The Sheen of the Silk

chapter 53-55

Fifty-three

A WEEK AFTER THAT, ANNA RETURNED HOME TO FIND SIMONIS waiting for her with a strip of paper in her hand.

"From Zoe Chrysaphes," Simonis said, pursing her lips.

"Thank you." She put down her bag of herbs and oils and opened the paper.

Anastasius,

Unfortunately I have a slight wound in my leg which needs a surgeon's attention. Please call on me immediately you receive this.

Zoe Chrysaphes

"When did this come?" Anna asked.

"Less than an hour ago. Half an hour, perhaps." Simonis raised her eyebrows. "Are you going?"

"I am," Anna replied. Simonis knew perfectly well that ethically she could not do anything else, nor would she easily survive the damage to her reputation were she to refuse.

What she found upon her arrival at Zoe's was the one thing Anna had never considered. Giuliano was there, leaning casually against the sill of the great window that looked across to the Bosphorus. He straightened up with slight discomfort when Anna came in, and she saw the flush on his cheeks. He acknowledged her courteously, with no shadow in his face from their last conversation or Gregory's murder.

"Ah!" Zoe said with clear pleasure. "Thank you for coming, Anastasius. I have a deep spelk in my leg. I am afraid if it is not removed and treated, it may poison me." She pulled the hem of her gold-colored tunic higher and exposed an angry wound with a spelk of wood sticking out of it and a crust of dried blood around the edges.

"When did it happen?" Anna put her bag on the floor and bent to examine the leg.

"I was walking in the courtyard last night," Zoe replied. "After dark. It did not seem serious enough to call you then, but this morning I realized the spelk was still there."

"Perhaps I should leave you..." Giuliano's voice came from behind Anna, the reluctance so sharp that he could not disguise it. "I can return on another occasion." He moved away from the window.

"Not at all," Zoe dismissed the idea. "It is only my ankle. It would be pleasanter for me to have company to take my mind off what Anastasius must do. Please."

Anna looked up and saw Zoe smiling, and inside her own mind she could hear her wild, almost delirious laughter, completely out of control. The sound of it had haunted Anna.

Giuliano relaxed. "Thank you."

Zoe looked at Anna again. "Tell me what you need, and I shall send my maid for it. Hot water, bandages?"

"Yes, please." Anna tried to concentrate her attention on the wound. "And salt."

"You are not one to put salt in anyone's wounds, are you, Anastasius?" Zoe said lightly

"Not so far," Anna replied. "But the thought has occurred to me once or twice. The salt is to clean my knife when I use it, and the ointment for the first layer of bandages. It will be less painful if they do not cling to the flesh, especially if it bleeds."

Thomais brought the water in several dishes, and the salt and a pile of clean linen bandages, then Zoe dismissed her. She rested her leg on a stool, leaving Anna to work on it, ignoring her, and turned to Giuliano.

"I have learned a great deal more about Maddalena Agallon." She said it softly, dropping her voice as if in deep emotion and causing Giuliano to move closer to her and into Anna's range of vision.

"Most of it concerns her life after she left her husband and her infant son." Zoe's face was full of pain, but it was impossible to tell if it was pity for that long ago abandoned child or from the prick of the blade in Anna's hand as she pierced the angry flesh around the spelk of wood.

"Why did she go?" Giuliano forced the words from deep inside him.

Zoe hesitated. "I'm sorry," she said gently to Giuliano, ignoring the wound as if she could not even feel the blade. "It seems she did not want the responsibility of caring for a small boy. She became bored with it. She returned to the life she had had before, but no decent man would have her."

"How did she... live?" Giuliano asked, his voice cracking.

Anna looked up and saw Zoe's golden eyes looking back, first at the knife, then at Anna directly. There was triumph burning in her mind, and Anna read it as clearly as words. She bent to the wound again, blade poised.

"Can't you do it?" Zoe asked. "No stomach for it, Anastasius?"

Anna saw her smile, and the knowledge in it bright as a flame, which turned her own stomach cold. Was it conceivable Zoe had guessed she was a woman?

She looked down again and deliberately pushed the point of her knife into the flesh on the other side of the spelk, saw the blood ooze and then flood. She was tempted to push harder, even to slice through an artery and watch it gush, pumping, as Gregory's blood must have, pouring life away.

Zoe turned back to Giuliano. "She turned to the streets, as all women do when there is nothing else," she said, her voice filling the silence of the room. "Especially beautiful women. And she was beautiful."

Anna turned the knife delicately, lifted out the spelk, and dropped it on one of the spare plates.

"As beautiful as Anastasius here would be," Zoe went on. She had not even flinched. "If he were a woman, and not a eunuch."

Anna felt her face flame. She could feel Giuliano's hurt as if the blade had gouged a living organ out of him. She should not be here to witness this awful scene.

She looked up and met Zoe's eyes, bright and hard as agate.

"Have I offended you, Anastasius?" Zoe asked with mild interest. "It is not a bad thing to be beautiful, you know." She turned and looked across at Giuliano, then picked up a paper from the table beside her. "A letter from the Mother Abbess of Santa Teresa. I'm sorry, but you have to know this one day. You have insisted on knowing. Maddalena ended her life a suicide. So many women do, who look to the street for their livelihood."

Every vestige of blood drained from Giuliano's face.

Anna spoke impulsively, out of a passion to protect him. Nothing could undo the wound, nothing could make him imagine she had not heard or seen his pain.

"I suppose some are better at whoring than others," she said, looking Zoe full in the face. "But even the most beautiful fade eventually. The lips crease, the breasts sag, the thighs become lumpy, the skin wrinkles and falls away. Lust becomes empty, and then only love matters."

Giuliano gasped, swinging around to Anna in amazement, even taking a step toward her as if physically to protect her from Zoe's fury.

Zoe's eyes widened. "The little eunuch has teeth, Signor Dandolo. I do believe he likes you. How grotesque."

The blood burned up Giuliano's cheeks and he turned away. "Thank you for taking the trouble to find the information for me," he said, his voice choking. "I will leave you to your... treatment." He walked out of the room, and they both heard the footsteps of his leather boots along the marbled corridor.

"You are leaving me to bleed," Zoe remarked, looking down at her ankle and foot, now dripping scarlet onto the floor. "I thought you were a more honorable physician than that, Anastasius."

Anna saw the gloating in Zoe's face. This was vengeance on Giuliano because of his great-grandfather and on Anna for loving a Dandolo. And she did love him; it would be pointless now to deny it to herself.

"It is good for it to bleed," she said, forming the words deliberately, even though her voice shook. "It will carry away the poison the spelk may have left." She picked up the knife again and touched the wound with the point of it, pricking, but no more deeply than she had to. "Then it will be clean, and I shall bind it."

Several moments of silence went by.

"This must be hard for you," Zoe said quietly.

Anna smiled. "But not impossible. I decide who I am, you don't. But you are right: Beauty can be dangerous. It can give people delusions of being loved when in truth they are only consumed, like a peach or a fig. Eirene Vatatzes said that Gregory liked figs."

Zoe's foot dripped blood onto the floor more rapidly, making a little pool of scarlet.

"I think it is ready to be bound up." Anna met Zoe's eyes and smiled. "I have just the ointment here to put on it. It would be very serious if it were to become poisoned now, when the flesh is so... vulnerable."

A sudden shadow of fear crossed Zoe's face. She leaned forward. "Be careful," she whispered. "Your love for Dandolo could cost you very dear, even your life. If my foot does not heal, you will regret it."

Anna smiled at her even more widely, her eyes ice cold. "There is nothing wrong with it that removing the spelk did not cure. You were wise enough not to pick a poisonous wood."

The surprise flashed in Zoe's eyes for only an instant. "I would not like to destroy you," she said casually. "Don't oblige me to do so."

Fifty-four

GIULIANO LEFT ZOE'S HOUSE AND WALKED OUT INTO THE broad, open street, barely seeing where he was going. The pain seemed so huge, it threatened to tear through his skin from the inside and overwhelm him. He was filled with shame and the knowledge that this woman he could just remember-a lovely face, tears, warmth, and a sweet smell-not only had not loved him enough to keep him, but had descended to that most despicable of trades.

He had seldom used whores himself; he was handsome and charming and had had no need to. He shivered with a new revulsion at himself when he remembered the times he had.

He barely saw the street around him. Other people were so many blurs of color and movement. He felt sick, cold to the very pit of his belly, and shivering. Thank God at least his father had never known that Maddalena had died by her own hand, beyond the reach of the Church, even in death.

He crossed the busy street, traffic stopping, drivers of carts shouting at him, but their words did not penetrate his mind. He went on down the steep incline toward the Venetian Quarter by the shore.

She had borne him, carried him within her body, and given him life. He hated her for what she had become, yet he had learned love at his father's knee, at his side. Her name had been the last word he spoke. What was Giuliano if he denied her now?

Damn Zoe Chrysaphes-damn her to a hell of pain that would last all life long-as his would.

Anastasius had been extraordinary. He was a true friend, first rescuing him from being blamed for Gregory Vatatzes's murder, which he deserved for stupidity, if nothing else, and then defending him against Zoe. Both times it had been at risk to himself: Giuliano was realizing now just how great a risk. And Anastasius had asked for nothing in return. Still, Giuliano could not bear to be with Anastasius again, after this. He was the one person who had seen and heard, and he would never be able to forget it, even if only in anger at Zoe. Or in pity. It was the pity that hurt the deepest.

After stopping at his lodging, he went along to the busy dockyards, looking for any Venetian ship in the harbor. There were two. The first was a merchantman bound for Caesarea, the second just berthed and due out to Venice again within the week.

"Giuliano Dandolo, on the doge's business," he introduced himself. "I seek passage home, to report to the doge as soon as possible."

"Excellent," the captain said enthusiastically. "A little earlier than I expected, but excellent all the same. Welcome aboard. Boito will be delighted. You may use my cabin. You will not be interrupted."

Giuliano had no idea what the man was speaking about. "Boito?" he said slowly, searching for meaning in it.

"The doge's emissary," the captain replied. "He has letters for you, and no doubt other things too complex or too secret to commit to paper. I was not aware he had even sent word to you yet, but he said it would be today, as soon as possible. Come. I'll take you."

In the cramped but well-furnished cabin that was the captain's domain, Giuliano found himself sitting opposite a narrow-faced, handsome man in his early fifties who produced letters of authority from the doge. He thanked the captain and asked permission to be uninterrupted until he and Giuliano had finished their business.

As soon as the door closed, Boito looked gravely at Giuliano. "I have seen you before. I served Doge Tiepolo. You must have news to have sought me even before I sent you word I was here. Tell me about the Venetian Quarter of the city."

Giuliano had done his job, spoken casually to all the major families in the quarter, and, perhaps more tellingly, listened to the younger men talking in the cafes and bars along the waterfront and in the street where the best food was served from the stalls. They had been born in Byzantine territory. Their loyalties were torn.

"Those who still have family in Venice will probably remain loyal to us," he said carefully.

"And the younger ones?" Boito said impatiently.

"Most of them are Byzantine now. They have never been to Venice. Some of them are married to Byzantines, they have homes and business here. There is always the chance that if loyalty to Venice did not move them, faith in the Church of Rome might."

Boito breathed out very slowly, and his shoulders eased, so slightly that it was visible only in the smallest alteration of the way the creases in his coat changed a fraction. "And you think that faith will not hold them?"

"I doubt it," he answered.

Boito frowned. "I see. And what is the likelihood of Constantinople accepting the union with the Church of Rome? I know some of the monasteries and maybe most of the outlying towns, perhaps all of Nicea, will refuse. There are even members of the imperial family imprisoned for refusing."

Giuliano was Venetian. That was where his loyalties must be. And he had promised Tiepolo. The thought of his Byzantine mother was too bitter even to touch. The friends he had made here were mostly Venetian anyway. Constantinople was Zoe Chrysaphes and people like her. Except Anastasius. But you could not distort the fate of nations or the course of a crusade on the friendship of one person, however passionate, generous, or vulnerable.

Yet Anastasius had not hesitated to risk his life to save Giuliano from prosecution for the murder of Gregory. In fact, he had not even asked Giuliano if he were guilty. And he had been willing to fight Zoe in a way for which she would never forgive him. How does a man honor debts to two opposing forces?

"They need more time," Giuliano answered, dragging his mind back to the moment and this small, wooden-walled cabin, so like all the others he had sailed in. "Give it to them, and they may see the wisdom of it. They need to feel that they are not betraying the faith they understand. You cannot expect a man to deny his God and then be loyal to you."

Boito made a steeple of his long, thin fingers and regarded Giuliano thoughtfully. "There is little time to give them, whether we wish it or not. The doge is certain that Charles of Anjou is already making plans that will considerably further his ambition to rule all the eastern Mediterranean, including those areas of trade and influence which belong rightfully to Venice. I'm sure you don't wish to see that happen."

Giuliano was startled. "But Byzantium won't stop Charles, because it can't. They are subtle and wise, and cruel, but their power is waning. Their strength is exhausted. The sack of 1204 devastated them, and they have not yet recovered."

Boito sat in silence, his hooded eyes distant. Finally he smiled. "Knowledge is what we need, at this point. The doge must know exactly what obstacles lie in the way of the king of the Two Sicilies, and his ambition to be king of Jerusalem also." His expression was enigmatic. He did not say whether it was to remove the obstacles or to strengthen them. Giuliano had a strong impression it might be the latter.

"To be specific," Boito continued, "the doge must know the military situation in Palestine, and what an intelligent man would predict for the future. Say, the next three or four years."

Giuliano turned it over in his mind. It was knowledge of the most intense importance, perhaps to the whole of Christendom and the future of the world. If Charles conquered the Holy Land and united the five ancient patriarchates, it would be the most powerful kingdom in the West.

"I see that you understand," Boito said with an easing of his smile into warmth. "I suggest you go by the safest route possible, and the most inconspicuous. That would be from here down the coast of Palestine to Acre, and then make your way inland. There are always pilgrims. Attach yourself to one of their groups, and you will pass initially unnoticed. When you return, you will report to the doge himself. No one else. Is that clear?"

"Of course."

"The doge needs eyes and ears that he can trust. As you love, and owe, the city of your heritage, Dandolo, the city that has given you hope and honor, give her your service now, for the sake of the future."

"Yes, I will." There was no other possible answer. Apart from anything else, Giuliano had promised Tiepolo.

Fifty-five

ANNA STOOD IN HER HERB ROOM MIXING OINTMENTS AND distilling tinctures. In each of the little wooden drawers of powders, she kept one whole leaf of each type so she would not mistake what it was.

She had watched Giuliano go from Zoe's house almost blind with the pain of what she had told him, and Anna had known also that her own presence there had made it doubly agonizing for him. She did not expect to see him again in the next few weeks or perhaps even months. That hurt her with a persistent ache, like a hunger, but she knew of no way to heal it.

Zoe's extraordinary admissions when she had been feverish made her certain beyond doubt. They had planned to kill Michael Palaeologus, and for Bessarion to usurp the throne and then deny the union and rally the country behind him to save the Orthodox Church from Rome.

But how had they thought to withstand the crusader armies? Or had they not even considered that? Were they so steeped in religious fervor that they believed the Virgin Mary would save them?

Justinian had been levelheaded in Nicea, self-mocking at times; he had far too sharp a sense of wit, and of the ironies of life, to trust a man like Bessarion without knowing exactly what he meant to do and how.

She stood with the leaves in her hand, breathing in their aromatic perfume, trying to steady her racing mind.

How had Justinian discovered the plot? Or had he been part of it from the beginning? Then how had he taken so long to realize it could not work?

She looked at the astrolabe on the table with its beautiful inlays and circles, orbits within orbits. Was the plot like that or far simpler: a desperate agreement by all of them, albeit from different priorities? Bessarion for faith, and perhaps-whether he recognized it or not-for ambition and glory for himself, the old power returned to his family. Helena quite simply for power. She had the honesty, or perhaps the lack of conscience, that she had never pretended faith.

Of Esaias, she still knew little. Others had spoken of him as shallow, but that did not have to be true. Knowledge of the plot made her realize everyone might be utterly different from the character they had presented for the purpose of achieving that one overriding aim.

She had finished putting away the herbs and began pouring the tinctures into vials and labeling them.

Antoninus might have been exactly what he now seemed: a man loyal to the Church even at the cost of his own life; a good friend to Justinian, acknowledging his part in it after torture and only when it was pointless to deny it.

But he had joined with Justinian to kill not Michael, in order to save the Church, but Bessarion, and for what? To save Byzantium, because Bessarion had neither the grasp of reality nor the nerve to do as Michael Palaeologus was doing and make the only peace possible?

Justinian had been devoutly against the union from the beginning. His allegiance to Constantine was witness to that. And Constantine's loyalty to him in return? Was that not one passion that could be trusted?

She stopped working and began to wash her mortar, pestle, and dishes, then put them away.

Justinian was the first, as an outsider, to see Bessarion's weaknesses as well as his dreams and to realize that far from saving Constantinople, he would seal its fate.

She tried to imagine how he must have felt as the evidence forced itself upon him and little by little he understood that Bessarion must not be allowed to take the throne. If Justinian withdrew from the plan, Demetrios would simply take his place. Bessarion must be stopped. He could have gone to him and tried to persuade him, more and more forcefully as Bessarion resisted. The quarrels had become deeper. In momentary desperation he had gone to others, even to Eirene, but not to Zoe. Why had Justinian and she not allied to serve the common cause?

The only one Justinian had trusted was Antoninus, who in the end had gone to his death tortured and alone. Then who had betrayed Justinian to the authorities?

If Bessarion had lived, the plot would have gone ahead. The next evening, they would have attempted to kill the emperor. Zoe had the courage and the skill to do it, whatever Bessarion's failings. But had Zoe honestly believed that Bessarion had the courage and the fire to save both the city from the Latins and the Church from Rome?

And would Bessarion have obeyed her, or was his arrogance such that once on the throne he would have defied all advice, especially from a woman? How had she imagined she could manipulate him? Because she had more political intelligence than he, and more realism? Or more allies? Perhaps knowledge of Michael's network of spies and agents of violence, information, and deceit? Then he could keep his hands clean and still reap the benefits.

Perhaps Zoe would have allowed Bessarion to take the throne and then helped Demetrios Vatatzes to usurp Bessarion. Or was that Eirene's plan?

Justinian had prevented any of it from happening. If he had killed Bessarion, then far from being a conspirator against the emperor, he had saved his life. Had Michael known that? Had Nicephoras?

And a cold and ugly thought: Had Constantine allowed Justinian to be blamed as an act of revenge for his change of allegiance, his understanding of reality?