The children walked out hand in hand. Comito waved. Stasie had stopped weeping. Theodora gave a little skip. They had been saved, beyond all expectations, by the Blues. They could stay together, they would not have to be sold, or go hungry.
But all of them would henceforth hate the Greens.
As the weeks went by, their lives improved to some degree. As a beginner Peter did not earn a very big salary, but with the money their mother brought home they could keep going. Anastasia insisted that the two eldest girls should continue with the lessons that Acasius had begun with before he died. “Right now,” he had said, “it’s true that your prospects don’t look very promising, but you never know what the future might bring. You might advance in life, and my daughters should be prepared to take their places in better society.”
They could certainly not afford to hire a slave pedagogue, as more well-off families did, but Anastasia herself could teach them to read, write and reckon. In her previous life, of which her children knew nothing, she had been well educated. She could pass that learning on, which was fortunate. So whenever she had a free afternoon, their small table became a desk. The library in a better part of town loaned her codices; in her best cloak, her face wiped clean of make-up, she pretended to be a lady’s maid sent by a respectable matron with a love of reading.
Both girls were quick and able, but Theodora, especially, loved to learn. She was entranced by marks on parchment that miraculously told one stories, over and over, patiently, and even more astounded that she could make such marks herself. That such marks could turn into her own voice, speaking her very words. Also she loved numbers that followed each other in a particular order, that could be counted on to be predictable, that always came out in exactly the same way if you did specific things. Comito learned what she had to, quickly but without particular enjoyment.
“All the same,” said Anastasia, “you’ll likely both have to follow me on the stage. For that you’ll need to be trained.”
Fat Rosa was paid with honey-cakes to teach the girls to sing. Comito’s voice rang strongly, sweet and true, and she practised daily. “Can I have proper dancing lessons too?” she demanded.
“You’ll begin when you turn eight,” promised Anastasia. She understood that Comito’s one desire was to be the centre of attention, a special person instead of a little-regarded child.
Theodora’s ear was good and she could hold a tune, but her voice, though sweet, was small. Fat Rosa sighed and shook her head. “This one won’t be a star,” she told Anastasia. “I’m doing my best, but the voice is not impressive. And she’s so thin, and pale, and dark. She’ll not have the men on the edges of their seats. Comito, now …” Comito had the chestnut hair, burnished with brushing, lightened with lemon and bleached into a shining mane by sitting in the sun, that a future star of the stage should have.
Theodora said nothing, but she brooded about it. It was true that she could neither sing nor dance as well as her sister. But she wanted to be better than Comito at something. Something that Comito couldn’t even do at all. Something special, that was her thing. What this might be was at first not clear. Then one day, while she was waiting for her mother to finish a performance at the Kynêgion, Theodora saw a group of acrobats practising their stunts in a yard off to the side. It was a family show, with a father muscled like a statue, a limber, apparently boneless mother with a long plait of hair, and three nimble children who tumbled about and flung themselves through the air with joyous abandon.
Yes! thought Theodora. I want to be able to do that. I could do that. That could be my thing. She walked up to the father when he stopped to draw breath after a series of intricate tumbles. “Please,” said Theodora, “please will you teach me to do that?”
The man looked at her in amusement, his knotted arms and barrel chest slick with sweat. “It’s not as easy as it looks,” he said. “It’s actually not easy at all. It’s bloody hard work, and it’s dangerous.”
“I could learn,” said Theodora. “You needn’t teach me for free. My mother makes wonderful honey-cakes.”
He gave a loud guffaw. “No, child, we can’t get fat. Tell me … your mother … is she the actress who does Pasiphae?”
“Yes.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “So it’s your father got killed by a bear?”
“Yes.”
He asked: “Can you do a handstand?”
“Yes,” said Theodora, and she did, balancing upside down for several counts.
“All right. We’ll teach you. If you’re good enough, you can be a permanent stand-in. Sometimes one of the kids is not so well. But no complaints. You’ll do as you’re told. And you’ll practise, and practise, and then practise some more.”
“Yes, I will,” said Theodora, delighted.
She was less delighted when she found out just how hard it was. But she stuck to it; she stubbornly and wordlessly endured bruises, falls that whacked the breath out of her body, aching muscles, several sprains and a broken toe. And she learned: balance, suppleness, speed, control. Timing. Self-belief. Until at last she was good enough to be a part of their act. Good enough, in fact, to be the apex of the human pyramid that was the climax of their performance. Only she never had a chance to do this on stage, since the three children jealously clung to their places. Still, she knew what she could do. And one day, she thought, her chance would come.
Life was not all learning, though. They did have time to play. Theodora was quick and light on her feet and good at skipping. She could win races unless the others were much taller and had longer legs. But the game she liked best of all was the Emperor game. Someone in the group of children who took part hid a scarlet scarf which represented the purple which only the Emperor was allowed to wear, and all the rest had to search for it. Whoever found it, tied it on, and became Emperor for the day. Everyone had to serve and obey the Emperor.
Theodora had never before been the one to find the magical scarf, but one day she did find it, hidden under a stone beneath a drainpipe. A narrow edge peeped out at her, a rim of scarlet in the grey background. She pounced on it.
“I’ve found it!” she rejoiced. “I’ve found the scarf! Now I’m the Emperor, and all of you must serve me!”
“You’re just a girl,” objected the scrawny son of the blacksmith, who was as small and thin as his father was tall and muscular. “You can’t be Emperor.”
“Nonsense,” said Theodora, and she looped the bright piece of material around her neck. “There’s no such rule. I have the scarf. I’m Emperor.” She stared the objector down haughtily. “And the first thing you people have to do is to build me a throne.”
Several of the boys grumbled, but such was the power of her black-eyed glare that they did begin to cast around them. They were playing on an empty lot at the end of the street opposite the blacksmith’s shop, with a railing to which horses were often tethered in the shade of a somewhat spindly tree. But there were no horses today.
“In the shade,” said Theodora as she tapped her small foot. “And hurry up about it.”
“Well … we could tip the rain butt over,” suggested the scrawny one. “It’s empty. She could sit on its bottom.”
They up-ended the butt and crowned the new emperor with a garland of yellow flowers picked from a nearby bush – a weed, but no matter. She ascended the throne with the aid of a box that served as a step, folded her hands in her lap and surveyed her kingdom. There was rather a lot of manure about. “This palace needs to be cleaned,” she said regally. “See to it at once.”
Ordered from above, according to the rules of the game, her minions swept her domain with branches.
“Now I should like something to eat,” said the monarch. “Something sweet.” A small girl dutifully brought some dates, which Theodora