Antonina grabbed the back of my tunica and yanked it, hard. The threadbare fabric ripped, exposing my breasts to the thousands of people packed into the tiers. I wanted to run but forced my feet to stay planted instead. From the catcalls, it didn’t sound like anyone wanted me to run offstage. I forced myself to release my tunica and let my breasts remain bare.
“Mine may be wrinkled as the Fates’,” she hollered, “but yours are so small most men would miss them entirely!”
By the dog, I wanted to cut her tongue out.
I turned and smiled, pulling the rope around my waist and hoping no one would notice my fingers tremble. The fabric fell to the ground. “Jealousy doesn’t become you.” My fingers reached to the dark sky, and I turned so the entire audience could see all of me as butterflies—more like angry sparrows at this point—pummeled my stomach. Thank goodness I wore the girdle the law required; otherwise the city Patriarch might have me thrown into Blachernae prison tomorrow morning. I waited for the shouts of disappointment, but instead a golden burst of laughter and applause filled my ears.
My eyes fell on Macedonia—the scenica smiled and slowly clapped.
Antonina stepped toward me, but I wasn’t taking any more chances. I saluted the audience, yanked my tunica up from my ankles, and made for the exit as fast as my feet could run, carrying the audience’s cheers with me.
Nearly naked as I was, I was faster than Antonina in her full Medusa getup, at least until I barreled straight into Hilarion. Damn.
“What in the name of God was that?” His giant nose seemed to splay wider as he took a deep breath and held up a hand to stop Antonina from crashing into me. “How dare you—a pleb—ruin my production? I should have you whipped!”
“She didn’t ruin it.” Macedonia smiled from behind him. Overhead the steps of thousands of feet pounded into the night, hopefully carrying the story of my debut to every taverna in Constantinople. Macedonia’s arm was hooked through a rather portly fellow’s arm, but the golden chain at his neck proclaimed to the world he was an adviser to Emperor Anastasius. “The audience loved her. Count the coins after the slaves clean the floor—I’m sure she pulled in a tidy profit for you.”
Hilarion opened his mouth to protest but shut it. “Fine. I won’t have you whipped. This time. But there hadn’t better be a next time.”
“There won’t be a next time if you put me on the stage.”
He looked me over, then laughed. “You, a theater tart? You’re still a child.”
“Were you at a different show than I was?” Macedonia shook her head, and I caught the musky scent of her perfume. “She’s definitely a woman.”
I cursed the heat that flooded my cheeks, but Macedonia winked at me as her patron led her into the night.
“You can’t honestly mean to promote her.” Antonina looked ready to spit daggers. “After the stunt she just pulled?”
Hilarion ignored her and thrust a pudgy finger at my nose. “Only as a trooper in the chorus.”
He half dragged me to the makeshift desk in his office, despite Antonina’s rather colorful protestations, and scrawled the deal on a scrap of parchment, one with some other girl’s contract on the other side. “If you can’t write your name, just mark it with the sign of the cross.”
He raised an eyebrow as I dipped the stylus in the inkpot and signed my name. “I’ll start tomorrow,” I said. He dismissed me in a hurry, presumably in a rush to count the take from the night.
“You’d better be glad he only made you a trooper.” Antonina’s breath smelled of mint leaves. “Because that’s all you’re ever going to amount to.”
I was saved from responding by the gaggle of actresses that swarmed us, praising my performance. Suddenly I was a star. Comito appeared and pulled me away after some minutes of trying to follow the girls’ excited chatter. I could guess from the twist of her lips that we weren’t going to celebrate with fish sandwiches and a jug of wine.
“Watch it, will you,” I said. “You’re going to pull my arm off.”
She stopped and shook her head, releasing my arm as if I were some sort of insect. “I suppose you got what you wanted, didn’t you?”
She was right. I had.
Chapter 5
God was generous this time. My life as a trooper in the chorus introduced me to a new sphere of men who were happy to pay for my attentions. There was also my cut of the coins showered onto the stage each night. Comito grudgingly taught me all she knew, how to pleasure a man and make him beg for more. It was my first taste of power.
I enjoyed it for exactly nineteen days.
“It’s no use. I can barely breathe.” I tried to pull the stola back over my head, but the cursed thing got stuck on my breasts and Comito had to untangle me.
“For a late bloomer, you’re not wasting any time.” Comito’s lips twisted to one side as she studied me. “I’d swear your breasts are almost as big as mine.”
“I hope they stop soon. I’m tired of them aching all the time.” I rummaged for a larger stola in the costume box and straightened to find Comito scrutinizing me in earnest now. “What? Do I have garos on my face?”
“When did you last wear your cloth and girdle?” She almost yanked my arm from its socket as she pulled me from the room. “When did you last bleed?”
“What do you mean? You don’t think—?”
“When?”
I counted back and groaned. “Over two months ago.” The wall was cold on my back as I slid to the floor, but Comito hauled me to my feet.
“Didn’t you take anything in the mornings?”
Of course—I wasn’t that big a fool. “I have a pessary of crocodile dung. From the market.”
“You can’t be serious.” Her mouth fell open. “You are serious.”
“I heard Antonina tell another girl. It’s an old Egyptian trick.”
“Did she know you were listening?”
My fingers curled into fists. “I’m going to kill her.”
Already the amphitheater was filled with spectators’ voices—there was to be a bearbaiting after our performance, the last of the season before winter shut down the theater. “What am I going to do?”
Comito tapped my head with her knuckles. “What else would you do? Get dressed and give such a performance that Hilarion can’t help hiring you back into the chorus next season.”
I don’t recall if I followed her directions or fell on my face that night. I was the last person in the Empire who should be procreating, and the very thought of childbirth made me cower in terror. My mother had almost died delivering Anastasia, and I’d seen too many biers of women laid out with their dead infants. I might soon join them.
I sat outside after the performance and cursed myself under my breath. No man would want me once my belly swelled. And then there would be a baby to take care of. The entire situation was hopeless.
My tears had dried by the time Comito emerged, swathed in a shaggy fur coat made from at least a hundred dead squirrels. I dashed the sleeve of my tunica across my eyes before she could see my blotchy face.
“I was beginning to think you’d gotten lost.” I eyed the package under her arm. “What’s that?”
“Herbs. They might help, but it won’t be pretty.” She stopped and brushed an imaginary hair back from her eyes. “I’m assuming you want to get rid of it.”
This from my sister, who wanted nothing more than a lap full of babies.
“Do I have a choice?”
She shrugged. “I’ve some coins saved, but not enough for the winter. And in your condition—”
I’d be a charity case. Worse, I might have to expose the child after giving birth. Many of the other troopers from the chorus had already done that several times. Better to do it now than be forced to choose between that or watching my baby die of starvation.
I took the package from her. “Will you help me?”
She nodded. “And Mother, too.”
We walked in silence in the night until my curiosity
got the better of me. “Where did you get the herbs?”
“Antonina.”
I almost dropped the package. “I’m going to die.”
Comito sighed and kept walking. “She thinks they’re for me.”
I watched my sister, dumbstruck, then hurried to catch her hand. “Thank you.”
She gave me a watery smile. “That’s what sisters are for.”
Wine fumes greeted us as we let ourselves into our room—Mother was slumped at the table, an empty amphora on the ground and her fingers still loosely clasped around another. So much for my mother helping me.
Comito pulled vials from the linen package. “If this works, you won’t be able to get up tomorrow.”
I uncorked a cloudy bottle and promptly gagged on the smell. “What is that?”
“Tooth of a Cyclops and a virgin’s blood.” Comito rolled her eyes. “Tansy and pennyroyal. Antonina was quite proud that it was mixed by a Manichaean magician who can trace his lineage all the way back to the prophet Mani.”
I supposed that was quite an honor, but it smelled like cat urine and rotten eggs. “I already want to die.”
She chuckled. “If you drink more than half, you might get your wish.” She pushed a terracotta basin to me. “For later. And you might want to plug your nose to get that all down.”
I did as I was told and drained half of the tincture. It almost came back up, but I managed to swallow. “Now what?”
“We wait.” Comito rewrapped the bottles in the linen. “I hope you’ve learned your lesson. From now on you’ll use a pessary of pennyroyal, arum root, and fenugreek.” She poured herself a glass of wine—one that smelled more like vinegar—and sat down next to me. “Let’s hope this works.”
She was right—when the tincture began its work, I prayed God would kill me. The need for the basin became clear when I vomited, but then my insides turned to water. I shook on my pallet and Comito mostly left me alone, but occasionally I felt her hand on my back. “Not yet,” she said more than once.
Afternoon sunshine streamed down on me when I awoke to Comito’s snores. I tried to move, but it felt as if I’d been run over by a chariot. And then stomped on by the horse.
There was a different noise, some sort of animal groan. It took me a moment to realize the sound was coming from my mouth, but then soft hands were on my back and a cool cloth on my forehead. My vision cleared enough to make out the outline of my mother beside me. “My poor, stupid girl,” she said.
I closed my eyes. “Must have been something I ate.”
She massaged my scalp, pulling the damp strands from my face. “I might be a drunk, but I’m no fool. Children are a hazard in your line of work.”
I cringed at the mess of vomit on the floor. It would be easier for us to move than to clean it. “Did it work?”
She shook her head. “No sign of it.”
“No.” That couldn’t be right.
I heard Comito stir. “Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t.” She squinted out the window. “I have to go—there’s a silk merchant who wants me before his wife returns from taking the waters at Bithynia.” She touched my shoulder. “Do you want to come to the baths with me?”
The thought of moving made me want to be ill.
“I’ll take care of her.” My mother released a heavy sigh. Comito must have given her a look. “I’m her mother, for Mary’s sake.”
“All right,” I heard Comito say. “I’ll pick you up a nice vintage on the way home.”
“There’s a good girl,” Mother said. The wet cloth on my head was heaven. “Now what are we going to do with you, Theodora?”
If only I knew.
…
Things went from bad to worse.
That winter I grew larger than an Egyptian hippo, becoming a virtual Penelope as I embroidered the same tiny smock and tore out the seams, unsure what to do with the child I carried. I swallowed my envy as Comito went back to the Kynêgion when the almond trees unfurled their pink blossoms. My sister supported both Mother and me without complaint, but our cupboards were more empty than not and soon there would be a baby, too. If the child and I survived the birth, that was.
I spent most of my time praying to God for guidance, for protection, for a sign—anything—but received no answer. A precious coin paid to the pagan augur in the market only told me I was going nowhere, all because I’d dreamed of putting on shoes. I began to think she was onto something.
I stretched my back and rubbed my swollen belly—today was an especially itchy day, and Mother had already rubbed my stomach with olive oil twice before she went out to pick up fresh fish for our evening meal—when Comito burst through the door, her face covered with strawberry blotches. She stopped, seemingly transfixed by my colossal stomach. Then she collapsed next to me and burst into tears.
The front of my tunica was soaked through by the time I could make sense of my sister’s garbled mess of words.
“Married,” Comito bawled. “He’s married.”
I wiped the tears from her cheeks with the end of my sleeve. “Who?”
“Karas!” She dissolved into another fit, during which I poured wine. I wanted the whole amphora, but cut mine heavily with water and filled the other to the top. This was my fault.
“He married the fuller’s daughter.” Comito sniffled. “I saw them today in the market—she already looks gone with child.”
“Perhaps she’s just plump,” I said.
Comito ignored me, curling to a ball on her pallet. “That was supposed to be my baby, but instead I’m a whore.”
“No, you’re one of Constantinople’s greatest actresses. She stinks of sausage and pig blood while you dress in silk stolas, dine on milk-stuffed suckling lambs, and drink wine out of gold goblets.”
She looked at me as if she’d never seen me before. “Is that really what you think of me? I’d trade every stola I own for a baby and a husband who loved me.” Her lower lip trembled. “I thought Karas would want me back if he saw how popular I’d become, that he’d realize how much he wanted me. Instead, I ruined everything.” She swiped at her eyes with one hand, clenching the clay cup of wine with the other so tightly I thought it might crack.
I could either swallow the lie I’d told or tell Comito the truth. I owed her that after what I’d done.
“It’s my fault,” I said. “Not yours. He came looking for you at the Boar’s Eye, but I told him you were with someone else. Which, might I point out, wasn’t entirely false.” Her expression changed as my words sunk in. “I shouldn’t have done it.”
She stared at me with unseeing eyes, then hurled her wine cup at me, followed by the other cup and the amphora. I dodged the amphora but wasn’t so lucky with the cups. “You filthy, lying viper!”
I held my hands in front of me and backed toward the door as she searched for more projectiles. “I thought you wanted a patron. I didn’t know you still loved him.”
She paused, a bottle of olive oil with my name on it poised over her head. “And that meant you could decide my life for me?”
“I was angry. I thought you wouldn’t help me.”
She set the bottle down, slowly. “I’ve lost my only chance at true happiness. All because of you.”
I took a tentative step forward, reaching out my hand. “I’m sorry, Comito. So, so sorry.”
Her eyes were empty when she looked at me, and she stepped back as if I might contaminate her. “Get out.”
“What? Now?”
Her voice was as hollow as her gaze. “I never want to see you again.”
“But the baby—”
“I don’t care about the baby!” Her face crumpled. “I said get out!”
I stumbled into the streets, drenched and smelling like a vat of wine. People stopped to stare—a woman as far gone as I was with child should have been locked from view—but then turned their noses up and continued on their way.
I’d lost my father, and then Anastasia. Now I’d lost Comito, too.
/> And it was all my fault.
Chapter 6
TWENTY-SEVENTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF EMPEROR ANASTASIUS
I gasped and grit my teeth. The pain around my stomach crescendoed even as I crouched on the ground like some sort of wild animal. I’d had pains over the last week as I begged for bread and slept wherever I could, including one night spent in the public latrina I’d rather forget. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to beg my sister to take me back. Instead, I’d gone to Communion and worn out my knees praying to God for help. At least the churches didn’t turn me away.
The stones of the city wall were cold against my forehead, my midnight dig through a taverna’s trash heap momentarily forgotten. The pain passed, and I leaned over the garbage again, but a sudden gush of warm water between my legs stopped me.
“Not now!” I hit the wall and cursed again at the haze of blood on my knuckles. I could scarcely see through my tears. The wall held me upright as I panted through more waves of agony and pushed my palms against the pain. At some point I became vaguely aware of a woman’s drunken laughter.
“Once an alley cat, always an alley cat, eh, Theodora?”
Antonina. The Almighty had a twisted sense of humor.
“Lord in heaven, you’re not having the cursed thing out here, are you?”
I was hallucinating. It almost sounded as if Antonina cared. My glare was cut short as I groaned and curled into the pain. Once it passed, I slumped against a crate, one filled with fish, judging from its briny smell.
“How long have you been at it?”
I didn’t look at her—it cost me dear enough to answer. “I don’t know.” The moon had moved, so now it perched atop one of the buildings, possibly the last moon I’d ever see. A fierce desire to fight through this torture surged through me. “Long enough.”
Someone cleared his throat—I hadn’t noticed the man in the shadows. There was a low murmur of voices and then footsteps retreating into the darkness. I should have known she wouldn’t stick around. Time’s edges blurred as my pains bled into one another. Then something cold rummaged between my legs. I yelped.
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