The Purple Shroud: A Novel of Empress Theodora by Stella Duffy Page B

the Palace. You can’t save me as you saved Mariam,you don’t know how to talk to me, and I don’t know how to talk to you. Perhaps we’ll find a common bond in this baby. Sophia thinks it might help both of us.’
    ‘I’m delighted the dwarf tart approves.’
    Theodora stopped herself remarking further, acknowledging what Ana had just made plain: that Sophia had known about the pregnancy, as had Narses, as had any number of others, long before Theodora did herself.
    ‘May I go now?’ Ana asked, ‘I’m tired.’
    ‘Of course.’
    Ana bowed as protocol demanded and then, raising herself before her mother, leaned in close. Her whispered voice and pose reminded Theodora pitifully of the small girl who had always been too scared to speak when Theodora saw her late after a show or running out to rehearsal, but her words were a gift.
    ‘Just between us,’ Ana said, ‘and please, never mention this again, and certainly not to Sophia, you’ll be glad to hear that Paulus is a good – a very good – lover.’
    Then Ana left the room, a broad smile on her usually composed face, delighted to have, for once, silenced her mother.

Six
    T he marriage was arranged with appropriate discretion. No one was surprised when Armeneus informed the household that Ana wanted a quiet blessing, and within a fortnight the Augusta’s bastard daughter was married, dressed in a simple and elegant gown quickly made by the Jewish family of weavers and seamstresses who had housed Theodora when she first returned to Constantinople after her years away in North Africa and Egypt. Pasara looked on the ceremony in horror, and Theodora was pleased to note her discomfort.
    That evening, kissing her daughter, blessing the union both as mother and as Empress, Theodora was astonished to find herself on the verge of tears. She left the banqueting room as quickly as she could without causing too much gossip among the staff. Given the increasingly unhappy state of current negotiations with the Persians over their incursions into both Mesopotamia and Syria, there was no surprise that the Empress appeared to have better things to do. With Justinian exhausting himself trying to find resources for an already under-funded army, while his translators looked for nuance in every missive from their spies behind enemy lines, Theodorahad a ready-made excuse to attend to her husband rather than her daughter.
    Sophia found Theodora in her receiving room.
    ‘You called for me?’
    ‘I called for you some time ago.’
    ‘I was working.’
    ‘I’m Augusta.’
    ‘So I hear. But the purple on your back doesn’t make it any easier for me to cross the City. The long stretch of the Mese doesn’t empty of drunken soldiers just because you send a servant to find me, nor does it mean Blue louts stop harassing Green brats and allow me a clear path to you.’
    ‘How disappointing.’
    ‘What is it? Has Ana left her husband already?’
    ‘No. In fact, I doubt there’s a happier couple in the City.’
    ‘The August must be pleased. It’s a good union, and fertile already.’
    ‘He is. We are.’
    ‘But?’
    ‘I am pleased. And I felt…’ Theodora shook her head, rubbed her face, ‘I felt everything.’
    ‘Ah. Maternal emotion? That’s new.’
    ‘I have had those feelings before, Sophia, I just…I was never there when Ana was small, I had to work, you know that. And she didn’t…’
    ‘Interest you?’
    ‘Mother of the Christ forgive me, yes, she didn’t interest me.’ Theodora shook her head. ‘I’m shocked and delighted to feel the emotions I thought life had wrung from me.’
    Sophia nodded to a silent slave, motioning for the wine he held. She took the full jug and sent him out of the room, then poured generous glasses for herself and Theodora.
    ‘So you finally feel something normal for your daughter. Something approaching love. Why are you upset?’
    ‘It was the relief. For the first time I fully realised that neither Ana nor her child will