by Marié Heese
Yet there was no mistaking the chill that had entered their relationship, nor was there mistaking the ongoing withdrawal of all the new acquaintances who had been so keen to be invited to the palace on the hill. Even Denderis, thought Theodora, even Denderis was suddenly elusive; he listened to her instructions with downcast eyes and sidled from the room where she was as quickly as he could.
She had to know what had happened to change her world.
Chapter 14: Darkest night
Hecebolus was away from home, engrossed in a complicated deal involving properties near the harbour. He was due back, but she wanted the matter cleared up before he arrived. Father Rufus said he had no idea what was going on, he’d been in bed with influenza and he hadn’t been downtown for weeks. She confronted her major-domo.
“Denderis,” she said. “No – don’t go, I have not dismissed you … I am not pleased.”
“What have I neglected to do, Kyria?” He barely raised his eyes to the height of her knees.
“You have not been honest with me. I thought you were my friend.”
He dug a sandalled toe into the floor, almost taking out the eye of a satyr that gambolled in the mosaic. “I don’t understand, Kyria,” he mumbled.
“I think you understand me perfectly. You’re not a fool. Why is everybody ignoring and avoiding me? Have I suddenly developed leprosy?”
“No, Kyria. I don’t think …”
“Don’t try to deny it. It is perfectly obvious. You must tell me.”
He wriggled in distress. “Please, Kyria …”
“Talk to me!”
He stood mute.
“I’ll not be met with silence! I’ll have you flogged!”
His eyes snapped up to meet hers. He held her black-eyed glare. “They’re saying you’re a whore,” he said. “All over town.”
She took a deep breath. “But that … has probably been said before. People know we are not married. They may even know that I … that I was … kept by a protector, before. That kind of arrangement is not unknown. Why suddenly …”
“Not just a kept woman,” he said. “A whore. A strumpet. One who slept with many men, even in one night. Not only for money. Because she wanted to.”
Theodora had no words. Nausea threatened to overcome her. She reached out to the back of a chair to hold herself upright.
“Many men,” he reiterated. “All the time. I knew it must be a lie, Kyria. A vile calumny. But …”
“Who started it?” she asked. “Where did this come from?”
“A ship came in,” he told her, “from Constantinople. And there were some legal fellows on board. They have been telling everybody these tales, Kyria. They claim they have a friend who knew you well, and he told them. He told them that you … often serviced an entire dinner party. And then moved on to their servants. An insatiable whore, they’re saying. Is what you are.”
“Oh, God!” groaned Theodora. “Procopius!”
There were footsteps in the atrium. Hecebolus was back. “Theodora!” he bellowed. “Theodora!”
Denderis scuttled out of the way.
The master of the house stood in the doorway with a buckled belt in his hand. “So!” he said. “You wish you had more orifices, do you? Do you? You two-faced lying slut! You greedy gold-digging cunt! You sick, sordid, sex-bedevilled whore! I’ll give you orifices!” Snap, went the belt as he whacked a chair out of his way, cracking its frame.
“How many men have you fucked behind my back?” he bellowed. “How many? How many!”
“I … I haven’t … I never …”
“Liar! While I was away! How – many!” The next whack caught her across the arms, as she tried to protect herself from his furious onslaught. He thrashed her with the buckled end; the metal bit into her shrinking skin. He backed her into a corner as if driving a wild bear into a cage. “Whore!” he yelled with every lash. “Whore! Whore!” The vicious buckle tore at her until she bled from numerous cuts. She howled with pain, but there was no help to be had; no mercy, no escape. She could only weep and endure.
Finally he stopped, out of breath. His deep chest heaved. She crouched at his booted feet. “Please, Hecebolus,” she moaned. “Please stop. Please.”
“I could kill you. I should kill you.”
“Please, Hecebolus!”
“Kiss my feet,” he ordered. “Go on, do it.”
She bent her head and kissed his dusty boots.
“Tell me you’re worthless. Tell me you’re a whore.”
“I’m … I’m … worthless. Please, Hecebolus!”
“And you’re a whore. Go on, admit it, say it!” He whacked her crouching back with the biting belt.
“I’m a whore!” she screamed. “I’m a whore, I’m a whore!”
“So show me,” he demanded. “Be a whore! Pull up your skirts, be naked, be a whore!”
She obeyed with shaking hands.
“I don’t want to see your face. Go on your knees. Turn away from me. Go on.”
She knelt. He took her violently like a dog. Then he yanked her to her feet and hauled her off, stumbling, to a slave’s small room off the kitchen. He threw her onto a musty pallet and kicked her hunched, quivering body three times for good measure. Thud. Thud. Thud. Then he stomped out and locked the door.
“There you’ll stay!” he yelled. “I’ll have you thrown into jail for indecency! And you’ll never see your child again! Never! You’re not fit to be a mother!” His furious riding boots clumped away.
She sat and shivered uncontrollably. Her tongue tasted salt liquid. Blood or tears. Not sure which. She shook so hard that her teeth rattled. Pain and shock filled her entire consciousness. She wept, and rocked, and rocked, and wept. After a while she seemed to have used up all her tears. She mopped her face with the hem of her tunic. Her eyeballs hurt. She exhaled in faint moans. The small cell began to grow dark and the dank air chill. She looked around for a blanket or some kind of wrap. There was nothing. She huddled on the bare pallet. Not thinking. Not waiting. Just being.
Pain throbbed and burned. Time passed.
Until, gradually, silence descended, as the noises of the palace going about its business died down. No more voices shouting orders, no more footfalls, no more clash and clatter of buckets and pots and pans. Soon the silence was complete. It weighed her down like an enormous, smothering blanket.
The mass of pain that was her body began to resolve itself into separate hurts. Her arms, with which she had tried to fend off the lashes, burned all over. Another focus was the small of her back. Her stomach, that had sustained two of the booted kicks, ached terribly. Then she became aware of a kind of rhythm to the pain. It began at the back, then surged around to the front until she groaned aloud. Then it abated slightly. Began again. Surged. Clawed. She screamed. Then she felt hot wetness between her thighs. She tried to stem it with her bare hands, fruitlessly. Brought them to her nose, smelled fresh blood, that unmistakable hot, metallic smell. She was aborting. Good. Good. Wouldn’t bear his child. Would not. Her entire body writhed in a relentless urge to be rid of every last vestige of Hecebolus.
Eventually the surges stopped. She lay gasping for breath and shivering. At last she grew a little calmer. Went on lying there, islanded in silence.
Then two new thoughts made their way into her consciousness: Must get. Juliana. Must get. Away. Must get. Juliana. Must get. Away.
She staggered to her feet, able to see outlines in the weak moonlight that shone in through the small window. Inched her way over to the door. Tried the knob, just to make sure. Solidly locked. She leaned against it. There was no way out. She slid to the floor. A cloud crept over the moon. Now it was pitch dark. She lay there: breathing. Time passed.
A faint grey wash of light suggested that morning was on its way.
A whisper came: “Kyria!”
“Denderis!”
The key grated in the lock as the heavy door swung open. Denderis slipped inside, bearing a cloak and a satchel.
“SShhh! Kyria
, listen. You must flee this place. He’s going to throw you in jail. The militia will come for you soon.” He put out his hand and pulled her to her feet. She stood, swaying.
“No-where,” she mumbled. “Nowhere to go.”
“God, look at you! Covered in blood! The man’s a fiend. ” He wrapped the cloak around her hurriedly. “You can take a ship. To Alexandria. We’ll smuggle you out. Father Rufus is going, he’ll take you with him.”
“But Juliana,” she objected, as her dull mind began to clear. “I can’t … I can’t leave Juliana. Where is she? What’s he done with her?”
“Took her to Marcellina. Don’t know what his plan is. But you can fetch her, on the way. Marcellina knows. I’ve packed some things.”
This was a different Denderis, not the anxious, fussy person she knew. Some small hope began to glimmer. “Hasn’t he set a guard?”
“One, but I’ve bribed him, he’s gone blind and deaf. Come, you must come now. No time to clean you up, no time to eat, but I put some fruit and bread in here. Follow me.”
She took the hand he held out. Forced her stiff and painful legs to walk. “Where did you get the key?”
“I’m the major-domo. I am in charge of keys. Come on!”
She followed him through winding back passageways, past malodorous sacks of garbage, into a small courtyard. There stood a donkey-cart piled with cabbages, the driver hunched in a ragged cloak, smoking an evil-smelling pipe.
Denderis pushed her up onto the seat beside the morose peasant. “Go now,” he ordered, “you’ve been told where to stop. Kyria, keep the cloak over your head.”
“Juliana,” she said, and shivered in the chilly morning air. She wrapped her arms around her aching body, her bloody hands clutching at the cloak.
“We’re going to fetch her.”
The driver shook the reins, said “Whup!” and the donkey brayed and farted. “Whup! Whup!” The cart creaked and groaned and clattered forward over the cobbles. Denderis trotted alongside. Theodora breathed shallowly, pressing her arms against her ribs, which flared with pain at every jolt.
“Round the back,” Denderis instructed the driver when they reached Marcellina’s home. “This is a market cart, we’re delivering vegetables. Tradesmen’s entrance.” The cart rolled around the huge pile of stone and creaked to a stop outside the kitchen. Slaves were up and about; there were fires to make, there was bread dough to knead, water to boil. Cabbages to unload.
Denderis passed a message through the kitchen door. They waited. The sky paled. The donkey farted and produced a stream of ordure. The peasant smoked. Theodora trembled. Denderis stood next to the cart and took her hand. “I’m sorry, Kyria,” he muttered. “Sorry I couldn’t … didn’t do anything. So sorry. So sorry.”
“You’re helping me now,” she said. She clung to his hand.
Then the door opened and Marcellina came out with Juliana wrapped in a woollen blanket, her black curls tousled, her eyes heavy with sleep. “Mama! Mama!” she cried, and threw herself into Theodora’s arms. “Mama!”
Theodora received the warm, surprisingly heavy bundle with a gasp of joy and a stab of pain. She hugged her daughter closely, inhaling the beloved familiar scent of her. Juliana locked her arms and legs around her mother like a small monkey.
“This is all errant nonsense, my dear girl, I know that,” boomed Marcellina. Her thick bush of brown hair stood up like wires. “Don’t know what’s got into the men. But my husband … you know …”
“I know,” said Theodora. “Oh, God, Marcellina …”
“You go, lovey. Just leave the bastard. Put his own child into an orphanage, would he? Orphanage, my eye. Father Rufus will look after you, never fear.”
“Marcellina … thank you.”
“Here, take this. Just to tide you over. No arguments, now. Go now. Go.” She tucked a small brown purse into Theodora’s satchel.
“Whup,” said the driver and blew out smoke. The cart rattled into movement.
“Den,” wailed Juliana. She unlocked one arm to reach out to him. “Den!”
“Den can’t come,” he said, trotting alongside. “Bye now. Bye-bye, my darling. Be good.”
“You’ll get into terrible trouble,” said Theodora. “He’ll kill you.”
“No, he won’t. I’m valuable. Good major-domos are hard to come by. He’ll be glad to be rid of you. I’ll survive. Goodbye … God bless … goodbye …”
“Goodbye … thank you, thank you …”
Down and down they went, along the broad thoroughfare, past the baths, the shops, the forum, the main basilica; past the statues, the fountains, the parks, the trees, until the entire city dissolved into the mist that swirled up from the sea, grey as pewter in the early light, gulls screeching overhead. Everything smelled of cabbage.
The journey was hellish. The weather was bad; Theodora remained weak and went on dribbling blood. She had to tear the silk tunic that had been stained and shredded by the beating into strips that she rolled and stuffed between her legs. Denderis had packed a herbal salve in the satchel, but still some of her wounds festered. For some days she was extremely feverish and hardly knew where she was. Her entire body ached. She would have wished for the ship to go down, taking her with it into oblivion, had it not been for the child, who needed her. Juliana had been born with a calm spirit and a loving one. During the day she was happy to be taken into the care of various strange women who saw the state her mother was in. But at night-time she would become querulous; she called for Den and clung to her mother. Theodora had to hum the tune of her favourite lullaby before the child would fall asleep, thumb in mouth.
Father Rufus had paid their fares as well as his own, but they hardly saw him, since they were quartered below deck with the women on one side of a canvas curtain, men on the other. No special cabin this time. Theodora seldom had the strength to go out on deck, which was usually covered in windswept spume. The handful of solidi in Marcellina’s purse helped them to survive; they were able to buy bedding from another passenger, who seemed to have brought all her worldly goods, and some fruit from an enterprising farmer’s wife with bags of produce for sale.
They made good time with a strong following wind, but then a storm blew up and lashed the sea into a boil; the gale was so vicious that they had to stow the sail and ride out the tremendous waves that time after time almost stood the ship on end. Below deck everyone was seasick and everything was tossed and rolled about, including the passengers. It seemed impossible that they would ever reach land.
Yet eventually the angry sea relented. At last, the rough journey came to an end as the battered ship, listing to port, crept safely into harbour. Father Rufus took Theodora and Juliana to a convent belonging to the Coptic Church in the centre of Alexandria. They were given into the care of one Sister Margaret, a tiny nun with bright blue eyes.
Father Rufus would stay at a nearby monastery. “I’m here to stay now,” he said. “I’ll be nearby. The good sisters will look after you.”
It seemed to the weary Theodora that the ground still heaved beneath her feet and all she wanted to do was to lie down and die.
Sister Margaret, who besides being very small was very old and spoke little, made a bed for Juliana in a crate that had brought oranges from Jericho and still smelled of citrus. She placed it next to the simple cot upon which Theodora collapsed, went away and silently returned with thin, hot chicken soup. Then she sat on a straight-backed chair in the corner of the tiny room and patiently fed Juliana from a tin cup, holding it in a small gnarled paw that shook a little but spilled nothing. Next she brought a basin with warm, soapy water and washed the child gently. Then she put her into the crate and patted the thin coverlet into place. “God bless,” she said.
Juliana was safe, thought Theodora. They were both safe. She fell into sleep as if into a deep, dark void.
She came to herself with the awareness of music. Voices singing. Pure, clear, disembodied voices with no accompaniment. Angels, she thought. A cho
ir of heavenly angels. The sound seemed to reach out to her, seemed to lift her up and away from the sordid earth. Her suffering spirit soared and floated in bliss. Then the singing stopped.
Reluctantly, she opened her eyes and focused on her hands on the white coverlet. Her nails were filthy. Then she looked at her arms, discoloured with fading yellow and green bruises.
Ah well, not in heaven yet. Still on earth with nowhere to go.
Theodora looked around her and took stock. The crate was empty, with no sign of Juliana. But she’d be safe, the nuns would not let harm come to her. A brilliant blade of sunlight speckled with dancing motes stabbed through the single, curtainless window. Clearly, she must have slept for a long time. She noted white-washed walls, a simple cross of dark wood and bare board floors scented with beeswax. One bed. One upright wooden chair with a small, rough towel folded on the seat. Chamber pot, smelly. Washbasin and pitcher, steaming gently. Slop bucket.
Ah, she could wash herself. She did so, gratefully, and assessed the state of her battered body. No broken bones, good. Bruises and marks fading. There were still a few festering sores, but she had stopped bleeding. The unscented soap foamed well and she washed herself thoroughly, then anointed the sores with what remained of the salve. She felt clean and new, if still somewhat shaky.
The satchel hung on a hook against the wall. She took it down to see what Denderis had included. He had packed clothing that belonged to some domestic, she realised, for there were only a couple of plain roughspun tunics, and some of Juliana’s simplest frocks. Theodora rummaged further and right at the bottom of the satchel discovered the gold chain Hecebolus had given her when they first met. Ah, good! It would help to keep them, she thought, if they could sell it. There were still a few coins in Marcellina’s purse.
She eased herself into one of the tunics. For the first time in weeks, she was hungry. There was a tray beside the bed with plain bread and a mug of milk. She reached for it greedily. She stuffed the bread into her mouth, munched on the crisp crust and took big gulps from the thick mug. She wiped the last few crumbs up with her finger.
