East, Goth-puppet Patriarchs in the West, and the Palace in the middle, trying to hold it all together.

Justinian took Theodora’s hand and led her to the back of the room, away from their departing guests. An ornately inlaid door was opened by a slave who had been waiting in the
corner all evening, positioned purely on the off-chance that the Emperor or Empress might want to use this door. Justinian walked through, Theodora nodded her thanks to the slave and followed her husband. Just two years into the job, and still young compared to the last two Empresses, she knew that the ratio of smiles to rants needed to be heavily weighted in favour of kindness. Given that the story of her morning’s meeting with the patrician must be all over the City by now, it did her no harm to smile at the slave, acknowledging him in gesture if not in word.

Like many of the Palace’s public rooms, the informal dining room where they had eaten also had a small antechamber. Originally conceived as a way to observe the main room, there was a raised dais running the length of the wall it shared with the dining room, and small spy-holes drilled into the panelling, through which it was possible to watch the diners without being seen. Although there were no windows in this room, several grilles high up stopped the antechamber becoming too stuffy – Justinian’s forebears had not wanted to suffocate while they spied on each other – and a little of the dining room’s warm candlelight filtered through after Justinian closed the door. Alone for the first time all day, Theodora and her husband kissed, pulling each other closer, reaching for skin beneath fine silk, looking fully into the other’s face. Theodora had too often had to close her eyes to shut out the person who paid for her body; now she preferred to see her husband, to watch his pleasure in her, to show him hers.

Hand to mouth, mouth to mouth, mouth to flesh, skin to skin, inside and outside purple silk, soft robes and heavy jewels, full from the meal and the business and the gossip of court and heads stuffed with plans and possibility, the Emperor and Empress were acutely hungry for each other. Their sex was quickly over, neither fully disrobed, neither fully satisfied,
but good enough, close enough. There were times when Theodora wanted to shout her pleasure in her husband’s body, shout especially because she knew that so many dismissed him as stolid and scholarly. He lived up to the studiousness of his reputation at work, in his office, in his library; he was thoughtful and measured in all matters of state. But when they came together with the mutual desire that had surprised both of them at the start of their relationship, Justinian was as skilled and seductive as any of her previous lovers, and he could be surprisingly frivolous too. Theodora tried to tempt him now.

‘What are you doing tomorrow?’

‘Preparing for the Persian delegation. Narses thinks the ambassador will want to meet you too.’

‘All the foreigners want to get a look at the Emperor’s whore-wife. Fine, then I’ll meet you in the morning, before work.’

‘Before prayer?’ Justinian asked.

‘Certainly, before prayer. I’ll give you something to think about instead of worrying about Tribonian’s soul.’

‘Please do.’

They straightened their robes, and she tidied her hair, replacing the earring that Justinian had knocked to the floor in his eagerness to reach her. Just before he opened the door, the Emperor picked up his small wife, lifted her with outstretched arms and laughed aloud as he pulled her tight to him again, kissing her and setting her down carefully. He then went back into the near-empty dining room, walking ahead of Theodora as was right for his position, the look on his face daring Narses to say a word.

In the middle of the night, Theodora woke suddenly. She wasn’t sure if the scream of the owl was in her dream or reality. She went to the window, careful not to disturb Mariam
who slept in the small room next door. The moon was high and Theodora looked out, beyond the wall to the sea and Bithynia in the distance. A bird or a bat, too far away to tell, flew low across her field of vision, swooping down to the furthest reach of the wall where the old bricks had finally crumbled and fallen in recent days. She shook her head, reminding herself of her role even as she sneaked into Mariam’s room, reminding herself of her exalted position as she pulled on Mariam’s plain robe and sandals, and then carefully let herself out of her own room. The simple cloak close around her shoulders covered her hair and face, granting her the anonymity she craved as she walked the corridors of her own Palace, past guards who didn’t even glance up, and out to the open air.