A Triple-headed Serpent. Marié Heese

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СКАЧАТЬ put a large hand over her friend’s smaller one. “Don’t cry, lovey,” she said, blinking her own eyes. Oddly, even the glass one could ooze tears.

      “Absolutely not,” said Theodora. “I won’t have it. No. I’ll find her a husband, never fear. I know exactly who. We have just published a law forbidding the trade in young girls. I won’t have them sold and I won’t have them abused. Leave it to me.”

      Chrysomallo sobbed with relief.

      Indaro patted her hand. She looked up at Theodora. “Did you have something to tell us? In particular?”

      “No,” said Theodora, “not really.”

      Justinian decided that Belisarius merited a consulship. He had prevailed, ultimately, in the Nika riots, and he had won convincingly in Africa. He had delivered the Vandal king, who now lived, according to the promises made to him by Belisarius, in comfort on a fine estate in Constantinople with his family. He, Justinian, would make this magnanimous gesture. It was fitting. And he had great plans for what his victorious general should undertake next.

      To mark the occasion Justinian had a special gold medal struck, with his own head on the one side and on the other Belisarius in full armour with the inscription: The Glory of the Romans.

      “You don’t think you are overdoing things somewhat?” asked Theodora.

      “No, he deserves it. Besides, he brought the most magnificent spoils ever carried in a Roman triumph. A huge contribution to swell the Imperial treasury. Now we can afford the next stage in our grand military plan.”

      “Surely, this time, he won’t walk,” said Theodora.

      Nor did he. This time, his adoring veterans carried him aloft in his ivory chair of office from the Palace to the Senate House after his ceremonial swearing-in, along a route strewn with myrtle and lined with wildly cheering crowds. It was a considerably shorter progress than when he went on foot during his triumph.

      “Just as well,” said Antonina. “Did you see the largesse? He distributed large quantities of his own portion of the spoils to the crowd. The man’s demented. Gold and silver cups, girdles, necklaces, brooches … simply flung them out into the crowds! Many a plebian family has no doubt been set up for life while he beggars himself.”

      “I shouldn’t think he threw away quite everything,” said Theodora.

      “No, some items were too heavy, might have brained his eager supporters,” said Antonina. “And besides, I took some precautions.”

      “Ah. Against a rainy day?”

      “Never know when it’s going to rain in Constantinople,” said Antonina. “And by and large it does not rain gold cups and coins.” She looked at Theodora thoughtfully. “Although you, my friend, have a look about you that suggests a shower of solidi, at least.”

      “Not that. But I … I’m pregnant. I think. I’m late.”

      Antonina leaned forward and took her hand. “How late?”

      “Almost three weeks. “

      “Have you spoken to any of the palace physicians?”

      “No, not yet. It’s just … Well, I’m late.”

      “Does Justinian know?”

      “Haven’t mentioned it,” said Theodora. “Because it might not …”

      Antonina squeezed her hand, hard.

      “But it might. It might be my son,” said Theodora. It is possible, she told herself. It is truly possible. She put her other hand on her belly.

      “I shall light candles,” said Antonina. “I shall petition the Virgin Mother. For a son.”

      Justinian was delighted to receive from Tribonian a revised version of the Codex Constitutionem containing all the laws that the legal commission had recorded in the first version some five years previously, with the addition of all the Novellae, the new laws promulgated in the intervening period, the whole carefully edited.

      “No contradictions, nothing obsolete, nothing superfluous,” said Justinian. “A model of clarity. I am most pleased.”

      “I see that your preamble refers to the war in Africa,” observed Theodora, leaning over his shoulder to read the inscription: “… Divine providence enabled us to overthrow the Vandal nation and to join again to the Empire Carthage … to bring by our watchful care the old laws out of the heavy burden of age into new beauty … In nomine Domini nostri Iesu, Caesar, the Emperor, Flavius Justinianus, victor over the Vandals and Africa itself … the pious conqueror in triumph, always August. No mention of Belisarius, my love?”

      “He was my chosen instrument,” said Justinian, annoyed, “but it was my judgement that appointed him, in the face of opposition from my advisers. My vision that sent him to Africa. My secret agreement with Amalasuintha that ensured revictualling in Sicily. My strategy that divided the Vandal army at a crucial stage.”

      “True,” agreed Theodora.

      “And my unwearied toil and planning in the watches of the night,” said Justinian, still looking injured.

      “Indeed, my love, you are tireless,” soothed Theodora. “And this Codex is extraordinary.”

      Justinian was somewhat mollified. “With the Digesta and the Institutiones we now have the Corpus Juris Civilis,” he said. “It is a work of surpassing excellence. An outstanding tool of government. And a record for the ages.”

      “One of your dreams has come to fruition,” said Theodora. “But there is still much rebuilding to be done, and further conquests, we must hope, still to come.”

      “Indeed. Next, we must subjugate the Goths.”

      “Will you launch a war against Italy now?”

      “Not yet. I need a casus belli, to attack Italy,” said Justinian. “It is in a sense a vassal state. We have had a friendly alliance with Amalasuintha for some years.”

      “Would the old Roman populace in Italy rise up against the Goths?”

      “They might support us if we attack. When the time is right. But we must be patient. An opportunity will present itself.”

      Theodora planned to tell Justinian of his impending fatherhood when she had seen no menses for a month. She had no doubt that he would be delighted. Even a daughter, she thought, would please him. But a son … a son who would be directly descended from the reigning emperor, who would be brought up from his first days as the heir apparent to the great Empire of Byzantium – not the child of a peasant, who had to clump over the many Roman miles from Illyria, who had to rise up through the ranks of the military, who would always be sneered at by the old aristocrats – not that, she thought, exulting, not a boy with that precarious hold on the crown, but one born to the purple. A Byzantine prince. Yes. It would set the seal on the healing of the civitas. It would be a sign from God. She would bear a prince for Byzantium.

      But then: she woke up one morning to a familiar sensation of warm stickiness. She lay rigid, staring at the ornate ceiling above her bed in the Daphne СКАЧАТЬ