The Secret History: A Novel of Empress Theodora (10 page)

“Antonina.”

I almost dropped the package. “I’m going to die.”

Comito sighed and kept walking. “She thinks they’re for me.”

I watched my sister, dumbstruck, then hurried to catch her hand. “Thank you.”

She gave me a watery smile. “That’s what sisters are for.”

Wine fumes greeted us as we let ourselves into our room—Mother was slumped at the table, an empty amphora on the ground and her fingers still loosely clasped around another. So much for my mother helping me.

Comito pulled vials from the linen package. “If this works, you won’t be able to get up tomorrow.”

I uncorked a cloudy bottle and promptly gagged on the smell. “What is that?”

“Tooth of a Cyclops and a virgin’s blood.” Comito rolled her eyes. “Tansy and pennyroyal. Antonina was quite proud that it was mixed by a Manichaean magician who can trace his lineage all the way back to the prophet Mani.”

I supposed that was quite an honor, but it smelled like cat urine and rotten eggs. “I already want to die.”

She chuckled. “If you drink more than half, you might get your wish.” She pushed a terra-cotta basin to me. “For later. And you might want to plug your nose to get that all down.”

I did as I was told and drained half of the tincture. It almost came back up, but I managed to swallow. “Now what?”

“We wait.” Comito rewrapped the bottles in the linen. “I hope you’ve learned your lesson. From now on you’ll use a pessary of pennyroyal, arum root, and fenugreek.” She poured herself a glass of wine—one that smelled more like vinegar—and sat down next to me. “Let’s hope this works.”

She was right—when the tincture began its work, I prayed God would kill me. The need for the basin became clear when I vomited, but then my insides turned to water. I shook on my pallet and Comito mostly left me alone, but occasionally I felt her hand on my back. “Not yet,” she said more than once.

Afternoon sunshine streamed down on me when I awoke to Comito’s snores. I tried to move, but it felt as if I’d been run over by a chariot. And then stomped on by the horse.

There was a different noise, some sort of animal groan. It took me a moment to realize the sound was coming from my mouth, but then soft hands were on my back and a cool cloth on my forehead. My vision cleared enough to make out the outline of my mother beside me. “My poor, stupid girl,” she said.

I closed my eyes. “Must have been something I ate.”

She massaged my scalp, pulling the damp strands from my face. “I might be a drunk, but I’m no fool. Children are a hazard in your line of work.”

I cringed at the mess of vomit on the floor. It would be easier for us to move than to clean it. “Did it work?”

She shook her head. “No sign of it.”

“No.” That couldn’t be right.

I heard Comito stir. “Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t.” She squinted out the window. “I have to go—there’s a silk merchant who wants me before his wife returns from taking the waters at Bithynia.” She touched my shoulder. “Do you want to come to the baths with me?”

The thought of moving made me want to be ill.

“I’ll take care of her.” My mother released a heavy sigh. Comito must have given her a look. “I’m her mother, for Mary’s sake.”

“All right,” I heard Comito say. “I’ll pick you up a nice vintage on the way home.”

“There’s a good girl,” Mother said. The wet cloth on my head was heaven. “Now what are we going to do with you, Theodora?”

If only I knew.

.   .   .

Things went from bad to worse.

That winter I grew larger than an Egyptian hippo, becoming a virtual Penelope as I embroidered the same tiny smock and tore out the seams, unsure what to do with the child I carried. I swallowed my envy as Comito went back to the Kynêgion when the almond trees unfurled their pink blossoms. My sister supported both Mother and me without complaint, but our cupboards were more empty than not and soon there would be a baby, too. If the child and I survived the birth, that was.

I spent most of my time praying to God for guidance, for protection, for a sign—anything—but received no answer. A precious coin paid to the pagan augur in the market only told me I was going
nowhere, all because I’d dreamed of putting on shoes. I began to think she was onto something.

I stretched my back and rubbed my swollen belly—today was an especially itchy day, and Mother had already rubbed my stomach with olive oil twice before she went out to pick up fresh fish for our evening meal—when Comito burst through the door, her face covered with strawberry blotches. She stopped, seemingly transfixed by my colossal stomach. Then she collapsed next to me and burst into tears.

The front of my tunica was soaked through by the time I could make sense of my sister’s garbled mess of words.

“Married,” Comito bawled. “He’s married.”

I wiped the tears from her cheeks with the end of my sleeve. “Who?”

“Karas!” She dissolved into another fit, during which I poured wine. I wanted the whole amphora, but cut mine heavily with water and filled the other to the top. This was my fault.

“He married the fuller’s daughter.” Comito sniffled. “I saw them today in the market—she already looks gone with child.”

“Perhaps she’s just plump,” I said.

Comito ignored me, curling to a ball on her pallet. “That was supposed to be my baby, but instead I’m a whore.”

“No, you’re one of Constantinople’s greatest actresses. She stinks of sausage and pig blood while you dress in silk stolas, dine on milk-stuffed suckling lambs, and drink wine out of gold goblets.”

She looked at me as if she’d never seen me before. “Is that really what you think of me? I’d trade every stola I own for a baby and a husband who loved me.” Her lower lip trembled. “I thought Karas would want me back if he saw how popular I’d become, that he’d realize how much he wanted me. Instead, I ruined everything.” She swiped at her eyes with one hand, clenching the clay cup of wine with the other so tightly I thought it might crack.

I could either swallow the lie I’d told or tell Comito the truth. I owed her that after what I’d done.

“It’s my fault,” I said. “Not yours. He came looking for you at the Boar’s Eye, but I told him you were with someone else. Which, might I point out, wasn’t entirely false.” Her expression changed as my words sunk in. “I shouldn’t have done it.”

She stared at me with unseeing eyes, then hurled her wine cup at me, followed by the other cup and the amphora. I dodged the amphora but wasn’t so lucky with the cups. “You filthy, lying viper!”

I held my hands in front of me and backed toward the door as she searched for more projectiles. “I thought you wanted a patron. I didn’t know you still loved him.”

She paused, a bottle of olive oil with my name on it poised over her head. “And that meant you could decide my life for me?”

“I was angry. I thought you wouldn’t help me.”

She set the bottle down, slowly. “I’ve lost my only chance at true happiness. All because of you.”

I took a tentative step forward, reaching out my hand. “I’m sorry, Comito. So, so sorry.”

Her eyes were empty when she looked at me, and she stepped back as if I might contaminate her. “Get out.”

“What? Now?”

Her voice was as hollow as her gaze. “I never want to see you again.”

“But the baby—”

“I don’t care about the baby!” Her face crumpled. “I said get out!”

I stumbled into the streets, drenched and smelling like a vat of wine. People stopped to stare—a woman as far gone as I was with child should have been locked from view—but then turned their noses up and continued on their way.

I’d lost my father, and then Anastasia. Now I’d lost Comito, too.

And it was all my fault.

I
gasped and grit my teeth. The pain around my stomach crescendoed even as I crouched on the ground like some sort of wild animal. I’d had pains over the last week as I begged for bread and slept wherever I could, including one night spent in the public latrina I’d rather forget. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to beg my sister to take me back. Instead, I’d gone to Communion and worn out my knees praying to God for help. At least the churches didn’t turn me away.

The stones of the city wall were cold against my forehead, my midnight dig through a taverna’s trash heap momentarily forgotten. The pain passed, and I leaned over the garbage again, but a sudden gush of warm water between my legs stopped me.

“Not now!” I hit the wall and cursed again at the haze of blood on my knuckles. I could scarcely see through my tears. The wall held me upright as I panted through more waves of agony and pushed my palms against the pain. At some point I became vaguely aware of a woman’s drunken laughter.

“Once an alley cat, always an alley cat, eh, Theodora?”

Antonina. The Almighty had a twisted sense of humor.

“Lord in heaven, you’re not having the cursed thing out here, are you?”

I was hallucinating. It almost sounded as if Antonina cared. My glare was cut short as I groaned and curled into the pain. Once it passed, I slumped against a crate, one filled with fish, judging from its briny smell.

“How long have you been at it?”

I didn’t look at her—it cost me dear enough to answer. “I don’t know.” The moon had moved, so now it perched atop one of the buildings, possibly the last moon I’d ever see. A fierce desire to fight through this torture surged through me. “Long enough.”

Someone cleared his throat—I hadn’t noticed the man in the shadows. There was a low murmur of voices and then footsteps retreating into the darkness. I should have known she wouldn’t stick around. Time’s edges blurred as my pains bled into one another. Then something cold rummaged between my legs. I yelped.

“Relax,” Antonina said. “It’s not as if I’m the first to be in your skirts.” I tried to push her hand away but had as much effect as a drunken baboon. “I need to see how far the baby’s dropped.” She pushed a chipped cup into my hand. “Drink this.”

I must have glared, because she rolled her eyes. “It’s only willow bark. It’ll take the edge off the pains.”

I’d drink nails if she promised it would make this easier. “Get it out of me.”

“All in good time,” Antonina said. “And not much time from the look of it.” She peered down the alley, hands on hips. “The only midwife I know is on the other side of the city. It looks like it’s you and me.”

“Why in Christ’s name would you help me? You hate me.”

“I do. But somehow I doubt anyone else is going to come along and deliver you.”

She had a point.

“I still hope you choke on a pomegranate one day.”

Antonina laughed. “Right back at you, darling.”

Another pain gripped me—either the willow bark didn’t help or my pains were stronger—but this time Antonina helped me sit on the crate and rubbed my back. The rest of the night was a blur. Death hovered near, yet I fought for life. For my life and my child’s.

“I’m sorry,” I sobbed to Antonina from all fours. My legs and arms could no longer hold me, and I pressed my forehead to the dirt. “I can’t do this.”

She didn’t move from her station next to me. “Yes, you can. And you will.”

“I’m sorry for all the noise I’m making.”

Antonina let out an exasperated sigh. “Stop apologizing and push!”

Sometime before dawn broke, I screamed. I hadn’t screamed all night, but now I let fly the wail of pain I’d held inside. A weight fell from my womb into Antonina’s waiting arms.

My daughter.

I clutched the flailing little thing as Antonina lifted her stola to retrieve a tiny knife from her boot. It flashed in the moonlight as she cut the umbilical cord with one swift motion. My daughter rooted at my breast, her eyes pools of darkness and a black whorl of hair on her scalp still tangled with the debris of birth. “What do you want to do with her?”

I hadn’t exactly plotted out a future for myself and a baby on the streets of Constantinople. “I don’t know.”

Antonina set to work again as the afterbirth came. My mother had planted the placentas from her children back in Cyprus’ rich soil. Mine would be left in the garbage heap of a taverna.

Ripping her
paludamentum
down the middle, Antonina wrapped my daughter in one piece and handed me the other to staunch the flow of blood between my legs. She seemed to look everywhere but at the
child. “You could leave her under the elephants of the Golden Gate. Someone might take care of her.”

“And if no one does?”

Antonina’s face was a mask. “You’ll never know. Or there are the bathhouse drains. She wouldn’t be the first child to be dumped there.” She shrugged when I didn’t answer. “Children of whores usually die young anyway.”

The baby whimpered, denied the breast she sought. Antonina watched me for a moment, then wiped her hands on the back of her tunica. “You’d best feed her then. Nothing worse than a crying baby.”

I let the baby suck, awestruck at the little fingers splayed across my breast with their tiny fingernails. I ruined almost everything I touched, but somehow, despite everything, I had managed to create this perfect little person. And yet, because of me, there was no one I loved here to see her. I gave a strangled little sob and clutched my baby to me. It shocked me how much I wanted to keep her, to see her safe.