Theodora (17 page)

‘They’d be after true penitents, of course?’

Ireni agreed.

‘I’d certainly have plenty of sin to offer up.’

‘I wouldn’t expect any less, not with that stage career behind you.’

Theodora held up her hands, of course Ireni knew who she was, she’d been an idiot to hope otherwise. And if Ireni knew, then too many others would as well, those she’d been talking to in bars and pubs in the past few days, trying to arrange her return. She couldn’t trust that Hecebolus would leave her alone; this was a way back to the City, and in safety until she got there. She’d take the chance. ‘What do I do?’

‘You need to meet with Timothy.’

‘The Patriarch?’

Ireni smiled, it was good to see that even Theodora-from- the-Brothel could be a little unnerved. ‘Yes. Him.’

‘And how do I do that?’

‘Leave it to me.’

They tidied the little room then, washed their plates and cups, two women moving gently around each other in the small, unevenly lit space.

Before she went to her narrow bed, Theodora asked, ‘Ireni,
how can you get me in touch with the Patriarch? How do you even know about this idea for a penitents’ community?’

‘Timothy’s brother Arsenio. Lovely man, but a tedious priest, none of the charisma of his elder brother, dreadful sermons – no wonder he never made much of a success of the job. He works in the Patriarch’s office.’

‘You know the Patriarch’s brother?’

‘Arsenio’s happily married, unfortunately, but he does like to chat in bed. And he does like to help.’

Seventeen

Theodora sat alone in the open courtyard at the centre of a high, narrow house built around a central fountain. The bench seat she had carefully chosen over an hour ago was lit from above, and soft light, transported down to the courtyard by mirrors and water, dappled perfectly across her face and shoulders. She would move again in a moment, repositioning herself as the sun moved. The penitential symbols of her plain black dress and makeup-free face were all very well, but they wouldn’t work if the Patriarch couldn’t see her. Six months was a long time to give up, but if Ireni was even half right, she’d be home by the end, arriving with a forgiven past, and it would be worthwhile. All she had to do was make her penitence look real.

A door opened, but it was not the door she was waiting for, it was the door she had come through herself: someone else was arriving to beg the indulgence of the Patriarch. Unfortunately for Theodora, the new arrival was a young man. Knowing the hierarchy of the Church and its priests, she glared at the interloper, her chances of seeing Timothy before nightfall were slimmer now there was a man waiting too. She leaned against the wall, closed her eyes to shut him out and determined to stay there at least until the sun had gone. This was her third day waiting.

Her companion did not take Theodora’s attitude for the clear rejection that it was, but began talking to her, telling her his story and, though he was just another dusty pilgrim like all
the others she’d met in this waiting area, Theodora listened. She needed to look willing, it was best to start as she meant to go on. Besides, she’d had no luck yet, maybe if she was nice to him he’d put in a good word for her when he was called in to meet Timothy.

He was Stephen, a would-be artist from Italy, he had finished his seven-year apprenticeship in mosaic at home in Ravenna and had made the pilgrimage, in part to see the sites of the Holy Land, but also to see the work of others in his craft, their different styles, maybe pick up secrets his teachers had not been able to show him. He was heading home now, full of ideas, great challenges, keen to do everything differently. Theodora wanted to tell him that different wasn’t always better, and as an artist he needed to learn that sooner than most, but his enthusiasm for his subject, for his journey and his studies on the way, didn’t leave her any space to interrupt. He had come today hoping to receive a blessing from the Patriarch for his return, less because he was a man of strong faith, more because he’d heard Timothy had several precious mosaics in the building and hoped to be allowed to see them. By the time he finished telling the story of his journey another hour had passed and the young man had tired of waiting. He stood, pulling a well-worn cloak of thick Galician wool round his shoulders. He knew he would not see the Patriarch today, and so he would not see him at all – he had too far to travel and there were always other mosaics.

‘I don’t mean to be rude,’ he said, ‘but why are you here? You’re the actress, aren’t you?’

Theodora nodded, surprised the Italian recognised her.

‘I saw you once, when I was in the City. You were wonderful. I went back to my room and sketched you from memory.’

‘Really? What was I performing?’

The young man shrugged. ‘Truly, I have no idea. I hadn’t
seen much theatre, a friend I met travelling told me I should go, as part of my education, so I did. I enjoyed it, I suppose, but not so much for the stories.’

‘For what, then?’

He dipped his head, suddenly shy, and mumbled, ‘I liked watching you. There was a spark. It’s what I try to put in my work – the spark. It’s hard to capture, doesn’t often come.’

‘No, it doesn’t.’

He looked at her directly now. ‘And you have it. So why would you want to give it up? That is why you’re here, isn’t it? Why any actress would be here? As a penitent?’

‘I think I’m finished with that now.’

The young man frowned, peering at her through the last light. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘It would be wrong. You should not give up.’

‘You know nothing of me. I’m off to the desert, if they’ll have me, and I’ll be glad to be left alone.’

‘I don’t think they’ll ever leave you alone, will they?’

‘I’ve given plenty.’

He nodded, agreeing, ‘Of course, but there’s always more. Well,’ he stopped, aware of the impropriety of sitting alone in the dark with this woman, this girl, probably several years younger than he was, but so much more a woman than he was a man. He was glad she could not see him blushing. ‘I should go. If I can’t see him today then I’ve missed the chance, I have a place on a ship leaving in the morning. It’s been nice to talk to you.’

He filled his worn pilgrim’s flask with fresh water from the fountain, bowed, and walked back out to the busy street, leaving her alone with the sound of the repeating water and the monks chanting beyond the thick wall.

*

‘Theodora? I’m sorry, you’ve been waiting all day, haven’t you?’

She’d been asleep for an hour, was dizzy with wrenching herself from it, and aching with the bite of the stone she’d fallen asleep on. The man who spoke had a dozen just-lit candles behind, glowing from each of the sconces in the courtyard wall. Their warm light was shining through his prominent ears, illuminating nothing more than the crest of his bald pate and the sad few hairs remaining, hairs he didn’t even have the City nous to shave away. He leaned over her and she could see that his cloak was stained with ink; his hands too, she noticed as he extended them to her, shockingly touching her himself, were not only inked but nail-bitten as well. But his voice was perfect. The Patriarch spoke her name again and Theodora was on her feet and then her knees. He gave her the blessing and helped her up, asked about her journey and her route, about the young craftsman who’d been and gone that afternoon, and then about her new choice, the reason his brother’s friend Ireni had sent her here. And though he was speaking so quietly she had to strain to listen, and though his accent seemed stronger the more he talked, Theodora heard every word as if it were a sermon and she his convert. They walked through dark corridors and long, low-lit chambers as far as the door to his office where he handed her over to one of the nuns who kept the other side of the house. She knelt and accepted another blessing before he closed the door on them. She was his convert.

The nun showed her to a tiny room. The bed – three boards, an old mattress, and a single blanket – was clearly designed for penitents. As was the morning wake-up call, well before dawn, time enough to rise, wash, dress in silence, and be waiting in the Patriarch’s own chapel ten minutes later. Timothy himself would not arrive to say the mass until dawn, but it was thought useful for the penitents to have time to reflect before the Patriarch arrived. The service would follow, then more prayer and finally,
a basic breakfast. Her guide suggested drinking plenty of water before sleep, and very little on rising: that way she would be less likely to faint in chapel – the Patriarch hated a fuss of any kind – nor would she feel the need to be excused for a moment. Which anyway, would not be allowed.

Theodora shrugged. She too found it irritating when members of the audience left their seats for a piss just at the moment when the actors required all attention on them, it was perfectly fair that the Patriarch of Alexandria also demanded his audience’s full attention. As for the water, she had trained under Menander. Theodora had performed while both aching from dehydration and with a bladder about to burst, and never once disgraced herself. She might be a little out of practice, but she didn’t think it would take long to get back into the pattern of ignoring her body’s needs. She started to say as much to the older woman and was stopped before she’d finished the word ‘when’.

‘We do not care about your life before now. It is irrelevant.’

‘I was just—’

The nun held up her hand. ‘We do not care.’

Each word was spoken with quiet deliberation. Menander would have emphasised each one with a whack of his cane, Hecebolus with a jabbing finger in her collarbone, or a kiss. Fine, she’d act the perfect student, ready, willing and ever yielding, put on the show they clearly wanted this one more time if she had to. Eyes on the prize of getting home, paid and cared for, without having to fuck or feign love in return, Theodora offered her meekest smile and curtsied her acquiescence.

‘Of course not.’

‘Good,’ the nun replied. ‘And a word of advice. Don’t think that you and your work are not known here. The Patriarch and his fellow teachers understand well what they are about, they have seen – and uncovered – more false promises than you have
ever made, more false yielding as well. You’d do well to practise giving in, you might even come to mean it in time.’

She closed the door to Theodora’s tiny room, taking the candle with her and leaving pitch darkness behind. Theodora spat out a silent oath to the receding back of the skinny old bitch and lay down on the hard mattress, wondering what the fuck she’d let herself in for.

She didn’t have long to wait. Five hours later she was up and dressed in the same plain black cotton dress Ireni had given her to arrive in, on her knees and offering up her sins. As she was seven hours later. And eight. And nine. There was a brief, and equally silent, break for thin soup and solid bread, then more prayer, more lectures. Lectures from the woman who’d showed her to her room last night, from other penitents who’d been this way and were now considered saved enough to share their stories, and one very long speech from the Patriarch’s brother Arsenio, the priest Ireni had considered kind but boring. She wasn’t wrong. Theodora passed the time wondering how it was that, with two brothers, equally physically unattractive, one could have such charisma and the other be this dullard of a man. She figured his mother must have been sleeping around, and then wondered if perhaps it wasn’t the Patriarch who was the family bastard, that somewhere out there was a beautiful man with a beautiful voice and it was the mother who had the dog-ugly face. It wasn’t the best use of her time when she was meant to be considering her own sins, but she passed an enjoyable half-hour remembering all the good-looking men she had known, imagining them in the throes of orgasm crying out in the Patriarch’s beautiful voice.

Another break and another bowl of soup, still more silence, then a further hour on her knees. Theodora began questioning her sanity, wondering how she could possibly have thought
that this might be an easier way home than screwing her way across the sea. She was well used to physical privation, but boredom was an entirely different matter. And then, out of the long grey day, the Patriarch himself came into the room and began talking to them, touching one on the shoulder as he passed, taking another’s outstretched hand, asking this one and that how they were, bestowing blessings as he went. She watched the short, ungainly middle-aged man work the room. Theodora had seen great charm at work before, in senators, leading actors, extraordinary musicians. Her mother maintained the girls’ father had some of this quality, certainly with his animals, if not always with people, an ability to make them pay attention, not by any action or word in particular, merely because he expected it. She had never before seen this power in a man so seemingly ordinary and yet, from his manner, and from the way she was surprised to find herself feeling, not ordinary at all.

She tried to work it out. They sat in a room of a hundred or more, roughly lit by high windows that gave the tiniest glimpse of sky outside, all black-robed penitents, and in he came, wandering among them, this richly garbed patriarch. So there was costume. There was also status, of course, their roof was his, their food and drink were his, they stayed in the house on his sufferance – it was already clear that everyone here had their own reasons for turning away from the world, it made perfect sense that no one should want to upset the man who held the keys. And then there were those, Theodora assumed, who truly did believe, who were not just running away from love or loss or bankruptcy or any of the other usual cares of the world, who sincerely believed that Timothy, with his famed sermons and his intellectual grasp of divine truths, as well as his beliefs in direct contrast with so many other Church leaders, was closer to God than anyone else on the earth. Even those he didn’t
speak to, when he stood some distance from them, still seemed moved by his presence.

As he came closer she found that she was again, as yesterday, straining to hear his voice, hungry for his words, and hungrier that he might see her. Used to being adored, to hearing her name chanted by thousands, Theodora wanted Timothy to see her, Timothy to speak to her. She sat straighter as he approached, raised her chin, ensuring the planes of her angled face were as clear as she would like, as Menander would have liked, making the most of this sparse light. She parted her lips just a little, breathed in to be ready to answer whatever he asked, knowing that a ready breath always made the speaker sound more sure, more engaged. She sat with her hands plainly open in her lap. Waiting. The Patriarch walked straight by. Theodora gasped silently, sitting first in her bitter disappointment, then a hot anger, then regret. Five minutes later she shook her head and laughed at herself, silently congratulating the ungainly red-robed man as he walked away and out of the room, leaving them all desperate for more. Timothy was very good.