The Sheen on the Silk (28 page)

IN THE EARLY EVENING, ANNA STOOD IN THE PLACE HIGH on the hill overlooking the sea where she had stood with Giuliano Dandolo and spoken of the glory of the city spread below them. It was still as beautiful, but it was the shore of Asia beyond that she stared at now. Above it, the sun was making shining towers of the slow clouds sailing like ships around the edges of heaven.

The silence was heavy in the air. Lately she had been so busy with patients that she had had little opportunity to come here, and the solitude was welcome.

Yet she would have liked to be able to speak to Giuliano or even simply meet his eyes and know that he saw the same beauty in it that she did. Words would be unnecessary.

But even as the thoughts came to her, she was conscious of her own foolishness. She could not afford to think of him in such a way. His friendship was something to savor, then to let go, not to cling to as if it could be permanent.

She could stand here and watch the light fade over the water only for a little longer, see the shadows turn gold and then darken and color fill the hollows in purple and amber, blurring the outlines, splashing the windows with fire.

She had not accomplished much in clearing Justinian’s name. He was still in a desert monastery, imprisoned and useless, fretting away the hours, let alone the days and the years, while she gathered shreds too small to weave into anything.

She was not even certain that Bessarion’s death was a result of his religious fervor. It could have been personal. He had clearly been abrasive, difficult to be at ease with, and Helena had been bored with him. That she could understand too easily.

She had thought that Bessarion himself must be the key to his own death. It had not been difficult to ask about him. The city was still full of memories, and as the stories of torture and imprisonment mounted, his stature as a hero grew. But Anna had found that the humanity of the man eluded her. He had shared the fire of his belief with everyone, but never the hunger of his dreams.

Then why had he been murdered?

It was like looking at a mosaic picture with the center missing. It could have been any of a score of things. Without it she was floundering, wasting more precious time.

Again and again she came back to the Church and its danger of being consumed by Rome. Had Justinian loved it with the passion that would drive him to spend time, energy, and loyalty with people he did not like in order to preserve its identity from corruption?

She shivered in the dying sun, even though the whisper of a breeze rising held no chill at all.

She needed to meet others like Esaias Glabas, who had been an unlikely friend of Justinian’s, and Eirene and Demetrios Vatatzes. Eirene sometimes had poor health. Anna must exert all her efforts to become her physician. Zoe could aid her with that.

It took Anna a number of weeks to contrive her first professional call on Eirene. She liked her immediately. Even distressed by illness as Eirene was now, her face was vivid with intelligence and yet startlingly ugly, but Anna realized that that was at least in part because of the strength in her. The consultation was brief. Anna had the impression that it was largely for Eirene to decide whether she wished to trust Anna or not.

However, on the second call Eirene greeted Anna with relief and without prevarication, leading her into a more private room looking onto a small inner court. There were no murals except one simple picture of vines, but the proportions were so perfect that they seemed to form the walls rather than be added to them.

“I am afraid the pain is worse,” Eirene said frankly, standing with her arms limp at her sides, as if even in front of a physician she was embarrassed to mention something so personal.

Anna was not surprised. There had been an awkwardness in the way she moved and a stiffness that betrayed locked muscles, and above all fear. Now that she was still, she lifted her left arm and cradled it in her right hand.

“And in the chest also?” Anna asked her.

Eirene smiled. “You are going to tell me that my heart is weak. I shall acknowledge it and save your searching for comforting words.” There was a bitterness to her humor, but no self-pity.

“No,” Anna replied.

Eirene’s eyebrows shot up. “Sin? I’d heard better of you than that. Zoe Chrysaphes said you were no lover of obedient thoughts and the safety of men’s beliefs.”

“I had not imagined her so sharp of vision,” Anna replied. “Or that she looked at me at all, beyond my professional ability.”

Eirene smiled widely. In her ugly face, it was like a blaze of sunlight across a bleak landscape. “Zoe looks at everyone, especially those she judges can be of use to her. Don’t take it as flattery. It is merely that she weighs every tool to the fraction of an ounce before she considers using it. Now give me a candid answer: What is wrong with me? You looked at me thoroughly enough when you were here before.”

Anna was not ready to answer yet. She knew that Eirene’s husband was still alive, because his name had been mentioned in her first visit. “Where is your husband?” she asked.

Anger flared up Eirene’s face, her eyes burning. “You will answer to me, you impudent creature. My body is my affair, not my husband’s.”

Anna was stung by surprise and then the instant after by how revealing Eirene’s answer had been. What had her husband done to lacerate Eirene so profoundly that the wound bled at a touch?

“Much of your illness comes from anxiety,” Anna said, lowering her voice, trying to keep pity out of it. “I know from last time I was here that your son is in Constantinople. I wondered if your husband was traveling, perhaps in dangerous regions. Although I am not sure how many are safe. The sea never changes its shores or its rocks and whirlpools. Pirates come and go.”

Eirene blushed. “I apologize. My husband is in Alexandria. I do not know whether he is safe or not. I do not worry about it, because it would be pointless.” She turned away and, with an effort, walked upright toward the archway into the court and the high, bright flowers beyond.

So Gregory was still in Egypt, even so many years after most other exiles had returned to Constantinople from every other region.

Anna followed Eirene to the courtyard. It too was sparsely beautiful, clean-lined. The fountain fell into a shaded pool, the water catching the light only at its peak.

She spoke to Eirene of the usual things a physician addresses: food, sleep, the benefits of walking.

“Do you imagine I haven’t thought of all that?” Eirene said, disappointment dragging her voice down again.

“I am sure you have,” Anna replied. “Have you done them? They will not cure you, but they will allow your body to begin curing itself.”

“You are as bad as my priest,” Eirene remarked. “Would you like me to say a dozen Paternosters?”

“If you can do it without your mind wandering off to other things,” Anna replied perfectly seriously. “I don’t think I could.”

Eirene looked at her, a beginning of interest in her eyes. “Is that a rather abstruse way of saying that it is sin at the heart of this after all? I do not need to be sheltered from the truth. I am just as strong as Zoe Chrysaphes.” A flash of light, almost like a moment’s laughter, glanced in her eyes. “Or did you wrap up the truth for her, too, like a child’s medicine, hidden in honey?”

“I would not dare,” Anna replied. “Unless, of course, I was sure I could do it well enough that she would never know.”

This time Eirene laughed outright, a rich sound with layers of meaning, at least some of them malicious. How had Zoe hurt her?

“I have an herbal extract for you…” Anna began.

“What is it? A sedative? Something to stop me feeling the pain?” There was contempt in Eirene’s face. “Is that your solution to life’s griefs, physician? Cover them up? Don’t look at what will hurt you?”

Anna should have been insulted, but she was not. “A sedative will relax your muscles so your body does not fight itself and send you into spasm. Relax so you can eat without gulping in air and giving yourself indigestion to cramp your stomach. Relax so your neck does not ache from bearing your head up, and your head pound from the blood trying to pass through flesh that is knotted as if ease were your enemy.”

“I suppose you know what you are talking about,” Eirene said with a shrug. “You can tell Zoe that my household knows you came on her recommendation. I shall hold her responsible for anything that happens to me. Come back tomorrow.”

When she returned, Anna found Eirene much the same. If the pain was less, it could be attributed to the night’s rest, partially induced by the sedative. She was still tired and in considerably short temper.

Afterward, Anna found Eirene’s son, Demetrios, waiting for her. He asked with some concern over his mother’s condition. She could easily understand why Helena was attracted to him.

“How is my mother?” he repeated urgently.

“I believe anxiety and fear are eating inside her,” Anna answered, not meeting his eyes as she would have were her conscience at ease.

“What has she to be afraid of?” Demetrios was watching her closely, but disguising it in a show of disdain.

“We can fear all manner of things, real and unreal,” she replied. “The sack of the city again, if there is another crusade.” In the corner of her vision, she saw the impatient gesture of his hand brushing away the idea. “The forced union of the Church with Rome,” she went on, and this time he stood perfectly still. “Violence in the city if that should happen,” she added, measuring her words as precisely as she could. “Possible attempts to usurp Michael’s power over the Church.” Her voice was shaking a little now. “By those who are passionately against union.”

The silence was so intense, she could hear a servant drop a fork on the tiled floor two rooms away.

“Usurp Michael’s power over the Church?” he asked at length. “What on earth do you mean?” He was very pale. “Michael is emperor. Or do you mean usurp the throne?”

Her heart pounding, she met his eyes. “Do I?”

“That’s ridiculous! Stay with your medicine,” Demetrios snapped. “You know nothing about the world, and still less about the relations of power.”

“There is something that disturbs your mother,” she lied, her mind racing. “Something keeps her from sleeping and takes the pleasure from her food so she eats it badly and too fast.”

“I suppose that’s better than saying her illness is caused by sin,” he conceded dryly. A sudden, very real sadness crossed his face. “But if you think my mother’s a coward, then you are a fool. I never saw her afraid of anything.”

Of course you didn’t, Anna thought. Eirene’s fears were of the heart, not of the mind or the flesh. Like most women, she feared loneliness and rejection, losing the man she loved to someone like Zoe.

A CEILING IN THE PAPAL PALACE IN VITERBO HAD CAVED in, splintering to a thousand shards of wood, plaster, and rubble, killing Pope John XXI. The news reduced Rome to stunned silence, then slowly spread to the rest of Christendom. Once again, the world had no voice for God to lead it.

Palombara heard the news in the Blachernae Palace at an audience with the emperor. Now he stood in one of the great galleries in front of a magnificent statue. It was one of a few that had survived with only the slightest chip in one arm, as if to show that it too was subject to time and chance. It was Greek, from before Christ, preserved here in this seldom used corner, beautiful and almost naked.

Anna was in the same corridor, returning from treating a patient. She saw Bishop Palombara, but he was deep in thought and as unaware of her as if he had been alone. She read in his face in the unguarded moment a vulnerability to beauty, as if it could reach inside him effortlessly past all the barriers he had built up and touch the wounds beyond.

Yet he allowed it. Some part of him hungered for the overwhelming emotion, even if it was so threaded through with pain. Yet its reality eluded him. She knew that when he turned to her, only for an instant she saw it in his eyes.

Then, as if by mutual agreement, he walked away, back toward the main gallery, and she was ashamed of having intruded, even though it had been unintentional.

She heard a noise of swift footsteps and swung around sharply, as if she had been caught somewhere she should not have been. Why should she feel so exposed? Because she had experienced a moment’s empathy with the Roman?

This was the immediate razor edge of the Schism, not arguments about the nature of God; it was the poison in the nature of man, where the lines of enormity were drawn in the ground and one was afraid to stretch out the hand across them.