The Secret History: A Novel of Empress Theodora (14 page)

“A poor one if she’s offering our services for free,” one of the other girls hissed under her breath.

I gestured to the foot of the general’s couch. “May I?” The rest of the troupe followed my lead, most finding their places lying between two men on the couches. Hilarion rolled his eyes at me and disappeared into the shadows of the doorway, there to remain unless there was any trouble.

Justin moved his legs. “Only so long as no one tells my wife.”

I thought for a rhyme. “My lips are sealed, as I value your life.”

There was a ripple of laughter. The
skolion
—a competition to see who could make the most bawdy rhyme—had begun.

The black-haired man stood and gave a little bow in my direction, an unpleasant smile hovering on his lips. “‘For reasonable men I prepare only three
kraters
of wine: the first for health, the second for love and pleasure, and the third for sleep.’”

It was one of Dionysus’ lines from a play by Eubolus, but spoken in an accent I couldn’t quite place. The ancient Greeks had used giant
kraters
to mix their water and wine at symposiums like this.

Justin chuckled. “Quite a difficult challenge, Hecebolus. Rather ungentlemanly of you.”

The man only raised his brows. “I never claimed to be a gentleman.”

My mind skipped ahead as the crowd murmured. I wouldn’t let this bear of a man outdo me. “And God had gifted women with such
craters
as well: one for health”—I pointed to my mouth—“and the second for pleasure with a baser sort of man.” I gave a waggle of my seat before I rose and straddled Hecebolus. I pressed my breasts to his chest and startled at the hardness of his desire between my legs. “And the
third”—anyone with half a brain could see the lust in his eyes as I tipped my head and brushed his lips with mine—“for sleep.”

The entire symposium roared with laughter, everyone in the crowd stomping his feet and clapping. Hecebolus gave a perfunctory clap and shifted me from his lap. John saluted me with his glass, sloshing red wine over the rim. “If only God had graced you with a fourth crater, Theodora, so that we poor souls might enjoy you more.”

I laughed and sauntered past Hecebolus with his black hair and blacker scowl to sit next to John, cupping my breasts in both his hands. “With a fourth like these, a man might forget I’m a whore.”

“Two golden apples to rival the one given to Paris. With a face to outshine Helen’s!” He kissed the swell of my breasts and clutched my hand to his heart, pulling me almost to his lap. Hecebolus moved away as if burned, a slight I pretended not to notice.

“You know,” I said to John, “I met you before I played Leda.”

“No.” John blinked. “Surely I’d remember meeting such a goddess.”

“It was at the Boar’s Eye. You were visiting my friend Chrysomallo over there.”

John glanced at Chrysomallo, cheeks flushed as he shrugged. “She’s a pretty tart, but nothing compared to you.” He shot me a wicked grin and wrapped his arm around my shoulder, giving himself a fuller view of my breasts. “However, the girls at the Boar’s Eye taught me a thing or two over the years. Perhaps I could demonstrate them for you tonight?”

I laughed. “Perhaps.”

“Please, Leda—I’ll go mad with desire if I can’t have one night with you.”

I chuckled as my friends were claimed—Chrysomallo giggled when General Justin pulled her to his lap. “The whole night? You can’t afford me.”

He grinned, his bronze face lighting up. “Try me.”

I shrugged, ignoring the strap of my stola as it slid from my shoulder. I should send him to Hilarion, but I preferred to negotiate my own wage.

“Ten
solidi
.”

If he was shocked, he didn’t show it. Ten
solidi
could keep a regiment in bread and beer for a week or feed a pleb family for months. If I was lucky, he’d end up paying much more than that.

“I may starve if my creditors find out,” he said, “but such a price would be worth one night with a goddess.”

He tasted of wine and the cloves and almonds from the stewed chicken as he slipped an arm around my waist and tried to stand. Unsuccessfully. We tumbled to the floor in a tangle of limbs.

I looped one of his arms over my shoulder and held his waist with my free arm, wiping away a trickle of wine from the dimple in his chin. For ten
solidi
I could help the man to his sedan. God’s blood, for ten
solidi
I’d strip naked and run down the
Mese
if he asked me.

I helped him from the
triclinium
, the men’s catcalls accompanying us into the darkness until he pulled me into an empty room. He made quick work of the clasps at my shoulders and buried his face in my bare breasts, my hands in his sandy hair. My skin prickled with gooseflesh as he tugged my stola over my hips, then dug his fingers into my backside to pull me closer.

“I like this spot.” His tongue flicked the mole under my left breast before moving up to the nipple. “And this one.”

Someone cleared his throat. Hecebolus leaned against the door, arms crossed in front of his massive chest. Heat spread through more than my cheeks as I stepped out of John’s arms and righted my stola, hoping no one else could hear the pounding of my heart.

“I’d like to counter your offer,” he said. “Ten
solidi
for tonight, and maybe more nights after that. Let the lady choose.”

It was my turn to almost fall over. It didn’t matter that his offer was higher—for the first time I found myself actually wanting a man.

John took one look at me, groaned, and banged his head against the wall. “Tell me you’re not going to choose him. Tell me I didn’t just lose my night with Aphrodite.”

Hecebolus brushed his tunica, a wolfish smile spreading across his face. The cut of his cloth and the weave of his calfskin boots reeked of money, sweeter than any perfume he might have worn. “Keep your pagan sentiments to yourself, John. This goddess is mine.”

I raised my brows at John, still wobbly on his feet. “Care to raise your friend’s offer?”

“Friend?” John shook his head, a loose grin still on his face. “Not after tonight. Alas, my purse is full of cobwebs.” He pulled himself from the wall and punched the other man’s arm. Hard. “Enjoy her for me. God knows I’ll only have myself to scratch my chickpea tonight.” I kissed the poor boy’s cheek, but he turned so his lips brushed mine, and he gave me a jaunty smile. “You’re missing out, Leda.” Then he turned and sauntered into the night.

Hecebolus snapped his fingers, and a pretty young slave dressed in a red tunica appeared from the shadows of the hall. The eunuch counted five gold coins from his silk purse and dropped them into my palm, careful not to touch me. “The remainder shall be paid after services have been rendered.” He sniffed.

I slipped the
solidi
into the hidden pocket sewn into my bodice and was about to comment that he could deposit the rest there later, but Hecebolus picked me up and flung me over his shoulder.

My initial instinct was to squawk and thwack him over the head. Instead, I wrapped my legs around him and lowered my lips to his, inhaling the spicy smell of his perfume. I didn’t know if I wanted to wait until we made it to his villa.

We didn’t get that far, barely managing to close the silk curtains before Hecebolus had me on the floor of his sedan. Several times. I moaned and arched into him, my fingernails digging into his back as unexpected waves of pleasure crashed over me. My limbs still tingled as
I rearranged myself on the seat opposite him and smoothed the now-rumpled folds of my stola as he opened the curtains. The oil lamps along the
Mese
sputtered as we passed and then turned down a moonlit street so quiet that the bearers’ footsteps echoed off the buildings.

I knew well how to satisfy a man, but this was the first time I hadn’t had to pretend my own pleasure. This man was either a saint, or a demon.

Hecebolus watched me, and I had to force myself to sit still. I leaned back on the cushions and lazily traced the clover pattern on the curtains. “You don’t wear the red stripe like most of Justin’s other friends tonight,” I said.

“I’m not a senator. Politicians would double-cross their own mothers if given the opportunity; yet they scorn the merchants they depend upon.”

“Then why were you there?”

“John the Cappadocian asked me—he’s particularly adept at maneuvering around the Emperor’s import taxes.”

Interesting. Poor John played with money; yet he had none of his own. Either he was terribly honest or incredibly stupid.

“So you’re a merchant.”

Hecebolus nodded, then tugged me to my knees before him. My finger traced the rope under his tunica—I was shocked to find he was ready for me again. My lips traced a line up the silk of his leg. “And what do you import?”

“Imperial dye.” I drew back as if slapped. His accent—

“Purple dye? From Tyre?”

“How did you know?”

“And you recently patronized another actress?” I pulled myself back to my seat, sitting on my hands to stop their trembling. “Named Comito?”

“Until recently, yes.” His face grew hard. “I wouldn’t have pegged you as the jealous type.”

I snatched the coins from my cleavage and flung them on my seat, not caring when they spilled all over the floor we had just enjoyed. “Consider that one complimentary.” I unlatched the door and jumped from the moving sedan, then tripped and felt the seam of my stola rip as I caught myself with my palms. Hilarion would charge me for that.

“What in the name of Christ?” Hecebolus stuck his head out the window, the curtains framing him like a halo in a mosaic. His expression looked more like a demon than any Christian saint. “Get back here!”

I didn’t look at him as I pressed my palms to my lips, tasting the copper tang of blood. “I’d rather walk.”

All the way to the fires of Gehenna.

Comito was going to kill me.

.   .   .

Antonina barely managed to speak as she laughed, great heaving sobs as she clutched her ribs and blinked back tears. “Everything you touch turns to ash, Theodora.”

“This is why I wasn’t going to tell you.” I scowled at her and dandled Tasia on my lap, feeding her goat milk through a turquoise glass baby feeder Mother had found at the market. The ingenious invention looked like a vase with a spout coming out the side, and Tasia sucked it dry. Sometimes Mother took her to Esther to feed her, a Jewish girl below us who was still breastfeeding her own infant, but I hated the smell of another woman on my daughter. I wanted to cling to her, the only thing that was pure in this world. Unfortunately, things weren’t looking hopeful for either of our futures. I’d squandered the only chance with a patrician I was likely to get for some time.

“Maybe you could convince Hecebolus to take Comito back.” Antonina wiped her cheeks. “I’m sure he’d be happy to keep you both, especially if it meant having you at the same time.”

“Somehow I doubt Comito would appreciate that.”

“Your sister was always a prude,” Mother said. She had already had
too much wine this afternoon, but apparently not enough to tie her tongue.

“And a snob,” Antonina said. “She needs to lower her standards.”

“Like you?” I glanced at her through the corner of my eyes. “How is Timothy the Weasel these days?”

“Infatuated, as always,” she said.

“He’s a kind man,” Mother said, shaking a finger at me. “You’d do well to find someone like him.”

I used a knife to break the wax seal on a fresh amphora of wine and pushed the jug toward her. “I don’t understand why you don’t take up with him,” I said to Antonina. “Or go back to the stage.”

“Back to the snake pit? Never.” Antonina flopped into a chair, sending a puff of brown feathers out of its lone cushion as she dug through a box of perfumes and unguents. “You know I was in the same boat as you that first day you met me. Only Petronia made sure I didn’t have the baby.”

I remembered the lead actress screaming at Antonina that first day, the garish red hair poking out from under her snakes.

“What? Why did she care?”

She shrugged and rubbed rose oil into her hands. “I fooled around with Perseus, made the mistake of letting myself fall in love with him. Petronia found out the day you and Comito showed up at the Kynêgion.”

I thought back to the lusty kiss between Perseus and Petronia. I’d always wondered what Antonina had really done. Now I knew.

“Then she had to take care of her own similar problem. That was why I took her place the night you stole my starring role.” She pulled a tiny ivory spoon out of the box and stuck it in her ear, then wiped the yellow wax on a rag. “Now I’ve taken enough potions I’m quite sure the gods won’t allow me any more babies.”

So that was why she treated Tasia like her own.

“The Weasel’s not terribly easy on the eyes,” I said. That man wasn’t named for a rodent for nothing. “But well off.”

“Enough at least.” Antonina gave a little smile. “And he’s gone much of the time. That certainly recommends him.”

If only I were so lucky.

.   .   .

I was right. Comito did almost kill me.

Antonina had met me at the Kynêgion to take Tasia home before she went out for the evening with the Weasel. “I like the graffito on the wall outside,” Antonina said. “Did you know you have delicious breasts?”

I didn’t have a chance to answer.

“You filthy little whore!” Comito barged into the room. Fortunately, Tasia was happily drooling on Antonina’s shoulder, so she wasn’t in the way when my sister flew at me. With a knife.

It was more sewing needle than a knife, really, but sharp all the same.

Tiny though the weapon was, I didn’t relish the thought of being stabbed. Loving sister that she was, Comito went for my throat. Good thing her aim was bad—she missed by a pace.

I pushed her away and expected her to make a second attempt, but she only stared at me. The knife clattered to the floor and she followed, collapsed into a puddle of blue silk. “I can’t believe you’d do this to me. Everyone is laughing at me—cast off by my patron so he could have my sister!”

“Let’s get this straight right now—I didn’t sleep with Hecebolus until after he’d thrown you out.”