They made a reverence as they acknowledged their indebtedness to Theodora. 'I am in the service of the Empress,' she warned them. Then she asked the Superintendent, stretching out her forefinger: 'Do you recognize this ring?' It was a small gold ring with a blue human eye pictured on the enamel, and in the iris of the eye was a tiny golden initial, a capital Theta. Theodora had just given it to my mistress, as a token that she was now one of her trusted people.
He attempted to pull it from her finger. My mistress struggled with him and kicked him in the groin and escaped. She ran with her children for sanctuary to the high altar, where he did not dare pursue her. Then she said to the younger of the two monks: 'Run to the Palace, brother in Christ, and let the Empress know at once that the woman of the mulberry leaves is in danger here in your church.'
The terrified monk excused himself: I am not permitted to leave this church without the orders of my Superior, and he is attending mass in the Cathedral.'
My mistress asked: 'Arc you more afraid of the Empress or of your Superior? Off now, and the sooner you start, the sooner you will be back.'
He hitched up his gown and ran. Then the Superintendent sullenly left the church, and said: 'You will fall under His Clemency's grave displeasure.'
My mistress replied: 'Or perhaps under the pleasure of Her Resplendency.'
Soon a full company of Guards came to escort my mistress back in safety to the Palace, where she told Theodora something of what had happened, but not all: she discreetly made no mention of the question as to the illegitimate son. Nevertheless, Theodora looked grave. She asked for a description of the man, but his burliness and a black beard and a slight provincial accent were his only distinguishable features. 'He is none of the Emperor's usual agents,' she said. 'Either he is someone with a secret commission, unknown to me, or else he is an impostor. I will find out soon enough.'
But she could not trace him, though she examined the monks and obtained from them a description of him. One monk suggested that his accent was Cilician, but my mistress did not agree with him on this point.
My mistress had no further encounter with this supposed superintendent of police, but became aware that her movements were constantly watched. Her house in Blachernae, before she gave it up, was broken into and her box of private papers rifled; fortunately none of these was in the least compromising, either morally or politically. My mistress had not, I admit, been living a particularly chaste life of late; and having been in conflict with the law in the matter of some property of her husband's, she had been obliged to buy justice in a lower court from an official of the Green faction who controlled it. Otherwise, her conscience was clear, and no record of any of her lapses existed in writing. She was a woman who never wrote or preserved love-letters, never asked or gave receipts for money where the transaction was questionable. But she soon realized that she must behave with even greater circumspection than usual if she would avoid being harmed by secret enemies who were apparently trying to strike through her at Theodora.
My mistress felt the full force of their assault one Holy Day. After attending Theodora's morning audience she followed close behind her in the usual Royal procession to the Cathedral Church of St Sophia. (This was the old church, which was a splendid building, though not to be compared with the present church on the same site, which is acknowledged to be the finest sacred edifice in the whole world.) She was dressed in her best flowered silks, with all the scarlet and purple additions to which her rank as the Illustrious Antonina now entitled her, and wore her heaviest and most exquisite jewellery -part of it a present from Theodora, who was, in a literal sense, 'as generous as her mouth was wide'. Naturally she also wore an exquisitely curled and coiled auburn wig, with a number of ringlets bobbing pleasantly on her neck, to supplement her own good but not profuse auburn hair. My mistress always enjoyed these processions – unless of course it was raining; even those to distant churches on the name-days of the saint to which they are dedicated. For on such occasions the Superintendent of City Streets has the roadways and pavements swept; and the whole population wears festival clothes and appears with clean faces and hands and feet and casts itself down in adoration as the Emperor and Empress pass; and embroidered cloths hang from the windows, and there are ingenious decorations everywhere of myrtle, ivy, rosemary, box, and meadow-flowers, forming letters that couple the Imperial honour with that of the Saint. Gay marching hymns are chanted by the monks in the procession, and throughout the City is heard a rhythmic drum of mallets on sounding-boards, summoning the faithful to prayer; each church has its different characteristic rhythm.
