Count Belisarius

My mistress reported my success to Theodora, who took into her confidence Narses (now on bad terms with Cappadocian John) and Marccllus, the Commander of the Imperial Guards. Narses and Marcellus went to Rufinianae in disguise, with a party of soldiers; and by the agreed hour were at their posts in the orchard – some of them concealed behind a cistern and others among the boughs of the applc-trees. They say that Justinian had got wind that something was astir, but that it was reported to him as a genuine plot against the Throne; and that he sent this message to Cappadocian John: 'We know all. Desist, or you the. Your confederate Antonina is under our displeasure.' But if it is true that Cappadocian John received this message, he must have considered it more dangerous to reply to it than to continue with the plot, and taken the reference to my mistress as a clear proof of her sincerity. However it was, when Cappadocian John slipped out of the city with a party of armed attendants to keep his appointment that night, he had made up his mind to accompany her to Daras.

It was pitch dark in the orchard, and my teeth were chattering with apprehension as I stood waiting beside my mistress Antonina, thinking how much was at stake. Like her, I was wearing a mail shirt under my cloak. At midnight a glove came flying over the garden-gate; I threw it back – the agreed signal. John was admitted with his twelve Cappadocian guards.

He and my mistress clasped hands like true conspirators, and at once he began cursing Justinian for a monster and a tyrant and a coward; it was not necessary for her to commit herself at all. And it is a curious thing that, as he raved on, it suddenly came to my mistress that the mysterious superintendent of police who had spoken to her in the church that day long ago, as she was on her way to Blachcrnae from the Palace, had been John himself in disguise; for he now happened to mispronounce an uncommon Greek word in just the same way that the other man had.

She could not help laughing at this. Cappadocian John paused, suspicious at once, and began to look about him. Then Narses and Marcellus sprang from their ambuscade with a shout, and a fierce fight began. My mistress, to keep up the farce, cried out: 'Oh, Oh, we are betrayed,' and pretended to struggle with Narses. I ran off. Marcellus was struck down and seriously wounded in the neck before the twelve Cappadocians were overpowered. In the confusion their master climbed over a wall and escaped.

If the foolish man had ridden straight back to the Palace and reported to Justinian that he had gone to Rufinianae on Justinian's own behalf, intending to trick Antonina into a public confession of her treachery, he might have been able to turn the tables on her. Instead, he grew panic-stricken and took sanctuary in St Irene's Church, so that when at dawn Theodora and Narses denounced him to Justinian there was no possible conclusion but that he was guilty.

This church of St Irene's, burned down during the Victory Riots, had been magnificently rebuilt by Justinian, and it was a sanctuary that he would never have ventured to violate. So Cappadocian John suffered no more severe punishment than the confiscation of all his estates and – strange proceeding – a condemnation to take holy orders!

Cappadocian John became a priest much against his will, for he was thus debarred by law from ever again holding secular office. But the old prophecy was fulfilled. The Palace Guards put on him the robe of Augustus – that is to say the priestly robe of an archdeacon who had just died, whose name happened to be Augustus; and there was great rejoicing in the Palace, where he was much hated. He was sent from St Irene s to a church at Cyzicus, a trading city on the Asiatic shore of the Sea of Marmora. Justinian was vexed, not so much that Cappadocian John had attempted to betray him as that Theodora was thus so triumphantly justified: he had always refused to believe her when she denounced John as a traitor. To spite her, he subsequently restored most of John's fortune to him, in the name of Christian charity; John lived in peace and security at Cyzicus for two or three years more. But Justinian could not thwart Theodora's resolve to harry her enemy. The Bishop of Cyzicus, under whose authority Cappadocian John had come, was informed by her that the new priest must not be allowed to live an easy life. John was therefore kept to a scrupulously exact routine; which irked him greatly.