The Sheen of the Silk

chapter 15-16
Fifteen

ANNA COULD SEE FROM THE SERVANT'S MANNER AND THE high pitch of his voice that he was seriously alarmed. But quite apart from that, she knew that Constantine, a proud and private man, would not have sent for her were the matter not grave.

"How does the illness show itself?" she asked. "Where is the pain?"

"I don't know. Please come."

"I want to know what to bring with me," Anna explained. "It would be far better than having to return for it."

"Oh." Now the man understood. "In his abdomen. He does not eat or drink, relieves himself often, and yet the pain does not go." He shifted his weight from one foot to the other impatiently.

As quickly as she could, she packed in a small case all the herbs she thought mostly likely to help. She also took a few Eastern herbs from Shachar and from al-Qadir, whose names she would not tell Constantine.

She informed Simonis where she was going, then followed the man out into the street and down the hill as rapidly as she could walk.

She was ushered straight into the bedchamber where Constantine was lying, his night tunic tangled and soaked with sweat and his skin a pasty gray.

"I'm sorry you feel so ill," she said quietly. "When did it begin?" She was startled to see the fear in his sunken eyes, naked and out of control.

"Last night," he answered. "I was listening to confession and suddenly the room went black."

She touched his brow with her hand. It was cool and clammy. She could smell the sharp, stale odor of sweat and sour body waste. She found his pulse. It was strong, but racing.

"Do you have pain now?" she asked.

"Not now."

She judged that to be only a half-truth. "When did you last eat?"

He looked puzzled.

"If you don't remember, it was too long ago." She studied his arm where it lay across his chest. She must never let him know she had seen the terror in him. He would not forgive her that. She must examine him intimately also-at least his belly, to see if it was swollen or perhaps if his bowel was obstructed. He might never forgive her that, either, if his castration was untidy-a bad mutilation. She had heard that they varied a great deal. Some eunuchs had had all organs removed and needed to insert a tube to pass water.

She hesitated. She was taking a terrible risk; it was an intrusion from which there was no return. Yet her medical duty to him forbade that she withhold any treatment she believed could help. She had no choice.

Gently she took the skin of his arm between her thumb and finger. It was slack, loose on the underlying flesh. "Bring me water," she told the servant still waiting at the door. "And get the juice of pomegranates, preferably not quite ripe, if you have them. Bring it to me in a jug. One jugful will do to start with." She handed the servant the honey and spikenard and told him the proportions to add. Constantine's body was drained of fluids.

"Have you vomited?" she asked him.

He winced. "Yes. Only once."

She knew from the feel of his skin and his sunken eyes that he had lost far too much fluid from his body.

"Perhaps it was unintentional," she told him, "but you have starved yourself, and drunk too little."

"I was working with the poor," he answered weakly. His eyes avoided hers, but she did not think it was because he was lying. She suspected that he loathed the intrusion of anyone seeing him like this.

"What is wrong with me?" he asked. "Is it a sin unto death?"

She was stunned. The fear was deep and raw in him, indecently exposed. How could she answer him with honesty that was true both to medicine and to faith?

"It is not only guilt which afflicts," she said gently. "Anger can also, and sometimes grief. You have spent too much of your strength in ministering to others and have neglected yourself. And yes, perhaps that is a sin. God gave you your body to use in His service, not to ill-treat it. That is an ungrateful thing to do. Maybe you need to repent of that."

He stared at her, grasping at what she had said, turning it over and weighing it. Gradually some of the fear eased away, as if miraculously she had not said what he dreaded. His hand gripping the sheet loosed a little.

She smiled. "Take better thought for yourself in future. You cannot serve either God or man in this state."

He breathed in deeply and let out a sigh.

"You must drink," she told him. "I have brought herbs which will cleanse and strengthen you. You must eat, but with care. Bread that has been well kneaded, hens' eggs lightly boiled, not goose or duck eggs. You may eat lightly boiled meat of partridge or francolin, or young kid, not older animals. A little stewed apple with honey would be good, but avoid nuts. Then when you are ready, in two or three days, take a little fish; gray mullet is good. Mostly you must drink water with juice mixed in. Have your servant wash you and bring you clean linen. Have him help you so you do not fall. You are weak. I shall give him a list of what other food to buy."

She saw in his face that he wished to ask more. Afraid it would be questions she could not answer without causing him confusion or distress, she gave him no time, bidding him good-bye and promising to return soon.

Early the following morning, she went to check his progress. He looked gaunt in the full daylight, his cheeks sunken, his skin colorless, papery; oddly like a very large old woman. His pale hands on the bedcover seemed enormous, his arms fleshy. She was moved with a wave of intense pity for him but was careful that he should not see it in her eyes.

"The people are praying for you," she told him. "Philippos, Maria, and Angelos stopped me when they heard I had called on you. They are very concerned."

He smiled, the light returning to his eyes. "Really?"

Did he fear she was saying it to please him? "Yes, some even fast and keep vigil. They love you, and I think also they are very afraid of facing the future without you."

"Tell them I need their support, Anastasius. Thank them for me."

"I will," she promised, embarrassed by his need for so much reassurance. When he was better, would he remember this and hate her for having seen too much?

The following day, Manuel once again opened the door to Anna. His eyes went immediately to the basket she was carrying: strengthening foods prepared by Simonis for the ailing bishop.

"Food for the bishop," she explained. "How is he?"

"Much better," Manuel replied. "The pain is less, but he is still very weak indeed."

"It will take time, but he will recover." She passed him the soup with instructions to heat it and left the bread on the table. She went through to Constantine's bedroom, knocking on the door and waiting for his answer before she went in.

While he was sitting up in bed, he still looked hollow-eyed and pale. A whole man would have been stubble-chinned by now, but Constantine's face looked curiously soft.

"How are you?" she asked.

"Improved," he replied, but she could see he was tired.

She felt his brow, then his pulse, then gently pinched the skin on his forearm again. He was still clammy and his flesh slack, but his pulse was steadier. She made a few more inquiries about his pain, by which time Manuel arrived with the soup and bread. She sat beside Constantine, steadying his hand as he ate, gently helping him, steeling herself to ask the questions.

"Please eat," she encouraged. "We need you to be strong. I do not wish to be governed by Rome. It will destroy a great deal of what I believe to be true, and of infinite value. It is a tragedy that Bessarion Comnenos was murdered." She hesitated. "Do you think that could have been prompted by Rome?"

His eyes widened and his hand stopped with the spoon in the air. The thought had not occurred to him. She could see him searching for the answer he wanted to give.

"I had not considered it," he admitted finally. "Perhaps I should have."

"Would it not have served their interest?" she pressed. "Bessarion was passionately against union. He was of imperial blood. Might he have led a resurgence of faith among the people that would have made union impossible?"

He was still staring at her, the last of the soup temporarily forgotten. "Have you heard anyone say so?" he asked, his voice low and with a sudden, sharp note of fear in it.

"If I were of the Roman faith, perhaps hoping to assist the union myself, either for religious reasons or ambition, I would not want a leader such as Bessarion alive and well," she said urgently.

A curious look passed over Constantine's face, a mixture of surprise and wariness.

She plunged on. "Might Justinian Lascaris have been in the pay of Rome, do you suppose?"

"Never," he said instantly. Then he stopped, as if he had committed himself too quickly. "At least, he is the last man I would have thought it of."

She could not let this opportunity slip by. "What other reason do you think Justinian could have had for killing Bessarion? Did he hate him? Was there a rivalry between them? Or money?"

"No," he said quickly, pushing aside the tray that held his food. "There was no rivalry or hate, at least on Justinian's part. And no money. Justinian was a wealthy man, and prospering more each year. Every reason I know of says he would wish Bessarion alive. He was profoundly against the union and supported Bessarion in his work against it. At times I thought he did the more work of the two."

"Against the union?"

"Of course." Constantine shook his head. "I cannot believe Justinian would work for Rome. He was an honorable man, of more courage and decisiveness than Bessarion, I think. That is why I spoke for him to the emperor in plea that the sentence be commuted to exile. It was certainly his boat that was used to dispose of the body, but it might have been without his knowledge. Antoninus confessed, but he did not implicate Justinian."

"What do you think was the truth?" She could not leave it now. She touched on the subject ugliest in her mind. "Could it not have been personal? To do with Helena?"

"I do not believe Justinian had any feelings for Helena, most certainly not of that kind."

"She is beautiful," Anna pointed out.

Constantine looked slightly surprised. "I suppose so. There is no modesty in her, no humility."

"True," Anna conceded, "but those are not always qualities that men look for."

Constantine shifted a little in the bed, as if he were uncomfortable. "Justinian told me that Helena had once made it very clear that she wished him to lie with her, and he had refused. He told me that he still loved his wife, who had died not long before, and he could not yet think of another woman, least of all Helena." Constantine smoothed his hands over the rumpled sheet. "He showed me a painting of his wife, very small, only a couple of inches square, so that he could carry it with him. She looked very beautiful to me, a gentle face, intelligent. Her name was Catalina. The way Justinian said it made me believe everything he said."

Anna took the tray from the side of the bed and rose to put them on a table at the far side of the room. It gave her a chance to compose herself. His words, the story of Justinian and Catalina's portrait, brought their presence so sharply to her mind that the loss was almost like a physical pain.

She put down the tray and turned back to Constantine. "Then he would have wanted Bessarion alive, wouldn't he?" she asked. "Both to lead the struggle against the union and to excuse him from having to justify his refusal of Helena?"

"That is another reason I pleaded for his exile," Constantine said sadly.

"Then who did help kill Bessarion? Could we not prove it, and have Justinian freed?" She saw the surprise in his face. "Would it not be our holy duty?" she amended quickly. "Added to which, of course, he could return and continue in the struggle against Rome."

"I don't know who helped kill Bessarion," he said, spreading his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "If I did, don't you think I would already have told the emperor?"

His tone had changed. She was convinced he was lying, but it was impossible to challenge him. She should retreat now, before she antagonized him or aroused his suspicion as to why she should care so much.

"I suppose it was some other friend of Antoninus," she said as lightly as she could. "Why did he kill him, anyway?"

"I don't know that, either." Constantine sighed.

Again she was certain he was lying.

"I'm glad you liked the soup," she said with a slight smile.

"Thank you." He smiled back. "Now I think I will go to sleep for a while."

Sixteen

GIULIANO DANDOLO STOOD ON THE STEPS OF THE LANDING stage and watched the water of the canal rippling in the torchlight. He smiled in spite of the faint sense of unrest he felt. One moment the wavelets were crested with glittering ribbons of light, the next they were shadowed and as dense as if he could walk out over them and they would bear his weight. Everything was shifting, beautiful and uncertain, like Venice itself.

His thoughts were disturbed by the sharper slap of water on the steps, and as he moved forward he saw the outline of a small, swiftly moving barge. There were armed men standing on the sides, and it slid smoothly to the mooring post and stopped. The torches blazed up and the slender, heavily robed figure of Doge Lorenzo Tiepolo rose and in an easy movement stepped ashore. He was in his later years. His sons had all risen to eminence, and many suggested it was purely by their father's favor. But then people always said such things.

Tiepolo walked forward across the marble as the torchlight wavered in the rising breeze. He was smiling, his small, heavy-lidded eyes bright and his hair silver like a halo.

"Good evening, Giuliano," he said warmly. "Did I keep you waiting?" It was a rhetorical question. He was ruler of Venice; everyone waited for him. He had known Giuliano since he had been brought here as a small child nearly thirty years ago, as he had known and loved Giuliano's father also.

Still, one did not take liberties. "A spring evening on the canal can hardly be thought of as waiting, Excellency," Giuliano replied, falling into step with the doge, but just behind him.

"Always the courtier," Tiepolo murmured as they crossed the piazza in front of the ornate Ducal Palace. "Perhaps it is a good thing. We have sufficient enemies." He led the way inside through the great doors, the guard before and behind him silent and watchful.

"The day we have no enemies it will mean we have nothing for any man to envy," Giuliano replied a trifle dryly. They took off their outdoor cloaks and walked along the high-ceilinged hall with its painted walls, their feet loud on the inlaid floor.

Tiepolo's smile widened. "And no teeth to bite with," he added. He turned right into a high anteroom and then into his own chambers with their frescoed walls and heavy chandeliers. The sandalwood table held dishes of dried dates and apricots and a selection of nuts. The torches glimmered, throwing warm light over the tessellated floor.

"Sit!" He waved his arm in the general direction of the carved chairs around the huge fireplace, where a fire burned to warm the still chilly March air. The great portrait of his father, Doge Jacopo Tiepolo, hung above it. "Wine?" he offered. "The red is from Fiesole, very good." Without waiting for an answer, he took two of the glass tumblers and filled them, then passed one to Giuliano.

Giuliano accepted it, thanking him. Tiepolo had been his friend and patron since his own father's death, but he knew he had not been summoned simply for the pleasure of conversation. That happened quite often, but it was late at night for casual talk of art or food, boat races, beautiful women, or, far more entertainingly, scandalous ones-and, of course, of the sea. Tonight the doge was serious; his narrow face with its long nose had a pensive expression, and he moved uneasily, as if paying more heed to the thoughts occupying his mind than to his actions.

Giuliano waited.

Tiepolo looked at the light through the wine in his glass but did not yet drink. "Charles of Anjou still cherishes his dreams of uniting the five ancient patriarchies of Rome, Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Byzantium again." His look was bleak. "All under his own sovereignty, of course. Then he would be Count of Anjou, senator of Rome, king of Naples and Sicily and Albania, king of Jerusalem, lord of the patriarchates, and of course uncle to the king of France. Such power in any one man would make me uneasy, but in him it is a danger not only to Venice, but to the whole world.

"His success would threaten our interests right along the east coast of the Adriatic. Michael Palaeologus has signed the agreement of unity with Rome, but my information tells me he will have considerably more difficulty in taking his people with him than the pope may imagine. And we all know that the Holy Father is a passionate crusader." He smiled bleakly. "He is reputed to have sworn the skill of his right hand that he will never forget Jerusalem. We would be wise to remember that."

Giuliano waited.

"Which means he will aid Charles, at least in that," Tiepolo added.

"Then he would have Rome on his side, and Jerusalem and Antioch in his hands." Giuliano spoke at last. "Would Charles attack Byzantium, even though the emperor has signed the agreement of union and submitted to the pope? Surely he would then be attacking an equally Christian city, and the Holy Father could not countenance that."

Tiepolo lifted one shoulder very slightly. "That might depend whether the people of Byzantium, especially the city of Constantinople, will honor the union."

Giuliano thought about it, aware of the doge's eyes probing, watching every flicker and shadow of his expression. If Charles of Anjou took all five of the old patriarchies, including Constantinople astride the Bosphorus, he would hold the gateway to the Black Sea and everything beyond it: Trebizond, Samarkand, and the old Silk Road to the East. If he also gained control of Alexandria and thus the Nile, and so Egypt, he would be the most powerful man in Europe. The trade of the world would pass through his hands. Popes came and went, and the election of them would be his decision.

"We have a dilemma," Tiepolo continued. "There are many elements to Charles's possible success. Our building ships for his crusade is only one of them. And if we do not, then Genoa will. We have to consider the profit and loss of our naval yards, and of course our bankers and merchants, and those who supply the knights, foot soldiers, and pilgrims. We want them to pass through Venice, as they have always done. It is a very considerable revenue."

Giuliano sipped his wine and reached across to take half a dozen almonds.

"There are other factors far less certain," Tiepolo continued. "Michael Palaeologus is a clever man. He could not have retaken Constantinople were he not. He will have the same information we have, or more." He said the last with a rueful amusement in his eyes. At last he also took a handful of nuts.

"He will know what Charles of Anjou plans, and he will know what Rome intends to do to assist him," he went on. "He will take all measures he can to prevent their success." His eyes were steady on Giuliano's dark, handsome face, watching his reaction.

"Yes, Excellency," Giuliano answered. "But Michael has a small navy, and his army is already fully occupied elsewhere." He said it with little pity. He did not want to think of Constantinople. His father was Venetian to the bone, a junior son of the great Dandolo family, but his mother had been Byzantine, and he never willingly brought her back to his mind. What sane man looks for pain?

"So he will use guile," Tiepolo concluded. "In his place, wouldn't you? Michael has just regained his capital city, one of the great jewels of the world. He will fight to the death before he gives it up again."

Giuliano could remember his mother only as a sort of warmth, a sweet smell and the touch of soft skin, and then afterward an emptiness that nothing since had ever filled. He had been about three when she had gone, as bereaved as if she had died. Only she hadn't; she had simply left him and his father, choosing to stay in Byzantium rather than be with them.

If Constantinople were sacked again, burned and looted by Latin crusaders, robbed of its treasures, its palaces left charred and in ruins, it would be a kind of justice. But the thought gave him no pleasure; the savage satisfaction was more pain than joy. Charles of Anjou's success would alter the fate of Europe and of both the Catholic Church and the Orthodox. It might also quell the rising power of Islam and redeem the Holy Land.

Tiepolo leaned forward a little. "I don't know what Michael Palaeologus will do, but I know what I would do in his place. Men can lead nations only so far. Charles of Anjou is a Frenchman, king of Naples by chance and ambition, not birth. The same is true of Sicily. If rumor is correct, they have no love for him."

Giuliano had heard the same whispers. "Michael will use it?" he asked.

"Wouldn't you?" Tiepolo said softly.

"Yes."

"Go to Naples and see what manner of fleet Charles plans. How many ships, what size. When he plans to sail. Talk bargains and prices with him. We will need even more good hardwood than usual if we are to build his fleet. But also see what the people think." Tiepolo lowered his voice. "What do they say when they are hungry, afraid, when they have drunk too much and tongues are unguarded? Look for troublemakers. See what strength they have, and what weaknesses. Then go to Sicily and do the same. Look for the poverty, the discontent, the love and hate beneath the surface."

Giuliano should have realized what Tiepolo wanted of him. He was the ideal man for the job, a skilled sailor who could command his own ship, the son of a merchant father who knew the trade of the whole Mediterranean, and above all a man who had inherited the blood and the name of one of the greatest of all Venetian families, even if not their wealth. It was his great-grandfather Doge Enrico Dandolo who had led the crusade that had taken Constantinople in 1204, and when Venice was cheated of its just payment for the ships and supplies, he had brought the greatest of its treasures home in recompense.

Tiepolo was smiling openly now, the wineglass glinting in his hand. "And from Sicily go to Constantinople," he went on. "See if they are repairing their defenses, but more than that, stay in the Venetian Quarter down by the Golden Horn. See how strong it is, how prosperous. If Charles attacks in Venetian ships, judge what they will do. Where are their loyalties, their interests? They are Venetian, and by now part Byzantine. How deep are their roots? I need to know, Giuliano. I give you no more than four months. I cannot afford longer."

"Of course," Giuliano agreed.

"Good." Tiepolo nodded. "I will see that you have all you need: money, a good ship, cargo to give you excuse and reason, and men who will obey you, and to whom you can trust your trade while you are ashore. You will leave the day after tomorrow. Now drink your wine. It's excellent." He lifted his own glass higher as if to demonstrate and put it to his lips.

In the evening of the following day, Giuliano met his closest friend, Pietro Contarini, and they dined together. Giuliano savored the tastes of wine and food as if he might be hungry for months to come. They laughed over old jokes and sang songs they had known for years. They had grown up together, learned the same lessons, discovered the pleasures of wine and women and the misfortunes as well.

They had fallen in love for the first time in the same month, each confiding to the other the doubts and the pains, the triumphs, and then the agony of rejection. When they had discovered that it was the same girl, they had fought like wild dogs until first blood was drawn, Giuliano's. Then instantly friendship was more important, and they had ended laughing at themselves. No woman had come between them since.

Pietro had married several years ago and had a son of whom he was immensely proud, and then two daughters. However, domestic responsibility had not dulled his eye for a pretty woman or robbed him of his joy in adventure.

Now they sat in the tavern facing the long sweep of the Grand Canal amid the laughter and clink of glasses, the smells of wine and salt water, food and leather, and smoke from cooling fires.

"Here's to adventure..." Pietro raised his glass of rather good red wine to which Giuliano had treated them both, in honor of the occasion.

They touched glasses and drank.

"Here's to Venice, and everything Venetian," Giuliano added. "May her glory never grow dim." He emptied his glass. "What time is it, do you think?"

"No idea. Why?"

"Going to say good-bye to Lucrezia," Giuliano replied. "Won't see her for a while."

"Will you miss her?" Pietro asked curiously.

"Not much," Giuliano said. Pietro had been nagging him to marry for some time. Even the thought of it made him feel trapped. Lucrezia was fun, warm, and generous, at least physically-but she was also cloying at times. The thought of committing himself to her was like locking a door that trapped him inside.

He put his empty glass on the table and stood up. He would enjoy being with Lucrezia. He had bought a gold filigree necklace to take her as a gift. He had chosen it with care, and he knew she would love it. He would miss her, her quiet laughter, the softness of her touch. But it still would not be hard to leave in the morning.

* * *

Giuliano found Naples a frightening and disturbingly beautiful place, full of unexpected impressions. The city had a vitality that excited him, as if the people tasted both the joy and the tragedy of life with a wholehearted intensity greater than that of others.

It had been founded by the Greeks, hence its name-Neapolis, New City-and the narrow streets followed a pattern like a grid, which the Greeks had formed. Many of them were well over a thousand years old, steep and shadowed by high houses. Giuliano listened to the laughter and the quarrels, the haggling over olives and fruit and fish, the splashing of fountains and the rattle of wheels. He smelled cooking and clogged drains, the perfume of bright trailing vines and flowers, and human and animal waste. He watched women scrubbing laundry by the fountains, gossiping with one another, laughing, scolding their children. Their loyalty was to life, not to any king, Italian or French.

The sun was bright and hotter than he was accustomed to. He was familiar with light on water, but the burning blue of the Bay of Naples, stretching to the horizon, had a brilliance to it that dazzled his eyes, yet he was drawn again and again to stand and stare at it.

But always intruding into his mind was the ominous presence of Mount Vesuvius looming behind the city to the south, now and then sending a breath of smoke up gently into the glittering peace of the sky. Looking at it, Giuliano could see so easily how it could drive people mad with the hunger for life, the craving that would make you seize everything, gorging on every taste, in case tomorrow was too late.

He was in a deeply contemplative mood when finally he approached the palace and was invited into the presence of the Frenchman who ruled as king. Giuliano knew of his considerable military successes, particularly in the war with Genoa, barely over, and his victories in the East that had made him king of Albania as well as of the Two Sicilies. He expected a warrior, a man a little drunk with the triumph of his own violence. And he thought all Franks were unsophisticated compared with any Latin, never mind a Venetian who had so much of the delicate subtlety of Byzantium as well as his native love of beauty.

Giuliano found a large, barrel-chested man in his late forties, olive-skinned, dark-eyed, his powerful face dominated by an enormous nose. His dress was quite modest; nothing marked him out from those around him except the restless energy of his manner and the confidence that burned through even in the moments when he stood in repose.

When he was commanded to speak, Giuliano introduced himself as a sailor familiar with most of the ports of the eastern Mediterranean and currently an emissary of the doge of Venice.

Charles welcomed him and invited him to sit at the table, which was richly set with food and drink. It seemed like an order, so Giuliano obeyed. But instead of eating, Charles paced back and forth in vigorous strides, firing questions at him.

"Dandolo, you said?"

"Yes, sire."

"A great name! A great name indeed. And you know the East? Cyprus? Rhodes? Crete? Acre? Do you know Acre?"

Giuliano briefly described these places to him.

Charles surely knew them already. Presumably he was comparing one account with another. Only occasionally did he pick up a leg of roast fowl and a piece of bread or fruit and bite into it, and he took little wine. Now and again he gave orders, and there seemed to be scribes taking them down in notes all over the place, as if he required three copies of everything. Giuliano was impressed that he seemed able to think of so many things at once.

His grasp of politics in Europe was encyclopedic, and he knew much of North Africa and the Holy Land and beyond, as far as the Mongol Empire. Giuliano found himself dazzled and had to struggle to keep up, quickly coming to the decision that to admit his limitations would be not only more courteous, but wiser in the presence of one who would take only moments to realize the relative ignorance of somebody who was younger and less experienced.

Should he ask about ships for a coming crusade? It was what Tiepolo had sent him for.

"It would need a great fleet," Giuliano observed.

Charles laughed, a rich sound of amusement. "Always the Venetian. Of course it will. Much money and many pilgrims. Are you going to offer me a bargain?"

Giuliano leaned back a little and smiled. "We could bargain. Much timber would be needed, far more than usual. All our shipyards would be engaged, possibly day and night."

"In a holy cause," Charles pointed out.

"Conquest or profit?" Giuliano asked.

Charles roared with laughter and slapped him on the shoulder, a blow that jarred his teeth. "I could like you, Dandolo," he said heartily. "We'll talk numbers, and money, in a little while. Have another glass of wine."

Three hours later Giuliano left with his mind whirling, walking back through the halls hardly less ornate than the Doge's Palace in Venice, although the courtiers were less sophisticated, even coarse in their habits by comparison.

Some said Charles was stern but fair, others that he taxed his subjects into penury, almost to starvation, and that he had neither love for nor interest in the people of Italy.

Yet for ambition's sake, he chose to have his court so often here in Naples, passionately, intensely, almost madly alive and placed like a jewel on the side of a sleeping dragon whose smoke even now scarred the horizon. Charles too was a force of nature that might destroy those who took him too lightly.

Guiliano must learn a great deal more, study, listen, watch, and take intense care as to exactly what he reported back to the doge. He went down the steps into the blinding sunlight, and the heat from the stones embraced him.

When Charles moved his court from Naples south to Messina on the island of Sicily, Giuliano followed after him a week later. As in Naples, he watched and listened. The talk was of the reconquest of Outremer, as the old kingdom of Christian Palestine was known.

"Just the beginning," one sailor said cheerfully, drinking down half a pint of wine and water with gusto. "More than time we took the war back to the Muslims. They're all over the place, and spreading."

"Time we got our own back," another said savagely. He was a big man with a red beard. "Fifteen years ago they killed a hundred and fifty Teutonic knights at Durbe. Then all the people in Osel apostatized and slaughtered every Christian in their territory."

"At least they stopped the Mongols going into Egypt," Giuliano volunteered, interested to see their answer to that. "Better the Muslims fight them than we have to."

"Let the Mongols soften them up for us," the first man rejoined. "Then we'll finish them. I'm not choosy who's on my side." He guffawed with laughter.

"Clearly," a small man with a pointed beard put in.

The red-haired man slammed his tankard on the tabletop. "And what the hell is that supposed to mean?" he challenged, his face flushing with anger.

"It is supposed to mean that if you had ever seen an army of Mongol horsemen, you'd be damn glad to have the Muslims between you and them," the other rejoined.

"And the Byzantines?" Giuliano asked, hoping to provoke an informative reply.

The small man shrugged. "Between us and Islam?"

"Why not?" Giuliano urged. "Isn't it better they fight Islam than we have to?"

The man with the red beard shifted in his seat. "King Charles will take them when we pass that way, just like before. Plenty of treasure there for the picking."

"We can't do that," Giuliano told him. "They've agreed to union with Rome, which makes them fellow believers in the one faith with us. Taking them by force would be a sin unpardonable by the pope."

Redbeard grinned. "The king'll take care of that, never you worry. He's writing to Rome even now, asking the pope to excommunicate the emperor, which will take all protection from him. Then we can do as we like."

Giuliano sat stunned, the room melting into a blur of sound, senseless around him.

Two days later, Giuliano set out for Constantinople. The voyage east was calm and swifter than he had expected, lasting only eighteen days. Like most other ships, theirs hugged the shore all the way, often unloading cargo and taking on more. It was to be a profitable journey in money as well as information.

However, as they sailed up the Sea of Marmara in the early May morning, the mares-tail clouds high and fragile, the wind painting brushstrokes on the sea, he admitted to himself that no matter how long it took, or however he steeled himself, he would never be ready to see the homeland of the mother who had given him birth and yet loved him so little that she had been willing to abandon him.

He had looked at women with their children passing him in the street. They might be tired, worried, heartbroken for a hundred reasons, but they never took their eyes from their children. Every step was watched. A hand was ever ready to support or to chastise, but it was always there.

They might scold the child, slap it in temper, but let anyone else threaten it and they would learn what anger really was.

At midday he stood on the deck of the ship, heart pounding as they slid across the smooth, shining water of the Bosphorus and the great city grew closer and more detailed. His sailor's eye was drawn to the lighthouse. It was magnificent, visible to approaching mariners at night from miles away.

The harbor was crowded, scores of fishing boats and ferries and cargo carriers scudding about the huge hulls of the triremes hailing from the Atlantic to the Black Sea. And across that narrow channel of water, Europe met Asia. This was the crossroads of the world.

"Captain?"

There was no more time for self-indulgence. He must turn his attention to making harbor, seeing the ship safely anchored and the cargo unloaded before turning over command to his first officer. They had already agreed that the ship would return for him at the beginning of July.

It was the following day before he stepped ashore with his chest packed-a few clothes and books, sufficient to last him for nearly two months. The doge had given him a generous allowance.

It was an alien feeling to stand on the cobbles of the street. Half Byzantine, he should have embraced this as a homecoming, yet all he felt was rejection. He came as a spy.

He turned and looked back at the harbor teeming with ships. He might know the men on some of them, even have sailed with them, faced the same storms and hardships, the same excitement. The light on the water had the same strange, luminous quality that it had in Venice, the sky, the familiar softness.

He spent three nights in lodgings and the intervening days walking around the city, gaining a feel for its nature, its customs, its geography, even the food, the jokes, and the taste of the air.

He sat in a restaurant having an excellent meal of savory goat meat with garlic and vegetables, then a glass of wine that he thought not nearly as good as Venetian. He watched the people in the street, overhearing snatches of conversation, much of which he did not understand. He studied faces and listened to the tones of voice. The Greek he spoke, and of course the Genoese he heard disturbingly often. He understood snatches from the Arabs and Persians whose dress was so easy to distinguish. The Albanians, Bulgars, and high-cheeked Mongols were alien, and he was reminded with a tingle of discomfort just how far east he was and how close to the lands of the Great Khan or the Muslims the red-bearded man had spoken of in Messina.

He would find a Venetian family down by the shore of the Golden Horn. He wondered idly where his mother had lived. She had been born during the exile, perhaps in Nicea or farther north? Then he was furious with himself for allowing in the pain that always came with thoughts of her. He couldn't stop himself.

He closed his eyes hard against the sunlight and the busyness of the street, but nothing shut out the inner vision of his father, gray-haired, his face lined with sorrow, the locket open in his hand showing the tiny painting of a young woman with dark eyes and laughing face. How could she laugh and leave them? Giuliano had never once heard him speak ill of her. He had died still loving her.

He lurched to his feet. The wine would choke him now. He left it and strode out into the street. This was an alien city, full of people he would never be foolish enough to trust. Know your enemy, learn from them, understand them, but never, ever be seduced by their art, their skill, or their beauty; just judge whose side they would be on when it mattered.

The Venetian Quarter was just a few streets, and they made no great show of their origins. No one had forgotten whose fleet had brought the invaders who had burned the city and stolen the holy relics.

He found a family with the old, proud name of Mocenigo and immediately liked the man, Andrea. He had an ascetic face, bordering on plain until he smiled; then he was almost beautiful. And it was not until he moved that Giuliano noticed he had a slight limp. His wife, Teresa, was shy but offered to make Giuliano welcome, and his five children seemed happily unaware that he was a stranger. They asked him numerous questions as to where he was from and why he was here, until their parents told them that interest was friendly, but to be inquisitive was rude. They apologized and stood in a row, eyes downcast.

"You have not been the least bit rude," Giuliano said quickly in Italian. "One day, when we have time, I will tell you about some of the other places I have been to, and what they were like. And if you will, you can tell me about Constantinople. This is the first time I have been here."

That settled the issue immediately; this was the house in which he would lodge. He accepted with pleasure.

"I am Venetian," Mocenigo explained with a smile. "But I have chosen to make my life here because my wife is Byzantine, and I find a certain freedom of the mind in the Orthodox faith." His tone was half-apologetic because he assumed Giuliano would be of the Roman Church, but his eyes were unflinching. He would not choose an argument, but if one arose, he would be ready to defend his belief.

Giuliano held out his hand. "Then perhaps I shall learn something deeper of Byzantium than the merchants will tell me."

Mocenigo clasped it, and the bargain was made. The financial agreement was far outweighed in importance by the promise of the future.

It was natural that they should ask Giuliano his business, and he was prepared with an answer.

"My family have been merchants for a long time," he said easily. That, at least, was true, if he intended the term to include all those descended from the great doge Enrico Dandolo. "I've come to see more directly what is bought and sold here, and what more we could do to increase our trade. There must be needs unmet, new opportunities." He wanted the freedom to ask as many questions as possible without raising suspicion. "The new union with the Church of Rome should make many things simpler."

Mocenigo shrugged and pulled his face into an expression of doubt. "The paper is signed, but that's a long way from a reality yet."

Giuliano managed to look slightly surprised. "You think the agreement may not be kept? Surely Byzantium wants peace? Constantinople in particular cannot afford war again, and if they are not of one faith with Rome, war is what it will be, in fact, even if they don't call it that."

"Probably." Mocenigo's voice was soft and sad. "Most sane people don't want war, but wars still happen. The only way you change people's religion is by convincing them of something better, not by threatening to destroy them if they refuse."

Giuliano stared at him. "Is that how they see it?"

"Don't you?" Mocenigo countered.

Giuliano realized that Mocenigo identified with Constantinople, not with Rome. "Do you think other Venetians here feel the same?" he asked. Then instantly he wondered if it was too soon to have been so blunt.

Mocenigo shook his head. "I can't answer for others. None of us knows yet what obedience to Rome will mean, apart from months of delay before we get answers to appeals, and money paid out of the country in tithes, instead of it staying here, where we desperately need it. Will our churches still be cared for, mended, filled with beauty? Will our priests still be paid well, and left their consciences and their dignity?"

"Well, there cannot be a crusade before '78 or '79 at the soonest," Giuliano reasoned aloud. "By then we may have reached a more sensible understanding, earned a little latitude, perhaps."

Mocenigo smiled-a sudden radiance in his face. "I love a man with hope," he said, shaking his head. "But find out all you can about trade, by all means. There's profit to be made, even in a short time. See what others think. Many believe the Holy Virgin will protect us."

Giuliano thanked him and let the subject fall for the time being. But the easy way in which Mocenigo, a Venetian, had said "us" when referring to Constantinople remained in his mind. It suggested a sense of belonging that he could neither dismiss nor forget.

In the following days, he explored the shops along Mese Street and the spice market with its rich, aromatic perfumes and bright colors. He talked to the Venetians in the quarter, listened to the jokes and the arguments. At home in Venice most quarrels were about trade; here they were about religion, faith versus pragmatism, conciliation versus loyalty. Sometimes he joined in, more with questions than opinions.

It was not until his third week that he went farther up the hills and into the old back streets, where he found the dark stains of fire on the stones and every now and then rubble and weeds where there had been people's homes at the turn of the century; and for the first time in his life, he was ashamed of being Venetian.

One house in particular caught his attention as he stood in a brief shower of rain, the water running down his face and plastering his hair to his head. He stared at the faded paint of a mural showing a woman with a child in her arms. His mother would not have been born when the city was broken and burned, but she might have looked like that, young and slender, in a Byzantine tunic, with a child close to her, proud, gentle, smiling out at the world.