Free Theodora by Stella Duffy

even older women, praying for help and hope and understanding, from wherever it might come.
    Anastasia had never risen as high in the ranks as Comito or Theodora, though some of her sisters’ gloss had rubbed off onher. None of Hypatia’s three older girls had to take on the worst of the work: that was left to the lesser-skilled dancers and the poorer singers of the chorus. They still, though, traded in their own flesh. It was part of the job, as were the unplanned pregnancies that came with the work. Generally the actresses, well aware of their bodies as both on- and off-stage tools of the trade, dealt with the problem early enough; they were lucky that the wardrobe mistress was also highly skilled in herbal medicines, she knew her girls and usually knew what to do for them. Occasionally though, there were mistakes. Comito realised too late that her bleeding was missing and, though the old women tried every method they knew, the little thing stuck fast and grew faster. Eventually she gave birth to a girl, taking two months off work, fed the child backstage, and carried on. It was not unusual and, wonderfully, Comito found she even began to enjoy the company of her daughter as Indaro grew older.
    Theodora’s child was also the result of a failed abortion. Theodora was fourteen when she gave birth to Ana, not that plenty of other more respectable women weren’t mothers by that age, but there were far too many years ahead in which to work and earn to waste time bringing up a child or spending good cash on a nurse. Unlike Comito, Theodora was no natural mother, she took the child home and left her there. Hypatia and Basianus were already reliant on the income from their most successful daughter to take care of the young step-family; Theodora thought it was time they did her a favour in return. Though she was careful to caution Basianus that if she ever heard he’d used the whip on Ana the way he had done with her, she’d make sure he paid – and it would cost him more than his livelihood. Basianus, bitter at his lack of success in the job his wife had begged for him, was all too aware that Theodora held far more influence in the Hippodrome than he did, and so,if he was not a kind foster father to her child, he was at least a careful one.
    Things were much harder for Anastasia. As Theodora said, their little sister was simply too sweet. Too sweet to work half a dozen men a week and take their money willingly, using it to further herself, to lift herself out of the brothel that was their backstage life and into a nice little apartment with a sea view and just one or two regular suitors. Instead she’d fallen in love with a pallid Lycian boy from the stables, keeping them both poor by turning down offers so often that in the end the offers ceased to come and she and the stable boy lived on what little they could earn from legitimate work. Even then she’d been too sweet to say no to sex at her fertile time, too gentle – or too damn coy, Theodora thought – to push the horse-boy away, to offer something else instead, anything else instead, to make sure her womb stayed empty. Later still, Anastasia had been too soft to deal with the pregnancy immediately, no matter that both Comito and Theodora assured her the herbs would be easy, the three days of discomfort now so much simpler than an invasive abortion later. When the belly finally began to show, despite her wearing tighter bindings and eating still less food, Anastasia, now unable to work on stage, agreed something must be done.
    They took her to the Cappadocian surgeon, paying well over the odds for the privilege of even entering his home, but catching sight of his knife and the skewer, Anastasia ran crying from the room. The man demanded half his fee anyway, offering to take a blow job from the famous Theodora if they didn’t think he was worth the coin. She threw the money in his face with her spittle. Finally, Anastasia had been too gentle and far too tired when,