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The Female

1 }

Some cities are by nature male, being full of smoke and bustle, and making a virtue of the prosaic. Others are equally female, given to frivolity, vanity, and the gay pursuit of trifles.

If this be true, never in history was a city more like a woman, in her opulence, waywardness, and beauty, than Constantinople, still sometimes called, in the year of Our Lord 521, by the ancient name of Byzantium.

She lay as if in the arms of three lovers, the Bosphorus, the Propontis, and the Golden Horn; enriched by the wealth of the world and displaying with slumbering pride her priceless jewels of architecture; sophisticated, sensual, and alluring; her million people stirring steadily like the beat of her warm pulse. Within her struggled conflicting urges, suggesting the eternal dissidence in woman’s nature. At once decorous and vain, sentimental and cruel, civilized and savage, she was given to modesty, prayer, and propriety like a sober matron, yet with a courtesan’s appraising glance and laughing challenge to license.

Her seven hills and the vales between them were patterned by countless crooked streets, which were serried by innumerable houses crowded wall to wall, where dwelt the strange, polyglot population, an admixture of all races, speaking a bastard combination of Latin and Greek; shopkeepers and beggars, artisans and loiterers, priests and unbelievers, freemen and slaves, honest and dishonest, industrious and indolent, all going about their varied pursuits, exactly as the peoples of all great cities have always done, hardly realizing or caring, most of them, what went on in the next block, or even the next house, so submerged were they in the routines of their own lives.

To the eastward was the respectable quarter of Constantinople. There stood the imperial palaces, the vast Hippodrome, the arcades of the Augusteum, the pillar of Constantine, the arsenal, the great bazaar, the Senate house and other public edifices, and the palaces and mansions of the wealthy and noble families: all dominated by the handsome pile and benign influence of the Cathedral of Sancta Sophia—Holy Wisdom—named in that feminine form by Constantine the Great, who built the structure and consecrated it to the virtues exemplified by the blessed Virgin, and preached and enjoined by the Christian Church.

But a different influence dominated the westward section of the city: the famous marble Aphrodite, shameless and pagan. In the center of the square which was named after her, she stood; an anachronism, perhaps—for imperial edict had replaced the pantheon of pagan gods with the holy Trinity, the Virgin, and the calendar of saints—but the lovely last perfection of a dying Attic art, casting her spell, beautiful but depraved, upon all who beheld her.

The eyes of the goddess were half closed and smiling, her lips parted as if swooning to receive a lover’s kiss, her body in pure naked femininity, every charm open, apparent to the eye, welcoming the gaze, endowed by the unknown genius who had sculptured her with the beauty that was a passion as well as a religion to the ancient Greeks. On the four sides of her pedestal appeared the dolphin, signifying her ocean birth; the dove, symbol of love; the hare, of productivity; and the he-goat of lubricity. For this was Aphrodite Pandemos, the goddess of sexual impulse and unbridled sensuality.

Appropriately, the marble beauty’s gaze was directed down the Street of Women, which began at the square and ran to the municipal shipping docks along the Golden Horn. This was the truly scandalous part of Constantinople—though the city was corrupt and sensual enough throughout—a place of heated activity and vice, particularly after dark when the indolent and decadent libertines of the palace quarter came to life from a daytime in bed, reinvigorated their jaded nerves with chilled wines and perhaps an erogenous philter, and sauntered forth, sleek and shiny, for the pursuit of pleasure, which was the only real business of their lives.

It was a spectacle never to be forgotten, if one traveled the long route from the wharfs to the Square of Aphrodite: the harlots on the roof tops, at their windows, or in the streets; a kaleidoscopic changing spectacle, for women of all nations and races were there, each affecting the costumes and manners of their own lands, as if they formed a menagerie of exotic femininity, gathered by the great capital for the education as well as the seduction of visitors.

To a newcomer the variety and contrasts presented were almost bewildering: Armenian and Syrian girls with beautiful brown skins and circles of gold in their ears; black women from Nubia and Ethiopia, wearing kirtles of many brilliant hues but never covering the breasts; Persians, small-boned and practiced in mysterious Oriental sensualities; Jewesses with full plum-colored eyes and jeweled hands; Egyptians, languorous and exquisite of figure; women from far-off India with turquoise or carnelian ornaments in the curve of the nostrils; a whole area occupied by female barbarians of the north, Teutonic, Gothic, and Herulian women, with hair of shining red or gold, deep bosoms, and skin soft and white as milk, reputed to be modest even in prostitution. And this is to speak only of a beginning in the diversity of the Street of Women.

Nearest to the docks were the stabula, or “stables,” and here was cruelty and despair, for the inmates were slaves, undergoing a lifelong unwilling martyrdom of shame. Close at hand, near the state prison, was the slave market, and whenever a new war brought a fresh batch of captives to the city, the vile owners of the slave houses of debauchery crowded the auctions.

That was a thing to watch: the pretty girls and women sorted out from the rest; a princess of a conquered nation perhaps ranged beside a peasant girl who lately had been her kitchen servant, and no distinction between them, their price based solely on their beauty and health, so that the servant often went for more than the whilom mistress. Each feminine item now was exposed in turn on the block, her single garment snatched off of her, naked and twisting her white body in embarrassment; the word intacta heard again and again, for virgins had a special market of their own.

Then the bidding: the auctioneer spicing his remarks with witty comments on each item’s perfections, bringing a whinny of laughter from the avid buyers. And the girls with the finest figures and brightest faces always were the objects of the briskest bidding, going quickly under the hammer, so that a single morning was enough to dispose of all of them.

At those auctions women slaves so ugly that they could be used only for manual labor, the heavy indoor and outdoor drudgery, were the lucky ones. The others, almost without exception, were swallowed up by the brothels near the docks, where their spirit was broken down by vicious keepers until, poor creatures bereft of wills, they served as they were ordered, the revenue all going into the hands of their masters.

The stabulum quarter of the Street of Women was the most dangerous part of the city, where no woman, even one who was a slave, came out from the houses by night, except for the most miserable degree of harlots known as pedanae, or streetwalkers—poor destitute creatures who had no homes, but slept in alleys or doorways, and sold themselves to any human cur, even to slaves in dark places, for the smallest copper coin, or even some trifling thing to eat. A woman who was attired in anything but rags, so that obviously she was not worth the trouble of the criminal lurkers, stood in deadly peril if she ventured forth in the night hours. Even with all precautions, scores of courtesans were each year murdered for their jewels.

And there was another danger also: encountering one of the wandering bands of young desperadoes of noble or wealthy families, who called themselves Juventi Alcinoi—Youths of Alcinoüs—in reference to the mythical king of the fabled Phaeacians, a people supposed to be addicted to every vice and pleasure. Idle wastrels with nothing to occupy them but mischief, and vicious in temperament, they were arrogant in the immunity that their influential families gave them. By day they promenaded nonchalantly through the city, curled, perfumed, and adorned, ogling the women; but by night they delighted in prowling the darkened streets in gangs, seeking wicked diversions.

The especial victims of the Juventi were the courtesans, whose quarter they often invaded for a lark, well armed and reckless with drink. A favorite exploit was to set up an ambuscade, and when some unlucky girl fell into their trap, they dragged her off into a dark alley, laughing at her pleas and tears, to despoil her. The unhappy victim, rising up with torn garments, bruised and dusty, received only laughs and puns to console her for her woe, because the idea of taking by rape, against her will, what a woman made her livelihood by selling, tickled their evil sense of humor.

Indeed, the courtesan they captured was lucky if she escaped robbery, for these noble banditti often demanded “souvenirs,” taking bracelets, rings, and necklaces, ripping earrings out of torn lobes, so that the poor girl often was injured seriously, and sometimes died from her terrible experience. And against this abuse the courtesans, who were excluded from the pale of church and law, had no protection, since the Juventi made advances only to harlots, so that the statute which punished insults to respectable women could not be applied to them.

But by no means all, or even the larger part of the dwellers of the Street of Women were slaves, and the upper quarter, near the Square of Aphrodite was usually quite safe, even after dark, being policed by the city guards, who received, in addition to their ordinary pay, gratuities from the more prosperous courtesans for this service.

In contrast to the miserable bondwomen of the stabula, most of the harlots were on the Street of Women of their own free wills, many living the life because it was prescribed by the rigid Roman rule of descent whereby daughter followed mother in her profession; schooled to the life and knowing no other, or caring for any other; carrying on with frankness and ardor their vocation which was freely chosen; never conceding that they needed excuse or apology, since theirs was a calling dating almost from the time of Eve, and which, just a few generations ago, in the Graeco-Roman days, was considered actually holy in the devotions of certain temples, particularly those of the goddesses Aphrodite and Astarte.

This was the Street of Women, twisting snakelike through the city, and with all the glittering deadly fascination of a jewel-eyed serpent; the greatest quarter of prostitution in all the world.

2 }

On the pedestal of the marble Aphrodite in the square lay fresh garlands of flowers, wreaths of myrtle, and with them bits of jewelry—finger rings, bracelets, and even coins. Some of these were of real value, others so poor as to be valueless, and advertising the poverty of their givers. All were offerings: mute appeals to a pagan goddess from women denied by the Church approach to the true God.

From its inception the Christian religion had been unremitting in its war alike on polytheism and prostitution. Sex, instead of being holy, had been made shameful, and it was unlawful to worship a pagan goddess. But still furtive women, watching opportunity when nobody was looking, would slip up to the nude statue, quickly lay their small offerings at her feet, and as quickly efface themselves in the crowds.

For the Aphrodite was many-formed. As Epistrophia, she brought forgetfulness of unhappy loves; as Chryseia, she attracted rich lovers; as Genetyllis, she protected pregnant girls; as Coliade, she aroused passion; as Urania, she even received chaste vows of love, although few of these were made to her in the square at the head of the Street of Women.

The marble goddess, that May morning, was beauty enshrined: but beside her pedestal was a creature as hideous as she was charming.

Persons crossing the square often gazed at him askance, for his peculiar and repellent characteristic was the fantastic manner in which he was deformed. He stood not, neither sat, like an ordinary man, but lay rather in a sort of basket or cage, saddled on the back of a small donkey which was trained to stand perfectly still under its burden for hours at a time.

In that receptacle the misshapen creature lay, clad in foul rags, his body a revolting crook-backed lump, his legs shrunken so small and weak that they curled under him as if they had no bones or muscles in them, and twisted until the feet pointed backward. Only the arms seemed to have life and strength: they were long and monstrous, forever outheld with cupped palms, beseeching for alms.

But the head! The nature of the beggar’s deformity was such that his head was canted half backward, so that it peered over one twisted shoulder. As the body was small and shrunken, the head was large and almost fearsome: entirely hairless, the forehead and cheekbones lumped and deformed, the mouth twisted by some sort of paralysis. Out of this horror of a countenance two eyes gleamed with an intelligence so secret and cunning, that they sometimes caused a hasty onlooker to fall back and cross himself, as if he had surprised some menace concealed in a dreadful ambush.

“An obol! An obol!” croaked the creature’s voice unceasingly with a booming bullfrog resonance. “Bestow on the wretched one copper obol, your worship! For Jesus Christ, his sake, I beg of you a small coin, for he knows my wants, that I am not able to work for my bread!”

Sometimes the solicitation became almost a threat.

“I pray to God, your worship, that as you are merciful to the miserable and unfortunate, he will deliver you from misfortune, from the accusation of false witnesses, from the power of traitors, and the malice of evil tongues!”

That often caused purses to fly open. For the Byzantine, as a citizen of Constantinople was called, was notoriously superstitious, the government dangerously erratic, and the city known to be full of spies—of which this creature might well be one—so that a comfortable merchant might wake up any morning to find himself proscribed and his property confiscated on some trumped-up charge, simply because he possessed a little wealth which the imperial treasury coveted.

The name of the beggar on the burro was Hagg. It was a shortening of Hagios, the Greek word meaning Saint, and of all qualities, saintliness was the one he most conspicuously lacked. He was born to beggarhood, but he was not born a cripple. His deformities he owed to his own father, a mendicant before him, who with cruelty shocking and unnatural took him in hand while he was a helpless child, and deliberately broke his joints, so maiming him that he had ever after the loathsome shape and posture which moved people to take pity on him. And this the father did, martyring his little son, so that he could gain greater alms by exposing the child to view. Yet, such is the incomprehensibility of human nature, the old beggar died believing he did the boy a great favor, for by leaving him thus marred beyond imagination, he considered that he had equipped him to make a good living in a lifetime of beggarhood.

As for Hagg, now growing old, he hardly resented what had been done to him, so accustomed to it had he become. Almost cheerfully he cried for alms. And watched.

For the Square of Aphrodite was the juncture of five streets, leading to different parts of the city, and sooner or later one might see almost everything in Constantinople pass through it.

On this morning Hagg observed a band of Phrygian sailors, in pointed caps, roll by with the seaman’s walk, craning their necks at the sights, and saying outrageous things to every woman they met. Behind them stalked a wild-eyed, wild-haired fanatic of some religious sect, in the patched and ragged robe of his anchorite faith. Two men, one an elderly and portly senator in the old-fashioned toga, the other young, with a sprig of myrtle behind his ear, his hair curled and perfumed, strolled in earnest conversation toward the slave market. The younger man was hailed by a group of youths, dressed in the extreme of fashion, who lounged before a wine shop. He would have halted, but the portly senator, with a scowl of disapproval at the idlers, drew him on, and he went along almost unhappily.

Here came a string of lean and snarling camels, shepherded by equally lean and snarling Arabs, who guarded the beasts and their burdens as if they expected to be set upon and robbed any minute in this strange and bewildering city. A long-haired, strong-scented Isaurian, with a crooked leg and a crutch, hobbled by; dropped a few words to Hagg; then hurried on, as a platoon of soldiers tramped past, impressive in silver helmets and shields, great gold crosses on their white uniforms, and gilded lances all slanted at the same angle.

From a different direction another kind of procession crossed the square: men of mixed races, some with faces of despair, some dully brutish, some flickering dangerous glances this way and that, but all walking wide and stiffly in leg-irons which clanked at every step, herded along by armed guards and harsh-faced overseers with whips.

To Hagg, in his burro basket, each of these sights had a meaning. The platoon of soldier—they were Excubitors, or palace guards—and the sailors, taken together, meant that a Phrygian treasure ship was in, the troops going to escort the shipment of gold to the imperial treasury.

The senator and the young man were father and son—Hagg knew Senator Polemon by sight, and his son somewhat better—and undoubtedly, from the sprig of myrtle behind his ear, the young man was to take a wife, the two being on their way to the slave market to buy servants for the new household. Hagg made a note to discover the day of the wedding, for the street outside the house in which a nuptial feast was being given, was always good for a rich harvest in alms.

The men in leg-irons were a gang of galley slaves, going to a billet below decks for a life chained to a bench and an oar, their backs to be marked ever afresh by the whip, until at last they died. This was the third such gang—criminals and political prisoners as well as slaves—that Hagg had seen in two days. They were destined for the new war galleys in the Golden Horn, and he wondered if it betokened the long-rumored expedition by sea against the Euxine coast of Persia.

The gaunt fanatic was identified by the beggar as a Monophysite from Egypt, a member of the powerful heresy then locked in controversy with the Orthodox Catholics. Hagg speculated as to whether there was to be a renewal of the furious religious strife that had been quieted somewhat of late.

Those negligent and perfumed youths in front of the wine shop, he knew to be the idle wastrels who called themselves Juventi Alcinoi, and a great shame to Constantinople he considered them, what with their irresponsible and cruel depredations after dark.

Finally, there was the Isaurian with the crooked leg and crutch. He also was a beggar, and he had just given Hagg a bit of useful information in words which were neither Latin, Greek, nor any other recognized language of the empire. And here was a key to something that was known to a comparative few only.

As there was a visible Roman empire, ruled over by Emperor Justin, there also was an invisible empire over which the emperor had no jurisdiction—an empire extending to every part of Justin’s realm and far beyond, traversing all national boundaries to the end of the known world. Its subjects were known only to one another. They had laws, secret signs, even a language of their own, and they knew everything, and passed on the knowledge: so that news of a movement of the wild Huns beyond the Danube, or a revolt in the foggy isles of Britain; a murrain among the flocks of Mesopotamia, or a new schism among the contentious theologians of Africa; traveled in ever widening ripples of communication, often coming to the ears of such as Hagg long before the imperial service of information had made the capital aware of the events. That secret empire was the world-wide Brotherhood of Beggars.

3 }

That afternoon a certain Datos, a merchant newly in from Alexandria, approached the statue of Aphrodite, and surveyed the marble beauty with admiration. He was a Greek, a sturdy, sober man of mature age, with a short beard somewhat gray, neatly dressed and dignified, wearing about his neck a gold chain with three fine matched emeralds in it, and glancing about with the bright, inquisitive eyes of a stranger.

“An obol!” croaked Hagg at once. “Good stranger from Egypt, take pity on the unfortunate!”

The eyes of the bearded man shifted from the goddess to the beggar, and his hand went to the pouch at his belt.

“Here, take,” he said, dropping into the outstretched palm, not a copper obol, which was the coin of least value in the empire, but a silver denarius.

Hagg rolled out a sonorous blessing, but not until he had bitten the coin to make sure it was not counterfeit. With a smile the stranger observed this, but he did not move on.

“You know me for an Egyptian?” he asked. “How?”

“By your superior manner of wearing the peplum,” replied the beggar with a flattering grin. “I have always held that Egypt is a land filled with merit and wisdom. Most especially,” he added cunningly, “the famous city of Alexandria.”

The last deduction was not too difficult, for it was apparent that the stranger was a merchant, and Alexandria was the great mercantile center of Egypt.

“Since you know so much,” said the other, “tell me of the Aphrodite—who sculptured her?”

“Some say Praxiteles, but no man really knows. The statue has been here from earliest times—while the city was still called Byzantium, before Constantine made it the capital of the Roman empire, and renamed it after himself.”

“It is most beautiful. I admire things of beauty.”

“Is this your worship’s first visit to Constantinople?”

“Yes.”

Only that morning had Datos landed, and leaving his ship with its cargo of cotton fabrics, hides, elephant ivory, and gum arabic at the municipal docks, he was making his first examination of the capital. What he had seen filled his eyes. A magnificent place indeed, he conceded. Not even Alexandria, the pearl of Egypt, could compare to it. The buildings were great and noble, the numbers of streets and the mercantile establishments on them bewildering, and its voice, comprised of thousands of voices—cries of costermongers, poultrymen, fishwives, pastry cooks, snail women, chair carriers, and the rattle of wains and chariots—united into a surf-like sound, as if it were a sea within the land.

Even that morning, while his vessel was beating its way up the Propontis—which in later times would be known as the Sea of Marmora—the water traffic had proclaimed the great city. The sea seemed fairly covered with ships; sails of every shape and color as far as the eye could reach, outbound and inbound; heavy cargo boats, corn ships, fruit ships, salt ships, cattle ships, wool ships, tribute ships, pleasure craft, war galleys with fierce beaks and flashing banks of oars—all going to, or coming from Constantinople. It made a man wonder if, in this vast commerce, there would be any demand for his one craft’s cargo.

But no sooner had his ship moored than the brokers were aboard, their harsh cries, bidding for his goods, filling the air—enough to dizzy one. After a time Datos made himself heard, and prices were arranged: his cargo sold for a profit beyond his dreams. Remained now only the unlading, and since he had a day or so of leisure while this was accomplished by the dock slaves, he had set out to survey this city of all cities.

The beggar on the donkey was saying, “If your worship could spare another silver piece—perhaps I might give him some knowledge of the capital——”

At the sly smirk, Datos asked, “Of what sort?”

“Any sort. Your worship admires beauty? He must also desire pleasure. I can tell where to find both.”

The merchant grinned. “Take your coin. And you need not bite it this time: it’s true imperial silver. Now, where is this place of beauty and diversion?”

Hagg clutched the silver and returned the grin. “Before you is the Street of Women, the most famous in the whole country.”

“Brothels?” The merchant gave a slight frown. “I have seen brothels. Nothing in them to attract me.”

For a moment Hagg considered. He wished to think of something that might intrigue this man: enough, perhaps, to gain from him another coin. There were on the Street of Women, meretrices of every race and grade: pedanae, who lurked at the corners and solicited; quasillariae, poor servants who escaped for a few minutes with a basket containing their daily task, prostituted themselves for a few coppers, and returned furtively and hurriedly to their wool spinning; copae, the wine shop girls, who got a man drunk, then went to bed with him; peregrinae, foreign women who tempted by promising novel practices; saltatrices and fidicinae, the dancers and flute players who combined musical entertainment with their other trade, hiring themselves out for banquets; mimae, the actresses of the Circus and other theaters, who used the stage chiefly as an advertisement to attract customers to buy their love; lupinariae, who occupied the well-run houses, where each had her own room, with her name and price on a sign board above the door, capable of being reversed to read, “Occupata,” or “Busy,” when she was entertaining a guest; even the sagae, hideous old women, worn out as prostitutes, who dealt in love philters, procurement, mid-wifery, abortive potions, and witchcraft. A complicated hierarchy of sin, indeed, but Hagg reasoned that the Alexandrian would be interested in none of these.

“You have seen brothels, but none to compare with the Street of Women!” he said eagerly. “Of meretrices there are many kinds, but near this square dwell the true courtesans, the higher class of women who dispense wondrous delights, compared to whom there are no equals in all the empire.”

“In those large houses facing the square?”

“Oh, no,” said Hagg quickly. “Those are the dwellings of the famosae—the famous ones. And I would not conscientiously recommend them. A stranger—saving your worship’s presence—cannot enter them without the proper auspices, for they are more exclusive than the homes of some of the senators in the palace quarter. Besides, buying the favors of a famosa is the most expensive pleasure in the world. That house on the left corner belongs to Macedonia, a celebrated dancer and actress; and a friend, so I’ve been told, of Prince Justinian, the nephew of the emperor. That on the right is the establishment of Chione, the Boeotian, who, it is said, receives as much as a centenary—a hundred pounds of gold—for a single night. And many a rich fool glad to pay it, for it’s a feather in the cap to have slept with Chione. Between the famosae there’s no love lost, and there occurs all the spite work and jealousy and treachery that might be expected: for as your worship knows, even the best of women sometimes confess that they find few real friends in their own sex, and these, of course, are the worst of women.”

“I see,” said Datos, drily.

“But if your worship has a fastidious taste,” continued Hagg, “and cares not if he spends a little freely—so be it that he receives the worth of his money—he can find, just beyond the houses of the famosae, the apartments of the little delicatae, charming girls, not as unreasonably expensive as the great courtesans, but fresher and younger, and well enough gifted and accomplished in pleasing a guest——”

The Alexandrian, though living a life of sobriety and propriety at home, was a man of the world, and he had arrived at an age when a man begins mentally to wonder how many years he has left to enjoy the pleasures. He had time to kill; nobody knew him here, and a lark in the capital would do him no harm, while being something to remember.

So he dropped a third coin in the beggar’s hand, and with Hagg’s renewed blessings in his ear turned toward the Street of Women.

4 }

In a window above the sidewalk, twirling in her fingers a sprig of myrtle, sat a girl with dark hair piled high on her head.

She did not speak, but she smiled. Was the smile instinctive, or deliberate? Her wide eyes had somehow a look of innocence—such as only youth can give, even when wisdom and a secret pleasure-hungry acquisitiveness are concealed beneath it.

The myrtle sprig in her fingers—from the plant dedicated to Aphrodite, the goddess of love—told its own story, and Datos stopped and looked up at her.

Very pretty, he thought to himself.

Aloud, he said, “Little window sitter, for whom are you waiting?”

“For you . . . perhaps,” she answered.

“For me? Perhaps?” he said, caught by the feminine qualification. “Why for a man with a gray beard—a girl so very young as you?”

“I’m eighteen, and therefore a woman,” she said. “As for you—a few gray hairs never made a man old.”

Her pretty way of saying it, and her smile, made up his mind.

“What is your name, little window sitter?”

“Theodora.”

“Theodora? That means Gift of God.”

“Yes.”

“Then, Gift of God, open your door.”

“It is open.” She was gone from the window.

He tried the door: it was unbarred, and he entered. She was standing at the top of a short flight of two or three steps, a slim figure in a white garment which fell in numerous folds to her feet, almost ghostly in the shrouding darkness of the hall.

“Come into my chamber,” she invited.

He mounted the steps and followed her into a small sitting room.

“Will you sit? I have here wine of Cyprus and honey cakes. I pray you refresh yourself,” she said daintily.

In the clearer light of the sitting room he saw that she had magnificent dark eyes, set in a face of a pallor which suggested an inward flame. There was a mouth, too, vivid and luscious, yet somehow competent.

“A cup of wine,” he said, and added inconsequentially, “I know Cyprus. The birthplace of the goddess Aphrodite.”

“Mine also.”

He glanced at her quizzically. “Are you then a Cyprian—or a Cypriote?”

The play on words, in the Greek tongue, had a delicate shade of meaning: the first signifying merely a person hailing from the island, while the second implied one accomplished in the especial arts of love for which the island’s women were celebrated.

She answered him simply, “That will be for you to judge.”

At her way of saying it, he felt a sudden leaping of his pulses, and to hide it he sipped his wine.

“You live here alone, Theodora?” he asked, after a moment.

“Oh, no. I have my own female slave now. And two other girls have their apartments in this house with me—and their servants, of course.”

“You spend much time at the window?”

“Oh! Hardly ever.”

He nodded. “A foolish question. I should have known that your lovers would be many.”

For reply, as if this were a compliment, she gave him a veiled smile, and then said, “Will you be my guest for the night? Or is this to be a short visit only?”

In everything she said was a delicacy of expression, without the slightest trace of vulgarism: yet not a mock modesty, but rather honest and straightforward.

“I think—the short visit,” he said hesitantly.

She nodded. “I will tell Teia to bar the door so that none shall disturb us.”

For a moment she was gone.

Datos of Alexandria was no experienced libertine. He was a man of solid standing in his own city, with a business, an elderly wife, and a family of grown children. This fling upon which he was embarking was so foreign to his somewhat dull and regular existence, that it suddenly seemed a little alarming.

But before the feeling of alarm could translate itself into repentance of his rashness, the girl was back. And instantly his self-questioning was soothed away. She was so precious, so inviting, so intimate. He felt a sudden strong desire for her. And though he knew little of courtesans, and was no more gifted with prescience concerning women than most other men, he felt already that he was in for an experience that would be memorable.

He set down the wine cup, hardly tasted, and rose.

Almost timidly, yet confidently, she went to him.

“Since the visit is to be short—is it not time we became truly acquainted?” she whispered.

His arms went around her, and as he kissed her, his blood beat heavily in his throat. A woman who has not yet been possessed, even if she be a courtesan, has for a man something virginal about her, as if she holds forth to him secret promises of wondrous surprises in store . . .

5 }

Later, as they lay resting together on the girl’s scarlet-sheeted bed, the man said, “I’ve changed my mind. I would stay the night.”

She nodded, unsurprised. “I will tell Teia to prepare supper.”

“But not now.”

“Not now.”

Hungrily he sought her lips with his again.

After the kiss he lifted his head and gazed down at her. Her lustrous dark head lay in the hollow of his shoulder. Some women are born to disturb, distract, and—perhaps—destroy. Deep within Datos an instinct warned him that he held within his arm’s circle such a woman, and momentarily a chill passed through his heart for a reason he could not understand. But again his misgiving was banished by the allurement of her answering smile.

“The Persian wise men called Magi, so they say, can tell time by gazing into a kitten’s eyes and measuring the dilation,” he murmured.

“Can you?”

“When I look into your eyes, I do not know the time of day—now or afterwards!”

He smothered her laugh with a kiss. To cope with a woman like this one was utterly beyond any man’s ability. He felt himself slipping into a pool of languorous unresistance, and cradled her to him with his arms.

She came to him willingly. Thrillingly.

1 }

Much later, when he had for a time enough of love, and they sat at supper, he asked her the questions which men like to ask women—questions concerning her other lovers, her experiences with men, how she came to be a courtesan—a hundred unintentional male impertinences, heard by the girl so many times before that she did not regard them as impertinences. She answered his questions almost as by a ritual, with a swiftly fabricated account of her life, which had little resemblance to the truth, being entirely devoid of sordid passages.

Yet all the time she was telling Datos the untruth about herself, Theodora’s mind was dwelling on the truth. There was a terrible, seamy side to prostitution, and she had known that side passing well. The girl had come from the depths and the dregs, and had been dreadfully abused. But she had learned that it did not pay to tell men of this, because it destroyed in them the delusions on which a woman lives in a man’s mind.

She thought back on her childhood. Her mother, a small-part actress and therefore a harlot—for the two occupations were inseparable—was living as his mistress with Acacius, an animal keeper at the hippodrome in Paphos, the capital of Cyprus, when Theodora was born. There were three daughters in all—Comito, three years Theodora’s senior, and Anastasia who was two years younger than Theodora, being her sisters.

Or, more truthfully, her half sisters. For though the children were called the daughters of Acacius, everyone knew—and none better than he—how impossible it was even to speculate on who had given the initial life spark to each of the little girls. It was only quite certain that it had been a different man for each, for the actress-harlot mother had been possessed by many, and her daughters did not even resemble one another, although when they grew up all were pretty.

Theodora hardly remembered now the haze-softened mountains and the misty blue sea of Cyprus, so beautiful that the ancients believed that on the shores of that island was born Aphrodite, the goddess not only of love but of beauty. For when the little girl was only four, Acacius took his “family” to Constantinople, where he had been given a post as bear keeper in the menagerie of the Green faction, in the great Hippodrome, on which all lesser hippodromes in the empire were modeled.

The Greens . . . and the Blues. What strange complications those curious and yet dominating factions of the Hippodrome caused in the life and history of the empire, and the world!

They were an inheritance from old Rome, where, in her days of glory, gladiators fought in the Colosseum, or charioteers drove in the Circus Maximus, wearing liveries of white, green, red, and blue. In those times, Theodora had been told, the colors were supposed to represent the seasons: white, snow of winter; green, verdure of spring; red, heat of summer; and blue, haze of autumn.

Very quickly the populace adopted the colors, bet on them, and became aligned into factions, wearing each their favorite hues and becoming fierce rivals in and out of the spectacles. The reason for this curious hostility was the passion for gambling which was a disease of Rome, and still more so of the populace of Constantinople, which copied Rome’s follies without also emulating her virtues. Gambling is the weakness, the resort, of fools who have not the ability or industry to gain for themselves either mental or monetary distinction in any other way. It is the insidious pitcher plant of society, appealing to that common but unadmirable instinct, greed; and holding forth to the human insect the sweet honey of hope that he may get something for nothing, only to snap him in to his loss, and often to his ruin.

In an indolent, decadent population such as that of Constantinople, long debased by imperial largesse through which it achieved an easy and parasitical existence, and with the love of slothful pleasures which characterized its mongrel racial strains, gambling was the supreme passion. The Byzantine would bet on anything: one could see at times little children, hardly past the toddling stage, squatting in the streets and matching coppers.

As early as the times of Nero in Rome the Greens had absorbed the Reds, and the Blues the Whites, so that there were two factions only. In Constantinople this division was fixed and pronounced, and it was now said that the colors represented the eternal struggle of the green earth with the blue sea.

The great emporium of chance was the mighty Hippodrome. There went every greasy citizen when he could, to wager his money on the chariot races: drawn equally by the expectation of gain without work, and by blood lust, since the races were dangerous and conducted under ferocious rules, so that men frequently were killed or crippled for life under hurtling wheels and pounding hoofs.

Akin to the gladiators of earlier times, whose places they had usurped in the public esteem, was the celebrity of the charioteers. So long as he won, a successful driver received adulation based partly on the fortune he soon acquired—and his invariably heavy spending—partly on the gratitude of those whose bets he made good, and partly because, like the matador of the Spanish bull ring in a later age, he was a creature foredoomed, a lingering mark for death earlier or later.

At the height of his renown every charioteer knew the doom that relentlessly hung over him. He was not a man: he was a plaything of the mob. Indispensable he was to the rabble, but devoted already by it to bloody ruin. Well lodged and richly clothed, with ample gold to spend, beautiful women beckoning him to receive their favors, the object of ovations wherever he appeared, he carried always the consciousness that somewhere—in Constantinople, or in some of the provincial cities like Antioch, Hadrianople, or Alexandria—the next charioteer was being trained in the tricks of his trade, the management of the horses, the daring which risked death continuously to bring the cheers from the Hippodrome, who one day would take his place.

And the Hippodrome itself: it was the boast of Constantinople. An immense structure of stone, built in the form of a horseshoe, with tiers of seats about its arena able to accommodate one hundred thousand persons, it stood almost wall to wall with the imperial palace enclosure. The base of the horseshoe track was closed by a structure equal in height to the surrounding stands, beneath which were the quarters of the charioteers and attendants, while from under it opened the starting gates, sixteen in number. At the top of this basal structure were the seats occupied by the patricians, senators, and high officials of the government, and above them all the kathisma, or imperial gallery, where, under a great purple awning which gave protection from the sun, the emperor and his suite viewed the games and races when they chose.

In order that the emperor need not appear in the public streets when he desired to attend the Hippodrome, the kathisma was connected with the inner palace grounds by a winding stair and a passage walled and roofed with stone, strongly guarded by gates and doors. And though, by a curiosity of the times, women were not permitted to attend the races, the empress might, if she wished, watch them from the tower of the Church of St. Stephen, within the palace walls, which overlooked the highest banks of the Hippodrome seats and was provided with lattices that sheltered her and her ladies in waiting from the gaze of the rabble.

A wonderful place was the Hippodrome on days of great races. Then the tiers on tiers of seats became populated with a dense living mass of humanity, and one glancing at it would receive the impression that one side was a vast sweep of cerulean blue, while the other was an equal display of verdant green, for so were the two great factions seated, opposite from one another.

Here was the great brewing pot of the poison of the gambling fever. For the factions were no more than gambling clubs, and as where gambling is a major obsession, murders and fraud always are practiced, the Blue and Green factions attained a place in the life of the empire difficult for a modern mind to imagine.

So bitter was the enmity between the Greens and Blues in and out of the Hippodrome that street riots were common and deaths frequent. Each faction had a legal establishment, maintained its own stables, its own charioteers, its own menagerie of fighting animals for entertainments between races, and roared its applause for its favorites, and its hate for its antagonists. Down the very middle the strange dissension split the populace of Constantinople, extended out to the remotest parts of the empire, divided friends and even families, overturned laws, terrorized thrones, and even took opposite sides in the ferocious religious controversies of the times.

When first Theodora, as a child of four, saw the Hippodrome in Constantinople, the Greens were in the ascendancy and sat on the shady western side, for the old Emperor Anastasius was of their color, and the Monophysite heresy, espoused by the Greens, was maintained also in the palace.

But since the ascension to the throne of Emperor Justin, who was Orthodox Catholic and a Blue, the Greens were somewhat in the eclipse, and sat on the east side of the Hippodrome looking into the sun of afternoons: a circumstance they nursed bitterly in their minds, and awaited a chance whereby matters could be reversed.

Always the mob had been the terror of old Rome, and in this later capital of the empire it was even more so. Mobs are wild, unpredictable, vicious, and insanely cruel when aroused. More than one emperor had gone down, his head hewn from his body and tumbled in the dust, because of their mad whims. For this reason emperors always treated the factions with respect amounting to fear, and sought continuously to pacify them.

Theodora, hardly more than a baby, of course knew little of these matters at first. But one of her earliest memories was hearing, over and over, the great, exultant roar from within the Hippodrome: “Nika!”

It meant “Victory!” And it was the cry of the Hippodrome, a howl both of hate and triumph, that word “Nika!” It lived with her all her years, as if some odd presentiment told her that the day might come when the thunderous shout, “Nika!” would mean bale and woe to her.

2 }

When she was five she experienced her first personal acquaintance with the cruelty of the rabble, and it happened suddenly, as a shock and terror, for which she was too young to be prepared.

One day Acacius was carried in, terribly mangled by one of his own bears. Theodora saw her mother weeping over him, and thus first knew the awesome finality of death.

After Acacius was buried another man mysteriously appeared in his place, sharing her mother’s couch. He was Orodontes, a self-serving Levantine, and the mother could not be blamed too greatly for accepting him so quickly as a lover in the dead man’s place, for someone had to fend for herself and her children.

But where Acacius was kind—if perhaps a little stupid and more than complaisant toward his mistress’ affairs with other men—Orodontes was selfish and ill-tempered. Sometimes he struck out viciously at the children, when they annoyed him: for which reason Theodora had no love for him, though already at this tender age she had developed the discretion to keep to herself her feelings in such a matter.

In taking Acacius’ place in the bed of Theodora’s mother, Orodontes thought also he would succeed to Acacius’ post as bear keeper. But corruption ruled in the Hippodrome as everywhere. Already a bribe had been accepted by Asterius, the dancing master of the Greens, who had the appointments: another man was given the position and its emoluments.

A desperate circumstance, this, for the little family. Unless he got the place he wanted, Orodontes, the mother’s new lover, refused to accept any responsibility for supporting her or her daughters. The poor woman, in desperation, took the only expedient of which she could think.

Vividly Theodora remembered what next happened. Her mother, weeping, dressed the three little girls in their cleanest white tunicas, placed wreaths of flowers in their hair, and pushed them one blazing day, out upon the white sands of the great Hippodrome arena.

To the children, the spectacle was awesome. It was just before the start of the first chariot race, with the horses already rearing and plunging in the starting gates, their drivers curbing them yet keeping them at the bar, ready for the release—in itself a task exciting and dangerous enough. Tensely overlooking the race course ninety thousand sat that day in the seats which rose skyward bank on bank.

With astonishment at first the ninety thousand gazed down at the three tiny atoms in white, clutching each other’s hands, as the children walked timidly forward toward the side upon which were massed the Greens, then in their pride, for Emperor Anastasius was that day in attendance, and the Greens in the ascendancy.

All at once questions began to fly back and forth in the stands:

“Whose brats are these?”

“What are they doing here?”

“By St. Beelzebub, is this some joke?”

“Wait—perhaps it’s a new kind of spectacle!”

In the middle of the arena the three little girls, Comito, eight years old, Theodora, five, and Anastasia, a toddler of three, looked like little white insects. Suddenly they knelt down as they had been told to do, and extended their baby arms in an attitude of supplication.

Just below the kathisma rose a man, and spoke in a loud, far-carrying voice. Everyone recognized him: Quartus Ostius, the chief announcer of the Greens. His immense voice boomed his words, pausing in the manner of his profession with every phrase or so, in order that the crowd could understand clearly and digest what he was saying:

“Know, O people . . . this is a device to overturn the judgment . . . of the officers of the Greens . . . by appealing to the sympathy . . . of the populace . . . for the benefit of an unworthy man . . . who seeks the office of animal keeper . . . which already has been given . . . to another, more deserving!”

From the crowd came a growl, rising to a roar of impatience. So that was the explanation!

The announcer boomed again, “This is unlawful . . . Females are not permitted . . . in the Hippodrome, as all know . . . Furthermore, the races are delayed!”

A shrewd touch, this last. Eager for the spectacle, on which almost every Byzantine present had laid his bets, the spectators began to howl and stamp. Angry cries were heard:

“Get them out!”

“Who let the little bitches into the arena?”

“Clear the course!”

All at once someone uttered a cry more inspired:

“Start the race!”

It was taken up with a sudden, ferociously delighted roar, “Start the race! Yes, start the race!”

The mob-thinking was obvious. Should those chariot horses be released, nothing could save the three tiny white figures out there on the white sands from the earth-tearing hoofs and wheels.

Blood! A different kind of blood, appealing to the never slaked Byzantine lust. To see three impertinent little girls trampled into red destruction . . . what a sensation!

At the starting gates activity began. It appeared that the officials of the races were about to accede to the heartless demands shouted by the mob, and that the hapless children were doomed.

Frightened by the uproar, the tiny sisters rose from their knees and clinging to one another, began a stumbling retreat. Comito, the eldest, had some inkling of their peril. She ran first, Theodora clinging to her hand, and holding also the hand of little Anastasia, whose baby legs were too short to run. The littlest one stumbled, lost her feet, and had it not been for the desperate determination of the middle sister would have been left behind. But Theodora refused to release her hand, and dragged her across the sand, though she herself was terrified, sobbing, listening to the sobbing of the others, which she could hear in spite of the tumult.

Then a strange thing happened. In the Blue benches there was a hurried conference. Now Drubus, the announcer of the Blues, a very famous speaker with a stentorian voice so trained that he could make himself heard in any crowd, rose. The stands quieted to hear his announcement.

“Know, O people,” he bawled, “that though the Greens . . . treat these poor children so cruelly . . . the Blues take them . . . under their protection! . . . Return to your family, little ones! . . . Say that a position . . . awaits your father . . . in the menagerie of the Blues . . . and forget not the boon . . . that has this day . . . been given you!”

Such a thing had never happened before. It was not mercy so much as a wish to discomfit their rivals that prompted the action by the Blues. But it saved the children.

At the starting gates the keepers hesitated long enough to permit them to escape from the arena. New dissension and even greater bitterness between the factions came from that episode. But Theodora never forgot that the Blues had that day befriended her. Nor did she ever forget the brutal roar from the mob to start the races, so that they might see her and her sisters crushed to death for their idle amusement.

3 }

The family lived in a sort of camp under the fornices—those lowest supporting arches of the Hippodrome, which often were used by the most disreputable prostitutes. Theodora, the bright-eyed child, saw everything, and became acquainted with every wickedness. And yet those were years of comparative happiness for her, because she was free to come and go as she pleased.

Sometimes she ran errands for a copper obol, carrying messages of intrigue from sleekly shining young men to perfumed women in the courtesan section, or even in aristocratic palaces. She watched and followed processions, caring little whether it happened to be a parade of victorious soldiers returning from war, an imperial progression through the city, a passage of church dignitaries and monks on some religious occasion, or a crowd of slaves being driven to work on the walls that guarded Constantinople, and which needed constant repair.

Frequently, also, there were public executions, when wretches who had committed crimes too serious to be given galley sentences were beheaded, or hanged, or impaled on high grisly stakes. This last punishment was a favorite in Constantinople, having taken the place of crucifixion, which was abolished by Constantine himself, on the ground that the manner of the execution of the Savior was too sacred to be permitted to common criminals. All these brutalities and sufferings, the child took in as a matter of course.

Sometimes, secreted under the Hippodrome and peering through small cracks and openings, she had a forbidden sight of the chariot races, where men sought to take each other’s lives in the thundering contests, by breaking wheels, or driving rivals’ teams of careering horses into the walls. At other times she walked among the cages, where beasts were being prepared for baiting—bears, and leopards, and lions, prodded and starved to make them savage, and black bulls with needle-pointed horns, teased into ferocity, so that later, when they were driven together in the arena, they would attack each other with the soul-satisfying fury the bloodthirsty mob desired. For though human combat between gladiators had been abolished years before through the intervention of the Christian Church, beast-baiting still remained to appeal to the bottomless cruelty of the degenerate Byzantines.

There were days also when she squatted in the dust by one or another of the gates of the Hippodrome and begged, making friends with the beggars. One of these especially was a curiosity and attraction to her because of his remarkable repulsiveness. This was Hagg, the burro beggar. Their acquaintance grew, and in time the child became for him a valuable ally.

To beg in the great bazaar—which was just across the Via Alta, Constantinople’s chief thoroughfare, from the Hippodrome—was unlawful because the shopkeepers disliked it. Yet the bazaar was a wonderful place to seek alms, and with little Theodora’s help Hagg worked out a plan.

She loved this part, for the bazaar was like a whole city under a single roof—a city teeming with life and color and scents, transacting its business without tables or chairs, in countless stalls which were open to the alleyways by day, but closed by their owners at night with strongly built, gaily painted shutters. Within these recesses the merchants sat, their goods spread about them, sipping wine, gossiping with their neighbors, chaffering with customers, or dozing.

Between the stalls ran a labyrinth of narrow, tortuous, wholly irregular lanes; some of them roofed over with sloping planks, uneven and rotting with age, their gaping crevices admitting sun and rain alike; some sheltered by vine-covered trellises which cast shadows of lacy delicacy on the worn, uneven pavements.

Each passageway had its own distinctive character. One was occupied by saddlers and leather vendors, another by potters, a third by perfumers, a fourth by jewelers and goldsmiths, a fifth by pastrymen, a sixth by butcher shops, and so on, in infinite variety. It was a fine bazaar, the greatest by far of the several in Constantinople, and therefore in the empire: and a beggar like Hagg could in this place get liberal alms.

Sooner or later, however, the merchants always called the guard: and here the barelegged little Theodora played her role. With her large eyes, black as flies, she would sit watching the road by which the soldiers approached, and come flying to the beggar, crying, “Hagg, hurry! They come! They come!”

And when the soldiers arrived the beggar would be gone.

Out of this grew a lasting friendship between them, for Hagg did not forget. And in spite of his hideous appearance, the old beggar had a soft streak in his heart for the child.

Sometimes, when he was not begging, they held long rambling conversations in the sun by the Hippodrome wall, he in his basket on the back of the patient donkey, she sitting on the ground beside him. In him was an unexpected fund of wisdom, and an equally unexpected rough humor: and from him she learned in those days something of the strange beggars’ cant, the language known only to members of the Brotherhood, and became acquainted also with all the devious hidden routes of the rat-warren slums of the great city.

4 }

Her own mother’s lack of sexual virtue was evident to Theodora from her earliest years, but it created in her no wonder or resentment because it was so much an accepted part of their accustomed life.

Often she tended the cooking fire while her mother went to lie with some lover under the fornices—and not Orodontes always, by any means. This seemed to Theodora a perfectly natural process, by which one got money to buy new tunicas and sandals, as well as food, when Orodontes, as he often did, spent all his pay on wine and the dice.

When she grew too old to be attractive, having lost many of her teeth, Theodora’s mother gave up harlotry. It was time, in any case, for her daughters to begin following her in her profession. This was custom, almost law, just as the cobbler’s son became a shoemaker, or the baker’s son was taught to make cakes.

The processes by which young girls were devoted to prostitution were well recognized and worked out in the Roman-Byzantine world.

Often the novices were taught to play the flute or harp, or to dance, because she who had such accomplishments possessed certain advantages in the game of snaring men. There also was the Didascalion, that school where young candidates were instructed by old, worn-out courtesans in the arts of the trade of love. In its day this course of instruction was not looked upon with any particular repulsion by society in general. Indeed, so famous was the school that girls from respectable families, in the old pagan days, were often sent to the Didascalion, to learn there the ninety-two lessons of the curriculum, though they had no thought of ever becoming prostitutes, in the somewhat logical belief that the knowledge they thus gained would make them more successful as wives when they married.

But Theodora’s mother was too poor, or too careless, to provide her with any of this training. The girl could play no musical instrument, she had no singing voice, and she never learned the intricacies of the dances of revelry. Nor did she ever attend the Didascalion, though the day would come when through her magnificent qualities of imagination and person she would surpass the finest graduates of that institution of erotic learning.

Her elder sister, Comito, when she came to the age of fifteen, was well developed and pretty, and was deemed old enough to begin her career. To give her an auspicious start, it was decided that she should have a slave to attend her, who would carry the stool in which she sat in the arcades waiting to be chosen, and give her a certain prestige, since ordinary prostitutes could not afford to possess such a chattel.

But since Comito’s family had no slave, or the money to purchase one, she was provided with a spurious slave—her own sister, Theodora. At that time the younger girl was only twelve, small for her age and undeveloped, with a shy manner and eyes too big for her thin childish face. She was made thoroughly to understand her role, however, and dressed in a little blue tunica, with sleeves like those of a slave girl, she played the part to such perfection that nobody dreamed she was a sister of the young courtesan she attended.

Comito, who was shallow and selfish, of course loved her own role. She treated Theodora as if she were a slave in truth, speaking to her contemptuously and sharply, and sometimes slapping or cuffing her for imagined neglect or awkwardness. Meekly and silently the little sister accepted the blows and harsh words.

Sometimes, when she was lucky, Comito would be taken to the house of some rich libertine for a night. Then Theodora, the little “slave,” would be sent below, to be locked up with the other slaves in their quarters under the house.

In the rooms above, with wine, music, good food, laughter, and light, Comito, entertaining her lover, had never a thought of the thin child, her sister, shut up in the dark cellars with the human cattle who were so brutalized by servitude and mistreatment that they understood only the whip and the chain and their animal appetites—the female slaves as dreadful as the men.

Only her obvious immaturity protected Theodora in that dark world of criminal lustings. The horror of it remained with her. Never in after life would she speak of the nameless depravities committed by the half-demented human beasts which she was forced to witness in that hideous society of the hopeless.

Yet her nature possessed a fiber so tough and resilient that, though she came through that terrible year with a bitter wisdom far beyond her age, she remained serene and even hopeful.

Meantime, she was growing. Her body lost its childishness.

Late in her thirteenth year the inevitable happened. A brutal slave, noticing her budding breasts, one night initiated her by rape into the pain and delight of womanhood.

Next day Theodora defied Comito, threw the stool at her head, and set forth to live by herself.

5 }

It was the beginning of the most dreadful part of her life. No little “slave” followed Theodora: there was not even a place for her in one of the lupanares, where at least she might have a roof overhead.

Instead she crossed to the other side of the city from the Hippodrome and began as a pedana on the Street of Women, a furtive lurker in dark corners, ragged and starved, curling up at night in alleys or under porch steps, sobbing sometimes with cold in the winter, accustomed to kicks and blows and insults, the victim of any foul man of the back streets who had an obol or two to pay her—the darkest, vilest depths to which any human being can be plunged, where her very womanhood was debased like the slime of the gutters.

Yet she never returned to her family. Too well she knew there was no help for her there, and in any case pride held her even in her worst days from going back. She had made her own decision and she would live or die by it.

In those months she encountered other pitiful little woman-waifs like herself, for of such Constantinople had many. Most of these died quickly, of a cough, or dysentery, or abuse, or in abortions. That Theodora lived through the winter was due to an incredible will to survive, an ability to rise to any occasion, to do the unexpected, to be better in whatever she did than anyone believed she could. From some hidden resource, even in the blackest, hungriest days, she managed always to summon a pathetic spark of gayety, as if she were fresh and eager, so that men left her remembering the pale waif afterward.

The following spring she became a copa—a “hostess” in a wine shop, where the men were drunkards, but where at least she had food and shelter, and could earn enough money from the sots whom she took to her little room in the rear of the tavern to buy herself a new dress and sandals.

It seemed to her a mighty improvement. But it was at this very time, when she was in her fifteenth year, that the great disaster occurred.

The twin terrors of harlotry were pregnancy and disease. For the first there were contraceptive practices, the use of membranes from fish bladders and infusions of certain solutions: but these were expensive and beyond the reach of a poverty-ridden pedana. For the second, the ill known as the morbus indecens, and the still greater horror of leprosy, one in her state could only trust to luck and to hope. The ailments she somehow escaped, but in the other respect she was less fortunate.

At first she thought that she had eaten something that disagreed with her, but in a few days the trouble was manifest. Fear overwhelmed her. What could she do now? For her to have a baby was impossible. She could never support the child, even if she survived without starving to death the period of inaction pregnancy would force upon her.

In desperation she sought out one of the sagae, a foul-breathed old witch named Eudora, for a potion to produce abortion. Yes, Eudora had the potion. But the fee she named was too high. Cold-bloodedly, the hag explained why it was so. The poisons in the potion, she said, often killed the mother as well as the unborn child, wherefore the authorities frowned upon its use, and a saga ran a risk of being convicted of double murder. Eudora made no mention of, and indeed was quite indifferent to, the risk the poor little expectant mother ran. Her price was a flat five solidi—the gold pieces of the empire, which were worth perhaps three dollars in modern currency. An impossible sum for Theodora to pay.

The girl crept away, despairing, even contemplating suicide.

Something had to be done.

Next day she stole.

The lout in the wine shop was not as drunk as she thought. He awoke in time to see her cut his purse strings, and raised a shout. They caught her in the street.

This was the end of everything. Surrounded by her captors, her teeth showing, her face grimacing in fear and defiance, the wretched girl knew her fate: prison, flogging, and worst of all, branding by a searing iron on the cheek with the letter F—for Fur, Thief—a permanent disfigurement that would end even prostitution forever for her.

At that moment of moments a litter passed the crowd, carried by eight slaves. The woman riding in it saw the commotion, and the white-faced girl glaring like a street cat through the fringe of hair that had fallen over her eyes at the men who held her while somebody ran for the guards.

The litter halted, was lowered, and from it the woman stepped into the crowd, tall, richly dressed, and commanding. Men fell back. She was the famous Macedonia—the whole city knew her. The reigning actress at the Circus theater, and a courtesan of the famosa class, she had connections, it was whispered, in the palace itself. Nobody knew her real name, for the one she used was adapted from the province whence she came. But her family was said to be notable in its country, which was the reason she hid her connection with it.

What followed was easy for the great famosa: a small present of money to the wine shop owner, another to the tavern drunk to salve his outraged feelings at being almost robbed—and Theodora was released.

Before the panting soldiery arrived at the inn with the messenger who had run to get them, Macedonia was gone, having borne the girl away with her in her litter.

6 }

It was the greatest kindness Theodora had ever known; almost the only kindness she could remember. In the confused nightmare of anguish and blackness that followed, the grand courtesan was unfailingly understanding, unfailingly kind to the friendless human kitten she had rescued. No baby was born . . .

After the sickness, when Theodora had regained her strength, Macedonia sponsored her in small parts on the stage. The girl displayed unexpected talent as a comedienne. Though she could not sing, or play musical instruments, or dance, she had a funny gamin face, and was a superb mimic, so that her impersonations of public figures evoked shouts of applause and laughter from the audiences. She was also a witty improviser of lines, which she tossed off with a kind of airy gayety, so that she won wide popularity since these gifts were not common.

In those days it was that she learned the skill of reading, both in Latin and Greek. An actress had to possess the art, which was not general in that day, since she must memorize lines and cues. It stood the girl in good stead many times after she left the stage.

Meantime she continued to live in Macedonia’s house, which faced on the Square of Aphrodite. The famosa’s salons were brilliant. It was the fashion of the time for rich and notable rakes to attend the nymphs who were in vogue at the moment, exactly as in later history wealthy debauchees in the France of the Bourbons, or the England of the Hanovers, crowded the drawing rooms of notorious actresses, or the mistresses of kings, dukes, and cardinals.

For two years Theodora resided there, assisting Macedonia, and becoming skilled particularly in devising brilliant stage effects, tableaus, and decorations for the banquets and entertainments which were continually being given, for she had imagination and a true creative sense. From her preceptress she acquired also the graces of behavior and pretty manners such as she would never have learned otherwise.

By the end of that time Theodora was seventeen, her beauty had flowered, and in full health and bright spirits she left Macedonia and set herself up as a delicata in this apartment on the Street of Women, going deep into debt to do it, yet almost from the first a success.

The best part of her life had now come. She was expensive, so the common herds of men were excluded, and she received now only those of loftier station, officials, the perfumed small gentry, and the rich who were able to pay for her favors. With this class of customers the danger of disease, at least, was largely eliminated, a source of immense relief and thankfulness. She lived in some luxury, though worried by debt. She was her own mistress and could do as she wished.

This was the true story of Theodora, which she did not tell to Datos, the Alexandrian merchant, that night at supper. And in the memory of it was contained the one constant terror of her life—a dread that something might happen to throw her again into the hideous depths from which luck only had lifted her.

It was a fear that conditioned all her thinking and planning, though neither Datos, nor anybody else, at this time of her life, would have suspected her of any settled purpose.

The girl was only eighteen now, at an age when coherent thinking is rare at best; and about her seemed to float the aura of a divine silliness, so that masculine hands had a habit of waving helplessly, after masculine minds had vainly attempted to follow some of her swiftly changing moods and thoughts.

But if she was inconsequent, she was also undeviating, and though she seemed at times to be an exquisite blunderer, she could, with woman’s incomparable blend of perseverance and forgetfulness, turn instantly from one method which was not successful to its direct opposite.

With everything she experimented: with herself, with the men who came to her, with events, with thoughts and impulses. And though she played with life, at the same time she used her tools of seduction and ecstasy most valiantly, earnestly, and seriously.

Datos, the Alexandrian, counting himself the luckiest of men in finding such a creature, yet with a recurrent qualm of unexplained fear, was instinctively correct in both his emotions, but knew not why.

1 }

Four mornings after, Theodora awakened late and slowly, her mind still drugged by the dissipations and exertions of the night, conscious that the day was well toward its meridian, yet faintly annoyed that she should have awakened at all. She was at an age when a girl is commonly filled with overabundant life, but on this morning she felt neurotic almost, her body feeble and drained.

Within, the room was intensely quiet, for Teia knew the penalty of suddenly arousing her mistress from sleep: but the shutters of the window were open to admit air, and through the opening came the thousand noises of the city, muted and softened by distance.

For a time the girl listened dully. She had slept naked, her slender body like a white arrow on the rumpled scarlet sheets. This was habitual, for she subscribed to the belief that possession of a more than commonly beautiful body carried with it, as a sort of obligation, the hampering and hiding of it with clothing as little as possible. On this morning, however, she was too enervated to feel pride in her body, or any other emotion strongly or long. She hated feebleness.

All at once she gave a little start, and turned as if surprised to find the place beside her empty. There was the other pillow, next to hers, its scarlet rounding still hollowed where a head had rested on it.

Once more she relaxed on her back and closed her eyes. Then, as if remembering something, her fingers went to her throat. About her bare neck was a magnificent necklace—heavy gold links with three matched emeralds like blazing bits of green fire. At the touch of her fingers on the necklace, her eyes flew open and a swift pulse of joy went over her face. The necklace was worth not less than a thousand gold solidi—a rich possession, and better than its equivalent in money, really, for one could never be sure about coins, since counterfeits were common, and even good coins often were of unequal weight, because people “clipped” them, stealing little slivers of gold off the edges.

The emeralds were the gift of Datos, the Alexandrian. Not one, but four nights, he had spent with her. Each morning he asked her what she required of him in money, and each morning she refused to talk of it. The result: on the final night he took from about his own neck this gold-linked magnificence and placed it about hers.

It was the first really important gift Theodora had ever received.

Though he was past the prime of life, the Alexandrian had been one hundred days from home, and he had proved a singularly able and enduring lover. For this reason, but especially because of the emeralds, Theodora thought rather well of him, whereas she often thought only with contempt or dislike of some of her lovers when they were gone.

Habitually, a courtesan sees the worst side of men, and there was hardly anything about men that Theodora did not know. Some drank too much, some had filthy habits, some treated women badly. Most, however, followed the normal pattern: foolish words at first, then stallion lustings, afterward behavior almost shame-faced, as if they had been caught in abasement and weakness.

Not yet did she fully understand her own power, though she had so often seen it work. In important men it was particularly evident, because the contrast between what they seemed, to be, and what they actually were, was more decisive.

The general, the senator, the rich owner of villas, the philosopher, the poet—all were reduced to a somewhat ridiculous common denominator on Theodora’s scarlet bed. Always the eventual victory of sex was hers, and this continual triumph of her femaleness over male strength gave her a feeling of uneasy power, only half gratifying to her vanity because it was surrounded by continual dangers. The forces she set in motion and the results she achieved often seemed out of proportion to the effort she put forth. This emerald necklace, for example . . . because she had happened to charm an elderly man, who had been exceptionally prosperous on a mercantile voyage and was far from home.

In spite of the open shutters the Greek lamp, which still was lighted on the table beside her bed, sent up its flame steadily in the absence of any breeze. The morning was hot. Theodora became conscious that her temples were damp with a fine perspiration, and began to wish for her bath.

After a few minutes she stretched out a slim white arm for a bronze hammer, shaped like a phallus, and with it struck the gong beside the lamp. Then her arm fell limply back on the bed, and while the mellow sound still filled the room, she almost regretted having caused it.

Immediately the door opened, and Teia entered. The slave was young, an Illyrian girl only two years older than Theodora, with the misty blue eyes of the Celt and golden hair in two thick burnished braids wound about her head like a helmet. She wore a simple, short-sleeved tunica of soft blue wool, which clung to her fine body.

“The Alexandrian has gone?” Theodora asked.

“Yes, domina. Before sun-up. His ship took the early tide. Because you were weary, he did not awaken you, but he commanded me to say to you that he will not forget you. He believes you were lucky for him, since he had much greater success in the market than he had hoped for, the elephant ivory especially bringing the highest prices.”

It was a common superstition—the good or bad luck a woman gave to a man who received her embraces. Theodora had heard it often. She was not conscious of bringing any especial luck of either kind into bed with her, but she was glad that if she did it was of the better sort, because a reputation for misfortune could destroy a courtesan’s business.

The slave girl’s eyes were devouring the emerald necklace, but she was too well trained to speak of it.

“Have you slept, Teia?” Theodora asked languidly, after a moment.

“Yes, domina.”

“But the rooms are in order?”

“Yes. I kept at it until I made everything as before.”

Theodora moved her head slightly: it passed at the moment for a nod.

“The bath?” she asked.

“Everything is ready, domina.”

Theodora made a feeble movement as if to rise, then sank back again, putting off the exertion in sheer lassitude. Temporizing, she asked a question, “Has anyone called?”

“Young Chaero was here—”

“I told him never to come back!”

“I would not admit him,” said Teia, “but he brought a garland for you, and also a wax tablet.”

Theodora twisted her nude body impatiently. “Throw them away. He knows I’m through with him! No—throw away the garland, but give the tablet to me. Oh, I don’t care—he can never write anything clever, since his speech is so callow. I won’t read it! Well, perhaps after all—yes, give it to me—I might have a laugh which I don’t expect.”

Teia extended a wax tablet of the kind known as a diptych, hinged in the middle and folding together to protect the writing of the stylus on the thin wax surfaces within. Her mistress opened it, read the message, made a little face, and threw it irritably away.

This is what the young man had written:

The reading had served fully to arouse the courtesan. Over the bedside she swung a pair of slender, sculptured legs, and sat up, throwing with her arms the soft dark mane of her hair back over her shoulders. Then she stood up and stretched, a supple flexing of her body, with back gracefully arched, a charming outthrust of breasts, and a yawn, her red lips forming a small O.

Standing thus, she was revealed as quite small, for Teia, who was far from a giantess, was half a head taller than she: yet all her proportions were so admirable that she gave the impression of stature.

Everything about her nude body was feminine, neat, and elegant, without one line of coarseness. Her skin was silky, and white to astonishment; her limbs slim and almost fiercely sleek; her waist narrow; her breasts and posterior wondrously formed and neither scanty nor overabundant; her smooth belly flowed down to a delicately rounded triangle in the confluence of her thighs.

Such a woman is the supreme flower of a people, and it was a commentary on her times that this one was a harlot.

About her shoulders the slave now placed a thin silken robe, and Theodora seated herself at the table to nibble a breakfast of fruit and bread soaked in wine, while Teia pinned up her hair. Meantime she studied her face in a mirror of polished silver.

The face was worthy of the body. It is an old belief, carefully nurtured by the moralists, that an evil life leaves ineradicable marks on the features. But the face of this girl was pure and unmarred by any suggestion of guilt or bitterness. Perhaps she did not consider her life evil.

2 }

“Let me see that tablet again,” Theodora said presently.

When Teia fetched it from the corner where it had fallen, her mistress read it to her aloud, for the slave had no knowledge of reading.

“What do you think he means, Teia?” she asked.

“Suicide, perhaps?” the servant girl hazarded.

“Oh, no! Chaero hasn’t the courage for that.”

“What else could he mean, domina?”

“I don’t know. He’s utterly unreasonable. He wanted me to hold myself from all others and receive him only. What do these spoiled youths expect from a courtesan? Chaste love? If so, he should go to the slave market and purchase himself a concubine who would have no other choice.”

“All men are unreasonable,” observed Teia, this being a very safe statement.

“Do you know what I heard? Chaero is one of those despicable Juventi Alcinoi, whom I hate. Not that they’ve ever laid a finger on me; but they caught little Joessa, the flute player, out the other night. Poor child, she hasn’t recovered yet.”

“Dreadful!” murmured Teia, for the dissolute youths were a terror to every woman who lived on the street.

“And he’s so involved in debt,” Theodora continued, “that he can’t support himself, let alone a mistress! If I ever go to someone as his mistress, he’ll have to make it worth my while—I like my freedom too well. I told him that.”

“What did he say, domina?”

“Being drunk, he grew angry and struck at me. It was three nights before the Alexandrian came, and you were in the kitchen. Fortunately another visitor, Leander Myranus—you know, the thin baldish one—came in just then. Between us we got Chaero out of the house. For this, I had to reward Leander with love that night—without pay, of course. A night’s revenue lost—in my financial condition! And now Chaero writes this note . . . how many messages have I received, Teia, from men who promised to die because of something I did—or, forsooth, did not do?”

“I don’t know, domina.”

“Say a score! And how many kept their promises?”

“There was Timon, the lector—”

“Stuff! He was drunk when the chariot ran him down. An accident.”

“Calcios?”

“No. He swallowed the hemlock because he saw no escape from prison, and perhaps slavery, on account of his debts. Not from any despair I caused him.”

“Domina doesn’t give herself enough credit,” said the slave with a flattering smile.

“Domina understands men too well!” Theodora retorted. “Another courtesan, in half an hour, can relieve the most lugubrious of them of all that causes his woe! Did nobody but Chaero call?”

“If you speak of tradesmen—”

“Well?”

“The landlord was here again. He’s getting nasty about the back rent. And that goldsmith from the bazaar, about the earrings, saying he’ll go to the magistrate. Also a silk vendor and a dealer in furniture, most urgent and filled with threats——”

“My creditors are showing their teeth,” Theodora said soberly. “And a courtesan these days can hardly make a living because of the taxes, let alone put by anything to pay off debts. I owe for everything—everything but you, Teia. At least I’m not in debt for you. I’d hate to have to sell you.”

The slave girl’s sudden pallor, and the way her eyes fell, betrayed her terror at this suggestion. There are differences even in prostitution. Free harlotry is one thing. But Teia knew that if she were put up at the auction the horror of a stabulum, where the grossest appetites and physical brutality were pushed to their extreme limits, was almost her certain fate.

Furthermore, she valued her position as serving woman to Theodora, for though the delicata was stern with her and punished any transgression, she never marred her with the whip, and kept her well, for Teia’s blonde good looks were a pleasing foil for her own dark beauty. At times the slave girl was even allowed to satisfy the whim of one of her mistress’ own lovers, especially if the courtesan was a little weary of him, or was indisposed.

At Teia’s fallen face Theodora gave a quick, almost malicious, flash of a smile. Then she relented.

“Today things may be different,” she said. “This necklace which Datos gave me has started me on a plan.”

3 }

A plan. Or only the beginning of a plan.

In a subtle, almost unnoticed way, Theodora differed from others of her kind, in that since childhood her mind had tried continually to shape courses of action. This, to be sure, was usually unsuccessful. So many failures would have discouraged most girls: did discourage them, in fact, so that they learned to accept the inevitable and live out their lives with resignation, existing each day for itself, without even trying to think about, let alone plan, the future.

Not so Theodora. Very early she came to understand how fateful it was to be a woman. A woman had little chance for self-determination. Life coiled about her and threw her in this or that direction, lifted her up or cast her down, capriciously and often cruelly. For the most part she could only endure, and survive, and trust to luck. Women were in almost every case the pawns, men the movers. There was, it was true, that strange madness which women created in men, but even this, which should give them a lasting power, usually reacted in the end against them.

Theodora’s own fate had scarcely been pretty, but in her mind was a hard little core of determination which kept her seeking, trying, almost blindly working for something better, against every rebuff.

She felt no particular resentments against life. For the present she was a courtesan, and lived for men, and to this she brought all her natural ardency. When she was with a lover she was all vital female, a creature of instinct—to a great extent she was instinct. Nothing was held back. Sometimes after a night of love-making, she would curl up and sleep in exhaustion throughout the whole day. This fury of giving herself was why men who once had experienced her seldom wished to give her up.

Young Chaero was an instance. To fall in love with a courtesan—particularly one so charming as Theodora—was no disgrace: it was, rather, somewhat fashionable, and frequently celebrated by poets in the long, twelve-syllabled lines of Grecian verse.

Of course one never married a courtesan. One instead married a woman of good reputation and good family, who, though she might be plain, brought a dowry with her. But a sleek youth was supposed to sow a certain amount of wild oats, and part of the sowing was the posturing, the sighing, and the bewailing of adverse fate, which went with a vagrant affair of the heart in the Street of Women.

4 }

Having finished her breakfast, Theodora rose from the table, and followed by Teia, who carried her towels and cosmetics, went to the room of the bath.

As in most houses of its class, the bath was common to all the tenants. Two other courtesans, Antonina and Chrysomallo, had apartments in the building, and as Theodora reached the door, she heard their voices. She entered, and saw a pleasing scene.

Chrysomallo, very fair of skin and hair, and somewhat plump, although not displeasingly so, had just come from the water, and her servant, a Syrian girl, was on her knees with a large towel, drying her. For the moment her back was to Theodora, the hollow in it gracefully curved, because she was resting her weight on one leg, and the deep dimples, one on each hip, and two others corresponding on the shoulders, visible—a great attraction to the girl’s lovers. She was about three years Theodora’s senior.

The other girl, Antonina, was in her middle twenties, slightly older than Chrysomallo. She was auburn-haired and green-eyed, strikingly handsome, and at the moment was outstretched on a rubbing table while her Nubian woman massaged her naked body. The slave was gleaming black, with only a short pink skirt reaching from her waist to her knees, her breasts swaying freely with her exertions. To Theodora the contrast between the rosy pinkness of the figure on the table and the highlighted ebony of the one stooping over it, was artistically attractive.

Chrysomallo was at the moment expounding a formula of beauty she had recently heard, “As to the forehead, perfection demands that its height equal the space between the center of the lower lip and the underside of the jawbone; the eyebrows should extend from a point directly above the inner corner of the eye to one directly above the bony end of the eye socket; the pupils of the eyes should be in a line with the outer corners of the mouth; and the mouth should be neither puffed out nor a contracted slit——”

Antonina caught sight of Theodora. “At last!” she cried, interrupting Chrysomallo. “We’ve hardly seen you, Theodora, in four days! Is your company gone?”

Theodora nodded. “This morning.”

“What a paragon of lovers that man must be,” laughed Chrysomallo, “to keep our Theodora in play for four days!”

Instead of replying, Theodora permitted Teia to draw the robe from her shoulders.

Instantly there was a squeal from the others.

“A new necklace!” cried Chrysomallo.

“From him?” Antonina demanded.

The one left her servant kneeling with the towel, and the other rose from the table, and both ran to Theodora.

“Emeralds!” exclaimed Antonina. “They can’t be real—yes, they are! Scythian stones, too—or I miss my guess—which everyone acknowledges are finer than those of either Ethiopia or Bactria!”

“What a wonderful gift!” said Chrysomallo.

Unashamedly nude and not even conscious of it, the three girls made a charming picture: a grouping of lovely feminine bodies from which a Phidias might have sculptured the three Graces.

Eagerly the necklace was fingered, its value estimated, its beauty exclaimed over, and all with the genuine pleasure women feel in jewels, even the jewels of another.

“Well. It seems your time was well spent,” Antonina half sighed at last. She could not help adding, “We wondered what you’d get for four nights with an old goat with a beard as rough and gray as a badger.”

At this transparent envy Theodora could afford to smile. “Datos may not be young,” she said, “but at least he requires no satyrion—as do some of your smooth-cheeked effeminates. As to the beard, have you forgotten the dialogues of Lucian, in which he sums up advice to a courtesan?”

She began to recite, in her pleasant voice, the lines of the Greek satirist:

When she finished, Antonina said, “Yes, I remember Lucian, and his seventh maxim, to which you refer particularly. At the Didascalion we all had to learn it by heart. But it makes an old man no more palatable.”

Chrysomallo gave a little laugh. “Antonina doesn’t have those green eyes for nothing. She’s jealous—admit it, darling! No lover, bearded or otherwise, ever gave you a tithe of what the Alexandrian has given Theodora.”

“Jealous? I?” cried Antonina, almost angrily. “That’s ridiculous. I’m well content. Anyway,” she added gloomily, “what good is money? With the lustral tax increased again, and imperial collectors like a cloud of grasshoppers, one might as well work for pleasure alone—or return to virtue!”

“You return to virtue, my darling?” smiled Theodora. “That would be a prodigy as great as the moon falling from the sky. Soothsayers would devise from it omens of world-wide consequence!”

5 }

The manifest absurdity amused even Antonina. Yet she had voiced a bitter and growing complaint of every courtesan.

It is difficult for a modern age to understand the attitude of the sixth century toward courtesans, or that of the courtesans toward their profession and themselves. Though the Church continuously attacked harlotry, the precedent for its existence was so old, and so interwoven with the traditions and thought of the people, that the odium attaching to it in modern times did not then exist to the same extent.

A courtesan followed her vocation openly, as one with a freely accepted position in society, desiring only to rise in her chosen calling.

In Constantinople, where there were at least thirty thousand harlots, the great courtesans attempted still to live in the tradition of the brilliant hetaerae of ancient Greece, when Aspasia’s name was linked forever with that of the great Pericles; when Sappho was the reigning poetic genius of her era; when Phryne not only swayed the decision of a stern court of judges by the display of her perfect body, but gained such wealth that she could offer to rebuild the ruined walls of Thebes out of her own pocket.

Theodora’s entire background and ancestry contributed to her acceptance of her profession. She was of Greek blood; and her birthplace, the island of Cyprus, to which mythology assigned the origin of Aphrodite, was for that reason intensely devoted to the worship and observances of the goddess of love, so that the sanctuary at Paphos was one of the most celebrated shrines in the ancient world.

To the Greeks of the pagan days, love with all its consequences was the highest of the emotions. By a custom which was cheerfully followed, every woman dwelling on the island became a prostitute at least once in her life: for those about to be married, even though they lived lives of strict virtue thereafter, were required always to go to the sacred groves and there receive, in exchange for money, the embraces of a strange man.

Hard as it may be for the mind of a later day to accept it, this act was not considered as an orgy of lust, but as a form of worship, and the women offered the wages they earned by this sanctified harlotry to the goddess at her altar. By so doing, the ancients believed, they propitiated Aphrodite, who was the personification of the reproductive energies of nature, and thus assured the propagation of animals and plants, and the entire fruitfulness of the world.

It may be added that the religious portent did not prevent the sprightly ladies of Cyprus from putting into their observances such a charming ardor, that to be termed a Cypriote was, in certain circles, a high and significant compliment.

Constantine the Great, who took the Christian religion to the imperial throne with him, caused the shrine of Aphrodite at Paphos to be destroyed, and a church built on its site. But an old and established custom is not ended instantly by the destruction of an edifice, or the proclamation of a law. In the hearts of the women of Cyprus the ancient cult of the goddess of love still lived, and Theodora, with such a background, saw nothing but the natural order of life in the fact that the courtesans of Constantinople continued openly, and sometimes splendidly, to flaunt their beauties for hire, in spite of the anathemas from the pulpits.

Of late, however, something more deadly than ecclesiastical disapproval had laid its heavy hand on the Street of Women.

“Why this last increase in the lustral tax?” Chrysomallo asked, following Antonina’s line of thought.

“I don’t know,” said Antonina. “The word lustrum signifies expiation, and I suppose the so-called lustral taxes were originally levied on courtesans in that sense. But they’ve long ceased to have any such significance. Instead, they’ve become a means of extorting revenues from all of us, the rate going steadily higher, and the collectors unbelievably demanding and corrupt, until they’re driving us almost to despair with their insatiable exactions.”

“Do you think they’re really trying to drive us out of business?” asked Chrysomallo.

“No, it’s spite work!” said Antonina bitterly. “The old empress is at the bottom of it, mark my word. She calls herself Euphemia now, and would like the world to forget that her name was Lupicina—Light o’ Love—when Justin bought her at the slave market for a concubine, paying less for her than the value of one of Theodora’s new emeralds. For this reason she hates us.”

But Theodora shook her head. “I blame a woman, but not the empress—who’s too old and stupid to think of anything so subtle.”

“But no other woman has the power!” objected Antonina.

“I know of one.”

“Who?”

“A courtesan.”

Antonina and Chrysomallo stared.

“I mean Chione, the Boeotian,” Theodora said. “Hasn’t she become the favorite of John of Cappadocia, the prefect of the city?”

They nodded, trying to follow her reasoning.

Theodora removed the necklace and handed it to Teia.

“Chione isn’t one to be mild in her demands,” she said. “To shower her with gifts, the ugly Cappadocian levies these increased taxes against all of us. And so that creature, with the dyed yellow hair, preys upon us—receiving from him jewels, slaves, and all the luxuries—for which we pay!”

6 }

In this house of the three young courtesans the bath was round, about ten feet across, and let into the floor, its entire bottom of blue tile, except for a mosaic of white dolphins in the center.

Theodora entered it by steps which descended, and sinking into the warm water, which was faintly perfumed, allowed her body to float out into it until only her head was above the surface, surrendering to the soothing pleasantness and relaxation, while the lines of her white figure were softened and blurred by the ripples.

Too indolent at the moment to dress, the others idly watched her, their minds occupied by the thought she had just given them.

When at last Theodora came up out of the water and allowed Teia to dry her, Chrysomallo had taken her turn on the massage table, and Antonina was attiring herself.

“I never thought of it before,” Antonina mused, “but I believe you’ve hit upon it. About Chione, I mean.”

“I’m sure of it,” said Theodora. Then she exclaimed, “That cow! The more she takes from us, the greater she becomes, and the more she demands. It’s a vicious circle. If something doesn’t stop her, we’ll all be driven into the street!”

“She hires us, sometimes, to assist at her banquets,” suggested Chrysomallo timidly. She was childish, almost innocent for all her occupation, and not very brilliant.

Theodora was the exact opposite, living her feelings and instincts, sometimes without calculation as to their effects, but always strongly. It was one secret of her success—men were lured and held by her changing moods. They never knew how they would find her from day to day: whether they would be received with passionate embraces, or driven from her house like young Chaero. She was everything female, made for men, and subject to emotions which sometimes were bewildering, and often quite without conscious wish or thought, but vivid and distracting always.

Her reply to Chrysomallo was characteristic. “Paid to assist! That’s just it—paid, when it suits Chione’s whim. But we’re mere paid entertainers, mark you that, like upper servants, who must keep our places and reflect glory on her—as do her flute players, dancers, and even her spiced dishes and wines! And for this condescension, we have the privilege of paying her in turn—in these lustral taxes her Cappadocian lover levies on us, heavier every month, until the time approaches when they will break our backs!”

Chrysomallo had finished with the table, and Theodora took her place on the white Egyptian byssus that covered it, for Teia’s expert massage.

Perhaps never in all history has been equaled the number and variety of manipulations for a lovely woman’s body as the sixth century knew them. Care of her figure was a religion to Theodora, almost the only religion she knew: a process delicate yet vigorous, and almost ritualistic.

Teia began by rubbing her body all over with skin creams made from olive oil and oil of almonds: kneading every curve and muscle in the slender white form beneath her hands so thoroughly that even the toes and finger tips came in for due attention. Under the delicious sensuousness of this process, which lasted for perhaps twenty minutes, Theodora closed her eyes and abandoned every distracting thought, lying supine and receptive to the slave girl’s ministrations, deriving from them every bit of half-dreamy enjoyment they offered.

Meantime, Chrysomallo was having her heavy blonde hair done up, while Antonina submitted to the attentions of her Nubian slave, who was fixing her eyelashes with a combination of white of eggs mixed with pounded gum ammoniac, and then darkening them with diluted kohl.

After a while Teia, having completed the preliminary massage, took a towel dampened in warm scented water, and with it removed from her mistress’ body every trace of the creams. Now she began a second massage, this time with perfumed oils which she took in her palm from a row of alabaster containers.

It was one of the secrets of fastidious women of the time to employ different scents for different parts of the body. Perfumes are indispensable auxiliaries of love, and their use had been reduced to a science never since equaled by the courtesans of Constantinople, each of whom had her own pet formula, which she considered best suited to her personality.

In its variety, if not in its specific constituents, Theodora’s was somewhat typical. On this day Teia placed upon her breasts and face spikenard, with a light crocus overlay; on the hair and eyes, a tincture of sweet marjoram; essence of thyme sweetened with jasmine on legs, knees, and feet; myrrh on the arms, hands, and shoulders; and the oil of delicate lotus and rose blossoms behind the ears, on the lips and throat, on the smooth white belly, and on the inner thighs, where fragrance is particularly important.

None of the perfumes was strong or penetrating, for a heavy scent was regarded as too often indicating an unpleasant odor to be covered up. And since these courtesans were the cleanest women of their time, as clean perhaps as any women of any time, it was only necessary to give the feminine body, which is naturally fragrant of itself, a blend of scentings, light and coquettish, yet unmistakable, in keeping with its charms.

“You’ve got a good combination there,” Antonina remarked expertly, as she watched the process. “Neither too pungent, nor too sweet. I myself like a little musk. It stimulates the men, though they don’t know why. But one has to take care in using it, that it doesn’t overcome the sweet scents.” She paused. “Getting back to Chione—I’ve been told that she uses twenty-five different perfumes in her toilet, ranging from balm of Gilead to the royal Persian perfume, the formula of which is secret, and which costs its weight in gold.”

Theodora turned over on her breast, her elbows forward on the table, her cheek resting on her arm, to permit Teia to visit her back and her pretty buttocks with the proper unguents. The voluptuous pleasure of the soothing of her flesh under expert hands made her sleepy and relaxed, so that even the name of Chione did not, for the moment, make her angry.

“Well, I suppose she can afford such luxuries,” she said languidly.

It brought a snort from Antonina.

“What has Chione to give that we have not in equal measure?” she demanded. “Her skin’s like saffron, she dyes her hair, and in spite of the odes written to her by the poet Mendes, her figure’s much too voluptuous for true beauty—she has the breasts of a wet nurse! Furthermore, she’s old. I say she’s not less than thirty-five.”

“Thirty-six,” amended Chrysomallo. “I happen to know that when Phocian, the armorer, who loved her, bought her out of the slave brothel and gave her freedom, she was already twenty-five. And that was eleven years ago.”

Among these women subterfuge in the matter of age was difficult, for they knew too intimately and pitilessly each other’s histories. And to the girls in the room thirty-six seemed an age quite advanced, especially for a courtesan.

“From stabulum to famosa in eleven years,” murmured Theodora. “A giddy rise, one must admit.”

“Phocian, having spent all he had on her, was too poor for her,” said Antonina. “She repaid him by leaving him for the first man who would pay her more. And climbed from that one to the next, and so on, until at last she caught the fancy of John of Cappadocia—that animal! I’ve had him, you know. About a year ago it was, at a banquet given by Hermogenes, the master of offices, for some of his men friends—a birthday, I think. Naturally, there were girls, and I got him—the city prefect. He wouldn’t remember me, or that night, because he was drunk, as usual. He’s thoroughly repulsive, let me tell you. I wanted no more to see that ugly creature, with his wood-chopper teeth, his bald head, and his pig eyes. But she courts him.”

Although she expressed her scorn for the prefect, Antonina did not in her voice indicate any particular disparagement of the treachery of Chione toward the other men she had used in her upward climb, for such treatment was expected from courtesans, and she was thinking only of Chione’s adroitness in playing her game.

“And he makes her rich,” said Theodora.

“Ah, for a rich man to love me to the point of folly,” sighed the gentle, fair-haired Chrysomallo.

“Give me rather a vogue—like Chione’s or Macedonia’s,” Theodora said. “Then I’d be independent of any one man.”

“If you like celebrity, why didn’t you stay in the theater?” asked Antonina.

“It’s not the right kind. What can you do as a mountebank? They would laugh—yes, I can say I got more howls of laughter than any comic on the stage. But love doesn’t laugh. Love moans, and sometimes weeps, but when a man laughs at a woman, she’s defeated already.”

“How else could a little delicata like you gain fame?” asked Chrysomallo wistfully.

Theodora mused for a moment. “I don’t know. Luck perhaps. Something daring—and beautiful—and even cruel, might do it. So that the right persons witnessed it.”

“The right men, you mean?”

“Men of course. Who cares for the opinion of women?”

Antonina gave a little spiteful laugh. “Then, darling, reconcile yourself to remaining a delicata. Until age starts you slipping, and you end up as a hag dealing in love philters, fortune-telling—and starvation.”

“Just why?” Theodora challenged.

“Suppose you could invent such a captivating sensation as you imagine, where would you gather the audience to witness your triumph? In your two small rooms? Or in this bath, perhaps? The mere cost of one of Chione’s banquets would hardly be defrayed by that new necklace of yours, even if you sold Teia and added her price to it. And if you had the place, and the money, and the sensation, how could you induce a crowd of really notable guests to come? You’re a nobody, my sweet, while Chione’s a famosa—the talk of the city!”

“Perhaps she might get Chione to give a banquet for her,” suggested Chrysomallo. Both she and Antonina laughed at the droll thought.

But Theodora refused to be routed. “Stranger things even than that have happened,” she said stubbornly.

And when the other girls renewed their laughter, she still refused to smile.

7 }

Massage and perfuming were completed. Theodora assumed the silken robe again and left the table for a bench before a mirror on a pedestal to have her hair dressed.

Now at last she was able to think clearly and talk without effort, the lassitude of the night having been lifted from her by the slave’s manipulations of her body. Teia combed out the gleaming dusky mass of her hair, then began carefully twisting and building it up, fastening it with gold pins and jeweled combs. It took time, but in the end the coiffeur was a charming creation, waved and curled, with a shining opulent knot behind. The servant stood back to admire her own artistry for a moment while the courtesans chattered about matters of no particular moment.

It was time to do Theodora’s face. Here again the variety of beauty aids was almost endless. Various creams and washes were used for removing freckles, wrinkles, and spots: such as paste of sulphur, alkanet, and fish glue; or powdered crab shells mixed with honey. Superfluous hair could be depilated with a psilothrum of arsenic and lime. Some women whitened their skin with white lead treated with fumes of vinegar.

So fine, however, was Theodora’s complexion, that she needed few such aids. In particular she scorned the artificial whitening, since it produced a masklike effect, a sort of enameling that sometimes was creased into obvious furrows by the lines of the face, or by perspiration, or even by tears.

Teia therefore only shadowed her eyelids a little with diluted kohl, and with two strokes of dark crayon lengthened and softened her eyes. Her magnificent sweeping lashes needed no artificial thickening, but her cheekbones were lightly tinted with rouge made from the root of the acanthus treated with vinegar, and the inner corners of her eyes accented with two spots of bright vermilion. Finally, Theodora herself took up the oisype, a sort of soft pencil made of grease impregnated with red coloring and perfume—very like the lipstick of a later era—and with it skillfully shaped and colored her lips.

Her eyes now seemed larger and brighter, her mouth softer and more challenging, her face charming with its delicate coloring.

She rose and dropped the robe from her shoulders for the final touches on her body, considered as important as those on the face by the courtesans. Using a light reddish powder, Teia gave a rosiness to the soft bosom and buttocks, and with a brush of camel’s hair made pink the rosettes of the breasts, touching the nipples with carmine—to be seen subtly later through the thin garment that would be worn. Each nail of the fingers and toes was given a crimson finish. Lastly, the natural folds of thighs, breasts, and knees were lightly lined with almost imperceptible rosy brush strokes.

Their own toilets completed, Antonina and Chrysomallo said farewells and departed with their servants.

“Dress me, Teia,” said Theodora.

Upon her feet the slave girl drew tiny sandals with gilt soles and ties. A garment of white silk, almost transparent, was placed about her body: a graceful creation, craftily molded to fit and flatter, hanging in draped folds to the floor, giving her elegance and slenderness. About her waist she clasped a golden girdle, on her arms bracelets, and in the pierced lobes of her small ears hung earrings that were long and intricate bits of the goldsmith’s art. As a final touch she placed the emerald necklace about her neck, and looked into the mirror.

Her figure was lissome and delectable, her face a seeming perfection, her eyes brilliant. Necklace, earrings, and bracelets flashed. She was dainty, and very desirable.

Theodora was going out. She never went out unless resplendently.

1 }

From the direction of the Via Alta, the thoroughfare which led from the Wall of Constantine to the imperial palaces, Hagg, on his donkey’s back beside the marble Aphrodite, watched the approach of an elaborate litter. It was of the type known as octophoron, from the fact that it was borne by eight carriers: robust Ethiopians, matched as to size, strength, age, and looks, their black bodies naked save for a short yellow skirt about the hips.

Carried shoulder-high, the litter moved steadily above the heads of a little crowd of men and youths accompanying it: young debauchees, or poets, artists, and comedians who deliberately scorned public opinion. On the silken cushions of the litter, indolently reclining and conscious of the gaze of hundreds upon her, rode a handsome woman.

Hagg knew her: Chione, the fair Boeotian, at the moment the reigning queen of the perfumed, elegant, corrupt world of the grand courtesans and their admirers. Her yellow hair was elaborately dressed into a lofty cone and interlaced with strings of pearls and other gems; her garment was a pale yellow, and so transparent that when she languidly shifted her position her rouged form was half revealed, half concealed by the light tissue. In one hand, which snapped out sparks of light from its jewel-bedecked finger rings, she held a long-handled mirror with a gold frame and a surface of polished silver, in which from time to time she consulted lovingly her own undeniably classic features.

“An obol!” Hagg’s voice boomed across the square. “Bear in mind, O Beauteous One, the Emperor Zeno in contemplating your charities!”

Habitually, the beggar made use of devout or religious phrases for their effect on his patrons, although he never entered a church. His reference to the Emperor Zeno, who ruled before the late Anastasius, was understood. According to the superstitious story, Zeno used his imperial power to carry off a virtuous maiden with whom he was enamored, and force her to become his unwilling mistress. Her mother, a devout widow, prayed to the holy Virgin for punishment of the tyrant for his deadly sin. Then, said the legend, a voice was heard by the widow, saying, “Thou hadst long ago ere this been avenged on him, if the alms deeds of the emperor had not bound our hands.”

Chione caused her litter bearers to halt. She was not a Christian, nor did she pray to the Virgin, but the implication that the giving of alms could save one from the most grievous wrath of heaven influenced her. Like all courtesans she was superstitious, and there was no telling whence a curse might come.

Hagg redoubled his outcries, half rising in his basket saddle with his eagerness. Chione glanced over at him. Her enameled face did not change, but she handed a small silken purse to one of her simpering, perfumed admirers, and sent him mincing over to drop it—with obvious distaste—into the beggar’s claw.

Caring nothing for the young elegant’s aversion, Hagg clutched the purse and croaked a blessing on the courtesan.

The retinue took up its progress, and the gorgeous litter receded with the haughty famosa and her mirror, while she gazed with lazy indifference on the pedestrians of the street.

2 }

Eagerly the beggar pulled at the strings and peered into the little purse he had received.

“Gold—or copper?” said a voice behind him.

“Copper!” Hagg snarled in disappointment. “A few oboli. Without looking I should have known! She sends a purse to make a great show of her charity, as if it were full of solidi—yet the purse itself is worth more than the contents.”

The voice behind him was amused. “Take then this—which has no purse of silk.”

In the air, glittering upward, a coin spun. Dextrously the cripple shot out one of his inhumanly long arms and caught the gold piece, gazed upon it with avarice, and began his formula of blessing.

But he was interrupted. “Are blessings needful, O Hagg, between friends?”

He stopped. “Nay. Not between friends, little Theodora.”

Now he twisted his hideous head around and for an instant his face was illumined by a grin—a grin made dreadful by the twisted mouth and sparse yellow fangs, but still a grin.

Instantly it was obliterated. Of all expressions, a smile is the least profitable to a beggar.

Yet if his visage was capable of friendliness, it now showed it as he looked at the girl. Almost all his life Hagg had known this young courtesan. As did he, so she belonged to the dim underworld of the city. And as he knew evil, she also had known all evil since she could speak, although in some manner it had not put its mark on her as it had on him.

“Whence comes Chione?” asked Theodora, who knew the beggar as perhaps the greatest single source of information in Constantinople.

“From the Augusteum square,” Hagg said, holding the gold coin between his scaly thumb and forefinger. “She has invaded the palace quarter for an insolent comparison of charms with the patrician ladies. Triumphant now—for she’s drawn upon herself, through her attire and retinue, the attention of many notable persons, and has set countless tongues to wagging—she returns to her house to prepare a list of invitations to a banquet she is to give.”

“How do you know all these things?”

“Never mind. Hagg has many sources of knowledge.”

“Tell me of the banquet—there might be an evening’s work for me. When will it be held?”

“Tomorrow, a week.”

“The occasion?”

“Celebration of a victory. Macedonia, her chief rival, is exiled——”

“Macedonia! When?”

From amused idle talk the girl’s voice changed to genuine horror, and the color fled from her face.

“You mean you haven’t heard?” said the beggar.

“I—I’ve been—very much occupied——”

“Well, after all, the thing only happened this morning. But it’s all over the quarter by now.”

“Tell me about it! Macedonia’s my friend—the best friend I have!”

“Sh-h-h! Lower your voice, child. Under the circumstances——”

“With what is she charged?”

“It’s said,” began Hagg cautiously, “that a conspiracy in favor of the heirs of the dead Emperor Anastasius was discussed in her house.”

Theodora recognized the deadliness of this accusation. Everyone knew how Justin, the present emperor, bribed his way to the throne at the death of Anastasius. The former ruler died without direct issue, but he had two nephews residing in the city—inoffensive, unambitious men, as it happened. Yet any conspiracy in their favor was treason, and those involved subject to the severest penalties: torture and death.

“Who were in the conspiracy?” she asked.

“No names were given. An informer said the discussion took place at Macedonia’s house, but could furnish no other information.”

“And nobody’s to be executed? Or even imprisoned? Only the exile of one courtesan for a treasonable plot? Hagg, this sounds fishy!”

The beggar was silent.

“It’s a fraud!” she said with conviction. “I’m certain of it! I smell Chione in this. The informer was in her pay. The information was false, but carried to John of Cappadocia, the city prefect, who’s Chione’s lover and who will stop at nothing. He ordered the Excubitors to exile Macedonia—and all because that bitch, Chione, is jealous of her and hates her. Do you imagine a real conspiracy would have failed to bring a blood bath? I know you’re not so naïve!”

Hagg did not directly reply. Instead he began a croaking plea for alms, directed at a passing Cretan. When the man had given him a copper and was gone, he said in a low voice:

“I beseech you, Theodora, be careful. These be dangerous matters to speak of. I can only tell you that Macedonia’s house is under guard, her property all confiscated, and she will be set out by the soldiery before the Charisian gate at sundown, never to return to the city under pain of death.”

Theodora bit her lip. Macedonia the Splendid—Macedonia who had befriended her when she so needed friendship—Macedonia the generous—ruined—sent away a pauper—perhaps to her death! And because of the malice of that cat, Chione, who never had done a kindness in all her life.

Theodora hated Chione. All courtesans had reason to hate the city prefect’s favorite. But Theodora’s hate suddenly was more corrosive because more personal.

Yet when she spoke again, she seemed to change the subject.

“Are you acquainted with young Chaero, Hagg?”

“The son of Senator Polemon, and the leader of the Juventi Alcinoi? Slightly—and not favorably.”

“He loves me.”

“Ah?” said the beggar politely. Courtesans habitually preened themselves on their lovers, but this was not one of the common ruck of courtesans, and he was fairly sure she had not made the statement merely as a boast.

“I barred him from my house,” she went on.

“If he loves you—why?”

“Because he behaved very badly.”

“I see.” Hagg waited to discover where this was leading.

“This morning I received from him a tablet, threatening some desperate act—it sounded as if he intended to take his own life, although I can hardly believe Chaero would go to that extreme—can you?”

Hagg grunted and scratched his ribs reflectively. “I saw Chaero a few days ago. He was with his father, Senator Polemon, on the way to the slave market. No, he’s not the suicide type. Do you know what his act of ‘desperation’ is? He’s at last listened to his father and consented to marry and settle down. They’re buying servants and furniture now.”

“Chaero—to marry? I can hardly believe it.”

“Nevertheless it’s a fact. Polemon has long cherished hope of an alliance with Silvius Testor, who became immensely wealthy as tax collector of Galatea. His daughter, Tispasa, is unmarried——”

“That black little thing?” cried Theodora, to whom the thought that a man—any man—who had been devoted to her, could contemplate marriage with anyone else was most unacceptable. “I’ve seen her. She reminds me of a dried prune! She’s older than Chaero. A spinster, absolutely—why, she’s abandoned all hope of marriage!”

“This may prove what you say of Chaero’s despair,” he said drily.

For a moment Theodora gloomed. Then she said, “I can get him back!”

“The daughter of Silvius Testor is very rich,” Hagg reminded her.

“What difference does that make? I could have him back with a flick of a finger! Not that I want him. Heavens, no! Let him marry her—and spend all future time in weariness of her!”

For a moment, with this bitterness, she was silent. Then it occurred to her that Chaero’s prospective marriage—and her own vexation at it—had completely sidetracked her original line of thought. Always the woman! She took herself in hand.

“Well,” she said, “as a matter of fact I do want to get in touch with Chaero in spite of what I just said. I need your help.”

“Help? From Hagg? We beggars be miserable, weak, and poor——”

“And know everything. And go everywhere. Will you help me?”

“What is it you wish of me?” he began cautiously.

“I would punish Chione, that arrogant sow!”

“Poison?”

“Nothing so dignified. Not death but humiliation is what hurts a woman most!”

He knew he would get nothing more from her. This girl knew amazingly how to keep her inner thoughts to herself, unlike so many of her kind who babbled out everything they knew to anyone who would listen.

So Hagg at length promised to do for her what she wished, and for nobody else in the world would he have done it without much gold. She thanked him and walked slowly back across the square, a tiny, dainty figure in white, her dark head bent in thought.

Beside the statue of Aphrodite, Hagg remained, gazing at the gifts of the courtesans on the pedestal. Each morning that pedestal was swept clean. The women never questioned this disappearance during the night hours. They had made their offerings: if the goddess was pleased to permit the sacrifices to be carried away, the furtive devotees were undisturbed, because their acts of propitiation had been made.

But Hagg knew where the gifts on the pedestal went after dark. The beggars considered them part of their legitimate revenue, so much so that it was well understood and ordinary criminals did not venture to touch them, or even the city guards, venal as they were. It was not lucky to antagonize the beggars. They were weak, and friendless, and poor, as Hagg had said. But they were many, and they had mysterious means of communication. And in the dark they had been known to gather and pull down enemies of their kind, making up with their scuffling numbers for their lack of strength, and leaving behind them to be picked up in the morning ghastly reminders of the hidden, lurking power of the shadowy Brotherhood of Beggars.

3 }

In the year 521, Constantinople boasted two defending walls built across the neck of the peninsula on the tip of which the city stood, between the Golden Horn and the Propontis. The great Wall of Constantine enclosed the older city. The Wall of Theodosius, erected much later, took in many of the suburbs and villas outside the inner wall.

At a point somewhat north of the water gate which covered the ingress of the Lycus River, was the Charisian gate, one of the most important of the city’s portals. Through it ran one of the roads to Thrace, which branched also southward to the narrows of the Hellespont at Gallipolis, where a regular ferry service plied between the European and Asiatic shores, separated there only by a narrow strait.

At sunset of that day, just before the Charisian gate closed, a squad of Excubitors tramped through it. Rarely has there been a soldiery more impressive in appearance than the palace guards of Constantinople. All the men were chosen for their height and fine figures, and their armor and uniforms, of silver, white, and gold, were dazzling. To be sure they were not much good for fighting, being largely for show, and even having a derisive nickname—Scholares, or Students—a reference to their life of ease, rather than to any erudition they possessed. This did not prevent the rabble, however, from craning necks at them, which they hardly would have done at a troop of barbarian mercenaries from the northern forests, with furs and shaggy skins slung over plain iron breastplates—not very splendid, but the real fighting men of the empire.

Behind the detachment of Excubitors that evening streamed a ragtag and bobtail of curiosity seekers, for it escorted a woman. Just outside the gate the officer in command halted his detail, the ranks opened, and the woman walked forward alone.

“Begone!” said the officer in command. “And never turn back!”

With a species of despair the woman looked at him. She was tall, with a strikingly beautiful profile, and continuously graceful movements and gestures.

“But—where can I go?” she asked helplessly.

He scowled under his silver helmet. “Why ask me? I know not what saints or devils protect you, Macedonia! If I were accused of a tithe of what they charge against you, I’d be torn to pieces on the rack after having my tongue cut out and my eyes blinded with hot irons. But you—you’re merely exiled. Without even a whiplash. Consider yourself the luckiest strumpet in the world, and start walking—without delaying us any further!”

She drew herself up with a look of contempt. “Thank you for the kindness of your advice. And also for the—the courtesies—I’ve received from you—and these men of yours—while I was your prisoner in my own house.”

Then she bowed her head and walked a few paces down the road. Though she was accustomed to beautiful garments of silk, Macedonia the once splendid famosa was clad now only in an old tunica of rough wool. On it was not a single ornament or jewel. The very gold pins had been pulled from her dark hair, which hung loose about her shoulders.

At the officer’s gruff command, the Excubitors made a smart about-face and tramped back through the gate, quite regretful that this assignment was over. A woman prisoner, particularly a beautiful one, always provided a pleasant way to while the time when left alone with her guards. And this was an exquisite creature. A dainty treat, hitherto enjoyed only by the great and wealthy. The huge Excubitors licked their chops in recollection of the day they had beguiled with the helpless beauty.

Head bent, their victim limped on down the road. The small crowd outside the gate continued to stand, gaping after her. All at once a little ratty man stooped, picked up a fistful of mire from the roadside, and hurled it. Her woolen tunica was spattered with black flecks of filth.

With a laugh and a shout, others began throwing mud. A stone sang past Macedonia’s ear. Suddenly she knew she was in peril and began to run, holding her two hands behind her head for a weak protection, stumbling and sobbing.

The rabble jeered and howled insults after her. It would be fun to chase her down the road, perhaps get in a few good licks with cutting stones. To some natures a handsome female body almost prays for cruelty, and this one was intriguingly shapely and curving. . . .

But the clanking of iron winches in the twin towers of the gate at that moment advertised that the slow process of closing the massive doors was beginning, and nobody liked being caught outside the city walls. It meant sleeping out all night, unless one had a special passport.

So a few more rocks were hurled, and then the crowd reluctantly turned back into the city, with a final snarl of derisive laughter at the running figure in the dusk.

The gates drew shut.

4 }

For a few steps Macedonia continued to run in a dogged trot. Then she slowed to a walk.

For her, life was at its lowest ebb. Yesterday she had been rich, with friends and flatterers thronging about her, known everywhere, even in the palace, as befitted a great famosa. Today she had nothing, and not one friend to say farewell to her. The mud flung by the rabble was all that Constantinople had to offer her in her going. So unexpected had been her downward plunge, so great the magnitude of her misfortune, that her mind was dazed. She could not, at the moment, even think where she was going, or where she should spend the night, or how she would keep from starving.

Someone called her name. “Macedonia . . .”

At first she believed the voice was something she imagined. But again her name was spoken, softly.

She halted, peering through the dusk. “It—it can’t be—Theodora?” she quavered.

The girl stood alone in a small opening in a hedge by the road.

“Come in here,” she said.

Macedonia, having no other volition, weakly obeyed.

About her now she felt soft arms, and sank to her knees, giving way at last to her grief. Theodora, standing beside her, held her head close, cradling it against her body, and down her cheeks tears of sympathy ran also.

“You came——” Macedonia sobbed. “You—the only one——”

She tried to stifle her weeping, gasping like a drowning woman, and finally sank into a sitting posture on one hip, her legs drawn under her, still leaning against the girl, her breath coming with difficulty in little hiccups, her face disfigured and swollen in the last sad twilight.

Still Theodora held her head close, and comforted her with little soft pats on the hair. When the tears at last ceased, she dried Macedonia’s cheeks with her scarf.

The other had now regained some measure of composure, and Theodora seated herself also, cross-legged, leaning forward with her hands clasped in her lap, looking at her friend gravely and thoughtfully.

“I’m sorry—about going to pieces,” said Macedonia after a time. “I was overwrought—completely exhausted. Those soldiers—eight of them—at the last I was numb. To be a woman is horrible—at times.”

Theodora nodded. She was not surprised or shocked. This kind of fate was too common. “Try to forget it now, dear. A few days, and you’ll recover. It doesn’t damage permanently——”

“I know it. And I’m ashamed of breaking down. A woman—a courtesan at least—ought to be prepared for anything. After what I’ve seen in these years, I ought to know that. But the whole thing—being denounced, confiscated, imprisoned, raped, exiled—it came as such a complete shock and surprise—so unjust——”

“There’s no justice for women like us. No justice and less mercy,” Theodora said bitterly.

It had slowly grown dark. The great outer wall of masonry with its watch towers rearing up every hundred paces like peering, threatening heads, shut off the city and its lights. In the hollow of the thick growing hedge, which cut off the direct night breeze, already chill, the two sat silent in the gloom.

Tragedy was what they confronted: and the cruelty of it was that they were both charming, beautiful of face and body, created for love and a sheltering life, but by a quirk of fate cast into an existence not only unprotected, but considered infamous by established religion and the society of property and place. A prodigious waste here in womanhood, which is something infinitely precious.

Neither Theodora or Macedonia, of course, thought in such terms. Too reconciled were they to the callous brutality of their age, and to their own inoffensive helplessness, knowing that they possessed one asset and weapon only—their sex—which they frankly, bravely, used to combat the malignancy of life.

After a time Theodora said, “We must think of your future.”

“What future can there be for me?” Macedonia began to sob again.

“Stop weeping!” said Theodora sharply. “Of course there’s a future!”

With an effort Macedonia controlled herself. “Thank you,” she said simply, understanding that Theodora had spoken so to control her incipient hysteria.

Presently she was able to talk again: with despair, but without a tremor in her voice.

“I’m too old to start again from nothing. Theodora—I’ll confess it to you—I’ll be thirty-five my next birthday, although people think I’m less than thirty. That surprises you, doesn’t it?”

She seemed to seek confirmation of a secret, cherished pride. Courtesans clung so eagerly, almost frantically, to those few golden years between emergence from adolescence and the first onset of age.

“I’d never dream you were out of your twenties,” lied Theodora, for at the moment the other, with her weariness and woe, seemed even older than she was.

“Even so,” Macedonia said, “it’s too late to start again. With nothing. Not even a ring! They didn’t even leave me the little gold ring my first lover gave me. I was thirteen, and he was fifteen—it was hardly worth anything, a plain little thing such as a boy would buy at a bazaar—but I always wore it. For remembrance, you know. He was a sweet boy. In the years since my body has grown fuller and my fingers plumper, so the ring wouldn’t come off over the knuckle. But they took it off—see where the skin and flesh are bruised and torn——”

She held out her left hand. Bending her head close, Theodora could see even in the night that the smallest finger was swollen and wounded, with blood dried on it.

After a moment, with a pulse in her throat as if she choked back another sob, Macedonia went on wearily, “I thought—I might have—protection.”

“Of what kind?”

“Five years ago there was a banquet at the house of Senator Drago,” Macedonia said. “I was one of the assistants. A—a certain personage—was the guest of honor. He could take his choice of us, and—and he chose me to share his couch at the dinner. Afterwards he sent for me—I went to the palace on four separate occasions. I seemed to please him then, and he was always kind, and rewarded me well each time—and I thought——”

“Prince Justinian?” Theodora asked. She had heard of this.

Macedonia nodded mutely.

“He may be away from the city,” Theodora said to comfort her. “I’m told he makes many diplomatic journeys——”

The other shook her head. “Men don’t remember. Once we women serve their purpose, they’re frantic to forget us!”

“Sometimes they remember us—equally frantically.”

“Not when they have the pick of the empire to choose from—as he has. It was a foolish hope, a ridiculous hope—that one so exalted would turn a finger to save a woman who was to him no more than a passing pleasure. Well, here I am, growing old—for a courtesan—and I don’t know anything else. I don’t want to spend the rest of my days weaving cloth as reformed prostitutes do! I love life! And now—now——”

Once more Macedonia began to sob.

The stars sparkled brilliantly in the night sky above. The wind grew colder. In the darkness the two women crept together and huddled, shivering, in each other’s arms. So Macedonia had out her grief and misery. After a long time they both slept a little, comforted somewhat by the warmth of one another’s bodies.

5 }

At the earliest false light before dawn, Theodora awoke her friend.

“I was dreaming,” Macedonia said pathetically, “and I dreamed that my dream was my real life and I was happy—and that what happened yesterday was only a nightmare——”

She sat up, and gave a little exclamation of pain, for this morning she was sore and stiff.

“I aroused you because you must be out of sight of the city walls before sunrise,” Theodora told her. “Take this road to where it divides, then follow the south branch to Gallipolis, where the ferry is.”

“To what end?” the other said drearily.

“The northern branch leads to Thrace—nothing but peasants and rustic towns. But down the Syrian coast is Antioch, which is a great city. You can start there afresh——”

Macedonia laughed bitterly. “It sounds easy, put that way! But suppose I ever reached there—and how I could do so, penniless as I am, I can’t imagine—I’d be finished before I began.”

“There’s a splendid theater at Antioch, so I’m told,” said Theodora. “You’re a wonderfully accomplished actress. They’ll receive you gladly, for your fame certainly has reached through the provinces.”

“Receive me—in these rags?”

Without replying, Theodora stood up. Her hands went to the back of her neck, for a moment her fingers worked with a fastening, and then she held out to Macedonia the necklace she had been wearing: the emeralds Datos had given her.

“Yours,” she said. “It’s worth a thousand solidi—I’ve had it appraised. Break off a few links—they’ll buy you food, shelter, and transportation to Antioch. With the rest you can obtain suitable clothing and ornaments, and set up an establishment——”

For a moment Macedonia simply stared, unable to comprehend. Then she gasped at the magnificence of the offer.

“You’d give me that?” she cried. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she struggled to her feet. “But I won’t take it!” she cried, hugging the girl. “That necklace is your future—it means everything—I wouldn’t dream——”

“Macedonia, my beloved friend,” said Theodora slowly and with intense meaning, “all my life I’ve repaid. Spite with spite. Hate with hate. Evil with evil—and for her evil I now owe a mighty debt to Chione!” She paused, and a flash of fury passed over her face like the flicker of lightning under a heavy cloud. Then she softened again. “I repay love and kindness too—if I receive them. Have you forgotten what you once did—for a wild girl of the streets?”

Before the tenderness in her gaze, Macedonia’s eyes fell.

“This doesn’t repay all—but it’s on account,” Theodora went on. She clasped the necklace on Macedonia’s neck and stood back. “It becomes you,” she smiled.

Suddenly they flung themselves into each other’s arms, exchanging a hundred kisses and little hugs, their tears flowing freely in the manner of women deeply moved.

“Now go—with my love,” said Theodora at last. “Bright days are still ahead of you, dear.”

Murmuring again her broken thanks, Macedonia moved away in the growing light, before the imminent dawn broke over the eastern horizon.

When the Charisian gate swung open at sunrise, Theodora stood before it. Her garments were wrinkled and dusty, her hair disheveled from the night under the hedge.

The guard looked at her with a grin. “Where have you been, slut?” he gibed genially. “Lying in the fields with some swineherd?”

But he allowed her to pass silently into the city without asking her any further questions.

1 }

When the small waxed sheet of thin wood was slipped into his hand, Chaero was walking with his father along the street that overlooked the Bosphorus, not far from the Senate house which faced on the Augusteum, the forum and square next to the imperial palaces.

Instinctively he clutched the object. For a moment he paced along, hardly hearing the platitude Senator Polemon was uttering, and wondering if his father had observed.

Evidently not. Chaero ventured a hasty glance back.

A considerable number of people were coming and going on the street, and there was no way for him to tell who had thrust the tablet in his hand. He could not have imagined, really, the true course that thin waxed wood had taken: from a certain house on the Street of Women, by the hand of a blonde slave girl to a beggar on a burro, who in turn slid it into the paw of an Isaurian with a crooked leg and a crutch with closest instructions, who gave it to a bright-eyed gamin able to lose himself in a crowd, yet able also to understand the errand on which he was trusted, the reward for its success, and the penalty of its failure.

“Do you see those galleys on the roadstead, Chaero?” Polemon was saying. “They’re new. Part of a fleet of fifteen. I venture a guess that they’ll see active service soon.”

His father’s interest in the galleys, which caused him to fix his senatorial gaze on the sinister beaked craft with their banks of oars, permitted Chaero to slip the wax tablet into his bosom.

“Perhaps I should go into the market and buy up wheat and oil,” Polemon continued. “Whenever there’s a new military expedition such commodities always shoot sky-high, and a good profit can be made. If I only knew for certain—let me see, who would know? The city prefect, probably. It would be worth a small outlay in gold, if the knowledge is sure. Yes. I must attend court tomorrow.”

He broke off, for he had been talking aloud to himself, a bad habit into which he was falling as he grew older.

“To return to what we were discussing, my son,” he said, “the villa on the coast below Hieron, with its vineyards, will be yours when you present me with my first grandson.” He chuckled. “Nay,” he amended generously, “I’ll not make that condition. My first grandchild! A girl has her uses, too, eh?”

He gave the youth a nudge and chortled.

“Yes, Father,” said Chaero. The little tablet in the bosom of his tunic seemed to burn his breast.

“I took care of those debts of yours,” the senator continued. “How in the name of St. Julian, the patron of all outcasts, you could get so quickly and deeply into the hands of the money lenders, astounds me. It cost me a round five thousand solidi, you young puppy!”

But Polemon’s voice was railing, rather than severe. His relief that his son was coming to his senses at last was so great that he considered the price cheap.

“I suppose a boy must have his fling,” he went on, when the youth did not reply. “Come to think of it, I went through the phase myself—in a mild way, understand. Nothing to speak about, of course, especially before your mother,” he added hastily, for the senator was in some awe of his wife, Faustina, a stern and determined matron of the old school.

“Of course not, Father,” said Chaero.

Polemon made haste to change the subject. “You must come to court with me tomorrow. I’ll introduce you to some people it will pay you to know. Now that you’ve given up your wild ways, I’m sure you’ll find that the society of the palace quarter isn’t nearly as dull as you think. One can have pleasure and still be respectable, you know. By the way, what would you think of a government post—perhaps in the diplomatic service? It’s a fascinating career. You meet the great of all nations, and know all important secrets. I might get you such an appointment—a small office, of course, to start. But I promise you’d have rapid promotion, especially if the prince takes a fancy to you. It’s no secret, what with the old emperor in ill health—the fistula, from the wound he got on his leg years ago, has never healed—that Justinian makes most of the real decisions for the empire these days.”

So Senator Polemon bumbled on. He was a rotund, comfortable, pompous man, who had reached an age when only politics and business interested him, and it did not occur to him that his son scarcely heard anything of what he was saying.

But so possessed was Chaero by a devouring curiosity to read the message he had so mysteriously received, that he could hardly pay attention to anything else. Who had sent it? He had not the remotest notion, but the secrecy with which it had been given him was sufficient guarantee of its interest.

Chaero was in his twentieth year, a youth of medium height and somewhat effeminately handsome. He had not inherited the dignified and stuffy personality of his sire, but resembled rather his mother in looks, though not in firmness. Like many aristocratic youths he had all too young acquired a taste for wine, gambling, and the pretty little delicatae. And though Chaero could hardly yet be called vicious, his frequent night-long escapades with the Juventi Alcinoi, those mischievous and arrogant young irresponsibles, showed the way he was going. Weakness, and a love for the sensual, were his chief characteristics, and it was beyond his powers to follow a dull, if practical discourse, such as his father was giving, even when it involved his future and a minor bit of palace corruption.

Presently they arrived at the family residence, a substantial stone mansion of the type called domus, with an atrium, a peristyle, a garden; the gynaeceum for the women on the upper floor, and the andron for the men on the lower. Like most Roman residences of the old-fashioned class it had hardly any windows on the outside, the suites of rooms all centering about the peristyle and its interior flower gardens, and depending on light from that and the atrium. From the front entrance there was a fine view overlooking the sea.

“Shall we join your mother?” asked Polemon.

“No, I think not,” Chaero replied. “At this hour she’s probably in the gynaeceum upstairs, taking her nap. I dislike disturbing her.”

“Then what do you wish to do?”

“With your permission, Father, I’ll go to my own room. I find myself sleepy this afternoon, and the mention of Mother’s nap suggests that if I’m going to court tomorrow I might profitably rest.”

The senator nodded. His son’s proposal was at least practical, if not very enterprising.

At once Chaero hurried down the hall and shut himself in his room, where he could be alone. Now, almost tremblingly, he drew the tablet from his bosom. This was what was written on it:

No signature. No address. Yet Chaero was sure he knew whence the tablet had come. He felt a flush go over him, as of excitement, or anger, or some other emotion.

Your message stirred pity . . . and a time set.

Now Chaero knew he was angry. As if, in her vanity, she had decided to permit him to come back at her nod, forsooth—and only when she condescended to see him!

It was most ridiculous to imagine himself, Chaero, the son of Senator Polemon, accepting such a summons from a harlot!

He had sworn to have nothing further to do with such cattle in any case. Why, he reflected, his nuptials with the daughter of Silvius Testor were only a few days off. His future was before him: that suggestion of the diplomatic service, in particular, appealed to him now that he thought about it, since it meant dressing elegantly, practicing polished manners, attending all affairs of state, and living luxuriously as an esthete, with little real labor or responsibility, but with an assured income and respected prestige.

Did she think he would jeopardize all that because a strumpet crooked her little finger?

He laughed scornfully to himself at the mere notion, cracked the thin wood of the tablet along its grain, and threw it out of the window into the peristyle garden.

After all, what had she to offer? Again Chaero laughed with scorn. She had barred him out of her house and refused to admit him. Now she saw her mistake, and wanted him back. Did she actually expect him to come so easily, crawling to her, perhaps humbly kissing her hands, pleading for pardon?

Well, if she had any such idea, she had a pretty sharp surprise in store for her. Absurd, the high opinion some girls had of themselves . . .

2 }

Half an hour later Thrases, the old slave who took care of the gardens, came unexpectedly up behind Chaero, who seemed to be burrowing in the bushes under one of the windows of the house which looked into the peristyle. The servant tactfully cleared his throat.

Hurriedly Chaero scrambled to his feet, his curls disarrayed, a streak of dirt across his flushed face.

“I—I was looking for something,” he stammered.

“Yes, master.”

“It was nothing of—of any importance.”

“Yes, master.”

Chaero hid something, which Thrases remembered later as appearing to be a broken tablet, in his tunic and hurried into the house.

3 }

At the third hour after sunset Teia answered a knock at the door. Her mistress, after an unexplained night out, had spent most of the day sleeping, but she had at last roused, bathed, dressed, and beautified herself. One thing the slave girl noticed, and it almost stopped her breath, though she did not dare ask a question about it: the wonderful necklace of gold and emeralds was gone from about her mistress’ throat.

Teia was not surprised to find Chaero at the door, for Theodora had told her he was expected.

The youth, his blond curls painstakingly arrayed, a chaplet on his head, and a new robe of saffron with a scarlet border draped according to the last gasp of fashion, almost stumbled up the steps after her, as if he were under some great agitation.

Teia opened the door to the sitting room. Within, Chaero saw Theodora standing, gazing at him. The lighted lamp on the table behind her outlined her form in its thin dress. More magnificent than ever her dark eyes seemed, set in a face the pallor of which always suggested to him a consuming fire within.

“Theodora!” he said hoarsely.

She regarded him in silence.

He took two steps toward her, and Teia closed the door behind him, leaving them alone.

“I received the tablet—naming this hour—” he almost gasped.

His foolish manner gave the girl a sensation of distaste. Decidedly callow, this youth. Callow, and weak, and more than slightly stupid. He was twenty, two years older than she. But in knowledge and experience and matured strength, she was a woman with all a woman’s variety and complexity of nature, and a woman’s intelligence and purpose; while he was no more than a fumbling boy.

Yet he had come.

At her almost casual summons, he had dropped everything and come to her. By this her power over him was unreservedly established: and the woman does not live who would not feel a touch of pride at such a demonstration of the central, inwardly important thing to her, the compelling lure of her femininity.

But it was almost too easy. Theodora felt a sensation perilously approaching shame for a moment at taking advantage of him. It was, in a way, so unsporting.

Instantly, however, she put away this thought. After all—callow and weak, or no—this youth was important to her schemes just now, and she must make sure of him. Theodora hardened her heart. She was a courtesan, and were not men her natural prey?

“Yes?” she prompted him, as he stood goggling at her.

“Nothing could equal my—my abominable behavior, Theodora! I come to—to beg your forgiveness——”

Theodora felt a weariness. Men—some men—were so utterly banal. But she proceeded with her previously adopted program.

“To forgive is not difficult,” she said, “if one is sure of contrition.”

“How can I prove my contrition?” he asked in a trembling voice.

“How? Well—some act, or deed—perhaps——”

“Ask me to do something for you—just ask!”

“Anything?”

“Yes!”

This unreckoning acquiescence, before he even knew what she wanted of him, had been, out of her knowledge of the youth, anticipated by her. She seated herself and her voice grew soft.

“You love me so much, Chaero?”

He threw himself on his knees and buried his face in her lap. In his eyes the tears welled and dampened the thin fabric over her thighs.

“So much do I love you, that I’ll do anything you desire! I swear it!” His muffled voice shook.

At that moment, his head resting on the girl’s soft thighs, the fact that he was betrothed to another did not even enter Chaero’s mind, or if it did was thrust out instantly as distasteful. Theodora imbued him, occupied him, took possession of him so completely that he could think of nothing but her, his desire for her, his hope that she would relent to him.

After a time she said, “It is no ordinary thing I have in mind.”

“The more difficult,” he burst out, “the more eager am I to do it for you——”

She closed his mouth with her perfumed palm. It is an old and deadly effective trick of women, this delicate palm on the lips. Over and over he kissed the warm softness, proving to her that the device still was unfailing.

She turned completely unscrupulous. “I would not ask this—of anyone but you—Chaero,” she said, her voice lagging, and a world of subtle implications in her tones.

He turned his head on her lap so that his eyes could search her face. His lashes were still wet with his tears.

“I’ll do it! You know I’ll do it! Do I not love you?”

“I know well you will do it But it requires secrecy . . . and planning.” Her voice was soft, blurred. Her fingers toyed with his ringlets, stiff with pomade.

In that moment the girl was all female magic, all female treachery. She was Woman, whose necessities can never be judged by man, charged with the terrible mystic responsibility of her sex, incurably personal in every thought and feeling, knowing her own weakness, implacable in her determination, unpitying in her realism. She was Jael in her tent, with the nail ready to be driven into the temple of the warrior she had just lulled to sleep; she was Clytemnestra watching Agamemnon go to his bath, where assassination awaited him; she was Cleopatra, sending the false message that would plunge Antony into suicide; she was Delilah, with Samson’s head, shorn of its strength-giving locks, slumbering on her knees and the Philistines coming to bind him.

To her, the youth was an instrument and that only. It is hard for a woman to pity, let alone admire, a babbling sensualist without strength of will, pride, or honor. But had Chaero been a full man instead of a pampered weakling, Theodora would at that moment have used him unhesitatingly for what she planned.

In her mind lived her hate for Chione, and the thing she had said to Macedonia. I repay. If she died for it, Theodora would repay Chione, the cruel and selfish, with equal cruelty for what she had done to Macedonia.

And after all, she did not propose to harm this youth. Only to use him a little faithlessly.

He stirred, lifted his head, and raising a trembling hand, placed it upon one of her breasts, cupping the rounding flesh under the light dress which covered but scarcely hid it.

“I desire you——” he whispered hoarsely.

She put his hand away from her.

“Theodora——” he pleaded.

“Not now—it is not the time,” she said. “First the deed——”

“And after?”

“Do what I ask, and afterwards, at the hour you shall name, I will be waiting for you, in the dress you yourself prefer, my hair done as you best like it, my body scented for you alone . . .”

And when he, shaken by his longing, promised to do whatever she commanded him to do, she lent her lips to his for one overwhelming moment, in a kiss that lived with him in the days to follow.

4 }

The slave, his face emaciated and pale, was a eunuch, with the typical elongation of limbs and high womanish voice as evidence of that fact, if evidence were needed. Theodora did not need it. At a glance she recognized the creature for what he was.

One encountered eunuchs everywhere. There were more than seventy thousand of them in Constantinople, their numbers compelling recognition so that the capital was said to be possessed of three sexes—male, female, and neuter.

Eunuchs were a creation and symbol of an age of thoughtless cruelty, when the sacred rights of the individual meant nothing. The operation by which a young boy was deprived of his manhood was suggestively simple, even though general anatomy was little understood, and the change it produced physically and in the character of its subject, if performed before puberty, was remarkable.

In particular the Ethiopians made a practice of castrating young boys wholesale, burying them, after the knife had done its cruel work, for three days neck-deep in sand, to stanch the blood and hold them immovably erect and helpless to reach with their hands their point of pain. Methods so crude resulted inevitably in many deaths from shock, hemorrhage, or infection among the victims: but in spite of this wastage, and the sufferings of the helpless children thus treated, it was profitable to the slave dealers, for a eunuch brought in the market three times the price of an unaltered slave.

Wealthy women, with large households, especially prized these human steers because they, being bereft of their virility, were mild and tractable; and furthermore were never feared as rivals by husbands or lovers, so that it was safe to employ them in the most intimate services. The best hairdressers, masseurs, perfumers, confidential secretaries, and bedchamber attendants were said to be eunuchs.

By no means were all eunuchs slaves. They had a special school of their own, and being incapable of founding dynasties, it was considered safe to impart to them state secrets. As a result, the imperial clerical and household services were almost controlled by the epicene brotherhood. At times eunuchs rose to positions of great power, as in the case of the late Amantius, who at the death of Emperor Anastasius came within a hairsbreadth of ruling the empire in fact, if not in person. So evident were the possibilities that families in poor circumstances, with a surplus of sons, often deliberately emasculated one or more of their boys to qualify them for a profitable government career, and these were not slaves. Many who were slaves, moreover, were able to amass enough money to buy their own freedom, for eunuchs were cunning in matters of finance.

All in all, the eunuchs of Constantinople formed a community so numerous and important that they argued for themselves a solid advantage over normal men, in that they were exempt from the madness of sex, which forever intervened in the thoughts and impulses of males, diverting them from really important objectives, and frequently bringing the best of them to failure and disgrace because of the power over them it gave to some woman.

Yet in spite of this it was a pathetic fact that had any one of the poor creatures, by some miracle, been given the opportunity to return to full masculinity, with all its fevers, divergences, and drawbacks, he would with tears of joy have accepted it.

Knowing these things, Theodora pitied all eunuchs, yet she disliked them. To this one she spoke coldly.

“What do you want?”

He gazed at her with his large melancholy eyes. “My mistress, Chione the famosa, bids you come to her.”

It was characteristic of Chione that she had several eunuchs in her household. Some female natures like to be personally attended, particularly in the most servile matters, by males—even pseudo-males—as if this were a humbling of the entire masculine sex, the alleviation of a secret wish.

It was characteristic also of Chione that she sent her summons to Theodora not as a request, or an invitation, but peremptorily, as an order. Unchallenged now at the pinnacle of the courtesan world, she was displaying already a new and ugly arrogance toward the lesser members of her sisterhood.

Neither the tone nor the text of the message surprised Theodora. She had, in fact, been expecting it. In the past several months Chione had more and more frequently called on her to plan her entertainments. Whatever the famosa’s defects, she knew an intelligent imagination when she encountered it, and Theodora possessed wonderful taste, a sense of the spectacular, and training and experience on the stage, acquired during her residence with Macedonia: all of which, combined with her native creative instincts, made her a rather remarkable originator of surprising and delightful effects. Though Chione never mentioned it to anyone—for it was against her nature as well as her policy to give credit to another—it was to Theodora that she owed much of the reputation she had made as a giver of exceptional entertainments.

In her hate, Theodora had once made up her mind never to assist Chione again. But now even the arrogant tone of the summons did not particularly annoy her, because it all fell into a plan she had made—a daring, quite cruel, almost dreadful plan.

So she said, “Tell your mistress I come at once.”

The eunuch bowed his head and was gone.

As soon as she accomplished the last touches, which women in every age and every nation seem always to have found necessary before venturing forth from their homes, Theodora was on her way. It was a short walk only to Chione’s dwelling: a large edifice which once had been a mansion, before the Street of Women lapped this section of the city in. Theodora was fully prepared to wait in the atrium, but she was ushered directly into the bath and beauty room of the famosa.

Chione was a woman with two master passions: greed and vanity.

She was one of those who sometimes sent offerings to be laid at the feet of the marble Aphrodite in the square, but it was never to petition for lovers with warm hearts and handsome faces. Rather it was for old satyrs with money that she prayed. For in spite of her sensuous figure her mind was cold as death.

To her never came the magnificent, ecstatic madness in love-making. Invariably, instead, her emotions—even in the heat of a lover’s embrace—were under control of her scheming, rapacious head; her responses to his ardor all pretenses skillfully acted; her very abandon, which every courtesan must practice, a mere fraud. Yet because she was the veritable image of sensuality, she had achieved unbelievable success with men, particularly those who possessed wealth without too much discrimination.

When she was not entertaining a lover, Chione was forever having something done to her body. This care for her smoothly curving form was a necessity more acute to her than hunger or thirst: indeed, she would put both food and drink away at any time if they interfered with her beauty regimen.

On this afternoon she was under the hands of her perfumers. The balneatores were two in number, Armenian eunuchs specially trained, and if the process of scenting which Theodora underwent at the hands of her one servant was full, that of Chione was unbelievably complicated.

She lay, perfectly nude of course, with her eyes closed, enjoying the voluptuous sensation of the smoothing of her flesh. The eunuchs who attended her meant no more to her than two machines, nor did they, being sexless, have any feeling about the soft form to which they ministered, save that this was a task they must perform well, under fear of punishment if they did ill.

When Theodora was announced, Chione opened her eyes and lazily turned upon her side, although the balneatores, one working on her body and the other on her legs, did not for a moment cease their massage.

“Ah,” she said, “you’re prompt, I see.”

“Yes,” said the girl.

Then Chione turned over on her belly, closed her eyes again, and relapsed into semi-coma while the rubbing in of perfumed oils was continued, leaving Theodora to stand in the middle of the floor for the half hour it required, without speaking to her or inviting her to be seated.

It was not until the massage was concluded and the famosa had seated herself for the beginning of her hairdressing—which was attended to by two new eunuchs, one of whom hovered about as a sort of assistant to the other, running errands for pins and combs and other articles—that she at last deigned to converse with Theodora.

“You’re looking quite well, my dear,” said Chione, permitting herself to be gracious.

“Thank you.”

Chione immediately took the compliment away again. “It’s unfortunate you were born a brunette. Men invariably prefer a blonde, if they have a choice. But I suppose you do make the most of what you have.”

Theodora nodded but did not speak.

The contrast between the two of them was striking. Chione was fair-skinned, tall, and sumptuous of form, while Theodora was diminutive, slender, and dark-haired. An impartial connoisseur of true beauty would have declared without hesitation that the girl, with her wonderful eyes and faultless figure, was a brilliant gem of purest ray, and the woman, nearly twenty years older, with dyed yellow hair, a cheap and gaudy counterfeit of a true jewel.

Yet in the interest of fairness it must be said that Antonina was somewhat unjust when she described the famosa as fat, with the breasts of a wet nurse. Chione, it is true, was well fleshed, but to a majority of men this richness of form was her most appealing asset, and she could not be called really gross in any of her proportions.

“I suppose,” she said presently, “that you’ve heard I’m going to give a banquet next week?”

“Yes,” said Theodora.

“Naturally you would hear. It must be all over the city,” said Chione complacently. She enjoyed the feeling that whatever she did was of such importance that it created public discussion.

Again Theodora nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

“I’m having a small, but very select group of guests,” went on the famosa. “Twenty only. But a really hand-picked list—the greatest and wealthiest men. There’ll be the city prefect, of course. Also two generals, the master of offices, a philosopher, four senators, an important and very rich tax collector, a palace legalist, a newly appointed provincial governor—and there’s just a possibility that a very high personage, whose name I will not mention, will be there. Others, of course.”

“It has the sound of a most notable occasion,” said Theodora.

“It will be an affair to date time from! I intend, of course, to provide these guests with something unusual in amusement. Naturally there is the matter, first of all, of companions for them to be considered. These must be truly charming and beautiful girls—the very pick of the best houses. I’ll inspect each before I pass her for an assistant at this banquet. But I already know some I want. What of your little friends, Antonina and Chrysomallo? I’m moved to be generous for this occasion, since it’s a memorable one for me. What would they say to five solidi apiece for the evening—and, of course, all that they pick up in gifts from their guests whom they entertain?”

“I think they’d be very happy to come.”

“Very good. As for you, Theodora, since you may help me again with the arrangements—that’s why I sent for you now—ten solidi.”

“Most satisfactory.”

The woman slave who had the office of epilotora had begun to perform her task of removing or hiding blemishes on Chione’s face, while the courtesan’s form was covered with a soft fabric of silk.

“You have a good little mind for this sort of thing,” said the famosa patronizingly. “Use your imagination now—I want something especially spectacular.”

“Musicians and dancers?” asked Theodora.

“Of course.”

“Acrobats?”

“Perhaps. Also jugglers if something novel can be found.”

“Wrestlers?”

Chione shook her head slightly. “No. I like them not at a small banquet and in a confined space. They perspire so. I prefer perfumes to stenches. And there’s always the commotion they create, and the trouble if one is killed or even injured, and must therefore be carried from the room. This banquet is to have only elegance and beauty. In keeping with its giver.” She did not even smile as she said this last in all seriousness. Then she added, “I’m not concerned with the expense, so that the results are remarkable.”

And no wonder, Theodora thought, since every other courtesan in the city would be taxed to help pay for those expenses.

But this she did not voice. As for the problem Chione had posed, she already had given it consideration, anticipating that she would be asked to solve it.

“I have in mind a tableau, a most exquisite tableau,” she said tentatively.

“Of what nature?” asked Chione.

“Dealing with Greek mythology. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, borne up from the sea. It seems to fit well into this kind of a banquet.”

“I, naturally, would be the Aphrodite?”

“Who else could take such a role?”

“Does it require memorizing? I hate memorizing, either words or gestures.”

“The only ones who will need rehearsal are the slaves who take part in the scene, and the dancers and musicians who will provide the preliminary performances, with numbers I shall devise, all building toward a breathless climax, the tableau. Really, your role would be very easy and simple.”

“And yet I’d be the central figure?”

“Entirely. Every eye will be on you, and you alone.”

“Splendid!”

“Shall I describe what I have in mind?”

“No. Don’t discuss the details now. I’ll leave them to you.”

“Thank you for your confidence. I’ll proceed then to design and have erected the setting, arrange for the musicians and dancers, and rehearse them and the slaves. Shall I procure also for you the girls?”

“No, I have a list of the best. I’ll summon a hundred here for inspection and cull out all but the twenty I need. I prefer to rely on my own judgment of beauty, which all acknowledge to be the highest in Constantinople.”

“Very well. You may be certain that the tableau will create a sensation.”

Chione gave a light laugh, holding back her head and closing her eyes while the epilotora used every artifice of thickening and darkening to improve her pale eyelashes.

“You’re a rather clever girl, Theodora, with your little flair for the theater,” she said.

“Thank you.”

Chione opened her eyes with their newly darkened lashes. “Of course it’s a common enough knack—I suppose there are a hundred available who can plan things like this.” She rose, dropped the robe from her shoulders as a slave skillfully took it, and stood while the rouging and tinting of the accents of her body began.

“Still, you’re always available,” she went on, “and you have a certain value to me for that reason.”

Her tone was so insufferably patronizing that Theodora could have sunk her sharp fingernails into the woman’s soft neck. But the girl’s face was devoid of all expression.

“You know,” Chione continued, “it’s really a pity that you lack some of the more important talents. I doubt that you’ll ever be a really important courtesan, and I say it, mind you, with the very kindest intentions. How to capture a man, how to please a man, and how to get the most money from a man are the three prongs of a courtesan’s trident. As to the first two, you’re too small, and too dark, and too thin. Above everything men love the curves of a female body. As to the third—the art of causing a man to increase, and still further increase his gifts, even to the point where he bankrupts himself for a woman—that’s the most important of all, and requires real intelligence, which I’m afraid you empty-headed little girls lack.”

To this Theodora made no retort.

The hairdressers had finished building up the edifice of Chione’s hair, using artificial switches and puffs to increase its appearance of opulence, and carefully drawing over these the polished and bleached gold of her own tresses, which were decorated with jeweled combs and pins; the epilotora had completed the enameling of her face, the coloring of her lips and lashes, the darkening of her eyelids with blue, and the tinting of her body, breasts, and buttocks; the perfumers had done their best, and the famosa, when she moved, left a little breeze of truly subtle blendings of delicate scents. Already a tirewoman stood with a jewel box of ivory and gold, from which the famosa began to select an array of costly and brilliant rings, bracelets, necklaces, and earrings; while another awaited with a garment of delicate flame-tinted silk, quite transparent, with which the famous body would presently be enhanced rather than shrouded.

Nobody, looking at her, could deny Chione’s magnificence of appearance, although some might have decried her taste.

She kept Theodora humbly awaiting her pleasure for more than an hour before at last dismissing her to begin the arrangements which the delicata had been perfecting rapidly in her mind.

Five days only remained before the night of the feast, and much must be done. Like a capable little field general, Theodora began to assemble her forces, and to labor with the details of her theatrical production—with an interest that somehow was greater and more intent than she had ever before devoted to such a project.

1 }

Tangled and stormy emotions filled the usually placid heart of Senator Polemon as he hurried across the Augusteum square. Already he was late to court, having been delayed by a fruitless wait for Chaero, who had returned home late the night before and then disappeared again, without explanation, this morning.

Very indulgent was the senator ordinarily, but if he could have gotten his hands on his son at this moment he might have done a violence. It was bitter disappointment, and would be a humiliation besides, for he had promised some of his friends that Chaero would that day be at court. Silvius Testor, his wife Sophronia, and their daughter Tispasa, were attending. Questions certainly would be asked. The senator hardly knew how to answer them and dreaded the ordeal, while Faustina, his wife, had refused absolutely to accompany him, though he implored her to do so, being forced to hurry away in the end without even waiting for his litter to be brought.

After several days of warmth, the morning had been foggy and chill, threatening rain, but now in midafternoon a sickly sun appeared to be trying to struggle through the leaden clouds and warm the beautiful parklike area and handsome buildings that comprised the palace enclosure.

A veritable city within the city was that great triangular section, which occupied almost a third of the older part of the capital. Within it were scores of buildings, palaces, and apartment houses as well as offices and barracks, for somewhere near five thousand persons lived there continuously: officials, soldiers, eunuchs, and ladies in waiting, to say nothing of slaves and servants who were required to maintain the state of imperial grandeur needful for the ruler of the Roman empire. Surrounding the enclosure, even on the side overlooking the Propontis, was a forbidding barrier wall with lofty stone battlements, guarded night and day by the Excubitors.

Through this wall were only four gates: the main entrance, opening on the Augusteum and known as the Chalké, or metal gate, because it led directly to the Chalké palace, so called from the fact that its roof was of brazen tiles; the Gate of St. Stephen’s, opening before the church of that name which stood within the palace walls; the Hormisdas gate, at the extreme southern end of the cityward wall, named from a small palace standing just outside the enclosure at that point which belonged to Prince Justinian and was used by him as living quarters; and the Water gate, through the sea wall on the west, opening on stone steps which led down to the imperial dock and seaport, from which ships could come and go on the waters of the Propontis, delivering cargoes or passengers directly to the palace.

One other opening there was: the passage into the Hippodrome, enclosed in stone and with winding steps which led to the kathisma, the imperial gallery, from which the palace party watched the games. But this, being locked and guarded constantly except when in imperial use, was scarcely to be termed a gate.

Each entry port was fortified with triple defenses, so constructed that they were, in fact, stronger than the main walls themselves, should defense ever be necessary. To gain entrance to the enclosure thus guarded was in itself a distinction, for the Excubitors narrowly examined every pass; and Senator Polemon, who came and went at will, being recognized by the guards and requiring no pass, never failed to plume himself on this attestation of his importance.

As he approached the Chalké gate, he overtook two somewhat younger men walking in a more leisurely fashion in the same direction.

“Hail, Tribonian,” he called to the one he recognized, and slowed his hurried pace to fall into step with them.

The man turned. He was in his early thirties, tall and elegant, with a dark hawk face, a good mouth, and a deep line chiseled between his level brows from much studying. He wore a purple-bordered mantle fastened over his tunic at the shoulder with a costly brooch, purple buskins of suede, a wide gold wristband set with a large amethyst the color of which harmonized with his costume, and carried negligently a walking stick of ivory with a golden head in the manner of palace elegants. Polemon knew him as a brilliant lawyer, who was assistant to the imperial quaestor already in spite of his comparative youth, because he was an acknowledged expert in Roman jurisprudence.

“Ah, Senator!” said the lawyer with a pleasant smile. “On the way to the audience? Allow me to present my companion, Hecebolus of Tyre, who is here on his first visit, having come to accept a commission as proconsul of Cyrenaica.”

Polemon opened his eyes. To be proconsul, or governor, of a province was a choice plum, and the recipient of such an office obviously had important connections. He assumed his most affable manner.

“I trust you’re enjoying our capital?” he said politely, after acknowledging the introduction.

“Sufficiently well, I thank you,” replied Hecebolus.

He was about forty and not particularly prepossessing in appearance, being short and stocky, with the blue-black curly hair of the Levantine and a curved Semitic nose. His mouth was sensual rather than firm, the lines of his face hardly vigorous but rather cunning and selfish, his black eyes too close together, and the depression in his upper lip, which is supposed to indicate a love of the pleasures, over-defined. In attire he appeared to be something of a dandy, perhaps even over-dressed, with much scarlet and yellow in his costume, a gold-faced belt, and rather ostentatious jewelry in rings, a gold chain about his neck, and a gem-studded arm band on either arm.

It was not, however, Polemon’s business to form judgments on imperial officers, but rather to be agreeable to them. Together, the three passed through the gate and the senator derived some satisfaction from the way the Tyrian seemed impressed when the guards saluted, raising lance tips to permit them to enter without delay or question.

Within the high wall, Hecebolus gazed about him. Most of the palace structures were grouped at this, the northern end of the enclosure, all of the buildings magnificent, while a delightful stretch of green lawns, flower beds, fountains, statuary, and trees of rare and beautiful varieties extended all the way to the sea wall, half a mile from where they stood.

“Official imperial audiences are held here, in the Chalké palace,” said Tribonian, indicating a white marble structure of considerable size near the gate, with a roof of tiles cast from brass. A wide flight of marble steps led up to the main entrance, above which was an image of Christ. At the top and bottom of the steps, on either side, stood statuesque Excubitors in silver and white, their lances grounded in the position of attention.

“The emperor lives here?” Hecebolus asked.

“No,” said Polemon. “The throne room is here, and also barracks for a few of the Excubitor units. There also are the banquet rooms, including the triclinium—where official feasts were held—and judgment chambers. Beneath the palace is the prison reserved for those accused of treason—with, of course, the requisite equipment for examining such prisoners and obtaining their confessions.”

Hecebolus understood that he referred to the instruments of torture. The science of torment was well understood by the imperial executioners, who were tongueless slaves—in order that they might never repeat anything they heard during the “examining” of victims—and a prisoner accused of treason was virtually condemned already, the argumentum baculinum, as it was called, being accepted as the surest way to obtain the truth from him.

“I’ll show you the imperial residence,” said Tribonian. “Do you see the large structure in the center of the enclosure—the one of yellow marble? That’s the Daphne palace, where most of the imperial business is conducted. Now—just beyond it”—he pointed with his ivory cane—“observe the smaller curved building of green marble? You can’t see the walled passage from here, but actually it’s connected with the larger one. That is the Sigma palace, in which are the imperial apartments.”

“Justin can go to his administrative offices without stepping outside. Most convenient,” commented Hecebolus. “Mention, if you’ll be so gracious, the use of some of these other splendid structures.”

“The flat-roofed building, just south of the Daphne, contains the quarters of the eunuchs,” Tribonian said.

“They overrun the imperial establishment like lice,” observed Polemon, “and hold too many of the privileges and emoluments that ungelded men deserve.”

“The large, square structure at the right,” continued the lawyer, “is the main barracks building of the Excubitors. There, also, lives the city prefect, who commands the Excubitors, except when he’s in his villa at Sycae. Far down toward the south, but outside the wall, you can see the roof of the Hormisdas palace, where Prince Justinian lives. He likes privacy and is a very hard worker. I have great hopes for him.”

“There’s no time to describe all,” Polemon put in, “but there’s one more structure of interest, perhaps. Do you see the small building with the pyramidal roof of purple tiles and the walls of purple porphyry, standing by itself above the seawall beyond the Sigma?”

“I do,” nodded Hecebolus.

“That’s the famous Porphyry palace,” said the senator with a grin. “Every empress with child must be brought to bed there, so that her offspring may be said to be ‘born in the purple.’ A rather quaint conceit, don’t you think?”

Hecebolus gave his curious smile, in which his full lips curved, but his eyes did not join. “I don’t know—I rather like tradition.”

“In that case,” said Tribonian, “you may be amused during the imperial audience—though I doubt it.”

Polemon preceded them up the steps, his toga tucked about his fat paunch. The Excubitor guards, knowing the senator and the legalist, let the three men pass as if they did not see them.

As they followed Polemon, Tribonian said in an undertone to Hecebolus, “This will be dull, but there are more entertaining things to fill your time later. I understand the city prefect has an affair arranged for a few friends, with your estimable self as a special guest.”

“Yes, John spoke of it. Some courtesan, isn’t it?”

“Not some courtesan, my friend! She is Chione—at present indisputably Constantinople’s reigning famosa. Your friend, the Cappadocian—whose regard I trust I also enjoy—frequents her establishment, and that’s enough to make her the fashion among the high-placed pleasure seekers of the city.”

Hecebolus gave a slight shrug. “We have courtesans also in Tyre.”

“Naturally. But there are as many different varieties of courtesans as there are different varieties of women almost.”

“Women have always seemed to me much the same.”

“Then, my friend, you’re missing something. I counsel you to devote more attention to them: you’ll find it worth your while. It’s like a contemplation of the subtler passages of poetry. You miss the shades of meaning unless you look for them. I find women a fascinating study.”

“You are married, Tribonian?”

“The saints forbid! When I go to a feast, I sample every dish, tasting the spiced, sweet, and savory alike. I don’t believe in gorging myself on one alone.”

Again the full, sensual lips of Hecebolus curved in his smile. “Under your instruction, I’ll look forward to enjoying myself.”

Tribonian’s smile was somewhat more fastidious. “You’ll need no instruction. The sole business of Chione and her girls is to give pleasure. For this, I think, not only we but all other citizens owe a debt of thanks to them and their kind.”

“Why, in particular?”

“Because the pleasures are such a necessity for us these days. At one time the life of a Roman citizen was filled with excitement. There were wars, and every citizen was a soldier. Rebellious provinces had to be administered. New laws and customs were created. Literature and art were in a state of development. There was constant change, danger, and triumph, which together make life worth living. Even in fear a man can live to the full. It’s better to experience great emotions, though they may be tragic, than to live and die without having felt to the uttermost.”

“And now, noble Tribonian?”

“For centuries excitement and change have been lacking. Provinces govern themselves. Our fighting is done by mercenaries. The Roman law has been established for generations. Each man has his little niche in life, conducts his daily routine, and knows no variety. About all remaining to save a citizen these days from dying of boredom, are the games and spectacles—and sex. Of these, sex at least is always an adventure.”

Tribonian smiled slightly. “Thus I justify myself in my own voluptuary actions, which are frowned upon by some of my more proper friends—such as Senator Polemon, and particularly by the matrons of the empress’ entourage, although God the Father knows well that courtesanship is not confined to the Street of Women, and that I could name you many notable ladies of the palace quarter who, in addition to carrying on their domestic duties as wives with all public propriety, also enjoy the pleasure of being mistresses, their lovers perhaps being the husbands of their best friends.”

They entered the palace, and turned down a wide marble-floored hall, richly adorned with statues of bronze and marble, and mosaics. Constantine had despoiled the world to enrich his palace and city, and this entrance hall had a superb collection of treasures.

Along it, at intervals, stood Excubitors like motionless living statues among the inanimate ones. Marble steps led up at the far end of the hall to three ivory-plated doors, hung with purple silk, which opened into the consistorium, or throne room.

“To judge by the sounds,” said Tribonian as they reached this entrance, “some sort of a musical performance is being held. Let’s go in. You’ll be delayed, I’m afraid, in your presentation to the emperor, but we can at least look around while things are at a standstill because of the musicians.”

2 }

Unlike his predecessor, Anastasius, whose court met each weekday, save for holy days, Emperor Justin held formal audiences only on Thursdays.

The throne room, as the power and wealth of the empire demanded, was luxuriously rich and stately. Its lofty ceiling and walls were decorated with elaborate mosaics, showing in vivid colors—since Byzantine art had become almost solely dedicated to religion—various sacred scenes. One of these represented the Nativity, with the Virgin, and the Child in the manger, overlooked by a group of curious cows, which evidently had pushed into the background a concourse of shepherds, wise men, and angels, to say nothing of St. Joseph. Another depicted the Baptism, with the Father sitting on a cloud at one side, in attitude and appearance very like one of the Greek representations of Zeus, the Son waist-deep in the water with the Dove of the Spirit diving straight down upon his head from above, and St. John the Baptist, in a skimpy cloak evidently of leopard’s skin, standing on a rock and preparing to administer the sacred ablutions.

There were others of similar nature, and the spaces between the scenes were occupied by whole galaxies of saints, each with a halo, and each bearing in his hands a jeweled crown. Though stiff and unnatural in their attitudes, the figures and backgrounds, made up of countless bits of colored glass, created a many-hued harmony undeniably artistic and pleasing.

At the farther end of the great chamber, beneath a dome of gold, was a high dais with a canopy of velvet of imperial purple, which was upheld by rods of solid gold, and spangled with stars and crosses of gold and precious jewels which were sewed to it. The dais was approached by seven steps, carpeted richly in the same material as that of the canopy, and the stretch of marble floor leading to it was marked by three porphyry slabs to indicate the successive spots where even kings must prostrate themselves before approaching the throne of the empire.

Elsewhere in the great chamber were many splendid settles and sedilia, handsomely carved and ornamented, together with cushions, ottomans, and oriental rugs about the floor, as if inviting those attending to seat themselves. But these were for appearance only, since nobody sat.

For upon the dais were two high-backed thrones, made of gold, jeweled, and cushioned in choicest purple silks, each having over it a smaller purple-and-gold canopy: and on those thrones sat their imperial majesties.

Justin was on the right. Dressed in magnificent robes of state, but now in his seventy-third year and suffering from his incurable disability, he was a man with a stupidly handsome countenance and a profusion of snow-white, curly hair, who sat dozing with his eyes open.

At his left sat his consort, Euphemia, a fat, frumpish woman ten years his junior, irritably looking out over the crowded audience room. Even her incredibly costly garments, heavily embroidered with gold and fretted with gems, and the cascades of jewels falling from the diadem which sat on her head, could never disguise the uncouth and illiterate peasant she really was.

Before the steps of the dais a group of musicians from Egypt sang and played one of the plaintive melodies of their land. The room behind them was populous with senators, officials, courtiers, and patrician ladies; foreign princes and their attendants, kept at the court as hostages; high church dignitaries, some lean and ascetic, others plump and jovial, in their sacerdotal robes; generals in military costume; ambassadors from other nations, clad in splendid but foreign garb; the inevitable Excubitors, standing stiffly about the walls; and eunuchs, moving here and there, conferring with this one and that, the secretaries and recorders of the court.

The shifting crowd seemed always in movement, some persons wandering slowly from group to group, others gossiping together during this musical interlude, but most maintaining two lines, three- or four-deep, on either side of the passage from the door to the throne, down which petitioners and courtiers must progress to the imperial presences.

3 }

On twanged the Egyptian musicians. Now that, after weeks of waiting, they had at last their chance to perform before the emperor, they were making the most of it. Euphemia was bored with the music, for which she had little taste, and longed for the moment when Basil, the eunuch who was court chamberlain, would call a halt to it with his silver wand.

Her broad, puffy face glowered as she looked at the courtiers in the audience chamber, its pathetic plainness mocked by the brilliant ropes of pearls and other gems that hung from her crown on either side of it, framing it. She was sure in her heart that she was the subject of the low-voiced conversation of all those people. Worse, she was morally certain that the court laughed at her—discreetly, secretly, but nevertheless continually—and not only the court, but the city, even the empire.

The empress was all too conscious of her own awkwardness and lack of cultivation, and likewise uncomfortably aware that her somewhat romantic history was common talk throughout the realm.

About forty years before, when Justin was still a common soldier—having left his shepherd village in Macedonia for a career in the imperial army—he came into a share of pillage which permitted him to indulge in a luxury he long had desired: a woman.

That was in the reign of Zeno, at the time of the Ostrogoth crisis, when it was touch and go for a time as to whether the barbarian hordes would break over the borders of Dalmatia and invade Illyria and the Greek peninsula, or go west into Italy. Considerable skirmishing and raiding took place across the frontier that summer, but eventually, through some skillful bribery and a bold front by Zeno, the Ostrogoth horsemen, with their women and children following them in tilted wains, were persuaded to take the easier course, and poured down into the Italian peninsula, upsetting the history of that land, but sparing the eastern empire.

The danger successfully averted, the booty of the Dalmatian campaign was brought to Constantinople for disposal; It was nothing very important as loot of a war was usually computed—some few trinkets, weapons, and garments of little value, and some livestock, including captives to be sold as slaves.

Justin, then a rugged man in his thirties, and having no wish to marry, attended the auction at the slave market to buy a girl for a concubine. His fancy was caught by one of the female barbarians. When she stood on the block she had the pink, full body of a healthy girl about twenty years old—ankles and wrists perhaps a little thick, but Justin’s tastes were not delicate—and an extravagantly beautiful head of reddish-blonde hair that hung down to her knees almost.

That hair captivated him, so that he hardly noticed her rather vacant features. The poor creature was a virgin, and terribly confused and embarrassed—a simple herd girl, seized in a swooping raid by the imperial cavalry, with all a barbarian’s instincts of modesty, standing there before all those staring men without a stitch on!

By pathetic little furtive movements of her shoulders and hips she kept trying to swing her long hair around—at least part of it—to cover the portions of her figure which she considered shameful. The futile gesture of innocence and the wonderful hair combined to appeal so strongly to the soldier that he outbid the keepers of the stabula for her, paying far more than he ever intended. Of this fact he did not fail to keep her reminded in later life.

He called her Lupicina, which some translated politely, “Sweetheart,” but others more cynically, “Light o’ Love,” and though she had little mentality, she was as grateful as a dog to him for saving her from the horrible keepers of the slave brothels. When she understood that he wanted her to share his bed and care for his quarters, she made him as good a concubine as her rather tepid nature permitted.

Concubinage was recognized in Roman law as a permanent extra-marital relationship. It was a stage below the status of mistresses, who also lived a life of love without marriage, because the latter were free and could end the connection when they pleased, whereas concubines belonged to their masters and had no volition in the matter.

A concubine Lupicina had remained—that and nothing else—for forty years. Lately, to be sure, the fiction had been circulated that she was legitimately married to Justin. But nobody believed it, and nobody had ever seen a record of the marriage, which indeed did not exist. That crusty old soldier, Justin, cared for no nonsense about a wedding ceremony in his old age after he became emperor, and the need for it had never appeared before, since there were no children to be legitimatized.

Now she was old, her once gorgeous red-blonde hair turned a dirty gray, and it was her secret sorrow that she was not a wife, and never would be, and that everyone knew it, and was amused by it.

With a mind hardly capable of excitement she had watched the dramatic events of Justin’s accession to the throne three years before.

First, there was the death of Anastasius, the old emperor. Then came the conspiracy of Amantius, the powerful and cunning eunuch who was court chamberlain. Though he could not himself occupy the throne, he wished to rule from behind it by installing in it his creature, one Theocritus.

Amantius’ plan was most simple. Since the Excubitors had the power to name an emperor in the absence of direct issue, he placed in the hands of the commander of the palace guards a large sum of money—diverted, of course, from the imperial treasury—to be distributed among the soldiery, so that they would elevate Theocritus by acclamation.

It happened that the commander was old Justin. Amantius had known him for years, considered him incurably stupid, and had not one qualm of fear that he would have either the enterprise or adroitness to go contrary to the court chamberlain’s wish. But for once the subtle eunuch failed to read his man. It was Amantius’ greatest—and last—mistake.

Justin distributed the money, but to his own interest. Unopposed, he passed from the modest quarters of the Excubitors to the magnificent chambers of the palace. And Amantius, as astonished as he was chagrined by this treachery—although he had himself practiced continual treacheries all his life—was executed as a necessary precaution, along with his unfortunate pawn, Theocritus.

As a sort of incident to all this, the old peasant woman, Lupicina, became “empress.” That name—Lupicina—because it provoked behind-the-hand mirth, she discarded, calling herself instead Euphemia—“Of Good Report”—as more fitting her new station. But the change in names was almost the only thing she had accomplished since her elevation to the purple.

With a sort of terror she remained hidden most of the time in the Sigma palace, coming forth only when it was absolutely necessary, to attend state services at the Cathedral of Sancta Sophia, or to sit on the dais when court was held. These ordeals she never ceased to dread, and in their private quarters she hectored old Justin much about them.

4 }

Because of the foggy morning the great chamber was chilly; and the patrician matrons and maidens, stiff in their over-elaborate costumes and extravagant jewelry, shivered and did not hesitate to remark acidly about it to one another.

“The place is like a tomb,” said Sophronia, the wife of Silvius Testor. She was a pallid, thin woman, and she gave a slight quiver of her shoulders, meantime drawing more closely about her bony figure her scarlet woolen palla.

The small, plump old lady to whom she made the observation said, with a sour nod, “The empress is in one of her economical moods. She says it’s too expensive to light the charcoal in the braziers.”

Her name was Flora, and her husband was old General Milo, whose chief military distinction was that he had, at a battle in Dacia, a generation before, commenced his flight from the enemy so early that he was one of the few officers who escaped the massacre of the imperial army by the Goths on that disastrous occasion.

“Copper-wise, gold-foolish,” grumbled Sophronia. “One can only pray that the audience will soon end. When will those tiresome Egyptians cease their braying? If I don’t catch cold, it will be a miracle. And Tispasa, here, has very delicate lungs.”

Her daughter, Tispasa, an insignificant-looking creature, dark-skinned and with large melancholy eyes, who had been standing silent beside her, acknowledged this with a slight premonitory cough, like a child who hopes to draw attention. She was plain, discouraged-looking, and she had never had even one lover in her entire life.

Flora glanced at her with hidden contempt, and could not forbear a catty question. “By the way, where’s Chaero this morning, my dear?”

“I don’t know,” said Tispasa hopelessly.

“With the happy event so near, we’d all expected to see you together. You mean you haven’t seen him?”

“No,” Tispasa said, as if it were forced out of her.

She felt like bursting into tears, because it seemed such a reflection on her that her betrothed had failed to appear, though he had promised. Because Chaero was to come, her mother had insisted that she be present. Everyone, she felt, knew it, and the humiliation was bitter. Not that Tispasa was in love with Chaero. She hardly knew him, and she never had felt any special warmth toward any man. But he did represent marriage and the respectability of matronship for her, and it was as if he had slapped her in the face.

“Delayed, perhaps,” said Flora, with a laugh that feigned archness, but was merely spiteful. “No doubt we’ll be seeing you two young lovebirds holding hands before many minutes have passed.”

Tispasa could think of nothing to say, and Sophronia looked like a thundercloud. With a wintry smile Flora walked away, her plump hips wabbling under her blue and gold tunica.

“That poor girl!” she said to the ladies she now joined, glancing over her shoulder at Tispasa. “She grows scrawnier and more pathetic every day. I don’t know what will become of her if she doesn’t marry soon—and have a child or two. That’s the way to keep from drying up. Look at me! I can boast, like Cornelia the mother of the Gracchi, of my ‘jewels’—nine of them, all but two living.”

“We can all agree that you’re not dried up, dear,” said one of the women.

“I wouldn’t wish to be,” retorted Flora. “The general wouldn’t permit it. Like all men he sees beauty only in women with something to grace their bones.”

Before a reply could be made, she hurried away, and one of the women said, when she was gone, “If General Milo flees from her arms, as he did from the arms of the Goths, it’s a wonder she isn’t more desiccated than Tispasa.”

5 }

In another part of the audience chamber, as the Egyptian harps and zithers continued to twang, Polemon had cornered the city prefect.

John of Cappadocia was a man of middle age, with a remarkable yet unpleasing appearance, heavy of figure and richly dressed, but with his shoulder mantle hanging rather carelessly, which told of the slovenliness of his barbarian background. He moved slowly, with head half lowered like a bull ready to charge; and his eyes, heavily bagged from his dissipations, seemed always inflamed, though in them was a continual gleam of cunning. The Cappadocian was one of those men who, bald of head, give an overall appearance of hairiness elsewhere. His eyebrows were twin forests of bristling black hairs, his nostrils had hair unpleasantly sprouting from them, his arms, legs, and chest were hirsute, and his jowl was blue-black with the heavy beard which only the constant use of the razor kept down. In everything he suggested very much of the animal and very little of the intellectual.

Yet he was one of the most important of the imperial officers, and because he administered the affairs of the city and was at the same time commander of the Excubitors, he had powers that were felt into the provinces as well.

The prefect was a self-made man who had thrust himself upward by sheer aggressiveness and guile, in spite of lacking almost every refinement of education, polish, and appearance. His province of Cappadocia was on the Persian frontier, where he had enlisted in an army unit temporarily on duty there, and been brought with it to the capital. Nobody remembered his barbarian name: that of John had been assumed by him after he espoused the Christian faith, though it was whispered that his conversion was not entirely sincere, and that in his villa at Sycae, across the Golden Horn, he kept a shrine to Astarte, the Syrian goddess, whose worship consisted largely of sexual orgies and blood sacrifices.

To his ability to play the perfect toady he could lay his success. He knew how to make himself indispensable to the man above him, by flattery, panderings, and ministering to his weaknesses and appetites, until that superior trusted him fully: when, at the first opportunity, he betrayed the trust and usually stepped into the superior’s shoes, which suddenly became vacant.

Senator Polemon, who knew John as a man of intense greed, to whom corruption was the breath of existence, began his conversation with the usual flatteries and inquiries about his health. To this the prefect barely listened, being chiefly interested in the group of petitioners near the door—for there was revenue in some of them for him, if their requests for favors and concessions were granted by the emperor.

“I’ve noticed the new fleet of galleys on the roadstead,” said Polemon presently, getting to the real point of his conversation. “Fine ships.”

“Quite,” said the Cappadocian. “The best our shipbuilders can produce.”

“They’re manned?”

“As to oar-slaves and crews only. Some are beginning trial runs to train their benches.”

“When will they take on fighting complements?”

“My dear Senator, how should I know?”

Polemon rocked back and forth on his toes and heels, his hands behind his fat back, his eyes turned toward the ceiling. “I’ve heard rumors of naval activity in the direction of Colchis on the Euxine coast of Persia. If one knew when it would take place—it might be very profitable.”

“Profitable? To whom?” the other asked, his inattention remarkably disappearing.

“Ahem! Speaking hypothetically, of course—he who was enabled thus to make proper investments in the right quarter would be most grateful to . . . the source from which the hint came.”

“Hypothetically—to what degree would such a hint be profitable?”

“Perhaps as much as—a thousand gold solidi.”

John grinned, showing strong but rather unclean yellow teeth. “Even in a hypothetical case, my dear Senator, that wouldn’t be much of an inducement.”

“Let us say—five thousand——”

“Let us rather say—one half of all profits made——”

“With none of the risk?”

“Naturally.”

“But the venture might not be profitable. It might instead be a heavy loss——”

“Then, of course, no payment would be made. But to make sure that everything’s accounted for, there would have to be a check and an audit.”

“Half? And I to take all the risk? My dear Prefect!”

The Cappadocian laughed. “I understood you were speaking of a purely hypothetical situation. Yet you keep using the personal——”

Polemon laughed also, though a little weakly. “A manner of speaking only, most excellent Prefect. As to the arrangements, I consider them exorbitant, but—on second thought—agreeable. If the information is correct.”

“Since we speak only of a hypothetical matter, I might suggest that there’s a treaty with Persia which it would be unfortunate to violate at this time. But there might be—mind, I say might be—a logical place for a hypothetical demonstration by our fleet.”

“Where?”

“The Ethiopians have lately been creating tension on the southern border of Egypt——”

“Ethiopia! I hadn’t heard of that. A punitive expedition? When?”

“As a hypothetical theory, new galleys commonly receive their fighting contingents within a month after the crews take over the ships.”

“A month! It will give me ample time.”

“How much do you propose to invest, Senator?”

“One hundred thousand solidi at least—in wheat and oil.”

“The profit will be not less than the investment—hypothetically.”

“My thanks, noble Prefect.”

“Don’t thank me for doing myself a favor. My chief steward will be at your counting house tomorrow.” The Cappadocian dropped his voice. “Here come Tribonian and a protégé of mine, Hecebolus of Tyre, whom I should like to have you meet.”

“The honor has been mine already.”

Now at last Polemon knew the political connections of the man from Tyre. Their faces unruffled by any hint of what they had been discussing, he and the prefect waited.

6 }

“By the way, Senator,” the prefect said as the others came up, “I haven’t seen your son this morning.”

“I don’t know where he is,” Polemon answered testily. “Chaero’s beyond me. I had his promise—but he seems to have preferred some other engagement.”

Tribonian overheard, and smiled. “A lady, Senator?”

“I hardly think so—with his nuptials so near!” snapped Polemon, who secretly feared just some such thing.

“Why?” the lawyer asked. “It’s not so unusual at Chaero’s age—a last fling. And it’s hardly prejudicial to the marriage, which, being a sober property contract, shouldn’t be confused with romance. Because a man’s married—or about to be—he isn’t necessarily castrated, you must remember. How many of the respectable men in this august chamber are without mistresses? I trust you’re not so old-fashioned as to expect a youth like Chaero to give up his pleasant love affairs for”—his eyes strayed across the room to Tispasa’s unattractive features—“immediate respectability,” he ended with a little grimace.

“I’m not so old-fashioned as you think!” snorted Polemon, who knew he was being baited but could not match the other’s smiling irony. “But I suspect Silvius Testor is! He’d hardly approve—by the way, there he is now. I must go pay my respects.”

The senator’s bulky figure hurried off toward a little oldish, baldish man, with a constant subtle smile on his thin-lipped, aquiline face. Tribonian glanced after him whimsically.

“Can it be,” he said, “that Polemon doesn’t know Silvius Testor is one of our more persistent—if discreet—debauchees? I fancy you’ll see him at Chione’s, Hecebolus.”

“He’ll be there,” nodded the Cappadocian with a grin. “And speaking of Chione’s, I can promise you something very special. The divine Boeotian told me so herself.”

“At least the conversation should be amusing, which is impossible here,” Tribonian said.

“Why impossible?” inquired Hecebolus.

“Because of the character of the empress. She excludes from her entourage every woman of youth, beauty, or daring. The fillip of sex is necessary to provide spice in conversation with women, and the patrician matrons chosen by Euphemia for her train are too proper to be brilliant. With the courtesans, the repartee is often as delightful as anything else they offer.”

“At last—here’s the prince!” suddenly exclaimed John.

With the curiosity of a provincial who is seeing for the first time a figure of note, Hecebolus gazed.

Justinian, the emperor’s nephew, had arrived late, being delayed by business. As usual he was simply attired, in a plain white tunic with purple mantle and buskins: a stalwart man near his fortieth year, with a fresh, rosy complexion, blond curling hair, and a sort of sculptured nobility in his features, which, however, were too expressionless to reveal anything that transpired in his mind.

By policy he was polite to everyone; and he turned aside to speak to the three men.

“Hail, Exalted Highness, may you continue to enjoy good health,” said the prefect.

“And may your labors for the empire continue to prosper,” Tribonian added.

“I thank you, friends,” said Justinian. He acknowledged the presentation of Hecebolus, whom he had not previously met.

Although he flattered the prince continually, John of Cappadocia secretly had a rather low opinion of his mental capacities. Everyone knew the old emperor entrusted to this favorite nephew the actual administration of the empire, and it was generally believed that Justinian was his uncle’s choice to succeed him on the throne.

But the Cappadocian had a lurking line of thought so furtive and concealed that he would not have put it into words for anyone. Imperial succession had always been a tricky matter. Had not a commander of the Excubitors—Justin, himself—once taken a hand in it to his own immense advantage? Another commander of the same palace guards might conceivably, if things turned out just right, follow a precedent so well established. To be sure Justin had a nephew: but Anastasius, the late emperor, had two nephews—still living in the city as a matter of fact—and it had made no difference in the elevation of his successor. Ignorant and uncouth as he was, risen to his present high station on the shoulders of other men he had trampled down, John could dream of an ambition greater than any other, and slowly form plans both subtle and perfidious.

But meantime he was all cordiality, all apparent loyalty and affection to the prince.

“We of the court see too little of Your Exalted Highness,” he said. “You are working overhard, I fear.”

“There’s much to do,” the prince answered briefly. His manner, though courteous, was somewhat aloof.

“You should indulge in more relaxation, noble Prince.”

Justinian shrugged his strong shoulders. He was a healthy, vigorous, free-living bachelor, who had always taken his pleasures, though his libertinism had never been excessive. It might be said that the prince was a shade too moderate in all things, for the strongest masculine natures usually have some tumbling passion to counterbalance their power. He had the reputation of a rather cold and joyless nature.

His work, since his aging uncle leaned on him so heavily, submerged his inclination to take light enjoyments, for he took his responsibilities seriously. In his youth he had come to court from the village of his birth in Macedonia, and his uncle had educated him. His given name was Uprauda—the Upright, or Just—and it was natural for him to adopt the Latinized name Justinian, which was in part a translation of the Macedonian name of his boyhood, and in part a complimentary improvisation on the name of Justin, his benefactor. Though his mind was perhaps not the most brilliant in quality, it was strong and persistent, and the condition of the empire profoundly concerned him.

“I hardly see how I can do so,” he said, in response to John’s suggestion. “How can one relax, under my circumstances?”

“The empire should be able to run itself part of the time,” said Tribonian, good-humoredly.

“It appears to me at times that it’s run itself too much. The incompetence I encounter in some offices!” Justinian scowled. “And corruption in the most unbelievable places!”

“It’s always been so. Can you change the spots of a leopard, or the rising and setting of the sun?” said John, who felt a secret thrill of trepidation at this talk of corruption in view of his recent conversation with Polemon.

“But never, it seems to me, have things been worse,” the prince said. “Costly wars have shrunk the empire’s boundaries from a Mediterranean encircling immensity, as it was in the time of Constantine, to the present mere segment, which includes only the Greek peninsula, Asia Minor, Egypt, and Cyrenaica. We’ve lost Rome. Italy is held by the Ostrogoths, Gaul by the Franks, Hispania by the Visigoths, and Numidian Africa by the Vandals. North of the Danube are the savage Huns, Avars, and Herulians. To the east is Persia. Sometimes, facing the threats of all these powerful enemies, I feel as if I were called upon to uphold the skies, like the fabled Atlas—a task beyond my strength.”

“We’re concerned for you,” said John, “but I counsel you to rejuvenate yourself with a little pleasure.”

Justinian smiled politely but without enthusiasm. The amusements of Constantinople no longer held for him the fascination they once had, and he sometimes wondered if it were a sign of overwork . . . or of age, or a jaded appetite for sensation. On occasion it worried him, because no man likes to see the loss of his virile powers.

The Cappadocian persisted. He was eager to interest the prince in Chione’s dinner, because Justinian’s presence there would add the final luster to it, and John wished his favorite to enjoy a mighty triumph.

“I know it’s difficult to take your mind off your great duties,” he said fawningly, “but may I offer something truly diverting——”

“What is it?”

“A dinner and entertainment, to which I have the honor personally to invite you. Given by the most beautiful woman in Constantinople.”

“There are many beautiful women in Constantinople.”

“I refer to Chione, the divine Boeotian.”

“Chione?” The prince was puzzled. Then he said, “Oh—you mean the courtesan of that name?”

Even he had heard of the famosa, and he was not offended by such an invitation. Byzantine men of fashion frequented the salons of leading courtesans when they wished, the society of women deeply versed in life and dedicated to the delights being a pleasing contrast with the dullness of their own households. But Justinian was in no mood for it.

“I dislike these public entertainments,” he said.

“Far from public, Highness. Most private and discreet. Not more than twenty of the most notable men of the empire are invited. Chione, whose reputation as a hostess is unequaled, wishes to make this an occasion to be remembered.”

“For what reason?”

“A woman’s reason.” The Cappadocian’s yellow teeth gleamed in a grin. “She’s victorious over her chief rival. You know how women love to sink their claws into each other, bless their scheming little hearts——”

“Who is this rival?”

“A courtesan named Macedonia, who has been exiled.”

“Macedonia?”

“Yes, Highness.”

“The name’s familiar. My own province. And I believe I knew the woman once. A tall, graceful girl, with a perfect profile? Yes, I’m sure of it. I was interested in her first because of her name, but I thought her rather superior to most courtesans. Why was she exiled?”

“A conspiracy was discussed at her house.”

Justinian frowned. “Why wasn’t she executed?”

“It couldn’t be proved that she was directly involved.”

Justinian’s frown grew blacker. “Why wasn’t I informed?”

The Cappadocian saw he had made a mistake. “It was hardly important enough——” he began hastily.

“Any conspiracy is important!” interrupted Justinian grimly. “I want a report concerning the Macedonia case, including the names of all that were involved!” He glared at the prefect and cleared his throat with a harsh sound. “As to the dinner you suggest, no, I’ll not attend. I have overmuch to do.”

He swung about and made his way forward toward the dais.

With astonishment and some concern Hecebolus had listened to this conversation, for his own interests were heavily bound up with those of the Cappadocian, who was his patron.

“I hope you didn’t offend him——” he began.

John shrugged his shoulders. He was berating himself for the slip about Macedonia.

“I should have remembered,” he growled, “that the prince had the woman at his quarters some years back.”

Tribonian smiled lazily. “You seem to be perspiring, noble Prefect. But be not too concerned. Justinian has not the hot blood to push inquiries concerning a courtesan—however perfect her profile.”

“That’s true,” said John, his face clearing. “I know how to deal with him, Hecebolus. If I miss him with my first arrow, I’ll strike him with my next. Well, it appears to be time that we began to make our way forward.”

The Egyptian musicians had ceased their performance and were being ushered out of the throne room. Presentations were next on the agenda.

Tribonian glanced about, humorously indicating to Hecebolus various whispered conversations between men, here and there.

“Observe a little symbol of life in the capital,” he smiled. “Here are a hundred and more ladies, wives and daughters of the noblest houses in the empire, and the empress herself sitting before us on the throne. But like swift little eddies, another woman’s name is being circulated throughout this audience room, right under the noses of these ladies, who do not even know of it. And that woman is Chione, the courtesan—whom the patrician matrons consider dirt beneath their feet, yet who possibly has more influence here at this moment than any of her sex here present. And that even includes the empress!”

1 }

It was to be expected that depravity would be of the essence of an entertainment by a courtesan in Constantinople, and Chione’s banquet, it must be admitted, had its full share of depravity. But it was not remarkable so much for this as for its unusual lavishness.

The male guests, as they arrived and were discharged from their litters, were met in the atrium by slaves, who removed their sandals or buskins, bathed their feet and hands—using gold or silver ewers and basins—sprinkled them with perfumes, and crowned them with wreaths of flowers.

These preliminaries were observed by Tribonian, who was one of the later arrivals, with the satisfaction of a connoisseur, as indicating a high promise of luxury and sensation for the rest of the evening. Leaving the hands of the atrium attendants, he passed into the house proper.

It was not considered in correct good taste to go directly to the feast, since this was thought to indicate too much eagerness for the food. Tribonian, therefore, first wandered through the hall to the inner court, or peristyle, where he gazed with pleasure on the flowers in the garden: after which he spent some time going from room to room—this place seemed full of beds—admiring the appointments and furnishings, and conversing with other guests whom he met, before at last, as if casually, arriving at the dining chamber itself, which was just off the atrium into which he had first come—as if all this were a surprise to him.

What he saw was enough to evoke exclamations of genuine delight even from so experienced a Sybarite as he. Five perfectly matched hanging lamps of bronze, beautifully wrought, with sixteen nozzles each, ornamented alternately with a nymph and a satyr playing on a double flute, and burning sweet-smelling oil through costly wicks of Carpasian flax, illuminated the room so brilliantly that it was almost without any shadows in it.

In an alcove to one side, a group of musicians played sweet music. About the walls, ranged at exact intervals, stood young boys, chosen for their beauty and naked, who were to wait on the guests. Large and magnificent couches were arranged to comfortably fill the floor, heaped with huge pillows and cushions. And beside each of these stood a girl.

The faces of the delicatae were bright with welcoming smiles, every one of them wore her best in jewelry, was coifed to the utmost, adorned with all art, and all were entirely charming in their clinging gowns of pastel colors, each differing from the others, but creating a soft harmony for the gaze. Upon the scene Tribonian gazed with the satisfied eye of an artist. Not one of the girls but was beautiful: not one but was young and fresh to look upon.

Chione herself was receiving her guests at the portal, more splendidly attired than he had ever seen her, in a dress light peach in hue, with no less than three sets of jeweled necklaces ranging on her bosom one above the other, and bracelets, earrings, finger rings, and combs, all dazzlingly brilliant.

“Welcome to my poor house, noble Tribonian,” she said.

“But this is exquisite!” he exclaimed. “I marvel at the harmony of sensations you’ve achieved—sweet sounds for the ear, the tenderness of incense and perfumes for the nostril, and captivating sights for the eye.”

Chione awarded him her best smile, for the verdict of Tribonian was a compliment that gratified even her vanity.

“The girls are the pick of Constantinople,” she told him. “I went to the utmost pains in selecting them, I assure you. Not one but is accomplished in the most seductive ways of pleasure, or will hesitate to do anything your whim suggests, later. Go select your own couch, learned Tribonian, and the damsel who pleases you best.”

It was the guest’s privilege to choose any couch, his choice depending on the girl who stood beside it and who would be his companion at the banquet, and if he desired for the night—except that it was understood by all that the central lounge was reserved by Chione for John of Cappadocia and herself.

With his easy smile Tribonian moved on, strolling about the room, speaking to each of the young courtesans courteously and asking her name.

“I am Dio,” said a slender blonde, with a shy smile.

“Thespis,” said a girl with reddish hair and a fine figure.

“Chloe,” said another.

“Dorcas.”

“Melissa.”

And so on. Tribonian complimented each in turn.

“Where all are so divinely perfect, how is a man to make a choice among you?” he smiled, as if bewildered by the variety of charms presented.

His eye fell at last on a diminutive figure with brilliant eyes. The girl, the smallest in the room, wore a white gown, tight-girdled about her waist and falling in graceful folds to her tiny feet.

“Your name, little one?” he asked.

“Theodora.” She gave him a captivating smile. “Will the famous Tribonian condescend to dine with me?”

He was astonished. “How do you know my name?”

“By report.”

“And the report?”

“I was told that Tribonian was the handsomest man at court.”

He laughed, quite charmed. “Little flatterer! You heard Chione speak to me. But you did it well, and I choose you. I must come to know better a girl with such wit.”

Already the other guests were arranging themselves on the couches, propped up almost in a sitting posture by means of the cushions, but leaning somewhat on the left arm and side so that the right hand was free. In every case, the upper part of the body was nearest the center of the room, the legs extending diagonally across the couches toward the outside of the circle. Beside each guest a delicata daintily placed herself, lying within the slight circle made by his body and thighs, where he could fondle her if he chose without turning.

Now Chione and the Cappadocian took their places on the central lounge. To Tribonian’s satirical eye, the prefect looked not unlike a wild boar from his own barbarian province.

From his hostess and her companion, the lawyer glanced about the circle. There he saw the swart face of Hecebolus, who was stretched beside a blonde girl whose name, Theodora told him, was Chrysomallo. There also was Silvius Tester, bald and still subtly smiling, as he allowed his hands to stroke the soft hips of his companion whose name, it appeared, was Antonina. And elsewhere he saw old Hermogenes, the pompous master of the palace offices, the philosopher Philo of Perga, the poet Mendes, and sundry senators, esthetes, and men of military reputation, with all of whom he was acquainted.

A choice crowd indeed, and Tribonian was sensible of the honor of being included in so exclusive a function as this particular banquet.

All at once the orchestra struck up a fanfare of music. As a huge bowl of powerful mixed wine was carried in by two stewards in loin cloths, the pretty, naked boys left their places at the walls.

Chione poured the first cup, raised it high, and drank of it herself, under the ancient custom by which a host or hostess was supposed to demonstrate to the guests that the wine was not poisoned. Then other cups were poured, and the white bodies of the boys for a time flitted busily about among the couches, carrying to the guests and their feminine companions this preliminary potation.

Conversation rose to a merry buzz as the wine cups were sipped, and the music continued as the boy waiters busied themselves bringing to each couch a small table, upon which the food was to be served.

The first course, placed in dishes on the tables and already cut up for eating with the fingers, was mullet, a fish considered superior to all others, which was cooked in a sauce of such indescribable savoriness that it brought exclamations of pleasure from the guests. Slices of bread accompanied this course, as all others, on which the fingers could be wiped, or which could be used in sopping the delicious liquid.

Music continued, with talk and laughter as an undertone. Dishes were cleared away, and the boys brought to each couch bowls of scented water and napkins, in which the fingers of the revelers and their companions could be cleansed so there would be no left-over flavor on them to impair the toothsomeness of the next course.

This consisted of partridges and ducks, exquisitely prepared. Another visit of the perfumed finger bowls, and the third course came on: roast lamb and beef, in a gravy to lift an epicure’s eyebrows.

To describe each dish would be wearisome. Sufficient is it to say that Chione that night served fifteen separate courses to her guests, and with each course not one but sometimes three different wines, all particularly appropriate to the nature and flavor of the viands being discussed.

“A Lucullan feast indeed!” exclaimed Hecebolus to Silvius Testor. “By the sainted Magdalene, the patroness of all courtesans, this is a repast to be remembered!”

The Tyrian’s hand was toying with Chrysomallo’s form, cupping her breasts, and stroking her buttocks as his blood heated. To these caresses the girl made no resistance, but rather encouraged them with a smile over her shoulder.

“The palace itself would envy it,” the tax collector replied, taking a kiss from Antonina, his delicious companion.

“The palace could never aspire to the like of this,” Tribonian smiled over at them. “What do you think of it, my little Theodora?”

“That you have not even begun to enjoy its fullest delights,” she replied.

“What delights?” he asked, to hear what she would say.

“All delights.”

“Love?”

“If you desire——” She gave him a smiling glance from under her long lashes.

2 }

At that moment Hecebolus, well warmed, bent Chrysomallo prostrate on the couch, and joining his thick lips to hers, remained thus for minutes, as if he would devour her or exhale from her the very life. Other guests were taking similar privileges, men everywhere fondling girls, whispering in their ears, giving them little slaps, bites, and pinches, kissing them, taking the most intimate liberties with their persons, and giggling with them, the girls being not loath at this stage to the most open and shameless familiarities.

A height of impropriety was reached at this time when, already disgustingly drunk, John of Cappadocia importuned Chione to perform with him the act of love openly, there in the center of the room before them all. But she, whose mind was never clouded either by wine or passion, laughingly put him off, knowing perfectly how to handle him with flattery and promises.

Morosely, the prefect took again to his wine, but in a moment his good humor was restored by laughter, when old Hermogenes, awkward and fat, fell from his couch to the floor and had difficulty rising, coming up stern first like a bullock getting up in a field, assisted by the delicata who had the task of entertaining him.

All this Tribonian observed. While he was not averse to pleasure, his tastes were somewhat fastidious, and he was, moreover, curious concerning the girl beside him, in whom he sensed something perhaps beyond the capabilities of most of her sisterhood. He did not, therefore, accept at once the half invitation she had given him to depart with her and seek one of the bedchambers. Instead, he began playfully to question her.

“Love?” he said, answering her lead. “What do you think of love?”

“That it is the king of emotions.”

“Greater than religion?”

Seeing that he was more disposed to talk than take pleasure with her at the moment, she settled down, turning so that she faced him on the couch.

“I know little of religion,” she said. “But the person who needs the help of it to get through life, I think is much to be pitied, for it’s a sign either of intelligence lacking, or a very corrupt heart.”

“An interesting conclusion—from a courtesan.”

“A courtesan receives money for her body. She could get twice as much for her soul—if she could sell it—because both the Catholics and the Monophysites want it.”

Tribonian laughed. “Theology is a dangerous subject. Let’s return to love, with which we may both be more familiar.”

She joined his laugh and he thought her mirth delightful. “I think love is great, but most dangerous.”

“Why dangerous, Theodora?”

“Because people insist on thinking it sublime. At least men do.”

“And not women?”

“Women are pursued by men, and yield to them—to their sorrow sometimes. But I believe women are much more realistic about love than men are. Yet I’ll be fair to men. Men happen to be male, and males are amative. Females are maternal. Sheer instinct in each case.”

“But the first, I take it, is bad, the second good?” he suggested.

“I don’t know. It’s the fashion to glorify woman for her mother love, which she can no more help than she can help breathing; and to condemn man for an instinct just as strong and blind in him—procreation. Yet how could one exist without the other? And which is more important for the human race?”

“A nice question,” said Tribonian, thoroughly intrigued.

“I’m not so sure,” Theodora went on, “that the feeling of fatherhood in men, which the philosophers hold to be great proof of the advance of human beings over the lower animals, is any more so than the responsive fervor of sex in women, which the lower animals know not, except in brief periods of heat. Without that responsive fervor in us, love as it is known emotionally to the human race would be impossible.”

“I’m astounded at such philosophy in one so young and captivating. Where did you get that idea?”

“It’s a private theory of mine.”

“Philo, over yonder, is not half so profound as you, Theodora. And he’s ugly, to boot.”

She smiled. “Remember that courtesans have much time to think on the subject of love, it being their sole business.”

“And what other conclusions have you reached on this subject?”

“That most men, except for their desires, have no talent for love-making. A greater genius is required in making real love than in commanding armies. This is a fact women know, and the scarcity of such geniuses among men is one of their secret woes.”

“The effect of this knowledge?”

“Is to cause women, and particularly courtesans, to give much consideration to the problem. A love affair is, of all dramas, the one in which the acts are shortest and the intermissions between acts longest. A woman who understands anything of nature knows those intervals must be filled, so she applies her talents to doing so.”

“More and more I find myself intrigued with you, pretty one!”

“Because I chatter?”

“Because you speak wisdom.”

“If that be wisdom, I’ll give you another word of it: I think it’s better to be loved than to love.”

“Why so, if love is the king of emotions?”

“Because in being loved one exerts influence: while in loving, one is merely a passive agent of a moving force.”

“Yet you trade in love.”

“I’m a woman.”

“By that you mean that all women trade in love?”

“Yes, even the virtuous ones. You might say that the courtesan sells love retail, to many men; and the virtuous woman, in marrying, sells it wholesale, to one man, disposing of her entire stock at one transaction. Doesn’t it come to the same thing in the end?”

Again he laughed. “You little sophist! From this I gather that you have small regard for feminine virtue.”

She made a little mouth, but smiled. “As to that, a woman’s virtue is usually for show only. It’s like honesty, which is the fear of being caught. A woman’s resistance is no proof of her virtue: more likely it’s proof of her weakness. If women spoke sincerely, most of them would confess that their impulse is to yield—and they resist, on reflection, out of fear.”

More and more he was captivated by her audacious and satirical little wit. At this moment he leaned forward to whisper in her ear the suggestion that now he was disposed to leave the dining chamber with her and go to one of the bedrooms provided for the evening’s love-making.

But with his lips at her ear, before he spoke, he was interrupted by a new fanfare of music and sat back to see what was coming.

The last course of the banquet had just been served—little dishes of thirst-producers, such as cheeses, fried onions, highly spiced slices of sausages, and salted anchovies and olives. Now the dishes were cleared away and great pitchers of water and pots of wine carried in by the naked boys, who poured the wine into the water in a huge silver bowl, and added spices according to a precise formula, then brought the blended drink in large cups with double handles around to the guests, for at this point the real drinking was to begin and the evening’s entertainment to start.

Tribonian’s chance to ask his companion the question on his lips was for the moment past.

3 }

With the blare of music, ten pretty dancing girls appeared, in short gowns so transparent that they were little more than a slight clouding of the perfect figures. The orchestra took up a sprightly, rhythmic air, and the ten girls, not one of them more than seventeen years old, yet all displaying the beautiful tokens of their womanhood through the diaphanous tissue of their coverings, sprang into the center of the room, where a space had been left, and began their dance.

Nothing could excel the soft voluptuousness of the opening movements. The delicate rosy bodies mingled, separated, formed groups, melted again into one breathless flower-like mass.

Now the music heightened, the pace grew more rapid.

Suddenly, with a concerted clap of their hands and a stamp of their little feet, the dancers in a single movement undid their girdles, and their filmy gowns fluttered to the floor.

Naked bodies of indescribable charm moved now in frenzy, posturing, bending to this side or that, arms seeming to float in graceful curving patterns in the air, backs suddenly straightened, bending backward, bellies tense and hollow, breasts leaping and quivering, faces passionate, almost haggard with the excitement of young women who knew well the intoxication of their appeal upon their onlookers.

Wild applause broke from the drunken Roman senators, generals, and patricians. Here and there the light fleeting figure of a dancer was clutched, drawn from the dance, and her naked form stretched on a couch while some old satyr covered her flushed pretty face with his kisses. An aura of intense excitement, of feverish desire, filled the chamber, and with it the enchanting fragrance of naked femininity.

With a crash the music came to a stop. Seizing up from the floor their garments which they had dropped, the dancing girls fled, even those who had been prostrated on the couches, as soon as they could break away from the clutching arms.

At once acrobats and jugglers took the place of the dancers. Tribonian nodded as if to himself. This was most artful stage managing: one number to stir the passions of the guests to fever, then an interlude to permit their ardor to cool somewhat, for sexual excitement such as they had experienced could not be indefinitely sustained.

Other dances followed, some comic, some suggestive. One in particular brought screams of applause from the audience. It was a dramatization of the classic pursuit of the nymphs by the satyrs. Male dancers, with curved horns on their heads and the hairy legs of goats, and charming girls innocent of any clothing save for the wreaths of flowers in their flowing hair, passed through the heated movements of a complicated yet very rhythmic dance, showing the onslaught, the flight, and the chase: and ending at last in a manner indescribably indecent, the satyrs catching the nymphs they pursued, the whole ensemble on the floor, enacting the lust of the mythological creatures in a manner that left not one detail to the imagination.

Even Tribonian, seek as he might to control himself, felt pulses beating in his temples with enkindled desire, and turned suddenly to his couch companion to demand of her now, what she had offered him earlier in the evening.

To his surprise she was gone.

At the same moment Chione, from whose couch the hirsute figure of John of Cappadocia, perspiring offensively, had just slid to the floor in swinish sleep, rose and left the banquet room. By this Tribonian was apprised that the climax of the evening was at hand.

4 }

It was now well past midnight. Theodora had slipped away from Tribonian’s couch, and had gone to the rear of the house to prepare the final tableau in which Chione was to make her triumphal appearance and seal her fame.

As she passed through the rear rooms on the way to the hall, where the ensemble of the tableau had gathered, she halted for a moment at a latticed window fronting on the street and slowly flashed a small oil lamp she carried three times back and forth across it.

In the darkness without she thought she caught a movement of dark figures, and then there was a momentary answering flash, as if someone had taken a lantern from under his concealing cloak and then instantly returned it to hide its light again.

At once the girl, her face inscrutable, hurried on to the hall. Already the slaves, garbed in green network in the imitation of fish scales, with green fishlike fins on their backs, legs, and arms, and with trumpets of conch shells, in the representation of Tritons, stood ready. The dancers, male and female, were hurriedly changing their costumes for the climax number, and she busied herself for a few minutes arranging them for their entry.

It was while she was in the last actions of this that Chione appeared.

“Are we ready?” the famosa asked. She was flushed and quite exultant over the success thus far of the entertainment, certain of a fame greater than any courtesan had achieved perhaps in generations. But she still treated the girl who had planned it all and trained the cast of the brilliant performance as if she were a servant.

“Ready,” said Theodora, “except for the central figure in our drama.”

At that moment a shout was heard at the rear of the house, evidently from the compound of slaves. It was followed by outcries, blows and curses, and a confused sound as of a struggle among angry men.

“What’s that?” asked Chione sharply.

“It sounds like a quarrel among the slaves,” quickly said Theodora.

“The slaves! They dare choose a time like this?” Chione lifted her head, her nostrils flaring angrily.

Another series of yells and the trampling of feet from the compound.

“Perhaps they don’t know——” Theodora said.

“Of course they know! Yes, they’ve been getting out of hand lately. What an uproar! They’ll disturb my guests!” Chione was white with fury. “Where’s my overseer? Whips! Whips! Oh, I promise there will be whips until the blood runs from their wicked backs for this insubordination!”

In her rage she did not even notice how quickly the door had been opened for her by Theodora, so that she could rush out into the slave courtyard to order punishment, or that the door closed at once behind her.

Loudly she called for her overseer. “Demetrios! Demetrios!”

But Demetrios did not answer her. He lay, at the moment, unconscious in the shadow of the wall, his scalp split by a cudgel blow, and a cloaked figure crouching over him.

“Answer me at once, Demetrios!” Chione cried. “Or you may taste the lash yourself!”

She took a few angry steps toward the quarters where her slaves were penned in the rear of the compound, her figure in its light dress almost luminous in the night darkness.

Then all at once she halted.

From the black shadows all about her, she saw them advancing upon her.

“Who—who are you?” she faltered, with a sudden thrill of fear, trying to make out the figures in the gloom.

There was a laugh. “Friends, who wish to know you.”

“Juventi . . . Alcinoi . . .?” she gasped with sudden horrified conviction.

“How flattering it is to us, charming Chione, to have you come running to us with arms open,” said a voice, satirically.

“Oh—no. Please no,” she whimpered, trying to retreat.

But it was too late now for Chione to escape.

Rough hands were laid upon her. She tried to scream, but it was answered only by a mocking laugh.

No use to scream, no use to struggle. Her fate she knew already, as she felt herself passed from hand to hand, lifted bodily over the wall which the young bandits had invaded.

Once she said, almost piteously, “How many . . .?”

“That you’ll discover for yourself, pretty one. You shall be able, never fear, to count us, one by one.”

5 }

In the feast chamber the guests were beginning to grow restless. Ten minutes or more had passed since their hostess left the room, and things seemed to be at a standstill. Because of the loud playing of the orchestra the disturbance at the rear of the house had not been heard here at the front, and the musicians still were trying vainly to fill the gap with Lydian and Sicilian music.

But now at last a harsh blare of conch shells was heard.

It was a cue. The orchestra burst at once into new, wild music, and the guests, with nods to each other, settled back to watch.

The first of the dancers appeared, girls now attired as Nereids, the mythological daughters of the sea, the mermaids of classical times. Their feet were not confined in fish tails, but from the waist down their limbs were garbed in transparent green net, above which their naked bodies shone gleaming white, and their hair was crowned with seaweed.

In pairs they entered the room, each pair more beautiful than their predecessors, each doing a different type of step or whirl, yet all forming a perfect harmony of movement. And higher and higher rose the music, wilder, more thrilling.

Male dancers, representing sea spirits, now began to be interspersed among the Nereids, with wild leaps and irregular action pantomiming the ocean’s waves.

The room seemed filled with the whirling, gyrating splendor of a dance such as none of the guests had ever seen.

Then the music reached its climax.

From the guests came a gasp of sheer admiration and surprise.

It was the birth of Aphrodite that the tableau depicted, one of the supreme conceptions of the mythology of the ancient Greeks.

Flanked by still more leaping, posturing sea beings, and borne upon the shoulders of six Tritons, magnificent in form, came a huge sea shell, cunningly constructed so that its surfaces reflected, as does mother of pearl, the opalescent gleams of the scores of brilliant lights.

And like a perfect pearl in the shell itself, rode Aphrodite, goddess of beauty and love.

Any semblance of garment to conceal her wondrous charms, she scorned, as in the mythical moment when she was carried up on the shore of Cyprus by the beings of the deep.

The murmur of delight and applause swelled and grew to a spontaneous outburst of acclamation exceeding anything so far heard in this evening of applauses. And the outburst was mingled with surprise as well as question.

For, half seated, half reclining, rapturously alluring as the goddess in the shell, the guests beheld, not Chione as they might have expected, but Theodora.

In dignity and serene beauty her face and figure contrasted most strikingly with the wild activity of the other performers, as if she alone were great enough in her assumed role of divinity to sit quietly above them and watch their antics. Something almost more than human, a personality beyond all ordinary experience, is required to bring about the effect the girl there achieved, taking possession of the imagination and thoughts of every man in the room, to the exclusion of all other considerations.

Like an odor of life the superb female creature riding in the immense shell intoxicated them with the imperious charm of her sex. Notable men on the couches felt a thrill of fire, and half rose from their reclining positions. A glow of desire, a wave of lust spread through the room, stopping their breath, flushing their faces, oddly twisting their countenances. Not one present had in him thought or inclination left to consider the strange circumstance that this central figure in the glittering tableau was not Chione, their hostess. It was enough for them that she was Theodora, the incomparable.

Exquisite not only in her beauty, but in the attitude of her body, which seemed not to have a single flaw, and yet more in the look on her face, a flame of the eyes, a parting of the lips as if in her resided all desire, all passion, she shed upon them, every one, a gasping eagerness, an aspiration beyond thinking, a leaping of the instincts uncurbed and primitive as life itself.

With the slightest movement of her finger she could at that moment rule their flesh. Their bodies quivered, their chests heaved, they moistened hot lips with their tongues, their fingers were extended, perspiring, in a clutching manner as if hungering to grasp.

Of them all only Tribonian had the self-possession to glance about him. He acknowledged the remarkable power of the girl, but always in him was a curiosity, and he wished to see the effect of that power on others beside himself.

He saw Silvius Testor twitching with excitement, eyes blood-red, the subtle smile all gone from his lips; Philo, the philosopher, had grown extremely pale and was biting his lips; old Hermogenes, fat-faced, was gasping like a fish; John of Cappadocia, momentarily roused, his bald head gleaming and the wreath tipsily askew on his head, stared with mouth agape, face mottled red, whether with fury or lust it was impossible to say, but a moment later he measured his length again on the floor and was drunkenly snoring; and Hecebolus was gazing at the girl in the sea shell as if she were indeed Aphrodite, all his curved Levantine features aflame, his eyes catlike and phosphorescent.

Three times around the room the goddess was borne to the crashing of music, surrounded by an ever increasing sinuous excitement of the twining forms of Nereids and sea spirits. And with each circle her audience was lifted higher in its madness, perspiration heading senatorial brows, generals gulping and goggling, the room seeming over-heated, the onlookers smothered, almost inundated in the pulsating magic shed by the marble flesh of the wondrous feminine creature upon whom every eye was fixed.

At last, just when it seemed the excitement was unbearable, when human nerves could no longer sustain the emotion, the music came to a crashing close, and with its expiring blare the Tritons set the great sea shell on the floor in the center of the room and retreated from it into the hall.

From the shell stepped Aphrodite, and for a moment stood before them in an attitude breath-stopping for its grace and exquisite nudity.

6 }

From their lounges to their feet the voluptuaries rose in a howling ovation.

For a moment the girl looked about at them with a slight smile, as of triumph at this hurricane of emotion she had created.

But she had done too well. Drunk, and wrought up beyond all self-control, men began stumbling toward her, reaching for her, falling over the couches in their blind eagerness.

Her smile faded. In that moment she stood in very real peril. Before this madness of mob lust she shrank, gazing about her for a place to escape, seeing only faces congested, almost simian with desire; insane beyond belief, closing in upon her like a trap.

And then the diversion occurred. Chione appeared in the room.

All saw her, and her appearance was such that for the moment attention turned from Theodora to her. Not long had Chaero and his Juventi Alcinoi kept her, but in that short time they had handled her most ungently.

The poor creature was disheveled and filthy, her clothing torn and marred with dust and mud, her hair disarrayed and half tumbling down her face, her jewels gone, bruises on her body, her enameled cheeks creased and stained with tears that had run crooked streaks of black from the kohl on her eyelashes. In the alley behind her own house Chione had been subjected to the brutality of forced ravishment, and experienced courtesan though she was, she could hardly stand, was almost in a state of prostration. The youths who with such incredible audacity had kidnaped her had also released her just in time to see Theodora’s triumph.

Now, in her rage and humiliation, she went to pieces.

“Get out!” she screamed hysterically at her guests. “Get out—all of you!”

They stared, stupefied. No longer did the courtesan appear as a figure of glamour, but rather as a being pathetic and ridiculous.

Someone exclaimed, as with a dawning conviction, “The Juventi!”

The truth burst upon them. Fully conversant with the peculiar perils of the Street of Women, the debauchees in the room comprehended what had befallen this courtesan. The grotesque circumstance whereby the loftiest famosa in the capital, at the very moment of her triumph, had suffered the fate of the lowliest of her sisters, tickled their drunken, cruel senses of humor.

“They took her right out of her own banquet!” someone exclaimed.

“The young devils! What a coup!” cried another.

“Oh, this is priceless!” said a third.

And suddenly their guffaws burst like a thunderclap. Tipsy men slapped their thighs, doubled up with their mirth, pointing at the unhappy, discomfited woman.

Chione’s lips, the rouge on them all smeared down on her chin, were seen to move, but her voice could not be heard in the uproar of laughter. Forgetting the importance of the occasion, forgetting who these were, forgetting everything in her desire to be alone, her furious wish to settle with Theodora, that creature of fiendish treachery, who still stood mute and naked in their midst, Chione was wildly screaming over and over her order that they leave her premises forthwith.

When they did not respond, she lost every semblance of control. Seizing from a stand a Grecian urn of price, which had been given her by John of Cappadocia, she hurled it. The ceramic narrowly missed the bald, bulging brow of Philo, the philosopher, and crashed against the wall, scattering its fragments.

Wildly she threw another missile, a small marble statue of Eros, which might have caused serious injury to someone had her aim been good.

For a moment they made a strange picture, the furious disheveled woman, hurling objects and striking at the shrinking, astounded men who were her guests.

Then came a roar of anger. Such treatment from a courtesan was not to be borne.

It was Chione’s turn suddenly to cower.

Shouts of rage thundered in the room:

“Throw her in the street!”

“No! The kitchen! Lock her in her own kitchen!”

“Get her out of the way—any way—the slut!”

They started for her. Chione put her hands before her face and fled, but they soon caught her.

It was fortunate for her that the incongruous situation and brief chase served to restore drunken good humor, so that she received no further harm. But the night that was to have been her triumph became instead her night of blackest humiliation. Locked in her own scullery she spent the long dark hours alone, weeping and raging, sometimes sick because of the mistreatment she had suffered from the hoodlum Juventi, sometimes curdled by her emotions, but a prisoner and helpless to do anything, while her house resounded to the shouts and noises of the boisterous saturnalia into which the debauchees she invited had plunged.

Custom in such situations was well established.

First, an auction.

Every girl was put up, bid for, and bought for the night, the money, of course, going to the girl herself. Not one escaped, all the pretty Nereids, the companions of the couches, even the central figure herself, Theodora, in this massed sensual insanity.

Since there was a surplus of young women, who outnumbered the male guests, messengers were sent out for friends of the revelers to come and take part in the riotous license: and these newcomers were turned loose upon the dancers and delicatae who were not already coupled with someone.

Crouching in her scullery during those night hours, Chione listened as the house shook with running feet, resounded with outcries and shrieks of laughter, crash of furniture broken, costly vases and statuary smashed, wrestlings, whisperings, pleadings, imperious demands, moans, and sighs—the sounds of pursuit, capture, surrender, and ecstasy.

A fearful orgy of lust.

But Theodora thought nothing of it, since to her it was an accustomed manifestation of the decadent morals of Byzantine life, to which she had more than once been subjected before. In Chione’s own bed she was devoting herself to that newly appointed governor of Cyrenaica, Hecebolus of Tyre, who had bid for her at the auction enough to have purchased the lifetime services of a female slave—and was trying to get his money’s worth in a single night.

Tribonian thought nothing of it, save for a cynical smile at himself for having lost his chance with the one girl who, to his mind, was supremely desirable. He spent his time, after the briefest embrace with the little dancer whom he had “purchased” in the bidding, in quoting to her verses from Valerius Flaccus, the Latin poet, and Bacchylides, the Greek, which he considered apposite for the occasion, until she, poor child, having a beautiful body but almost no mentality, went to sleep from sheer inability to understand him.

Philo, the philosopher of Perga, thought nothing of it, babbling inarticulately, all his philosophy buried under his inebriation, so that he did not even notice that his courtesan had taken his purse until morning came and she was gone.

Silvius Testor thought nothing of it, except that he discovered the wine had made him unable to perform the act of manhood, whereat, fancying he saw in the harlot for whom he had bid a resemblance to his wife, Sophronia, whom he disliked mightily, he left the house in a rage and was carried home by his waiting litter slaves.

John of Cappadocia thought nothing of it. Alone, in the middle of the dining-chamber floor, beside the couch which he had earlier occupied at the banquet with Chione, he lay snoring through the night, as the lamps burned up their oil and slowly guttered out.

1 }

In a single night Theodora became celebrated all over Constantinople. Palace elegants, who never before heard her name, stopped each other in the imperial corridors to ask details concerning her. In the hearing of a dozen, Tribonian had amused Prince Justinian with an account of the happenings at Chione’s house, which he described in his inimitable manner as a sort of duel between courtesans, using women’s weapons, with nothing barred and any tactics allowed, even—or, rather, especially—treachery, which he cynically understood to be a well-accepted strategy in the female world, used freely by women against each other, without particular condemnation by others of their own sex.

Some word of the affair, also, leaked through the barrier of silence imposed by polite discourse between men of the patrician classes and their ladies, and matrons of the great houses in the palace quarter had somewhat to say, perhaps less cynical and witty than Tribonian’s remarks, but more to the point, concerning the wickedness of such an episode; with vinegary side comments on the kind of men who would be present at so disgusting an exhibition. Thus, by feminine animus, the name of Theodora was circulated in those channels also.

In the streets and squares of the city, and in bazaars, shops, and on the shipping docks, commoners, eunuchs, and slaves learned of it, and chortled over it. Among these it was widely circulated that Theodora, in the light of her new fame, would lease the house from which Macedonia had been exiled and set up in it an establishment of her own, capitalizing on her notoriety to achieve the ambition of every courtesan, which was to become a famosa.

Especially was the affair a matter of heated interest on the Street of Women. Over and over, all along that serpentine avenue of sin, from the stabula down near the wharfs up to the Square of Aphrodite itself, the details were discussed and savored, since with nobody was Chione popular, and her discomfiture was a palliation of the envy and hatred of all her sisterhood.

Courtesans, all experts in malice and betrayal, relished the various steps: how Theodora dissembled her detestation of the famosa against whom she swore vengeance; how she planned the entertainment, including all dances and the tableau with such brilliant imagination that it aroused the enthusiasm even of Chione, who was so arrogantly sure of her position that she did not bother to suspect the delicata of any duplicity; how, keeping continuously in view her objective, Theodora enlisted the support of the Juventi Alcinoi by capturing Chaero, their leader, so at the moment she signaled they would raise a tumult, and when the raging famosa appeared, seize her and visit upon her the indignities which would humble her; particularly how Theodora showed the highest stroke of her genius, when the slaves and dancers waited, bewildered at the disappearance of their mistress, by carrying them through sheer force of personality into the tableau, substituting herself as the central figure; and finally, how she had the supreme quality of seduction to wrap about herself, when she appeared, the imagination of all the feasters.

The Street of Women was not given to affection for any of its own dwellers who achieved exceptional success, and in time there would be sufficient jealousy and malice toward Theodora. But for the present she was applauded by all courtesans, who, dealing constantly in risk and perfidy, could therefore duly appreciate the daring and treachery with which she settled her score with Chione.

Theodora herself said nothing, hardly replying next day to the praise of Antonina and Chrysomallo for her stunning success. With complete brilliance she had carried out the formula she herself had outlined to them: something daring . . . and beautiful . . . and even cruel . . .

The cruelty was undeniable, and Theodora was capable of being pitiless in matters of intimate vital import. But also were the imagination and audacity evident. Chione had been paid back with treachery for treachery, malice for malice, derision for derision, the coin in which she had dealt with Macedonia.

To be sure the yellow-haired courtesan still possessed her house, her slaves, her jewels. But her feathers were most sadly ruffled, her humiliation pitiable, and though she had not lost much treasure, she had lost something infinitely more precious: reputation. Her name now was a mocking and a laughter. Derision was fatal to a courtesan, it being impossible for any man seriously to be enthralled by a woman who was a city-wide joke. As matters stood, the famosa was a famosa no longer—already out of fashion, obsolete. Alone she sat in her house and wept with the bitterness of rage and hate, but she received no pity from the Street of Women, toward which she had never displayed kindness in her time of arrogance and power.

Knowing that she would be the object of Chione’s unending hatred, Theodora took some little thought as to what the other might do and how she would counter it, but she was not for the moment greatly concerned. That day Teia was kept busy receiving a stream of notes, garlands, and trinkets of value, some with famous names on them.

At one note in particular Theodora smiled:

“O pitiless, O iniquitous, O magnificent Theodora!”

It was signed by Tribonian.

For the present the girl was concerned with her plans, which were ambitious, and a little perplexed by her lack of assets to set up the kind of establishment she would require. Even the relatively simple furnishings she now possessed were heavily mortgaged, and as for servants, she had only Teia. If she had not given away the emerald necklace! But thinking back, she did not regret what she had done for Macedonia. It only meant that she would have to sharpen her wits a little more.

There always was the recourse of taking a wealthy patron . . . but she thrust at once that speculation out of her mind. In her was a continual fear of entrapment, and she knew of no man to whom she would willingly concede so much of a hold on her.

She might have envied Chione her wealth, but she did not.

Theodora envied nobody. She had herself.

2 }

Save for one thing it is probable that Theodora might, by that single night of unexampled audacity, artistry, and treachery, have achieved her ambition to become the reigning famosa of Constantinople. That one thing was the recumbent figure on the floor of Chione’s banquet room, snoring throughout the night of noisy revelry.

John of Cappadocia, the powerful city prefect, came out of his hoggish slumber late next morning, his head pounding with trip-hammer aches, his eyesight blurred, his stomach violently ill. With difficulty he hauled himself to his feet, and hardly able to see the wreckage in the now empty house, reeled to the rearward rooms, where he disgustingly emptied himself by vomiting into a basin. Then, for a time, he sat down on a stool and held his head in agony.

In a career of debauchery that had known many a black hour of reaction, the prefect acknowledged to himself dolefully that he had known none as miserable as this. He groaned, retched again, and rested his tortured bald head on his arms, which were crossed on his knees, in an attitude of abject infelicity and distress.

After a time he became conscious of a sound which penetrated through his preoccupation with his own affliction: a reiterated sound, as steady and insistent as the drip of water from a leak in the roof. He raised his head. It was someone sobbing.

Irritated at the mere thought that anybody but himself should feel woe at this moment, he sat up rather too quickly, for the movement sent an intense shock of pain through his skull. He clutched at his brows with a moaning imprecation. By Hercules, he swore—when he did not watch himself, he was always reverting to the old paganisms—nobody could feel as wretched as he!

But the sobbing continued. His annoyance increasing, he levered himself at last to his feet and began a weaving progress down the hall to see who could be causing that noise.

It was Chione.

She lay on her bed while two trembling woman slaves attended her, bringing cold compresses for her brow. Though she had just been bathed, she was not in the best condition to receive a visitor, since her hair was yet undressed and her face pallid with lack of cosmetics.

One of the female slaves had a red weal across her cheek where she had been struck. Out in the slave compound, backs were raw and slashed with whip-strokes, and two of the eunuchs had collapsed from the flogging given at her order by the under overseer, and were under the care of one of their number who had some slight skill as a physician. Demetrios, the chief overseer, still lay unconscious in the infirmary, but he would answer yet to his mistress for the raid by the Juventi which he had been unable to stop, or even warn her concerning. If he did not die under the punishment she would order for him, it would be a wonder: for Chione held him chiefly to blame, and she was today striking out against everyone in her power, like one bereft of sanity, wreaking on the innocent her wild bitterness and fury.

As the slave women paused in their tasks, frightened and confused anew by the prefect’s invasion of the room, Chione opened her eyes and saw someone standing over her who was outside her power to punish with the whip.

The bearlike Cappadocian was an unappetizing sight, blear-eyed, the pouches and lines of dissipation distorted to even grosser ugliness by his debauch of the night, his forehead wrinkled because of his splitting headache, his chin and jowls already a forest of black stubble through which glimmered his broad yellow teeth.

“John!” she cried out accusingly. “Why didn’t you protect me?”

“What—happened?” he croaked. “Jupiter! My head . . .”

Again he clutched at his temples.

“They carried me away—this house was a shambles—that little bitch, I could cut her to pieces inch by inch!”

He only stared at her uncomprehendingly. In his present still befuddled state her incoherent outburst left him no wiser than before as to what had taken place while he lay drunk and unconscious.

All at once she burst anew into tears, crying loudly and with a sort of angry determination, and striking cruelly at one of the frightened slaves who, not knowing what else to do, timidly approached her with a cloth newly wrung out in cold water for her brow. The servant woman retreated, whimpering.

This act, because of its ill-humor which clashed with his own ill-humor, snapped any patience the prefect possessed.

“Hades!” he roared in a voice loud enough to be heard in the street. “What’s the matter with you?”

His violence scared Chione out of her sobbing. With lips trembling, the tears fresh on her cheeks, she looked up at him.

“Don’t you know?” she moaned. “They did monstrous things to me—while—while you slept—and now you shout at me——”

“Monstrous? Explain!”

She rallied herself enough to manage an account of what had transpired, and although she persisted in interlarding it with self-pitying ejaculations, and reproaches toward him, and exclamations of fury against all who had part in her humiliation—chiefly Theodora—he at last understood.

“You say they locked you in the scullery?” he asked with dangerous quiet.

“Yes!”

“They laughed?”

“Yes! If you’d heard——”

“By the Furies!” he shouted with sudden new violence. “Do you know what you’ve done?”

“What I’ve done? What do you mean——”

“You’ve made yourself a laughing stock, and what’s far more important, in doing it you’ve made me a laughing stock, too! It was I who gave the invitations, I who extolled you and your entertainment to everyone, I who must face the gibes and ridicule for your stupid blundering——”

“How can you talk to me like that? How can you blame me?”

She gazed piteously at him. And at that moment she realized that John of Cappadocia was regarding her as if he had never seen her before.

To the prefect Chione suddenly appeared not as the creature of loveliness she had always seemed, in which his typical male illusions had played their part in creating his image of her, but as a tawdry, cheap female, disheveled and swollen-eyed from weeping, overfat and overaged.

He gave a gesture of scorn, and a new twist of pain in his head added to his rage. Turning, he staggered toward the door.

“John!” she cried. “John!”

She sat up, forgetting her reproaches in sudden terror.

“John!” she shrieked. “Where are you going? Aren’t you going to help me? You know how I depend on you—you can’t leave me now——”

At the door he turned, glowering. “Help you do what?”

“Why—why help me—to punish them! I know their names—all of them! That young beast Chaero, son of Senator Polemon, was the leader of the Juventi. I recognized him—and others—even in the dark. I’ll give you their names. And worst of all, there’s Theodora, and all her contemptible little sluts, who were in on it. And——”

In spite of his head, the man laughed sneeringly. “You seriously expect me to busy myself in a whore’s revenge?”

“Whore? You never called me that before. You say you love me——”

“You flatter yourself—cow!”

“John!”

“Goodbye!”

She rose and clutched at him.

“Don’t—don’t go! After all we’ve been to each other—oh, John, what would I do——”

At her outcries, her hysterical pleadings, utterly selfish, utterly terrified, and utterly bewildered, he gave a grimace, half of pain and half of disgust.

“What you do is nothing to me! Drown yourself!”

Tearing away from her clinging hands, he was gone.

For a long, long minute Chione stood still. Then she threw herself prostrate on the bed and began a new weeping, a different sort of weeping.

The slave women blanched and huddled together, wondering what this new outburst might cost them and others in the household.

But they might have been spared their fear, for a different order of things already was established. There would be no more whippings.

By the time Chione was through with her tears, she had made up her mind what she must do. She had heard her doom pronounced. That was why there would be no more whips. She could not afford to mar her slaves any further, for they must be sold, and at once. She faced the immediate necessity of liquidating everything she could not carry, and with only her money and jewels, and perhaps one servant or two, leave the city as soon as possible.

All too well she knew the viciousness and cruelty of which John of Cappadocia was capable. No telling, now that he had turned against her, what he might do. Twenty-four hours she had—perhaps. Before the end of that time she must be far away, out of the immediate reach of the dread Excubitors.

It was thus that Constantinople lost, within a week of each other, her two most notable famosae. Not that their going created much of a ripple, beyond some gossip and laughter. There were countless candidates from the Street of Women to succeed them, and their places soon were filled.

3 }

Among the notes, accompanied by flowers and gifts, which continued to come to Theodora, was one from Hecebolus, to whom she had given a night such as no man, and certainly no Tyrian, really deserved. The new governor of Cyrenaica wrote:

At first she was a little annoyed by it, for she did not particularly like the Tyrian. She had found him swart and greasy, with a nose too large, a mouth too sensual, and eyes set too close together. Yet there was a streak of honesty in her as to her profession, that impelled her always to give full measure for what she was paid, even to men who actually repelled her. Not that Hecebolus really repelled her. He only left her cold. There was some strange indefinable quality about him that gave her a slightly creepy feeling. She had been with worse, far worse than he, but she felt sure she would be bored with him very quickly.

It is, however, sound business policy for a courtesan to listen to all offers, particularly when they are made by men who are rich, or potentially rich, and in, or about to be in, positions of power and authority. She remembered, for one thing, that Hecebolus had told her he was a friend of John of Cappadocia, the city prefect, who was all-powerful insofar as the affairs of the Street of Women were concerned. It might be well to cultivate any influence she might have with that official.

Therefore she dressed her prettiest, perfumed herself most distractingly, and awaited the Tyrian.

He came alone, and rather late.

“I’d have been here sooner,” he apologized, “but there were unavoidable delays. The vessel on which I’m sailing for my new post is being victualed, and I had to see my baggage aboard——”

“You’re leaving soon?”

“Tomorrow. At dawn, with the early tide.” He gazed at her, his eyes seeming almost to meet at the bridge of his large curved nose. “That’s why I begged this word with you. I haven’t much time.”

“I wish you all good fortune——”

“There’s one good fortune I particularly wish. And only you can give it to me.”

“What could I give—to a provincial governor?” She smiled.

“The highest of prizes. Perhaps I’m foolish to pray for it Theodora—beautiful Theodora—I want you!”

Hecebolus fell on one knee, and seizing her hands, covered her soft, perfumed fingers with kisses. “Come with me to Cyrenaica! I beseech you, Theodora! I’m unwed, and I desire you to become my mistress! You shall be queen of my palace! Say only the word, and I promise you shall enjoy every luxury, know every happiness, have every wish of your heart granted! And by so doing, you will at the same time make me happiest among men!”

She was astonished by this outburst: then amused by it. Waste herself in a remote province, when she could reign undisputed in Constantinople? And with this vulgarian, Hecebolus? She had difficulty keeping down her mirth.

Hecebolus renewed his urgings.

“You’ll be the beloved of a governor of a province! You can leave the life of a courtesan behind you! I’ll treat you as if you were my legal wife, thinking only of your happiness! Consent—I pray you, consent!”

It was true that beyond the peak of courtesanship there was one possible higher step for a girl like Theodora: to become the acknowledged mistress of a man with great possessions and power. Marriage, naturally, was not to be considered, since the Roman law forbade, under severest penalties, the marriage of any man of standing to a prostitute, actress, or innkeeper’s daughter—these three being considered essentially one and the same thing.

For that matter, to Theodora’s view, marriage had serious drawbacks. Never having known love in its highest emotional sense, and never expecting to know it, she considered mistress-ship preferable to matrimony. A wife had certain legal safeguards, and her children were legitimate, while those of a mistress were not: but a wife, under the grim Roman law, also was subject to her husband, who had over her almost the power of life and death, while a mistress had fewer obligations.

Theodora, who did not know who her own father was, did not consider the question of legitimacy of any great moment, nor, in fact, did general society of the time regard it in the same light that it would be considered in later ages. Property inheritance was what gave it chief importance. Illegitimacy was not particularly shameful.

All in all, she thought, it was better to be a mistress than a wife: provided the man who was your lover was lavish in his gifts of money, clothes, and jewelry. For always, if you grew tired of the arrangement, you could leave him, and take what he had given you, and he could not keep you against your will, unless you were a slave concubine, in which case, of course, the servile laws obtained.

Everything considered, however, Theodora, who had been brought up a courtesan and felt no shame for it, had no wish to become any man’s mistress, and certainly not of Hecebolus, in a place so outlandish as distant Cyrenaica, where life presumably was crudely provincial.

But to give an unequivocal refusal to any man, if it could be avoided, was not her way. One never knew when it might be expedient to change her mind. So she temporized.

“I thank you—for the honor you’ve paid me,” she said. “But I can’t give you an answer—now. I must have time to think.”

He rose from his knee, regarding her eagerly, like a dog begging for a tidbit from the table.

“You’ll be happy—I swear it!” he said.

“I’m sure I would—but——”

To Hecebolus, who thought himself lucky beyond his dreams in being appointed proconsul, it seemed now that the one thing needed to cap his fortune was this girl whose beauty would illuminate his palace.

“I have so little time!” he pleaded. “When will you let me know?”

“There’s so much to be considered—I’d have to change every plan——”

“It will be a myriad times worth it, beloved! Only think—to be mistress of a palace—chief among all your sex in the capital of a province—with a proconsul for your willing slave, his dreams only of pleasing you——”

Again he seized her hand and began kissing it as if he would devour it. She experienced a sensation of revulsion, but said as gently as possible, withdrawing her hand, “I simply can’t answer you now.”

“Then when?” he insisted.

When? Never. But womanlike, she gave him a smiling, ambiguous answer, “You might be surprised.”

It could mean everything. Or nothing. But it was all the satisfaction he could get out of her. Presently he departed, still vowing and protesting and pleading, but without either the flat refusal he had feared, or the full promise for which he had hoped.

4 }

The scrap of papyrus was thrust under the door after dusk had fallen and the evening meal was eaten.

This night Theodora had decided to rest, wherefore no guests were to be expected or admitted. It was Teia who saw the papyrus and brought it to her mistress.

On the thin paperlike surface two words were printed: At Once. And below, there was a crude drawing of a donkey.

Without a change of expression Theodora set the curl of papyrus aflame and watched it burn to ashes in the empty brazier into which she dropped it. She knew the hieroglyph referred to Hagg, whose donkey was almost a part of himself, and also that the summons was urgent.

“Bring my palliolum,” she told Teia.

When the servant fetched the scarf, Theodora wrapped it about her head in such a manner as to shroud her features.

“You’re not going out?” said Teia, aghast.

“Yes.”

“But domina—it’s—it’s not safe——”

“I must go. Don’t admit anyone in my absence—understand?”

“Yes, domina.”

Theodora closed the door behind her on Teia’s horrified face, and stepped into the night-darkened street.

During daylight hours Hagg usually was to be found beside the pedestal of the marble Aphrodite, in the square. But now the girl turned down the Street of Women, in the opposite direction.

This was the great hour of peril for a courtesan to be abroad. Not only was there the terror of encountering a band of Juventi on the prowl, but footpads, murderers, prison-breakers, gallows birds, fugitives from justice, thieves, and degenerates of all kinds lurked in the dark alleys and vacant doorways to pounce out on an unescorted woman. It was as much as a courtesan’s life was worth to be out at night in some of the brothel sections, especially if she were handsome, or young, or had jewelry of any value. This was attested by the frequent discovery in the mornings of incautious women dead in an alley, knifed or garroted, and the culprits rarely were discovered or punished for it.

All this Theodora knew as well as anyone, but she set out nevertheless with silent determination.

She did not see the shadowy figure detach itself from among the other night shadows across the street and furtively slip after her when she had gone less than half a square from her house.

The route she was taking was one she had known since childhood, the days when she squatted in the dust to beg, or kept watch for Hagg against the soldiers in the bazaar. Not in years had she traversed it, but even in the dark she remembered every foot of it. Terribly uneasy and worried she was at the thought of attempting it, and only her knowledge of Hagg and his ways, which told her that this summons must be of immense importance, could have induced her to run the risks she knew she must undergo.

It was not long before she became aware that she was being followed. An instinct, rather than any evidence of sight or sound, warned her.

For all her courage, which was unusual among women, she felt a tightening of her heart and a lump in her throat, as she hurried along, trying not to look back, trying not to appear frightened.

She came to a certain corner, and at this place turned down a dark and crooked alley. As she passed under a shadowy stone arch, she sensed rather than saw the batlike figure, brooding over her head in the darkness. Now her breath was coming irregularly with her terror: she had difficulty in preventing herself from running, useless as that would be, a desire almost irresistible because of her growing panic.

The shadowy pursuer came to the corner she had just left. She did not hear the whispered word dropped from the clinging figure over the arch, but the shadow turned in after her and the silent hunt continued.

Darker and still darker grew the night, blacker and yet blacker the tortuous labyrinth of narrow alleys through which she hurried. Her nostrils were offended by stenches from slops and decayed offal, and even in her fear the girl, with the invincible instinct of her sex, lifted her skirts daintily about her ankles to avoid the filth which she could not even see.

Invisible, within the pit-blackness of a doorway empty as the eye socket of a skull, a bundle of rags stirred as she passed. She heard the dry rustle of the movement, and her heart leaped into her throat as she quickened her pace, stumbling on the slippery unevenness of the alley, while the walls seemed to bend in upon her on either side, as if to trap her.

She knew the bundle of rags had crept out of the dark doorway and was stealing after her, a new nameless horror.

Terror began to overwhelm her, her eyes were like those of a startled gazelle, one hand clutched her skirts, the other was at her throat as if to still her panting breath. Only by a supreme exercise of will did she prevent herself from turning her head, to try futilely, in the dreadful night, to make out those who were closing in on her.

A sudden catch of breath—a tiny scream. Theodora halted in the gloom, shrinking against a wall.

Black, sinister like an evil thundercloud looming in the night, the creature stood, towering over her, arms outstretched, cupping her in the narrow space. He was a human vulture, a robber and murderer of women, a criminal of the lowest order, diseased and depraved beyond imagination, and he had her trapped.

“Where to, in such a hurry, little one?” At his words the girl smelled the brute’s sour, wine-laden breath.

“Nowhere,” she gasped. “An errand——”

He gave a cruel chuckle. “The errand can wait, I suppose?”

“Oh, no! I must hurry—please——”

Ducking her head like a rabbit, she tried to squirm under his outstretched arm.

“No you don’t, you little slut!” he snarled.

Foul hands clutched at her throat, and in the instant that he thrust his face up to hers, she had an impression in the darkness of bestial ugliness, a visage disfigured by scars, an eye gone, a brand on the cheek . . .

She screamed despairingly.

Suddenly, from behind her came a cry, “Mendici!”

Down the alley ahead, it was echoed, “Mendici!”

Nearer, again, “Mendici!”

Here and there it was repeated, in different voices and from afar as well as close at hand, “Mendici . . . Mendici . . . Mendici!”

And with the cries, a confusion of other sounds. Tappings of sticks on the shadowy pavements, irregular limping steps in the darkness, as if a multitude of strange, misformed people were converging hurriedly, fiercely, from every direction.

As if a cudgel had struck him a blow across the wrists, the footpad released Theodora and sprang back.

“Mother of God! I—I knew not——” he gasped.

With a hurtling leap he was gone in the blackness, leaving her leaning against the wall, panting and faint.

At the marauder’s flight, all sounds ceased. But Theodora now stood erect, and in the night her face bore a look of inexpressible relief and gratitude. She listened, and could hardly believe that a moment before the alley had seemed populous, so still was everything now.

Mendici . . . It was the rallying cry of the Brotherhood of Beggars, who could be terrible in their numbers in the darkness.

It had cowed the footpad. He knew not why the beggars took this girl under their protection. For him it was more than enough that they did. He escaped, glad that he got away with his life, for he knew of those who had incurred the displeasure of the Brotherhood, and had been torn to pieces by the fighting, smothering, scuffling mass of beggars, who had gathered in the darkness with their strange means of communication when a kill was deemed needful.

Theodora lifted her voice, “Brothers of the Road, I, Theodora, take from you my life this night.”

From the darkness a voice answered, “We be your guardians on this path, little sister. No step of yours but is watched by his command.”

“I thank you—and him,” she said.

There was no answer.

Again she began to walk, but now no longer in terror, though the way grew darker and more forbidding. Those who had followed her, watched her, had been beggars she now knew, their purpose friendly, not hostile, calculated for just such a sudden danger as had arisen when the footpad seized her.

Her road led downward now, very crookedly, and so steeply that it became in effect a sort of stairway, since there were frequent steps down, for which she had to grope with a foot, since she could not see them. Presently the stair became actual: an endless succession of uneven stone steps, going deep into depths of blackness, with walls so close that she could almost touch them on either side by extending her arms. She helped herself with a hand against one of them, feeling the stones sweating cold with moisture.

That she was descending to the dock area, the most lawless and dangerous of the city’s slums, she knew: and also that there were exactly 412 of these treacherous stone steps. Many times, in her childhood, she had counted them.

By day the narrow stair was crowded with persons on business to the city above, or to the docks below, porters carrying loads on their backs, or donkeys with huge burdens, for those sure-footed beasts could climb the steps as almost no other creatures could. But now, in the night, she met not a soul in all the time she spent in the descent.

She reached the bottom of the flight at last. Under her feet she felt the going grow irregularly level. At some little distance ahead were lights: the wharfs, which were policed and relatively safe. But her errand was not with the wharfs.

Instead she turned aside, down one of the innumerable alleys which led into a jumble of broken stone buildings, abandoned warehouses, and vacant lots, devoted to the dumping of broken timbers, debris, and refuse.

Among roofless houses, like empty honeycombs filled with blackness, she walked for some time. Now she heard ahead of her a sibilant hiss, “Ps-s-s-st!”

Knowing it to be a warning, she halted. Beside her loomed the bulk of a windowless stone edifice, which even in the night darkness she recognized as an old storage building, gutted decades ago by fire, and now no longer in use.

Almost under her hand a gate or door swung open, and without hesitation she walked into the black throat of a yawning passage.

Behind her the door closed as silently as it had opened.

So profound was the blackness in which she now found herself that it seemed to press in upon her, to take her breath away. She reached out an exploring hand, found a wall, and groped down the passage which seemed to descend underground.

It was not long. At the end of it she found the wood of a second door which opened at her push.

Even the feeble light within made her blink after the complete blackness from which she came.

It was a room in the cellar of the abandoned warehouse, like an underground tomb. Directly before her, on a rough bench, a saucer of oil with a lighted wick in it gave some illumination.

Beyond the crude lamp, reclining on a tattered couch, but with his great, scarred head propped up, and regarding her unblinkingly with his lashless eyes, was Hagg.

1 }

“You came quickly,” said the beggar.

“Your message said at once,” replied Theodora. “I did not cut my teeth on Hagg’s begging bowl for nothing.”

The scarred head nodded. “It is well. Here you’re safe.”

“I was sure I was in some peril. But what? Inform me.”

“Tomorrow morning, at cockcrow, the Excubitors will break into your house to arrest you. It’s lucky for you that the palace soldiery have grown so lazy that they dislike to move save in daylight, or to lose a night’s sleep. Also are you fortunate in that it would not be dreamed that you could have any warning—otherwise the Excubitors might already have come.”

“How do you know this?”

“The information came to me in devious ways, but not slowly,” said Hagg. “There are those in the palace, eunuchs and suchlike, who see and hear. They speak with certain who go in and out on menial errands—porters of food, garbage carriers from the imperial kitchens, and others of that kidney. And these in turn know some of our fraternity.”

Hagg paused, as Theodora nodded.

“I’ve not said this to you before,” he continued, “but for many years now I have been called protomendicus, which is to say the prince of beggars—if such an office among our poor rogues can be imagined. To me come all reports, for mine is the duty of laying down our laws, adjudging disputes, and at times giving orders for extraordinary measures and actions.”

“Of such an order I have been witness and beneficiary,” she told him. “Though at first I did not know it, from my house to this place I was guarded all the way.”

“Well guarded, little Theodora?”

“Once, when one sought to molest me in a dark passage, the cries of your people caused him to flee without harming me.”

Hagg gave the briefest of grins, a mere momentary splitting of his countenance, not mirthful but formidable, and instantly disappearing.

“Well for him that he did,” he growled. “Otherwise his entrails would have been pulled out of him, his eyes gouged from their sockets, his skull crushed by cudgels and crutches. We be weak and miserable, the objects of compassion from even the lowliest. But at times we are to be reckoned with.”

“None know better than I, who thank you for my life.”

Again Hagg nodded slightly. “To return to that of which we were speaking: it came to me, as I say, by these devious means, that a certain notable dignitary returned late to the palace from a banquet the night before, with a most grievous discomfort of the head——”

“That would be John of Cappadocia!”

“You know him, his nature?”

“Only that he is a gross and foul man, lacking the discrimination to see through the pretenses of a shallow creature like Chione.”

“Learn then that he is also most vain, and also malignant: a man who will wreak vengeance on any who cross him or incur his displeasure if he has the power to do so—though he accepts any rebuff from those above him with smiling and servile good humor.”

“This I can readily believe.”

“It so happened,” said Hagg, “that there were those in the palace, like Tribonian the legalist, and even Prince Justinian, who saw fit to make sport of him for the manner in which the entertainment he had sponsored went awry: in which, as I understand, the Cappadocian played no very dignified part, being drunk. Unable to reply to these, but with his vanity grievously lacerated, he is wild with rage and eagerness to punish——”

“You mean he’s fixed his anger on me?” she said with a sinking heart.

Gravely, he nodded.

“But it seems so—so beneath the dignity of a great prefect—to take notice of a little delicata——” she began.

“A dog will search out and crush a tiny flea that has bitten him,” Hagg replied. “Even a dog of the imperial kennels.”

She digested that. “What will this dog do?”

“He is to invoke the sumptuary laws against you.”

Theodora gave a slight intake of the breath. “Only against me?”

“You alone. Even the city prefect would hesitate to provoke such a hornets’ nest as would be aroused if he invoked those regulations against all in the Street of Women.”

The ugly injustice of this was evident, and also the peril.

For ages—since before the first of the Caesars—the sumptuary ordinances, regulating the dress and behavior of courtesans, had been on the statute books. The Roman Senate had forbidden meretrices to wear such garments of respectability as the stola, fillets for the head, and colors of any hue save shades of yellow. There were other prohibitions and conditions, and one of the most important was that courtesans must be registered with the city magistrates in order to ply their trade legally.

Yet so long had these laws been neglected that they were thought dead. Courtesans in Constantinople, if they chose, garbed themselves exactly as did the most virtuous matrons, without being called to account. Usually they did not so choose, preferring rather the vestments of Babylon and Syria, which though ranging through every tint and color, were similar in that their fabrics were so light and transparent that they seemed invented to render more visible the charms of the figure which they pretended to hide with their diaphanous gauziness. This, however, was due solely to their own volition rather than to any thought of the law, since women with fine forms will always reveal them if possible, as a matter of sheer instinctive feminine vanity. And even more importantly was this true in the case of the courtesans, because the sight of an exquisite figure, hardly more than filmed by its light covering, deprives men of all judgment.

Almost every day of her life Theodora violated the sumptuary laws, without even thinking of it, as did thousands of others. She dressed herself beautifully—and illegally—and she had never taken the trouble to register her name on the books of the magistrates.

Now, suddenly those laws which had lain forgotten were invoked, to punish her alone. Unjust it might be, but she knew well that the sumptuary laws, in the hands of a vindictive prefect, could be terribly effective, for their penalties were severe, including confiscation, imprisonment, even sale into slavery.

A momentary sickness of despair and bewilderment swept over her, for she knew the implacability and long reach of the arm of the Roman law. How could one like herself escape it?

2 }

After her first thrill of fear, however, Theodora became calm. In the presence of the peril she began to try to think out things as clearly as possible.

To Hagg, she said, “This is why your message was urgent. Again I thank you. But it means I dare not return to my own house. Oh, Hagg—what can I do?”

The note of despair in her voice can be forgiven: she was only eighteen, hardly more than a child in years, and save for this crippled beggar she had not a friend to whom she could turn at this moment.

“You’re safe here,” he reminded her.

“But I can’t remain here forever!”

“Disguised by my art, you can go forth and none will know you.”

“As a pedana? Or a beggar? I’d rather die first!”

“A beggar has given you refuge, Theodora.”

“Oh, Hagg! I crave your pardon!” Instantly she was contrite. “I’m a thoughtless and ungrateful girl not to remember, and my heart is sad in me if I’ve offended my friend——”

“I’m not offended. Youth speaks hastily and without thinking, and for many years I’ve known Theodora’s heart. But you must school yourself to patience. Over against the wall is a pallet. Try to sleep, for it will rest you.”

But she could not. Restless and anxious, she found it impossible to compose herself, even though she laid herself on the pallet and tried. She sought to be quiet, but the tears came and she felt them trickling down her cheeks in the dimness of the underground chamber, which was hardly relieved by the single crude lamp with its sickly yellow flame.

At length she heard the beggar say, “You’re not sleeping?”

“No——” She fought down a sob. “But I try——”

“I’d hoped you could. But you don’t find it easy. Let us talk then. It will take your mind off its woe.”

“But you need your rest,” she said.

“Never mind me. Often, for many nights on end, I sleep not. And on my donkey’s back, during the day, I have much rest. For me there is nothing to do but rest. Oh, little Theodora, I would accept your danger most blithely, if I also had your youth, and the strength that goes with it.”

She heard him sigh, and understood pityingly the secret tragedy of all cripples, which the world hears them express but rarely.

“My poor friend!” she cried. “And I worry you with my little concerns! Come then, let’s talk.”

“Of what shall we talk?” he asked.

“For lack of any better thing, the matters of your daily life.”

He ruminated. “My life? Well, child, a beggar’s life is not so bad. We be miserable and pathetic, to be sure, but we’re at least free, as not the greatest in Constantinople are free, for none bother themselves about us. And in our poor way we’re secure, since we’re not important enough to disturb. We eat, even when the poor who do not beg are starving; and though at times we may feed upon the tripes and entrails of beasts which are cast out of the slaughter houses, at other times we enjoy the choicest viands of the great feasts when we cry for alms in the streets before the houses where they are given. We see much without ourselves being seen; we hear all things, for none are so jealous of us that they do not utter words in our presence as they would in the presence of a cur of the alleys; as for the difference between the beggar and the patrician, it is only in degree.”

“You’re a philosopher, Hagg.”

“I’m a beggar. But I look at the best side of matters. And abide.”

“You say that as protomendicus you give laws. What laws?”

“We have many laws, child. Few know, but the Brotherhood of Beggars is strictly governed—and by its own consent, for all have a voice.”

“Tell me of the laws.” The girl was always interested in whatever came into her ken.

He considered. “I see no harm in it. You have handled the begging dish. I myself taught you the words of the beggar’s cant. Yes, you are, in a manner, one of us, and a discussion of our laws might pass the time.”

3 }

She prepared to listen, and he began.

“The essence of our law is the protection of the beggars from their own weaknesses. Every member of the Brotherhood must commit them to heart. I will recite the chief ordinances to you, so that you may see for yourself.”

The dim burrow under the ground was lost in shadows, save for the single yellow flicker from the burning wick in the saucer of oil. The girl could make out Hagg’s huge hairless head and brutally scarred visage, but little else. He began a grave intonation.

“Hear now the great laws of the Brotherhood of Beggars:

“First, inasmuch as all nations have their own methods of begging, and divers languages, all different, each man of our Brotherhood shall make himself familiar with the beggar’s cant, so that he can converse with all others of the Brotherhood, in whatever land or tongue, with none who hear them the wiser; and until such knowledge is gained and proved, none shall be admitted to the secrets of the Brotherhood.

“Second, all of the Brotherhood shall bear themselves civilly, not cursing or blaspheming in public, and keeping good order always, so that they will not incur the notice and displeasure of the authorities.

“Third, all brother rogues and beggars shall keep each to his own quarter, not infringing one upon another, except at such times when general leave is given, as at great banquets, weddings, and such like.

“Fourth, in taking places for begging, such as seats before cathedrals or churches, or at the gates of the palace, the rule of antiquity of possession shall be observed, and none shall dare usurp the place of another who holds it by right of precedence, or defraud him out of it by any means soever.

“Fifth, no member of the Brotherhood shall make any compact with mountebanks, musicians, poets, blind men, priests, or monks who go from door to door, or any others, unless these be accepted members of the Brotherhood.

“Sixth, no beggar may wear any new garment, except on the very day it is given him, but shall sell all new apparel and always appear instead in clothing that is rent, threadbare, and full of patches.

“Seventh, no beggar shall be in his bed after sunrise of a morning, but instead he shall be at his task of going abroad to gather alms. And a beggar may break his fast in the morning, if he have some morsel to eat, but in such case he shall always cleanse his mouth carefully, and above all appear not on the streets with his breath smelling of wine, or onions, or showing in any way that he has eaten, on pain of being held incapable and unfit to be a beggar.

“Eighth, no beggar shall carry, from the knife upward, any weapons or arms, save that he can carry one cane or cudgel, wherewith to defend himself if need be.

“Ninth, all beggars shall make known one to another all those houses where alms are to be had, especially where there is gaming, or a festival, or a wedding, or other event conducive to alms and gifts.

“Tenth, no beggar shall give consent, or suffer his children to serve or wait upon any man whom they shall acknowledge as their master, for their gains will be little and their labor much. But those beggars with children shall educate them in the arts of begging, and may use them, setting them out to call on passers for alms.

“Eleventh, no member of the Brotherhood shall commit any gross villainy, such as stealing, or snatching purses, or stripping children of their clothing, or like base action which might turn the anger of the populace against all beggars. And if he do so, he shall be excluded from the Brotherhood and informed against so that he will be arrested and punished.

“Twelfth, any member of the Brotherhood who invents or finds a new trick or cunning device to induce almsgiving, shall for the common good be bound to manifest it to the Brotherhood, so that it may be known to all. Provided, however, that for one year the first inventor of such artifice shall have the right to use and exercise the same, solely and without any other employing it without his permission.

“Thirteenth, in every city members shall choose a governor, and in case of disputations between two of them, the governor shall judge the rights of the case; but if either disputant is dissatisfied, he may bring the case before the protomendicus in Constantinople, whose decision shall always be final.

“Fourteenth, under pain of the displeasure of the entire Brotherhood and expulsion from the same, and such other punishments and retributions as may be deemed fitting, no man shall discover the secrets and mysteries of our trade to any not in the Brotherhood, and they shall be revealed only to such as have duly qualified by showing their familiarity with the cant, and willingness to obey our laws.”

Hagg paused.

“These be the chief of our laws,” he said. “There are others, covering minor points, but by these fourteen ordinances the beggars live, not only here but elsewhere, even in the Gothic and Frankish countries, even in Persia, and in India, and in nations remoter still.”

“And you laid down these laws?” Theodora asked, intensely interested.

“Some. But most, such as the first, third, and fourth, have been well and truly observed by beggars from time immemorial.”

“Truly, Hagg, you’re wise among men! I think the giving of laws the highest of all acts.”

“So also would I think, save for the observation of my life,” he said. “Kings and emperors win the title of ‘the great’ sometimes for giving wise laws. But they can do so more quickly and notably by being conquerors in warfare. Or even by being mighty builders, as of fortifications or highroads, or palaces or fleets of ships.”

“What of a just and kindly rule?”

He shook his head. “It signifies nothing in kingship. Mercy and justice are soon forgotten, but a bloody sword is always remembered.”

“Hagg, you should have been a statesman!”

Over his face a cloud came. “We are all bound to fate’s wheel. My fate is to beg, and for nothing else am I fitted. Behold me.” He indicated his shrunken figure, most strangely contrasting with the force and power of his head. “Could I do anything but cry for alms, when even to move about this room I must travel by my arms, like an ape, and can go nowhere without my donkey?”

“Oh, my friend, my heart is sore for you,” she said soberly.

But he grinned at her, in a manner at least feigning cheerfulness. “Concern not your heart over me, child. I am what I am. For the present we must instead think about your situation.”

“I have been thinking, but I’ve found no answer.”

“You can live here as long as you may wish—for the errands your little feet ran, when you were a child living under the fornices, in behalf of an old cripple on a burro.”

“Many, many thanks. But I can’t stay cooped up here, Hagg. I’d go mad!”

He nodded. “The bird of the air dies in the burrow of the mole.” For a moment he thought deeply, then he said, “If there were only some way to get you out of the city tonight. But the gates are closed, and by morning guards will be posted at all of them, on the lookout for you, and it will be too late——”

“Hagg!” she suddenly exclaimed. “You’ve given me a thought!”

She stopped, with a look of intense inner concentration. “Yes, I’ll have to chance it! There’s one hope for me—and I have no time to waste! Good Hagg—have you writing materials? A bit of parchment by preference? And someone who will carry a message very swiftly?”

4 }

A woman has the power, by doing or saying almost nothing, to build up in a man perfectly unreasonable and illogical hopes.

To the male imagination, an enigma is an almost irresistible temptation. All the feminine world knows this, and at times women will watch one of their number beguiling some man with mystery that exists in his mind only, it being perfectly transparent to them. And they will say, sometimes maliciously and sometimes with amusement, that they cannot understand why the poor fool does not see through her, though at the same time they are perfectly sure he will not see, and they therefore resign themselves to the inevitable outcome.

For there is an unwritten law among members of the sex which prevents one from interfering with another who has a man in her toils. Furthermore, it has been again and again proved that such interference, if attempted, usually does no more than confirm the poor male dupe in his delusions: by creating in him resentment against the woman who intervenes, as being unfair and perhaps jealous or unfriendly to the present object of his roseate fancies. Wherefore wise women let such affairs run their courses, and perhaps plot how they can use the same tactics when opportunity comes to them in turn. For if observation proves anything, it is that men universally love to be made fools of by women.

Thus, a word casually dropped by a girl, sometimes equivocal or even meaningless—or a smile, or a glance, or even silence with no expression on the face at all—will be turned over in a man’s mind later, and considered, and looked at this way and that, until he erects from it a whole structure of speculation, so complicated that it would astonish, if she knew it, the perhaps empty-headed little creature who is the cause of it all. For so men persist in convincing themselves that women are entrancing sphinxes, and continually seek to interpret their ambiguities.

When to such a natural advantage a really complex and intelligent woman brings carefully calculated strategy, the result is quite likely to be shattering—for the man. Even if he be one not too highly gifted with imagination, or the ability to appreciate what amounts to a truly divine art.

Hecebolus had received just such a dizzying touch from a very clever girl. Boarding his ship before daylight to take the early tide in his voyage for Cyrenaica, he shivered in the chill mist and gave one final half-angry, half-longing look back at the long dark walls of Constantinople overlooking the quays.

He regretted having to depart so soon from the capital and would not have done so except for express orders, because there was a bit of unfinished business there—that girl, the little courtesan Theodora.

Somewhat bitterly, Hecebolus considered that he had an investment in her. At the climax of the revel at Chione’s, during the “auction,” when she, the brilliant star of the evening’s performance, laughingly stood on a stool which they called in jest the “block,” he had been so carried away by wine, and the desire to boast of winning the chief prize of the occasion, that he bid for her a round hundred solidi before the others dropped out of the competition.

A hundred solidi! It was a goodly sum for a single night’s pleasure, and Hecebolus had all a Levantine’s grasping nature where money was concerned. He did not place the value on sex that some men seemed to do, wherefore the expenditure of so much gold became a sort of annoyance in retrospect, although he was forced to admit to himself that the girl, as women went, was superb, having a combination of ardor and little arts beyond and outside of all previous experience for him. Still, for one night . . . a full hundred gold pieces of the empire was certainly an extravagance.

The girl was beautiful, however, and Hecebolus experienced the same wish to possess her that he sometimes felt for other objects of unusual value, such as jewels, or statuary, of which he considered himself a connoisseur. He was planning his regime in the new provincial governorship, and it is well known that a man’s prestige is enhanced when he is able to display a woman who excites general admiration.

For these reasons, which had to do with his vanity rather than to any overweening passion in his nature, he besought Theodora to go with him to Cyrenaica. Having only a few brief minutes to devote to this, snatched from his pressing business of departure, he felt he had not presented his case as well as he might. She had greeted him not warmly, but almost coldly. She smiled, but he found he could not interpret that smile. When he made his offer, she thanked him but temporized. It was a proposal, he thought, that should have flattered any courtesan, but she had not seemed to consider it so, and when he pressed for an answer she gave him one that baffled him.

You might be surprised . . . that was all she said.

The words kept running through his head through all those final hours, in spite of the numerous details of his affairs. So short had run his time that he had not been able to say farewell to his patron, John of Cappadocia. Though he called at the prefect’s office, it appeared that John was very busy with some matter of which Hecebolus had no knowledge, and since a final duty call on Prince Justinian was an official necessity, he had to leave without seeing the Cappadocian.

By this, though he had then no inkling of it, he barely missed learning of the prefect’s rage against the very girl about whom he was thinking, which might have changed some things for Hecebolus.

As it was, his disappointment somewhat poisoned his anticipation of the new honors and powers he was to enjoy. That delicata . . . somehow, until the very last, he had hoped to hear from her. Yet now he was aboard his vessel, ready to cast off moorings, and not one word.

With a gesture of irritation he turned from the dark towering walls above and went aft to the cabin which had been furnished and prepared for him.

As he opened the door he had, for some reason, an odd premonition. Even so, he was unprepared to see her sitting in the cabin awaiting him.

“You . . .?” he gasped.

She rose. “Yes.”

“You came after all!”

“Am I not here?”

“But—I didn’t expect—I’d given up hope——”

She smiled. “I said you might be surprised.”

“Yes. Yes, I remember. You did say that. But I’m dumbfounded.”

He closed the door behind him.

She stood looking at him without speaking, the smile still on her lips, but a question growing in her mind.

Hecebolus did not rush over to her as most men would have done. Instead, he remained standing, staring at her, with the closed door at his back.

“Where’s your baggage?” he asked.

“I brought none.”

“Not even clothing?”

Questions of this kind, at a moment when the average man would have one thought in his mind, puzzled her. Again she felt a vague uneasiness about him. This man did not react according to the normal patterns with which she was familiar.

Her smile faded. “Save what I’m wearing, I brought nothing.”

“Why didn’t you send me a message? I’d have sent porters——”

“It was a decision of the final moment. You told me you sailed with the early tide. There was no time.”

This remarkable statement might have aroused suspicion, but the perpetual vanity of Hecebolus worked for her. He interpreted it as an action due to an overwhelming impulse which was a tribute to his personal attractions.

“I might delay casting off—for an hour——” he hesitated.

It was exactly what she did not want! Quite evidently he did not yet know that she was proscribed. Of immense importance was it to get under way before word of that reached the docks.

She lowered her eyes as if modestly, but really to consider how she could use her influence most decisively on this man. When she raised them he was still standing at the cabin door.

“Isn’t your sailing time important?” she asked. “As for me—it’s a short voyage—and there are shops in Cyrenaica I believe?”

From the deck they heard sudden cries. Her eyes widened momentarily, but he did not know it was fear he saw in them. The shouts were only those of the mariners pushing away from the wharf, and raising the lateen sail as the first rays of the morning sun gilded the topmost towers of Constantinople. In a moment the motion of the cabin floor beneath their feet showed that the vessel was moving. The die was cast: they could not now wait for baggage, or anything else.

“I suppose it’s too late to worry about it,” he said.

“You haven’t even said you’re glad I came,” she pouted.

“Of course I am. Didn’t I ask you to come?”

Not exactly the words of a man overwhelmed by passion. But the girl relaxed and threw him a glance which seemed to him lengthy and caressing. And with it she gave him a little smile that trembled with invitation.

Hecebolus laid his cloak on a seat, and walked over to collect from her the first usury on his new investment.

5 }

The long glance Theodora cast at him before he went to her was interpreted by Hecebolus as love, but actually it was intense speculation.

Men are important to women, in a way entirely different from the importance of women to men; and every woman invariably appraises each new man she meets, even if it be only a casual encounter, for there is no telling what part he may somehow play in her life. Especially is her appraisal searching if he be of the age and circumstances which include even a remote possibility of a closer relationship. For love, of which a man thinks in terms of intimacy and pleasure, is even more intimate to a woman, and far more momentous, since to her its consequences are infinitely farther reaching.

She who lives in a conventional walk of life, in which she may reasonably expect a normal courtship, a gradual awakening of friendship and regard before actual love, should it come, and finally a proposal of honorable marriage, with its promise of security, can afford to be leisurely in reaching a final decision as to whether there is in the man anything she can admire.

Not so with a courtesan. She is subject to conditions other women do not know, chief of which is that she makes love often with men she has never seen before, and if she be an honest prostitute, gives them their money’s worth. For her there can be no interludes of delicate interplay of looks and words, of indecisions, despairs, and hopes—which are, to women, the very essence of the delight of coming to an understanding in love. Instead, the courtesan comes almost immediately to the primitive struggle of sex: which is a pity, really, and a waste of an extravagantly beautiful emotional adventure, due as much as anything to the selfishness, lack of imagination and brute eagerness of men.

So a woman who must know many lovers acquires the habit of a quick, almost instantaneous appraisal of each new man. Invariably Theodora took swiftest notes of the best points, to make up for those not so good. A man too bony might have fine eyes, and to that feature she would devote her attention. One with bad teeth might possess strong and rugged limbs; one who was fat, a virile countenance. With each she chose what to her mind was his best trait, and concentrated upon it her thought in what was to ensue. By this means she found it possible to like almost all men, so that with the exuberance with which nature had endowed her, she enjoyed courtesanship, rather than disliking it, especially since becoming a delicata and receiving only the better class of men, even choosing or refusing lovers at times.

Now, however, she was confronted by a situation vastly different: one lover, to whom she must be faithful . . .

With momentary panic she realized that she had surrendered her freedom both of mind and body. And for whatever its value, the fillip of variety, which is always stimulating in sex, was to be denied her henceforth.

From the night at Chione’s she knew the kind of lover Hecebolus was . . . greedy, exacting, vain and demanding compliments, somewhat prurient in his sensualism.

But something else, a dim question which she could not even express as yet, existed in the back of her mind, disturbing her. Perhaps it was a hint of cruelty in him . . . or some other concealed quality, she knew not just what.

Whatever it was, she was in for it and must make the best of it. She hoped she could make Hecebolus love her greatly, since she was putting her fate in his hands. But already she was unsure, a new experience for her with a man, and baffling.

Their first embrace, there in the cabin, did nothing to enhance her impression of him.

But within a matter of half an hour after that, she was able to ponder alone. Hecebolus was a bad sailor, the chop of the sea turned him green, and all at once he was sick, while she held the basin.

“Go—send for Lynnaeus—my physician——” he gasped.

The proconsul’s personal slaves were quartered below decks in the bow of the ship, but she went to the cabin door and called a deck boy to run the errand.

Lynnaeus came, and stood beside the bunk on which Hecebolus lay, placing his hand on the Tyrian’s forehead. Standing by the cabin door while the slave ministered to his master, Theodora swiftly measured the physician with her glance. He was a Greek, about thirty, with a lean, intellectual face, thick brows meeting above the bridge of his nose, and a mouth sensitive and well formed. A likable face, even in a slave.

Then it occurred to her that the physician was well able to attend Hecebolus without her, and she went out on deck. Not even a supremely attractive man is a figure of romance when he is seasick, and the unfortunate Hecebolus was especially pitiable and ridiculous, his head wrapped in a wet napkin, his eyes closed, his mouth drawn with woe.

Theodora experienced no seasickness. She stood by the ship’s rail on the heaving deck, indifferent to the eyes of the mariners which were devouring her, as the wind outlined her body by pressing her dress against it. Since she could remember she had been devoured by the eyes of men: it was an inevitable corollary of being a woman, and she was so accustomed to it that it made her in no wise uncomfortable.

As she stared across the bright waves at the distant Thracian mountains, she thought with relief that for the time being at least she was safe from John of Cappadocia and his Excubitors. And she by no means despaired of making the new life into which she had plunged a pleasant one, perhaps even a rich one.

Nobody on deck ventured to address her. It was known to all that she belonged to the proconsul, and men have a way of being more jealous over their mistresses than their wives. Presently the sailors went on about their work, no more than stealing the looks which men always will steal when a tempting woman is in their field of vision. Theodora had her breakfast brought up there on the deck.

That day and the next the ship followed the Grecian shore line of the Propontis, and on the second night they beat out through the Hellespont into the Aegean Sea. She spent much of her time in the cabin which had been assigned to her next to that of Hecebolus: sometimes listening to his groanings and retchings, for he was slow in recovering, and while he was sick was too miserable to wish to see anyone except the slave-physician who attended him—even a pretty new mistress.

Once or twice she spoke to Lynnaeus when he came out of the cabin to inquire as to his master’s health. When the slave answered her he kept his head bowed and his eyes steadfastly on the deck, yet his obvious intelligence and the faint lines near his mouth, which suggested most powerfully the dreariness, the harshness of long-continued hopelessness, interested her in him. Since obviously he was uncomfortable in her presence, she dismissed him soon, but could not help wondering about his history. It was very apparent that he was no common brutish slave, and though she had been accustomed to the institution of slavery all her life, she felt pity for this man.

Sometimes she watched the sea birds skimming over the tossing water, or stared almost unseeing at some distant island they were passing, and reflected on the last unhappy hours in Constantinople. One act of hers gave her satisfaction. Even in the final fever of escape, she took time and thought for one poor creature who was dependent on her and involved in her fate: Teia. It was in behalf of Teia that she asked Hagg for the parchment and ink, which he as protomendicus chanced to possess.

When the soldiers found her gone, she knew they would seize her property, including the slave girl. Teia would be sold like any other chattel, and without doubt would end in a stabulum—a fate Theodora would not wish on her worst enemy. Her final act, therefore, was to write out a conveyance making over full ownership of Teia to Antonina, with a note accompanying it begging her to take the girl into her household before the Excubitors came, and treat her well. Antonina could be counted on to act with decision, where Chrysomallo might hesitate and move too late.

After the first days the voyage became monotonous, though they had favorable winds and made a good, though somewhat rough passage. She saw little of Hecebolus, who continued to ail and made no further demands as a lover upon her. Rather he was fretful, complaining with a curious nagging pettiness that sometimes took the form of abusing the patient Lynnaeus.

Theodora made all allowances and tried her best to please the governor in his ill-humor, but he preferred, obviously, to be alone, and after visiting him twice each day, she was glad enough to spend the rest of the time away from him.

That he did not ask from her so much as a caress she attributed to the proconsul’s sickness. And it was perhaps well, she reflected, for she was driven to extremes of improvisation to keep up her appearance. Throughout her young life apparel and the care of her face and hair had consumed much of her time and thought. But on this ship, where she was the only woman, she possessed but the single gown in which she stood, and not even a comb, except the small ones that held her hair in place, or any cosmetics of any kind.

Hecebolus never guessed her feminine expedients. Each night her tunica was washed carefully and hung up in her cabin to dry. Nightly she bathed—in spite of the shipmaster’s complaints at the amount of fresh water from his casks she required. She discovered a red leather belt belonging to Hecebolus—Illyrian leather it was—from which by wetting her finger and rubbing she could get coloring. The belt found its way into her cabin, and it was that which gave the tint to her lips, as well as the light flush to her cheeks. Merely to see her—pretty, fresh, and without an apparent worry—a man would never have guessed her concerns.

6 }

One day a dense gray fog which had hung over the sea suddenly lifted, and they saw the coast of Africa, bright and clear in the sunlight. There was a range of violet mountains, nearer hills with slopes clothed with vegetation, and a bay with a clustering of white buildings rising from it, looking as if they were carved from mellow ivory.

At the hail of the watch, Hecebolus came on deck. He was hollow-eyed and morose, but the sea had subsided under the fog and he was not at the moment experiencing his stomach qualms. For a moment he stood staring at the distant shore.

The shipmaster was near, giving orders whereby a large imperial flag was raised to the tip of the mast.

“Why are you hoisting the flag?” the proconsul asked.

“That’s Apollonia, Excellency,” said the bearded mariner. “When I sailed from here two months ago, Phrates, the master of the port, requested that if I returned, as anticipated, with the new governor, I should display the imperial banner at the masthead, so they can be ready.”

“Ready for what?” Hecebolus asked.

“Why, Excellency, to greet their new proconsul in fitting fashion, to be sure. Luckily for them, it will take us a couple of hours, with this light breeze, to make the wharf. That should give them plenty of time to get out the military escort and make such other preparations as are appropriate for greeting a governor of a province.”

“Hum,” said Hecebolus, “a military escort, eh?”

“To be sure. And undoubtedly, since we’re expected at about this time, there has been a gathering of the chief men of the five cities, who will all be at the dock, Excellency.”

“I see. As you say, the chief men.”

Hecebolus dismissed him.

“Apollonia is our capital,” he said to Theodora. “It’s one of the five Cyrenaican cities, which together are called Pentapolis. Glad am I to see land again after this accursed sea!”

But he remained staring toward land. After a time he turned to her with a curious expression of uneasiness on his face.

“I—hardly know what to do,” he said to her.

“What do you mean, Excellency?”

“This—ah—proconsulship is new to me. It—it occurs to me that I hardly—ahem—know what’s expected of me. Do I make a speech?”

She was half amused, and yet the man’s doubt was real enough.

“I think no speech is expected from you,” she said, “although they will do some speechifying. If this follows the pattern of such affairs in Constantinople, you are safe to attire yourself as richly as possible, let them come to you, preserve gravity of countenance, and let them understand that you are to be obeyed and respected. A ceremonial undoubtedly is planned by these provincials, and you need only follow the leads indicated, for I am sure the highest and most important role will be reserved for you, and you will receive perhaps more adulation than you desire, since these people all wish to gain your favor.”

His face cleared. “I need only stand on my dignity?”

“And be hailed as the chief personage in the province.”

He nodded. “Good. I had this all in mind, but I wished to see if you understood the matter.” She could have smiled at that.

A moment later he said, “Be ready to go ashore at once.”

“At once?” she gasped. “I can’t! I can’t possibly!”

He turned on her with displeasure. “Why not?”

“Just look at me! I’m destitute for clothes! I haven’t had a change in the whole voyage——”

His scowl deepened. Obviously an appeal to his sympathy was not the proper strategy. She swiftly changed tactics.

“Would you—making your first appearance as proconsul—have your mistress appear with you looking like a beggar?”

It had not particularly occurred to Hecebolus that she looked like a beggar. But the appeal to his vanity was cunning. Perhaps, he thought, her appearance might be improved, thus doing him more credit.

“How long will it take?” he asked.

“Three hours at the very least.”

The scowl returned. “Three hours? With a delegation waiting to greet me——”

“Let it wait! Are you not to govern this province? Impress them with the fact! It will do them good to abide and learn to respect your pleasure.”

He still frowned, but the last sentence won the battle. Though he grumbled that all this delay was unreasonable, he ordered her wishes carried out: that some suitable clothing be procured from the town, and a woman fetched to dress her hair and beautify her. The more he thought of keeping the delegation waiting, the more it appealed to him. He withdrew to the shade of his cabin.

So it happened that after the governor’s ship was moored at the quay, the reception delegation, consisting of the military and civil officers, the merchants, landowners, aristocrats, and others considered worthy of gracing the occasion from all the five cities—together with two companies of horse guards, three of heavy infantry, and a military band, among them wearing or carrying enough iron, brass, leather, and wood, in weapons, armor, and musical instruments to load a small ship—stood fuming and perspiring in the hot African sun for three mortal hours, while one young woman made herself ready for what she considered a suitable appearance.

When Theodora at last came forth, it was almost worth the wait, for the new gown from ashore was snowy-white, ornamented with gold, most becoming; and she was very bright of eye and lip, very graceful of figure, her hair beautifully arranged—altogether a creature so charming to look upon that the hot and angry officials, prominent men, and soldiers ceased being so hot and angry, and admired her instead.

She put her slim little hand on the wrist of Hecebolus, who had arrayed himself gorgeously in purple, gold, and scarlet, and together they walked down the gangway.

The military band blared. Various sleek and highly dressed personages came forward, knelt before the proconsul, and rose to make lengthy speeches extolling him and assuring him of their loyalty. During this, the proconsul’s small mistress, who was excluded from it, stood silently. And though she received more than her share of side glances, even when personages were addressing the governor, it seemed to her that the ceremony of greetings was interminable.

But eventually she entered the litter provided for her. The eight bearers lifted it to their shoulders with a single well-trained movement. She lay at ease, and felt precious and beautiful, and hoped she looked the part of the favorite of the governor of a province.

The band struck up a marching air, and the procession went into motion. First a company of the mounted guard, in steel helmets, cuirasses, and scarlet capes; then the band, all drummers gyrating their arms as they pounded the rhythm; next the foot soldiers, lances slanted back and shields swinging on their arms; now the proconsul’s litter, followed by that of the proconsul’s mistress, with a line of clanking infantrymen guarding them on either side; the dignitaries, walking four abreast; and finally the second company of scarlet-caped horse guards, bringing up the rear. Although it hardly compared with the great processions of Constantinople, the little parade was not without color.

From the sea Apollonia had seemed beautiful to Theodora, with its ivory buildings rising tier on tier up the hillsides, its long mole extending out like an arm, and its vessels anchored in the bay. Seen more closely, however, the illusion of beauty disappeared.

Narrow to begin with, the streets seemed even narrower because of the architecture of the houses, the second floors of which, supported by pillars of cedar or stone, overhung from the first, sometimes almost touching walls above the thoroughfares. All buildings were of stone, flat-topped, whitewashed, and windowless, save for a few narrow slits protected by gratings of iron or wood, which gave them the appearance of monotonously similar fortifications. All streets, besides being narrow, were filthy and smelly, the flies rising in clouds from the corruption on which they bred in the gutters.

Everywhere, in the streets, at the grated windows, and on the house-tops, crowds clustered. Some shouts and cheers greeted the procession, but Theodora thought the applause rather perfunctory than enthusiastic.

Now she discovered suddenly a new experience and new ordeal. For the first time in her life she was an important figure in a public procession, and it was very different receiving the stares of the populace from the ordinary casual masculine stares to which she was accustomed.

Everywhere she was confronted by faces—thousands of faces. Greek, Roman, Negro, Egyptian, Jew, Levantine, nomadic Berber faces. Upon her she felt the stares of thousands of pairs of eyes, and they made her uneasy and self-conscious. Of the women’s eyes she was especially aware. It seemed to her that they were appraising her—those thousands of her own kind—judging her by the feminine standards which every woman fears. Searching for defects in her. Hostile to her already. Gathering in little knots as soon as she passed to compare notes and see who could say the most cutting thing about her.

One quarter, as the procession passed through it, she recognized instantly. There the city’s harlots, the irrepressible ones, sat on their house-tops and kept up a running fire of personal comments, calls, invitations, jeers, tappings, and whistles directed at the grinning soldiers of the escort. But these women grew silent also when the official litters passed, and again Theodora felt upon her the massed stare of female eyes, and wondered if any of her history was known to these.

The lower city was left behind, and the procession steadily mounted up a steep hill street. Public buildings began to appear, more imposing than the huddled structures of the water front. Theodora saw a basilica, an aqueduct, reservoirs, a small hippodrome, public baths—and a theater. She wondered if she would be permitted to attend the theater, and how it would feel to be a spectator instead of a performer.

Crowning the hill was a sprawling white building with a red tile roof, surrounded by a wall containing well-gardened grounds. Before the gates, in double rank, the guard of honor ranged itself.

Hecebolus of Tyre, by the will of Justin, Emperor of the Romans, the new proconsul of Cyrenaica, and his young mistress stepped out of their litters and entered the palace which was to be their residence.

1 }

From the very first nothing worked out as Theodora expected or hoped, and it was appallingly evident that her experiment in Africa was a failure.

She was homesick for Constantinople, the climate was uncomfortable, and the interests few. But these things she could have endured.

Her problem was Hecebolus. She knew how to handle men, or thought she did. But hitherto she had never been confronted by the long, steady effort of managing one single man over weeks and months. And particularly a man of a kind such as she never before had encountered, who seemed all wrapped up in himself, like an Egyptian mummy, and against whom it was impossible to play the usual woman’s game of divergent interests or possible rivals.

In her first dealings with him she had made a crippling mistake, yet looking back on it she did not know how she could well have avoided it.

Because she came fleeing to him from danger—though he did not know it—she was over-anxious to please him. On the voyage, when he told her to come to him, she came at once; when he bade her go, she departed. In all other matters she was equally obedient. Even her brief assertion of herself, when she delayed the landing at the quay while she was fittingly attired, succeeded not so much because she wished it, as because it pleased him to keep the delegation waiting. His mind was of such nature that he accepted this docility on her part as a rule, fixed and rigid, and when later she attempted to diverge from it, there was an outburst to which she was forced to bow, still further underlining her subjection.

In this there were seeds for deep ponderings:

A woman’s time of greatest power with a man is at the very first, when she is new and fresh to him and he is eager to please her. Also, uncertainty is assuredly one of woman’s mightiest weapons.

So long as she flutters just beyond reach, she seems to a man the most important thing in the world, worth every effort to capture and hold, and this is the time, when she is not fully won, for the bargaining under which understandings are made and precedents established to her advantage. But once a woman becomes a fixture, a part of a routine, it is infinitely more difficult for her to make any gains for herself, for nothing is more deadly than to be taken for granted.

Even so, and with a start so bad, Theodora believed that she could have engrossed Hecebolus with herself had he been an ordinary man. This is not to say that he was an exceptional man, in the sense of having high abilities or qualities, but he was a strange man and ambiguous.

Sometimes she sat and tried to analyze him deliberately: a new experience, since always hitherto she had analyzed men instinctively and immediately. But Hecebolus baffled her.

In all matters concerned with avarice and power over other men, he was very cunning. But even when she went to the greatest lengths to enthrall him, he appeared to have an indifference toward her, perhaps even contempt of her, against which she fluttered uselessly and ever more weakly.

Far too many men are fools in their dealing with women. Not that a man need understand them: it is not man’s prerogative to understand. But if he know only enough to pay the small attentions to a woman, give the little flatteries and evidences of pleasure in her presence, make the occasional small gifts, all of which singly are unimportant, but taken together become all-important to the feminine mind, since they are proofs of fealty to her womanhood, he stands good chance of the reward of her smiles, her regard, perhaps her love.

For all his shortcomings, Hecebolus might have won for himself the exquisite imagination of a girl who was the essence of imagination, the fire-flame passion of a creature who was a flame herself, by simple kindness and a show of fondness. Even had Theodora not loved him she would loyally have played out the game with him from gratitude.

But Hecebolus was too stupid, selfish, and vain to gain her respect even. The oddity was that he did not seem to care whether he had it or not.

He established her in the gynaeceum, the woman’s quarters, while he lived in the opposite wing of the palace. At first he visited her frequently of nights. As a lover she found him sensual but not particularly potent. He was not physically appealing to her, being inclined to greasiness about the nose and neck, with features self-indulgent rather than manly.

But these things she could abide. It was other characteristics in him that sometimes frightened her. He had, for instance, a streak of cruelty. Always he had been conceited and grasping, but the obsequious manner with which the Cyrenaican provincials treated him as proconsul, increased his self-importance to arrogance, his greed to corruption. A manifestation of this was that though others might treat Theodora with respect, he never forgot or permitted her to forget that he had taken her out of a brothel, and he played this note over and over as if it gave him pleasure to humiliate her.

In conversation he was insufferably boring, talking endlessly and forever about himself, so that sometimes she could hardly endure the weariness of it.

There were entire nights when he wanted of her nothing but that she listen to his bragging and praise him. The ritual was well worked out, and she knew her answers, however sickening it was to flatter this pig of a man.

“You never thought, first time you saw me, that you’d live in a governor’s palace, did you?” he would ask.

“No, Excellency. I never dreamed it,” she would reply dutifully.

“Lucky for you I came along, eh?”

“My good fortune is beyond my hopes, Excellency.” He might have noted, though he did not, that she never used any endearment in addressing him. This much she could not bring herself to do.

“You must admit I’ve done pretty well,” he next said complacently. “Proconsul at forty—that’s not to be sneezed at, you know.”

This had been gone over many times, but patiently she gave the expected reply: “I’m continually amazed at your wonderful success.”

“It’s not easy, you know—governing a province. People try to cheat me. Disobey orders and take advantage of me in every way. But I know how to handle the dogs. Throw the fear of God into them. I caught a tax farmer, just today, holding out taxes on me. You know—they bid in a district to collect the levies on shares. We call them tax farmers.”

He had the habit of explaining such simple matters as if she were a not very bright child, although she understood them perhaps better than he. But she nodded as if grateful for the information.

“This fellow,” he continued, “was ‘protecting’ a village—seems his family lived in it, and there’d been some sort of a crop failure. Took it on himself to think they couldn’t pay the tax. Neglected to mention the little matter in his report. But he didn’t reckon with me.” A self-gratified smirk. “I don’t leave much to guesswork where money’s concerned. Had a list of the villages in his district, and nailed him. You should have seen his face!”

He stopped to chuckle at the drollery of the tax farmer’s stricken look.

“What did you do with him?” she asked.

“He’ll die, naturally. You can see him beheaded tomorrow, if you care to ride down to the municipal prison. As for the village, it’s occupied by soldiers now, and they’ll tear it down to the foundations if the tax isn’t paid—doubled, as a penalty. Teach them not to try playing the fox with me!”

The man was a beast, decidedly, and such unnecessary ferocity sickened her. But she could only say, “Anyone’s a fool, surely, to try to match wits with your Excellency.”

Such blatant flattery, for he had not the discrimination to see through it, often sent him away preening himself and satisfied.

At other times—though rarely—he wanted no talk, only a gross wallowing in pleasure, without consideration for her wishes or feelings. That she might despise him while she submitted to him, either did not enter his head, or was unimportant.

These infrequent trials of his manhood usually came when he was drinking, and therefore especially offensive. At such times he derived a vicious pleasure out of taunting her in the coarsest manner, while demanding with odd insistence that she praise his virility, as if he needed some sort of assurance in this matter.

“Where’d you be, my fancy little lady,” he would begin, after his embraces, “if I hadn’t picked you up when you were nothing but a slut in the Street of Women?”

“I’d be nowhere,” she would answer, to please him.

“You’re still a slut—know that? Little bitch with a pretty face, but after all a bitch. Lucky for you I like bitches—know that?”

“I—I’m glad, Excellency.”

“What if I got tired of you?” His expression became leeringly evil, the black eyes, set close on either side of the long curved nose, watching her closely for any change in her look.

“I don’t know what would happen to me,” she said in a low voice.

“Well, kiss me.” He slobbered over her mouth for a moment. “I like bitches, as I said. Especially when they love me. You love me, don’t you?”

“Yes, Excellency,” she lied, though she could have screamed.

“How much?”

“More than the world.” It was sickening, but what could she say?

“Why?”

“Because you’re a—a great man—a ruler——”

“Be honest with me—it’s because I’m a good lover, isn’t it?”

“Well—ye-es——” She hesitated.

“Come now—an exceptional lover?”

She nodded, eyes lowered. “Yes—exceptional.”

“Best you ever had?”

“The best. Much the best.” Another lie, but he accepted it, and though it was forced from her it seemed to gratify him, as if for some mysterious reason it reassured him to hear her say it.

But his coarse nature would not leave it without a slur.

“It’s all you women want, isn’t it?” A nasty grin of the full lips. “Live in your senses, all of you—never think of anything above the waistline. But I like it that way. Give me a woman that’s a little bitchy, and all sex!”

This last sounded curiously like a boast, although it was nothing in particular to boast about. And at the same time a sneer at all women.

She came to loathe these visits. And at times the thought of him could send a chill of dread through her. What would she do, if he turned against her?

With sickening force she realized that the one thing of which she had assured herself—the right of a mistress to end her connection with a man whenever she desired to do so—was impossible here. She was virtually a prisoner in the palace, and where would she go if she left it? No man in the province would shelter her for fear of Hecebolus’ anger. Sometimes she longed for the old days as a courtesan in Constantinople. But not here. She had seen the harlot section in Apollonia. It made her shudder.

2 }

The gynaeceum, which was in the westward wing of the palace, seemed to Theodora quite splendid when she first inspected it. Her bedroom was richly furnished, and she had a bath large enough for twenty charming young women to have disported themselves in it at once. She had also her own courtyard and garden, walled in and quite private; her own kitchen and dining room; and quarters for a retinue of servants assigned solely to her personal service.

These included five eunuchs and twice that number of female slaves. It was her first experience at being attended by eunuchs, and when three of them presented themselves as masseurs and hairdressers in her bath the first morning, it was a somewhat distasteful surprise, for she did not quite like them in these most intimate services.

So essentially female was the girl, that men had to her an especial meaning. They possessed mysterious powers and perplexing weaknesses, and they sometimes were kind and generous and admirable, at others evil, cruel, and terrifying, but always they were of interest, and the game with them the most absorbing she knew, the one she understood best.

To have about her, therefore, travesties of men made her uncomfortable and impatient. With never ending contempt she observed that when her body lay nude and passive under the hands of the eunuchs, its perfections were not even noticed by the sexless creatures, much less stirring them.

Eventually she dismissed the eunuchs to other services and had for her personal attendance women only. And throughout her life thereafter when she had eunuchs in her employ, she used them only in secretarial or household duties, and never in services for her body.

The first novelty of her life soon wore off in boredom. Save for her occasional appearances in public, when it pleased her master to bring her forth and exhibit her, she saw no man but Hecebolus.

At the beginning there were several state dinners in succession which she attended. As one manifestation of his greed, Hecebolus loved ostentation. To show off gems, objects of art, garments, or any other thing that might indicate his wealth, or excite the admiration or envy of others fed his vanity. A facet of this was to flaunt before the eyes of other men a woman so choice as his young mistress.

The first time he ordered Theodora to make ready for a banquet, she went to more than common care in attiring and adorning herself, so that Hecebolus was pleased. She rather dreaded the public appearance, fearing that the women at the dinner would find overmuch to criticize in her. But the affair, a respectable one with the wives of the province’s leading men present, was surprisingly devoid of unpleasantness. She was, to be sure, a focus of interest and discussion, but she was not shunned or scorned.

“So that’s the proconsul’s lady,” whispered the wife of Phrates, the master of the port, to the wife of Ultor, the commander of the garrison.

“Rather pretty,” said the commander’s wife, conceding the point with a woman’s notable lack of enthusiasm, “but overdone, don’t you think?”

“That hairdress!” her companion said. “If that’s the newest from Constantinople, I can’t say I care for it.”

“Neither do I. But the men seem to. Look at them. They can hardly keep their eyes off her.”

“No wonder, the gown she wears! It’s shocking. The neck’s cut so low you can see everything she’s got. And that slit in the side of the skirt to show off her leg—you can’t blame the men for staring.”

“Anyone can make a man stare, if she doesn’t care how she attracts his attention.”

Whereupon the two ladies sniffed virtuously, and no doubt comforted themselves on the propriety of their own garb.

But no eyebrows were raised at Theodora because she was living unwed with the governor. Cyrenaica took its traditions directly from Rome, and the institution of mistress-ship was old and accepted in the Roman world. The girl upon whom Hecebolus had seen fit to confer this distinction was not regarded invidiously on that account.

And these spiteful remarks of the ladies, echoed in other parts of the room by other women, led to their making notes to copy the very hairdress and costume they were criticizing, since after all they must be the latest styles from the capital. And though there was an expressed opinion among these sources that the proconsul’s mistress was quite lacking in the robust plumpness that an honest matron should have, there was little fault found with her face, and all of this criticism was on the general level that the same ladies would have employed in the gentle pastime of tearing to pieces any other member of their sex.

As for the men, it was perhaps true that Theodora did not neglect the touches that catch a masculine eye. Her gown was clinging, and her figure was worthy of being clung closely to; her irreproachable shoulders were bare, and her necklace of almandite garnets seemed to lead the glance directly to the charming cleft between her breasts, which were displayed, however, perhaps no more than in modern décolletage. Her feet, in gilt sandals, were tiny perfections; and the slit in her skirt, from mid-calf down—it was a style recently imported from Egypt—did give occasional glimpses of a perfectly sculptured ankle.

Of these little enhancements she seemed innocently unconscious, but the women were well aware that she was fully conscious of them. If Theodora received any really venomous criticisms from the ladies, it was because of the too obvious manner in which their husbands eyed her throughout the evening.

Since open male admiration, and secret female detraction, are the twin proofs of feminine success, Theodora derived from them some needed confidence.

Other than these state appearances with Hecebolus, however, which became less frequent as time passed, the life of the proconsul’s mistress was so constrained as to be deadly wearying. Even something so unpleasant as an illness served at least to break the monotony. About a month after their arrival in Africa, Theodora suffered a touch of fever. The palace physician was sent to her: Lynnaeus, the Greek, who came to Apollonia on the same ship with her, and who like so many of his professional skill, was a slave.

There was this to Lynnaeus: he was not a eunuch. Of that fact Theodora was immediately conscious. To see and talk with a man, even a slave, was a relief. He interested her if only for that reason. But in addition he had fine eyes and a sensitive mouth, and his few words of discourse were intelligent, if extremely formal and aloof. She would have been glad to have further speech with him, except that he was so very obviously anxious to be out of her presence. He attended her, and departed. Twice again he came, prescribed for her, and left quickly. When she was recovered he did not appear again.

3 }

One day Hecebolus said to Theodora, “I’m to make an official visitation to the four other cities of Pentapolis—Portus, Ptolemaïs, Berenice, and Cyrene. I desire you to accompany me. Designate which of your servants you will take, and be prepared with a wardrobe for a week or longer. I wish you to make a good impression.”

She was excited and pleased. “I will! You’ll see I will!” she cried. And she kept her servants busy making ready for what to her was an outing, a very welcome holiday from her monotonous life.

Their progression, which began next day, was leisurely. In litters of state they rode into one after another of the clustering cities of the province, spending a night in each, the guests of the wealthiest citizens, who vied with one another in their lavish entertainments. Wherever she went, Theodora was put through her paces, and the admiration she evoked was accepted by Hecebolus as a tribute to his good taste as a connoisseur of women.

The day she chiefly remembered was that on which they visited ancient Cyrene, once the chief city of the province, but now hardly more than a collection of ruins.

“But this was a great city!” she exclaimed to Hecebolus as they stood together on the mount which was crowned by the remnants of an acropolis. Their retinue, officials and glittering guards, personal servants, and the slaves with the litters, waited for them at some little distance.

“It appears so,” Hecebolus agreed indifferently.

With immense interest she gazed about her. Behind them loomed the mountains of the African desert, savage and barbaric in colors, marking the verge of cultivation and civilization. Before them the rocky slopes fell steeply away toward the plain, and some miles distant, at the ocean’s shore, Apollonia, now the capital but once only the seaport for Cyrene—like Piraeus for Athens, and Ostia for Rome—was visible.

The hillsides were littered with ruins: unroofed temples with columns toppled; palaces and public buildings destroyed as if an earthquake had uprooted them; aqueducts and even tombs shattered. Among the massive ruins little houses and huts of a later date, in which a small population lived, had sprung up here and there like sprouting fungi, but they only increased the impression of vast destruction.

“What could cause such devastation?” the girl asked.

“How should I know?” asked Hecebolus.

“Isn’t it of any interest to you? Surely, as ruler of this province——”

The bare hint of criticism always angered him. “I’ve something more important to do!” he snapped. “I’ve no time to concern myself with what took place centuries ago!”

Gravel ground under his sandal heel as he turned and walked toward the retinue, ordering the litters to make ready to continue the journey. At his contemptuous manner Theodora was unsurprised. She was by now accustomed to his growing and unpleasant arrogance. But his stolid incuriosity never ceased to amaze her.

Silently she followed him to the litters. Next day, when they were back in the palace at Apollonia, she sent for the one person who might be able to enlighten her on what had aroused her interest.

Lynnaeus came and stood before her as she sat in her solarium, with several of her women around her.

“I want none of your healing, physician, but information,” she said to him.

“The slave of the Illustrious can but do his poor best to answer any questions she may deign to ask him.” As usual his manner was of an almost doglike humbleness.

“What caused the destruction of Cyrene?” she asked.

For a moment he was silent, as if surprised by her question. Then he said, “That was a terrible and unhappy business, Illustrious, but it happened a very long time ago—so long that this miserable slave is not fully informed about it. I know only that it was the great revolt of the Jewish settlers of Cyrenaica—for this province once had a notable colony of those people—and that it occurred during the reign of Emperor Trajan.”

He paused. For a moment his dark eyes lifted to hers, then fell again, as he concluded, “If the Illustrious wishes to learn fully of these matters, there are parchment scrolls in the palace library, in which are set forth accounts of it much better than I can give—who am not—not authorized to enter your exalted presence—save in my capacity and duty as a physician——”

At the almost pleading note in his final words, she let him go.

Interest and curiosity were inborn in Theodora. As a courtesan, when she was in the company of men of experience, or wisdom, she rarely failed to gain from them some new knowledge, in the intervals of love-making. This was one of her charms, for men like women who ask intelligent questions concerning their central interests or great achievements, and then listen to their replies with genuine attention. It is the subtlest form of flattery, but it benefits also the listener.

She sent to the library for the manuscripts suggested, and though she could read neither Egyptian nor Persian, she was glad to discover that most were in Greek or Latin, which she could decipher. For she had an untutored but lively interest in history, as in everything that concerned people and events.

Now she read for the first time the horrifying account of Dio Cassius, the Roman historian, in which he described the Cyrenaican uprising of the years 115 and 116 of the Christian era. In his precise wording it was set down how the Jewish settlers, bitter at the humiliation of the conquest of Palestine and the destruction of Jerusalem, plotted to establish a new nation on northern Africa by destroying all who lived there who were not Jews. The plan was well conceived and skillfully, if ferociously, carried out; and it came within a hairsbreadth of succeeding, for the Jews held the province for two years. But the revolt and massacre led to horrifying excesses. Theodora read the historian’s words:

But presently arrived the retribution of Rome. Trajan, who had been occupied by his Parthian wars, dispatched to Cyrenaica one of his generals, Lusius, with an army. In spite of the wild valor of the Jewish warriors, the veteran legions defeated them and besieged them in their two citadels, Portus and Cyrene. Resistance was longest and fiercest in the latter place, but in the end Roman discipline and Roman siege engines prevailed. Cyrene was taken. In the revolt and resulting siege it was destroyed as Theodora had seen it.

Roman vengeance was as terrible as the original massacre. For ten miles the highway from Cyrene to Apollonia was lined by crosses on which Jewish prisoners were nailed to expire. Thousands of others were cut down by the sword or perished in conflagrations. It was not clear to Theodora whether the figure of “two hundred and twenty thousand” mentioned by Dio Cassius as perishing were only the victims of the massacre by the Jews, or included also the Jews who were slaughtered. In any case the Jewish colony of Cyrene simply ceased to exist, even the surviving women and children being sold remorselessly into slavery.

The horror of it, even in the pedestrian writing of the old Roman, left on Theodora a lasting impression. It gave her forever after a fearful conception of the full meaning of revolt, and a terror of the mad extremes to which mob uprising can go, surpassing even the cruelty and destruction of calculated war.

4 }

As the months lengthened she saw Hecebolus less frequently. This was at first a relief to her, because the man was so objectionable. But when he hardly saw her or spoke to her for a week at a time, she began to ask herself why. A thought dawned on her. Did she have a rival?

It was disconcerting, even though she detested the proconsul. What if he suddenly decided to eject her from the palace and install a new favorite in her stead?

With this concern, her vanity also was involved, to a degree. The ever present feminine instinct of competition made her speculate on just what manner of woman could supplant her: at last created in her a half-angry curiosity to see the unnamed and unmentioned rival.

Questions, the inevitable questions, went through her mind. Was the other woman young? Very beautiful or gifted with some unusual grace? What arts did she possess that Theodora had not?

Above all, where did Hecebolus keep her? Assuredly not in the palace, or Theodora would have known of it. Perhaps she was the wife of some provincial officer, or of a merchant or politician seeking favors, who was willing to wink at the proconsul’s amour with her for the influence it gave him. Such things happened frequently in corrupt courts.

A sudden thought occurred: Was she black? Some libertines had a perverse taste for Negro women, who were said to have in their blood the heat of the jungles. In Apollonia were many Negro girls, some quite attractive, with their dark skins, often magnificent eyes, narrow hips, and full-bosomed bodies. They provided a variation from white women that some voluptuaries relished.

But only as a variation, usually. The infatuation that Theodora surmised in Hecebolus seemed to be permanent.

This was final bitter proof of failure to her. In all her life hitherto, whereas she had taken men away from other women, no other woman ever had taken a man from her—if she desired to keep him. To be defeated now, by an unknown rival whom she had never seen, deeply wounded one of her prides. Yet she did not feel wronged, particularly. Far too realistic was she for that. It was only that she was so helpless.

Hecebolus, who had taken to wandering in search of amusements in the city with a crowd of jackdaw sycophants he had gathered about him, was frequently gone from the palace of nights. Apollonia offered some exotic places of evil, Berber and African. In particular he frequented the native dancing houses, where girls from the desert performed their strangely sinuous movements to the accompaniment of shrieking pipes and thudding drums.

In such places flourished mysterious and unspeakable vices, and once or twice, from the strange look of his eyes, and his drugged manner when she encountered him in the palace, Theodora suspected that the proconsul was drinking the sinister brew called majoon, an importation from India which was decocted from poppy seeds, datura seeds, liquefied butter, honey, and the steeped leaves of the herb called by the Greeks kannabis and by the Arabs hashish. It caused its addict to dream, see visions, and become reckless, particularly in his vices. Sometimes it even produced insanity, and the girl wondered what it would be to have a crazed man as lord of the province and the palace.

5 }

More heated grew the weather, the desert now breathing its searing breath on the very seashore.

One night Theodora found she could not sleep because of the stifling warmth, and rose from bed at an hour long after midnight. For some time she stood at the window of her bedroom, gazing out and silently beseeching the faint cooling breeze that at lengthy intervals barely stirred the hangings.

For most of the time the heated air was completely still, heavy with the perfumes of flowers; and the city lay outspread below her, white in the light of the full moon. Shadows were accented into inkiness. Down the slope she noted the black foliage of trees in the gardens, the dimness of shadowy palms, lights here and there still sparking in houses. To her ears came the throb of distant Berber drums and the faint cry of camel pipes, in a music so barbaric that it left her with a tingling shudder.

All at once she heard voices, some boisterous shouts of revelers, cries of good night, and a sentry at the outer gate clanged his shield as he came to attention. Hecebolus had been out again and was now returning home from one of his debauches.

Her window overlooked the palace courtyard and the main entrance, and she saw him come through the gate. He was accompanied by another man.

At first she paid no particular attention, but the two were clearly limned in the brilliant moonlight, and something odd about their attitude caught her. Hecebolus’ companion appeared to be a youth. He had a mincing walk, and he clung to the governor’s arm. Something was said, and he gave a whinnying giggle like a girl, and laid his head on Hecebolus’ shoulder.

Watching unseen from the darkened window above, Theodora drew in her breath as they disappeared into the palace.

But she had to know . . .

The palace was sleeping. It was a thing she had never done before, but now she stole barefoot out of the gynaeceum and down the corridor toward the governor’s quarters in the other wing of the building.

Voices. She heard them talking together, and all at once the strange youth gave an odd whimper.

She reached the door and stood looking at them. Neither of them noticed her.

She saw that Hecebolus’ dark face was twitching, his movements jerky—the symptoms of the majoon drink. The other was beardless, anointed with perfumed oils like a woman, cheeks and lips painted, long curled locks, a brazen manner, and coquettish glances that were a sickening travesty on the true coquetry of women. Yet for all the appearances and actions which bordered on her own sex, this was male.

They confronted each other, Hecebolus clutching the other’s arms.

“Hecebolus . . .” said the youth, his voice trailing off exactly like a woman’s.

Hecebolus drew him into his arms and kissed him full and long on the lips. The kiss of a lover.

Again the youth whimpered, almost as if it pained him, squirmed his body, and sighed.

All at once his face stiffened with outlandish fear, and he glanced past the proconsul toward the door.

“That—woman!” he squealed, and pointed at Theodora.

Hecebolus wheeled. His face, still twitching from the drug, grew darker. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Rather it should be I who ask what you are doing,” Theodora replied.

“Get out! This is none of your business!” he snarled.

“None of your business!” shrilled the painted youth.

She stepped back from the door with a sudden thrill of nausea.

Hurrying, she returned to the gynaeceum.

She had her answer. It had come so suddenly . . . and she should have known it beforehand. Yet it was a shock.

So that was her rival! She felt as if a clammy hand had slapped her across the face. It was the final insult, the ultimate negation of her.

Burning, she entered her bedroom and sat down on her bed to think. After a time she grew calmer, for what she had witnessed had not particularly surprised her after all.

Too well was she acquainted with degeneracy in Constantinople. There was an entire class of male prostitutes, who were sought after more than the courtesans by certain effete lechers. Ganymedes, they were called, and the Street of Women despised and scorned them.

Some were eunuchs, others were not. Some were forced into the disgrace by slavery, others entered into it because of some compelling quirk in their natures. A whole category of names existed for them, with which Theodora had been too fastidious to acquaint herself. These creatures even had a pagan deity: Hermaphroditus, the fabled son-daughter of Hermes and Aphrodite. She had seen the statue before the Baths of Zeuxippus, neither wholly man nor wholly woman, with the breasts of a woman and the procreative organs of a man, the features of both, and the mythological instincts of each.

Though during the past months she had watched Hecebolus’ sensualism undergo a progressive degeneration, for some reason it had not occurred to her that he had descended into the mysterious and infected depths of homosexual perversion.

From one standpoint, she found that the discovery restored her confidence in herself. Her womanhood had not been defeated after all, for she had been dealing, without knowing it, with an abnormality. This was the explanation of his lack of response to her which had puzzled her from the beginning, his peculiar scorn for women, his singular misgivings concerning his own manhood for which he sought reassurance from her, even his cruelty.

Yet the thing made her ill. She felt herself somehow involved in Hecebolus’ depravities: was soiled by him, smirched, dishonored.

In the darkness she fell back on the bed. For a long time she lay awake, staring up at nothing, her fists clenched until the nails of her fingers hurt her palms with the intensity of her emotion. To her superb femininity, which was repelled even by half-beings like eunuchs, the degeneracy of the man to whom she was mistress was the last humiliation and shame.

6 }

It was not long before the scandal of Hecebolus and his Ganymede was being whispered through the palace. The painted youth’s name was Alcibiades, he was a native of Crete, and the governor had encountered him at one of the native dancing houses. He shared now Hecebolus’ private rooms, where he had been given the ostensible office of personal secretary. Some of Theodora’s women dropped hints of it in their talk, as if seeking indirectly to give her some warning of how matters stood. But she pretended not to notice these veiled references.

Thinking about it made her head ache, so much so that one day she sent for Lynnaeus.

The physician came and ministered to her with rose water, milk, and a leek, stirred together, the resulting liquid being applied to her temples and forehead with a soft cloth.

While he did so, she asked him questions at random about the people of the province, for no other reason than that his company pleased her.

He replied, courteously and seriously. “Cyrenaica is populated by all races. It is, as the Illustrious may know, a colony established first by the Greeks in ancient times, but held later by Carthage, Rome, and Egypt, and even for periods by barbarians. All these left their blood in the population, as also Jews, Syrians, Goths, and Negroes, of whom many are brought here as slaves from the interior of Africa.”

“Who were here before the Greeks?”

“The Berbers. They are savages, living in scattered oases in the Sahara Desert, sometimes coming to the coast to trade, at others lying in wait along caravan routes to loot passing trains of merchandise, after which they flee away on their long-legged camels to their own fastnesses in the wilderness.”

“Are they a danger to the province?”

“No, Illustrious. They are not sufficiently numerous. But west of here, beyond the Gulf of Cyrene, is a danger—the Vandal kingdom.”

“Who are the Vandals?”

“Once fierce barbarians, who drank their mead out of the skulls of their enemies, but now civilized. They practice the heresy of Arianism, and cruelly persecute other beliefs, particularly Orthodox Catholics. Hence they are enemies of the empire.”

“Might they attack Cyrenaica?”

“Your slave is of the opinion that until the Vandals are taught a lesson the empire will never be secure in this quarter.”

He was very uneasy, moistening his lips with his tongue and keeping his eyes on the floor. Throughout their discourse, he held between them, as if it were a protection, the bar of his servile position, which he continually emphasized.

She sent him away. But now in Theodora’s idle little mind a thought, characteristic of her perhaps, and devoid of all morality, but growing out of her resentment against Hecebolus, had suddenly come.

Within a few days she summoned the physician again, though this time her plea of a headache was only a pretext. After a minute or two she was sure he saw through her deception, and also knew that the fact that she would use a deception to get him to come to her had the power to stir and shake him: though he said nothing about it, but with perfect imperturbability prescribed for her a nauseous dose—which she had thrown into the slops as soon as he was gone.

On this occasion he stayed only a few minutes. But now her willful little plan was fixed. For she knew he was not insensible to her.

Theodora smiled to herself, and said in her mind, Why not? Lynnaeus is a slave, but also he is a man. He has not always been a slave . . .

Then she ceased smiling and her gaze became fiercely remote. To herself she said, For the soul of me, I shall pay Hecebolus as exactly as I can in his own coin.

Her plan was neither original nor logical. Throughout the ages women have used it, and it is one of the curiosities about them that to cuckold a man who has been unfaithful to them always seems to them a most condign retaliation, even though he against whom they have thus avenged themselves may never know of it. For the affront has been to their sex, and the retaliation by the same means is a sufficient justification of that which is a matter of portent exceeding all other things to them, so that they feel no necessity of advertising it to the person against whom it is directed.

Theodora’s humiliation was especially deep: to her the scheme to repay the governor by means of one of his own slaves seemed singularly fitting and neat.

But first it was necessary to seduce the slave.

Lynnaeus had a deferential dignity that she respected, and his intellectual qualities were high. Sometimes she was inwardly impatient with him for his servility, because it seemed an affront to her that any artificial consideration—even slavehood—should keep a man, obviously full of grace and physical power, from at least visibly noticing, if not being visibly troubled by her.

She became intrigued by the problem of Lynnaeus. Only recently had she stepped out of courtesanship, and she was very young, with warm instincts. For her it was as inherent to wish to experiment with a man as it was to breathe, and the reticence of the Greek made him an especial challenge.

Willfully and perversely in the succeeding weeks she began to employ on the physician her playful little arts, to see just how far his reserve would go. In this she hardly thought of cruelty in deliberately arousing passion in a man like Lynnaeus. Rarely do women consider this a cruelty, in truth, even when the passion they induce is one they never plan to reward. Partly this is because the instinct to use their power is so strong, and partly because the steps they take are far from cruel, but on the other hand kind and pleasant, even delightful and bewitching.

It required time. But she knew she was making progress by the little signs a woman always notices and interprets: occasional glances from Lynnaeus almost pleading, hesitations, groping for words at times, above all a growing, almost defiant recklessness in answering her frequent summonses.

7 }

She had one day been bathed and made beautiful, when she suddenly complained again of her headache. Her women expressed their usual concern, but she ordered someone to go for the physician, and told all of them to leave her alone until she called them back to her.

As always, Lynnaeus came and stood beside the bed on which she lay.

“You summoned me, Illustrious?” he said.

“Yes.”

“For what purpose?”

“Can’t you see I’m ill?”

For a moment his dark eyes looked into hers as if searching her soul, then fell again.

“Saving your presence, Illustrious, I—I——” He hesitated.

“Finish,” she said.

Again he gazed into her eyes directly. “I do not think you are ill.”

So now it was out in the open.

She lay perfectly still, not speaking, on her back with her arms above her head. It is a devastating attitude for a woman to assume before a man, for it seems to proclaim an invitation. Theodora was conscious that she made an alluring picture, her light dress molding all the contours of her body, the swell of her breasts, the curve of waist and hips, the parting of her thighs.

And his eyes were on the floor again—he did not even look at her!

“Lynnaeus,” she said, “does it give you no pleasure to see me—even when I’m not sick?”

“It is not for me to presume to have pleasure, Illustrious,” he said in a lowered voice. “I am a slave.”

She was almost vexed enough to dismiss him, but then she thought of a different strategy.

“You speak of being a slave,” she said, her voice tinged with sadness. “Do you think I don’t know what that means? Lynnaeus, I’m a slave also.”

“You?” He shot her a quick glance. “It pleases the Illustrious to make sport of me.”

“How little you know!” she retorted. “With all this luxury, I’m a prisoner. I cannot call my own person mine! Oh, Lynnaeus, is your state worse than that?”

Almost desperately he kept his eyes on the floor. And suddenly she began to cry.

He raised his eyes. As they went from her figure to her face, color came to his cheeks. Her beauty seized upon his heart and shook him. She was weeping, and he pitied her—he a slave. More, far more than that, he loved her.

She felt the softness of a kiss on her cheek, and opened her wet eyes.

He gave a gasp, and through her swimming tears she saw that his was a face of agony.

“God in his mercy help me!” he groaned. “Oh, my mistress, tear out my tongue—have me flogged until I die—but I cannot help it. You are not sick, but I am! Sick from love of you!”

“Lynnaeus——” Her tears ceased, she stirred a hand slightly toward him on the bedcover.

He fell on his knees, took the hand in both of his, and began to cover it with kisses, while his words rushed in torrents.

“Since the first time I saw you—the very first minute aboard the ship—I’ve lived only to see you the next time—and the next——”

She did not turn her face away as she felt his lips, very sweet and gentle, barely touch hers.

“Oh, Goddess of my life——”

Her heart was beating like a rabbit’s. Now that all she had worked toward so skillfully had come to fruition she was suddenly terrified of it.

“Lynnaeus—this is—madness——” she began faintly.

“I’m mad—stark mad—over your beauty—over you——”

Her blood throbbed so dizzily that she could not fight him. From her came a little wail. Not of negation but of fear. Fear of forces loosed by her which now suddenly could not be controlled.

The tiny wail was lost in rough, hoarse, tumbling words poured out by him. He drew her body against him, and the shock of her softness stopped his breath. Lights blurred, the room swam.

Within her a voice seemed to speak, sharp with intimate reproach.

Then she was deaf to the voice. It was unimportant. Nothing was important save to receive him, to ease the torment in him.

As one coming to a destiny he possessed her, his kiss now like a jet of fire.

1 }

Though she knew she should have felt that she had committed a disgrace in cohabiting with a slave, Theodora was somehow not ashamed of herself, or of her act.

A new thing had taken place: an experience surprising and in its way uplifting to a girl who all her life, by the inexorability of circumstances, had been a harlot.

Her original motive, that of revenging herself against Hecebolus in the way of women, which had prompted her to the not very subtle seduction of Lynnaeus—after all a pitiably easy quarry for her—was for the moment forgotten. Instead, for the first time, for the very first time in her memory, she had given herself to a lover not for money or any other gifts he could bestow upon her, but for the sake of his love for her alone. She discovered that giving herself in this way was profoundly stirring and strangely ennobling.

Lynnaeus was so humble, so utterly hers, so grateful for her slightest smile; yet so eager and virile withal, and so proud and commanding, forgetting everything but that he was a man gloriously possessing a woman in his moment of love; that she felt cleansed by him, strangely healed and warmed. Almost she could have given him, slave that he was, her heart as well as her body. But she had too long been a courtesan. She did not believe any man could create in her the divine madness of soul, the glad abandonment of all other considerations for love, which some women knew, and which, in a manner she could not fully understand, beautified them and made them like goddesses. And this, even when they were unhappy in their love.

She was at peace, rather than exultant; grateful to Lynnaeus in a strange degree, as if it were he rather than she who had given; with a new calm in her breast, her throat, her loins.

That was one side of it.

The other side was fear.

Nobody had witnessed the heated passage on her bed. The circumstances of Lynnaeus’ visit were such, and his stay so brief, that they were hardly likely to cause comment or even speculation among the servants, women, or eunuchs of the gynaeceum.

But already Theodora found herself wishing to see him again. This was dangerous. If the physician’s visits were renewed often, or even rarely, and he saw her alone, though under the excuse of illness, there was sure to be gossip in the servant quarters. All women are continuously filled with curiosity about occurrences, real or imagined, dealing with sex; and eunuchs, being unsexed and therefore doubly curious through their lifelong frustration, have an inclination to tattle even more than women about these matters, which are outside of and beyond their ken. If talk began among her servants it would eventually reach the proconsul. She knew she should not see Lynnaeus again.

Involved as he was with the effeminate youth who wore perfume and painted his face like a girl, Hecebolus was yet incredibly selfish and vain, and therefore jealous and suspicious. Even though he cared nothing for her as a woman in his ignoble new infatuation, if she did anything that reflected unfavorably on him or affronted his arrogance, he was capable of any ferocity.

Though Theodora had never given him, in any public appearance, the slightest cause to doubt her, he nevertheless confined her to the gynaeceum and watched her as a snake watches a bird. It was true that Lynnaeus came to her unquestioned, but for this there was a double reason: first, he was a slave, and therefore presumably beneath her notice; second, he was accorded that curious trust which all ages have given to men of medicine, as if the mere nature of their profession puts them outside normal weaknesses and passions—a surmise which has proved fallacious in other cases than that of Lynnaeus.

So at first she saw Lynnaeus only at the infrequent state banquets. Hecebolus periodically demanded Theodora’s presence at these functions in spite of—or perhaps because of—his simpering favorite, Alcibiades. The governor was trying not too blatantly to flaunt his unnatural passion for the Ganymede, and the presence of an undeniably normal and feminine mistress at his table had the effect of allaying some of the talk which inevitably circulated.

He enjoyed, furthermore, having everyone see how this woman of transcendent beauty obeyed his slightest nod in public, spoke only when he gave her permission, appeared to blossom or grow subdued at his whim: a very pretty exhibition of changing moods and expressions on her part, really, and proof of her high ability as an actress, for nobody, with one exception, dreamed that her charming changes were anything but spontaneous, or that she was more than a young, most decorative, and somewhat empty-headed creature, who was quite dizzy over her good fortune in being smiled upon by the proconsul.

The single exception was Lynnaeus, who as palace physician attended all feasts, standing beside the governor’s table, his especial duty being to taste each dish and every cup of wine before Hecebolus touched them, to make sure they were not poisoned.

The tasting was ceremonious. In the midst of all the laughter and conversation of the guests, the dishes were brought in one by one, and Lynnaeus consumed a mouthful of each so that all could see. At an appreciable interval after, so that if there was poison the effects might be observed on the taster, the food was served to the proconsul.

Never before had the duties of an official taster, and the risks involved in them, occurred to Theodora. To know one who bravely underwent dangers each time a meal was served to Hecebolus—for by this time the proconsul assuredly had caused enough persons to hate him so that they must wish to see him die by poison or otherwise—was to herself undergo part of the apprehension that Lynnaeus must feel with each dish he sampled.

Yet she felt even sorrier for him for another reason. Sometimes when Hecebolus spoke to her harshly, or with the peculiar contemptuous arrogance he delighted in using toward her, she caught in Lynnaeus’ eyes the pain of anger and helplessness. This was why she pitied the slave: he worshipped her and could do nothing for her.

Because she pitied him she at last arranged ways once more, and yet again and again, for him to visit her. In part Hecebolus lent himself to this scheming, though of course without knowing it.

More preoccupied daily had the governor grown, not only with his degenerate pleasures of the Ganymede and the majoon, but with the business that chiefly interested him: wringing dry his tax-burdened people. His greed was a mania. To get gold he did not hesitate to use the scourge and the fidiculae, those leather thongs which were bound about the skull and twisted until the victim was in unbearable pain. In his constant and growing avarice he ruined villages, bankrupted wealthy men, laid levies on every bale of goods, utensil, or trinket brought into the province, and even terrified his tax farmers—whose corruption was notorious—into some sort of efficiency, so that they returned to him an honest accounting.

None of this, of course, was due to any zeal for sending larger revenues to the imperial treasury. Hecebolus knew no zeal, except for his own interests. He had an understanding with John of Cappadocia, whereby he received the protection of official inattention on the one side, while on the other he dispatched to that worthy in the capital periodic and secret “gifts,” an excellent arrangement for both of them. Thus, though the imperial coffers saw no more money from Cyrenaica than before—if as much—the treasure chests of the proconsul who governed the province grew heavier each week.

For a time, therefore, the girl he kept mewed up in his gynaeceum continued to have her woman’s revenge without being discovered.

Sometimes, with a thrill of fear, she realized that the liaisons with the Greek were growing in dangerous attractiveness, which she found it more and more difficult to resist. Aside from the joy Lynnaeus afforded to her, a creature gifted with extraordinary passion and at an age when the demands of her instincts and senses were most imperious, there was in their meetings, and in the planning she did to bring them about, relief from her monotony: a classic excuse of women down through the ages, and one which it must be admitted has its validity.

Her hatred for Hecebolus caused this to become for Theodora more than a common infidelity, since it also was a defiance. Not that she was oppressed by moral scruples. A courtesan all her life, she was as supremely unconscious of hampering codes and rules as a young mare which exchanges for one stallion another more appealing to her. Rather it was a property motif her mind considered. In giving to the slave that which, by right of ownership, presumably belonged to the governor, she felt that she did the latter a great despite.

Most insidious of all, however, was the sheer lure of the risk for its own sake, which to some natures is most compelling. The danger made so tingling her brief guilty moments with the physician as to add poignancy to all sensations.

2 }

Nobody knew better than Lynnaeus his own peril. He was not yet thirty, and as Theodora surmised he had not always been a slave. Born in Cilicia of a family in humble circumstances, he had educated himself by his own studious inclination, until he attracted the attention of Philemon of Seleucia, the best-known physician of his day, an old man already when Lynnaeus went to him as a disciple and assistant.

It was after the death of Philemon, when he had hardly begun his own practice in his home province, that the disaster occurred to Lynnaeus. There was a brief uprising of the wild Isaurians in the mountainous country of Asia Minor, to the north of Cilicia. An army from Constantinople stamped out the revolt. In the general hunt for prisoners that followed, Lynnaeus found himself swept in.

Other than to treat the wounds of some Isaurian fugitives who happened to pass his place in their flight southward from their pursuers, he had taken no part in the rebellion. Yet he knew the futility of any appeal, and found himself standing on the slave block with a sort of numbed wonder and despair. Since then he had tried to make the best of matters, even when he was sold to Hecebolus and brought to this far province in Africa as the proconsul’s physician.

The duties of his office were not heavy, provided one did not mind being assigned to intercept with his own system any possible poisons in foods or drinks that were intended for his master. He was sedentary by nature, a great student of books, and he had access to the palace library, where he could lose himself in reading.

Had it not been for the governor’s young mistress, Lynnaeus might have been measurably content. Instead, he knew himself to be desperately unhappy, miserable, and helpless in his overpowering passion for the wonderful creature in the gynaeceum; yet that love was the greatest and most exalting thing in his life.

Knowing his terrible peril, he still could no more help obeying any summons that came from her than he could help breathing. Sometimes the call was for an honest professional errand. Women are more or less inclined to indispositions, and there were ten in Theodora’s suite; eunuchs are notorious weaklings, and there were five assigned to her quarters. On such occasions he administered to the patient for whom he was called and went his way, sometimes without even seeing her about whom all his dreams and waking thoughts revolved. And each time it happened so, it was a combining of relief and disappointment to him.

But once, in the second month after their first love, he had her in his arms. And again in the fourth, and twice in the fifth month.

Each time Lynnaeus knew triumph, an inspiration akin to godhood. Yet he found himself saddened and baffled by her. She gave herself as only she could, but with a lover’s delicate perception he knew that in some manner she did not give all. At the thought that he could not break through the walls of her beautiful flesh to her spirit, he felt despair, for he yearned for her spirit as well as her body.

Once, after one of their hungry meetings, he buried his head in her lap and sobbed. Gently she stroked his hair, and understanding something of what grieved him, her impulse of sympathy brought tears to her eyes. At that moment her affection almost poured itself out on him. But Lynnaeus did not look up to see the softening of her face, and she regained her composure. He never knew how near he came then to breaking through the indefinable barrier between them.

Later, in considering this strange moment of weakness, Theodora understood that she was very fond of Lynnaeus, but it was not the full love of woman for man. Rather her feeling was almost maternal, a sorrow for his unhappiness and helplessness. On that occasion, she sent him away almost coldly.

3 }

On a certain day, the sixth month after her intrigue with the physician began, Theodora sat long by herself, her thoughts fitful and without peace.

In moments of passion lovers seem perpetually to forget the consequences of their doings. Nature, the treacherous one, intervenes in this recklessness, this defiance of probability, for her own purpose, which is the perpetuation of the generations.

Theodora actually had not seriously considered the possibility of her own pregnancy. As a courtesan one of her great assets had been her difficulty in conceiving: it had happened to her only once, when she was fifteen years old, at the time she was rescued by Macedonia from the wine shop mob.

Other girls frequently had to resort to the dreadful sagae and their potions, and to undergo the illness and danger of abortion. Some of her friends died from it: others preferred to go through with the birth of their babies, and make shift somehow to support them. This had happened to both Antonina—who had a small son—and Chrysomallo—who had a little daughter. The infants were cared for together by an old nurse who lived near the city wall at a mile from the Street of Women, for the delicatae could not keep them near, since it would be a serious handicap to their profession. But Theodora always somehow had escaped.

This day, however, she faced it. After long consideration she decided at last to send a servant to fetch Lynnaeus.

He came and listened to her, his dark eyes brilliant and questioning under their heavy brows.

“I’ve known it for some time,” she said after the first announcement. “At least I was pretty sure of it. Now I’m absolutely sure.”

“When . . .?” he asked.

“It must be two months now. Because——” She gave him some details, physical and statistical.

“Do you think . . .?” His voice seemed to falter.

She nodded. “The time is coincident—but of course I can’t be sure, because he came to me that month, too. For a change, I suppose, from his other love. But—oh, Lynnaeus, he’s never aroused me, and this time he so disgusted me that I had no response to him. So I believe—it was you.”

“What do you want of me, Goddess of my heart?”

“You’re a physician. You must know how to mix an abortive potion——”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“First, it’s a deadly danger to you. If anything happened to you, I’d want to die. Second, if the—if the child—is mine, I couldn’t do that——”

“But what about Hecebolus?”

“He will always believe it’s his—don’t you think?”

She rose, and in his anguish and emotion he seized her hand.

“If it were mine, beloved—if it only were mine——”

She saw the flame in his eyes, and answering it permitted their lips to join, caress, melt into one another. Their breath, for an instant of forgetfulness, stood still.

It was the death of him, that momentary, thoughtless, human act.

Precisely then Hecebolus, unannounced, walked in.

As if at first he could not comprehend, or was unprepared to believe what he saw, the proconsul stopped, balancing himself on his short, thick legs, staring at them with his dark curved features gradually stiffening into conviction and then fury.

Half stumbling, Lynnaeus started back from Theodora. She glanced at him. His face had gone queer, sunken, as if an ashen hand had smeared it.

Hecebolus slapped his hands together sharply. At the sound they heard at once a dash of iron-shod sandals, and a squad of armed guards clanked in.

Dazedly Theodora wondered how the governor had discovered her guilt, and how he had arrived so soon. Within her something seemed to cry out in protest against the injustice of his catching them at a time when the reason for their being together was almost innocent: not a love-making, but a woman’s simple announcement to a man who might be the father of the child she was to have.

“Seize that slave!” Hecebolus ordered.

Useless for Lynnaeus to resist, or even speak. He knew it. As the soldiers grasped his arms he stood with his head bowed on his breast.

Hecebolus turned to the girl with a bitter sneer. “Once a whore, always a whore! Nothing’s too disgraceful is it, you slut? Even to going to the slave quarters for lovers? How many times have you lain with this slave?”

She did not reply.

“How many?” Hecebolus barked at Lynnaeus.

The physician stood silent, his head hanging on his bosom.

The officer of the guard struck him under the chin, and Lynnaeus’ head snapped back.

“Answer His Excellency!” growled the officer.

But still Lynnaeus stood silent, a little trickle of blood beginning to run down from one corner of his sensitive mouth.

The officer glanced at Hecebolus, who nodded. “Take him to the dungeon. Perhaps after a little prompting he may be less tongue-tied.”

Lynnaeus stared at the governor, his face displaying immeasurable horror. One look of utter hopelessness he gave to Theodora before they led him away.

She uttered a cry of despair, a prayer for mercy for him. Roughly Hecebolus pushed her back, and she closed her eyes.

When she opened them, Lynnaeus and his captors were gone. Only Hecebolus and two of the soldiers remained in the room.

“Bring her to my office,” the proconsul said, and turned on his heel.

4 }

She was too weary, too despairing, to think about or even care what her own fate was to be.

She sat, half reclining in a chair, across a table from Hecebolus, who regarded her with a still, watchful expression, almost of curiosity. On either side of her stood a guard.

“What’s keeping them?” Hecebolus growled after a time.

“The slave must be stubborn,” one of the soldiers ventured.

“It would seem that the fidicula would have twisted a confession out of him by now,” said the governor.

He struck a gong. The door opened, and his secretary, the effeminate youth Alcibiades, appeared. He glanced at Hecebolus, at the guards, at Theodora, and a look of triumph gleamed in his eyes, with their kohl-darkened lashes as long and curved as a woman’s.

Hecebolus said to him, “Go to the prison. And find out how much longer we must wait.”

When Alcibiades was gone, he looked again at Theodora.

“Maybe you’ll tell us,” he said. “How long has it been going on?”

Wearily she raised her head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“My meaning should be clear enough. Your vile and unnatural lust for a despicable slave!”

She had a hysterical desire to laugh. Could this man speak of a vile and unnatural lust—in anyone else?

But she did not laugh, for terror swept back over her. She was sure she was going to die. She wondered in what manner . . . quickly, or agonizingly?

But as Hecebolus continued to denounce her in words as foul as himself, her fear seemed to fade. Instead came a sudden, quick stiffening of pride.

She said, “What good do you expect to gain by these questions, Hecebolus?”

The very audacity of it struck him for a moment speechless.

“Questions won’t bring answers that will satisfy you,” she went on. “If I lie to you, will you know the truth? And if I tell you the truth, will you know I’m not lying? You’re wasting your most valuable time, Hecebolus. Do what you’re going to do with me, but don’t sit there babbling like a fool!”

With mouths open, the soldiers stared. Incredible—the girl was sitting right there in the office of the all-powerful proconsul, calling him a fool!

In all candor, the most exalted governor of Cyrenaica did look something of a fool, gaping at her across the table. Privately, the soldiers considered that what the girl said had a certain weight of logic: you never knew when a woman spoke the truth, did you?

These opinions, however, they kept discreetly to themselves.

Then the detail arrived from the prison, conducting Lynnaeus.

To Theodora it was shocking and incredible that such a change could have been brought about in any human creature within so few minutes. The physician was a pitiable wreck, aged it seemed, and sick and reeling, so that two of his guards had to hold him upright, even his voice faint and broken. About his temples and across his white forehead were the marks of the fidicula, the terrible leather cord, which had been twisted tighter and tighter, until his eyeballs almost started from their sockets under the compression, and he lost all semblance of manhood in the torture of it, babbling and praying for mercy.

They thrust him forward and he fell on his knees, tears running down his face, which was haggard and pale from what he had suffered.

“I think the slave is ready to confess now, Excellency,” said the officer grimly.

“Well?” Hecebolus said.

A moment’s silence. Then Theodora heard a weak, pathetic voice she had trouble realizing was that of Lynnaeus. “I am guilty . . . I did that . . . of which I am accused . . .”

“You lay with this woman?” demanded Hecebolus.

“Ye-es . . . I lay with her . . .” Lynnaeus’ lips trembled, the dried streak of blood running down from the corner of them, but he did not look up.

“How many times?”

“I . . . I can’t remember . . . I . . .”

Hecebolus scowled. “Perhaps another turn or two of the fidicula will stimulate his memory.”

With a feeble cry of terror Lynnaeus fell suddenly on his face, rubbing the floor with his forehead, and flapping it with his hands.

“No . . . oh no! Not . . . not the fidicula again . . . Compassionate One . . .” he sobbed.

The spectacle of manhood broken down, reduced to raw nerves and incoherent terror, sickened Theodora.

She said suddenly, “Let him alone! Don’t you see you’ve overdone it? His memory’s gone. I’ll tell you what you want to know! Five several times have I given myself to this man, Hecebolus! Five times—and more, had I been able. Do you know why? Because in every regard this slave is to be preferred to you, Hecebolus—who make me wish to retch at the mere thought of you!”

The slave lay on the floor, moaning. The soldiers shifted their feet uneasily. In her chair the girl sat defiantly erect.

Most women, the guards said to themselves, would be crying under such circumstances: sobbing, and hysterically denying everything, and begging for mercy. But this one, ridiculous as it might seem, appeared to have no fear of the dread proconsul, or of what he might do.

Uncomfortably, the soldiers wondered what they should do. Might not His Excellency be expecting them to enforce a little more respect from the prisoner? But he gave no sign, so they remained where they were, awaiting orders.

After a time Hecebolus spoke. “Take the slave away.”

“And do what with him, Excellency?” asked the officer.

“Do? Why, hew his head from his shoulders, of course!”

The officer saluted, and gave an order. Two of the guards hauled Lynnaeus to his feet. Staggering so that he almost had to be carried, he was taken out of the room to his death.

For a time, after the prisoner and his guards were gone, Hecebolus sat in silence, scowling at Theodora.

The situation was infuriating and at the same time exasperating to him, and for a reason that nobody but himself knew. He could have the woman executed, as the slave was being executed. Both had confessed their guilt.

But he found himself seriously baffled and concerned by doubts as to the wisdom of ordering her to be taken out and slain.

As it happened, Hecebolus had not gone to the gynaeceum on the suspicion that Theodora and Lynnaeus were there together. It was an errand of quite a different nature that took him there, although it did concern the girl’s fate. And when he discovered them in each other’s arms in her bedroom, it was accidental, almost incidental, and completely astounding to him for he had not the slightest suspicion that this had been going on.

His vanity was violently lacerated at witnessing something so very unflattering to himself—this sordid affair which his own mistress was conducting behind his back with a slave—even though, in his other indulgences, the girl had ceased to matter much to him. Nevertheless, his pride would have demanded immediate palliation had it not been for certain larger considerations.

Under his hand at that moment Hecebolus had a letter he had just received, it having been brought direct from a ship that docked in the port of Apollonia an hour before. The letter concerned Theodora, and also himself.

When he left Constantinople Hecebolus had believed himself perfectly clear in his mind about everything. Finding the girl on his ship, ready to go with him to Africa, had somewhat surprised him, but after all he had invited her. It did not then cross his mind that she might be involved with greater personages than himself.

He had not even thought it important enough to mention her in his various official and personal communications to the capital the first few months. That he had taken a pretty delicata from the Street of Women seemed hardly worth room in a letter. By the barest chance, in an informal note to his patron, John of Cappadocia, some weeks before, he had devoted a paragraph to Theodora, calling her by name and relating an amusing thing she had said at one of the banquets, with a sort of footnote, meant to be arch, about how he took her with him from Constantinople. The letter he had this day received from John of Cappadocia, was in reply to that note.

In part, it read:

Hecebolus did not know that the mention of Justinian was one of the prefect’s little ways of adding authority to his own commands, nor did he suspect that the prince really had never been consulted in the matter. Had he known the truth of the circumstances under which Theodora came into disfavor with the Cappadocian, he might have reasoned that anything he did to her, even to beheading her, would be well regarded in that quarter.

His acquaintance with the prefect, however, was comparatively slight—brought about through his family, which was influential in Tyre—even though he did possess a good working understanding with him. He had not been able, on the occasion of his departure, even to bid farewell to John. That was why he did not know of his patron’s unhappy state following Chione’s entertainment—the denouement of which, in Theodora’s triumph, he had witnessed, without comprehending its implications.

Lacking this knowledge, it appeared evident to Hecebolus that he had no open-and-shut case here, with an easy decision.

The officer of the guard at this moment entered, saluted, and said, “The slave is dead as you commanded, Excellency.”

Hecebolus waved him aside. His eyes hardly had strayed from Theodora’s face during the interruption, which to him was unimportant.

He found that he had two factors to consider concerning her.

First, was the mention of Justinian’s name in the letter. If the prince were indeed personally interested in the case, Hecebolus might do well to follow strictly the instructions laid down.

Second, was the nature of those instructions. He was ordered to banish Theodora, but nothing was said about killing her. He considered this. Richly as she deserved death, if he diverged from the written word and executed her, a report must be made, and a report might set on foot an inquiry.

Just at this time an inquiry—what with certain tax funds not well accounted for—was what Hecebolus dreaded most.

Above everything the Tyrian was subservient to his superiors, and cunningly venal. He was able to swallow his resentments readily enough when it was to his own interest to do so, and it really was not too much of a self-denial to forego the pleasure of seeing that pretty head struck from its shoulders.

An idea suddenly came to him. He would order her exiled . . . but were there not, after all, degrees of exile? In this matter at least he was given discretion. He licked his lips. What need for the sword, so that the woman died, in one way or another?

5 }

Once Theodora had witnessed the cruelty of exile when another woman was the victim. But the circumstances of her own case were infinitely more grim than those which had faced Macedonia.

In one respect only she had an advantage: she was not violated by the soldiery. For this she could thank an odd quirk on the vanity of Hecebolus. Since she had been his, the governor did not see fit to permit other men to enjoy her in this manner, which was what saved her from being thus shamefully brutalized.

But there her advantage over Macedonia’s exile ended. For her there was no little Theodora waiting to speak words of hope to her, or to give her a necklace of price. Even more dreadful: she was set afoot, in a single rough garment of sackcloth, at the farthest eastern edge of civilization beyond the city of Portus, and commanded to walk out alone into the savage Libyan Desert.

Despairingly she started forward. Behind her lay the last fringing olive groves and small irrigated fields of the outmost village of Cyrenaica. Before her stretched the forbidding and unrelieved barrenness of the greatest desert in all the world.

It was hard to conceive of the pitilessness of Hecebolus. This was no ordinary exile. She might have been placed on a ship, outward bound, or in some other way given a chance of life. Instead she was condemned by him to a terrible death: by starvation, thirst, and the beating of the brazen sun.

Even the soldiers, hardened by years in the imperial army, looked pityingly at the small, lonely figure which trudged forward alone on the empty caravan road, growing smaller and smaller in the distance among the heated rocks and sand-strewn flats at the foot of the black, sun-blasted volcanic mountains.

In her misery Theodora at first hardly took any note of her surroundings. She had not told Hecebolus about her condition, and evidently the slave, even under torture, had not confessed it. Whether the proconsul or the physician had fathered her child she did not know, and she might never know. But she had determined that she would not give to that Tyrian beast with the sneering face the satisfaction of knowing this intimate secret of hers.

So she walked along the rough stony path, feeling already weak and debilitated, and the tears came to her eyes and ran silently down her cheeks. But after a time she wiped the tears away and began to look forward. Never back.

This was her first close approach to the true desert, all her time in Cyrenaica having been spent in the interior of that cultivated African colony. From the descriptions she had heard of the desert, she had imagined it to be a flat, immeasurable waste of yellow sand. But she saw instead a rugged series of irregular reliefs; lofty tablelands, and wide plains covered with water-worn pebbles and loose stones from the ages when this was an inland sea; massive buttes and fantastic crags; naked peaks in the distance; and all this in colors as savagely dramatic as the topography—yellow sands, upthrusts of glittering black volcanic slag, browns of many shades and tones, reds glowing like coals of fire, and all this chromatic variety dazzling to the eyes under the blazing sun.

Beneath her sandals was the beaten track of the caravan route, the highway for thousands of years across the desert, with its inevitable scattering of bones along either side, baskets of ribs and long snouty skulls of camels, as if all these animals had died at once, although in reality they were the death record of centuries, since every skeleton left along the road was preserved apparently forever in the dry antiseptic air, after the jackals, vultures, and ravens finished with what shreds of flesh clung to it.

Theodora walked, and continued to walk. After an hour the caravan route bent around the foot of a savage volcanic heap and wound through a canyon between precipitous walls where the heat, reflected back and forth, seemed unbearable. Gone now was the last sight of any life and humanity, the distant dusty green of olive groves all blotted out.

She was alone, walking to her death.

They had allowed her sandals, or her feet would soon have been cut to pieces by the sharp stones. Out of part of her coarse mantle she made a sort of head protection, and kept it up with her arms, although in weariness she almost dropped it time after time.

Slowly, inevitably, the thirst came upon her. At first it was only a drying of the mouth, tongue, and throat, tormenting but to be endured. Then it began to affect the whole body, all the soft tissues, as if the giant vampire of heat were sucking the very juices out of her. At the last it was as if her bones themselves were in torture from the fiery need for moisture.

She cried no more: she could not afford to lose from her body the water of her tears, even if her eyes could have furnished them.

About the middle of the afternoon she heard voices of men and the sound of camel pads coming from behind her as she struggled through a narrow, crooked gorge. At once she seated herself on a rock, though it was burning hot, to rest and wait.

It could only be a caravan. For the first time she experienced hope. Perhaps these people would give her to drink: perhaps even more—they might carry her with them to a place of shelter . . .

The bottom of the canyon where she waited was covered with sand and loose stones, among which, here and there, an occasional cactus-like desert plant appeared. She watched: the caravan turned the corner and came into view. It was small, no more than twenty camels, most of them laden with goods, although three or four carried armed men to guard the merchandise.

Now Theodora removed the heated covering from her head and made swift dabs at her hair with her hands. She was disheveled and haggard, but she hoped to make herself as attractive as possible to the men who were coming. As they neared her, she managed somehow even to summon a smile. A smile is such a help with men . . .

Closer and closer they came. The first camels were abreast of her. Then they passed her—the whole procession—with never a one of the men glancing at her, or seeming to know she was sitting there!

The camels knew. One or two of them turned their long, whimsical faces toward her. But the men stared straight ahead.

She jumped to her feet. This was terror. It was her chance—and they were going on without even speaking to her!

Frantically she ran after them, stumbling over stones, calling.

She cried out her pleas, her misery. She promised them anything, herself, her body . . .

After a few minutes she tripped and fell flat forward on the stony road. There, hardly conscious, she lay for a little time.

When she raised her head feebly the caravan was receding, the last of the camels winding in line about a hummock and out of view. Not one of the men had so much as glanced back.

Slowly she regained her feet, pushing herself up from the ground, first by her arms, then by her legs, until she was erect.

She began to sob again. Dry sobs now. A soft tearless crying at first, then a loud crying, still tearless, to the pitiless desolation that surrounded her. The sobs shook her for a long time.

For now she knew at last the full malignity of Hecebolus, which extended out even into the desert.

Every caravan setting out from Cyrenaica was being specifically warned concerning her, the full description of her given so there could be no mistake, and the deadly displeasure of the proconsul promised to any who helped her or even spoke to her. Furthermore, messengers had without doubt been sent forward ahead of her, to warn in similar manner all coming from the other direction. She was to die without mercy, by the torture of heat, and weariness, and thirst, in the desert.

Presently her sobbing ceased. The girl, alone in the waste, wrapped her sackcloth mantle again about her head and stumbled forward. Her head was aching from exposure to the sun, and instinct taught her that she must protect it, although the cloth about her face almost smothered her and half blinded her.

Hours passed. Slowly the sun lowered and the heat grew steadily more oppressive. Still she staggered forward.

Day was dying. She wondered dimly if she would die also, with the day. She began to think about death. Life after all, she said to herself, was not so greatly to be desired, a fleeting thing at best. In life only was there pain. Death was merciful, a sleep really—rest. Why did she not die?

Presently she ceased even this dreary thinking because of her suffering. The sun sank and darkness came.

Into a hollow among some rocks she crept, for the desert brought cold with the darkness. As the day had tortured her with its heat, the night now seemed to bring an almost equally intolerable discomfort of cold. She wrapped her single garment about her as best she could, and shivered through the hours, teeth chattering with weakness.

Once she heard the distant cry of wild beasts. Jackals. What if they found her? It came over her as a surprise that she even cared. Suppose they attacked her and dragged her to her death, worrying her with their jaws—would not even that kind of death be welcome?

Then she remembered that she had been told jackals were too cowardly ever to attack human beings, and the relief she experienced with this thought again surprised her. Even in her extremity of misery, the life spark still burned in her, the instinctive striving to continue existence speaking in these fears and reliefs.

Not until morning came and the sun rose and warmed her did her shivering cease. For a time she lay on the sand just outside the niche in which she had cowered among the rocks throughout the night. She did not move, being content to saturate her suffering body in the genial warmth. It lulled her to sleep and for an hour she forgot her sorrow and pain.

1 }

She was awakened by the growing heat, and knowing the danger of it, started to rise. It was a painful effort. At first she could hardly roll over on her side. Her body was stiff and sore, and very weak, as if deprived of every bit of force and strength. And the thirst was a living torment.

Presently she summoned her will, and by holding to the jagged side of a great rock, succeeded in pulling herself to her feet. The short sleep and the cold of the night had in some degree refreshed her, but as again she began her dragging progress along the empty caravan road it seemed that, painfully slow as had been her steps the day before, they were infinitely slower and feebler now.

The bone-whitened path continued to wind its way among the crags and canyons, which would have been impressive in any landscape save that of the desert. Here, however, they seemed dwarfed and made insignificant by the vast space of waterless earth and cloudless sky.

No caravan passed her that day. Her tongue swelled in her mouth until it pressed against her teeth and became sore from the contact. At times she breathed with difficulty, and her heart had periods of racing, so that she could feel its frenetic pounding in her temples. This was, she knew, a warning signal, and she wrapped closer the sackcloth about her head, trying to stave off the sunstroke.

On the horizons mirages danced and grew, and sometimes they took on the appearance, familiar enough to any who know them, of lakes or streams of water, making more maddening by their mocking suggestion her sufferings of thirst. That they were mirages, she knew, and yet sometimes the hallucination almost overcame her, so that she would start off gropingly toward the fantasy of the atmosphere, until she regained possession of her powers of thought and forced her feet once more to follow the caravan route.

In some respects the mirages were the worst part of this day. An ache throbbed continually in her head, and there were times when her eyes seemed to have a mist or cloud over them, which, when she rubbed them to clear her vision, gave off sparks of light. This obscurity of her sight, which came more and more often, caused her sometimes to stumble.

Once or twice she fell. But the last time she did so, it required such a prodigious effort to get back on her feet, that she knew she could only fall once again. That would be the last.

As if she were drunk, she reeled and swayed now, and her mind began to wander, dwelling on vague memories of water: the cool delicious water she had so carelessly sipped all her life without knowing its value; all the water of her bath in the house in Constantinople just off the Square of Aphrodite, with the blue tiles on the bottom and the dolphins circling in their design in the middle—she could drink that whole bath filled with water, if she could have it now, she thought crazily.

On and on she went, putting one foot ahead of the other, the process endlessly repeated over and over, each time a separate, conscious effort, maintaining her slow, staggering progress in the oven heat of the canyons and stone-littered plains where the caravan route wound like a dusty snake. By instinct only she moved at last. Her soul and body seemed to crawl across the desert, not together but separate, held to each other remotely by a thread of life so slender and weak that it might snap at any instant.

With infinite slowness the day went, each minute a week, each hour a year of torment. Once the suffering girl came to herself and knew that she had been babbling: her tongue pained from its use in the unconscious words, so that the hurt brought her to herself.

She had not now the remotest notion of where she was, save that the caravan route had brought her to the edge of a stony plateau. All about rose hills and cliffs, bleak and bare: more bleak and bare, it seemed to her, than any she had yet encountered. And ahead of her was another mirage.

This mirage had the strange seeming of green trees in it, rather than wide waters, but she recognized it as a mirage because of the manner in which it wavered in the air, as if it were without any other substance than the dry atmosphere.

She ignored the mirage, and began painfully to descend the slope into the heated valley ahead. After a time she was bothered by the stubbornness of the mirage. It continued to waver, but did not change or dissipate as it should. Directly ahead of her it danced now, and the caravan route seemed to lead through it. This often was the case with mirages, she had found, so she continued to push herself forward, thankful that the moment the walking was downhill and hence easier.

Like a hammer of molten brass the sun beat upon her. The girl tottered, half falling, along the path toward that cruel, mocking illusion, the mirage.

She tried not to look at it. But after a time she could not help looking again, and she found that the mirage continued to exist. It puzzled and worried her vague mind more and more. What if it were real? At this thought she laughed crazily, and then ceased laughing at once, for her mirth seemed to come from another being than herself, and was as hoarse and ghastly as the croak of a desert raven.

For a long time she kept her eyes on the ground before her feet. Then at last she permitted herself to look up again, sure that by now the tantalizing illusion would have cleared itself away.

She could not believe it. She saw a house.

A small house, true, of mud brick, but still a house. And it stood with date palms about it. And there were other houses, a few; and other date palms.

The mirage was no mirage. She was seeing a small oasis.

2 }

This was the moment when she fell again. For hours she had prevented herself from falling by sheer exercise of will, but now she suddenly stumbled in weakness and pitched forward on her face.

The shock of the fall half stunned her, and she lay for a while without stirring. At another time she might simply have continued to lie there, where she had fallen, until she died, because of lack of strength and desire to drive her tortured body farther.

But now, after a few minutes, she stirred feebly and lifted her head a little. Yes, she could see the oasis. It was still there. She tried to estimate how far away it was. A Roman mile perhaps.

Red vapor seemed to surround her, and she closed her eyes again. Her fatigue, her weakness, her suffering held her down upon the heated desert path as if her body were bound to it. She was dying.

Yet even now, in this extremity, the stubborn little spark of life in her refused to flicker out. She could not die.

After a long, long time she once more opened her eyes. Slowly she gathered together the last shreds of strength of body and will for a final effort. She was certain she could not walk that mile to the oasis, or even crawl it. But something within her, greater than her agony and feebleness, drove her to make the effort.

How she came to her feet that time she never knew. Nor how she made the terrible mile to the oasis. The last hundreds of steps, each one, became a separate and dreadful torture.

She felt shade: palm trees. Dimly, as through a reeling mist, she knew she was among human habitations.

The oasis was a tiny one, of a few clumps of date palms, a dozen mud-and-stone huts, a single well curbed with stone, a total population of perhaps forty souls.

She found herself in the crooked, dirty lane that passed for the village’s single street. Brown faces, desert dwellers’ faces, stared. These were Berbers, akin to the wild raiders from the inner desert, living at this small way-station on the caravan route.

She staggered toward them. “Water!” she croaked, hardly able to make the word intelligible.

The brown faces were averted from her. Even here the order of Hecebolus ran.

For a short distance she staggered on, then feebly turned, almost blindly, toward a well curb where it seemed she heard a tiny gurgle of water. But now the bearded Berbers were at her fiercely.

“Go! Begone with you!” they shouted harshly.

“I—I thirst . . .” she pleaded. A bare whisper.

“You thirst! What is that to us? Would you bring ruin upon us? Get along! Out of here!”

Eagerly they joined, women now with the men, in driving her forth, concerned not with her pitiable condition, but only with their dread of the displeasure of the ruler of Cyrenaica.

She did the easiest thing and blindly staggered on, hardly knowing in her agony where she was going.

Dimly, in the shadow of a mud wall, she saw something crouching in rotten rags: an old man, his eyes showing white eyeballs of blindness, his skeletonic chest bare and sunken, his thinly bearded lips babbling the incoherencies of a half-wit, or of one with his mind gone from senility. On the dusty ground he huddled with his little brass bowl beside him, praying for alms that did not exist.

Passing by the blind ancient in the last outskirts of the oasis village, she tried, out of her despair, to speak. The word would not come at first because of her swollen tongue and lips. She tried again, and it seemed to creak out of her mouth: “Mendici . . .”

The filthy creature in rags paid not the slightest attention, but babbled on without stirring, his blind eyes upraised. Now she realized that the beggar was not only blind but deaf, and her feeble flicker of hope died. Even had he been able to hear her word, the call of the Brotherhood, he could hardly have been one of the fraternity she knew. More likely he was a local person, depending on his own village for the charity that kept the meager life in his old bones.

Through the village she reeled, on out into the desert beyond it, driven by misery and instinct. No way to go now but forward. Behind her she left the sweet shade of the palms, the delicious gurgle of water.

Half demented by torment and despair, she dragged one foot after the other, each movement an agonizing effort of her whole being; hardly knowing what she was doing, scarcely a woman any longer; only a feeble, lingering flicker of life in a body already clutched by the most pitiless of deaths.

How far she went she did not know, but inevitably she fell at last. This time she did not stir. Fate had asked too much of her.

From the bright sky a black shadow swooped. Another came, equally sinister, and yet another. Soon there were many. The desert vultures and ravens, alighting and crouching on the rocks which almost cast their shadows on the still, prostrate body, were gathering for their ghastly feast which was about to begin.

3 }

It was like a sea, the deadly languor that drowned her consciousness. She was suffering, but her misery was not so great as before.

Where she lay it was dark, yet she was conscious of light at a little distance. Now and again there was water. Her jaws were opened by a hand, and a few drops only poured on her swollen tongue. Greedily she sucked at it, hardly able to swallow, and whimpered for more.

But for long periods the water was withheld. Then there would be more. Too spent was her mind to understand, but she accepted the water with a pathetic, childish gratitude. After many visitations of small driblets of it, the swelling of her tongue seemed gradually to lessen, her body absorbed the life-giving moisture, the fever departed from her dried-out tissues. Then she received more water, whole swallows of it at a time.

She slept. When she came back to consciousness the darkness still surrounded her, but there was the flickering of light again. She opened her eyes. With dull surprise she made out a rocky arch above her. The roughness of the stone was at times thrown into relief, here and there, and at other times obscured, by the dancing light that seemed to come and go.

After a long time she stirred, and knew she was lying on soft sand covered with a heap of rags. She wondered feebly how she had come to this place, then gave up wondering, the effort being too great. Her mind seemed wrung out, a vacancy, and she was aware of a headache that seemed to be splintering her head.

She turned her face. The light of which she had been conscious came from a small fire which burned at a distance of perhaps twenty feet, toward what seemed to be the mouth of a cave, in which she was sheltered. Beside the fire crouched a skeletonic figure: an old, thin-bearded man, stirring at something in a small clay pot.

The ache in her head increased, almost blinding her. She uttered a low moan.

At once the figure beside the fire rose and became a huge shadow that loomed over her, the firelight behind it.

She stared up: her eyes focused, so that even in the darkness, with the firelight obscured, she seemed to know that face. Knew it . . . but where?

A cracked, old-man voice said, “How be you, child?”

“My—head,” she groaned.

“Wait,” he said.

For a moment he was gone. Beyond the fire stood a wide-mouthed earthen jar, larger than the pot he had been stirring. He took a rag—a foul-looking rag—and dipped it in the jar, which contained water. Then he returned to her and placed the wet rag over her forehead and temples. Very grateful was the coolness. It seemed to relieve the ache.

Once more she closed her eyes, and for a long time was still. Yet she was not asleep. She heard the old man presently move away, back to his pot and his fire.

Perhaps an hour or more passed. Again she opened her eyes. The ache in her head was better. Beside the fire the crouching figure still squatted, seeming to doze.

“Old man——” she said.

The thin frame started, woke from its doze, and stumbled over to her.

“You called, child?”

She gave a feeble nod. Her words came with a painful effort.

“How . . . came I . . . here?”

“You spoke the word.”

At that she knew him. He was the beggar of the oasis.

“But you were blind . . . and deaf,” she said, in all perplexity.

He chuckled thinly. “To learn the trick of turning up the eyeballs so only the whites show, requires the mastery of practice. But to assume deafness is not hard. Speak no more now. I will bring water.”

When she had drunk again, she found it easy, in her mere passive listlessness, to obey his injunction of silence. She watched him return to the fire and presently stretch himself on the cave’s rocky floor. The fire flickered out. Blackness was complete.

She dozed, and woke; and dozed again. Next time she opened her eyes, grayness had replaced the pitch dark, slowly turning to light. Day was dawning.

The old bag of bones stirred, woke, rose, and blew on the coals to revive the fire, which he fed with dried camel dung from a little heap near it. Presently the small pot was being stirred again over the blaze.

After a time the beggar brought the pot and a horn spoon to her.

“How’s your head this morning?” he asked.

“Better. A dull ache yet. But much better.”

“You will have some porridge?”

“Water, first——”

“Water to be sure.” He gave her to drink out of a gourd. “When one has known the great thirst, water becomes more precious than jewels. One thinks one cannot drink enough. This is always so. But you have sufficient water, child—and behold, there’s more, if you want it. Now partake of this good porridge.”

It was a thin gruel of durra meal boiled in water, with a few chopped dates to give it flavor. She was not hungry, but she swallowed some of the food, and it strengthened her.

Later she was able to eat more of it, and by the time the daylight blazing in at the mouth of the cave showed that the sun was high outside, she could, with the beggar’s help, sit up. From this time she recovered her strength rapidly, although for days thereafter she suffered periodic recurrences of the headaches until the effects of her exposure to the desert sun finally wore away.

On that day the old beggar did not leave the cave. It was one of those caverns found all over the world, wherever there are heaps of volcanic slag, and within its depths was relative coolness, for which she was thankful.

Once she said to him, “What is your name?”

He came over and squatted cross-legged beside her pallet.

“I am called Buwwa, a beggar these sixty years, from my childhood in Alexandria,” he said.

“You saved my life, Buwwa. Do you know whom you saved?”

He nodded, his scraggly gray beard brushing his sunken chest.

“It was announced in the oasis, with trumpets, that a woman might come—giving the description of you—who was sentenced to exile, the penalty of death to be suffered by any who helped her.”

“And still you gave me this succor, which was forbidden on pain of death?”

Again he nodded. “I know not whence you got the word, child, since to me you seem to be no beggar. But we of the Brotherhood heed the word when we hear it.”

“I thought you did not hear.”

“Because many were near, I said nothing, nor seemed to understand you. They would have kept a watch on me, for all in that village might suffer for what one did—even a beggar. But when none were looking I followed after you, and found you where you had fallen, and brought you here. What did you do to suffer such a fate?”

“Because I would not love him, I affronted a man’s vanity. My name is Theodora, a courtesan of Constantinople, who was mistress to Hecebolus, the proconsul of Cyrenaica.”

A little anxiously he gazed at her. “But you are of us?”

“I—was.”

“And can recite the law, belike?”

“I will try.” She groped in her mind for recollection. This was beyond possibility, for she had heard the law of the Brotherhood of Beggars but once. Yet again she seemed to see, dimly illumined by a crude oil lamp, a huge head and scarred visage. And again it was as if she heard the booming voice of Hagg. Words, some of them, came back to her. She began:

The beggar held up his hand. “Enough! These are the very words of the preamble of our laws. I will allow that you know the rest. You’re too weak now to be put through a catechism, but this much sets me at ease.”

“For why?”

“Would I risk my life for one not of us?”

With wonder in her mind she considered how, when nobody else showed pity on a poor tortured creature for fear of the wrath of the proconsul, this, the weakest and most friendless of men, had dared to come after her in the desert and save her. Also that Buwwa, with subtle kindness, had halted her recital of the laws, sensing perhaps the truth, that she might not know them all, and desiring not to discover this fact, since it would remove his obligation to aid her.

On this last score she resolved to set his mind at rest.

“Buwwa,” she said, “have you been to Constantinople?”

He shook his head. “Never have I set foot out of Africa.”

“But you may perchance have heard of a certain Hagg, the protomendicus?”

“Of the protomendicus I have heard, assuredly, as have all our people, though I’ve never had speech with him or sight of him.”

“I am friend to Hagg. As a child I begged with him.”

“Indeed, is this so? Now am I trebly glad that I succored you!”

4 }

Next morning Buwwa departed early, perhaps to continue his begging at the oasis, which she understood was only a league or so down the caravan route that the mouth of the cave overlooked.

She was much stronger this day, and able to walk a little about the cavern. Feebly she made her way to the large earthen jar in which was kept the water. It was as the beggar had said. Although she was not particularly thirsty, water in these days had a new preciousness. She drank whenever she could, as if trying to store within herself moisture against another horror of thirst.

But when she bent her head over the wide-mouthed receptacle, she threw it back as if she had been struck a blow. In the still water was mirrored her face. Horrible! Was that ghostly creature, wasted and sun-blistered, lips cracked and swollen, eyes staring hollowly—herself? The shock of the sight sent her back to her pallet to weep. So much to her did her beauty mean . . . and it was gone . . .

Hours later, toward evening, Buwwa returned. He brought with him a companion: a cripple who walked with two canes upon which he propped himself with crooked, powerful hands, dragging his withered legs and feet painfully after. This one, though younger than Buwwa, perhaps somewhere past his middle life, was all rags also, but she noticed that he had a sly face, a long sly nose, and a wide, toothless sly mouth.

“This is the girl?” he said.

“Yes,” said Buwwa. “She knows the word and the law. Also she is a friend of the protomendicus.”

The cripple hitched himself closer, glared at her, and spat out a mouthful of syllables, ill-assorted and seemingly without meaning, yet all hung together with a sort of sing-song rhyming. To attempt to reproduce them in a modern language would be impossible, since all the words were twisted and distorted from Greek or Latin, with a little Aramaic, Egyptian, and Gothic thrown in.

Once again Theodora was thankful for her childhood days when she kept watch for Hagg in the bazaar, and talked with him in the fornices. It was beggar’s cant. The cripple had simply asked her if she could speak it.

At once she replied briefly in the affirmative, in the same queer jargon.

The man nodded. “It is well,” he said. “The others will not question.”

Buwwa, who appeared to be her sponsor, seemed greatly pleased.

“I knew you’d find her qualified,” he said. Then to Theodora, “This is Kurban, a very wise beggar, who is to be chief of a congeries of our people on a journey soon.”

“A journey whither?” she asked.

“Eastward, to Egypt,” Kurban said.

“This cavern is a gathering place of the Brotherhood,” explained Buwwa. “By accident only was I in that miserable village when you came. The oasis is none of my stations, but having arrived ahead of the others, I thought to go down and try it for what I might get—and I got less than nothing from those Berber dogs. So it happened I saw you.”

She nodded. For a moment she considered, then said, “When the congeries has gathered, does it have any especial destination?”

“None especially,” said Kurban. “The villages and towns on this caravan route, which follows the seacoast to Egypt, are so poor and far between that we find it profitable to visit them only at periods long apart, and then in companies, so that the beggar’s tilling may be well done, and at once. As thoroughly as may be, we work them, and quickly pass on to the next.”

“Do you, perchance, go as far as Alexandria?”

“It is possible.”

“I would travel with the congeries to Alexandria,” she said.

Kurban and Buwwa consulted with each other. Then the former said, “No person travels with a congeries who has not some special skill. What can you do—fortunes, perhaps?”

“I do not know the mystery,” she said.

“Love philters?”

“No.”

“Good luck charms and amulets, then?”

“I have none to sell.”

Kurban said, “We deal not in harlotry. That is a separate craft.”

“I am with child,” she said humbly, “and therefore deal not in harlotry either. But is there room for a mimic, who can make laughter?”

“You have this art?”

“I was a comic on the stage in Constantinople.”

Kurban considered deeply. At last he said, “The fifth law of the Brotherhood forbids making compacts with mountebanks and such like, but only when they are not of us. It would not, therefore, hold against you.” He seemed to come to a decision. “If you are what you say, let us see your skill.”

With Buwwa he seated himself on the cavern floor, and she saw that they expected from her an immediate performance. Obediently, she rose from her pallet.

In all history, perhaps, no stranger audition of an entertainer’s routines ever was held than that which followed, in a cavern in the desert, the performer a girl who had been cast out to die, the audience two beggars, one a twisted cripple, the other a living skeleton in loathsome rags.

Theodora was still weak, her face blistered, her lips swollen. But she began courageously, and for an hour went through all of her repertoire that she could remember, together with some acts she improvised on the moment: a pantomime delicate yet robust, with characterizations searching but laughable.

She began by portraying a senator, purse-proud and pompous, but thick-headed and foolish, a delicious satire with which in the past she had never failed to gain laughs. But her audience here merely stared, stony-faced and unresponsive.

She went to another of her characterizations, a pretentious eunuch who was looking, looking, for something he had lost—he had forgotten what. The audience was supposed to know full well what the eunuch had lost, which was what all eunuchs had lost, and this indelicacy provoked roars of guffaws usually. But not a sound, not a change of expression did it evoke from the two onlookers in the cave.

The lack of any response was dampening, discouraging. The girl wondered if her appearance was so bad that she could not capture their mood.

Desperately she went from one to another of her characterizations which had been never failing: the unfaithful wife of the tax collector, confronted with her guilt by her husband; the haughty and vainglorious soldier discomfited by his own boasting of his deeds of blood, which cost him the love of his sweetheart by horrifying her; even an arrogant, coarse, and greedy governor of a province—a really superb improvisation this last, a portrayal to the very life of Hecebolus and his ludicrous and unpleasant personal habits and gestures.

And through it all the audience of two beggars sat unmoved, expressionless, without a sign of pleasure or praise.

Theodora despaired. She had done her best—outdone herself, really, to win them—and she had not succeeded in wringing one shadow of a smile, one responsive flicker from either of them.

It was a matter of life and death to her, to be permitted to accompany the congeries. But at last from very exhaustion she ceased her efforts, and returning to her pallet, sat down upon it, her head in her hands. Still weak from her ordeal in the desert, she trembled from weariness, and her palms on her face felt the rough ugliness of her swollen lips, the blisters on her skin. She was hideous. That was it. If she had been pretty . . . Tears gathered in her eyes, tears of mortification as much as of grief and disappointment.

She heard Buwwa say to Kurban, “What think you?”

In the cave was a moment of silence. Then Kurban, with a face as doleful as an owl’s, said, “The girl is magnificent. She will make them howl with laughter in the streets. Almost I smiled myself once!”

“I, too,” agreed Buwwa, with solemnity also unbroken. “In that concerning the eunuch seeking his lost manhood, I felt almost a helplessness to resist laughing, until by pinching my leg I reminded myself of my beggarship.”

With a gasp, Theodora took her hands from her face. A sudden understanding, a wave of sheer relief came over her. Why had she not remembered the beggars’ invariable habit and practice of the dolorous and unsmiling countenance?

She wept again a little, wiping from her lashes small tears, this time of gladness. For now she knew that when the congeries gathered, the beggars would take her with them.

5 }

It was the fall of the year, months after that day when Theodora, blistered and beaten by the desert, displayed her talents to Buwwa and Kurban in the cave.

In the city of Alexandria, eight hundred miles from that happening, evening had come with a shower of rain. As lights went on in uncounted houses, shopkeepers began to close their stores for the night; and down by the wharfs which stretched afar to the mole that surrounded a harbor crowded with shipping, warehouses and counting houses also were being locked up until next day.

Alexandria was the pearl of Egypt. Her harbor was the best, her world trade the richest in that great province, and rivaled in the empire only by Constantinople itself. Merchants of the city were proverbial for their canny competence, and enjoyed a standing possibly higher than in any other part of the empire, for here they formed the aristocracy, since nobility of blood was comparatively rare, so that of wealth had taken its place.

That evening a certain merchant saw to it as his steward locked the huge timbered doors of his counting house; then took the keys from the man and turned toward his home. He could hardly be blamed for showing perhaps a little extra pride and dignity in his bearing, for he was well known in the exchange: well known and respected, as a man of prominence and weight in financial circles.

In the harbor a whole fleet of sturdy craft rocked at anchor, with his green pennons fluttering from their masts, lading or unlading their cargoes. His caravans of camels came and went up and down the Nile, and west to Cyrenaica, as well as east to Syria, with his merchandise. His warehouses bulged with goods in bales and boxes, and he was served by scores of slaves, and many freemen also.

Of this man it was whispered that he could make no mistake, that all his commercial ventures were lucky. And certainly he had, in a short time, pyramided his fortune, which before a certain voyage of his to the imperial capital had been hardly more than modest.

As they passed him, carried in their chairs by slaves, acquaintances and competitors in business greeted him with respect.

“A good evening to you, Datos,” said one merchant.

“To you also, friend Jared,” Datos responded. “Upon you the peace of Christ, the blessed single-natured.”

“How went the two-ship venture to Crete?” another merchant paused to ask, his bearers setting down the chair while he conversed.

“Notably, Timeion. Notably,” said Datos. “My vessels docked this morning. In olive oil and wool I shall be able to undersell you tomorrow in the exchange.”

Timeion pulled at his beard, gave a wry twist of his face, and signaled his chair carriers to proceed. “Always lucky, always lucky,” he grumbled. Then he called back, “Mayhap we might form a syndicate for our present supplies, Datos? To your advantage, of course—since you have me in the jaws of the nutcracker.”

“Mayhap.” Datos laughed genially. “We’ll speak of it tomorrow, if you’re prepared to offer terms that will interest me.”

The chair of the merchant, Timeion, went up the street.

Most of his friends and associates were carried home at night in their riding chairs, borne on poles by two slaves, but Datos preferred exercise and almost always walked. Having said farewell to his steward, he glanced up at the sky, where ragged clouds now scudded, promising perhaps another shower, and set forth: a vigorous, well-bearded man, graying but strong, swinging his shoulders right briskly.

From Datos’ counting house on the water front to his home, which was in the Brucheum, or Greek section—by far the most magnificent in the city—it was a good half hour’s walk. This gave him a chance to think, to plan his next day’s maneuvers in the market, and also to observe with a citizen’s stalwart pride the fine buildings of his city: the Antoninum, built by Mark Antony; the museum, library, and theater; the mausoleum of the Ptolemies; and the Caesarium, with the two obelisks known as Cleopatra’s Needles standing before it, which was now converted into a Monophysite church—a sect to which Datos belonged, as did most Christian believers in Alexandria.

It was a good world, a comfortable world in which Datos lived, with business success, a wife somewhat elderly but much respected, three sons with him in his enterprises, and a dozen thriving grandchildren to rejoice at his home-coming, for he was kind and genial, and given to taking home presents of sweetmeats and toys for the children.

Then, in one moment, all the goodness and comfort seemed to come to an end.

He had barely started his walk home when he heard a voice.

“Datos!”

At the moment he was passing an alley not far from his counting house, picking his way rather carefully, for the street at this point was slippery with wetness from the shower of a few minutes before. He halted, and saw shrinking back in the alley a woman’s figure.

“You spoke my name?” he said.

“Yes.”

“What do you want with me?”

She came out from the shadows toward him. He stared at her and she gave him a curious look, as if expecting something from him, he knew not just what. Something about her aroused in him a twinge of recollection that was tugging hard at his memory.

“May I—could I speak with you?” she asked.

He half stepped back, and glanced apprehensively up and down the street. This was irregular, most embarrassingly irregular. To be accosted in an alley by a strange woman—and none too reputable from the looks of her—— He sincerely hoped that none of his friends passed by to witness it. Fortunately the street at the moment was almost empty, nearly all the merchants having already gone home.

He found himself wondering at her use of his name, as if she knew him well. He must get rid of her. Perhaps he should not even speak to her. But then, he felt the instinct a man usually feels under such circumstances, that he should at least discover who she was, and what she thought she wanted of him. A woman can sometimes be a dangerous creature—even to a virtuous and upright citizen—if she thinks she has a grievance.

He cleared his throat. “Well, say what you have to say.”

At the same time he had the appearance, somewhat ludicrous, of a dignified old cart horse which has been dozing between the shafts and is suddenly aroused by something that may be alarming. He looked almost ready to bolt.

She said, “Datos, don’t you remember me?”

How many million times in the world’s history men have heard that same question from women they have forgotten, or wished to forget, it is impossible to conjecture. Datos felt the same sudden chill, the guilty thrill of fear, that all his fellows in this unfortunate situation have universally experienced. For now he did recognize her.

“You are——” he began, and hesitated.

“I am Theodora,” she supplied.

“Theodora, the—the——” He almost said “courtesan,” but thought better of it. “Theodora—of Constantinople?”

“Yes,” she said.

Most vividly he remembered her now.

But how changed she was! In the months of slow wandering with the beggars, her dreadful wasted look and also the disfiguring swellings and blisterings caused by her ordeal in the desert had gone, though her skin still was dark from much sun. It was, however, something else that made him gulp. He remembered this girl as all grace and lightness. Now her body, in its plain woolen mantle—he did not know she had spent all of her few coppers of the beggars’ journey for that—was swelled and distorted, and she walked awkwardly, bracing herself back against the weight of her protruding belly.

He groaned to himself.

A woman out of his past . . . and pregnant!

It was outrageous, undeserved. To have committed one indiscretion, and one only, in a lifetime, and then to have it pursue him and turn up—like this!

Occasionally in the past months he had hugged to himself with a sort of secret, wicked joy, the memory of those four days he had spent with the girl in Constantinople—those four reckless, abandoned, delightful days. But he had paid, and paid roundly, for those days. And when he returned from the capital to Alexandria he once more became respectable beyond reproach, devoted to his family above devotion, most zealous at worship, and in contributing to the Monophysite churches and monasteries that thickly spotted the city and the country around it.

And now, right in the middle of all that—Theodora!

“You did remember,” she said, as she came close to him.

These women always seem to take pleasure in the circumstance of a man’s memory. Of course he remembered her! How could he have forgotten her? He wished he had, for those four days with her did not now seem nearly so beautiful and delicious.

Speechless with panic he stared at her: and many a dignified, proper, and immensely respected man of a modern day who has been confronted suddenly by an indiscretion of his past would know that look, that panic, for human nature has changed not at all in these centuries.

“Why—are you here?” he managed to ask, the usual foolish question under such circumstances.

“I was told where your counting house was. I waited, hoping to see you——”

Now Datos decided on a firm course of action. “I’ll have nothing to do with you!” he said. “Do you hear?”

“You said once—that you’d never forget——”

“You have no claim on me! You were well paid!”

“I brought you luck—you told me that,” she said sadly.

“Just a way of speaking! Do you want to ruin me? Is it money you’re after? Here—take this and never show me your face again!”

He tossed her a gold coin. It fell, spinning, on the wet pavement, and lay a glimmering spot of brightness.

She did not stir to pick it up. Instead, she put her face on her arm against the wall, and began to weep.

Datos, who had begun to move away, halted. His face now grew perplexed as well as apprehensive. In every essential he was a kindly man, a good man, and the girl had not picked up the coin. He recognized misery when he saw it.

Besides, he had been lucky since he had known her. All his greatest success dated from that time. Datos was not superstitious, but still, it might be well to consider . . .

“What is it?” he said gruffly. “Tell me, what’s the matter?”

He went over to her and drew her arm from her face. It was wet with tears, as the glimmering pavement was wet with the recent rain, and under his hand her garment was wet too. Furthermore, she was cold from having stood out in the shower waiting for him. She shivered, and it was the last thing needed to win his sympathy.

“What is it that you want of me, Theodora?” he asked. “I’m sorry for throwing the coin—and for what I said——” He released her arm and stooped thriftily to pick up the gold piece she had ignored.

Again she buried her face on her arm, and let herself go, sobbing unrestrainedly. An icy drizzle began to fall. A moment before Datos had thought of this girl as an abomination, a creature of wickedness and danger. But now he patted her awkwardly on the shoulder.

“There, there,” he said. “Let me help you.”

All at once she stopped sobbing, with a catch of her breath.

“There——” she said.

“What is it?”

“They’re coming oftener——”

“What do you mean?”

“The pains! Oh, good Datos, befriend me! I’m going to have a baby—my time’s nearly here—and you’re the only—one I know—in this—whole city——”

The last words seemed jerked out of her by her spasm. He goggled at her, tugging his beard. What she had said lifted from him any apprehension of blackmail, but it provided something else to think about. Like men in general, now that he understood her crisis, he was thrice as excited and confused over it as was she.

“What are we doing, standing here?” he cried. “There’s not a minute to waste! Come on! I know of a place—no, you mustn’t walk! Wait—a chair—I’ll get a chair for you——”

1 }

There were terrible hours: hours when her body was racked, and twisted, and torn by hideous torture. She knew she was in a room of stone walls, its darkness only dimly illumined by a few oil lamps, and that she lay on a table, with the pudding-faced, squint-eyed midwife squatting between her outspread legs.

Also there were other women, robed and hooded in gray, who held her on the table when she writhed and screamed, or who went on errands of some nature at the midwife’s direction, or who knelt and prayed.

One of these women she remembered in particular, very white-faced and gaunt; and a man, the only man present, also robed and hooded, but in black, tall and with burning eyes, who joined with the white-faced woman in a sort of antiphonal denunciation of the suffering girl on the table.

“Harlot!” the man would say. “Scarlet woman! Confess your abominable sins, and be saved to God!”

“You cannot keep the child, if it lives!” the woman would say. “It belongs to God! Agree to give up the child to the holy order!”

Hours passed. Eons, it seemed. Eventually, hardly knowing what she did, she nodded her assent to them. What did it matter, anyway? In her immediate, personal, agonizing crisis nothing mattered.

Ages later came the last violent paroxysm of pain, and she heard the grating squall of an infant, and knew sudden relief in her tormented body. Dimly she heard exclamations, the exclamations women always utter—even if they be nuns—over the advent of a little, wet, wailing, new life into the world.

As soon as he got Theodora’s assent to surrender her claims to her child, the black-clad monk departed. Women’s rejoicing over a newborn babe was to him incomprehensible. Women themselves, to the ascetic, were incomprehensible, and sinful, since they represented the most terrible temptations. That very female instinct of joy over reproduction, as manifested in this room, was a constant threat to his cherished celibacy, a most subtle and deadly threat, which sometimes caused him to have dreams of a dreadful and carnal nature, for which he must drive himself to new penances and fastings.

The midwife, who was not of the holy order of nuns, but only a woman who had been brought in from the outside to perform her office, laughed and exulted over the excellences of the child. Theodora turned her head feebly.

“A boy . . . or a girl?” she whispered.

“A beautiful little girl!”

“May I . . . see it?”

The midwife, plump and motherly, looked questioningly at the white-faced superior, who gave a curt nod.

“She may see it this once—and for a moment only,” said the superior.

So Theodora was permitted to look at, but not to touch her baby daughter. The little thing, wrapped in a swaddling cloth, lay in the midwife’s arms, cradled on her bosom, and its eyes were open—actually!—as if it already were looking around to survey the new world into which it had entered.

“So lovely,” Theodora murmured. Her eyes filled with tears. “Poor, poor little creature!”

“Don’t worry about it, dear,” said the kindly old midwife. “The sisters will take excellent care of it. A wet nurse will be provided—of the true faith and with ample milk supply—and it will be nurtured and taught so that its future will be well assured both here on earth, and in heaven after.”

Privately, the old woman considered that this taking of a new infant away from its mother—and she a mere girl—was beastly. But the hospice gave her much business, so she said the proper, pious thing that was expected of her and went her way.

When they took the baby from the room, Theodora spoke no more, knowing it was hopeless. The one look had told her something of importance to her: the baby had fine features, a delicate nose, and lips promising beauty. This could not be the child of Hecebolus, the coarse-faced. At least the little girl had not the curse of the blood of that gross and cruel beast.

Poor Lynnaeus, then, was the father . . . and she was glad, even if he had been a slave. There was kindness in Lynnaeus, and intelligence, and a capacity to love. Having caused his death, the very least she could do for him was to give him a continuing life of a kind, through this child of his love. In this, and only in this, she found a sad satisfaction.

2 }

Sometimes Theodora wept until it seemed she could not find any more tears. She was weak, and at first it seemed that however she struggled to do so, she could not bear the tragedy of her new motherhood, deprived of its child.

She yearned for the baby. It should be beside her, in her arms, on her breast. Its absence left an emptiness, a great wounded void, created by the imperative instinct that was born in her when the child was born. This mother hunger at times seemed to tear her heart apart.

Sometimes she would wake from fitful slumber, and look about wildly, as if searching for the tiny being she had borne. At other times she gazed pleadingly into the faces of the hooded, gray-clad women who attended her. But their faces were stone, and they drew their sanctified garments aside from her, coming near only when their duties demanded, for she was to them the vilest of creatures. To the nuns, because of their own lives of denial, it was as if this girl, who had indulged the very desires and pleasures which they pushed out of their existence by every form of abnegation, was an especial enemy to their wearying and unending fight for holiness.

Receiving no comfort from the nuns, Theodora would again bury her face in her hair and succumb to weeping in long, uncontrolled fits, crushed by her grief and helplessness, wishing for death, bereft of any kind of hope for happiness to come.

But after a time her native determination would return by degrees; and she would stifle her sobs, struggling against them as if they were some adversary, choking and gasping, and finally gaining the upper hand. Then would follow long hours when she lay as if in a trance, or perhaps slept a little, quivering slightly even in her sleep, or starting convulsively awake.

Yet she never asked for her child, because she would not beg uselessly even for that.

Eventually she wept no more. Some thought she had forgotten her child, since she did not speak of it, and even among these women of stone it was a cause for sneering: as if by varying from the normal instincts—even though they themselves denied them—they thought she made herself more abominable by not suffering as much as she deserved.

But Theodora never forgot her child. Though she did not refer to it in speech, there was a numb place in her heart, akin to the numbness that a heavy scar will leave upon the body.

She partook of food, a little at first, then more because she wished to gain back her strength. Of Datos, who had brought her to the hospice, she saw nothing, but it was the money of that kindly merchant that paid her expenses, and Datos had promised that when she was well he would help her on her journey, for above all other things she wished to return to Constantinople. What she would do when she got there, she knew not, but it was home, where she had known her few periods of happiness.

Meantime, while she convalesced, she took notice of the life around her. She was a patient in the hospice of St. Dionysia, dedicated to a holy woman whose virginity had been preserved by a notable miracle in spite of the united efforts of wicked Roman debauchees to violate her as part of her martyrdom, during the persecution of the Christians in the reign of Diocletian. In memory of their saintly patron the nuns of the hospice lived a cenobite existence of eternal abstemiousness and penitence, eating nothing all day until after sunset, and then only tasteless herbs, unsalted bread, and a little water. They slept in narrow cells on the bare stone floor, and what time they were not busy at their tasks in the hospice, they spent in prayer, psalm singing, and long vigils on their knees.

Sometimes, in her mind, Theodora contrasted them with the beggars among whom she had made the long, slow journey across the northern desert littoral of Africa. When she began the journey, battered as she was, she could hardly have been recognized as the former mistress of a proconsul, but the beggars helped her still farther alter her appearance, with a smear of ash on the forehead, eyes made unnaturally dark and large with kohl, and the cheap spangled garb of a desert dancer.

In the ragged congeries, as the troupe was called, were five other men beside Buwwa and Kurban, and in addition to Theodora, two women: peddlers, fortunetellers, spurious religious mendicants, sellers of charms and love potions, street musicians, and all, without exception, beggars.

Coming to an oasis village or an infrequent desert shore town, they would scatter and go into it singly, from different directions, so as not to attract attention to their number. Then Theodora, accompanied by two of the men, one of whom played a camel horn and the other a zither, would begin her pantomimes on the street. Invariably a crowd quickly gathered, and as soon as it did so, the others of the troupe sifted through it, “tilling it,” to use the beggars’ phrase. Afterward they would scatter again, and reunite on the far side of the place to divide equally their spoils.

The district was poor, and the spoils meager. Sometimes they had little to eat, but Theodora always received her share, even in the later weeks when her pregnancy made her so unwieldy that she could no longer do her pantomimes on the streets.

Even so, looking back at it, Theodora thought that these holy women of the hospice of St. Dionysia fared worse than did the beggars. They denied to their bodies not only all comforts and pleasures, but even common care, and they believed that the world was filled with demons of temptation, from which they could defend themselves only by fastings and macerations of the flesh.

Each day the gaunt monk, whose name was Abadias, and who was chaplain to the hospice, preached to the patients and the nuns, expounding the doctrines of the Monophysite sect to which he, and the hospice, and in fact all of Alexandria and most of Egypt, belonged. At times also, with boundless fury, he denounced the Orthodox Catholics, and the repressive measures taken against the Monophysites recently by Emperor Justin. To Theodora it was most strange to hear epithets like “Moloch,” and “Anti-Christ,” hurled at a ruler she had been taught to revere. But the schism itself did not surprise her, such violent divergences among the people who subscribed to the Christian faith being one of the accepted conditions of the time.

In the sixth century after the gentle Nazarene enjoined universal peace and brotherhood on mankind, his followers were in shocking and ferocious contention among themselves. After being almost obliterated in its inception, Christianity had slowly overcome paganism, until now the old gods were worshipped only secretly, if at all, and kings and emperors made the religion of Christ that of their nations.

But with prosperity a strange change came over the spirit of Christianity. Humble and long-suffering in its days of persecution, with success it grew intolerant and aggressive, until in Theodora’s day the Christian Church was less concerned with the lingering remnants of paganism than with vindictive disputations within itself. Men grew violently quarrelsome over metaphysical differences so attenuated that they could hardly be put into words, and their strenuous earnestness led the stronger parties to seek to force their theology on the weaker, creating constant, often bloody strife.

There was, for example, the dispute between Catholics and Arians over a single word in the creed, and that in its Greek version only. The Catholics insisted on the word homoousian; the Arians with equal zeal upheld homoiousian. One little letter stood between them, the smallest in the alphabet. Yet it provided a shade of meaning, namely that the Son “is of one substance with the Father,” as against “of like substance with the Father.” Over that, wars were fought, and persecutions took place, and Europe was shaken from the Persian border to the Pillars of Hercules.

Western Europe and Vandalic Africa were Arian. Emperor Justin upheld Orthodox Catholicism as the official religion of the eastern empire, but it did not follow that the empire was united under him. A score of heresies existed, and the nature of the Roman-Greek civilization being such that it loved disputes, men would neglect business, porters would halt under their burdens in the streets, young rakehells in the brothels would even forget licentiousness to enter heated debates over the most obscure interpretations of dogma, the upholder of each viewpoint refusing to concede anything to the upholder of any other.

Of the heresies in the empire, the chief and greatest rival to Catholicism was the sect of Monophysites. The word was derived from the Greek mono, meaning single, and physis, meaning nature, and revealed the central tenet of the Monophysite schism.

It was held by the Catholics that the Savior had two natures, human and divine, which were in him co-existent. But the Monophysites asserted that in Christ the two natures were united in a single nature, which was divine only. On this point an endless and vindictive quarrel grew, and since Alexandria was the central stronghold of the Monophysites, Theodora heard continual bitterness against the Catholics.

Never, heretofore, had the girl found religion of much moment. But these days, lying on her cot in the hospice, she became less sure of her cynicism in that regard.

With astonishment she watched the gray nuns. The rigor of their austerity repelled her, yet when she saw them at their prayers, rapt, absorbed, kneeling in their strenuous, almost frightening devotions, it came over her that some tremendous force must exist here, some mysterious power that could make these unsmiling creatures conduct themselves as they did.

Abadias, the monk, puzzled her more than any of the nuns. At first he left her severely alone. But one day, flanked by Sister Beneficia—the superior with the forbidding face—he approached Theodora as if he feared her, and launched at her a tirade, calling her a monster, a shameless strumpet, an enemy of men’s souls, an offspring of the devil. Having uttered this violent denunciation, he then began exhorting her to forsake her life of evil and take up some holy work to save her immortal soul.

At that time she did not reply to him. But afterward Abadias frequently renewed his assault, always accompanied by Sister Beneficia, and always following the same pattern: first the insults, then the homilies. After a while she did answer him, humbly enough, but she did not respond to his exhortations, for she liked neither the grim monk nor the grim superior.

Too well she remembered their voices, howling at her in her hours of mortal agony, forcing her in the time of her weakness and misery to relinquish her child forever, without even once knowing the joy of holding it in her arms . . .

Besides, there was to Theodora an unpleasant suggestion of unwholesomeness in Abadias: a feverish excitement when he was near her, a too vehement abuse—as if he hated her yet was unable to keep away from her.

3 }

Recently Emperor Justin—prompted by his familiars, the fiends of hell, so said the Monophysites—had caused new persecutions against the sect in Syria, and deposed a very holy leader, Patriarch Severus, from his see in Antioch. A riot occurred over it in the streets of Alexandria and was put down by soldiers. Reports of the trouble, and some of the excitement created by it, entered the hospice, and Theodora could see the anger of the nuns, and of Abadias, the monk, in their frowning eyes and tightening lips.

One day, when Theodora was almost recovered and hoping to leave the hospice in a day or two, word came that Severus himself had arrived in Alexandria, as the guest of Timothy, patriarch of the city. That afternoon she heard a murmuring of people, and going to a window, saw a great crowd approaching. Some bore palm branches in their hands, which told her it was not a mob bent on mischief, but probably the followers of some religious leader.

Now the nuns began urging their patients who were able to be about into the main room of the hospice, which contained the cots of those bedridden, for it was Patriarch Severus himself who was coming. He was on a tour of visitation of all churchly places. Very soon Theodora saw him enter, accompanied by Timothy and a few other dignitaries, while the crowd waited restlessly outside for his reappearance.

In contrast to Patriarch Timothy, a baldish man with a heavy black beard, and somewhat pompous and assertive, Severus was old, infirm, white-bearded, and kindly. With the rest, Theodora went down to her knees at the fierce whisper from Sister Beneficia, “Down! Down before the most holy one!”

But though most of the patients, and all of the nuns, bowed their heads, Theodora looked up from under her eyelashes and with great interest studied the old patriarch. He made the sign of the cross, then spoke in a voice gentle, sweet, almost dreamy.

“I greet you, my sweet lambs, as one who has come a long way and has suffered much because of our righteous faith.” He spoke briefly of the state of the church, and added, “But we stand on ground most sure and firm. For what is life compared to the glory after life? And if one is to adore the true Redeemer, is it not necessary first to understand fully the sacred nature?”

Here he broke off into one of those long, rolling, and dogmatic texts, which have always passed, in every religion, as arguments. Theodora hardly listened, being more interested in the man himself. But presently she was attentive again, as Severus, the heretical patriarch, made much clearer, in his gentle way, the core of his belief, than had Abadias with all his fanatical expoundings.

“For does it not seem evident,” the old voice went on, “that we, having ourselves corruptible human bodies, must look to a higher, divine, incorruptible nature? Can man worship such dross as is he himself, and which is held forth for that worship by the contumacious Catholic disputants, who contend without logic that the human nature, which is corrupt and mortal, is of equal standing in Our Lord with the divine nature, which is incorrupt and immortal?”

There was more along this line. Then Severus set forth his creed in a single pithy sentence:

“It is, and must be, our belief, as surely as the world stands, that in the mercy of the Almighty there occurred the miracle of Our Lord’s incarnation, and that while all the qualities of the human nature were retained in him, that nature was so amalgamated with the divine nature that it cannot be said to possess any identity of its own.”

The sermon ended with earnest injunctions to repentance and a virtuous existence, and a lengthy prayer. With the sign of the cross once more, Severus was gone with his retinue, and the crowd with its palm fronds streamed after him up the street on his further pilgrimage.

Later Theodora pondered the patriarch’s words. As only a courtesan can she had seen the weakness of men, their lusts, cruelties, and selfishness. Hecebolus, for example, was a man; and so was John of Cappadocia. To worship a mere man—even if he did have a second nature which was divine—seemed to her repugnant. But a being wholly divine—that she could accept.

Many times later she was to hear expounded the theology of the Orthodox Catholic Church: the moving argument, upheld by the creed of Nicaea, that the whole agony, the sacrifice, and the redemption of the cross were meaningless, if the human nature of Christ were denied as co-existent with his divine nature.

But against her emotional feeling, ingrained in her by her life’s experiences, that never was able to weigh. Whatever religious leanings she later had always were toward the Monophysite teachings, heretical as they were. Out of this and the knowledge some had of it came consequences terrible and far-reaching.

4 }

For three weeks she remained in the hospice of St. Dionysia, much longer than she would have been permitted had it not been for the generous sum of money left with the superior by Datos. But in the final few days, when her strength was returning, Sister Beneficia put her to tasks like scrubbing floors and making beds. This, it appeared, was a sort of penitence, for Theodora was under no necessity of working, and there were enough of the nuns to do everything.

Nevertheless, the girl obediently spent time on her knees with the scrubbing brush, rather than spending them on her knees in the chapel. It gave her opportunity to consider many matters.

One question: Sister Beneficia and the others called her a harlot. While it was indubitably true, Theodora sometimes wondered how they knew. Datos, she was quite sure, had never given them this information, and nobody else could have done so. Was there something about her that revealed her as a courtesan—such as an expression of the face, or a look in the eyes perhaps—which these women were able to identify?

She did not believe it was so. In the end she came to the conclusion that all the epithets—harlot, scarlet woman, child of Satan, and so on—were the outcome of the simple fact that she had borne a child out of wedlock. To the nuns, in their avowed celibacy, sex was an abomination even when blessed by the rituals of the church. Without that sacrament it was the most hideous of sins. In their condemnation of it they were frenzied out of all proportion to the sin itself, so that any girl, even one innocently betrayed, was to them a harlot and therefore an object of persecution.

Why? Pondering it from every angle while she scrubbed the stone flags of the floor, Theodora wondered if it were not the unconscious and unadmitted crying out of their own female natures, denied the most sacred of all functions, sex and motherhood, that made the nuns hate her so bitterly. Though their minds would not admit it, their bodies envied her, resented her, feared the temptation to which she had succumbed, so that they continually must keep their secret urgings submerged in fasting and prayer. In the end the girl came to feel pity for the nuns, which assuredly would have astonished them, had they known it.

Another matter for thought: She had received kindness from a slave, from beggar folk, from a courtesan, from a merchant engaged in grasping for riches. But no real kindness from any churchly person, or person of governmental power. Only when her beauty was an invincible weapon could she command even consideration from these. Beauty did not last. Sometimes she thought of that with a sick heart, and wondered if she would regain her ravaged beauty now, and if she did so, what would happen to her, if she lived to be old and lost it permanently. She did not want to live after her beauty was gone.

There also was the inscrutability of death and life. Lynnaeus had lost his life. Yet she, who had been condemned to a worse death, had by a miracle escaped it. And there was the new life, the life of her baby. She did not know where the child was, or how it fared, or even the name that had been given it . . . poor, motherless little thing. Yet it was on the wheel of fate, too. What was the meaning behind these things, and what judgment decided how they should transpire? Justice, she had been told, was a matter of logic, and yet if God willed the bewildering twists of her fate, where was the logic, and where the justice?

Of none of this did she speak to anyone. In particular she kept her reticence in the presence of Sister Beneficia and Abadias.

When, at the end of the third week, she departed, she was given the coldest of farewells, going in the garments in which she came, and with not a copper coin in the way of money. Her face was thin, and her complexion, from which the sunburn of the desert had faded, was grown pale, with no trace of cosmetics permitted her. She wore no adornments. Her hair, which flowed back over her shoulders, was confined from her eyes only by a piece of coarse string bound about her head like a fillet.

The monk, Abadias, she noticed, though he knew the time of her departure, had absented himself, no doubt as a final signal of his holy disapproval of her and all she represented.

Her face was sad, for she was poorer in her body and her heart by reason of the child she had left behind, and which was lost to her forever. Nevertheless, Theodora, now in her twentieth year, was pretty even in her plain garb, as she walked slowly toward the dock area of the city.

To leave Alexandria as soon as might be was her intention, for the place was hateful to her. She hoped that Datos would remember his promise to give her passage on one of his ships. It was her single aim and wish to reach Constantinople eventually again, and now she walked with her head bent in thought, for the question of what she would do when she reached home again began to occupy her.

Women had so few occupations with which to earn their bread, which was one reason why prostitution was so widely accepted and practiced. There was weaving, or making basketry, or similar drudgery, which paid a bare pittance for much labor. She did not like the taste of drudgery that had been given her in the hospice.

There was the theater, also, but it had its drawbacks, and an actress must also be a courtesan.

Would it have to be harlotry again? Instinctively Theodora cupped her hands under her breasts to see how childbirth had altered them. They were still shapely and firm, because she had never been permitted to nurse her baby, even once . . . how gladly she would have sacrificed them for that! Her body, she knew, was over-thin, but food and rest would give it back the graceful curves once more, and when her haggardness was gone, with a few touches of color from the oisype, her face would regain its charm. Yes, she would be beautiful again. And harlotry always was possible.

For some reason, however, she felt a distaste, an aversion for her old vocation. Once she had been at the top of that profession, and later the mistress of a proconsul. Whatever their drawbacks, these were no mean heights for a courtesan to scale so early in her life.

But now she would have to begin all over again, at the bottom of the ladder, receiving the jackals of the alleys, the unclean slugs of humanity, who would soil her with their slimy sweat, and perhaps infect her with disease which she had once dreaded so, and had been so thankful to have escaped. It seemed horrible, and her face twisted with disgust, not because of any scruples, but because her fastidiousness was offended at the thought.

5 }

She hardly noticed that she was passing a public garden, until she heard her name called.

She halted, surprised. The place was beautiful with trees, surrounded by concealing shrubs, and with a fountain tinkling somewhere in the middle. Within the concealment of the shrubbery she saw a lurking figure.

“Abadias!” she cried.

“Come here to me,” he said, with the authoritative manner he always used to the women of the hospice. So accustomed was she to obeying him that she did so now, almost mechanically. He drew her into the bushes.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I have somewhat to say to you! Where are you going?”

“I—I really don’t know,” she stammered, frightened by his grim manner.

“Will you return to whoredom?”

“I—why do you ask me that?”

“That’s what you plan to do! I was right—you were a harlot, weren’t you?” His voice was stern, his face hard as flint. “Don’t deny it! As a dog returneth to its vomit, so would you return to your abominations!”

She shrank from his vehemence, but his voice continued.

“I will not let you do it! I will save you, woman, in spite of yourself! I will save you from hell and the devil——”

“What are you going to do?” she asked weakly, frightened by the wild light which had come into his eyes.

“You are to come with me. I have it all planned.” The old note of authority had returned to his voice. But as he spoke a strange mounting excitement seemed to grow in him. “I know of a place—many miles up the Nile—the region of the anchorites. A blessed region of prayer and contemplation of heaven, where sin never intervenes——”

With growing terror she watched him.

“Overlooking the Nile,” he continued rapidly, “isolated from all other habitations, is a hut, containing only two cells. We will go there—you and I! There we will live, you in one cell, I in the other—I the teacher, you the disciple—learning the wisdom of holiness, united solely to preserve our solitude——”

“United?” She sprang at the word, for his inner meaning. “How united?”

“United—in spirit and in body also——”

“But—but—what of your vows?” she gasped, as his full meaning came over her. “You—a holy monk——”

His lean arm shot out, and his fingers closed on her wrist.

“I’ve had a vision!” he said fiercely, his face working. “It was revealed to me—a truth not known before—that where the soul is pure, what the body does affects it not, in any way whatsoever——”

“Let me go!” she cried, trying to twist her arm away. “This is blasphemy—what you say is vile—I won’t——”

He held her in his vise-like clutch, and thrust his lean-jawed visage close to hers, his expression changing, his eyes burning.

“Yes,” he said in a guttural voice. “Yes, I admit it. I am vile and abominable. And you have done it to me! You stirred in me this fleshly madness! It was you who filled my mind with visions that caused me to moan like a famished hyena, and scourge myself with cords, and fast for days at a time——”

He paused, his lean chest heaving, and the grasp of his fingers on her wrist made her wince.

“Infamous creature!” he began again. “Lascivious and malicious like a she-ape, plunging into hell the souls of all that come into your evil presence!”

Again he stopped, his wild gaze fixed on her, as if trying to gather the forces in him, or perhaps wrestle with some terrible inward confession.

“But I love you!” he burst out suddenly. “God pity me, I cannot help it! When I see you, my forehead burns, my head goes light, my body quivers. When I am away from you I can think of nothing but you. Why have you done this to me?”

“I didn’t—I never meant——” she gasped.

“Handmaid of the foul fiend! You were sent to destroy me! To bring me, a holy monk, down in shameless concupiscence——”

With his free hand he beat his chest agonizingly. Then he said, speaking very rapidly, “But I’ll save myself—and you also! I’ll save both of us, in spite of you and the devil——”

“No!” she cried.

“You will not come?”

“No!”

“You will not listen to me?”

“No!”

A look of sudden cunning came into his face. “Your child—have you thought of your child?”

“What about my child?”

“If you will obey me, perhaps I may restore your child——”

“You have my baby?”

“No.”

“Then how would you restore it?”

He seemed suddenly to become vague. “There may be ways . . . you would have a friend in me. There’s no telling——”

She saw it was a subterfuge only. “You couldn’t give me back my baby! Let me go! I hate you! I can’t bear the sight of you!”

Still grasping her by the wrist, he stared at her. Then all at once he burst into sobbing: great, racking sobs, the tears pouring down his emaciated cheeks, his head bowed, his bony shoulders shaking. Never had she seen a man break down in this manner, and she shrank in new terror, for she saw in it evidence of something that might be deadly dangerous.

As abruptly as they began, his sobs ceased. He began muttering to himself. Presently he said aloud, “You refuse to obey me. Then I must do my duty.”

“What duty?” For some reason she was chilled by the word.

“You will not go with Abadias, whose soul you have sent to hell. Therefore Abadias must never permit you to go forth to plunge other men’s souls into the same foul pit——”

For the first time she screamed loudly. Abadias, his intellect snapped by his fanaticism, his lust, and his weird struggle with himself, was a lunatic!

Her scream died instantly, choked off as his bony fingers closed on her throat. On his visage was the terrible look of murder, and she knew now the full fear of death. Her breath was shut off, she beat at him with her arms, helplessly, despairingly.

The world seemed to grow dark. Consciousness was leaving her.

Her clawing, clutching fingers closed on something—the rope that girdled his waist, its ends hanging at his side. On one of those cords dangled a heavy object: the great iron key to the hospice, weighing a pound or more, which he always carried.

In the final action of desperation, she swung it at his temple.

Abadias staggered back, and his grip on her loosened. One fearful glance she took at his face. The eyes were bestial with a look of animal idiocy.

Then she was running, leaping away from him, fleeing for her life, tearing through the bushes which whipped her face and legs, out to the street, to the blessed protection of daylight, of the passers who stared at her curiously.

Abadias did not follow her. Among the trees she left the man whose mind was gone. His punishment had come from within himself.

6 }

The cargo ship Samos passed slowly up the Orontes River, but Theodora, standing on its deck, scarcely noticed the shores, beautiful with villas, so eager was she to reach Antioch. Datos had made good his promise, which was why she was aboard this vessel, one of his fleet. From the time she escaped the mad monk, Abadias, things had gone smoothly. Her departure from Alexandria was facilitated by the merchant, partly from kindness, and also partly, no doubt, from a perfectly human eagerness to have her disturbing presence away from his life and his city.

Presently the ship entered the receiving bay and the city lay outspread, nestled among its mountains, with citadels, walls, palaces, and crowded buildings, hardly less splendid than Alexandria. As soon as they docked Theodora went ashore and made her way through the crowds of people and piles of goods on the wharf.

Antioch contained for her a hope. As she passed through the battlemented gate and walked up the Sulpician Way through the busy, bustling city, she once or twice asked a question, “Whither is the theater?”

Receiving directions, she reached at last a stone structure, the architecture of which she recognized as that of a playhouse. This was midafternoon and the performances on the stage would not begin until evening, but she entered the lobby anyway.

A few people lingered in it, and a bustling man, in a tunic that indicated he was an artisan of some kind, hurried past her. She stopped him.

“I pray you——” she said. “A word——”

He halted, brusque and unfriendly, a heavy man of middle age with a worried face.

“If you want to get into the troupe,” he snapped, “we’re too full as it is. Learn it for yourself, though, from Cadmeon, the dancing master, in the office yonder. Why does every drab in the city think she has God-given ability as an actress?”

“I’m not looking for employment. Only to ask a question——”

“Well, out with it! I’ve my scenery to finish, and not six hours to curtain time!”

“Do you know of an actress named Macedonia?”

“Macedonia? Is this a joke?”

“No, good sir, but——”

“Do I know of Macedonia? When she’s only the first actress and famosa of Antioch? What would such as you want of her?”

“I’m a friend of hers——”

“Oh, indeed? A two-obol slut is friend to Macedonia?” He gave her a sneering grin.

“At least tell me where she lives.”

“Well, I can do that,” he grumbled, “but little good it will do you. She has no time, I can assure you, to see every designing little baggage that comes to her door.”

“Please——”

“I said I’d tell you. Go up the Sulpician Way until you come to the colonnades. Turn left one square, until you see a large house of cut stone with a marble portico——”

“Her home?”

“Would I be wasting my breath——”

“I thank you.” She gave him a sudden smile so dazzling that he completely forgot his bad temper and grinned back at her.

“Sorry if I’m gruff, little one,” he said. “If you’re unlucky with Macedonia, when you come back look me up—Lysander, the scene painter. Third door back, down this hall. I have some time this evening——”

She left him with the rest of it in his gullet.

It would have been hard for her to have missed the fine house. But as she raised the bronze knocker on the door, her heart began beating hard. What would Macedonia say to her? She hoped for friendship, but she had not seen the courtesan-actress in two years . . . and friendship is not a common quality, gratitude almost as rare.

A wicket opened and a black, fat face peered out.

“What is it?” asked the eunuch doorkeeper.

“I would speak to your mistress.”

“Begone!”

“Isn’t this Macedonia’s house?”

“To be sure. But she sees nobody.”

“Say this to her—and I promise she’ll reward you—one waits without to speak with her concerning the three emeralds.”

The black eunuch hesitated, but the mystery of her words intrigued him, so after grumbling he shut the wicket and was gone.

Moments later Theodora was in the arms of Macedonia.

“I couldn’t believe it when my doorman said it!” Macedonia cried, between tears and laughter. “Come in—come in at once, darling! Where have you been, and why are you here?” Holding her about the waist, she conducted her through the atrium to a solarium. “Here, sit beside me—I have a whole reservoir filled with talk to give out to you, and another reservoir, empty, to receive your talk! You’ll stay with me? Of course! And we’ll sit up all night! Oh—I’m supposed to give a performance this evening—a comedy by Plautus. Well, let the understudy do it. I’ll give orders at once!”

She sent servants flying on various errands, and Theodora relaxed on a wide carved seat in the room which was rich with statuary, fine furnishings, and flowers. Evidently Macedonia was doing very well. Theodora was weary, but her friend had not forgotten her and in this was wonderful comfort.

Presently Macedonia returned. “There’ll be hair-tearing and breast-beating by the manager,” she said. “But I sent word that I was ill, and Ashena, my understudy—who is a little bitch—has few enough chances. She’ll grasp this one eagerly. A good role—very witty. But let them see her awkward postures, her bad voice modulations, her lack of any sparkle. The creature’s a cow, I tell you—she can never be a star! Well—that’s settled. Now for supper and our talk!”

Having expressed, as all actresses from time immemorial have done, her opinion of a sister actress, she seated herself beside Theodora.

In the two years Macedonia had not changed greatly, although her hands were perhaps a little less perfect, and a few more faint lines showed in her face. She was beautiful still.

“Macedonia the Splendid, once more!” exclaimed Theodora.

“Yes, I’ve succeeded,” the other said soberly. “And I owe it all to you. Every stone in this house, every piece of furniture, every slave, every jewel, the very clothes in which I sit.”

“You owe it to your own arts, which are incomparable.”

“My arts would have availed little had you not made of me a new woman, darling. That necklace you gave me at the Charisian gate—it enabled me to start again in Alexandria. From that—to this. Now, what can I do for you in return—although never could I fully repay, if I took a lifetime for it?”

“Give me your friendship and love. And help me, perhaps, to get on the stage here, if only in a small part.”

“The stage here? Why?”

“To earn enough money to get back to Constantinople.”

“This is getting us nowhere! Begin at the beginning, and tell me instantly all that has befallen you!”

Theodora’s story was long, lasting throughout the supper hour, but through it Macedonia sat rapt, hardly tasting her food, exclaiming now and then—with satisfaction, as at Chione’s discomfiture, or with alarm, pity, astonishment, concern, and horror, as the girl went from step to step in her experiences.

At the end, Macedonia said, “Never have I heard the fellow to this tale! And you but a girl, small and delicate! What male adventurer, soldier or otherwise, could match it? And the governor, the slave, the monk—all fell before you? What mighty power you have, Theodora!”

The other shook her head unhappily. “To me it’s less a power than a curse.”

“Nay, it is power! And complete—for nothing equals the influence a woman has over a man when he is enamored of her. It can be a good power, or an evil one.”

“How, Macedonia?”

“I’m older than you, child, and I’ve given thought to this. Tell me, why do you—why does every woman—dress in intriguing and captivating ways? Why wear the most becoming hairdress, beauty aids, jewelry, and other enhancements? Why employ the pretty tricks of the eyes, or permit occasional swift glimpses of the limbs, or the outline of the body through a diaphanous gown?”

“Why—to catch men, I suppose.”

“Truly. But why catch men?”

“Well, for love,” Theodora said, wondering.

“Exactly. Woman is love, and love is woman. But is this the end?”

“I do not know what else——”

“Oh, little, unthinking Theodora! You yourself have given to the world a child. It is that for which we entrap men, guided unconsciously by our blind female instinct, which, unless we thwart it, sends us freely, even happily to the pain of the childbed, our own beautiful bodies at once our bait and our sorrow. This is why virtuous women hate courtesans, for the courtesan is the enemy of the home, the enemy of motherhood and children, because she wins men from their wives and families, giving only pleasure—and sterile pleasure—in return. No, Theodora, there are two kinds of love. And let us not forget that when a woman knows love of the noblest kind, she concerns herself in giving, rather than taking, and is blind to every consideration in following her heart. The consequences may be tragic for her, but they are epic, and though everything may end in disaster, for a time she treads the paths of the gods.”

“I don’t think I could feel the love you speak about,” said Theodora, hesitantly.

“If the right man came, you could,” Macedonia replied. “But that may never happen to you. It has not for me.”

For a moment she paused, and then said, “I think Theodora, that you may be one of destiny’s children.”

“I—I don’t know what you mean.”

Macedonia gazed at her burningly. “I doubt that any man in all the world, if he be normal and virile, could resist you, once you turned on him your full allurements. Not even an emperor——”

Suddenly she rose to her feet. “Theodora! A thought has just come over me—nay, a plan—a plan so mighty that it appalls me—and yet I cannot resist it. The chances against it are so very great—should I?”

She considered Theodora, searchingly. Then she said, “Yes, I’ve decided! Come, darling, there are things to be done. I won’t give you a place in the theater. Instead, we will consider first your beauty—costumes, jewelry, enhancements to make you wonderful, even though you’re charming as you sit there now, in this plain garb——”

“I don’t understand, Macedonia——”

“Hear me out. Next, I shall give you money—oh, no, enough only to take you back to Constantinople, so you needn’t protest. Lastly, I’m going to give you a letter, a letter only I could write. Its effects may be nothing—or beyond calculation. Are you prepared to take risks beyond any ordinary venture, exercise patience above all perseverance, in playing for a stake outside of any reckoning? Almost I tremble at the bare thought of what I may be setting afoot—and yet—this I do for you, Theodora—because of my love for you—and because—because I could not help doing it if I wished!”

1 }

After breakfast the sun was smooth and honest over the seven hills of Constantinople, warming the crowded streets, buildings, and towers of the capital. Theodora, who had arrived the night before by ship from Antioch, lounged in the luxury of an all-morning bath with her old friends, Antonina and Chrysomallo, and it was as if she had not known what she lacked in the two years she had been gone.

Almost she had forgotten the throaty murmur of these streets, the constant stir, the feel of being part of vast events and rubbing elbows with the great of the world; or the way the sun wooed one like a lover, and the sweetness of seeing familiar sights and faces.

It was spring, and the vineyards of Hieron, beyond the blue waters of the Bosphorus, and of Sycae, across the Golden Horn from Constantinople, had recovered from the pruned death of winter, their gnarled vines sending out little sprays and tendrils of softest green. Fruit trees and ornamental shrubs bloomed white, pink, and scarlet; and little ground flowers starred the tender grass underfoot. In the Square of Aphrodite, pigeons strutted and bowed before their mates in early courtship, and swelled their new-burnished throat feathers with their low cooing. And more particularly, women and girls, discarding the somber hues of winter, donned the light dresses and fresh new colors of spring, bringing to the streets a charming brightness, as if they were the true harbingers of the season of revived life in the young year.

But although these things were the same, some matters were different.

One of the first questions Theodora asked, on her arrival the night before, while her friends still were showering her with their surprised and delighted greetings, concerned Teia, her former slave.

Antonina gave her an odd glance. “Rather interesting about Teia,” she said.

“You got my note and bill of sale that night?” asked Theodora.

“Yes, a filthy creature brought them, who looked like a beggar and acted like one, because he hung around sniffling and coughing until I gave him a piece of silver. You said the matter was urgent, so I moved Teia at once over to my apartments, although it was past midnight——”

“Oh, good Antonina! For this I’ll always be grateful——”

“Spare your gratitude. I came out of it very well,” Antonina said.

“Better than well,” interjected Chrysomallo.

“The Excubitors came next morning, as you said they would,” Antonina pursued. “They cross-questioned us, but we knew nothing of where you were. Otherwise, we weren’t molested. There was one—a young ensign—who took a liking to our Chrysomallo, and returned the next night—but that’s beside the point. To return to the story, they simply gutted your rooms—took every single thing. I was afraid for Teia, but since they had no inventory to go by, they never asked about her. They could have made trouble over that bill of sale, you know, since it was made after the sumptuary laws were invoked against you. By the way—isn’t it risky for you to be back in Constantinople?”

Theodora shook her head. “Not as things stand at present. As it turned out I was exiled not from here but from Cyrenaica. A technicality, but I’m in my legal rights—unless new action is brought against me. But go on—what about Teia?”

“I sold her,” said Antonina calmly.

“You didn’t!” cried Theodora in horror.

“About a year ago.”

“I was fond of that girl! You should have taken care of her——”

“Wait.” Antonina grinned. “I sold Teia at her own asking.”

“For what reason?”

“It was after a certain night when a party of vintners from Hadrianople came to our house for a carouse—they’d sold their year’s vintage at highest prices and wished to celebrate.”

“What a night!” exclaimed Chrysomallo. “Will you ever forget it, Antonina? Every woman in the house was busy—all night—everybody! Even the servants——”

“My black woman, Zenobia, who is very seldom chosen because she is so ugly, had a lover that night like the rest,” said Antonina. “That shows you the demand we had to supply. The Hadrianople winegrowers are rugged men, no weaklings content after running a single course——”

“We took in as much as we ordinarily clear in a month—what with extra gifts and the fees given the slave women,” said Chrysomallo.

“And it took us a week to rest up afterward,” Antonina added. “I thought I’d never want to see a man again. He-goats they were—veritable he-goats. They simply took charge of the place and ran it to suit themselves. A few nights like that would destroy the strongest courtesan’s health.”

“But they paid well,” said Chrysomallo.

“Yes. They paid well—very well.”

“But about Teia!” interrupted Theodora, impatient at this reminiscence of an exceptional night of courtesans’ business.

“Oh, yes. Teia,” said Antonina. “She fell that night to the lot of a man named Morpus. Middle-aged, with a bald head and a wen on his cheek. Not handsome. But a man of substance with a good vineyard quite close to Hadrianople. I could tell he was rich—love, grief, and money, you know, can’t be concealed——”

“Yes, yes!”

“Evidently our little Teia showed Morpus something he’d never known before—after all, she was your slave, Theodora, and I suppose an apt pupil! He was wild over her. Before he left the city, he came and said he wanted to buy her for a concubine.”

“But did she want him?” demanded Theodora.

“I handled everything neatly, and I think not greedily,” Antonina said. “First, I talked to Teia. She was willing. It’s not every slave girl who gets to be a rich man’s concubine. So I sold her to him, not bargaining excessively, but at the going price for a pretty girl——”

“How much?”

“One hundred gold solidi. I could have gotten more, for Morpus was very eager——”

Antonina stopped and glanced at Theodora to see if she would put in a claim for part of the money.

But while Theodora was fairly sure that the courtesan had driven a shrewder bargain than she indicated, and probably got from the “eager” Morpus as much as two hundred solidi, she only said, “I hope the vintner will be good to Teia.”

It was like closing an account. Teia’s fate was in her own hands now. Given a good start, it would be her own fault if she did not improve her position, perhaps eventually become a wife. Unless . . . Theodora thought of Hecebolus. Some men were beasts. All in all, however, concubinage was far from the worst fate for a slave girl. Consider the precedent set by Empress Euphemia herself . . .

She drew a deep breath. After that, since it was late, they retired to their beds, no guests being expected by the courtesans that particular evening.

Now morning had come again, and she had bathed, and lay chatting lazily with her friends.

“Tell me the news of the city,” she said.

“For the Street of Women matters are better,” said Chrysomallo. “The lustral taxes have been abated, now that John of Cappadocia is no longer city prefect.”

“What happened to him? Something unpleasant, I trust.”

“He was promoted. Praetorian prefect and logothete, now.”

Theodora’s eyes widened. A spectacular change indeed. The duties of the praetorian prefect, who in the early empire had commanded the praetorian guard, had been altered over the centuries until now he had no military command, but instead was the civil administrator of the empire. And the office of logothete corresponded to imperial treasurer. This combination of powers was assuredly great.

“The Cappadocian is a pig!” she exclaimed. “How did this amazing thing happen?”

“Pig or no, he’s in favor with Prince Justinian,” said Antonina. “And Justinian rules the empire, since old Justin is in his dotage.”

“Who’s the new city prefect?”

“Belisarius. Quite a young man—and handsome,” Chrysomallo said.

“He comes from the same part of the country Justinian came from,” observed Antonina. “You know how the prince favors those from there. Remember your friend, Macedonia? I’ve always said her name was the secret of his liking for her—he’s a Macedonian himself.”

“Perhaps,” Theodora nodded.

“Belisarius, I must say, is popular with the people,” went on Antonina. “He’s a real soldier, with a good fighting record—distinguished himself, so they say, against the White Huns.”

Theodora was curious to see this Belisarius, but she pursued her questioning.

“What about Justinian—will he be emperor next, do you think?”

“Who can say? That depends on the Excubitors, since the old emperor will die without direct issue. Look at what happened after the death of Anastasius. The Excubitors are corrupt, and they’ll acclaim him who gives them the biggest bribe——”

“And John of Cappadocia is the imperial treasurer!”

Antonina nodded. “I see you have a thought, Theodora, which has occurred also to others.”

“That boor on the throne of the empire!”

“Stranger things have happened.”

An odd apprehension went over Theodora, not for herself but for the world as she knew it. The corrupt and bestial Cappadocian might cause the destruction of the empire, the downfall of everything, if he ever seized the imperial power. It was like having a premonition of a great cataclysm and being helpless to escape it. She was helpless. Antonina and Chrysomallo were helpless. Every living soul in Constantinople was helpless. When suns collide in the heavens the countless tiny specks of matter which have so long rotated about them all are consumed in the astral explosion.

After a moment she shook this feeling off and turned to a new line of questioning. “What kind of man is the prince?”

“You’ve never seen him?”

“It happens I never have.”

“To be sure—it’s since you left the city that Justinian has taken to making public appearances in behalf of the emperor. Well, he’s rather square-built, a blond-headed man, I should say about forty.”

“Not bad-looking,” interposed Chrysomallo. “In processions he always rides a white horse rather than being carried in a litter like his uncle, old Justin. Sits his saddle rather well, I think——”

“He has a cold appearance,” Antonina cut in, “as if he’s bored. But they say he works hard, and takes no diversions.”

“According to some gossip,” said Chrysomallo, as if stating the unbelievable, “he has no need of women.”

“That I can’t believe. Every man needs women.” Antonina expressed a credo.

“Some don’t,” said Theodora. “Is it religion—some kind of a monastic scruple?”

“No, I think not.”

“Perhaps he prefers his own sex.” Theodora was thinking of Hecebolus and his odious Ganymede.

“Not from anything I’ve heard,” Antonina said. “And you know that kind of a story about someone as notable as the prince would get around. He has relaxed with women in times past. But it appears they mean nothing to him compared with his work.”

“I feel sorry for such a man,” said Theodora. But she remembered that Macedonia had shared the prince’s couch, and still had fond memories of him. She changed the subject. “Who’s living now in my old apartment?”

“Nobody,” said Chrysomallo. “We had a girl named Indara for a time. A nice little thing.”

“She has good breasts and hips and a nice complexion,” Antonina said, “but her legs are skimpy, which spoils the symmetry of her body. Still, she has her own little bag of tricks, and her following.”

“Where is she now?” asked Theodora.

“Moved down the street, in with a girl named Drosis,” Chrysomallo answered. “Had trouble—a pregnancy.”

“She always was a trifle careless,” said Antonina. “Inclined to overlook the necessary precautions when she got warmed to eagerness by a man. A courtesan’s a fool to neglect the safeguards—if she wants to stay in business.”

“During her sickness—I thought the abortive potion she took would kill not only the child but her—Antonina and I did what we could for her,” Chrysomallo said.

“But she was childishly peevish and demanding,” put in Antonina. “Eventually she recovered, but after that—well, things just didn’t work out smoothly, either for her or us. So she moved away. She’s all right now, I guess, and I hope she’s learned the lesson that haste makes woe. We haven’t seen much of her.”

“Will you take your old rooms again, Theodora?” asked Chrysomallo, eagerly. “I could lend you a bed, until you get started. Do you want a lover tonight? I can spare you one, and so can Antonina——”

“Not—at present,” said Theodora.

Antonina gazed at her. “I suppose you do need a rest. You look a bit jaded, dear.”

The statement was hardly justified, being no more than a little catty stab, which Theodora did not particularly resent since she understood it. Actually, she felt very fit, and looked it. The weeks she spent with Macedonia in Antioch, sleeping long hours, eating good food, lazying away the days, and receiving continual attention from masseurs, hairdressers, and beautifiers, had been exactly what she needed, and the miraculous powers of youth had done the rest.

All the vitality, freshness, and elasticity of her body were restored. She was twenty, a magical age, when for the first time a girl’s mind and body ripen together, to perfect in her the most appealing creature on this earth. Perhaps she was a little subdued because of her experiences, but her mirror and her intelligence together told her that her body was charming, her hair glorious, her eyes magnificent, her face vivid and sweet. Therefore she did not reply to Antonina’s little dig, although she was good enough at feline ripostes when she wished to be.

“If you’re not coming with us, what are you going to do?” asked Chrysomallo.

Theodora spoke a single word: “Spin.”

They gasped. “You’re not! Theodora, you’re not!”

When she nodded, they were silent. To them it was incomprehensible. Spinning was the occupation prescribed by law and custom for reformed prostitutes. It was a penance, a probation before she could be freed from her occupation to enter any other walk of life, or be married.

A lengthy ritual, that. Years were required: patient, dull, laborious years, before the Roman law was satisfied. And even then the barrier against the reformed one remained in people’s minds to a degree, however sincere her reform. From time to time a few courtesans, disgusted with their old trade for one reason or another, tried this road out of harlotry. Almost all were back in it again, sooner or later. The blank grayness of the years with the spindle was more than the average woman could endure.

2 }

Spinning.

As old as the human race, almost: the invention of women, and their specialty, its product the thread for weaving, in universal and constant demand. Yet like most things women do, because many of them do those things well and the feminine nature is not gifted in gaining good terms for itself in matters outside of love, the money that could be earned by this labor was shamefully little, and cut down to still less by haggling overseers when they could do so.

Especially unfortunate in this respect were women who sought to spin their way out of prostitution. These could only work for the government, their spun threads and yarns for the use of weavers of army cloth, or cloth for palace servants. Wages were even lower for prostitute spinning than for comparable work by women of other classes, even those of servile standing.

One could get employment at spinning in two ways: by going to one of the gynaeceum factories, where women sat in rows on benches all day, twirling their spindles as if they were human machines; or at home, working under contract.

She needed instruction, so Theodora applied first at a factory. It was a small one, with room for no more than twenty spinners, and overcrowded at that. A grim-visaged female of indeterminate age, with hair graying and neck beginning to wrinkle, was in charge, and it was clear that she liked neither the youth nor the beauty of the new applicant.

“Another bawd going holy, eh?” she growled.

“Yes,” humbly answered Theodora.

“A wager you won’t be here a month! You won’t last. You’ll decide it’s a lot easier crawling into bed with some stinking man, my girl, than doing honest work. We’ve had your kind before.”

“I want to try,” Theodora said submissively.

The manageress glowered. “Do you know how to spin?”

Theodora shook her head.

“We even have to teach you the trade, do we?” snarled the woman. “As if I haven’t enough to do, keeping up my quota! Well, I’ll give you a trial, since the law says I have to. But if you don’t learn fast—out you go, and back to your stews! Is that understood?”

“Yes.” Very meekly.

As if exasperated beyond all endurance, the manageress beckoned to a sad-faced female sitting by the wall.

“This is Miola,” she said. She made a gesture of some sort and the woman bobbed her head, gave Theodora a look, and returned to her place.

“She’s deaf and mute,” said the manageress. “You go over there and watch what she does. While you’re learning, your work belongs to her—she gets the profit, what there is. All right, get along!”

The mute sat on a small space left on the bench by the other spinners, and Theodora seated herself on the floor at her feet. All her life long the girl had seen spinning, but for the first time she now observed it closely, trying to learn how to do it. To her it was wonderful to see the skill with which the woman began to work.

The wool, washed and carded out until each filament was white and glistening, was wound about the top of the wooden distaff, a sort of stick, the lower end of which was held under the left arm, so that both hands were free for the spindle. Theodora perceived that the spindle was the heart of the spinning operation. It was a wooden pin, perhaps a foot long, tapered at either end, and at its thickest part in the middle about the diameter of her smallest finger. The upper end had a carved notch, something like a crochet hook, in which the yarn or thread was caught while being twisted. About the center of the spindle was a disc of baked clay, forming a round whorl which gave momentum and steadiness when it was rotated, acting as a primitive sort of flywheel.

Miola, her face drawn and vacant as are the faces of those cut off from all communication with the world, and her graying hair untidily knotted back from her yellowish forehead and ears, took some of the filaments of wool wound on the distaff, twirled them with her fingers into a small thread, and caught the thread in the hook on the spindle. Now the process was ready to begin.

Theodora was surprised to see how the mute’s face lit up, her eyes showing the gleam of interest and concentration—the old, inevitable creative instinct of woman at the work of her hands, flickering even in this pathetic creature. Rapidly Miola began making thread, sometimes using the fingers of her right hand to twirl the spindle, while employing the left to draw out a uniform strand from the distaff; at other times rolling the spindle by hand against one thigh, meantime watching that the unspun filaments were paid out evenly and surely.

When the thread was well started, the woman suspended the spindle by the thread and twirled it until a full stretch had been drawn and twisted, after which that portion was wound on the body of the spindle and a new stretch made. How long it took to fill the spindle depended on the evenness and delicacy of the thread, and a dextrous spinner received more for her work than one who was clumsy.

It was a difficulty, purposely put on Theodora by the crabbed manageress, that she had to learn by watching, without one word of explanation, since her teacher could not speak. But her mind was quick and her fingers deft, and it was remarkable how rapidly she picked up the trick of holding the distaff and twirling the spindle.

For the first few days the profits of her work went to her teacher, but before long she was doing so well that Miola needed to devote no further time and attention to her, and she was on her own. Within a short time after that she was making a high quality of thread.

Now she could choose where she would work.

Most women preferred working together in the factory, since it gave them companionship and someone with whom to converse. At first Theodora tried it. But among the twenty spinners there was not one with any intellect, and their talk was so dull and vapid that she soon decided to work by herself at home, her own thoughts being more congenial than their boring conversation.

Back of the great bazaar, not far from the bakeries and the city prison, she rented a little house, and in those days, sitting at her open door, she discovered, surprisingly, a certain satisfaction in her toil. To most women handwork is natural and pleasing. The instinct to make things for domestic use is inherent in them, and insensibly their fingers are trained and habituated to little arts and skills, so that even those of indolent nature like something to pick up—fancy work or the like—with which to busy themselves while they sit. As for the industrious woman, she tries to make every minute of sitting count, and derives a calm pleasure from the weaving, or sewing, or knitting, or embroidering of useful and beautiful articles for herself, her family, her friends, or even her trade.

Theodora, who had never done handwork, found the spinning interesting, almost absorbing, particularly at first. The whole technique, really quite complicated and requiring high skill, involved in twirling the spindle, paying out filaments from the distaff, and forming a thread exactly uniform and even, presently became so much a matter of harmonious routine that her mind was hardly conscious of the sure, rapid movements of her tapering fingers, and could busy itself with thoughts . . . faraway thoughts.

3 }

Like the quick spreading blaze of a grass fire, word went up and down the Street of Women that Theodora had given over her profession.

Why?

Theories were various. One whisper had it that she was converted to the church and had taken vows. Another was that she loved and wished to marry some man. Since the law forbade a courtesan to marry a citizen of standing, she was undergoing the patient, dull labor of reform. Still a third school of thought held that she had lost her health, and for this reason was physically incapacitated from pursuing her vocation.

None of these theories was near the truth, but Theodora neither admitted nor denied any of them. In actuality, reform—permanent reform at least—from her profession was no part of her plan, since she felt no underlying shame or dislike for the trade of love. The spinning had a two-pointed purpose. First, it was a protection. If she went back to the Street of Women and to the lovers who would come to her, word of it would very quickly sift back to the man whom she most feared, her enemy, John of Cappadocia. Even if he did learn of what she was doing now, since she obviously was not practicing prostitution, he could hardly invoke the sumptuary laws against her again. She was quite sure that he could and would create some sort of unpleasantness for her, and she was anxious that he should not learn of her presence in the city until she had achieved the next step in her plan, but if he did discover her it would at least require some new line of attack and she might be able to escape it or perhaps thwart it before the magistrates.

The second purpose, far more important than the first, had to do with the plan itself, which she had worked out with Macedonia, and which she revealed to nobody.

Sometimes courtesans whom she knew—delicatae who had been acquaintances of the old days—came to her house. It was in a poor quarter, a district inhabited by working men, squabbling wives, and squalling children, and redolent with smells of greasy cooking. But these people, humble as they were, looked askance at Theodora’s invasion of their street, particularly when her courtesan acquaintances, in their beautiful sheer garments, and with all the vagaries of hairdress, artificialities, and jewelry displayed according to their trade, came to watch her twirling her spindle: making a vivid show quite foreign to this neighborhood.

The courtesans asked Theodora questions, and occasionally one ventured a gibe at her. She replied, if at all, without anger, and went on with her work.

Once or twice Antonina and Chrysomallo, good at heart if bad in morals, came to beseech her to return to them.

“I can’t understand you,” Antonina said once, in genuine bewilderment. “You’re the finest courtesan in the city—including myself. I admit it. What if you’ve had a few setbacks? In a few years, with your versatility, you’ll be back where you were before——”

“I can’t afford to spend those years,” said Theodora.

“But when you’ve finished this probation what is there for you?” Chrysomallo asked plaintively.

“I don’t know. Time only can tell.” Theodora’s spindle twirled without pausing.

Baffled by her enigmatical parrying of their questions, they departed. But later they commented to each other that Theodora was attired as if going to a festival, hair coifed, face tinted, a pretty dress on her body: assuredly not the ordinary garb of drudging spinners of thread.

In this, without realizing it, they touched on Theodora’s hardest task.

Waiting.

It is a lesson all women learn—how to wait. Almost eternally a woman is waiting, it seems, for someone, or for something to happen. There are the annoying waits while prospective suitors make up their minds whether or not to call, and these are hard and slow. There are sorrowing waits, while a husband or a lover is away at war, or on a dangerous journey, or while loved ones lie ill or dying, and these are harder still. There is the great nine months’ wait of motherhood, which almost all women know sooner or later: and a man could not endure that wait, but women, constituted as they are, undergo it as a matter of course, and with hardly a complaint. With these there are the constant, innumerable, lesser waitings of a woman’s life: for the pot to boil, for the garment to be finished, for the child to go to sleep, for the friend to meet her appointment for shopping, for the husband to return home from work. A never ending waiting, a continual abiding in patience, which women learn and to which they accustom themselves until it becomes a part of the warp and woof of their natures.

Theodora knew how to wait. But the worst kind of waiting is to wait in uncertainty. And her uncertainty was hardly even that: it was more like waiting for an improbability.

She awaited the outcome of a gamble, a gamble of such nature that the weight of the odds against her made it seem ridiculous that she attempted it at all. Yet she did attempt it. And the first part of the gamble, for which she waited days and days, lengthening into weeks, was the outcome of a devious errand on which she dispatched a certain letter, and the reception that letter received if it ever reached its destination.

She must be ready if this part of the gamble came off. Ready every minute. For the letter was the one written by Macedonia. And the one to whom it was addressed was as high as the heavens above her.

This she had not confided to any of her friends, even Antonina and Chrysomallo.

4 }

In her first days of spinning, she took time each morning to linger near the Chalké gate of the palace, hoping to encounter someone who had known her in her former life, and who might still have for her a kindness, through memories of her that were perhaps pleasant, so that he would undertake the delivery of her letter.

She saw from a distance several men whom she had entertained in her short career as a delicata, but in each case something made it inadvisable to accost them or attempt to ask of them the favor she wished: usually because they were in company with someone else, and this must above all things be secret.

At last, one morning, it seemed to her that her chance had come. Coming quite alone was a very elegantly dressed, foppish young man, with a purple-bordered mantle, saffron tunic, shaved arms and legs, golden earrings, and a laurel wreath in his pomaded hair.

As soon as she recognized him approaching from the opposite direction, she ran to meet him.

“Chaero! Chaero!” she called.

He glanced at her as she sped toward him, her little feet twinkling, her dress molding her figure in the breeze, her face alight.

But instead of waiting for her, he almost bolted toward the gate, so that he reached it before she could come up with him, and disappeared through it with an impatient motion of his hand, as one might brush away an importunate fly.

She stopped stock-still. That was Chaero, wasn’t it? Chaero, who had sobbed with his head on her knees to be taken back by her; Chaero, who had obeyed her slightest whim and most unreasonable command as if he were her slave?

Of course it was: there could be no mistake. Furthermore, she was sure he had seen her, and just as sure that he had deliberately hurried to evade her. To be thus rejected by a man who once has groveled at her feet is an unpleasant humiliation for any woman.

She was to learn later that Chaero, married now to Tispasa, the daughter of Silvius Testor, and holding a position in the foreign office, had become as proper as he once was loose and irresponsible, outwardly at least: as if he were trying to live down his past, and at the same time live up to his unattractive wife and severe mother-in-law, who dominated him.

But for the present, not understanding these things, Theodora stood forlornly before the gate. In her hand was the letter she had been waving at Chaero while she tried to catch up with him.

She heard a voice: “What is it you’ve got there, girl?”

Startled, she looked up. One of the guards, a huge man made still taller by his helmet, and with a face of incorrigible cupidity and brutality, was approaching her.

Theodora put the letter behind her.

“Nothing,” she said. “Just—just a note——”

“A note to whom?” the soldier asked sternly, towering over her.

“Nobody. That is—nobody that would concern anyone as important as—as an Excubitor——”

He refused to be softened by her tone, which seemed to express awe and admiration for all Excubitors.

“Let me see it, girl!”

“No!”

“You refuse? Then I’ll take it!”

“No, no, no!” she cried, as his great paw gripped her shoulder.

She was terrified. If the guard got her letter, the entire tenuous structure of her plan would collapse.

She writhed to free herself. In his fingers the thin fabric of her dress ripped. At once she fled.

With a curse the man sprang after her. It was an unequal race: her small feet and limbs could not match his great strides. Her heart was thumping wildly, her torn dress streaming out behind her, her breath came in gasps, tears already were in her eyes at this malignant trick fate was playing on her.

At that moment there was a shout from the other guard at the gate.

The Excubitor paused in his pursuit, and turned his head with a question. Theodora widened her distance as his colleague shouted that an octophoron litter was coming from the direction of the Cathedral of Sancta Sophia.

Hesitating, the soldier glanced toward the fleeing girl. He could still catch her. But he doubted it would be worth it. Probably a note to some palace pleasure seeker making an appointment. Clearly, she was a courtesan.

Meantime, an octophoron litter meant someone of importance. A general, perhaps, or an ambassador. At the very least a senator or a bishop. Or a high-nosed patrician lady. Perhaps it would be well for him to be at his post when the litter and the personage it bore arrived at the gate. He turned back.

With her heart still thumping, the terror of the experience still clutching her, Theodora returned to her wretched little house.

It had been a near thing. A very close call.

She examined her dress. It was ruined, the shoulder ripped by the rough hand of the guard. And she had only three dresses, pretty gowns of different colors, given her by Macedonia. It was as if a third of her available capital was gone.

The very next day she played her final card. She went to see Hagg, the burro-beggar.

As usual he was stationed beside the statue of Aphrodite, his misshapen body in its basket cage on the back of the patient donkey. When she spoke his name he turned his head with a glimmer of surprise in his eyes.

“St. Lazarus, the patron of all beggars! You’re back, little Theodora? When did you come?”

“But recently,” she told him.

“How fared you?”

“Not well. A long story, and I’ll tell it to you one day. Your people stood me good friends once.”

“Of that some report came to my ears.”

“Hagg, I come to ask of you one more favor.”

He stirred uneasily in his basket. “To ask of a beggar is to ask of the wind,” he said, quoting a proverb of the city.

“I myself am the beggar,” she answered quickly. “And you are—Hagg, the one and only.”

For a moment his scarred head bent toward her, his eyes searching her face. “What is this favor?”

“I have a letter. Help me—somehow—anyhow—to get it to him to whom it is addressed.”

“Who is he?”

“The prince.”

His eyes narrowed. “Justinian?”

She nodded. “It is a letter written by Macedonia——”

“I see.” He shot a cunning look at her. “Macedonia wrote . . . you wish it delivered. Perhaps you hope by this letter to introduce yourself into the prince’s bedchamber?”

“Macedonia thought it might gain some attention from him—if he received it,” she said earnestly.

“Flying rather high, aren’t you, girl?”

“A chance is all I pray for.”

“A chance to enthrall a prince,” he grunted. “A poor prospect, from what I hear. Is it likely that Justinian, having his choice of any woman he desires, would send to the Street of Women for an unknown delicata?”

“I am not on the Street of Women.”

He was surprised. “Where, then?”

“I—spin.”

Again the quick glance of crafty comprehension. “Spinning. That was well thought of. A man like the prince might be more inclined to send for one at least not presently receiving lovers than to invite to his palace an open courtesan. Is this Macedonia’s idea?”

“Yes.”

“H-m-m. Perhaps she knows him, his likes and dislikes.”

“She says he is no ordinary voluptuary of the crude sort.”

“From the gossip, Justinian’s hardly a voluptuary of any sort. It’s the talk that he has no time to indulge his appetites—hardly for food and drink, and women least of all.”

“Nothing’s ever accomplished without trying,” she pleaded. “Am I not beautiful? And I know many ways of pleasing men. If I could meet the prince—I do not despair of winning even him. Never yet have I failed with any man——”

She broke off, thinking of Hecebolus. Decidedly she had failed with him. But, on consideration, was he a man? Rather he was one of a twilight nature, between the one sex and the other. Had he been a full-natured man, she said to herself, she would have succeeded with him in spite of all his evil traits.

“If the prince should like me,” she continued, “sufficiently to extend only a little favor to me——”

“This is a great thing,” said Hagg. “A difficult thing. An almost impossible thing.”

“Hagg, I beseech you! By our friendship, by the times that a little child came running to you in the bazaar to warn you of the guard, help me!” She paused, and then said, “There’s another horn to this, whereby I may be gored.”

“How is this?”

“I stand in peril of John of Cappadocia, whose memory is as long as he is unforgiving.”

“He knows you’re in the capital?” he asked, frowning.

“Not yet. Having heard report from Hecebolus that I was banished without food or water into the desert, he would naturally presume me dead. But if he learns that I survived, and am in Constantinople, will he not renew his persecution of me? He is malignant and guileful, and he will not rest until he has devised my death—or worse. Though in this city of a million souls one small girl, it would seem, could easily lose herself, his army of spies, which he notoriously maintains, will sooner or later carry word to him concerning me.”

Hagg stroked his chin. “So, only by gaining the friendship of the prince can you protect yourself against the prefect?”

“Exactly. Oh, Hagg, will you help me?”

“I will do what I can do, little Theodora. But tell me this, even if the letter reaches His Highness—which I must warn you is beyond all likelihood—what reasonable prospect is there that he will act favorably on it?”

She said, with a note of despair, “I don’t know!”

5 }

So the letter was given to Hagg, and with it all of her hope.

But the days passed and became weeks, and even Theodora began after a time to confess to herself that her hope probably was dead. Yet doggedly she continued each day to keep herself always ready for the moment—when, and if, it came.

A difficult and weary business this, for she could afford to waste none of the daylight hours which were occupied with spinning. To fill the spindle took a long time, and only when it was full could she get the small pay for it that no more than provided her cheap food and lodging.

Only in the dark hours, therefore, could she attend to herself. First, there was the matter of cleanliness. Like all high courtesans, the constant care and consideration of her personal daintiness was with her an undeviating habit.

Nightly she went to a public bath. In Constantinople there were eight public baths operated by the city, and 153 run by private interests. Some of the privately operated baths cost no more than an obol: but the city baths were free, so the girl always frequented one of them.

The finest baths in the city, perhaps in the world, were those of Zeuxippus, made magnificent with columns and statuary by Constantine, the Christian emperor, but still carrying one of the names of Zeus, the supreme god of Greek paganism. As luxurious as any of Rome in its grandest days, these baths were situated near the Hippodrome and the palace grounds, and one could see on the steps in front, in the foyer, and in the bathing and steam rooms, magnificent marbles and bronzes: Deiphobus in armor, withstanding the rush of Menelaus; Aeschenes, Aristotle, Demosthenes, and Simonides; Euripides, reflecting on the virtue of chastity with the tragic Muses; Pyrrhus, son of Achilles the sacker of cities, without weapons and naked; two statues of Aphrodite, shedding drops of beauty; Phoebus Apollo, naked, for he made naked the souls of those who inquired of him the true decrees of fate; Julius Caesar, on his shoulder the grisly-faced aegis; the obscene Hermaphroditus, neither man nor woman; Sappho of Lesbos, weaving some lovely verse; Pericles, Pythagoras, Plato, and others. For here as elsewhere were the trophies looted from the world by Constantine to make beautiful his city.

Theoretically every citizen had a right to use the Baths of Zeuxippus without cost, but Theodora did not attend them because their clientele actually was confined chiefly to the upper classes: either visitors in the city living in hostelries or inns, or persons who, though they had excellent baths at home, still liked on occasion to go to the public baths, as to a sort of club, where one might see friends, and lounge in the steam, and indulge in lazy conversation while the balneatores kneaded his body with their fingers.

Here there was always danger of encountering old acquaintances, who might speak of her to John of Cappadocia. So Theodora went to a low-class bath house near the Bull Square, which was frequented by artisans, laborers, small shopkeepers, and their families. In the old days the sexes disported themselves in the waters together, with no shame for their nakedness. But since the Church had enjoined sexual modesty on the people, men and women now were segregated from each other, a partition wall separating them in the baths.

One could still see and speak to acquaintances of the opposite sex in the anterooms, however, and assignations often were made there. Because she wished no such attentions, Theodora came and went quietly, her head well covered in her scarf, ignoring the looks, or nudges, or calls from the young men. These seemed invariably to take notice of her, and it was not displeasing to her feminine vanity: yet she did not desire it because it involved a danger that some chance recognition might reach the ears of the ever dreaded prefect.

Quickly but very carefully she bathed; dressed as soon as she was finished, taking no time to lounge on the stone seats or tables where other women stretched themselves before resuming their garments; and hurried back to her home.

Now came sleep. Sleep is necessary if a woman is to maintain her looks, and Theodora never had enough hours of it. Always she was up long before daylight, but she took what sleep she could with planned determination, never going out even to the festivities and frolics that took place continuously in one or another of the sections of the city.

When she rose in the predawn, it was to eat a light breakfast, and then comb her hair: a lengthy process with her rich and wavy tresses, but of highest importance, since much combing keeps the hair lustrous and soft. Afterward she dressed her hair, not in the style of the common classes, but piled high and pinned with shining combs. This was difficult to do without the help of a servant; and with only the cheapest of small brass mirrors, which hardly threw a satisfactory reflection by which to work. Finally, she tinted her face and body most painstakingly, and perfumed herself.

Each day she saw how her little supply of perfumes and cosmetics was dwindling, knowing a peculiar sickness of heart. When these were gone there would be no money to buy others to replace them. Macedonia had lent her money, and would have pressed on her more, save that Theodora’s pride would not accept any greater loan than what she thought would carry her through. These funds were now spent, and her income was only what she got from the spindles she took to the factory. To sell her slight wardrobe was not to be considered, because those precious garments were to some extent her weapons with which she must wage her battle with the world.

So she would put aside the discouragements, and the fear: and by sunrise be at work again, twirling the spindle on the softness of her thigh, twisting the filaments of wool with her tapering fingers, watching the slow growth of the thread. And wondering.

1 }

Time continued to pass. And nothing happened to break the monotony of endless days of silent spinning. Even Theodora’s resolute heart began to fail her at last. In spite of herself she kept dwelling in her mind upon the difficulties intervening in having a letter delivered to the exalted personage she had in mind.

Veritable cordons of guards, secretaries, chamberlains, and under officers, as well as a multitude of other possible interceptions, existed. Any of a thousand mishaps could befall the letter: her own encounter with the guard at the gate came to mind as an example of the ways failure might come.

In her moments of greatest discouragement she sometimes asked herself what likelihood was there, even if the letter reached the personage, that he would be interested in it? Macedonia had spoken as if he had a kindness for her and would seriously consider a letter from her . . . but many years had passed since Macedonia last saw the prince, and the memories of men are notoriously short, and women are equally notorious about overestimating their own influence on a man’s thoughts.

A phrase kept recurring: he has no need for women.

No need for women? If that were true her one hope already was gone, for perversion was the one thing against which she was helpless.

Too completely and superbly female was Theodora, and too fastidious, to have taken more than passing notice of homosexuality. Her nearest personal contact had been the disgusting circumstances concerning Hecebolus. Yet she was aware of its prevalence in the decadent and debased population of Constantinople. It existed among both men and women: among the courtesans, even, were cases of unnatural love between women; and not far from the Street of Women were the places of ignominy where Ganymedes carried the suggestive names of catamiti and amassi, according to their peculiar practices.

Such knowledge, rather than interesting Theodora, made her feel squeamish, yet she was forced to recognize it. Supposing that Justinian was tainted with this weird and sickly addiction—although, as Antonina had said, there was no direct talk of it, and such things got about—a letter concerning a girl for his pleasure would only make him laugh.

The thought made Theodora herself sometimes laugh: a bitter laugh at her own ridiculous assumption that so preposterous a scheme would work out. The unlikelihood that the letter ever would be delivered; the possibility that the prince was sexually abnormal; the weak chance that it would stir in him any interest, even if he were fully normal, since after all he could choose from among the women of the entire empire; the question as to whether, supposing he actually saw her, she could win him . . . they all combined to make her hope seem very foolish, very pathetically amusing.

Then she would cease laughing, or even smiling, and twirl her spindle more diligently than before, her eyes remote though mechanically watching the forming thread, and with a shadow of terror in them.

2 }

In the houses up and down the poor street, the wives of porters, stone workers, bakers, street hawkers, and day laborers, gathered at each other’s doors sometimes, to discuss that woman, who sat spinning in the entrance of her house down the block.

She was, the wives agreed, a jade most certainly. No question of her status—a strumpet trying to become respectable. Well, they told each other, she was certainly high and mighty about it. A body would think she was too good for them—and she worse than gutter slime—sitting there all day with that spindle, and saying nothing to anyone!

In such clothes, too. That green thing she was wearing now—why, you could almost see right through it! And the way she put up her hair. Scandalous. As if she still were waiting for men, like a spider spinning a web to catch them in, with that spindle of hers.

If the creature had any such notions as that, she had better not try her tricks here, the gossiping women agreed. Say what you wanted about this neighborhood—and maybe it wasn’t just the grandest in town—it was respectable. Always had been respectable. Hard-working, and simple-living, but honest and self-respecting. The women drew their own slatternly garments virtuously about themselves and glared down the street at the open door of the spinner’s house. If they discovered she was trying to set up a whore house there, they’d run her out fast enough!

So the women kept a distrustful watch on Theodora. They kept an eye on their husbands, too, like suspicious hen hawks. Sometimes, when their men came home, the wives might detect a furtive side glance at the open door where the hussy sat. When they did so, the unfortunate husband who had stolen the glance heard from it until far into the night—and after. It became so that a wise man, who valued his peace, would take the precaution of crossing the street to the opposite side in passing that particular house, to avoid strident accusations at home.

Yet nobody could say truthfully that the girl with the spindle and the clinging gowns ever took the slightest notice of anyone passing her door. Save for the manner of her attire, her behavior was most subdued and modest. This, however, did not allay the fears of the women in the neighborhood. They told each other that they knew well enough how sly such a baggage could be, and how cunning her tricks, and they never relented their hostile watch on her.

But nobody on the street, not even Theodora in her growing despair, knew that in those days something almost incredible was taking place.

Hagg, who had listened to her plea and accepted her charge, had proceeded in his characteristic way to attempt to carry out her wish.

With most careful and cunning instructions he placed her letter in the hands of the Isaurian beggar with the crooked leg and crutch, who had become a sort of lieutenant to him. For days thereafter the Isaurian crouched outside the Chalké gate of the palace, importuning ingoers and outgoers for alms, during which time he watched patiently for the appearance of one certain man he knew: a fellow who was a familiar of one of the palace guards, and sometimes came to the gate to speak to his friend when the latter was on duty.

To this man, when at last he came, the Isaurian slipped the letter, with certain directions and a promise that if it reached its destination everyone connected with it from first to last would be well rewarded. Later, when the guard at the gate was off duty, and had time to take a few drinks with his boon companion in a wine shop down by the bazaar, the letter was transferred again.

Now came another lengthy passage of time, for the outer guard was quartered in the barracks built against the palace wall just outside the enclosure, and he had to await the exact day when his tour of duty coincided with the tour of duty of another Excubitor whom he knew, one of the inner guards of the gate and quartered within the palace walls. And after the coinciding day finally came, there was still another wait, for the moment when a folded and sealed bit of papyrus, now well thumb-marked on the outside, could be passed to the inner guard with nobody seeing it.

Once within the walls, the letter moved jerkily but rather steadily toward its goal. The inner Excubitor was acquainted with a eunuch of the imperial household, who in turn was on close terms with another eunuch of higher station—an under secretary in the office of records. And the under secretary knew an assistant chamberlain, who had the ear of an office attendant, who might presume to bring a missive, in a manner secret and discreet, to the attention of a prince of the empire.

Thus, taking weeks in its slow journey, Macedonia’s letter traveled from hand to hand, always coming a little nearer to its objective, yet again and again delayed, while Theodora waited in her little house on the poor street and fought to bolster her dying hope.

3 }

The precarious existence of the letter and the chances surrounding its progress are illustrated by one of many episodes connected with it.

At the southward edge of the city, in a hut overlooking the Propontis, lived an old woodcarver named Nikias, who supported himself and his fat elderly wife with the figurines, receptacles, toys, and other products of his knives, chisels, and burins—fashioned from smooth-grained woods and cunningly painted. Nikias was an accomplished woodcarver, who took pleasure in his craft and sometimes achieved amusing results.

One day, in a whimsical mood, he found the piece of fine Hispanian cedar which he was carving yielded well to his cuttings, so that the little figurine almost shaped itself. It was an old woman who emerged from the wood: an old woman with a broad, plump body, well swathed in clothes, a shawl over her head, and a wide peasant’s face. Under his keen blade, and especially after he applied the paint, the old woman’s face assumed a foolish simper that made him smile. He colored her shawl and dress in keeping with her unwieldy figure.

Inspiration, that morning, went farther. Old Nikias bethought himself and presently detached the head from the body, mounting it on a peg cunningly hinged, so that when he gave it a push with his finger, the head bobbed forward and back. Overjoyed with the effect, he added a second joint, hinge, and peg, where the feet went under the wide skirt.

Now his wooden woman had a dual motion—a head which nodded forward and back with that foolish simper on it, and a body that seemed to wiggle its broad hips from side to side, as some rural women did when embarrassed or shy. Nikias, the woodcarver, laughed aloud. The figure really was very funny.

His wife, when she saw it, laughed too, though not so heartily: she had an uneasy feeling that she could detect a none too flattering resemblance to herself in the dumpy old wooden woman, since she was at times inclined to simper and twist her fat body also. But she said nothing of this, only laughed dutifully, and went on about her work.

Neither she nor Nikias could dream that an object so small and ridiculous as that wooden woman he had carved and painted, might strangely affect history. Nor, as a matter of fact, did they ever know of it. Yet the wriggling little figure was to have a destiny of some moment.

The next day Nikias took it to the great bazaar near the Hippodrome, where he made a practice of displaying his work on a tray while he squatted in a corner of one of the passageways, since he was too poor to rent a booth. Trade was slow that morning, but after midday a tall man with an elegantly leisurely manner, an expression of faint amusement always on his lean, intellectual face, and a deep line of concentration incised between his brows, approached and glanced down at the tray.

Instantly Nikias lifted it, saying, “A statuette for your amusement, your worship? A dish? A spoon? A receptacle for salt?”

His motion with the tray set the old woman he had carved to bobbing her head and twisting her hips. The tall man, who had been gazing at the tray rather absently, suddenly displayed interest. The figure seemed to suggest to him an amusing thought, for he smiled—a rather pleasant smile, as Nikias noted hopefully.

“How much for this one?” he said, pointing at the old woman.

At once Nikias became the bargainer. “That? She took a great deal of time and skill to make, your worship. You see the cunning manner in which she works? Observe. Most woodcarvers get only one motion, but I——”

“How much?”

“I think—I think this figurine—because of the way she is so cleverly jointed—should fetch——”

“Is this sufficient?”

The tall man laid on the tray a broad gold piece—a solidus, with Justin’s head on it—three times, four times what Nikias had hoped for in his wildest dreams. The woodcarver was overwhelmed with joy.

“Most certainly, noble master! She is yours! Can I not interest you in others of these so charming bits of my art——”

“Thank you, no. This old woman happens to hit my fancy.”

Carrying the figurine, the tall man walked away through the maze of the bazaar, still with that odd smile on his face.

Some who saw him—though Nikias was not one of them—recognized him as Tribonian, the legalist.

4 }

Prince Justinian, Sublime and Wonderful Magnitude, Illustrious and Magnificent Highness, to use only one or two of the titles by which he was habitually addressed, sat at his office desk in the Daphne palace and glared with a kind of bitter resentment at the work heaped on it.

On this afternoon he felt neither sublime nor wonderful, illustrious nor magnificent, but rather inadequate and hopeless. Trying to accomplish anything in the inertia and inefficiency of the countless bureaus which gradually, over the centuries, had taken over the government was like trying to run in a waist-deep morass where the sticky mud clung to one’s feet, forever sucking one down into it.

Merely in a wry spirit of discontent he enumerated to himself, in round figures, the secretaries in his office of correspondence alone. There were the four scrinia, at the head of things, each with his department: the memorials; the petitions; the epistles; and the papers and orders of a miscellaneous nature. Each of these departments employed 148 under secretaries. According to the prince’s rapid calculation, that made almost six hundred persons, including the chief secretaries and their immediate subordinates—six hundred, just to conduct the correspondence of the empire and copy the endless array of abstracts and reports which constantly were coming in.

And the office of correspondence was one of the lesser bureaus. Hermogenes, the old master of offices, had a veritable army of employees, for example; and Proclus, the quaestor, made a post for every young lawyer with proper connections who was out of a job. There also was the count of sacred largesses—the rather extraordinary title given to the receiver of revenues—who not only had his own regiment of secretaries and subordinate officers, but oversaw twenty-nine provincial receivers, each with his well-padded staff, and also a multitude of agents of special types. In addition, the army and navy each had its huge contingent of recorders and secretaries, apart from the men actually in service; the propositus, or chief chamberlain of the imperial household—always a eunuch, and with eunuchs by the hundred under him—made another category; and above these, and other bureaus like them, was the praetorian prefect, who had his finger in almost everything, and whose offices, of course, were the most heavily populated of all—the spies and agents he carried on his pay roll alone numbered ten thousand, to say nothing of clerks and secretaries.

To Justinian it seemed almost beyond him to accomplish anything in such a mass of people, who got in each other’s way, were in most cases inefficient, in very many corrupt, yet who held their positions by imperial appointment, so that it was difficult to dislodge them.

For some time now, Justinian had been directly responsible for the governing of the empire, and though he devoted himself to the task with noteworthy energy, he was becoming more and more discouraged. He was, furthermore, weary: weary of his task, weary of the burdens he had to shoulder, weary of the palace, weary of the people—high and low—before whom he must continuously keep up an appearance of confidence, energy, and wisdom.

The old emperor, his uncle, while still retaining for him the bluff affection he had always shown, was each month becoming less capable of making decisions or even giving counsel. And there was Euphemia, the empress, constantly complaining, constantly jealous, constantly querulous.

Justinian paid daily visits to the old couple in the Sigma palace, which was attached by a closed passage to the administrative headquarters. Toward Justin he felt a great obligation, but Euphemia, because of her pettiness, filled him at times with impatience and annoyance.

With distaste the prince surveyed his desk, which was stacked with sheaves of papyrus, rolls of parchment, and heaps of wax tablets with notes, reminders, and appointments scribbled on them. Justinian was attempting a one-man operation of the government, and he was discovering, as many another has discovered, how difficult that can be.

Presently he took up a piece of parchment, frowning, and began to read. It was a petition from an under proconsul in Caesarea, accused of peculations, who because of his privileged position was exempt from the judgments of the local courts, and demanded that he be heard by the prince himself. This kind of thing happened continuously. If Justinian heard everyone who thought he had a special privilege of appeal, he could do nothing else. With irritation he tossed the parchment on the tray for the attention of the praetorian prefect.

At this moment the door of the office opened, and Flavius, his personal secretary, entered. The man was stooped, with very large dark eyes, and a furtive manner. This last was due to his fear of Justinian, who because of the strain under which he lived, had lost his natural good humor and burst out more than once recently at the secretary.

“What now?” growled the prince.

“A letter,” said Flavius. “I was asked to deliver it to your Supreme Eminence’s personal hand.”

“Who asked it?” Justinian snapped. He hated mystery.

“It is said to be from a friend—of the Heaven Born——”

“Give it to me.” Letters from “friends” were an old story. Someone was always asking, suggesting, denying, or demanding something on the ground of “old friendship.” Such missives went almost invariably into the wastebasket.

The prince saw that the folded papyrus was sealed. Also stained with finger marks as if many had handled it. He broke the seal and read:

The usual flowery and flattering preamble. Justinian was about to glance at the signature before throwing the letter away, when the door opened again.

“Tribonian, the sub-quaestor,” announced Flavius.

“Bid him enter,” Justinian said.

Absently he laid the unread letter on the corner of his desk, where it was immediately forgotten by him. Presently it would be brushed off on the floor and gathered with the other scraps of papyrus and parchment into the wastebasket by the porter at night.

At the moment a visit by Tribonian was more important than any letter. Justinian always was glad to see the legalist, who was cynical but never boring, and who, the prince believed, was his friend.

With the usual polite salutation, the lawyer entered.

“What brings you, Tribonian?” asked the prince. “No request for added appropriations for the quaestor’s office, I hope? Those young lawyers are like a plague of locusts, eating the treasury bare.”

“No, Most Noble Prince. I came, as you might say, on a whimsicality. Perhaps I presume on your time——”

“Come, my friend. What’s this about presuming? You know you’re welcome always. Now—what’s your errand?”

For answer Tribonian placed upon the desk a wooden figure of an old woman, and with a movement of his finger set her to bobbing her head and twisting her hips.

Justinian stared for a moment at the figure. Suddenly his expression changed and he glanced at Tribonian with an inkling of a smile.

“Does this little figure, by any chance, remind you of someone?” he asked.

A flicker about the lawyer’s lips answered the prince’s hint of a smile.

“Such a reminder—if I felt it—would be presumptuous in me,” he answered.

Again Justinian looked at the bobbing figure.

“It’s the spit and image of her!” he exclaimed. “Incredible—the old lady’s very simper and wiggle——”

Suddenly he roared with laughter.

Now Tribonian joined him.

Delighted, the two men guffawed together.

By the most curious of chances Nikias, the woodcarver, who had never seen the old empress, in his carved figurine accidentally had caught an almost perfect likeness, and an even more perfect caricature of the manner of Euphemia, consort of Emperor Justin.

By the time they finished laughing Justinian’s good humor was restored. He tried the figurine once or twice with his finger, to make sure it would bob and wriggle in the same way. Then he placed it back on a corner of his desk, on top of a folded papyrus that lay there, and turned to Tribonian, with whom for a time he discussed a legal matter connected with the quaestor’s office.

When Tribonian was gone Justinian felt much better, as he always did when he conversed with someone who had enthusiasm and constructive ideas. He returned to his work. It was growing rather late: the afternoon sun was slanting through his window.

Its beam fell on the wooden figurine.

Again the prince smiled and absently set the fat little old woman to bobbing and twisting her hips. A most remarkable resemblance to her imperial majesty, surely . . .

His eye was drawn to the papyrus on which the figurine stood. What was that, something he had overlooked?

Justinian took the papyrus from under the statuette and opened it. Ah, yes, the letter he had been reading when Tribonian came in. Now he glanced at the signature at the bottom: Macedonia.

Macedonia? It was the province from which he came as a boy. But there was a reminiscent ring to it also as the name of some person.

To be sure! He remembered her now. The tall, dark courtesan he had known years before. She came from his own country, which was why he was interested in her at first, and she had, as he remembered, proved a rather pleasant companion for a few nights, at intervals. Then he lost track of her. What was it that happened to her? Exiled—that was it. For some kind of conspiracy. He recalled that he had asked for a detailed report, and had not gotten it, forgetting it in the volume of his work at the time. He must discover what there was to it, even at this late date . . .

The prince began to read. After that elaborate greeting the letter went on to beg him to “relax his mind from the mountainous burdens that weigh it down, and turn to diversion a little, for the sake not only of himself but of the empire.” The writer went on to suggest one such “diversion.” A girl—Theodora was the name—whom he “might discover truly pleasing.” At the bottom, scribbled in a different handwriting, perhaps of this Theodora herself, was an address. Not on the Street of Women, but in an obscure though respectable neighborhood in the city.

Impatiently Justinian half moved to cast the letter aside. Then once more his eye fell on the wooden figurine of the old woman.

The laugh it had given him—he felt a good deal better after that. And, now that he remembered her better, he had a pleasant recollection of Macedonia. It occurred to him that her suggestion might have some merit. She seemed to be concerned over his labors . . . certainly she was not advancing her own interests in putting forth the name of another. And the address was not the Street of Women. To send an imperial litter to the Street of Women was one thing; to an obscure though proper neighborhood quite a different matter. The prince, as he grew older, had a certain feeling for discretion and disliked the unnecessary stirring of wild gossip.

It had been, Justinian reflected, some time since he had really relaxed for an evening. Perhaps, after all, the ruler of an empire needed relaxation like any other mortal man. It was true he had been working overhard lately . . . he might be growing stale.

Theodora, he mused. That meant Gift of God.

The name stirred his curiosity. He rang the bell for Flavius.

5 }

Children shrilled questions while their mothers peered half fearfully out of their doors, as the narrow street clashed with metal-shod sandals.

For that shabby street it was an apparition most splendid: a squad of Excubitors in all their glitter of silver and gold; also a litter, carried by eight slaves in palace livery, brilliantly painted and bossed with ornamental metal, and equipped with purple side curtains. An imperial litter, there could be no doubt of it! The eyes of the watching women bulged.

Now came the greatest wonder of all. The girl, who each day sat in the door of her house with spindle and distaff, came forth as if expecting such splendor. She was dressed and adorned as she always was. It was as if she had been continuously prepared for this arrival: many marked this and commented on it later.

With deference beyond belief the slim figure in the jade-green gown was escorted to the litter by the haughty officer of the Excubitors. Could this be one of the low degree the street had imagined? The watchers saw her enter the litter; saw the purple curtains fall, hiding her; saw the slaves lift the litter to their shoulders. Then the officer gave a command, the guard fell into rhythmic step, and with lances glittering escorted the magnificent litter and its passenger out of the street.

Oh, never again would such a sight fill the eyes of the women who clustered in those doorways . . .

With her head high and a confident smile on her face, Theodora had come forth from her house. But both attitude and expression were assumed. She was frightened, horribly frightened.

The first part of her plan, the delivery of Macedonia’s letter, evidently had been accomplished. But now she faced the second part, which was the ultimate test of herself.

Words—her own words to Hagg—came back to her: If I could meet the prince—I do not despair of winning him . . .

Now that she must make good that boast, it seemed suddenly the most difficult thing she had ever set out to do.

The exalted nature of the personage to whom she was being taken awed her. He was the eagle of the empire: what business would he have with a small sparrow of the streets? Perhaps it might amuse him only to rend her with his talons—eagles did things like that.

The regular sway of the litter and the tramp of the feet on the pavements never seemed to end. She tried to compute the time needed to traverse the distance to the palace, then lifted a corner of the curtain for a frightened peek out.

There was the looming bulk of the Hippodrome. At some distance she saw the magnificent Column of Constantine, erected on a pedestal of white marble and consisting of ten sections of porphyry of varying colors, bound together with bands of copper, and towering 120 feet high with the colossal statue of the great emperor on the summit, a landmark that could be seen from almost anywhere in the city.

They must be approaching the Chalké gate. Theodora dropped the corner of the curtain and held her breath.

But the halt, the challenge, and the passage she expected did not take place. Instead the escort seemed to turn—evidently southward along the outer palace wall—and the measured tramp of the soldiers continued to sound.

Where were they taking her? Unable as she was to see, and hesitating to raise the curtain again, time passed infinitely slow.

A halt at last. Then a shuffling of feet and lowered tones of conversation. The litter was set upon the ground and a hand drew back the curtain. She looked out.

“Will you be so good as to descend?” said a voice.

The speaker was a eunuch, fat, with pendulous haunches.

“I am Dromo, chamberlain to his Most Magnificent Highness,” the eunuch said. “I will conduct you.”

Theodora stepped from the litter to the ground.

They were not within the palace enclosure. Before her, outside of but near the wall, stood a building, not large but of white marble, which appeared to overlook the sea. She recognized it: the Hormisdas palace, said to be the personal dwelling of the prince.

Without a word she followed Dromo into the structure, through an atrium, and down a hall. A door was held open for her.

“You will wait here,” said the eunuch.

He closed the door behind him. She was alone.

At first the girl simply stood still, wondering if someone would come at once. Then, when nobody did come, she moved about, venturing a timid examination.

If these were the living quarters of the prince they were remarkable for plainness rather than luxury. The rooms seemed to be several in number, with furniture, hangings, ornaments, and floor coverings all good, but not as showy even as the living quarters of Hecebolus in the provincial palace at Apollonia.

In one respect her mind was relieved by what she saw. The effeminate nature is betrayed by a love for fripperies and luxury, an over-preoccupation with decoration in its surroundings. These Spartan living quarters were those of a man who appeared to have tastes simple if not severe. He was at least masculine: he might be joyless, but he was no homosexual.

She remembered the reports of the prince’s austerity, his coldness, his humorless devotion to the details of his duty, and a new panic came over her. With such a man what business had she, a creature of exquisite pleasure, but nothing else?

With that she stood before a large silver mirror and surveyed herself. No eye is so critical as that with which a woman takes note of her own appearance at such a time. Others may flatter her, but she never flatters herself.

I’m a little tired-looking, Theodora thought, gazing at her reflection.

Her hair needed some attention: a few pats and pushes of her fingers sufficed for that. Afterwards she took from her small leather bag of personal effects an oisype, and touched up the carmine of her lips.

The jade-green dress, she decided, rather became her dark coloring. Certainly she did not appear coarse or cheap-looking, in spite of the little she had invested in her garb or ornaments. Feminine and dainty, against the severe masculine surroundings, was the little reflection looking back at Theodora from the silver mirror. Even she was forced to admit that, all in all, it was not too bad.

It invested her with new confidence. She was entering a new world: a luxurious, suave, wonderful world, as different as the heavens from what she had previously known. And even to her own critical eye, she looked precious and pampered, almost as if she belonged to that world . . . which is the way every beautiful woman loves to feel.

So she went and sat on a divan.

It was toward evening, and somebody must surely come soon.

But nobody came. Time passed. She tried arranging herself in different positions of grace, draping her gown just right, placing her arms in attractive attitudes.

And still time passed.

Night fell. Servants entered, silent and hardly looking at her, and lit the lamps. Other servants placed food and wine on a table for her. She was hungry, and she ate. When she finished they took away the dishes, without a word, and left her there with the lighted lamps.

Now she began to wonder. Hours had gone and nobody had spoken to her except that eunuch, Dromo. Did they expect a girl to remain entirely alone in this palace, completely ignored?

She became almost indignant. Even a prince should not treat a woman this way.

But more time dragged by interminably. She forgot her indignation. Once or twice she caught herself nodding.

Then she was asleep. Asleep in the Palace of Hormisdas: asleep in the dwelling of Prince Justinian, regent of the Empire of the Romans.

6 }

She was awakened by a voice from the atrium. A moment later she heard the outer door close and the sound of a man’s steps crossing the marble of the hall.

She made a hasty, desperate effort to compose herself: rubbing her eyes, pushing up her hair, straightening her gown at the bosom, and all, as it were, in a single motion.

Then he stood in the doorway.

A young woman, particularly a beautiful young woman, never knows her moment of great charm, when she is caught unprepared and partly disheveled in her first waking. The man’s impression of her was of a mass of shining, utterly glorious hair, startled eyes brilliantly highlighted, and lusciously youthful lips parted in a gasp of consternation at being so taken by surprise.

The girl, on the other hand, saw a stalwart and vigorous man, in a simple dark red tunic, white mantle with a purple border, and no ornaments save for a large gold brooch fashioned in the form of the imperial eagle of Rome that held the mantle at his shoulder. He was not youthful, but in his prime, with a large yet compact head covered with close-cropped brown curls, a fresh, almost ruddy complexion, and a strong nose and jaw.

She saw more: in him was an immense self-preoccupation, a coldness, an inaccessibility that was terrifying. Almost with fear she gazed at him because of his barrier of reserve that she sensed, against which a woman might beat herself in vain.

“I am Justinian,” he said. “I crave your pardon for the long wait you have endured. Matters came up and time was gone before I knew.”

In a perfectly courteous manner, he was apologizing to her as if she were a woman of consequence whom he did not wish to affront.

“I—I was—I fell asleep——” she stammered.

She rose from the divan, wondering what she should do, how she should conduct herself in this presence. Should she kneel . . .?

The question was solved for her. He said, “Please to be seated.”

Still confused, she obeyed. He came over to where she sat and took his place on a large ottoman before her.

“You are Theodora?” he asked. “A friend of Macedonia of Antioch?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

He considered, his face unchanging. After a moment he said, “You must know I sent for you out of curiosity.”

An inauspicious beginning, but she answered, “Yes, Highness.”

“Why did Macedonia—whom I knew only slightly and that years ago—take it into her head to recommend you to me?”

Suspicion was in his question, and Theodora sensed it. Her answer was perfectly frank, perfectly lucid.

“Because, Highness, she knew that though you are a prince, you are also—a man.”

She said it with a manner of speaking difficult to describe, but which anyone who has known a woman of subtle nuances can understand. It was as if by calling the prince a man she had at once given him the highest compliment in her command, and at the same time placed them, as it were, on a certain common footing: for the unspoken, implied meaning was that she responded to his manhood as a woman.

Remarkable is the equality of sex. A man of great power and wealth, of years and high honors, may expect and receive from every other man he encounters respect approaching awe, as if, because of his position and attainments he is a being of a superior kind, greater than common human beings.

Yet the world is familiar with the spectacle of some girl, barely into womanhood, without particular education or background, and with no more brains than are necessary to make herself as beautiful as nature will permit, conversing familiarly and impudently with that man; calling him pet names often silly beyond imagination; feeling completely and perfectly at home with him; perhaps asking him to fetch and carry for her, and pouting so that he outdoes himself to cause her to smile at him. And by so doing she pleases him to the very core, because in spite of every artificial distinction of rank and rule set up by society and law they are in finality simply male and female, with the instinct born in them of what they were made for.

This kind of power a woman of the shallowest intellect and almost ordinary physical charms can exert, if circumstances favor her. But Justinian was in the presence of a girl of extraordinary mental and emotional capabilities, who had intuitive understanding such as only a few women possess, and with all this a face and body distractingly half imp, half angel.

He could not help responding to the implied compliment and the implied vistas her words opened to him. He gave her the start of a smile, caught himself, gulped.

In that moment, with hardly a word said, a singular thing took place. Their situations were indescribably reversed. The man suddenly found himself at a loss; the girl became assured and confident. A classic transition: the woman, greatly to be desired, always capricious, and to be wooed; the man, uncertain as to her attitude, with a headlong eagerness to please her.

Theodora knew her first success with a warm little thrill of triumph. She had made herself desirable. The prince wanted her.

He could have her . . . would have her. That was what she was there for. But afterward . . .?

Into her mind came a vagrant sentence of Lucian: In making love . . . bear in mind but one thing, to win the man and make of him a steady lover.

Could such a thing be possible? She had hardly considered it before . . . a steady lover?

As frequently happens, the man took the necessity of action away from the woman.

“You’re very beautiful, my dear. Do you know it?” he said.

He had taken the lead with the compliment. From this time on she needed only to reply to him, be winsome, intrigue him: first with a brilliant smile of thanks; then with glances half promising, half evading; answers that were not answers; and a simulated timidity that was not timidity. Even a courtesan—whose purpose is understood and agreed upon—can work these distractions wonderfully on a man, once she has charmed him.

To Justinian she seemed to have a special beauty: a supple grace of slender body that was almost revealed by its clinging gown; a face with the eyes of a siren, weighted by wonderful massed hair, too abundant it appeared for her slight strength; a mouth full, half parted, and almost terribly defenseless.

He wanted to feel that mouth under his: found himself stammering, trembled and grew half angry with himself for it, could not take his gaze from her.

“Theodora . . .” he said, leaning toward her as if drawn by some force. A delicately entrancing fragrance from her came to him.

“Theodora——” He took her hand, and she caught her breath.

Her little gasp seemed almost violently to arouse him from his strange preoccupation. He rose, drawing her roughly to her feet.

Her face was upturned to him . . . a question on it . . . question only he could answer.

His arm about her waist felt the thrilling resilience of her body. Bending her backward, the blood pounding in his temples, he placed his lips fiercely on hers.

In that moment Justinian discovered what a woman’s kiss can mean.

His life had never known such a kiss: a giving and a taking, a sweetness and a fire, a drawing out of his soul . . .

He found himself seated on the divan, the woman lying in his arms, across his lap, mouth straining to mouth. Of a sudden she closed her knees and twisted her body aside. She was still in his arms, but as if by a superhuman effort of will as well as strength, she dragged her mouth away from his and uttered a strangled whisper.

“No . . . not yet . . .”

“Why?” he demanded in a like whisper, fiercely. “Why not now?”

“I—don’t know—it just seems—so soon——”

The absolute essence of feminine art. The seeming to resist, and to resist for no reason compatible with logic, while at the same time fully intending to surrender: designed by the instinct in her more than by any thought, to draw his hunger for her to its finest edge.

Under his princely trappings he was, as she had said, a man. And as a man he now acted.

One arm about her body, the other under her thighs, he carried her into his sleeping room and threw himself beside her on his bed.

This was the moment: the apex moment. No longer was it necessary for the girl to play-act, for within her overflowed all the natural ardency, the primitive responses, the exquisite lingering sensations.

It has been well said by a great poet that no spectacle of nature, neither the wonder of sunrise, the magnificence of the tempest, the violence of the thunderbolt, nor the dying radiance of sunset, are worthy of astonishment to him who has seen, in his arms, the transfiguration of a woman in the moment of supreme transport, supreme ecstasy . . .

1 }

The secretaries of the prince’s office took note that Justinian, who always was at his desk before any other, for the first time next day failed to appear for work with the earliest light. When he did arrive, to those who knew him well he was as a stranger, almost light-headed, laughing easily, and for the day restless and lacking in his usual concentration on his labors.

The prince had that morning lingered to eat breakfast with the little charmer in the Hormisdas; and throughout the day she was in his thoughts, so that they were not clear and manageable as before.

Until now women had to Justinian been no more than creatures for play, resembling one another with slight differences only, as one coin resembles another. When a woman failed to ring true in that which, to his mind, was her sole reason for entering his life, the coin was nicked out of circulation as far as he was concerned. This always had happened before with every woman he had known. The conception was that of the Orient, toward which the empire was leaning more and more in its thinking: to the effect that women, aside from the necessity of sex and the provision of offspring, were nothing worthy of a man’s considered thought.

All that day, however, Justinian’s mind kept going back to the girl who still lingered in his dwelling. He could not banish from his thoughts the flashing sweep of her glance, her laughing high spirits, and the way she met him fully on every level of the night-long love game they played, delighting in it as she delighted him.

This last was alone sufficient to set her aside from most women of his experience, who in a short time were inclined to grow jaded and disinterested, instead of conspiring with their lover to add still further fancies and experiments, until the very springs of pleasure were exhausted and a man was content to rest in a sort of helpless gratitude.

The prince made a short day of it and returned to his palace early. Now that he had been away from her for some hours, he had succeeded at last in almost convincing himself that he was over-imaginative about her, and was prepared to be disillusioned when he saw her again. But in spite of this reasoning, he found himself filled with mounting excitement as he reached the portal of the Hormisdas and received the salute of the guards.

As for Theodora, she had in the previous night played her woman’s part, which is to think and plan, where a man’s part is only to follow blindly his wishes. Even when her body, in her princely lover’s arms, followed its instincts eagerly, as with every superb woman, so that it could hardly be said to know anything beyond its fulfillment, her mind was by no means chaotic.

That day Justinian bethought himself to send women to attend her from one of the servant quarters in the palace, and with the assistance of these she devoted the entire morning to the bath, the beautification, and the relaxation of the tired physique. She ate hungrily, though not immoderately, and took another nap in the afternoon. When she surmised the time was approaching for his return to her, she made preparation against his coming: a further splashing in the bath, a final arrangement of the hair, a series of last touches to the face, a few faint additions of perfumed oils, and a fresh gown from her bag, of soft rose tissue, pleated in innumerable folds that accented and made more gracious the curves of her body.

Woman is illusion: and man creates the illusion in himself. Once he is enamored of her, it is only necessary that she help him from time to time in the illusory process. When Justinian saw Theodora that evening she was utmost perfection insofar as the arts of herself and the tirewomen could make her, but to him she surpassed any real perfection. All reservations he had sought to erect in his mind concerning her during that day faded. She was like a goddess: or better, a beautiful nymph, which mythology said was sometimes accessible to mortal man’s love.

But though she now lived in the illusions of Justinian to the point where he hardly saw her at all in her true self, there was no self-illusion in Theodora’s mind. When, eagerly, he seized her in his arms and began covering her face and breast with kisses, she responded to him as eagerly, yet even then she kept living in her mind her ultimate problem and concern.

He was captivated. Beyond every expectation she had pleased him. This she knew. But she knew also that no woman could hold a man like Justinian indefinitely without variety and imagination continually lavished. He was no boyish lover, knowing nothing beyond his senses, and easily kept in a woman’s web. This was a mature man, accustomed to working his will on others, dealing each day with immense affairs, and perhaps even somewhat past the fullest vigor of life. He was a far more difficult problem for these reasons, to be handled most carefully if she were to maintain her spell. There was a further thought, somewhat chilling: she was still only a courtesan, on a temporary visit, whose stay in the palace might be limited to the second night only.

Though nothing had been said of the man she most feared, the specter of John of Cappadocia was in her mind often. It was one of her prime hopes that she might secure herself against the malice of the praetorian prefect, even after she was sent away from the palace, and this was in her reckoning when she received Justinian that second evening.

Woman often are so nebulous that they do not crystallize into any set pattern, and caprice therefore is to them a natural thing, without requiring any thought. But this Theodora carried to a point of refinement. Her nature was brilliantly various, but her thoughts worked also with her intuitions, so that she bewildered the prince with her changes.

He expected from her a flood of passion, but no flood of passion was there at first this night. Instead there was laughter, play, a continual offering and refusal, a firmly agile body that turned in his arms, lips sometimes averted, furtive touches and kisses when he was dashed by disappointment, a prolonged and merry frolic on the great princely bed, until he was half laughing, half exasperated, and panting with his fruitless efforts to gain the prize he sought.

Women audacious enough to play this game must know its danger: the exact length of time to which it may be extended; the moment when the man, denied once too often, will cease to share in its mirth, grow weary and angry at the foolishness, and refuse to try again. Coquetry can be carried too far.

But that mistake Theodora was too finely attuned to make. At the exact moment, the moment when she had tantalized and entranced him to the verge of distraction, yet while he was still eager and pleading, she permitted him to capture her as if it were an accident or she no longer could resist him. And so, more whetted than ever before, they seized each other.

2 }

Afterward they bathed together, frolicking and laughing in the water like children, then robed themselves and sat down to a supper which the eunuch servants brought.

A wonderful supper, but Justinian, though he ate, hardly tasted the food. No gourmet at best, this night he was too entranced with the witchery of the girl to notice what he put into his mouth.

Her chatter: it was gay and witty, yet candid. He loved to hear her talk, for her voice was as pleasant to the ear as her body to the touch. Especially he delighted to have her tell about herself. And she answered his questions fully and frankly, as if having thus far given herself to him he was entitled to anything else he wanted of her.

It was characteristic of Justinian that forever he was curious about the viewpoints of others, and latterly the disputations of religion had begun to interest him. Though the Church was positive in its denunciation of women like this beautiful girl—and also, it must be admitted, of men like himself, libertines who made the profession of courtesans possible—his own background was not one to make him accept personally as yet the stern and sterile views of the more radical theologians. This interest in religion, the metaphysical aspects of it particularly, was growing in him however, and would one day be with him a great preoccupation.

“When I sent for you, you were not on the Street of Women, which you say was your home for years,” he said.

“I was spinning,” she said.

“Spinning? Why did you decide upon reform?”

“Reform was not exactly in my mind. I wanted time to think, and decide my future. I didn’t feel the necessity of reform.”

He smiled. “No? I believe you. Yet it raises an interesting question in my mind.”

“What is it?” she asked.

“You don’t consider yourself, I take it, a wicked young woman?”

She looked him full in the eyes. “Do you think I am?”

For a moment he pondered this. Then he said, “No, I really don’t. I think that what you do is natural to you, and however it’s regarded by the doctrines, cannot be bad in you in the same way it might be in one who knowingly and wilfully defies doctrines already accepted. Tell me, Theodora, what’s your opinion on the question of sin?”

The change, the nature of the question, caught her by surprise. She hesitated, perplexed, not knowing where this would lead.

Again he smiled. “You must be aware that the preachers in the churches anathematize against you and your kind.”

“Oh,” she said, seeing his direction. “Because I take pleasure with my body when I find it? To me that’s not so very great a sin, because it also gives pleasure to others. I’ve noticed that to some, sin is merely something that’s enjoyable to someone else. My view of it is different: sin is something that harms others, or wickedly injures them and makes them unhappy. Tell me, is a man, with a woman in his arms, particularly unhappy?”

He laughed at this somewhat naïve reasoning. “No, my little hedonist, hardly unhappy—least of all with you in his arms! But you don’t derive the full viewpoint of the ascetics in this matter.”

“What is that? I’ve always thought them just soured on life.”

“You don’t do them justice. Some ascetics are great thinkers and profoundly concerned with the question of absolute good and absolute evil. To these, it’s not so much what gives enjoyment to others that concerns them, as that which gives unworthy enjoyment to themselves. They believe that by denying themselves bodily pleasures they cause the growth of the soul and insure themselves eternal happiness in the hereafter.”

Womanlike, her response to this was personal. “Let them do so, if that’s their whim. But why must they try to enforce their beliefs on others? I enjoy life too well to put away everything that makes living worth while.”

He considered this, and with the solid judgment that was his nature, nodded his head as at a conceded viewpoint.

“But these people are concerned over the souls of others as well as their own,” he explained. “All things having to do with sex are an especial preoccupation with them, for the reason, I suppose, that it’s the greatest of all temptations and pleasures. On this question some of them become fanatical, as for example the Valesian monks.”

“Valesian monks? I know nothing of them.”

“They were followers of Valens of Bacetha Metrocomia, and they carried their mania against sex so far as to practice self-mutilation, emasculating not only themselves but their disciples, in the belief that it would deprive them of carnal desires.”

She shuddered with disgust. “Horrible! Such a belief makes of all women things of evil and vileness. What did those monks think of their own mothers, who bore them? As for such mutilations—it seems to me a greater wickedness than any natural sin could possibly be!”

Justinian agreed. “The Church itself had to take cognizance of the mad practice,” he said. “At the great Council of Nicaea, the very first canon laid down declared that a man who was made a eunuch, either by surgeons in the case of illness, or by barbarians, or by heretics, might remain in the priesthood, but that he who mutilated himself, or was mutilated with his own consent, could not remain a priest.”

“I have no sympathy for such fanaticism!” she said. “I think it’s prompted by something else than a mere desire to be good—a fear within the men themselves of their own weakness, or perhaps a kind of insanity to rule other people’s lives. After all, what virtue is there in resisting temptation, if the temptation doesn’t exist?”

“But it did exist—at least before they performed this abomination on themselves. By that act, which caused them great suffering, they felt they had expiated—or such, I suppose, was their reasoning.”

“To me it’s not reasoning at all, but illogic,” she said.

“What is your reasoning?” asked the prince curiously.

“It’s always seemed to me that a man worthy of the name must never be a slave of his appetites, but must discipline them so they don’t hamper him in winning success in whatever field he’s interested. But disciplining natural instincts, and denying them, are two different things. To my thinking extreme asceticism is the moral refuge of the mediocre. One may go without love, or starve, or thirst—I’ve done so—if necessity forces it. But only when it’s forced. Once the condition compelling abnormal abstinence is removed, it’s not only natural but to be commended in a man to enjoy again the comforts and pleasures.”

“To be commended? Why?”

“Because no ability is required to deny the bodily cravings: more often the gratifying of them, since it may require thought and labor, is the real achievement. Asceticism, therefore, merely is a way for an inferior person to claim some superiority, because he refrains from appeasing the cravings supplied by nature. It’s like one calling upon others for praise because he lies on the ground instead of standing up. The supine position is ever the easiest one, whether it be physical or mental. And the ascetic who gives up striving for anything and merely does without unmans himself.”

Justinian found himself admiring the quick mind of the girl, who expressed to him ideas as no woman he had known before expressed them. But he did not entirely agree with her.

“I myself live somewhat austerely,” he said.

“But not to impress anyone by your virtue, Highness! You master yourself, but you don’t deny your senses entirely. Or have I been under a misapprehension?”

She tilted her head and gave him an impish little gleam of a smile and he laughed lightheartedly.

“I prefer the good-humored tolerance of the ancients,” she went on.

“As for instance?”

“They tell of Aspasia, the famous Athenian hetaera, that one day she was assailed in the market place by the wife of the historian Xenophon, who accused her of doing wrong to legitimate love. But the courtesan, instead of being angered, put her hand on the wife’s arm with a smile, and said, ‘If your neighbor’s gold were better than your own, which would you love better, your own or hers?’ ‘Why—hers,’ replied the fiery piece of virtue. ‘And if her manners and habits were superior to yours, would you not love them better than your own?’ ‘Yes—so I suppose,’ the other said. ‘Then,’ said Aspasia, ‘if her husband were better than yours, should you not love him better also?’ As the story goes, Xenophon’s wife did not reply, but wrapped herself in the folds of her veil.”

The prince smiled, but said, “I fear Aspasia’s sophistry in this dialogue would hardly pass as a true argument.”

She grew sober, for it recalled to her the weakness of her own position. However the high courtesans of Constantinople might attempt still to live in the tradition of the great hetaerae of ancient Greece, theirs was a losing struggle. They were doomed to lose any remaining prestige they had, and instead of having at least a recognized occupation, honestly carried on in the main, and perhaps even with some pride attached to it, they would one day sink to the status of a secret, lurking vice.

Justinian did not understand her thoughts, but seeing her suddenly subdued, he was sorry. To quench her sparkle was the least of his intentions. He tried to think of something to restore her spirits.

“I have a little surprise for you,” he said smiling. “I’d intended to save it for morning——”

At that he hesitated, his smile disappearing. He had not meant to bring up this subject just now. She was silent, her eyes downcast, as if dreading what he was about to say. Then she said it herself.

“You mean—I—I go back—tomorrow morning . . .?”

Rather awkwardly he said, “Yes. I must send you back.”

She bent her head, eyes still lowered.

“Do you know why?” he said. “For the worst reason in the world, one might think. You—you’re too attractive to me. Can you understand what I mean by that, Theodora? Too attractive! For the very reason I want most to keep you, I must send you away. It’s the penalty of my position. You—you keep me from my work——”

All this he said very earnestly. And it came over him that in their brief time together he had done nothing for her, she everything for him. He had taken ceaselessly, she had given. He had been content to allow her matchless imagination and variety to delight him, while he made no especial effort to please her. And it struck him that what he was about to give her was the coldest, poorest reward that thought could conjure up, in return for what she had lavished on him.

Yet, not knowing what else to say, he went on, “This by no means expresses my gratitude for the happiness you’ve brought me.”

Now he displayed it: a necklace. A wonderful necklace of pearls that should have taken any woman’s breath away. It was worth a fortune. Compared to it, the emerald necklace of Datos was a little thing. But the girl only looked upon the princely gift dully.

“Thank you . . .” she began, but made no effort to take the pearls which he extended to her.

Then all at once she made a sudden little wild rush into his arms. He held her close, marveling, as she burrowed her face in his shoulder. For she was weeping.

“I don’t want it!” she sobbed. “You needn’t give me—give me anything! You’ve been so—so good to me—the best and finest person I’ve ever—ever known——”

“But surely—something for you——” he said into the scented cloud of her hair.

“I don’t want it!” she repeated woefully. “I know I’m—I’m a courtesan. But I’m a woman, too! And a woman can’t—can’t be as I’ve been to you—with her mind only, like a business! She does it with—with her heart!”

His arms tightened about the weeping girl. At last she gave a weak wail, like a kitten. “I’ll go. I’ll go back tomorrow, Highness. And I won’t—won’t hamper your work. But I don’t want those pearls—or—or anything!”

Justinian, never in his life more greatly moved, kissed her and tasted the tears on her cheek, salt as the sea.

No courtesan—no woman—had ever shed tears over him before.

3 }

She woke long before him next morning. For a time she lay still in the bed beside him, listening to his deep, regular breathing.

At last she turned to him. In the innocence of sleep the man’s face was almost childlike. There were the powerful jaw of the ruler, the strongly buttressed forehead, the big masculine nose. But the mouth, by day set habitually in lines of sternness, now was relaxed and sweet, and the brown curls were tousled like a little boy’s. A rush of feeling went over her. She wanted to kiss the mouth, further to rumple the careless hair. But at the same time she did not want to wake him.

She was astonished at this in herself, at such tenderness, such a wish to caress and protect.

With that she remembered that this day she must go back to the streets. It created in her heart a hollow ache. She hated the thought, and wished very wistfully and hopelessly that it were not so.

Of course she must accept the inevitable. This morning, however, she believed that not even the moment when she was thrust by the soldiers out alone into the Libyan Desert, or the moment when her baby was taken from her, were as bitter as this one.

She considered Justinian. A man she had called him, and it had sufficed at the time. The delirious two days and nights of love had followed.

But she knew now that she had not fully evaluated him. He was more than Man. He was . . . Empire.

To the considerations and wishes that ordinary men could yield, he could not yield. The great spreading realm, the millions of people, the countless towns and cities, all depended on this sleeping being by her side, looking so gentle in his slumber. And she knew his iron determination, and how his decisions, once made, were final.

So she tried to reconcile herself. After all, she thought rather pathetically, she supposed she had accomplished something worth commemorating. No other courtesan could boast of having spent two successive nights in the princely palace.

Next she tried to plan what she would do, assuring herself there was nothing to be disheartened over, for this might mean, after all, the beginning of great success for her. But her heart was not in it, and she gave it up soon. Plans and prospects just now lacked savor.

When Justinian woke, she was already up and in the bath.

He was in good humor this morning, making jests about his office staff, which for two successive days had come early to its desks according to his custom, only to find that he himself was not there.

“But I’ll make up for it now,” he told her. “I’ve never felt more refreshed or ready for work. You’ve been a tonic for me, darling.”

To be a tonic, thought the girl, was not much, but it was something.

During breakfast the subject of her departure was not mentioned: avoided by her because it was so distasteful, and by him perhaps because it was too unimportant to discuss. Yet all the time, as they chatted of a score of different things, Theodora was wondering when he would say that the litter was waiting to transport her back to her lodgings.

“I feel like a truant,” he said at last, as they nibbled sweet Sycaean figs, the last course of their morning repast. “I should have been at work long hours these two days, instead of pleasuring myself, for I have a diplomatic matter of importance before me.”

She was silent because, although he did not intend it so, she felt in this an implied rebuke to herself.

After a moment he said, “Would you like to hear what it is?”

“Why—yes, Highness. Although I know nothing about diplomatic matters—which are above my knowledge——”

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand international diplomacy. Sometimes I don’t understand it myself. But maybe I can explain this——”

“I’m always interested in what concerns you.”

“Very well. I’ll try to state it in simple terms. There has come a proposal of peace and alliance from Persia. It’s the opinion in our foreign office that this is the most important gesture between the two empires in history, and might mean the beginning of a new era of security and prosperity, since Persia has long been our most dangerous enemy, confronting us, as it does, all along our eastern frontier and basing its power on its innumerable people, its vast wealth, and its religion which makes its soldiers fierce and fanatical fighters.”

“I hadn’t realized Persia was so formidable.”

“Twenty years ago,” he said, “when we fought the Persians our military commanders had their hands more than full. Their hordes pushed through the mountains, overran our eastern provinces, and sacked the chief cities there. A very adroit piece of diplomacy on the part of Emperor Anastasius, who bribed the White Huns north of Persia to make a descent on their upper borders, forced the withdrawal of their army, and we were able to restore the frontier status quo.”

For the first time Theodora was hearing of mighty events in their inception and progress from the lips of one who dealt in these matters. Nations haggled with each other over the fate of millions of people, as shopkeepers in the bazaar haggled over a few coppers. She could not readily grasp the staggering scope of that to which she listened, yet it so intrigued her that for the time she forgot entirely her own situation.

Hardly expecting to understand the answer, she asked a question: “How would this pact of friendship be brought about?”

“A remarkable suggestion has been made by Kobad, the Sassanid king of Persia. It arrived this week, by special embassy. My uncle, the emperor, of course referred it to me, and I’ve not yet had time to study it fully. But I can tell you its basic proposal.”

She nodded, her eyes fixed on him.

“It appears that King Kobad has three sons,” he said. “The eldest, and legal heir, is Chaous, a profligate weakling, I understand, besides being malicious and cruel. His father hates him. A second son, Jamspes, is said to be a good soldier but unfortunately lost the sight of one eye fighting against the White Huns, which makes him ineligible for succession under the Persian laws, since any man with a deformity or serious mutilation is prohibited from ascending the throne.”

“That would bar many fine soldiers,” she remarked.

“It’s their religion,” he explained, “which lays great stress on perfection, since the king is supposed to be a god, on equal terms with the sun, which they worship.”

“Oh,” was all she said.

“But there’s a third son,” Justinian continued. “His name is Chosroes, and the king favors him, partly because he’s the child of a favorite wife—Persian rulers have many wives, you know, sometimes even marrying their own sisters.”

She nodded. It was well known that the Persians were polygamous. Also that incest was practiced among them, it being lawful for a ruler to marry and have children by his full sister, so that the purity of the sacred royal strain would be preserved. This was true also of the Egyptian Pharaohs and Ptolemies of centuries before, and it did not seem that brothers fathering children by their sisters had particularly weakened those royal families, as incest was supposed to do.

“King Kobad’s problem,” Justinian went on, “is that he wishes Chosroes to succeed him. And since it’s the custom for princes of the royal house of Persia to murder all their brothers when they come to the throne—as a preventive of civil wars—the king proposes, in order to provide Chosroes with a safe haven and also to give him prestige, that this prince should come to Constantinople, reside in the court, and that my uncle, Emperor Justin, should adopt him as a son and act as his guardian until it comes time for him to reign in Persia.”

“Isn’t that a great deal to ask?” the girl said.

“Strangely, there’s a precedent for it. I hadn’t heard of it, but the Persian message cited it. Then I looked it up. More than a century ago, when Emperor Arcadius was near death, he was concerned over his son and heir, Theodosius, then only seven years old. A great deal of dissidence existed in the empire at the time, and the Persians were aggressive under their ruler, Jezdergid. Arcadius boldly appealed to the Persian king, placed his son under his care, and virtually gave him power to rule the Roman world until Theodosius was old enough to take the throne.”

“What happened?”

“When that time came Jezdergid—most honorably, I must say—placed his ward on the throne in Constantinople, and returned all authority to the new emperor, Theodosius.”

The story was interesting, and Justinian appeared to feel that aside from considerations of peace and amity, the generosity of the old Persian monarch in protecting a Roman heir ought to be returned by a gesture equally noble.

But the feminine mind of Theodora cut through all the surrounding fabric of idealism, magnanimity, and theoretical broad values of this international proposal to the basic effect of it on the one person in whom she was most interested.

“Was Theodosius adopted by Jezdergid as a son?” she asked.

“No. Only protected as a ward.”

“But Kobad wishes Chosroes adopted by Justin.”

“Yes.”

Now it came out: “What will this do to you?”

Justinian appeared surprised. “Nothing, that I know. A foreign prince living at court would not affect my life in any way——”

“Are you sure?” she cried. “In this I see danger!”

“How do you mean?”

“I know nothing of such matters, Highness, but wouldn’t Chosroes, as a legally adopted son of Justin, have in the eyes of the Persians at least, a legal claim to the imperial throne?”

He looked at her strangely. “I see your point. If the Persians have what can be argued as a legitimate claim to the throne they might be far more formidable if they chose to assert that claim than otherwise.”

Justinian fell silent, pondering the currents of discontent in the empire. Many in Constantinople had never been reconciled to the rule of Justin. The chief focus of this unrest was in the Green faction of the Hippodrome, and had a basis in the Monophysite heresy. There also were restive populations in the provinces, such as the Isaurians of Asia Minor, always seething with threats of revolt. Nobody was more aware than the prince how thin was the thread of loyalty that held such dissatisfied segments to the empire, or how easily a foreign power, invading with what was at least a technical claim to the throne, and offering rewards to those who defected to it, might win over a mighty force of rebellion, and by creating an interior revolt to help the exterior invasion, hasten the fall of the empire.

It had taken the direct mind of a girl, thinking not in terms of nations, but in terms of a single man, to show him this terrible possibility.

He rose suddenly.

“I must go at once,” he said.

She rose also, and stood before him downcast again. “Then—I suppose—this is farewell?”

“Farewell?” He stared at her. “Why?”

“You said—last night——”

“Oh. Last night. I remember.” He looked at her for a moment. “Is there some reason, Theodora, why you must leave here immediately?”

“N-no——”

“Then will you remain? For another night at least? I would have—have further converse with you.”

4 }

Every royal court is a whirlpool, a typhoon, of gossip. The not very admirable human instinct to pry into the lives of others, to speculate upon and ferret out their most intimate and—preferably—discreditable actions, is accented by the importance of the personages involved in palace society. Chief court figures are watched with microscopic intentness. Not a look, or a word, or movement of any of them goes unmarked, or fails to find its way into the whispers in the palace corridors, perhaps being interpreted in ten different ways by as many avid wiseacres.

That Justinian should keep a girl in his dwelling without its being known everywhere was impossible. And when she overstayed the usual first night, and the days became three and then four, it was the chief topic of court babble, a source of countless spicy remarks by court wits, of sly innuendoes by glittering court ladies.

So toothsome was the morsel that it quite overshadowed another matter of perhaps greater importance. This was the consummate brilliance with which the Persian proposal for the adoption of Prince Chosroes by Emperor Justin had been met.

After consulting with his uncle, Justinian called the imperial council together. Those sage advisers afterward marveled at how the prince was first to see the cleverly concealed trap in what appeared to be an open and almost sentimentally friendly suggestion by King Kobad of Persia.

But statecraft always must be managed subtly. There could be no flat and rude rejection of the proposal, sinister as its hidden purpose was. Such diplomatic impoliteness was too unrefined, and might also create international resentments.

So the adroit tactics of Justinian were very much admired when, with the help of Proclus, the quaestor, and Tribonian, the sub-quaestor, he prepared a reply.

The Emperor Justin, said this communication in substance—although the substance was almost smothered by an infinitude of flowery phrases, flattering titles, and assurances of everlasting friendship—would be delighted to adopt Prince Chosroes as his son. He would, therefore, confer on him that sacred and honored relationship by the ceremony of arms, as soon as the prince desired to come to Constantinople.

In this, the cunning was in the method. The ceremony of arms was a custom borrowed from the Goths and other Teutonic barbarians. By it; the prospective “father,” with great fanfare presented to the “son” a horse and a complete suit of handsome armor, uttering at the same time a formula speech to the effect that upon this day he had truly begotten this son, making of him blood of his blood, their friends, foes, and kin the same, and that he would forever give him paternal affection and protection. To this the “son” replied with a declaration of filial regard, loyalty, and obedience.

It was a handsome way to pay honor and cement friendship between barbaric nations, and was often used between civilized noble families. But it differed from adoption by civil charter under the Roman law in that it did not confer legal title to the estates of the father, or even to his rank, such as could be upheld in the courts after his death.

This cunning message was forwarded at once by Justinian to King Kobad, who with his son, Prince Chosroes, was already at the international frontier just across from the fortress city of Daras, having been assured by his ambassador that his proposal would be accepted gladly.

That night Justinian told Theodora that it would soon be seen just how sincere was the Persian monarch’s offer.

“If he wishes only to cement friendship between our nations and secure for Chosroes honor and protection, there’s nothing about the ceremony of arms to interfere with so laudable a purpose,” he said. “But if he’s got a deeper scheme, our answer will hardly please him, for it places him on the horns of an unpleasant dilemma. The whole burden of decision is on Kobad, and whatever he may privately think of our generous offer, he can hardly be openly resentful of it.”

Justinian was happy with himself, but he also felt grateful to the girl, because she had been the first to point out to him the hidden peril in the Persian diplomatic move.

Suddenly he said, “Theodora——”

“Yes, Highness?”

“How long have you been in my house?”

“Four days, now.”

“Really?” He seemed surprised. “Time passes so fast I hadn’t realized. What plans do you have?”

“Why—none so long as it pleases Your Graciousness—to make use of me——”

“After that?”

“I—I had not really thought——” Her voice trailed off like a sigh.

He surveyed her gravely for some time. Strange how things had worked out with this girl. That letter from Macedonia, now: he would never have given it another thought had it not come at a moment when his mood, partly due to Tribonian and that funny old woman carved of wood, had been receptive to such a suggestion. To send for a courtesan to amuse him was nothing out of the ordinary. He had done so many times before, although not, to be sure, recently. Still, it was a well-recognized practice generally among highly placed bachelors.

But courtesans were to be enjoyed, paid, and sent away. This girl, however, had proved different from any of her predecessors. Her love-making was a sheer seduction of the senses, beyond and above any previous experience for him. But this, which at first fixed his regard on her, was only the beginning. He found that she delighted him with all her ways, her laughter as much as her kisses, her bright wit and sometimes penetrating observations. And if all else was discounted, it was pleasure merely to have her to gaze at, for her beauty grew with him each time he looked upon her.

Justinian discovered in himself a surprising reluctance at the thought of sending her away.

“Do you wish to leave here?” he presently asked.

Her eyes fell. “N-not so long—as—as it gives pleasure—to Your Highness to have me stay——”

Again there was a long pause. The girl was almost awed by the expression on the man’s face, for he seemed in the throes of making some decision which he had not considered before.

All at once he rose from the Egyptian chair of carved wood, supported by two crouching sphinxes, on which he had been seated.

“I can’t even think of it!” he exclaimed, striking his hands together.

“What?” she asked.

“Your going back to—to——” He hesitated as if he found what he had started to say too distasteful to utter. All at once he strode over to her and took one of her hands, which lay loosely in her lap. She rose now, and stood with her face downcast, not daring to look up at him, her head coming no more than to his chin.

“Theodora,” he said, “you’ve made me happy. Would you make me happier still?”

To save herself she could not prevent the sudden thumping of her heart.

“How—how could one so humble—make happier Your Magnificence——” she murmured in a voice so low he could hardly hear her.

“By foregoing all you have ever done before! By giving me the one priceless gift only you can give—your sweet self! For my own, to keep, and treasure, and adore——”

She wanted to fling herself into his arms and cry, “Yes, yes! Anything, anything you desire of me!”

But in this moment of great decision she held herself.

Certain lessons learned were indelible in her mind. To Hecebolus she once had yielded everything too quickly, thereby cheapening herself so that she was never able to recover her place with him.

This man—Justinian—who had just made her the stunning offer of mistress-ship to his princely self, was as different from Hecebolus as it was possible for a man to be. Yet there are moments with the best of men when if a woman does not know her own value and make him sensible of it, he will never realize it, and will therefore take her, out of sheer male obtuseness, for less than she is worth.

So Theodora denied her wild wish to give gladly everything at once, and after a moment said, “If I consent, where would you keep me?”

He looked a little blank, as if he had not really considered this point before. The Hormisdas palace was notoriously a bachelor headquarters, and to install in it a woman on a permanent basis might create complications. He found he was not prepared to take a step so drastic. What he wanted, really, was to have her for himself, dwelling somewhere conveniently near, where he could visit her, or have her visit him, when he wished.

“Why,” he said, “that shouldn’t be difficult to work out. Of course my palace here would hardly be the place——”

“Then where?”

“I’ll tell you!” he said, with an inspiration. “I’ll arrange for you a beautiful apartment in a gynaeceum within the palace enclosure, with slaves and attendants of your own——”

“No!” she said instantly.

“What?”

“I will not!”

He frowned, not pleased. But to her it was the thing she feared most—to be lost in a herd of women, only being called to him when the whim moved him, sinking into the background day by day until be forgot about her completely.

“You speak of treasuring and adoring me,” she said passionately, “yet you ask me to abide with the women of the imperial household? Would you subject me to the slights of those creatures? If you want me, keep me! Here with you—in the Hormisdas. But live in a gynaeceum? I’ll never do that!”

His jaw squared ominously. “If you remain at the palace at all, you’ll stay where I command.”

“You are the prince. If you command, I must obey.” She gave him a fathomless look. “But will you give such a command? I don’t think so.”

Her eyes held him—extraordinary eyes, dark yet at the same time brilliant, seeming at the moment weary though oddly curious and expectant, weighted by magnificent lashes, and wondrous in the sudden pallor of fire or despair, he knew not which, that had come over her face.

“It would be as if you took me by force, when I did not desire you,” she went on in the same low voice. “You desire your own pleasure, but you desire my pleasure even more, because it is the crown to your pleasure. Passion is not possible to a woman under compulsion. Do you wish that?”

The eyes, as much as the words, threw a spell over him. For a moment he was silent. Then he said, “No, I would not take you by force. I desire your passion.”

She gave an inaudible intake of breath. It was a step: a very small step, but still a step.

“Then make me mistress of the Hormisdas,” she said.

But this was presumption! He roused himself from the spell and his anger rose again. “If these are your terms, you may as well depart!”

“If you wish it, Highness—I do so at once.”

She began gathering up her few belongings, and he saw that she left every gift of his, even the pearls, on the tables where they happened to lie.

Grimly he watched her. The air seemed charged with electric tension. This parting would be final: both of them knew it.

She came and stood before him, gazing down at the floor as before, so that he saw the straight white parting in her beautiful hair.

“I’m ready now,” she said. “You may order the litter. Or do I walk back to my house?”

So plaintive was the last question, and she looked so small and somehow forlorn, that suddenly Justinian gave a clap of laughter.

“What a creature!” he exclaimed. “Is there another girl in all the world who wouldn’t accept a prince’s love—save on her own terms?”

Now she let him kiss her, for her victory was won.

Like many another man with an audacious woman, he had succeeded in finding her presumption humorous. From his own ability to laugh at it, he derived a feeling of magnanimity. Also it saved him from a decision he greatly disliked to make, now that he was confronted with it.

He did not want Theodora to go. She was so young, and charming. And so pleasing to look upon, to touch, to kiss, and to hold in his arms.

1 }

If royal courts love gossip, there is no subject for gossip that can compare with a royal mistress. Never, in all the history of the world, has one existed who was not the most discussed woman of her day, perhaps the most criticized woman of her time.

That the girl in the Hormisdas had achieved a status beyond the temporary, there could be no doubt. Almost as soon as Justinian himself knew it, the matter was common knowledge in the palace.

First report, of course, leaked out through the eunuchs of the Hormisdas.

A sinister, though hardly realized influence were the eunuchs. In the imperial court of Constantinople they operated invisibly as a secret and subtle network of communication and intrigue. Rarely did they call open attention to themselves: but no gossiping woman, however inclined to pry and tattle, could equal this effeminate, vain, artificial sex in its eagerness to discover and set going whispers that would destroy reputations; especially those having to do with sexual scandals, where the eunuchs’ own impotence seemed to give them a fevered and perhaps envious interest.

Though the ostensible functions of eunuchs might be no more than menial service in wardrobes and bedchambers of great ladies, or as secretaries and stewards to notable men, their whispers sometimes directed councils of state, and on occasion they were able to ruin persons against whom their resentment turned, by malicious suggestions and innuendoes which they knew better than anyone else how to set in circulation.

Word from the eunuchs was that Justinian had taken a mistress. It was soon apparent to all that his private palace was being fitted up for the new favorite, and furthermore a whole corps of stonemasons became busy extending the walls of the palace enclosure in a sort of salient, to take the Hormisdas within their sheltering protection. Assuredly this had a permanent look, and the court was doubly titillated because everyone previously had reached the conclusion that the prince, now in his forty-first year, was confirmed in his bachelorhood, almost a celibate in the monkish sense.

Questions were asked eagerly. Who was the woman? What was she like so to capture the fancy of a settled and middle-aged man?

For a time, since Theodora did not in those days appear in public, the curiosity was not fully appeased. But presently particulars were available. She was, it was reported, surprisingly young, and surprisingly beautiful. Also there was a whisper concerning her, having to do with the nature of the glowworm, which has an inextinguishable fire. Finally—this without question—she was a courtesan.

A harlot of the streets! On this last matrons and maidens immediately fastened. It was almost unbelievable, women said to each other, that Justinian—that nice Justinian, with his polite ways and serious habits—should be taken in by such a creature . . . but men were unaccountable, even men of princely standing, especially when in the unscrupulous hands of a designing baggage.

At this the ladies sighed meaningly to one another. And if some of them, perhaps had a slightly unconventional episode or so of their own to remember, it did not affect the present situation, for after all those love affairs were between respectable people, and no harlotry was involved . . . at least so they assured themselves.

But poor Justinian! One could only hope that he would soon recover from this ridiculous infatuation. Meantime—and the ladies gave each other knowing looks—he might have some difficult times ahead, if they knew anything about the old empress.

The male element of the palace, the senators, generals, officials, and courtiers, many of them husbands of the scandalized patrician ladies, took a different interest. With lecherous grins they listened to rumors that the new woman of the Hormisdas had in her a slakeless fever, which could be a lasting mischief to the man who possessed her in the end perhaps, if it were true—but nevertheless, how greatly to be desired in one of the Sex!

Interestingly, the real basis of all this was not the spice of scandal so much as an underlying speculation as to how great a part the prince’s new mistress might play in the affairs of the court. The potential powers and possibilities, advantages and disadvantages, surrounding the boudoir favorite of a ruler, are so varied and complicated, that they universally are examined from every point of view, as to policy, diplomacy, expediency, and even morality—but rarely of humanity.

Sometimes politics plays a strong part in royal love affairs: instances have been many when ambitious courtiers threw a charming woman into the arms of an amorous prince that she might later serve them as a tool when favors were required. But though zealous inquiry was made, nobody could trace the new beauty’s presence in the Hormisdas palace to the influence of anyone.

Among the first to hear of the matter was John of Cappadocia. In the past two years things had gone extremely well for the somewhat brutish but capable praetorian prefect. To be promoted from city prefect to the second-highest place in the empire, subordinate only to the prince-regent himself, was a mighty ascent for a man who started life as a peasant boy in a remote province.

The praetorian prefect was charged with administering justice and finances, the coinage, the highways, the posts, the government granaries, the manufactures, the taxation, the conduct of provincial governors, the organization of the whole intricate system of public officials which formed what was known as the Roman government: and with accounting for the efficiency of all these to his lord, the prince.

Truly a lofty post. And the remarkable thing was that John’s appointment to it was from a most unlikely cause: that he had been caught in a corrupt transaction.

Some time before he had made a huge profit by supplying Senator Polemon a state secret—concerning a demonstration of the galley fleet against the Ethiopians—whereby the senator cornered the market on certain strategic supplies, sold them to the government at pyramided profits, and divided his spoils with his informant, the Cappadocian.

Justinian discovered the dishonest scheme. For Polemon the transactions were legal, if shady, although the senator was now persona non grata in the court, and spent most of his time on his estate in Bithynia. But for John, it could have meant death.

The prince, however, had a way of discovering hidden talents in men and utilizing them. What followed was one of his strokes of inner perception. Having confronted the Cappadocian with his crime, and forced him to his knees, babbling for mercy, Justinian instead of sending him to the executioner made him his chief administrator, being sure now of his loyalty because always he could hold over his head the peril of punishment for a crime that was not pardoned.

John made the most of his position. Though he knew he was under the prince’s thumb, it did not prevent him from continuing secretly to plan and scheme. At the first word of Justinian’s new weakness, his hairy ears pricked up.

He learned the lady’s name. Theodora? Theodora!

It touched a very sore place in his recollection—that humiliating night at Chione’s, and the ridicule that pursued him in the palace for long afterwards.

He remembered how that girl, Theodora, escaped him and how he learned of her whereabouts—in the gynaeceum of his client Hecebolus, of all places! He was under the impression that she was dead, because of the manner she had been banished into the desert.

How could she have survived that . . .?

That she had survived was indubitable, and also that she had turned up here, as the favorite of Justinian. John reflected that this could become an ugly situation for him. Against him the girl must hold some deep resentments. However others might speculate about whether Theodora would be an influence for good or ill, the Cappadocian could see nothing but misfortune for himself. A lover, even a princely lover, is inclined to promise anything she wishes to a mistress in his arms . . .

But John did not lose his wits. He had survived ugly situations before. As in the case of the Polemon graft, he sometimes even won advancement from them. This situation might conceivably turn out to his advantage . . . if it were properly handled. The Cappadocian was a man of supreme ambition to whom no heights were too great or inaccessible.

He considered. Either he must so thoroughly consolidate his position with Justinian that the girl could not undermine him, or he must destroy the girl herself. The second, he decided, would be quicker and more pleasing, and really might not be too difficult, if he were adroit about it.

Justinian, thought the prefect contemptuously, always had been something of a cold fish. If it could be made sufficiently embarrassing for him to maintain the woman, he was quite likely to decide it was worth neither the effort nor risk of keeping her.

And if—so the Cappadocian’s reasoning went—by some strange mutation of circumstances Justinian proved stubborn and refused to desert his new mistress when pressure was brought to bear, why there might be another development of the greatest importance. The prince, after all, was only a nephew of the emperor, and the emperor had not long to live. The Excubitors still acclaimed a new ruler when the old one died without direct issue; and a praetorian prefect, who as logothete also controlled the imperial treasury, might find many expedients when dealing with a discredited claimant for the throne.

Weighing the matter, John of Cappadocia thought of someone who might be very useful to him in this interesting situation.

2 }

Euphemia, the old empress, was surprised and not pleased when Basil, the chief chamberlain, announced to her that the praetorian prefect had come to the Sigma palace craving audience with her gracious majesty.

Her majesty, it must be admitted, did not at the moment look so very gracious. It was rather early in the day, and Euphemia, after a lifetime of keeping a soldier’s early rising hours, had discovered at least one reward for being tossed unceremoniously on the throne: an empress was not expected to start the day at speed.

On this morning she was just finishing a late breakfast, and was not even properly attired. The imperial visage was still wrinkled from sleep; the imperial hair was an uncombed gray chaos, under a sort of turban made of a silk kerchief that was all awry; the dumpy imperial figure was clad still in a disordered night robe; and the imperial feet . . . Euphemia had never outgrown her peasant love for padding about barefoot when she did not have to keep up appearances, and her feet, large and broad, wriggled their well-spread toes at this moment entirely unhampered by foot covering.

“At this hour?” she cried querulously at Basil’s announcement.

“Yes, Magnificence,” said the stately eunuch.

“I can’t see him—it’s much too early—why didn’t he give me some notice of his coming . . .?”

But . . . after all, the praetorian prefect was the praetorian prefect. Even an empress could hardly refuse what must be an official call of some importance, coming as it did unexpectedly and at a time of day so unusual.

“Well—tell him to wait,” she finished lamely. “I must dress.”

It therefore transpired that John of Cappadocia was only kept cooling his heels in the atrium for a matter of an hour or so, while eunuchs and tirewomen leaped about like frantic apes in the imperial bedroom: hauling out this robe or that, seeking to cope with a tangled gray head which refused to stay still long enough for a comb to be run through its unkempt thatch, fetching sandals, and cosmetics, and ribbons, and necklaces, and bracelets, and finger rings, and combs, and pins, and all the other bewildering varieties of furbelows and gewgaws without which the old lady thought it absolutely impossible to make a public appearance. And all to the accompaniment of screeches and squawks from the center of these attentions that resembled most nearly the outcries of a startled fowl of the henyard.

At the end of this, however, the praetorian prefect was admitted to the empress’ sitting room, and found Euphemia hardly more unattractive to the gaze than usual.

“Sublime and Wonderful Magnitude,” he said, kneeling at her feet. He was dressed splendidly as became an important minister, but his bald head gleamed incongruously, and the bristling dark hair about the base of his skull resembled the ruff of a wild animal.

“Greetings, Illustrious Prefect,” the empress returned, with a look of suspicion. This had the smell of a favor to be asked, and she constitutionally disliked granting favors.

“I presume, O Most Heavenly Star of Creation, to come into your presence, the splendor of which dazzles my eyes, because of a matter I thought most important for your ear.”

The Most Heavenly Star of Creation cocked her gray head to one side, and pursed her lips. Then she relaxed slightly, but still kept watchful. A matter for her ear could hardly be any affair of state. This must relate, then, to the conduct of some of the women of the court, in which Euphemia took a domineering interest.

“Say on,” she prompted.

“Has it come to the attention of Your Gracious Presence that a mistress has been installed in the Hormisdas palace?”

“A mistress? Come now, Prefect! Naturally, I’ve heard that Justinian has been amusing himself with a girl. I disapprove, as you know, of these laxities. But a temporary wanton is hardly a mistress——”

“A myriad pardons, Your Sublimity, but this is no temporary wanton! I have a full dossier on the woman, and she’s a designing and very dangerous creature. Furthermore, deeply as I regret to suggest such a thing, my information is that the prince is headlong in love with her!”

Euphemia gawked. That, lacking all imperial grace as it does, could be the only word for it. She gawked.

“Justinian? In love?” she cried at last. “I don’t believe it! He has no more love in him than a turnip!”

“Saving Your Most Majestic and Glorious Presence, I assure you that I know whereof I speak. I know the name of the woman: it is Theodora. And the place from whence she came: the Street of Women!”

“The Street of Wom—an ordinary harlot? Take care, Prefect, that you speak full fact, or you may stand in peril of your own words!”

“O Sublimity, your unworthy servant is willing to undergo peril at any time for the good of the empire, or the glory of the emperor, or the fair name of his beloved empress. And on this will I risk my head!”

Euphemia scowled: but in belief, not skepticism. For all his bearlike manner and his crudeness of speech and deportment, John of Cappadocia had a genuine talent for putting things so that they carried conviction.

“How did this infatuation come about?” she asked.

“Can anyone say, Imperial Magnificence? Magic, perhaps? Sorceries? Who knows?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Prefect! Sorceries? Just a street strumpet who’s got my nephew for a moment out of his head!”

Euphemia generally referred to Justinian as “my nephew,” although he was really only Justin’s nephew, and she had not even the claim of a marital relationship with him, since she had never been truly married.

“I thought it my duty to bring you soonest information,” said John. He peered at her from under his bushy brows, his forehead wrinkling to where the polished scalp was tight on his skull, to see if he had impressed her. From her clouded expression he decided he had, and took his departure with a renewed flow of compliments and flattering tides.

For some time after he had gone, Euphemia sat still, frowning.

Certainly it was a disgraceful scandal, and since it affected the imperial family, it affected herself. After all—a strumpet in the palace!

Out of indolence and a feeling of inferiority because of her background and history, Euphemia did not commonly intervene in affairs outside of her immediate surroundings in the Sigma palace. But for once she decided to take a determined hand in this matter.

3 }

In the Hormisdas palace during those first days, was something very closely akin to desperation, almost despair.

No creature is so lonely as a woman without friends in a hostile community; lacking every resource of position, possessions, even reputation; and having as her sole asset her hold, sometimes most tenuous, on that fitful, capricious, undependable being known as a man.

She knows that everyone is conspiring against her to destroy the fragile thing she has created, the bond between him and herself. Each minute he is away from her increases a fear in her mind that something, or someone, has raised in his mind a question, or a doubt, concerning her. Even worse is the worry that when he is with her she may, by some mistake, by a chance word, by being either more or less fond and winning than his mood at the moment requires, lose something of her hold on him.

To Theodora it seemed as if she clung by no more than her finger tips and toes to the steep face of a cliff, in terror that even a vagrant puff of wind might cause her to slip and plunge to destruction.

This fear she concealed. But it was with her constantly, and sometimes she wondered how she could any longer carry on the seemingly ceaseless effort which must end in defeat for her anyway, the more bitter since she was so near to a great accomplishment.

In her moments of deepest discouragement, one thing only kept her at it: the inborn stubborn courage that would not surrender; that had kept her alive when she was a starving waif, sleeping in the cold alleys of the Street of Women; that had sent her on and on, in the hell of the Libyan Desert, though every step she thought must be her last.

So she rallied her resources, and each night when Justinian returned to her from his office, she worked some new enchantment on him.

Sometimes this merely was a different amusing subject of conversation, sometimes a change in appearance through a new garb or hairdress, sometimes a novel nuance in love-making.

She must play for time, and she knew it. Of all holds a woman can gain on a man, habit is one of the strongest: the feeling of comfort and well-being he experiences in having her near him, so that without her his life comes to lack something. Habit cannot be built up in a few hours, or even a few days, but must be nurtured over weeks, perhaps months, and even years.

Yet when the girl sometimes drew the prince’s head into her beautiful arms and cradled it on her breast, it was not mere cold-blooded dissimulation on her part.

A man falls in love with a woman for what, to him, she is. Very often a woman falls in love with a man for what he represents. Only by this sort of formula can be found the explanation for the continual spectacle of charming, brilliant, and beautiful women, married to and often loving devotedly men who are fat, bald, nearsighted, even deformed and altogether unlovely. Those men are doers. It is the creative ability in them and their achievements that their women love, and loving that they find it possible to understand and forgive—or blind themselves—to all the rest.

In the case of Justinian, he was hardly handsome. His appearance was manly, but this was slightly dimmed by middle age. Mentally, he was not particularly brilliant, though he had a dogged devotion to his duty and sometimes an almost pathetic discouragement over his mountainous task. But to Theodora he was—the Prince. And he had been kind to her, kinder than any man she had ever known.

The girl who had sold love all her life discovered what it was to give love unsparingly and yearningly, yet while giving it hardly knowing that it was wanted.

Justinian was fond of her, she was sure. But his fondness, she feared, was far different from her own feeling for him. He was not in love with her, so much as enraptured by her; and rapture can sometimes change very suddenly to weariness.

Herein lay her problem: a woman’s love, when she lavishes it on a man—unless he returns it in kind—will by itself cloy from very sweetness, unless it is spiced and varied and highlighted.

So for Theodora there was no relaxing. Constantly she must be alert, use her imagination, and think, when she would much rather have dreamed.

To Justinian she applied considerable talents, and so far succeeded in diverting him continually that he was discovering the meaning of loving in opposition to merely existing. Of this he was not entirely insensible, or ungrateful for it.

Once he said to her, “What a paradox you are!”

“Why?” she asked.

“You give yourself to me constantly and prodigally, and only for the pleasure of giving. My joy is more important to you than your own. You gain delight from the delight you confer on me.”

“That is woman,” she said with her little smile.

She might have added another word, and made it, “That is woman’s art.” But one of the arts of women is that they disclaim all knowledge of art.

Sometimes in their interludes of love, she told him stories, as did Scheherazade of a later day. About herself, usually. Of the dead city of Cyrene, for example, and how she learned the horror of its past. Or her dreadful journey in the desert. Or the preaching of the aged Severus, the patriarch of the Monophysites.

“What did Severus have to say?” Justinian asked on this occasion.

“He spoke most beautifully, and seemed a very good old man,” she said.

His face tightened. “Severus is a most mighty heretic against the true teachings of the Church.”

This evidence of religious prejudice surprised her, contrasting as it did with his usual liberal, almost cynical viewpoints. It was destined to grow on him, but she said nothing about it at this time.

One night he brought home an announcement.

“Couriers have just come in from Daras with word that King Kobad and Chosroes, when they received our offer of adoption by the ceremony of arms, at once struck tents and with their army marched back into the Persian interior.”

“What does it mean?” she asked.

“It proves their lack of good faith! And you put your finger unerringly on it. You should be on the imperial council.”

He said it jestingly, and she laughed. “Hardly. I’m a woman. Could I be a councilor, or a soldier, or a lawyer, or even a porter?”

“No,” he said, drawing her to him. “I do not think you could be any other thing than the answer to a man’s heart.”

She received his kiss, and then said, “Yet I think with two minds. With one mind I think like a woman, on women’s things. But with the other I have made some theories——”

“And what theories has that little head contrived?”

“One day you will be emperor, standing on the central stage of history. On the verdict of history your name will live or die.”

“Listen to us!” he said with amusement. “Pray, how should I go about making my name live?”

“By winning the fame of greatness.”

“That’s not so easy, darling. Not many rulers ever become great. Suppose I wore the purple—why should I achieve what no predecessor of mine has achieved in two centuries, since Constantine, who was surnamed ‘the Great’?”

“Luck and circumstances sometimes favor a ruler,” she said, “but I think also that policy may create mighty reputations.”

His amusement changed to interest. “Tell me how you conceive that a ruler might win greatness.”

“I once talked to a very wise man on this matter,” she responded slowly and gravely. “He was a beggar.”

“A beggar? What would a beggar know of kingcraft?”

“Wisdom is found in unlikely places. This beggar was also a philosopher. Did not Diogenes receive charities?”

“Perhaps.” He nodded. “What was your beggar’s advice to emperors?”

“First let me tell you that when I was in Cyrenaica my chief pastime was reading history, and I sought out all the writings in the palace library. This reading confirmed in my mind what the wise man said, that rulers are called great for several reasons, not all the same by any means.”

“As, for example?”

“First, mighty conquests in war. I think that’s the quickest way. Alexander of Macedonia took that way. Then, the giving of laws. This was the greatness of Moses, the Israelite. And the building of great public works, such as fortifications, highways, aqueducts, temples, palaces, even fleets of warships. This was the greatness of Augustus.”

“What of a wise and benevolent rule?”

“I also asked that question,” she answered. “It is what you now are giving your people. But believe me, it means little to history. Greatness lies not so much in quality of soul, which a beggar may possess, as in power over the thoughts and imaginations of men. How many are the monarchs who have ruled justly and well? Thousands, perhaps. Yet their names are lost forever from the chronicles of the world.”

Slowly, he said, “And you think war the best way?”

“I said it was the quickest. It’s also the most dangerous, since wars may be lost. But, O Highness, why not all three ways I set forth?”

It made him blink: and gave him much to ponder later. This was the inception of a lifetime policy, no less, and a career based on that policy.

Always after serious talks of this kind, the girl brought him back to the honey-fire of love-making. And when his mind was lulled from large considerations, he endlessly asked her about herself: her whole story was what he wanted, nothing was too unimportant to be left out.

Most women would have lied to him. But Theodora was wiser. If she hoped to keep Justinian, it must be in spite of what he would know about her, and since he was the prince, he must discover most things. Now was the time to tell him, while he was still enthralled, before he built up any misconceptions from which might come disillusion. Her task was to keep him enraptured while he accepted and digested facts that might not be entirely palatable, so that afterward they would be taken for granted.

Therefore, in most particulars, she told him the truth. The child she had in Egypt she did not mention to him, or her love passage with the slave. There were a few other things she kept to herself, but in the main she did not conceal from him very much in her past life.

In this she made no mistake. Knowing her to be a courtesan, Justinian found her experiences not surprising or repelling so much as interesting, especially since she recounted them frankly, always with delicacy, frequently with humor, and apologized for nothing.

At this time he still looked upon her primarily as Sex. And as an inventor of a thousand little titillating distractions and play-tricks in the game of love. As Sex, he could laugh with her over the way she brought about the downfall of Chione, feel with her the sufferings of her wandering in the desert, sympathize in her other unhappy experiences.

Thus she reached to the man through his own imagination, until he felt as if he knew her better than any person in the world, and at the same time she won also his respect by occasional bits of surprising discernment and suggestion, as that concerning the Persian diplomacy, or her formula for greatness in kingcraft. More than this—and on this she had not counted—she had from him the silent gratitude of a man of older years toward a girl whose youth does not scorn his maturer age in love matters.

Still fearful of the possibilities ahead, Theodora did not yet know, nor did Justinian himself fully realize, the long step toward something greater than his first passion for her, which his strong partiality already had taken.

That was crystallized in an unexpected and frightening manner.

One evening Dromo, the chief eunuch of the Hormisdas, brought to Justinian a folded and sealed parchment. The prince broke the seal, read the message with a frown, and then gave it to Theodora.

It was from the empress, in Greek, and must have been written for her at dictation, since Euphemia, like the emperor himself, had never learned the mystery of reading or writing. The note read:

Theodora glanced up at Justinian, trying to read his expression.

“It means me. Doesn’t it?” she said.

He nodded. “I think so.”

“What will you do?”

For answer, he called for writing materials, wrote, and gave her his reply to read, before telling Dromo to deliver it to the waiting messenger. He had written:

Supper that night was silent. For Theodora this was the great hour of fear.

She had no real knowledge as to who wielded the power in the palace. Gossip said that the emperor was in his dotage, nodding his white head continually in short naps, and fretfully complaining about his sore and wasting leg. In all probability the old woman who was his consort knew well enough how to handle him, now that he was helpless and feeble. Was Euphemia herself, then, the supreme power?

A terrifying thought. Theodora did not greatly fear most men. But a woman—an old, vindictive woman . . .

4 }

When Justinian was ushered into Euphemia’s presence the following day, punctually as the sundial marked the hour she had specified, the empress argued from his promptness and his deference that he might be amenable to what she had to say to him. She began grimly.

“We have heard strange reports of you, Justinian.”

The prince glanced at the ladies in waiting, forty of them, ranked about the chair Euphemia occupied as a sort of throne in her audience room. It was notorious that the empress carefully weeded out from her entourage every sprightly, pretty, and mirthful woman, and kept only those about her who were beyond all reproach and all humor. The forty offered to the prince a singularly unhappy spectacle of accumulated years and probable united disapproval.

In the background and along the walls lurked numerous eunuchs, some of them armed, at once the servants and guards of this women’s section of the palace. All told, a formidable and unfriendly audience in the subject involved. Justinian temporized.

“What reports are these, Magnificence?”

“That you keep a woman for wicked and immoral purposes in the Hormisdas palace.”

Forty pairs of eyes, the eyes of the ladies in waiting, exchanged glances: forty pairs of eyebrows lifted. The empress stared gloweringly at the prince.

“Indeed, Majesty?” said Justinian.

“You well know, Prince, that to keep such a woman for lustful and carnal concupiscence”—Euphemia loved to roll such words on her tongue—“is a great and shameful sin. So evil and contrary to the holy teachings of the Church that you peril your immortal soul by it—even if the woman were of good family and standing.”

Justinian reddened. He was the only man in the room, and he did not relish being scolded like a schoolboy before these women and eunuchs. But he only said, “Perhaps.”

“To make matters worse,” the empress pursued, “and I must say that I could hardly credit it so great was my surprise and shock when I heard it—my report states that this woman is a common courtesan.”

“Was a courtesan,” he corrected.

“Was or is—it’s the same!” she snapped.

“Saving Your Gracious Presence, I think not quite.”

Again the exchange of forty glances, and a faint murmur among the elderly ladies in waiting, almost like a sigh of a breeze stirring in the room.

“Do you tell me that this is not a scarlet woman—of evil and corrupt life?” the empress demanded.

“Is it not possible for a woman to renounce her past?” he countered.

“A common harlot? Nonsense! The woman has made a fool of you—and at your age!”

He summoned his self-command and sought still to be conciliatory, very uncomfortable under the concentric stare of the forty ladies in waiting, but hoping to avoid an open quarrel. He knew Euphemia exerted no real authority, yet he feared her power over the emperor, which was the power any nagging woman may obtain over a man who is sick and old.

She glared at him. “Bring her before me, that I may see her!”

“With all humility, I would rather not,” he said.

“Then, Justinian, I command you to rid yourself and the palace of this woman!”

Now he must make a decision, and perhaps a grave one. To his surprise it was as if, suddenly, the decision already had been made for him, clear in his mind and positive.

“To that, by your good leave, I must demur,” he said quietly.

A louder scandalized whisper among the ladies in waiting. Euphemia silenced them with a glare.

“And if I insist?” she said.

“Magnificence, I have always studied to carry out your wishes in everything you have asked of me. But this woman is precious to me. I desire to keep her.”

“You refuse my command?”

For the first time a vein showed, standing out on his forehead, a sure sign in him of anger.

“Am I the first to keep a mistress in the palace?” he said.

Forty pairs of eyes flew open, forty mouths gaped, and the empress fell back against the cushions of her chair. Forty ladies in waiting knew as well as Euphemia herself that the allusion was to her own humiliating status. It was at once a challenge and an affront.

For a moment the empress could hardly speak, but when she gathered words, they were bitter with fury and menace.

“Of this, Justinian, you will hear more later! You have my permission to depart—at once!”

After he had bowed low and left the presence, the prince did not return immediately to the Hormisdas. Instead he went down the connecting passage to the administrative offices in the neighboring Daphne palace, for his business that day was heavy and urgent.

When, after some hours, he was able to get away to Theodora, his face was grave as he greeted her.

She had spent the day in a ferment of worries, a pathetic concern over his fate as well as her own, and now she tried to interpret his expression but found she could not.

Justinian did not kiss her as he always did at once when he came in. Noticing this with a sinking heart, she watched him for a moment silently.

Presently she said, “I am to go?”

“No!” he exclaimed, with a violence almost startling.

“The empress commanded—and you refused?”

“I did. She badgered me like an urchin before those vapid old females she calls her court. But I would not.”

“Justinian——”

“Wait. This is not the end of it.”

“What else?”

“A second imperial message was delivered to me as I left my offices just now. Read it.”

She took the vellum sheet, with its imperial seal, and read:

It was signed with the well-known stencil, LEGI, signifying, “I have read and approved,” which the emperor used as his official signature since he could not sign his name.

Almost stonily Theodora and Justinian stared at each other.

“You’ll have to send me away,” she said at last, with a catch in her voice.

“I will not.”

“Even if the emperor commands it?”

“Never.” Justinian’s mouth and jaw were set in stubborn lines.

“It may mean the end of your power—all your ambitions——” she cried.

“No matter.”

She gave a little wail. “Oh, darling, I’m not worth an empire!”

Strongly, with tense feeling, his arm closed about her.

1 }

When Justinian left her audience chamber, Euphemia at once dismissed her attendants. She was burning under the indignity he had put upon her, and therefore doubly furious at the girl he had refused to bring before her, or give up at her command, and who thus was the indirect cause of the humiliation she had received from him.

First, she fortified herself by a conference with her chaplain, Father Policrates, a Cilician monk of austere manner, lengthy beard, and pronounced Orthodox views. In its usual intensely practical manner, the hierarchy of the Church had been among the first to learn of the involvement of Justinian, and had made a speedy and searching inquiry into the past of the new mistress of the Hormisdas. She was a courtesan: that was quickly and easily established. But this fact, to the prelacy of the Established Religion, was insignificant compared to the fact that Theodora very probably was tainted with the hated Monophysitism. Presence of such a heresy in the palace was alarming, even though not entirely proved in the girl’s case, and the Church was militantly ready to take any opportunity to rid the court of such a perilous creature.

Father Policrates therefore had been given his full instructions, as every other servant of the Church who was in a strategic position, and he was ready when the empress, who in her later years had become very religious, summoned him. Of the heretical suspicion concerning Theodora he said nothing at present, for the Church’s way was to move by indirection; but with many texts and platitudes, and an ingenious suggestion or two, he did much to strengthen the decision of the empress, by confirming her in her belief that hers was the cause of righteousness—always a comfortable armor in which to panoply oneself when doing something one is determined to do anyway.

When she took it into her head, the old lady could be dogged enough. It was high time, she considered, that Justin should hear from her on the matter of his nephew and that woman.

Under the present regime the Sigma palace was divided into three sections: the audience room where small but formal sittings of the court were held at times when it was not considered necessary to use the great throne room in the Chalké palace; a large apartment, known by the usual name gynaeceum, occupied by Euphemia, since it requires more rooms, more servants, more furnishings, and more luxury to maintain an empress than an emperor, especially if the latter chances to be an old soldier who still clings to his simple tastes; and a second apartment, smaller and plainer, for Justin.

Euphemia went to Justin’s apartment after her discussion with Father Policrates, and discovered the emperor sitting at a game of hazards with Vinitius, a stupid old soldier who had been his orderly since he first became an officer in the army, and was now one of the few intimates he had.

Vinitius was almost as old as the emperor, with a bald head and no teeth, so that his chin almost met his nose. Idly the two threw dice for very small stakes, the emperor being too parsimonious to wager much, and the orderly too poor. Two guards and an assistant chamberlain stood at some distance.

As soon as he saw her, Justin knew that Euphemia had come for a personal interview of some kind, always something of an ordeal.

“What do you want now?” he asked peevishly.

Euphemia looked impatiently at his large face, with its almost noble features, which seemed to speak of higher qualities of mind and ability than she knew him to possess, and his head of snowy hair curling about his brow without a hint of baldness. For all the imposing head and face, he was sunk down in his chair in an attitude less than dignified, his bad leg on a cushioned stool and in his eyes an uneasy question.

Justin hoped that this visit had nothing to do with further alterations on the interior of the palace, and particularly rearrangements of his rooms. These things are a weariness to a man always, even if he be an emperor. And they seem to occupy a disproportionate part of a woman’s thinking, even if she be an empress.

There long had been a feud between them over his living quarters, which she considered too plain for his imperial status. But he disliked her ideas of ostentation for its own sake, and had thus far successfully resisted her feminine attacks on the arrangements immediately surrounding himself. Knowing, however, her slakeless determination, he dreaded the argument which he believed he foresaw.

“I have a matter for your private ear,” she said to him.

He shrugged wearily, and dismissed from the room Vinitius, the two guards, and the assistant chamberlain. Then he said, “Now, Lupicina, if it’s about my sedilia——”

She gave him a glare, for she hated being called Lupicina, but Justin, a creature of habit, was incorrigible in his use of the name she hated and had put away, so she did not bother to correct him.

“This has nothing to do with your furnishings,” she said acidly, “although I’d be ashamed to live in surroundings a bazaar shopkeeper would think unfitting.”

“What’s so bad about this place?” he said fretfully. “Gewgaws make me miserable. You know that.”

“Never mind it now. This is more important.”

“My leg’s hurting more than usual today,” he whined. “I was going to send for the apothecarius to change the dressings——”

“Justin!” she said sharply. Subdued, he fell silent.

“This is about your nephew,” she went on.

The emperor knew Euphemia always spoke of Justinian as her nephew, except when she was displeased with him.

“What’s the boy done now?” he asked. Though the prince was past forty, to the old man he was still “the boy.”

“It’s a woman,” said Euphemia with grim significance.

“A woman? High time, I’d say. He’s no spring gosling, you know.” Justin gave a cackle. “Who is she? Not one of your flock of crows, I sincerely trust.”

Her lips became compressed and his grin vanished.

“My ladies in waiting,” she said coldly, “may not have some of the qualities that men of the more ribald sort seem to admire, but I do not relish having them referred to as crows!”

“Ouch—this accursed leg!” he said, to change the subject. “Go on. What about Justinian?”

“He’s keeping a girl at the Hormisdas.”

“Really?”

“A common harlot!”

“You don’t say! Is she pretty?”

“I would not express myself on the subject.”

“You wouldn’t, eh?” The emperor pursed his lips. “Well, what do you want me to do?”

“I want you to put a stop to it!”

“Have you seen the girl?”

“No.”

“But you’ve heard descriptions of her. And you won’t express yourself on the subject? She must be gorgeous.” He gave her an oddly wicked look. “Very well, Lupicina. I’ll take care of that pair.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Have them come before me.”

“Your nephew,” she said stiffly, “refused to bring her before me.”

“He did, eh?” Old Justin gave a snort reminiscent of an ancient war horse, turned out to pasture, that bears a distant blare of trump and tuck of drum. “Send in my secretary. Let’s see if he refuses the Emperor of the Romans!”

Whereupon he dictated the command which created such concern in the Hormisdas palace later that same day.

2 }

Theodora prepared for her ordeal by dressing carefully but with exceptional simplicity. Her gown was white, with countless pleats, but no embroidery. A single pearl strand—Justinian’s gift—was about her neck, her earrings were small and also of pearl, and her hair was not piled elaborately, but in two coiled masses on either side of her head, the white maiden-parting showing straight and clean between.

This gave her a different appearance, made her look much smaller, and seemed to subdue and change her personality, as Justinian observed with that surprise men continually experience in these variations which women practice. So diminutive did she appear, and so young and helpless, that his heart went out to her.

“I’ll have a litter for you, to cross the campus to the Sigma,” he said.

She gave him a glance. Did he wish to hide her from view because he was ashamed that she should be seen with him? But his eyes were not recessive or cold. He spoke out of consideration for her only. A warm wave of gratitude flooded over her.

“Thank you for wishing to spare me the stares of the curious,” she said. “But I’ll walk beside you—proudly.”

At this moment Dromo came to the door with an announcement.

“Belisarius, commander of the Excubitors, and the most noble Tribonian.”

“Tell them to enter at once!” said Justinian, pleasure on his face.

But Theodora did not experience pleasure. She heard the name of Tribonian announced with a thrill of apprehension.

Tribonian . . . the esthete with whom she had shared a couch at Chione’s notorious banquet! He knew much, very much about her—she had offered herself to him on that occasion, and only accident had prevented his taking her. What would he say to her? Even a covert look by a man has the power to express to a woman a world of meanings. From Justinian she knew that this was one of his close friends, and a man’s friends can help or hurt a woman’s position with him in countless subtle ways, especially if her situation is equivocal or shaky.

When he entered with his companion she knew Tribonian instantly . . . the elegant figure, the negligent manner, the satirical half-smile.

“Now I rejoice to see you, my good friends!” Justinian exclaimed.

“We would go over to the Sigma palace in your train, if you will grant us the honor,” said Tribonian.

“Thrice welcome are you both!” the prince said. “May I present you both to the lady Theodora?”

While Tribonian bowed, she met his eyes directly.

“We have met before?” she said. It was a challenge.

Tribonian smiled, and his smile had singular charm. “Never, Illustrious. By the whole catalogue of saints I declare that if these eyes had ever before rested on such beauty as yours, I would never have forgotten it to my dying day.”

A courtier’s speech, but also a declaration to her of his good will. She remembered his note to her after Chione’s downfall: O pitiless, O iniquitous, O magnificent Theodora.

The remarkable thing in this was that he knew that Justinian was fully conversant with the Chione episode. He had himself first described its sprightly passages to the prince, and without doubt the prince and this girl had also discussed it. It was as if he said to her, “Concerning anything past, my dear lady, my mind is blank insofar as any recollection of you is involved.”

She understood this deeper implication, and returned Tribonian’s smile brilliantly. “Welcome, noble Tribonian, and my gratitude for this show of your friendship.”

Her meaning seemed to apply to the offer to accompany Justinian and herself across the palace grounds in the face of probable critical onlookers, but Tribonian accepted her words in their inner meaning: that she appreciated his declaration of friendship so subtly expressed.

Belisarius, Tribonian’s companion, was a hulk of a man, bearded in the manner then fashionable with soldiers, having the big, awkward hands that are such an asset to the wielder of weapons, and a body built as if for armor. His hair and beard were tawny-hued and thick, his eyes sky-blue and cold. He wore the handsome uniform of the Excubitors with a general’s golden belt about his waist.

Theodora found him rather strange than good-looking. His bow to her was stiff, as if his back found difficulty in bending from its rigid military erectness. Curious, too, was his smile: a wrinkling of the forehead, the eyes screwed up, and sharp dog teeth gleaming through the blond beard. It resembled somewhat the grin of a wolf, savage even while seeking to be ingratiating.

Instantly she knew that it would be the simplest thing in the world to have him in love with her. A woman will almost always feel a little inward purr of satisfaction in the knowledge that such a man is hers for the taking; but to Theodora the situation was too tense and dangerous, so that Belisarius’ obvious admiration made her nervous and apprehensive rather than pleased.

Yet his coming—and that of Tribonian—was a most convincing proof of their loyalty to Justinian. It was known all over the palace that the prince was under a cloud. To be seen with him as he went to his judgment was to be identified with him in any misfortunes that might befall him if the judgment went against him. All four of them felt this as they left the Hormisdas.

Outside, an escort of Excubitors stiffened to attention. Belisarius had provided the contingent, and it was well thought of, since it gave importance and dignity to their progress which was about to begin.

“How shall we march, Highness?” Belisarius asked.

The shortest way from the Hormisdas to the Sigma palace was to cut at an angle across the lawns of the enclosure, avoiding the main group of buildings, and therefore the people who would be hanging about, on the walks and steps, to watch for the girl who was to pass with Justinian on her way to the emperor’s audience. Justinian glanced at Theodora.

She said, “Let’s go by the usual way—by the walks and colonnade.”

Gallantly she would fly her banners in the faces of them all. In his heart Justinian was very proud of her.

“So be it,” he said.

With a rank of Excubitors clanking before, and another behind them, Justinian, with Theodora’s hand in the curve of his arm, and followed by Tribonian and Belisarius, silently walked up the stone flagging which led past St. Stephen’s church in the shadow of the looming wall of the Hippodrome. There they turned at right angles, following the walk under the colonnade which led past the barracks of the Excubitors, across a short space to the Delta palace, and finally to the entrance of the Sigma palace, which was on the opposite side, facing the sea.

Within the palace enclosure, as Justinian had foreseen, word had eddied swiftly that the prince’s new favorite was to be seen at last, and hundreds of people formed groups along the route by which they passed.

Now that she was face to face with the crisis, Theodora was calm, though the woman in her shrank from the accumulated stares, the whisperings, the evil curiosity, and the hostility of the court.

She glanced at Justinian’s fixed countenance and wondered what he was thinking.

A man’s position is never the more difficult in an unconventional relationship of the sexes. If anything, the man is applauded—discreetly, of course—by his fellow men as a bold and lucky dog. Even feminine eyes regard him possibly as a very wicked rascal, but perhaps more fascinating because of his wickedness.

For his feminine partner, however, there is only spiteful criticism and endless speculation, none of it favorable to her. Against her is ranged the inevitable united malice of her own sex. Men may admire her in a rakehell sort of way, but they also sneer at her.

And especially is this so if she happens to be the mistress of a prince. Since the beginning monarchs and princes have possessed mistresses, and the ages should therefore give consent. But the fact remains that a royal mistress, simply because of the public interest in her, is an infinitely greater focus of detractions and animosity than her sisters of equivocal standing but of lesser station. Whatever happens, the royal mistress is in the wrong. The difficulties and temptations in her path are left out of account by her critics: her anxieties, griefs, and perhaps even the good that she does, are none of them placed to her credit to balance the censure.

Where Theodora had encountered tolerance on this point in the remote province of Cyrenaica, here in Constantinople, where the Church and church injunctions were most powerful and she was under the displeasure of the empress, she found that a whole world of differences existed.

Knowing all this, the girl walked behind the great Excubitors, trying not to notice the stares, the sotto voce comments, the lickerish grins and gapes and nudges of the palace habitués, who thickened beside their path as they went along. The humiliation sickened her, but she did not falter in her step or show any hint of dismay.

Upon her slight shoulders, she knew, was the entire responsibility for the fate of Justinian, and for his friends. She had brought them into this black danger: somehow she must save them.

3 }

They reached at last a paved courtyard, surrounded by ornamentally trimmed flowering shrubs and containing a fountain, upon which opened the eastern entrance of the Sigma palace, the imperial residence.

From this enclosure the curious were excluded by the guards, and save for official functionaries, they were in comparative privacy. On either side, the Excubitors fell back, shifted lances, and grounded the butts with a clash on the stone flagging.

Half smiling, Justinian said to Tribonian and Belisarius, “Well, my friends—we take now the cold plunge.”

Basil, the imperial chamberlain, appeared before them, using as a staff his silver wand of office. The eunuch was tall and stately, with sunken cheeks and the mastiff solemnity of all major-domos the world over. Until they approached him, he waited, then without a word turned and led the way through the atrium, his silver staff clicking on the marble floor, his stiffly embroidered robes rustling, their footsteps echoing, their progress watched by guards posted along the walls.

Theodora saw a door, with rich draperies, and even as she neared it she could see through the opening that the room within was crowded.

“The Prince Justinian!” announced the chamberlain.

No mention of the girl. She did not officially exist.

With a dreadful inner shrinking, Theodora felt her princely lover lead her into the awesome presence of the Emperor of the Romans.

Though the audience chamber of the Sigma palace was far smaller and less imposing than the throne room in the Chalké palace, it was sufficiently impressive to the girl. And it seemed filled to overflowing with people.

Many, she noticed, were women—austere in bearing, expensively attired, and haughty, the women of the court, her natural enemies. She saw also magnificently clad courtiers, military officers, ambassadors, and church dignitaries, as well as officials, one of whom she recognized. He stood close to where the imperial couple sat, as swaggering and crude in appearance as she remembered him from that night at Chione’s, watching her with a peculiar wild boar glitter in his black eyes: John of Cappadocia, the treacherous praetorian prefect.

Tribonian and Belisarius paused at the door, permitting Justinian and Theodora to advance alone toward the throne in a silence so intense that the sound of their feet on the carpeting was clearly heard. Now they came to a halt, and Theodora found herself before a low, richly carpeted platform on which were two great, high-backed seats called sedilia, ornately carved and bossed with gold.

That at the right was occupied by an old man with curly white hair. On the left sat an old woman, with a peculiarly intent expression on her broad wrinkled visage.

The emperor and empress!

With a single motion, all grace, Theodora sank to her knees. Beside her Justinian knelt also, his head deferentially bent.

She heard a voice—an old creaking voice—say, “Arise, and stand before us.”

Beside the prince she came to her feet, and for the first time closely contemplated the imperial pair.

Astonishing, how abruptly the viewpoint changes when what has been myth, rumor, and imagination becomes suddenly flesh and blood.

Theodora seemed to know these two. It was as if she had seen them both, hundreds of times.

In the emperor she recognized every old man she had seen dozing in the sun, his wits feeble with age—all the way from Constantinople to Africa, and back.

Equally familiar was the empress: she was one with the stout peasant women of the hinterlands, who should at this very minute be milking the cows or scrubbing the clothes, and would probably be happier if she were doing so.

Meantime Empress Euphemia stared savagely down at the girl, acknowledging unwillingly to herself that the creature was dangerously attractive. And as the empress and the girl of the streets confronted one another, every eye in the room made an inevitable comparison.

Euphemia was robed in all the splendor of thread-of-gold cloth, silks, and purples . . . and purple did not set off her complexion well. Her garments were studded with countless spangles of gold. Unlike old Justin, whose white curly head was bare, she wore her imperial diadem, with ropes of pearls and other gems hanging down on either side of her broad, red countenance. Everywhere upon her jewels were in evidence: diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and gold ornaments—a veritable armor of them, stuck on wherever there was anything for them to stick to—on dress, head, neck, arms, hands. A blaring vulgarity.

In contrast the girl before the throne was almost without jewelry of any kind. Her gown was simple white, almost unornamented. Her arms were bare . . . exquisite. Every eye conceded her brilliant attractiveness, the beauty of her figure, the grace of her manners.

The girl, not the empress, carried off the honors in that comparison between them.

Beside Euphemia, old Justin perked up.

He bent his blue, imperial gaze upon Theodora, and nodded his white, imperial head with something suggesting pleased surprise.

“Is this the girl?” his cracked voice asked of Justinian.

“Yes, Most Imperial Magnificence.”

Old Justin scrutinized her. Magnificent eyes, he told himself. Small. Very small, but built exactly right. Exceptional in every regard, he would be willing to wager. Well, well! If this were only thirty, or even twenty years back . . .

Euphemia saw the girl glance up at the emperor. It was the kind of glance to which no man is completely impervious, and well acquainted with this ammunition of women and its deadly effect, the empress felt the same helpless fury that lesser women have felt under exactly similar circumstances.

She could have shaken Justin—the old fool! That look finished him. She stiffened angrily as she saw him extend a hand, aged but still with the strong framework of the soldier’s wrist, palm, and fingers. On the forefinger was a great ruby ring.

The girl took two smooth steps forward, knelt, and kissed the ring.

The emperor spoke, “You are Theodora?”

“Yes, Imperial Magnificence,” she said.

“How long have you lived in the palace quarter?”

“But twenty days, Your Majesty.”

“Ahem! Is everything in the Hormisdas to your satisfaction?”

“Why—why, yes—Exalted Eminence——”

In sheer astonishment at the nature of the question she lifted her eyes which had been cast down. Justin—the emperor—was grinning down at her—grinning! She noticed that he still had most of his teeth.

“Rise, child,” he said. And as she did so, he added, “We take pleasure always in knowing the friends of our nephew and heir.”

Remarkable, the power of a few words. Our nephew and heir . . .

In one sweep, the old emperor had expressed his approval, wiped out any question as to Justinian’s standing, and extended his benevolence to Justinian’s young mistress.

Through the audience chamber ran an almost inaudible whisper, which was heard in the hall without, and almost immediately was eddying through the palace grounds. Faces hostile, cold, or expressionless, altered to something approaching cordiality as they now turned to Theodora.

Only poor Euphemia remained bolt upright and unrelenting.

The emperor exchanged a few more sentences with the girl. He seemed interested in her age, where she was born, and what she thought of the palace. His manner was kindly, almost fatherly. And as she half timidly replied to him, it was remarked by everyone that she had a lovely voice.

Finally Justin nodded his white head. “We shall hope to see you again, Theodora.”

“A myriad, myriad thanks, Magnificent!”

The audience was ended.

Justinian had uttered scarcely a word, and the court stood amazed, hardly believing this victory of the girl which was so complete, yet already preparing to trim sails to a new and great actuality.

The prince thanked his uncle for his magnanimity. With Theodora he knelt again in homage, and then the two of them passed out of the chamber.

On the return to the Hormisdas—which was in the nature of a triumphal procession—Tribonian and Belisarius were jubilant.

But Justinian was more sober. He was filled with wonder. Expecting disapproval, disgrace perhaps, he had seen the emperor practically eating out of the small hand of the girl he had chosen.

Now he glanced at the slight figure beside him, walking so demurely. About her there was something strange, almost awesome. Hidden powers were in her that he was just beginning to realize. And yet she seemed so slender, so fragile, so delicately feminine . . . he could hardly believe his own half-formed thoughts concerning her.

4 }

After court was dismissed, there was a short interview between the emperor and empress, of which there was no witness.

“I suppose you know what you’ve just done!” Euphemia began angrily, when they were alone.

“Why, no,” he said. “Not in particular——”

“Don’t be stupid! You’ve given approval to Justinian’s keeping that girl!”

“Well? What else could I do? There’s no law against a man’s having a mistress——”

“Justin! I believe the only reason you summoned them here was so that you could have a look at that—that wench——”

He chuckled with senile wickedness. “You said you couldn’t get them over——”

“Was that really it? You intend me to believe you had no intention from the beginning of putting a stop to it? You just wanted to see what the shameless little hussy looked like?”

Unabashed and cheerful, he nodded his curly white head. “Right! And worth it, too. Prettiest thing I’ve seen in years. Do me good to have around me, once in a while, someone that doesn’t sour my stomach to look at. You know what, Lupicina? That little piece—heh, heh—almost made me feel young again——”

“Justin!”

So violent was her exclamation that he almost started. When she yelled at him it made him cross, and he showed it.

“What’s so wrong about it?” he asked peevishly. “So Justinian’s got a girl. Anything abnormal about that? Been going on for a long time, old lady, ever since there were girls, and men to fall in love with them. A man’s entitled to his fling, and the boy’s been rather late arriving at it. Why don’t we have the two of them over some evening? That pert little creature’s charming——”

“She’ll never set foot in this palace again, if I have anything to say about it!”

“Why not?”

“She’s nothing but a harlot!”

“It appears to me that any woman you don’t like is a harlot,” he said, his voice growing brusque.

“That’s not true——”

“Or something just as bad.”

“But this little drab——”

“Shut up!” he barked, and lifted his hand in a gesture almost threatening.

Justin was old and ill. For the sake of peace he was usually resigned to acceding to almost anything Euphemia made a fuss about. But now, for a moment, he was the grim soldier again. In the awe of him which the years never had entirely dispelled, she was silent.

“Now, heed this!” he growled. “If Justinian desires a mistress, he can pick up a streetwalker—or anyone else—if she suits him. Is that completely clear? And as for you, woman—let me solemnly warn you that this is no affair of yours!”

When Justin spoke in this way there was no arguing with him. Bitter with her defeat, and inwardly raging, Euphemia left him.

But there were limits, it appeared, beyond which even an emperor could not go. In spite of Justin’s expressed wish, he never succeeded in inducing his consort to invite the couple over from the Hormisdas palace. And, being after all a man who hated conflict in his home, and conflict of the most profitless kind at that, in this matter he did not override her opposition.

5 }

A new order of things. Prince Justinian had openly acknowledged his mistress, and it was widely reported that the old emperor had grinned at the girl and all but chucked her under the chin.

Sycophants who had been busy ingratiating themselves with persons they thought might gain power in case Justinian were disgraced or banished because of his infatuation, scurried back to the prince’s train.

With the amazing cynicism of statesmen, high officials, ambassadors from great capitals, and glittering senators and patricians sent gifts to the new royal mistress, and sought to pay court to her.

Those who attended worship at the palace church the following Sunday, had a good look at the new favorite. She came with Justinian, and it was observed that the prince showed her all those little attentions and assiduities which a great passion is likely to inspire. It was agreed, also, that she was most decorative and conducted herself reverently, though the whisper was that she had never been baptized.

Joyous with her triumph, Theodora busied herself with congenial matters. There was, for example, the whole interior of the Hormisdas palace to be changed. In every woman is a burning instinct to revise her surroundings as completely and quickly as possible, since by so doing she extends and illustrates her own personality and tastes. Always, furthermore, there is at least a suspicion in the back of her mind that this place may have in it reflections of some previous woman. Every trace of that other woman must be erased, for the female creature will brook not even the shadow of another female creature about her, if she can help it, save those subordinate to her.

Theodora discovered herself in a feminine dream situation: an entire palace to redecorate and remodel to suit her whims, and unlimited resources with which to do it. In the months of this grand refurbishing it must be confessed that her expenditures were enormous, for Justinian stinted her in nothing, and the imperial treasury paid. These extravagances helped create a crisis later, but Theodora could not have kept from indulging in them even had she been forewarned.

The most actual of women, she loved money: not to hoard it, but as a happy spendthrift. Beautiful things she adored, and squandered on them sums that once would have made her gasp. But it was the glorious sensation of having an unlimited supply of gold to trickle lightly through her fingers that gave her an almost childlike delight.

Not all things, of course, ran smoothly. Theodora encountered enmity, particularly from the ladies in waiting of the empress. They were, after all, human, and also they were women: and it is difficult for women to feel friendly toward an upstart member of their sex who makes them appear drab and old in comparison with her. With these feminine foes Theodora appeared ready and able to deal. She had been taught to protect herself in the greatest feminine battleground in the world, the Street of Women. After a few passages at arms with her, which did not increase her popularity, but did erect a general respect for the sharpness of her tongue, few ventured to exchange verbal thrusts with her.

But this spite of women was no more than the froth on the surface of something far more serious and threatening: forces of destruction which were being prepared against the girl in the Hormisdas. And she was too unwarned, too inexperienced, to know it, so that in those days she went about her life quite blithely and unconcerned, never dreaming that she had made herself an object of malice and dark lurking plots and schemes which would have frightened her almost out of her wits had she suspected them at this time of her life.

It would be difficult to place the finger on whence this unceasing enmity really came. Perhaps its seed lay in the fact that it was evident that before too long Emperor Justin must succumb to his age and his infirmities. When that happened a new emperor would take the throne, and this offered limitless possibilities to ambition.

Though Justinian was the prospective heir, he was only the emperor’s nephew, and no law made his succession mandatory. Time, therefore, for those with mighty plans to lay foundations for the downfall of the prince.

To the scheming minds it was evident that Justinian’s point of great weakness was his love for his mistress. Upon this they builded. So long as he maintained Theodora in the Hormisdas he was in disfavor with the old empress. And since Euphemia was ten years younger, and far more vigorous than the emperor, she could be counted on to outlive old Justin. Of this circumstance much was made. By every device fuel was fed to the burning animosity of the empress, and at the same time steps were taken to make the prince’s favorite an object of scorn and execration, with the eventual purpose of arousing public hate to the point that it would pull her down and destroy her, perhaps stamping Justinian underfoot with her.

Then would be the moment for a new power to take the throne . . . if not the schemers themselves, then their puppets, such as, for example, either of the weak and stupid elderly nephews of the late Emperor Anastasius, named Hypatius and Pompey, who had a shadowy claim to the succession and would do as they were ordered.

Besides the enduring malignity of hidden ambition, there was another formidable enemy for Theodora—the Established Church. In Alexandria she had been fiercely denounced by the religionists, who considered her unfit to keep her baby. But this disapproval, based on moral grounds, was intensified in Constantinople by the conviction that the prince’s mistress was a Monophysite heretic.

Straight from the Hormisdas went reports to the hierarchy that Theodora openly disagreed with Justinian in his Orthodox views. Sometimes, it was said, the arguments between them were almost heated.

Smooth ecclesiastical diplomats felt Justinian out to see if, with this difference as a fulcrum, he might be pried away from her. But their subtle probing revealed only that he did not take too seriously what he considered her unthought-out views, and the Church, wise as always in the ways of human nature, desisted for the present from this line of attack.

Yet it was noticed with anger by the hierarchy that the severity of imperial repressions against the Monophysites in Syria and Egypt had been eased. And to every part of the empire went the whispered word—a bitter affront to the Established Church—that believers in the single nature had a friend in court: a sinner, a Magdalene, but a bulwark in the day of need.

There was still one more secret and complicated source of intrigue against Theodora: the invisible network of the eunuchs.

Very soon after she became mistress in the Hormisdas, she dismissed all eunuchs from her bath and bedchamber. Dromo, the chamberlain, as spokesman for his kind, complained of this to the prince.

“We eunuchs are your servants, O Heaven Born,” he said, “the humblest and most faithful of your people. But even to us, certain offices and prerogatives have always been given by custom and good practice. We ask of you redress of our grievances.”

“I will consider the matter,” said Justinian.

He knew how closely knit was the epicene brotherhood, and the danger of incurring its spite. So he spoke of the thing to Theodora. For once he found her obdurate.

“I can’t abide them near me,” she said. “My body is sacred to you, my love! Where your hands have caressed me, I can’t bear the touch of the flabby, clammy hands of these sexless beings. If I’m to have masseurs, hairdressers, bath and bedchamber attendants, I would be served by women, who are of my own sex and therefore understand me, as I understand them. Keep your eunuchs in other services for which they are suited. But when I disrobe I want none of the creatures about me!”

Once again it was the instinctive reaction of an essential femaleness, which required maleness to complement it. Beings who were effeminate and impotent, either male or female, offended it.

Justinian acceded, but the eunuchs did not forget. Above all others the service they prized most was that in the boudoirs of great ladies, for very excellent reasons. There they had freest indulgence for their inordinate appetite for secret information, intrigue, and scandal. From the baths and bedrooms of the women of noble houses came most of the rumors and reports which constantly circulated in the palace and city, sometimes being used devastatingly by the eunuchs to ruin someone.

Theodora they now considered an enemy of their class. While they did nothing immediate to retaliate against her, they kept this closely in mind. One of the characteristics of their gelded condition was that though it deprived them of male aggressiveness, it taught them in its place a spidery patience in waiting endlessly for the opportune moment when a telling blow might be struck.

1 }

At first, because of the alterations being made in the Hormisdas palace, and the reluctance of Justinian to flaunt too blatantly his mistress in the face of Empress Euphemia’s displeasure, no formal entertainments were held at his residence. But in those days Theodora was sometimes called upon to play hostess to small informal groups of friends or acquaintances whom the prince brought home to sup.

Once or twice these included the burly praetorian prefect. From the first she feared John of Cappadocia. Though he addressed her with almost fawning politeness, the man hardly took his black eyes off her, and she was certain that, if he had the power to do so, he would delight in destroying her. But when she expressed this distrust to her lover, Justinian defended him.

“I agree that John leaves something to be desired as a social companion,” he said. “He ducks and gobbles at his food, and uses coarse expressions, and will never learn how to sit properly or walk like a man and not like a charging bull with head lowered. But I’m sure you have the wrong impression of him. For all his unfortunate personality, he’s loyal to me—and the man’s a genius. Never have the government finances been run so well—he can find money where I didn’t know it existed. You like Tribonian and Belisarius, and I also. They are my best friends. Yet I say to you this: to the empire, John of Cappadocia is of more value than both of them put together.”

“How can you be so sure he’s loyal?” she asked.

“I have reasons.” He hesitated. “And even if he wanted to harm you—which I don’t for a moment believe, since he never speaks of you save in the warmest cordial praise—what could he do?” He gave her a glance and added with a shade of sternness, “I pray you, darling, concern yourself with our palace, our friends, and our pleasures. Leave to me the governing of the empire.”

She did not push the matter further; but though Justinian believed he had settled it, an unspoken feud continued between her and John of Cappadocia.

By far the most frequent guests at the Hormisdas were Tribonian and Belisarius, and these Theodora was always happy to see, for they had passed the great test of loyalty to Justinian.

Tribonian was privileged. Toward women in general he was slightly cynical, and from this not even Theodora could win him, although he respected her own audacious mentality well enough. He was one, and almost the only one, whom she permitted to be amused with her in his gently chiding manner at times, without being angered or even annoyed at him: and she loved to hear him talk, for he was filled with learning, and in addition to his own epigrams, could quote beautifully, or sometimes mordantly, but always appositely, from the poets, both classical and contemporary. Sometimes he was delicacy itself, and at others he was slightly shocking even to her in the forms his cynicism took.

One evening as they supped, a remark was made concerning a banquet given by Hermogenes, the master of offices, at which nearly every personage of importance was a guest.

“A very elaborate affair, I thought,” said Belisarius, who was easily impressed in such matters.

“Dull, in my opinion,” Tribonian said. “Not a novel or unusual thing. The usual dancing girls, mountebanks, and jugglers. Hermogenes, though he is an inveterate giver of feasts, lacks the imagination to provide anything sprightly or entertaining. I die at his affairs. But since he’s the master of offices, one can hardly refuse his invitations. He could do with a little advice from someone who can think a few steps beyond the deadly routine into which our banquets seem to have fallen.”

For just an instant his eye strayed to Theodora, as if remembering an event when such an imagination had been invoked.

“But the food—wasn’t it excellent?” Belisarius said. “I thought the sauce on the partridge especially delicious.”

“The food was good. But there was too much of it.”

“Surely, Tribonian,” smiled Theodora, who had not been present at the banquet, “there must have been some witty conversation—with you there.”

The sub-quaestor returned her smile. “If that’s a dig, Beautiful One, I forgive it. If a compliment, I thank you for it. In either case, how could there be wit with all that provender to be consumed? Thirty-five courses, I think.”

“Thirty,” said Belisarius.

“Have it your way, Commander. I didn’t keep count. Toward the last, indeed, I almost went to sleep from surfeit. The whole thing saddened me.”

“I can understand your boredom,” Justinian said, “but not your sadness.”

“Seeing all of us, gluttons to a man—Your Highness perhaps excepted—stuffing ourselves, reminded me of the frailty and impermanence of human life and endeavor.”

“Why?” Theodora asked.

“I recalled certain verses written by Agathias, on the contemplation of a latrine near Smyrna,” said Tribonian.

“Repeat them,” she said.

He regarded her with a half-smile. “I’m afraid they’re indecent as well as cynical.”

“No matter! I’m prepared. Let me be the judge.”

“Very well, I’ve warned you, Charming One,” he said, and began to quote the obscene lines of Agathias, the bitter poet:

He ended, and gazed inquiringly at Theodora.

“Well,” she said. “You did warn me, didn’t you? But do you think all other human endeavor, besides eating, comes to an end equally ignoble?”

“I sometimes fear so,” Tribonian said.

“In some cases I’m sure it’s not so,” she protested. “In your own case, my friend, I hope not.”

He smiled but did not carry on his pessimistic argument with her and the talk shifted to other matters.

But Theodora turned over in her head certain thoughts. In Tribonian, from the first, she sensed some profound gift. For all his indolent and continuously cynical manner, his thinking was deeper than that of most men, even that of Justinian. And under his sardonic habit of speech lay a remarkable and sincere reverence for the law, which was his profession and which he continuously studied. To waste such a quality would be a shame, and she hoped that somehow, something might be made of Tribonian’s great gifts of intellect.

Belisarius was completely different: the purely physical, rather than the intellectual man. At times his face was without expression, his eyes sky-blue and cold, his nose heavy at the base and strong, and he seemed always to be tensing the muscles of his jaws, so that the short beard at the sides of his face twitched and moved as if he were constantly chewing or grinding his teeth, a sign of tension or excitement in some men, but in this one only a habit.

He had a soldierly tidiness of appearance, and always wore military garb, so that even when he sat unarmed in the lounging room, he seemed forever about to rattle a sword in its scabbard.

Once Theodora, inviting him to the dining room, laid her hand on his arm. He glanced at her seriously, almost grimly, and she felt suddenly beneath her fingers, through the sleeve of his tunic, something like a twisted bundle of iron cords, a muscular development so alive and hard as to be extraordinary, almost shocking.

“You are very strong, Commander,” she said in a low voice.

“Yes,” he replied simply.

Always thereafter she had of him that thought: strength, almost brutal force. But the strength of a powerful animal, not necessarily a human thinker.

This was apparent in his lack of all small talk in conversation. In a room filled with laughing, chatting people, Belisarius would sit and stare straight ahead with incredible fixity. Only when the discussion was of military matters could he be drawn out. On such topics he expressed himself well enough, almost too positively.

He was young: not many years older than Theodora herself. At once he attracted and repelled her. Sometimes when she looked at a lion in a cage she had the same feeling: a wonder as to how the beast might act if freed. She could see the magnificence and ferocity of this animal, and how he might become dangerous if not handled with consummate skill and wisdom.

Belisarius had drawn Justinian’s attention by his method of whipping a contingent of raw recruits into finished soldiers. Given such undisciplined mobs, commanders commonly made liberal use of the guard-house and flogging rack to instill respect for authority, but Belisarius had a different theory: he knew the weakness of most men is the fear of ridicule.

When he saw a soldier spit on the barracks floor, instead of ordering him whipped he caused the man to go about for a week with a tub of sawdust hung about his neck for the other recruits to spit into. That put an end to the unclean practice.

Such instances might be multiplied, and they were brilliantly successful. His men, whom Belisarius called his Comitati—Comrades—when they were first blooded in active duty against the barbarians north of the border, showed themselves to be the best fighting unit in the army. These Comitati, though quartered outside the palace, were still under Belisarius’ personal command, and were his pets, though he also was commander of the Excubitors. Sometimes the soldier chafed at his inactivity as chief of the palace guards, and his mind continually dwelt on methods of improving the empire’s fighting forces.

One night, expounding one of his military enthusiasms, Belisarius said, “I believe our troops should be trained both as archers and swordsmen.”

“Are you serious?” asked Justinian in surprise. “Most military men won’t even dignify the wielders of the bow by calling them soldiers.”

For a moment the hairs of the beard on Belisarius’ jaws seemed to twitch and quiver as they always did when he tensed the muscles in thought. Then he said, “I know the critics of archery, Highness. But did we despise the arrows of the Parthians, or of the Huns, when they struck down our best infantry in thousands?”

Tribonian, with his satirical smile, quoted the reproach of Diomedes, from the Iliad:

“And what killed Achilles, the invulnerable?” retorted Belisarius, referring to the same epic. “An arrow, shot by Paris! As for my archers, I’d mount them and train them to manage their steeds with their knees, at the trumpet. Nor would they be naked. They’d wear helmets, cuirasses, and carry shields. They’d bear both sword and quiver, and know also how to wield the lance. Their bows would be powerful and weighty, and since I’d teach them to draw the bowstring not to the breast, but to the right ear, strong indeed must be the armor that would turn aside their hard-driven shafts!”

This was a military heresy. Since the days when the Roman legions, marching on foot, conquered the known world, the heavy-armed infantryman had been the backbone of the army; cavalry and archery being regarded as no more than light auxiliaries, hardly dependable in battle.

But Theodora espoused Belisarius’ cause.

“I know little of war,” she said, “but it seems to me that nothing’s ever accomplished without experiment. Why not give Belisarius leave to try out his theory—say with his own Comitati?”

For a moment Justinian considered. “I think I will,” he said after a little thought. “Yes, go try your experiment with your Comitati. I’ll give an order to the armorers. We’ll see what you can work out.”

Belisarius was delighted. “A myriad thanks, Noble Highness! I was afraid for a moment you’d say the Excubitors. If you want my candid opinion, they’ll never be anything but parade soldiers. All looks and drill—but no lions were ever crossed with that breed!”

They laughed at his earnestness, but he turned to Theodora.

“Beautiful lady,” he said, “for gaining me this boon, I am your slave.”

His voice revealed to her something she did not want, since she knew the complications of men’s inner emotions. Belisarius was enchanted by her, and she could not afford to have him so.

On the other hand, she could not neglect him, either. He was Justinian’s friend, and a woman is expected to employ her arts and charms on every man who comes into her orbit. It is the great and unceasing contribution of femininity, this lightsome game, and it was fascinating and instinctive in all its countless little facets and variations to Theodora. To treat Belisarius rudely or coldly was not to be considered, so she felt compelled to continue to be charming to him, and to watch uneasily as his admiration grew, a thing that might in the end prove dangerous to both of them.

2 }

A mighty thing and a little thing manifested themselves at almost the same time.

First came the mighty thing.

Justinian one night brought home Belisarius and Tribonian to supper, and though Theodora had donned her prettiest gown and brightest adornments for them, so that her mirror told her she was dazzling, she got hardly a compliment from any of the three.

It puzzled her. Tribonian indulged in none of his cynicisms, and Belisarius had nothing to say of military theory. Justinian hardly spoke.

“What ails you, my lords?” she asked at length.

“Why do you ask?” said Justinian.

“Never have I had such chill company.” Her smile was questioning.

Tribonian and Belisarius sat silent, as if hardly knowing what to say, but the prince replied briefly.

“We find ourselves confronted by a grave—a very grave—diplomatic situation,” he said.

“Oh?” she said. She wished to ask the nature of this crisis, but it was not her way to boldly intervene in what these men might consider something outside the sphere of a woman.

Justinian, however, perhaps to relieve his own mind, enlightened her in part.

“My envoys and secret agents alike inform me that a mighty alliance of enemies is being formed against the empire,” he said gloomily.

“Truly?” she said, still with her feminine reticence toward the matter.

“Persia is the mainspring in it,” he went on.

A thought occurred to her. “Is it because of King Kobad’s bitterness over the failure of his scheme for his son, Prince Chosroes?”

“Exactly,” said Justinian.

“That was a defeat bitter to swallow,” Tribonian added, “especially since our friend, the monarch who lost the game, has always plumed himself on his subtlety.”

“But—” She hesitated. “There have been alliances before, haven’t there? Why should this one be so perilous?”

Justinian glanced over at Tribonian. “We give her the shell and not the kernel,” he said.

Tribonian and Belisarius both nodded solemnly.

The prince turned to Theodora. “Here’s the nutmeat, darling, why we fear this alliance. We might take care of Persia if it came to war. But Kobad’s negotiating for promises from two other great, and several smaller nations to declare hostilities against us when he does.”

She looked her astonishment. “What others?”

“The Vandals of Africa and the Ostrogoths of Italy are the two great powers. In addition there is Ethiopia, always eager to raid southern Egypt, and the barbarian nations north of us—no more than bloody savages—such as the Herules and Gepidae of the Teutonic race, and the Bulgars and Avars, who are akin to the Huns.”

“But if they all hate us, why haven’t they made common cause against us before?” she asked.

“Because they’ve been divided, by their own disagreements and by geography,” said Tribonian. “The Vandals and Ostrogoths are rivals and have the sea between them. Both are separated from Persia by our empire and those barbarian nations of which His Highness spoke.”

“How can they reconcile these differences now?”

“Kobad is offering bribes to the barbarians to attack us,” Justinian explained, “and his ambassadors are in Ravenna, the Ostrogoth capital, and Carthage, the capital of the Vandals, proposing nothing less than a partition of the Empire of the Romans among them.”

“Such a war of alliance would be almost impossible for us to meet,” said Belisarius grimly. “Our enemies would come from all directions at once. The Vandals would attack Cyrenaica, where we’re little prepared to resist them. The Ostrogoths would pour into Illyria and Greece. The wild tribes crave nothing but plunder and bloodshed. The Persians, of course, would invade with their hordes from the east, and they covet Egypt and Syria—in fact all of Asia Minor—and particularly this city of ours, Constantinople, the capital of the empire.”

Theodora was silent at this sudden glimpse into almost shadowy perils and vast consequences.

But the child of the streets was accustomed to adding up things and arriving at a sum, and something about this seemed out of proportion to her feminine practicality.

After a moment she ventured, “It appears to me that under this arrangement the Persians would get the lion’s share of the spoil.”

To this, Justinian nodded.

“What would the other allies think of that?” she persisted.

“Small difference to us what they thought,” he said gloomily, “if meantime they’d overrun our territories, destroyed our cities, and massacred or enslaved our people.”

The girl seemed to muse, then said, “The children play a game in the Square of Aphrodite. I’ve watched it often.”

The apparent inconsequentiality did not please Justinian. “What has the playing of children to do with this?” he asked.

“It forms a parable,” she said. “The game is between three, matching copper oboli. The odd one wins—as for instance, if one turns up tails while the other two show heads, he with the tails takes the coins of the others. But they’re bad little boys, quite willing to cheat each other.”

Caught by her manner, the men did not interrupt her.

“Very soon, I’ve noticed, two will combine against the third, agreeing that one will always show heads and the other tails—whereby, since the third child can only match one or the other of them, he can never win, and they will fleece him.”

Justinian nodded. In his boyhood he was himself familiar with this simplest of all forms of gambling.

“But it often happens,” went on Theodora, “that presently one of the two in the little coalition sees that luck is running too strongly to his partner. Though their victim is losing, his luckier ally is winning not only from the victim, but from him as well, and may soon get all the copper coins of the three of them, whereat the game will end with one very rich—according to their childish notions—and the other two very poor.”

If only because the play of her face was so charming to watch, they had listened. But now Justinian asked, “Where does this lead?”

“It’s interesting,” she said, “to see how the losing partner will at such times join forces with the victim, and by reversing practices, begin winning back coins from his former partner.”

A light began to dawn on Justinian’s face. “I think I see where you’re driving,” he said.

“It illustrates instinct and human nature, made clearer because it’s in terms of a children’s game,” she said seriously. “Children have no monopoly on greed and jealousy, I think.”

“And the same principle may apply to older and wiser persons?” said Justinian.

“Or even nations?” suggested Tribonian with his first smile.

Only Belisarius sat silent, her point for the moment completely escaping him.

“It occurred to me,” she told them, “that if such instincts are universal, when nations form coalitions against adversaries the critical question must always be how to divide gains among them. Jealousy will break every alliance in the end, because one gets more than the others.”

Now Belisarius saw, or thought he saw. “For their victim such a quarrel would come too late,” he objected. “He would be the spoils over which they’d quarrel.”

She took them all in with her eyes. “I only thought——” She hesitated, almost apologetically. “If the jealousy could be sown before instead of after the conquest——”

The three men glanced at each other.

“Go on,” said Justinian.

“I—I think—” she said diffidently, “that if I were a ruler, fearing a world coalition against me, I’d have envoys and spies in the capitals of every one of the weaker nations——”

“And instead of trying to bind them to us by hopes of gains, show them rather the danger of the Persian tiger!” exclaimed Justinian.

“The tiger that devours everything within reach!” added Tribonian.

“And would be a thrice greater peril to them,” said Belisarius, “if the Persian king controlled the resources and people of this realm, and was therefore brought cheek by jowl with the western nations!”

In Justinian’s face blazed a great inspiration. “She’s right!” he cried, smiting his open hand with his fist. “Jealousy is as potent as greed, and fear stronger than either. If we could have fear and jealousy working for us against greed alone—greed handicapped by risk, at that——”

“Some evidence of perfidy by the Persians would help,” said Tribonian.

“Such as their bribing the Ethiopians and northern barbarians for their own advantage?” suggested the girl.

“Such as that!” exclaimed the legalist with triumph. “Resentment can be added to jealousy and fear. And the three might do for us more than any loyalty or hope of gain!”

Chin in hand, Justinian sat in deepest concentration, the others watching him. It was a moment fraught with consequence.

When at last he looked up, his gaze went to Theodora. “You have given me hope, darling,” he said. “On the basis of your three children matching coppers in the square, I find myself suddenly believing in a possibility!”

This was the mighty event that manifested itself.

3 }

The small event was in this wise.

Most great mistresses of history have succeeded in ruling their royal lovers; but among royal mistresses Theodora deserved a distinction. Though, through her allurements and fascinations she ruled Justinian to a degree; and though, like many another beauty, she asked for and received much more than she needed, or was good for her; she did not forget ever that her greatest task and interest were to make her prince continuously happy. To this sole aim she devoted herself.

For a woman to catch a man requires no particular brilliance. Propinquity is a great ally, and the little tricks and stratagems occur naturally to a girl, so that in most cases effect follows cause with almost unbelievable simplicity.

Nor does it require brilliance to hold a man—too many women lacking all brilliance have done so right successfully. It needs in most cases only a certain degree of understanding and imagination, an ability to forgive, and above all, affection. These, and the desire to employ them.

The last is the stumbling block. There is an important difference between being able to do a thing, and having the energy and interest to do it. Wherefore myriads of women, through slackness and indolence, have watched others who did not disdain to put interest and thought into love, take away from them their men.

In Theodora was no whit of slackness. Of her sex she was proud, rather than ashamed. This, this alone, was the source of her power, and she never allowed it to slip from her mind, nor permitted her magnificent instincts to become blunted. When Justinian desired love, she was invariably ready, various, playful, adorable, passionate, personifying to him the warm delight that burgeons not only in the senses but in the richest emotions.

Aside from love-making, she sought to be all things to him, spurring his energy when it flagged, providing new inspiration when he lost it, bringing laughter to him when he was moody, surrounding him with loveliness and ease when he was weary or discouraged.

This was genius. And it had its basis in the fact that whatever arts she employed, she never forgot that the greatest was the art of life itself. To all this beautiful outpouring of womanhood Justinian would have been something less than human had he not responded. He was perhaps not poetic or too highly imaginative. But he knew both poetry and imagination in his mistress.

Yet of his complete love Theodora was not yet sure. With an ordinary man she might have been sure, but she could not forget that she was dealing with Empire, as well as with Man. Was any woman ever certain in the love of a nation’s ruler? Sometimes, with helpless apprehension, she would find herself wondering how long this would last. How soon would she lose her power over him in the face of other, greater interests or preoccupations?

Every woman is a lifelong prisoner of her mirror. From her first waking moment, when she devotes time and patience to arranging her hair and rearranging her features, through the whole day long she undergoes an endless series of repairs to her appearance, and never once is entirely free from a gnawing inner worry as to whether some detail of the countless details of which she is made up is awry, or whether for some reason she may not be looking her best.

If this be true of ordinary women, it is trebly true of beautiful ones. So accustomed was Theodora to the serfdom to her minors, and the resulting occupations with herself, that she did not even think of it, especially since her mirrors almost always told her the welcome news that she was lovely to look at.

Sometimes, however, she would gaze searchingly in the mirror for the first hint of news not so welcome. Was that the faint indication of a line beginning to form? Did this perfect contour in her face show any less perfection? The terror of age, which is woman’s supreme enemy, already was on her though she was hardly more than a girl. Her beauty was infinitely important to her, because it was the source of everything, all she was or had ever accomplished. It was like a companion, a friend, as well as being the inner core of her pride. As she had said to herself many times before, she did not wish to live past the time when she was still beautiful.

This was what made the happening that occurred seem to her so much more cataclysmic.

It was the twelfth month after Justinian made her his mistress, and not long after the conversation previously recorded concerning the Persian coalition, that she made a discovery that to her was far more important and intimate than the fate of the empire.

At first she was not sure. But she had experienced it twice before, and presently she became certain. She was pregnant.

The realization brought the first thrill of slight panic, then the sudden rebellion against the inevitable, and finally the resignation which a woman always experiences at such a time.

But where resignation usually provides a kind of anesthetic, with Theodora it was different. She did not want the child. She was terrified at the thought of having one.

Strange how circumstances can alter basic attitudes. Pregnant as a miserable young girl seeking an abortion; even pregnant and facing a desperate end as the disgraced mistress of Hecebolus, Theodora was not more unhappy than now. She had been pleased, interested, and excited with her new life, even its problems and dangers. And now this might destroy everything!

At first she would not admit to herself that it was so. Though from the beginning she had carried in the back of her mind the possibility of this eventuality, for some reason she had felt it would not happen to her. At last, however, she had to face it.

Came terrors and woes. Justinian, she reflected wildly, had been a bachelor all his life, and for his own very good reasons. If he wanted a woman at all, he wanted her only for a lightsome, passionate, beautiful partner in love and play. What would he say to a woman who suddenly conferred on him the undesired responsibility of fatherhood, and at the same time ceased, by her motherhood, to be what he most prized in her?

Her baby, too—it must be born out of wedlock, since the law forbade one of Justinian’s class marrying one of hers. And this would provide a further complication, a further embarrassment for him.

An ugly situation. A common man she might hope to win to this new condition of affairs, even perhaps bring him around to happiness in it, as women succeed in doing almost always. But princes and governments possess strange impersonality: national policy, with which every act of a ruler is bound up, sometimes requires cold, unpredictable, even cruel decisions. A courtesan who presumed to have a child by a prince assuredly was intervening perilously in the affairs of the empire.

Another fear came over her.

She would lose her beauty. The almost stemlike slenderness of her waist, of which she was so proud, would become deformed and monstrous; her breasts would swell and grow ugly; she would be swag-bellied, broad as a cow through the back; she would walk with a waddle and be ridiculously short of breath.

Even if Justinian could brook the child, she would lose his love by becoming hideous!

This was hysterical thinking, which men of medicine know is not uncommon with women in the first stages of pregnancy. But it was, nevertheless, tragic and bitterly unhappy thinking.

Sometimes she tried to take hold of herself and reason things out. Justinian loved her—he must love her—she would tell herself. Perhaps he had considered this possibility, even as she had done. He might even be glad of it . . .

But then she would be sure that this was hopeless wishing on her part. She pictured his reactions if and when she told him: he would begin by being shocked and astonished, then pitying, then contemptuous, and finally he would end by hating her.

Sometimes she thought she hated him. Why had he done this to her? Why do men never consider anything but their own pleasure with women?

Sooner or later, she knew, she must tell him. Certainly the time would come when he would know without telling. She supposed that she was at least a month along. At the end of the third month it would begin to show, and in spite of proverbial male blindness to such things, he must see that something was wrong with her merely by contemplating her body . . .

Yes, to tell him at once would be better. After arriving at this decision she would make up her mind to break the news to him that very night. But when the moment came she invariably shrank from it.

Instead, she would weep when he was gone. There were desperate moments when she considered the horrible sagae and their potions . . . even the thought of suicide.

This was the small event that manifested itself with a mighty event: a girl about to have a baby, and an empire in deadly peril of its existence.

To Theodora there was not even a comparison between them in momentousness.

4 }

What made things more difficult was the fact that in these days Justinian was overwhelmingly preoccupied and busy. His foreign and diplomatic problems occupied him, obsessed him, to the exclusion of all other things, even his mistress. For Theodora’s little parable of the children matching coins had been the genesis of a brilliantly adroit policy, shaped with the help of Tribonian, which Justinian undertook to meet the threatening coalition.

The object was to break up the alliance before it was formed, by using against it the very seeds of disorganization which were destined, eventually, to break it up after—suspicion, fear, selfishness, and jealousy.

By ship, by horse, and by chariot imperial ambassadors were speeded to great and splendid capitals, and to rude barbaric camps and towns. And in every case they carried with them messages, most cunningly worded and prepared in the subtle phrasing of Tribonian, designed to erect and foster suspicions, in the minds of the kings and chiefs whom the ambassadors visited, concerning a great Power in the east.

Presently, as a result, monarchs and royal councils began debating a new aspect of things which they had not really considered before: the question of whether, after all, it was wise to aid that Power in gaining still greater resources and populations, from which still mightier military forces might be built, and which could, in all truth, enable it to conquer the rest of the world.

Less and steadily less attractive did the former plan of the coalition seem to the rulers and their advisers. It was now remembered that the Empire of the Romans had always been a good customer for grain, wool, leathers, metals, oil, cattle and sheep, manufactures, and other merchandise. Would Persia also turn to the west for these things? Far more likely the Persians would continue to draw on their own illimitable hinterlands for what was now being bought from Gothic, Vandalic, and Frankish farmers, factors, and merchants.

As for the barbarians—rude, blond-mustached Gepidae and Herules, wild, slant-eyed Avars and Bulgars, and black, kinky-haired Ethiopians—they began to understand that if bribes were to be obtained, the government at Constantinople seemed ready to pay the most, and furthermore they remembered that in the imperial armies were enlisted many of their own best warriors. It is, after all, most unprofitable to exchange sword blows with one’s close kin.

But Justinian’s program went farther, and this was his own refinement of the original plan.

While ambassadors and envoys, with pomp and ceremony, gave diplomatic dinners and employed themselves in persuasive conferences in the courts of the nations, a whole army of secret agents, in the guise of traveling merchants, or traders, or priests, or any of a hundred other transient callings, went about among the common people of those same countries.

Continually these persons dropped suggestions and apprehensions into the minds of shopkeepers, landowners, and even peasants. Over and over the dreadfulness of war was painted; how taxes certainly would be increased even above their present intolerable burden; how young men would be conscripted from their homes and sent out to fight, with good prospect of being slaughtered like market bullocks; and how, if the war went badly, and the enemy, instead of being defeated, made an invasion, cities and farms would be devastated, populations put to the sword or sold into bondage, and no man’s property would be spared, or woman safe from violation by the soldiery of the victorious foe.

So assiduously did Justinian’s agents perform their labors that presently common citizens in Italy, Africa, and elsewhere began to inquire among themselves why war was necessary, and some of them became outspoken against it.

Even kings find it expedient to listen to the voice of public opinion when it becomes loud enough. So, in countless places, the coalition proposed by Persia found itself under attack. It was, altogether, a rather brilliant working out of what later came to be called Propaganda—a great stroke of statesmanship by Justinian, for which he received the plaudits of history.

It was during this period of Justinian’s immense preoccupation that Theodora, with none to turn to for advice or friendship, underwent her terror and misery.

1 }

The old empress, Euphemia, learned of Theodora’s condition before Justinian did: in fact, almost everybody in the imperial court seemed to know of it before the news came to him.

The progression of this information was something as follows:

First, Theodora’s tirewomen discovered it. Women are clever about such matters, keeping a hawk’s watch on each other continuously for the slightest evidence of what is most interesting to their sex.

Theodora’s emotions were erratic. At times she was short-tempered, almost vindictive: at other times she was over-anxious to make up for her outbursts. Her weepings, though she confined them to moments when she was alone, left tell-tale marks of tears on pillows, and swollen eyes. She was unwell at times, and her appetite came and went fitfully. Furthermore, she changed her habits in the bath, particularly as regarded the manipulations of her body in massage. These things were more than enough evidence for the tirewomen.

From them the exciting report leaked out to the eunuchs of the Hormisdas household. The eunuchs were only too happy to disseminate the word abroad, and they knew just where to disseminate it to the most purpose for the injury of their mistress, whom they hated.

Those of the Hormisdas got information speedily to their fellows in the Sigma palace. From them it went to the tirewomen of the empress. And so, with telegraphic speed, it almost seemed, Euphemia was made aware that an issue was expected from the prince’s kept girl in the palace.

Euphemia’s first thought was a woman’s triumph. “I knew the little hussy would get caught! It serves her right!”

But immediately came other considerations. A left-handed offspring of the prince? A bastard, decidedly, but a bastard of the blood is not like any ordinary bastard . . .

Statecraft and matters of succession are involved in such a one. Wars have been fought, dynasties overturned or established, the map of the world changed, because princes or kings lightly diverted themselves with tender dalliances.

It was a sobering thought to the empress, who began to consider the important repercussions certain to ensue, and to wonder in what manner she could play a decisive part.

Meantime, though Euphemia knew, and the tirewomen knew, and the eunuchs knew, and the ladies in waiting knew, and gossip ran and spread in whispers through the entire palace enclosure, one of the very last to learn the interesting circumstance about which centered all this speculation and talk was Justinian himself.

This sort of thing sometimes happens even to prospective fathers in humbler walks of life. The prince was not on speaking terms with the empress. Though he paid daily calls of duty on the emperor, old Justin was absent-minded; and if he had been informed of the matter, it dropped back into the dim recesses of a mind weakened by age, so that he never mentioned it. Nobody else seemed to think it worth while to inform Justinian, or perhaps it was that everyone supposed he was from the beginning fully informed.

When he brought home of an evening someone from the foreign office or perhaps one or two of his friends, as was his frequent habit during this period of international tension, Theodora dissembled her feelings well. She sat and listened to discussions of the trans-Danube policy, or the progress of Belisarius’ experimental troop training, or an envoy’s report from the court of King Theodoric of the Ostrogoths, or even light matters such as the chances of the Green or Blue in the next Hippodrome games—conversations often weighty, sometimes witty, and frequently erudite, interspersed with diplomatic double-entendres, classical quotations, and twinkling side sallies.

And she would smile and try to make intelligent comments when appealed to, but neither her mind or heart were in it. All the time she would be asking herself how anyone could really be interested in such trivial matters, when something so real and imminent was causing her to be desperately miserable.

2 }

Justinian was a prince, the regent of the world’s greatest empire. And Theodora, in spite of her youth, was far from an ordinary woman in any sense.

Yet the manner in which at last she communicated to him the news that was uppermost in her mind followed a pattern almost amusingly typical, including the usual tears, surprise, reassurances, and other apparently inevitable accompaniments of such announcements, ever since Eve, no doubt overwrought with emotion, sobbed on Adam’s chest because she was going to present him with a child, who turned out to be Cain.

It was after Theodora, one day in the second month, had regarded her figure full length in her mirror with a sinking heart, feeling sure the tell-tale signs were ten times more evident than they really were—it would, at this stage, have required an almost microscopic eye to have detected them—that Justinian came home from his office, alone and jubilant.

“Wonderful news!” he exclaimed to her.

“What?” she asked dully.

“Our policy of discord among our enemies is succeeding!”

“Oh.” It was as if she hardly heard him.

“Aren’t you interested, dear? Couriers just came in with word that Theodoric of Italy has grown cold to the Persian coalition and turned instead to strengthening his ties with the Visigoths of Hispania!”

She made an effort to be happy over this, but failed.

“What’s the matter with you?” he asked, disappointed. “Do you realize what this means? Theodoric is our most powerful and dangerous neighbor to the west. If he shuns the alliance, Kobad’s entire plan fails!”

He looked at her expectantly, but she was silent, her eyes lowered.

“It’s as important as winning a great war,” he went on, trying to keep up his own exultation and excitement. “They ought to give triumphs for diplomatic victories as they do to conquering commanders! And if they did, you should have the honor, darling, since it was your idea in the first place——”

He stopped. Theodora had burst into tears.

“Why, darling!” he said. “What’s gone wrong—did I say something——”

She backed away from his arms, blubbering.

“D-don’t touch me! You—you’ll hate me——”

His mouth fell open. “Hate you? For what earthly reason?”

It came out with a wail, and a new flood of tears. “Be-because—I’m going to—to have a baby——”

Remarkable, an experienced courtesan weeping hysterically like a new bride under similar conditions. But experience can never entirely submerge feminine emotion at such a moment, and Theodora’s fears added to her distraction. There is, moreover, the instinct of woman that tears are the best and surest way to overcome any reservations a man may have by stampeding his sympathies in her favor.

As countless other men have behaved in the same situation, so Justinian behaved, which is proof of the wisdom of the instinct. For a moment he stared with the same idiotic incomprehension that is usually displayed.

“Well——” he said, and stopped. “Well——” Suddenly he gulped. “Is that why you’re crying? You thought I—I might—I wouldn’t like it?”

She nodded, dabbing her eyes with a kerchief, and stealing a look at him.

“You mean . . . do you?” she asked.

He laughed and held out his arms to her. “Why not? Why shouldn’t I like it? Why shouldn’t you be happy over it . . .?”

For a moment she faced him piteously, like a little wraith in white and gold; then came to him, hiding herself in his arms.

What followed is hardly necessary to describe: the usual tendernesses, the usual declarations of devotion, which seem almost ritualistic. Afterward she sat curled up in the circle of his arm on a divan, and he said:

“Our child should be born in the purple.”

He meant the Porphyry palace, that strange structure of purple stone, where for generations empresses and women of the imperial line had gone for the ceremonial ushering into the world of royal offspring, in order to carry out the traditional saying that he who was born in the purple was born to imperial state.

“My child couldn’t be,” Theodora said unhappily. “Only legitimate children of the imperial family are born in the purple.”

He gazed down at the top of her head.

“Your child—is my child also——” He spoke as if trying powerfully to impress this fact on himself. Then he added, “Darling, if circumstances were different—I wish we could be wed.”

She sat silent, her face gone white.

To be wed . . . that he should even have thought of it!

The supreme, dizziest pinnacle of undreamed ambition, on which she never for a moment had allowed her thoughts to dwell . . .

Something like a chill passed over her. How terribly was it to be desired! And yet how impossible, how fantastic, how hopeless!

And how terrifying!

“No—no——” she said brokenly.

“You wouldn’t want it?” he cried.

“It’s not that. Of course I would. But it’s unheard of, unwise, not even possible——”

“Why? Why isn’t it possible? Nothing’s impossible!”

In her temples Theodora felt the pulses begin to pound so loudly and so hard that she could hardly see him, or hear his voice. This was the moment, the terrible crucial moment of her life. The moment when fearful decisions must be made.

And it had caught her unprepared.

Yet something must be said. She could not sit silent and let this fire in him die.

“I am mistress to you,” she began. “To be that—and to have your love—is all I ever wanted——”

The words were simple, but in her way of saying it the consummate woman was revealed in her. Her manner, her hesitation, her timid, fluttering look, held him and molded him.

All at once her confusion passed, her thoughts began to form. How dreadfully she had misjudged Justinian! In what she feared he had proved her wrong by an amazing stanchness. To him she owed loyalty and love beyond all ordinary standards of women to men.

Yet he was a man . . . and therefore required guidance, the careful shaping of his thoughts and impulses. For she had made her decision. No turning back was possible now. Almost breathlessly she awaited his reply.

It came. “Perhaps being my mistress is sufficient for you—but what about—the child?”

That question in his mind! Now she was sure at last, and her next steps were clear: what he merely had suggested, he must be brought to put into a spoken determination.

The ways of handling men were inborn in her, and perfected by experience beyond the ken of most women. One manner of causing a man to wish to do a thing, is to show him the difficulty, even the impossibility, of doing it. Males are combative. It is a part of their sex, their masculinity. They respond to challenges.

“I’m—I’m afraid——” she began. The half-spoken appeal for protection which is so unfailingly flattering to a man. “It would be—have such terrifying dangers——”

“What dangers?” he demanded.

“There would he resentments. Assassination is by no means uncommon in Constantinople——”

“I’ll run the risk of that!”

“But what of me? If the populace were sufficiently aroused, a girl of the streets—who aims too high—might have to be sacrificed to the rabble——”

“They’d have to fight their way over my best soldiers! They’d have to kill me first!” His jaw was satisfyingly grim. “Besides,” he added, “what would arouse them to such action?”

“Well—the empress hates me. And the Church. And others who plot in the palace——” She almost mentioned John of Cappadocia, but they had been through that.

“Nonsense!” Manlike, he began to override her now. “Don’t you want to marry me, Theodora?”

She gave a half-laugh, half-sob.

“Want to? Oh, darling—when it’s the one thing I want most in this whole world—and heaven, too? But I can’t. Don’t you see, dear? The Roman law. It’s forbidden for one of your station to marry such—such as I am. You can’t break the law, even if I would. My ruin isn’t important—but yours is of world-wide moment!”

He glared. “I’ll have that law changed!”

At that fierce declaration she wanted to fling herself into his arms again, to smother him with tearful kisses. But she held herself back. One more thing: the final gambit, the absolute test, the proof of his love and loyalty.

She freed herself from his arm and sat off from him a little way on the divan, her eyes falling.

“You are the prince, Highness.” It was the first time in months she had used that formality with him. “You could not marry a woman like me—a harlot——”

Furiously he leaped to his feet. “Harlot? I forbid you to use that word ever again in speaking of yourself! I forbid! Do you understand? You’re the woman I love! And you will be the mother of my son!”

Three great strides he took back and forth, and she sat curled up on the divan, her eyes never leaving him . . . eyes of tense appeal, of hope hanging by a thread.

Justinian halted, and the scowl on his face faded. When he spoke it was in the calmer voice of a man whose mind is made up.

“I’ve been selfish,” he said. “When you came to me you meant only—only pleasure to me. With you I could lose myself from the worries and stresses of my task. But in these months I’ve come to love you—in a different way. That kind of love has meaning. Listen to me: whatever the difficulties and dangers, our child shall have a name! You and I will be well and truly married—I do solemnly here take oath to it by St. Michael and all Angels—married by a bishop and before the people!”

Now at last Theodora went to him, her face upraised to his, a prayer in her eyes, an offer of eternal allegiance . . .

3 }

Almost as soon as it reached Empress Euphemia, the report that Justinian’s mistress was with child had come to John of Cappadocia. When he made sure of it, the praetorian prefect hugged it to himself as if it were a treasure unexpectedly found.

If anyone but he had known all of them, his steps thereafter would have been an illuminating index of his character and mind.

To begin with, he held a most secret conference with a certain monk—Father Policrates, he of the lengthy beard and extreme Orthodox theology, who was chaplain and confidant of the empress. It was not difficult to convince that ecclesiastical courtier how necessary it was to keep Euphemia hot and zealous in her opposition to the harlot of the Hormisdas, and to the whole notion of allowing an imperial child to be borne by that wanton. She could be counted upon to make life miserable for the old emperor about it. And Justin, who appeared to be little more than a half-witted old fool in his growing dotage, giving in easily to his consort’s hectoring, might even be badgered by her into issuing a judgment against his nephew, who until now had been his favorite.

After this private prompting of the monk, John left the palace and had himself rowed, in his own magnificent barge, across the Golden Horn to his villa, which was in Sycae. There he would have quiet and a chance carefully to think matters through, for it seemed to him that he had been presented with a God-given opportunity, if it were properly handled.

The villa in Sycae was most beautiful: a great house presenting a magnificent marble portico, having no less than two atriums, and being surrounded by gardens, groves, and vineyards. Its furnishings were such as only the money available to a praetorian prefect—and that meant a rather free hand in the imperial treasury—could have paid for. Yet nobody ever came to this palace except by invitation; and nobody ever was invited, except those with whom the Cappadocian had special and secret business of one kind or another.

John was a Catholic, duly baptized. What his name had been originally, before he accepted baptism at the font, was forgotten; but it was some heathen title, and John was substituted for it at the christening because it was the most usual name given to converted pagans, since St. John the Divine was the apostle to the heathen. Yet in spite of baptism and a great parade of devoutness, the Cappadocian, as only a few knew, had never truly accepted the teachings of Christianity, and still had weird, dark beliefs of his own.

So adroit was the man, however, that in spite of it all he was on terms of confidential intimacy with the highest dignitaries of the Established Church. Sometimes members of that lofty hierarchy were called to his villa for ostensible hospitality, but really for privy councils: the sort of councils in which the hard necessities of worldly politics force even the holy prelates of a church to participate; and at which certain realistic policies sometimes must be adopted, perhaps not entirely in keeping with the more idealistic tenets of the Christian faith, and which therefore must be kept absolutely secret.

At such councils, John’s advice, being of the most practical sort, and yet with his surprising subtlety couched always in terms that sounded almost virtuous, if not actually saintly, was prized by the hierarchy, and often followed with a prayerful zeal.

It transpired that on the second day of the praetorian prefect’s brief self-exile in his Sycaean villa, a group of these ecclesiastical nobles—the patriarch of the cathedral and a choice selection of bishops, together with their most trusted priestly or monkish secretaries—might have been observed crossing the strait from the city, and entering the palatial house of the Cappadocian. It is hardly surprising that these left the villa later in the day with a fixed consciousness of the problems and perils to the Established Church contained in the well-grounded report that the girl in the Hormisdas palace was pregnant. The woman was a Monophysite! That, to the hierarchy, was a condemnation of her far worse than that she was a harlot. This might mean the beginning of a heretical succession!

Another delegation, even more secret than the first, visited the villa at Sycae on the third day. Very few were aware that John at times had stealthy dealings with the leaders of the Green faction of the Hippodrome. Since these were of Monophysite heretical persuasion a truly devout and Orthodox Catholic would, it might be thought, hardly have had anything of moment to discuss with them. But the Cappadocian’s Catholicity evidently did not rest too heavily on his mind—or his conscience, either, if he possessed such a superfluity.

When they returned that night from Sycae to Constantinople, the demarches of the Greens had somewhat to think upon. Their faction, it had been shown most clearly, had a very important opportunity before it. Discredited and subordinated to the hated Blues during the reign of Justin, the Greens might regain power and prestige through a weakness suddenly revealed in Justinian, the heir apparent, who seemed to be hopelessly infatuated over a girl from the Street of Women. What made the situation potent was that the girl was going to have a child by the prince. Out of this, which might be erected into a disgrace for the whole reigning imperial family, it was possible that the downfall of the dynasty might be brought about, with limitless possibilities, after royal heads rolled bloody in the dust, in the reorganization of the government—for those who were on the right side.

A troop of blood-red robes made the visitation to the Sycaean villa on the fourth day. Scarlet was the color worn by professional orators, and the wearers had the familiar look of those who make a living by continual wordiness, hiring out their eloquence to anyone who had something he wished to be urged in the streets of the city, for the forming or swaying of public opinion.

Every pat phrase, every quotation classical or sacred, every trick of gesture and cunning play on the emotions or prejudices of their auditors, were familiar to these practiced haranguers. And all who crossed the Golden Horn that day were in the personal pay of John of Cappadocia. At his signal they would station themselves at strategic points in Constantinople, such as the Augusteum, the Bull square, the Square of Brotherly Love, the Square of Constantine, every city gate, and even the Square of Aphrodite, to gather each his own crowd of listeners and pour into their ears a flood of denunciation.

It would be their task to stir the mob into hatred of the woman who had enslaved the prince, and of the prince who had so far forgotten rank and honor as to lose all judgment over such a woman. The populace still had a certain reverence for the imperial purple, and it might not relish hearing that Justinian was fathering a child by a harlot. That this was debasing the purple in a degree never known before in history, the orators could be counted on to emphasize fully and eloquently.

When the last of these secret conferences was over, and the blood-red robes had all been rowed back across the strait to Constantinople, John of Cappadocia sat alone and summed up the situation, finding that it did not augur too badly—for himself.

Old Justin quite evidently would be gone before very long—a few weeks, or months at most. It was reported that the emperor’s fistula, which could not be cured, was becoming worse and his strength visibly failing.

When Justin’s life at last flickered out, the succession must be decided. If Prince Justinian were in a strong position then, it would be difficult to prevent his elevation to the imperial throne. But what if he were in a weak position . . . perhaps even dishonored and disgraced? It might be very different. A candidate denounced as a profligate, a weakling, a scandal to the Christian Church and the empire, might be torn to pieces by the mob if he attempted to ascend the imperial steps.

In such case, who would be the one man most eligible for the purple?

John felt he could supply the answer to that question. He was not of the imperial family to be sure, but neither was Justin before he ascended the throne. John was not educated highly, but Justin could not even read or write. John was from an outlying province, Cappadocia, but Justin also was a provincial, a Macedonian.

Plenty of precedents here.

And John of Cappadocia held the enormously strategic offices of praetorian prefect and logothete, with the reins of government already gathered in his hairy hands, and the treasury virtually within his grasp. Who could challenge him in a governmental crisis?

Perhaps his greatest advantage was that his was the initiative. The man against whom he plotted was not even aware that he had ambitions, much less that schemes and policies had been set afoot to further those ambitions. A little time only was needed to bring these matters to a head. A little time to permit Justinian, in his headlong folly, to fully destroy himself. A little time to bring public opinion to the dangerous boiling point. A little time to perfect final arrangements for a “spontaneous” demand for the wise, the good, and the strong John of Cappadocia to take the throne in place of a prince unworthy of it.

4 }

Before he left his villa on the fifth day and returned to Constantinople, John did one last thing.

In the rearmost part of the great house was a secret chamber, kept locked night and day, and never mentioned even in whispers by the slaves, on pain of being flogged to death. He alone had the key to the door.

Within that room of dread silence and darkness was a shrine. And upon the shrine was a figure—an obscene female figure, not beautiful but cruel, the representation of the Phoenician goddess, Astarte.

The temple room—for such it was—had been enriched with decorations and costly fabrics and gems; but they were disgusting to decent eyes, for they were rendered into phallic and yonic symbols to endless and nauseating variation. The walls were covered with bestial murals, depicting all forms of evil eroticism: the refuse and filth from all mythological depravity. For Astarte, though in a way an eastern counterpart of the Grecian Aphrodite, had none of the religious dignity and nobility of that goddess of love and generation. Instead, Astarte was a goddess of lust and debased pleasures, with a terrible strain of bloodthirst in her sacrifices; and Cappadocia, the province from which the praetorian prefect came, was one of the last strongholds of her hideous cult.

On occasions, secret votaries of the unclean goddess—who were known to each other and to John—met at the shrine of Astarte. The orgies ensuing were indescribably cruel and depraved. Always slave girls were provided for the guests: virgins carefully selected and examined so there could be no question of it. Often one or more of these unfortunate girls died from the nameless things done to them in the rite of lusts for which they were sacrifices.

When this happened the votaries believed good luck would follow, since one of the features of the worship of Astarte, who was the female component to the bloody god Baal, was death.

It was with this in mind that John of Cappadocia, who was neither Catholic nor Monophysite—not even a Christian at heart, but a pagan of the most debased kind—summoned his major-domo and directed that a girl named Ariadne be sent to him.

She came, trembling, a new slave just bought and not knowing yet what kind of a fate she would meet in this house.

Back in his great chair leaned John of Cappadocia, and his twin thickets of brows knitted in a scowl as he surveyed her.

Should he? Taking her by a slender wrist he could drag her into that locked room yonder. When he came out it would be alone, and Ariadne would never be heard from again. There was a trap door, and a black hole leading into the bowels of the earth . . .

Slender-limbed, with the half-awkward movements of one just out of adolescence, Ariadne stood before him, eyes downcast, in fear but without an inkling of the truly great terror that in that moment hovered over her.

“Come here, girl,” he growled.

She advanced, hesitatingly and fearfully.

His hairy paw reached out, grasped her arm. The skin was smooth to silkiness, and the flesh soft but elastic. With the fingers of his free hand he probed her breasts and buttocks exactly as one might probe a pullet at the market when buying for the pot. Slender though she was, he observed that about her was nothing bony. Her face, too, was pretty.

He pinched her thigh, and she cried out in pain.

“Hurts?” he grinned.

“Yes, master,” she said timidly.

“There’ll be a black and blue spot?”

“Yes, master.” Very fearfully.

He rubbed his blue-grained jaw, then brushed his hand back over the polished baldness of his skull. He seemed to be thinking: debating with himself.

“I might have hurt you worse,” he growled at last. “Go now.”

Released, she almost fled from his sight.

How close she came to a fate of nameless horror that hour, Ariadne, the little slave girl, never knew. One thing only saved her: the man was too thorough a sensualist, too selfish a voluptuary, to sacrifice her.

He told himself that the girl was, after all, very pretty. His bed, not the shrine of Astarte, was a better destination for her.

In this decision he reinforced himself by the reminder that at times inquiries were made into the causeless slayings of slaves: but this reasoning was pure sophistry, since he well knew that no such inquiry would be made into the household of the praetorian prefect.

Ariadne, who escaped death before the shrine of Astarte, knew nothing of the doom she missed. Within an hour, his lust stimulated by his brief proximity with her, her master ordered her brought to him in his bedroom, where he deprived her of her virginity. And though she may later have wept over this, as some despoiled maidens have been known to do, she should have been glad of it, for it made her ineligible for the sacrifice.

Two black ewe lambs later splashed their blood in her stead, for the offerings to Astarte must always be female, never having coupled before their immolation.

It should be said here that to the end of his life John of Cappadocia, in his mind, blamed what followed upon his own weakness in enjoying his beautiful slave girl, instead of offering her up at the wicked altar of Astarte.

5 }

It was while he was being rowed back across the Golden Horn in his gilded pleasure barge that John heard the sound.

He was speaking with Mursa, captain of the barge, when he fell silent, for a mightier voice had interrupted him.

An immense, clanging note boomed across the water.

After a minute’s interval, the great hollow tone repeated itself.

Another measured silence, and a third boom.

“Tolling!” exclaimed John. “The great bell in the tower of Sancta Sophia!”

They all listened now, the prefect, the captain of the craft, and the sixteen slave rowers, breath almost stilled as the great bell continued sounding in the stately, ominous intervals that announced a death.

John’s face went white, then flushed red.

“The emperor! He must have been taken worse while I’ve been gone these five days!”

Furiously he turned on Mursa. “Have those lazy dogs row! Not a minute can be wasted! Row! Row! Hades! I should be at the palace this very instant!”

The slaves bent their backs to the oars, and the water churned to white foam under the blades. But John was in a raging fever.

“The whip! The whip!” he shouted. “Speed—I want speed!”

Welts began to leap out on straining backs as Mursa hurried down between the rowers’ seats, his lash cracking. But it was a waste of effort and pain. The slaves were doing their utmost, and even their master knew it.

Hardly did he wait for the barge to be moored before he leaped on the wharf and headed, almost at a run, through the Gate of Eugenius, which opened into the city wall.

A mounted soldier, recognizing the praetorian prefect, saluted.

“Down from that horse! Let me have him instantly!” John commanded.

A moment later he was mounted, his steed’s hoofs clattering on the pavement stones as he began the three-quarter-mile gallop to the Chalké gate.

Quicker, far quicker than he had anticipated, the crisis had arrived. Yet he was exultant. Jubilant.

In the streets people watched him thunder by, and listened with open mouths to the tolling from the cathedral, which now was being taken up by all the church bells in the city.

“The emperor . . . the emperor, God rest his soul . . .” went the murmur. Everyone knew of old Justin’s failing health; and now that the bells were tolling, they remembered that their aged ruler had been brave and gentle, devout, and had reigned in peace.

But John of Cappadocia, nearing the Chalké gate at a gallop, had a mind too filled with details to consider the character of the dead emperor. His orators—they must be loosed at once for their haranguing. An immediate duty call must be made to the imperial residence to pay his respects. Messages must be hurried to the hierarchy of the Established Church, and the heads of the Green faction, telling them that the hour had struck for their respective actions to be performed.

It might have been better, he reflected, had he been present at the very moment of the imperial demise . . . but after all, he had not hoped for so quick a crystallizing of his hopes. And there was time enough, for he had everything in order.

The snorting horse, foam flecking its muzzle, clattered up to the Chalké gate. He pulled it to a stop, threw the reins to a guard, and leaped to the ground.

As he entered the gate, the Excubitors saluted.

“How long ago did it happen?” he barked at them.

“Scarce half an hour ago, Noble Prefect,” one of them answered.

John rushed on through. In the esplanades and courtyards before all the palace buildings, stood excited groups talking together, and still the thunder of the tolling bells shook the air.

Old General Milo was coming down the walk. John stopped him.

“Sad,” he said. “How sad—a tragedy for the empire.”

“True,” said Milo. “Most true.”

With the carefully assumed expressions of dutiful mourners under the public eye, they stood for a moment shaking their heads.

“Was there no warning—of the end?” John asked after a moment.

“None,” said the general, his plump rubicund face solemn. “It appeared to be a disease of the heart which none of us suspected, not even the palace physicians.”

“Strange,” said John. “Strange that it should be a cause like that. How did it occur?”

General Milo possessed the garrulousness of age, an inclination to start at long distances from his point and approach it by almost imperceptible degrees. He displayed this tendency now.

“At the time it happened, the empress was in her own apartment with her ladies, and the talk was of small moment, having to do, I believe, with some question of propriety concerning the wearing on the head by women in church of the almost invisible veils that have become fashionable—the question being as to whether this was an evasion of the injunction laid down by the blessed St. Paul, where he said that every woman who prays with her head uncovered dishonors——”

“A pest on the empress and her talk!” interrupted John impatiently. “Tell me of the emperor!”

Milo stared at him in a somewhat injured manner. “His Imperial Magnificence,” he said sulkily, “is bearing up well, I understand——”

“Bearing up well? What do you mean? He’s dead—isn’t he?”

“He? Justin? No, not dead——”

“Then why are the bells tolling?”

“Why, it’s because of—— You mean you don’t know? Euphemia is dead!”

Old General Milo at that moment experienced the feeling of triumph which some natures derive out of being the first to give news, however unimportant. As for John of Cappadocia, he stood like a man stunned by a blow on the head, his mind requiring some time to comprehend fully.

1 }

Mighty was the cathedral, soaring above surrounding structures: mighty, and old—almost two centuries old. In its gables the doves and rooks nested, and swallows twittered high up in the dim interior of the vaulted roof, where the smoke of countless candles and burning incense drifted like a mist of sweetness.

Small tufts of grass grew here and there, high on the lofty walls of stone, where in ancient cracks and niches mould and dust had collected and been manured by the birds. At one of the cornices a small shoot of a cedar tree could be seen, as sometimes in the mountains tiny trees are seen growing on the peaks of great rock cliffs, without visible means of existence. These things proved the cathedral’s age, and its sanctity and age made it the most venerated of the empire’s churches, the seat of the chief patriarch, who took precedence even over the patriarch of Rome, whom men already were beginning to speak of as the Pope.

Between the cathedral and the Chalké gate of the palace lay the Augusteum, that square which also was a forum, surrounded by double lines of colonnades, with the Senate house looking upon it from the east. Usually the colonnades shaded disputants in the endless discussions of the last chariot race, the last heresy, or the last scandal; there were bookstalls where the studious might buy manuscripts, recent or old; and those who were amorous conducted a traffic in love.

But on this day the colonnades were filled to capacity, and the crowd, dense and black, extended out and covered the entire square, a pack of humanity so thick that a person could hardly move in it, all pushing and shoving and tip-toeing to get a better view, but held back rigidly by lines of armed soldiery from a single avenue about fifty feet wide, which extended from the palace gate to the doors of the cathedral, along which the funeral cortege must pass. How many tens of thousands were in the square nobody could estimate, but the Hippodrome itself had never held so many.

The death of an empress is a matter of no small moment, and her funeral must be made an occasion for a display of the pomp and power of the state, even when she has been a figure almost ridiculous and more than slightly pathetic during her lifetime.

Poor Euphemia could not, as far as she herself was concerned, make a momentous occasion even of her own passing. There were no premonitions, no bedside watch, no final words to remember and be spoken of afterward. She died instantly, and undramatically.

The empress had made as if to rise from her chair, and at once sank back. Her head fell forward on her breast, and her mouth sagged open, but the wide arms of the chair supported her almost erect.

For a moment the ladies in waiting could not understand what had happened. When they tried to support her, she was gone.

It chanced that Father Policrates, the empress’ chaplain, was in the palace at the time. In such matters the Church knew how to move rapidly, which was why the bells were tolling so very soon after Euphemia passed to her, no doubt, saintly reward.

Like John of Cappadocia, the citizens, hearing that tolling had generally believed that Emperor Justin was come to his expected end. That it was instead his consort was a surprise to all.

Details soon were available, and the demise of the empress became the most discussed topic of the day. Some said the palace physicians were at fault, and that Euphemia’s too-sanguine complexion and choleric disposition should have given them warning. But it was conceded even by those who said this that the empress had appeared to be in the best of health and in full vigor—good for another twenty years at least, when she was cut off in a manner so untimely.

Well, said the city with a shrug, life is short, even for the high and mighty. The polite and conventional garb of mourning was put on, but sorrow was not deeply felt. Because of her habit of avoiding public appearances whenever possible, Euphemia was hardly known, and she had done nothing to make herself popular. About the only thing her death meant to the common people was the chance it afforded them to watch the solemn pageantry when state services were held for her in the Cathedral of Sancta Sophia. So now the populace was gathered in its myriads, waiting.

Presently the great bell in the cathedral tower began again its mighty, measured death tolling. From the palace gates issued the funeral procession.

A detachment of Excubitors came first, flashing in their silver, gold, and white: looking each one like a very Achilles of war, invincible and indomitable, but carrying lances reversed, with the heads toward the ground.

Next came the Church, always at the head of such a march as this. Priests and monks, scores of them, in vestments or simple robes of penance, walked two and two, heads bowed, lips muttering prayers, hands pressed together before them, with a choir which chanted in muted voices a litaneutical dirge. After the monks, priests, and choir, who formed the lower sacerdotal orders, marched the higher dignitaries of the Church, the archpriests and vicars apostolic, the bishops and lesser patriarchs, and the archpatriarch, Hippias, with his venerable white beard, walking under his richly embroidered canopy which was carried by four deacons: all of these wearing the gorgeous regalia which showed their rank and sacred power, but with processional crosses and croziers shrouded in the dark gauze of mourning. So lengthy was the ecclesiastical column that the first of the priesthood had passed into the cathedral by the time the last came out of the palace gate.

Now another detachment of the glittering Excubitors: these with Commander Belisarius at their head, striding alone with a face of gravity and dignity, creating a ripple of whispers among many of the feminine onlookers, for in his armor he was impressively soldierly.

Presently appeared the ambassadorial contingent, magnificent and yet bizarre in garb: Persia, Italy, Africa, Hispania, Gaul, Ethiopia, scores of barbaric or semi-barbaric nations; turbans, horned helmets, other strange headgear all mixed together; robes of cloth of gold, side by side with jackets of fur from some northland wolf or bear.

Excubitors again.

Next a long procession of women: the ladies in waiting of the late empress’ household. Heads shrouded, faces hidden by black veils, they paced along in pairs, a picture of dejection and sorrow, and making a great show of it, for this was a mighty occasion for them since they were, ostensibly, the intimates of the old woman who was gone.

Still another detachment of the shining Excubitors.

The court officials and high patricians followed these. Tribonian was in this rank, walking beside his immediate superior, old Proclus, the quaestor, who was somewhat feeble and leaned on his subordinate’s arm even for this brief pilgrimage. With them were scores of the more important personages of all the governmental bureaus, including Basil, the chamberlain, and the chief eunuchs of the imperial household.

Last in the procession, save for a rear guard of Excubitors, came the imperial party itself.

By virtue of his high office as praetorian prefect, John of Cappadocia was privileged to walk with this group.

He went first, and alone, in mourning as were all the others. As if in sorrow his head was bowed, but the ruff of hair, where his baldness ended at the base of his skull, seemed to bristle with intentness, and his ears strained for any word or comment from the crowd.

For immediately behind him, walking side by side, just ahead of the grand escort of Excubitors which marched before, behind, and on either side of the great black-draped imperial litter which bore old Justin, came Prince Justinian and his mistress.

Very anxious was John to know the feeling of the people toward this appearance of the pair together in public for the first time. He was bitter, and terribly disappointed: the unexpected death of the empress had been a stunning setback to his plans, leaving him for the moment confused and powerless.

In his schemes Euphemia had been the central figure, the solid known quantity to which he anchored everything. Everyone had supposed that the empress would long outlive Justin, and Euphemia had no love for the prince: she resented his defiance of her in keeping his mistress in spite of her expressed displeasure. The role of a widowed empress in deciding succession was well marked in history, John reflected. Zeno, for example, had been raised to the purple by the influence of Verina, widow of Leo. And Zeno’s widow created Anastasius ruler of the empire. Instances like this were many. A virtuous empress, upholder of the traditions and honor of the nation, who denounced a candidate—even her late consort’s nephew—as unworthy, might virtually have sounded the knell to Justinian’s pretensions. And her favor toward the praetorian prefect was well known and pronounced, since he espoused her cause.

The Cappadocian felt somehow as if the empress had committed a treachery by dying in a manner so sudden, and while he was not even in the palace. Sometimes he ground his teeth and silently cursed her with pagan oaths for an old fool who never did anything well, even to dying. But this did not alter the inexorable fact that she was dead, and because of that fact he did not dare, for the present, to go farther with his plans.

Until a time more propitious his scarlet-robed orators must be kept in leash. The hierarchy of the Established Church, he knew, would make no move until it saw clearly what was shaping for the future. And already he had sent word to the chief officers of the Greens to do nothing until they heard further from him.

Perhaps the appearance of mourning which the burly prefect presented in the funeral cortege was as sincere as that shown by any of the hundreds who marched in it, but his sorrow was not for the dead empress so much as for the miscarriage of his schemes and the staggering blow to his hopes.

At a short interval behind the figure of John of Cappadocia, Theodora and Justinian walked to the cathedral side by side: everybody walked in this procession, save the emperor himself, who was too feeble and lamed by his ailing leg to walk.

The prince was very conscious of the girl who paced slowly along with him, her slim hands folded before her. Like the praetorian prefect he also wondered what impression she was making on the common people: it was enormously important, the manner in which the populace would accept the sight of one who had risen from among them, when they saw her thus honored with a place in the imperial family party.

Theodora appeared to be unconscious of what might be thought of her, eyes lowered, head bowed, face still. But as she progressed the crowd eyed her secretly, almost guiltily, for even in the garments of mourning she was wonderful to look on, every line of her features seeming to live with a rhythmic rightness and unity.

Yet her appearance of calm was a sham. Within her was a turmoil of nervous concern. Her future, her fate, were being decided by this bold appearance at the side of Justinian on an occasion so solemn and significant. Self-conscious as women in her condition are, she thought perhaps that her pregnancy revealed itself and feared what might be the reaction to that revelation. But on this score she need not have been concerned. Her body was ripening, it is true, but only slightly as yet, and the flowing garments she wore concealed all such evidence from prying eyes since this was hardly the third month.

Unaware of these varied emotions in the personages under their gaze, the crowd craned and whispered. Slowly the procession was swallowed up in the cathedral, where the sarcophagus of the empress, over which for three days and nights relays of priests had said continual prayers, awaited. Ecclesiastics, ambassadors, court officials, patricians, women of the household, members of the imperial party, filled the immense nave of the church to capacity.

Without, the Excubitors took up stiff ranks before the doors, and the soldiers continued to maintain the cleared avenue from the cathedral to the palace gate.

Part of the crowd in the Augusteum began to fritter away. Three long hours would pass before the priesthood completed its ceremonies and sacraments; and the departed soul of Euphemia would be considered sufficiently glorified with incense, holy water, countless candles, posturing, chants, and prayers covering every conceivable contingency that a soul might encounter in its pilgrimage through the hereafter.

But though some departed, thousands remained idling in the square, waiting to see the cortege when it returned to the palace. It had been an impressive spectacle, and by no means the least interesting thing about it was the young woman whom all had seen walking demurely beside the prince to the cathedral.

2 }

More alert than ever in her life to every contingency, open or hidden, Theodora knew she had reached a great turning point.

She still had the power to feel amazement—almost disbelief sometimes—at winning the love of a prince of the empire like Justinian. Never in all her life had she belittled her own womanhood; but she recognized with wonder that in all history no other woman, frankly a courtesan, had equaled this achievement of gaining the devotion of a man who could choose from the femininity of the entire empire.

A yet greater step must be taken now. She had Justinian’s promise to make her his wife, for the sake of the child now within her. It seemed a simple matter, provided he could induce old Justin to make a small alteration in the law, but actually it was not so simple. Royal marriages affect entire nations. And this marriage, which Justinian greatly desired and she even more greatly, contravened all precedent and convention.

Already the inevitable rumors had begun, to the effect that the prince might attempt to make an honest woman out of the girl to whom it was evident he was an abject thrall.

One cynical remark, uttered by Sophronia, the acid wife of Silvius Testor, had come to Theodora’s ears: “The empire has had empresses who became harlots, but never a harlot who became empress.”

Obviously Theodora had her full complement of ill-wishers and she must take that into consideration in whatever followed. Meantime there was a voice more important than palace gossips: the voice of the people.

Above everything it was important to know what was the temper and feeling of the populace, for the mob, which was the terror of every emperor in the history of the empire, was not to be aroused.

That her chief enemy, John of Cappadocia, would have complete and intimate reports on public reaction to her, she was aware. As one phase of his official activities, the praetorian prefect maintained, on the government pay roll but reporting to him only, a whole army of spies and informers: ten thousand of them in the empire; hundreds in the city itself.

How might a woman who commanded no service of information match the information John of Cappadocia had at his finger tips?

Theodora believed she knew a way.

3 }

Hagg, on his donkey, was at his usual place beside the pedestal of the marble Aphrodite on the day following the funeral of the empress. He did not notice that the people were particularly sorrowful, or that they were any more liberal, or less generous than usual in their alms.

Shortly after noon a litter approached him. It was a fine litter, but without escort: curtained in black without ornament of any kind, and carried by eight black slaves who wore loincloths of black, so that the whole assemblage was a symbol of mourning, with nothing whatever to identify it. Since black was being affected generally in the city, Hagg paid little attention to the litter, until it halted beside him.

Instantly the beggar’s bullfrog voice boomed out the ritual of importunity which he had altered to fit this occasion of mourning.

“Alms, Illustrious One! Alms to the needy! Consider life, how short and quickly ended, as in the case of our beloved empress! Lay not up for yourself in worldly things, but lay up for yourself in heaven—by relieving the necessities of the poor and miserable!”

This had been a successful formula, but it evoked from within the litter only a musical little laugh.

“Here, good Hagg, for your alms.”

Through a slit in the curtains came a slender hand, and Hagg felt the satisfying weight of a purse of coins dropped into his claws.

“You’ll find no coppers in that,” said the voice, “nor silver, either.”

A purse of gold! He gasped. “The blessings of the saints——”

Again the light laugh. “Have we not agreed that blessings are not needful between friends?” said the voice.

The beggar’s deformed head moved about, eyes darting in every direction, and coming to rest on the slaves, who stood like statues of ebony, staring expressionlessly ahead, the litter resting on their shoulders.

“They are mutes,” said the voice, “and have no means of telling what they may hear.”

Tongueless slaves? Hagg had a very good notion of whence they came. In the lower chambers of the palace prison, where unfortunates charged with treason were tortured to wring from them confessions, such slaves were employed as executioners, their means of speech taken away from them so that, since they could neither read nor write, they could never reveal the terrible secrets they heard or witnessed.

“What do you want of me?” he asked cautiously, knowing that from this extraordinary precaution of borrowing mutes from prison chambers the visit must be for a very secret reason.

“Knowledge,” said the voice.

“From me? We beggars be poor, and helpless——”

“And know everything, as I said once before. Your people must have been in many places in the crowd at the time of the empress’ funeral yesterday. And today you have ears in all parts of the city.”

“Perhaps,” he conceded.

“I would learn what the general feeling is about my appearance in the cortege before all eyes, with Prince Justinian.”

Hagg turned it over in his mind. Then he said, “You have nothing to fear from the populace at present.”

“Why—at present?”

“Because none have yet sought to influence public opinion against you. I would not vouch for what tomorrow may bring.”

“But—at present—what do the people say?”

“There are, of course, a few—old wives, mainly—who think it scandalous that the prince should bestow his favor on a—on a——”

“Harlot,” she supplied coolly. “Go on.”

“But for the most part, from what I myself have heard, and from what my people tell me, it has rather tickled the public’s fancy than otherwise. Most men have a weakness for a beautiful woman, so they’re predisposed in your favor. Also, the audacity of the game you’ve played is the subject of much talk, and its success provides the rabble with a sort of amused satisfaction.”

“Amused—at me?”

“No. At those above whom you’ve climbed, and who, it’s generally believed, are most unhappy over it.”

“Public opinion, then, is favorable to me?”

“At present, I repeat. But take warning.”

“As to what?”

“You are of the people. They smile at your success, since it’s in a manner of speaking success for their class. But they still consider you one of them.”

A moment’s hesitation in the black litter. Then, “Hagg—what if—the prince should decide to make me—his wedded wife?”

He gave the closed curtains a quick and very searching look, as if he were trying to peer through them at the face of the woman within.

Presently he said, “You ask me for an opinion. If it were possible for such a marvel to take place, I think the populace would applaud. At least at first. But even this would never remove from their minds the thought that you are from the streets and no better than any of them. In this is your greatest danger.”

“Why?”

“Should the people turn against you, their fury will be ten times more bitter and vindictive than it might be against one born to a higher station than their own.”

Silence for a moment from the litter. Then, “Again I say, Hagg, that you are wise among men. And my own danger I already know. A harlot, in the minds of some, I will remain forever. In others, an upstart. In yet others, an object of jealousy. I have enemies in plenty, and of these prejudices they might, if given the opportunity, make much. Perhaps to my ruin.”

He nodded silently. For a moment there was silence.

“Mendici——” softly said the voice within the litter.

“Why do you utter the word?”

“I need greatly your help. Forget not, Hagg, that you and I have handled the begging bowl together. Lend me the ears of your people. There will be money——”

“Money is excellent,” interrupted Hagg. “I do not despise money. Yet there is a greater thing than money—friendship. I forget not the begging bowl we handled together, little Theodora.”

Hardly noticed by the passers in the square was the brief conversation. A black shrouded litter—there were many such in this period of mourning—was seen to stop for a few minutes beside the statue of Aphrodite, a gift was made to a beggar, the litter moved on and disappeared in the direction of the Via Alta.

4 }

When Theodora descended from her litter at the Hormisdas palace and sent the tongueless slaves back to the dungeons from which she had borrowed them, she was still thinking.

Twice Hagg had emphasized that the people looked upon her and her success with tolerance—at present.

But there was no telling when the mob’s fickle temper might change. Whom they laughed about today they might hate on the morrow, and scream for her head. After all she was one of them: a questionable mediocrity, but one from which she saw no way to cut herself.

She might avoid public notice and perhaps public displeasure simply by doing nothing: by remaining hidden in the Hormisdas and continuing to be the prince’s mistress without seeking any higher status: by bearing his child secretly and asking nothing for it. This was the way to avoid trouble and danger.

But Theodora could not follow this way. To her nature it was impossible to stand still. Furthermore, she had learned lessons flavored with the bitterness of death. One was that a woman in her position, surrounded by court politics and conflicting ambitions, can never remain static even if she wishes it. If she seeks to stand still she will surely begin to slip back, and will lose everything in the end. She felt that she was set down in so desperate a game that only by continual effrontery and continual luck could she hope to win.

She considered the question of marriage. To be made an honest woman, to legitimatize her child—such things had meant almost nothing to her as much as a year ago. But now she was at the edge of a different kind of life. She had seen the powerful protection of convention, and how it shelters those whom it surrounds. Defiance of convention, contempt for convention, these had been her background, so much so that it almost surprised her to discover herself seeking some loopholds by which she could draw herself within the very shell about which she had always skittered so gaily and carelessly.

There were reasons for convention, excellent reasons, she now knew. Words came back to her, the wise words uttered by Macedonia:

The courtesan is the enemy of the home, the enemy of motherhood and children, because she wins men from their wives and families, giving only pleasure, and sterile pleasure, in return.

Also: When a woman experiences love of the noblest kind . . . the consequences may be tragic for her, but they are epic; and though everything may end in disaster, for a time she treads in the paths of the gods.

Once she doubted that she could feel such a love, but now she could understand it. She wanted wifehood, for herself, and for her child—and even for Justinian.

Now she considered her assets. Justinian was hers, almost drugged by the opiate ecstasy of his love. He had promised, on his oath, to marry her—if he could.

But a man is not to be trusted to carry through such a determination without a woman’s constant influence and urgency. The male is inclined to take the matter lightly: there is plenty of time, according to his airy notion. But the female knows there is not plenty of time. Each day her span of years for the great function of her sex grows less. In the case of Theodora the stress was even more serious: she had a baby coming, and only months, not years, to count.

Somehow it must be made possible for Justinian to marry her, and he must be induced to act at once. In this would be new risk, but she never lacked courage. Destiny must be fulfilled, and only when destiny was accomplished would she know the outcome.

First things came always first with her. Before she could marry Justinian—or any other man—a certain obstacle must be removed: a law many centuries old.

Men do things by rules and deeds and schemes. Women do things by the spell they hold over the hearts and minds of men who can do those things for her.

Theodora selected now the man she would work upon, and in many respects it was the greatest audacity of her life.

5 }

Although Euphemia, who had watched over the old emperor, was gone, Basil, the chamberlain and chief eunuch of the imperial household, still remained to keep a bloodhound eye on Justin. Basil was astounded and scandalized when he was summoned by word from the guards to the door of the Sigma palace, and found there Justinian’s mistress, alone.

“What do you want?” said the eunuch. For this woman he felt the animosity all his class felt for her.

“I seek a private audience with the emperor,” she replied.

“That’s impossible!”

“Is it?” she said. “Does the emperor refuse, or does his chief eunuch?”

Pert. Irritatingly pert and saucy, thought Basil, with a womanish desire to slap her face.

But he restrained this desire. It came over him that he did not now have the stout backing of Euphemia, and that there were ways for this forward little creature to reach old Justin with complaints, if he took too much on himself. For one thing, the prince, her lover, was in daily conference with his uncle . . .

Basil decided that discretion would be served best if he inquired of the emperor. So, swallowing his personal feelings, he left the girl standing in the atrium and went within.

Old Justin was nodding in a doze in his favorite wide-armed chair, his ailing leg propped on a cushioned stool.

Basil cleared his throat. “Imperial Majesty, Glorious Clemency——”

Justin came out of his doze with a start. He looked about the room vaguely, at old Vinitius his orderly, at the guards and his personal attendants, and finally at Basil, who stood swelling portentously at the door.

“You addressed me, Basil?” he said. “What is it?”

“One has come to the palace asking personal audience with the Magnificence,” said the chamberlain.

“Personal audience?” the old emperor said peevishly. “You know I want no personal audiences, Basil!”

The eunuch bowed. “Your servant beseeches your pardon, Sublime Graciousness, for bothering you. I should have known——”

He was about to withdraw, but Justin, though he seemed so vague, was not without keen perceptions at times. He caught a little gleam in Basil’s eyes. Evidently the one awaiting audience was not approved by the eunuch. That was enough to merit a little further inquiry.

“Wait!” said the emperor. “Who is this person?”

“A woman, Imperial Majesty.”

“Aha! A woman, eh? What’s her name?”

“Her name, I believe, is Theodora,” said the chamberlain stiffly.

“Theodora?” Justin groped in his memory. “Theodora—you mean that girl of Justinian’s?”

“So I understand, Heaven Born.”

Old Justin frowned. “What could she be wanting here?” he said, as if to himself.

“I have no idea, Magnificence. I shall tell her to begone——”

“Just wait a minute, Basil! Why are you in such an infernal hurry? Give me a moment to think!”

The eunuch hesitated, and the emperor cogitated.

Justin remembered the girl now. She was quite pretty, and a faint curiosity stirred him.

“Bring her in,” he said.

“Surely, Your Imperial Magnanimity——”

“I said bring her in!” snapped Justin.

Basil concealed his chagrin and withdrew. A moment later Theodora stood before the old emperor, and with the wondrous flowing grace of a woman went to her knees.

Justin looked upon her. She was a charming creature—delightfully fresh, and winsome, and young.

“You seek audience?” he said.

“Yes, O Magnificence.” Her voice was low, as with awe.

“You may go, Basil!” said the emperor sharply to the eunuch, who had lingered just within the door. The chamberlain disappeared.

Vinitius took up his usual post, standing behind his master’s chair. The guards at the entrance stared straight ahead, and the attendants likewise stood at a distance, silently.

“What boon do you ask of us?” Justin said in a manner not unkindly.

“If what I say be presumption, I beg Your Most Glorious Eminence to forgive me for it, knowing it is prompted by love and concern of his humblest subject for her emperor.”

He nodded his white head. “Say on.”

“I ask no boon, Magnificence, except the boon of being permitted to serve Your Imperial Majesty.”

“Many serve us. In what way do you wish to serve?”

“The Heaven Born knows how Justinian, his loyal and affectionate nephew, labors long and hard to lighten the imperial burdens. I would try—in my poor way—to lighten the imperial hours.”

Nobody in his entire reign had made just such a proposal to Justin before, and the novelty of it intrigued him.

It is not difficult for an old man to be gracious to a young woman. Her youth itself is like the radiance of morning, warming his cold weariness. After all, Justin thought to himself, this girl was Justinian’s mistress. That made her almost a part of the family. He felt moved to encourage her.

“Rise, child,” he said, “and approach us.”

When she obeyed and came forward to stand by his chair, he held forth his hand, and felt her warm, soft little palm laid upon it. To hold a girl’s hand, he found, was an unaccountably pleasing and almost forgotten sensation. She did not offer to take the hand away from him.

“These hours of which you speak,” he said, “how would you lighten them?”

“By coming, when Your Magnificence’s condescension permits, to amuse you.”

She glanced at him from under her eyelashes, and was sure she had succeeded in making on him a favorable impression. Age and loneliness together form in a man a weakness of which a young and pretty woman can take a strong advantage.

“I can talk, and read aloud, and tell stories,” she went on boldly. “I can, with Your Majesty’s gracious permission, bring you each day the gossip and witticisms of the court, and also of the city.”

“Yes?” Another nod of the curly white head.

“If you wish to laugh at times, I can perhaps bring to you mirth, for I am considered a good mimic. I can also amuse you with games——”

“I weary of games,” he said petulantly.

She looked at him. “Has Your Gracious Clemency seen the new game from Persia, called chatrang?”

“No. What is this game?”

“It is a war game, played on a board of squares, black and white, with pieces carved from ivory and ebony, representing kings and queens, generals on horseback, bishops, war elephants, and common soldiers. Your Magnificence, who is himself a notable general, might find in it a diversion.”

She hesitated, but he nodded to her to go on. “The tale is told, Majesty, that the game was first brought to the Persian court by an ambassador from the emperor of Hind, calling on the king of Persia to solve the secrets of the game, if he could, or pay tribute. The king asked for seven days of grace, during which his wise men tried vainly to solve the game. But his minister then took the game home and solved it in a day and a half. Since then it has been the royal pastime of the Persian monarchs, and I could explain the rules whereby it is played——”

She did not state that her set of chatrang was a gift made to her by the Persian ambassador at the time Justinian publicly acknowledged her. But in this manner the emperor first learned of the game which later ages would know as chess.

For a third time Justin nodded. This girl would be a pleasant relief from the drab surroundings and the drab company to which he was accustomed. A little laughter, a little light gossip, a bright face, would do him no harm. Decidedly she was a contrast to Basil the eunuch; to the dour-visaged court physicians; to old Vinitius, the toothless.

He gave her hand a parting squeeze and released it. After all, he found himself warming to her in a way curiously grandfatherly. And this was not the least subtle part of Theodora’s performance. To perfection she had played the part of a pretty child, so that if there still was a tiny streak of lechery in the emperor it was lulled. From the beginning they were on a basis mutually understood, and to old Justin at least, comforting.

It was remarked thereafter by the court that Theodora went in and out of the imperial living quarters without question. To her gossip and stories the emperor listened with delight. Resoundingly he laughed—and it was good for him—when she gaily impersonated some of the persons he knew: the praetorian prefect, for example, or the archpatriarch, or old General Milo—or others, even his own chief eunuch, Basil.

This last skit, in which she took off the pompous mannerisms of the chamberlain to the very life—and in which the eunuch was supposed to be searching for something, he had forgotten what, that he had lost—was an improvisation of one of her old acts. The humor of it was perhaps broad, and would never have been permitted in the palace by Euphemia, since it was obvious that Basil was searching for his lost manhood. But it made old Justin howl with glee.

The emperor’s chief interest, however, centered in the game Theodora introduced to him. He learned the chess rules quickly, and quickly also he was able to beat her, because his was the chess player’s mind. He made old Vinitius learn the game, and for hours every day he devoted himself to it, even when the girl was gone.

Chess became to him almost an obsession. The problems, stratagems, and variations were innumerable and everlasting. In it he could lose himself and forget his boredom, even the ache of his suppurating leg.

Because she did these things for him, he came almost to dote on Theodora. And frequently, it was also noted by the court, Prince Justinian and his mistress joined the emperor for evening suppers in the imperial chambers. To those who stood in awe and fear of Justin, these things sounded almost incredible. But winsome young women have before and since, if they put their minds to it, found it possible to achieve such miracles of familiarity with lonely, if crusty, old men.

At the end of the month of state mourning a new law was proclaimed in the empire. It was promulgated by Emperor Justin, and repealed a very ancient statute which forbade the marriage of men of honorable standing to actresses, courtesans, and innkeepers’ daughters.

A glorious repentance—in the words of the edict—was thus opened for these unfortunate creatures . . .

6 }

Justinian did not keep his promise to be married to Theodora “by a bishop and before the people,” but this was because she herself chose a less public ceremony.

On the Sunday before her wedding she was baptized at the font of little St. Stephen’s church, within the palace walls.

Two days later old Justin had himself carried to the same church, to be a witness to the vows which were said at the altar.

Many dignitaries of the empire likewise were witnesses. One of these, a man with a bald skull but otherwise very hairy in appearance, watched the ceremony with apparent cordial consent, but with inward anger and distaste.

John of Cappadocia felt in it another defeat. About this wedding there was nothing he could do at present. In point of fact, he must be more than careful henceforth to school himself in deference to the bride such as he always accorded to her husband, the prince.

Perfectly John knew how to assume such deference, and it did not prevent him from continuing to scheme. He had rallied from the setback caused by Euphemia’s death, and though the solemnizing of the legal tie between Justinian and Theodora appeared to make his secret ambitions more difficult of attainment, John had begun, even before the couple knelt on the cushions at the foot of the altar to receive the final blessing, to weigh this development with a mind as smooth and subtle as his appearance was uncouth, and to wonder if it might not, after all, be turned more to his advantage than not.

Theodora, rising from kneeling a wedded wife, found herself hardly able to grasp the fact. With a mind almost numbed she went with Justinian to make obeisance before the emperor. And with ears almost deaf she heard the polite salutations and congratulations of the courtiers and officials.

Afterward, alone with Justinian in their apartments in the Hormisdas, she received his kiss as if she were still drugged.

He was her husband, and he loved her in a manner almost blindly passionate, as if she were the aim of all existence, other things, other actions, other joys only the husks and dressings of life. To this headlong devotion it would have been nearly impossible for the woman in her not to return love. And she did love him: an experience wholly new to her, who had never loved any man in this manner before.

But unlike Justinian, her thoughts were not overwhelmed and submerged by her love. The hard, sharp training of the streets effectually kept her mind from lulling. Though this should have been a time of great fulfillment for her, it was not.

As wife to the prince she had achieved stature of which she would not have dared dream a few months before. But this new state was surrounded by continual and heightened dangers, the more haunting because they were vague and undefined as yet, though her instinct warned her of them.

Plots and jealousies were directed against her. Members of the hierarchy of the Church, ever courtly, were never her friends: words to the contrary did not make it so. Justinian’s own position was unsure, if the old emperor should suddenly die. And constantly in her mind was the thought of her enemy of all men, though she did not know how to deal with him, being unable to sway her husband in his belief in John of Cappadocia, or persuade him even to listen to a warning that there was treachery in the prefect.

In this was a taste of bitterness. And a subject of much thinking. And sometimes a thrill of fear, like the cold shudder which goes over a person when, according to superstition, someone walks over the place where his grave is to be.

1 }

Singular among all the buildings of the imperial enclosure was the structure known as the Porphyry palace.

At a distance from the others, it overlooked the sea as if at once aloof and excommunicate by reason of the purpose to which it was devoted. Other palace buildings throve constantly with life. But rarely was the Porphyry palace frequented, save by a few old caretakers who, as its custodians, enjoyed sinecure positions.

It was odd, even ugly to look at, square with an awkward pyramidal roof, as if it disdained the niceties of architecture. But its most curious feature was its color: purple was its motif, and its reason for being. Its walls were of porphyry of that hue, from which it got its name. Its roof was of purple tiles. Within, also, it was gloomily and morbidly purple. The imperial color, sign and symbol of the throne, when used extensively as here, gave no feeling either of brightness or warmth.

On a certain day in September the first chill rain of autumn added its dreariness, yet on that day the Porphyry palace presented every aspect of a festival. It was crowded with notables, who filled the large central chamber and even the rooms and halls which gave off from it. In groups they stood, patrician men and women, officials, and foreign ambassadors, warming their hands at the many braziers which were alight, talking and laughing, gossiping amusingly, comparing notes, nodding or shaking heads, even making wagers. Among them glided slaves with trays of cups filled with fine wines, while all about the walls stood refectory tables laden with delicacies: meats and fowl, fish and bread, and a great variety of confections of every kind, so that the guests ate and drank in a mood of pleased conviviality.

Yet continually their eyes turned to the center of the chamber, where on a great bed with purple sheets embroidered with thread of gold, a woman writhed in sudden spasms, and sometimes cried out in pain through her clenched teeth.

Not once had the shockingly public nature of her childbearing suggested itself to Theodora, until the very time when her labor pains began and she was carried to the Porphyry palace. She knew her child was to be born “in the purple.” But that scores of people, many of them strangers to her, would see every stage of her ordeal was a new realization from which she recoiled.

When her time comes a woman above all things desires privacy. Those necessary to help her through her travail she wants and is grateful to them. But others, watching her in an hour when even the most gracious and accomplished woman reverts to the simple female animal in that brutal functioning which is the climax action of her sex—these she does not welcome. Rather she resents them.

It is the time when she is not accountable for her actions; when she may lose all control, and scream and sob; when all beauty is drained from her; when the monstrous thing that is happening to her body almost drives away her sanity in the pain and fear that center within herself, on what she is doing in spite of herself, and must do, in the final analysis, all by herself.

But custom and tradition are inexorable. Of such enormous importance was the birth of a child in the imperial family that there must be many witnesses to it, to testify to having seen the birth, so that the bloodline would never be challenged. Therefore the chatting, laughing, gossiping, feasting guests, who crowded the delivery chamber, and watched curiously the obscene spectacle of a woman struggling with her own intimate, terrible crisis on the great purple bed.

Not all were spectators. Beside the bed physicians, bearded and grave, consulted. Midwives, the most skillful to be found, presided.

And not all spectators laughed. On a high dais facing the foot of the bed, from which he could see every movement and act, sat Justinian, white-faced, uttering no word to anyone, sometimes gripping the arms of his chair so hard that the knuckles of his hands went white: by designated custom rooted to his chair until all was over.

Standing back near the wall, with no smile on his face, was Father Policrates, the Cilician monk who had been chaplain to the late Empress Euphemia: a dark, club-jointed man, almost formidably austere in appearance, with burning eyes which took in everything, and a lank and lengthy beard, intensely black, which dangled to below the rope with which he girdled his brown habit about his waist. Father Policrates, still attached to St. Stephen’s, the palace church, and acting as informant and intermediary for the hierarchy, was present as an observer, for the Established Church viewed with the gravest concern this birth of a child to a woman now stigmatized by it as a Monophysite heretic. He would make his report to the conventicle in the cathedral, and the hierarchy would then consider what grave steps to take for the meeting of this new complication.

Near the monk stood another who did not smile: John of Cappadocia. And though he contrasted remarkably in appearance with Father Policrates, they were similar in the expression of strong attention on their faces. The birth of the child was viewed by the praetorian prefect, too, as a possible danger to his plans. He and the monk did not speak to each other, but the devious schemes and interlaced interests of these two constituted a peril to the girl writhing on the bed, which she did not know or even consider.

Very soon after being placed on the purple bed, Theodora forgot all about the gaping crowd of courtiers surrounding her. She had given birth once before, and this time it should have been easier. But she was small, and the witnesses were kept waiting for hours, watching her twist and struggle; pale as death against the funereal purple on which she lay; sometimes almost fainting, sometimes shivering; whimpering and crying out at times, at times gasping for air; before at last the little head, already covered with dark hair, appeared from the orifice, and the baby was drawn forth by the midwives.

Then was raised a shout in the Porphyry palace: “Hail to the Imperial One!”

The first salute to the tiny new creature.

Justinian sat rigidly forward. On a table beside the bed, midwives and physicians worked over the baby, seeming to forget the mother, who, now that the umbilical cord was severed, lay with her eyes closed as if dead.

The two dark witnesses by the wall said nothing of it, but the same thought was in both their minds: better if she had died, and the child with her.

All at once a series of grating cries was heard: the first tortured sounds from a new being born into the world, as if it protested this undesired entry.

With a flourish the chief physician took the naked morsel of flesh from the chief midwife, and displayed it to Justinian.

“Glorious Magnificence, I present to you the Imperial Issue!” said the physician, in the phrase obligatory for the occasion.

Having done so, he held the little thing aloft, tiny red monkey face with eyes screwed shut, straggly dark hair still wet, pimply red body with a band of white cloth about it where the umbilical tube was severed and tied. The physician turned the newborn baby so that all in the crowded room could see it.

John of Cappadocia and Father Policrates exchanged a significant look; and a whisper, almost horrified, went about the room.

“A girl . . . it’s a girl . . .”

Faint and only semi-conscious, Theodora heard the whisper, and knew that in some manner the whisperers held her to blame. Mightily important was the sex of a child in the imperial family. A boy represented an heir to the throne. A girl represented only, at best, a possible bargaining pawn in some sort of international alliance through marriage.

After all she had been through . . . to be held a failure for what she could not help! The injustice of it, and her weakness, caused the tears to leak out through her closed eyelids.

But nobody noticed her tears. A grave disappointment, everyone felt, that the baby was a girl. Yet, almost at once, the courtiers began to remind each other that this, after all, was only the first one. There would, presumably, be others from the same source, and no doubt the next would be male.

At that the witnesses grew quite cheerful, even gay, since none of them would have to go through the savage ordeal which the girl on the bed had just undergone to produce the desired princeling. With one accord they began to drink toasts to Justinian, to the old emperor, to the empire, to the physician in charge, to the heir-yet-to-be, to one another. Some few even remembered to drink a small toast to the new mother and the disappointing girl-child which had just been born.

John of Cappadocia, with a well-schooled grin, lifted his wine cup to the prince. A dark figure with a very long black beard detached itself from the crowd and left the Porphyry palace, striding rapidly through the rain toward the Chalké gate, for Father Policrates had been instructed to bring soonest information to his reverend superiors at the cathedral.

Theodora lay perfectly still, her eyes closed. The tears ceased, and she no longer felt any particular sorrow or resentment. It was good, wonderfully good, to rest thus, her tortured body at ease, all pain gone. The physicians and midwives finished their attendance on her, the necessary after-work on the mother following the birth of a baby, and she was covered over, shielded at last from all prying eyes. For the moment her mind was as still as her body. No thinking now. Only silent gratitude that it was over.

2 }

In her days of convalescence Theodora’s slowly awakening thoughts dwelt with a sort of holy joy on one single theme. She had now a baby. It was hers.

No pitiless denunciation by fanatics this time. No taking her child away from her. Instead there were shelter, care, and hope for her and her infant. Compared to this nothing else seemed important.

As she grew acquainted with her infant daughter, she believed, as has every mother in all the world, that no such beautiful child ever had existed before. Such a precious little bit of life it was! She spent her time admiring and adoring its tiny hands, so incredibly perfect even to the pink shells of fingernails; its eyes, blue when they were open; its mouth like a little rosebud always seeking sustenance.

It was the simplest, most fundamental, and most satisfying of emotions. Macedonia, the wise, had expressed the meaning of it to her. Woman is love, and love is woman. But there is more: the end of love is motherhood. All women are made for these transcendent things, and they are the supreme sources of their power.

But though one of the roles appears to stem naturally from the other, it occurred to Theodora, they are by no means concurrent, or in some instances even harmonious. How many women have become mothers unwillingly, giving birth to children perhaps begotten in them by men they despised and hated? Yet such is their impelling nature that hardly ever, even in such unhappy circumstances, has the mother failed to give the little undesired creature, once it arrived, the full power of her love and care. The words “unnatural mother” identify only the most exceptional cases. Hence, the onus.

Love, as given to a man, is however another matter, Theodora considered. It might perhaps be said that women sometimes fall in love in spite of themselves, which is to say against their better judgment. But their love, once it is given, cannot be truly unwilling. It follows, therefore, that the fullest harmony of feminine fulfillment is motherhood that is the result of freely given love, made safe and protected.

Pondering these matters in her bed as she lay in bodily lassitude but keenly awake in mind, the girl of the streets gave her full, silent fealty to the laws, the sacraments, and the conventions of society at which once she had laughed. Marriage, the exchange of vows with a man, witnessed and accepted by the people, and a life on a plane of dignity and repute had made all this vast difference to her, were now her armor and comfort. Forever, from this time forth, the harlot in her was expunged and forgotten.

She wished nothing better than to spend her life treasuring the little being she had brought into the world. It was part of her: she was held to it by a mystical bond of worship and intuitive understanding stronger even than the physical connection between them which was cut at the baby’s birth.

No more striving for the unattainable for Theodora. Let the years take care of themselves. In her new motherhood she was, for the first time in her life, at peace with herself and the world.

It did not occur to her that her motherhood, and her infant, could be causing grave men to hold weighty discussions, tinged with apprehension and resentment. Or that the laws and conventions surrounding her might not be sufficiently strong to protect her from forces which she did not suspect, set going by the natural and humble thing she had done.

A royal child is something more than itself. It represents dynastic policies and historic actions. And at least in one quarter Theodora’s baby was the subject of portentous consideration.

The day after she and her babe were taken from the funereal discomfort of the Porphyry palace to the genial warmth of the Hormisdas, the child was baptized, and since Justinian requested it, by the archpatriarch himself, white-bearded old Hippias.

Theodora saw the gathering of robed personages in her room, saw the head nurse place the baby in Justinian’s arms, and saw him smile down on it. Then she knew he was happy with it, even if it was a girl, and her eyes filled. Hippias read forth the office, touched the tiny head with a few drops of water, and named the child Justiniana, after its father.

The old emperor did not attend the ceremony. Justin was very ill at the time, too weak to lift his head from the pillow. Somehow the rugged old peasant clung still to the flickering sparks of life, but it could not be for much longer now. Because Justinian said nothing to her at this time, Theodora did not know that he was profoundly concerned over his uncle’s state.

It was while the archpatriarch and his ecclesiastical party were on their way back to the Cathedral of Sancta Sophia following the christening that Hippias said to his palace representative, “Do you think, Father Policrates, that in this request for baptism at my own hands, there may be hope for a better understanding between Holy Church and the Hormisdas?”

The Cilician monk shook his head. “None, Holy Eminence.”

“But the prince was most dutiful in asking of us this sacrament. And the woman, too, received baptism at the font.” He was a kind, benignant man, the archpatriarch, though liable to be overborne by his sterner subordinates.

“In matters of doctrine baptism does not signify,” said Father Policrates. “Bear in mind that the sacrament frees the soul from original sin, the sin of Adam, with which all men are born. But from original sin only. Those sins which man wickedly commits after his birth, to his soul’s destruction—and none is more deadly than heresy, the denial of the true teachings of the Church—must be expiated by confession, repentance, atonement, and absolution. Has Your Holiness heard of any confession or repentance by the woman, Theodora, for her heretical wickedness?”

Hippias shook his head sadly.

A spasm of anger passed over the monk’s fierce face, with its lengthy beard. “Be sure, Holy Eminence, that she bides her time like the cockatrice she is.”

The word cockatrice, as used in this sense by Father Policrates, had double significance, since it meant either a venomous serpent, or a prostitute, or both.

“And that time may come soon—too soon,” the monk went on. “I am told that the emperor, the strong bulwark of Orthodoxy, has not long for this life. What will happen then? Can we ever forget the accursed days of Anastasius, when the Monophysites, spawn of the foul fiend that they are, held supremacy in the palace and the empire?”

At this Hippias lengthened his stride, and hardened his heart. The danger that, through the woman of the Hormisdas and the baby he had just baptized, the heretical tenet of the single nature of Christ might shake the acceptance of the two-fold nature, as upheld by the Catholics—and perhaps even overthrow the Established Church—was too grave to permit considerations of pity for individual persons. Holy Church must consider what to do about this woman and her child.

3 }

The good Hippias might have been spared his concern: at least part of it.

Past all comprehension are the ways of fate, and strange the manner in which the promise of life and the promise of death are sometimes confounded. The ancient one in the Sigma palace, old Emperor Justin, whose life spark flickered and almost went out, so that nobody thought he could survive from week to week, outlived the new child in which the spark had just been born.

Only a week after the birth, in the night, the terrible thing occurred.

Without warning the child was taken with a phlegm in the lungs, a dreadful choking.

Called by the nurse-women, Theodora was terror-stricken and wild with anxiety. A palace physician came at a run.

Do something . . . someone must, must do something . . .

Nobody could do anything. Nobody knew what to do.

The little thing went purple in the face, strangled, died.

Theodora saw it. But she could not believe it.

Dead? It could not be . . . her baby!

She seized it in her arms, held it frantically to her breast as if to warm it to life with her own blood. But gradually the immutable fact forced itself into her mind. It was gone, still, silent, growing cold already in her arms.

Almost by force, Justinian at last took the child away from her.

Now she went into a hysteria of weeping, holding her head in her arms, crying wildly and incoherently for her baby, until he feared she would harm herself.

Suddenly the tormented female in her struck out savagely and blindly, caring not what it hurt, so that someone suffered for the desperate hurt that had been done to her child and her.

Someone must pay for it!

Whips whistled and cracked, and the servant women who had been responsible as nurses screamed and sobbed as their backs were cut to ribbons by the lash.

The physician who had proved so incompetent was scourged also, to the verge of unconsciousness, and never practiced medicine again, for he spent the rest of his miserable life pulling an oar in an imperial galley.

In all this terrible outburst of fury, the almost mad wreaking of vengeance on any and all who were concerned, Justinian made no interference. He understood it in her: the striking out of a soul agonized to the point of irresponsibility for consequences. But it left Theodora only emptier, more anguished than before. For an entire night he almost despaired of her sanity.

After that came a calm equally terrible. It lasted for a day, while she moved like a woman in a dream.

At the funeral of her child, she sat silently in St. Stephen’s church. One phrase only, of the many spoken by the priests, penetrated her mind.

“The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away . . .”

At the unctuous words she inwardly rebelled. Who had given? Not the Lord! She, she had given . . . through suffering, and fear, and love. What right had the Lord to take away?

4 }

It broke her unnatural calm, and when Justinian took her back to the Hormisdas, she voiced her grief again, weeping and refusing food. Suddenly her anguish, which made her reckless, brought out of her a confession she had never intended to utter.

“I want my baby——” she moaned.

“She is gone, darling,” Justinian said wearily, but gently. “You can’t call her back—you must reconcile yourself——”

“But my other baby—I want her——”

“Your other baby?”

He did not comprehend, for until this moment she had never told him of the child born in Alexandria. But only one thing existed now for Theodora: the terrible emptiness in her heart which somehow she wanted to fill. Sobbing wildly, she told him of the child of which she had never dared speak before, about which she had hardly even dared think, leaving out only the affair with the slave so that Justinian naturally supposed the child was by Hecebolus.

The knowledge he received in this incoherent fashion at first stunned the prince. Then—and probably this was the final, fullest proof of his extraordinary devotion—he began to rationalize the thing in his mind. It all had happened, he reminded himself, before Theodora knew him. When he took her, he was fully aware of her past, and had made allowance for it. He was sure . . . or was he quite? . . . that this life was all behind her.

Yes. He was sure. Justinian straightened his back and put doubt resolutely out of his mind. Theodora loved him and was faithful to him only. The past was past. It must be so. He could not tolerate the thought that it might be otherwise.

Yet this child she mentioned . . . it was a continuation of what had gone on before, on which he had not reckoned. Was the past fully past, after all?

He considered; and again shook off the thought. Anything was better than the continual grief that was tearing at his beloved, making her a stranger to him, a dead thing in his arms. Above all he wanted her as she had been before, his bright creature of delight. He gazed at her and it seemed to him that her beauty was refined rather than subdued by her pallor and thinness resulting from her ordeal and grief. Even with eyelashes wet from tears she was still superbly lovely to him. With his eyes he drained the drug of her beauty. That helped him, more than any other thing, to accept the condition she had placed on him, which was that he seek a solution to this problem with which she suddenly had confronted him.

“You say the baby was taken away from you by the nuns of the hospice?” he asked her.

She nodded.

“And you know nothing of where it was taken?”

“No . . .” Now, for the first time, the enormity of what she had just confessed penetrated her grief. With a shock of fear she mopped her eyes and looked to see how he was taking it.

But Justinian was not angry. Instead, he spoke contemplatively.

“You might think that, knowing the name of the hospice, it would be easy for the imperial power to discover the child. But it is more difficult than it appears. Egypt is the parent nest of the Monophysites. No love lost for us there. A gigantic conspiracy of concealment would exist if it were known we desired the child—it would be like seeking one individual fish in the sea.”

Actually, he was exploring the possibilities! Theodora could hardly believe it.

His brows bent together in thought. “Perhaps a secret agent, a very clever one, working alone, might with great luck——”

She gasped. “You’ll do it? Oh, my beloved! My darling!”

Now the lover had his reward. She was in his arms, alive once more with hope, covering his face with kisses.

Happy, Justinian continued to build his plan. “I think of one who is clever beyond imagination,” he went on. “I might send him—though his chances of success, I must warn you, are small.”

“But at least to try,” she said. And then, “Who is he?”

“Narses, the chartularius.”

The office he mentioned was that of keeper of the imperial archives, an important post, and she knew whom he meant.

“But Narses is a eunuch,” she objected.

“A eunuch, true,” said Justinian. “But I think you’ll find him not an ordinary eunuch.”

That very evening Narses stood before Theodora.

In her new eager hope she was hardly the same woman she had been a few hours before, but her first impression of the eunuch was unfavorable. He was an undersized, thin creature, hardly taller than herself, with deep-set eyes, a face pathetically drawn and sad, and a high, domed brow, becoming bald.

Instinctively she felt in him bitterness. As well as if he had told her, she knew that he loathed his own frail body and the mutilation of his sex, and perhaps despised his physical betters.

But as she talked to him, she gradually altered her opinions. It was amazing how sometimes his long face became alive with swift intelligence, and how his thin lips were capable of expressing in turn malice, irony, or solid thought. As Justinian had suggested, this feeble, almost dwarfish body, and the long thin face, concealed a mentality lacking all the soft pettiness of the usual eunuch. It occurred to her that perhaps, if they came to a full understanding, he might be loyal to her beyond all others.

“Tell me your story, Narses,” she said.

“I am a native of Persia, Illustrious, but of Armenian blood,” he responded. “In childhood I was consigned to slavery, cruelly deprived of my manhood, and sold into Syria, where I spent my early years spinning and weaving wool in one of the slave factories of Tarsus. Later I became servant to the wife of Diphilos, a patrician of Pamphylia; then secretary to Diphilos himself, who brought me to Constantinople, where my poor talents so recommended themselves to Amantius, then imperial chamberlain, that through purchase I passed into the service of the emperor.”

“You were freed?”

“No, Gracious One. I purchased my own freedom, being fortunate enough to amass the money to do so. Since then I have occupied a succession of positions in the imperial service.”

“Each higher than before?”

“Yes, and if I may in all humbleness say so, each discharged to the best of my ability.”

“How old are you now?”

“In my fiftieth year.”

She reflected that he must have been in the midst of palace politics, knowing palace secrets, and drawing from these his own impressions, opinions, and policies, for perhaps thirty years.

“I have one reservation concerning you,” she said.

“By your gracious leave, I believe I know what it is,” said Narses. “I am a eunuch. You dislike eunuchs.”

“They’re not my well-wishers.”

“I am not a eunuch of eunuchs, Beautiful Magnanimity.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“If I belong to the so-called neuter sex, you might call me a traitor to it, for I have thoughts and ambitions which are not those of a eunuch.”

“Might you also, perhaps, be a traitor to me?”

“Never a traitor, Most Illustrious, to a star above me—when to it I hitch my chariot.”

It seemed to Theodora that she understood the wizened creature fully; more fully than anything he had said warranted. In the eunuch was some of her own mental fiber: the ambition, the daring, the recognition of the obligation of loyalty to one who represented the way upward.

“I give you my trust, Narses,” she said.

“I am not worthy, Moon of Beauty, but I will do my best.”

With final instructions, covering all the difficulties of his errand, and with ample funds supplied by Theodora, he bowed and departed. Next day he was gone from Constantinople.

5 }

Father Policrates stood in the conventicle of the hierarchy, held in a guarded room of the cathedral, and gazed at the churchly dignitaries who sat in a semicircle before him, each with his secretary at the table, pen behind ear and papyrus outspread. In the center of these was Hippias, the venerable archpatriarch, seated on his high sedilla.

“I can report these facts, Holy Fathers,” said the monk. “They come from a sure source of information.” He did not mention the source: John of Cappadocia, who learned almost everything that happened in the palace. “Narses, the chartularius, was summoned from his office by a message directly from Prince Justinian, commanding him to wait on Theodora. Thereafter, the chartularius was closeted with the woman for more than an hour. Last night, Narses sailed on the ship Mantos, which is bound for Alexandria.”

He paused. “Because of these circumstances, making it evident that the errand is for the woman, and since the destination is Alexandria, the heretics’ nest of Monophysites, I deemed it expedient to bring the matter to the attention of Your Worshipful Graces.”

There was an uneasy stir in the room.

“What do you think is the nature of this errand?” asked Hippias.

“Three persons only know the answer to that, Your Holiness. Justinian, Theodora, and Narses himself. In my humble opinion it is an embassy of some kind from the woman to those whose wicked beliefs she espouses, the Monophysites.”

Again the murmur and stir in the room.

“There is this sinister feature to be considered,” continued Father Policrates. “It is evident, since the prince commanded Narses to attend the woman, that this errand, whatever it is, is with the full knowledge, and I fear the support of Justinian.”

Almost a gasp came from the prelates in the room.

“You think—the woman may have turned the prince from Orthodoxy?” one of them said.

“I would not say so. But it is a possibility that must be considered.”

The bishops and secretaries glanced at one another in horror.

“This appears to have gone farther than I dreamed,” said Hippias.

Father Policrates said nothing, but gazed at them with compressed lips and an expression of utmost gravity.

All sessions of the conventicle were secret. And only the members of the hierarchy and their familiars ever knew the subsequent deliberations. But from that day began a sowing of distrust of Prince Justinian by the Church.

No sermons were preached against him. No words openly were spoken against him in public. But a handful of priests and monks, noted for their subtlety and secrecy, began to move quietly through the city. And wherever they went they left behind them hints, speculations, and veiled suggestions in the minds of the Orthodox faithful. At first this ferment was invisible. But as time passed it would become yeasty and formidable. The Established Church, alarmed by the trend of circumstances and spurred, though it did not know it, by the machinations of an ambitious man in the palace enclosures, was taking the way it knew best to protect itself from a peril it anticipated.

6 }

The miracle was the old emperor’s vitality.

For months Justin’s death had been expected, but he still lived on. He was very old, and before he finally took to his bed, spent most of his time sleeping in his chair, all bent together, his feet on a footstool, the top of which was made like a bag and lined with otter fur, which was drawn about the feet to keep them warm since his circulation had gone so weak. Even in summer weather he wore a warm robe of wool over his clothes, about his shoulders and body.

Now at last he could no longer rise from his bed. His face had fallen in, and was wrinkled in countless criss-cross lines, though the big bones of nose and jaw and brow still gave a hint of power to his features. When he woke from dozing, as he did frequently, his eyelids would fold up like thin pieces of parchment, and his eyes, watery-blue with age, would stare queerly at the ceiling.

The fistula on the emperor’s leg was an unpleasant running sore, needing constant attention from the physicians for fear it would become gangrenous. There was, furthermore, much ado each time the old man was required to take nourishment; for Justin, who once had a vigorous appetite, was like a fretful child who does not want to eat.

Theodora was one of those who could best coax him to take the food, a thin gruel of sesame meal mixed with the whey of asses’ milk and sweetened with a little honey, which was now prescribed for him. The mess looked unappetizing, and she did not blame him for disliking it, but the physicians said he must eat it to keep alive. So she spent much time with him, smiling, and wheedling, and working little whimsical tricks, as if he were indeed a child, to induce him finally to consume the bowl of gray-looking stuff, or at least a part of it.

Came a time at last when the old emperor had reached the lowest ebb which life can reach and still be life. Sometimes he lay in his bed hardly breathing, one hand upon the other on the edge of the covers, the thumbs grown long with age and the joints shining where the ancient skin was stretched parchment-tight over them.

At other times he trembled with cold, and it seemed he could not get warm. The physicians, consulting gravely over him, sought to find guidance in the Scriptures, which was one of the accepted medical techniques of the time, especially when their own books offered no solution. They discovered something in the Book of Kings, which seemed to cover the present case:

A truly excellent medical precedent, the physicians agreed. Behold, the emperor was “old and stricken in years,” and they “covered him with clothes, but he got no heat.” The eminent scientists conferred, and agreed on their prescription: a maiden to lie in bed with the emperor and warm him with her young body.

The difficulty was in finding exactly the right damsel for this exalted service. It was clear from the Scriptural passage that she must be a virgin: this was specifically stated. Also that she must be “very fair.” The assembled medical scientists, after due consideration of the text, agreed furthermore that she must be high-born. No slave would do, not even a member of a common family. The charming Abishag, who had “cherished” King David, obviously was of patrician standing in her country, or such an intimate and honorable duty would not have been conferred upon her.

This offered some problems. To find a beautiful girl of a patrician house, who could on examination be established as a virgin, and at the same time did not object to the admittedly rather unpleasant task she was asked to perform, might require some extensive searching.

The physicians ordered the search to be made. But before they were able to discover just the right damsel, and by means of her administer their novel and learned prescription to the imperial patient, events transpired that made it unnecessary.

7 }

For months Narses was gone, and no word from him. Then suddenly one day he appeared at the Hormisdas palace to make his report.

Humbly and fearfully he acknowledged to Theodora that he had failed in his mission to Egypt. It was clear that he dreaded the consequences.

But the months had been what she needed. To his surprise and relief, Theodora was not furious. She only questioned him closely.

“I do not think it possible, O Beautiful Clemency, for anyone to penetrate the Monophysite secrecy,” he told her. “If the child lives—and no one more profoundly hopes such is the case than your devoted servant—she is lost in the fathomless heretical network of the Nile. There are countless hospices, convents, monasteries, churches, and dwellings of cenobites and anchorites, to say nothing of innumerable private homes in which she may be kept. In spite of the utmost efforts of your slave, he was unable to discover where she had been taken, or even what name she had been given.”

Thereupon he gave her an account so long and full that Theodora was convinced that this dwarfish little eunuch had lacked neither courage nor zeal in his activities for her.

At the end she thanked him and said, “Narses, tell nobody the object of your journey.”

“I swear it, Gracious One.”

“You appear to be weary,” she said.

“I suffered a fever in Egypt. It is a condescension of which I am unworthy that you should take note of so small a thing. It has, in truth, left me somewhat weak—but never too weak or weary to embark on any other duty you may desire to entrust to one so humble.”

Again he seemed to reveal himself to her: his ambition, his bitterness, his belief in her.

She said, “Go rest yourself. There will be a suitable reward in gold for you. And I have this to say to you: remain in my service, and if power ever comes to me, I will help you achieve those thoughts and ambitions of which you once spoke, which other eunuchs do not share.”

“I could pray for no greater boon,” he murmured, bending low.

“So be it, then. Bear in mind that what I offer for the present is by no means as great or honorable as your abilities deserve. But if you be serious, close your duties as chartularius and return to me when you’ve done so. The chamberlain of this palace, Dromo, displeases me. I will install you as soon as I’ve asked the prince to dismiss him to some other service.”

It occasioned no little comment in the court when Narses gave up his position as chartularius to become chamberlain in the Hormisdas palace. Assuredly this was a step down in rank and dignity, for the office of head archivist was important, and that of major-domo in a subordinate palace much less so.

But Narses showed no sign that he felt he had taken a demotion. He had a promise: from a woman, to be sure, but a woman the like of whom he had never before known.

As for Theodora, she had actually looked for nothing from Narses’ mission. Sending him to Egypt had been more to bolster her desperate spirits than with any real expectation of results.

Her real inner hope was that she might bear another child to Justinian. Once, seeking to further this mute wish of her heart, she humbled herself before an unlettered and unadorned abbot of an Orthodox monastery in Jerusalem, who had come to ask her patronage, beseeching him to pray that she might have a son.

The grim monk, whose name was Sabas, refused. Humbly and sadly she accepted his rejection, gave him the money he asked for his monastery, and ordered him treated with all hospitality. Later he scornfully told a fellow monk, “We want no fruit from that womb, lest it be suckled on the heretical doctrines of Severus.”

Some wondered at Theodora’s lack of resentment toward the bitter abbot, but there was a fresh surprise in her. She began to seek religious comfort. The loss of her child caused her to grope blindly and humbly for some understanding of the inscrutability of Providence. In the hope of gaining insight, she conversed whenever possible with men whom she believed to be holy.

Word soon went about that hermits, monks, and priests, no matter how ragged and dirty, were sure always of welcome at the Hormisdas, where they could come and go at will, being fed and bedded there far better than they were accustomed, and to this bounty they flocked.

An entire wing of the palace was shut off from the rest and devoted to these holy mendicants. Monophysite and Orthodox anchorites were quartered together without distinction, wherefore sometimes snarling quarrels broke out between them. Usually these were mere cantankerous and spiteful arguments. But on occasion cudgels whirled, or hermits in torn and dirty robes rolled on the floor, seeking to throttle one another in the holy cause of their divergent beliefs.

When summoned, Theodora could always put a stop to these conflicts by assuring the reverend fathers that any further fighting would result in their expulsion. For all their fanatical contentiousness, the monks and hermits were able to perceive a very good thing when they saw it, and so, though they would grumble and shoot fiery glances at one another, they would desist from open blows.

Curiously, some of their resentment turned upon their benefactress who had stopped their broiling. Even while they ate Theodora’s food, with mouths full and jaws champing, they said bitter things about her.

One day a Palestinian anchorite named Arsenius, grown bolder than the others, had the effrontery to rebuke publicly his hostess for her heresy, of which he accused her. She heard him out, without a change of expression. Indeed, his piety so charmed her that she made him a present of money.

Thereafter it became quite the fashion for the sanctified beggars to insult Theodora. Knowing their impunity, they derived from it a feeling of courageous satisfaction which quite overcame any sense of gratitude for what they received from her: it being a characteristic of the reverend gentry to take for granted what was done for them, as no more than their due.

Orthodox monks chided her for her doctrines: Monophysite hermits berated her for her past life. It became a sort of holy game to see who could most daringly affront the woman who was giving them food, shelter, and ease. Finding their tongues unbridled, holy mendicants outdid themselves in giving new turns and twists to religious rudeness.

Without resentment Theodora listened to the denunciations of her collection of scarecrow figures, ragged and dirty, smelling of unwashed bodies, wild-eyed and uncombed. She craved their blessings, but when she received only their curses still continued humbly to maintain them in the wing of her palace she had assigned to them, in a style of living which put the holy fat on many a set of unbathed but sanctified ribs.

What nobody else dared say to her, or about her, these pious parasites said without fear of rebuke, let alone punishment. In such manner Theodora underwent penance, accepting insults and abuse in the hope that it might serve to wipe clean the stain of her sins, which she had now come to believe had caused first the Monophysite nuns, and then God himself, to take away from her the babes she had borne in such agony of body and soul.

1 }

Once more Theodora could devote thought and time to her appearance. Of small importance is it in a man, the figure he has, or the kind of face he wears; but woman’s body is the woman.

Theodora contemplated herself and found that she was too thin, almost bony. Her face was hollow-eyed and haggard after her emotional and physical agonies, and she had little strength. It was apparent that she must again rebuild her body, or she would lose permanently the beauty she prized almost above everything.

Justinian’s habit now was to rise at cockcrow, breakfast meagerly, and go to his office. But she did not rise with him.

Instead she lay abed until toward noon. Then she rose, ate a light breakfast—although a rich table of delicacies was invariably set before her from which to choose—and then took her baths. Of these there were five each day, hot and cold water alternating. She believed that by thus relaxing and contracting her body she could regain and preserve its suppleness and elasticity.

Five baths! Personal cleanliness was a none too common concern of the times, and when it became known, through the gossip of her tirewomen, that Theodora took five several baths each day, it appeared to most Byzantines as a regime eccentric to the point of incredulity. Quite naturally it was embellished in the recitals by further marvels—purely apocryphal—such as that her bath waters were filled with flakes of gold, or that she took her ablutions in the milk of pure-white she-asses.

Actually, she used no more than common sense: relaxing as much as she was able, for strain is the greatest destroyer of beauty; bathing according to a theory at least tenable; eating to rebuild the lovely contours of her figure, but not so much as to spoil their delicacy; ordaining her massages, cosmetics, and hairdressings all to the same end—the perfection of her loveliness.

She was young, and youth is magical. Very soon her vitality flamed high again, her spirits rose with her health, and gazing at her nude form in one of the great silver mirrors of her bath, she could critically say to herself that she showed few of the ravages of the bitter times through which she had passed.

No woman, gazing at herself in the mirror with pleasure, is wholly vain: for she is looking at the future of the race. And this, quite aside from her natural pride, was deep in the girl’s mind.

With a craving that was instinctive, the reach of the maternal for its fruitfulness, stronger than any mental wish and almost unrealized at times, but at other times beating powerfully in her hot heart, she wanted another child.

Only Justinian could be the source of such a child. Upon him she began to employ a whole new concentration of feminine arts: behaving toward him in a manner so elegantly tempting, so suggestive of the bliss she held out always to him, yet so mirthfully tantalizing at times, that in her boundless variety of ways and moods the gust of his passion would not grow any the less. For in the continuing act of love with him she hoped she might again achieve conception.

But in spite of her truly charming campaign she did not conceive; and at last she became unhappily convinced that probably she would never conceive again. It was her old physical difficulty in becoming pregnant. What she had accounted one of her greatest assets in her days as a courtesan became now a source of inward sorrow and disappointment.

Meantime, in her long wooing of Justinian, she achieved something else: so completely had she captured his senses that the prince was enslaved by her.

He had been through very much with her, accepting risks for her and cherishing her through emotional storms with patience and understanding. These things tend to increase a man’s loyalty to a woman. When she repays him with every superb enchantment of emotions and senses, it requires more than ordinary will power to prevent his falling perhaps too deeply under her spell.

One of the manifold paradoxes of woman is her willful desire to see how far her power will go with a man: yet at the same time with a wish that he will not permit her to go too far. Perversely she takes more and still more advantages, feeds her vanity by causing him to do for her things sometimes dangerous, or trivial, or even ridiculous. And all the time she expects, perhaps without actually realizing it, that somewhere along the line he will call a halt. If he does so, though on the surface of her emotions she may be piqued or disappointed, she is happier with him. For this is a matter of strengths and weaknesses, and woman’s instinct seeks strength in a man to such a point that no woman ever respected a man whom she completely dominated.

Sometimes Theodora tried Justinian with little feminine tests, sending the great prince, who was regent of a mighty empire, trotting off on an errand to fetch some trifling object from her bedroom, when his dignity as well as hers would have been better served by sending a servant for it. These whims, some of them quite silly, he obeyed unfailingly, though they demeaned him; and often even while she smilingly demanded them of him, she hoped he would refuse.

At times she was annoyed with him for his subservience. At others she almost felt shame for him. But finally the realization that her wish actually was his law created in her a sort of panic.

If Justinian was so easily swayed by her, what about his mightier tasks? What about the empire? Did others influence him also, perhaps to his detriment and danger?

She thought of John of Cappadocia. In this matter alone she could not move Justinian; he knew her dislike for the praetorian prefect, but he stubbornly refused to remove the man from his office. Sometimes this angered her. But now, in the absence of other evidences, Theodora almost treasured it as showing perhaps a latent strength in her husband.

Above every consideration concerning Justinian there was in her this unslumbering thought: never in a lifetime could she repay him for the love and kindness he had shown her. Whatever his failings, she would be loyal to him and to his interests completely.

This gradually brought about a different feeling toward him: a brooding, half-concerned affection, very closely akin to that which a mother feels toward a child that is not too fortunate and perhaps somewhat handicapped. Without giving it thought and purely by emotion, Theodora transferred to Justinian a vast part of the wasted love in her heart for the children she had lost.

2 }

Of Justinian’s friends, Tribonian and Belisarius—both of whom were bachelors—remained closest, and of them Theodora saw much. The new Persian game of chatrang—or chess—which she had introduced to the old emperor, was becoming something of a fad in court, even though poor Justin himself was now too weak and senile to play it any longer. Two of the three companions would sit for hours some evenings in the Hormisdas, over the board of squares and handsomely carved pieces of ebony and ivory. At such times Theodora entertained the third, who was idle because only two could play at the game.

When Justinian and Belisarius were contestants, and Tribonian sat out, conversation was pleasurable. The lawyer was a thorough man of the world, and Theodora’s audacity, and the spice of sex which always was inherent in her laughing wit, stimulated his sophisticated mind so that he derived from her intellectual as well as social pleasure.

Tribonian was one male friend who treated Theodora’s femaleness impersonally. This was either because he was sated, or because he was in such control of his feelings that he would allow nothing to interfere with his policy and ambition. Always the cynic, he was yet forever the courtier. And knowing more about her than almost anyone, he still behaved as if he had never met her before she came to the palace. In Tribonian, thorough libertine though he was, she felt a comfortable dependence.

But when Tribonian sat at the chessboard with Justinian, and she was left to amuse Belisarius, matters were different.

Unlike Tribonian, Belisarius was no libertine. So much the athlete and soldier was he that he had little time for feminine society, and had never gone to the Street of Women, where young men customarily took off the wire edge of their restless desires. It was said—and Theodora could believe it—that Belisarius had never experienced a woman physically: that he was a virgin.

So blunt was Belisarius, and inexpert at disguising his feelings, that more often than she cared to admit he put her out of countenance by his too obvious admiration. In his blue eyes, ordinarily ice-cold, would come such a glowing light, in his voice a note so warm, that she was perturbed by him: not only because the incorrigible woman in her liked the tribute, but because she almost more than liked it.

She could not help judging the vigor in this man . . . the sensation of twisted iron that her fingers had derived from the muscles of his arm remained with her. Her femaleness was conscious of the old lawless temptation to tame that fierce virility. All women must recognize the feeling: she who says she has never known that outlaw impulse speaks not the truth.

Yet, though she knew in what manner he would behave if she gave him the slightest encouragement, she knew also that his admiration for her was not yet formed into a conscious love. This was the danger that must be avoided. It is a perilous business when a woman fascinates the wrong man: to the woman herself, and to others, since out of male suspicion and jealousy may come tragedy, rivalry over a woman being of all things the most explosive.

Having felt the momentary temptation, Theodora did what most women do: put it out of her mind. For her the day of unbridled coquetry was past. Never would she knowingly encourage a rival to Justinian.

So while the other two, at the far end of the room, bent over the chessmen, she sat with Belisarius and tried to lead the talk into safe channels, holding him at a conversational arm’s length, yet without offending him with too much aloofness, which is a feat requiring a nicely balanced judgment and intuition that only women seemed to possess.

When Belisarius was gone she sometimes wondered how she could solve the problem he posed for her. She did not wish to lose his friendship, nor did she wish to have him lose Justinian’s regard. The chief danger in him, she considered, was his inexperience with women. Tribonian, accustomed to feminine wiles and allurements, could ward them off with a smile. But Belisarius, who was at ease and even boisterous in a crowd of men, became awkward, stumbling, and shy in the presence of women. No telling when such a man, under a powerful feeling that is new to him, might blurt out something or do some act that would be embarrassing, perhaps perilous.

It was evident to Theodora that Belisarius needed a woman. This was, to her view, a normal necessity of every man: if she could relieve it by finding him a woman who could turn in upon herself all his unacknowledged but imperious want, he would be safe once more as a friend and companion.

To find exactly the right woman for this tricky task was not simple. Meantime Theodora was plagued by a problem peculiarly feminine—how to keep away from an unwanted admirer, yet maintain his friendship.

3 }

A temporary solution came more quickly than she had hoped.

One evening Justinian said to her, “Belisarius is giving an exhibition of his Comitati.”

These were the troops that had been training for some months in Belisarius’ new ideas of war technique and tactics.

“He begs me to witness it,” Justinian continued. “So I’ve ordered the evolutions held tomorrow in the Hippodrome. Would you care to come?”

She was surprised. “Isn’t a woman forbidden the Hippodrome?”

“At public games, yes,” he said. “But no crowd will be present tomorrow. Only the army commanders and some administrative officers. I don’t think the presence of one small woman in the kathisma will violate custom or tradition under such circumstances.”

She accepted his smiling invitation with an answering smile.

Next afternoon, high in the kathisma, she looked down on the vast arena surrounded by its towering horseshoe of stone seats, empty now save for a few scattering groups of official spectators below the kathisma itself. Already the Comitati were mounted and formed at the farther side.

“I’ve brought only one cohort here, Highness,” said Belisarius, who sat with Tribonian on the other side of Justinian from Theodora. “There’s no room for all my men to maneuver. But I’m confident that what you see today will impress you.”

With a woman’s eye Theodora took in the attire of the soldiers; and the armoring of the Comitati was novel, assuredly. Instead of the solid breastplate and backpiece, their cuirasses were shirts of link mail, sleeveless and covering the thighs. Heavy leather boots protected the lower legs and knees. On their heads were close-fitting steel helmets, with a tuft of feathers on each crest as a little fluttering concession to the pageantry of war. To her the soldiers, sitting their horses, seemed almost plain in equipment compared to the gaudy Excubitors.

“I’m interested in your innovations in arming your men,” said Justinian, studying them.

“Each soldier, if Your Graciousness cares to note,” said Belisarius, “carries on his back a quiver and bow; in a boot at the right, a lance; a heavy broadsword—little resembling the classic Roman short sword, but long enough to be used from horseback—in a scabbard on his left thigh; and his shield, on his left arm, is relatively small, but of steel, with half a dozen additional arrows held in a spring clip on its inner side from which they can be released instantly, one by one, for quick work with the bow.”

Below the kathisma, in the seats occupied by the senior generals, Theodora heard comments:

“Rather ingenious, that spring clip on the shield for arrows.”

“But how use the bow from horseback?”

“Let’s observe how they manage their mounts in action: I think that’s the weakness of this system.”

But when the horsemen began to maneuver, Theodora, for all her inexperience in such matters, saw in them a new and very special kind of training.

The bow is a two-handed weapon: so soldiers and horses alike had been schooled in guidance by the pressure of the knees and the tilt of the riders’ bodies, rather than by the bridle. With reins hanging loose on their mounts’ necks, the Comitati rode in formation, trotting or galloping, changing direction, reversing, making sharp obliques, and all at signals from a trumpeter who blew his calls at the commands of an officer in charge of the drill.

Now came practice with the bow. At full gallop each of the Comitati pulled from the bowcase at his back the powerful weapon, placed the strung end in a nock on the left stirrup provided for it, bent the arch with left knee and hand, and with the right hand slipped the bowstring loop over the upper catch. Almost instantly the left hand grasped the grip of the bow, the right whipped an arrow from the shield-clip or the quiver behind the shoulder, and the mounted archer, without even slowing his horse’s speed, was ready to discharge his shaft.

“Excellent!” applauded Justinian.

The grizzled old generals below nodded, half approving.

In groups of six the riders now thundered past a series of wooden shields, their bowstrings twanging as they went; and even though their horses were at a gallop, an impressive number of arrows drove near enough to center to have killed a man had they struck him.

“Truly remarkable!” Justinian exclaimed. “What think you, my lord generals?”

The generals did not appear to share the prince’s enthusiasm.

“Very pretty,” said one, gruffly. “But with Your Highness’ indulgence, I still prefer the infantry legion for serious fighting.”

“The short sword was good enough for our fathers,” another said. “I say it’s good enough for us.”

A third said, “Those arrows are boy’s play. A real soldier gets close to his work, instead of relying on a far shaft to do it for him.”

Theodora saw Belisarius’ face flush. It was her first experience with the peculiar hostility to innovation that seems to be characteristic of a certain type of military mind.

“Consider,” Belisarius broke in at last, “what a regiment of heavy cavalry like mine could do to one of your infantry arrays! First a cloud of arrows——”

“Roman legions have many times faced arrows with contempt,” interrupted old General Milo.

“Not arrows like these!” Belisarius exclaimed. “My shafts are steel-headed, almost like small javelins. And they’re driven by bows specially designed, of the best Hispanian yew, strengthened with horn and sinew. They’ll shoot right through ordinary armor at close range, particularly when the heads are waxed——”

“When the arrows are sped, what?” retorted Milo. “Military experience proves that cavalry can’t break ranks of overlapping shields——”

“This cavalry uses the lance! At the full gallop of the horses, with that iron point ten feet ahead, they’ll make any infantry formation reel. And once within the cordon, they’ll whirl those broadswords about them like flails. My lords, this is a revolution in the art of warfare, no less!”

From the generals he received only cold, superior smiles, quizzical twitches of the eyebrows, or silence.

In despair he turned to Justinian. “Great Prince——”

At that moment Theodora saw John of Cappadocia lean forward, on his face an expression of serious thought, as if he would offer a suggestion of importance.

“With Your Highness’ permission——” he began.

Justinian, somewhat confused by the opposition of his senior generals, welcomed the praetorian prefect’s intervention with a nod.

“It appears to me,” said John, “that it would be unfair to dismiss what I’m sure is a military idea worth at least full consideration, without a better trial.”

“What trial could be better than this?” asked the prince.

“Only one, Highness. Actual war conditions.”

“War?” Justinian frowned, hardly understanding.

“The Avar tribesmen have been restless lately on the frontier of Thrace. A punitive expedition might demonstrate the value, or lack of it, in this heavy cavalry——”

“I thank you for the suggestion, noble Prefect!” cried Belisarius.

“Perhaps,” went on John, “Belisarius might wish to command in person this experimental campaign against the barbarians.”

“I ask nothing better, Highness!” said the soldier fervently.

All at once it occurred to Theodora that a campaign such as this was exactly what she wished—it would remove from her at least for a time Belisarius and his dangerous susceptibilities. Though she had not been asked her opinion, she leaned forward and added the weight of her influence in favor of the proposal.

“It’s only just,” she said, “to give Belisarius his chance, if he wants it.”

Moodily Justinian looked at her. But she seemed to make up his mind. He nodded.

“It is so decided,” he said. “Order at once transports to carry you up the coast of the Euxine Sea to Varna for debarkation. That will give you an easy march to the frontier, Belisarius.”

“Active duty!” exulted the soldier. “I promise, Gracious Highness, to teach the saucy Avars a lesson they won’t soon forget!”

Silent, but grimly disapproving, the senior generals offered no comment.

On the face of John of Cappadocia, Theodora thought she caught at that moment a singular fleeting expression: a look of relief, almost, or elation—she hardly knew which. Instantly it was gone.

It left her inwardly wondering, inwardly disturbed.

4 }

By the middle of Lent it was evident to the palace, the city, all the provinces, that the emperor was dying.

To none was the evidence more clear, the occasion more critical, than to the eminent praetorian prefect. Never had John of Cappadocia forgotten how very near he came to perfecting his mighty plan of ambition, or how stunningly an act of God brought it all to naught.

Since the death of Euphemia he had been forced to maintain a continual discretion that was bitter to him. With inner anger and helplessness he watched the wanton from the Street of Women build stronger and stronger her web about Justinian, until her power was so unquestioned as to be frightening—to one who had some thought of power himself.

But even while he spent the weary months privately gnawing his fingers in frustration—though in public he continuously labored over new and ever more elaborate flatteries for Justinian—he never ceased to scheme for the moment when opportunity might open again. He had maintained the skeleton of his secret organization, formed during those five days in Sycae, and he devoted his very considerable talents to keeping its elements fluid and responsive against the time when he might again put it into motion.

Frequently John met, and discussed policies and expedients with, the subtlest minds in the hierarchy of the Established Church, eager now to rid the empire of Justinian’s Monophysite wife. Unknown to the hierarchy, he also often had close and carefully concealed contact with high officers of the Green faction, playing upon these with Justinian’s Orthodoxy and his favor toward the hated Blues in the Hippodrome and elsewhere. Well did John know how to use the double-edged sword of religious controversy, making it cut for him both ways.

Nor did he neglect other useful elements. The invisible network of eunuchs was at his service, supplementing his own spies, and dropping into the ears of the patrician men and women whom they served whispers and poisonous innuendoes concerning the prince and his consort. He furthermore nurtured in the minds of Hypatius and Pompey, the middle-aged nephews of the former Emperor Anastasius, a feeling that they were wronged in having been denied succession to the throne by Justin. Every group or individual of influence who felt any reason for resentment against the couple in the Hormisdas—and some of these, while they did not know it, owed their enmity to the prefect’s own machinations under the seal of the prince—he cultivated, and with them kept contact.

Now, with the approaching death of the emperor, John of Cappadocia believed once again that the time was ripe.

Remained still one question: should a puppet emperor be placed on the throne? The dynastic claims of either Hypatius or Pompey would give a show of legality to the accession of one of them, and they would do as they were told by a strong man behind the throne.

Or should the strong man himself ascend to the seat of power of the Caesars?

In either case the real ruler would be John of Cappadocia.

There had been one obstacle to the coup d’état which he had so long been forming, and now that impediment was suddenly eliminated. John almost hugged himself at his magnificent luck.

That fool, Belisarius, wanting to go a-soldiering! How quickly John’s suggestion had been swallowed by the prince—even seconded by the prince’s woman! Belisarius, in command of the palace guard, would have been very dangerous to deal with, since he was incorruptible and a thorough fighting man. But Belisarius was gone north with his Comitati—and John of Cappadocia, through Sergius, the new commander of the Excubitors, who was one of his creatures, was now in full control.

He awaited only the death of Justin.

At the moment the death toll of the great cathedral bell began, John would set his machinery into motion: the Excubitors would take possession of the palace enclosure; the Greens would lead a public demonstration for the new emperor, whom John would name; the Church would give its official blessing and allay any discontent among the Orthodox, since it would receive guarantees and assurances from the new occupant of the throne, and John would see to that also.

As for Justinian and Theodora: execution could be the only possible fate for them. John even indulged himself a little in considering the method of putting the two to death when he got his hands on them.

There was impalement . . . too bad that crucifixion had been abolished as a method of punishment.

Crushing by heaping rocks on the condemned was another good way.

Always, of course, beheading was to be given thought.

He imagined the slight figure of Theodora, kneeling at the block with her neck bare to the headsman’s sword. A rather pretty neck, he conceded. Charming.

The sword would sever it sweetly, like a pruning knife clipping a delicate twig.

John of Cappadocia licked his chops.

Yes, the sword and the block. That would be the way.

5 }

Making one of her frequent visits to the wing of the Hormisdas palace, which was now devoted entirely to holy men, Theodora one evening stood a little apart looking at them.

This wing had its own garden, surrounded by a wall, in which Theodora formerly had created a place of beauty. Nowadays, however, the beauty was somewhat marred, since the garden and the entire wing were devoted to the rabble of unwashed monks and hermits whom she continued to maintain.

It was a sight to see: the beautiful rooms and grounds converted into the strangest of monasteries, for they overflowed with holy mendicants of different orders and even different sects. Five hundred of them at least dwelt there, of every degree of sanctity and raggedness, and with every form of fiery monastic fervor.

Endlessly the singing of psalms was heard. The whistle of scourges, as flagellants piously whipped their own backs, resounded in rooms where once Justinian had made princely love to his mistress. In the trampled flower beds of the garden little huts were erected by those who felt called upon to preserve at least the technical form of a hermit existence.

It was to be noted, however, that all this maceration of the flesh notably desisted when the full, rich meals were served; and that the hermits did not build their huts out of earshot of the supper call.

Most singular were two columns that had been erected in the garden—at the expense of Theodora, of course—for a pair of fanatics who desired to emulate the novel and arduous piety of St. Simeon Stylites, a Syrian ascetic who had only recently passed to his heavenly reward after spending thirty-five years on the summit of a column without taking a single bath: although, according to report, he preached to great crowds of the devout, and worked miracles, wherefore he was canonized.

Theodora’s two Stylites imitated their preceptor quite well in his peculiar form of sanctity, although they sometimes were exasperated by the fact that where there are none but other preachers, it is almost impossible for one who wishes to preach to gain an audience. When their hostess came, therefore, they comforted themselves by shouting themselves hoarse in pious exhortations to her, and she always gave them respectful attention. And when food was served, they were not behind the other holy ones, having pails equipped with cords to draw up the good stew, so that lacking any exercise because of their restricted living space, they grew noticeably plump on their columns.

On this particular evening the holy ones were eating their evening meal by her bounty. Most of the hermits and monks were too busy stuffing themselves to take time for their usual pious impolitenesses to her. They smacked their lips over the food as if they were ordinary men, with ordinary appetites, instead of sanctified creatures of the spirit, subsisting ostensibly on religious edification.

Besides, the woman was undoubtedly a tool of the Devil, even if she was married to the prince, for if a saintly hermit permitted his eyes to dwell too long on her undeniably fair face and form, the foul Fiend quite often visited his sleep with horrible dreams of carnal desire, so that he would groan with pain and terror at the lascivious pictures of forbidden pleasure into which Satan had trapped him. Extra fastings and scourgings were the antidotes for this, so it was cheaper to turn the back and take the mind off the entire dreadful subject of Woman, by paying strict attention to the food and debating strenuously and contentiously with one’s neighbor on abstruse points of theology.

Theodora was about to turn away from regarding her guests, when one of the hermits looked up at her and interrupted his meal.

Rising from his place at the table, he came hobbling over to her, walking with a crooked leg and a crutch, meantime directing at her a swift stream of denunciation. She waited patiently to hear him out.

Other reverend beggars gave an indifferent glance and returned to their platters. On this evening the stew was uncommonly savory.

“Thrice cursed Jezebel!” croaked the crook-legged hermit. “Vile serpent of the brothels!”

Theodora was accustomed to this sort of thing from her sanctimonious guests. But something about the man caused her to look at him more closely. An Isaurian, by his cast of features and accent. She seemed to remember having seen him before somewhere . . . though that hermit’s robe did not dovetail with her vague recollection.

“Repent!” snarled the Isaurian hermit. “On your knees beseech God Almighty for mercy for your evil doings!” He balanced on his crutch, and his voice fell from its stridency. “But know, woman, that there is divine mercy even for such as you. My own abbot, out of his loving kindness, has sent me with prayers he has prepared for you. They are written on this parchment. I adjure you, ignore them not, but go to your closet, and read out these prayers, for they may avail even you at the day of reckoning!”

Something in his way of saying it, especially his use of the uncommon phrase day of reckoning, rather than the usual day of judgment, drew her closer attention.

He held forth a grimy hand and she accepted the wad of folded vellum.

“Good Father,” she said, looking at him steadily, “give thanks to your reverend abbot for this Christian thought of me, and tell him I will assuredly read his prayers at this very hour.”

Grumbling a further anathema, the Isaurian hermit hobbled back to his place at the table. Immediately Theodora returned to her own apartments.

She knew now where she had seen the Isaurian. He was the crook-legged beggar she had noticed more than once in close converse with Hagg. His “abbot” must be the burro-beggar himself, and the “prayers” in the folded parchment must be an important message.

It flashed over her that Hagg had devised the perfect way of communicating with her. All those priests, monks, and hermits, mostly strangers to one another and from many lands, freely partaking of her bounty, were questioned by no one. Their wing of the Hormisdas was entered from the city by a special gate of its own and was closed from the residential part of the building and the palace enclosure. It was a perfect situation for one disguised as a holy man to await her, since her visits to the saintly mendicants were frequent.

When she was alone she unfolded the parchment and read. The words gave her heart a sudden jolt:

Below was the crude drawing of a donkey.

Very cryptic and unsatisfactory, the note, yet undoubtedly it contained all the information Hagg possessed. He did not know the identity of the plotters, or how they would go about it “to seize the throne,” but he had learned of the existence of some great and terrible conspiracy, probably from a chance conversation, uttered in the hearing of an unnoticed beggar squatting in a dusty corner. Too well she knew Hagg to take such a warning at any save full value.

She read the note again. The time was emphasized: the day of the emperor’s death.

That could happen tomorrow—or in the next hour!

Now she was fully alarmed. She would have rushed out and over to the Daphne palace, where Justinian was toiling in the administrative offices. But she halted when she thought of the attention so unusual an act might attract. The conspirators would be keeping a watch on her movements, as well as those of the prince. If it were known that the two of them held a hurried and unaccountable conference, it might create suspicion that they had learned of the plot and precipitate action even before the emperor’s death.

So she waited, pacing back and forth, pale and almost distraught.

Justinian, arriving rather late, found her so, to his surprise and concern. But his astonishment grew as he listened to her.

“Do you credit this?” he asked.

“It comes from one who would not deceive me,” she said.

“Who is he?”

“A nobody. You would not know his name if I told you. An old man of humblest station, who knew me in my babyhood.”

“How could such a man discover a plot of this kind?”

“I don’t know. But this I do know: if he were not sure of his facts he would not send me this warning.”

Justinian did not question farther. He appeared convinced of the genuineness of the message, but he considered the situation to see if there were any visible facts to corroborate it.

“The city’s quiet,” he said. “There’s no unrest in the provinces. Things seem to be running smoothly in the government. Suppose traitors chose to strike, how would they go about it? I’ll alert the Excubitors——”

“The Excubitors! With Belisarius gone, can you trust them?”

All at once she remembered that singular expression of relief or elation on John of Cappadocia’s face when Justinian ordered Belisarius to go on the campaign against the Avars. That must be part of the plot—to get rid of Belisarius—she was sure of it!

Should she renew her charges against the praetorian prefect? No. It came over her that she had not one shred of evidence against him. Nothing to go on but her dislike for him and her intuition. If he was in the plot he was too clever to leave a trace of it to be discovered by such as herself.

Assuredly this was not the time for accusations. Unless she had direct proof, Justinian’s stubborn belief in the Cappadocian would not be shaken. He would set it down to her prejudice and time would be wasted in fruitless argument. At this moment other matters were more pressing.

“Perhaps you’re right,” said Justinian, realizing suddenly that he knew little of the officer now in charge of the Excubitors—a man named Sergius, from some province in Syria, whom, if memory served, the praetorian prefect had recommended. Sergius must be a good man, if John thought well of him: still, at such a time, it was hardly wise to place much dependence on an unknown factor.

He had known his own danger for some time, and he now put it into words. “My imperial uncle himself established a precedent which, if such a conspiracy as this exists, might be invoked by them here! When Anastasius died without direct heir, Justin took the throne by the acclamation of the palace guard and the populace——”

As if she thought with him, and yet ahead of him, Theodora cried out, “You might forestall them!”

“How?”

“What if you ascended the throne before the emperor dies?”

“How could this be?” He scowled. “I would not deal treacherously with the man who has nurtured me and lifted me up!”

“Not treachery! Only by the emperor’s own consent!”

Her face was a blaze of inspiration, giving to it at the moment a more daring loveliness, as her mind leaped forward on a train of thinking breathlessly audacious.

For the moment Justinian did not attempt to follow her thoughts.

Put your trust in nobody. That was Hagg’s warning. But she had to trust someone.

“Send for Tribonian!” she said.

“Why for Tribonian?”

“You believe in him fully, don’t you? I also. Send a messenger for him, I pray you—at once! There’s no time to lose, for the emperor may die this very night. Tribonian knows the legal words and phrases which we need and must have——”

6 }

Nobody witnessed the night-long struggle in old Justin’s sleeping chamber.

By the authority of the prince even Vinitius and Basil were excluded. Only Theodora, Justinian, and Tribonian were present at the emperor’s bedside.

They encountered unexpected difficulties. The old man was at first vague, then stubborn.

He was too old to rule: yet his senile mind still figuratively drew the robes of authority about him, and he querulously resented this suggestion of a co-ruler, even if it were his own nephew.

Bitter, bitter was the tense mental conflict in that room. Bitter, and in its way cruel.

Like an old wolf at bay, fighting his last fight, Justin hunched back, crouching among his pillows, his eyes burning with rage, his lips repeating over and over, “No! No! No!”

They were on either side of his bed and at the foot, beating him with arguments, urgings, cajolements, pleadings. The hour was desperate. Upon it hung the fate of all of them, of the empire itself.

Furiously old Justin glared around at them: at Justinian’s face, intense and imploring; at Tribonian’s face, chiseled, almost sneering.

And always there was the woman. Her face, of all of them, seemed to transfix the old man’s attention. The face was pallid, half savage, half praying; seeming to burn from within with a fire eternally fierce and hot. She had a forked look, her forehead drawn, her mouth suggesting the force of a consuming passion, her eyes boring into Justin’s with a demand pitilessly inexorable.

Even the prince, looking at her, was taken back. Was this the woman he knew and loved? She seemed at this moment terrible, corrosive, cobra-like.

He forced himself to look away. After all was she not doing this for him . . .?

In the end the contest of wills was between the emperor and the woman.

Sometime after midnight the old man, worn out, surrendered with a gesture of despair. His white head fell forward on his breast.

“Bring the parchment . . . and the stencil,” he said in a shaking voice.

It was at that moment that Justinian spoke, uttering an astonishing decision. “Add to the proclamation that Theodora, my wife, is co-regnant also!” he said.

They stared at him. This was unheard of. A woman co-regnant on the imperial throne? History lacked a precedent.

Theodora herself opened her lips to protest. But the prince’s gesture was so peremptory, so fierce, that she did not speak.

“She has earned it!” Justinian said. “Who saw the peril in King Kobad’s treacherous bargaining? She did! Who provided the solution by which we broke Persia’s grand alliance? She did! She first learned of this conspiracy which now threatens, and hers was the thought by which we will defeat it! I would have her reign with me!”

The old emperor was too tired, too weak, to offer an objection even to this innovation.

For a few moments Tribonian, his face inscrutable, scribbled on the parchment, adding a clause or two, making the remarkable changes which forever committed a child of the streets to unimagined grandeur.

After that old Justin, without even asking to have it read to him again, affixed to it the official signature with his stencil. Then he passed his hand over his eyes, and as he did so Tribonian saw it tremble.

1 }

Never, in some two hundred years of history, had the court, the city, been more stunned.

The emperor’s proclamation was indubitably genuine: signed with the famous golden stencil, LEGI.

With trumpets and guards of soldiers, strong-voiced announcers read the proclamation throughout the city, and it was posted at all the usual places where public bulletins and laws were displayed, so that nobody could be in ignorance of its provisions.

Justin, Emperor of the Romans, “by right of his authority and because of his great love for the people of his empire, and for the safety and prosperity of all its cities and provinces, and in consideration of his own age and ill health,” proclaimed that he had bestowed the title and authority of Emperor on his beloved nephew Justinian, whom he regarded as his own son, and that of Empress on Theodora, Justinian’s lawful wife: these to be co-regnant with him, having all power, authority, and honors due to the crown and throne, and reigning after him so long as they should live, with succession vested in their heirs at their death, as provided by the laws and customs. The proclamation was much wordier than this brief digest, but there was no question of its meaning.

It came without warning and when they heard it the people gasped.

But John of Cappadocia caught his breath more sharply than any.

Minutely and painstakingly he read over the proclamation, his heavy lips moving with the effort.

Co-regnant—and Justinian’s wife also!

Theodora of the brothels on the throne with equal powers! Theodora, his enemy!

How could it have happened? It seemed incredible.

Crushingly the realization came that he was caught helpless by a fait accompli so bold and unprecedented that he could not have anticipated it. Nothing could be done quickly enough to forestall it: the machinery he had set up was complicated and difficult to re-direct, requiring the death of the emperor and a vacant throne to implement it. Fate had frustrated him again.

Why? Why Theodora?

With Justinian he might have coped even in this new elevation, for he was contemptuous of the mental powers of the emperor’s nephew. But for Theodora, though he hated her, he had nothing but intense respect. Her wits were as sharp and pitiless as a poniard.

2 }

It was now late in Lent and by every rule and custom, no public ceremony, least of all anything of such moment as an imperial coronation, would be held until after Easter.

But to Justinian and Theodora the time element was important. On Passion Sunday, when all the churches were crowded with worshippers, the physicians brought word to the prince that the old emperor had taken a turn for the worse. Perhaps his relapse was in part occasioned by that night-long contest of wills, which ended in breaking his spirit and forcing him to sign the proclamation; but whatever the cause, he now breathed with difficulty and feebly, would take almost no nourishment, and at times lay in long comas.

The imperial council and the Senate were that day notified that the coronation of the new rulers must be held at once. To organize the obligatory pomp and ritual for such an occasion required time, but Justinian enjoined speed on penalty of his displeasure, and the day chosen was three days before Easter—now called Maundy Thursday—as the first possible date on which arrangements could be perfected.

It was the day given over to the ancient custom of the ceremonial washing of the feet of the poor and the giving of alms in memory of the Last Supper: a day so solemn in the church calendar that by tradition even the visiting or greeting of friends was forbidden. Announcement that the enthronement would be held on such a day horrified the pious, and particularly the priesthood.

But Justinian was grimly determined. It was so ordered.

In these days he was looking with new eyes at Theodora. The steel and fire to reach a grave decision and then carry it remorselessly through, which had been revealed so surprisingly by the girl of whom he had always thought in terms of playful softness and love, came almost as a shock to him. Yet it was this that caused his sudden decision that night to have her declared co-regnant with him. He loved her, but it was not his love that moved him: it was her hitherto unsuspected bitter strength that he wanted beside him on the throne.

But though Theodora that night with the old emperor had been the epitome of fierce and pitiless force, she was not, as she prepared to go to her coronation, confident or eager. It was as if suddenly she felt a great cloud of danger about her. Was this wise, or might it be fatal? Had Justinian overstepped in elevating to the throne with him a woman whose past all knew? Might there not be public reaction against this act, so serious and deadly that it would bring disaster to all?

Plagued by her doubts and fears, Theodora passed through what followed almost in a daze.

Leaving the Hormisdas for the last time shortly before noon, she was borne with Justinian in a splendid double litter carried by sixteen gorgeously liveried bearers down a long avenue lined with haughty Excubitors. Before the litter marched forty trumpeters, who at periodic intervals brought their trumpets to their lips and sounded a brilliant fanfare. Behind, in their most magnificent robes of office, walked two and two the dignitaries of the empire.

At the Church of St. Stephen the imperial couple descended and entered the door as a great choir of priests and deacons burst into a stately hymn. The church was filled to capacity, and the chancel crowded with the highest of the bishops and patriarchs.

Hippias of Rhodes, the venerable archpatriarch, with his attending priests and acolytes, met Justinian and Theodora at the entrance, blessed them, sprinkled them with holy water, censed them, and conducted them forward to the altar, all to the chanting of the choir.

Followed what seemed to Theodora an interminable period of kneeling, while prayers, rituals, hymns, and sacraments went forward.

At last they rose and turned to face the congregation. About their shoulders the imperial robes, magnificent with gold embroidery, jewels, and costly fabrics, were placed. Upon Justinian’s head the archpatriarch set the imperial diadem. Then he did the same for Theodora.

She felt the weight of the crown upon her head like the heaviness of a sudden burden.

Louder rose the singing of the choir as the congregation, which had been standing, went to its knees.

Crowned and robed with sacred ceremony, and bearing the blessing of the Church, the imperial couple passed down the aisle and out, to where the escort of splendid officials waited to accompany them onward.

A dense crowd, held back by the Excubitors, pressed for a look at the new rulers in the short walk to the Chalké palace. Everyone who, by any pretext, could obtain entrance to the palace enclosure was there, save for those senators, ambassadors, and highest patricians who awaited in the great consistorium—the throne room, where Justinian and Theodora were publicly to assume their thrones and receive homage. Perhaps five thousand craned and crowded along the route as the imperial pair, preceded by trumpets as before, and followed by the entourage of dignitaries, walked slowly to the Chalké palace.

Those thousands of eyes observed without exception that the imperial diadem, with its brilliant jewels and its ropes of pearls and other gems hanging on either side of the face, which had so ill become Euphemia, the old empress, seemed to have been designed as if to complement the beauty of the new empress, Theodora. She wore it, and also her voluminous and gorgeous imperial vestments, with unbelievable grace, a kind of elegant witchery, as if their very fantasies had blossomed out from what was rare and daring in her own loveliness.

A handsome pair, Theodora and Justinian! The onlookers could not help cheering.

“Many years!”

“Many years!”

The old Greek cry by which the populace expressed its good will to newly crowned rulers, rang out again and again from thousands of throats. It was heard in all corners of the palace enclosure; in the streets outside the palace walls; in the Augusteum, where a hundred thousand of the common people already had gathered for a first glimpse of the new emperor and empress.

Now Theodora and Justinian arrived before the Chalké palace.

With a deep voiced “Hail!” the triple ranks of Excubitors, ranged down the steps on either side of the entrance, brought their lances to the position of salute like a great, multiple machine.

Another fanfare from the silver-throated trumpets. Through the wide portals passed the imperial party, and down the long hall with its rich adornments of bronzes and marbles, along the walls of which additional ranks of Excubitors formed a glittering corridor.

At the triple ivory-plated doors to the throne room, the trumpets blasted again—almost deafeningly in this confined space—and the voice of Basil, the high chamberlain, was heard announcing:

“Give homage, all ye, to Their Magnificent Majesties, the Emperor and Empress of the Romans!”

Like tall grain before the scythe the packed audience of aristocrats and nobles, men and women alike, went down upon its knees, then prostrated itself. Theodora, her hand on Justinian’s wrist, walked forward as in a dream toward the dais with its purple-and-gold canopy beneath the golden dome, and the twin jeweled thrones which stood upon it.

Slowly they mounted together the seven steps, turned and faced the assemblage which still lay outstretched, faces down, on the marble floor, then gravely seated themselves on the thrones.

Justinian’s voice said, “Our people, rise.”

As one voice the assemblage, coming to its feet, cried, “Hail, Imperial Majesties!”

Now, as the trumpets sounded again for silence, old Proclus, the quaestor, stepped forward and gravely read the proclamation with which all were familiar. The archpatriarch droned a prayer. A hidden choir sang a special hymn of praise for the new rulers which the court musicians had composed hurriedly for the occasion.

After that, one by one, the principal officers of the empire present, led by the praetorian prefect, whose bald head gleamed with perspiration from some violent inward emotion, came forward, and kneeling before the two thrones, uttered the oath of allegiance, which later would be imposed on every provincial governor and high dignitary, as well as minor officers of the empire:

The oath was new in form, since it was a joint allegiance. It was not perfectly worded, and afterwards some called attention to the last two words, his wife, raising the question that should Justinian die before Theodora, it might not be binding insofar as she was concerned, since she would then be his widow. But though this later was discussed with the new empress, she never sought to have the wording changed.

Five hours were required for the crowning and vesting of the new rulers, their taking possession of their thrones, the acclamation of the dignitaries, and the lengthy ritual of oaths of allegiance by the many high officials. But at last these ceremonies were completed and Justinian and Theodora rose together and passed out of the consistorium by three pairs of steps and three bronze doors, for now this wondrously elevated peasant and the girl of the streets who was his wife must no longer go to and from their thrones through the same doors as ordinary mortals.

They stepped out upon an unroofed gallery, with a parapet lined with columns and magnificent statues. There the retinue awaited them, bending before them in profound reverence.

Another great fanfare of complicated trumpet chords from massed silver throats, and Theodora found herself moving with Justinian to the parapet overlooking the Augusteum, to exhibit herself with him to the people.

She gazed down. The vast square was solidly packed, black with uncounted thousands of heads, the upward-looking nearer faces making a pallid froth at her feet. Here and there in the immense mass stirrings and swirlings were visible, yeasty, restless, somehow explosive; and the low murmur of the mob hung on the air like the purring of a half-sleeping tiger.

A great voice, one of the imperial announcers, was bawling:

From the mob below a mighty roar quivered the air, “Many years!”

Theodora saw Justinian raise his hand in imperial salute to the populace, and tried to imitate him.

Her knees felt weak.

She looked out over the crowd and saw in it a menace that no one else at the parapet felt. She knew that crowd . . . as they did not.

A moment of great doubt and fear came over her, and self-questioning. What had made her great? What was there now different about her from the child who squatted before the Hippodrome holding out a little brass begging bowl? What difference from the courtesan, living by her youth and beauty on the favor of oily libertines?

In no essential was she changed. The same blood still beat in her veins, the same smooth flesh that once knew rags now wore the imperial silk and cloth of gold.

Justinian said she had earned her crown. Perhaps: but had she won it?

The multitude, the vast yeasty squirming mass of people, at that moment frightened her as she could hardly remember ever having been frightened, for even while she received its plaudits, she felt its myriad eyes on her, watching her, estimating her, never wholly accepting her.

From the packed square still beat the mighty thunder of cheering. This was accounted a good sign by the court officials, since there was known to be public discontent over one circumstance: because it was Lent the games and chariot races in the Hippodrome, and the magnificent processions and spectacles in the streets, which ordinarily would signalize an enthronement, must be postponed, perhaps not held at all.

In the crowd there was, indeed, some grumbling over this. Still, people told each other, that was a pretty wench up there with the big crown on her head. One of them: a girl of the streets—and she’d better not forget it. She had promised alms, distributions, and amnesty for minor lawbreakers. For that they were willing to shout for her now. But she’d do well, just the same, to remember whence she came . . . and how easily she might be pulled down!

Of all in the gallery, only Theodora sensed the half-friendly, half-threatening note in the cheering. Almost confused by it, she made a farewell gesture and with Justinian turned away from the parapet.

A disappointment also faced the courtiers. Traditionally a banquet would be held this night in the triclinium, the great state dining hall, the lofty ceiling of which was plated with gold, and on the nineteen purple-draped tables of which only golden vessels were set. Some of those dishes of precious metal were so large and weighty that they were brought in on purple chariots and it took the combined efforts of four strong stewards to lift them. Everything else was on a scale equally magnificent, so that coronation banquets were memorable for a lifetime.

Since it was Lent, however, and particularly since the morrow was the Day of the Sacred Death, a banquet on this occasion would be in bad taste, if not outright sacrilegious. So the grumbling of the crowd without the palace was echoed by a more subdued grumbling of the notables within it.

Of all the countless thousands who acclaimed Theodora that day—the magistrates, Orthodox patriarchs and bishops, famous generals, senators, wealthy nobles and patricians, foreign ambassadors and princely hostages, soldiers, and the masses of common people—hardly one did so without some kind of a mental reservation.

3 }

One curious aftermath of the coronation:

When Justinian and Theodora withdrew at last to the Sigma palace to take up the new imperial quarters there, Tribonian chanced to encounter John of Cappadocia in the colonnades behind the Chalké.

The sub-quaestor halted, with his peculiar satirical smile, and in a low voice uttered the word, “Nika!”

Under his bristling brows John shot him a quick, searching look.

It was the cry of the Hippodrome: “Victory!” And it was shouted, or rather howled, only by the bloody-minded factions at the death or destruction of rival contestants.

Why, wondered the prefect, did Tribonian choose to salute him with such a word, at this particular time?

The legalist’s smile was inscrutably innocent in appearance.

With some muttered greeting, John hurried on.

But the incident upset him. He did not sleep well that night. Nor the next night, or that following.

“Nika!” . . . the word of triumph. Spoken in a mysterious manner. A terrifying train of thought persisted in his mind, aroused by that trifling exclamation of the smiling cynic.

Did Tribonian have some inkling of the conspiracy that had almost succeeded twice—yet twice had failed?

If Tribonian knew, did not the emperor and empress know also?

John felt like a wild boar of his own Cappadocian mountains, caught in a cage-trap. However he might foam and champ his tusks, turning his piglike eyes this way and that, he could not know from what direction a death blow might come. Or when it would fall . . .

He had been outwitted, and he was cowed. Most bitterly now he repented of his plotting, and vowed to himself that he would prove by his exemplary conduct his loyalty to the two now in supreme power. If needful, he would crawl on his belly, and lick the sandal of Theodora. There were no limits to the ways he would abase himself, grovel, and eat his pride to win favor.

Never was a man better able to change his whole manner of conduct, his very habits of thought, than John of Cappadocia. Yet for all his excellent resolutions, this was the beginning of a life of terror and desperation for him. Never, from this day on, did he approach either the emperor or empress without secretly and fearfully studying their faces for signs of distrust or disfavor.

And though he saw no such sign—for Justinian was not aware, and Theodora, lacking any real evidence, for the present hid her lasting enmity—it is recorded that John did not know again one peaceful or unbroken night’s sleep. Double-barred always he kept the doors of his sleeping chamber, and armed guards in his private pay perpetually surrounded it. Yet, for all his precautions, he would start from his bed in constant recurring dread of the assassin who, he dreamed, was creeping in upon him.

It is recorded also that for a time he retained his high office, and not only that, but continued to take his personal tithe off all imperial revenues that passed through his hands.

Greed is the one mainspring of action that seems to persist undiminished in the presence of dread.

4 }

Very shortly after the coronation of Justinian and Theodora, the old emperor died. Justin’s heart, from age and weakness, simply ceased to beat, and he passed in his sleep without a struggle or sign of agony.

In magnificence his funeral surpassed even that of Euphemia. But otherwise his death created hardly a ripple in the empire. Already the continuity of power was established.

5 }

There were now two courts: the one held by Justinian, the other by Theodora. But all matters of real importance were decided by the emperor in his court.

It was better far, and easier, Theodora thought, to be a consort only, leaving to Justinian the authority, when every consequence was so grave. Better for men to do men’s work. Better for a woman to be a woman.

Very soon she discovered, however, that to be only a woman was now impossible for her. She was an empress, and in this were disabilities and restraints she had never imagined. Gone were the days when she could display exuberance of spirits, run if she wished, smile at anyone, speak any little silly thing that came into her head. Time and again she had to school her face to the calmness expected of an imperial countenance; felt like skipping joyfully, but caught herself and slowed to the dignity of a walk; swallowed a giggle when it would have done her soul good to let go her mirth. Highest among all women though she was, she found she must guard most closely every word and action, for no movement or even a slight change of expression is without significance in one who is not only a woman, but an empress also.

This circumspection was trebly necessary in her special case. A man may live down his past. But for a woman it is almost impossible to do so: at least with her own sex.

In the women’s court a remarkable and purely feminine situation existed. The empress was looked down upon by her ladies in waiting, as if she were their inferior, rather than their mistress.

She tried to smile at a grand dame and got only a frozen look in reply. Her conversations, timidly attempted, were cut off by brief responses, indifferent or sometimes even supercilious. Her eyes went about her, at the women of her court, and met no friend’s face in the evasive circle. She felt a conspiracy of ill will against her, and knew also that the secret scorn of women for another woman is from a bottomless pit of female cruelty which is reserved for their own kind only.

At first she hardly knew how to deal with this, but it must be dealt with. Furthermore, since it was a matter entirely between women, she must deal with it alone.

In those first days the young empress felt very lonely and at times disheartened, helplessly angry at times also, and forced to keep her feelings bottled up in herself. The women of the court, with thin smiles at one another, took this behavior as indicating that they had shown the little upstart from the streets that though she might sit on a throne and wear purple, she could never hope to be accepted as an equal by those who were born to all that really mattered.

Not yet, however, did they fully understand the difference between Euphemia, whom they had bullied, and Theodora, the tough, beautiful child of the streets, who was willing to fight with any weapons that came to her hands. Some in her position, knowing inexperience and youth and the united enmity of the ladies of the court, might have given up, relapsed like Euphemia into half-frightened seclusion, become in the end a sort of laughing stock. But there was no surrender in Theodora.

Having tried kindness without success, she would try something else. She had two steps to take: one to teach a lesson that she might not be spoken of with detraction, either as an empress or a wife; the other to establish her authority in her own court of women, where it had not thus far been established.

Her acts thereafter were memorable.

6 }

First the matter of detraction.

She was aware that she was the subject of slanders, lewd speculations, and countless dirty little jokes which circulated in the palace set. This was inevitable. Woman and sex are the two most universally interesting of all conversational topics, as is proved by the fact that in any thesaurus of unconventional language there are twice as many words describing woman as there are words describing man, and sex has a vocabulary exceeding even food, which is next to it in the interest that is evidenced by the expressions invented concerning it.

A woman who is also sex, to a degree surpassing others of her kind, must know that she is the center-point of indelicate talk, and the new empress had a record that without question put her in such a category. It was a burden she must carry in this new life, unless she somehow put an end to it.

When the first opportunity came, Theodora made an example that was never forgotten because of the startling suddenness and cold savagery with which she struck.

Among the palace courtiers was a young Teuton named Areobindus, a big, handsome fellow and something of a dandy, with red-gold hair which was bound by a ribbon fillet, and a fine, well-molded body. He had come to court in an embassy, and liking the life remained, his head being quite turned by the feminine attention he received there. Because he had a stalwart air and a pleasing smile, Theodora liked him; but the handsome Teuton misinterpreted the friendly liking as conceited young men have a way of doing.

Only a simpleton would have behaved as he did, but Areobindus was that. Once she smiled at him. He nudged a friend. Almost ridiculously he posed, like a vain youth who wishes to catch the eye of the girl next door—and it was the empress, no less, for whom he preened.

For a time Theodora let it pass. Then it came to her that the young courtier had boasted that the empress could not keep her eyes off him. Already this was being erected into a scandal, in which her name was connected with his in all manner of broad implications.

Time now to act.

Passing through the atrium of the Sigma palace with some of her attendants one afternoon, she saw Areobindus, ribbon fillet and all, standing in conversation with the officer of the Excubitor guard.

The empress permitted her eyes to stray to him. With a significant glance at his companion, the Teuton drew himself up. She had looked at him, and made no effort to hide it—just as he had been saying!

Now she gave him a direct glance. He grew bold and returned the look with a knowing grin.

It was enough. She breathed lightly through her nose and turned to the officer of the guard.

“Seize him!”

Areobindus was surprised. Nevertheless he held himself erect in the grasp of the soldiers, and even tried to maintain his smile. Surely, he thought, nothing very serious could happen to one as handsome as himself.

He felt the tunic stripped from his back.

A moment later the leaded scourge whistled, bit into his flesh. He winced, struggled and was held, howled, and the scourge cut his back to shreds.

Throughout the flogging Theodora stood looking on, for this punishment must be inflicted in her presence. If she turned away from it, her motives might be misunderstood. Without a trace of emotion in her face she watched until Areobindus, his beautiful body lacerated and bloody, was carried fainting away.

Next day the foolish Teuton was put aboard a ship and sent back to his own barbarian country, where he dropped from history. Other young men who might have been inclined to presume on their looks with the empress, and those who had spoken disrespectfully of her, perceived that she could be terrible, and propriety in both respects became fashionable as far as male courtiers were concerned.

But still she must deal with the women.

7 }

In the very first days, before the end of the month of official mourning for Justin, a dark rumor began circulating concerning her.

“Another Messalina . . .”

The rumor was malicious, and it had a malicious originator: Sophronia, the vinegary wife of Silvius Testor, and mother of Tispasa who had married Chaero, son of Senator Polemon.

Messalina? Those women of the court who were vague on the allusion, did some hurried historical research. What they discovered in the writings of such authorities as Juvenal, Aurelius Victor, and Suetonius, was dreadful to contemplate.

The abominable Messalina was the nymphomaniac wife of Claudius, an imbecile emperor reigning in the first century, who was completely subject to her whims. The creature used her power not only to gratify her own inordinate and insatiable lusts, but because she desired company in her lecheries and example seems to authorize wickedness, she abolished all sexual conventions and compelled Roman ladies of the highest quality to live with her in that state of libertinism. So utterly did she deprave the morals of the Roman court—this on the unimpeachable authority of Juvenal—that the very husbands of those ladies whose chastity she caused to be violated very often were accomplices and consented to it, men and women freely and willingly dishonoring their spouses and seeing themselves dishonored in the orgies the empress ordained, until at last her vileness went too far and she was slain at the order of Claudius himself.

Parallels at once suggested themselves in whispered conversations among the women of the court: was not Theodora a former courtesan? Did she not rule the emperor as by some sorcery?

What if the new empress did try what the odious Messalina had done?

Patrician matrons drew themselves up, then sank into their chairs like rumpled hens. The very thought undid the cords of their knees so that they could hardly stand.

Those of a more ancient vintage comforted themselves, for the first time perhaps, in the safeguard of their advanced years.

But the younger ones—and it was surprising how far along in life were some who began to classify themselves in this category—considered the question with varied emotions.

Of course, they said firmly to themselves, they would never submit to such dishonor. But then thoughts came to shake this conviction. It was to be remembered that their own ancestresses, in the reign of the wicked Messalina, had provided a precedent by obeying her commands . . . evidently without too much rebellion. Did not the text say “freely and willingly?”

What if sexual conventions really were relaxed!

Shocking thought!

And yet . . . there were so many attractive men in court . . . and it was not as if genteel immorality were entirely unknown. One could mention a score of cases offhand she knew herself . . . perhaps had recollections of a delightful wickedness or so in her own right.

A pensive sigh at the thought.

Perhaps, after all, one must reconcile herself. Was not an empress all-powerful? And were not all patricians, men and women alike—when one came to think of it—descended from the raped Sabine women of ancient Rome, who liked their condition so well that they would not leave their ravishers when rescue came?

It was almost a jarring note when Tribonian, who heard the feverish rumor, said to Flora, General Milo’s wife, “As to Her Majesty, I suspect you’ll find her more virtuous than the most virtuous among you.”

“What do you mean by that?” demanded Flora with indignation.

“The empress not only practices virtue, but thinks it also, as some do not,” the legalist answered with his lazy smile.

Flora started to speak angrily, but thought better of it and flounced away. To the first ladies she met she communicated Tribonian’s cynicism. They were as indignant as she.

More virtuous? How could anyone say such a thing? Perhaps there were a few discreet amours in the palace quarter—how could a sophisticated court be conducted without gallantries and intrigues? It simply wouldn’t be a court.

But the empress had been a courtesan. More virtuous, indeed!

They went about with their heads unusually high in the next days, those patrician women. If the empress had tried it, they would have shown her! On this, now that it was evident it was no Messalina who wore the purple, the court ladies repeatedly assured themselves and each other.

What about Lucrece, the virtuous, who took her own life when Tarquin forced his love upon her? If one were looking for precedents, Lucrece was Roman, too!

8 }

When reports of the slander reached Theodora’s ears, she said nothing.

But the very next day a stunning thing happened. Silvius Testor, who had grown rich as a tax collector in Galatea, was arrested, charged with suspicion of peculations, his property in the capital confiscated, and himself sentenced to exile from the capital, together with his entire family, not to return on pain of death.

Sophronia was ignored, her name not even mentioned. But of course everyone—including Silvius, their daughter Tispasa, and their son-in-law Chaero, who must share the banishment—knew that this punishment was brought on them by Sophronia’s trouble-making. The fact that Silvius Testor in his heart was fully aware that he was guilty of the charges made against him did not make him hate his wife any the less throughout her life thereafter.

A whole family, rooted right out of the center of the court—it was appalling, in a way. The rest of the court waited somewhat tensely for what might next happen.

But there was no more violence. Theodora’s next act was a feminine subtlety that could be understood best only by women.

One morning two new names were posted on the list of ladies in waiting.

Antonina.

Chrysomallo.

Who were they? Nobody knew.

A week later the strangers were brought into the empress’ court and introduced. Acknowledgedly they were handsome—a redhead and a blonde, with curvaceous figures—although some remarked that both were perhaps a trifle bold of eye when surveying a man.

Since none knew them, there was great speculation concerning them. Where did they come from? Syria, or Egypt, or perhaps even Cyrenaica? Everyone chattered: nobody could supply the answer.

In the mind of Flora suspicion first grew. She communicated it to others. Presently the evidence was indubitable. They were courtesans!

More information was sought eagerly. The newcomers, it appeared, had taken advantage of the dispensation granted their class, and by marrying attained at least technical respectability. It was whispered that the empress herself had arranged husbands for them. Chrysomallo, the blonde, was wife to a wool merchant. Antonina was a widow, her husband, an elderly importer, having died soon after he took her to wife. But both, without question, had been harlots.

Rebellion brewed in the women’s court. The haughty patrician ladies seethed. There was open talk of leaving the court in a body . . . letting the empress have her two tarts for ladies in waiting, and nobody else.

Next day Theodora called her women before her. She smiled upon them and said, “It is my pleasure to elevate Lady Antonina to be First Lady of the Imperial Bedchamber, and Lady Chrysomallo to be First Lady of the Imperial Bath.”

A gasp. The offices named were chief in the imperial feminine household: plums reserved for the loftiest patricians.

Why—it meant the two courtesans would take rank and precedence over all of them!

What an outrage! An insult to every woman!

Theodora permitted their fury to mount until it reached almost the point of explosion.

Then she spoke again, “I expect that each of you will give to these ladies the fullest respect and affection which their positions bespeak for them, and she who fails in this will be considered as having affronted the throne itself.”

It was the way she said it. She faced the women still smiling, but with a sudden serpent deadliness, eyes cold and hard, head curved forward on the slender neck as if to strike.

Here was no fuddled Euphemia. In that smile a terrible threat was somehow revealed: she dared any of them to go counter to her will.

Rebellion suddenly faded. The ladies in waiting felt a chill of terror, a desire to conform. Minds assayed what had befallen the family of Sophronia. Those who had perhaps contemplated spectacular resignations quickly reconsidered.

It was a complete victory of personality. An abject surrender. And an audacious coup by Theodora.

In bringing two friends from her courtesan past and forcing her women to acknowledge them above all others, she challenged the mass enmity of her court at its most vital point. By compelling obedience she caused her own past to cease to be a topic of revilement.

Never again would her authority be questioned. The unanimous hate reared against her was punctured, like a bladder. Already it was almost as a sickness, difficult to remember.

When she looked upon them now, the faces of the women only questioned as to her wishes. When she gave a command they ran to obey it. When she bestowed upon them a word, it was accounted high honor. She was the unquestioned law in her own household. All they had fancied themselves was forgotten. She did not have to tell them where they belonged: it was not necessary. She was empress, no less.

Meantime, she had gained something else in bringing Antonina and Chrysomallo into court. She could at times, in the companionship of these two, relax and be herself as she could with no others.

Always she had treasured Chrysomallo’s ingenuous affection. Antonina was less wholehearted, far more selfish. But for Antonina there was another, special purpose.

9 }

Belisarius was the hero of the city. Three months after the new emperor and empress assumed their thrones, he came marching back to the capital, to be honored publicly by Justinian. He had taught the rash Avars such a lesson that the wild tribe repented with tears and swore never again to raid the frontier. Hostages were sent to court. Some Avar captives were sold in the slave market. And not a few Avar warriors enlisted in the Comitati, the sincerest of tributes to Belisarius.

In the great throne room Theodora sat beside the emperor as Belisarius knelt before the throne in his silver breastplate, scarlet and gold tunic, and purple-bordered mantle, to have placed about his neck the chain of heavy links wrought of pure gold, with pendant from it a jeweled cross superimposed on a golden shield; and to hear himself declared by Justinian the general in chief of all the military forces of the empire.

She observed that he was very tanned. His campaigning seemed to have given him a new and statelier bearing, made more leonine his head with its thick, tawny beard. When he looked up at her, the old admiration showed in his eyes. The essence of maleness here. Such a man was almost the answer to a woman’s full wish.

At the vagrant thought she sat back, half frowning, and with renewed force, in its way chilling, realized again the disabilities of her lofty station. One of the luxuries of womanhood is bright fancy, but she must not permit herself even to imagine. Almost it seemed to her that the throne on which she sat had in a manner unsexed her.

It was borne in upon her, also, and with a certain feeling of exasperation, that the crown had by no means freed her of the problems of a woman. If only because Belisarius was so attractive as a man, his admiration for her was not healthy. It must be dealt with, and it would not be easy, for Belisarius was beyond ordinary handling.

After the ceremony, she said to him, “Come to my audience tomorrow. I would hear of your experiences.”

But she had in store for him something more important than talk. This was the purpose for which she had ordained Antonina.

The thing turned out to be ridiculously easy. When Belisarius came next day he was presented to the green-eyed siren, who was both expert and remorseless in dealing with men. Once shown her quarry, Antonina smiled with her long, sly eyes, and became a stalking cat creature.

To her it was the simplest of situations: a man unused to women, yet with his instincts clamoring for one, upon whom she, the mistress of all arts, was free to employ every feminine trick and stratagem.

In this game were several turnings dear to her heart. The soldier whom the empress had invited her to capture was famous, and this appealed to her vanity. He was rich through the rewards of the empire, which stimulated her cupidity. He was big and handsome enough to be sufficiently pleasing to her sheer physical urge.

In addition to these things, Antonina sensed something of Theodora’s inner confusion concerning Belisarius, and it is always a triumph for a woman to take a man from another woman whom he admires, the triumph being doubly sweet when the other woman happens to be an empress.

That she did not love Belisarius made no difference to her calculating mind. Perhaps she had never loved anyone, other than her own perfumed, delectable self. If she had no heart, however, she had every wile.

When she was presented to him she gave him one full, wide-eyed look that seemed to search his soul and fixed his full attention on her: then dropped her lashes so that he could observe the perfect dark crescents they made on her smooth, tinted cheeks. As she walked away from him after the first few brief words and a smile, she was conscious that his gaze followed her graceful form.

The next step was to encounter him alone. Since Belisarius was new to every artifice, even the most flagrant, he thought it was an accident that she chanced to be loitering beside a courtyard fountain when he came that way.

He greeted her courteously. “A beautiful evening, Lady Antonina.”

“Yes,” she said pensively. “I was watching the drops of water leaping up where the fountain splashes—see how the late sunlight makes little diamonds of them——”

She looked up at him from under her lashes and gave him a shy smile.

Belisarius had intended to pass on, but that subtle look and smile would have flattered any man.

“I’ve seen days in the army, when I’d have traded real diamonds—if I had them—for a few drops of water like that,” he said.

“It must be terrible,” she murmured. “The privations and perils you, who defend the empire, undergo——”

The line was one which, with variations, has been used in countless instances on not too subtle soldiers, with almost uniform success. To someone like Tribonian, it would have appeared almost ridiculously obvious, but Antonina had correctly estimated Belisarius, and he was properly beguiled by her implied concern for him.

“Oh, it’s not too bad,” he said bluffly. “War has its compensations.”

“Yes, I suppose battle is a great adventure,” she said, her eyes lowered. “To one so—so fearless—it must be a powerful challenge. But a warrior has none of the . . . softer joys.”

“As to that, some of the men don’t seem to find it so. In camp they have their relaxations. The ladies, you know, frequently have a liking for the military.”

He gave a soldierly horselaugh. Her laugh chimed with his, but in a subdued silver key, and she gazed down as if what he said had a little embarrassed her.

Belisarius’ ears grew hot. He realized all at once that he, a soldier, was asserting by implication at least, that she might be interested in him because he was of “the military.” Perhaps she even thought he was putting her in the category of the women camp followers to whom he had referred! He was overwhelmed with embarrassment.

“I—I hope—I didn’t intend to say anything rude——” he stumbled.

She lifted her eyes and forgave his gaucherie with a smile of understanding. The smile finished what she had begun. There was no difficulty in inducing him to ask her to stroll in the garden. She drew him down beside her on one of the stone benches, where the shadows of the vine leaves made charming play on her daring, willful face. For a few minutes she ran the full gamut of her arts with him, being by turn provoking, mysterious, sad, flattering, gay, and apprehensive: a bewildering array of enchanting moods that would have caused the mind of a wiser man than Belisarius to reel.

When she brought him back into the palace, Theodora knew at a glance that Antonina’s victory already was won. It perhaps stabbed the empress’ feminine vanity to think that any man could be so easily and quickly turned from her to another: until she reflected that she had given Belisarius no response of any kind, and a man, once he understands that a woman is unattainable, may often be caught easily by another woman, particularly if she be beautiful, and beyond that quite inviting.

She forgave Belisarius, but she did not quite forgive Antonina.

In the days following, the latter openly displayed her conquest, as if for the amusement of the spectators at his fumbling reactions to her light play. Sometimes Theodora could have shaken her for it. To see Belisarius led about like a captive bear; to hear the women titter at his simplicity; to know that she was herself responsible for the cynical scheming that brought it about, gave her a sensation perilously close to shame. Besides, she knew very well Antonina’s purring feline triumph . . .

But after all, it did solve one of her feminine problems, and she forced herself to swallow her distaste. And since a new war threatened on the Persian frontier, and Belisarius must hasten to Daras—the fortified city confronting that border—to take command of the army, she was to all appearances graciously pleased to grant his request to make Antonina his wife. Not only did she attend the wedding in the cathedral herself, but saw to it that Justinian also attended: which made the second delicata from the little house near the Square of Aphrodite who had an emperor for a wedding witness.

1 }

That summer Constantinople lay stifled, its alley stinks more noxious in the humid heat, its people torpid and ill-humored, sleeping on their house-tops, or even in the streets, for what coolness the nights might bring.

In the palace also activity was at low ebb. Most of the patrician families were gone to their cooler villas down the Propontis coast. The empress took part in this exodus to escape the enervation of the blanket of warmth, crossing the Bosphorus with her court to the beautiful summer palace in Hieron which Justinian had given her. But the emperor remained in the capital. It was the first time the two had been separated for any length of time since their marriage, and with his other worries, the restlessness due to Theodora’s absence kept him much awake of nights.

For months the empire’s best fighting army had been campaigning on the Persian frontier, and reports from it were vague and conflicting. Justinian heard that Belisarius was strengthening the fortifications at Daras, which was threatened; that a battle had been fought before Mygdon in which part of the imperial forces had been defeated; that a proposal of truce had been refused by King Kobad, who evidently believed victory would be his easily.

On Belisarius hung the fate of the empire. What might happen if he were decisively defeated, Justinian dreaded to think, because he did not know how he could raise another army to meet the invasion sure to follow. Nothing could be done but wait and hope, and Justinian’s concern was somewhat sharpened by a sense of personal responsibility. It was he who had ordered some months previously a raid in the disputed territory of the Aranasius River, which the Persian monarch had used as a pretext for this attack. He, also, was to blame for Belisarius’ small force, because in the presence of mounting governmental costs he had attempted an economy in cutting off the annual bonuses commonly paid soldiers. This resulted in an alarming decrease in enlistments, and the emperor knew that Belisarius was outnumbered perhaps two or three to one by his enemies.

The Persian war was the danger that kept the emperor from sleeping at nights. Yet there was another danger far greater, and not remote but all about him.

Like a cancer in the human body, evil in the body politic is at first local, perhaps living only in the mind of one man. But like cancer also, it is a disease with the strange power of living of itself, growing and developing in morbid coils and tentacles which insinuate themselves into the healthy tissues, destroying them and replacing them with its own tumored growth, even when the original cell of malignancy is removed.

The brain of John of Cappadocia had planted the first cancerous cells of sedition. At the surprising elevation to the throne of Justinian and Theodora, which came as if someone had read his secret mind and intentions, he experienced so wholesome a fright that he refrained from further plotting and devoted himself with praiseworthy zeal to his legitimate duties.

But though the original focal point of the disease had been thus removed, the harm was done. To some minds treason is almost irresistible, once the thought is planted. From such the by-products of revolt sift down to lesser but equally rapacious minds—such things as the prospect of pillage, destruction, bloodshed, and glutting that eagerness to pull down the great, which is always the mark of the mediocre. Many lesser minds of that kind existed in the capital.

There was also the festering hatred between the Green and Blue factions. And the bitterness of those with personal grievances, such as the families of Senator Polemon and Silvius Testor, who had felt imperial disfavor. Others groaned under the heavy taxes, and there was one class of surprising proportions which had envy as its sole motive.

For reasons which were various this class centered its detestation on Empress Theodora. Her past, her heretical leanings, her rumored power over the emperor, even her youth and beauty—which to some seemed inappropriate on a throne so recently occupied by a frump like Euphemia—were urged against her in secret conversations. But basically this underlying rancor stemmed from the same source: she was a child of the gutter who had pulled herself out of the mire. Small souls would like to see her trampled back into it.

Most ominous was the shifty, degenerate, parasitical fringe of population which exists in all cities, but nowhere in such numbers as this one. Attracted to the capital by the periodic imperial doles, thousands of scoundrelly indolents lived there by their wits, despising any honest toil, cadging, cheating, not above stealing or worse, and ripe for any mischief.

All these varied elements in that heated summer gave favorable growth to the cancer in the body of Constantinople.

But cancer has symptoms, and the symptoms of this malignancy should have been recognized sooner.

2 }

When the first rains cooled the atmosphere early in September, Theodora returned from Hieron. Justinian that day was in session with the imperial council, from which he excused himself only long enough to greet her, express his delight at her return, and ask a few brief questions concerning her health. Then he returned to the deliberations of the council.

The empress spent the afternoon in conference with Narses, the new imperial chamberlain, who left the council meeting to wait upon her, and from the ugly little eunuch she learned some things that disturbed her.

“I am concerned over the behavior of the Blues, O Beautiful Magnificence,” he said. “They are displaying a dangerous arrogance.”

“More so than usual?” she asked.

“It’s different. They’re growing wild. It’s become their custom this summer to dress differently from other citizens, particularly the reckless and immature youths who make up the Juventi Alcinoi.”

She gave a squeeze of her shoulders at that name. Always she had detested those young bandits.

“They imitate the Huns by cutting their hair in bangs across the forehead and letting it hang in length at the back,” Narses went on. “They grow beards and mustaches to give them a fierce appearance. They wear trousers and boots of Hunnish style, and their tunics are cut with immense sleeves, gathered tight at the wrists, which flutter like the wings of a bat when they walk.”

“What’s so dangerous about a change in styles of dress?”

“It’s a symptom, Majesty. And this is another: though the law forbids citizens to carry arms without authority, most of these flaunt weapons by day or by night.”

“They should be disarmed!”

“It’s less easy than you think, Imperial Grace. I’ll tell you this: during the months of this hot summer, the Juventi Alcinoi, who once committed their depredations solely along the Street of Women, have ranged over the city. There have been half a dozen murders this summer, all unpunished. Women are unsafe. I have ten specific reports of rape of women of good standing. Robberies are so frequent that citizens have taken to wearing belt buckles and brooches of brass rather than gold——”

“This does sound serious,” she said. “I heard none of any of it before I departed for Hieron. What is the emperor doing about it?”

“Your pardon, Glorious Clemency, but——”

“But what?”

“The emperor is a Blue.”

For a moment she stared at him. Then she said, “I also owe some loyalty to the faction. It saved my life once.”

He stood silent, his eyes cast down, his haggard face drawn as if he feared he had gone too far in an implied criticism.

After a moment she said, “But I will see what can be done. And you have my thanks for calling this to my attention.”

3 }

That night, after her women prepared her for bed, Theodora entered the imperial sleeping chamber. None were permitted to come into it when she and the emperor had retired, unless summoned by bell.

The bedchamber was all magnificence, its many lamps making a light almost like day. On the floors were priceless rugs of Persia and Egypt, at the windows costly hangings of richly embroidered silk. Tables and seats of precious woods, wonderfully carved and inlaid, were set about in profusion, and ten magnificent mirrors of polished silver with frames of solid gold, each eight feet high, ranged the walls.

Most notable, however, was the imperial bed. It was immense, as wide and long as a small room in itself, its frame of gold and ebony, adorned with inlays and appliqués of precious metals and ivory, and richly carved in motifs of ritual significance: interlacing bands, stiff animal forms, sharply cut foliage, and symbols of various kinds, with an almost pagan stressing of those of fertility, such as the pine cone, the pomegranate, and the hare.

The bed stood in a curtained alcove, so that when its hangings were drawn, light was excluded and privacy assured. It was a wonderful bed, a truly noble bed, large enough for twenty persons to sleep in at once, but devoted to the slumbers of only two: a bed worthy of the imperial bodies for which it was designed.

By day Theodora and Justinian hardly saw each other, save at state audiences and banquets, when they were surrounded by, involved with, watched, and whispered about by innumerable people. To them, however, remained still this intimacy: when they slept, flesh touching flesh, in the great bed, they were alone together, the world shut out.

Beds once had been all-important to Theodora: as places of love, even as places of livelihood.

Beds—this bed—had now a still mightier importance.

Here, in this bed, she expressed her continual gratitude to Justinian. Here also she renewed and strengthened her hold on his mind and heart.

But the great imperial bed had still another significance.

When Justinian called the imperial council into session, weighty matters were discussed, and from these meetings the empress, as a woman, was by custom excluded. But though the eminent members of the council did not know it, many of the most vital decisions governing the fate of the empire were made in the imperial bed.

It was Theodora’s chosen field, and in it she had won some notable victories. Justinian could be stubborn. Though she was crowned co-regnant she had never asserted her authority. Far more natural and pleasing was it to her to make him malleable to her wishes by her seductions.

The fanatical celibate hermits of the Monophysite faith, who held sex to be the grossest of sins, might have been astonished and scandalized had they known that to a woman’s warm allurements they owed the emperor’s new policy whereby they were no longer molested in their worship.

In the imperial bed it was that Justinian agreed to dismiss the pompous Basil, and replace him as imperial chamberlain with Narses, who thus achieved the highest place ordinarily occupied by any eunuch.

There also Theodora secured the demotion of Sergius, whom John of Cappadocia had placed in command of the Excubitors. Sergius now was an under officer of the city guards—and nursing a grudge. The new commander of the Excubitors was one Theodotus, nicknamed “the Pumpkin” from his yellow, freckled face: not a brilliant man, but within his limitations reliable.

The emperor had embarked on the formula she outlined to him for achieving the reputation of greatness at her seductive suggestions.

Proclus, the old quaestor, was dead, and Tribonian had succeeded him. Very shortly after his elevation, he summoned nine of the best legal minds of the empire together and with them began on a task laid out for them by Justinian. The laws of the empire were a hopeless snarl of legal opinions, conflicting statutes, and outmoded regulations, some of which dated back ten centuries. Their infinitude filled thousands of copied volumes, which no fortune could purchase, and no single mind encompass. With his nine learned coadjutors, Tribonian embarked on the titanic labor of digesting this mass into a simple and legally logical code.

A program of building and reconstruction had been begun by the empire: fortifications on the frontiers chiefly, at first.

Belisarius was facing the armies of King Kobad on the Persian border.

Law giving. Building. War. Her three fundamentals. It was not too much to say, nor perhaps was it the first or the last time in history, that the true seat of government was the imperial bed.

4 }

Theodora loitered for a moment before one of the great mirrors. The lights made transparent her robe of delicate rosy silk, and she pushed her palms with a sleeking motion down the soft undulations of her sides and hips.

The outline was still perfection, the breasts round and provoking. Beauty, waiting . . . why did it have to wait?

She gazed searchingly at the reflection of her face in the mirror. When a woman reaches her full beauty there is a time when her loveliness stands still. For some, this period of continuous perfection is long. For others, the inevitable deterioration begins soon. Every woman knows it: and every woman watches most anxiously for the first signals of the years.

But studying herself critically in the mirror, Theodora could see no immediate signs. She had been refreshed by her vacation in Hieron. Her face was vivid and unlined, her figure charming.

She twisted her body, swishing the silken robe, with a spontaneous gesture of impatience. This was an empress. But she felt the same frustration that any very vital and physical young woman might feel on her first night home after a long absence . . . when her husband is late in coming to bed.

She wondered why. Was it her fault? Something lacking in her? Perhaps a loss of interest on Justinian’s part?

Mentally she began to think critically of him, out of the pique she felt at the moment. Justinian followed her urgings, yet something was lacking. Things moved too slowly. There was not the brilliance, the achievement for which she hoped in his government. At best, she sometimes thought, the emperor’s efforts were pedestrian.

He had taken to much religious preoccupation of late. Sometimes he even affected the rough monkish habit and cowl, instead of his imperial robes; and in his theological ponderings and writings neglected other affairs, or left them to his ministers for decisions. Often he would discourse with her on complicated and wearisome points of metaphysical interpretation, for he had begun to consider himself the head of the Church, and the final judge in all religious disputes.

Could he be at this minute closeted with some theologian over one of his attenuated abstractions?

At that thought, she almost stamped her tiny foot in sheer annoyance.

But there was nothing to do about it.

She looked toward the bed unhappily.

As she did so, she lifted her head, her lips parted as she caught her breath, and the highlights in her eyes became suddenly magnificent. She had heard a clash and clatter without. The sentries in the hall were presenting arms.

All annoyance, all pique departed. In a swirl of rose pink she left the mirror, and was standing beside the great bed as the door opened and Justinian entered.

His hair, she noticed, was becoming quite gray, and he had acquired a pronounced rotundity. But he smiled as he closed the door behind him, and came toward her with a look both of eagerness and elation in his eye.

The eagerness was for her. The elation was something else which she would discover.

“You waited up for me, darling!” he exclaimed.

“Yes.” She welcomed that ardor in his voice, not only for her present state, but for a plan she had in mind for later.

He kissed her with satisfying warmth.

“I wanted to come—would have come sooner,” he said. “But the council lasted on and on. Important dispatches came in——”

He broke off. She now forgave his delay. Not indifference but exigency had kept him.

“You look wonderful tonight!” he said huskily, his smile changing. He took her by her slim shoulders and kissed her again, hungrily.

She knew what was to be the outcome of this, yet as women sometimes will, she temporized, making little diversions and holding off the ultimate conclusion.

“But the dispatches?” she asked.

“They’ve lifted a mighty weight from me,” he said, seeming at the moment hardly interested in them.

“Tell me——”

“Sometimes I almost forget how beautiful you are!”

“I’m always here—to remind you——”

“Not for two months! You must never leave me again. Promise?”

“I promise.”

“Love me?”

“Yes.”

“Much?”

“All the world.”

His smile now had gone entirely. The robe was pulled down from her shoulders, on her arms, leaving her back and bosom bare. She did not resist.

“I thought you—were going to tell me—about the news——” she whispered breathlessly.

“Damn the news! It can wait!”

“Darling . . .”

The rosy silk robe fluttered like a gay bit of gossamer to the floor.

5 }

Later, she murmured teasingly, “Darling—did you take a love philter?”

“I did not,” he said. “I never do.”

“I know it,” she said, and sighed drowsily. “But you were so—so——”

He interrupted her with a kiss. “It’s what you get for staying away so long.”

For a time she was silent. This part, his exuberance, had been good. But now that the essential preliminary was out of the way, her other purpose returned to her mind.

Presently she said, “The dispatches—you haven’t told me.”

Justinian seemed to rouse. “Oh, yes—the dispatches. There’s been a decisive victory at Daras. That’s what kept me in the council meeting——”

“How wonderful!”

“Belisarius met the Persian invasion brilliantly. With less than twenty thousand men, he has crushed an army of not less than forty thousand commanded by Firouz of the Golden Fillet, King Kobad’s favorite general. Ten thousand of the enemy were killed, the rest driven in rout back over the border, and among other trophies captured were the Persian sacred standard, and the golden fillet of Firouz, who lost it in the eagerness of his flight.”

“Belisarius—he is magnificent!”

“A military genius—I’m convinced of it. We’ve not won such a decisive victory over Persia in a hundred years.”

“And now there is to be peace?”

“Peace with Persia.”

She gave him a quick glance. “You mean we’re threatened with war elsewhere?”

He grinned. “This time, perhaps, it’s we who are the threat.”

“Justinian! Don’t be maddening!”

“Very well. I’ll explain. Hilderic, king of the Vandalic kingdom, has been dethroned and imprisoned by the usurper Gelimer, a terrible enemy of Holy Church, being an impious Arian. He did this because Hilderic was kind and tolerant to worshippers of the true faith. We’ve been asked to intervene in the interests of justice——”

She was unprepared for such news, and sat upright in bed. “You intend to invade Vandalia?”

He nodded. “I’m recalling Belisarius to Constantinople. He’ll command the fleet and army.”

“The imperial council approves?”

“There was some dissent—that was the debate this evening. But Archpatriarch Hippias said to me, ‘I have seen a vision. It is the will of heaven, O Emperor, that you should not abandon your holy enterprise for the deliverance of the African Church. The God of Battles will march before your standard and disperse your enemies, the Arian heretics, who are the enemies of his son.’ That speech by the archpatriarch settled the argument.”

She recognized the force of such a statement, coming from the source it did.

“Besides,” went on Justinian, “our agents inform us that the Vandalic kingdom is weak and disrupted by the dissension between Hilderic and Gelimer. It justly belongs to the empire, and this is our chance to regain it. After all, you yourself showed me how necessary is war in perpetuating a ruler’s name in history.”

Theodora drew a deep breath. What he said was true, but this war was bolder, more dangerous than she had imagined. It meant an expedition by sea against an enemy fifteen hundred miles away. She knew the inhospitable African littoral. Besides, such an expedition would be enormously costly.

“Can you finance it?” she asked.

“It may burden the treasury somewhat, but I’ll find a way—or the praetorian prefect will.”

“New taxes?”

“I suppose.”

“There’s grumbling about the taxes already.”

“It’s a necessity of the times, my dear. What do the people expect? The Persian war, the subsidizing of the wild northern tribes to keep them peaceful, the construction program on our fortifications, the expenses of the court and government—they all add up. But the praetorian prefect has some excellent ideas for raising money——”

“John of Cappadocia is too remorseless. That man will cause you trouble some day——”

“We’ve been over that before!” he interrupted impatiently.

Because the prefect kept money flowing into the treasury, Justinian blinded himself to the Cappadocian’s corruption and crassness.

She did not pursue the subject, being averse to nagging. Besides, she had something else to accomplish, which she had almost forgotten for the moment in the surprise of the news the emperor had just given her.

“Before you involve the empire in another war, there’s something you should settle,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“The Blue faction.”

He twisted his shoulders uncomfortably. It was a sore point.

“The Greens are complaining of them?” he asked.

“Everyone is. They’ve been in favor so long that they’re getting out of hand.”

“It’s a passing phase. They’ll quiet down.”

She lifted her slim white arms and arranged her rumpled hair. “I spent the afternoon with Narses. He told me some things I didn’t like that have been going on this summer. Narses is much concerned over it.”

“Yes. I’ve had reports. But I think Narses is unduly timorous. There’s always a certain amount of lawlessness, especially in the summer, when the heat drives people out of their houses.”

“But this comes close to anarchy!”

He lay on his back, staring upward, an expression of discontent on his face. “I’m sure you exaggerate it. In any case I hardly know what I can do.”

“You can discipline the Blues when they’re caught breaking the laws! I’m told the authorities wink at their depredations, and the magistrates dismiss any cases against them if they’re brought to court. Show them you’re ruler! A lesson or two will not only reduce their arrogance, but prove to the rest of the citizens that you’re willing and able to use authority to correct abuses.”

For a moment he was silent. Then he said, “What you suggest is impossible. Would you have me intervene in what amounts to a quarrel between the factions?”

He rose and closed the curtains of the alcove, shutting out the light. “Let’s get some sleep,” he said. “I’m weary.”

It was his way of escaping argument.

Silently, for a time, she sat upright in the darkness on the bed beside him, reading clearly his singular indecision, which could decree a foreign war yet was unwilling to take strong action at home which might endanger his popularity. Justinian wished to be an amiable ruler. Too often he was prone to smile and say “Yes,” when his answer should have been a frown and a stern “No.”

Presently she relaxed down beside him, listening to his breathing, which had become deep and regular. He had the habit of thus falling off easily to slumber.

But for a long time Theodora lay awake, open-eyed in the darkness.

On this occasion she had suffered defeat in the great bed where she had so often won.

What she feared was becoming apparent. Justinian lacked the decision and vigor to rule in the great manner. He substituted grandiose schemes for hard administration.

In the dark she pressed her hands on her forehead. It was as if a moment of terrible revelation had suddenly come to her.

She knew the people. She was of them.

To her it was evident that the populace of Constantinople, sly, corrupt, and selfish, had discovered the weakness of the emperor.

An autocracy can rule only when the ruler is firm.

6 }

Antonina, who had hurried off to join her husband when the news came of his victory, returned, with him. As Belisarius’ wife, she was one of those who shared the imperial stands in the gallery of the Chalké palace, from which, one week before Christmas, Justinian and Theodora reviewed the triumphal procession.

It was a notable parade, and the crowds forgot their growing ill-humor and sullenness to cheer the soldier who had proved himself so great in war.

The inevitable Excubitors, glittering in white and gold, were of course an eye-filling sight, and from the way they held themselves, and the haughty manner in which they marched, one might have thought that they did the bitter fighting that won the victory at Daras, although not a man of them had been at the front.

But after these showy companies, with their musicians and standards, came a procession of silent horsemen, formed in fours, each rider lean and sun-darkened, his armor plain and perhaps stained or hacked, his bow and quiver on his back, his lance in its boot, his long sword at his side—the Comitati, who had returned to Constantinople with their commander.

Marching on foot came next a contingent of wild-looking warriors, with a long stride and a swing of the shoulders like a troop of elk in the forest. Of body armor they wore little, save for shaggy furs and skins that gave them an appearance of strange animal bulkiness. Their helmets were small, and like as not decorated with the face-mask of some wild beast pelt, the skin and limp paws of which hung down behind; and their shields were plain round iron, while their swords were curved and keen as razors. These were the Herulian mercenaries, commanded by Mundus, a veteran officer who, some said, was half Hun, his mother having been the captive concubine of a Gothic soldier.

Now came the loot: vast quantities of arms and armor taken from the Persians, some very costly and richly inlaid with gold, carried by captive enemy soldiers who soon were to be sold as slaves; chariots with scythes on their axles, in number fifteen, drawn also by captives; standards and shields of the Persian lords, set with precious stones; the golden fillet of General Firouz, who by this time had been disgraced for his defeat by King Kobad; a line of mules laden with bullion, coined money, and other valuables which would be delivered to the treasury; a group of dark-eyed, white-skinned huris, the beauties who had been brought along to amuse the nobles of the Persian army, and who had been left behind by their lords in the flight—very charming in their gauzy pantaloons and flowing robes, with flower wreaths in their hair, but downcast, knowing what their fate would be.

There were other exhibits of the victory. It was an impressive spectacle, considering that this had been taken only from a defeated army and not from a looted city. Byzantines found themselves wondering how much wealth the Persians must possess, and what might be obtained if their whole country could be conquered.

Remained to be seen the victor himself.

A band went blaring past the reviewing stand. It was followed by one hundred maidens, gowned in every soft shade and color, and making a pretty and graceful spectacle as they danced and whirled to the music, meantime strewing petals of flowers along the path of the conqueror.

A squadron of chariots containing military officers followed these lovely ones, and the first, which was drawn by four magnificent white horses and marked by a standard lifted high by a soldier who rode in it, was driven by General Belisarius himself.

Through a continual storm of cheering he rode, his head bare save for a wreath of laurel in its thick blond thatch; his beard crisp and tawny; his eyes, under their sun-bleached eyebrows, like gleaming bits of steel. The silver armor he wore seemed to be molded to his physique, and his scarlet cloak, flung back over his shoulder, gave an added touch of grace.

As Belisarius lifted his sword to salute the imperial balcony, Theodora looked down upon him.

The lion again. The essential male. The empire’s first soldier.

She gave a quick glance at Justinian: woman’s inevitable comparison. Justinian was graying and flabby, the athlete below all muscularity and strength. Justinian’s face seemed almost flaccid, while that of the warrior was vigor and energy personified, his very gesture something extraordinary in its assertion of his power.

But . . . Justinian was the emperor.

The thought seemed to clear her mind of some clouded impulse of emotion. She was Justinian’s wife. And his empress. About herself she drew the invisible mantle of her dignity and responsibility, and glanced over at Antonina.

Belisarius’ wife was half leaning on the parapet, enjoying her moment of glory as her hero-husband below looked up at her, and smiled at her in special acknowledgment.

She tossed down to him a rose, which fell toward the chariot in a twirling arch.

He smiled his thanks, teeth gleaming in his tawny beard, and reached out an arm to catch the posy. But her toss was too languid, the blossom fell short, and Belisarius could not reach it.

He glanced up at Antonina with a look of apology, and Theodora saw her face grow chill. She was annoyed by his failure to catch the flower she had tossed, in spite of the inadequacy of her own part of the act.

The episode was momentary. While the crowd continued to thunder its cheers, the general’s chariot, and its attending chariots, rolled past, and the procession was gone.

But in that single instant Theodora read the whole story. Antonina, sure of her power over the soldier, already was indifferent to him.

Out of this would come pain and humiliation, and the spectacle of another Hercules demeaning himself before a frivolous and heartless Omphale would be repeated. Theodora thought on this with indignation. She could see Antonina, now that the procession was past, already flirting with every man whose eyes she met. An impulse came to call the woman before her, remind her of her duty as wife to the hero of the empire, and sternly enjoin her to behave herself.

But with that came another thought. Though the procession now was blocks away, the roar of the applauding crowd still beat upon the air, and that crowd contained very many of the Hunnish costumes with the wide-sleeved tunics like bat wings: more than she had imagined. Belisarius was the darling of the populace.

For the present this was not objectionable, and he deserved his hour of glory. But men and events have a strange way of turning. The day might come when to have a hold—and one the more powerful because it was secret—on the great soldier, might be of rare strategic value.

In this new light, as a potential piece in a policy of state, Theodora considered Antonina. The woman had in no manner changed since her days in the Street of Women. In thought and spirit she was still the harlot. Of this fact, and of the worship of Belisarius for her, something most valuable might some day be made.

7 }

The Christmas season passed peacefully until Epiphany, or Twelfth Night, which came on the sixth of January. But the celebration of that night was unusually disorderly and boisterous, so much so that the city guards took the precaution of moving through the crowds in squads rather than singly, and watched narrowly the more drunken celebrators.

Epiphany was the feast day when the Church celebrated three sacred events, the Baptism of Christ, the Marriage Feast at Cana when the first Miracle was performed, and more particularly the Adoration of the Magi at the manger of the Holy Infant, which signalized the manifestation of the Savior to the Gentiles. Masses were held in every place of worship on this day of strongly religious significance.

But customs older than Christianity also were observed by the common people. This was the night, called Twelfth Night because it followed Christmas by that number, when in the homes the year-candle, lit first at the last Epiphany, and since burned a little on several occasions—particularly on saints’ days and in the Christmas season—was finally allowed to burn down until it guttered out, while the household feasted and drank wine. After its last flicker died, a new year-candle was lit for the coming twelvemonth: a custom undoubtedly descended from the old pagan fire festival of ancient Rome.

But Twelfth Night also was the great witching night, when evil spirits, ghosts, and devils were expelled. As usual, crowds surged through the streets, jangling bells, clattering kettles and pans, and particularly, in many cases, cracking whips and lashing the air with them, for it was well known that the sound of whips frightened witches and wicked spirits. The people yelled and shouted also, creating a great uproar, the purpose of which was to scare away any of the familiars of Satan who might have found lodgment in the streets or houses during the preceding year.

While riotous, the occasion usually was good-humored, with a carnival spirit pervading. But an ominous undercurrent of viciousness was apparent this night. Very much in evidence were the young bullies of the Blue faction, the outgrowth of the Juventi Alcinoi, wantonly damaging property, and looking fiercely for victims on whom to vent their cruelties.

Unfortunate was any man known to be a Green, if he encountered a cruising band of these terrorists without help near at hand. He might be lashed until his back ran with blood: or some of his tormentors, who took pride in their skill with the whip, might demonstrate by brutally taking off bits of skin with the snapping tips of the long lashes, or perhaps even cracking out an eye. If he escaped then, the wretch might be glad to get off with so little harm, for if he showed resentment, hidden knives and swords were out in a minute, and perhaps his widow found his body next day huddled in an alley corner.

Recently girls from the lupanares had taken to tramping with the Blue desperadoes, shrieking with excited and half-drunken laughter, inviting and submitting to any kind of a caress or familiarity, adding the hysterical stimulant of sex to the excesses in which the young thugs indulged. By their presence and their shrilling voices, these wantons encouraged malice to cap malice, outrage to exceed outrage.

Decent women early locked themselves in their houses, for none were safe on the streets. The aged and children were kept indoors also; and of the men, only those who had the most urgent business went abroad, unless they wore the ribbon badges of the Blues. That night the Greens ground their teeth and prayed for the hour to come when they might be revenged on their enemies.

Dawn came at last, and the city was comparatively quiet. A few late roisterers staggered home through the slowly brightening streets. Debris and trash littered walks and gutters. Presently the patrols, and the slaves whose task it was to clean the streets, would be out: the former to pick up and carry to the city morgues such as they found dead and unclaimed by families or friends.

With the coming of the regular hour for business, the shops and bazaars opened as usual, and the city officers breathed a sigh of relief that things had not been worse.

And at the first light of that day, the seventh of January, slaves were busy under their overseers in the Hippodrome, dragging the sands of the arena, washing down all the tiers of stone benches, and preparing the imperial box of the kathisma, with its cushions and great canopy of purple silk. The afternoon was to see the beginning of a season of chariot races and games which, it was announced, were to be given at the personal expense of the emperor himself, rather than by the factions, or by any wealthy individual.

The season would last a fortnight. From as far away as Antioch and Corinth, horses and charioteers had been brought to augment the ranks of those already available in the capital: while hundreds of wild animals had been imported from Africa, Asia, and the forests of northern Europe for the beast fights, for the spectacles were to be exceptionally brilliant.

Constantine, the first Christian emperor, had abolished gladiatorial contests along with the crucifixion of criminals, because the deaths of Christ and the martyrs by these means rendered them too sacred for common usages. But the degenerate tastes of the Byzantines still demanded bear-baiting by huge dogs, fights between lions and tigers, between wolves and wild bulls, between wild boars which sometimes disemboweled each other with their tusks, or between the huge primitive cattle called aurochs and bears or lions.

The chariot races, in which men frequently were dashed to death, remained however the prime favorite for the rabble, because it is the smell of human blood that fully excites the human beast.

His courtiers complimented and flattered Justinian for his canniness in giving the games so soon after Epiphany. It was felt generally that the emperor’s munificence had forestalled possible serious rioting during the Twelfth Night excesses, by holding forth the promise of races and beast fights to the mob, as one bribes a naughty child with the prospect of sweetmeats.

1 }

There should have been ample warning, but strangely nobody was prepared for the black disaster when it came.

Its seeds were planted by John of Cappadocia. Yet when at last his plotting came to fruition, it was not by his order or direction. He was, in fact, out of calculation: and astonishingly, he found himself one of the objects of its wrath.

So suddenly did it crystallize that even Theodora’s misgivings had not yet formed into strong apprehension. As for the others—Justinian, Belisarius, Tribonian, and the rest—they were simply caught gasping.

The emperor personally presided in the kathisma at the first day’s contests in the Hippodrome. On that day the program went off without untoward incident, as it did the next, and for several after that.

Theodora did not climb the steps to the tower of St. Stephen’s church to watch from the latticed windows overlooking the Hippodrome. She was nervous and uneasy because of the Twelfth Night turbulences, and remained in the gynaeceum with her women.

Even there she heard frequently the mighty roar, “Nika!”

It beat up to the sky, triumphant, gloating, bloodthirsty. Each time she heard it she knew that it signalized some hideous disaster on the white sands: a chariot dashed to pieces against the wall, a rider dragged to his death by the reins wrapped about his body, or someone crushed beneath tearing hoofs and bounding wheels as he fell in the way of the chariots after being thrown from his vehicle.

Blood delighted the mob. Viscera—human viscera—scattered on the clotted sand: this was what the rabble crowded the Hippodrome to see. Also brains oozing, and broken figures perhaps still kicking. The mob exulted gleefully when drivers, who only a few minutes before had been public heroes, were carried as still corpses by the slaves, out through the sinister portal called the Gate of Death, which was built originally for bearing away slaughtered gladiators, and still was used for dead or crippled charioteers. Wild, crazed betting was stimulated in the Hippodrome by these sights of blood, suffering, and death.

From her babyhood in the fornix Theodora had been accustomed to the ferocious cry of the Hippodrome: “Nika!” But in it now she seemed to sense a new note, higher, shriller, more insane, somehow terribly threatening and fearful.

On the night of the seventh day of the games, when a state dinner was held for the ambassador from Ravenna in the triclinion, she mentioned her feeling to Justinian. But he shrugged his shoulders, failing to share her fears.

“You seem nervous these days,” he said. “The populace is always restless on Twelfth Night. Perhaps it was a little over-exuberant this time. But did you notice how quickly the city quieted by morning? Not a trace of trouble.”

“I know,” she admitted.

“Calm your fears, my dear. Everything’s very much all right.”

With that he resumed his conversation with the ambassador, for he was interested in making sure of the neutrality of the Ostrogoths in his planned invasion of the Vandalic kingdom.

Theodora turned her attention to Antonina, who as usual had a group of men about her. Flirting continuously, treating her husband with contempt almost, Antonina had been behaving badly toward Belisarius, and the soldier seemed unable or unwilling to do anything about it.

A voice beside Theodora said:

She turned smiling to Tribonian, who had spoken.

“I recognize your quotation from Plautus,” she said, “but there’s another, from Apuleius, who in his verses compares a coquettish woman with a ball player who skillfully catches and tosses the balls thrown to him with both hands:

He nodded, with his smile. “Very apt, but I like even better Ovid’s description of this clever silent language of women, in which our little friend over there is so skilled. Listen:

Theodora, whose stage career had given her a fund of quotations, often matched them thus with the courtly quaestor, and now she applauded him.

“Excellent, Noble Tribonian!” she said. Then she added, her face clouding, “Just the same, Antonina annoys me.”

“As well be annoyed, Beautiful Magnificence, with a stream that runs downhill, as with one like Antonina for being a coquette.”

His smiling ease lifted her spirits. For a time they discussed his work on the Code of Justinian, and when he passed on her good humor was at least in part restored.

That night she retired late. There had been no sign of disorder in the city.

2 }

On the next day, the eighth of the games, the crisis began suddenly, and Theodora did not witness it.

That afternoon the chariot races had been uncommonly exciting: three drivers mangled to death, and two others crippled for life. All three of the dead charioteers, as it happened, were of the Greens, and Justinian, betting in the kathisma, had won heavily, as had the other Blues in the Hippodrome.

Perhaps this humiliation, added to their other grievances, caused the Green faction to take the startling action that followed.

Between the fifth and sixth races, while slaves were clearing away a broken chariot, and with fresh sand obliterating blood stains on the course, a figure rose in the Green section.

Everyone knew him: Quartus Ostius, for more than a score of years the chief announcer of his faction. All over the Hippodrome voices stilled as the crowd strained its ears to hear what he would say.

“Hail, Justinian . . . Most Glorious Clemency!” bawled the great bull voice, trained to make itself heard in huge crowds.

Spectators sat forward. This might be important: the announcer was addressing the emperor directly.

Ninety thousand pairs of eyes went to the high kathisma, where Justinian, under the shadow of the purple canopy, leaned back in his marble chair, a frown between his eyes and a question in them.

“Imperial Magnificence,” the voice boomed again, with the conventional pauses, so that all could have time to comprehend and digest the meaning of what was thus shouted. “Your people . . . seek justice . . . against oppression!”

For the emperor, who had an ordinary voice, to make direct reply in this huge assemblage was impossible, but there were men trained for the purpose. Justinian motioned to one of his announcers, leaned forward with a few words of direction, and the man turned to the crowd.

Equally mighty in voice as the Green announcer, he boomed across the arena, “In what manner . . . are you . . . oppressed?”

Followed a strange, shouting colloquy, the two announcers, because of their great voices, answering one to another. Their utterances became an angry argument. And though one was supposed to be uttering the words of the emperor, and the other those of the Green faction, each rapidly fell back on his own arguments and epithets, bellowing across the vast massed horseshoe without waiting to be prompted, or to consult with anyone.

“The truth is known to you . . . Sublime Heaven Born . . . as to him who . . . oppresses us . . . with injustices and extortions!” bawled the Green spokesman.

In the kathisma, John of Cappadocia’s face went a gray putty color. Very well he knew to whom the speaker referred—himself.

“We know . . . no oppressor!” roared back the emperor’s announcer.

“Like Judas . . . he will perish!”

“Do you dare . . . insult the magistrates . . . of the empire?”

Justinian chewed his lips nervously, glancing almost helplessly at the back of his bellowing speaker, as if he wished to call a halt to this senseless exchange, yet hardly knew how to do it.

On the bald brow of the praetorian prefect beads of sweat stood as the announcer of the Greens began to repeat his words, “Like Judas——”

It was cut off by the emperor’s spokesman, who took matters fully and angrily into his own hands, “Silence . . . Jews . . . Manichaeans . . . Samaritans!”

The Manichaeans were an execrated heresy which attempted to identify the dominant principles of Christianity with those of Zoroastrianism, the fire-worshipping religion of Persia. It was to be noted that even in the fury of his name-calling the announcer did not refer to the Greens as Monophysites—which was indeed the schism they supported—because of the religious leanings of Empress Theodora.

At the series of epithets, a gasp, then a howl of rage came from the opposite benches. It was accompanied by a roar of derision, hoots, cat-calls, and braying sounds from the Blues across the arena.

Quickly, however, the noise subsided to catch the reply of the bold Green spokesman. His voice bawled across the crowded seats.

“Are we then . . . to be called Jews . . . Samaritans?” Deliberately he chose what the Byzantines, racially and religiously intolerant, would consider the two more insulting expressions. Then he continued, “God be with us . . . and Christ . . . the blessed single-natured!”

Another gasp, this time from the Blue section, followed by a scream of fury. The last phrase had directly flung the Monophysite credo into the teeth of the emperor and every Orthodox Catholic.

At the toe of the great stone horseshoe, where the factions were seated nearest to each other, a scuffle began. Guards moved upward to quell the disturbance.

“You blaspheme . . . be silent!” roared Justinian’s announcer.

“Is that the command . . . of the Most High?” The Green speaker seemed to sneer. “Can Roman citizens, then . . . no longer freely . . . speak their minds?”

“I say you blaspheme!”

There was a moment’s pause. Then, for the first time, the Green announcer turned from the imperial kathisma to his own benches. Again suddenly quieted, the whole Hippodrome heard his immense voice, shaking with anger.

“You have heard, O people! . . . We are threatened! . . . Have not others been murdered . . . with no punishment . . . to the slayers? . . . Are we, then, to be next? . . . Depart! . . . Depart all of you . . . from this accursed place!”

Justinian, having permitted matters to get completely out of hand, sat helpless while the angry bellowing altercation between the two announcers went on. Now, leaning forward in his chair, he saw the Greens, in a boiling stream of bitter humanity, beginning to rush down from their benches toward the exits.

A moment later the Blues, on the opposite side of the arena, began an angry exodus also.

The emperor threw himself back in his seat under the purple canopy, as one who throws up his hands in perplexity and rage.

It was unprecedented. So furious was the crowd that the final three races were not even to be held.

By so much was the gravity of the situation made apparent.

3 }

Justinian was not devoid of physical courage. He had encountered dangers before without panic, and sometimes dealt firmly with crises.

But in this sight of ninety thousand angry men he found something very fearful. Their individual furies seemed to swirl upward, becoming a single vast whirlpool of rage that hung like a cloud over the Hippodrome, over the city: a threatening danger impossible to assess or prepare against, since the caprices of mob madness are as unpredictable as they are often destructive.

Not for nothing had every Roman emperor since the first Caesar feared above any other peril the fury of the rabble. The list of those destroyed when the people turned against them was long: Claudius, Nero, Galba, Piso, Domitian, Commodus, Heliogabalus, Maximinus, and Valentinian were a few who came quickly to mind.

Justinian spoke no word as he led his courtiers hurriedly down the private winding stair and through the walled passage that led from the kathisma into the palace grounds. His face was set and white. Some who saw it attributed this to anger, others to fear.

When he reached his offices, his first order was for the arrest and imprisonment of the overzealous announcer who had put him in the position of carrying on a foolish and futile argument with the crowd. The man would be dealt with later, at leisure.

Meantime, there were other matters more pressing. Within a few minutes a panting city guard brought word to the palace that fighting had broken out between the two factions. The Blues, issuing from the Hippodrome, had found it impossible to refrain from taunting their rivals, and the hate between them flamed into ugly action. Now in progress in the Bull square was a full-fledged riot.

For once Justinian acted promptly. Calling in the city prefect, Theodotus the Pumpkin, he said to him, “Put down this disturbance at once!”

“Yes, Magnificence.”

“Take a cohort of Excubitors if necessary, but break up the riot,” repeated the emperor very earnestly. “It must be stopped before it becomes more serious. Do you understand me? Speed is everything. If you can find the ringleaders, punish them!”

Theodotus saluted. The Pumpkin was not a highly intelligent man, but he knew enough to ask for one more specific direction before he went.

“Regardless of—faction?” he said.

Justinian scowled. “No matter what color they wear!”

“I obey, Heaven Born!”

“Then haste. I realize now that I’ve made a mistake in being too benevolent. My imperial uncle, though himself a Blue, kept order by treating transgressors of both factions with equal sternness. Such is my policy henceforth. I’ve tried friendship. Now let them look to it!”

Having, by his ill-advised lenience, allowed the city to get out of control and grave disorder to begin, he thought, in the manner of all weak men, that he could make up for his previous softness by now becoming unduly harsh.

Theodotus saluted again and departed to carry out his orders.

When Theodora, to whom conflicting reports of the Hippodrome affair had been given, went to Justinian’s headquarters an hour later to get from him an ungarbled account of it, the city prefect returned and was at once ushered into the imperial presence.

Only the emperor, the empress, the praetorian prefect, the guards assigned to the imperial offices, and Theodotus himself were witnesses of what followed.

“Well?” said Justinian, as the Pumpkin saluted.

“I marched directly to the Bull square, Mightiness.” Theodotus had an uneasy look on his face. “The crowd was still fighting, but when they saw the silver shields of the Excubitors, they dispersed. I was able to capture only seven. There were three or four dead on the pavement, and nobody could count the number of injured who were carried off.”

“What did you do with the seven?”

“Remembering your imperial command that the ringleaders be punished, I took them to the Blachernae gate, where there is a permanent gallows, for execution.”

“Execution? On what grounds?”

“Was that not your intention, Magnificent Sublimity? You said to punish——”

“I said to punish ringleaders! Were these ringleaders?”

“I—I thought—how could one tell who in that crowd were—were the——”

“Go on!”

“Four of the prisoners were carrying daggers or swords, for which the penalty is beheading. The other three I condemned to hang on a charge of conspiring to murder. I must report to Your Clemency that of the four with weapons, three were Blues. Of the other three, one was a Blue——”

“Four out of the seven were Blues!” exclaimed Justinian, with some horror. He had counted on the firm support of the Blues in whatever troubles might occur. What would be the outcome of this seizing of four of their members, and their condemnation without trial, when the faction heretofore had enjoyed virtual immunity?

“Well, continue,” he said.

“A considerable crowd gathered, Heaven Born, as always at public executions. I therefore formed a hollow square of the Excubitors, with the gallows and prisoners in the center.”

“The crowd—how did it behave?”

“A woman screamed and tried to get through the cordon. Her husband was one of those condemned to have his head stricken off. Such outbursts always happen. She was thrust back. Otherwise the crowd watched the deaths of the criminals silently.”

Justinian gave a short nod.

“The four who carried weapons were beheaded first,” Theodotus continued. “Then the three charged with conspiracy to murder were taken up the ladder to the platform of the gallows bar which stands by the gate, so that when the ropes were placed about their necks they could be pushed off at one and the same time, and do their dance on the air together. It was then that the monks arrived from the hospice of St. Lawrence, which overlooks the square——”

“Monks, fool? You said nothing of this! For what purpose?”

“I’m coming to it, Gracious Magnificence,” half whimpered the Pumpkin. “They asked leave to confess the three on the gallows and commit their souls to God.”

“You permitted it?”

“I knew not how to refuse it. And indeed it took no very long time. If it had not been for the unfortunate accident——”

“Accident? Now may a thousand devils fly away with this dolt, who cannot give a consecutive report! What accident?”

“It was nothing your humble slave could help, Supreme Mightiness. Only bear in mind, I beseech Your Clemency, that the nooses had been dangling for months—in all weathers——”

“What happened?”

“I implore your patience, Majesty,” said the Pumpkin in a faltering voice, as the vein of wrath began to stand out on the emperor’s forehead. “As I said—the nooses had been dangling for months—how was I to know the ropes were rotten——”

“So the ropes were rotten? God in his grace, give me patience to hear out this babbling fool!”

Theodotus was now in terror, but he went on as a man who knows no way out.

“When the three were pushed off the platform, Most Benignant Clemency, one was well and truly hanged——”

“Only one was hanged!”

“The ropes of the other two—one a Blue, the other a Green—broke and they fell to the ground——”

“You mean they lived?”

“I—I thought them dead. It seemed their necks must be broken. Without asking permission the monks carried them into the hospice. And presently it was—it was reported—that the two men lived, and had regained their senses——”

“Idiot! Ass! Blunderer! What, in your stupidity, did you do next?”

“Without further orders, O Merciful Sun of Splendor, I did not take upon myself to enter the hospice, for that would have violated sanctuary. I therefore threw a guard about the place, and returned to the palace to report——”

A dark flush mounted the emperor’s face and the vein of rage beat heavily on his forehead: rage which was half terror at the consequences he already feared from this stupid and dangerous inadvertence.

“By the Holy Wisdom, in all my rule I’ve never been worse served!” he burst out wrathfully.

The Pumpkin fell on his knees, his freckles accentuated by the pallor which had come into his yellow face. “Majesty! Mercy! I did but try to do as Your Supremacy commanded——”

“Seize him!” Justinian said.

Theodotus uttered a cry of despair as a soldier took him by each arm. Suddenly writhing out of their grasp, he threw himself face down on the floor, clutching the emperor’s feet.

“Spare me, Dread Lord of Mankind! In the name of the Passion of Christ, I beseech your pardon, for in what I have failed was no fault of zeal! Judgment, perhaps, but not zeal! I have a wife, Sublime Magnificence—and nine children—and more coming——”

Justinian kicked him away, where he lay sobbing on the floor.

All at once Theodora, who had watched silently in her chair, said, “I beg you, Lord, spare him.”

Darkly Justinian turned to her. “He richly merits death!”

“But think, if you begin to slay all the stupid, how many would be left? Besides”—she gave him a sudden mirthful smile—“consider the wife—and the nine children—and more coming—it appears to me that you’d orphan half of Constantinople!”

The emperor stared at her, but the doom in his face gradually faded. Presently he said, “Begone, Pumpkin! I give you life, but as a common soldier you return to your barracks!”

Hurriedly Theodotus rose and stumbled out of the room, broken in rank, but thankful for the whimsicality with which the empress had seen fit to turn aside from him the emperor’s deadly wrath.

4 }

That night passed without remarkable incident. When morning came Justinian was able to convince himself, out of his wishful hope, that the worst was over, in spite of his humiliation of the previous day. He decided to continue the games in the Hippodrome as if nothing had happened. By this policy he intended to give an appearance of calmness, as if the government did not consider the disorders of the afternoon before of sufficient importance to notice: on the theory that the mob might also be content to let bygones be bygones.

But after the very first chariot race that day, the announcer of the Greens rose and bawled, “Give us back . . . O Emperor . . . the two whom you slew . . . but whom God . . . in his mercy, saved!”

A yell of applause greeted the demand.

The phrasing was subtle, no doubt decided upon and rehearsed the previous night. By its clever wording the Green announcer introduced a religious note to the effect that God had spared those whom the emperor tried to have executed unjustly. But the real cunning in it was in the announcer’s asking for the two—since all knew that one was a Blue, the other a Green. It was like an open declaration that the two factions now had a common and united grievance.

Justinian was observed to lean forward in a whispered consultation with the praetorian prefect and the quaestor. But he made no reply through his announcer. No doubt he remembered how his spokesman had been worsted the previous day, and hoped that his silence now would quiet the crowd.

The second chariot race was run.

At its finish the Green announcer rose and repeated his shout in the same identical words. This time spectators in hundreds joined in.

In the kathisma Justinian was troubled. “It seemed to me that some of those voices came from the Blue benches,” he said to John of Cappadocia.

The praetorian prefect, a very worried man since he knew how much of the hatred of the populace he deserved, wrinkled his forehead and looked anxiously over at the Blue side of the arena.

“It may be . . . I hope not,” he muttered.

But after the third race there was no question of it. The Blues by now were as vociferous as the Greens.

This was new and sinister. Whatever genius had suggested the plan of calling for the two condemned men had succeeded, temporarily at least, in gaining for the demand the support of both factions.

It became a chant, an organized yell, after every race. Theodora, listening in her solarium, was among the first to notice it.

No longer was the roar, “Nika!”

Instead, with impromptu precentors before every tier of benches, waving their arms in unison so that the words would have the rhythm and swell of an ocean wave, the whole ninety thousand in the Hippodrome, Blues and Greens alike, joined in the mighty and ominous shout:

“Give us back, O Emperor, the two whom you slew, but whom God in his mercy saved!”

At first the crowd entered into it as a novelty, with a certain degree of good humor. There was laughter, and derisive shouts and hand clapping, after each great organized roar, as if the spectators applauded themselves and derived amusement from this new way of plaguing the man in the purple robes, who sat so high and lofty under the great canopy of the kathisma.

But as the day wore on, with race following race, and there was no reply of any kind from the imperial box, the yell grew more and more menacing, until toward the last it contained a growl of anger, an undertone threatening and ferocious.

Now, also, individual shouts and calls from the benches began to follow each organized yell.

“Cursed be the extorters!”

“Justice against the evil doers in the palace!”

“Punish, O Emperor, our oppressors!”

John of Cappadocia winced. His name was not uttered, but he did not deceive himself. Many of those shouts were directed against him, and he sensed in them resentment exceeding ordinary anger against officialdom. He spoke no more in the conversations which went on in a tense undertone in the kathisma. Fear held him silent.

The day’s program ended without actual turbulence, but the races had been listless because of lack of real interest in them, and the populace did little betting: always a bad sign.

In spite of this Justinian was hopeful when he returned to the palace. Shortly, however, an omen still more evil was reported by the city guards who ranged the streets.

On walls, on columns, on the bases of statues, everywhere that they might be written and seen, appeared that evening inscriptions scribbled with chalk or charcoal. Some of these were denunciations of John of Cappadocia, Theodotus, even Tribonian.

But many of them concerned the emperor himself. Tyrant . . . Traitor . . . Murderer . . . Thief . . . Whoremonger . . . Blasphemer . . . Fiend of Hell . . . a shocking array of appellations scrawled after the name of Justinian by furtive writers, who left their insults for all to see, and slipped away in the evening shadows.

Almost as often was the name of the empress written. But for Theodora always there was one designation only . . . Harlot.

That so many had been so bold, and that the denunciations had been inscribed without interference from anyone, was proof of the ominous temper of the populace of Constantinople.

5 }

Evening, and the palace grounds, usually so calm, showed mounting tension. People on errands came and went hurriedly; the officers of the Excubitors could be heard shouting their cadenced commands as contingents of the palace guards took up places along the defensive walls for the night, as a precautionary measure.

Two hours after darkness fell, Theodora heard a cry of surprise and consternation outside the Sigma palace, followed by the sound of running feet. She summoned Narses.

“It appears, Magnificence,” said the little eunuch, “that fires have broken out in many parts of the city. One can see the ruddy light of the flames even above the palace walls.”

“Where is the emperor?”

“That I do not know, Majesty.”

“Come with me, Narses. I will see for myself.”

Followed by the chamberlain and her escort of guards, she passed out of the imperial residence.

It was long past sunset, but her first impression as she hurried down the colonnade toward St. Stephen’s church, was of an extremely late afterglow. Then she knew that the red light she saw, against which the crenelated walls of the palace enclosure and the looming bulk of the Hippodrome were silhouetted, was from the fires in the city of which Narses had spoken. The flames themselves were cut off from her sight, but their reflection made a lurid glare, seemingly reflected by low clouds. Yet the moon shone down brightly, and the stars were clear. It came over her suddenly that those “clouds” were smoke from burning houses.

Several of the emperor’s attendants, who usually were about Justinian in his headquarters, stood outside the church, but she thought nothing of this as she entered and, followed by Narses, hurried up the steep winding stairs that led to the top of the tower, which overlooked the Hippodrome and hence afforded a general view of the city.

Just before she reached the upper landing, she heard voices. Then she saw those who were there before her: Justinian and Tribonian, with Hestate, a soldier who had replaced the blundering Theodotus as commander of the Excubitors.

The emperor turned toward her, and the ruddy glare from without gave his face an odd ashen hue, tinged with the dancing light.

“Theodora!” he exclaimed. “You here, too?” Then, with a despairing note, he added, “It looks bad—very bad!”

“Fires? How many?” she asked.

“I don’t know. They seem to be burning the whole city. There are so many that they must have been started by incendiaries. Look at that!”

Following his gesture, she gazed toward the west.

In several areas she saw bright flames leaping upward over distant buildings, in part shrouded by the increasing clouds of smoke on which the moonlight played queerly. To her first startled glance it appeared that all of the Via Alta was ablaze. She could make out by the unnatural light the magnificent columns and statues of the Baths of Zeuxippus through the wreathing vapor.

“Some are saying that Constantinople is to be razed to the ground, and the emissaries of Chosroes of Persia are responsible for this holocaust,” said Justinian in a voice of profound depression.

Another huge fire was raging toward the southwest, in the direction of the Statue of the Winds. As she stared at it, there was an exclamation behind her.

“They wouldn’t! Sacrilege . . .” It was the emperor, almost in a whisper of horror.

Turning, she saw Justinian and his two companions crowding at one of the northward windows of the tower.

“What is it?” she asked quickly.

“Come. See for yourself,” said Justinian with sick dismay.

They made room for her as she stood on tiptoe to gaze over the parapet.

A vast volcano of flame suddenly had arisen, shooting upward higher and higher, under a swirling, spreading mushroom of black smoke that seemed to fill the entire sky in that direction. Just beyond, another fire added to the mighty and terrifying illumination. She heard distant shouts and cries of many people.

“Sancta Sophia!” she cried, hardly able to believe it. “They’ve fired the cathedral! And there’s a new blaze—the Senate house! And the Church of St. Irene beyond!”

“If they destroy the churches, what chance is there for anything else?” Justinian groaned.

She turned to him, and when she spoke there was in her voice not despair or fear, but anger.

“This is no general destruction of the city,” she said. “The hand of Chosroes—or any other enemy from without—is not here. These are fires set by despicable looters. Do you see any smoke or flames coming from the slums to the north, or the poorer sections? These would be easiest to destroy, if destruction were the primary motive. No, these fires have been wantonly kindled and spread wantonly, by wicked men who have torn the sacred ornaments of gold and jewels from the shrines. Oh, heavy must be the punishment for this sacrilege!”

But the emperor only stood silently staring. Curiously she looked at him, because his expression was so odd. His jaw hung slack, and his eyes were dull and irresolute.

He seemed beaten.

She felt for him a wave of pity: not contempt, but instead compassion, and a sort of despair.

In this moment of violent crisis Justinian was no figure of power and decision. He was ordinary—timid, frightened, and bewildered. And showing his years.

Helplessly the men regarded the new fires.

“I leave you, my Lords,” she said curtly, and without awaiting or expecting a reply, began with Narses to descend the tower steps.

6 }

The hours seemed each an eternity of confusion and fear. Refugees were appearing constantly at the palace gates, begging to be admitted. Most of these were of the hierarchy and priesthood of the Established Church, including old Hippias himself. They had reached the conclusion somewhat tardily that their only powerful friend was the emperor, and repented now their own part in fomenting this disturbance. Justinian ordered them admitted, and quarters were provided for them.

New fires were constantly being reported in the city by the watchers on the walls, and a distant howling could be heard almost without cessation: the yelling of the mobs of looters, like the wild ululation of jungle beasts turned loose to destroy.

Thus far, however, no demonstration had been made against the palace proper, and Justinian, snatching at any hope, tried to argue from this that the resentment of the populace was not directed at himself. Upon any who would listen to him he kept urging that the rioting was a passing madness, an outgrowth of the times, and in reality an expression of the rivalry between the factions, which would end as soon as one side or the other gained supremacy.

Shortly before midnight, by which time it was definitely known that no less than seven churches had been set afire by impious vandals, together with countless other structures, a horrible tragedy was reported. The spreading flames had engulfed on the Via Amastria a hospice with fifty helpless patients in it. All fifty died miserably, being too weak or ill to leave their beds.

“The wicked criminals!” exclaimed Justinian when he heard of it. “Why doesn’t the city guard do something? Where are the fire companies, who should be fighting this conflagration?”

“I fear, Majesty, that the city guards and fire fighters are too busy looting on their own account to pay attention to anything else,” observed Tribonian.

Justinian tossed his arms wildly in the air. “What shall I do?” he almost wailed. “This is anarchy—chaos!”

“Order out the Excubitors to attack the mob,” suggested Theodora.

But the emperor paced back and forth, unable to make up his mind, his face betraying the agony of his indecision and fear.

“No . . . no!” he said finally. “I can’t send soldiers to cut down my people! They’ll come to their senses. Wait. By morning we’ll see a change!” He brightened at this thought. “Yes, I’m sure of it. By sunrise the evil humors will have tired the mobs, and the people will return peacefully to their homes.”

“Many of them won’t have homes to return to, by the looks of those spreading fires,” Tribonian said.

“That will give us better opportunity to show our love and charity toward them!” exclaimed Justinian, whose wishful arguments seemed to restore his courage. He turned to John of Cappadocia, who stood silently to one side. “The homeless shall be housed—I promise it! And there will be new distributions of clothing and food. Let this be announced as soon as order is restored!”

But as he said it, the howling of the mobs in the city continued unabated. And the crackling of flames grew louder as the conflagration approached nearer to the palace walls, within which the flaming serpents of fire, leaping ever higher, sometimes cast black shadows, sometimes seemed to illumine everything with a threatening red light that was yet hardly light at all.

1 }

If the emperor believed that he could placate his people and win back their affection by gifts and a show of gracious clemency, one member of his imperial council did not agree.

John of Cappadocia had listened to the discussion, although he offered no comment. Afterward he retired to his quarters, and stood for a considerable time staring with a scowling expression at the floor, his head bent, his hairy arms behind his back with fists clenched, a slight trickling of perspiration dampening the bristling hair of his ruff.

The sweat was not occasioned by heat, for this was January and the night was cool. It was, instead, caused by emotion of a violent and unhappy kind.

Nobody knew as did the praetorian prefect how deeply laid were the roots of this uprising which Justinian so fatuously hoped to allay. This was no sporadic outburst of discontent. The Blues and Greens were united for the first time—John himself had brought that about. The scarlet-clad orators were fanning to fury the temper of the rabble—he had provided them the inflammatory phrases and arguments they were now using so tellingly. The freedom with which the mobs moved through the city, looting and setting new fires, showed that the city guard either was apathetic, or more likely had joined the rioters—as Tribonian suggested—for what they could get in the way of loot. John knew who had planted the dissension and disloyalty among those troops.

The populace was up in arms. It required now only a leader under whom these divergent elements could unite and look for orders to produce the exact form of insurrection he had long planned, which was to have as its object the destruction of the emperor, and particularly of the empress, and the elevation of himself, John of Cappadocia, to supreme imperial power.

But these thoughts did not cause him to rejoice. Instead, he lifted his fists and pressed them against the sides of his head, grasping the short hair which sprouted at his temples and almost rending it away from the skull which extended its polished baldness above.

“O Furies!” he groaned. “Why did this happen so?”

He was filled with a sensation of great injustice: of being deeply wronged by fate.

After all his labor, his clever scheming, his patience, the plans he had so carefully nurtured were coming to unexpectedly complete fruition—with one exception. They had passed him by.

He knew the mob needed a leader, and he felt he could supply that leadership. Under his direction the uncounted numbers of revolters, whom he would arm and organize, would make short work of the palace defenders, who, indeed, might be expected to desert to the attacking force in a body, for he had seen to that, too.

But as if they were uttered within his own head, he seemed to hear again the roaring words of the Green announcer in the Hippodrome: Justice . . . against oppression!

And the menacing surety: The truth is known . . . as to him who oppresses us!

And finally: Like Judas . . . he will perish!

John wiped his damp forehead with his fingers, and it was as if an icy hand had been laid on his heart.

He was the one, of all the imperial officers, whom the crowd had singled out for its especial hate. For this he had himself to blame. In the past months, because he had given up hope of ever bringing about his conspiracy, he had lost touch with the various elements he had fostered. The Greens no doubt considered him a deserter from their cause, which was reason enough for their resentment. As for the crowd, it knew nothing of what he had done to foment this rebellion, but it had ample cause to detest him. He had been something more than zealous in conducting his duties as praetorian prefect, to win the favor of Justinian.

Money was demanded by the emperor. Money John obtained for him, employing his agile mind in devising new taxes, selling monopolies to wealthy merchants or syndicates, virtually auctioning off government appointments to the highest bidders, ordering confiscations on any pretext, showing no mercy. Perhaps, he reflected, he had overdone the money getting somewhat. He knew there had been grumbling, but it surprised him that the discontent had reached the point of actual revolt without the employment of his undeniable skill in fostering it.

For a moment he toyed with the thought of going out from the palace and revealing himself to the people, offering to lead them. But at once he shook his head. They would never give him time to speak. As soon as they recognized him, in their present temper, they would tear him to pieces. Too greatly was he hated for his remorseless exactions.

Presently he heaved his thick shoulders in a shrug.

Very well. John could be philosophical and adjust himself to any situation. If he could not join the populace, at least he would not remain to be caught like the rat in the trap. The rat simile, not very original, which occurred to his mind, did not offend him. In fact he thought it rather a good one, for it is a characteristic of the rodent, despised as it is, that it has the good sense to know when a ship is about to sink, and take steps to save its own precious carcass.

At this the Cappadocian glanced about his rooms keenly as if searching for something. Presently he began to divest himself of his scarlet and purple mantle, his golden shoulder ornament, his saffron and gold tunic, his armlets, buskins—all the splendid attire which he usually affected, especially any ornament that might attract attention.

2 }

Through the gate opening into the kathisma at the head of the stairs leading up from the palace passage into the Hippodrome, a figure emerged alone in the darkness half an hour later. It was remarkable enough that any person should come by that way, for keys to the gate were carried only by the emperor’s chamberlain, the commander of the Excubitors, and the praetorian prefect. Yet, what was more remarkable, this figure emerging was that of a leper, as could easily have been seen had not the Hippodrome been totally empty in the night.

It wore the dirty white pall prescribed by the law for lepers so that they could be distinguished at a distance; in one hand it carried a bell, also prescribed by law as a warning to passers, and in the other a staff; and the head was swathed in a foul gray veil, ostensibly to hide a visage hideously disfigured by the disease.

For a moment it stood gazing over the great empty horseshoe, dim in the smoke-shrouded night save for occasional lurid gleams from distant fires that lit its upper tiers of seats. Then it began the long walk down the steps to the floor of the arena. Across the sands it strode directly and without hesitation to the Gate of Death, which was always open.

There its attitude and movement suddenly changed. The erect figure became bent, as if the disgusting sickness of leprosy, which had marred the face, also had bent the body. The staff now tapped uncertainly ahead in the darkness, to find a way for feet apparently unguided by eyes, which were sightless. The bell began a dismal jangling at every step.

It was thus that John of Cappadocia showed his conviction of the hopelessness of the situation in the palace, by deserting it: choosing a disguise most nearly perfect for his purpose, since all would give a leper room and molest him not, because it was believed that his touch was death.

The stick rattled on the stones of the street and the bell clanged dolefully. The bowed figure followed the outer wall of the Hippodrome to the Via Alta, glanced to the west, where the top of one of the seven hills of the city was a glaring sea of fire, then turned down the thoroughfare eastward past the imperial porch and law courts. It skirted the Augusteum on the westward side, where vandals had broken open the bookstalls, and trampled underfoot parchment and papyrus manuscripts of the works of poets, historians, and philosophers of ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, and Persia, scattering them to the winds, tearing them, and rendering them indecipherable merely in an evil whim of destruction.

This lost wealth of knowledge did not mean much to John of Cappadocia. He had little use for learning anyway, and just now he was much more concerned as to whether or not his disguise would be adequate for the adventure on which he was embarked. Thousands in Constantinople knew him. He shivered at the thought of being recognized.

The arcades of the Augusteum were not damaged, but across the square he saw the still smoking ruins of the Senate house. Now, turning north on a street that led to the Gate of Eugenius, which opened upon the municipal docks of the Golden Horn, he saw a more appalling devastation. The great Cathedral of Sancta Sophia, its walls calcined by the flames which gutted it, had collapsed, its roof fallen in. Absence of the familiar looming outline left an odd blankness like a missing tooth, while the crumbled foundations and parts of the walls still standing seemed to glow from within where fires still sullenly burned. Even John, not devout but superstitious, felt a chill at this unholy destruction.

He had thus far met nobody. It seemed that the population of the city had withdrawn from the vicinity of the palace and the burned cathedral, as if it were a plague spot, or accursed. But shortly after he passed Sancta Sophia he came upon the first of the dead: an old man, evidently a Jew, his white beard stained and matted with his blood; and a little girl, perhaps his granddaughter, no more than five years old, the back of her head crushed by a blow. A street cur was licking blood from the pavement. It lifted its lip in a snarl at the leper figure which passed.

Just ahead the street was filled with smoke, and John hesitated. Then he saw that the smoke was from the burning ruins of the Church of St. Irene, and hastened forward. Another corpse: a priest, this time, looking as if he had been worried by a pack of wolves. In the glare of the fire from the church some men were fighting among themselves over the sacred vessels which had been taken from the altar.

The white-palled figure passed on. About him in the murk, men were running this way and that, there was continual shouting, the noise of doors being broken in, and the shrieks of women. He could not well see what was happening because of the smoke that made his eyes water and brought a cough to his lungs in spite of his veil, but this was one of the better residential sections, and some of the rioters evidently were glutting at once their resentments and their passions.

Presently the smoke became a little less oppressive, and for a time he slunk through the shadows. Then an episode took place which convinced him of the value of his disguise.

On the steps of a good house lay a figure in a toga, with its skull split open. John recognized the house, and also the figure. It was what was left of Senator Figulus, a respected though somewhat overweening patrician, whose home it was.

The door stood wide open and the interior was brilliantly alight. From within came the outcries of women. All at once, through the door, burst the figure of a woman, young and quite pretty, though her face was disfigured by tears and her hair streamed loose where it had been pulled down from its fastenings. Two drunken fellows in the filthy tunics of common slaves came leaping after her.

Directly for John they headed, and he shrank back. The girl was fleeing at her best speed, until seeing all at once through the smoke and gloom the veiled figure before her, she halted with an expression of horror. In a moment her pursuers overtook and seized her. Then, as if choosing the ravishers in preference to the leper, she turned back with them, no longer struggling, and John saw her carried back into the house.

This was a measure of the terrible dislocation of the city: the slaves were in many quarters joining the revolt and turning against their masters, adding a new dreadful horror. The fact that the slaves of Senator Figulus had slain him, taken possession of his house, and were violating his women, did not, however, oppress John. Instead, he felt almost cheerful at the evidence he had just received that his leper’s garb was such an excellent safeguard.

Scenes of violence multiplied as he hurried, stick tapping and bell jingling, toward the imperial arsenal. Rubble and debris lay in the streets. Here and there, shops had been broken into and the goods which the looters did not carry away were scattered about, defiled, and wasted. Something swayed in one of the empty doorways . . . a dead man hanging by the neck. Judging from the garb this had been a venerable merchant. John saw that the feet were bare; the soles were branded and seared where robbers had tortured the poor man with hot irons to make him tell where his money was hidden, before they killed him.

At one place a terrified, screaming baby, less than two years old, sat all by itself, lost or deserted in the street.

Presently a riotous crowd of looters passed, marching together and shouting and laughing drunkenly. In this party were to be seen many of the new Hunnish costumes, the fantastic tunics with sleeves cut so wide that they resembled bat wings, and beards and mustaches much in evidence according to recent fad of the Juventi Alcinoi, although in some cases the wearers were so little past adolescence that the growth was sparse and hardly imposing. Yet their air of reckless devilment was impressive enough. Some of them were carrying flaming torches; and in the midst one lifted high on a pole a human head . . . unrecognizable, but perhaps a member of the city guards who had been true to his trust. These were on their way to complete the destruction of the Augusteum.

All at once the Cappadocian experienced a thrill of fear. He saw one whom he knew quite well. Was that not Chaero, the son of Senator Polemon, whom the empress had exiled? So word had gone abroad, and the enemies of the imperial pair were flocking back into the city to take part in their overthrow!

For a moment John wondered if the eyes of one who was so well acquainted with him might penetrate the disguise. But Chaero, his face flushed with drink and flourishing his torch dangerously, gave him a wide berth with the rest of his companions, and rushed on.

Now at last the grim walls of the arsenal were visible ahead. The building was undamaged, but a thick crowd of men was gathered before it. By the light of many cressets in the walls, John saw that arms and shields were being passed out to them, and that he who was supervising this issuing of imperial stores was another acquaintance, Sergius the former commander of the Excubitors, whom he himself had raised up. For an instant the leper figure halted, wondering if he should make himself known to this former lieutenant of his, and to some of the Green and Blue officials he recognized on the porch.

But he heard his name hoarsely shouted and turned his attention in that direction. A scarlet-robed orator stood on the steps of the arsenal, haranguing the crowd with a flood of invectives directed at all in authority.

“Justinian, the tyrant—death to him! Theodora—death also to that whore! And death to all the spawn of their favorites, who enrich themselves on your blood and sweat—first and foremost that swollen, murdering scoundrel—John of Cappadocia——”

A yell of fierce approval burst from the crowd, interrupting the orator. Sergius and the others looked over, seeming to concur, even applauding.

The leper figure in the outskirts stole away. By this was revealed to him the depths to which his fortunes had sunk: that orator whom he had just heard consigning him to death was one of the very red-robed sycophants John had for years subsidized, trained, and employed.

Leaving the arsenal and its crowd behind, he hurried westward along a darkened street thus far spared by the rioters, but with every door barred, every window shuttered by the terrified inmates. The smoke grew thicker, and in this direction he saw that he was approaching one of the burning portions of the city, where flames seemed to light the sky more redly with each step he took. Nevertheless, he continued, because it was the most direct route to the Gate of Eugenius.

Refugees began to thicken, all fleeing in the opposite direction: mothers with babes in their arms and children clinging to their skirts; men bowed under bundles of their few belongings; an old woman carrying a dog; pitiful humanity driven from their homes, their numbers growing as he went.

He stood aside for a moment to let them pass, cursing them. Then he pushed onward. Presently, stepping around a corner, he saw from what they were fleeing.

One square down, an entire side of the street was aflame. Fire crackled viciously out of windows and over roofs, seeming to roll upward in billows of incandescent heat. Crashing of falling timbers and masonry, and occasional distant screams assailed his ears.

For a moment he thought he was cut off from his goal, but then he noticed that only one side of the street was on fire. Perhaps, if he went quickly, he might pass this danger point. Holding one arm before his veiled face to shield it from the heat, he approached the blazing houses.

He noticed a little man, seeming insensible to the furnace blast, wringing his hands and looking toward the fire. “My wife—my baby! They’re in there!”

John paid no attention to him. Pressing as close as he could to the wall, he began to skirt the burning section. The little man, tears running down his seamed cheeks, followed. Evidently, in his grief, he did not notice the leper’s pall. The Cappadocian desired none of his company, and lengthened his stride to get away from him.

All at once he looked up in horror. The wall of one of the burning buildings was toppling outward.

Forgetting his leper’s garb, he began to run. For a moment the masonry poised, leaning toward him, then its accelerated fall began.

With a terrified burst of speed, he sprang just beyond the point where the burning debris fell. Behind him came a crashing roar like an earthquake, and a galaxy of firebrands whirled in the sky. But he was safe.

He glanced back. The falling wall had reached with its burning debris clear across the street and the houses on that side were beginning to burst into flame. The little man who had been following was buried under the heated masonry.

John found himself trembling from the terror of his near escape. But presently he regained command of himself. It was not far now to the city gate, and no further fires intervened. He went on.

Always at night the portal was closed and guarded, but this night it was open and no soldier was near it. A crowd of people struggled through, elbowing for room. Yet even these, fleeing from the burning city, made space for the leper figure lest they touch it.

Descending the steps to the quay, John found himself in the midst of indescribable fear and confusion. The docks were so thickly crowded that there was no room for the multitude on them, yet more and more continued to come. Pleas and cries rose piteously to the sky, and continuously in the darkness sounded screams as people were crowded off the wharfs. Since nobody had the time or interest to rescue them in the general panic, these unfortunates drowned helplessly.

Shipmasters, afraid of having their craft foundered by the crowds which would pour aboard, had pushed away from the docks. Some of the vessels, drifting together, entangled their rigging, and mariners were shouting, chopping at spars and ropes, fighting on the decks, or with oars and staves beating off swimmers whose heads dotted the red-lit waters.

Even in this press, the leper garb gained progress for John. Men glanced at him, crossed themselves, and muttered a prayer to some saint, then fought wildly to give him room.

He managed to reach the mooring place of his barge. It was gone.

Furiously he glared about him. A quarter of a mile away, across the Golden Horn, the lights of Sycae seemed to mock him with their serene and peaceful gleam.

From his head he tore the veil, and leaped into the sea.

A few minutes later a Syrian sailor on the low deck of a felucca raised his spar threateningly as a swimming figure approached.

“Back, or I smash your head in!” he cried.

For answer the swimmer tossed something. It fell on the deck with a musical dink that made the mariner look down. He picked it up: a gold solidus.

“There’s more, if you let me aboard,” said the man in the water.

“What is it?” asked the shipmaster coming up.

“This man offers gold,” said the sailor.

“Bring him on deck.”

But as John clambered over the gunwale, both mariners sprang back.

“Mother of God, a leper!” exclaimed the shipmaster. “Back off this ship—I’ll knife you!”

“Not a leper, but one able to pay his passage,” said John, calmly stripping off the pall and standing in his tunic. He dropped the dripping badge of disease into the sea.

“You’re sure?” said the shipmaster, still threatening him with a dirk.

“Look at my fingers—as whole as yours,” John said. “I only used the guise to get out of the city.”

The shipmaster looked him over carefully. Since the hideous marks of the disease are easily recognized, the examination convinced him.

“Well,” he said. “You say you can pay?”

John loosened from his belt a pouch well filled with gold coins.

“How much to take me to Syria?” he asked.

The shipmaster and his crew, never having seen the Cappadocian, did not know the importance of their would-be passenger, but they displayed the customary greed.

“I will take the purse and all it contains,” the shipmaster said.

John of Cappadocia made a wry face, but he handed over the pouch. After all it was cheap: cheap at any price to escape from the fury he had unleashed in Constantinople.

3 }

In the palace, Justinian slept not at all that night, and Theodora only in cat naps. Daylight found the empress awake and surrounded by her women, none of whom had slept much because of their terror. Every face about her was wan and fear-stricken.

To set an example of calmness, she ordered her breakfast early. But though she attempted to eat as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening, the effort was not very successful, because while she was being served she was told that during the later hours of the night the arcades of the Augusteum, together with the great bazaar and the library containing many of the imperial manuscripts and books, had burned down.

This was very close to the palace. The Augusteum was now only a smoldering mass of ruins, and during the height of the fire sparks and pieces of burning wood from it had fallen in the palace enclosure, causing two small roof blazes in minor buildings, which however were quickly put out. A penetrating stench of burning timbers hung on the air, and the lungs inhaled it at every breath, almost with a sensation of pain.

“What are we going to do? What’s going to happen?” the women of the court kept wailing fearfully.

“Keep our heads!” snapped Theodora.

In little knots the women huddled, some of them weeping. Every face turned toward the empress’ small figure, sitting silent and almost without expression in the large audience chair. At least she did not appear to be in hopeless panic over this disaster. From that the women derived a small grain of confidence and comfort.

Antonina and Chrysomallo lingered instinctively as near to her as they could in this hour of supreme danger, feeling that whatever happened to Theodora sealed their fate also.

“Who’s to blame for this dreadful state of affairs?” said Antonina. “Somebody must be to blame!”

In her terror she had been less careful than usual with her appearance, and a streak of kohl from her eyelashes formed a stain on one cheek which resembled a dirty smudge of soot.

“Nobody’s to blame,” said Theodora shortly. “The populace is out of hand—that’s all.”

She glanced up and saw Narses approaching, with a sensation of relief. At least the eunuch would not ask senseless questions.

“Imperial Majesty,” he said, “General Belisarius and General Mundus are in the atrium.”

Belisarius and Mundus! These were tried soldiers: the very names gladdened her heart.

“Bid them enter at once,” she said.

Belisarius, with his leonine head, seemed stalwart and assured. Mundus was shorter than Belisarius, and somewhat bandy-legged, but powerfully built, his face very wide through the cheekbones and his eyes slightly slanted, telling of his Hunnish blood, which also was revealed by the thin black beard that covered his lip and chin.

As the two knelt to kiss the instep of her foot, she gestured them from their knees.

“No time now for ceremonial, my Lord Generals,” she said. “What brings you to the women’s court?”

“We have been conferring with the Emperor,” said Belisarius. “We wished to pay homage to our Empress.”

Mundus glanced about him curiously. It was the first time he had been in this part of the palace, and he was interested in what he saw, particularly the court women with their beautiful gowns. His eyes happened to encounter those of Antonina, whom he knew slightly. With a slight sensation of annoyance Theodora saw that, frightened as she was, the ex-courtesan still gave Mundus the arch, sidelong glance of a coquette.

This Belisarius appeared not to notice.

“What do you think of this?” Theodora asked him.

“It’s ugly,” he replied.

“Why can’t something be done?”

“I think something should be done.”

Belisarius was resolute and cool. Mundus also, having taken his somewhat surprised eyes from the general’s wife, stood silent, all the ready soldier. The woman in Theodora instinctively sought refuge in their strength and courage.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “What does the emperor say?”

“His Imperial Majesty has not yet arrived at a decision,” replied Belisarius. “We’ve been with the imperial council for the last hour, but though there was much talk, nobody could offer a suggestion that seemed good to His Magnificence.”

“You offered a suggestion?”

“Yes, Beautiful Splendor. But it did not gain favor.”

“What was it?”

“That we make some demonstration of force against the rioters.”

“Can the Excubitors be trusted?” she asked in some surprise.

Belisarius gave a scornful snort. “Those toy soldiers? No.”

“Then how could you do as you suggested?”

“Last night, when matters began to look serious in the late hours, I took the precaution of bringing into the palace enclosure the Comitati, and also Mundus with his detachment of Herulians. We camped them on the lower slope of the grounds, by the sea wall beyond the Porphyry palace.”

“How many?”

“Of the Comitati, nine hundred. Of the Herulians about seven hundred. Sixteen hundred altogether. But these, Magnificence, are soldiers.”

“I would see them.”

He bowed.

4 }

From her imperial litter Theodora took the salute of the Comitati and Herulians down by the sea wall. In this camp, she observed, everything was clean and orderly, and the men stood silent and alert in disciplined ranks.

“They’re not much to look at, Majesty, compared to your Excubitors,” Belisarius said. “But they’ll fight.”

She hardly agreed that they were not much to look at. The chain-mail armor of the Comitati, and their steel helmets, were not showy, but gave evidence of use and care. Their long swords hung in their scabbards with tips almost touching the ground, suggesting difficulty in marching, save that these men were cavalry. Upright before them they held their lances, and across their backs were slung the great bows and the quivers filled with arrows. They had the steady eyes of veterans.

Beyond them, as she was carried down the line, were formed the Herulian mercenaries. These men looked savage as wolves. Battle-axes and curved swords were to be noted here, and crude helmets and round iron shields. They wore little body armor, it being contrary to their custom, but their strong torsos were covered with the furs and skins of beasts, and they had the reputation of being fierce headlong fighters.

With a nod of approval Theodora gazed at the two contingents. Her litter bearers came to a halt at her command, and she descended to the ground.

“I believe you can trust these men,” she said.

“Yes, Magnificence.”

The two generals towered over her, but many eyes saw that both helmeted heads bent toward her, and that both grim warriors, accustomed to giving orders, listened as for her slightest word. In this tense hour Belisarius and Mundus felt the inner core of steel in the woman. Observing how she carried her head and the level gaze of her eyes, they hoped that here might be firmness and decision, where elsewhere was only confusion and fear.

“If you were free to act, what would you do?” she asked.

“But give us permission, Magnificence,” said Belisarius eagerly, “and we will at least take our soldiers a short way down the Via Alta.”

“The rioters number not sixteen hundred, but perhaps one hundred times sixteen hundred,” she reminded him.

“A mob! Mobs are notoriously cowardly, Majesty. They like to tear to pieces anything helpless. But we are not helpless! We might teach the rabble a few things they would not forget.”

“Permission must come from the emperor.”

He assented. For a moment she stood silent, contemplating the battle-stained ranks, while Belisarius and Mundus eyed her like hounds hoping to have the leash slipped so they could spring to the hunt.

“I will ask for you the permission,” she said at last.

The two generals knelt before her and thanked her.

5 }

When Theodora returned to the Daphne palace, she found Justinian, as she expected, in his administrative quarters, with Tribonian, Archpatriarch Hippias, Hestate the Excubitor, and several others. She noticed that the praetorian prefect was absent.

At her entrance the emperor sprang from his chair.

“Theodora!” he exclaimed. “Glad am I that you’ve come! We’ve just reached a decision!”

“What?” she asked.

“We will send forth a delegation to the people——”

“Not to treat with them?”

“It’s not that, exactly. Of course I know, everyone knows, that they’re behaving badly. But they’re out of their minds! Don’t you agree? As soon as they’re back to their senses, they’ll be our loving and loyal subjects again. We ought to give them a chance——”

“How?”

“I’m going to send out to them a holy delegation of patriarchs, bishops, and priests, bearing the sacred relics which were rescued from Sancta Sophia, to call solemnly upon the people to return to the respect they righteously owe to religious and imperial authority.”

For a moment she hardly knew what to say to a proposal so weak and vacillating. She wondered who had suggested the impractical scheme at which Justinian had grasped eagerly, because it saved him from a decision perhaps more drastic. That it would not succeed she was very sure.

“If the mob cares so little for holy things as to burn the cathedral and six other churches, do you believe it will respect the sacred relics and ecclesiastics?” she asked.

Justinian did not notice the thin edge of scorn in her voice.

“I don’t know,” he said, speaking rapidly as one at the end of his wits. “Nobody can tell, until we try. But it’s a chance at least—so I think. I don’t know what else to do——”

He broke off, sensing her disagreement, and losing the initial feverish hope that had carried him along. Almost despairingly he looked at her.

She said, “Belisarius asks permission to make a demonstration with his troops down the Via Alta.”

“Troops! That would only make matters worse! It would infuriate the mob. We need to appease, not madden them. Why, they’d cut him off—kill him and every man with him!”

“I don’t think so. I’ve seen his soldiers and they look as if they knew something about fighting. He’s willing to try—why not let him?”

The emperor clutched his head with his hands. “I don’t know what to say! No, it’s too dangerous! The sacred procession is by far the better plan. At least the populace can’t say we’re trying to harm our people with a delegation of priests and saintly relics!”

She considered. “Very well,” she said at last. “If the bishops and their ecclesiastical attendants want to take the risk, by all means let them do so. But meantime, I beseech Your Majesty, give permission to Belisarius to go also——”

“Perhaps you’re right,” Justinian said. “Let Belisarius go. But mind this: he must go as an escort to the priestly procession. Nothing else! I want his men to leave their bows behind. There’s to be no temptation for them to inflict unnecessary wounds. He shall go with orders to avoid fighting, save in defense. Is that understood?”

6 }

The wait seemed endless. Belisarius, who heard his orders at first with amazement, then with cold silent anger, gave the bishops and priests half an hour’s start before he marched his command out of the Chalké gate: the Herulians first, followed by the Comitati, armed only with shield and sword. The general had not expressed his opinion of this maneuver, but it was clear that he considered it foolish and useless, besides being dangerous.

In their procession the churchmen carried forth the banners of the bishops and patriarchs, the golden croziers and processional crosses, censers of smoking incense, and a solid gold figure of the Virgin five feet high and drawn on a special cart, besides numerous sacred reliquaries containing the most venerated relics of the Church: bones of saints, a bit of fabric said to be part of the robe of Christ, the tears of the Virgin Mary miraculously saved in a bottle, the napkin bearing a miraculous image of Christ, the portrait of the Holy Mother painted by St Luke, the swaddling clothes of the Holy Infant, the rod of Moses, and other religious trumpery of the kind.

Old Hippias strode out manfully enough, his white whiskers streaming down his breast, the banner and crozier carried before him, and the richly embroidered canopy borne over his head.

But though they went with a most imposing array of sanctified pageantry, most of the other holy fathers did not march on their errand with any very high enthusiasm. To them, at the moment, the armor of God did not appear to be nearly as protective, as the good, solid stone walls of the palace.

With Antonina and Chrysomallo, and others of her women, Theodora went out on the roof balcony of the Chalké palace to watch.

A fearsome thing it is to behold the dark shroud of a burning city. Black, ominous pillars of smoke tumbled upward, twisting and forming ugly convolutions like the poisonous entrails of a dying reptile, until the cloud they formed hung and overspread the entire sky. Through it the sun appeared only fitfully as a faint pale disc, being altogether blotted out at other times. The nostrils were offended by the ever heavier stench of burning timbers and materials.

Since last she had looked at the fires, it seemed to Theodora that the conflagration had spread enormously, with new great blazes either deliberately set or spreading from previously burning areas. Three fifths of the city now appeared to be in flames, or had been reduced already to cinders and ashes.

“What’s that?” Chrysomallo cried, at a sudden, almost volcanic upward burst of flame, awe-inspiring and making even more fitful the general aspect of fiery destruction.

“Storehouses in the merchants’ row,” said Theodora. “The fire has reached the oil, or wood, or tar for ropes, or some other quick combustible. It goes all at once, like an explosion—there’s another one!”

Again and again the sheets of flame erupted, accompanied often by lumps of molten material which shot skyward like meteors, bursting high in the air with a scattering of myriads of sparks, and spreading the destruction ever wider. These bursts were followed by a still heavier smoke of inky blackness, which came with a yet more bitter stink from other stores, consisting of clothing, grain, leather and such slower burning materials that were ignited. The tops of all the nearer hills of the city glowed incandescent like the interior of a vast furnace.

Long since, the last of the marching Comitati had been lost to view in the wreathing clouds of smoke in the streets. Theodora had time to wonder what was happening to the expedition which she had urged, but which had then been sent forth practically shackled in helplessness by the restrictive orders Justinian had placed on it. Were Belisarius, and Mundus, and all their brave men dead in the streets?

Another thought: how many of the people of Constantinople had perished in this fire, like those wretched patients in the hospice? Possibly thousands, to say nothing of those murdered by robbers and looters.

About three o’clock of the afternoon, someone cried out that the expedition was returning to the palace.

Through smoke so black and heavy that it seemed to hang and move near to the ground, hiding houses, people, streets, and alleys, retreating figures could be made out. In a few minutes they were identified as the patriarchs, bishops, and other ecclesiastics.

To Theodora it appeared that these reverend personages came back a great deal more rapidly than they had gone. Some of them did not return at all, for the mob had stoned them, and more than one was struck down by rocks and other missiles.

Old Hippias was hustled along by his deacons at the rear of the confused mass, which had lost all semblance of a procession: banners, croziers, and reliquaries in disorder, simple priests and lofty prelates treading on each other’s heels in the common desire to reach safety. The archpatriarch’s beard bristled with indignation, but among all of the priesthood he seemed to be the least panic-stricken. All the holy fathers were red-eyed from the smoke, disheveled, and obviously glad to be back inside the walls of the palace. As they plunged through the gate, they said that most of the sacred relics were safe, but the mob had seized the solid gold figure of the Virgin Mary and the cart that carried it.

Now from afar, heard over the roaring of the flames, came the sound of shouting and other noises that made it evident some sort of fighting was in progress.

A short distance behind the fleeing churchmen were seen the Herulians, marching in good order, with Mundus at their head. They came slowly, looking backward with angry scowls. These men were retreating, but were not cowed or routed. Some were bleeding, they were fire-blackened, their beards and eyebrows singed, the furs slung across their shields and about their bodies scorched by flame. Not all of them returned. Where seven hundred set forth, only about six hundred marched back.

Mundus brought them into the palace enclosure, halted them, and formed them in ranks to await their comrades under Belisarius.

Presently, through the smoky clouds, Theodora saw the Comitati, also in retreat. The first ranks moved in order, although the men kept glancing over their shoulders. But as succeeding ranks followed one after the next, signs and sounds told of the conflict in the rear of the column.

The empress noticed that as the latter part of the formation came into view, the files began to crowd, and under officers continually labored to keep the lines straight and prevent their men from falling into confused masses.

Now came files of soldiers who held their shields over their shoulders behind them as protection. Among these, now and then, sang a hurled stone which clattered on armor or thudded, perhaps, on flesh.

Last of all the rear guard of the Comitati emerged from the smoke, more disordered than the rest, because they had been through some hard fighting. Swords were in hand, and some of the blades dripped red. Armor was battered. Here and there men limped, or were helped along by their comrades. But still they turned to snarl at their foes, who followed in a roaring and triumphant mass, hurling stones and shouting insults and taunts, but remaining just out of reach of the swords. With the rear guard came Belisarius himself.

At sight of the palace walls the mob halted, and with new tumult, even more savage and threatening, began to spread and gather in the street before the great gates.

7 }

Last of his men to enter the enclosure was Belisarius. The great bronze gates clanged shut. While Mundus marched the two contingents back to their camp by the sea wall, Belisarius reported to Justinian and Theodora, who awaited him in the emperor’s office.

“We saved the priests and most of the sacred relics,” the soldier said. “The mob got among them like wolves among sheep, before we could arrive. The Herulians suffered casualties—I think more than a hundred—in rescuing them after the rabble had surrounded them. Let me tell you, the barbarians are raging at those losses! I don’t know yet how many of my own Comitati were lost, but those that fell are dead, since we were covering the retreat and the mob spared none. I estimate about fifty of the Comitati gone. One hundred and fifty slain in all.”

He might have added that the one hundred and fifty lives were sacrificed because of a foolish order. From the first he had disagreed with Justinian’s weak hope that the sacred relics and the priesthood would quiet the mob, and even more with the command he had received not to attack, but only to permit his men to defend themselves, which had placed his soldiers under a heavy disadvantage.

“Having brought off the ecclesiastics, I ordered a retreat,” Belisarius went on. “It was evident to me that it would be death to remain in those streets. Fire has gutted them and flaming walls are continuously falling outward. Some of my men were killed by toppling masonry. Where the houses are not burned, the mob has an added advantage: they occupy the roofs which dominate the streets, and with a small force, not able to use its bows, it would be difficult and require long fighting to take those houses one by one.”

“Just as I said!” Justinian exclaimed hopelessly, striking his hands together. “You’re lucky you got back at all!”

He seemed unable to understand that his own hampering restrictions were responsible for the disastrous result.

Theodora looked at Belisarius. “What will be the consequence?”

“The rabble believes it has defeated us. The mob is triumphant and filled with a sense of victory which makes it more dangerous.”

“What part of the city can you hold?” she asked, going as always to the center of the problem.

Belisarius regarded her gravely. “The palace grounds—for the present. Possibly the ruins of the Augusteum, the Senate house, and the cathedral. That’s about all.”

“Surely, with six thousand men, you can do more than that!” exclaimed Justinian.

“By your leave, Magnificence, less than fifteen hundred now,” said Belisarius.

“What of the Excubitors?”

“I count them less than nothing. Many of them sympathize with the crowd. And even if they don’t, they’re all uniform and style, without any stomach for fighting. This is no matter of parade and show, Imperial Majesty! I’ve been in captured cities which were being devoted to the sack, but never have these eyes beheld a worse spectacle than here. Part of the population is mad with terror and rage at the destruction of its homes. Another part is equally mad with fury at Your Magnificence and all in authority. The flames, sweeping a large part of the city, have destroyed no one knows how many lives, among them many slaves who were held helpless in their quarters behind locks while the fire raged and consumed the houses in which they were penned to die. Other slaves have escaped, and are ranging through the streets, looking for loot and revenge, for they believe this catastrophe means the hour of freedom for themselves.”

“A servile revolt—to top everything?” groaned Justinian.

Fear of a rebellion of slaves, in a city where they numbered in the hundreds of thousands, was ever present. Still remembered was the terrible outbreak of Spartacus and the slaves of Rome, when for a time it appeared the servile population might overcome and massacre or enslave their own masters.

But Belisarius said, “There’s no organized revolt among the slaves, I think. They wander about in bands, killing and seeking to get their hands on anything valuable. But it’s the rabble itself—particularly from the old city, in the district of the slums, and docks, and the Street of Women, gathered from all quarters of the world, and composed of all races—that’s dangerous. The factions are inciting these——”

“Both factions?”

“As many Blue ribbands as Green were fighting us. I must speak bluntly, Magnificence, the city is united against us.”

Justinian stared at him in horror. “What will we do? What?”

At the moment a new confusion rose outside, sounds of excitement and alarm. Officers were heard shouting commands to their soldiers.

Justinian raised his head. “What now?”

As if in answer, Narses entered from the atrium where he had been questioning some of the guards.

“Your Imperial Majesties,” he said gravely, “the mob has begun its attack on the palace! Fires already have been started!”

1 }

At the chamberlain’s announcement Justinian came to his feet, and Theodora, though she remained seated, felt her heart begin suddenly to pound like a throbbing drum.

Every eye turned to Narses, at the door in his long robe of office, his narrow face deep-bitten with the portent of his news. Alarm and confusion twisted the emperor’s countenance. Belisarius stood with that peculiar tightening of his jaw muscles which caused the hairs of his beard to bristle and move.

He was the first to speak. “Who’s in command at the gate?”

“Hestate is bringing up reinforcements,” said the eunuch.

“Your pardon, Majesties, I must go to my men,” Belisarius said.

Justinian nodded mutely. The soldier saluted and strode out.

A moment later the others followed, the emperor hurrying ahead as if filled with anxiety to see what was happening.

Emerging more slowly from the palace, Theodora saw that the enclosure was in a state of confusion and panic. Some of her women, including Antonina and Chrysomallo, clustered in the courtyard gazing with terror toward the gate.

She turned her own eyes in that direction. From the Chalké palace a black rush of smoke boiled upward. The grounds were filled with people, running this way and that, flower beds and shrubbery trampled underfoot, frightened onlookers jostled and sometimes knocked down, as men with buckets of water rushed into the palace to fight the flames, or ran on other errands without any sign of direction or organization. Women began to weep and wring their hands helplessly.

Stones came singing over the walls. Theodora saw an Excubitor go to the ground, clashing in his silver armor. He turned over on his back, his helmet rolling off to reveal the ugly broken bruise on his temple where the missile had killed him.

“Slingers!” said a voice in her ear. “Slingers are hurling those stones.” It was Tribonian. “I counsel you, Majesty, to step here, in this nook which offers some protection. Those stones, coming over with the force and speed of arrows, are no respecters of imperial rank.”

She permitted him to guide her to a more sheltered place, and summoned to her side those of her women whom she saw.

“It’s the porch of the Chalké that’s afire,” Tribonian said. “The wooden portion, outside the palace walls, where the outer guards have their barracks, and which upholds the gallery that overlooks the Augusteum. There’s no real fighting on the walls yet. But it looks very serious. The rioters have broken into the imperial arsenal and armed themselves with swords, spears, shields, and other weapons. Those stones that are rattling about our ears are hurled by slings intended for the use of army auxiliaries. Lucky for us the slingers are not more skillful than they are, or there would be more down than that one poor Excubitor yonder.”

“Can they stop the flames?” she asked.

“I think so. The inner wall of the Chalké is of marble, and strong. There’s danger, of course, that others of the less substantial buildings in the enclosure might catch fire from sparks and burning brands.”

At the calmness of his voice she gazed at him curiously. “Aren’t you afraid?”

“Of my own death? Not particularly, Most Magnificent. Death is the inheritance of man, and my philosophy takes it into full account. But I regret the possibility that I may never be able to finish my great work, the digesting and revision of the Roman laws in the Code of Justinian on which we labor now.”

“This would be tragedy!” she exclaimed.

“But perhaps minor tragedy. Someone else may complete it. That is, if what I really fear does not take place.”

“What do you really fear, Tribonian?”

“That this may be the end of the empire. If the mob, howling out there, has its wish now, the only hope of strength left to this legacy of Rome would perish——”

“Justinian?”

“Majesty, no.”

He looked at the slight, beautiful figure beside him and his mind went back to the night he first saw her: at Chione’s, when he shared a couch at the banquet with her, witnessed her magnificent audacity, and lost his opportunity to possess her.

Many times he had regretted his hesitation on that occasion. And yet many more times he had thanked devoutly the good saints for saving him from an experience that might have been, however delirious, the depth of evil fortune for him. For it was no mere girl, but rather a force of history, whose slender waist he held within the circle of his arm that night.

“What then?” she persisted.

“My Empress—you!”

She gave him a quick glance of astonishment. But at the moment the fire at the front of the Chalké roared suddenly higher, shooting up an immense funnel of smoke containing a spectacular stream of sparks, as the roof of the outer porch fell in.

From the mob outside the walls came a scream of triumph.

“Nika!” roared the rabble. “NIKA!”

This, the cry of the Hippodrome, had become the war cry of the revolting populace. Always the shout of the blood-mad spectators at the games had been fearfully suggestive to Theodora. But it now assumed a ten-fold greater portent, for it was directed not at beasts in the arena, or careering charioteers, but at emperor and empress in the palace, the very authority and organization of the empire.

After the cries of “Nika,” there came a confusion of taunting shouts.

“Come out from behind your walls, Justinian, usurper!”

“Show us the head of the Cappadocian!”

“And of Tribonian, the quaestor!”

She glanced at Tribonian. His dark face was serious. “They blame me for injustices, and perhaps rightly, since I am head of the courts,” he said. “I know that I have been overbusy reforming the code, and have not paid full attention to the other duties of my office.”

“They call also for the praetorian prefect,” she said. “Where is he?”

“John?” Tribonian said. “Why, I don’t know. Now that I think of it, I haven’t seen John this day.”

A new and different roar of hate came over the walls from without.

“The harlot! Give us the harlot!”

Near her, Theodora heard Chrysomallo’s frightened whimper.

“Comfort yourself,” the young empress said. “They mean me—not you!”

Chrysomallo looked as if she could not believe it. “They—they dare shout insults at Your Majesty?” she faltered.

Chrysomallo had come to regard Theodora as incomprehensible, something more than ordinary, perhaps more than human. To hear foul epithets shouted at her seemed incredible.

“You hear them,” Theodora said. She put an arm about her shrinking friend.

They watched a detachment of Comitati, fully armed, come swinging at a rapid march from the lower enclosure, with Belisarius, his beard jutting forward, striding at their head. Antonina, for once not occupied with flirting, gazed at her husband with woe and a plea for hope in her face.

Now, perhaps, with his archers placed on the palace walls, Belisarius would be permitted to teach the mob what death was like.

But another great cry of alarm rose.

St. Stephen’s church, its roof spattered with brands and sparks carried by the wind from the Chalké palace, had burst into flames also.

Theodora saw Belisarius halt his men and approach Justinian, who stood in the shelter of a group of columns with Hestate of the Excubitors. So great was the uproar that she could not hear what was said between them, but the emperor shook his head, and when the soldier seemed to urge his point farther, was vehement in his refusal.

Grim-faced, Belisarius saluted and returned to his men. A moment later, at his command, they were laying aside their weapons, and joining those already seeking to save the church, and prevent the flames from spreading to even wider areas.

Justinian had refused Belisarius permission to use his bowmen on the revolters. Why? To Theodora it seemed incomprehensible that the emperor would still hesitate. What could he gain by it? The mob was now committed to rebellion. The only conclusion of this must be battle.

2 }

The onager was sullenly heavy and slow. On its rollers it was moved forward partly by men tugging at ropes, and partly by others, using levers or push poles, toward the palace walls, still a quarter of a mile away. Chaero, son of Senator Polemon, who had given John of Cappadocia such a fright the night before when he marched by to the burning of the Augusteum, was in command of the siege engine, and he was filled with his own importance, since it was the first real authority he had ever been given.

The onager—so called after the wild ass of that name because of its kick—was the largest type of imperial siege weapons. It squatted low and clumsy on its rollers, save for the long projecting arm with the wooden bucket, which was held erect by the counterweight at the bottom. Once it was set on a target, the arm could be drawn back by windlasses and the hundred-pound missile of stone placed in the bucket at the end. When released the counterweight would cause the arm to fly violently forward, hurling the projectile incredible distances and causing great damage to walls and buildings.

Ballistae and catapults, smaller siege weapons, were being transported to the palace walls also, but because of the superior power of the onager Chaero was anxious to see what it would do. And because of that power, which meant weight, its progress was very slow.

“Heave . . . heave!” shouted Chaero to his crew. At least a hundred were straining at the great machine, and constantly bands or companies of men were passing them, marching in the direction of the palace, many well armed now.

Chaero was delighted with himself in spite of the fact that he had slept little the night previous. The sacking of the city was the most exciting thing he had ever witnessed: a multiplication ten thousand times over of the old, wild exploits of the Juventi Alcinoi. After the months of dreary boredom in Paphlagonia, it was good again to feel the congenial sensation of irresponsibility, the fun of destroying things just to see them topple or go up in smoke, the pleasurable sensation of power and privilege in belonging to an irresistible force.

He thought about his wife Tispasa, his mother-in-law Sophronia, and his father-in-law Silvius Testor, whom he had left behind. Of course Sophronia was impossible. It was she who had caused them to be exiled, by her talk against the empress, but her tongue was so vitriolic that not even Silvius Testor dared remind her of that fact.

As for Tispasa, there was no spark in her mentally or physically. Growing fat now, she was like a piece of cold salt pork in bed. Many a time Chaero had regretted the misfortune of his marriage to her. Not even the promise of wealth had been fulfilled, for all of Silvius Testor’s properties in the city were confiscated, and there was barely enough in the provinces to live on.

When word came from one of his old friends of the Juventi Alcinoi that revolt was brewing, Chaero was ripe for it. He slipped away from his wife and her parents, and took a coasting vessel down the Euxine Sea to Nicaea, arriving just in time for the outbreak. There were many like him, coming to settle their grievances these days.

Chaero had many grievances, but his chief quarrel was with the empress. He could have told some pretty good stories about Theodora, but it was unhealthy to do so. Now, however, the silencer was off his tongue. To Theodora he owed his exile and the ruin of his hope for advancement in the foreign office.

But there was another, deeper reason for his bitterness. He had always felt she had cheated him. It went back to the time when she was still a delicata and cajoled him into helping her ruin Chione. She had promised, as a reward, herself as he wished her. But though he did his part, she never paid. When he went to collect she was gone. The other women at her house said she fled because she was proscribed, but that did not cancel the debt Chaero felt he would cheerfully slit her throat if he got the chance.

More marching rioters went past, and his men stopped their slow straining, standing erect and wiping their streaming foreheads.

“Come along with us!” some of the marchers called to Chaero’s men. “Forget that onager! They’re fighting the troops and the attack on the palace is beginning!”

The men glanced around uncertainly.

“Keep pulling!” cried Chaero. “Pay no attention to them! Sergius says this engine is needed to breach the walls!”

His crew began half-heartedly heaving once more. But presently another contingent of the mob passed, shouting that the troops had been driven in and the army of the populace was preparing to storm the palace.

At that some of the men threw down their ropes and levers.

“This is too slow!” one said.

“They’ll have the palace stormed before we get there!” said another.

“We’ll be too late to take part in the looting!” a third cried.

Chaero pleaded with them, but he had not the personality of a leader, even though Sergius, the former commander of the Excubitors, had given him command of the onager.

The crew began to desert the engine.

First some left, then others. Finally the last few, after glancing at Chaero, threw aside whatever they had in their hands and hurried after the others, in their shoulders the sullen determined look of men who know, after all, what is best for themselves.

Chaero was left alone beside the onager, staring at it helplessly.

Three mounted men rode toward him. He recognized them. One was Drubus, the chief demarch of the Blues. The second was Pompilius, chief demarch of the Greens. The third was Sergius, whom these officials had appointed general of the mob.

Sergius wheeled his horse beside the onager.

“What’s the matter here? Why isn’t this being moved?” he demanded.

His eye fell on Chaero. “Where are your men? Why aren’t you obeying orders?”

“The men have gone—gone to join the looting in the palace!” said Chaero.

“We need this siege engine!” shouted Sergius furiously. “Not a thing’s been taken up yet. Ballistae, catapults, onagers—left wherever men decided to leave them to go somewhere else. How can they expect me to do anything without some discipline? I expect you, Chaero, to get some more men and have that onager moved up at once!”

Sergius galloped away to join the two chief demarches, almost foaming with rage.

But Chaero, looking after him, made no move. After all it would do no good to try to recruit another crew from the streams of men going past. He had no authority over them, and they would laugh at him. The onager could be brought up later. Perhaps there would be no need to bring it up at all.

Though it was true that Sergius had thus far not been able to make much headway against the inclination of the rabble to go off without orders on private plundering expeditions—as the stranding of this onager demonstrated—Chaero felt no concern about the eventual outcome.

The people were too strong, too powerful, to be defeated. There were one hundred thousand men at least in the mobs, and now thousands of them were as well armed as the troops, almost. Why, they would swarm over those walls by sheer numbers, even if the Excubitors tried to resist—which Sergius had assured him they would not.

Chaero gave a glance of disgust at the ugly engine in charge of which he had been placed. It was keeping him away from the excitement and fun. He left it and began running with the others in the direction of the palace, where all the action was taking place.

3 }

Now at last had come to Theodora the great terror, the thing she feared most. In the backward arch of her mind grew the picture of an epic ruin: the dead city of Cyrene. That was the product of revolt. And the horrors of the rebellion, which she had read, the acts of blind animal cruelty on both sides, the deaths of countless men, women, and children, created in her mind a lasting dread.

That hoarse roar from without the palace walls was the voice of a myriad-headed beast which suddenly had coiled itself about them, its appetite gloatingly whetted for blood, its hate centered on Justinian, on the imperial officers—but first and foremost on Theodora herself.

A girl of the people . . .

That was what the Byzantines always had considered her. She remembered again the tone of the shout with which they greeted her when first they saw her as the newly crowned empress: a shout half applauding, yet half menacing also.

For a time the populace had countenanced a girl from their brothels on the throne, even cheered her when she gave them largesse. The situation was novel, a basis for innumerable lewd jokes, and nudges, and guffaws.

But never—not for one single day—had they taken Theodora seriously as empress. Always, in the backs of their minds, had lain the thought that she was one of them, no better than any greasy citizen among them—if as good.

The words of Hagg, the beggar, returned to her: Should the people turn against you, their fury would be ten times more bitter and vindictive than it might be against one born to a higher station than their own.

Hagg, the wise: in this matter, he was far-seeing as in all others. Never, for so much as a minute, had she been able to break the invisible bond that connected her with the slack, indolent herd from which she had come. Now the herd was reaching its countless hands to pull her down, to destroy her: to feed its never dying malice against one who presumed to lift herself out of the scummy mire, and to justify itself in its own abysmal mediocrity.

She gave a little shudder.

Men were still fighting the fire in St. Stephen’s. The church was going certainly: they would be lucky to keep the blaze localized in it.

Stones had ceased whizzing over the walls. Theodora could see the Excubitors now in their places, silver armor outlined against the dark pall of smoke from the city. Evidently the mob had withdrawn temporarily.

Silently, followed by her women, Theodora returned to the imperial dwelling. For a time she sat alone in the gynaeceum. None of the ladies in waiting ventured to approach her, for she seemed strangely withdrawn.

What would the mob do next?

There had been no direct assault as yet. Only the firing of the outer structures from which the church had caught flames. Yet this was a blow directed at the palace itself, and signalized a new turn in the revolt.

A direct assault was only a matter of time now, unless some miracle averted it. She began to wonder how long it would be before the soldiers were overwhelmed by so many enemies. Those enemies were armed in thousands, as Tribonian had said. Criminals had been freed from the prisons to join the mob, adding a new lawless ferocity. Soldiers quartered in the city, taking part in the revolt, gave to it some military experience and organization.

Even if the first assault was thrown back, resistance could be maintained only a few days at most. At any moment the showy Excubitors might go over to the besiegers in a body, and turn their weapons against those they were supposed to guard in the palace. Such things had happened more than once in the past revolutions of the empire. That would be followed by massacre. All her women, her servants, the friends she had made, herself and Justinian, would be slaughtered. It seemed a horrible, unspeakably tragic waste.

In her depression and weariness, a strange idea suggested itself: perhaps all the mob wanted, after all, was her. Perhaps if its resentment against her was appeased it would be satisfied to return to its ordinary ways of life and stop the rioting.

What if she gave herself up—offered herself to the mob?

She developed the thought in her mind. It would have to be done in such manner that many would know and the news thereby reach the farthest confines of the city, so the rebellion would be quieted.

The Hippodrome!

That was it, exactly. Though the city was in an uproar and the authorities powerless, the Hippodrome was still the meeting place of the rioters. They had met there the previous day. Why—that was why they had delayed their assault just now: they went instead to the Hippodrome, to listen to their own orators extol their valor and success in the “victory” over the Comitati, declaim their grievances, denounce all authority, reiterate their ever increasing demands, and shout new directions for further destruction.

This was mob inconsistency: dropping everything to attend councils of self-glorification. But it was dangerous, too, for out of each of the Hippodrome meetings came a new and bolder purpose, a crystallizing of many resentments into one great single hatred.

Suppose that during one of those mob meetings she, Theodora the empress, walked alone into the arena and surrendered to them?

Beauty . . . sex . . . royalty. The three perfect sacrifices to beast-cruelty of the rabble.

Rend her to pieces they assuredly would. In imagination she could almost hear their crazed howling as they tore her soft, lovely body.

But after that would they consent to peace and order again? Would it not instead merely whet their gluttony for blood?

A shudder went through her.

This was unhealthy, morbid thinking. She straightened, and shook it off. Too strong in her was the will for survival. Her mind seemed to brace itself, rejecting the sickly conception of the sacrifice she had imagined.

Now she looked about her, thoughts becoming ordered again, resolution returning. Whatever happened, she would never give up of her own free will. Tear her to pieces the mob might, but it would have to fight for her first!

For a moment she considered, her lips tightening. The palace was in a perilous condition, everything slack and disorganized, no leadership apparent. It would be an almost laughably easy prey for the mob as things were . . . whenever the mob took it into its head to move upon it.

She summoned Narses.

“Where is the emperor?” she asked.

“His Majesty has gone into his library, Magnificence.”

“How are things without?”

“The church is lost, but the fire was prevented from spreading. The mob has disappeared from before the Chalké gate, save for a few lingerers.”

“They are in the Hippodrome, and will return. Send word for Belisarius and Mundus to attend upon me.” He turned to go, but she delayed him for a moment. “I would have word with you presently, Narses, but first this other conference.”

In a few minutes the chamberlain returned with the two generals.

“I took the precaution, Gracious Majesty, of replacing the Excubitors at the Chalké gate with a guard of Herulians, because I do not trust any men but those whose loyalty is tested,” Belisarius told her.

“What does His Majesty propose to do?” Mundus inquired.

“He has not informed me,” she said.

“Something must be done before too long!” exclaimed Belisarius. “A soldier learns to estimate the critical moments in a battle. This may be one of them. A bold stroke might now turn the tide, where later it would be far more difficult.”

She rose and said, “Come, let’s seek the emperor.”

4 }

Justinian sat alone, with a heavy roll of parchments on his knee.

He had discarded his imperial robes, and was wearing as he did often these days the severely plain and rough garb of a monk, with a rope for a girdle, a cowl draped back on his shoulders, and sandals instead of royal buskins on his feet. He sagged in his chair, appearing weary.

As they entered the library, the two soldiers, out of respect, remained standing beside the door while Theodora advanced alone toward him.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’ve been reading,” he replied dully. “The Apocalypse of St. John. I was seeking some hint of prophecy of these terrible happenings. And I think I’ve found it here.”

He glanced up at her, his eyes burning with religious eagerness, then began to read aloud:

He lifted his eyes again. “Isn’t this a direct foretelling of the present time? The camp of the saints—there are in these walls hundreds of refugee priests, bishops, and patriarchs of holy and godly life. The beloved city—that would be Constantinople. Fire from heaven—the embers and sparks that spread this terrible destruction. But the devil that deceived them—who is that? What is this meaning?”

She did not find it in her heart to scorn his vague maundering. Seeking “prophecies” from the Book of Revelation was an old interest of Justinian’s, but usually in the past it had been rather an amusement than a serious occupation. Now, however, he feebly sought in all sincerity for some kind of hope in the sacred writings. Again she felt for him the kind of pity combined with affection that a mother feels for a sickly or unfortunate child.

But she was here on a definite errand.

“I’ve brought to your Imperial Presence the generals, Belisarius and Mundus—if you wish to take some action to retaliate for the attack on the palace,” she said to him.

“Not now—not now,” he replied.

“Then when?”

“It would only further madden the mob. I have one more expedient to try first.”

“And that?”

“I shall appeal to them in person!”

In blank amazement she stared at him. Then she said, “In person, Your Majesty? Risking yourself with that blood-mad rabble?”

“I have it all planned out, and this time I’m sure it will be successful. I will enter the Hippodrome tomorrow, when they gather for their meeting. I shall carry the sacred Scriptures in my hands. On them I will swear my forgiveness, agree to their demands, and proclaim amnesty to all, on condition that they cease their disorders——”

“If they refuse?”

“They must not refuse! They cannot!” he cried in a voice of despair.

For a moment the room was still, then Belisarius said, “Saving Your Noble Presence, Imperial Magnificence, it appears to me most doubtful that this will do any good——”

“Be silent!” cried out Justinian. He seemed driven to the limit of his endurance, his nerves in rags. “Everyone presumes to tell me what to do! You’ve had your chance! What did it profit us? Now I’ll try my way! Is that clear to all of you?”

Belisarius bowed his helmeted head, and the helmet had been dented by a jagged stone less than an hour before.

“As you wish, Majesty,” Theodora said.

Without glancing at him again, she left him sitting with the parchments on his knees, and led the two generals out of the room.

“There’s nothing to be done at present,” she said to them. “But keep your men in readiness.”

“Yes, Magnificence.” Belisarius and Mundus saluted her, immense respect for her on their bearded faces, and clanked out.

5 }

Beside her chair in the women’s apartment, Narses awaited her.

His stunted figure in its lengthy robe of yellow and blue, with the gold chain of office hanging on the bosom, was in no way impressive, but she observed the lines of his delicate yet arbitrary features, and the expression of almost sickly intelligence in his eyes. He was ugly, but somehow admirable.

“Narses,” she said, “I have spoken to many, but have had no answer on which to base action concerning this revolt.”

He half bowed his head, his eyes fixed on her with that look of comprehension that she had felt in them before. Of his kind she trusted him only, and in some respects their minds came to a closer understanding than she found in any actual man, Justinian included. For one thing, the obsession of sex was entirely missing between them, and while Narses did possess masculine viewpoints and powers of thought, his physical alteration had endowed him with a less blunt and more subtle complexity that was near to the feminine.

With him she sometimes felt almost as if her mind were a glass box, in which her thoughts, feelings, and desires were ranged for his inspection. It made her uncomfortable, yet at the same time provided her with the relief of being sure of full understanding, so that she needed no expenditure of energy to hide her thoughts.

“Do you have information that others of us lack?” she went on.

“The Beautiful Magnificence means that—as a eunuch—I am perhaps in touch with the general reports of the other eunuchs?” he said.

She nodded.

“At present, no. But it is possible——” He hesitated and cast a curious, sidelong glance at her. “If it is permitted, I have a suggestion——”

“Speak,” she said.

“We have the imperial treasury. Properly distributed, and given with generosity, money has the power to accomplish much.”

The little eunuch had the reverence of all his kind for gold.

She considered thoughtfully. Then she said, “To scatter money broadcast would be the weakest and most foolish of actions. But you give me a thought. There are places where money might do good.”

“Where, Majesty?”

She named names.

He looked at her with wonder. “The demarches and mandators of the Blue faction?”

She nodded. “To sow discord among enemies is good strategy. Mobs can be divided. The Blues and Greens are not natural allies, and they’ve had five days now to remember it, and to erect new jealousies among themselves over advantages gained and perhaps inequitable divisions of the loot that has been taken.”

“It may be so,” said Narses meditatively.

“You might perhaps reach to these people?”

“Yes. By means of the eunuchs.”

“Can you trust them? They have no love for me.”

“Perhaps, saving Your Gracious Presence, they might not do this for you. But for me they will do it.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Whatever our weaknesses, it is a strength of my kind that we cling together. As imperial chamberlain I, Narses, am now supreme among them, so they yield to me that respect and obedience they always yield to one in my position. Moreover, in the distribution of money, will there not be, let us say, rewards for those who carry out our behests? To eunuchs the color of gold is especially dear. If Your Magnificent Graciousness will extend her faith to her unworthy servant, I swear by St. Philip the Apostle who preached to the eunuch of Ethiopia, that I will do my uttermost to bring about that which you desire.”

“I will get you an order on the treasury, Narses,” said Theodora. “In making gifts of money to this chosen list, let it be continuously emphasized in their ears that by assisting the Greens who are no real friends of theirs they work against themselves. Bid them to refresh their minds as to the status of the Blue faction during the reign of Anastasius, when the Greens were in the ascendancy.”

“It shall be done, Magnificence,” he said, bowing low.

Since she had come to the throne this was the empress’ first independent action in the affairs of state.

6 }

The shame of the next afternoon was witnessed by Theodora, who went to the head of the stairs leading to the kathisma, and watched, concealed.

As usual the mob had gathered in the Hippodrome, and as usual it was being harangued by the scarlet-robed orators.

All at once the purple curtain of the kathisma was drawn aside. This, the conventional signal that the emperor was occupying his box, drew all attention and momentarily the great crowd grew silent in surprise as every face turned in that direction.

High above the lower benches appeared the familiar figure, clad now not in purple robes but in the coarse brown sacking of a monk, bare-headed and carrying rolls of parchment in his arms. The emperor!

The usual attending guard of Excubitors, together with officials and priests, followed him into the imperial box.

Justinian made an effort to address the crowd, but his voice did not carry well.

“Louder!” they yelled. “Speak louder!”

The emperor made a weary gesture toward an announcer who had come with him. The man stepped forward to the parapet and his resounding voice was heard in every part of the Hippodrome.

“. . . Justinian, your emperor . . . summon you to lay down . . . your arms!”

“We hear you, Augustus!” cried a mocking voice. It brought a roar of laughter.

The announcer began again.

“Go home in peace . . . your just wish . . . that John of Cappadocia, the praetorian prefect . . . and Tribonian, the quaestor . . . be removed from their offices . . . is granted.”

Tribonian stood beside the emperor’s chair, his face as if carved from dark marble while he heard himself thus repudiated.

The announcer continued.

“Know, O people . . . that you need have no fear . . . I, your emperor, approve . . . all that has been done . . . nobody shall be punished . . . for all there shall be . . . clemency . . . and for all . . . new distributions . . .”

As the announcer boomed Justinian’s words, the crowd sat silently listening. But as soon as he ceased, a clamor rose from below:

“What guarantees?”

“Whom can we trust for such promises?”

“How can we know?”

Justinian motioned to the announcer, who again lifted his immense, bawling voice.

“On these . . . the Holy Scriptures . . . I swear it . . .”

As the announcer shouted his message, Justinian rose from his seat and held forth the parchment rolls he carried, in a sort of dumb pantomime, as if seeking to give visual confirmation to the words.

There was complete silence. Hopefully the emperor gazed down at the crowd, holding his breath and waiting for the cheer that would mean that his offer was accepted, his victory won.

In that tense moment a voice below suddenly howled, “You lie, ass!”

It tipped the balance. In an instant the whole ferocious mob took up the phrase with thunderous shouts.

“Liar . . . ass . . . liar . . . ass!”

Sounds of braying, and the indelicate noise caused by expelling the breath over the tongue held against the lips, accompanied the yells.

Justinian’s face flushed scarlet, then went ashen gray. He staggered back as if he had been struck.

In truth he had been struck. The insults the people hurled at him were like solid missiles beating upon him: the snarling voice of doom told him that he was finished, that the days of Justinian as ruler of the empire, as a living man even, were numbered.

Pulling down over his face the hood of his monkish habit, he left his box hurriedly, followed by his escort. In their haste they hardly noticed the small figure of Theodora, standing silently beside the gate.

Last of them all she passed down the winding stair into the palace enclosure. She it was who lingered to see that the gates leading to the stair and into the palace were locked, double-barred, and placed under a strong guard.

All at once she lifted her head.

“Nika! Nika!”

Heavens, what a roar! New fury had been roused in the mob by its defiance of Justinian. Its bestial snarl hung on the air like the inky smoke of the still burning city.

That evening new and greater fires broke out. All the military barracks outside the palace walls became great roaring pyres of flames, and throughout the night the palace guards fought to keep the conflagration from spreading to the buildings within the walls.

Only mob disorganization, the failure of someone to rise to unquestioned leadership of the revolt, had thus far held off the expected assault.

Theodora found no sleep whatever.

1 }

When Chaero left the Hippodrome after the mob had hooted the emperor out of it, he was weary. For two days now, and a whole night, he had hardly slept, walking or running miles, looting when opportunity put something in his way that was easily carried, putting the torch here or there, watching the deaths of hundreds who happened to fall into the path of the rioters.

He had in his pouch now a gold cup, a few finger rings and other trinkets, and the small sum of money with which he had arrived from Paphlagonia. For the moment he was sick of violence, scenes of death, and the continual fevered excitement of destruction. He felt as if he could fall to sleep standing on his feet.

To find a place to sleep was not easy. Constantinople still was burning in many places. The district about the Church of the Apostles was gone—the fire having spread from that sacred edifice when it was destroyed by the looters. Most of the east side of the city, where stood the great patrician houses, was now a mass of charred ruins, along with the Cathedral of Sancta Sophia, the Church of St. Irene, and the Augusteum. From the great bazaar to the Bull square, and all the way down to the Statue of the Winds, the whole of the Via Alta was gutted. Even now flames were sweeping the Zeugma section, threatening to leap the Wall of Constantine into the new city which was enclosed by the outer Wall of Theodosius. Elsewhere were many lesser fires.

Although not more than one tenth of the million people dwelling in the capital had taken any part in the disorders, as usual the inoffensive, patient majority had suffered most. Tens of thousands slept in the streets. Chaero could hear children crying, and the despairing undertone of those who had seen their homes and all they owned lawlessly destroyed, speaking in low voices to each other: mothers comforting babes, husbands soothing wives, huddling cheerlessly on the cold pavement stones to shiver until morning, wondering what new disaster would come on the morrow.

To Chaero the thought of sleeping in the street was irksome. But all the taverns which had escaped the fires were so overcrowded that he knew there was small hope of finding a place in one of them.

Where else could a man find a bed?

A sudden thought occurred: A bed? Why, the place of beds, of course—the Street of Women!

Darkness had fallen when he found a wine shop into which he could crowd. With no more than elbow room to eat by, he devoured a loaf of stale bread and drank an ampulla of sour wine.

Then he continued his journey. Presently he came to the Square of Aphrodite, and crossed it toward the Street of Women. As he passed the statue he glanced up at it. The pagan goddess stood unharmed on her pedestal, although Christian shrines in all directions had been profaned, robbed, and destroyed.

The wine went a little to Chaero’s head. But when he entered the Street of Women, he saw that it had been spared by the rioters. Perhaps because many of the courtesans had taken part in the looting and identified themselves with the mob, their section had not known the torch, nor been damaged particularly. As for personal violence—what point was there, the mob seemed to think, in outraging a harlot, when there were so many women of virtue to ravish?

Chaero now was on familiar ground. He passed the house formerly occupied by Chione, then that in which Theodora had lived, and walked on down the street looking for a lighted window. At the first that so advertised it had an occupant, he turned and knocked on the door.

After a few minutes the door opened a crack.

“Who?” said a voice.

“One who would be a guest,” he answered.

“My mistress is gone.”

“When will she return?”

“I don’t know.”

The door opened a little more and he saw standing in it a Negro girl: a mulatto, rather, with skin the color of a ripe apricot.

“Has she been gone long?” he asked.

“Since yesterday.”

It was obvious that the courtesan to whom this place belonged was somewhere with the looters. Chaero looked more closely at the girl. She was slender, with velvet eyes. In the lobes of her small pointed ears hung wide circles of gold. A pierced feminine ear somehow is intriguing to a man, aside from the decoration of the earring: perhaps because it faintly suggests a minor cruelty.

“Let me come in,” Chaero said.

“I can’t. Nobody’s here.”

“You’re here.”

“I’m only a slave.”

“What’s your name?”

“Kindo.”

“In bed, no one is either slave or free, Kindo.”

“My mistress commanded me to admit nobody.”

“A denarius?” he suggested.

She looked at him without speaking.

“I have a small gold cup——”

Still she did not speak.

The wine made him bold. In sudden exasperation, he wrenched the door open.

She shrank back in the hallway, but when he closed the door behind him, she did not try to escape. He felt quite jaunty at his own high-handed action. The girl was softly resilient when he put his hands upon her. She had a slightly musky scent which was not unpleasant.

“I’m going to spend the night with you,” he said.

Any imagined barriers in her mind seemed to have been removed by his forcible entry. Her long fingers felt slippery, yet they were warm when she took him by the hand.

“Come with me then, master,” she said.

It was Chaero’s first experience with a woman of the African race. In spite of his exhaustion, he found it novel enough to keep him awake for an hour. But at the end of that time he slept like one dead.

2 }

Long after midnight he was aroused by a gentle tugging on his arm.

For a moment he lay blinking his eyes, stupid yet from his heavy sleep. The room was dimly lit by the night lamp, and Kindo, the slave girl, was sitting up in the bed beside him, her head tilted to one side as if listening.

“What is it?” he asked.

Then he heard it: first as a distant shout, then multiplied into a low continued roar like the sound of a far wave breaking on the shore.

“Many people,” said Kindo. “Fighting again, perhaps?”

He raised himself on his elbow to listen. “No. It’s not in the direction of the palace. It seems to be east.”

He rose and began to dress himself.

“Are you going?” she asked.

“Yes. Whatever it is, it’s worth seeing.”

“Stay! My mistress, Indara, may return. She is a celebrated delicata——”

“I can’t.”

She looked at him with her velvet eyes, sitting slimly nude, cross-legged on the bed.

“Then give me my cup.”

“Cup? What are you talking about? Do you think I’m going to give you a gold cup for this night? That’s foolishness!”

“A small cup! You said——”

“That was before I got in. And you didn’t even let me in. I had to push open the door. There was no bargain. I’ll give you a denarius.”

“A cup——”

“I said a denarius!”

“No—you promised a cup—a small gold cup——”

She was out of bed now also, the apricot-tinted body lithe and pantherlike.

“A denarius—or nothing!” he said.

The panther body leaped back to the bed, and returned with a second leap, flourishing a long knife which she had drawn from under the covers. Had he been sleeping all night with that knife so close to her hand? He felt a chill at the thought.

“No man cheats me!” she cried. The velvet eyes glowed now like coals of fire.

She meant it.

Chaero stared at her, a feminine creature in every line, yet with the knife glittering dangerously. Suddenly it came over him that the tropic blood in her made of death a matter of small moment. It frightened him.

“My cup!” she demanded. Her full lips drew back, to expose beautiful teeth tightly clenched. A panther snarl to go with the panther body.

He was now thoroughly cowed. But he tried to cover it by an attempt at bluster.

“Very well! Take it then! But you’re going to hear from me about this later!”

She made such a flourish of the knife that for a moment real terror that she might stab him even now cut the words in his throat.

He fumbled hastily in his pouch, and tossed the cup clattering across the floor.

Still clutching the knife she pounced, catlike, after it.

It was his chance. He bounded out of the room, and ran from the house. She made no further effort to stop him.

On the pavement outside he halted. For a moment he stood still, while his heart ceased its frightened pounding. Then he was angry: humiliated at his own pusillanimity and the way the mulatto girl had exposed it. This was the way things always were happening to him. He never seemed able to cut a dignified figure. When he should have wrested that knife from her, he had cowered instead. A woman is weak, he told himself, and all he needed was to seize her wrist.

He ought to march right back in and show her!

At once he thought better of that. What if he missed his snatch for her wrist? . . . That knife looked sinisterly sharp and glittering.

He gulped. All in all, perhaps he did the right thing. No use risking a split gullet over a small gold cup. Especially a cup that cost nothing in the first place, being a bit of loot.

Having comforted himself with this reassurance of his own good sense, Chaero felt better.

All at once he forgot all about the apricot-colored girl, the cup, and the knife as he raised his head at a new louder tumult in the east.

He found himself running. Others were running, too, in the darkness, across the Square of Aphrodite and down the side street leading past the slave market. He was young and moderately swift of foot, and he easily took the lead.

The cross street suddenly pitched steeply down, and Chaero came to a halt, staring. At the bottom of the hill, on the avenue that led from the strategium, which was the military parade ground, to the Square of Constantine, it seemed that a river of lights was rushing past. Countless torches flared high above heads, or flaming bits of straw blazed, and in their light a flood of humanity was illumined, all hurrying in the same direction.

Down the sloping street he ran. This was a great movement of some kind: clearly it was important. In the wild procession were thousands of men, some half clad, all wild-eyed, every throat wide open with sound. A smell of sweat, and smoke, and wine fumes, and vomit was in his nostrils. Above the greasy heads torches or weapons flourished.

“What is this? Where are you going?” Chaero asked repeatedly.

At first nobody paid any attention to him. Then as he ran along he overtook a cripple on a donkey, going with the crowd. He remembered the cripple . . . the beggar who used to take his stand by the pedestal of the marble Aphrodite.

The cripple lay in his basket saddle, urging his animal forward, although the beast, accustomed only to walking, would not trot and therefore was constantly being passed by running men. As Chaero came abreast, he asked the questions he had repeated to others.

Hagg knew him, and turned his scarred head toward him. “You haven’t heard?”

“No. I just came.” Chaero slowed his pace beside the donkey.

“They’re going to crown a new emperor.”

Chaero gasped. “Has Justinian abdicated?”

“Not yet,” said Hagg grimly.

“Who is to be the new emperor?”

“Hypatius, I hear, the elder nephew of Anastasius.”

The beggar was too slow. Chaero began running again. Hagg and his burro gradually fell back in the crowd, farther and farther toward the rear.

As he hurried along, Chaero tried to assess this amazing new turn. He knew Hypatius, and also his brother Pompey, the elderly nephews of Anastasius. Hypatius was a short, potbellied little man with a bald head, inclined to grin self-consciously at the wrong time, who went to court frequently. He had never shown any kind of ability, having served in the army without distinction and been rather futile in his attempts to write a book on philosophy. So inoffensive was he that it had never occurred to Chaero—or to Justinian, either, it seemed—that he might have any ambitions to rule. He had been contemptuously ignored.

Chaero began to wonder how he might benefit, and tried to think of some episode in the past that might work in his favor if Hypatius really ascended the throne.

He had it! Years before, when Chaero was a boy, both Hypatius and Pompey had been guests not infrequently at the house of Senator Polemon. That was while their uncle, Anastasius, was still emperor. Of course, after Justin came to power, the senator, who knew as well as anyone when it was time to turn his coat, had ceased inviting them. But Chaero reflected that they might still remember this hospitality, and he himself had always been most polite to them, though their conversation was invariably boring.

He found himself hurrying through the Square of Constantine, which was really no square at all, but a circle. The base of the great column glimmered fitfully in the light from the passing torches, but at the top the statue of the emperor towered mysteriously dark in the night above.

They were heading toward the patrician section which overlooked the Propontis to the west of the imperial palace, and which had escaped the fury of the looters perhaps because of the very fact that there were the homes of the nephews of Anastasius.

3 }

About the house the mob gathered thickly, trampling down shrubbery and flowers, crowding and fighting with each other for places of vantage. Sergius, the former Excubitor, and the two faction demarches, Pompilius and Drubus, were hammering at the door.

Within the house lights went on. A face peered through a wicket. There was some sort of colloquy and presently the door opened timidly.

From the crowd broke a shout louder than any before.

On the threshold stood Hypatius, pudgy and bald, with a toga hastily wrapped about him, his mouth hanging open in apprehension of what this visitation might mean.

Behind him members of his household huddled in fright, peering out at the clamoring rabble. Chaero saw Hypatius’ wife, a moon-faced little woman with disheveled gray hair and bulging eyes. If the look on her husband’s face was apprehension, that on hers was terror.

“What—what is it—what do you want of me?” Hypatius stammered.

No figure ever existed that looked less imperial. He could only think that harm was meant to himself and his family.

Drubus, who had been announcer for the Blues before be became chief demarch, lifted his still powerful voice:

“Hail, Emperor Hypatius, Augustus!”

If what had before been like the sound of a breaking wave, the roar which now rose was the tempest in full fury as ten thousand voices joined the shout:

“Hail, Emperor Hypatius!”

Sergius, who was in armor, and the two demarches went through the form of kneeling in obeisance.

Suddenly Hypatius’ wife ran out and fearfully put her arms about her husband.

“Leave us alone!” she cried. “We’re old—we want only peace——”

“You are called by the people!” said Pompilius to Hypatius, ignoring the woman.

“No!” Hypatius said. “I don’t desire it. I—I haven’t the ability to rule. My garden, my house, my books—these are enough for me——”

“It’s your destiny!” Sergius interrupted.

“He can’t go! You’d only be taking him to his death!” said the wife, her round cheeks quivering.

“Death? We take him to the throne!”

“No——”

Suddenly Drubus boomed, “God wills it!”

The mob, which had in the past few days shown little regard for the will of God, took it up. “God wills it!”

In the tumult nothing more could be heard of the conversation at the doorway. Chaero saw men lay hands on Hypatius, who struggled like a fat, frightened old gander. His wife tried to cling to him with tears on her cheeks, but they tore away her hold on him and pushed her back.

Suddenly Hypatius, plunging desperately, was hoisted high in the air by the men at the door. His mouth flapped in pleas and prayers, but nobody heard his words. He gave a despairing look backward at his wife, who wept hysterically, held at the door by some of the mob. Then, seated on the shoulders of his abductors, he was borne away from his home.

Chaero joined the wild procession. All about him were rushing, howling figures, with arms tossing and faces distorted, now ruddy now dim, with the flaring high and low of the brandished torches. The thunder of countless feet pounding the pavement, and hoarse voices all shouting together, made a din almost deafening. And above all, riding wretchedly and clinging to the heads of his supporters as if he feared they might throw him to the ground, went the crowd’s new “emperor,” his face contorted with fear, his head held backward with the despair of one who felt he was being carried to his execution.

4 }

Passing out of the Sigma palace early next morning, Theodora thought she could sense a change in the Excubitors. Those on guard at the door seemed less smart in saluting her, and save when she passed them close at hand, appeared to lounge sullenly rather than standing erect. Signs of a break here.

In the chill of the early morning she felt a terrible weight of depression, a sensation of futility and doom.

But when she saw a hulking, bandy-legged figure, she shook off this weakness. “Mundus!” she called.

He came, waddling almost uncouthly.

“I don’t like the attitude of the Excubitors,” she said.

He glanced over at them, and in his thin black beard his teeth gleamed yellow with a look of contempt.

“You can trust your own men?” she continued.

“To the death, Magnificence.”

“Then I would have you go at once and replace at every gate the Excubitors who may be on duty there, with a guard of your Herulians.”

He did not hesitate, but went at once. Already Herulians guarded the Chalké gate, but there were four other entrances to make secure.

Theodora’s lack of sleep the past three nights was telling on her. She was living on her nerves, and her body sagged from weariness. At times she felt that she could hardly hold herself erect.

She had left Justinian asleep, and she was glad that he could rest. Turning back now into the palace, shivering in the damp air, she ordered a brazier and some heated wine brought to her.

When a eunuch brought the cup, she held it in both hands as if to warm them, sipping the wine and huddling forward toward the glowing coals of the brazier. Gradually the chill passed away. The sun was an hour high, but clouds spread over the entire sky, adding to the gloom caused by the pall of smoke overhanging the city. It was as if the darkness of her surroundings pervaded her soul.

Out of this abstraction she was aroused by Narses’ voice.

“Majesty!”

“Yes?”

“General Mundus urgently requests audience.”

“Bring him in.”

The commander of the Herulians knelt before her.

“We have a prisoner, Magnificence. I was in the act of changing the guard at the Hormisdas gate, when we heard shouts and outcries without. This man was fleeing from some of the rabble, who were hurling stones at him and beating him with sticks. I sent forth a detachment or my men, and they threw back the mob, bringing him within the walls. He’s sorely hurt, and he asks for Your Majesty.”

“What does he desire of me?”

“That I cannot say. He would tell none of us, and assuredly he is not such as Your Mightiness would condescend to address. Yet, the times being as they are, I made bold——”

Her eyes lit suddenly. “Is this man a beggar?”

“Yes, Majesty.”

“A cripple?”

“Yes, Majesty.”

“Riding a donkey?”

“Yes—he was——”

“Where is he now?”

“Under guard in the Hormisdas. He’s in sorry condition——”

“Hurt?”

“He can scarcely live long. His wounds are grievous.”

“I come at once!”

“But—Magnificence—if you wish to see the man, why not order him to be carried here?”

“Do not move him! See to it that every care is taken of him! This man is worth an army to us!”

5 }

The Hormisdas palace had been deserted by its tenants, the holy mendicants. Those who were Monophysite had gone out to join the mob, adding to its violence with fiery religious exhortations, while the Orthodox had been taken into the palace grounds proper for greater safety.

On one of the pallets formerly used by some monk lay the beggar in his rags, his hairless head turned away, his color ashen, his eyes closed. Fiercely bearded Herulians stood about him.

“Hagg!” cried Theodora.

He opened his eyes.

There, that morning, Mundus and his Herulian warriors witnessed what they never had expected to see: the empress coming to a beggar with expressions of endearment, and the beggar addressing her familiarly by her name, without titles, as if they were full equals.

But the beggar’s voice, usually so deep and powerful, was now weak, and his breath came with difficulty. He closed his eyes again.

“What is it?” she asked.

“My back,” he said. “Broken. I’m sure of it. I have no feeling . . . from the shoulders down.”

“Mundus, send for physicians—at once!” she commanded.

Hagg turned his face to her and gave her that smile which was at once hideous and kindly.

“No time . . . little Theodora. The heaviest rock . . . struck me just when the guards reached me. I felt my spine go. Now I breathe with more difficulty . . . each minute . . .”

He paused, as if for the breath that came so hard, and she uttered a little cry.

“Don’t pity me,” he said. “I’m without pain . . . for the first time, almost, since . . . I can remember.”

“Why did you come to the palace?”

“Perversity. My Isaurian is gone . . . killed, I think, by the rioters. There’s a saying: The best cast in dice . . . is not to play. Yet here am I, playing.”

“You’ve not said what brings you——”

“The mob is . . . crowning a new emperor.”

She drew in her breath. “But the emperor lives!”

“He’s condemned to die . . . as also yourself——”

“Justinian must know at once!”

“First hear me. I haven’t long.”

“I listen, old friend.”

“In the night,” the creaking voice said slowly, “they went to the house of Hypatius, nephew of Anastasius——”

Hagg closed his eyes. She hung over him fearfully. Then, as by a great effort, he opened them again, his words coming with increasing difficulty.

“I was there . . . when they hailed him emperor.” The crooked smile came briefly. “He could never be emperor! A monkey clad in silks . . . is a monkey still.”

“Yes, Hagg?”

“At first Hypatius refused, and his wife also . . . but the mob prevailed.”

“Go on!”

“In the Square of Constantine they crowned him——”

“You saw it?”

“Yes . . .” His voice failed, and he closed his eyes again. For the space of minutes there was full silence in the room. Even the barbarian Herulians were too awed to stir.

“The coldness comes up toward my throat——” he said, opening his eyes.

“So you came to warn me!”

“Knowing no other way . . . I myself sought to bring word,” Hagg said feebly.

“And they caught you——”

“Just before the gate . . .” The smile twitched at the corners of his deformed mouth. “The gate of the Hippodrome . . . where a child once sat . . . with my begging bowl . . .”

It was the last thing he said. The poor twisted beggar was at peace.

Theodora sat beside her friend who was dead, while Mundus hurried to the imperial residence with the dread news for Justinian.

After a time she rose.

“Cover his face,” she directed. “In all this empire there was no braver or better man.”

No tears, though she felt them. Tears were a luxury which she could not permit herself.

It seemed to her that something significant and sad had taken place. Hagg was the oldest and best friend of her former life. By his death it was as if some mystic binding was severed, the cord that had tied her, whether she wished it or not, to her past and to the gutters and alleys from which she had come.

6 }

With the imperial council sat Justinian, clad in the monk’s habit which for some superstitious reason appeared to be his special garb now. In the room were Tribonian, Narses, Hestate, Hermogenes, Hippias, two or three loyal senators, and the fighting generals, Belisarius and Mundus.

Only John of Cappadocia was absent, but the emperor had no time to concern himself over this desertion. He was speaking.

“At least we control the sea,” he said.

“Yes, Majesty, the navy remains loyal,” said old Hermogenes, the master of offices.

“Perhaps it does,” said Belisarius, “but I’d not warrant another day before our Excubitors desert to the enemy in a body.”

Hestate reddened angrily. “I suppose your men are more loyal?” he sneered.

“The Comitati and Herulians know how to die for His Majesty,” Belisarius answered grimly.

“But after they’re dead, what?” asked Justinian. “When the last of your men is down, won’t we all be dead also—every one of us? In the mobs are not less than thirty thousand armed men, equipped with weapons from our own arsenals, to say nothing of uncounted thousands who’d join the assault on the palace with who knows what self-created arms!”

In the room reigned the silence of profound gloom.

“Perhaps,” said Justinian at last, “we should employ the—ah—strategy of evacuation. For the present only, of course,” he added.

“For the present, of course,” agreed the old archpatriarch, Hippias.

Heads remained bowed. Eyes did not meet each other. This had only one meaning: shameful surrender and flight.

“Many provinces of our empire would receive us joyfully,” the emperor continued, glancing about him almost furtively, as if seeking some assurance in their faces. Then he sighed, and continued to speak in a voice which gave no evidence that he believed in what he himself was saying.

“It’s not as if we were breaking precedent. Emperors have quitted their capitals before—temporarily—and returned to restore order and receive the submission of their people. Consider the instance of Zeno. And also of Theodosius. We’ll set up a new center of government, gather an army, and return to destroy the revolt and punish the wicked leaders.”

But he broke off then in despairing silence. Nobody replied to him. Too well they knew, every one of them, the impossibility of expecting this vague hope ever to come true.

There was a little stir in the room. Theodora had entered.

She stood before them, a small figure whose splendor of apparel contrasted with the emperor’s monkish garb, and at the same time seemed to accentuate her own delicacy. To Justinian she appeared worn. And sad.

Animated though she had been by excitement these past terrible days, it seemed now that she was near collapse from the exhaustion of her frail body by the constant activity, the sleeplessness, the rise and fall of hopes.

To Justinian she was lovely as always, most tragically so. Her natural color, it seemed to him, had faded somewhat; and this gave to her a poignancy that touched his heart with a sharp sense of the flower-like impermanence of all the dear world of beauty that she was to him. Her skin was transparent, and the delicate blue tracery of veins appeared on her hands, and on her white bosom.

Yet she had the artistry to make use even of this state. In the moment when she stood before those beaten men, weariness was an instrument to work with: she made it tell.

“My lords,” she began. “I could not help hearing the words of this council when I came in.” Her voice seemed fraught with discouragement, as if all joy of living had departed from her. “Have we then become weary of life, so that we wish to end it?”

Her looks tormented Justinian, who felt they were an arraignment of him. He should have been able to spare her this long travail, this peril and despair . . . somehow, some way.

“We have under consideration a retreat,” he said, as if impelled to explain himself to her. “A strategic retreat,” he added, seeking to supply the adjective that would make it sound more respectable.

“You mean flight, don’t you?” she said coldly. “Isn’t that the better word?” Suddenly her anger blazed out. “Are these ears hearing rightly?” she cried. “Does the Emperor of the Romans actually discuss fleeing from his own subjects?”

“Only to reorganize—and return——” Justinian broke off wretchedly, and his head drooped. It was no use. Too clearly she saw through him.

The blaze in her subsided: her face lost its flush and paled again.

“I am a woman,” she said, “and there is a saying that a woman has no place in the councils of men.”

She paused, as if to give to any who wished it a chance to demur at her voice being raised here now. But all were silent.

A moment, and she began to speak again; and what she said was one of those sudden utterances born of a mighty moment when all history hung in the balance, which history has not forgotten, and which has lived to be remembered and repeated by countless generations of men.

“You speak of flight. Of this I say that if flight were the only means of safety, yet would I disdain to fly!”

She took one step forward, and her small gold-sandaled foot appeared beneath the hem of her robe, resting on the floor as if taking a position from which it would never retreat. In her eyes shone a sudden splendor of highlights, and the words that came from her lips seemed to live and gleam in the air.

“Death is the condition of our birth. But they who have reigned should never survive the loss of dignity and honor!”

Justinian raised his head. Belisarius and the others leaned forward as if to hear more clearly. But it was to the emperor she spoke, and to him alone.

“I implore heaven that I may never be seen—not a day!—without my diadem and purple: that I may no longer behold the light when I shall cease to be hailed as empress. If you decide, O Justinian, to flee, you have the treasury—it will supply you with money. The sea is before you, and you command the ships. But think—and tremble—lest the desire of life now exposes you to death later, and a death more wretched because ignominious and in exile!”

She paused, and every man in the room held his breath.

Then she spoke one final sentence, and in it, with all pathos, put all resolution and determination.

“As for me, I believe in the old maxim: The throne is a most glorious sepulchre.”

She had finished. For a moment she stood silently regarding them, then turned to withdraw.

A voice said, “Wait——”

She halted, and Justinian rose, went to her, and took her hand.

“Theodora—my Empress——” he said brokenly.

He was profoundly moved. All these men were stirred to the depths of their beings by the appeal of a woman’s magnificent courage to their manhood. They lifted their heads: looked around with a new gaze, a new will, a new valor.

The emperor bent his head and kissed with his imperial lips the white hand he held.

“Queen of the World,” he said, “give us your commands.”

As he did not shame to say it, the others did not disdain him for asking it.

What thereafter took place was forever remembered.

In that moment, with so brief a peroration, Theodora, a woman, in years younger than any present, once of a profession despised, in body weak though divine, took into her two little hands the fate of the empire and of civilization, because none other was capable of doing it.

1 }

Followed decisions for action, and when Theodora spoke, men, the most notable in the world, listened and obeyed. Now that the time had come, she alone seemed prepared.

She indicated Belisarius and Mundus. “Muster the Comitati and Herulians. Prepare them for action. Await word, but move swiftly when it comes.”

The great, bearded soldiers saluted and departed. Not yet did they know what she intended or when she would give her commands. For them it was enough that she spoke.

“Hestate!”

The commander of the Excubitors stood before her, a loyal man, but believing too strongly in the fealty of his palace guards.

“Place your men in formation and keep them thus until you hear otherwise,” she said. “Drill them to keep them busy. Put in command of them only the most trusted of your under officers. What is to happen may take place very soon, and you will see to it that there is no defection until this issue is settled.”

Hestate also saluted, and went forth to obey.

“Narses,” she next said.

The chamberlain awaited her wish.

“Is there any word?” she asked, and the others did not comprehend her question, since of this matter with the eunuch they knew nothing.

“Your commands have been carried out, Magnificence,” said Narses.

“Fully?”

“To Drubus, the chief demarch of the Blues, and his subordinates, the suggestion has been spoken that where, during the reign of Justinian, their color has been in the ascendancy, there is now a resurgence of the Greens which may put the Blues into eclipse—and by the connivance of the Blues themselves.”

“The money?”

“It has been distributed according to your directions. I have here a list of the recipients and amounts to each.”

She nodded. “Good, Narses. We may have a leaven now that will work for us in a manner that may surprise us.”

On the others it dawned that this conversation related to some step the empress had taken without discussing it with any of them. A negotiation with the Blue faction, evidently. And from the chamberlain’s replies to her questions, progress was indicated.

The dignitaries of the imperial council experienced a faint lift of hope. At least something had been accomplished. Whatever it was, this was the first constructive act of any kind since the Nika riots had begun. They listened with increased attention and respect to the words the empress addressed to them, giving instructions to some, to others merely a smile perhaps, or a half-joking comment expressing her confidence.

When the council members left the room, they walked differently, holding their heads up. From the resolute heart of the woman, their hearts gained resolution. In no mind now was any question as to who was in command. Justinian looked to Theodora as did the rest, with unconscious gratitude and relief.

But though the members of the council held their heads up, the woman they left behind alone with the emperor, stood with her head bent. Of them all she alone knew how planless she was: how really hopeless was the prospect. She had, merely because she sought to give courage to a group of beaten men, assumed a fearful leadership without intending it, and without wishing it. But now she had it, and from it she could not retreat. They looked to her, all of them, expecting from her the impossible.

She experienced the moment of great loneliness which comes with absolute command, absolute authority.

Justinian stood gazing at her as if half awed, and her eyes took in his monk’s habit of brown sacking, which was in itself a symptom of his weakness. It was as if he sought by wearing it to escape in some mystical way the obligations and penalties which went with the robes of imperial authority.

No, there could be no companionship of thought here. She did not dare communicate to him her doubts, her lack of any assurance. She stood by herself alone, with the destiny of the empire on her slim shoulders.

“I’m very weary,” she said to him.

The emperor placed his arm about her, and looked down at her with alarm. So small, so delicate: this might be killing her, might be more than her frail strength could bear. At the moment she seemed more important to Justinian than all the pomp, power, and glory that the empire represented.

“You sacrifice yourself too much—you can’t go on——” he began, and stopped.

What if she did cease to go on! What if now, at this crucial moment, she should collapse!

His concern for her was suddenly sharpened by concern for himself, for the empire, for everything and everyone. So much, so very much, depended on her.

Almost with terror he gazed at her.

But she lifted her head and straightened her shoulders. “Sleep . . . an hour’s sleep, is all I need,” she said.

He took her to their bedchamber and the women bathed her quickly and put her to bed.

2 }

Within the hour she was up again and dressed. Justinian was sitting in her audience room, and when she appeared, he sprang toward her.

“How is it with you now?” he asked anxiously.

“I feel much better.” She seemed to have tapped some inner spring of energy to provide her still one more resource of new strength.

“I’ve had food brought for you——”

“Not now.” Then she added, “The roar of the mob awakened me.”

“They’re gathering in the Hippodrome.”

“To hail their new emperor?”

“I suppose so. We’re informed that they crowned him with a chain of gold links looted from a church, since they had no diadem, and lifted him on shields before the statue of Emperor Constantine.”

She said, “Hypatius is a stupid little man. Nevertheless, this becomes the hour of supreme danger.”

“You think he will organize——”

“Not he. But he provides a seeming authority under which the populace will be ordered by the real leaders of this revolt. There will be no more lack of planning and mob confusion. What has been before is nothing to what will happen now.”

“But—you spoke as if—you had some plan——”

“Let’s step outside. I wish to hear the clamor of the Hippodrome.”

Beside the columns of the Daphne palace they stood together and listened as the air trembled with the hoarse, throaty roar.

“The Hippodrome is packed,” said Justinian. “In it there must be a hundred thousand. Listen to that!”

The mob-roar changed to a steady cadence, “Nika! Nika! Nika!”

Then came another, mightier shout, “Hail, Hypatius! Many years!”

The salute to a new emperor.

“They were cheering us in those words not so long ago,” said Justinian. He was not fearful now, so much as resigned.

“There’s not much time left,” Theodora said. “Summon a messenger.”

When the man came, she commanded him, “Haste to General Belisarius, down by the sea wall, and tell him to bring all his soldiers—on the run.”

After that, though the messenger departed at speed, it seemed to Theodora an interminable time that she stood with Justinian, listening to the clamor of the mob in the Hippodrome, and looking at the huge bulk of the arena which lifted itself just beyond the palace wall. On the maneuvering grounds, down toward the Hormisdas, she could see the flashing lines of Excubitors, unwillingly drilling, and hear the shouted commands of Hestate’s officers, as they put them through their evolutions. Keep them busy. That was the order, and Hestate was obeying to his full ability.

In her anxiety, she walked, followed by Justinian, down along the front of the Daphne palace, to the corner where she could see back in the direction of the Porphyry palace and the sea wall.

There they came. Files of soldiers, not flashing, but with armor dulled by use, at the double up the slope from the lower grounds of the enclosure. The Excubitors stopped drilling, and stared. She could see Hestate raving, and presently the palace guards, with the habit of men long accustomed to taking orders, were at their marching and wheeling and countermarching again, held at their drill for a time at least, until, perhaps, the attack on the palace walls began.

The Comitati and Herulians halted on the smooth lawn between the Daphne palace and the eunuchs’ house. While their officers formed them in close ranks, the two generals advanced to where the empress and emperor stood.

From one to the other of them Belisarius glanced, then his steel gaze fixed itself on Theodora.

“We report for your commands, Majesty!”

“Your men have brought their bows?” she asked.

“Yes. And every quiver filled with arrows.”

A new, greater tumult rose from the Hippodrome.

“They will have need for their arrows,” she said. “I believe the moment of all moments has come.”

Both Belisarius and Mundus signified that they awaited her directions. She glanced at Justinian.

Very seriously, the emperor said to her, “We are all ready to obey the commands you see fit to give, my Beautiful Magnificence.”

Turning again to the generals, she said, “In the Hippodrome are now perhaps one hundred thousand men. How many have you here?”

“The Comitati number about eight hundred and fifty able to fight,” said Belisarius.

“And the Herulians?”

“Not quite six hundred, Majesty,” said Mundus.

“Less than fifteen hundred. Hardly a handful,” she said, and gave a little quivering sigh.

But almost instantly she was all velvety steel again.

“We must do what we must do,” she said. Her look held them. “You are few. But those in the Hippodrome are drunk with wine and success, and occupied with listening to their own orators, who tell them that they are the greatest, wisest, most perfect of men, while they acclaim their new toy—their puppet ‘emperor.’ ”

Belisarius comprehended. “We’re to attack!”

“Audacity is our only hope.”

Belisarius glanced at Mundus and their eyes glowed.

“We ask nothing better, Magnificence!” he said. “The Herulians are seething over the deaths of their comrades in the street fighting, and the Comitati desire vengeance also. When do we go?”

“Now.”

“Through the Chalké gate?”

Justinian listened, speechless. The thought came into his mind that it was a futile madness to send fewer than fifteen hundred men against one hundred thousand—and by so doing deprive the palace of its only dependable defenders. But his own failures, humiliations, and fears had taken the power of volition from him, and he yielded silently to the authority in her.

Theodora gave Belisarius a fathomless look. “There’s a possibility—faint but existing—that a certain force will come to your help.”

Though Justinian had heard her brief conversation with Narses, he thought at the moment only that she spoke of a mystical power from heaven that might aid the defenders of the empire, and devoutly religious as he had become, his soul quivered with his disbelief that she could count on any providential intervention.

Theodora said to Belisarius, “What is your thought in proceeding in this matter?”

He gave it a moment’s consideration, and held a short conference in a low voice with Mundus.

“Magnificence,” he said, “when battle is joined, an attack on the rear, even by a small body, may sometimes throw panic into the enemy——”

“How would you use this strategy against the Hippodrome?”

“If I take the Comitati down by the Hormisdas gate, we can march rapidly across to the lower end of the Hippodrome, and enter by the Gate of Death, which is always open. There we could make a stand for a time. Yet if the mob, armed as it is from the imperial arsenal, presses thickly on us we must perish in the end, unless there is a diversion.”

“Yes?”

“I would, therefore, have Mundus delay with the Herulians, biding at the Chalké gate, until he hears the sound of our battle. Then let him march. It’s but a short distance from the Chalké gate to the Gate of Combatants, which is opposite in the arena from the Gate of Death. If he arrives at the right moment, his appearance in the rear of the mob will have its greatest effect. This, O Splendor, seems to me our best plan for success.”

“Then order it so,” she said.

He glanced toward the Hormisdas palace, where the long ranks of Excubitors still flashed their silver armor.

“I would have those men moved away from there,” he said.

Theodora sent a messenger running with orders to Hestate to march his Excubitors down to the sea wall where Belisarius’ men had been, and hold them there.

When they saw the gleaming files moving away, she said, “Now, my friends, God go with you.”

“Hail, Empress!” Belisarius and Mundus saluted and returned to their soldiers.

Long-drawn, shouted commands. The ranks wheeled out in formations of fours. As the Comitati and Herulians swung past on their way to the two separate gates, they clashed their swords on their shields and echoed the cry of their commanders, “Hail, Empress!”

3 }

In the Hippodrome the densely packed stands were howling themselves hoarse. Down below them, in the arena where usually the races and games were held, a new kind of sport was in progress.

Even the spectators in the highest seats, and of these Chaero was one, could see the figure of Hypatius, mild and elderly, fond of his library and gardens, now upraised on a platform and surrounded by the leaders of the factions, together with many senators and notables who had decided it was wise to join the populace.

Hypatius was a pathetic figure. The hysterical tears of his wife, when he was torn away from his home the previous night, had added to his nervousness and terror. Throughout the dark hours he had been pushed and hauled back and forth, hailed with extravagant titles and expressions of honor, yet never once without the realization that he was the helpless prisoner of the mob, its creature.

“I implore you, good friends, not so roughly!” he had cried out more than once as one dragged him this way, another that, sometimes yelling in triumph, sometimes snarling and abusing each other, as if they would tear his limbs from his body in their contention.

He was bruised and weary from lack of sleep, and besides being fearful he was inwardly angry at the rude treatment he had received from his captors. Yet he knew he could do nothing. Once he had whispered to a man he thought loyal to Justinian, asking him to carry word that this was none of his doing; but he was sure the message never had been taken.

Standing on the platform in the midst of the Hippodrome, he saw the noisy crowd of his captors: one hundred thousand of them, surrounding him on every side and eying him hungrily as dogs look at their prey.

Stentorian voices bawled his titles, newly conferred by the rabble, “Imperator Romanorum . . . Pontifex Maximus . . . Tribunitia Potestate . . .”

At each resounding name, the mob roared. A great day, a decidedly novel sport, this making of emperors, the rioters agreed with each other. And this emperor would assuredly know on which side his bread was buttered. Distributions would be daily now, instead of monthly. There would be broad gold pieces for all. Slaves for all. The provinces of Africa, Asia Minor, and the upper Greek peninsula would be levied on, swept bare of their riches, and all of it poured into the laps of the Byzantines. Nobody would have to work any more. The government would take care of everything.

They drooled at the thought. And at the same time, sensing the terror of the pudgy little man down on the platform, with the purple robe awry on his shoulders and a golden chain fantastically canted on his bald head, they gave the full power of their lungs, each time the announcers paused, to their triumphant howl:

“Nika! Nika! Nika!”

When the vanguard of soldiers appeared at the Gate of Death, they were at first scarcely noticed. Then as the mail-clad Comitati continued to march in, wheeling right and left with businesslike precision, the masses in the Hippodrome still for a time stared uncomprehendingly.

“What’s the meaning of that?” men asked each other.

From the figure on the platform with the ridiculous gold chain on its head and the rumpled purple on its shoulders, one hundred thousand pairs of eyes went to the small troop forming in battle array before the gate through which the dead bodies of gladiators and charioteers had been dragged.

“The Excubitors have come to join us!” said some.

“No. Those aren’t palace soldiers,” others answered.

Someone cried out, “The Comitati!”

All at once the truth burst upon them. Back and forth questions were tossed:

“What are they doing here?”

“Are they daring the wrath of the populace again?”

“We whipped these dogs well once! Don’t let them get away this time—kill every one of them!”

The huge mob stirred. Weapons began to flash. A low threatening growl, rising from myriads of throats, grew to a roar. One hundred thousand against . . . less than nine hundred. More than a hundred to one! Crush them! Slaughter them! No mercy! Nika! NIKA!

Enormous, ferocious, the human avalanche tipped with steel began its surge downward from the tiered seats toward the arena and the handful of Comitati who thus rashly challenged the power of the Hippodrome crowd.

Belisarius, looking upward at the seething mass of people, saw it as a vast apparition of faces: faces white, faces brown, faces black, the whole polyglot aspect of all races and countries; dirty faces, dissipated faces, fat faces, thin faces; faces with the hound look, faces with the weasel look, faces with the wild boar look; faces smooth and faces rough, effeminate faces and brutal faces; but faces all similar in one respect . . . every expression was marked now by the common stamp of wild-beast ferocity and hate.

He had a soldier’s detestation of the cruel, treacherous, indolent, and parasitical rabble which lived by the valor of such as himself and his Comitati, and his fighting heart welcomed the battle to come, as he lifted his voice to order his men to string their bows.

No time now for any more impressions. With that horrid roar which is the voice of mobs, and in which is no mercy, they swept down upon him and his soldiers in a living torrent.

But wilder rose the yell, shriller the scream, when the line of mailed archers, as by a single motion, lifted their bows, drew arrows to the head, and began to kill.

Like the deep note of a gigantic harp, the sound of hundreds of bowstrings was heard all at once, and into the masses vaulting down over the benches whizzed a deadly sleet of steel-headed shafts.

The havoc was dreadful: almost unbelievable. So short was the range that Belisarius’ experienced archers, winging their shafts with bitter anger, often sent arrows clear through a human body and into the man behind.

For one moment surprise and shocked disbelief replaced expressions of exultant, bullying fury. Then some faces were bitten with the agony of death, and those not stricken changed to looks of fear, horror, and panic.

All in an instant the huge mass of threatening figures, rushing down with brandishing swords, spears, and daggers, became a blood-spouting shambles on the benches, as the Comitati never for one moment ceased their hail of shafts, aimed with the fierceness of men who must sell their lives at the highest price, and who besides knew full hatred of the mob which had humiliated them and slaughtered their comrades.

Though the Comitati, after the first united volley, drew their bows and let fly at will, it seemed the spate of arrows was continuous. On the benches living men cowered behind the heaped dead to shelter themselves. Backward pressed the front ranks, trying to force those behind them to withdraw. And all the while, like winrows before the scythe, the nearer masses seemed to stumble and fall, a gory, screaming, horrifying spectacle of carnage.

In that first whipping stream of arrows some thousands of rioters must have fallen transfixed, and died. But fewer than nine hundred archers cannot forever maintain their flights of feathered steel. Shafts are expendable. In no more than a few minutes every quiver was empty.

When the sleet of death ceased, the mob rallied.

Confidence returned, and with it redoubled fury.

Over their own dead friends the Byzantine mobsters struggled, slipping and scrambling across blood-smeared benches, encouraging each other with shouts, and pointing out the few—the ridiculous few—who barred the Gate of Death to their overwhelming numbers.

Belisarius ordered the Comitati to fall back, changing formation from an extended line which permitted the use of bows, to a close triple rank, the base of which was the gate. Out flashed the long swords, and the grim veterans of the Avar and Persian wars awaited the rush of the angry sea of humanity.

The vanguard of the mob reached the soldiers. In an instant, all up and down the ranks, wild, chaotic action reigned: axes, swords, and bludgeons rising and falling, spears thrusting in and out, stones thrown. Soldiers and mobsters alike slipped and staggered on the blood-smeared sands. Clatter of blows and the outcries of the stricken mingled with the warlike shouts of the soldiers, now fighting for their lives, and the overhanging, shattering roar of the furious rabble.

Again and again the Comitati were borne back by sheer weight of numbers, the mob pressing ever harder, trusting to its avalanche force to overwhelm the defenders of the gate. Those in the front ranks of the crowd suffered, for whether they would or no, they were driven on the long swords by the pressure of those behind.

Some screamed and fell, and were trampled underfoot. Some were held upright, though they were already dead, by the dense pack about them. And ever more remorselessly those behind pushed forward.

Still the struggling little knot of Comitati held the gate. Belisarius’ sword was dripping red to the hilt, and his arm was weary from wielding it. About him his men were falling, their numbers reduced each minute. And though the mob was losing far more heavily, for the practiced swordsmanship of the soldiers made up in part for the sheer numerical superiority they faced, numbers at last were beginning to tell. To Belisarius it seemed that the battle was lost.

A terrible thing is the first flush of a mob’s fury. But often it is succeeded by consideration, and if the matter looks difficult, may be followed by desertion of the weaker-hearted members.

This was happening, though not in a sufficient degree to relieve the intolerable pressure on the Comitati. Some of the members of the mob who were less eager to fight than others, began to shred away at the rear, and to stream across the arena toward the opposite gate, the Gate of Combatants, through which once gladiators had marched to salute the populace and the emperor before beginning their deadly combats. Most of the crowd, however, still struggled with the handful of soldiers, and by now Belisarius and what was left of his men had been pushed, fighting desperately, almost into the gate itself.

But now a new scream arose: a howl of surprise and fear.

As the first of the deserting mobsters reached the Gate of Combatants, they saw crowding through it toward them helmets and shields which were covered and festooned with the furs and skins of wild beasts.

Mundus had arrived. His barbarian Herulians came eagerly to the killing: even more furious than the Comitati, and hating all things Byzantine anyway.

Across the arena Belisarius and his handful, seeing the arrival of their comrades, took fresh heart and braced themselves to hold back the multitudes that assailed them.

Meantime, as the Herulians rushed in at the Gate of Combatants, the fainthearted of the rabble fell back. But others were more courageous, and almost at once there was a press here also, for the mob saw that both its escapes were cut off, and the mercenaries were wielding their curved swords of razor edge, which killed at every blow. The barbarians at the Gate of Combatants must be destroyed or driven out, as must the Comitati at the Gate of Death.

Like Belisarius, Mundus found himself put to it as never before in his life.

In that day Herulian swords drank more blood than in all the campaign they had fought against Persia. Their guttural fighting cry, uttered in their own tongue and meaning, “Kill! Kill!” never ceased.

Yet for them also it began to look as if this would be the last battle they would ever fight. Mundus, never a devout Christian, found himself vowing splendid offerings to the Virgin, and to St. George, who had been especially recommended to him as a patron of soldiers, if he came out of this scuffling, furious combat alive and with honor.

It was then, at the supremely critical moment, that the strange, almost unbelievable turn of events took place.

4 }

Although many of the Blue faction had joined the Greens in their onslaught on the soldiers, large numbers of them remained in their benches, watching the twin struggles at the two gates.

Their leaders, Drubus and his subordinates, in particular, seemed to lack eagerness to enter the battle. These, in view of certain questions raised in the last few hours, and particularly in view of certain gifts of money they had received, had begun to view with waning enthusiasm the “crowning” of Hypatius, a known Green.

Over them, as they sat in the Hippodrome during the “ceremonies” in which the Greens did seem to take an overprominent part, had crept the realization that the suggestions made to them contained unpleasant truth: they were playing into the hands of their archfoes, and it was becoming increasingly clear that if this revolt were successful nothing could come of it but the ascendancy of their rivals, and probable blood-lettings for past despites.

Blue officers gathered together in a close, arguing knot, stabbing with their fingers toward the opposite stands.

All at once Blue announcers, prompted by the demarches, began to shout.

And suddenly with that inconsistent and wanton fury of the beast with thousands of heads which the mob is, the Blues, ceasing all fighting with the soldiers at the gates, hurled themselves instead on the Greens.

Just when it seemed that the breaking point was reached, Belisarius at the Gate of Death, and Mundus at the Gate of Combatants, unexpectedly found the pressure on their fighting fronts relieved.

Back spun the crowds, leaving the sands littered with their dead and dying, corpses sometimes heaped three deep where, on the one hand, the long swords of the Comitati, and on the other, the curved sabers of the Herulians, had strewn them.

5 }

Chaero was one of those to whom the very thought of combat with the soldiers brought a chill to the stomach.

When the mob surged down from the tiered seats toward the Comitati, he remained where he was, almost in the top row, although several jeered at him when they left him to join the battle.

He witnessed the first appalling slaughter caused by the sudden sleet of arrows from the Comitati, and although the sight sickened him, he congratulated himself on having stayed out of the onslaught, thus escaping perhaps being pinned himself by a feathered shaft with a head of steel.

As the melee followed the first repulse of the mob, after the quivers of the Comitati were empty, he watched the furious battle from his vantage point, gripping the edge of his bench with clammy hands, in horror and fear at being caught in a situation of such violent possibilities. To Chaero—though he was quite willing to set fire to a church, filch valuables, take part in the rape of a helpless woman, perhaps even strike down a fleeing citizen who was unarmed—the sight of the maddened combat, with the swords and axes flashing and falling, and the constant shouts and screams, was terrifying.

He began to berate himself for ever leaving Paphlagonia, where though he had been in exile he had been safe. This, which was happening here, was no part of his calculations when he came to Constantinople in answer to messages from some of his friends of the Juventi Alcinoi.

Then reassurance came. What was there to be afraid of? Those Comitati would not last long with the great mob hammering at them.

Nevertheless, the Hippodrome at the moment seemed to Chaero an unhealthy place. He was one of the earliest to decide to leave it and let the others fight it out. Hurrying down an aisle, he dropped over the wall below the lowest seats to the sandy floor of the arena, and began running toward the Gate of Combatants, in the direction of which other figures also were streaming.

Chaero was one of the first to see the uncouth furred barbarians suddenly appear in the gate.

Confused, he hesitated, then began a retreat, only to halt by the Delphic tripod which stood on the long central island around which ran the oval chariot course. Both exits from the arena were blocked, and he was at a point about halfway between them, glancing about fearfully, wondering what to do.

The mob began to fling itself against the mercenaries. Chaero shuddered, his flesh crawling at the death dealt by those ugly-looking Herulian sabers. He gave a look back at where he had been sitting, high in the stands, and wished he had remained there.

It was at that moment he saw the sudden eruption of the Blue faction in its attack on the Greens. Down from the benches men came leaping into the arena, flourishing weapons. The Greens, caught by surprise, nevertheless turned on their foes. Immediate wild, bloody confusion reigned all over the sandy oval. To Chaero this was the final terror.

His peculiar misfortune was the tunic with the exaggerated bat-wing sleeves which he was wearing—the recent style instituted by the Juventi Alcinoi—because to the Green faction the Juventi, who had been overweening in their depredations and maltreatment of their victims, were especial objects of hatred. In the first few minutes of the melee, scores of youths in the wide, flapping sleeves, were struck down all over the arena, trampled into the sand, bathed in their own blood.

Chaero saw it with sick fear. Yet when he noticed a large bearded man, very bowed in the shoulders and carrying an ax, running toward him, it hardly dawned on him at first that he was the object of the fellow’s rush. Then he noticed the knot of green ribbon on the tunic, and knew he was looking at death.

Despairingly he bounded away. But there was nowhere to go. Here and there he dodged and twisted, going round and round the Delphic tripod, screaming miserably like a rabbit, his tell-tale sleeves flapping ludicrously. Inexorably the man with the ax hunted him down.

He glanced back, failing to see the prostrate corpse on the sand. Out from under him flew his feet as he stumbled, and he fell forward on his face. There he lay sobbing for a moment, until the shock of great pain came, the blinding flash of sparks within his head, then darkness. Chaero, weak, pampered, cowardly, and worthless was nevertheless in his way pitiable in his death.

The man with the beard, whose ax had cleft the pomaded curls, turned from his deed, and almost instantly was himself struck down by a Blue who had come up behind him.

6 }

Belisarius and Mundus could not communicate with each other across the arena, which was a mass of fighting men, but both were experienced in warfare, and they kept their soldiers from leaping in pursuit of the mobsters, holding them in close ranks where they were, ready to fight again if necessary.

Leaning on his sword, Belisarius glanced about him. Only now did he realize how terrible had been the cost of this battle. Of his Comitati almost half were down, and of those who remained standing, many were sorely wounded, and weak and faint from loss of blood.

“By St. Michael the swordsman, another such rush would have finished us!” he exclaimed to one of his lieutenants.

The man nodded soberly. “What do you make of this, General?” he said, indicating the melee in the arena and up and down the benches.

“I don’t know. It was like a miracle from heaven,” said Belisarius slowly. “But I suspect we have someone not quite an angel to thank for it.”

“Who?”

“A woman,” Belisarius said. But he did not elaborate, nor did he fully understand what had happened, save that in some manner he was sure in his heart that Theodora had a hand in it.

Across the arena, at the other gate, Mundus and the Herulians were in a case equally sad.

But neither commander had need to concern himself further now. They stared, and their soldiers with them, at an incredible sight.

The beast with one hundred thousand heads had fallen to destroying itself.

Like a venomous serpent which, surrounded by a ring of fire, sinks its poison-dripping fangs into its own body, the mob was raging all over the Hippodrome, in the arena and on the benches, Blue slashing at Green, Green thrusting at Blue.

In a long-pent fury the unnatural alliance between the factions, already extended longer than might have been believed, broke up.

Minute after minute the slaughter mounted. The rabble, in its new struggle, forgot the soldiers at the gates, forgot every grievance real or fancied against the rulers of the empire, forgot the pleasure of loot and destruction, forgot everything except the ferocity of hate for men of the opposing color, whichever it might be. The very triviality of the cause of this conflict accented in vivid shades of horror the insane murder that now raged up and down the countless tiers of blood-spattered stone benches.

Even the veterans of Belisarius and Mundus, accustomed to the sight of carnage, turned sick at the slaughter. After half an hour of watching it, seeing there was no further need for them here, they retreated to the palace: the Comitati by the Hormisdas gate through which they came, the Herulians by the Chalké gate, each contingent carrying with it such of its wounded as might be saved by care in the hospitals. And not a hand, not even a cry, was raised against them by the mob, crazed by its self-massacre.

Long after the soldiers were gone the roar of shouts and screams continued and mounted within the Hippodrome, sending its dread tumult across its walls, over the city, into the palace enclosure.

Not until nightfall did it end. When the first scouts sent out by Belisarius next morning entered the great arena, they were greeted by a spectacle of unparalleled horror.

To the topmost tiers the benches were black with the bodies of the dead and of those who still were dying.

Near the Gate of Death the lower seats were heaped densely with a tangle of corpses, furred with the feathered shafts of arrows, where Belisarius’ archers had struck with their first deadly slaughter.

Before each gate the floor of the arena was another wild medley of the dead, where the Comitati and Herulians for a season had fought back the full weight of the maddened mob.

Elsewhere, throughout the arena, the sands were bloody and littered, and all the way up and down the stands, even in the emperor’s kathisma, lay bodies where Blue and Green had stricken each other. In some cases men were found, dead from stabs in the body, who in the last extremity had locked their teeth in the throats of their enemies, and thus carried them to the shades with them.

When later the Hippodrome was cleared of its ghastly freight, the bloody faces of many once notable men were identified here and there.

Sergius, the recreant Excubitor, was dead with an arrow in his throat. Both Drubus and Pompilius, the chief demarches of the Blues and Greens respectively, were among the slain, together with many of their important subordinates. Sundry senators, patricians, even eunuchs and priests, who had joined forces with the populace, were found.

The number of bat-wing tunics discovered was notable. The Juventi Alcinoi ceased to exist that day, their few survivors never after affecting the costume, hoping only that their connection with that evil body of young terrorists would be forgotten forever. Among the dead Juventi, of course, was Chaero, his skull split, lying at the foot of the Delphic tripod.

All told more than thirty thousand corpses sprawled in the Hippodrome in the dreadful tangle of death.

Oh, never in all history had such another thing taken place, in which a rebellion destroyed itself in one fell orgy of self-murder.

7 }

Theodora, standing near the ruins of St. Stephen’s church after Belisarius and Mundus set forth on their forlorn hope, felt with renewed force the great disability of her sex: that she could not be present and take part, but for good or ill must only await the accomplishing of events.

In the tense and terrible next hour her excitement and apprehension rose and fell as she stared up at the looming bulk of the Hippodrome, just over the palace wall, and tried to guess, by the sounds, what was taking place within it.

She heard the measured shouts of the crowd yelling, “Nika!” And the vast roar, “Hail, Hypatius! Many years!”

There followed a howl of amazement and rage when the archers loosed their arrows, and it came clearly to her, though she did not then know its meaning.

Afterward grew and hung on the air the long-continued and overwhelming roar of fury as the mob hurled itself on the swords of the soldiers of Belisarius and Mundus.

The tumult increased, with wild shoutings, curses, screams and groans growing louder, more desperate.

Theodora glanced over at Justinian. He stood with eyes closed and head bowed, in his monk’s brown robe, with the rope girdled about his waist, and his feet bare save for common rawhide sandals. Through his fingers ran the beads of the rosary he wore, and his lips moved with the pattering words of the prayers which fell from them.

The emperor believed that the desperate stroke she had ordered had failed, and she was beginning to believe it also. Not forever could the handful she had sent hold out against the multitudes in the Hippodrome.

At the very height of this, while the tumult rose to a terrifying crescendo, the Comitati and Herulians came through the two gates into the palace enclosure. With wonder she watched them, as they marched rapidly from opposite directions toward where she stood near the burned church. They were weary, their armor cut and slashed, blood spattered over them, limping and staggering, and carrying their wounded comrades. But they did not have the appearance of beaten men.

Belisarius, smeared with grime and gore, his bearded visage still fierce from battle, halted the Comitati, and with huge strides approached Theodora, his sword in his great fist. Straight to her he went, and kneeling, laid the bloody blade at her feet.

“Your enemies will rebel against you no longer, O Magnificence!” he said.

“What took place?” she asked.

“The rabble has turned on itself. They are killing each other!”

She drew a great, shuddering breath.

So the other horn of her plan—the secret negotiations through Narses—had succeeded.

For a moment she closed her eyes. She was a woman: the thought of the mass death going on, even though it was a besom sweeping away the rotten, cruel Byzantine rabble, sickened her.

Then she opened her eyes again. They were looking at her: Belisarius, Mundus, Justinian.

Like a wave, the realization swept over her that they were waiting for her to announce decisions. All things were changed for her forever. Whether she wished it or not, she was Empress of the Romans.

In that moment an immensity of vast prospects and mighty actions seemed to tower above her like a looming cloud filled with lightnings and thunders; tempests, terror, and power beyond imagination. Vaguely she glimpsed great distances, far lands; immense decisions with mighty consequences; terrible conflicts of men, flames licking the ancient towers of cities; the fang of the serpent of treachery in the heel, the eagle of empire wheeling in the heavens. And herself, Theodora, child of the streets, a small, exquisite figure, upraised in the midst of many peoples . . .

Over her passed a tiny shiver. She had not planned this great and terrible thing. All her life she had been content to be what she was: a woman . . . following a woman’s bents, with a woman’s viewpoints and intuitions, using a woman’s power.

Yet in some manner she had set into motion forces incomparably greater than herself, which now held her and shaped her in spite of herself. They had swept her into this vast responsibility, this terrible authority, the full extent of which she as yet only dimly understood. Fear of her own inexperience, her lack of knowledge, the weakness which is a lifelong inborn consciousness of women, made her inwardly shrink.

Long ago, in the days before she was Justinian’s wife, before she was even his mistress, when she was to him no more than a girl brought to his palace to amuse him for a night or two, she had thought with awe of him that he was something more than Man—he was Empire.

Now she herself was that. It was frightening.

Yet if there was fear in it, there was triumph also. Once Justinian said she had earned the right to be empress: now she had won that right. From all questionable mediocrity she had incontestably severed herself.

Her chin lifted. Always she had accepted destiny. She would not shrink from it now.

Any historical novel necessarily leaves many threads untied, many questions in the reader’s mind as to what was the fate of certain of the people in the story. For those who may have such interested curiosity, the following addendum is written.

THEODORA

The empress lived for sixteen years after the Nika riots. Probably because of the strain of that terrible crisis, which she confronted almost single-handed, her health suffered. She never fully recovered it.

Her death occurred when she was forty-five, in the twenty-second year of her reign, the twenty-fourth of her marriage, the cause being cancer of the breast, for which no means of treatment or cure was known to the medicine of her day. One wish of hers was fulfilled: she did not survive her beauty, which was still magnificent when at last she closed her eyes, June 29, 548.

From the Nika rebellion to her death she was the true ruler of the empire. More and more Justinian turned to his study of theology, in the intricacies of which he lost himself enjoyably, leaving major decisions to the incisive genius of that child of the streets whom he had made his wife and empress. It is recorded that when—as happened more than once—an order by the emperor and one by the empress conflicted, it was Theodora’s command which invariably was carried out.

It is perhaps fortunate for the world that the power of woman over others is usually less than the power of her destiny over herself.

Theodora had a woman’s mind, desires, necessities, and viewpoints. Even an unscrupulous and wicked woman usually is unscrupulous and wicked in feminine ways, and though Theodora was neither of these from her own viewpoint and by her own lights—however she may be accounted by some historians—her errors and weaknesses, as well as her strengths and achievements, are attributable to the essential femaleness in her.

Woman is, first and primarily, the guardian of the race, the giver of life. Since in renewing the race she approaches each time the raw, primitive frontier of death, she is underneath all her frivolities, froths, and frills, more unswerving, more remorseless in the pursuit of the end of her being than any man.

Humor, as men knew it, was not for Theodora. It was to her a foolishness of the male, which she would accept but had no wish to share. Wit was hers, because it was sharp, incisive, and sometimes devastating; but never humor, which to her lacked the indispensable asset of getting somewhere and doing something.

She compromised when she must, but compromise was contrary to her nature. On the enemies of the essential She in her, she waged furious, undeviating war.

This was emotional. But woman is emotion, and Theodora was woman.

To the end she continued in everything to be incurably personal. People, events, consequences, motives, things, all were evaluated as they affected herself, either directly or through those in whom she was chiefly interested.

For her feminine instinct taught her that her value was primarily as an individual. Men may gain force and power as they become masses, as in armies. But every woman’s value, as a woman, diminishes when her personality becomes submerged in numbers.

Never was this irreducible fact more pithily expressed than in the remark attributed to Petronius, the Roman satirist, when on the occasion of an imperial saturnalia where nude femininity was in view everywhere, to plethora, he said to the tyrant, Nero, “I judge, Lord, that ten thousand naked maidens make less impression than one.”

Yet the intense personal emphasis which is woman’s greatest strength in the individual relationships for which she is designed becomes a weakness in something so impersonal as rulership. As she will unpityingly destroy anything she hates, woman will unhesitatingly sacrifice anything for what she loves. Abstractions she abhors. Her years for love and fruitfulness are too few and limited to give her time or patience for what to her is relatively unimportant. And no woman, in all history, ever has been able to resist the temptations of absolute command.

Of Theodora, particularly in her later years as empress, there are stories of unscrupulousness and cruelty. Some of these are patently fictitious, as the account in the self-discredited Anecdota, by Procopius, of a “son”—ostensibly by one of her lovers of her courtesan days—who was brought to claim relationship to her. Whereat, to quote Procopius, “fearing that the story would get to the ears of her husband,” she had the poor lad whisked away and he was never heard from again.

The fallacy in this is that Theodora made no secret of her past. She took into her court the friends of her courtesan days, obtained for one of her sisters a good marriage, and it appears that she finally succeeded in tracing out the daughter born to her in Alexandria, bringing to Constantinople shortly before her death a grandson by that daughter, named Anastasius, whom she sought to unite in marriage with Joannina, the daughter of Belisarius and Antonina. Details of this are confused by Procopius in his anxiety to place the empress in a bad light, and he even speaks of the child as a nephew, but most authorities agree the boy was a grandson. He must have been a young child, and though state marriages often were arranged between immature children, Theodora died before Anastasius was married, and history loses sight of him.

To return to the case of the alleged son, it is quite certain that had a genuine offspring appeared before her, the empress, who was fiercely defensive of her own, would never have refused to acknowledge him. Perhaps an attempt was made to foist on her an impostor, or perhaps the whole story must be dismissed as must many of Procopius’ vindictive tales.

Concerning Procopius, who was the official historian of Justinian’s reign, most of that which is repeated to Theodora’s discredit is based on his scurrilous “secret history,” called the Anecdota. The reason for his implacable enmity toward her is unknown. In his publicly issued histories he was servilely flattering. But while he wrote his books about the wars and achievements of the empire, he was compiling a secret work in which he crammed every bit of evil gossip, slander, and calumny that he could collect.

The untrustworthiness of the Anecdota is attested by its obvious untruths, which vitiate its entire content. For example, Procopius wrote seriously that Justinian and Theodora were not a man and woman, but demons in human form, and adduced the alleged evidence to prove this ridiculous assertion. Others of his statements are equally contradictory and impossible to swallow, and his method of twisting even the laudable acts of the two rulers to make them appear evil proves the corrosive animus behind the whole work.

Yet on this secret document, which Procopius appears to have written to satisfy his own spleen, and which was not even intended for publication, but was discovered after centuries had passed—when it was too late to prove or disprove most of its statements—many in the modern era have chosen to form all their estimates of Theodora’s character. The legacy of the spiteful pen of the man who secretly hated her was the deadliest stroke ever delivered at the beautiful empress, though she did not live to know it.

Nevertheless, there are acts of tyranny and cruelty attested by other and more reliable recorders than Procopius. Of these there is at least this to be said: tyranny and cruelty were commonplaces of the times, and in these respects the empress was no worse, if as bad, as her contemporaries on the thrones of the world.

With all her faults, no one, not even her bitter, anonymous enemy Procopius, charged her ever with faltering in her loyalty and faithfulness to Justinian. The very silence on this subject, which would have been one of the first advanced to her discredit, is the highest proof that when she took her marriage vows she put behind her forever all the courtesan thoughts and ways of her early years. Forever and continuously she worked for the glory of her husband, the emperor, and much for which she has been criticized was done for his sake.

That she was sincerely religious in her later life must be admitted, though writers of the period, being chiefly Orthodox Catholics, discredited this fact because of her leanings toward the Monophysite heresy, and her efforts even to place a Monophysite bishop at the head of the entire Christian Church.

Hers was the brilliant mind that conceived much of what made the reign of Justinian glorious.

A supreme woman, she brought to government one of the most baffling of the arts of women. In their dealings with men, brilliant women often appear to abhor consistency. If they speak always the same way, dress always the same way, answer always the same way, respond always the same way, they are not only dull, but easily overthrown, and—worse still!—forgotten.

Such a woman, therefore practices inconsistency sometimes to the point of distraction. On a certain day she may smile on a man, the next she may weep before him, the third she may order him out of her house. She will woo him, accuse him, scold him, say she cannot live without him, say that she never wants to see him again: all of this with one man, until his head swims, poor fellow, and he knows not which way to turn.

But is this behavior—sometimes instinctive, admittedly, but often slyly planned—truly inconsistent? The answer is no, for the whole array of various moods has a central purpose: to bewilder and captivate the man. It thus becomes consistent in its deeper meaning, and the world knows how often its end is achieved so devastatingly that the woman can do with the man as she pleases.

This woman-craft Theodora converted into statecraft. From first to last she confounded adversaries, however subtle, by her bewildering tactics, so that dealing with ambassadors and kings, she was always a step ahead of them, always in the ascendancy. It is perhaps not too much to say that she was the first practitioner of that science of diplomatic strategy which has recently been named Randomized Tactics.

By all these manifold varieties she was thus responsible for that last brilliant outflaring which for a few years restored the glory of the Empire of the Romans. Before she breathed her last, she knew herself to be the mistress of the western world. And with her death this flame of brilliance flickered out: the Dark Ages began from that hour.

JUSTINIAN

The emperor lived to be eighty-two years old, surviving his wife by seventeen years.

History surnames him “the Great,” but few in all history did less to earn the title. The three great achievements that gave luster to his name all were carried out by others.

It was Belisarius who reconquered the old Roman empire, beginning with the invasion of the Vandalic kingdom shortly after the Nika riots, then winning Italy, Dalmatia, and part of Hispania, so that the Mediterranean became once more a Roman lake.

It was Tribonian who produced the so-called Justinian Code of Laws, the Pandects, the Institutes, and the Novellae, known collectively as the Corpus Juris Civilis. These masterworks tremendously affected legal history and did much to alleviate abuses. Their effect is still felt on the legal systems of the world.

It was Anthemius of Tralles, the architect, whose genius erected on the ruins of the Cathedral of Sancta Sophia that magnificent structure which still stands, the crowning climax of all Byzantine art: so that one day Justinian, gazing upon the newly completed masterpiece, was able to exclaim, “Glory be to God, who has thought me worthy to accomplish so great a work! I have vanquished thee, O Solomon!”

In spite of the designation he has been given, Justinian was not a great man. He was of serious, even somber temperament, and though he had grandiose ideas, he succeeded in few of them without the fluid imagination and genius of Theodora. He was inclined to be suspicious of his truly capable servants, like Belisarius; and to trust overly the rascally ones, like John of Cappadocia.

Though he and Theodora had no child of their own bodies who survived, Justinian’s nephew was wedded to Theodora’s niece, and they ruled after Justinian as Emperor Justin II and Empress Sophia.

More and more, as he grew older, Justinian devoted himself to theological studies, and made efforts to reconcile the warring schisms in the Church. Toward the end, it is said, he relapsed from Orthodoxy to Monophysitism, which had been favored by Theodora. And this may have been a tribute of his lonely old age to her bright memory, for the devotion of these two is strangely unique in the annals of mighty thrones.

He died, old and feeble, in 565.

BELISARIUS AND ANTONINA

Few men of great genius and faithfulness have been worse treated than was Belisarius. He first defeated the Persians, making safe for a time the eastern frontier of the empire. Then, successively, he conquered the Vandals of Africa, the Ostrogoths of Italy and Dalmatia, and the south of Hispania, together with the islands of Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily. Later he fought a second war with Persia, and in his old age he was recalled from retirement to turn back the terrible invasion of the barbaric Bulgars, who penetrated to within twenty miles of Constantinople. Yet in none of those wars, studded with brilliant victories, did he fight a greater or more one-sided battle than when with less than fifteen hundred men he for a time withstood one hundred thousand rioters in the Hippodrome in Constantinople and thus held history in the balance.

His theories of military operations, including the use of heavy cavalry in masses and much employment of archery, revolutionized the whole science of war, and dominated generalship down to the time of the invention of gunpowder.

Yet constantly he was misused and betrayed. Antonina, unlike Theodora, remained a courtesan in mind and inclination to the end of her life. With one lover after another she cuckolded the great soldier to whom she was married, but he, like many intensely masculine men, was easily deceived and made tractable by her blandishments, never quite believing what he heard about her, and often too busy on far campaigns to know.

At one time Theodora was near to banishing Antonina, but in the end, womanlike, hit upon a way of using her. By keeping as a virtual prisoner one Theodosius, of whom the wanton Antonina was enamored, the empress maintained on her former friend the kind of hold which the latter understood, and eventually it was Antonina who helped her gain final vengeance on her enemy, John of Cappadocia.

Belisarius outlived his wife. The greatest military genius of his time—indeed, the finest soldier between Julius Caesar and Charlemagne—he knew alternate glory and tragedy. His victories appear to have excited the envy of Justinian, so that twice he was recalled to the capital in semi-disgrace after brilliant conquests. But so long as Theodora lived no real harm came to him, and he was soon restored to the command and honors he so justly deserved.

Evidence of the empress’ regard for him is clear, even though she used his obsession for his faithless wife to her own ends. But after Theodora’s death, Belisarius, though he served Justinian faithfully, fell on evil days.

In 562 he was accused of complicity in a conspiracy against the emperor, his fortune was confiscated, and he was imprisoned. The following year, however, Justinian relented and restored him to favor.

He died in 565, the same year as his imperial master, but the legend that he was blinded and ended his days as a beggar, sitting beside the street and crying, “A penny for the blind general, Belisarius,” is without foundation, for he seems to have lived his final years in comparative comfort, though without the true honors and rewards which he should have enjoyed as reconqueror of the Roman empire and savior of his country.

JOHN OF CAPPADOCIA

One of the most unsavory characters of history, the venal, treacherous praetorian prefect, though a fugitive during the Nika riots, actually succeeded in retaining his position in spite of everything Theodora could do. Neither he, nor Tribonian, were in fact ever officially deprived of their offices in spite of Justinian’s promise to the mob, for the continued rebellion of the populace was felt by the emperor to free him from his obligations.

The hold John had over Justinian is one of the unexplained mysteries of history. It was the one thing in which the emperor would never accede to his wife, and the Cappadocian, returning from his flight, continued to wield his power, and toward the end even taunted the empress on the impotency of her enmity, until at last he went too far and fell into her trap.

Knowing the traitorous nature of the man, Theodora conceived a plot, employing in it Antonina, over whom she had firm control through her lover, Theodosius. Antonina whispered to the Cappadocian of a conspiracy whereby Theodora was to be overthrown, and perhaps Justinian also. The prefect took the bait, came by night to Antonina’s house, and there expressed his support for the “plot,” of which Belisarius was supposed to be the author.

His guilty words were heard by witnesses hidden for the purpose, but he managed to escape the imperial guards who attempted to arrest him, and took refuge in the new Cathedral of Sancta Sophia.

Sanctuary, however, meant little to Theodora. From the very altar, to which he clung, he was dragged before the emperor and empress. Justinian probably saved him from the death penalty, but he was stripped of his vast estates and other wealth, which he had gained by years of systematically plundering the treasury, and by one of the quaintest penalties of the time, forced to become a monk in the little suburb of Cyzicus.

Theodora, however, was implacable, and perhaps feared also that the slippery Cappadocian might regain Justinian’s favor. When the Bishop of Cyzicus was murdered, it being known that John was one of his enemies, the former praetorian prefect was arrested, scourged to the edge of death, and driven into exile. He spent his final years as a beggar on the streets, and one is not disposed to feel any sorrow for him.

TRIBONIAN

Esthete, philosopher, cynic, and profound student, the quaestor was one of the most attractive personalities of his age. The achievement of this extraordinary man in collating the laws of the empire, reconciling their discrepancies and confusions, and reducing their enormous bulk to a form that was just and usable, has been called the greatest ornament of the reign of Justinian.

Today his code is still studied by law students, and as late as 1905 its definitions were the acknowledged in the laws of Bavaria, and a few other European states.

There is much mystery in his character, but of his remarkable intellectual capacities the proofs are evident. Until his death, which occurred not long before that of Theodora, he continued to hold his high office of quaestor. To the very end, one can imagine him tasting his fine wines, and indulging in the witty apothegms for which he was celebrated, undaunted by the fear of death for which he had the contempt of a pagan philosophy much stronger in him than the Christian religion to which he theoretically subscribed.

NARSES

The little eunuch who by his courage and skillful bribing of the Blue faction leaders did much to overthrow the Nika rebellion, was more of a man than many of his ungelded contemporaries.

To the end of her life, Theodora favored him, and he had the distinction of becoming one of the few persons of the neuter sex to win fame as a military commander.

Serving first as lieutenant to Belisarius in the Italian campaigns, Narses completed the conquest of the Ostrogoths when Justinian recalled his chief to Constantinople. As a reward he was appointed exarch of Italy.

But the eunuch’s love for money, which was his chief weakness, persisted. There seems no question that he was corrupt, and after Justinian died, he was ordered to return to Constantinople by Empress Sophia, with the insulting message that he should “leave to men the exercise of arms, and return to his proper station among the maidens of the palace, where a distaff should again be placed in the hand of the eunuch.”

He is said to have remarked, “I will spin her such a thread, as she will not easily unravel.” And instead of obeying the command, he plotted with the Lombards, an invading wild tribe, to overthrow the imperial power in Italy. Though later he repented of it, he thus set in motion a new barbarian conquest of the peninsula.

There is a story that Narses was burned to death in the streets of Constantinople, but this is almost certainly untrue. He probably died of natural causes in the year 573, when he was ninety-five years old.

CHRYSOMALLO

Little is known of the later fate of the most gentle of the courtesans. Theodora once used her imperial power to get her friend’s daughter a suitable husband in high court circles: Saturninus, the son of old Hermogenes, the master of offices. There is a sprightly anecdote concerning this, related by Procopius, for when Saturninus proved an unwilling groom, “she ordered her servants to hoist him up like a schoolboy who had been saucy to his teacher: and after whipping his backsides, told him not to be such a fool thereafter.” An injunction, incidentally, which he obeyed.

Chrysomallo lived in the palace as the friend of the empress, perhaps until her death.

HECEBOLUS

History does not record it, but the proconsul of Cyrenaica must have fled from his province as soon as he learned—very likely through a message from John of Cappadocia—of Theodora’s rise to power. For she never was able to bring him to trial for his evil doings.

He perhaps took refuge among the Vandals and may have suffered the fate he deserved when Belisarius overthrew that kingdom. If not, he must have wandered far, in lifelong terror, where, none can say: perhaps among the savage Berber tribes of the desert, to prolong a life that could hardly have been worth the living.

MACEDONIA

Of the writer of the fateful letter to Justinian no further mention is made in the records of the period, though that letter and its strange result are fully attested. One wonders if perhaps she may not have perished in the terrible earthquake which destroyed Antioch in 526, after Justinian and Theodora were married but before they ascended the throne. Two hundred and fifty thousand persons are said to have perished in that catastrophe, one of the greatest in history.

HYPATIUS

The nephew of Emperor Anastasius, and his brother Pompey, both were executed after the Nika riots. When they were arrested they said they were not to blame for the disorders, and protested their loyalty. But it had been proved they were a menace to the throne, even when unwilling. It was an inexorable rule of princes to remove by death any such threat to the state.

THE VERDICT OF HISTORY

Justinian’s rise, from a peasant village in Macedonia, to the imperial throne was great; but in no manner as great as Theodora’s rise.

Surely in all history no woman . . . certainly no man . . . ever accomplished so mighty a single upward step as did she. Child of the fornix; once the lowest of harlots in the worst sinkhole of vice in the world, accepting even the embrace of slaves to earn a crust of bread: could any human being sink to a more infinite depth? From that to ruler of the western world! Had it not truly happened, it would be accounted an incredibility beyond any belief.

Yet in the linked lives of Theodora and Justinian the contradiction of sex is most vividly illustrated. A man, though he be nothing himself, may be called great through chance fame, or position, or power. But being a woman is far more fateful and important, not only to herself, but to the world. A woman is judged always as a woman, no matter what she does or is, aside from that all-important fact.

So this grave injustice has been done by history: though Justinian, far her inferior in mind and spirit, has come down to us as “the Great,” the only title given to Theodora is “the Notorious.”

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.

[The end of The Female, by Paul Iselin Wellman]