The Purple Shroud by Stella Duffy

Author:Stella Duffy [Duffy, Stella]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literary, Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9781101603734
Google: xa9LXROr67IC
Amazon: B0081KZ1GO
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2012-09-25T04:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Three

Belisarius’ Triumph took Theodora almost as long to organise as it took the triumphant general to sail home from Carthage with Gelimer, King of the Vandals, safely stowed in a spacious cabin, befitting his status. Contrary to many expectations – though not his own, or his Emperor’s – Belisarius proved himself as capable on sea as on land. Just as the equinox heralded the beginning of the cooler months, he had led his troops into Carthage, where the Vandal kings had worn the purple for almost a century. Although the city was taken, Gelimer escaped capture, hiding for six months among the Berber tribesmen in the mountains of Numidia. When he was finally found and brought before Belisarius, Gelimer asked for three things.

‘A lyre, a sponge and some bread.’

Belisarius’ adviser and scribe Procopius noted each item, as the general asked his captive why he wanted them.

‘I no longer have a kingdom, but I am a poet, and I need a lyre to accompany myself.’

‘Of course.’

Belisarius waved a young soldier off to find a lyre.

‘My eyes are tired, I am not used to mountain life, or life on the road. I’d like to wash my eyes.’

Belisarius nodded; another boy ran for sponges and water.

‘As for the bread,’ the deposed king went on, ‘I’ve spent six months in these mountains …’

‘The Berbers have been generous to you.’

‘Yes, and you’ll face a challenge if you intend to fight them off the land as well, they’re a strong people.’

‘But?’ asked Belisarius.

‘But they don’t eat wheat, and whatever Rome may think, we Vandals are a civilised people.’

‘And civilised people eat bread?’

‘We do.’

That night, Belisarius and his men broke bread with Gelimer, captured King of the Vandals, and Antonina sent the story of the meal in her regular letter to Theodora. The next day war began again and in summer, nine months after leaving the City, Belisarius was recalled. It was over two years since Theodora had persuaded her husband to stay and fight for the purple through the noise and blood of the Nika riots. A Triumph welcomed the soldier home and Theodora ensured that this one showed the Emperor’s strength, not the general’s, no matter how good the younger man looked in his ceremonial armour.

Theodora, Comito and Antonina stood to one side of the Kathisma, with a clear view of the whole of the Hippodrome. Justinian took his usual place in the centre, chief officials and highest-ranking priests on either side of him. Belisarius and his men had marched down the Mese, through the main squares, past the Chalke where the Emperor’s African success was now depicted in glorious gilt mosaic. The men began to assemble in the Hippodrome, marching into the arena in full regalia and lining up in ranks to face the August. They were there to present their trophy: Gelimer, King of the Vandals, draped in purple and followed into the rapidly filling ground by cart after cart of gold, jewels and other spoils, many of them treasures the Vandals had taken during the sack of Rome a hundred years earlier, all of it now coming home, to the new Rome.

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