The Secret History: A Novel of Empress Theodora by Stephanie Thornton Page A

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?



Chapter 4
    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 toremembering 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