The Sheen on the Silk (33 page)

ZOE WAS TOO EXCITED TO SLEEP WHEN SHE RETURNED TO her house. She took off her old woman’s rags and burned them in the hearth. No one must see them, especially soaked with blood as they were. Fortunately, she had little of it on herself. As if she had merely found herself having a restless night, she sent for Thomais and told her to heat water for her to bathe and to fetch towels. Carefully she chose her most precious, luxurious oils and perfumes and unguents for her skin.

When the water was ready, steam rising, moist on the skin and sweet to the smell, she stepped in slowly, savoring the sensation. The heat, the gentle touch of it, eased out all the tight-knotted aches and fears.

She remembered, with a pleasure made sharper by grief, how Gregory had wanted her, tasted her slowly. It was right that she had killed him physically, violently, face-to-face. That was how they had loved, and hated. Poison was right for men like Arsenios, not for Gregory.

She stood up when the water was cooling and noticed with amusement that Thomais still looked at her with admiration in her eyes.

She dressed in fresh clothes and ordered fruit and a glass of wine. Alone in the silence of the end of night, she stood in front of the window and watched the dawn pale in the east. Today she would go to the Hagia Sophia and offer up her thanks to the Virgin Mary. She would give hundreds of candles, make the whole place a glory of light. Gregory Vatatzes and Giuliano Dandolo destroyed in one superb act. And she was safe.

The dawn broadened. Thomais returned to say that the physician Anastasius had called, requesting to see her immediately.

What on earth could he want at this hour? But since Zoe was up and dressed anyway, it was not an inconvenience.

“Send him in,” she ordered. “And bring more fruit, and another glass.”

A moment later Anastasius came in, his face ashen except for two high spots of color on his cheeks. His hair was barely combed, and he looked both exhausted and furious.

“Good morning, Anastasius,” Zoe said. “May I offer you wine, a little fruit?”

“Gregory Vatatzes is dead,” Anastasius said in a hard, thin voice.

“I did not know he was ill,” Zoe replied with perfect calm. “From your apparent distress, I assume you attended him?”

“There was nothing to attend,” Anastasius replied bitterly. “He was lying in a street in the Venetian Quarter, his throat torn open with the dagger you gave to Giuliano Dandolo.”

“Murdered?” Zoe turned the word over on her tongue, as if uncertain of it. “He must have had more enemies than he realized. Dandolo, you said? Really. I believe Gregory spent some time in Venice, before going to Alexandria. Perhaps it was a family feud?”

“I am sure it was,” Anastasius agreed. “Dandolo is a dangerous name to carry in Constantinople. With the history it has, I would be surprised if you gave him such a gift.” He smiled with scalding irony, his eyes brilliant, the intelligence in them hard and probing. “With the hilt toward him, that is.”

A flash of humor lit Zoe’s smile for an instant. “You think I should have presented it blade first?”

“I think you did,” Anastasius retorted. “Only he did not realize it.”

Zoe shrugged. “Then it looks as if he too is a victim of this murder. I’m sorry he is your friend. I would not intentionally have had it so.”

“He is not a victim,” Anastasius said. “The authorities have concluded that Gregory’s death was a tragic accident. He was apparently struck by a horse and cart, in the darkness, of course, and the unfamiliar streets.”

“And it tore his throat out?” Zoe said incredulously. “Was it the horse which did that, or the cart?”

Anastasius’s face was unreadable. “It looks as if he was in the middle of the street and was knocked down. The wheels of the cart went over Gregory’s throat. At least that is what it looked like to me.”

“And the Dandolo dagger?” Zoe asked sarcastically. “Was the horse carrying that as well? Or the driver, perhaps?”

“That would have been someone else, who left the scene,” Anastasius said. “But since the dagger has disappeared, it doesn’t really matter. No one else saw it, and I daresay Giuliano has it back by now, and will take better care of it in future.”

Zoe had to control her eyes, her mouth, even the pallor in her face. Anastasius must see nothing.

She stood staring at him, his blazing eyes, the face so strong yet so un-masculine with its soft mouth, passionate and vulnerable. He could not be related to Dandolo. There was no resemblance. Dandolo’s mother’s family, perhaps? There was no one of his generation except Giuliano himself. Eudoxia had become a nun. Maddalena was dead.

Love? A physically immature eunuch, with a man like Dandolo?

Then like lightning, a wild idea cut across the darkness, dazzling Zoe with its obviousness, and she began to laugh. Perfectly clear now-and yet impossible. But she believed it: Anastasius was not a eunuch at all-he was as much a woman as Zoe herself! Her love for Dandolo was just the same love Zoe would have had for him, had she been the right age and he not a Venetian. Or maybe even if he had been, just not a Dandolo.

Anastasius, or whatever her name was, stood frozen to the floor, staring.

Zoe went on laughing. This person who had been so sad and confusing as half a man was infinitely understandable as a woman.

Finally, Zoe regained control of herself and walked over to the wine and the glasses. She poured a glass to the brim and held it out, offering it.

“No, thank you,” Anastasius said coldly.

Zoe shrugged and drank the glass half-empty herself, then filled the other glass. She offered the first glass again.

This time Anastasius took it, drank it to the lees, then put it down and turned on her heel and walked out.

Zoe drank her own glass slowly, savoring it, thinking. She had learned something of delicious and immeasurable value. The power it gave her over Anastasius-no, Anastasia-was limitless. But before she attempted to use it, she would learn all she could about this woman who had chosen to deny herself the greatest natural asset she had. What did she want that she would pay this terrible price for it?

Zoe’s mind raced. She had said she was from Nicea, but was that true? Probably. Only a fool created unnecessary lies. The more Zoe thought about it, the more it intrigued her. What passion was immense enough for such a masquerade?

Anastasia was interested in Justinian Lascaris. Was Zarides her true name, or was she too a Lascaris, part of another imperial family? Wife of Justinian? If so, she did not love him, or she would not have so rashly risked her life to save the Venetian. Beyond doubt, she loved the Venetian.

Sister of Justinian! That was what Zoe had glimpsed before. A sister wanting to prove his innocence.

And was Justinian innocent? Zoe had thought not, but could she be wrong? Was there something else she had not guessed at?

The more Zoe could learn about Anastasia the better.

She would also learn more about Giuliano Dandolo’s mother and her life and death, so she could twist the knife of pain in his heart. Anything that he could not disprove would do.

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.”