Justinian did want me. And I wanted him more than I’d ever wanted a man before. Yet—
“I thought you said the men who pursued me were fools.” I tried to keep my voice light, but I still hadn’t worked out Justinian’s meaning that night.
“I’d thought that was obvious.”
He bent his head and kissed me until I could scarcely think; yet somehow I managed to pull back and draw a shaky breath. “Enlighten me.”
“They let you go. I won’t make the same mistake.”
His thumb caressed my lip, drawing out the moment as the waves slapped the shore below. He knew what he was doing to me. And I could tell he was enjoying every moment.
“This is your chance, Theodora. If there’s anyone else—”
I almost laughed, but he was serious. I recalled the shadowy figure outside the Palace of Hormisdas that first night when I’d left with the Cappadocian, and Narses’ whispers in Justinian’s ear after John’s demotion.
All this time he’d thought the Cappadocian was competition.
I kissed his palm and straddled him, not caring if I seemed wanton. “In case you haven’t noticed, I rather enjoy the company of an ill-mannered nephew of a swineherd.” I leaned down to whisper in his ear. “There is only you. And I want you. Now.”
Something rumbled deep in his chest. “The watchmen would probably enjoy the show.”
“I don’t think I care.”
His kiss was enough to make me hike up my stola right there, but he managed to pull me to my feet. We ran along the wall hand in hand, ducking into dark alcoves to taste each other, Justinian’s lips on my neck and the swell of my breasts, his hands digging into the bones of my hips as I arched into him.
The ride through the city’s deserted streets was exquisite torture. Narses took one look at us in the palace courtyard and snapped his fingers so the atrium was deserted when we entered. Shedding clothes up the marble stairs, Justinian let his teeth tease my nipples through the silk of my stola while my fingers struggled with the knot under his tunica. I finally pulled him on top of me.
“Here,” I said, breathing into his ear as I wrapped my legs around him. “I need you now.”
He laid me back against the cold stone steps, lifting me to meet him. His first thrust filled me so entirely I screamed in pleasure, clinging to him as further waves crashed over me until my body became too heavy to move.
Later, he carried me to his room and spread me on the bed, peeling off my stola and drawing out each caress as he traced the curve of my throat, the sweep of my collarbone, the naked hollows of my hips. He slipped into the wetness between my legs, and I arched against him.
I woke to the scratching of a pen on paper and the dim light of an oil lamp. Justinian sat at his desk, his wool robe open to show his bare chest.
I stretched lazily on the bed. “Don’t you ever sleep?”
He chuckled and set down his pen, taking in my every curve. “Not very often.”
I left the feathered mattress and padded over to him, sitting my bare backside on a letter to the bishop in Rome. I tugged open his robe to reveal the sparsely scattered hair that tapered to a dark line. “I think the pope can wait.”
His lips trailed along my ribs, stopping to kiss the mole under my left breast and then lifting me onto his lap. “I think you’re right.”
…
I woke to dawn’s rosy fingers creeping between the shutters. It took a moment to realize where I was, that the warmth I’d curled into during the night was not one of my children. I’d never woken next to a man before, but it was something I could grow accustomed to. Justinian’s bare chest rose and fell, his face relaxed with sleep. He was a man it would be easy to love.
I shoved the thought away. Loving this man could only bring me ruin. I’d given Justinian my body, but not my heart. Never my heart. I’d learned that lesson too well already.
My borrowed stola made me shiver, my skin craving Justinian’s warmth as I attempted to repin my hair before the gilded mirror.
“Where are you going?” Apparently Justinian excelled at faking sleep, his eyes still closed with one arm bent under his head.
“Home.”
He rose from bed in one smooth movement, his body deliciously bare, and pushed the black rope of hair over my shoulder to kiss the nape of my neck. “Stay a little longer?”
Already my body started to react, that heat like wine flooding through my blood. “I can’t.”
I thought I caught a momentary flash of annoyance, but then his face relaxed. He looked at my reflection in the mirror. “Tasia.”
I nodded.
He let my hair fall and wrapped his arms around my waist. “I’ll have Narses set up a room for you.”
My fingers fumbled with the cheap clasp on my brooch. “What?”
“He can arrange for your things to be brought over today.”
“You want me to move here?”
“Unless you don’t want to.” Justinian took the brooch from my shaking hands and pinned it at my shoulder.
I managed to keep breathing. “You’re too loose with your purse, temperamental as a goat, and smell like an inkpot. Why would I want to live with you?”
“Asks the woman with a temper like an ill-behaved mule.” Justinian chuckled and stepped back as if to give me space. “It’s your decision, Theodora, but as I said, I don’t intend to let you go now that I’ve caught you. I’ll bribe you with sausage to keep you here if I have to.”
“And Tasia?”
“There’s an old nursery that can be arranged for Tasia. And her mangy kitten. I’ll hire tutors to teach her Ptolemy, Plato, and Aristotle—she’ll receive an education worthy of a prince.” Justinian tucked a curl behind my ear. “And I can help you arrange a good marriage for her when she’s old enough.”
A marriage for Tasia, but not for me. Antonina’s warning filled my mind.
“I’m sorry she’s not a boy.”
“Why?”
I wanted to look away. “I’m sure you’d prefer I bring a son into your house.”
Justinian looked at me so closely I was sure he could see the lie in my heart. “A son of yours would complicate matters.”
“How so?”
“My succession is not entirely secure. I’ve arranged for the Emperor’s other nephew, Germanus, to take up the magistrate of Thraciae so he’s conveniently out of town when the question arises.” He glanced at me, pausing as if choosing his words. “However, a son of yours would not be popular with the Senate.”
“Because of who I was.”
“No, because it would be best if the future line to the throne is straight.” He splashed his face with water from a bronze basin and shrugged into a brown tunica. “I don’t care about your past, Theodora. I plan to make you a powerful woman.”
That piqued my interest, but I felt guilty for even contemplating the idea. “Powerful?”
“Beyond your wildest dreams.” He kissed me, but my mind was so full I scarcely noticed. “I’ll see you tonight.”
My daughter’s future secure. One of the Empire’s most influential men in my bed. Yet how could I sacrifice one child for the other?
Chapter 19
“W ho is he?” Antonina asked, arms akimbo. I’d rather be flayed alive than tell Antonina I was sleeping with the future Emperor. I didn’t care to listen to a fresh tirade on my stupidity—I was well versed in the subject.
I hadn’t gone straight home after leaving the Palace of Hormisdas, but I barely managed to duck into the Church of the Holy Apostles before I started sobbing. The sleeves and neck of my stola were drenched before I could lift my head long enough to look around. The Virgin stared at me from a delicate gold reliquary box set into the side chapel.
“How could you do this to me, Mary?” I wiped the snot from my nose as the tears started afresh. “What kind of mother has to choose between her children?” My raised voice brought a priest running, but one look at me sent him scuttling away.
I
drew a ragged breath and crossed myself, glaring at the Virgin’s serene face. She held the Christ Child on her lap, and both were lit with halos of divine light. God had sacrificed His Son, but so too had Mary lost her child. Surely she knew what path I should take. Leaving Tasia had been hard enough, but now to abandon John? What kind of mother was I to even think of doing such a thing?
But perhaps my choice needn’t be forever; I might be able to tell Justinian the truth later. Life threatened only never-ending drudgery for all of us if I rejected his offer, but it offered golden opportunities if I accepted him as my patron, even if it was only for a short time before he tired of me. A marriage for Tasia. Her education. The chance to live with one of the most intelligent, interesting men I’d ever met. I’d be able to send money to Antonina to pay for John’s education. These were opportunities I’d be a fool to ignore.
“Am I making the right choice?” I searched Mary’s face for an answer, but she continued to gaze at her Son, the smallest hint of a smile on her lips.
And so I made up my mind and left the church, hoping one day my son might forgive me.
I closed my trunk and glanced at Antonina. “You’ll find out who he is soon enough.” I motioned to John, and he toddled over, his rhinoceros horn of hair as spiky as ever. “Be a good boy for Auntie Nina, all right?”
My son was scarcely two—memories of me would shift like quicksilver and be easily replaced. He nodded, and I pulled him into my arms, covering his little face with kisses until he laughed and the tears slipped from my eyes. “You can send letters to my old address—they might take a few days to get to me.” I’d sold one of the silver bangles the Cappadocian had sent this morning, accompanied with a letter telling me of his current travels. If he ever returned, I could claim I’d never received them. The money paid the landlord through the end of the year so I could exchange word with Antonina about John. And have a place to go when Justinian threw me out.
I took the other silver bangle from my arms and pressed it into Antonina’s hands. “I’ll send money as soon as I tell him—”
“John will be fine. It will probably take Timothy at least a month to realize he’s even there. I might even be able to convince him he’s forgotten siring the mite.” She chuckled but fell serious when she saw my face. “Don’t worry, Theodora. You came back for Tasia, didn’t you, and look how well that turned out.”
I made as hasty an exit as I could, sparing a kiss for my angel. My heart cried for him as it had when I’d left Tasia, but this time I wouldn’t be at the ends of the earth, but in the same city as my son, securing his future.
At least that was what I told myself.
…
It poured one night a week later, spring thunder growling in the distance and the occasional flash of lightning streaking the sky to illuminate Justinian’s chambers. I marveled at how perfectly our bodies fit together, how I could happily spend eternity wrapped in his arms.
I was less than amused when he sat up and shrugged a tunica over his head. I patted the empty space next to me. “Work will wait until tomorrow.”
He held a hand out to me. “Come with me.”
I sat up and pulled the sheet to my chin. “Where?”
“Outside.”
“It’s raining.”
He chuckled. “You’re afraid of a little lightning?”
“No. I’d just rather not get drenched.”
“I promise to warm you up afterward.”
I pursed my lips but slipped my wrinkled stola back over my head. “This had better be good.”
The warm needles of rain made me gasp. Justinian covered me with his body, his breath warm on my ear. “You have no idea how happy you make me, Theodora.”
“We can be happy inside.” I tried to shield my eyes, but it was no use against the onslaught. Thunder rumbled in the distance. He clasped my hand to stop me from leaving, and pulled something from the pocket of his tunica. At first I couldn’t quite make out what he held, it was so small, but then a flash of lightning illuminated the shape.
A gold ring with his insignia pressed into the metal.
I gasped, and for a moment the rain seemed to stop, the tapering droplets like fragments of stars slowly falling to earth.
“I commissioned a marriage belt in your size to match this,” he said. The rain crashed down again so rivulets of water ran down his nose, his hair plastered to his head. “Will you marry me, Theodora?”
Impossible. This man couldn’t possibly want to marry me. And then I remembered—
“Don’t toy with me.” I stepped out of his arms. “You couldn’t marry me even if you wanted to. The law forbids it.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m in a fairly good position to change a law or two.”
“Only the Emperor can overturn the law. And he may not want his heir marrying a woman like—”
“Like what?”
“Like me. I’m an actress, a pleb. I have a daughter—” My voice broke as I thought of my son. This man was offering me the world with an open heart, and I’d already deceived him.
Justinian caressed my wet cheek with one hand. “I don’t care what anyone thinks. I love you, and I want to marry you.”
I wanted to say yes, to throw caution to the sky and let myself fall in love with this man. To become his wife. But I could only shake my head.
“I’ll say it again.” He pulled me to him. “I want to marry you. I want you to sit beside me on the throne and tell me when I’m spending too much money, to grow old with you and bicker about what socks I’m to wear and which monuments to build to ourselves.” He tipped my chin back so I could see his eyes, the edges glimmering with gold and rimmed with wet lashes. “I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
I swallowed hard, glad for the rain that hid the tears streaming down my cheeks. There was another rumble of thunder as I spoke, one bittersweet word that might torment me for the rest of my days.
“Yes.”
Justinian moved to sweep me into his arms, but I skittered away. “Under one condition.”
“Anything.”
“We tell no one until your uncle has given his consent.” I held up my hand to stop his protest. “I won’t jeopardize your position as heir.”
“That’s really your concern?”
One of many, but I nodded.
He kissed my knuckles. “Then I’ll simply have to persuade my uncle to change the law.”
My fingers closed around his, locking the ring in his fist. He’d keep his ring, and I’d keep my heart until possibility became reality.
Until then, it couldn’t hurt to dream.
…
“They say you’ve bewitched the consul with black magic.” Narses leaned against a table as slaves laid out a tray of cured ham and sweet melon to break my fast. I’d risen early, but Justinian had already gone, so I had spent the first rays of sunlight reading a letter from Antonina. She reported that John had fallen from the top of her stairway while playing King of the Mountain. He was fine, but Antonina had been there to kiss the goose egg on his head instead of me.
“If I knew black magic, I’d have used it years ago.” I let the flame of an oil lamp devour the letter and ignored Narses’ watchful eye. I was almost certain he knew of Justinian’s proposal. I’d developed a grudging appreciation for the eunuch—he had thrown his lot in with me, so it only seemed fair.
A slave swept a vivid blue paludamentum around my shoulders and pinned it with a lapis bird perched on a gold needle. I let another slave massage my feet before stepping into calfskin slippers soft as butter.
Narses scrutinized me. “I’ll arrange for Justinian to order some emeralds for tonight’s dinner here with the Emperor.”
I choked on air. “Dinner with the Emperor?”
He folded his arms in front of him, his face a mask. “Emperor Justin wishes to meet you. I’m sure you were informed of the dinner days ago.”
I threw a slipper at him, but he dodged
it. “You know you didn’t tell me. Neither did Justinian.”
Narses picked up the slipper and dangled it before me. “No point worrying you—we don’t want you to come down with indigestion.”
“Would that get me out of the meal?”
“I imagine not. The Emperor will be joined by Empress Lupicina and Justinian’s sister, Vigilantia.”
“May as well crucify me now.” I sighed, then brightened. “Empress Lupicina comes from humble beginnings.” That was putting it mildly for a barbarian whore who’d taken up with a swineherd before he bought the Emperor’s diadem. “She can’t look too far down her nose at me.”
“If you say so.” Narses reached into his pocket and retrieved an ivory box the size of a fig. “You’ll want this.”
“What is it?”
He pushed open the top to reveal an image of the Virgin Mary in flowing blue robes and surrounded by delicate gold filigree. “I believe you and I share an affinity for the Virgin.”
I took the prayer box, marveling at the detail of Mary’s face and wishing I could manage the same tranquility. My voice sounded like it hadn’t been used in some time. “Thank you, Narses.”
“You’re welcome.” He twisted the tip of his beard and gave a sardonic grin. “You need her help tonight far more than I do.”
I glared, but he was right.
I prayed to the little icon of the Virgin in a hazy fog of incense, then spent the remainder of the afternoon preparing for dinner—bathed, plucked, massaged, and oiled like an Easter goose. My body shone like Cleopatra’s before she met Marc Antony at Tarsus.
By the time Justinian entered my chambers, I was naked to allow the rose oil to absorb into my skin, and a silk stola the color of new leaves waited on my bed.
“Waiting for me, I see.” Justinian twirled a strand of my hair around his finger, then kissed the thin black strand.
“What mischief have you been up to this afternoon?” I asked.
His smile told me he was clearly up to no good. “I had an important errand. You’ll find out soon enough.”
I let him continue down his path—his touch made me suddenly warm. “I spent my afternoon preparing for the Emperor.”
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