by Stella Duffy
Eight
Two days later Theodora met Hecebolus. He was, even to a woman jaded with men, quite lovely. He was tall, with fine dark features and light eyes; his dark skin was usual for a traveller, a trader, less common in a man who was about to be given a political posting. Theodora slept with Hecebolus for pleasure. She had intended to make him pay, it just didn’t work out that way.
‘You’re not what I expected from a whore.’
Theodora looked down at the man beneath her, ‘You’re not much like the average government lackey, either.’
‘No?’
‘No. And most of my tricks tend to be less …’
‘Good looking? Good in bed? Good?’
He was smiling up at her, tired and comfortable after the pleasant endurance of their past two hours together.
She laughed out loud at his arrogance and then nodded, agreeing that this man, who’d waited after her show, offered to buy her a drink, extended that offer to a good meal, and then took her back to his pleasant rooms overlooking the Golden Horn, was definitely a cut above most of the men she took to bed for money. But still, she did mean to take him for money. She stretched herself out along his body, her much smaller frame easily fitting inside his and, skin to skin, lips to mouth, whispered what she thought was a fair price, given how much they’d both enjoyed themselves.
Hecebolus was still smiling as he sighed, wrapped one big arm tight round her shoulders and with the other across her hips held her close and said, ‘No.’
‘What?’ Theodora was not used to being refused her fee. It had happened once or twice, but as a good citizen, she had not only the weight of her fame, but also the power of the City behind her – the City that officially decried her second profession, but also taxed her earnings both on-stage and off.
‘Sorry, I don’t pay.’
‘You should have said that first.’
‘You should have asked for payment first.’
‘I usually do,’ said Theodora.
‘And why didn’t you this time? Because you were happy? Enjoying the body of a man who enjoys yours? Eating a pleasant dinner and drinking good wine in the company of a man who has travelled and seen something of the world and met plenty of women in his time …’
‘Hardly a recommendation.’
‘For either of us.’ Hecebolus was still holding Theodora close though she was trying to move away now, pushing against his body, digging her toes into his shins, her fingers on his torso, sharp nails threatening to spoil his skin at any moment. ‘But still, it is not usual for me to see someone on stage and know the moment I see her – the moment I saw you – that I wanted you.’
Theodora did not stop pushing, he did not stop holding her to him.
‘It is, though, usual for me. I am used to men wanting me.’
‘Not used to me wanting you. Not used to me wanting you as a lover, not a whore.’
‘Don’t be silly, we’ve had a nice evening, that’s all.’
‘We can have more.’
‘We’ve both drunk too much.’
‘We can do this sober.’
‘I don’t fuck sober.’
‘Maybe you’d like to give it a try.’
‘And maybe you’d like to pay my way.’
‘I don’t pay my lovers.’
‘I don’t have lovers.’
‘You do now.’
For so many reasons, and for none in particular, Hecebolus was different. He was smart and bright and ambitious – all good things and all very much the kind of thing she saw day in, day out among the young men of Constantinople. Unlike the men she usually met, he really did want to spend time with her, he liked to talk almost as much as he liked to have sex. He wasn’t frightened of her – her passion for work, food, drink or, now, for grief did not scare him off. Theodora could not talk easily to her family about their loss, she had never been especially close to Hypatia, and in their pain the two women became even more distant; Comito dealt with her tears by concentrating even more on her singing. Hecebolus happened to be in the right place at the right time for Theodora’s grief. He had never known Anastasia and so it was easier to talk to him about her. It was easier for Theodora to make a story of her loss. Eventually, she even let Hecebolus see her cry. Just once, but it was enough. And because he held her, and listened, and did not offer solutions or try to make it all right, or tell her she would get over the pain, because he simply allowed her to cry, Theodora chose to trust him. Trust him enough to leave with him.
Not a good enough reason for Sophia.
‘Dear God and whatever goddesses there might ever have been, don’t be such a stupid tart. You’re heartbroken about Anastasia, you’re in lust with that great oaf – and that’s all it is, lust – that new piece we put in the second half of the show doesn’t do as well as the geese, the company’s in a bit of a slow period … but none of those things are a reason to leave.’ She paused here, drew herself up to her full height and then came back down again, a small woman making an important point and, even in the moment of doing so, knowing she would make her point more clearly without performing. She grounded herself, took up her full height and no more. ‘Please, we’re your family, this is your home, don’t go with him.’
‘He listens to me.’
‘I listen to you.’
‘You lecture me.’
‘Because you’re being stupid. It won’t work.’
‘Why not?’
‘You’re running away.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘It can’t last.’
‘What can?’
The offer was just too good. To come away, be his partner, his consort – not, Sophia emphasised, not his wife – to join him in his new job, just confirmed. Hecebolus was to be Governor of the Pentapolis, the Five Cities at the tip of Africa, the point where the Empire gave way to desert and an unknown world. They would travel to serve the Emperor. It would be a relief to go with him and leave Anastasia’s death and Comito’s increasingly cold ambition and her mother’s unbearable sadness and the constant barb that was her non-existent relationship with her own daughter, to get away from all those people who, in the street, in the theatre, in the market, knew too much about her. Hecebolus’ offer – made in the heady throes of lust, and then repeated, soberly, more than once – to make her his mistress, the concubine of the new Governor, was her perfect escape route. They would be based in Apollonia, the chief of the Five Cities, he would take up his new job, together they would experience a new life. In some ways, in many ways, Hecebolus was offering a far more prestigious position than the one she now occupied as Hippodrome star, albeit a position with no safety net, as Comito pointed out and Sophia repeated, shaking her head. But Theodora was not listening. Even without her grief she had been restless: with it, she was positively hungry to get away.
It was all change at the Imperial Palace – with the new Emperor Justin and his nephew Justinian advising him, the Blues were once again in the ascendant and, from the opposing side of the religious divide to his predecessor, Justin was clamping down hard on those who opposed the rulings of the Council of Chalcedon. He had already deposed Severus, the Patriarch of Antioch, and now he needed a good man out in Africa where the Copts and the anti-Chalcedonians and any number of growing sects were increasingly at odds with the Church of Rome and Constantinople. This would be a great opportunity for Hecebolus to show his skills in diplomacy, both with the religious rebels and with those he would now rule – and, more importantly, tax – on behalf of the August. It was late spring, fishermen said the seas were generous just now, sailors looked at the stars and commented on their favourable position: if ever there was a time to move on, this was it. A sea-path in soft weather would give them time to get to know each other better as they began a new life together.
Hecebolus had been kind in his compassion for Theodora’s loss. He really seemed to mean it when he asked her to join him, to be his lady both on the voyage south and when he to
ok up his posting as Governor. She could not be his wife, of course, the world had not changed so much that all the old proprieties could be ignored, and on the outskirts of the Empire even less so. Through an alliance with Hecebolus though, Theodora had another chance to gain fortune. The Governor-to-be was full of talk about what could be done with tax revenue and crop gains, some to pass on, some to siphon off and invest – especially as part of a new regime and, even for an ex-actress, a rise in fortune would mean some rise in status.
Theodora had gone as far as she could as the people’s darling. She was eighteen, the mother of one living child; if she was lucky her physical skills would last another ten years at most, not more – not at the rate she’d been working. Her audience was no more fickle than any other, and no less. She understood that money and position, in that order, were what she needed in the next stage of her life and with this posting Hecebolus had the means to offer both. Theodora had always been drawn to doing anything she’d been warned against. Hecebolus’ offer was, in many ways, a challenge, a dare. She packed her bags.
In the theatre there were drunken protestations of friendship forever from her colleagues and five encores from the crowd, disbelieving but finally persuaded – by Theodora throwing her actor’s cloak into the crowd – that this was indeed her last show. And then it was done, the makeup removed, the costumes hung up. The geese were pensioned off and, once out of Theodora’s hearing or the reach of her furious fists, auctioned for supper. They fetched a good price at market, the added incentive of where they’d been feasting made them worth double the going rate.
At home Hypatia grumbled that God had taken one daughter and now this damn son of Tyre was taking another, that she was left with Ana to care for and that her life could not stand more change. But, as the pragmatist she was, Hypatia eventually turned to hope. That Theodora would do well. That her skills would come in useful as the consort of a new Governor: no one could silence a crowd the way she could, no one command either a servant or a lord with such passion in her slow, low voice, fire in her eyes. If she was to lose Theodora – and both knew she was least close to Theodora of all her children – then Hypatia would do her best with Ana instead. Fortunately, and contrary to what most might have expected from her reputation, Theodora had saved a good deal of her income over the years. Unlike Comito she had never seen herself settling for one or two men, and had always assumed she’d need the cash once her body was no longer good currency. As long as Hypatia spent the money wisely, and with three other children to raise there was no suggestion she wouldn’t, there was a chance Ana would never have to go on stage. Kissing her daughter goodbye, Theodora bit her tongue before she could say how fortunate that was, the quiet child simply had no spark. Lucky indeed that her mother’s skill had already earned her, at four years old, a dowry worth trading. For her part, Ana barely looked up from the dolls she was dressing in scraps of cloth. While she knew Theodora was her birth mother, Hypatia was the woman she turned to for nurture and care. Perhaps if she had ever seen her mother on the stage she might have felt the public’s love for the star; as it was, she already knew her own looks and her temperament to be a disappointment and a mother many miles across the sea was at least a mother she could pretend was kind and soft.
Comito had no qualms about encouraging Theodora to follow her heart, and her groin. Theodora was leaving for love, lust and fortune, while the older sister was committed to her glittering singing career – a career that would benefit from being out of her little sister’s shadow. And though Theodora was sad to leave behind her beloved Hagia Sophia, the gallery she still crept to in secret, even more so since her heightened fame, the church would always be there to welcome her home, high on the first hill of the City. She had no doubt she would come home in the end. Right now, she was simply hungry to get away, into Hecebolus’ life and their new world.
There was one farewell that did not come easy. Theodora had not had a friend before Sophia: she’d had her sisters and her colleagues, but she and Sophia were different. Theodora was used to being adored, in Sophia she had a friend she adored in return. Unfortunately, the Theodora who was not only in love but also prepared to leave the City and the stage for it was a woman Sophia did not recognise. Sophia tried to reason with her, to dissuade her, and spent the last three days that Theodora was in the City arguing with her, ranting that whatever magic Hecebolus had in his fat cock and his heavy purse could not possibly be equal to the world her friend was giving up. Their goodbye was difficult and drunken and loud, surrounded by a large group of actors and dancers who left the stage after that last show and immediately set to partying in Theodora’s honour, with her name on their lips and her money behind the bar.
Theodora had hoped to spend a quiet night, or even a few hours alone with her friend. ‘We could go somewhere else, just the two of us, for a meal?’ she suggested.
But Sophia, sitting proud on the shoulders of a tattooed Herulian wrestler, his body as wide as hers was tall, motioned her stallion of a man to turn away, shouting over her shoulder as she went, ‘Don’t be stupid Theo, this is your party. Have a good time, dance, sing, enjoy yourself. Fuck it, who knows when you’ll have any fun again? It’s dry in Africa, sweetheart, dull and dry as Juliana Anicia’s cunt. You make the most of tonight, you’ll regret it if you don’t.’
‘I’ll regret it if I don’t spend some time with you, Little One, please,’ Theodora pleaded, even as Sophia was carried ten, fifteen, twenty feet away.
Then Sophia turned her man fully now, wrapped herself around his shoulders to lean into the centre of the room, and whispered, with all the force of a comedian in command of her usual audience of thirty thousand baying spectators, ‘My name is Sophia. My friends call me Little One. And my friends …’ she paused, looked round the room, waited until she was sure everyone was listening: ‘My friends live in the City.’
Saying goodbye to Menander was even harder. The teacher wouldn’t speak to her after class, he had no time, nor would he let her make an appointment to see him later, saying he was too busy with his new young dancers. So Theodora simply turned up on his doorstep. She had never before been to her teacher’s home. The servant she announced herself to said he doubted very much his master would receive her, but she sent him into the dark of the house anyway, and when he came back smiling, telling her he’d been right in the first place, that Menander was seeing no one, she fought to stop him slamming the door in her face.
Eventually Menander himself came to the door, hit the servant over the head for making such a fuss and proceeded to shut Theodora out himself.
She stepped forward and put her foot between the door and the ledge.
‘You think I won’t close the door on your foot?’
‘And waste all those years of teaching by crippling me?’
Menander rubbed his face, sighing. Theodora was surprised to see how tired he looked. ‘Theodora, you’re the one who is leaving the theatre, I hardly think you can accuse me of wasting your skill. Now if you don’t mind, I have another rehearsal in an hour, I’d like to rest.’
Theodora put out her hand, reaching for her teacher. ‘I want to say goodbye.’ As Menander stepped back, into the darkness of his hallway, she was shouting to him, trying to make him talk to her, ‘Please, Menander. I want to thank you.’
The older man left his hand on the door, still ready to close it in her face, and stepped forward into the light, just a little. ‘You did your job, I did mine. I continue to do mine, you are leaving yours.’
‘Leaving my job yes, but why does everyone have to behave as if I’m leaving all of you?’
‘Because you are.’
And then he did close the door and the tears she cried were hotter than any his cane had ever brought.
Nine
Theodora had travelled by sea before, to the few important houses on the eastern side of the Bosphorus, to the old city of Chrysopolis, and to half a dozen of the prettiest country estates in Bithynia, which she loved, b
ut these had been brief voyages, up or down the narrow strait, only occasionally venturing into the more open waters of the Sea of Marmara, the lighthouse beneath the Imperial Palace proving that home was always in reach. More often than not she’d also been travelling with at least one of her sisters, as well as other company members who felt more like family than her own daughter. She had never before sailed on and on, until the coastline she loved became a thin silver line, and, finally, disappeared entirely. Nor had she travelled as anything other than a worker, using the vessel to get from one venue to another, one private show to another gilded whorehouse to a third back-room bedroom. She had never before journeyed to an unknown end.
Now, for those weeks it took to get to the North African shore, Hecebolus was her true destination. Mediterranean crossings, even in perfect spring weather, were notorious for the storms that sprang up unannounced, and the equally stalling calms in which ships sat eddying gently, going nowhere for days at a time, while boredom-dulled sailors sang the same songs hour after hour. Meanwhile, the light on deck was bright and warm, the nights were star-filled and, once Hecebolus closed her lips with his own, Theodora stopped crying for the people she might never see again. For the first week at least, the Governor-to-be was far more interested in learning about the woman by his side than he was in mastering the finer points of the tax laws of Cyrenaica.