The Secret History: A Novel of Empress Theodora (23 page)

Macedonia chuckled. “Probably. I’m sure he can use you in some sort of scheme.”

It seemed she would know. I gestured to the letter. “But I haven’t been to all these places. Egypt, yes. But Cyrenaica and the Holy Land?”

“A little exaggeration never hurt.” She gave a slight smile. “Justinian may not be able to use you right away, but I guarantee he’ll find something for you sooner or later. Prove you’re not just another pretty face.” She looked me over. “I’d be shocked if you last a week spinning.”

I ignored that last comment. “When does the boat leave?”

“Boats are expensive. You’ll be traveling in grand style.”

“How’s that?”

“The best donkey cart money can buy.”

F
or the record, there is no donkey cart worth traveling in that money can buy. I lost track of the days amidst the bump of the cart and the endless sea of brown and green, the fine grit that settled on our tongues and lashes. Only Cappadocia broke the monotony. Its valleys of rock chimneys hid churches and subterranean houses amidst rows of apricot trees and grapevines. I remembered John the Cappadocian, the man I’d rejected from Emperor Justin’s dinner party. Camped beneath one of the largest phallic towers, I realized I’d not had a man in almost three years.

My bed was empty. I reminded myself that was how I wanted it to stay.

.   .   .

Constantinople, the Queen of Cities, shook the dust from her skirts to dance the day we arrived. The marble monuments still gleamed in the late-summer sun and garbage littered the streets, but the entire city surged toward the first hill. Men and women whirled on one another’s arms, terra-cotta mugs of wine sloshing their golden liquid onto the cobbles of the
Mese
. A slave dressed in blue and gold stood on a
balcony over a bakery and dropped warm loaves dotted with sesame seeds into greedy hands. A few buildings down, another slave threw a shimmering confetti of polished copper
nummi
to the street so that people scarcely had time to snatch the coins from the ground before more rained upon their heads.

I had no idea what had caused the revelry, but I didn’t mind availing myself of the handouts. John sat wide-eyed in his sling on my hip as I tore some bread for him and slipped a few coins into my pocket.

“What’s going on?” I shouted at a woman whose hair had come loose from her veil with all her bobbing to the cobbles.

She brushed the drab strands from her face and laughed, revealing a row of brown teeth to match the trace of mustache on her upper lip. “Justinian is celebrating his consulship.”

“I thought Vitalian was consul.”

The woman ducked and pushed more
nummi
into her bodice, her chest studded with the round imprint of scores of coins, like the nipples of a many-breasted Artemis. “Did you just crawl out from under a rock?” she asked. “The Emperor and Justinian had Vitalian executed.”

That seemed to be a bad habit of theirs.

I turned to go, but the woman grabbed my arm, her eyes sparkling. “Don’t miss the games at the Hippodrome—there will be lions and leopards from Axum, maybe even giraffes.” She pinched John’s chubby cheek. “Your little man will love it!”

I smiled my thanks, but it wasn’t to the Hippodrome I went. Instead, I passed a dog baiting with several dead hounds and two more bloodied dogs in the ring to a building with a terrible list and a hideous red phoenix painted on its wall. It seemed strange that nothing had changed after my years away, a thought I found both comforting and disquieting.

Youths chased battered wagon wheels with sticks, and bent old crones lingered in doorways. I took the stairs to the top floor two at a
time, John clinging to me with one little fist while clutching his now-soggy bread in the other. To the right of the doorway was a new addition, a tiny wooden
mezuzah
, the Jewish box containing verses from the Old Testament. It was probably another of Antonina’s attempts to placate the world’s many gods. Perhaps this time I might manage to persuade her of the truth of God. I knocked on the door.

No answer.

I pounded again. They had to be home, not lost in Justinian’s ridiculous festivities. It had been so long and I’d come so far—

The door opened.

A man with a sharp nose peered at me, his tunica inside out and his feet bare. “Is Antonina here?” I asked. “Or Zenobia?”

He said something, not in Greek but some language I didn’t recognize. I switched to Latin and asked again, but he only shrugged.

I stood on tiptoes and tried to look over his shoulder. “Antonina?”

The door opened wide with a moan. A woman with dark hair stood behind him, clutching a fringed green
paludamentum
to her otherwise-bare chest. Not Antonina. She said something in the same foreign language. I pushed the door open, ignoring the angry shout from the man. “Tasia? Mother?”

But the room no longer belonged to them. A bright yellow scarf covered the lone window, and the dishes and linens were in orderly stacks that neither Mother nor Antonina would have tolerated. Only the brown stain on the ceiling and the black cloud of mold on the wall proved this was the same room.

“Sorry.” I held my hands up and backed away, jumping when the man slammed the door. Their muffled voices slipped through the cracks as I sat on the stair, unsure of what to do or where to go.

Dead. They must be dead.

“Theodora?” The door below me creaked open, and a familiar face poked out. It was Tasia’s Jewish wet nurse, balancing a filthy baby on her hip. “I thought I recognized your voice.”

“Esther!” I’d never been so happy to see a virtual stranger. “Where are Antonina and my mother?”

I held my breath, waiting for the bad news.

“Antonina married a while back.” Esther bit her lip. “I think she moved somewhere near Marcian’s Column.”

I was so happy I could have kissed her. So I did, much to her surprise. “You’re a saint!”

I fought my way back down the
Mese
, cursing Justinian and his worthless games all the way to Marcian’s marble column with its bronze statue of the forgettable Emperor. My back ached—John was as heavy as a watermelon in his sling, a melon that squirmed and pulled my hair.

After I asked several shopkeepers, a hiccupping wine seller—of course it would be a wine seller who knew where they lived—pointed me down a deserted side street to a ground-floor apartment. Outside the door was a blue and white mosaic of two sandals in a sort of floor mat; it was quite a step up from the building I’d just left. I rapped the tongue of the bronze lion doorknocker.

A slave answered, one with broad shoulders and hair the color of sunshine.

“Is this the home of Antonina?”

“The
kyria
is out for the afternoon.”

It must be terribly cold in Gehenna if Antonina owned slaves.

“I need to speak with her. Will she return after the games?”

“How much does she owe?” Coins jangled as the slave opened the purse at his hip.

“I’m not here to collect a debt. I just need to see her.” I tried to peer past him. “Is Tasia here? Or Zenobia?”

The slave only cocked his head and closed the coin purse. “You may wait in the atrium if you’d like.”

I wanted to see Antonina the moment she came down the street. She couldn’t be much longer.

“I’ll wait here.”

And wait I did. I had to bundle John in his extra pair of clothes as the sun drooped below the buildings. Antonina’s handsome slave brought us a tray of boiled vegetables and a crusty loaf of bread as John fussed, his hair sticking out in every direction, overdue for his nap and bored with the constant scenery of Antonina’s alley. His eyes finally closed as children’s shouts and squeals echoed down the street. A woman walked toward us surrounded by three children loping like gazelles and screeching like monkeys. As she came closer, I could make out another child flopped over her shoulder. The eldest—a boy of perhaps six with a gap where his front teeth should have been—wore Antonina’s sharp nose and thin lips. The two girls holding hands and skipping might have been twins in their matching blue tunicas. Except—

The older girl wore a daisy tucked behind her ear, her mahogany hair a dark halo over a heart-shaped face and rosy cheeks. My heart stalled when she glanced at me. Her eyes were like a mirror.

“Tasia.”

My daughter stopped skipping and looked to Antonina, the question clearly written in her eyes. She didn’t know me.

Antonina’s laugh bounced off the buildings. Her wooden cross had been replaced by one of hammered gold to match the thick bangles on her wrists. “By the gods! Look what the tide dragged in.”

“Donkey cart, actually.” I couldn’t take my eyes off the little girl before me. Her mouth was smudged with something sticky—honey perhaps—and her hair had gone curly. But she was mine, more than my own heart or lungs.

“All of you demons get inside.” Antonina swiped a stick from the boy’s hand and waved it over their heads amidst their giggles. “Or I’ll use this on your tails.”

She laid a gentle hand on my daughter’s shoulder as the others squealed and raced through the door. A slave girl rushed out to retrieve the baby from Antonina’s arms. He started to fuss until the girl
pulled out a heavy breast. Men were all the same, no matter what their age.

“I heard you fell out with Hecebolus,” Antonina said. “I figured you’d be back one of these days.” She peered at John, his mouth open as he twitched in his sleep. “You sing like a bullfrog and dance like a drunk elephant, but you make pretty babies.”

“At least I have one skill.”

“Auntie Nina.” Tasia laid a little hand on Antonina’s dress. Relief washed over me—I might have died if she’d called Antonina her mother. “May I go inside, too?”

Antonina crouched next to her and looked at me, as if trying to decide something. I nodded. “Tasia, do you remember how I told you your mother had gone far away, but she’d be back for you one day?”

She nodded and peered at me. I knelt to look her in the eyes, forcing myself not to pull her into my arms. “I’m your mother, Tasia. And this is your brother. His name is John.” I tilted him so she could see his face over the sling.

She smiled, revealing two perfect dimples. “He’s little. I like his hair.”

“He’s very excited to meet his new big sister,” I said.

I’d imagined this moment so many times; yet now I found I could scarcely speak. Antonina rescued me.

“Run inside and tell the slaves to pack you a trunk for tomorrow,” she said. “We’ll stay up all night—play games and tell stories, drink cherry juice and eat spoon sweets until our tummies hurt.”

Tasia’s little legs pumped to the door, but she stopped before ducking in. “Is it all right if I stop eating before my tummy hurts?”

“Of course, darling.”

I dashed the tears from my eyes. “She’s perfect. I don’t know how I can ever thank you.”

“She’s a good girl,” Antonina said. “Helps keep the others in line.”

“That’s quite the collection you have.”

“Timothy wants a whole litter. I couldn’t help but oblige him after he took in Photius and Tasia.”

“Photius?”

She motioned me out of the alley and into the atrium. I recognized the old statue of Bes with his painted smile and Athena’s wooden owl, his broken talon now repaired. Several new shrines had joined the collection: a pearl-studded cross with loaves of bread like an offering below the base, a golden statue of Apollo, and a flame burning in a hearth despite the warm night, probably dedicated to Hestia. Antonina shrugged her
paludamentum
into her blond slave’s waiting arms. His fingers lingered on her skin for a moment longer than necessary, and she gave him a slow smile. I cleared my throat, and she glanced back at me. “Photius is my son from my days treading the boards. Before I met you.”

“You never mentioned you had a son.”

“I told you Petronia made sure I got rid of Perseus’ baby. I only neglected to mention I’d had a child before that.” She shrugged. “I couldn’t bring myself to leave him at the gates. My mother’s sister took him in.” Antonina poured two glasses—not clay cups—from an amphora and handed one to me. “Timothy asked me to marry him just after you left. Kale was born in January.”

I’d left with Hecebolus in July. I did the math. “And you call me an alley cat?”

“I always thought the gods wouldn’t let me have any more children, but they seemed to think otherwise.” Her eyes flicked to the slaves as she switched from Greek to Latin. “Although I’m hoping for a bit of a dry spell before the next baby.” She walked to where the wet nurse suckled her youngest. “Zachariah here is almost a year old and looks passably enough like his father.” Antonina’s eyes followed her blond slave. “Hard to tell who that is sometimes.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

She shrugged. “Timothy’s off trading much of the time. My bed gets terribly cold.”

I sipped the wine—it was a good vintage but didn’t quite cover the bitter taste of my envy. “Is my mother here as well?”

Antonina set her glass down. “Oh, Theodora. Didn’t you get my letters?” She was back to speaking Greek but crossed herself. “Your mother died after I married Timothy.”