Read Online The Purple Shroud: A Novel of Empress Theodora by Stella Duffy - Free Book Online

have to experience what we had to. Better yet if she gives birth to a boy.’
    ‘Any child born in the Palace would never have to go through what we did.’
    ‘A girl would still need to be married off. We give ourselves up for work or we do it for marriage. Either way, it’s still our work.’
    Sophia went to sit beside her old friend. ‘Theodora, not all women who marry hate to fuck. Not all women who fuck for coin hate to fuck. You didn’t. I know for a fact you enjoyed our work sometimes.’
    ‘Sometimes. Other times I hated it.’
    ‘And you love being Empress all the time?’ Theodora didn’t answer and Sophia continued, ‘I know you had your glorious conversion in the desert, but you can’t tell me you’ve entirely forgotten that you did like it, our work, sometimes. And you’ve told me, much as I’ve asked you not to,’ Sophia mocked, screwing up her face, ‘how utterly you enjoy it with the Emperor.’
    Theodora laughed and shook her head at her friend. ‘No,’ she sighed, ‘you know I’m not talking about sex anyway, not really; it’s about how it is for girls, our girls.’
    Sophia helped herself to a glass of wine from Theodora’s table. ‘You still want to save them all? Mariam wasn’t enough for you?’
    ‘Nowhere near enough.’
    ‘Then what’s your plan? You’re Augusta, remember? You can do anything you like.’
    ‘I wish…’
    ‘You can do a damn sight more than wish,’ Sophia talkedover her mistress, ‘if you want to save them all, then save them all. You’ve been going on about setting up this convent or house or whatever it is you want to make for the old whores…’
    ‘I will.’
    ‘When? Last winter was dreadful, signs are we have a worse one coming. Do it, make it happen. Only don’t kid yourself they’re all going to want it.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘You find being cooped up here hard enough, and this is a palace – the Palace. Don’t imagine every whore you scoop off the street will thank you. Some will, the older ones probably. The punters have been demanding cuts in the whores’ fees too, there’s always a knock-on when things are tight, but there are still those who prefer life on the street.’
    ‘And old whores are the hardest to change.’
    ‘Very true – look at me!’
    They laughed and Sophia poured more wine.
    ‘Start with the young girls first, they’re not so used to the life. There’s half a dozen brothel keepers’ names I could give you right now.’
    ‘I can’t just close them down,’ Theodora replied. ‘Most of those keepers paid for the girls, they have contracts with them, they pay their taxes.’
    ‘If you buy their girls back they’ll be out of business by the morning.’
    ‘You think my household has so much?’ Theodora asked.
    ‘It’s got a damn sight more than mine.’
    ‘And if I do, where will the girls go?’
    ‘Wherever they want. Back to their vile peasant villages and even worse peasant boys no doubt, but they’ll be free of their brothel contracts and that’s a start.’
    Theodora poured herself the last of the wine, calmer now,enthused by the idea and interested in her friend’s enthusiasm. ‘And putting those half-dozen brothel keepers out of business wouldn’t do your own business any harm either.’
    Sophia finished her glass and looked at her old friend. ‘Every one of my girls has already bled at least once; none of them are children. Every one of my girls goes to a clean man, only one at a time, and gets a good share of the fee he pays. None of them is beaten, coerced, or thrown out when they get too old or find themselves pregnant. I’m proud of how I run my business.’ She paused and then nodded. ‘But yes, that Cappadocian bastard in the Treasury is making things hard for all of us. I could do with a little less competition.’
    Theodora called in eight brothel owners the next day. She knew there was no point closing down their businesses completely: the City would always want its whores