In the Heart of Darkness

The Empress rose and walked down from the dais, onto the floor. She knelt beside Justinian. The Emperor was still unconscious. Firmly, but carefully, Theodora rolled him into her arms. She brushed the hair back from his ruined face and stared at the gaping, puckered wounds which had once been her husband's eyes.

When she spoke, her voice held not a trace of any emotion. It was simply cold, cold.

"There is wine in the adjoining room. Fetch it, traitors. I need to bathe his wounds."

For an instant, something almost like humor entered her voice. Cold, cold humor: "I come from the streets of Alexandria. Do you think I never saw a man blinded before? Did you think I would shrink from death and torture?"

Humor left. Ice remained: "Fetch me wine. Do it, cowards."

Two excubitores hastened to obey her command. For a moment, they jostled each other in the doorway, before sorting out their precedence.

A minute later, one of the excubitores returned, bearing two bottles. The other did not.

Theodora soaked the hem of her imperial robes with wine. Gently, she began washing Justinian's wounds.

The man who had brought her the wine slipped out of the door. Less than a minute later, another followed. Then another. Then two.

Theodora never looked up. Another man left. Another. Two.

When there were only four excubitores left in the room, the Empress—still without raising her head—murmured:

"You are all dead men."

Hell-murmur.

All four scurried from the chamber. Their footsteps in the corridor echoed in the empty room. Quick footsteps, at first. Soon enough, running.

Now, Theodora raised her head. She stared at the door through which the traitors had fled.

Hell-stare. Hell-hiss:

"You are all dead men. Wherever you go, I will track you down. Wherever you hide, I will find you. I will have you blinded. By the clumsiest meatcutter in the world."

She lowered her head; turned her black eyes upon her husband's face.

Slowly, very slowly, the hell-gaze faded. After a time, the first of her tears began bathing Justinian's face.

There were not many of those tears. Not many at all. They disappeared into the wine with which Theodora cleansed her husband's wounds, as if they possessed the wine's own hard nature. A constant little trickle of tears, from the world's littlest, hardest, and most constant heart.

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Framed

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Contents

Chapter 27

The first rocket awed the mob in the Hippodrome. By sheer good fortune, the missile soared almost straight and exploded while it was in plain view of the entire crowd. A great flaming burst in the sky, just over the unoccupied southwestern tiers.

The faction thugs roared their approval. Many of them rose in their seats and shook their weapons triumphantly.

In the imperial box, Hypatius and Pompeius seemed suitably impressed as well, judging from their gapes. But Narses, watching them from behind, spotted the subtle nuances.

Hypatius' gape was accompanied by the beginning of a frown. The newly crowned "Emperor"—his tiara wobbling atop his head—was not entirely pleased. The crowd's roar of approval for the rockets was noticeably more enthusiastic than the roar with which they had greeted his "ascension to the throne," not five minutes earlier.

His brother Pompeius' gape was likewise accompanied by a frown. But, in his case, the frown indicated nothing more than thoughtfulness. Pompeius was already planning to overthrow his brother.

In the rear of the kathisma, Narses sneered. This, too, he knew, was part of the Malwa plot. The Indians intended the overthrow of Justinian to set in motion an entire round of civil wars, one contender for the throne battling another. Years of civil war—like the worst days of the post-Antonine era, three centuries earlier—while the Malwa gobbled up Persia without interference and made ready their final assault on Rome itself.

As always, Narses thought the Malwa were too clever for their own good. They would have done better to stick with their initial scheme—simply to encourage Justinian's ambitions to conquer the west. That would have served their purpose, without any of the attendant risks of an armed insurrection.

But Narses, slowly and carefully, had convinced them otherwise. The eunuch had his own ambitions, which required Justinian's removal. He would risk the Malwa's future plans for the sake of his own immediate accession to power. There would be no civil wars. Narses would put an end to them, quickly and ruthlessly.

The eunuch watched another rocket soar into the sky. The trajectory of this one was markedly more erratic than that of the first. By the time the rocket exploded, it had looped out of sight beneath the northwestern wall of the Hippodrome.