It was not hard to imagine how these would be perceived in a written account. If Justinian could be sensitive then that applied tenfold to his wife, who was ever on the outlook for a slight.
‘Every letter.’
Flavius knew he should shout at the man, tell him he had no right to open private letters and that he was misreading that which he had sneakily perused, no doubt fuelled by his own jealousies. Procopius was talking of the woman to whom he was married, a person who deserved his loyalty. Yet …!
‘Explain everything, leave nothing out.’
Now Procopius was definitely close to tears. The deep nod was as much seeking to disguise his discomfort as to acknowledge the truth of what he was saying, for he must know that part of the mental world his employer had built for himself he had just forced him to collapse. Yet even he could not see matters as Flavius could. Procopius had just told him he was married to a spy and that it might have been the intention that she fulfil that role from the day they had met.
If it had felt bad before he knew, it was much worse after. Right now he was going to have to go and spend time with Antonina and he had no idea how he was going to cope.
‘I made copies of some of the letters.’
‘Bring them to me in the morning.’
The look of relief on the face of Procopius was obvious and it made Flavius want to slap him. He was clearly thinking that in his long tussle with Antonina he had emerged the winner. It was a stony face that passed the secretary and there was no bidding of goodnight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Flavius did not go directly to the apartments he shared with Antonina, he went to walk the battlements of the citadel that overlooked the packed harbour of Carthage. This was normally a view that brought a certain amount of contentment, it being busy by day and the place where the locals, and he assumed his soldiers, took their ease by night, just as they and he had done in the dockside taverns of Constantinople.
There were no thoughts of that nature now; his mind was in turmoil and that allowed his imagination to go in so many directions it was hard to control. It seemed he was reprising every conversation he had ever had with his wife from the day they met, and not just talk; he was thrown back to the dinners arranged by Theodora. Had they been deliberately thrown together, had their whole relationship been engineered by the woman Antonina was writing to about him?
From time to time he castigated himself as an ingrate; he had only the word of Procopius that such reflections were required but his secretary had not lacked confidence in his assertions and had mentioned the copies he had made. Then he was calling upon himself to wait! How could he know they were genuine? Antonina was always hinting that Procopius carried a torch for him, so was this whole thing being got up by jealousy?
It was dark now, the stars winking to match the oil lamps that illuminated the occupied ships’ cabins as well as the signs and doorways of the watering holes that lined the quays. How he longed to go there, to drink wine and think, maybe even to talk of things not to do with his responsibilities as a proconsul or his marriage, but that was clearly impossible.
As soon as he moved he would be surrounded by a section of armed soldiers from his comitatus. Everywhere he went outside these walls he was guarded, on the very good grounds that it was unsafe not to be in a city where no amount of peaceful intention would satisfy everyone. The thought could not be avoided: perhaps the greater threat to his being was within. Aware that he could not walk the parapet forever, that Antonina would be waiting to dine, he reluctantly made his way to their public apartments.
The noise alerted him to the presence of others and at first he felt a flash of anger that his wife arranged entertainments without ever bothering to consult him. How many times had he had to go back to the place where he oversaw the running of the province because his own audience chamber was full of her guests and he needed peace to work?
That anger abated; tonight what was happening would suit him for he dreaded a private conversation. Flavius held himself to be no good at subterfuge and in moments of self-regard, quickly beaten down as showing too much conceit, he was proud of his honesty. If he had to lie sometimes he took no pleasure in it and he was a soldier, occasionally finding it necessary to deceive his inferior commanders in order to ensure he beat his enemies. Tonight he would require the skills of Justinian to avoid an indulgence in recrimination.
‘Husband, wherever have you been?’ Antonina cried as he entered. ‘I have sent the food back to the kitchens three times.’
Did his eyes give him away? Was his look a glare not a smile? It was telling that he could not be sure that the muscles of his face conformed to the needs of his mind but she had turned away from questioning him to a humorous berating of her guests for their inability to take the burden of running North Africa off her poor husband’s shoulders.
‘Do not blame us, Lady, Belisarius takes too much to himself and does not permit us to ease his encumbrances.’
The words with which he replied seemed to be coming from within another head. It was Valerianus who had spoken and when thinking on the acts of those two tortured tribunes his name had arisen as a possible instigator.
‘In the time it takes me to explain what needs to be done it can be completed.’
‘He does not trust us, Lady Antonina.’
Said in jest, those words could not but jar and Flavius had to bite his tongue to avoid an angry response as well as struggle to say something appropriate. ‘What a poor general I am, keeping my troops from the trough.’
The faces swam before him, familiar all of them, officers of his comitatus, high-ranking soldiers and the bureaucrats needed to keep an army in the field and now to carry out the mundane work of administration. They looked like strangers, given he was seeking a culprit.
‘I sense by that expression it is you that needs food, Flavius,’ Antonina said, this before once more turning to her guests. ‘I have never met his like when it comes to hunger, indifferent one moment, ravenous the next. Come sit.’
Flavius did as he was bid while she ordered that the food be returned. Her hand reached out to caress the back of his and he was aware of not responding as he normally did, though gratefully Antonina did not seem to notice, she being too busy playing the hostess. This he knew was her element just as soldiering was his. Could it be that her actions, always assuming they were true, were more ingenuous than driven by wickedness?
The food helped and so did the hubbub of talk, allowing Flavius to hide behind consumption and occasional agreement with some point made, or a smile at a sally from one of her guests good enough to make others, well supplied with wine, laugh. As a place to hide, such a gathering was perfect and it had the added attraction of distraction from depressing cogitations. By the time the evening ended and those invited were taking their leave, Flavius could feel he had carried off a difficult feat reasonably well.
He had not fooled his wife who waited until the servants had cleared the main room and they were on their way to their private rooms and their bedchamber before she asked him what was amiss, a question that had the oil lamp he was carrying quiver.
‘Wrong? There is nothing wrong.’ He managed a false chuckle. ‘Except there is too much to do and no hours in the day to complete it.’
She took his arm and used it to stop him, which spun Flavius round to look her in the eye. ‘Flavius, do not seek to play with me.’
All he could do was repeat the word. ‘Play?’
Antonina slowly shook her head in the way a woman does when what she is being presented with makes no sense. ‘Something is troubling you and if our other guests did not notice, though I cannot see how they failed to, I certainly did. It was as if you were elsewhere tonight.’