The Secret History: A Novel of Empress Theodora (50 page)

John slumped against the wall, his chains slack. “I understand.”

I forced myself to turn and walk calmly from the cell, ensuring that John’s last view of me was my purple
chalmys
. My heart nearly jumped from my chest as someone touched my arm in the dark corridor. Justinian stood there, his face swathed in shadows.

“How much did you hear?” I asked.

“Almost everything,” he said, his hands open at his sides as if he couldn’t bear to touch me. He ran his hands over his face and appeared more haggard than I’d ever seen him. I’d finally lost him.

“This isn’t how things were supposed to happen,” he said. “This is all my fault.”

“What?”

“I knew about your son, Theodora.” His voice cracked. “You denied John the Cappadocian’s claims after we reprimanded him for the Carthage campaign, but I sent Narses to investigate. He discovered the truth.”

I’d first thought to send my son to Alexandria with Narses, but he’d been gone from court—now I knew he’d been on Justinian’s errand—so I’d sent Macedonia instead. I’d delivered my son to the enemy without even realizing it.

Justinian tried to pace the tiny corridor, unable or unwilling to meet my eyes. “John tried to ransom the boy after you sent him to Alexandria, but Narses knew your son had died. I didn’t know how you’d react if I knew, and I couldn’t bear the idea that you might leave me.” He stopped pacing and reached out to touch me, but I didn’t move. His arm dropped back to his side. “I failed you. I’ll understand if you can’t forgive me.”

I couldn’t think. I’d worried all these years that my husband might cast me off, that he would despise me for my deceit, for my failings. Yet all this time he’d feared the same.

The whole situation would have been laughable if it hadn’t been so sad. I wanted to scream at him, to rail against him for the part he’d played, but he was no more guilty than I. Less so, in fact. Sometimes it took us poor wretches far too long to realize God’s blessings. And despite everything that had happened, I knew I had indeed been blessed by having Justinian in my life.

I’d held grudges close to my heart all my life, but this man had always loved me, despite my many failings, and often because of them. I could not judge him.

Unable to speak, I held out my hand for his, needing him to anchor me as he always had. The soft wool of his tunica scratched my cheek as I laid my head on his shoulder, glad he couldn’t see the tears that slipped from my eyes and thankful for the strength of his arms around me. “I forgive you.”

His arms bound me to him. “I love you, Theodora. More than you’ll ever know.”

His words undid me.

I sobbed into his tunica then, clinging to him and weeping for the years we’d lost, all the time we’d squandered by doubting each other. He crushed me to him as if he feared he might lose me again.

Finally I lifted my head with a shuddering breath and wiped the tears from my swollen eyes, still tasting their salt on my lips. I was
shocked to see tears glistening on his cheeks. I brushed them away with my thumb and clasped his face between my hands. “You stupid, foolish man,” I managed to choke out. “I love you, Justinian. Forever and always.”

I had forgiven so many people: Justinian, Antonina, and the Cappadocian. Perhaps one day I might learn to forgive myself.

“A
re you sure you’re well enough to attend the wedding?”

Tasia handed me a fresh clutch of mint leaves as a slave wrinkled his nose and carried away my chamber pot. My daughter was statuesque in a mahogany stola with a
paludamentum
the same shade and luster as polished pearls, her hair tucked under a veil heavily embellished with gold.

The wedding of Comito’s daughter, Sophia, would have been a welcome thought were it not for the ever-present gnaw of pain in my stomach. The saint I’d seen in secret a few weeks ago had informed me I had an imbalance of black bile, but he believed it might right itself if left alone. He’d offered me drafts of poppy juice, but I refused to spend what might be my last days in a fog. Yet my appetite had deserted me, and my waist thickened, hidden now beneath the mahogany silk stola embroidered at the hem with my monogram. My monthly bleedings had ceased ages ago, so I knew these symptoms did not herald the quickening of my womb, barren as the sands of Cappadocia.

I wiped my mouth on a silk
mappa
and felt my stomach settle with the mint.
I missed Antonina, but she was off in Rome keeping an eye on Belisarius as he attempted to subdue the latest Ostrogoth uprising. I regretted that she wouldn’t be at my side when the time came, but we’d already said our good-byes, although I doubted she had realized it at the time.

“Are you sure that’s how it’s done?” I’d asked. The imperial gardens were drenched in sunshine, and I’d chuckled as Antonina stabbed a needle into a silk belt for Belisarius. She and her husband had resolved most of their differences after Theodosius’ death from illness a few years ago, and they had settled into a mostly amicable partnership.

“We are old women now,” Antonina said, not bothering to look up at me. The tip of her tongue showed between her teeth as she yanked the thread through the fabric, producing an impressive knot. “It’s high time we started acting like it.”

“I just turned forty-five,” I said. “That’s hardly as ancient as you make us out to be.”

“One foot in the grave,” she said.

Little did she know.

I traced the line of sunlight on my stola and breathed in the delicate fragrance of the white and purple Nazareth irises Justinian had recently had planted for me and the heavy scent of Antonina’s rose perfume. I would miss both precious smells. “We’ve had a good run, you and I, haven’t we?”

Her lips curled in a smile, and she glanced up, likely ready with some sarcastic quip. Instead, her smile fell at the look on my face. She set her sewing in her lap. “The best, darling.”

“I’ll miss you,” I said.

She cocked an eyebrow at me and resumed her sewing, although her eyes darted back to me. “Don’t go soft on me,” she said. “Belisarius and I won’t be gone in Rome too long this time.”

“I know.” I pulled myself to stand, hiding the effort it took, and walked slowly toward her, dropping a kiss on her scarlet hair. “I love you, Antonina.”

She took my hand and covered it with hers, the veins like a web of rivers on an old map. No matter what I said, somehow time had managed to sneak up and take us unawares. “I love you, too, darling. Even if we have tried to kill each other.”

“More than once.”

She chuckled and patted my hand. “More than once.”

A few days later I’d watched the
dromons
slip into the Bosphorus again, knowing I wouldn’t live to see her return.

Now the blood and green bile in my vomit this morning were a hint from God to finish the rest of my business before I ran out of time.

I held out a hand to Tasia, and she helped me find my feet. “I’ll be fine,” I said.

“You look like death on legs. I can’t believe you’ve kept the Emperor in the dark this long.”

I fluttered my fingers and took Tasia’s arm. “Justinian has enough to deal with, with Totila and the rest of the Ostrogoths in Rome. I don’t care to trouble him.”

My daughter exhaled a puff of air. “You’ve never troubled that man. He loves you as much as he did the day he married you. More now, I think.”

Justinian waited for me at the passage to the Hagia Sophia. The glow of gold beckoned from the other end, a promise of paradise.

“You’d best go join your aunt, Tasia.” I gave her a stern look and walked straight as I could to take Justinian’s arm, glad I’d worn black silk gloves to cover my mottled fingers, a fresh sign of the disease spreading through my body. I leaned my head on Justinian’s shoulder to watch Tasia walk away. Whatever else I had done in this life, I was
proud of my daughter. And proud of the man I’d married. I didn’t deserve either of them, but I had done my best the past years to make it up to them.

I smiled but clenched my teeth as a fresh wave of pain slashed at my abdomen. “A momentous wedding.”

“Indeed,” Justinian said. “I shall be able to die a happy man after today.”

The mosaics of the Hagia Sophia shimmered like a sweep of golden sky at sunset over our heads as we emerged from the tunnel, the letters of my
tablion
forever intertwined with Justinian’s on the forest of white marble columns. Four feathered seraphims observed the imperial ceremony from their lofty perches on the pendentives while patricians watched from the gallery behind us and their women peered down from the balconies. The dome itself seemed to float in the air, lit by God’s own light. Eight years ago, before the plague and the debacle over my son, Justinian had walked into his newly finished church and grasped my hand, muttering the words, “Solomon, I have eclipsed you.”

Now that divine light shone down on my niece and her betrothed while the sweet voices of a
castrati
choir reached toward the heavens.

And almost a lifetime ago I had entered a less-ornate church on this same spot, been draped in purple, and felt the imperial diadem placed on my brow. Since then, I had done many things I wasn’t proud of, and I would shortly have to answer to God for many of them. I had been tempered by my past, made all the stronger for it, and managed to reign successfully alongside my husband. Yet soon all my accomplishments would be only memories, carried by the people I’d loved. They were my greatest accomplishment, and not realizing that sooner was my greatest failure.

I smiled at Sophia and then at her mother. Comito’s lovely golden hair was now a stunning cascade of snowy white, but her eyes shone with tears as she beamed at her daughter. General Sittas had passed to
God a number of years ago, but Justinian stood in his stead to give my niece to his own nephew, Justin, Vigilantia’s son. Through our siblings, Justinian and I would found a dynasty.

Sophia smiled shyly through her saffron veil as Justin broke bread with her before the silver altar, their fingers brushing and ensuring fertility and happy years to come. My niece promised to obey her new husband, prompting a wink at me from Justinian. Obedience was highly overrated.

I sent a silent prayer to the Virgin for their happy marriage and a string of children and grandchildren to fill their laps as they grew old together. My prayer was almost finished when a stab of pain in my stomach threatened to double me over.

I bit my lip to keep from crying out as Justin circled Sophia and clasped the gold wedding belt—the same one I’d worn to my own wedding—around her tiny waist. Justinian caught my eye, but I looked away. With this marriage I had completed all my earthly tasks, ensuring Justinian the heir I’d never given him.

The liturgy finished, and the Patriarch of Constantinople blessed the bride and groom as they knelt before the altar surrounded by their circle of family. I bowed my head over clasped hands, my prayers changing from wishes for Sophia to begging the Virgin to see me to the end of the ceremony. I could no longer control my breath, struggling for air one moment and panting like a dog the next.

Justinian touched my elbow. “Are you all right?” More than once I had feared life without him; yet it was I who was going to leave him behind.

“Fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “I hope they have a peaceful life together.”

“Then I’ll have to demote Justin and exile them from Constantinople. Perhaps Sophia would like to be a fishwife in Gallia.” Justinian chuckled, and the Patriarch gave us a sharp glance, at least as sharp as one could give the Augusti.

I shivered, mostly a guise so I could clutch Justinian’s arm. The room was too cold, but a white-hot iron of pain stabbed my navel. My knees buckled, and I sank into the swirl of mosaic, curling into the fire in my abdomen with a curse.

“Theodora?” Justinian’s voice was frantic, and I felt him crouched at my side, but I could only pant through the pain. Breathing seemed to bury the knives deeper into my abdomen.

Not now. I wasn’t ready to go yet.

Strong arms lifted me, and I could barely make out Justinian’s tight face.

“You told me you were eating.” His tone was firm, but he looked more frightened than he had during Nika. “You weigh less than a bird.”

I’d not been able to eat anything more than fish broth for weeks, but I had kept the fact hidden under the drapes of my stolas. “Cyr’s been enjoying all the extra food.” I closed my eyes again. “He’s fat as a hog.”

“Call the physicians to meet us in the Augusta’s chambers.” Justinian held me close, as if he feared I might evaporate in his arms.

“It’s too late for that.” I opened my eyes as the pain retreated, waiting for it to return with reinforcements, an enemy intent on conquest. I would not fight.

Sophia trailed wide-eyed with her mother and bridegroom as Justinian carried me over the threshold of my apartments and laid me upon my bed, taking off my veil to brush the damp hair from my forehead. I barely managed to swallow my cries as the flames of Gehenna licked my stomach.

Slaves flitted across my rooms, rushing to and fro with ewers of water and stacks of linens. I waved away the familiar saint with his bag of foul-smelling potions and worthless poultices. “I am dying,” I said, surprised at how small my voice sounded. “Go away.” The physician
whispered in Justinian’s ear, and my husband gave a terse nod, his lips a tight line. I hadn’t much time.