They waited with growing impatience. Nothing at all happened. They muttered in disgust among themselves that their former idol, their glorious hero Belisarius, was submitting to the spite and ingratitude of his sovereigns with a patience as abject as that in use among the penitential monks. (These squat like toads in their cells while the flagellant of the week, coming around with his wire scourge, flogs their backs until the old scars open again.) When at first the citizens had crowded about him in the street with shouts of indignant pity he repulsed them angrily, crying: ‘Gentlemen, be silent, this affair is between the Emperor and myself. Leave me, I beg you, and go about your businesses.’
He had a meagre attendance of four or five young officers, who clung to him from loyalty, though warned by Narses that they would thereby come under the Imperial suspicion and lose all chance of promotion. All his other associates were careful not to greet him – although, had he raised the standard of revolt, most of them would have rallied to it at once. He took mean lodgings near the Bull Square in a house attached to the Entertainment Halls. This is a group of halls, built around a central fountain, which families who have houses of only modest size can hire for wedding and funeral feasts and suchlike. Here he was dependent on these same young officers even for the necessities of life. But for them he must have applied for a wooden ticket and drawn the common dole. Theodora had not only stripped him of all his wealth in the city: she had also sent to Edessa, where he had banked a large sum of money for war-expenses, and made that hers too.
Every day he went to pay his respects at the Palace, as he would ordinarily have done. Justinian tried to goad him to rebellion by sneers and gibes; for the man’s patience exasperated him. One morning he refused to see Belisarius, alleging a press of business, and ordered him to wait outside the Palace Gates until the evening. Belisarius obeyed, standing all day outside the Gates without food, exposed to public curiosity. Then the mob, disgusted by what they regarded as miserable slavishness, pelted him with rotten fruit and filth, so that his patrician’s gown was disgracefully stained. He uttered not a single word, and did not even stoop to avoid the missiles. But he dealt sternly with an impudent youth who came sneaking up along the wall and attempted to pull his beard. He seized the fellow by the breeches and tossed him a great distance; it is said that this youth suffered injuries which kept him an invalid for many years.
At dusk he was at last admitted to the Palace, and there begged leave to present an appeal to the Emperor. Justinian consented to consider the appeal, hoping that he had at last moved Belisarius to open resentment. He was disappointed: all that Belisarius asked was a new gown, so that he could present himself decently at the next audience.
Justinian replied tartly: ‘We have no money to clothe you, my Lord Belisarius. If you cannot afford to keep yourself in gowns, we had better strike your name from the roll of patricians: thus you will be released from all ceremonial obligations.’
Belisarius bowed low and replied: ‘In whatever rank or capacity I am permitted to serve your Majesty, I can be counted upon to do my duty faithfully.’
His name was removed from the roll, and he did not return to the Palace for many months.
All this time, of course, my mistress continued to enjoy Theodora’s friendship and, so far from being deprived of any of her possessions, was made richer by the grant of much of Belisarius’s property, including his large estate at Rufinianae. She pretended to be much more indifferent to her husband’s misfortunes than, I know, she actually was. For my part I never mentioned Belisarius’s affairs to her if I could avoid doing so; and whenever she alluded to them herself I was careful not to commit myself to any attitude. But it made my blood boil to see Theodosius pride it at Belisarius’s expense. He was a great man at the Palace in those days, and went about attended by a train of 400 Thracians of the Household Regiment, whom Theodora had presented to him. He was constantly closeted with Theodora, having been appointed Master of Palace Entertainments.
Of the inner history of what occurred next many versions are current – some plausible, some ridiculous, none authentic. At all events, the essential happening was that Theodosius died of a dysentery on St Stephen’s Day, which is the day following Christmas Day; and whether this was a sheer accident or whether he was poisoned at the Christmas feast, and if so by whom, was never brought to the light of history. The few who examined his corpse inclined to the view that he was poisoned.
This much can be confidently said: his death is not to be laid at Belisarius’s door, nor was any friend of Photius’s responsible for it. It is not outside the limits of credibility that some officious domestic of my mistress Antonina thought thus to anticipate her wishes. I cannot discuss this. Needless to say, suspicion never fell upon Eugenius.
My mistress’s feelings on Theodosius’s death were confused. She had recently changed towards him, and with strange suddenness. She had come to believe, rightly or wrongly, that her favourite, by using the same courtier’s arts that he had used with her, had now made himself a lover of Theodora’s. He certainly was then treating my mistress with an indifference which she must have felt very galling, though she did her best to conceal the smart from everyone.
Theodora took the death lightly; she did not even interest herself in its cause. Yet she showed my mistress unaffected sympathy in her loss, and seemed to have no notion whatsoever that she had been nourishing such bitter jealousy. Some said that this lightness of heart was assumed by Theodora in order to deprive Justinian of satisfaction in her grief; for they said that it was the Emperor himself who had arranged Theodosius’s murder, in jealousy of his wife’s pleasure in him, and that in truth she felt his loss very keenly. But that was nonsense.
My mistress now fell into a deep melancholy; sleeplessness and lack of appetite wore her so thin that she looked ten years more than her age, which was now two-and-forty.
One day when I went into her boudoir she looked up, with eyes red from weeping. Though I had often seen her sullen, fretful, angry, despairing, I had not seen her weep since her girlhood.
I said to her gently: ‘Mistress, I was your first slave, and I have been faithful to you all my life. I am devoted to you, above everything in the world, and would die for your sake, as you know. Let me share in your misery, learning the cause of it. O Lady Antonina, my heart sinks when I see you weeping.’
The tears burst out afresh; but she did not reply.
Then I asked: ‘Mistress, dearest mistress, is it that you mourn for Theodosius?’
She cried out: ‘No, Eugenius, my faithful friend, no! By Hera and Aphrodite, no! It is not of Theodosius that I am thinking – but of my husband Belisarius. I must confide in you again, as I did long ago in my club-house days, lest my silence consume me. O dear Eugenius, I would give all I possess never to have cast eyes on false Theodosius. Belisarius has always been my real love – and, like a fool, I have utterly ruined him. Nor is there any undoing of my folly.’
I wept with her. ‘A reconciliation must be brought about at once,’ I cried impulsively. But she answered that neither Belisarius’s pride nor hers permitted a reconciliation. Moreover, Theodora had by no means forgiven Belisarius, and the Emperor hated him above all human beings.
After a little thought, I said: ‘I believe that I understand the whole case and can find a way out.’
‘There is no way out, Eugenius.’
Nevertheless, I went on boldly: ‘Mistress, it appears to me that if I were to go to Belisarius and tell him, what I believe has never been revealed to him, that Photius confessed under torture to having slandered you; and if I were to swear to him that you and Theodosius were never lovers; and if I were to tell him further that your oaths to Cappadocian John were sworn – were they not? – at the order of the Empress and that you have asked pardon of God for this offence and for your other blasphemies – would you not do that immediately, dearest mistress, to placate Belisarius? – and that you have far more cause to be offended by him than he by you…’
/> ‘O wise Eugenius, go with my blessing. Yes, I will ask pardon of God – I would certainly not let that trifle stand in my way. Tell him all that you have just said; and then, if he forgets his pride and anger, you may assure him that I never did love anyone else but himself, and that I will not rest until he is restored to freedom and honour – then he and I will never again be parted.’
‘You will appeal to the Empress?’
‘I will. I will remind her of the services that I rendered her lately in the matter of Cappadocian John, and of our old friendship, and of the friendship existing between her father, the Bear Master, and mine, the charioteer.…’
But I said: ‘Dearest mistress, I have a further suggestion to make. I believe that I am in a position to accomplish the final ruin of Cappadocian John myself. If this is done and if you take the credit for it, surely the Empress will give you everything you ask?’
‘How?’ she asked, eagerly. ‘How can you bring this about?’
I replied: ‘This afternoon, in a wine-shop, I fell in conversation with a poor young man of Cyzicus, who is dying of a wasting disease and has not long to live. He and his whole family, old grandparents and wife and three young children, have been driven from their home by order of the Bishop of Cyzicus. He came alone on foot to Constantinople, and today applied for justice and relief at the Palace; but the officials drove him away, because the Bishop is in good standing at Court. I sympathized with him, and gave him a piece of silver, telling him to meet me under the statue of the Elephant of Severus tomorrow at noon. I did not disclose my name or that of my employer, and I am not known in that wine-shop.’
‘Well?’
‘Give me five hundred pieces in gold, mistress, and that will be sufficient to destroy Cappadocian John.’
‘I do not understand.’
‘Give me the money and trust me to undertake the matter.’
‘If you succeed, Eugenius, I will give you fifty thousand and your freedom.’
‘What is money but bodily comforts, which I already possess? What is “freedom” but to be well considered, as I already am? No, Mistress, my sufficient reward will be that you and my Lord Belisarius and the Empress are relieved of an old enemy, and that the death of your father Damocles, my former master, is avenged, and that I shall have been the means of reconciling the Empress to my Lord Belisarius.’
That evening I sought out Belisarius at his mean lodgings. Though weak from a return of his malarial fever, he rose from his couch to welcome me. With a smile that concealed the depth of his feeling, he asked: ‘And are you not afraid to visit me, Eugenius, old friend?’
I answered: ‘No, Illustrious Lord. With the message that I bring I would have risked passing through fire or a camp of Bulgarian Huns.’
He grew a little impatient: ‘Do not address me by titles of which I have been deprived. What is the message?’
I related, as from myself, all that I had agreed with my mistress to say. He listened most eagerly, crying ‘Ah!’ when I told him that his wife had asked pardon of God. Then I showed him the State papers in which Photius’s confession was recorded – having bribed the copying clerk to the Assistant-Registrar for a day’s loan of them. Belisarius read them hastily, and then again with great care, and at last he beat his breast and said: ‘For my jealous rage and my credulity I deserve all that I have suffered. But alas, Eugenius, it is too late now. Your mistress will never forgive me for what I did to her at Daras, even if I make her a full apology.’
I urged him to be of good courage: all would yet be well. Then I repeated my mistress’s message, which at first he would not believe to be authentic. He said: ‘If your mistress Antonina will indeed still listen to any words of mine, tell her that the fault was wholly on my side – but that it was only an excess of love for her that made me guilty of such madness.’
That night Belisarius and my mistress met secretly at his lodgings. Nobody but myself knew of it. Both embraced me, kissing me on the cheeks, and said that they owed their lives to me.
On the next day I met the young man from Cyzicus under the statue of the Elephant. I drew him aside to a private place and said to him: ‘Here in this bag are five hundred pieces of gold. They will keep your family in decent plenty for the rest of their lives. But in order to earn them you must do a desperate thing.’
He asked: ‘What can that be, benefactor?’
‘You must kill the Bishop of Cyzicus. He is an enemy of my master’s, whose gold this is.’
‘Your words frighten me,’ he cried.
‘How, when you have so few months to live in any case, and when by this deed you will, at a stroke, secure both revenge for your injuries and provision for your destitute family?’
He asked: ‘Who is your master?’
I answered: ‘I do not hesitate to tell you that. He is Cappadocian John, now a priest of the Cathedral at Cyzicus.’
I made him believe that I was in earnest about the gold; when I gave him ten gold pieces on account he undertook to commit the murder and went cheerfully away.
Soon the expected news came from Cyzicus. The young man had fulfilled his obligation. He had waited outside the Cathedral porch after Mass and, as the Bishop emerged, sunk a long dagger into him. He was arrested and threatened with the rack unless he revealed the motives of this sacrilegious deed. As I had expected, he avoided mention of his own wrongs, telling the officers merely that he had been bribed to the deed by a gift of ten pieces of gold from Cappadocian John. Cappadocian John’s enmity towards the Bishop was well known. He was arrested and tried before the judges of that place, found guilty as accessory to the murder, and sentenced to death. By my mistress’s intercession with Theodora the young man’s life was spared, and later I sent the remainder of the 500 gold pieces to him. How long he lived afterwards, I do not know.
Cappadocian John’s life, too, was spared by Justinian, with the excuse that his guilt was insufficiently proved. Nevertheless, he was stripped of his robe and thrashed and made to confess to his past sins; though he would not own to murder, the rest of the tale was disgraceful enough to have hanged him a dozen times over. All his goods were forfeited to the Crown, and he was set naked on a trading-ship bound for Egypt (but for charity someone lent him a rough blanket); where ever the ship touched he was made to go ashore and beg for bread and coppers on the quay. Thus vengeance was at last fully accomplished; for it was to John’s nakedness and beggary that Theodora and my mistress had pledged themselves, not to his death by violence. The soul of the charioteer Damocles, my former master, had peace by the banks of Styx.
My mistress could now go before Theodora and beg her to receive Belisarius back into favour; saying that she herself proposed to forgive and live with him again. Her devotion to Theodora’s cause was once more proved, and Belisarius would do nothing further to earn the displeasure of his Empress – of that she could be assured.
Theodora did not reject the plea. She sent an Imperial messenger to Belisarius with a letter which ran as follows: ‘You are yourself well aware, best of men, how you have wronged your Sovereigns. But since I am greatly indebted to your wife for her services to me, I have, at her request, expunged from the records all charges against you, and given you my gracious pardon. For the future, then, you need not fear as to your safety or your prosperity; but we shall judge your behaviour not only by your actions in regard to ourselves, but by your attitude to her.’
Thus Belisarius was restored to favour again, for even Justinian considered that his pride had now been sufficiently humbled; and one-half of his treasure was given back to him, and all the land and houses. Justinian held back the remainder of the treasure, which amounted to one-quarter of a million gold pieces, saying that the possession of so much money did not become a subject when there was such urgent need of funds in the Imperial Treasury.
As a tribute to the close friendship existing between my mistress Antonina’s family and her own, Theodora now decided that Joannina, my mistress’s child by Belisarius, shou
ld be betrothed to her own nearest relative, Anastasius ‘Longlegs’, son of Sittas the general and her sister Anastasia. It was to this youth that she intended the Diadem to pass, after Justinian’s death and her own: the marriage would greatly strengthen his position in the city. So this was done.
It may seem strange that I have made no reference to Joannina since her birth just before Belisarius’s expedition to Carthage. The fact is that she had enjoyed no intimate life with either of her parents. My mistress Antonina had not taken the child with her to the wars, but placed her under the tutelage of Theodora, who came to regard her as her own daughter. Joannina remained with Theodora in the Sacred Apartments of the Palace even when her parents happened to be back in the city. My mistress was content that this should be so: her chief maternal feelings were for Martha, Hildiger’s wife – who unfortunately fell a victim to the plague. But it saddened Belisarius that he should be estranged from his only child. He sent her frequent letters and presents from overseas, fondly reminding her that she had a father. But whenever they met, during his occasional respites from war, it was always in the shadow of the Throne; and Joannina treated his affectionate advances with embarrassment. With Antonina the child was more at ease, as with a good-natured, fashionable aunt.
The news of Joannina’s engagement set a public seal on the reconciliation of Theodora and my mistress with Belisarius. Theodora even persuaded the Emperor to witness the ceremonial exchange of gifts at Belisarius’s house; and his presence there seemed a good omen for the renewed prosperity of Belisarius’s domestic affairs. Belisarius and my mistress were escorted by a remnant of his Household Regiment – 400 Thracians who had passed to my mistress at Theodosius’s death, and were now restored to their former master. But their 6,500 comrades-in-arms were still withheld from him.