Mary Reed: Nine for the Devil

“You say that because you are thinking of Europa and Thomas and their child. Our own family.”

“Perhaps.”

“That and listening to too much palace gossip.”

“No one at court can help listening to gossip, unless they’re deaf.” She tugged John’s sinewy arm until he rolled over to face her. She could see the faint light from the window glinting in his eyes. “Theodora has always put her own family first, and especially before Justinian’s. Look at the marriages she arranged for those sisters of hers, Comita and Anastasia. Their reputations are as bad as hers. Marrying former whores into reputable families is bound to cause resentment. Yet who dared say no to the empress?”

“Not many.”

“And not only that. What about those two youngsters she’s forced to live with one another? Belisarius and Antonina’s daughter Joannina and that wretched boy Anastasius. Joannina will have to marry him now to protect what honor she has left. Everyone knows the match was designed to shift Belisarius’ fortune to Theodora’s family.”

“Anastasius is Theodora’s grandson, it’s true.”

“Son of Theodora’s illegitimate daughter. The daughter’s well named. Theodora. Like mother, like daughter.”

“I don’t believe Justinian’s foremost general and his wife would murder the empress.”

“And there’s General Germanus too.” Cornelia plunged ahead, ignoring his remark. “Theodora tried to thwart his daughter’s marriage, even though it might be the last chance she’d ever have, considering her age. And why? Could it be because Germanus is Justinian’s cousin?”

John put his finger lightly to Cornelia’s lips. “I do know a little about what goes on at the palace.”

Cornelia pushed his finger away. “Not to mention yet another general Theodora wronged. Poor Artabanes! Forced to live with his estranged wife and watch Theodora marry off his lover to one of the empress’ wicked-”

She was forced to break off as John inclined his head and kissed her. “I will need to start my investigation after the funeral tomorrow. We can talk about this then, Britomartis.”

Cornelia smiled. “Do you think you can silence me like that?” Britomartis, the Cretan Lady of the Nets, was his pet name for her from long ago. Cornelia was a native of Crete and the first time John had seen her performing with a traveling troupe that recreated the ancient sport of bull-leaping the sight of her snared him as securely as fishermen catch Neptune’s creatures in their meshes. Or so he had said. Cornelia supposed there were a lot more women called little sparrow in private than Britomartis.

She returned his kiss. “Despite everything, you’ve never changed, John. You’re no different now that you’re a great man in the capital than you were as a poor young mercenary at the furthest reaches of the empire.”

She felt the muscles of his arm tighten under her fingertips and realized she had inadvertently reminded him of the wound he endured. He had not reached twenty-five when he blundered into Persian territory, was captured, castrated, and sold into slavery like a beast. Tears came to her eyes. For his sake, not hers. Men made too much of their masculinity.

“Oh, John, please don’t think of that.”

“I wish I could be more for you than…than an old man.”

“Old couples are the happiest, they say.” She took his face between her hands, hoping he couldn’t see the wet streaks on her cheeks. “Besides, we have been together. We have a daughter. Right now, on some battlefield, a young man who has never had those things is dying.”

“As always, you are right. Still-”

“Please don’t talk, John. Let’s forget the past and Justinian. You know how wakeful Britomartis has always been. Help her sleep now, as you always do.”

Theodora’s funeral procession made its slow way down Constantinople’s main thoroughfare. The colonnades along both sides of the Mese were packed with watchers five and six deep. Most had glimpsed Emperor Justinian, if at all, only from a distance, when he attended events at the Hippodrome or appeared in public for church celebrations.

This afternoon they could almost touch him, if they had dared.

Clad in plain garments without decorative borders or gems, the mourning emperor walked immediately in front of the bier bearing Theodora’s coffin. Scarlet boots were his only touch of color. He scuffled through dust and windblown debris as if he hardly had sufficient strength to lift his feet. His head, bereft of crown and bare, was held high but his expression remained blank.

As he passed the crowds a whispering followed him, a snakelike hiss John heard as he marched a few rows in front of the emperor in a line of court officials. He found himself between Justinian’s treasurer, the bald, dwarfish eunuch Narses whom John despised, and the obese Master of Offices, who puffed and wheezed ever more alarmingly as the procession climbed the hill atop which sat the Church of the Holy Apostles.

John felt hot and uncomfortable, burdened by the heavily embroidered robes he wore only when ceremony demanded. It was just as well a sullen sky pressed dark clouds down on the city as if to smother the five domes of the church. A rising wind flapped tunics and cloaks, with gusts carrying away the sound of the hymns sung by the choir trailing the coffin. The wind and lack of sunlight ameliorated the heat and humidity to a small extent.

He would have preferred to be back in bed with Cornelia. He had been forced to abandon that refuge long before dawn. Court officials and ecclesiastics had paid homage to Theodora during the early morning hours. The empress’ perfumed and anointed body had lain in the Triclinium, popularly known as the Hall of the Nineteen Couches, on the palace grounds. Any possible echoes of the imperial banquets usually held in the long, many-windowed building were muffled by deep purple drapery covering its walls and the bier on which her coffin rested, covered by a linen cloth of the same color, embroidered with scenes of the Resurrection. Despite Justinian’s suspicions of foul play, her death was not unexpected. Preparations for the funeral had been completed for weeks.

Justinian had also prepared for trouble. In case anyone might seek to use the disruption of life to his own advantage, the palace grounds were thick with armed men. When John arrived, his friend Felix, captain of the excubitors, a burly, bearded man, had been patrolling inside the Triclinium, moving from one guard post to another, conferring with those on duty.

Felix growled a greeting.

“I am sorry to hear about the deaths of your excubitors,” John said.

“Justinian had no reason to have those boys killed. It was all I could do to keep the rest from revolting.” Felix’s angry glare moved around the long room filled with elegantly dressed mourners and settled on the dead empress. “They’d rather throw her corpse on the street for the dogs than stand guard over it. The imperial whore reached up out of hell and murdered their colleagues, as far as they’re concerned. I can’t blame them. You can’t stop a disease with swords and spears. Or stop fate either.”

John wondered whether Felix blamed the emperor or the empress or both. Usually it amounted to the same thing, or had until now. “Nor can you bring fate to justice, which is what Justinian expects of me,” John replied.

“Yes, I’ve heard. May Mithra stand at your shoulder.”

“Have there been any disturbances?”

“None. Not here. I’ve spent half the night watching over an endless parade of Theodora’s pet monophysites. Those heretics are a wild eyed foreign crew and not all of them properly washed.” Felix sniffed disdainfully. “They seemed to be genuinely grieving. When Justinian comes to his senses he’ll turn them out of that den of theirs in the Hormisdas Palace. Then they’ll have something to grieve over.”