The Sheen of the Silk

chapter 29-30
Twenty-nine

ANNA ENTERED ZOE'S ROOM EXPECTING TO FIND HER ill and was surprised when Zoe walked toward her with all the grace and vitality of a woman on the verge of a huge endeavor.

"I am obliged you came so quickly," she said to Anna, regarding her with a slight smile. "Cyril Choniates is very ill indeed. He is a man I used to know, before his banishment, and for whom I had the greatest admiration."

She regarded Anna with a sudden solemnity. "He needs a far better physician than his current exile affords him." She frowned. "One who will disregard his sins, which I doubt are many, and anyway, sin is largely a matter of opinion. One man's virtue may be another man's vice." She looked grave. "Anastasius, you can treat him with herbs and tinctures, medicines which will actually help his illness, or at the very least, if he is ill unto death, ease his distress. He deserves that. Do you take deserving into account?"

"No," Anna replied with a faint gleam of humor herself. "You know that. As you say, it is often only a point of view anyway. I despise hypocrisy, which would place me against half of the most pious people I know."

Zoe laughed. "Your frankness could prove your undoing, Anastasius. I advise you to watch your tongue. Hypocrites have absolutely no sense of humor at all, or they would see their own absurdity. Will you go and do what you can for Cyril Choniates?"

"Will I be allowed to?"

"I shall see to it," Zoe replied. "He is at a monastery in Bithynia. And the papal legate Bishop Niccolo Vicenze will accompany you there. He has business with Cyril, which means he will organize and pay for the travel and the lodging. That seems a good arrangement. The weather is pleasant. The journey on horseback will take you a few days, but it will not be over-arduous. You know Bithynia better than he can. You will leave tomorrow morning. There is no time to waste."

She moved slowly back across the room toward the table and smooth, comfortable chairs. "I have an herbal mixture I would like you to take for Cyril. He used to enjoy it when I knew him in the past. It is a simple restorative, but it will give him pleasure, and perhaps it will give him also an increase in strength. I will take a little myself. Perhaps you would like some also?"

Anna hesitated.

"As you please," Zoe said lightly, reaching for the door of a carved wooden cabinet and opening it. Inside were many drawers, each only a few inches square. She pulled one open and took out a silk pouch full of fragments of leaves, crushed so finely as to be almost a powder. "One takes it in a little wine," she said, suiting the action to the words. She poured two goblets of red wine and sprinkled a little powder into each. It dissolved almost immediately.

Her eyes met Anna's as she picked up one of them and put it to her lips. "To Cyril Choniates," she said softly, and drank.

Anna picked up the other and sipped. There was no alteration to the flavor; even the scent of the herb had vanished.

Zoe emptied her goblet and offered a honey cake, taking one herself and biting into it with pleasure.

Anna drained her goblet as well.

"Honey cake?" Zoe offered. "I recommend it. It will take the aftertaste away."

Anna accepted and ate.

Zoe gave her the rest in the silk pouch.

"Thank you." Anna took it. "I will offer it to him."

Anna made the short journey across the Bosphorus to the Nicean shore, where she found Bishop Niccolo Vicenze waiting for her somewhat impatiently. He was pacing back and forth on the quayside, his pale hair gleaming in the cool, early light, his face set in harsh lines of displeasure. He was dressed for traveling, as she was, in shorter robes and soft leather boots covering his lower legs. Even so, he managed to look severely clerical, as if his office were part of himself.

Their greeting was brief, no more than an acknowledgment, then they mounted the waiting horses and began the long journey inland through country she already knew.

The sun rose in a clear sky and the day was warm with only the slightest breeze. But it was a long time since Anna had ridden a horse for more than a couple of miles, and she quickly grew both sore and tired, although Bishop Vicenze was the last person to whom she would have displayed any weakness.

She had ridden in this land before, years earlier, with Justinian. If she closed her eyes and felt the sun on her face, the strength of the animal beneath her, she could imagine it was he riding ahead of her.

But it was Vicenze who was there now along the track between the bracken, the wild blackberries, and the gorse, and he shared nothing. He never even looked back to see if she was keeping up.

It was familiar territory to her, at least to begin with. After that they followed Vicenze's guidance from a map, which appeared to be perfect. It was fortunate, but somehow it gave her little pleasure. She had fully expected he would be infallible in such technical skills. Nevertheless, she thanked him, because she did not wish to be at fault in courtesy. It would be a sign of weakness, and although he was a priest, she sensed no mercy in him.

They arrived at the massive, fortresslike monastery after dark, on the third day, having found wayside lodging each night.

They were made welcome. Zoe's messenger had arrived and left before them, and Anna at least was eagerly awaited. As soon as she had been given the barest food and water, and had washed her hands and face from the dust of the journey, she was taken to see Cyril.

With gratitude and anxiety, a young monk took her along the silent corridors to Cyril's cool stone cell. It was a simple room, no more than five paces by five, the walls bare except for a large crucifix. He lay on a narrow cot, pale-faced and exhausted from the pain in his chest and entire abdominal area. That was not unusual with a long-term fever. The normal functions do not occur, and pain is natural.

She greeted him gently, introducing herself and expressing sorrow for his illness. He was not an old man as she considered age, certainly not over seventy, but his body was wasted from years of self-denial and now also from illness. His hair was thin and white and his face sunken; his skin felt like old paper to her touch.

She asked him the usual questions and heard the answers she had expected. She had brought herbs that were pleasant tasting but purgative. To begin with, what she wanted most was to give him some ease, a better chance to sleep for a length of time, and to restore the balance of fluid in his body.

"Drink as much as you can of this I have brewed for you," she told him. "It will ease your pain considerably. I shall make a jug full every few hours, and bring it to you. By tomorrow this time, you will be less distressed." She hoped that was true, but belief was a large part of recovery, Christian or not.

"It would be more comfortable if you were to be attended by someone you know well," she said to him. "But I shall be as close by as your brethren will permit, and will come at a moment's notice if you call."

"Should I fast?" he inquired anxiously. "With Brother Thomas's help I will pray. I have already confessed my sins and received absolution."

"Prayer is always good," she agreed. "But be brief. Do not weary God with what He already knows. And no, do not fast," she added. "Your spirit is strong enough. In order to continue in service to God and man, you need to regain the strength of your body. Take a little wine, mixed with water, and honey if you wish."

"I abstain from wine." He shook his head fractionally.

"It's not important." She smiled at him. "Now I shall make the herbal infusion for you, and come back with it."

"Thank you, Brother Anastasius," he said weakly. "God be with you."

She sat up most of the night with him. He was feverish and restless, and she began to fear she would not be able to save him. By morning he was very weak, and she found it difficult to persuade him to drink the stronger herbs she had prepared. He was in much distress, and she became concerned that he had an internal obstruction rather than merely the natural effects of fever and ill diet. She increased the strength of the purgative, feeling she had little to lose. This time she added sandalwood for the liver, aloeswood to treat blockage in the liver and urinary system, and again more calamint.

By nightfall he was in even greater distress, but he had passed a large amount of water and seemed less pinched and his eyes less sunken.

Sometime in the middle of the night, the monk who was with him reported to her that Cyril had passed a quantity of waste and seemed relieved in his pain. He was now asleep.

She did not disturb him in the morning but looked at him closely and felt his brow. He was no more than warm, and he stirred vaguely at her touch without wakening. She allowed herself to hope he might recover.

Later in the day, Vicenze insisted on obtaining his audience. As far as the monks were concerned, it was he who had brought the physician under whose care Cyril had begun to recover, even though he was still desperately weak. In gratitude, the abbot could not refuse. Anna was kept from the room.

When finally she was allowed in again, Cyril was exhausted and he looked as if his fever were returning. The young monk who had attended him all through his illness looked anxiously at Anna but did not speak.

"I will not," Cyril said hoarsely. "Even if it costs me my life. I will not sign a paper which swears away my faith and leads my people into apostasy." He gulped, his eyes fixed on Anna's face, frightened and stubborn. "If I do, I will lose my soul. You understand that, don't you, Anastasius?"

"I am not always sure what is right," she began slowly, choosing her words and watching his eyes. "But of course, like everyone else, I have thought very hard about loyalty to our faith, and also the terrible danger of the Latin crusaders storming the city again. They will kill and burn everything in their path. We have a duty to the lives of the people who trust us to care for them, and for those they love, their children, their wives, and their mothers. I have heard stories of the sack in 1204, of a child who watched her mother raped and murdered in front of her..."

He winced and the tears filled his eyes, rolling down his tired cheeks.

"But to deny our faith is a destruction even worse," she went on, hating herself for distressing him. "If you have the light of the Holy Spirit of God to tell you what is right, then you can never deny it, whatever the cost. Denial is not merely death, it is hell."

He nodded slowly. "You are wise, Anastasius. Wiser, I think, than some of my own brethren. Certainly wiser than that cold-hearted priest from Rome." He smiled weakly, a flash of light in his eyes. "The only wisdom is to trust God." He made the sign of the cross, conspicuously in the Orthodox way, then lay back on his pillows and drifted into sleep, a slight smile still on his face.

The next time she went to him, he was awake and feverish, his fingers trembling so it was difficult to hold the cup with the herbal infusion in it. She had to put her own hands around his to help him. This was the time to offer Zoe's restorative. Normally she would not give any herbs but those she had brought and mixed herself, but she had already tried everything else she had.

She told him she was going to mix something more, sent for him by Zoe Chrysaphes, and left him with the young monk while she did so. When she returned he looked tired, and she offered him the new drink.

"It may be bitter," she warned. "I drank some myself, as did Zoe, but we took it with wine, and I know you do not wish for that."

He shook his head. "No wine." He reached for the cup, and she gave it to him. He drank and pulled his mouth into a grimace. "It's most unpleasant," he said ruefully. "For once I wish I-" He stopped abruptly, his face pale, his eyes wide. He gasped and clutched at his throat, struggling for breath.

"It's poison!" the young monk cried out in terror. "You've poisoned him!" He scrambled to his feet and ran to the door. "Help! Help! Cyril is poisoned! Come quickly!"

There were footsteps clattering along the corridor, loud with panic. The young monk was still shouting. In front of her Cyril was gasping, his eyes wild, his skin drained of even the last vestige of color and turning blue as he choked.

But she herself had drunk exactly the same! She had seen Zoe take it out of the same silk purse, and she had given Cyril no more than a pinch. She had not tasted bitterness, but then she had taken it with wine and immediately after had cakes with honey.

Was that it? Wine? Did Zoe know Cyril did not drink it?

She leapt up and ran to the door. "Wine!" she shouted almost into the face of the monk only feet away from her. "Get me wine and honey now! This second, for his life!"

"You poisoned him!" the monk accused, his face contorted with loathing.

"Not I!" She said the first thing that would make any sense. "The Roman! Don't stand there like a fool, fetch wine and honey, or do you want him dead?"

That accusation moved him. He swiveled on his heel and ran back down the corridor, his sandals slapping on the stone.

She waited in an agony of fear, dashing back into the room to hold Cyril up in her arms, trying to ease his breathing. His throat had closed up and his chest heaved with the effort to fill his lungs. It seemed to be endless, one long, dreadful breath after another, rasping in pain.

At last the monk returned, followed by another. They had wine and honey. She snatched it from them and mixed the two together, not caring a bit how they tasted, and held it to Cyril's lips.

"Drink!" she commanded. "I don't care how hard it is, drink! Your life depends on it." She tried to pry his jaws apart and force it into his mouth. He was barely breathing at all now, his eyes rolled back into his head. "Hold him!" she ordered the nearest monk. "Do it!"

He obeyed, shivering with terror.

With two hands she was more able to force his lips apart and his head back. A little of the liquid went into his mouth, and he swallowed it convulsively. He gagged, then gulped again, and it went down. She gave him more, and more. Infinitely slowly his throat eased, his breathing became less labored, and at last when he focused his eyes the panic had died out of them.

"Enough," he said hoarsely. "A moment and I will take it all, I promise."

She laid him back gently and sank to her knees on the hard floor, the prayer of gratitude more audible than she had intended. It was not just for Cyril's life, but perhaps for her own.

"Explain," the abbot demanded when she stood before him in his beautiful, sparse office later that evening. He was gaunt, his face lined with anxiety and the long battle against grief. He deserved the truth, absolute and not diminished or twisted by emotion. But he also did not deserve her burden of suspicion that could not be proved. She had had time to weigh what she should tell him.

"Zoe Chrysaphes gave me an herb to offer to Cyril," she answered. "She told me it was a restorative. She emptied some of it into her own wine goblet, and then into mine, and we both drank it with no ill effects. She gave me the pouch of herbs and I took it. It was from that that I mixed an infusion for Cyril."

The abbot frowned. "That does not seem possible."

"Not until I remembered that Zoe and I drank the herbs mixed with wine, and Cyril took his with water," she explained. "Also we ate honey cakes. She said it prevented an aftertaste. Those were the only differences I knew, so I immediately sent for wine and honey, and forced Cyril to take them. He began to recover. I assume it was the wine, and that Zoe Chrysaphes had never taken it with water, and did not know of its hideously different effect." That of course was a lie, but neither of them could prove it, nor could they afford the truth.

"I see," he said slowly. "And what of the Roman? What part has he in this?"

"None that I know," she said. Again it was a lie. If he had not wished to persuade Cyril to sign the addendum, and Zoe had not feared that he might succeed, then Cyril would simply have died quietly here in this monastery, and public opinion regarding the union would have been unaffected. Zoe would choose that before his surrender. Anna's visit had offered her the chance to make certain of Cyril's refusal, or, if at the worst he had signed, then Anna and Vicenze would be blamed for his murder and the document accounted worthless.

But the abbot did not need to know that.

"We are grateful for your quick thought in saving him," he said gravely. "Perhaps you will tell Zoe Chrysaphes that?"

"I will convey whatever message you wish," she replied.

"Thank you," the abbot said gravely. "One of the brothers told me you are from Nicea. Is that correct?"

"Yes. I grew up a little distance from here."

He smiled, a slight, sad gesture, but it reached his eyes with a startling tenderness. "One of our brethren does not ever leave here. There was a man who visited him, but he has not been lately. I think it would be a great kindness if you would spend an hour with Brother John." He barely made it a question.

Anna did not hesitate. "Of course. It would be my pleasure."

"Thank you," the abbot said again. "I shall take you." And without hesitation he led her out of the room, along a narrow, slightly echoing passage and through a huge carved door studded with brass, then up a steep and winding stairway. He stopped on a small landing at the top, high over the rest of the vast building. He knocked at the only door, and at the word of command, he opened it and went in ahead of Anna, holding it for her to follow.

"Brother John," he said quietly, "Brother Cyril has been ill and a physician has come from Constantinople to help him. He has done well, and will shortly leave, but he is from Nicea, and I thought you might like to speak with him for a while first. His name is Anastasius. He reminds me somewhat of the man who used to come to see you three or four years ago."

Anna looked at the young man who rose slowly from the hard wooden chair and thought how odd it was for the abbot to describe her when she was only a step behind him. Then she saw the man's face, thin and worn with pain and yet startlingly gentle. He was no more than in his twenties, but the thing that made her heart beat wildly so the blood thundered in her head and her mouth went dry was that he had no eyes. The ugly sockets were sunken, giving his face a hollow, mutilated look. With a shock like fire, she knew who he was-this was John Lascaris, whose eyes had been put out by Michael Palaeologus so he could not succeed to the throne. No wonder she reminded the abbot of the man who had come to see him-it could only be Justinian.

She choked on her own breath as it caught in her throat. "Brother John...," she began. How desperately she wanted to tell him that she too was a Lascaris, Zarides was merely her married name, but of course that was impossible.

He nodded slowly, an instant of surprise in his expression because the abbot had not told him she was a eunuch, and her voice betrayed her. "Come in," he invited. "Please sit down. I believe there is another chair."

"Yes, thank you," she accepted. This man was not only the rightful emperor, he was now held by many to be a saint, a man of holiness so close to God as to be capable of calling upon Him for miracles. But it was Justinian's time with him that filled her mind.

"The Father Abbot told me that you had a friend who came to visit you some years ago, a man from Nicea...," she began.

John's face lit with pleasure. "Ah, yes. What a fire there was in him to learn. He was truly seeking God."

"He sounds like a fine person," she said carefully. "Would that more of us were seeking, rather than assuming we already know."

He smiled, a sudden, radiant warmth in his sightless face. "You sound like him," he said simply. "But perhaps a little wiser. You already begin to know how vast is our capacity yet to learn, and what we do not know is without end."

"Is that heaven?" she asked impulsively. "Is it heaven to learn endlessly, and to love?" she explained herself. "Is that what he was looking for?"

"You care about him," he said gently. It was not entirely a question, more a realization. "A friend? A kinsman? He did not have a brother, he said so, but a sister. He said she was a physician, a very gifted one."

She was glad he could not see her sudden tears.

Justinian had spoken of her, even here with John Lascaris. She swallowed the tightness in her throat. "A kinsman," she replied, needing to tell him as much truth as she could and claim the tie that was so close inside her. "But distant."

"He was a Lascaris," he said softly, rolling the name in his mouth as if the sound of it were sweet. "He doesn't come anymore. I fear he was involved in something dangerous. He spoke of Michael Palaeologus, and a union with Rome, and how he wanted to save the city without either the bloodshed of war or the corruption of betrayal, but it would be almost infinitely difficult." John Lascaris frowned, the lines puckering his forehead and deepening the other lines of pain in his face. "Something happened to him, didn't it?"

There was no possibility of lying. "Yes, but I don't know what it truly was. I am trying to find out. Bessarion Comnenos was murdered, and Justinian was implicated in helping the man who did it. He is in exile in Judea."

John let out his breath in a sigh. It carried sorrow and infinite weariness. "I'm sorry. If he could have anything to do with that, then he did not find what he was seeking. I sensed that the last time he was here. He was different. It was in his voice. A disillusion."

"Disillusion?" she asked, leaning closer to him. "With the Church... or something else?"

"My dear friend," John said, shaking his head a fraction from side to side. "Justinian was looking for answers to questions of purpose and loneliness. He wanted reasons that made sense to our incomplete grasp. He would have been a better emperor himself than Bessarion Comnenos, and I think he knew that. But the throne would not have made him a better man. I'm not sure if he understood that also."

Emperor! Justinian? He must have misunderstood. "But he loved the Church," she insisted. "He would have fought for it!"

"Oh yes," he agreed. "He hungered to belong to it, to preserve its place, its rituals, its beauty, and above all its identity."

A new idea flared up in her mind. "Enough to die for it?"

"I cannot answer that," John replied. "No man knows what he will die for until the moment comes. Do you know what you would die for, Anastasius?"

She was taken aback. She had no answer.

He smiled. "What do you want of God? And what do you believe He wants of you? I asked Justinian that, and he did not answer me. I think he did not yet know what he believed."

"You said he loved the Church," she said softly. "Why the Orthodox, and not the Roman? They have beauty, too, and faith, and ritual. What did he believe in that he was willing to pay so much to keep it?"

"We love a familiar path," John said simply. "None of us like to be told what to think, what to do, by a stranger imposing his will from another land in another tongue."

"Is that all?"

"It is a great deal," he said with a small, weary smile. "There are not many certainties in life, not much that does not change, wither, deceive, or disappoint at some time or other. The sanctities of the Church are the only things I know of. Are not these things worth living or dying for?"

"Yes," she said immediately. "Did he find that... at least that hope?"

"I don't know," he answered, his voice sad and very lonely. "But I miss him." He looked tired, the strength gone from his voice, the sunken eye sockets more deeply shadowed.

"I am doing what I can to prove he was wrongly accused," she said impulsively. "If I succeed, they will have to pardon him and he will return."

"A cousin of a cousin?" He smiled at her.

"And a friend," she added. "I don't wish to tire you." She rose, frightened now in case she was tempted into betraying herself irreparably.

He lifted his hand in the old blessing. "May God light your path in the darkness, and comfort your aloneness in the cold of the night, Anna Lascaris."

The heat washed up her in a wave like fire, yet it was sweet, in spite of all the fear there should have been. He knew her; he had used her own name. For a long, terrible, wonderful moment, she was herself.

She leaned forward and touched his hand softly, a totally feminine gesture. Then she turned and walked to the door. The instant she was beyond it, she would resume her role.

When she had made the long journey back to Constantinople, saying nothing but the few civil words necessary to Vicenze, she called upon Zoe.

Anna stood in the same room as always, with its great golden cross on the wall and its magnificent view, and faced Zoe with a smile, tasting the moment.

"Were you able to save the good Cyril?" Zoe asked, her topaz eyes hard and too bright to hide her eagerness or the strange, powerful emotions warring inside her.

"Yes indeed," she replied levelly. "He may live for many years yet."

There was a flicker in Zoe's eyes. "And the legate Vicenze-did he succeed in his purpose?"

Anna raised her eyebrows. "His purpose?"

"He did not go merely to accompany you!" Zoe said, keeping the temper out of her voice with difficulty.

"Oh, he had an audience with Cyril," Anna replied quite casually. "Of course I was not present. Poor Cyril was taken ill after that, and all my attention was bent on treating him."

Zoe's anger burned behind her glittering gaze. For the first time, she had been balked by Anna. Suddenly they met as equals.

Anna smiled. "That was when I gave Cyril the herbs that you so thoughtfully provided."

Zoe took a deep breath and let it out slowly. In that moment something changed in her, a knowledge of having been confounded. "And they helped?" she asked, knowing the answer already.

"Not at first," Anna told her. "In fact, the effect was most unpleasant. I quite feared for his life. Then I remembered that when you and I had taken them, we did so with wine. It made all the difference." She smiled, meeting Zoe's eyes unflinchingly. "I am grateful to you for your foresight. I explained to the abbot exactly what had happened. I would not wish such a holy man to imagine you had attempted to poison poor Cyril. That would be fearful."

Zoe's expression froze like white marble, so tightly controlled that neither fury nor relief showed. Then something quite remarkable was there, just for a second, but long enough that Anna was perfectly certain of what it was-admiration.

"How kind of you," Zoe said in a low voice. "I shall not forget it."

Thirty

VICENZE RETURNED TO THE HOUSE IN A VICIOUS TEMPER.

"How was your journey to Bithynia?" Palombara asked.

"Pointless," Vicenze snapped. "I went only because it was my holy duty to try." He looked at Palombara malevolently, faintly suspicious as to how much he might know or guess. "One of us must do something to win over these obdurate people, or give them room to condemn themselves utterly."

"So that whatever we do, we are justified." Palombara was surprised at how bitter he sounded.

"Exactly," Vicenze agreed. "It was a last attempt."

"Last?"

Vicenze's eyebrows rose and there was a gleam of satisfaction in his cold eyes. "Next week we return to Rome. Had you forgotten?"

"Of course not," Palombara told him. Actually, he had thought it was a little longer than that. He had been considering with some anxiety exactly what he would report to the pope, in what terms he would explain the nature of their failure to gain any more support for the agreement. He had come to the point where he believed that Michael could carry his people sufficiently for the appearance of union with Rome and that the fact of a degree of independence could be disguised. People would always believe differently from one place to another, one social class, one degree of wealth or education or emotional need to another. But he did not think the pope would be well pleased with that. It was an eminently practical answer, but it was not a political victory.