The Secret History: A Novel of Empress Theodora (45 page)

“You can’t trust her.” Antonina stood over us, scythe in hand.

“Please,” I said. “Where is he?”

A gush of blood dribbled over Macedonia’s lips as she was seized by a coughing fit so strong I feared death would claim her right then. Her lone pupil rolled wildly, and then her eye squeezed shut. Her finger trailed in the earth once more.

Two symbols. Letters.

“What does that mean?” Antonina sounded as confused as I felt.

“I don’t understand.” I pressed Macedonia’s finger to the dirt, but her hand didn’t move. I begged. I bargained away my jewels, my estates, but still she didn’t move. I slammed my fist into the ground, hot tears coursing down my cheeks before Antonina laid a gentle hand on my shoulder.

“It’s no use, Theodora. She’s gone.”

Macedonia’s eye was unseeing, shiny as Charon’s obol before the coin was placed in the mouth of the deceased. She would keep her secret forever between bloody lips. There was only one person who might be able to tell me where my son was. And I intended to find him.

.   .   .

The riddle of Macedonia’s symbols remained a mystery. I scarcely slept, imagining my son chained to some dungeon of the Cappadocian’s making, or worse. When I did sleep, it was only to see Macedonia beckoning me, her empty mouth dripping blood with the letters
H
and
C
carved into her cheeks. I wasn’t sure which nightmare I preferred.

I dispatched Narses to Cyzicus to retrieve the Cappadocian, giving him explicit instructions that I wanted John breathing, but he was free to use any other means necessary to bring him to Hieron. There was news that plague had reared its head in Egypt, but without Narses I couldn’t be sure if the reports were true or simply rumors. I’d had only a single delivery from him in weeks, one I cared little about but knew would interest Antonina.

She arrived swathed in black, her face pale as parchment. “Any word on John?”

We had an unspoken agreement not to discuss the night in the storehouse. I couldn’t bring myself to punish Antonina for her betrayal either, knowing I carried a fair share of the blame for all that had happened. Instead, we both awaited the return of our son.

I shook my head and handed her a bowl of dried apricots. “Black really isn’t your color.”

“Don’t mock me.” She turned her nose up at the apricots. “I’m in mourning for Theodosius.”

“I didn’t realize he was dead.”

“He might as well be. Life is no longer worth living. I might keel over and die.”

“So long as you don’t make a mess on my carpets,” I said. She dabbed her eyes, but I opened a door to an empty side room and glanced inside. “I may have something to cheer you.”

“Nothing shall ever cheer me again. Except obscenely large jewels, but I doubt Belisarius will shower me with gems after all this.”

“You’re in luck. I acquired a rare pearl yesterday, like one never seen before.” I chuckled as her eyes lit up. “Would you care to see it?”

“Anything to take my mind off my sorrows,” she said. “Although it best be hideously large.”

I held the door open, taking secret pleasure in Antonina’s blotchy face—the woman was far too melodramatic. Her hands flew to her mouth as a man emerged, and for the first time ever I saw my friend
struck speechless. Theodosius was thinner and wore a broken nose and several fresh scars from his sojourn in an abandoned cellar on Photius’ meager estates. Yet he might have been much worse had Narses not found him when he did. Antonina catapulted herself into her lover’s arms, wailing into his shoulder.

Theodosius cleared his throat, my friend tight in his embrace and love written clearly in his eyes. “Thank you, Augusta.”

Antonina clung to Theodosius with one hand and mopped her tears with the other. “You are my savior, Theodora. You’re all that is good and kind.”

I doubted anyone had ever called me good or kind before. Embarrassed to witness such a private reunion, I closed the door behind me and tried to ignore the stab of loneliness in my own heart.

.   .   .

Macedonia’s riddle haunted me.

I sketched out the possibilities yet again in the dirt of the garden, ignoring the honeybees as they landed on the red and purple Kalanit blossoms at my elbow. Perhaps they weren’t letters, but symbols—a bridge and the swell of a pregnant belly. Or an intersection and a curved street.

Or perhaps they were the trick of a dying woman bent on revenge, a final betrayal meant to torment me to the end of my days. I was utterly alone in Hieron, having had no word from Justinian and only a single letter from Antonina since her reunion with Theodosius. The letter gushed with so much happiness I could scarcely finish reading it.

Someone cleared his throat, and I stamped out the symbols in the dirt. Areobindus held a steaming tray of food, and a slave with a large wooden box stood behind him. I waved away the soup—garlic and leek from the smell of it—and took a glass of watered wine, intent on the dirt before me.

Areobindus didn’t move.

I set down the stick I’d been using to trace letters and rubbed my scratchy eyes. “May I help you?”

“You need to eat, Augusta. And I think something in the box might prove a pleasant diversion.” His smile would have made a younger woman weak in the knees.

I opened my mouth to dismiss him, but my temples ached. Perhaps a break might help clear my mind.

I snagged a poppy seed roll from the tray and gestured to the crate. “Shall I open it?” He stepped back, barely able to keep a straight face.

I lifted the lid and groaned.

The slate-colored puppy yipped and peered out of the box, its ears flopping over as it gave me a quizzical look.

“The last thing I need is a greyhound.”

Areobindus picked up a stick. “You’ll break his heart if you reject him now. I’ve already told him how lucky he is to have the Empress as a mistress.” He tossed the stick, and the dog catapulted from the crate. Its back legs slid out from under it on the turn so it skidded into a rosebush. I couldn’t help but laugh as it launched itself back toward us.

“Does this little demon have a name?”

He shrugged. “I’ve been calling him Cyr, but I’m sure he wouldn’t mind a name of the Empress’ choosing.”

“Cyr it is.”

He threw the stick again, but it splashed into a tiled pond of goldfish. Cyr swerved to a halt at the edge. He touched his foot to the water and looked back at us, whimpering. Areobindus grinned. “You weren’t supposed to realize he was a daisy until later.”

He gamboled back with the dog and was about to throw the now-dripping stick again when I gasped and clutched my throat.

“Where did you get that?”

He looked behind him. “Get what?”

“That.” A silver cross hung round his neck. It must have been tucked into his tunica until he bent down to pick up the stick.

Amber inlaid in silver, with a mosquito frozen in the center.

I grabbed the cross and twisted it to see the words etched into the back.

Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.

I dropped the cross and stumbled back as if scalded, knocking my chair to the ground. “Who gave you that?”

Areobindus touched the cross. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“I’ll have the skin flayed from your back if you don’t tell me.”

He dropped the stick, and Cyr loped away with it. “You gave it to me.”

I couldn’t move. For a moment I couldn’t breathe.

“In Bithynia,” he said. “Don’t you remember? The day I rode the elephant and we fed the giraffes. I was known as John then.”

I shook my head, violently. “That’s not possible. That cross was lost long ago.”

“I’ve worn it every day since you gave it to me.” He knelt before me, clasping my hands in his. “I’d have told you sooner, but I feared your reaction. I thought it best to let you find out on your own.”

I pushed his hair back to see the white scar on his temple, the shape of a young moon. A gift from Photius years ago for stealing his pens.

Suddenly Macedonia’s message seemed perfectly clear—
HC
, but missing the middle letter.
Hic.
Here.

“How is this possible?”

His gaze fell. “I’d rather not say. I have no wish to be sent away from court.”

“Tell me now. I have a right to know.”

“John the Cappadocian is my father.” He bowed his head as if waiting an executioner’s blade.

I almost laughed aloud. “John the Cappadocian is not your father.”

“It is the unfortunate truth. I lived with General Belisarius for many years, but then my true father claimed me.”

“Why didn’t you come to court with Euphemia?”

He flushed. “I’m only one of my father’s many bastard children, and not his favored daughter. I despised life in Prusa, but I changed my name with the belief that it might be safe to approach your court in Hieron now that my father has been banished. He forbade me to ever come to court.”

For fear I might recognize my own son. John had stolen him from me and raised him to believe the lies he had threatened to tell Justinian.

“You are my son. I am your mother, but the Cappadocian is not your father.”

His face hardened. “Don’t toy with me, Augusta.”

“I gave that cross to my son. And sent him away with Macedonia to protect him from John the Cappadocian. I was told you died on the journey, but they must have kept you hidden in Prusa instead.”

“I don’t understand. If that’s true—,” Areobindus said, breaking off, and I could tell from the look on his face that he didn’t believe it was. “If that’s true,” he continued, “then who is my real father?”

I thought of Hecebolus, not wishing him on any child. “It doesn’t matter. He’s dead now.”

“It matters to me.” Cyr pushed his muzzle into Areobindus’ hands, but my son didn’t notice. His face was so anguished, I had to resist the urge to pull him into my arms, to stroke his hair and tell him everything would be all right.

“Your father was my patron for a time,” I said. “A governor of Pentapolis. He cast me off before I realized I carried you. And then he died.”

“This doesn’t make any sense.” He ran shaky hands over his face. “Why did you send me to live with Belisarius and Antonina? And how did I end up with John the Cappadocian?”

So many questions. And none of the answers made me seem anything but a demon.

“I never told Justinian I had a son.”

He stepped back and looked at me with horror. “You sacrificed me.”

I grasped his hands, desperate not to lose him again. “I planned to tell him, but by then it was too late. I sent you to live with Antonina so you’d be safe, but the Cappadocian discovered you. He was using you to blackmail me.”

“All while he lied to me, made me believe he was my father.” He pulled his hands from mine, then ran them through his hair in a gesture so like Justinian’s my heart almost broke. “What will you do now?”

I searched his eyes for the answer he hoped to hear. A boy’s eyes on a grown man. My son, returned from the dead. There was only one answer.

“I’ll do what I should have done long ago. Tell Justinian the truth.”

“What will he do?”

“Justinian will forgive me. And he will accept you as his son.” I spoke with a certainty I didn’t feel. “One day, you may be Emperor. Until then, you shall assume the position of my chief steward.”

It was unheard of for an ungelded man to assume such a position, and Areobindus was not only a man, but also young and pleasant to the eyes. Rumors would fly, but since when had I cared about such things?

I wrote to Justinian that night, unable to sleep, and asked for him to come to Hieron. It took three days for him to find the decency to send a reply, one so cold I could hear his disdain in my head as I scanned the parchment.

I held the vellum over the dancing flame of an olive oil lamp, watching the fire consume Justinian’s words. If his tone was this frigid before I told him of Areobindus and my duplicity, then I could scarcely imagine how he’d react to my confession. But it didn’t matter.

I had hoped Justinian would throw open the Golden Gate to usher me back to the Sacred Palace as he had years ago upon my return from Bithynia, but I would take my chances and make my way home uninvited. I ordered my slaves to pack my trunks for departure the next morning.

I did not know death would stall our reunion.

“A
ugusta, wake up.”

An oil lamp illuminated Areobindus’ face, framed by my bed curtains with the evidence of hasty packing behind him, half-full trunks and an explosion of silks and shoes. I had finally ordered my slaves to their pallets sometime after midnight and managed to find sleep myself shortly after, despite much tossing on my feather mattress. Only a crisis would prompt anyone to wake me at so ungodly an hour.