Free The Purple Shroud: A Novel of Empress Theodora by Stella Duffy Page A

a signal to fight and then the old man was forgotten. Knives were pulled, one boy cut another, a second intervened, a third yelped as the blade found his young skin, and the colour then was neither Blue nor Green, but red. It was quickly over, the local police marched several young men off to face charges, while others slipped into the winding side streets that churned away from the Mese, keen to fight another day.
    Theodora shivered, watching them go. Her own childhood had spun from rejection by Greens after her father’s death, to the welcome embrace of the Blues. She knew the factions to be both fickle and volatile, but when she was a child the partisan fights were over racers or athletes, whose singers and performers were the best, surging chants from one side of the Hippodrome to the other. There had been street battles then too, but there was something about the scene they had just witnessed that felt different, sharper. One young man with a knife beneath his cloak was not new; several young men, each one openly carrying a blade certainly was.
    On another street they saw three young soldiers outside a bar, arguing with the owner.
    ‘Boys, go home, you’ve only just got back from duty, your mothers must be missing you. And be honest, you know you can’t afford it.’
    ‘Then run up a tab for us.’
    The second, nodding at his friend added, ‘We’re out there in those fucking mountains, the army can’t get us enougharmour or weapons, let alone feed us properly, and when we come home you won’t even give us a drink.’
    ‘Son,’ the bar owner answered, ‘I did my time, I was in Sicily, Carthage, and on the Persian border too. At least in the west you could be sure you were winning or losing, but out there in the east?’ He shook his head and spat on the ground, ‘That war’s been going on for ever, there’s nothing you lot will do to change it.’
    ‘Damn right, those Persians will never give up,’ the third soldier responded, kicking the wall with a dusty foot.
    ‘Nor will Rome, mate,’ said the first soldier, his tone cautioning his friend.
    If the bar owner had been a military man there was no telling who his friends might be, the young soldiers didn’t want to be accused of demoralising troops if this innkeeper happened to tell one of their superior officers.
    ‘Yeah,’ the third continued, too impassioned to care what he said or who heard him, ‘but at least these old men were paid. Or their families were, when they didn’t come back. They treat us like dogs when we’re over there and worse when we come home, as if it’s our fault the war costs so much, our fault taxes are put up to pay for it.’
    The bar owner looked at the three young men before him, frustrated, dirty and angry. Any one of them could easily take him in a fight, but they weren’t in fighting mood, they were too tired, too hurt for that.
    ‘All right. But you’re only getting the cheap stuff – watered. And leave my barmaid alone, she’s lazy enough without you lot distracting her.’
    Theodora heard the same everywhere they went, all morning and well into the afternoon. Through the main markets, along the full length of the Mese, in the elegant porticoed shops, inthe bar where they finally decided to eat, against the advice of Armeneus, who was worried they’d be noticed if they stopped for any length of time.
    ‘You should have let me buy something for Mariam from the street stalls,’ he said, ignoring Mariam’s small sound of protest; she was not keen to be used in Armeneus’ argument with her mistress.
    Theodora waved away his concern, ‘Street food would turn a Palace-fed stomach in no time. We’ll sit. The customers are drinking, we’re eating, you know who’ll be doing the talking.’
    Theodora winked at Mariam and headed to the back of the room, taking a seat before Armeneus could stop her.
    All around they eavesdropped on anger. Even among the drunk old men at the bar, the usual apathy was tempered