The Sheen on the Silk (37 page)

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…”