Theodora (37 page)

The City and the state went on, no matter who was in charge, and Justinian needed to take on his uncle’s role more fully, to order his staff, get on with the job. The Emperor’s rooms were a better place from which to do the Emperor’s work. The civil servants who had spent Holy Week carefully and almost silently packing and transferring things from one place to another knew this only too well. Many of them had been around for the passing from Anastasius to Justin just over a decade ago, and a few thought they might well be here for the next changeover too. Some rulers were better than others, some leaders had skill in battle, others in business: each of them needed assistance and good guidance, with the minimum of fuss. There would be a
funeral before the end of the year, and then there would be a single Caesar, one August and one Augusta, and both would be judged on their merits. Meanwhile, the business of the state went on no matter whose head was on the coins. For the Palace functionaries, it was always business as usual. Justin was carefully moved to a quiet wing where he could more easily rest, and Justinian was placed more firmly at the centre of their days.

That first night after both coronations, after the endless prayers, both for the celebration of Easter Sunday and the celebration of the August couple, Justinian and Theodora went together to their new rooms. Many of their things had simply been moved, but others had been entirely replaced – there was no need, for instance, for Theodora to keep a gown of red for ceremony, when now her only ceremonial wear was purple. Yet neither of them had so much as glimpsed the work that went into making the change happen. Justinian was used to this, had moved from City to Palace with Justin and Euphemia and then lived in different palaces inside these walls as his uncle climbed the ranks, so he understood the careful, quiet ways of servants and slaves. Theodora, even after five years in the complex, two of them as Justinian’s wife, was still amazed.

‘How did they do all this? All my things moved in three hours!’

Justinian walked to her room through the connecting offices and corridors between, not entirely grateful that her voice was so well trained he could hear her perfectly well despite their rooms now being so much further apart.

‘Well, you don’t have that much really, do you? When Euphemia used to take her staff away in summer, up to the hills, she needed a retinue of several hundred. It’s not as if they had to shift a lot for you, you haven’t had long to accumulate the stuff of an Empress.’

Theodora shook her head. ‘You’re too used to staff, Justinian. I promise you, this was a lot of work.’

‘Then thank them, it’s always good to show gratitude. They like that.’

Theodora nodded, suddenly unable to speak.

‘What is it?’ Justinian asked.

‘Gratitude. I am grateful. Dear God, I am so grateful.’

She sank to the ground in front of him, the purple of her robe softer and smoother against the infinitesimally darker purple of his; she was laughing and crying at the same time, big racking sobs and gasps of hysterical laughter. Justinian looked around the unfamiliar room for a jug of water or wine to offer her, not knowing how to help his wife, who had collapsed in the centre of a deep and soft carpet he only now realised he had never seen before. It must have been brand new, made for her perhaps, a pattern of reds and swirling blues spiked through with gold flecks, clashing gorgeously with the robes she was wearing.

‘Take this –’ he found a glass and thrust it at her. ‘It’s been a long day, a long week. We’re both tired. Come on, we’ll be fine. I promise.’

He was kissing her and holding her, not sure what to say, repeating the only words he knew of comfort over and over, first in the Latin of his childhood, then more forcefully in the Greek of hers, hoping to get through the tears and the tremor that appeared to have overtaken her.

From inside the hysteria Theodora could see she was frightening him but it was all, just now, too much, and she truly couldn’t stop herself. It was hilarious and awful and incredible, all at the same time. She was Theodora and a whore and a redeemed woman and the Empress. She had her emerald for safety still strapped beneath her breast and she was staining her purple robe with tears for all she had been and the woman she
now needed to be. Everything had been organised and orchestrated by these men, by Justin and Justinian and Timothy and Narses, and now it was sinking in that none of this had ever been her ambition, her desire. She had gone along with it, and for the first time in her life she had accepted other people’s plans for her without question. Finally it had come to fruition and only now was she becoming aware of what it really meant. She was the highest woman in the Empire and she was exactly the same. Everything had changed and nothing, and that she was still the same woman who had seen those revelations in the desert cave astonished her. The robes and the crown and the purple, even the anointing, she was still the same Theodora and she was Empress. The duality was impossible to comprehend.

Mariam appeared at the door, scared that her mistress needed her, or worse, that Justinian was harming her. Justinian waved the child away: if he didn’t know how to make this better, he doubted very much that the damaged girl could. Theodora went on sobbing and laughing, and eventually, when his kisses and the wine and his holding her still seemed to have made no difference, when Justinian was ready to send for Antonina or Comito or Sophia, his wife abruptly pulled herself together, wiped her eyes, drank the glass of wine and sat up.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s all right.’ Justinian wasn’t sure it was, but he didn’t know what else to say.

‘No, it’s not. I apologise. It’s been a long day, a long time. I needed … a release. Or something. But I shouldn’t have shown you that.’

‘Why not?’

‘You’re my husband – Antonina would have slapped me, and been right to do so.’

‘She damn well would not.’

‘Antonina says we should never show ourselves as anything
but perfect to our husbands. Perfectly made up, perfectly poised, always composed, always ready to care for them. She’s been married longer than I have, I expect she’s right.’

‘She’s been married longer to a man fifteen years younger than her, I think that explains a great deal. Anyway, I’m not sure there is anyone else you can allow to see this. There is no one else I can show my fears or my joy to either. Other than Justin, and I wouldn’t want to concern him now, he is too easily tired.’

‘Yes.’

‘So we are just the two of us. Here. And right now, we are not really husband and wife …’

‘No?’

‘We are August and Augusta. And while I am happy to see you as my honest Theodora, and have always been content to show you my failings, I agree with Antonina that no one else should see August and Augusta as anything less than perfectly controlled. There is no one who can see this but me, no one I can show myself to but you.’

Theodora sat back, her legs beneath her, twisted in her robes so that one thigh was almost completely exposed. Her arms were crossed in front of her and she hugged herself tight, feeling – as always – the press of the emerald bound beneath her left breast. She could feel the makeup her servant had applied this morning smudged down her cheeks, curls from the hair carefully arranged to hold the crown were stroking her back and one bare shoulder, there were tear stains on the perfect silk of her robe. Justinian sat in front of her, looking exhausted from his three-night Easter and coronation vigil: he was frowning hard and stroking her free leg with one hand, while pulling at his hair with the other, the most obvious sign he ever gave of his concern.

She laughed, ‘No, I don’t suppose there is anyone else we
can allow to see August and Augusta on the floor, in a mess of purple.’

She kissed him then, and the mess of purple and the soft new carpet were a soft new bed for two people making love on the floor of the Augusta’s meeting room, two people who were higher than any other, taking joy in each other’s body, Theodora the shield for Justinian’s worries, he the shield for her fears. No one else would ever see them like this, their concerns about authority and governing, their elation at the elevation, the pleasure and terror of power as private as the bed.

Thirty-Seven

In the morning Armeneus, in charge of Theodora’s new personal staff, let them both sleep a little later in the new rooms. Their privacy was not disturbed, but the scattered robes told their own story. Justinian was woken, late for him, at six, with honeyed water and the papers he needed to study – permits to allow or deny, petitions to analyse. Theodora slept on in her own bed until ten, the latest she had slept since coming to the Palace. When she woke she called for hot water and two maids. She wanted a long bath and breakfast of fruit, with fresh juices and perhaps some music if they could find a girl with a sweet voice. She was only joking when she said it, repeating the demands that, according to rumour, Juliana Anicia made every morning of her wizened old life, but she was delighted when she went to the bathing room and found it all laid on, little girl with lovely voice included. Theodora sank into the warm, scented water, looking at the exquisitely carved ivory of the new triptych that had been placed on her dressing table, another of her wedding gifts from Justinian, thinking she could possibly get used to this.

As Justin faded from bad to worse health, Justinian needed to immediately step up in every area of governing the Empire. There was both Ostrogoth and Visigoth aggression in the west, problems closer to home with the interminable small disputes between Green and Blue, the ongoing problem of potential
schism with new claims from the Arian and Coptic branches of the Church and, as always, Persian demands for border negotiations. Justinian was also not entirely well himself. It was a far lesser complaint than the disease that had infested his uncle’s lungs and was killing him, and therefore one he took some time to bring before the doctor, not least because he was shy about the ailment. What had started out as the lightly bruised testicle any healthy man in possession of an even healthier young wife might expect, was now a more intense problem, with swelling and pain and a discomfort that was not easily attributable to Theodora’s kindness. The problem resolved itself after a while. The jokes that Theodora had battered her husband’s privates with her excessive demands took a little longer to go away, but the rumour that perhaps Justinian would not now be able to father a child persisted – and Theodora did nothing to dispel the suggestion. She’d certainly seen him in great pain; the twisted testicle had swollen and reddened, and it had taken careful work on the part of a skilled Syrian physician to bring Justinian back to the role of a still-generous lover who was just a little less ready to spend the night on the floor with her. For all she knew, the passing problem truly had damaged his ability to make her a mother again. At the very least, it took the pressure off Theodora, stopped the City’s high-born women from looking quite so intently at her belly whenever she was in public.

Once her husband was perfectly well and constantly busy again, Theodora was thrown back on the company of her old friends and new Palace acquaintances. Old friends like Sophia and Leon were around, of course, but they were getting used to Theodora’s change of role, having to ask her staff if they could meet up. It didn’t sit easily with Sophia to have to time an appointment that didn’t clash with a lesson in Persian etiquette
or a discussion on Vandal history. No matter that she knew Theodora hungrily welcomed her company, Sophia herself needed time to adjust. Theodora knew her old friend would accustom herself to the new regime eventually, hoped for sooner rather than later. Antonina too was a welcome distraction, and her knowledge of court and military form came in very handy, but while she was keen to become better friends with Theodora, Antonina was far less interested in Palace life than most women of her age and class. She was an army wife, had been on tours of duty with her husband, would happily go away with him again, but while they were here in the City she saw it as her job to do her best for her husband and his men. Just at the point when Theodora could have done with a good new friend, Antonina was working daily on a military matchmaking task, and one that Theodora could not but approve, much as she wanted Antonina’s company for herself. Antonina was endeavouring to bring Comito together with Sittas, one of Justinian’s most favoured generals. Theodora’s rise in station had not made Comito any less arrogant about her own work, it just meant she confined her performances to even more exclusive and better-paid events. Sittas was famously uninterested in anything or anyone but war, horses and his men, more or less in that order. If it could be arranged, their union would be a good move for her sister and her family – Theodora was finding marriage so much to her own liking, she did not want Comito to miss out on similar happiness. Antonina got on with the matchmaking and Theodora turned even closer to home for companionship.

Narses still looked in on her every now and then, but primarily to check on the reports from Theodora’s tutors. According to most of them, she was doing as well as could be expected, and better than many had hoped. The eunuch offered a gentle nod of approval, but no more than that. Much as he’d
encouraged her to get on with the work in the first place, she was the Augusta now, and as Justinian was so new to his job and there was so much to do getting him up to speed, it wouldn’t do Theodora any harm to learn to be her own mentor.

More bored than lonely, Theodora tried making friends with some of the new servants she had been assigned, chatting to the woman who did her hair, trying to encourage Esther – who now came once a fortnight to discuss clothing requirements – to talk about her own life, but it quickly became obvious that while Theodora might be able to disregard her status, they certainly couldn’t, and her overtures of friendship simply made them feel uncomfortable. The people attending her were pleased with their work. Most of them had jostled hard to get positions in the Augusta’s household and none were prepared to risk losing the Empress’ favour and losing their place. Friendship and secrets were fine between people who already knew each other, and Theodora might prove a friend in time, let her prove herself a good Empress first.