The Secret History: A Novel of Empress Theodora (35 page)

“The peace with the Persian Empire has cost more than anyone anticipated, and I can’t afford not to pay their tribute,” Justinian said. “I can’t risk a war in the East while planning to conquer the West.” I rued the day Belisarius had campaigned in Persia. The Persians had defeated him at Callinicum a year ago and now plundered our Treasury in return for the promise not to attack. I’d propose sending the ambitious general to them instead, would it not have widowed Antonina again.

Love, or lust, had been in the air. Antonina had married Belisarius, and Comito had married General Sittas shortly after. My sister had borne a pretty little girl with her mother’s pale hair—Sophia—a scant seven months later. I had never seen my sister so happy, although I knew I’d never be able to induce her to come to court anymore.

“John’s the best prefect I have.” Justinian squinted at the dimly lit parchment before him. “I can’t remove him.”

“He’s a drunkard and a pagan and a letch. No wife or virgin is safe from him.”

Justinian gave me a wicked smile. “You were.”

“I was neither wife nor virgin.” I drummed my fingers on Justinian’s desk. “The people are angry, patricians and plebs alike. They blame him for their problems.”

“Let them. John has always been honest with me about his shortcomings.”

“If you don’t remove him, they’ll soon blame you.”

“Theodora, right now I have bigger problems to worry about than my corrupt treasurer.” He shoved the parchment under my nose.

I read the letter from Carthage, written in Latin and stamped with the new Vandal king’s seal. After the usual formalities, the usurper got straight down to business insulting Justinian.

“I had planned to use diplomacy with the old king to persuade North Africa back into the Empire.” Justinian rubbed his nose. “Hilderic had even introduced coinage with my portrait. It’s unfortunate Gelimer’s sword was found in his back.”

I held up the letter. “You can’t let his insult go unpunished.”

“Quite the contrary. I couldn’t have asked for a better excuse to test Belisarius before I send him to Rome.”

“And the Cappadocian?”

“I promise I’ll speak to him.”

Too little, too late. Within days the Hippodrome had become a cauldron of dissent, and violence spilled into the streets. Effigies of the Cappadocian burned there, and plays at the Kynêgion celebrating his execution became overnight sensations. Narses reported back to us on the nightly food riots and looting, mostly led by the Blues and the Greens against each other.

Justinian called the city prefect, Eudaemon the Pumpkin, to the Sacred Palace. The round-faced little man kept his eyes to the foot of Justinian’s throne during the entire audience.

“Arrest anyone engaged in violence, regardless of his political affiliation,” Justinian said. “This chaos must end immediately.”

The Pumpkin followed his orders with great vigor, filling the jails to overflowing in only a few days. The prefect was colorblind, arresting Blues and Greens and sentencing seven of the main rabble-rousers to death.

Narses burst into my chambers the afternoon of the executions as I played a game of backgammon with Macedonia. I welcomed the interruption—Macedonia had almost borne off the last of her checkers, and I was about to lose a gammon. “You look like you’ve just come from battle.”

Narses’ chest heaved as he straightened to attention—sometimes I forgot the eunuch was twice my age. “Two of the criminals have fled the scaffolds and claimed asylum at the monastery of Saint Conon in Blachernae.”

I set down the doubling cube and stood up. “How in God’s name did that happen?”

“The knots on their nooses failed.”

Macedonia started cleaning up the table. “The executioner is sympathetic to the rioters.”

Narses barely glanced at her. My favorite eunuch didn’t care for Antonina or Macedonia due to the women’s low births and past occupations, and he found it easier to ignore their existence rather than acknowledge them. I’d once jested that he should then despise me, too, but he’d only heaved a great sigh as he locked away my jewels. “I could no more hate you than I could tell my lungs to cease breathing,” he had said. “Even if my hands itch to throttle you most days.”

“The criminals were saved by a mob,” Narses said now, his eyes flicking in the direction of Blachernae. “The scaffold collapsed on the second attempt to hang them. The people claim it was a divine miracle.”

I snorted. “If it was a miracle, then I’m the Virgin Mary.”

“They want the men pardoned.”

“Of course they do.” I stood up. “Where’s Justinian?”

“In his throne room—the Pumpkin came to tell him the news.”

Eudaemon passed us on his way out of the throne room. Justinian barely glanced up from a large map of North Africa spread across an entire table, held down by four heavy gold orbs.

“You have to address the mob,” I said. “Regardless of what happens to the criminals in Blachernae. This kind of revolt cannot be tolerated.”

Justinian adjusted a string over Carthage, no doubt a point of possible invasion. “I’ve ordered a set of races at the Hippodrome for the ides of January. This will all blow over with a bout of games and free beer.”

I hoped he was right, but just in case, I sent a message to Antonina on the ides to take the children to her Rufinianae estates and ordered my attendants out of the city, watching with a pang as Macedonia led Euphemia and Tasia to the waiting sedans. Now fifteen, my daughter possessed the slim curves of blossoming womanhood. Justinian and I would need to arrange her betrothal once things calmed down.

We emerged into the Kathisma of the Hippodrome swathed in purple and gold with a double guard behind us to watch the races. The herds of Blues and Greens joined together to appeal to Justinian before the chariots even took to the track. Their demands had grown—they commanded the release of the criminals, the removal of John the Cappadocian, and the repeal of all his taxes.

Justinian turned his back on them.

The crowd hurled epithets—I heard numerous shouts wishing Justinian’s father had never been born—while the charioteers took their places and snapped their salutes. Scowling men slunk about the stands, and the horses careened around the track unnoticed. Our guards kept their hands on the hilts of their swords.

Justinian watched with the face of a statue, but I knew his eyes missed nothing. Winter’s dark night threatened to fall by the time the
final race concluded, but a new cheer filled the cold air instead of the usual cry to celebrate the victorious charioteer.

“Forever reign the Blues and Greens!”

Gooseflesh prickled my arms as I heard the two enemy factions joined together. Every spectator took up the cry until the roar likely carried beyond the city walls.

We retreated amidst our guards, and the heavy oak doors clanged shut behind us.

“Nika! Nika! Nika!”

Hurled like rocks, the victory cry followed us down the corridor. It wasn’t difficult to guess whom the Blues and Greens had united against.

I waited until my heart had stopped pounding and we were safely ensconced in Justinian’s chambers before speaking. “You must punish them. Now.”

He paced before a huge window facing the Hippodrome. “There are tens of thousands of my people in there.”

“I don’t care how many there are. They’re the rubbish of the city, and you’re God’s anointed Emperor. They cannot treat you like that.”

“I will not punish them for my mistake. I should have reined in John the Cappadocian.” Justinian’s calm frightened me. He sniffed the air, his brows knit together. “Do you smell that?”

A faint orange glow lit the black sky in the window behind him. The numb taste of fear filled my mouth. “Holy Mother of God.”

Flames licked the palace vestibule, sending slaves armed with wooden buckets scurrying into the Chalke courtyard. Our people had grievances, but they’d be damned to the fires of Gehenna for this rebellion. I’d make sure of it, provided we escaped unscathed.

Justinian shed his
chalmys
and fled the room before I could stop him, before he could see the rest of his city burned to ashes. I watched spellbound for what seemed like hours as fire shot up the Senate building and beyond it, the Church of Saint Eirene collapsed like
kindling. Between them, the conflagration claimed their more magnificent victim.

“The Hagia Sophia,” I moaned.

One of the city’s oldest and most revered churches was engulfed in an inferno, the fire crackling as the wooden roof heaved a final sigh and collapsed, shaking the earth as it spewed fire and brimstone. Justinian returned too late to see, covered in soot and bringing the acrid scent of destruction and fear as the Baths of Zeuxippus joined the conflagration. Speechless, I clutched the balcony as we watched our city burn. It was only a matter of time before the palace itself became a target.

I recalled the woman who had jumped into the Bosphorus rather than be claimed by rebels before Justinian and I were married. I’d thought her a coward then, but now I understood her fear. Yet I had my children to live for. I wouldn’t die without a fight.

“Augustus.” My heart stuttered at the voice, but Narses spoke from the door, Belisarius next to him. “The rebels have set up their headquarters in the Hippodrome. They demand the Emperor grant their requests, or they have threatened further violence.”

Justinian wiped his face with his purple
chalmys
, staining it with soot, and started pacing again. “Fine. Keep the Cappadocian in the palace. I’ll reinstate him after this has all died down.”

Narses didn’t move.

“Is there more?” Justinian asked.

“There are rumbles in the Hippodrome of who would be best suited to assume the purple.”

Justinian stopped pacing.

“Treason,” I said.

“If the Emperor won’t step down, the crowd plans to kill him.” Narses seemed to speak only to me, imploring me with his eyes. If the rebels killed Justinian, I had no doubt what my fate would be.

Justinian held up a hand. “Who has been suggested to take the throne?”

“Probus was named first,” Narses said. The old man was a nephew of the Emperor Anastasius. One of his sons had already expressed an interest in marrying Tasia. “But he has fled the city. The mob burned down his villa.”

Better to lose his villa than his head.

“Who next?” Justinian asked. “Hypatius?”

Narses nodded.

Another nephew of Anastasius. I wished I could send the whole lot of them to hell.

“I can send men to retrieve Hypatius,” Belisarius said. “It wouldn’t be hard to arrange an accident before the mob claims him.”

“Let them have him—it gives us a known target at least,” Justinian said. “I want you to subdue the mob in the streets. Then we’ll deal with the Hippodrome. No bloodshed.” Justinian’s face was hard as marble. “I am a Christian king. I shall not have my people’s blood on my hands.”

“You may not have a choice,” I said.

“No blood,” Justinian repeated to Belisarius. The general pressed his fist to his chest; then his footfalls disappeared down the corridor.

Blood was shed. Hours later, Narses recounted the story to the few of us still left in the palace. Clerics intent on saving holy relics from the flames of the Hagia Sophia watched Belisarius’ men surround the crowd outside. The holy men tried to intervene to avoid violence between the two groups, but the troops saw them as rebel sympathizers. Soldiers beat the priests back at sword point, knocked them down, and trampled them into the cobbles. The mob pushed Belisarius and his men into the palace, then paraded the broken bodies of the clerics through the streets, limbs shattered and faces unrecognizable, evidence that Justinian was a heathen Emperor who murdered God’s men with his own soldiers. The city was upside down—jails flung open, hospitals and churches lit afire, storehouses and shops looted, all accompanied by the occasional crash of a smoking building. Constantinople had become hell on earth.

“We are no longer safe.” Justinian spoke before the few people left huddled within the walls—Belisarius, Sittas, John the Cappadocian, and Narses with his army of eunuchs. The imperial guards had abandoned the Sacred Palace, unsure of which side to gamble on. Even amongst the chaos, Justinian remained calm, his very presence filling the room. “I’m going to the Hippodrome as Anastasius did.”

Years ago, Emperor Anastasius had appeared before a mob that threatened his throne without his crown or purple
chalmys
and invited the people to choose a new Emperor. Dumbstruck, the mob had returned home like sheep and allowed him to continue to rule until the ripe age of eighty-eight. Sometimes luck smiles on fools.

“History doesn’t always repeat itself,” I said.

“But it might.” Justinian picked up his illuminated manuscript of the Gospels. “Will you come with me?”

His hand was cold as I squeezed it. “I’d follow you to Gehenna and back.”

He gave a dead smile, his eyes empty. “That might not be a far cry from what I’m asking.”

We left our crowns and purple robes on our thrones. Without them, we might have passed for any patrician and his wife. For a moment I wondered how life might have been if that were true. But I had never wanted an ordinary life. We had reached for power, and God had granted it. It was up to us to keep it.

The crowd took a long time to quiet as we arrived at the Kathisma from the deserted palace passageway, but finally it settled down to hear the Emperor speak. The night air was crisp, but my eyes stung with its smoke. It was difficult to believe our city was in flames outside the walls of the Hippodrome.