by Marié Heese
“You may go now,” Hecebolus said to the slave. “As arranged.”
“Yes, Master.”
Theodora wondered what had been arranged.
Hecebolus looked at her. “I have arranged that we shall have a cold collation,” he told her, “prepared by the chef, and set out in an alcove, so that we may serve ourselves. And I have also arranged that we shall have complete privacy. The staff have been dismissed for the night.”
“Oh. No other guests tonight?”
“No, none. I didn’t wish to share you with anyone.”
“I see.”
His hands were on her shoulders, divesting her of her cloak. “Allow me. This way to the triclinium.”
The room was large enough to accommodate two round tables, each with three broad, cushioned couches ranged around it. Large enough to accommodate a substantial feast.
“Just for the two of us?”
“Yes. You may have been here before, the villa belongs to a senator who is a friend of mine …”
“No, never.”
“My plan for tonight,” said Hecebolus, “is to do this time what I wanted to do that first night. To eat dinner with you, and mean-while to remove, slowly, all of your clothes. I tell you that now. If you don’t like my plan, say so.”
She arched her eyebrows. “And if I object?”
“Then we’ll simply have a quiet, orderly supper and I’ll send you back to Darius Pollo and we’ll probably never see each other again. Your choice.”
She had already decided. “I don’t,” she said, “want to be sent back to Darius Pollo.”
“All right, then. Please – make yourself comfortable on a couch. I’ll serve the gustatio.”
His face looked much younger when he smiled. And he had one crooked tooth. He disappeared into an alcove behind a draped and tasselled vela, emerging with two large flat dishes, one piled high with fresh oysters and the other with asparagus.
“You do eat oysters? If not, I can offer …”
“Love them,” she said. Inevitably she was reminded of the dinner with Gaius Lepidus. How young she’d been then, how completely inexperienced and vulnerable. She believed that she was better able to look after herself now. She certainly understood much more of the world. She thought: I have better defences. And more wiles. Undoubtedly, more wiles.
So the dinner began with just the two of them in the large triclinium. As Hecebolus had told her, there were no slaves around, no one to wait on them. A tall jug of chased silver held rosescented water for their hands, which they rinsed from time to time in alabaster bowls. The napkins were of fine linen. They were islanded in a pool of light cast by the oil lamps; as the light gradually waned, the deepening shadows made the figures in the frescoes seem to dance. The glass tesserae in the floor mosaic winked. The polychrome busts of old pagan gods on stands turned blind eyes on the proceedings.
The oysters were plump, laced with wine vinegar and pepper. Theodora reached for a sharp knife and deftly separated the oyster flesh from the shells. “Allow me,” she said, reaching over to feed Hecebolus. She slid the salty, slithery mouthfuls onto his eager tongue. He grunted appreciation.
Then he fed her the asparagus, lightly cooked, still slightly crunchy: fat pale spears with almost purple tips.
“Oh, yes,” she said, and licked her lips with a catlike tongue. “Delicious. Certainly, the Senator has an excellent chef.”
Hecebolus kept her goblet filled with honeyed and watered wine. He invited her to help herself from the feast set out on the table in the alcove: Stuffed dormice, crisp with sesame seeds. Cold lobster served with an oil and egg sauce. Smoked pork fillets, thinly sliced. Roast pheasant, richly stuffed with prunes and almonds. Slices of sweet melon dusted with ginger.
And with each course, he removed a sash, a brooch, a garment, a hairpin. Deftly. Intently. His face had the absorbed look of one who had acquired a treasure, some fine rarity, and was now establishing its value in his own mind, assessing all its qualities, taking possession of it. She found his fierce concentration exciting.
At last he removed the final jewelled clip from her hair, which swung loose in a perfumed silken curtain, down to her hips. He reached out a finger to trace the outline of her cheek and nose. Lifted her chin to kiss her. His warm breath came unevenly.
“God, you’re exquisite,” he said. “A living sculpture. I swear you’re like marble with the flush and warmth of blood. Dark eyes, instead of blind white orbs. I’ve thought and thought about you.” He leant over her, running his lips and tongue over her breasts. Slid his hand between her legs. She groaned involuntarily. “But no statue can be warm and wet like this. Sweet and warm and …” His voice sank to an indistinguishable mumble as he buried his nose and his questing mouth in the dark furry triangle that he had uncovered last of all.
It was a coupling such as she had never known. Neither the harsh and loveless deflowering by Gaius Lepidus nor her vaguely pleasant, dutiful servicing of Darius Pollo was ever like this. This was a swell, a surge, a sweep of passion that caused her to shout out loud with surprised delight.
At last they lay back against the cushions, slick and sated, tangled in each other’s arms.
“Oh!” she said. “Oh, my!”
“I knew we would be good together,” he said in satisfaction. “I knew it the minute I saw you. And you?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Oh yes, I … suspected it.” But I did not know how it could be, she thought. I never knew. I never knew.
“I wish you would come to live with me,” he said. He lifted the silky tresses of her hair and twisted them into a shining rope. “I’m jealous of Pollo. He doesn’t deserve you.”
“He’s been good to me,” said Theodora. “I can’t simply leave him, without a word.”
“When do you expect him back?”
“I have no idea. He sent a message to say that the child is very ill. It’s his youngest son – fell from a horse and broke a leg in several places. Now the injury is festering.”
“I could lock your clothes away and keep you chained,” he suggested.
“You could do that. It might be socially embarrassing, though.”
He laughed. “No, I want to know that you are with me because you want to be.”
“Your concubine, instead of his?”
He sat up, looking serious. “No, no, my wife. I’m not married, I don’t have sons. I’m going to be the Governor of the African Pentapolis, I have been officially informed that the post is mine. I’ll need a hostess. It will be a great adventure. Will you come with me?”
She too sat up. “Is this a … a definite offer? Truly a proposal of marriage?”
“Yes, it is. One that Darius Pollo and others like him will never make, you know that.”
“Yes, I do know.” She sighed.
“But in any case, you don’t love him. Tell me you don’t. Tell me.” His grip on her arm was so hard that it hurt.
“No, I don’t love him. I am fond of him. I feel … mildly affectionate, but that is all.”
“So, you’ll come with me to Africa.”
“Yes, I’ll come. But you must give me time to tell Darius Pollo in person. I’ll keep his house until he comes again, and then I’ll tell him.”
“But meanwhile you’ll come to me, at least twice a week. Promise me that.”
“Promise.”
There followed several months during which Darius Pollo stayed away while his child’s life hung in the balance. He continued to send her allowance, though, and the servants were paid by his steward. Theodora kept his villa in good order. But she also kept her regular trysts with Hecebolus. She didn’t dare to go more often, since she didn’t want Darius Pollo to learn of their relationship via the city grapevine. Clearly Hecebolus was keeping the servants sweet, since their secret did not leak out.
Then one morning she awoke with a feeling of nausea. At first she tried to tell herself that it might have been something she ate, but as the days went by and it kept o
n, while her breasts grew tender and her menses stayed away for two months in succession, she knew that she had once more conceived a child. God has been good, she thought. She had feared a just punishment for what she had done the first time. Although, she said to herself, I had no choice, the Lord knows I had no choice. But I can’t go through that again. Not a second termination. No. Definitely not.
Darius Pollo, even if she hoodwinked him into thinking it his own, would insist that she abort it. That she knew. She wondered anxiously what Hecebolus would say. What would his reaction be? I want this child, she thought, surprised at the fierce, visceral determination that gripped her at the thought. I want this little person who already has stubby fingers and toes, who already has blind eyes. I want him to become a whole, real baby, perfect in every detail. I want to put him to my breast, to see him grow fat with my milk. I want him to jump with joy when he sees my face. I want to be the one person in the world on whom his happiness depends. I want to bear this child.
She intended to wait until after their regular dinner before telling Hecebolus, but she found it impossible to keep her secret one minute longer. She sat on the couch, erect and tense, and blurted it out. “I am with child,” she told him. “It’s yours. I have had two monthly courses since Darius Pollo went away. And now I have missed two. So it is yours.”
There was a moment of utter silence. Then he said: “Two courses before? You are sure of this?”
“Oh, yes. It has been that long.” She shook with a deep inner tremor. Oh, God. Please, God.
“No chance that it is his?”
“No chance at all. It has been too long.”
“Well, then,” he said, and his shocked expression softened into a kind of wonderment. “Well, then … you are to be the mother of my child.”
“Yes,” said Theodora, still shaking.
“My son, you will bear my son!” His dark face split into a white smile. “Now, my dear, you must be with me! You can’t possibly stay with him!”
“Yes, I’ll come to you,” said Theodora. She thought: Praise the Lord, he wants the child. I do not have to abort this one. Oh, praise be, praise be! “But I must tell him myself. You do see that I should do that?”
“You will tell him the very first day,” ordered Hecebolus. “You will not spend another night under the same roof with him. Move your belongings, I’ll keep them here. Just keep the bare necessities at the villa. We must begin to prepare for the voyage.”
“All right.”
“I can’t marry you in Constantinople,” he said, “you know the law. But once in Africa … It will be different. I’ll be the highest official in the land. Once we’re there, I’ll do exactly what I please.”
“Yes,” said Theodora.
Within another month, the injured son of Darius Pollo had rallied, although it seemed that all his life he would be lame. Finally, Darius returned to Constantinople. He looked older and weary.
She looked at him sadly. She didn’t want to hurt this man. He had been kind to her, he had kept his word. Yet she knew that Hecebolus was growing impatient. She had to be decisive.
She sat Darius down and began to massage his shoulders as Antonina had taught her. He liked her to do that when he arrived. She had thought that it would be easier to address the back of his head, but when the moment came, she found it oddly difficult to say the words. Concentrate on his bald patch, she thought. Tell him.
“Darius Pollo,” she said, “I am leaving you.”
His head snapped round. “What did you say?”
“I’m leaving you,” she repeated steadily. “You’ve been good to me, and I’m grateful for it. But it’s time now for me to move on.”
His face was stricken. “Move on where? With another man, I suppose? Who is it?”
“With Hecebolus,” she told him. “I’m going with him to Africa. He’s been appointed Governor of the Pentapolis.”
“So far away!” He rose to his feet and took her by the shoulders, his fingers digging deep. “Theodora, don’t go! I’ll double your allowance! I’ll … I’ll … name it and you can have it. Don’t leave me!”
“Will you marry me?” she asked.
“You know I can’t do that.” His shoulders sagged. “But neither will he.”
“He’s promised me,” she said. “In Africa. Away from the gossips of Constantinople. He’ll marry me there, and I’ll be the Governor’s lady.”
“You’ll be the Governor’s concubine,” said Darius Pollo, “in a heathen country far from home. And when he tires of you, he’ll throw you out.”
“Hecebolus will marry me,” insisted Theodora. “This is my chance, don’t you see? To become someone else; not Theodora, the comic mime who opens her legs to geese, and as everybody thinks, to all and sundry else as well. This is my chance to be a person with some dignity. I’m really sorry, Darius. But I’m going with him. ”
“He’ll never marry you,” said Darius Pollo. He folded his arms across his broad chest. “You’ll never be the Governor’s lady.”
“I believe I will.”
“No, you won’t. You’ll see. When all is said and done, you’re nothing but a whore.”
The word lay between them, hard as a thrown stone.
“Goodbye, Darius Pollo,” said Theodora. And she left.
Chapter 12: The Governor’s lady
It was enormously pleasurable, Theodora discovered, to be rich. It meant that they could obtain passage to Africa on demand. That they were given a cabin, just for the two of them, instead of having to sleep apart in crowded quarters below deck, men on one side of a heavy canvas curtain, women on the other. That even the captain treated them with deference, for Hecebolus, besides being an important official, was part-owner of not only the ship itself but an entire merchant fleet. That their bunks were neatly made for them with fine linen and woollen blankets, so that they did not need to take their own bedding like the common people.
They did have to wait for spring to settle in, since few ships braved the winter storms. This meant that Theodora’s pregnancy was six months along by the time they left Constantinople; although not at all visible, especially under a light cloak.
She parted from her family the day before they left, since the harbour was not a place for women. Her sisters helped her to pack. “What an adventure!” said Comito, who was happy not to have to sail into the unknown herself, and “Will there be cannibals?” asked Stasie, who would have left without a backward glance – until the first taste of adversity. Anastasia kept up a stream of chatter to hide her feelings, until she finally broke down as the last bundles were being tied up. “I won’t be there for my first grandchild,” she wailed, and Theodora said, “Mother, we’ll probably come back in a few years’ time,” while thinking, crossly: But won’t you miss me?
For one moment, when the mooring ropes were loosened and the gap between the quay and the ship grew swiftly wider, Theodora had a sudden heart-squeezing doubt. But as they manoeuvred out through the harbour, thronged with vessels and raucous with shouting men and screaming gulls, her doubt turned to gladness. She looked away from the seven hills of Byzantium, barnacled with buildings and wreathed in smog. She turned her back on the colossal blocklike walls that, together with huge iron chains across the Golden Horn, protected the city from sea attacks, and looked up instead at the large square sail that bellied in the brisk wind. She thrilled to the sensation of some living thing that leapt in the water and ran free.
For the first week they had a strong following wind and choppy water, that meant swift progress but a bumpy ride. Hecebolus was seasick and utterly miserable. Theodora, who had suffered with nausea at the start of her pregnancy, was not bothered at all. She remembered how truly awful she had felt, so she was patient and sympathetic, but she couldn’t help a touch of amusement at the sight of the imperious owner of a large fleet heaving into a bucket.
“But surely you are used to sailing?” she asked as she mopped his forehead with a scented handkerchief.
“Not … much,” he said. “Usually sailed on … big grain ships. Didn’t … bounce so. Weather was … better.” He groaned, and retched.
Much of the time he slept, and Theodora was glad to leave the stuffy, sour-smelling, cramped cabin for windswept decks, salt-laden air and white-crested swells of limitless blue.
Most of the passengers on the small vessel were businessmen involved one way or another in trade between the Pentapolis, Constantinople and the Levant. On her regular walks along the decks for exercise, Theodora met people who introduced themselves, assuming she was the new governor’s wife. They could answer some of her eager questions about the place that was to become her home.
Halfway into the second week of the journey, which Hecebolus had said would take eight weeks if they were lucky but might be longer if there was too little wind and they had to row, the wind did slacken a bit and the sea grew calmer. It was not yet necessary to break out the oars, but the motion of the ship was smoother. Hecebolus emerged from the cabin, thinner and paler but still a striking figure in a crisp white linen tunic. Theodora, leaning on the rail deep in conversation with a Syrian merchant from Damascus, turned to welcome him.
“Hecebolus,” she exclaimed, “I’m so glad you’re up! Meet–”
“I didn’t know you spoke Syriac,” he said, rudely ignoring the man’s outstretched hand.
“My parents came from Syria,” she said, taken aback.
“You’ll not speak a tongue I do not understand,” he said flatly. “You’ll not speak with strange men.” He scooped her away from the merchant and walked her along the deck so fast that she had to trot. His grip on her upper arm was painful.
“I’m sorry,” said Theodora, struggling to hold back tears. “He’s a married man, his wife is on the ship with him, I met her.”
“All the same,” said Hecebolus. “You will behave yourself. I’ll tell you who you’re allowed to speak to. Do you hear?”
“Yes, Hecebolus,” said Theodora. She judged him ill-tempered with hunger and boredom. For the rest of the journey, she thought, she should pay special attention to him. He needed pampering. As did all men when they were ill.