The Secret History: A Novel of Empress Theodora (51 page)

Across the room, tiny oil lamps sputtered in a golden shrine, a silver and amber cross shining with the lights of the flames. My son waited for me.

I clasped Sophia’s pale hand to her husband’s bronze one as the slaves retreated from the room. “Love each other.”

Justin kissed her hand. “We will,” he said.

Sophia blinked and nodded. “Just like you and the Emperor.”

Comito took their place, brushing my brow with her hand, now speckled with age spots. “You always had to make a scene, didn’t you?”

I smiled to cover a wince of pain, but doubted I fooled anyone. “An exit is more important than an entrance,” I said.

“Go easy,” Comito said, kissing my forehead. “And rest well.”

Justinian shut the door behind them and slipped to my bedside. We were alone. He sat on the mattress and stroked my hair. “We could have traveled to Bithynia,” he said. “Taken the waters or consulted astrologers.”

I pulled his hand to my lips, a Herculean effort. “It wouldn’t have made a difference.”

In twenty-seven years I had seen him cry only once, but now tears slipped down his cheeks unchecked. “You can’t die. I forbid it.”

“Since when have I ever obeyed?” I curled into myself as the barrage began anew.

“You are a brave woman, Theodora.” Justinian’s breath was warm on my ear, grounding me to this life. “And I’ve loved you all the more for it.”

“I love you.” I pushed the words past gritted teeth, grasping his hand in a vain attempt to shield my body from the onslaught. I squeezed his hand and forced my eyes to stay open, wanting to take the
image of his eyes as my last gift from this world. Flecks of gold in a mosaic of brown, larger now through his tears.

Then, just as I had done when I feared plague would claim him, Justinian climbed into my bed, fitting my body to his. He would shepherd me to greet my son and the rest of my family; he would usher me into the unknown.

And I would wait for him.

N
arses ducked to avoid the lace of cobwebs draped across the stone arch to the crypt of the Church of the Holy Apostles. The sweat and sea spray from the voyage from Italy still covered him, but his mind refused to believe what his eyes had already seen. The Sacred Palace had greeted his ships on the way to the Harbor of Eleutherious, but the sun of the Empire was draped in black. Such a display meant only one thing—Justinian was dead.

Seventeen years ago, Narses had watched through bleary eyes as Theodora’s body was lowered into her porphyry sarcophagus and tucked into the mausoleum below this church to join the bodies of Constantine, Theodosius, and Ariadne. An imperial purple shroud had draped her body, just as she’d requested so many years ago during the Nika riots, but even in death her chin had still seemed tilted in defiance. Theodora would never let something as trifling as death get the best of her. And yet her death almost got the best of her husband. Justinian had locked himself in her apartments with Theodora’s body until Narses threatened to break down the door. The Emperor’s back was stooped and his hair had gone white when he finally emerged, just
in time for the funeral. Narses recalled the ceremony, the city draped with black and the air choked with incense as the entire court came to pay homage to their Empress.

“No woman should hold such power,” one patrician had muttered during the funeral mass. “Justinian’s Empire was like one upside-down with her on the throne, with only demons wearing crowns.”

“I hope she burns for eternity,” another had replied—the historian Procopius. Theodora had been right in comparing him to a monkey.

Theodora wouldn’t burn—the devil wouldn’t wish to deal with a woman who could outsmart him. Narses touched the foot of her sarcophagus, reverently, like a lover. And he
had
loved her—it was impossible for any man not to love her or hate her, such was her power. The woman was not without fault, but it was beyond doubt that the Lord had made her to match men. Yet few men had ever wielded such power so well as Theodora.

Narses had feared Justinian might have wandered aimlessly without his wife, but if anything, the Emperor had lived the remaining years as if for both of them, even six years ago at the age of seventy-six going so far as to direct the battle outside Constantinople when the Kutrigur Huns attacked. And Justinian had never remarried—any other woman would have been a pale shadow in comparison to Theodora. Instead, the Emperor wore the gold wedding band inscribed with her name until the day he died, where it almost certainly still remained.

Narses lit a lamp, the burning oil overpowering the musty smell of death. Only the sound of his sword bumping against his creaking hip broke the silence of the tomb. Justinian’s gleaming sarcophagus sat in the middle of the dusty mausoleum, a marble statue of the Emperor in repose on the top. Narses didn’t kneel—surely Justinian would excuse his lack of decorum if it meant an old man might not rise again—and placed the flickering lamp on the cold stone.

“Rest well, Augustus,” he said. He lingered for only a moment
before moving to the purple and gold sarcophagus at Justinian’s right. Dried Nazareth irises lay atop Theodora’s sarcophagus, their rare petals scattered about the floor. Justinian’s final gift to her—he had made no secret that he had visited her tomb every week since her death and always left an iris for her.

“Rest well, Augusta.” Narses leaned on his cane to kiss the cold marble. “And wherever you are now, try not to cause too much trouble.”

T
he majority of events and title of this book are borrowed from the work of Procopius of Caesarea, the primary historian during Justinian’s reign. While Procopius lauded Justinian’s accomplishments in his official works,
History of the Wars
and
Buildings
, he also wrote another unofficial account of Justinian’s reign,
The Secret History
, which was understandably kept hidden during his life and only rediscovered in 1623 in the Vatican Library. It is from this work that we learn of Theodora’s early life on Constantinople’s stage and how she met Justinian and eventually became Empress of the late Roman—or Byzantine as it is called in modern times—Empire. Procopius used
The
Secret History
to malign both Theodora and Justinian (among others); it was he who recorded that Theodora would sleep with her fellow partygoers and their servants—up to thirty men in one night—and still not satisfy her lust. Procopius also called Justinian a demon and claimed the Emperor’s head would temporarily disappear from his body while he paced his throne room, only to magically reappear. (It may be wise to take much of Procopius’ vitriol with a hefty dose of salt.)

Most events and all the major characters in this book are a
reflection of the historical record, with a few twists. Theodora really did perform the salacious
Leda and the Swan
routine, follow Hecebolus to Pentapolis before he threw her out (although he almost certainly never slept with Comito), and contend with Empress Euphemia (whose name I kept as Lupicina, her name before becoming Empress, so as not to confuse her with Euphemia, John of Cappadocia’s daughter). Theodora turned the tide at Nika with her famous speech to Justinian and essentially ran the Empire while he was ill with bubonic plague, including dealing with Belisarius’ attempt to become the next Emperor. I am deeply indebted to H. B. Dewing’s translation of
History of the Wars
and Richard Atwater’s translation of
The Secret History
for their insight into these subjects. However, due to the many years covered in the novel, I elected to start off Theodora’s story at a more mature age than what Procopius recorded. In truth, Theodora was less than seven years old when she begged before the Greens and not much older when her mother put her on the stage.

There were also several characters from history that I merged in the story.
The
Secret History
alludes to a mysterious son named John who was abandoned by Theodora, but who returned to the capital as a grown man to meet his mother. Theodora supposedly feared Justinian would discover the truth of her illegitimate son, so John was sent away with one of her servants, never to be seen or heard from again. Procopius also mentions an attractive young man named Areobindus who served as Theodora’s steward and who disappeared after displeasing Theodora. While it is extremely unlikely that the two disappearances were connected in reality, the idea of Theodora sacrificing her son, only to lose him a second time, captured my imagination early on while I was researching her life.

There are two Macedonias mentioned by Procopius, one a dancer in Antioch who wrote a letter introducing Theodora to Justinian, and the other a servant of Antonina’s who leaked information about her mistress’ affair with Theodosius. Antonina promptly cut out the servant’s
tongue, chopped the rest of her into tiny bits, and threw them into the sea. It didn’t seem much of a stretch to combine the two women into a single, doomed character.

In the interest of clarity, I took the liberty of blending several religious figures from history. Both Severus and Timothy, the Patriarch of Alexandria, left their stamp on Theodora’s religious beliefs during her stay in the Egyptian city. Only Severus plays a role in the novel, but he carries many of Timothy’s traits, including his visits to the anchorite hermits living in the Egyptian desert. And while there was no single known stylite perched on a marble column during Theodora’s reign, there were many stylite monks in the surrounding years, the most colorful of whom were Saint Alypius and two Saint Simeons (the Elder and the Younger). Theodora did ask a ninety-year-old ascetic monk, Saint Sabas, to pray for her to conceive Justinian’s heir and was rebuffed due to her Monophysite beliefs, but Saint Sabas was not a stylite.

The scenes between Theodora and Amalasuntha are entirely products of my imagination. Amalasuntha did write to Justinian to receive his protection (and provide a perfect excuse for him to finally invade and reconquer Italy), but there is no evidence that she ever visited Constantinople. However, Procopius recorded rumors that Theodora arranged Amalasuntha’s murder from afar, so I couldn’t resist the firestorm that would inevitably occur by pitting the two powerful women against each other face-to-face.

Theodora had many enemies, including Belisarius, whom she never trusted. She managed to convince her husband to suspect him as well, especially after he was offered the crown in Ravenna. The rivalry between Theodora and John the Cappadocian was well recorded by Procopius, although I doubt her supposed son factored into their hatred for each other. The mob at Nika did call for John the Cappadocian’s removal (along with Justinian’s other unpopular minister, Tribonium), and it was Antonina and Theodora who finally brought him
down, using his daughter to convince him that Antonina and Belisarius sought to topple Justinian’s throne. He was finally exiled after being suspected of the murder of the bishop of Cyzicus, but he was recalled to Constantinople after Theodora’s death.

I imagine Theodora as a woman of passion. She despised and punished those she saw as a threat to her or her husband, but she rewarded those who were loyal. She and Antonina enjoyed a lifelong friendship that ended only with Theodora’s death, and Theodora and Justinian shared a deep love, one never questioned by their contemporaries or modern historians. I hope that I have been faithful to her character.

I first came across Theodora’s story while teaching world history, a subject rife with accounts of bloody wars and the accomplishments of well-known men. The rather scant textbook chapter on the Byzantine Empire included Constantine’s vision at the Battle of Milvian Bridge, iconoclasts, and a lonely sentence about an actress-turned-Empress who saved her husband’s throne. This, of course, was a reference to Theodora’s speech during the Nika revolt. Since then, I have sought out several forgotten women in history, including an Egyptian pharaoh and the wife and daughters of Genghis Khan, determined to breathe new life into their fascinating life stories.

My sincere thanks go out to everyone who had a hand in this manuscript, and there are many. I am immensely grateful to Renee Yancy and Jade Timms for slogging through an early draft—no mean feat—and I owe a huge thank-you to Vicki Tremper and Amalia Dillin for their comments and suggestions. Gary Corby, an expert on all things historical and writing related, has been a good friend and sounding board since this novel’s inception. Also to my super-agent, Marlene Stringer, and my amazing editor, Ellen Edwards, both of whom deserve some sort of monument for all their work on this novel. Finally, thank you to Elizabeth Bistrow, Jane Steele, and Maryellen O’Boyle at NAL for helping to bring this book to life.