Theodora (3 page)

It was the end of a warm spring day, and there was excitement about the coming City festival. The May holiday would mean a day off school for the children and for some workers and slaves. For just as many though, it meant more to do in preparation – local police needed to be ready to come between Greens and Blues when the rows broke out, after the young men had spent the day drinking; in the churches and monasteries priests were gearing up for the long round of extra ceremonies to perform, more masses than usual to bless the great City; Palace staff could expect to work double-length days over the next week as they prepared for the celebratory and thanksgiving processions. Theodora made her way back through the extra-busy crowd. When she was once again near the Hippodrome gates, she stopped to look over the people’s heads at the obelisk, silently giving her regular greeting to the owl carved halfway up the ancient stone. She had few clear memories of her father, but cherished one of sitting high on his shoulders, being carried through the crowds, the big man explaining if she ever lost her way she need only look out for the owl. Theodora no longer believed in that safety, but she trusted in the owl anyway. From there she made her way over the City’s second hill and down to the narrow streets lining the Golden Horn. It was a less direct route to her destination, but easier this way, in the alleys and lanes, to avoid the excess of
people. Even stage girls were not that common a sight in streets paved by men for the feet of men, crowded with partisan lads who cheered their teams, jeered each other, and did far worse to young girls when drink had stirred them enough. Foreign men were also thick on the streets, dressed in the strange clothes and stranger haircuts of Goth and Herule mercenaries, come to Constantinople looking for work and all too often finding wine and argument. Theodora knew exactly how to perform for these men when they spent money on a show; she was less keen on the street performances they sometimes demanded for free.

At the narrowest point of the Golden Horn, where the ferries travelled all day and much of the night across the stretch of water to Sykae, she climbed back up the first hill right to the edge of the Palace wall, sneaking past sentries who were more interested in throwing dice than they were in girlish shadows. Finally she came out into a short lane that led close to the Chalke, the main entrance to the Imperial Palace. It was safe to ignore the beggars and supplicants thronging there, these refugees had far more to worry about than a girl out on the streets alone.

The warm day often meant a cold night ahead for the street-dwellers crowded between the Chalke, the Senate and the Baths, the beggars who supposedly did not exist in this perfect City of the perfect Empire. A chill and potentially illegal night if they could not find an administrator to agree charity, or a penitent sinner hoping to placate the Christ who believed rich men were the camel’s impossible hump in a needle’s tiny eye. If that didn’t work here – practically on the doorstep of Hagia Sophia – then the hungry many could always try further up the Mese, heading towards Constantine’s statue, where Christianity was diluted by the nationalities of the market traders, and any number of other gods’ blessings could be employed to charm
aid from the superstitious. These newcomers to the City – traders fallen on hard times, disabled soldiers damaged in war, young chancers with nothing left to chance – had discovered that it was wise first to make their case at the meeting point of Church and State.

Theodora blessed herself as she passed the cripples and the begging children. She had work, she was learning her skills, she earned her own keep, and some extra to help the family. She knew she was lucky, her mother and stepfather made it very clear – Menander told her so several times daily. There but for the grace of God. She came eventually to a side entrance of Hagia Sophia, the hundred-year-old church that would have been far older but for the riots a century before, riots Theodora understood only as a laugh-line, a final gag, certain to cheer the Hippodrome crowds as they waited for the next race, guaranteed to bring down the Kynegion house, just as the rioters had laid low the Great Church, making way for this new sanctuary. Great enough for her current need.

Theodora stood at the side door, an entrance she’d found by chance several years ago, a door left unlocked more often by accident than intent. She tried the latch, felt her tight shoulders and chest begin to ease as the heavy carved wood opened into the dark of the building and made her way forward; silent, slow, cautious, moving into the heady scent of spent incense and a solid wall of other people’s lingering prayer, their pain and desire forced into the marble and the stone by sheer strength of want, entreaties of hope and despair trapped in windows of translucent alabaster. Always, in this building, Theodora felt other people’s pain and shook it off to concentrate on her own need; now she climbed on shaking legs, with stiff muscles, to the gallery, the place of women, unlit and quiet.

*

Her father is standing by the animal and even though he is so close to the claws and the teeth, close enough for the child to touch the beast’s fur if she reaches out her hand, he takes a step closer still. Holding her tight in his arms now, he lifts her high and swings her on to his shoulders. She can smell his hair; it is the smell of his work, of cages, stables, animals, of this bear. Her father spends his days with the animals, and his hair smells of this bear. The bear is bigger than her father, her father is bigger than the other men working here, in these dark rooms beneath the Hippodrome: he is tall and wide and dark-skinned. Her mother shouts at him in the late evening, tells him to wash himself, he looks like a Barbarian. The little girl has her father’s colouring, like him she is strong, he and Theodora are special, they are the same, just the two of them. He holds her tight on his shoulders, she is used to being here, good at balancing, everyone says so already, that she will be a fine acrobat. She would like that, loves to watch the acrobats rehearse, even when their master shouts in anger and screams at them to do it again and again, to be better, better, she loves it, the leaping and jumping and flying. These tumblers can fly on the ground, make a loaded catapult of a wooden floor. She copies them sometimes, at home, when her mother is not watching, or when she is pushing them at their lessons, letters and numbers and more letters – their mother who hates her body for not yet providing a son, who curses her flesh that is so female it produces only girl children, who knows how hard it is to be a girl child and will claim education for her daughters if it is the last thing she does. Education, and ridding them of the stink of the circus. Hard to do when your husband is the chief animal trainer, the only bear-keeper, and famous for it too, but not impossible – other women have climbed a little, and a little is better than nothing. Her girls will read and write, they will speak their Greek better than the street, and, if she has any say in the matter, they will have Latin too. Above all, they
will not be actresses. At least then she will be able to find husbands for them, marry them legally, marry them out of the stink of theatre. Meanwhile though, the dark and small Theodora sits proud on Acacius’ shoulders, one still-chubby fist gripping his hair, the other waving proudly to her father’s assistants who comment on her smile, her loud voice from the tiny frame, her deep-set eyes. She is just five years old, and already she feels the power she has over an audience.

Then something happens. She has been laughing, enjoying the height and the strength she feels up here and, with no warning, the place of safety on her father’s shoulders disappears, she thinks he must be playing, this is what it feels like when he throws her in the air, when suddenly there is nothing beneath her, soon he will lift his strong arms and catch her. Soon. But not now. She is thrown up and back and there are no arms catching and she falls smack against the wooden wall behind them, a fistful of her father’s hair in her hand. There is screaming, loud, wailing screaming, from her mouth and also from his, and then the screams are coming from all over the building, from all the others, watching in sick horror. And though someone runs to pick her up, and though adult hands try to shield her eyes, and though it is over almost before it has begun, Theodora sees the bear, her father’s bear, the bear he loves best of his beasts, she sees the claws drag through his skin as easily as her mother pulls a stick across the Marmara shore, writing their letters in the sand. Her father’s skin parts as the wet grains do, falling back, there and then not there, swiftly displaced, but where the sand moves allowing the water to fill the narrow trenches that spell alpha, beta, gamma, her father’s flesh is opened and it is his blood that wells up, spilling over. Three minutes later his heart has pumped him dry into the sand and dirt beneath the Hippodrome. There is no tide to wipe him clean and begin again.

*

Theodora lay in the gallery of Hagia Sophia, her skin clammy, head aching. She had not meant to fall asleep, certainly had not meant to see again in vivid dream the picture she pushed away when awake. Her dead father, his face twisted in pain, the bear’s claws and teeth, the blood running through the creature’s fur, running down to the child, blood on Theodora’s hands and face. And, in her five-year-old’s mind, all that blood was her fault, because she was on his shoulders and she must have distracted him and she had been there beneath the stage with her father when she should have been at home learning how to be a lady with her mother and sisters. Her mother had never said so, never would, but Theodora knew it had crossed her mind too, more than once. She shook her head, trying to dislodge the image, to regain the sense of security she’d felt as soon as she lay on the gallery floor, letting her aching limbs and back sink into the cool stone, as gentle a touch as Comito’s oiled hands.

At the thought of her sister, Theodora’s body went cold. She looked to the translucent windows and saw that it was dark outside, the only light from the torches lighting the Palace and the lamps the soldiers carried in the street. An owl screaming in the Palace garden told her she was late. She had no idea how long she had slept, no idea how much time had passed, but she knew it was hours rather than minutes. She was late, and she was in trouble.

Three

The first thing Menander did was punch the wall so that he did not punch her face. One bruised dancer was enough. Then, with his bleeding-knuckle hand, he held her chin so tight she thought her jawbone would crack. He wrenched her head up to look directly into her eyes and, without saying a word, promised fierce punishment. Then he pushed her over to the makeup woman, an old actress herself, who had been waiting with the other girls while Theodora was sleeping and missing their final rehearsal, while she was dreaming and missing their last preparations, while she ran through filthy crowded streets, dodging beggars and soldiers alike, hating herself and the dreams, and the stupid hope of a different life that made her weak and scared and, right now, very late.

Comito stood centre stage, her long smooth arms extended from a straight back, a perfectly angled neck. The gold and blue mosaic on the wall behind her made a perfect backdrop, depicting four semi-naked golden girls, one for each season, with the smiling, joyous Christ above them, holding the year together. The audience had left their plundered food some time ago. Plates and empty glasses were quickly cleared by silent servants, new wines poured while they waited for the dance master to present his girls. Then, finally, after the brief delay, with Theodora shoved into place, Menander was ready. He knew some of the audience, men he’d befriended over
many years working with acting and dancing troupes. He would never be invited to sit among them, but they were men who valued his services, respected him as a eunuch if not as a man, understood he offered a good evening’s entertainment, well worth the fee. Their host’s family was originally from Illyricum, his grandfather’s money made long ago, trading goods in return for the safe passage of Imperial armies, an inherited fortune their patron now spent in night after lavish night on entertainment, fantasy made true, the want of nothing. This particular businessman was known for his generosity, and not one of his friends had turned down his invitation. Menander’s work was famed; the guests were delighted to accept their wealthy friend’s gift of a private viewing. They would offer favours later in turn – a safe ship’s passage here, a voice in the Senate there, this new Christian Rome thriving on the give and take of friendly men as readily as the old one had ever done.

The girl at the centre of the dais was speaking, her voice elegant, low, perfectly modulated. Despite her youth she had the strength to be heard from the orchestra to the farthest height of the Hippodrome benches; in this room she was holding back all the amplification and none of the passion. The men dragged their gaze from the graceful folds of fine cloth barely skimming her shoulders, breasts, hips, thighs and forced themselves, out of politeness, to watch her blue eyes, to study her lightly tinted lips, follow the gentle sweep of her soft blonde hair as she recounted the story of Penelope. They knew exactly what was coming; of all the scenes this troupe told, the Penelope story was one of their favourites – the waiting wife patiently sitting out long cold years with only her women to keep her company. Comito spoke well, sang even better and was applauded after her opening oration. The night had turned cold, but there were plenty of deep, soft cushions, the room was both warmly heated and
well ventilated, so that even with the copious quantities of wine, no one was ready to sleep, not yet.

The audience were happy, his girls knew their parts. Menander had drilled them day after day for this, now he could relax. Comito’s speech became song, became one dance and then another. The men were entranced. Even Theodora wasn’t spoiling anything at the moment: keeping her place in line, she waited for the climactic moment and then took centre stage to tumble and leap with no care for her bones or her muscles, with abandon and joy in the ever-increasing space between floor and ceiling, both holding her steady. Helena picked up amused laughter with her comedy song, not the belly laughs Menander might have hoped for, but if her timing left a little to be desired, none of the other girls had her perfectly formed breasts, and he knew his audience well enough to understand that by this stage in the evening the gentlemen preferred comely to comedy. Golden-haired Chrysomallo and the pretty Claudia were perfect angels on either side of the dais-turned-stage, having held their positions for over forty minutes without once wavering. And delicate little Anastasia, playing Penelope’s dreamed child, leaned elegantly into her eldest sister, their voices blending in sibling harmony. A last song, the whole group as one, a final dance with a few acrobatic flourishes from Theodora, then their bow, and the end of the night, and his payment in gold coin. Nothing could go wrong. Until it did.