The Sheen of the Silk

chapter 59-60
Fifty-nine

AFTER CALLING AT FAMAGUSTA IN THE EAST OF CYPRUS, they sailed through rough weather, tacking across the wind, coming about hard. The huge lateen sails were heavy, creaking as they fell slack then filled and billowed out again. Every time she marveled at the skill of the men, her hands clenching as she saw the precise judgment and timing and knew how easily a mast could break.

They worked their way steadily south along the coast of Palestine, putting ashore at Tyre, then at Sidon, and finally at Acre, a wide, busy seaport. It spread out from the high, magnificent old crusader walls into trading quarters-Pisan, Genoese, and of course Venetian-quays busy, water dotted with ships.

This was the gateway to the Holy Land and the beginning of the six-to ten-day journey overland to Jerusalem. Anna stayed on the ship while Giuliano went ashore, ostensibly to see to unloading his cargo and obtaining another shipment for the return journey.

She stood on the deck looking at the sun-bleached land, pale docks, and landing piers above glittering bright water. She realized sharply that Giuliano would be judging it all with a military eye, as had generations of men before him from the far, Christian corners of the world, thinking to conquer it-for what? For God? For Christ? Some, perhaps. More probably for glory. It was a land of milk and honey, perhaps, but also of blood.

On the third day, she and Giuliano went ashore. He had sent the ship off down the coast with cargo to return in two months' time, when he and Anastasius would meet them here again. If they were late, then his men would obtain the best cargo they could and wait.

They were dressed in the recognized costume for pilgrims: a gray cowl, scrip, and scarf, a red cross on the shoulder, a broad belt to which was attached a rosary and a water bottle. They each wore a broad-brimmed hat, turned up at the front, and carried over their shoulders a sack and a gourd. Anna also had a small case of medical supplies, a knife, needle and silk, a few herbs, and a pot of unguent. She felt untidy, anonymous, and uncomfortable. She was glad there was no glass in which to see herself.

She looked at Giuliano. At a glance he seemed like anyone else, gray, one of scores of travelers weary, footsore, and a little crazy, a light in the eyes and repetitive songs on the lips. But when he moved he still had the easy gait, the slight swagger of the mariner.

She would have liked to stay in Acre for longer, to walk through the streets of this last stronghold of the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem and see where the men of the past, crusaders, knights, kings, and even queens, had lived; but she knew there was no time.

"We must join with others," she urged. "We need guides."

"Ahead of us." He pointed. "We leave in just over an hour. It'll be hard. And cold this time of year."

They formed a group of about twenty pilgrims, most of them dressed in gray, as Anna and Giuliano were. More than half of them were men, but Anna was surprised how many women there were-at least six. One old woman with a windburned face and gnarled hands clutched the staff she used to support herself. She never stopped muttering the names of all the holy places she had been to, like an incantation. Canterbury, Walsingham, Lourdes, Compostela, and now the greatest of all, Jerusalem. They all had the pallor of a long sea voyage, cramped in ships that gave them barely enough room to lie down and no privacy at all.

A soldier appeared to be the natural leader, and it was he who stepped forward to speak to the dark-skinned Arab who offered to guide them. He was a small, fierce-looking man with hawklike features and broken teeth. Anna did not understand the words, but the meaning was clear. They were haggling over price and conditions. Voices grew louder. The Arab professed astonishment, the soldier insisted. There was a flurry of abuse on both sides. The soldier would not yield his position, and finally there were smiles. Everyone contributed their money.

They set out at midday, walking steadily. Anna did not want to grow close to any of the other pilgrims, since she must always guard her identity. She was in the strange position of being neither man nor woman, but she could not help looking at them with interest and now and then overhearing their conversation. Most of them had come by sea from Venice, which was the meeting place for pilgrims from other parts of Europe.

"Thousands of them," Giuliano told her when they made a brief stop. "The money changers on the Rialto make a fortune. That's mostly what they're complaining about." He indicated a group of the others a few yards away. "And the sea journey. It was rough, and they're terribly cramped."

"It takes a lot of faith to come," she said with respect.

"Or nothing much to leave behind," he added. Then he saw her face. "Sorry, but that's the truth, too. If they survive and get home again, they can wear the palm in their hats for the rest of their lives. It's a badge of honor. They'll be forgiven all sins, and respected by family, neighbors, and friends. And they will have earned it." He saw her puzzlement. "How do I know? I'm a Venetian. I've seen them all my life, coming and going, full of hope, piety, pride." He bit his lip. "We let them all in, sell them real holy relics, and false ones, give them hospitality, guidance, advice, passage to Acre or Jaffa, and fleece them of most of their money."

She pushed her hand through her hair, which was dusty already, and smiled at him. It was an admission he had made, describing the venal side of his city, as well as the clever and the beautiful. He did not say he was ashamed, but she knew it.

Anna was not used to walking all day. Her feet became blistered, and her back and legs ached until she was filled with an all-consuming weariness. She was bitterly aware that Giuliano had so much more strength than she, and she dared not allow him to help her, even when he offered with real concern.

By the first nightfall, they stopped at an inn. She was overwhelmingly relieved just to sit down, and it was only after they had all eaten, around one large wooden board, that she realized she was also glad of the warmth. It was far colder outside than she had expected, and the pilgrim's gray cloak was not as warm as her own woolen dalmatica would have been.

* * *

Over the next days she forced herself to walk on, even when her feet bled. She found herself so weak that she staggered more, often losing her balance and stumbling, but always she rose again. She insisted on privacy for bodily functions, but as a eunuch that was granted her, even if for quite mistaken reasons. No one wished to embarrass her for the organs they rightly assumed she did not have.

They all suffered the same blisters, the cold from the wind and rain, the rough road under their feet, the ache in the bones from nights on hard boards and with too little sleep. The land was hard, built of rock and dust, and the few trees were wind-gnarled. There were long stretches where there was no water at all except what they carried with them. The rain was cold and made mud of the track underfoot, but it was still welcome on the parched skin.

She tried not to look at Giuliano. She knew exactly why the doge had sent someone not only to sail to Acre, but to walk this route, as the crusader army would have to walk it. He would be looking at the fortifications of Jerusalem also, with a soldier's eyes, seeing their strengths and weaknesses, whatever had changed since Western knights and squires were last here. Venice's full profit would depend on the degree of their success.

She did not want to know if that thought was as sour to him as it was to her. He was Venetian. He must see it differently. She thought of the first Roman soldiers, marching in their legions to conquer the troublesome Jews. Could even the boldest of them have imagined one man from Judea would change the world forever? Over a thousand years later, the road was worn smooth with people, summer and winter, who believed that in some way they were following in Christ's footsteps.

Were they, in any way that mattered?

Without having intended to, she looked quickly at Giuliano and found his eyes steady on hers. He smiled, and there was an intense gentleness in him. For a terrible instant, she thought he understood the real nature of her physical weakness; then she realized it was the confusion he read in her that moved him.

Anna smiled back and was surprised how lifted her spirits were, just to know he was there.

Sixty

FIVE DAYS LATER, THEY REACHED THE CREST OF THE SLOPE, legs aching, bodies weary. They had climbed almost three hundred feet since leaving Acre. There before them lay Jerusalem, spread out over the hills, all light and shadow. The sun-facing walls were blistered white, punctured by alleys like dark knife cuts, winding and impenetrable. The rooftops were flat, with here and there the smooth arc of a dome or the sudden, steep sides of a tower.

There were few trees, mostly the silver gray of olives or the dark irregularity of date palms. The huge, crenellated outer walls were unbroken, except for the great gates, now open and crowded by little antlike figures coming and going, tiny spots of color.

Anna stood beside Giuliano and stared in spite of herself, gasping with amazement. She looked at him quickly and saw the same wonder in his eyes.

The Arab signaled impatiently, and they began to move forward toward the Jaffa Gate, where pilgrims entered. As they came closer, the walls became enormous and pockmarked by time and erosion and the violence of siege. The gate itself was vast, like half a castle.

Men crowded outside it, dark-eyed, bearded, robes dusty from the ever creeping sand. They talked, gesticulating with their hands, arguing, haggling over an opinion or a price. A group of children played some game with small stones, throwing them up and catching them on the backs of their thin brown hands, making complicated patterns. A woman was beating a carpet, a cloud of dust rising. It was all so ordinary-daily life and a moment in eternity.

Then reality engulfed them again. There was money to pay, directions to ask, and accommodations to find before nightfall. Anna said good-bye to her traveling companions with real regret. They had shared too many simple, physical hardships for parting to be easy.

The safety of the journey was over; the danger of being too close, of betraying emotion or physical weakness, was past, at least for the time being. A different kind of loneliness was beginning.

They secured rooms at a hostelry. The first night Anna could barely sleep, tired as she was. The night was cold and the darkness full of strange noises and totally different odors from the ones she was accustomed to. The voices she heard were Arabic, Hebrew, and others she could not place. There was a mustiness in the air of closed streets, of animals, and of the dry, bitter smell of unfamiliar herbs. It was not unpleasant, but it left her feeling alien and uneasy.

She read again and again her instructions from Zoe. She must find a Jew by the name of Simcha ben Ehud. He knew where the painting was and would verify it, although Zoe had given instructions for Anna to look at it minutely also. The description was exact. She dared not fail. Not for an instant did she doubt that Zoe would take the first chance she had to use her power to destroy. Once she had the painting, she might well do it anyway. Anna had been naive to imagine she would be able to hand it over and walk away, safe because Zoe had promised. Between now and then, she would have to think of some weapon for her own use. Zoe had no respect for mercy.

After she had the picture, she would have time to think of Justinian and find a way to travel to the monastery in Sinai.

In the morning, she and Giuliano ate breakfast together. They had grown accustomed to dates and a little coarse bread.

"Be careful," he warned as they parted in the street. He was on his way to study first the warren of alleys, the half-hidden waterways of underground rivers and springs. A desert city lives or dies on its water, as does any army besieging it.

"I will," she said quietly. "Zoe gave me the name of the man to ask for, and a story as to why I want the picture. And I know what it is supposed to look like. You be careful, too. Examining fortifications isn't a good thing to be caught doing either."

"I'm not," he said quickly. "I'm a pilgrim, praying in every place Christ walked, just like all the others."

She smiled at him, then turned away quickly and went without looking back. Her feet felt bruised on the uneven pavement; her shoulders bumped one moment against other people, the next against the protruding walls as the alley became narrower. Then suddenly there were steps, and she was climbing down.

She began in the Jewish Quarter, at the address she had been given by Zoe.

"Simcha ben Ehud?" she asked several local shopkeepers. They all shook their heads.

She tried day after day, growing afraid that she was drawing attention to herself. One morning, when she had been in Jerusalem a little over three weeks, Anna was walking up a narrow flight of steps. Legs aching, muscles so weary that she was consumed in the concentration of forcing one foot after the other, she almost collided with a man coming in the opposite direction. She apologized and was about to move on when he caught her by the shoulder. Her first instinct was to fight; then he spoke to her quietly, with his mouth almost to her ear. "You are looking for Simcha ben Ehud?"

"Yes. Do you know where I can find him?" She had a knife at her belt, but she was afraid to reach for it. The man was only an inch or two taller than her, but he was wiry and she knew from the pressure of his hand on her shoulder that he was strong. He had a hawk nose and hooded eyes, almost black, but there was a gentleness in his mouth, even an ease of laughter in the lines cut deep by the passage of emotion.

"You are Simcha ben Ehud?" she asked.

"You have come from Byzantium, from Zoe Chrysaphes?" he returned.

"Yes."

"And your name?"

"Anastasius Zarides."

"Come with me. Follow me, and say nothing. Stay close." He turned and led the way back up the steps and along a narrow lane. Not once did he turn to make sure she was following, but he moved slowly and she knew he was deliberately making sure she did not lose him.

Finally, he turned into a small courtyard with a well and a narrow wooden door at the opposite side. Inside was a room with a stairway to another room above it; this was full of light. In it sat a very old man, white-bearded. His eyes were opaque as milk, and he was clearly blind.

"I have the messenger from Byzantium, Jacob ben Israel," ben Ehud said quietly. "He has come to see the painting. With your permission?"

Ben Israel nodded. "Show him," he agreed. His voice was hoarse, as if he were unused to speaking.

Ben Ehud went to another door, this one no more than three feet high, opened it, and, after a moment's consideration, pulled out a small square of wood wrapped in linen cloth. He took off the cloth and held it up for Anna to see the picture.

She felt a sudden wave of disappointment. It was the head and shoulders of a woman. Her face was worn with age, but her eyes were bright, her expression almost rapturous. She wore a simple robe of the shade of blue traditionally associated with the Madonna.

"You are disappointed," ben Ehud observed. He was waiting, still holding the picture. "Do you think it is worth your journey?"

"No," she replied. "There is nothing special about her face, no understanding. I don't think the artist knew her at all."

"He was a physician, not a painter," ben Ehud pointed out.

"I am a physician, not a painter," Anna argued. "I can still see that that is poor. She was the Mother of Christ. There has to have been something in her greater than this."

He put the picture on the ground and returned to the cupboard. He took out another painting, a fraction smaller, unwrapped it, and turned it toward her.

This one was also of a woman, her face touched by age and grief, but her eyes had seen visions beyond human pain. She had endured the best and the worst and knew herself with an inner peace that the artist had tried to capture, ending with only the grace to understand that he could not catch the infinite with the strokes of a brush.

Ben Ehud was studying her. "You wish for this one?"

"I do."

He wrapped it again carefully and then took another, larger piece of linen and wrapped that around it also. He ignored the first painting as if it were not worth consideration. It had served its purpose.

"I do not know if it is what you hope," he said quietly.

"We will choose to believe that it is," she replied. "That will be as good."

After settling with ben Ehud, she carried the painting back to the hostelry, clutching it inside her robe.

She was not far from the hotel when she was aware of someone behind her. She touched the knife at her belt, but it was little comfort. She had only ever used it for food or a few brief moments of first aid.

She forced herself to walk, rapidly but quelling the panic inside her. She reached the entrance of the hostelry just as Giuliano approached from the opposite direction. He saw the fear in her face, perhaps in the haste of her movement as well.

He grasped her by the arms and pulled her up the steps and then into an archway. Three men, heavily robed in gray, their faces hidden, hurried past them and up into an open square. One had a curved knife still in his hand.

"I've got it!" she gasped as soon as they were in his room and the door latched. "It's beautiful. I think it's real, but it doesn't matter. It's the face of a woman who has seen something of God that the rest of us only hope for."

"And the questions about Sinai?" Giuliano asked. "Was that to do with the painting?"

Anna was startled. She thought she had been discreet, but somehow he had heard.

"That's my own search." She knew as she said it that she was opening a door she would not ever be able to close again. "It has nothing to do with Zoe."

"But she knows about it," he insisted. "That's how she was able to make you come." He was guessing; she could see the puzzlement and the hurt in his face that she had not trusted him.

"Yes," she said without hesitation. She must tell him now; there was no alternative. "There is a relative of mine who has been accused of a crime, and exiled somewhere near here."

"What is he accused of?"

"Collusion in murder," she replied. "But his reasons were noble ones. I think I could prove that if I could speak to him, learn from him the details, not just the pieces I already have."

"Who is he supposed to have killed?"

"Bessarion Comnenos."

His eyes widened, and he breathed out slowly. "You're fishing in deep waters. Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

"I'm not at all sure," she said bitterly. "But I have no choice."

He did not argue. "I'll help you. First we'd better put the picture somewhere where it will be safe."

"Where?"

"I don't know. How big is it?"

She took it out, unwrapped it carefully, and held it up for him to see. She watched his face, seeing the disbelief in his eyes melt away and wonder take its place.

"We must put it on the ship," he said simply. "It's the only place where it'll be safe."

"Do you think those men were after it?" she asked.

"Don't you? And whether they were or not, others will be. If Zoe knew of it, so do they."

"The monastery I want is at Mount Sinai." She forced out the words.

He studied her face, trying to understand. "A relative?" he said softly.

How much dared she tell him? The longer she hesitated, the more anything she said would seem to be false. "My brother," she said in a whisper. "I'm sorry." Now she would have to lie again or tell him that her name before she married was Lascaris. Men did not change their names at marriage, and eunuchs did not marry at all. He would have to think she simply lied about her name, to hide it. This masquerade had once seemed so obvious that she had even become accustomed to thinking of it as easy. Even the freedom to move about the streets she now took for granted.

He was still puzzled. He said nothing, but it was in his eyes.

"Justinian Lascaris," she said, wading in more deeply.

At last, understanding filled his eyes. "Are you related to John Lascaris, whose eyes the emperor put out?"

"Yes." She mustn't elaborate. "Please don't..."

He put up his hand to silence her. "You must go to Mount Sinai. I'll take the picture to the ship. I'll look after it, I promise." He smiled with a hard, biting pain of shame. "I'll not steal it for Venice, I give you my word."

"I wasn't afraid you would," she replied.

"We'll go very carefully," he said. "I think we'll be safer outside the city. How long will it take you to get to Mount Sinai?"

"A month, to go there and back," she answered.

He hesitated.

"I'll be back here by the time the ship returns," she promised. "Just keep the picture safe."

"I must see Jaffa, and Caesarea on the coast," he said. "I'll be back in thirty-five days." He looked anxious, on the brink of speaking, and then changed his mind.

There was a sound of footsteps outside in the hostelry corridor and hushed voices arguing.

"We can't stay here," he told her quietly. "You must change your appearance and get out of the city. How are you getting to Sinai? A caravan?"

"Yes. They go every two or three days."

"Then you must get out of the pilgrim gray. That's what they're looking for. I'll go and get you something right now. You could dress as a boy..."

She saw the embarrassment in his face, in case he had insulted her, but there was no time or safety to spare for such things.

She took the initiative. "Better still as a woman," she told him.

He looked startled. "They won't let women into the monastery."

"I know. I'll find another hostelry, on the road outside the walls. Then I'll change back again."

He left and she barred the door behind him. She spent a miserable hour waiting for his return, afraid in case he was attacked. She was too tense to sit or even to stand still. She paced the floor back and forth, only a few steps each way. Five times she heard footsteps outside and thought it was Giuliano, then stood with pounding heart and ears straining as they passed and the silence closed in again.

Once someone knocked, and she was about to undo the bolt when she realized it could be anyone. She froze. She could hear someone breathing heavily just on the other side of the wood.

There was a thump against the door, as if someone had tested it with his weight. She stepped back silently. There was another thump, this one harder. The door shook on its hinges.

There were voices, then quick footsteps. Someone stopped outside the door.

"Anastasius!" It was Giuliano's voice, urgent and sharp with fear.

Relief washed over her like a sudden heat. She tried to loosen the bar and found it jammed by the previous pressure from outside. She jerked her own weight against it, heard it give.

Giuliano stepped in and replaced the bar instantly. He had a bundle of clothes in his arms, some for her and some for himself. "We'll go tonight," he said quietly. "Change into these. I've got merchants' clothes for myself. I'll try to look like an Armenian." He shrugged. "At least I can speak Greek." He began slipping off his gray pilgrim cloak.

Was he coming with her? How far? She picked up the women's clothes and turned her back to put them on. If she made any kind of an issue of modesty now, it would draw his suspicion. If she was quick enough, he might be too occupied with his own clothing to notice anything else.

The dress was wool, dark wine red, roughly shaped, and tied with a girdle. She slipped into it with an ease that tore away the years of pretense as if they had been paper, and once again she was the widow who had returned from Eustathius's house to that of her parents. She bound her hair like a woman's, wrapped the outer robe of darker wool around her, and without thinking adjusted it with the grace she had struggled so hard to abandon.

He looked at her. For an instant his face was blank, then it filled with sharp, painful surprise. He picked up the painting and handed it to her. He turned to the door, opened it carefully with his hand on the hilt of his knife. Having looked to right and left, he nodded at her to follow him.

Outside in the street there were several groups of people standing around, apparently arguing or haggling over the prices of goods.

Giuliano went immediately north, keeping a steady pace she could match without appearing to stride like a man. She kept her eyes down and her steps shorter. In spite of the fear tightening her muscles, she enjoyed the brief freedom of being a woman, as if it were a wild, dangerous escape that would have to end too soon.

Jerusalem was a small city. They walked quickly, keeping to the wider streets where possible.

They were climbing steadily, the great site of the Temple Mount to their right. She thought Giuliano was making for the Damascus Gate to the northwest and the Nablus Road.

They were accosted once, and Giuliano stopped and turned, smiling, hand on his belt. It was a peddler selling holy relics. He thought Giuliano was reaching for his purse. Anna knew he had a hand on the knife hilt.

"No, thank you," he said briefly. Catching Anna by the arm, he hurried onward.

His grip was warm and harder than it would have been had he touched a woman. She struggled to keep up with him, never daring to draw attention to herself by looking backward.

The Damascus Gate was crowded with merchants, peddlers, camel drivers, and several pilgrims dressed in gray. Suddenly they appeared sinister, and without realizing it, she slowed her step. Giuliano's hand tightened again, pulling her forward.

Did he feel her fear, or the slenderness of her bones, and wonder? They knew so much of each other-of dreams and beliefs-and yet so little. It was all shot through with assumptions and lies. Probably the lies were all hers.

They pushed through the crowds at the gate, and then they were out on the open road. After they had gone swiftly for about two hundred yards and strayed off the path downward, Giuliano stopped. "Are you all right?" he said anxiously.

"Yes," she said. "Do you want to go south now?" She pointed back to the road. "The Jaffa Gate's that way. That's Herod's Gate ahead of us. I could go in there. There's a pilgrim lodging near St. Stephen's. I'll stay there overnight, and go down to the Sion Gate before morning."

"I'll come with you," he said quickly.

"No. Take the painting and go back to Acre and the sea. I'll stay in this until morning, then I'll put on the gray again." She looked at him briefly, then turned away. Beyond his shoulder she saw the scarred hillside with holes in it that seemed at a glance like the eyes and nostrils of a great skull. She shivered.

"What is it?" he asked, swiveling around to follow her line of sight. "There's no one."

"I know. It wasn't that..." Her voice tailed off.

He stood closer to her, his hand on her arm. "Do you know where we are?" he said softly.

"No..." But even as she denied it, she understood. "Yes. Golgotha. The place of the crucifixion."

"Perhaps. I know some people think it's inside the city, and perhaps it doesn't matter. I'd rather it were here, desolate with the earth and the sky. It shouldn't have a pretty church built over it. That is to efface all it means. It had to be terrible, and alone, like this."

"Do you think we'll all come to such a place one day?" she asked. "Or be brought here?"

"Maybe, one day or another," he answered.

She stood still for several moments longer. Then she turned to him. "But I must go to Sinai, and you must go to Acre. I'll see you again in thirty-five days, or as close as I can to that." She found it difficult to keep her voice level, the emotion in control. She wanted to leave before it broke. She glanced down to where he held his sack with the clothes and the picture. "Thank you." She smiled briefly and turned away, climbing back up the steep incline to the road. At the top, she looked at him once and saw he was still on the same spot, still watching her, the skull of Golgotha behind him. She took a deep breath, swallowed, and started walking again.