Count Belisarius (54 page)

Euphemia's anxiety to escape from her unwelcome marriage made her particularly eloquent in presenting the case to her father. But her task was an easy one, because Cappadocian John cherished a secret belief that he would eventually wear the Diadem. An old astrologer at the Hippodrome, perhaps the same who had prophesied so truly for Theodora and my mistress, had many years before told him: ‘My son, the robe of Augustus will one day be put upon you by the Palace soldiers, and that will be a day of great rejoicing at Court.' John was therefore pleased beyond measure at Euphemia's account of the conversation. He told Euphemia to assure my mistress Antonina that she could count on him absolutely in all things that would contribute to Justinian's downfall. My mistress embraced Euphemia and swore by
the Holy Ghost that her father could depend on Belisarius and herself for the same vigour of purpose that he himself displayed.

Before the plot developed any further, Theodosius, to my mistress Antonina's inexpressible joy, returned to us from Ephesus, weary of the penitential rigours that the Abbot had imposed upon him. He was a monk no longer and soon resumed his old ways – rich robes, perfumes, singing and guitar-playing, fashionable sneers, lively frolics about nothing. How to explain this change of mood – as unaccountable as his sudden plunge into the religious life? Well, there are characters of his sort, especially among the Thracians, whose contradictoriness we could waste a long time in discussing – their love of being discussed being perhaps the clue to the mystery. So let us say no more about Theodosius's motives, contenting ourselves with an account of his words and deeds.

My mistress's son Photius happened to be out of the city at the time, though he had been staying with us ever since Belisarius's departure. He had incurred enormous debts by commercial speculation at Antioch before the city was destroyed, and from betting at the races and the bear-fighting. If he could not soon meet his obligations he would be degraded, as a bankrupt, from the Patrician Order; but he felt sure that his mother would come to the rescue to avoid a family scandal. Perhaps she would have done so, had Theodosius not told her a story that angered her exceedingly. He said that he had run away to Ephesus because Photius had threatened to kill both her and him unless he left the city at once: this was why he had been so reluctant to return.

A great to-do followed. My mistress, of course, refused to pay Photius's debts; and because, on hearing the story, she had asked for police protection for Theodosius and herself and the whole matter had therefore become public, she sent Belisarius a full report. She also threatened Photius with severe punishment at Theodora's hands.

Photius hurriedly crossed the Bosphorus and took a post-chaise to the Persian frontier, to throw himself on Belisarius's protection. Exactly what he told Belisarius I do not know, but the gist of it was that when Theodosius went to Ephesus the second time it was with the intention of returning to my mistress at Constantinople as soon as Belisarius was out of the way; that he had so returned, and that the two of them were now living in open sin together. He further complained that my mistress had stolen a large sum of his money from him and conferred
it on her paramour; and that in addition to having brought him to the verge of bankruptcy, she was persecuting him in every possible way because he knew too much about her.

Belisarius heard this horrible tale from Photius on the very day that he was holding his council of war at Sisauranum. To think that it influenced him in his decision to retire from Persian territory might be natural, were it not so manifest that he put his duty as a soldier before all personal considerations. At least his military associates should have been aware of this trait in him. Nevertheless, the suggestion went the rounds, given circulation by the very generals who had been most timorous about crossing the Tigris.

After the council of war, Belisarius had further talk with Photius, who swore by the Holy Ghost — the most terrible oath that a Christian can swear, and one which if broken consigns the soul, they say, to everlasting torment in Hell — that he spoke the truth. To support his testimony he had brought two of my fellow-domestics as witnesses, and a Senator who happened to be one of his principal creditors and was nearly bankrupt himself. These, with Photius, succeeded in convincing Belisarius. Perhaps his disappointment with the campaign and the shaky state of his health after a month of dysentery played a part in confusing his usually clear powers of judgement. Furthermore, it should be said in his defence that my mistress's relations with Theodosius certainly did give a very mysterious impression. Even I, as I have already confessed earlier in this work, could never make up my mind as to their true character. At all events, Belisarius succumbed to an attack of jealous rage; all his officers were aghast at the change in him. For once in his life he forgot to be patient or gentle with his men, acting just like any other general, except that in his furies he refrained from blasphemy. Nor was his condition improved by a letter from my mistress, in which she wrote that Photius had escaped from Constantinople with his mouth full of slander and that she was following in haste to fill it with mud. She informed him that Theodosius, for fear of assassination by Photius's friends, was temporarily returning to Ephesus in her absence.

However, the affair of Cappadocian John had to be settled before she set out; otherwise the plot might turn against her. So she sent me to Cappadocian John to say that she was setting out for Daras at once, for the purpose of persuading Belisarius that a move for Justinian's overthrow and supersession could now be safely made. I arranged that
Cappadocian John should meet my mistress secretly on the following midnight in an orchard of Belisarius's estate at Rufinianae, a suburb of Constantinople across the Bosphorus: this would be her first stopping place after leaving the city. She had no doubt but that he would fall into her trap – for had she not used the name of the Holy Ghost to Euphemia in asseverating the earnestness of Belisarius's intentions and her own?

My mistress reported my success to Theodora, who took into her confidence Narses (now on bad terms with Cappadocian John) and Marcellus, the Commander of the Imperial Guards. Narses and Marcellus went to Rufinianae in disguise, with a party of soldiers; and by the agreed hour were at their posts in the orchard – some of them concealed behind a cistern and others among the boughs of the apple trees. They say that Justinian had got wind that something was astir, but that it was reported to him as a genuine plot against the Throne; and that he sent this message to Cappadocian John: ‘We know all. Desist, or you die. Your confederate Antonina is under our displeasure.' But if it is true that Cappadocian John received this message, he must have considered it more dangerous to reply to it than to continue with the plot, and taken the reference to my mistress as a clear proof of her sincerity. However it was, when Cappadocian John slipped out of the city with a party of armed attendants to keep his appointment that night, he had made up his mind to accompany her to Daras.

It was pitch dark in the orchard, and my teeth were chattering with apprehension as I stood waiting beside my mistress Antonina, thinking how much was at stake. Like her, I was wearing a mail shirt under my cloak. At midnight a glove came flying over the garden-gate; I threw it back — the agreed signal. John was admitted with his twelve Cappadocian guards.

He and my mistress clasped hands like true conspirators, and at once he began cursing Justinian for a monster and a tyrant and a coward; it was not necessary for her to commit herself at all. And it is a curious thing that, as he raved on, it suddenly came to my mistress that the mysterious superintendent of police who had spoken to her in the church that day long ago, as she was on her way to Blachernae from the Palace, had been John himself in disguise; for he now happened to mispronounce an uncommon Greek word in just the same way that the other man had.

She could not help laughing at this. Cappadocian John paused, suspicious at once, and began to look about him. Then Narses and Marcellus sprang from their ambuscade with a shout, and a fierce fight began. My mistress, to keep up the farce, cried out: ‘Oh, Oh, we are betrayed,' and pretended to struggle with Narses. I ran
off
. Marcellus was struck down and seriously wounded in the neck before the twelve Cappadocians were over powered. In the confusion their master climbed over a wall and escaped.

If the foolish man had ridden straight back to the Palace and reported to Justinian that he had gone to Rufinianae on Justinian's own behalf, intending to trick Antonina into a public confession of her treachery, he might have been able to turn the tables on her. Instead, he grew panic-stricken and took sanctuary in St Irene's Church, so that when at dawn Theodora and Narses denounced him to Justinian there was no possible conclusion but that he was guilty.

This church of St Irene's, burned down during the Victory Riots, had been magnificently rebuilt by Justinian, and it was a sanctuary that he would never have ventured to violate. So Cappadocian John suffered no more severe punishment than the confiscation of all his estates and — strange proceeding — a condemnation to take holy orders!

Cappadocian John became a priest much against his will, for he was thus debarred by law from ever again holding secular office. But the old prophecy was fulfilled. The Palace Guards put on him the robe of Augustus — that is to say the priestly robe of an archdeacon who had just died, whose name happened to be Augustus; and there was great rejoicing in the Palace, where he was much hated. He was sent from St Irene's to a church at Cyzicus, a trading city on the Asiatic shore of the Sea of Marmora. Justinian was vexed, not so much that Cappadocian John had attempted to betray him as that Theodora was thus so triumphantly justified: he had always refused to believe her when she denounced John as a traitor. To spite her, he subsequently restored most of John's fortune to him, in the name of Christian charity; John lived in peace and security at Cyzicus for two or three years more. But Justinian could not thwart Theodora's resolve to harry her enemy. The Bishop of Cyzicus, under whose authority Cappadocian John had come, was informed by her that the new priest must not be allowed to live an easy life. John was therefore kept to a scrupulously exact routine; which irked him greatly.

We continued our journey to Daras by land. When we reached the fortress my mistress was met by Trajan, who had returned safely with his force and his plunder from Assyria. He led her to the room where Belisarius awaited her. There Belisarius, ignoring her affectionate greeting, confronted her at once with Photius's sworn testimony as to her adultery, and the depositions of the Senator and the two domestics. He shouted angrily at her: ‘This is the end, Antonina. Your conduct as my wife should have been such as to make it impossible for me ever to reproach you with your past. That reproach you now hear from me: I am reminded of what your condition was when I first became acquainted with you.'

She met his severity with a severity of her own. Taking the parchment from his hand, she read it coldly, ripped it across, and let the pieces fall to the ground. She said that she would not demean herself by denying these charges, but in answer to his gross reproach of her she would say this: she could not feel any of the pain and misery that he clearly intended her to feel, but must think of him henceforward as a buffoon unworthy to be the husband of a woman like herself.

My mistress's demeanour was not a guilty one and, indeed, she fully expected to convince Belisarius that he was once more mistaken. But though Belisarius, in spite of his glowing rage, still loved her exceedingly, he could not return to his simple faith in her as readily as he had once done at Syracuse. He pressed her: ‘Do you mean to tell me, wife, that your son Photius would swear by the Holy Ghost unless he was certain, beyond all argument, that he was speaking the truth?'

She replied scornfully: ‘Do you think that everyone takes an oath as seriously as yourself — especially one to so obscure a concept as the Holy Ghost? Did not our master Justinian once swear this oath to Vitalian on the Bread and Wine, and then break it cheerfully for urgent reasons of state, on the sophistical ground that Vitalian was a heretic? Why, the day before I left Constantinople I myself swore by the Holy Ghost, for what might also be called urgent reasons of state – and I cannot regard myself as a particularly dishonest woman.'

Then she told him the whole story of the plot against Cappadocian John. When Belisarius heard that she, his trusted wife Antonina, had solemnly pledged his honour for the sake of a freakish plot of revenge, he felt dizzy and was obliged to sit down on a stool. When his head cleared he asked her: ‘Tell me, Antonina, have I served my Emperor so frivolously that anyone can be made to believe me capable of playing
the traitor? What amorous or magical arts did you use with Cappadocian John to persuade him of this impossible thing? What rights over me do you think that you hold, that you dare to bandy my name among scoundrels? And what did you think to gain by this wickedness? Was it perhaps the Empress's protection for an incestuous union with our godson?'

Instead of defending herself, she attacked him in what she knew to be his most sensitive feelings: his religion and his manhood. ‘It seems that all but myself are to benefit by your famous Christian forbearance. But who could say whether it was piety or cowardice that has resigned you to Justinian's contemptuous treatment of you! He has whipped you and kicked you like a dog, and like a dog you come crawling and fawning to his feet. In crediting you even in jest with a desire to regain your lost self-respect by rebellion I did you an honour that you did not deserve.'

Belisarius could stand no more. He called Trajan from the anteroom. ‘Convey the Lady Antonina to her quarters and post a guard at the door. She is to remain under close arrest until further notice.'

Trajan was dumbfounded.