“We need to get tidied up now,” said Theodora, still rubbing.
“Of course, of course, I’m on my way! Night-night, darlings!”
“Goodnight,” said Theodora coolly.
“Goodnight,” said Comito in a strangled voice. “Glad you … liked the … um, surprise.”
“Touch of genius,” repeated Marius, and off he went.
Comito emerged from beneath the towel with swollen eyes and smudged make-up. “Chicken livers?” she asked. “Now where on earth did you get an idea like that?”
“I overheard Fat Rosa telling someone,” said Theodora. “Well, your trade secret will be all over town soon enough, you can count on that. And those he doesn’t tell, will think it’s paint. Trust me.”
“Now I’ll have to do it every time,” said Comito glumly. “Chicken livers! Ugh!”
The sisters stared at each other and began to laugh. Their laughter swelled hysterically. They laughed until they were exhausted.
Theodora was given some small roles, and she made the most of them. Yet even when all their wages were added together, life was never easy.
Then Anastasia woke up one morning with a wheezing cough. Peter brought medicine that did no good. After a week he fetched the aged apothecary who, himself out of breath after clambering up the stairs, shook his head.
“Gone to her chest,” he panted. “Keep her warm. Plenty of fluids. Make soup.”
“I have to go on stage,” Anastasia said huskily.
“It’ll be the death of you,” he said. “Might entertain the fans. But only once.” He cackled like a goose at his own wit.
A cold northwesterly wind brought winter to Constantinople. Laden with the odour of marshes rotting in their depths, it found every ill-fitting window, every loose roof tile; it rattled and slapped and shook the rickety building they lived in and then pelted it with icy sleet.
Chariot races were still run, but shows in the Kynêgion were so poorly attended that it shut down. Peter’s wages were stretched thin; he grew increasingly desperate and came home later and later, more often drunk. Soon Stasie also began a hacking cough. Since her eighth birthday she had shot up, yet she still looked lumpish. She was already almost as tall as Comito, but her skin was pasty and her brown curls had no lustre. She no longer had attacks of noisy weeping, but at times seemed to retreat into a state of wordless misery that shut her off from the world around her.
Then one day Comito came home with a basket of fresh fruit: hothouse produce, out of season. “There,” she said. “That should make Mother and Stasie feel better. And there’s plenty more where that came from.”
Theodora stared at the basket. “Comito,” she said, “where did that come from?”
“An admirer, of course,” said Comito, with an air of nervous bravado. “And, Theodora, you’ll have to help me pack. Not that there’s much to take, but I’ll have better clothes soon.” She bit into a juicy apple.
“You’ve accepted a protector! You have, haven’t you?”
“I have an admirer,” said Comito, “who has made me more than one offer. I’ve refused him several times. But now, well … I’ve agreed.”
“Oh, Comito, you couldn’t!” said Theodora. She shuddered to imagine her sister in the damp and desperate clutches of an elderly lover, one of those with a hairy nose, bad breath and a belly that sagged over his belt.
“What are my options?” demanded Comito. “Even at the best of times, the stage pays rotten wages, and now it’s closed down. Now what? We’re close to starving. No decent man will marry me, you know that. Everybody thinks I’m a whore, so I might as well be one.”
“You needn’t be what people think,” said Theodora. “They can’t force you to be what you’re not.”
“But what else is there? I could sleep with a whole lot of men, none of them paying very much, or with one rich man. So. I’ve decided I might as well be rich, and have a nice house, and servants.” She folded her arms defiantly.
Theodora was silenced by this brutally honest statement of facts.
“Come on, Theodora, don’t look like that.”
“There should be something … something else. It’s not fair. You’re so beautiful. Much too good for some gross, rich old man.”
“Oh, he’s not gross,” said Comito. “Really, he isn’t.”
“Who is it?” asked Theodora.
“Marcus Anicius Longinus. He’s a patrician and a senator. Late forties or so. Has a sickly wife who never leaves their country estate.”
“So what does he offer?”
“He’ll install me in his apartment here in town and give me a good allowance. He needs a hostess. Apart from … well, you know.”
“You have no idea how to give grand dinner parties,” said Theodora.
“I’ll learn. He has a good secretary, he says, who’ll guide me.”
“Rather sleep with the secretary,” advised Theodora.
“He’s a eunuch. But even if he wasn’t, he’s not rich.”
And that was the hard truth of it.
An agreement was made, and Comito moved to the best part of town. Her mother and her sisters kept their distance. The Senator would certainly not welcome his mistress’s disreputable relatives to his home. But Theodora was curious, and when Comito invited her over on a day when her protector rode out to his estate, she went eagerly.
As she had expected, it was a spacious apartment filled with scarce and precious things, with the plush and sensuous textures, the sheen and gleam, the sparkle and glow that only a great deal of money and the hard work of many invisible hands could create. It turned a solid back on the rowdy street outside, and held off the rude winter’s wind with shutters and velvet drapes and braziers, redolent of privilege and roses.
Comito also looked burnished. “Darling Theodora! Come in! I’ll take your cloak. Look around, I just need to talk to the cook about lunch.”
Theodora discovered a library and stood completely entranced. A whole room given over to books! It was extraordinary. Rows and rows of shelves, with pigeonholes that held scrolls and boxes that contained codices! A large table, with two codices lying open, an inkstand, sheets of vellum and pots of ink! She closed her eyes and inhaled the wonderful, slightly musty smell emanating from lots and lots of books. How could anyone be so lucky, she thought, as to own so many books!
A dry cough made her open her eyes. There stood a small, spare man in a grey tunic with white hair combed neatly forward and sharp brown eyes. Ah, she thought. The secretary.
“Oh!” she said. “I’m sorry, I just walked in. I’m Comito’s sister. Theodora. She said … the Senator wouldn’t mind if I had a look around.”
“Nor would he,” said the man. “You’re fond of reading?”
“Oh, yes! Comito isn’t, though. It’s not fair. She won’t appreciate these books, and I would! Just for this … I’d even stand the attentions of a nasty fat old patrician myself!”
He smiled wryly. “You read Greek?”
“Of course. Latin as well. My mother taught us. She’s … an educated woman, even if …”
“Even if she’s fallen on hard times?”
“Quite,” said Theodora. “We come from a good family.” It seemed important to her that he should know this. “My