The Purple Shroud: A Novel of Empress Theodora (7 page)

‘May I go now?’ Ana asked, ‘I’m tired.’

‘Of course.’

Ana bowed as protocol demanded and then, raising herself before her mother, leaned in close. Her whispered voice and pose reminded Theodora pitifully of the small girl who had always been too scared to speak when Theodora saw her late after a show or running out to rehearsal, but her words were a gift.

‘Just between us,’ Ana said, ‘and please, never mention this again, and certainly not to Sophia, you’ll be glad to hear that Paulus is a good – a very good – lover.’

Then Ana left the room, a broad smile on her usually composed face, delighted to have, for once, silenced her mother.

T
he marriage was arranged with appropriate discretion. No one was surprised when Armeneus informed the household that Ana wanted a quiet blessing, and within a fortnight the Augusta’s bastard daughter was married, dressed in a simple and elegant gown quickly made by the Jewish family of weavers and seamstresses who had housed Theodora when she first returned to Constantinople after her years away in North Africa and Egypt. Pasara looked on the ceremony in horror, and Theodora was pleased to note her discomfort.

That evening, kissing her daughter, blessing the union both as mother and as Empress, Theodora was astonished to find herself on the verge of tears. She left the banqueting room as quickly as she could without causing too much gossip among the staff. Given the increasingly unhappy state of current negotiations with the Persians over their incursions into both Mesopotamia and Syria, there was no surprise that the Empress appeared to have better things to do. With Justinian exhausting himself trying to find resources for an already under-funded army, while his translators looked for nuance in every missive from their spies behind enemy lines, Theodora
had a ready-made excuse to attend to her husband rather than her daughter.

Sophia found Theodora in her receiving room.

‘You called for me?’

‘I called for you some time ago.’

‘I was working.’

‘I’m Augusta.’

‘So I hear. But the purple on your back doesn’t make it any easier for me to cross the City. The long stretch of the Mese doesn’t empty of drunken soldiers just because you send a servant to find me, nor does it mean Blue louts stop harassing Green brats and allow me a clear path to you.’

‘How disappointing.’

‘What is it? Has Ana left her husband already?’

‘No. In fact, I doubt there’s a happier couple in the City.’

‘The August must be pleased. It’s a good union, and fertile already.’

‘He is. We are.’

‘But?’

‘I am pleased. And I felt…’ Theodora shook her head, rubbed her face, ‘I felt everything.’

‘Ah. Maternal emotion? That’s new.’

‘I have had those feelings before, Sophia, I just…I was never there when Ana was small, I had to work, you know that. And she didn’t…’

‘Interest you?’

‘Mother of the Christ forgive me, yes, she didn’t interest me.’ Theodora shook her head. ‘I’m shocked and delighted to feel the emotions I thought life had wrung from me.’

Sophia nodded to a silent slave, motioning for the wine he held. She took the full jug and sent him out of the room, then poured generous glasses for herself and Theodora.

‘So you finally feel something normal for your daughter. Something approaching love. Why are you upset?’

‘It was the relief. For the first time I fully realised that neither Ana nor her child will have to experience what we had to. Better yet if she gives birth to a boy.’

‘Any child born in the Palace would never have to go through what we did.’

‘A girl would still need to be married off. We give ourselves up for work or we do it for marriage. Either way, it’s still our work.’

Sophia went to sit beside her old friend. ‘Theodora, not all women who marry hate to fuck. Not all women who fuck for coin hate to fuck. You didn’t. I know for a fact you enjoyed our work sometimes.’

‘Sometimes. Other times I hated it.’

‘And you love being Empress all the time?’ Theodora didn’t answer and Sophia continued, ‘I know you had your glorious conversion in the desert, but you can’t tell me you’ve entirely forgotten that you did like it, our work, sometimes. And you’ve told me, much as I’ve asked you not to,’ Sophia mocked, screwing up her face, ‘how utterly you enjoy it with the Emperor.’

Theodora laughed and shook her head at her friend. ‘No,’ she sighed, ‘you know I’m not talking about sex anyway, not really; it’s about how it is for girls, our girls.’

Sophia helped herself to a glass of wine from Theodora’s table. ‘You still want to save them all? Mariam wasn’t enough for you?’

‘Nowhere near enough.’

‘Then what’s your plan? You’re Augusta, remember? You can do anything you like.’

‘I wish…’

‘You can do a damn sight more than wish,’ Sophia talked
over her mistress, ‘if you want to save them all, then save them all. You’ve been going on about setting up this convent or house or whatever it is you want to make for the old whores…’

‘I will.’

‘When? Last winter was dreadful, signs are we have a worse one coming. Do it, make it happen. Only don’t kid yourself they’re all going to want it.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You find being cooped up here hard enough, and this is a palace – the Palace. Don’t imagine every whore you scoop off the street will thank you. Some will, the older ones probably. The punters have been demanding cuts in the whores’ fees too, there’s always a knock-on when things are tight, but there are still those who prefer life on the street.’

‘And old whores are the hardest to change.’

‘Very true – look at me!’

They laughed and Sophia poured more wine.

‘Start with the young girls first, they’re not so used to the life. There’s half a dozen brothel keepers’ names I could give you right now.’

‘I can’t just close them down,’ Theodora replied. ‘Most of those keepers paid for the girls, they have contracts with them, they pay their taxes.’

‘If you buy their girls back they’ll be out of business by the morning.’

‘You think my household has so much?’ Theodora asked.

‘It’s got a damn sight more than mine.’

‘And if I do, where will the girls go?’

‘Wherever they want. Back to their vile peasant villages and even worse peasant boys no doubt, but they’ll be free of their brothel contracts and that’s a start.’

Theodora poured herself the last of the wine, calmer now,
enthused by the idea and interested in her friend’s enthusiasm. ‘And putting those half-dozen brothel keepers out of business wouldn’t do your own business any harm either.’

Sophia finished her glass and looked at her old friend. ‘Every one of my girls has already bled at least once; none of them are children. Every one of my girls goes to a clean man, only one at a time, and gets a good share of the fee he pays. None of them is beaten, coerced, or thrown out when they get too old or find themselves pregnant. I’m proud of how I run my business.’ She paused and then nodded. ‘But yes, that Cappadocian bastard in the Treasury is making things hard for all of us. I could do with a little less competition.’

Theodora called in eight brothel owners the next day. She knew there was no point closing down their businesses completely: the City would always want its whores and the women would still need work. Instead she put up the funds to buy twenty-five girls out of their contracts, young girls who had either come to the City with their refugee families and been lured away by the promise of pretty sandals or a warm bed, or, worse, who had been sold by their own parents. In hard times a good-looking child could fetch a nice fee for a farmer suffering under the burden of a bad harvest and high taxes.

The girls themselves were less easy to deal with. For the first two weeks Theodora housed them in the women’s wing of the Palace, but it quickly became obvious they needed a permanent home, not least because her household food budget increased threefold, while the amount allocated to her managers remained the same.

‘Twenty-five girls?’ Narses frowned. ‘You don’t think I have enough going on right now?’

‘I thought this might be a pleasant distraction.’

‘Twenty-five girls trained only to be whores? I’m too old for this.’ Narses sat at his desk, head in hands. Sighing, he looked up at Theodora. ‘Menander always said you would either rule the world or be hanged by it.’

‘Menander said many things, let’s hope he was only half right. Come on, Narses, I’m trying to do the right thing.’

Narses sighed, turned to a map on his wall pinned all over with notes and diagrams, lists and letters.

‘Let’s see…we could send them off to attack the Persians? Little girls can be devils with knives. Things are uncertain in the west again too, soldiers complaining about not being paid their full fees – maybe we could throw a girl into each regiment? That’ll keep them quiet for a week or so.’

The scribe kneeling beside him on the floor started to write down his master’s thoughts and Narses kicked him, not lightly. ‘Don’t be stupid, boy.’

‘Not quite what I had in mind,’ said Theodora.

‘I imagine you very likely had nothing in mind at all. You made a grand gesture and now I have to deal with your mess.’

Theodora had been playing along with Narses; now she had had enough. ‘Leave us,’ she said to the scribe, who scrabbled up and ran from the room.

Slowly, Narses rose from his chair, ‘Mistress?’

‘You’re right. I did make a gesture. I know you’re busy – the Persian negotiations are difficult, the peace impossible to agree. There are problems with the Treasury, the religious arguments rage on. You have far more important things to concern you than twenty-five girl whores. But you were sold to be a eunuch, yes?’ Narses nodded and Theodora continued, ‘Your parents gave you to this life, you had no choice, and yet you’ve done well. We both have. Yes, we’ve both worked – and planned and schemed – to have the lives we now lead—’

‘And we continue to plan and scheme,’ Narses interrupted.

‘True, we can never relax. And I agree with the August that the Empire, his vision of one people, one land, will be good for all of us. But you made me study history and strategy when I first came to the Palace, encouraged me to care about more than just my position, whether or not people bow correctly, remember to call me Mistress…’

‘Unless it suits you to use that as a stick to beat them with?’

‘Yes, unless it suits me. The point is, I want to make things better in my City.’

‘Because you think you were fated to wear the purple?’

Theodora shook her head. ‘Because I’m sick of the idea of fate, of feeling like it’s being done to me. If I choose to take what feels like my destiny and turn it into my…’ Theodora stopped, groping for the word.

‘Mission?’ Narses offered.

‘That’ll do, my mission – to be Justinian’s partner, to use that power – then at least it makes some sense of why I’m here. We need small improvements as well as huge change. I see no point otherwise.’

Two days later Narses told Theodora that he had found an old palace, on the eastern side of the Bosphorus, large enough to accommodate five hundred girls, or women, or whatever his mistress wanted to save next. Builders were engaged to renovate the house, then the first group of girls and a number of women, also ex-whores, were sent over several weeks later. Theodora named the old building Metanoia – Redemption. She was particularly pleased Narses had found a house across the water, Bithynia had always been a favourite area of hers as a working girl, dancing in Menander’s company for the pleasure of rich men.

‘Good, I love the journey there,’ she said to Armeneus
when the girls were safely settled in the house, with religious in attendance. ‘Now I have a reason to visit.’

‘You’re free to travel across the water any time you like, Mistress.’

‘Yes, Armeneus,’ she answered, ‘I’m Augusta, but now that I can travel and do good at the same time, it looks better, don’t you think?’

The next day, Theodora and an entourage of over a thousand crossed the Bosphorus in a shining flotilla of glittering boats and, as promised, the scene was truly impressive. The Persian delegation, seated on the raised patios of the Palace overlooking the water, also took note, as they were meant to. The same evening they sent home a messenger to say that perhaps the Empire’s finances were not suffering quite as badly as they had been led to believe.

T
he day after her return from Bithynia, Theodora rose early and called for Armeneus. By the time he arrived, his robe quickly pulled on, his face still creased from sleep, she was fully dressed, Mariam by her side.

‘Mistress?’

‘Surely I didn’t disturb you? I assume my husband had already called Narses from your bed?’

It suited Theodora that Narses knew she could condemn him at any time for keeping Armeneus as his lover. Given Narses’ power in the Palace, anything that gave her a little sway was welcome.

Armeneus sighed but answered his Mistress, taking care to keep his tone light. ‘Narses did not sleep, he’s been working all night on a letter to Khusro suggesting peace terms.’

‘Good idea, I should send one myself.’

‘A letter to the Persian king?’

‘Why not? They have wives in Persia, don’t they?’

‘I believe so.’

‘Good. We’ll do it tomorrow, we’re going out today.’

‘We?’

‘Apparently it’s too dangerous for the Empress to go into
the City alone, so I’ll take you and Mariam with me. A happy family. I’ll look less obvious with the pair of you alongside. You’ll need a warmer robe, and stronger sandals I think, not Palace clothes, nothing too fine. And get a move on, the markets will open soon. I always hated it when it was too crowded.’

Now Armeneus noticed the simplicity of Theodora’s shift and saw she had the oldest of her cloaks over her arm.

His heart sank and he shook his head. ‘It’s not safe, even in disguise. The factions…there’ve been fights, flashpoints all over the City for the past few nights.’

‘So I heard in Bithynia. And it’s exactly what I want to see for myself. If you know where they are, even better. The people rarely speak truth to the Palace: once inside these walls, everyone exaggerates their problems or, worse, they pretend nothing is wrong, obsequious before majesty. My women can tell people I’m bathing or sleeping or something, we can be in the City all day and no one need know.’