The Secret History: A Novel of Empress Theodora (7 page)

The Master of the Stage ignored that. “The show tonight is at dusk, but they’re rehearsing now. Ask Antonina for your costume.”

Comito glanced at me. “And my sister?”

Hilarion gave an exasperated sigh as he shook his head at me. “Nobody will pay to watch a girl with a chest as flat as a board.”

“But she’s good—”

“Take it or leave it,” Hilarion said. “I haven’t got all day.”

“We’ll take it,” I said. “Thank you.”

Hilarion stared at me for a moment, grunted, and hurried off.

“If you hadn’t interrupted, I’m sure I could have worn him down,” Comito said.

“It’s fine.” I gritted my teeth. “It looks like you’ve got yourself a new servant.”

I expected her to grin, but instead her face fell. “What if I trip? Or forget my lines?”

“Then you’ll stand up and laugh with the crowd,” I said. “They’re going to love you.” But only if I didn’t throttle her first.

We missed the rehearsal. The wardrobe keeper—Antonina—was nowhere to be found, not that I would have known her if I saw her. A slave finally helped me locate the costumes—she scurried like a mouse when I told her it was for Antonina. Comito slipped into a stola the color of sapphires, one with slits from the hem all the way to her hips.

“There’s a
pornai
somewhere who’s missing her dress tonight,” I said.

“You’re only jealous that I’m a proper actress now.” Comito straightened the neckline of the boy’s tunica I’d filched from the bottom of an obliging chest and handed me a little three-legged wooden stool. “Make sure you keep this with you.”

I cocked an eyebrow at her, hands on my hips. “Why?”

“In case I get tired and need to sit,” she said. “All proper actresses have one.”

My foot would serve her pampered backside just as well.

“We all know I’m seeing green, but in case you’ve forgotten, you’re only a chorus girl.” I stepped over a fresh pile of dung from one of the horses used in the show and scattered several flies, probably the same ones that had taken up residence in my sister’s empty skull. “You’ve only got a bit part.”

Comito’s role in the chorus was barely a step up from the troupe of foot soldiers, but at least she wasn’t one of the comedy mimics, the lowest sort of actresses. “That’s more than you’ll ever have,” she said.
She paused before the dung, hands on hips. “Are you going to clean up this mess, or do I have to go onstage with filth on my hem?”

“Walk around it.”

She gave an exasperated sigh and walked regally around the pile. I grabbed Comito’s hand. “You’re going to miss your own debut if you don’t hurry. Then I’ll take your place.”

The threat seemed to imbue my sister with a speed she’d never before possessed. I actually had to work to keep up with her. We were ushered underground into the dark passageways along the interior of the amphitheater, but the dull hum of the crowd droned above us. The place was a madhouse, filled with actors and dancers muttering lines and limbering up before the show. Some were half naked or entirely nude, between costume changes. This wasn’t a place where anyone seemed to notice a naked body.

“I don’t know when to go on.” Comito bit her lip.

“Just follow the rest of the chorus,” I said. Tonight’s performance was that of Perseus and Medusa played by a hefty-looking man with rippling biceps and a handsome woman wearing a mask topped with snakes. The man pinched the woman’s rear, and she grabbed his groin. Then they kissed, the type of kiss my mother and father had often shared.

Two girls scarcely older than Comito reclined on hard benches as their slaves rushed to and fro with makeup palettes and snake wigs. Medusa’s sisters. A cluster of troupe girls stood to the side, fluttering about one another. They were without masks and dressed as my sister in simple blue stolas. None of them could compare with my sister’s golden hair and milky skin.

Comito still looked worried, so I hugged her and flashed a bright smile. “At least you won’t have snakes for hair.”

Medusa stalked over to her sisters. I didn’t catch the conversation, but things weren’t going well for one of the lesser gorgons. Her face turned the same color as bread dough, except for two red spots
painted on her cheeks, but she blanched an even paler shade of white when Medusa started screaming at her.

“And you thought you’d keep it?” Medusa yelled as her gaze fell on Comito. She stormed over to us and stopped before she plowed my sister over.

She scrutinized Comito like a donkey in the market. I waited for her to pull up my sister’s lips to inspect her teeth, but unfortunately, things didn’t go that far. Finally, she nodded. “You’re the right size. Pretty enough, but not too pretty.”

Her own hair poked out from under the wig at her temples, a violent shade of red. The snakes were far more attractive.

Hilarion chose that moment to emerge from what smelled like the latrina, wiping his hands on the rear of his tunica. My sister flinched as Medusa snapped her fingers at him.

“This one will take Antonina’s place.” Medusa glared at one of her sisters. “Perhaps permanently.”

Antonina had been mysteriously absent when we were trying to find Comito’s costume—I wondered what she’d been doing instead to incur the wrath of the Kynêgion’s star actress. The man seemed unperturbed by Medusa’s rage. “May I remind you, Petronia, I make the casting decisions in my own theater. Would you mind telling me why Antonina is unable to perform?”

“Because the little slut lost her voice last night cheering at the races at the Hippodrome.” Petronia’s mouth puckered as if she’d been sucking rancid prunes.

Hilarion looked at my sister. “Do you know the lines?”

Fear fluttered across Comito’s face. Of course she didn’t know the lines, but we knew the story and with any luck Hilarion hadn’t noticed we’d missed the rehearsal. Comito would likely only need to screech when Medusa died. Even my sister could manage that.

“Of course she does,” I said. “We’ve seen this plenty of times.”

Hilarion looked me over, certainly remembering his earlier dismissal of me. “Fine,” he said to Comito. “Don’t miss your cue.”

Petronia stalked away, but the other two actresses watched us like starving hawks. They were scrawny, probably country girls sold by their parents to pay the family’s taxes and eliminate another mouth to feed.

“Where are you going?” Comito asked as I walked toward the girls.

“To take care of your lines,” I said. One girl walked away, laughing and flipping her snakes over her shoulder. The other was pretty—beautiful even—or she would have been without the ghastly red spots painted on her cheeks and the tiny gap between her front teeth. “Are you Antonina?”

She spat at my feet. I took that as a yes.

“Your sister doesn’t look smart enough to handle the lines.” Antonina’s voice didn’t waver—I didn’t know what she’d done to tick off Petronia, but she hadn’t lost her voice at the Hippodrome.

No one else could make fun of my sister. Comito was my personal property to mock.

“Much like you,” I said.

Antonina choked and looked about to throttle me.

“Tell me the lines and I’ll split my sister’s earnings with you. Eighty-twenty.”

That got her attention. “Fifty-fifty.”

“Seventy-thirty.”

“Fine.” She hissed the lines at me—there were two whopping sentences—and I sauntered back to Comito. “A gift for you, Sister.” I recited the lines. “Perseus will slay Medusa, and you’ll be a star. Don’t forget us little people when all of Constantinople is at your feet.”

Normally Comito would have laughed or at least rolled her eyes. She did neither but looked blankly at the mimic actresses. I forced her to sit, pulled her stola down to expose a little more cleavage, and pinched her cheeks. Horns blared to herald the start of the show.
Perseus and Petronia moved under the arch that opened to the amphitheater floor.

“It’s time.” I pulled my sister to her feet. “I’ll be right here waiting for you.”

When the show started, I could only hold my breath and hope Comito wouldn’t fall flat on her face, something I normally would have paid to see.

The audience loved her, even when she managed to forget one of her two lines. A pretty face goes a long way.

Afterward, Hilarion escorted Comito to greet the line of her new admirers before I could even congratulate her. She broke away, rosy cheeked, and pressed a small gold coin into my palm. A
tremissis
—enough to feed us for a week.

“Make sure Mother doesn’t spend it all on wine,” she said. “I’ll be home later.”

“Where are you going?”

“With the man who gave me this—that tall one with the perfect curls. He was the highest bidder.” She kissed me on the cheek as the man in question gestured impatiently for her. “I’ve saved us, Theodora.”

I watched her saunter off, hips swinging. My sister had just become a whore.

So why was I jealous?

E
ven dressed as a cow, my sister moved the audience to its feet. I listened to the crowd above me—stomping and cheering at Comito’s performance as Io. They hailed her as a goddess; but her breath was still sour in the morning, and she still had to piss like the rest of us. I made it my duty to remind her of those shortcomings on a daily basis.

I sat on Comito’s stool, peeling an orange as the water organ above announced the start of tonight’s show. Night seemed as morning to us now—we stayed late at the theater and tripped back to our rooms at the Boar’s Eye as the last of the men were stumbling from the
pornai
’s rooms. Comito’s new wages had persuaded the owner of the taverna to let us stay on, at least until we found better rooms elsewhere. My belly was rarely empty, thanks to Comito, and while that was a pleasant new sensation, I didn’t relish being entirely useless.

“The crowd loves your sister.” Antonina looked down at me, arms crossed in front of her ample chest as I dropped the orange rind to the floor.

“Everyone always does.” I took a bite of the fruit and licked a drop of juice from my hand before it fell onto my tunica. I’d taken to
remembering a particular proverb from the Old Testament:
A sound heart is life to the body, but envy is rottenness to the bones.
I didn’t want to be jealous of Comito, yet I was.

Antonina tapped her foot. “I believe you owe me.”

Christ above, but everyone wanted something these days. I pulled the coins from the purse at my hip. “Eighty-twenty,” I said.

“Seventy-thirty,” Antonina said. Her tone could have sliced bronze.

“Eighty-twenty.”

She looked about to tear me to pieces, but she thrust out her hand and counted the coins. “This is only for one day,” she said.

“That was the deal.”

“No, the deal was for all the nights your sister took my place. Hilarion’s only letting me back tonight.”

“Cry me a river. Take it or leave it.”

“Where’s the rest? Your sister made more with all her after-hour customers,” Antonina said. “Hand it over.”

“The deal was for Comito’s stage earnings, not her other income.”

“I never would have agreed to that!”

My eyes narrowed. “Don’t tell me Petronia won’t let you tread the boards either.” Her grimace told me I’d hit the truth. Antonina would quickly be destitute if Hilarion wasn’t arranging men for her. “What in God’s name did you do?”

“That’s none of your business.” She turned on her heel and stormed away.

How the mighty had fallen. I’d best make sure Comito stayed on Petronia’s good side. I shook out a lemon-colored silk stola with orange ribbons on the sleeves, a gift from the senator Comito had bedded the night before, one with more hair on his back than on his head. She complained Hilarion worked her like a rented mule, but I knew she adored all the attention. My sister was busy all night, every night, but so far no man had come forward to proclaim himself her patron. An African ivory merchant had already booked her attentions tonight.

I’d be a liar to claim I didn’t envy Comito her new silks and baubles, but what I really begrudged was the new company she kept. While I waited for her in alleys, she dined in sumptuous villas with imperial magistrates, merchants from foreign lands, and Constantinople’s politicians. Men who had power. Yet all she ever recounted was the type of snails on the menu or what position the man preferred in bed.

“Not as many curves as her sister.”

I almost dropped the yellow stola. Two male slaves in identical blue tunicas had snuck up behind me and now eyeballed me like a slave in the market. The one who’d spoken was broad shouldered and tall, not unpleasant on the eyes.

“They say her sister will take it any way you like.” His friend wore a boy’s tunica with short sleeves like mine. “I’ll bet this one would, too.” His upper lip had a hint of fuzz, but it was the wart on his chin that was most memorable, one with a thick black hair in the middle standing at attention.

“I take it all sorts of ways. If you can pay.” I pulled myself to my full, nonimpressive height and gave them an imperious stare. “Which I know you can’t.”

“How much?” The one with the wart looked me up and down. I could see his reaction under the tent of his tunica.

“A
tremissis
.” The outrageous sum ensured they’d leave me alone.