The Sheen of the Silk

chapter 31-32
Thirty-one

IT WAS ONLY DAYS AFTER THAT WHEN ANNA ATTENDED AN accident in the street. An old man had tripped and bruised himself badly. She was bending over his leg, examining it, when there was a disturbance in the crowd that had gathered, and a young priest, ashen-faced, elbowed his way through, pushing people aside roughly, calling out her name.

"Is it an emergency?" she asked without looking up. "This man has had a bad shock and needs-"

"Yes, you may already be too late." The priest reached for her arm and pulled her to her feet. "He is bleeding to death. They have torn his tongue out."

She turned to the crowd and gestured to the old man. "Take him home. Give him hot drinks and keep him wrapped up. I have to go."

She picked up her bag and allowed the priest to half drag her around the corner and up an alley to a small house where the door was open. She could hear gagging and wails of fear and distress even before she was inside.

The scene that met her was appalling. A monk knelt sprawled on the floor, blood streaming from his mouth, pooling scarlet on the tiles in front of him, covering his hands and forearms and the front of his robe. He gasped, gagged again, and more blood gushed out of him. His face was gray with pain and terror, his eyes staring. Around him three other monks stood helplessly, not knowing what to do. The man was bleeding to death in front of them.

Anna put down her bag and seized a piece of cloth from one of them, glanced at it quickly to make certain it was clean, then went to the man on the floor. Someone said his name was Nicodemus.

"I can help you," she said firmly, praying that please God she could. "I'm going to stop the bleeding, and you won't choke. You'll have to breathe through your nose. It may be difficult, but you can do it. Keep still and let me press this. It's going to hurt, but it's necessary." And before he could pull away, she put her arm around him. One of the monks suddenly grasped what she was going to do and moved forward to help. Together they held the terrified man while Anna forced his mouth open wider and placed the cloth as hard as she could on the bloody remnant of his tongue.

It must have been agony, but after the first convulsive jerk and shudder he kept as still as he could.

In a perfectly level voice she ordered the other monks, and the priest who had come for her, to fetch more clean cloths, to open her case and take out certain herbs and spirits in small vials, also her surgical needles and silk. She directed two of them to fetch water and clean up the blood from the tiles.

All the time she kept the pressure on the stump of tongue, trying desperately to prevent the man from bleeding to death, choking on blood, or suffocating because he could not draw air into his lungs.

She changed one blood-soaked cloth for another, still holding the man with her left arm. She could hear the rhythmic murmur of prayer and wished she could join in.

Finally, more than half an hour after she had begun, she pulled the cloth away slowly and judged that if she was quick, she would be able to stitch the flesh and seal off the vessels enough to remove the cloth permanently.

It was a difficult task in the wavering candlelight, and she was acutely conscious of the pain she must be causing; unlike most other patients, he could not even be given any herbs to drink to deaden the sensation. His mouth and throat were a mass of swollen scarlet flesh, terribly mutilated, but all she had time to consider was saving his life from hemorrhaging away. She worked as quickly as she could, stitching, pulling, tying, cutting, stanching again, always with too much blood and with pain almost palpable in the air.

Finally, she finished and swabbed away the remaining blood. She gently washed his face, meeting his eyes, remembering that although he would never speak again, he could hear everything. She picked up herbs to show to all of them, saying when to use them and how and in what proportions.

"And you must keep his lips and his mouth moist," she went on. "But don't touch the wound yet, especially not with water. If he will take it, give him a little honeyed wine to drink, but carefully. Don't let him choke."

"Food?" someone asked. "What can he eat?"

"Gruel," she replied. "Warm, not too hot. And soups. He will learn to chew and to swallow properly, but give him time." She hoped that was true. She had no prior experience with such a mutilation.

"Thank you," the priest who had called her said sincerely. "Your name will always be in our prayers."

She waited with them all night, watching, listening to them trying to reassure one another and find courage for what they knew lay ahead, perhaps for all of them. Nicodemus was the first, but he would not be the last.

"Who did this?" she asked, dreading the answer.

The monks glanced at one another, then at her. "We do not know who they were," one of them replied. "They had the emperor's authority, but they were led by a foreigner, a Roman priest with light-colored hair and eyes like a winter sea." He breathed in and out slowly, and his voice dropped even lower. "He had a list."

Anna felt the coldness scour through her as if strength drained away. She was wrong to have doubted Constantine, too squeamish, too cowardly of spirit to acknowledge the truth because she wanted to keep her hands clean. She was ashamed of her stupidity.

Faith called for high prices-faith in God, the light, and the hope. Crucifixion was brutal. She was sick at the thought of it, the reality of the gasping for breath, the agony through belly and loins and every sinew, the sheer terror. Why did the images soften it, as if Christ had not been flesh like everyone else, as if His searing horror had been different? The answer was obvious-to escape knowing it, because it made our own betrayal of Him easier.

Then a curious peace filled her. Se had been wrong in her judgment of Constantine, wrong, ignorant, and shallow. She was crushed with penitence. They would all have to fight, to pick up and use weapons that would hurt them as well as the enemy. But the conflict inside her had ceased, and instead there was the wide, sweet balm of assurance.

She was called again to help other monks who had been tortured, but none afflicted her with the same panic as the first one had. She did not save everyone. Sometimes all she could do was ease the agony, stay with them to be there in the last moments. It was never enough.

She hated to be thanked, to accept their gratitude even when she failed. She did not feel brave. She wanted to run away, but the nightmares she would suffer forever, if she left a dying man, would have been worse than any waking horror.

At home she tossed and turned in the night and often woke gasping, her face wet with tears, her lungs aching.

She crept out of bed and knelt in prayer: "Father, help me, teach me. Why do You let this happen? They are good men, peaceable men, trying with all their hearts and bodies, all their time every day, to serve You. Why can't You help them? Or don't You care?"

Nothing answered her but the silence, void as the night. If there were real stars, not just dreams and illusion, they were infinitely out of reach.

Once she only just escaped the emperor's men when they broke into the house, and she ran, half dragged out of the back door by others who were just as passionately against the union. They were willing to forfeit their homes and possessions to rescue the monks who still preached against it and were made martyrs for their faith.

She ran with them through the wind and rain, their feet splashing in the rivulets of water streaming along the gutters, bumping into blind walls and tripping over steps in the darkness. She was pulled along, someone else carrying her bag and her instruments. She had little idea who they were, only gratitude for their courage.

When eventually they burst into a quiet room with an old woman alone beside the fire, she saw in the torchlight that there were three of them, two men and a young woman with long, wet hair.

"You must be more careful," the woman said, gasping as she struggled to allow the breath into her lungs. "You have answered too many of these calls. They know you now."

"Why me? Who knows me?" she asked, fighting against the truth.

"Bishop Constantine," he answered. "People know you are his physician, and you have helped him with the poor."

No more was said of it. Of course it was Constantine who was behind the rescues, the medicines, the whole resistance of the mass of ordinary people. It had been he who had fought to have Justinian exiled instead of put to death for his involvement in Bessarion's murder. They were all battling for the same cause, the survival of the faith, the life, the existence of Byzantium, and the freedom to worship as they knew to be right.

She went to Constantine in the quietness of his own house, in the gallery where his favorite icon hung.

"Thank you," she said simply, standing hungry and bruised, still exhausted in body from the night's loss and flight, the whole bitter failure of it. "Thank you for all you do, for having the courage to lead us, holding the light high for us to see. I don't really know how much I care passionately for one faith over another, one creed in the nature of God and the Holy Spirit, but I know absolutely that I care for the love of humanity that Christ taught us. I know with all my heart that it is worth everything we can pay for it. It is worth living and dying for. Without it, in the end the darkness takes everything."

There was a moment's prickling silence. She realized what she had said. "If hell were not so deep that it could break your soul, then heaven could not be so high. Would we want God to lower heaven?"

She drew in her breath as he lifted his head from prayer and looked at her.

"Could he ever do that, and still be God?" she asked, although she could have answered it herself.

He said nothing, but he made the sign of the cross in the air.

It did not matter; she did not need his reply.

Thirty-two

HELENA HAD A MILD BUT EMBARRASSING AILMENT THAT she preferred Anna to treat rather than the physician she usually called.

It was the middle of the afternoon, and Simonis woke Anna from a briefly snatched rest. She was exhausted from treating the mutilated and dying, and her first instinct when Simonis told her Helena had sent for her was to refuse. How could she ever keep patience with a little irritation to the skin when men were being tortured to death?

"Bessarion's widow," Simonis said sharply, looking at Anna's face. "I know you're tired." Her voice softened, but there was still urgency in it and an edge of fear. "You haven't slept properly for weeks. But you can't afford to refuse Helena Comnena. She knew Justinian." She said his name gently. "And his friends." She did not add any more, but it hung in the air between them.

Helena received Anna in a newly painted, lush room next to her bedchamber. The murals had been redesigned, far closer to the erotic than Bessarion would have allowed. Anna hid her smile.

Helena was dressed in a loose tunic. She had an ugly rash on her arms. At first, she was frightened and polite. Then, as the herbs and advice began to take effect, she was no longer so concerned and her natural arrogance reasserted itself.

"It still hurts," Helena said sharply, pulling her arm away.

"It will hurt for a little while longer," Anna told her. "You must keep the ointment on it, and take the herbs at least twice a day."

"They're disgusting!" Helena responded, curling her lip. "Haven't you got anything that doesn't taste as if you're trying to poison me?"

"If I were trying to poison you, I would make it sweet," Anna replied with a slight smile.

Helena paled. Anna saw it and her interest sharpened. Why had Helena mentioned poison so easily? She looked away and allowed the silk of Helena's robes to fall back into a more modest position.

"Do you really have any idea what you're doing?" Helena snapped.

Anna decided on the risk. "If you are worried, I know other physicians who might suit you. And I am sure Zoe would know even more."

Helena's eyes were bright and hard, her cheeks flushed. She swallowed as if there were something rank in her throat. "I'm sorry. I spoke in haste. Your skill is quite sufficient. I am unused to pain."

Anna kept her eyes lowered in case Helena saw in them the contempt she felt. "You are right to be apprehensive. Such things, if not treated quickly, can become serious."

Helena drew in her breath with a little hiss. "Really? How quickly?"

"As you have done." Anna had exaggerated the danger. "I have another herb here which will help, but if you wish, I will stay with you, so that if it should have any ill effects in other ways, I can give you the antidote." That was an invention, but it would take time even to broach the subjects she wished to explore.

Helena gulped. "What sort of effects? Will it make me ill?"

"Faint," Anna replied, thinking of something not too distressing. "Perhaps a little hot. But it will pass quickly, if I give you the herb which counteracts it. You mustn't take it if it isn't needed. I'll stay with you."

"And charge extra, no doubt!" Helena snapped.

"For the herb, not for the time."

Helena considered for several seconds, then accepted. Anna mixed a number of herbs for her and had them steeped in hot water. It would be relaxing, good for the digestion. She soothed her conscience by telling herself she had kept her oath: If she was doing no good, at least she was doing no harm.

Helena saw Anna's eyes on the murals. "Do you like them?" she asked.

Anna drew in her breath. "I've seen nothing like them before."

"Nor in the flesh, I suppose," Helena observed with a sneer.

Anna longed to say that she had tended patients in a brothel once and seen something of the sort, but she could not afford to. "No," she said, clenching her teeth.

Helena laughed.

The servant returned with the steeped herbs in a glass.

Helena sipped it. "It's sour," she remarked. She looked at Anna over the top of the glass.

Anna could not afford to delay any longer. "You should look after yourself," she said, trying to invest her expression with concern. "You have suffered a good deal." She realized with a jolt that for all she knew, that could be true.

Helena struggled to mask her surprise, not entirely successfully. "My husband was murdered. Of course it is not easy."

As Anna stood looking at her, she knew it was perfectly possible Helena had actually assisted in his murder, but she hid her disgust behind a pretense of anxiety. "Surely it was worse than that? Was he not killed by men you had supposed to be his friends, and yours?"

"Yes," Helena said slowly. "I had thought so."

"I'm sorry," Anna murmured. "I cannot imagine what it must have been like for you."

"Of course you can't," Helena agreed, a shadow across her face that might have been contempt or only a movement of the light. "Justinian was in love with me, you know?"

Anna gulped. "Really? I had heard it was Antoninus, but perhaps I misunderstood. It was only gossip."

Helena did not move. "No," she denied. "Antoninus admired me, perhaps, but that is hardly love, is it?"

"I don't know," Anna lied.

Helena smiled. "It isn't. It is a hunger. Or don't you know what I mean?" She turned and looked at Anna appraisingly. "It was a euphemism for lust, Anastasius."

Anna lowered her eyes to prevent Helena from reading them.

"Do I embarrass you?" Helena asked with obvious pleasure.

Anna ached to fight back, to blaze at her that no, she didn't, she revolted her with greed, manipulation, and lies. But she could not afford to.

"I do embarrass you," Helena concluded happily. "But you didn't know Antoninus. He was handsome, in a fashion," she continued. "But he had not the depth of character of Justinian. He was extraordinary..." She let it hang in the air, the suggestion infinite.

"Were they friends?" Anna asked.

"Oh yes, in many things," Helena replied. "But Antoninus liked parties, drinking, games, horses, that sort of thing. He was a good friend of Andronicus, the emperor's son-although perhaps not as much as Esaias. Justinian was an excellent rider, too, but he had more intelligence. He read all sorts of things. He liked architecture, mosaics, philosophy, things that were beautiful." Regret touched her face, only momentarily, but it was deep.

Anna was touched by it also, with pity, and with a closeness so in that instant she cared for Helena as if they had been one in grief, and perhaps they were.

Then the mood shattered, before she was ready for it.

"You're right," Helena said huskily. "I have suffered far more than most people realize. You must take care of me. Don't look so crushed. You're a good physician."

Anna forced her attention back to the present. "I didn't know that Justinian loved you," she said, hearing her own voice artificial in her ears. She remembered Constantine saying how Justinian had been revolted by Helena's advances and rebuffed her. Surely that was the truth? "You must miss him," Anna added.

"I do," Helena said with a tight, gleaming smile, unreadable except as a mask for something else. Anna was a servant and a eunuch; why should Helena show her anything she did not have to?

"And your husband, too," Anna added judiciously.

Helena shrugged. "He was a bore. He was always talking about religion and politics. Away with the damn bishop half the time."

"Constantine?" Anna said in surprise.

"Of course Constantine," Helena snapped. She looked at the glass in her hand. "This is disgusting, but it doesn't make me feel ill. You don't need to stay," she dismissed her. "Come again in three days. I'll pay you then."

When Anna returned, she had been with Helena only ten minutes when another visitor was announced, Eulogia Mouzakios. Helena had little choice but either to invite her in as soon as she was dressed again or to allow Eulogia to know that she had a physician present-or, more dangerous than that, some other caller she did not wish her to meet.

"If you dare tell her what you came to treat me for, I shall see you never work again," she snarled. "Do you understand me?"

"Say you have sprained your ankle," Anna advised. "She will smell the unguent in the air. I will not contradict you."

Helena straightened her tunic. She did not bother to answer.

Eulogia came in a few moments later, bearing a gift of honeyed fruit. She was an elegant woman, fair-haired and a little thin, several inches taller than Helena. There was a jolting familiarity about her that froze Anna in sudden confusion. She searched her mind for the name and found nothing.

"My physician," Helena said, waving an arm at Anna after she had greeted her guest. "Anastasius." She gave a slight smile, infinitely condescending. She was saying the name so Eulogia would recognize Anna instantly as a eunuch, a womanish creature with a man's name and no gender at all.

Eulogia stared at Anna for a moment, then looked away, entering conversation with Helena as if Anna had been a servant.

In that instant, Anna recognized her. Eulogia was Catalina's sister. They had met several times in Nicea years ago, when Catalina was alive. No wonder Eulogia had been disturbed by memory at first.

The sweat broke out on Anna's skin, and her breath was shaky, her hands trembling. She must watch every gesture. Nothing must remind Eulogia of Justinian's sister.

She had not finished prescribing for Helena, who would be angry if she left. She was imprisoned here by obligation and circumstance.

Helena sensed her discomfort and smiled. She turned to Eulogia. "Have some wine, and figs. These are very good, very quickly dried to produce excellent humors. It's kind of you to call."

She ordered the servant to bring refreshments, including a glass for Anna. It seemed to amuse her.

Anna considered refusing. Eulogia was watching her, the puzzled look in her face again. Anna dared not let Helena believe she was afraid of staying. "Thank you," she accepted, smiling back. "I'll have time to prepare your... herbs."

"Ointment!" Helena snapped, then blushed, aware she might have made a mistake. "I have a sprain," she said to Eulogia.

Eulogia nodded and offered her sympathy. They moved to sit together, leaving Anna to look in her bag for the appropriate items.

"How is Demetrios?" Eulogia inquired.

"Well, I imagine," Helena said casually. The wine, figs, and nuts came. She poured, leaving aside a glass for Anna but not offering it.

"I imagine Justinian will not be returning," Eulogia remarked, looking obliquely at Helena.

Helena allowed herself to look sad. "No. They believe he was deeply implicated in Bessarion's death. Of course he wasn't!" She smiled. "Whoever it was tried before, you know, when Justinian was in Bithynia, miles from here."

Anna's hand froze over the herbs. Fortunately her back was to the room, and neither Helena nor Eulogia could see her face.

"Tried to kill him?" Eulogia said in amazement. "How?"

"Poison," Helena said simply. "I've no idea who it was." She took a bite out of a dried fig and chewed it slowly. "And Bessarion was attacked in the street a few months after that, also. It looked like an attempted robbery, but afterward Bessarion himself thought it was one of his own men. But Demetrios found them for him, from friends of his-the Varangian Guard, so it seems unlikely."

Eulogia was curious. "Demetrios Vatatzes has friends in the Varangian Guard? How interesting. Unusual, for a man of an old imperial family. But then his mother, Eirene, is unusual."

Helena shrugged it off. "That's what I thought he said. Perhaps I was wrong."

Eulogia was concerned. "That's dreadful. Why would anyone wish to harm Bessarion? He was the noblest of men."

Helena hid her impatience. "It was always religion with him, so it was probably something to do with that. Of course, he and Justinian quarreled terribly about it, twice that I know of, and then Justinian went to Eirene. Heaven knows why! After that, of course, Bessarion really was killed by Antoninus. Funny thing is that I never knew that Antoninus cared about religion all that much. He was a soldier, for heaven's sake!"

Anna turned around, the herbs in her hand and a small jar of ointment. She held them out.

"Why, thank you, Anastasius," Helena said charmingly, meeting Anna's eyes. "I'll pay you if you come tomorrow, when I'm not busy."

Anna returned as commanded to collect the money.

When she arrived, Helena received her after only fifteen minutes' wait and made her almost welcome. They were in the newly decorated room with its exotic murals. She was dressed in a soft deep plum color that became her excellently. She had a minimum of jewelry, but with her warm skin and rich hair, she did not need it. The silk of her dalmatica billowed around her as she came across the room. It was one of the rare moments when Helena was as beautiful as her mother.

"Thank you for coming," she said warmly. "My ankle is so much better, I shall recommend you to everyone I know." She smiled, but she made no reference to the money.

"Thank you," Anna replied, taken by surprise.

"Odd that Eulogia should call just as you were here," Helena went on. "She was related to Justinian Lascaris, you know?"

Anna felt herself tense. "Was she?"

"He was married, some time ago." Helena's tone dismissed it as if it were not relevant anymore. "She died. She was Eulogia's sister." She was watching Anna's face as she spoke.

Anna stood motionless, awkward. Her hands seemed clumsy and in the way, as if she had no idea what to do with them. She swallowed. "Really?" She tried to sound uninterested. She was trembling.

Helena picked up a small jeweled box from the table. It was exquisite, silver set with chalcedony and surrounded by pearls. Anna could not help looking at it.

"You like it?" Helena held it out for Anna to see.

"It's very beautiful," Anna replied sincerely.

Helena smiled. "Justinian gave it to me. Unwise, I suppose, but as I told you, he loved me." She said it with satisfaction, but still looking at Anna under her eyelashes. "Bessarion gave me very little that I can recall. If he had chosen anything, it would have been books, or icons; dark ones, of course, heavy and very serious." She looked back at Anna. "Justinian was fun, you know? Or don't you know that? He had an elusive quality about him, as if you could never really know all of him. He would always surprise you. I like that."

Anna's sense of discomfort grew. Why was Helena telling her all this? Surely it was lies, as Constantine had said? Helena was beautiful and profoundly sensuous, but Justinian must have seen what was ugly inside her, if not immediately, then soon after. Helena turned the box in her hand, its pearls catching the light. Why had Justinian spent so much on her? Or was that a lie, too?

Helena was watching her. There was an intensity in her gaze that was almost mesmeric. The light was shining on the box, on the plum silk of her dalmatica, on the gloss of her hair. "Do you like beautiful things, Anastasius?" she asked.

There was only one possible answer to that. "Yes."

Helena's winged eyebrows rose, her eyes wide and dark. "Just 'yes'? How unimaginative of you. What kinds of beautiful things?" she insisted. "Jewelry, ornaments, glass, paintings, tapestries, statuary? Or do you like music, and good food? Or something you can touch, like silk or fur? What gives you pleasure, Anastasius?" She put the box on the table and walked three steps closer to Anna. "Do eunuchs have pleasure?" she said softly.

Was this what had happened to Justinian? Anna felt the sweat run down her body and the blood hot in her face. Helena was trying to awaken her sexually for entertainment, power, simply to see if she could.

The air in the room prickled as if a storm were about to break. Anna would have given anything on earth to escape. It was excruciating.

Helena's eyes swept down Anna's body. "Do you have anything left, Anastasius?" she asked, her voice soft not with pity, but with a sharp and curiously coarse interest. Her small hand reached out to touch Anna's groin where her male organs would have been, had she had them. They met nothing.

Anna panicked, and hysteria welled up as if she were going to choke. Helena's eyes were bright, laughing, at once both inviting and contemptuous.

No man, however mutilated, would refuse to speak at all. And whatever Anna said, it must be what a man would say, not the revulsion that was beating inside her now like a huge bird trapped and breaking itself to force a way out.

Helena was still waiting. She would never either forget or forgive a rebuff. She was so close, Anna could feel the warmth of her and see the pulse beating in her throat.

"Pleasure must be mutual, my lady," Anna said, her voice catching in her throat. "I think it would take a remarkable man to please you."

Helena stood absolutely still, her features slack with surprise and disappointment. Anastasius had been polite to her, flattering, yet she knew she had been robbed of something. She made a sharp little sound of annoyance and stepped back. Now it was she who did not know how to answer without giving herself away.

"Your money is on the table by the door," she said between her teeth. "You bore me. Take it and go."

Anna swiveled and went out, forcing herself not to run.