The Secret History: A Novel of Empress Theodora Read Online Free PDF Page A

since my baptism, I still knew all the myths of Aphrodite, but this copper-haired woman could have beaten the goddess of love and beauty to win Paris’ golden apple. Although she was past the first flush of youth, a blush like dainty rose petals bloomed on her high cheeks in the warmth of the baths and her bronze hair brushed an impossibly tiny waist. She held her arms out, and a slave unpinned her stola—an expensive one made from crimson silk with yellow butterflies embroidered on the hem—and whisked it to its own hook before the fabric touched the ground. The smell of musk perfume hung heavy in the air.
    “The consul is waiting in the steam baths,” the slave said. “He said to hurry—his wife expects him home before their guests arrive to break bread for the
krama
.”
    Men and women weren’t supposed to mingle in bathhouses, but it appeared no one followed that rule any longer.
    “It would do his waistline good to miss the afternoon meal.” The woman winked at me. “I think I’ll have a massage first.”
    Her voice had a lilting quality, like a harp. The woman was too well dressed to be one of the common
pornai
, the crass prostitutes who worked in the brothels and tavernas. Byzantine patricians kept their wives to have children and visited
pornai
to attend to their bodily needs, but few could afford to patronize a
scenica
, the most expensive sort of courtesan. No wonder this woman’s skin shone and her silk gleamed as if it were worth a man’s monthly salary. It probably was.
    I looked to Comito, but she had eyes only for the silk. My elbow in her ribs earned me a fierce glare.
    “We have to go,” I said to her. “There’s much to do before the races.”
    “Are you girls going to the Hippodrome tonight?” The courtesan stood completely naked—she could have put a statue of Helen of Troy to shame.
    “Yes.” I didn’t meet her eyes. We weren’t going as proper spectators, but no one needed to know that, especially not this
scenica
.
    “Do you support the Blues or Greens?”
    The Blues and the Greens went far beyond simple chariot factions to also oversee Constantinople’s civic functions such as controlling guilds and maintaining the militia. The Blues were the party of the patricians and old landowners. Greens tended to support industry, trade, and the civil service. Comito gestured to our tunicas. “Greens.”
    The woman’s nose wrinkled, but even that didn’t mar her allure. “I cheer for the Blues,” she said, “even if my patron that evening prefers the Greens.”
    “We’ll see you on the opposite side then.” I linked my arm through Comito’s and hauled her out of the bathhouse to the sound of the courtesan’s silvery laughter. “Poor things,” I heard her say to her slave. “I think I scared them away.”
    The sun was already sinking, and the butterflies in my stomach threatened to declare war with one another. This had to work.
    For the final touch to our costumes, Comito and I lingered to decorate each other with cornflowers and lilies scrumped from the bath gardens, garlands in our hair and pinned to our shoulders, posies of violets clutched in our hands. Comito made me wear the daisies. They were pretty but smelled awful.
    We were jostled into the rush of people as soon as we stepped into the street, but we managed to wait until the Hippodrome’s gates swallowed most of the crowd. A group of children sat outside the amphitheater entrance with wilted laurel wreaths on their heads and their hands outstretched. One boy displayed hands with nubs instead offingers, the thumbs completely missing, while a little girl only a few years older than Anastasia had her greasy hair pinned back in an elaborate twist, the better to show the ragged scars where her ears should have been. Families with too many mouths to feed often sent their children to beg, but it was more profitable if the child was mutilated first. I watched a man in an ebony litter drop a coin to a black-haired boy