by Marié Heese
Theodora was soon able to do the preparatory carding, treating a small handful of fleece at a time, which had to be gently pulled apart and then worked through until it was fluffy, with no coarse lumps, and free of any grasses or seeds. Next, using two bats set with short wires, she would card the fleece with a repetitive brushing motion, to and fro, to and fro, to produce a light, fluffy roll of wool.
“This is called a roving,” said Sister Agnes, and rolled it gently between her dimpled, tapering hands to make it even. “You should make thirty of these before you begin to wind the wool into yarn on the spindle.”
The nun’s ability to conjure a smooth, even-textured yarn by rolling the wooden drop spindle rhythmically while feeding in the fibres from the prepared roving was a miracle of grace and control, to which Theodora’s clumsy attempts were a sad contrast.
“Now, Theodora, place your right hand on the base weight of the spindle and twirl it clockwise. See, like this,” said Sister Agnes, demonstrating. “We begin with a piece of yarn attached to the spindle. Cut and fray the end. Like this. Hold the frayed end and an end of roving together between the fingers and thumb of your left hand. Let the spindle dangle, then twirl it with your right hand so that the fibres and yarn are twisted evenly together as far as your left hand. Don’t grip so hard, girl, you don’t want to break the spindle. Just twirl it, twirl it … Now, with your right hand, gently draw out some more fibres from the roving, then twirl the spindle again so that the fibres are evenly twisted. Now repeat … draw out more fibres and spin, draw out more fibres and spin …”
“This is impossible,” said Theodora through gritted teeth. “The thing is possessed of a will of its own. It wants to unwind as quickly as I wind it up. And as soon as I manage … to keep it … wound up, the wool breaks – see that? See that!” She groaned in dismay as the spindle clattered to the floor.
“It will come,” said Sister Agnes. “But not if you lose patience. It will not yield to anger. Patience and practice, girl, patience and practice. You will find your rhythm. When you have found it, it will be easy. And it has its rewards.”
“Lots of yarn,” said Theodora, disparagingly.
Sister Agnes nodded. “Worth having. Also, it promotes meditation. It is uplifting to the spirit. You’ll see. And besides, with all the lanolin in the wool …”
Theodora looked a question.
Sister Agnes smiled sweetly. “You’ll have soft hands.”
The Reverend Mother duly took Theodora and had her registered as a catechumen. Lessons took place in lecture rooms attached to the theatre complex. There she found Father Rufus on a raised seat in the middle of the room, the bushy red hair around his tonsure standing up in tufts, a table piled high with scrolls and codices close at hand.
“So, Theodora. You look well,” he said. “Now, once again, we learn together.”
She could have thrown her arms around the familiar figure – the way he put it was so typical of him. But she restrained the impulse and merely smiled.
“Oh, yes,” she agreed.
“Please, take a seat.” He peered at her, his eyes crinkling short-sightedly. “Tell me, then, what are the three sacraments of Christian initiation?”
“Um … Baptism, the … the … oh, the Eucharist, and then the sacrament of Confirmation?”
“Correct. And what exactly does reception of the sacrament of Confirmation confer?”
“It … binds one to the Church? As a true member?”
“Yes. It is necessary for the completion of baptismal grace, binds one to the Church, and enriches one with the special strength of the Holy Spirit.”
“Yes, Father,” said Theodora with a deep sigh. She thought that she truly was in dire need of special strength.
“And having received the sacrament of Confirmation, which I am certain you shall do in due course, what obligation does that place on you?”
“To … to live a Christian life?”
“Yes, but in particular, to be a true witness of Christ, more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith by word and deed. You must be prepared for that. You must undertake it.”
“Yes, Father,” said Theodora. Given strength, she would do that, she vowed.
“Then let us converse on the nature of God,” said Father Rufus.
On her way back to the monastery after lessons, she would stop to see Macedonia. Often they would sit and talk in the communal dressing-room off one of the many passages that burrowed beneath the open public spaces.
“How’s the spinning going?” enquired Macedonia.
Theodora grimaced. “Getting better,” she said. “I can at least spin a continuous thread of yarn now, but it comes out all uneven. One minute it’s thin as a hair, next it clumps up like a knobbly rope. That spindle is a devilish device. Sister Agnes says it promotes meditation, but so far it only drives me demented.”
“So, you’ll be able to earn a living. A small and limited living, though.”
“I know. But I refuse to have a protector, and the Reverend Mother won’t let me go on stage, so what can I do?”
Macedonia looked around her. It was a quiet time between performances and there were no other girls in the room. She went to close the heavy door to the passage. Then she came back to sit knee to knee with Theodora, her face secretive and grave.
“You could earn considerably more with a sideline,” she said in a confidential tone. “Paid for from Constantinople.”
“Doing what?”
“Gathering information.”
“What sort of information am I to look out for? And who will pay me?”
“The money comes from Justinian, Master of the Soldiers in Constantinople.”
Justinian? She could not recall having heard his name before. “Who’s this Justinian?”
“Nephew of Emperor Justin. Peasant like his uncle, but educated, very clever, they say. Probably going to follow Justin on the throne when the old fellow dies.”
“I see. What would he want to know about?”
“Justinian,” said Macedonia, “is a very ambitious man. So he needs to know about political matters. Plans being laid by the Goths or the Vandals. Anything that may threaten the crown – or his own future.”
“How does it work?”
“You’ll receive a retainer, paid out each month by the local spy-master. Then, if ever you come up with some valuable information, you’ll be given a bonus.”
There was a nervous hollow in her chest, as if she stood poised to attempt a particularly difficult series of saltos. “I have a child,” said Theodora. “Might this not be dangerous?”
Macedonia shrugged. “Not if you are cautious. You come to the theatre in any case. Don’t write things down, keep everything in your head.”
“All right.” She felt herself airborne, launched in defiance of the laws that held other people steadily on the ground, flung into a precarious arc that could end in a bone-cracking fall, yet confident that she could land upright. “I can try.”
“Good. I’ll arrange to get you on the payroll. The spymaster is the dancing master of this theatre, a Blue. I’ll introduce you next week.”
Theodora nodded. “I have to go,” she said.
Back in the monastery, when she went to put her notes from the morning’s lesson away, her tiny cell felt less like a place of refuge than before, and more like a small and stuffy cage.
Chapter 16: Identities
Juliana loved to spend time in the workroom where wool was spun. Small as she was, she would patiently hold up completed skeins looped over her plump little arms for the nuns to wind up the yarn into fat balls, ready to be knitted into warm underwear, shawls, mittens and scarves. Theodora had finally managed to impose her will on the recalcitrant spindle and proudly presented her first ball of evenly spun, smooth white lambs’ wool to Mother Sophia.
“Excellent,” said Mother Sophia. “You see, one can always learn new skills with which to achieve a better life.”
“Yes, Mother,”
said Theodora.
Theodora felt as if she had several different identities. One was the dutiful wool spinner, who could now spin skein after skein of good-quality wool. And while she worked, her hands and arms becoming adept, settling into a rhythmic movement almost like a dance, her thoughts too would spin and loop, working all that she learned at the catechetical school into memory. So her second identity, the eager student, was also being created day by day. When Mother Sophia realised that Theodora knew several languages, including Syriac, and wrote an elegant hand, a third identity was constructed: sometime secretary, who welcomed important visitors, took notes and wrote letters.
Often, on her way back from the school, she would slip into the theatre; she didn’t want the nuns to know how often she went there. But it felt more like home than any other place. And a fourth identity could operate there: the spy who reported to the spymaster, passing on snippets of news, observations, conversations overheard and suspicions; always ultimately intended for the ears of Justinian, Master of the Soldiers in Constantinople. On a number of occasions she earned commendations and small rewards, but never enough to pay for her passage home.
At the theatre she met and talked to all kinds of men: ship-owners like Hecebolus, land-owning aristocrats, government officials, merchants, shopkeepers, bureaucrats and soldiers. But she strove to maintain her new-found, precarious dignity, allowing no intimacies or even friendships to develop. Like the nuns, she held herself aloof.
Then Macedonia introduced her to Eric, a Thracian spear-bearer in the private retinue of Vitalian, who had not taken all his soldiers with him when bidden to Constantinople by Emperor Justin.
“Spear-bearer means he’s an officer,” explained Macedonia. “High up. You should cultivate him. Vitalian was Master of the Soldiers in Constantinople before Justinian and then he was made Consul by Justin. They say his celebrations were magnificent.”
“So, could he be a rival for the throne when Justin dies?”
“Could be, yes. Justinian will probably become Second Consul soon. But Vitalian will bear watching. Justinian has asked that we should try to find out more about his plans.”
There could be no harm, thought Theodora, in being friendly to Eric, to see if she could pick up some useful information. The spear-bearer’s mother was a Goth and his father a Thracian peasant, she discovered. He had a Goth’s blond hair and blue eyes, a peasant’s sturdy build and the stolid confidence of a soldier who had survived many a bloody battle and did not lie awake remembering the eyes of those who had died by his hand. His particular enthusiasm was shows that involved animals.
“My father was Keeper of the Bears for the Greens,” Theodora told him. “At the Hippodrome.”
“Truly? I would have enjoyed that,” said Eric. “Ach, to tame such a powerful creature! To master it, to make it do whatever you tell it to! They made them dance, didn’t they?”
“Yes,” said Theodora. “They made them dance.”
“And your father? He was a brave man, yes?”
“Very brave. He used to breathe into their nostrils.”
“Right up close? Right into their noses? What are you telling me!” Eric was enchanted.
“Right up close,” said Theodora. She did not mention that a bear had ripped off her father’s arm.
While one Theodora befriended a soldier and listened wide-eyed to his accounts of cunning strategies, taking especial note of any mention of his commander’s future plans, another Theodora studied the catechism and also history, particularly the lives of the saints. The catechetical school was an intellectual node that drew learned men to its lecture halls, including many clerics who had fled from the persecution of Monophysites.
So it happened that she was taught by Father Severus, deposed Patriarch of Antioch, as well as Father Timothy, Patriarch of Alexandria. The two clerics were opposites. Unlike his reverend brother in Christ, Father Severus did not proceed placidly, hands folded on a plump stomach, but strode along streets and passages at a swift pace, black habit flapping, booming voice raised in expostulation and argument. He had the personality of a field general and a face hewn from seasoned wood. He radiated energy, not peace, and stoked up the minds of his students as if hurling inflammable brands onto a surly fire.
“So,” he said, glaring around a group of students. “You heard John Philoponus speak today. What do you think? Analyse his position.”
The group, mostly male, looked at each other, coughed and considered.
Theodora spoke up. “I am convinced by his view of the unchangeable identity of the Godhead. God cannot be God otherwise. Three persons, one identity.”
“Still does not resolve the issue of the divinity and humanity of Christ!”
A skeletally thin monk, recently arrived from Syria, suggested: “One of the Holy Trinity suffered in the flesh?”
“Ambiguous, ambiguous. Could suggest a human nature as well as a divine one. Could support the Dyophysite view. Come now, come now.”
“Christ, being resurrected, was perfectly divine,” said the monk. “In suffering on the cross, he was perfectly human.”
“So? So? Still seems to support the Dyophysites!”
“And yet Christ was one person and had one nature …”
“You don’t resolve the paradox!”
“Christ incarnate had one nature,” said Theodora, “which was divine. One nature, one identity.”
“Thank you. Yes. Christ incarnate had one nature and that nature was divine.”
“But the Emperor Justin remains resolutely Dyophysite, one understands,” said another student, a plump fellow who looked as if he might develop ambitions as a courtier, given the opportunity. He usually managed to hold forth most eloquently without saying anything that could be held against him.
“Indeed, indeed. Persecution persists. Vitalian, I hear, has asked Justin for my head.”
“Vitalian? The new consul?” asked Theodora.
“The very man. Huh! May have been deposed. Haven’t been decapitated. Not yet. They can’t move against me here. Would be riots.”
“Hold-ups of grain shipments,” observed Theodora. “They’ll never risk that.”
In the catechism classes, Father Timothy paid particular attention to the earnest young woman who would soon be confirmed as a member of the church, carefully coaching her. He told her: “If you want to be received into the bosom of the Church, you must first learn about God’s Word, cut away the roots of your vices, and practise meekness and humility. Then you will be fit to receive the grace of the Holy Spirit.”
“Holy Father, I am studying the Word of God every day. But I fear I am sadly unworthy. I have done some things … I …”
Father Timothy looked at her with the face of an elderly baby, round and innocent and rosy, topped by a thin, fluffy fringe of white hair. “I think that you have suffered, my child,” he said.
Being addressed as “my child” almost undid Theodora. I have not been a child for so long, she thought. I have not been anybody’s child. I have been fatherless. She said: “It has not … my life … it has not been … easy. And I have not always …”
“My child,” said Father Timothy, “in Christ we have our redemption through his blood. We can count on the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.”
“Yes, Father.”
“You do believe that?”
“I believe that I may be saved through faith, not of myself, but through the grace of God,” responded Theodora. “And truly, Father, if the Lord Jesus died for sinners, then He died for me.”
“Bless you, my child. Bless you.” He took her face in his hands, traced a cross on her forehead with his thumb and gently planted a kiss on the same spot. It was a touch entirely different from any Theodora had ever known from a man. It made her feel light and full of grace.
But in the company of Eric she could not feel redeemed. She was being drawn into a relationship that she did not want, of the kind she had abjured. She resisted
it. She agreed only to walk and talk with him. They strolled together along the wide streets down to the harbour. Yet she had a feeling that there was information to be had from him that would probably be of critical importance to Justinian. There were suggestions, there were hints; but every time she sought details, shutters would go up and there was never anything definite that she could pass on. She suspected that Vitalian was a man to beware of, but she had no proof.
Meanwhile, lectures continued, and so did discussions. She continued to study devotedly, and after some months she was examined on her understanding and her beliefs. Finally, the day came when she stood in church to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation. A radiant Father Timothy presided. Theodora stood with bowed head and trembled slightly as the sonorous Latin words were chanted. “Spiritus Sanctus superveniat …”
May the Holy Spirit come down upon you, and the power of the Most High keep you from all sin.
“Amen,” said Theodora. She, who had been so helpless, beseeched God in her heart for spiritual strength.
On rolled the liturgy, and the responses seemed to fly up like birds into the shadowed arches.
“Signo te signe crucis …”
Father Timothy anointed her with the chrism: I sign thee with the sign of the Cross, and I confirm thee with the chrism of salvation …
“… in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.”
“Amen,” said Theodora. Even such as I have been, she thought, may receive the chrism. How great is God, how great.
And now Father Timothy struck her gently on each cheek. She understood that this symbolic gesture meant that the Christian must be a soldier for Christ, and must endure the suffering and persecution that comes from conflict with the world. I will serve Christ, she vowed silently. As best I can. All my life, I will serve Him.
A choir of monks launched into a triumphant hymn.