Theodora Read Online Free PDF Page A

plenty of deep, soft cushions, the room was both warmly heated andwell ventilated, so that even with the copious quantities of wine, no one was ready to sleep, not yet.
    The audience were happy, his girls knew their parts. Menander had drilled them day after day for this, now he could relax. Comito’s speech became song, became one dance and then another. The men were entranced. Even Theodora wasn’t spoiling anything at the moment: keeping her place in line, she waited for the climactic moment and then took centre stage to tumble and leap with no care for her bones or her muscles, with abandon and joy in the ever-increasing space between floor and ceiling, both holding her steady. Helena picked up amused laughter with her comedy song, not the belly laughs Menander might have hoped for, but if her timing left a little to be desired, none of the other girls had her perfectly formed breasts, and he knew his audience well enough to understand that by this stage in the evening the gentlemen preferred comely to comedy. Golden-haired Chrysomallo and the pretty Claudia were perfect angels on either side of the dais-turned-stage, having held their positions for over forty minutes without once wavering. And delicate little Anastasia, playing Penelope’s dreamed child, leaned elegantly into her eldest sister, their voices blending in sibling harmony. A last song, the whole group as one, a final dance with a few acrobatic flourishes from Theodora, then their bow, and the end of the night, and his payment in gold coin. Nothing could go wrong. Until it did.
    Anastasia, being the smallest of the girls, was positioned right at the front of the group, and was therefore easy to reach when one of the audience members, over-zealous in his approval, brimming with food and wine and the thought of what was yet to come, reached out a strong arm to pull the girl to him, the better to enjoy her charms, to see her more clearly through eyes reddened with wine. In response Anastasia did the one thingtheir mother had trained her three daughters to do as long as they could remember. So many possibilities of harm, both at work and in the City, Hypatia had drilled the girls: if grabbed, bite, scream, kick – all three at once, if possible. Anastasia bit. She sank her teeth into the fat hand that held her and she did so with force and anger. The man roared, his companions laughed at first and then, when they saw that the sharp little teeth had drawn blood, there was a silence. A yawning, fearful silence from the performers on the makeshift stage, and a growing, furious rage from the bitten man, backed up by the anger of his friends.
    Theodora stepped into the gaping breach between stage and seat. With a leap and a loud cry that Menander would have beaten her for there and then if he had not been stuck at the back of the room, she ran to the dining table, jumping over the laps of the few men who were still seated, to pick up a knife that had fallen to the floor and been unnoticed by a servant who would later be punished for the mistake. Then, before the audience could see what she was holding and become even more agitated, Theodora rounded on the horrified Anastasia, her mouth wide with the cry all three girls had heard every day of their lives. The call of the bear-keeper, lion-trainer, animal-master. The fierce shouts and sharp yells, descending to the low-pitched whistle and cajoling whisper with which their father, and now their stepfather, entertained the crowds who came to see him put the great creatures through their paces. Comito caught on immediately and, pulling Helena tightly by the hand and forcing her to join in, began to play a patrician gentleman, fat with good living, disappointed in his wife, life and career – a character fairly close to many of the men before them – and happy to enjoy a session of animal-baiting as release. It only took a few words for Anastasia to realise her role – ithad, after all, been one of the first games she