The Secret History: A Novel of Empress Theodora (5 page)

I gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, holding tight in case she tried to bolt. “Everything’s going to be fine.” A thief and a liar—next I’d be swindling my own mother.

The four prancing bronze horses guarding the Black Gate stared down at us, their patina long since green with age. Most of the crowd climbed the stairs to take their seats under the sky, but we passed a group of men placing bets on charioteers as we followed the path to the arena floor. We’d visited the Hippodrome before, but always with Father while he trained the bears. Then it had been silent, the wooden benches empty except for the occasional crust of stale bread or empty wineskin.

“You girls interested in some pregame entertainment?” One of the gamblers waggled his hips at us while his friends laughed.

“Not with you.” I pulled Comito along, but her feet dragged.

“They’d probably pay us,” she said.

“No,” I said. “We haven’t sunk that low.”

At least not yet.

I gasped as we passed through the entrance arch and the walls opened up. The Kathisma, the loge shrouded in purple for the Emperor, was vacant, but the Hippodrome was a hive crawling with a hundred thousand people, the loud hum of their voices crowding out my thoughts. The floor of sand stretched before us with the Blue administration on one side and the Greens on the other, while the consul
sat directly across from us, a fat man in a snug white tunica clutching the consular scepter with its golden eagle. On the floor, the bronze charioteer statues of the
spina
stood frozen in a line stretching from the twisted Delphi Column, its three gilded snakeheads balancing the golden bowl looted from the famed Temple of Apollo. Next to it, the pink granite of the towering Egyptian obelisk pierced the night sky. The Mediterranean had seemed too vast to cross when we’d left Cyprus. Tonight the Hippodrome’s floor seemed even larger.

A slave at the consul’s elbow held the red and purple prize
mappa
that would signal the start of the games. Our chance would be lost once he took that cloth.

“It’s now or never,” I said to Comito.

We started to walk. The crowd seemed to quiet, but that was likely a trick of my ears. I couldn’t hear anything; I couldn’t see anything other than the dais filled with Greens to my right. Asterius sat in the middle, dressed in a white tunica edged with emerald satin, a merry grin on his face as he laughed at some joke and tore a chunk of meat off a chicken bone. I hoped he’d choke on it.

We tossed flower petals as we passed bronze statues of horses and charioteers, festooning the ground with white and purple as sand scratched my bare feet. Asterius saw us as we ran out of flowers. If looks could have killed, Comito and I would have been smitten to dust in that moment. The fool should have known this was coming—custom dictated private quarrels be settled publicly. Just not this publicly.

My smile worsened his glare. I gave Comito a tiny nod, and we recited the words we’d practiced on the way to the bathhouse earlier, hoping our voices would carry to the rest of the crowd.

“Life, health, and prosperity to you, valiant Greens, O noble men,” we shouted in unison as the stands quieted. “Our father who served you was taken to God, and we bow to your Christian mercy.”

It was the Greens’ turn to acknowledge us. Asterius made us wait until the crowd began to murmur.

Now the show truly began. Our life had to be more dramatic than any show on the stage of the Kynêgion if we were to sway the crowd and persuade the Greens. We clutched each other and fell to our knees amidst the strewn flower petals, cheeks pressed together. “Our father is dead, our mother defenseless, our family homeless and destitute. We, the daughters of Acacius, Keeper of the Bears, seek your infinite mercy. To you Christian gentlemen, this is our plea.”

I spared a glance for the spectators behind the Green administrators, almost entirely men. Most of the observers wore faces of pity. That was a good sign.

The cluster of men shrouded in green on either side of Asterius remained seated, arms crossed in front of their chests. Not a good sign.

Asterius glowered at us as he rose. We were only daughters of a bear trainer, and he knew it. He said not a word, indicating our petition was not even worthy of his breath. Instead, he turned his back on us.

I had been stupid. Our last hope was obliterated, shattered by this man simply because he wouldn’t be bested by two girls. We would be forced to beg in the streets, and the city would mock us for our humiliation.

The crowd erupted into a cacophony of hissing. I had to hold Comito up as she sobbed into my shoulder, but my eyes were dry. I spat at the sand in front of Asterius and helped Comito stumble to the entrance arch.

We would have to beg. I couldn’t return to my mother empty-handed or watch Anastasia wither and die. I tried to squeeze away the thorns in my eyes as darkness swallowed us.

“Wait!” A man dressed in blue grabbed my arm. “You have to come back.”

“No. We have to go—our sister—”

“Listen to them, Theodora.” Comito’s nails dug into my other arm as the man dragged us back toward the arena. She wiped her eyes as I saw the men on the Blue dais, standing and singing.

The consul banged his eagle scepter as the voices of the Blues rang out across the floor, rich and low in timbre. My heart nearly stopped at their words.

“Gentle and most Christian daughters of Acacius, fear not the heartless, unchristian Greens. We Blues have seen your valor and shall answer your pleas.”

This was an unexpected bit of drama. Their response was probably only a way to best the Greens before tonight’s tournament had even begun, but they could steal
kopton
from babies for all I cared. The Blues would be our salvation.

Asterius’ face was a vibrant shade of red, his giant hands clenched into fists on the top of the arena wall. I blew him a kiss, much to the crowd’s delight, and pulled Comito toward the Blues. They were smiling, motioning us forward with their arms much as I imagined the Sirens had beckoned Odysseus and his men.

“What do we say?” Comito asked in a terrified whisper.

“Don’t worry,” I said. The response already tumbled through my head. We stopped before the Blues, and I waited for the crowd to quiet enough so I could speak, no mean task as most stomped and cheered. “Noble and Christian Blues, the daughters of Acacius thank you for your mercy. Your hearts are warm, and thus, over the Greens you shall rule!”

The crowd erupted into laughter and furious cheers. Some hurled things toward the Greens—a rotten cabbage and the head of a mackerel hit Asterius in the chest. The leader of the Blues, an elderly man with a shiny scalp and an ornamental sword at his hip, gave me a gentle smile, but my eyes strayed to the
scenica
seated next to him. Her copper hair flouted the customary veil and was instead piled high upon her head to accentuate pink pearls the size of cherries hanging from her ears. She was the woman from the bathhouse this morning. She wore a blue stola that matched the color of the sky at dusk, layered with a delicate blue and lavender
paludamentum
pinned at the
shoulder with a gold brooch like a flaming sun. The city’s wives were relegated to stand in the top tiers, but a handful of courtesans draped themselves across the other Blues. Yet the copper-haired woman was so radiant that men stopped to stare when she moved. Women like her had power, power I wanted.

The chants of the crowd changed from “Long live the Blues” to the name of one of the charioteers, our plight already forgotten. The Blues waved us onto their dais as eight chariots took the track—four decorated with green ribbons and charioteers dressed in green tunicas, and four blue—their horses prancing with high steps on the way to their boxes.

The
scenica
turned in her seat as we settled in. “You did well tonight.” Her hand caressed the back of her patron’s neck. “Begging before these men was daring.”

I searched for malice in her face but found none. “Better than begging on the street.”

“Extremely pragmatic for one so young.” Her eyes twinkled as the consul gave a great yell and tossed the red and purple
mappa
into the air. The mechanical gates to the starting boxes swung open, and the chariots bolted onto the track amid cheers so loud the courtesan had to yell to be heard. “My name is Macedonia.”

I knew the name—Macedonia was Constantinople’s greatest
scenica
, but she had started as a dancer in the Kynêgion. They said she knew tricks only the devil could have taught her.

“I’m Theodora,” I said. “And this is Comito.” My sister shrank back—apparently she wasn’t keen on the idea of befriending a known whore. I had no such scruples.

“And your mother?”

“Is with our sister.”

Macedonia raised an elegantly penciled brow. “With her new husband?”

I didn’t know how this woman knew Vitus even existed.

She must have guessed my thoughts. “Asterius made a bit of a gaffe when he installed his paymaster as the Greens’ Master of Bears.” She glanced at the first heat. A blue chariot had overturned on this side of the Egyptian obelisk, its driver impaled through the ribs by one of the shafts—quite messy.

A man behind us cursed and launched a handful of roasted almonds toward the track, landing several in my lap. I helped myself and handed one to Comito. “I’m afraid I don’t understand why the Blues would take us on.”

“The Blues’ bear master recently made an unfortunate miscalculation.” Macedonia shivered. “They recovered most of him after the bear was finished. The Blues will take your new father as their bear trainer. At least then you’ll have a roof over your head.”

“How do you know all that?”

She smiled. “Men like to talk. I prefer to listen.”

A giant cage of gray parrots was released as the first chariot crossed the finish. I was happy to note its horses were festooned with blue ribbons. The birds would be captured later, but now they squawked as they flew over the spectators toward false freedom.

Macedonia smiled and turned her attention to her patron. “Good luck, girls. I hope everything works out for you.”

We didn’t have a coin to our names, but we’d had plenty of luck tonight.

Unfortunately, luck never lasts.

I
yawned into my hand as we approached the Boar’s Eye. Comito and I had stayed at the Hippodrome until after the last race was won, enjoying our new celebrity. A man old enough to be our father’s father—or possibly even his father—had offered three goats for Comito’s hand in marriage. She refused him, but I thought it a rather generous offer.

I wished I’d had at least a few coins to bet—the Blues won seven of the ten heats, and then there were the wrestlers and tightrope walkers to cheer. I’d gritted my teeth until they threatened to crack when the Greens paraded out their bear to finish, the same flea-infested beast my father had trained.

Oil lamps flickered outside the taverna, illuminating the flaked painting of a fat brown pig with one enormous eye like a Cyclops. Drunken laughter spilled onto the steps. Inside, the open room stunk of stale barley water and unwashed male bodies. Several curvaceous women sat on the laps of grinning patrons before the tiny hearth. Its oversized pot hung from a giant chain suspended over the smoking fire. The fug of boiling onions and carrots reminded me that I hadn’t
eaten all day, save for the few almonds. Decades of fires in the hearth had blackened the walls, and a dull haze hung low in the air. The Boar’s Eye was a good place for trading secrets, but I had none to tell, not now that the entire city knew my story.

“I don’t see them,” Comito said. There was no sign of my mother or Anastasia. Or Vitus.

He might have abandoned us, cut his losses, and run. Then we’d be in the gutter again, no position with the Blues, no address of residence. No bread.

“We should try the rooms upstairs,” Comito said. “There are usually one or two empty ones the owner rents out.” Yet another discovery my sister had likely learned from the butcher’s son.

Catcalls followed us as we made our way up the narrow staircase, the well-trod boards creaking underfoot. Only halfway up I heard the screams, like someone being tortured. The voice was familiar.

I took the steps two at a time, and I shoved open the first door so hard it bounced back at me. A tiny bench was cut into the wall and on it was a
pornai
riding a brown-haired youth in a position God never intended.

“Come to join us, love?” The girl’s grin revealed two missing teeth. Another cry ripped the air.

“This one.” Comito pushed open the next door.

Inside, my mother sported a fresh gash on her cheek, and the start of a black bruise blossomed over her eye. She held a dirty bandage—one that matched the hem of her green tunica—to the sides of Anastasia’s head as my little sister gulped for air. Tears cut swaths down her cheeks.

“What happened?” I yelled. Vitus stood at the only table in the room and wiped a bloody knife on an old rag. On the table were two knobby lumps of pink flesh.

Ears. Two tiny ears with blood on the edges where they’d been sawed off.

I screamed and lunged at Vitus, but he turned the rusted blade on me.