B009KUWVHG EBOK

by Thornton, Stephanie

  I wouldn’t think on that now.

  Photius would deny his mother’s wild tale. Antonina must stand to gain something from all this. I just wasn’t sure what.

  The prison smelled of terror and years of filth and decay. Those who dwelt here in the dark were half dead, awaiting hell. I barked Photius’ name to the warden, a swarthy man whose ruddy complexion belied his time spent away from the sun.

  He led me past Belisarius’ now-empty cell and used a giant key shaped like a lion to unlock a dented bronze door. Antonina’s eldest son was crammed in a corner, chin resting on his knees. The light from the warden’s oil lamp illuminated graceful charcoal ships sketched on every bit of the rough stone walls—mostly military dromons, their curved prows headed to battle.

  “Our resident artist,” the guard said. “I’ll be outside the door.”

  Photius scarcely looked capable of swatting a fly, but I remained near the entrance. His nose was broken, and there were gaps in his teeth as he smiled, but I recognized Antonina in the curve of his lips and the stubborn set of his jaw. He squinted at me through bloodshot eyes.

  “I’d bow,” Photius said, “but my legs no longer obey me.”

  “You have information I want,” I said. “Your honesty in the matter could purchase your freedom. If you lie, I’ll find new ways to make you wish for death.”

  Photius licked his flaked lips. “I’m listening.”

  “You have several siblings, correct?”

  “My mother excelled at spreading her legs for all sorts of men.”

  “And if I needed to identify the brats in your mother’s brood?”

  Photius thought for a moment, then rambled off a list of height, hair color, moles, and warts belonging to Antonina’s herd of children, but with no mention of John.

  “Is that all? What about another boy who didn’t share your blood?”

  “The stray? John?”

  My heart leapt. For a desperate moment I considered leaving with the truth unsaid, of returning to life as it had been before Antonina’s revelation. “What did he look like?”

  Photius gave me a strange look. “He died after he left us. Gangly thing—plain enough—dark hair and a snub little nose. I drew him once.”

  “No distinguishing features?”

  “A scar on his temple, shaped like a sickle moon.” Photius smiled. “I gave it to him. And another on his back.”

  No. Antonina couldn’t be right.

  “What did it look like?”

  “A little T for Timothy. My father’s seal.” Photius struggled against his chains as I turned on my heel. “Where are you going? You said I’d go free if I talked!”

  Photius’ screams of rage chased me into the corridor. Areobindus was gone.

  I ordered Narses to find him, but the imposter had disappeared, a fact that caused me to swear and break numerous priceless vases.

  “Find him,” I told Narses, “if it’s the last thing you do.”

  …

  “Augusta.” The artist shook his brush at me, the giant brown caterpillar of his brows creeping from one temple to the other as precious pearls of blue paint splattered from his brush to the floor. I hoped the slaves could scrub the mess from the mosaic when this torture was over.

  I shook the golden chalice I held in his direction. “It’s not possible to hold still all afternoon.”

  The little man peered out the window. “The sun has scarcely risen, Augusta.” He gave a long-suffering sigh. “The portrait is almost complete if only you wouldn’t move.”

  Easier said than done. For two weeks now, I had stood motionless in a pose of imperial majesty, dressed in a stola embroidered in gold with the three Magi and weighted down by a monstrous headdress encrusted with enough pearls and gems to buy off Persia for an entire year. My image was slated to join Justinian’s in a massive mosaic for the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna and this artist would provide my portrait to the Master of Mosaics. Justinian and I would be frozen in tesserae in a distant church, surrounded by our glittering retinues of priests, attendants, soldiers, and eunuchs. Even once our earthly bodies had turned to dust, we would never truly die.

  Fortunately, Narses saved me by striding into the room, travel stained and grim faced. Cyr raised his head but whimpered and lay back down when he realized the visitor wasn’t Areobindus.

  I dismissed the artist, forcing myself to wait to speak until the door had closed behind him.

  “Where is he?” I wanted to cut Areobindus’ tongue from his mouth and flay the skin from his back.

  “Areobindus is dead,” Narses said.

  “Dead? Or murdered?”

  “Murdered, unless he managed to stab himself in the back,” Narses said. “I traced him to a seedy taverna in Cyzicus, but no one had seen him in a few days. I inspected his room and found him on the floor, along with several rats availing themselves of his corpse. He’d been dead awhile.”

  Cyzicus. John the Cappadocian was in Cyzicus.

  “The innkeeper was willing to talk after I greased his palm,” Narses continued. “The bishop of Cyzicus met with Areobindus downstairs and broke bread with him. There was an argument, and Areobindus was upset. Then the bishop said he would take care of things.”

  “Arrest the bishop. Torture him until he talks.”

  “Too late. The bishop was found dead the day I arrived in Cyzicus, strangled in his bed.”

  “John the Cappadocian served the bishop.”

  “There’s no evidence against him,” Narses said. “It was common knowledge throughout the town that the bishop and John hated each other, but I couldn’t find one scintilla of evidence to prove his involvement in either death.”

  “I want him,” I said. “Preferably alive.”

  “You have him.” Narses gave a slow grin, the one that always made my flesh prickle. “The Cappadocian is a coward; he was on a ship bound for Alexandria.” He opened and closed his fist. “It took some persuasion to change his destination, but I’ve relocated him to Photius’ old cell.”

  I’d released Photius a few days ago and paid for his passage to Jerusalem. The boy would make a good monk, perhaps designing frescoes for churches in the Holy Land. I had yet to tell Antonina that I’d freed her son. And that she was right about Areobindus.

  John the Cappadocian had found a way to torture me all the way from Cyzicus. I swore to be equally creative with the miserable piece of offal under my own roof.

  …

  I retraced my steps to the tiny closet of a cell tucked into the dimmest recesses of the prison. A monk’s tonsure ringed John’s shaved skull, but otherwise he seemed haughty and arrogant as always. He wasn’t broken like Macedonia or Photius—I’d have bet on his spitting at me if not for the horsehair gag across his mouth. As it was, he leaned against the moldering wall with its charcoal ships, one eye almost swollen shut and the other laughing at me as if I were the one shackled in my own filth.

  “I know all about Areobindus,” I said. “How you and the bishop set him up to get to me.” John flinched as I yanked down his gag.

  “And now you’ve come to kill me.” His voice rasped like that of one long ill.

  “No.” I tightened my fingers around the whip in my hand. “I’ve come to hear you beg for mercy.”

  “You set me up, you and that whore Antonina.”

  “You killed my son!” The whip cracked and sliced the soft flesh of his shoulder, a trickle of blood red as poppies slipping to his chest.

  John gave a sharp hiss and bowed his head as if awaiting an executioner’s ax. “I only arranged for Macedonia to bring him to me in Caesarea. I knew Justinian would pay dear for the release of your son.”

  I doubted whether Justinian would have believed I even had a son, not if the story came from the Cappadocian.

  “So did he truly die of the pox? Or did you kill him?” The whip trembled in my hand.

  “Macedonia spoke the truth. The boy fell ill of a pox and died a few days after the ship left Constanti
nople. I never meant him any harm.”

  I’d expected the truth to bring some sense of peace, but instead I felt only a vast emptiness. My son was truly dead.

  “You kidnapped him to use against me. Only a coward would use a child in such a vile manner.”

  John’s chin tilted up in defiance. “And only a coward would cut out a woman’s tongue and have the rest of her chopped into tiny pieces and thrown into the sea. Neither you nor Antonina is worth the dirt Macedonia walked upon.”

  “Death was too kind a punishment for Macedonia.”

  “She would have been true to you, but you abandoned her after the earthquake. You left her starving and destitute, living amongst the rubble in Antioch, so she was almost dead when I met her the second time, struggling to provide for our daughter. I didn’t even know the girl existed until then. Euphemia is the only thing that’s good and pure in this wretched world. I was a fool to abandon her mother the first time.”

  “So you brought Macedonia to my court. To spy on me.”

  “You humiliated me.” John’s cheeks burned under the crusted blood and filth. “And sought to destroy me. I was content to blackmail you, but then John died and you set me up for treason. You punished Euphemia for my sins.”

  I thought of his daughter, disgraced by her father’s treason and now penniless. A pariah in the Queen of Cities, she had no hope of making a suitable marriage without her father’s wealth. The girl was no better off than I’d been at her age, despite being raised amongst the silks and splendor of court. “I never wished her harm. What about the bishop? Areobindus? Did they just happen to be in your way?”

  “The bishop and I used Areobindus—he was a foundling left at the monastery as a boy, one with a convenient scar on his temple and willing to deceive you into believing that he was your long-lost son. Macedonia gave him the cross and the memories of his trip to Bithynia to prove his story. He was to be my revenge on you, my puppet on the throne after Justinian’s death.”

  “And after I discovered the truth, the bishop feared Areobindus might use the failed plot to blackmail both of you.”

  John nodded. “Areobindus was naïve, not stupid. But the bishop had much to lose.”

  “So you killed him?”

  John shrugged. “One of us had to die.”

  So he was responsible at least for that murder. Yet I no longer cared.

  I straightened to find the mantle of old age settled on my shoulders. I was weary of hatred and revenge; I didn’t want them to rule my life any longer.

  “A ship shall take you to Antinoopolis. I never want to see you again.” The city clung to the ends of the Empire, two hundred miles south of Alexandria, named by Emperor Hadrian to honor his lover. “You shall take only the cloak on your back. All your remaining property shall be confiscated—”

  Were it not for John’s chains, he might have murdered me then and there. “You have condemned Euphemia—”

  “And be transferred to your daughter,” I said. “But she shall forfeit every nummi should you set foot beyond Antinoopolis’ boundary markers while I still live. Do you understand?”

  John slumped against the wall, his chains slack. “I understand.”

  I forced myself to turn and walk calmly from the cell, ensuring that John’s last view of me was my purple chalmys. My heart nearly jumped from my chest as someone touched my arm in the dark corridor. Justinian stood there, his face swathed in shadows.

  “How much did you hear?” I asked.

  “Almost everything,” he said, his hands open at his sides as if he couldn’t bear to touch me. He ran his hands over his face and appeared more haggard than I’d ever seen him. I’d finally lost him.

  “This isn’t how things were supposed to happen,” he said. “This is all my fault.”

  “What?”

  “I knew about your son, Theodora.” His voice cracked. “You denied John the Cappadocian’s claims after we reprimanded him for the Carthage campaign, but I sent Narses to investigate. He discovered the truth.”

  I’d first thought to send my son to Alexandria with Narses, but he’d been gone from court—now I knew he’d been on Justinian’s errand—so I’d sent Macedonia instead. I’d delivered my son to the enemy without even realizing it.

  Justinian tried to pace the tiny corridor, unable or unwilling to meet my eyes. “John tried to ransom the boy after you sent him to Alexandria, but Narses knew your son had died. I didn’t know how you’d react if I knew, and I couldn’t bear the idea that you might leave me.” He stopped pacing and reached out to touch me, but I didn’t move. His arm dropped back to his side. “I failed you. I’ll understand if you can’t forgive me.”

  I couldn’t think. I’d worried all these years that my husband might cast me off, that he would despise me for my deceit, for my failings. Yet all this time he’d feared the same.

  The whole situation would have been laughable if it hadn’t been so sad. I wanted to scream at him, to rail against him for the part he’d played, but he was no more guilty than I. Less so, in fact. Sometimes it took us poor wretches far too long to realize God’s blessings. And despite everything that had happened, I knew I had indeed been blessed by having Justinian in my life.

  I’d held grudges close to my heart all my life, but this man had always loved me, despite my many failings, and often because of them. I could not judge him.

  Unable to speak, I held out my hand for his, needing him to anchor me as he always had. The soft wool of his tunica scratched my cheek as I laid my head on his shoulder, glad he couldn’t see the tears that slipped from my eyes and thankful for the strength of his arms around me. “I forgive you.”

  His arms bound me to him. “I love you, Theodora. More than you’ll ever know.”

  His words undid me.

  I sobbed into his tunica then, clinging to him and weeping for the years we’d lost, all the time we’d squandered by doubting each other. He crushed me to him as if he feared he might lose me again.

  Finally I lifted my head with a shuddering breath and wiped the tears from my swollen eyes, still tasting their salt on my lips. I was shocked to see tears glistening on his cheeks. I brushed them away with my thumb and clasped his face between my hands. “You stupid, foolish man,” I managed to choke out. “I love you, Justinian. Forever and always.”

  I had forgiven so many people: Justinian, Antonina, and the Cappadocian. Perhaps one day I might learn to forgive myself.

  Chapter 33

  TWENTIETH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF JUSTINIAN

  “Are you sure you’re well enough to attend the wedding?”

  Tasia handed me a fresh clutch of mint leaves as a slave wrinkled his nose and carried away my chamber pot. My daughter was statuesque in a mahogany stola with a paludamentum the same shade and luster as polished pearls, her hair tucked under a veil heavily embellished with gold.

  The wedding of Comito’s daughter, Sophia, would have been a welcome thought were it not for the ever-present gnaw of pain in my stomach. The saint I’d seen in secret a few weeks ago had informed me I had an imbalance of black bile, but he believed it might right itself if left alone. He’d offered me drafts of poppy juice, but I refused to spend what might be my last days in a fog. Yet my appetite had deserted me, and my waist thickened, hidden now beneath the mahogany silk stola embroidered at the hem with my monogram. My monthly bleedings had ceased ages ago, so I knew these symptoms did not herald the quickening of my womb, barren as the sands of Cappadocia.

  I wiped my mouth on a silk mappa and felt my stomach settle with the mint. I missed Antonina, but she was off in Rome keeping an eye on Belisarius as he attempted to subdue the latest Ostrogoth uprising. I regretted that she wouldn’t be at my side when the time came, but we’d already said our good-byes, although I doubted she had realized it at the time.

  “Are you sure that’s how it’s done?” I’d asked. The imperial gardens were drenched in sunshine, and I’d chuckled as Antonina stabbed a needle into a silk belt for Belisariu
s. She and her husband had resolved most of their differences after Theodosius’ death from illness a few years ago, and they had settled into a mostly amicable partnership.

  “We are old women now,” Antonina said, not bothering to look up at me. The tip of her tongue showed between her teeth as she yanked the thread through the fabric, producing an impressive knot. “It’s high time we started acting like it.”

  “I just turned forty-five,” I said. “That’s hardly as ancient as you make us out to be.”

  “One foot in the grave,” she said.

  Little did she know.

  I traced the line of sunlight on my stola and breathed in the delicate fragrance of the white and purple Nazareth irises Justinian had recently had planted for me and the heavy scent of Antonina’s rose perfume. I would miss both precious smells. “We’ve had a good run, you and I, haven’t we?”

  Her lips curled in a smile, and she glanced up, likely ready with some sarcastic quip. Instead, her smile fell at the look on my face. She set her sewing in her lap. “The best, darling.”

  “I’ll miss you,” I said.

  She cocked an eyebrow at me and resumed her sewing, although her eyes darted back to me. “Don’t go soft on me,” she said. “Belisarius and I won’t be gone in Rome too long this time.”

  “I know.” I pulled myself to stand, hiding the effort it took, and walked slowly toward her, dropping a kiss on her scarlet hair. “I love you, Antonina.”

  She took my hand and covered it with hers, the veins like a web of rivers on an old map. No matter what I said, somehow time had managed to sneak up and take us unawares. “I love you, too, darling. Even if we have tried to kill each other.”

  “More than once.”

  She chuckled and patted my hand. “More than once.”

  A few days later I’d watched the dromons slip into the Bosphorus again, knowing I wouldn’t live to see her return.

  Now the blood and green bile in my vomit this morning were a hint from God to finish the rest of my business before I ran out of time.