The Secret History: A Novel of Empress Theodora (49 page)

Antonina circled my son. “And where have you been hiding all this time?”

“He was secreted away to Arabia after Macedonia first lied about his death.”

I expected Antonina to fling her arms open or burst into tears, but she did neither.

“And the scar on your back?” Resuming her place amid the cushions, she sat straight, hands folded demurely in her lap, but her lips pressed into a thin line.

“What scar?” Areobindus looked as puzzled as I felt.

Antonina ignored him and addressed me instead. “Photius took Timothy’s bronze seal to John’s back shortly after Timothy died.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “A seal wouldn’t leave a scar.”

She looked at Areobindus. “Do you remember what he did?”

He shook his head. “Perhaps I was too young?”

“He heated it in the fire first. The metal was still red when I came in and found you screaming.”

“This is ridiculous,” I said. “You never told me—”

“I almost did, the day I came to you in mourning for Timothy, but I feared
you’d take him back. I needed the money with all those mouths to feed.”

“None of this would have happened if you’d let me tell Justinian.”

“No one has ever
let
you do anything, Theodora.” She kept her eyes on Areobindus. “It’s a simple insignia, just a letter
T
the size of my thumbnail. Surely you don’t mind showing us to verify your story.” She glanced at me. “Macedonia wouldn’t have known about the mark, although she might have set this imposter up with everything else.”

I stormed past her and yanked my son by the arm. “We’re leaving.”

Antonina grabbed my wrist. “I know you want to believe he’s your son. Ask Photius if you don’t believe me.”

I shook her off and released Areobindus. “Show her,” I said. “Take off your tunica and show her the scar.”

His face drained of blood.

“Show her!” The sound of ripping seams echoed through the
triclinium
as I tore the neck of his tunica, but he covered my hand and slowly lifted what remained of the fabric over his head, his eyes like an old man’s. Then he turned. My eyes searched for any scar, any blemish, but his skin was smooth as bronze, unmarred by man or nature.

“You filthy lying whore.” I turned on Antonina. “Who put you up to this? That bastard from Cappadocia? Your husband?” I gasped. “Was it Justinian?”

Antonina grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “Your son is dead.”

I slapped her so hard that she staggered back, hand raised to her cheek as fire raged through my palm. “This lie will cost you your head.”

Once we were out of earshot from Antonina, I whirled to face Areobindus. “Tell me she’s lying.”

My son’s face shared the same pallor as someone stricken with plague. “Of course she’s lying. I spoke only the truth. I am your son.”

I searched his expression for any hint of a lie, but there was
nothing. Of course, I scarcely knew this man before me, even if he was my son. “I hope so, for your sake.”

My teeth chattered as our litters ran down the
Mese
, Areobindus’ bearers struggling to keep up with mine. I wanted to send the assassin Belisarius had feared to crucify Antonina, but the rational part of my mind gained ground with each step. I needed to verify her story with Photius. I’d send Antonina to rot in prison with her son if he knew nothing of her story. And if he did—

I wouldn’t think on that now.

Photius would deny his mother’s wild tale. Antonina must stand to gain something from all this. I just wasn’t sure what.

The prison smelled of terror and years of filth and decay. Those who dwelt here in the dark were half dead, awaiting hell. I barked Photius’ name to the warden, a swarthy man whose ruddy complexion belied his time spent away from the sun.

He led me past Belisarius’ now-empty cell and used a giant key shaped like a lion to unlock a dented bronze door. Antonina’s eldest son was crammed in a corner, chin resting on his knees. The light from the warden’s oil lamp illuminated graceful charcoal ships sketched on every bit of the rough stone walls—mostly military
dromons
, their curved prows headed to battle.

“Our resident artist,” the guard said. “I’ll be outside the door.”

Photius scarcely looked capable of swatting a fly, but I remained near the entrance. His nose was broken, and there were gaps in his teeth as he smiled, but I recognized Antonina in the curve of his lips and the stubborn set of his jaw. He squinted at me through bloodshot eyes.

“I’d bow,” Photius said, “but my legs no longer obey me.”

“You have information I want,” I said. “Your honesty in the matter could purchase your freedom. If you lie, I’ll find new ways to make you wish for death.”

Photius licked his flaked lips. “I’m listening.”

“You have several siblings, correct?”

“My mother excelled at spreading her legs for all sorts of men.”

“And if I needed to identify the brats in your mother’s brood?”

Photius thought for a moment, then rambled off a list of height, hair color, moles, and warts belonging to Antonina’s herd of children, but with no mention of John.

“Is that all? What about another boy who didn’t share your blood?”

“The stray? John?”

My heart leapt. For a desperate moment I considered leaving with the truth unsaid, of returning to life as it had been before Antonina’s revelation. “What did he look like?”

Photius gave me a strange look. “He died after he left us. Gangly thing—plain enough—dark hair and a snub little nose. I drew him once.”

“No distinguishing features?”

“A scar on his temple, shaped like a sickle moon.” Photius smiled. “I gave it to him. And another on his back.”

No. Antonina couldn’t be right.

“What did it look like?”

“A little
T
for Timothy. My father’s seal.” Photius struggled against his chains as I turned on my heel. “Where are you going? You said I’d go free if I talked!”

Photius’ screams of rage chased me into the corridor. Areobindus was gone.

I ordered Narses to find him, but the imposter had disappeared, a fact that caused me to swear and break numerous priceless vases.

“Find him,” I told Narses, “if it’s the last thing you do.”

.   .   .

“Augusta.” The artist shook his brush at me, the giant brown caterpillar of his brows creeping from one temple to the other as precious pearls of blue paint splattered from his brush to the floor. I hoped the slaves could scrub the mess from the mosaic when this torture was over.

I shook the golden chalice I held in his direction. “It’s not possible to hold still all afternoon.”

The little man peered out the window. “The sun has scarcely risen, Augusta.” He gave a long-suffering sigh. “The portrait is almost complete if only you wouldn’t move.”

Easier said than done. For two weeks now, I had stood motionless in a pose of imperial majesty, dressed in a stola embroidered in gold with the three Magi and weighted down by a monstrous headdress encrusted with enough pearls and gems to buy off Persia for an entire year. My image was slated to join Justinian’s in a massive mosaic for the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna and this artist would provide my portrait to the Master of Mosaics. Justinian and I would be frozen in
tesserae
in a distant church, surrounded by our glittering retinues of priests, attendants, soldiers, and eunuchs. Even once our earthly bodies had turned to dust, we would never truly die.

Fortunately, Narses saved me by striding into the room, travel stained and grim faced. Cyr raised his head but whimpered and lay back down when he realized the visitor wasn’t Areobindus.

I dismissed the artist, forcing myself to wait to speak until the door had closed behind him.

“Where is he?” I wanted to cut Areobindus’ tongue from his mouth and flay the skin from his back.

“Areobindus is dead,” Narses said.

“Dead? Or murdered?”

“Murdered, unless he managed to stab himself in the back,” Narses said. “I traced him to a seedy taverna in Cyzicus, but no one had seen him in a few days. I inspected his room and found him on the floor, along with several rats availing themselves of his corpse. He’d been dead awhile.”

Cyzicus. John the Cappadocian was in Cyzicus.

“The innkeeper was willing to talk after I greased his palm,” Narses
continued. “The bishop of Cyzicus met with Areobindus downstairs and broke bread with him. There was an argument, and Areobindus was upset. Then the bishop said he would take care of things.”

“Arrest the bishop. Torture him until he talks.”

“Too late. The bishop was found dead the day I arrived in Cyzicus, strangled in his bed.”

“John the Cappadocian served the bishop.”

“There’s no evidence against him,” Narses said. “It was common knowledge throughout the town that the bishop and John hated each other, but I couldn’t find one scintilla of evidence to prove his involvement in either death.”

“I want him,” I said. “Preferably alive.”

“You have him.” Narses gave a slow grin, the one that always made my flesh prickle. “The Cappadocian is a coward; he was on a ship bound for Alexandria.” He opened and closed his fist. “It took some persuasion to change his destination, but I’ve relocated him to Photius’ old cell.”

I’d released Photius a few days ago and paid for his passage to Jerusalem. The boy would make a good monk, perhaps designing frescoes for churches in the Holy Land. I had yet to tell Antonina that I’d freed her son. And that she was right about Areobindus.

John the Cappadocian had found a way to torture me all the way from Cyzicus. I swore to be equally creative with the miserable piece of offal under my own roof.

.   .   .

I retraced my steps to the tiny closet of a cell tucked into the dimmest recesses of the prison. A monk’s tonsure ringed John’s shaved skull, but otherwise he seemed haughty and arrogant as always. He wasn’t broken like Macedonia or Photius—I’d have bet on his spitting at me if not for the horsehair gag across his mouth. As it was, he leaned
against the moldering wall with its charcoal ships, one eye almost swollen shut and the other laughing at me as if I were the one shackled in my own filth.

“I know all about Areobindus,” I said. “How you and the bishop set him up to get to me.” John flinched as I yanked down his gag.

“And now you’ve come to kill me.” His voice rasped like that of one long ill.

“No.” I tightened my fingers around the whip in my hand. “I’ve come to hear you beg for mercy.”

“You set me up, you and that whore Antonina.”

“You killed my son!” The whip cracked and sliced the soft flesh of his shoulder, a trickle of blood red as poppies slipping to his chest.

John gave a sharp hiss and bowed his head as if awaiting an executioner’s ax. “I only arranged for Macedonia to bring him to me in Caesarea. I knew Justinian would pay dear for the release of your son.”

I doubted whether Justinian would have believed I even had a son, not if the story came from the Cappadocian.

“So did he truly die of the pox? Or did you kill him?” The whip trembled in my hand.

“Macedonia spoke the truth. The boy fell ill of a pox and died a few days after the ship left Constantinople. I never meant him any harm.”

I’d expected the truth to bring some sense of peace, but instead I felt only a vast emptiness. My son was truly dead.

“You kidnapped him to use against me. Only a coward would use a child in such a vile manner.”

John’s chin tilted up in defiance. “And only a coward would cut out a woman’s tongue and have the rest of her chopped into tiny pieces and thrown into the sea. Neither you nor Antonina is worth the dirt Macedonia walked upon.”

“Death was too kind a punishment for Macedonia.”

“She would have been true to you, but you abandoned her after the earthquake. You
left her starving and destitute, living amongst the rubble in Antioch, so she was almost dead when I met her the second time, struggling to provide for our daughter. I didn’t even know the girl existed until then. Euphemia is the only thing that’s good and pure in this wretched world. I was a fool to abandon her mother the first time.”

“So you brought Macedonia to my court. To spy on me.”

“You humiliated me.” John’s cheeks burned under the crusted blood and filth. “And sought to destroy me. I was content to blackmail you, but then John died and you set me up for treason. You punished Euphemia for my sins.”

I thought of his daughter, disgraced by her father’s treason and now penniless. A pariah in the Queen of Cities, she had no hope of making a suitable marriage without her father’s wealth. The girl was no better off than I’d been at her age, despite being raised amongst the silks and splendor of court. “I never wished her harm. What about the bishop? Areobindus? Did they just happen to be in your way?”

“The bishop and I used Areobindus—he was a foundling left at the monastery as a boy, one with a convenient scar on his temple and willing to deceive you into believing that he was your long-lost son. Macedonia gave him the cross and the memories of his trip to Bithynia to prove his story. He was to be my revenge on you, my puppet on the throne after Justinian’s death.”

“And after I discovered the truth, the bishop feared Areobindus might use the failed plot to blackmail both of you.”

John nodded. “Areobindus was naïve, not stupid. But the bishop had much to lose.”

“So you killed him?”

John shrugged. “One of us had to die.”

So he was responsible at least for that murder. Yet I no longer cared.

I straightened to find the mantle of old age settled on my shoulders. I
was weary of hatred and revenge; I didn’t want them to rule my life any longer.

“A ship shall take you to Antinoopolis. I never want to see you again.” The city clung to the ends of the Empire, two hundred miles south of Alexandria, named by Emperor Hadrian to honor his lover. “You shall take only the cloak on your back. All your remaining property shall be confiscated—”

Were it not for John’s chains, he might have murdered me then and there. “You have condemned Euphemia—”

“And be transferred to your daughter,” I said. “But she shall forfeit every
nummi
should you set foot beyond Antinoopolis’ boundary markers while I still live. Do you understand?”