The Sheen on the Silk (9 page)

Michael introduced him as Bishop Constantine.

They acknowledged each other formally and with some discomfort.

Constantine turned to Michael. “Majesty,” he said emphatically, “the patriarch, Cyril Choniates, should also be consulted. His approval would be of great service toward persuading the people to accept unity with Rome. Perhaps you have not been advised of the depth of feeling there is?” He phrased it as a question, but the emotion in his voice made it into a warning.

Palombara found him an uncomfortable presence because of his indeterminate masculinity, but the strange person also seemed to be laboring to hide some passion he was afraid to show. Yet it was so powerful that it broke through in the ridiculous gestures of his pale, heavy hands and now and then in a loss of control in his voice.

Michael’s face darkened. “Cyril Choniates is no longer in office.”

Constantine was not deflected. “The monks are likely to be the most difficult section of the Church to convince that we should forfeit our ancient ways and submit to Rome, Majesty,” he stated. “Cyril could help with that.”

Michael stared at him, the expression in his face changing from certainty to doubt. “You puzzle me, Constantine,” he said at last. “First you are against union, now you are addressing me how best to smooth the path for it. You seem to change like water in the wind.”

Suddenly Palombara had an acutely awkward awareness, as if someone had taken a blindfold from his eyes. How could he have been so slow to see? Bishop Constantine was one of the eunuchs of the court of Byzantium. Palombara found himself looking away and was aware of a heat in his cheeks and a disturbing consciousness of his own wholeness. He had associated passion and strength with masculinity, and effeminacy with change, weakness, lack of decision or courage. It seemed Michael felt the same.

“The sea is made of water, Majesty,” Constantine said softly, staring at Michael without lowering his glance. “Christ walked upon the lake of Gennesareth, but we would be wise to treat it with greater caution and respect. Or else lacking faith, as Peter did, we may drown without a divine hand reaching to save us.”

The silence prickled in the great room.

Michael drew in his breath slowly, then let it out again. He studied the bishop’s face for a long time. Constantine did not waver.

Vicenze drew in his breath to speak, and Palombara poked him sharply, with his elbow. He heard Vicenze gasp.

“I have no confidence that Cyril Choniates will see the necessity of union,” Michael said at last. “He is an idealist, and I am guardian of the practical.”

“Practicality is the art of what will work, Majesty,” Constantine replied. “I know you are too good a son of the Church to suggest that faith in God does not work.”

Palombara barely hid a smile, but no one was looking at him.

“If I decide to seek Cyril’s help,” Michael said carefully, his eyes unwavering, “I know you will be the man to send to him, Constantine. Until then I look to you to persuade your flock to keep faith both in God and in your emperor.”

Constantine bowed, but there was little obeisance in it.

A few moments later, Palombara and Vicenze were permitted to leave.

“That eunuch could prove a nuisance,” Vicenze said in Italian as the Varangian Guard accompanied them on their way out into the air where there was a breathtaking view of the city beneath them. He gave a little shiver, and his lip curled with distaste. “If we cannot convert people like that”-he carefully avoided using the term man-“then we will have to think of a way of subverting their power.”

“At the height of their power eunuchs ran the whole court and much of the government,” Palombara informed Vicenze with perverse satisfaction. “They were bishops, generals in the army, ministers of government and law, mathematicians, philosophers, and physicians.”

“Well, Rome will put an end to that!” Vicenze said with savage satisfaction. “We are not come a day too late.” And he marched forward, leaving Palombara to catch up with him.

PALOMBARA BUSIED HIMSELF LEARNING MORE ABOUT HOW the emperor might strengthen his position in the eyes of his people. If they truly regarded him as “Equal of the Apostles,” then they might believe he guided them righteously in their religious choice, as he had in their military and governmental ones.

He went to the great cathedral of the Hagia Sophia, but it was not to worship, and certainly not to partake in the Orthodox Mass. He wished to experience the differences between the Greek and the Roman.

The service was more emotionally moving than he had expected. There was a passionate solemnity to it in this ancient cathedral with its mosaics, its icons, and its pillars, the gold-surfaced niches surrounding the marvelous, somber-eyed figures of saints, the Madonna, and Christ Himself. In the dim light they glowed with an almost animate presence, and in spite of himself he found his intellectual appreciation overtaken by awe for the genius and the beauty of it. The vast dome seemed almost to float above its high circle of windows, as if there were no support for it of brick or stone. He had heard the legend that the building of it was beyond human ability, and that the dome itself had been miraculously suspended from heaven by a golden chain, held by angels until the pillars could be secured. The tale had amused him at the time, but here in this glory it did not seem impossible.

He was on the outer steps when he saw, a little apart from the crowd, a woman of more than average height. She had an extraordinary face. She was at least sixty, possibly more, but she stood with a perfect, even arrogant posture. She had high cheekbones, a mouth too wide, too sensuous, and heavy-lidded, golden eyes. She was looking at him, singling him out. He felt both flattered and uncomfortable as she approached him.

“You are the papal legate from Rome.” Her voice was strong, and seen closer up her face was full of a vitality that demanded his attention and his interest.

“I am,” he agreed. “Enrico Palombara.”

She gave a slight shrug; it was almost a voluptuous gesture. “Zoe Chrysaphes,” she answered. “Have you come to see the home of the Holy Wisdom, before you attempt to destroy it? Does its beauty touch your soul, or only your eyes?”

Nothing in her invited pity. She was an aspect of Byzantium he had not seen before-perhaps the ancient spirit that had survived the barbarians when Rome had fallen: passionate, dangerous, and intensely Greek. The energy in her fascinated him, as a flame draws a night insect.

“What is perceived only by the eyes does not necessarily have meaning,” he replied.

She smiled, instantly aware of the subtle flattery implied and amused by it. This could be the beginning of a long duel, if she really cared about the Orthodox faith and keeping it from Roman contamination.

She arched her fine brows. “How could I know? We have nothing meaningless.” The laughter in her was almost expressed.

He waited.

“Have you no fear that perhaps you are wrong to demand our submission?” she asked at length. “Does it not waken you in the night, when you are alone, and the darkness around you is full of thoughts, good and evil? Then do you not wonder if it is the devil who speaks to you and not God?”

He was startled. It was not what he had expected her to say.

She was staring at him, searching his eyes. Then she laughed, a full-throated, rich sound of pulsing life. “Ah, I see! You don’t hear anyone’s voice at all-do you-only silence. Eternal silence. That is Rome’s secret-there is no one there except yourselves!”

He looked at the intelligence and the victory in her face. She had seen the emptiness inside him.

He stood still facing her while the departing people swirled around them. He could sense her pain, like the touch of fire. He could even empathize with her, but in the end the union was going to happen, with or without Zoe Chrysaphes’s agreement. All this unique glory of the eye, the ear, and, above all, the mind could be destroyed by the ignorant, if the crusader armies stormed through here yet again.

Knowing her might give him an advantage it would be wise not to let Vicenze know about.

In the weeks that followed, Palombara pursued his interest in Zoe Chrysaphes discreetly, listening for her name rather than raising it himself, collecting many facts about her once powerful family. Her only child, Helena, who had married into the ancient imperial house of Comnenos, had been recently widowed by murder.

It was rumored that Zoe had been mistress to many men, possibly Michael Palaeologus himself. Palombara was inclined to believe it. Even now there was a sensuality about her, a savagery and a life force that made other women seem tame.

For a moment, he regretted that he was a papal legate, abroad where he dared not slip the traces. Vicenze was always watching; and anyway, Zoe would not entertain lovers simply for the pleasure of it. Physical passion with her would have been a good battle, one worth the fighting, win or lose. It would always have been of the mind as well, even if rarely of the heart.

It was up to him to bring about the next encounter, which he did by hunting along Mese Street for an unusual gift for her. He wanted something individual that would earn her curiosity. Then he could visit her, ostensibly to seek her advice. He knew enough about her now to make that credible.

He was shown into her magnificent room, which overlooked the city and the Bosphorus beyond. It was like stepping back into the old city, before the sack: its glory fading only a little, its pride still secure. There were tapestries on the walls, rich and dark. Their colors were subdued by the centuries but not worn dim, only muted in places where the light had softened their tones. The floor was marble, smoothed by the passage of generations of feet. The ceiling in places was inlaid with gold. On one wall hung a gold cross nearly two feet long, the figure on it so exquisitely crafted that it seemed about to twist in a last agony.

Zoe wore a tunic of amber color under a darker, more vibrant dalmatica, and it was fastened with a gold pin set with garnets. She looked amused, as if she had known he would come, but perhaps not so soon.

There was another person present, about Zoe’s height but dressed in a plain tunic and dark blue dalmatica. He stood nearer the corner of the room, occupied with packing away powders into little boxes. Palombara could smell the rich aroma of them: some sort of crushed herbs.

Zoe ignored the other person, so Palombara did also.

“I found a small gift I hope will interest you,” he said, holding out what he had brought, wrapped in red silk. It fitted neatly into the palm of his lean, outstretched hand.

She looked at it, her golden eyes curious, as yet unimpressed. “Why?” she asked.

“Because from you I can learn more of the soul of Byzantium than from anyone else,” he replied with total honesty. “And I wish to have that knowledge, rather than my fellow legate, Vicenze.” He allowed himself to smile.

A flash of amusement lighting her expression, she then opened the silk and took out a piece of amber the size of a small bird’s egg. Inside it a spider was caught perfectly, immortalized in the moment before victory, the fly a hairbreadth beyond its reach. She did not hide her fascination with it, or her pleasure. “Anastasius!” she said, turning to the person with the herbs. “Come see what the papal legate from Rome has brought me!”

Palombara saw that it was another eunuch, smaller in stature and younger than Bishop Constantine, but with the same smooth, hairless face and-when he spoke-the same unbroken voice.

“Disturbing,” he remarked, looking at it closely. “Very clever.”

“You think so?” Zoe asked him.

Anastasius smiled. “A graphic picture of the instant, and of eternity,” he replied. “You think the prize is in your grasp, and it eludes you forever. That moment is frozen, and a thousand years later you are still poised, and empty-handed.” He looked across at Palombara, who was struck by the intelligence and the courage in his eyes. They were cool and gray, utterly unlike Zoe’s, although the rest of his coloring was almost the same. And he too had high cheekbones and a sensuous mouth. It disturbed Palombara that Anastasius had seen so much in the amber, more than he had himself.

Zoe was watching. “Is that what you mean to say to me, Enrico Palombara?” she asked. She refused to call him “Your Grace,” because he was a bishop of Rome, not of Byzantium.

“I wished it to give you pleasure, and interest,” he answered, speaking to her, not the eunuch. “It will say whatever you read into it.”

“Speaking of mortality,” Zoe went on, “if you should fall ill while you are in Constantinople, I can recommend Anastasius. He is an excellent physician. And he will cure your illness without preaching to you of your sins. A trifle Jewish, but very effective. I know my sins already, and find it tedious being told of them again, don’t you? Especially when I am not feeling well.”

“That depends upon whether they are being envied or despised,” Palombara said lightly.

He saw a flicker of laughter in the eunuch’s face, but it was gone again almost before he was certain of it.

Zoe saw it also. “Explain yourself,” she ordered Anastasius.

Anastasius shrugged. It was a gesture oddly feminine, yet he seemed not to have the volatile emotionalism of Constantine. “I think that contempt is the cloak that envy wears,” he replied to Zoe, smiling as he said it.

“What should we feel for sin?” Palombara asked quickly, before Zoe could speak. “Anger?”

Anastasius looked at him steadily, with an oddly unnerving stare. “Not unless one is afraid of it,” he said. “Do you suppose God is afraid of sin?”

Palombara’s reply was instant. “That would be ridiculous. But we are not God. At least we in Rome do not think we are,” he added.

Anastasius’s smile broadened. “We in Byzantium do not think you are either,” he agreed.

Palombara laughed in spite of himself, but it was out of embarrassment as well as humor. He did not know what to make of Anastasius. One moment he seemed lucid, intellectual like a man, and the next joltingly feminine. Palombara found himself wrong-footed too often. He thought of one of the silks he had seen in the markets: Hold it up one way and the light picked up the blue; then turn it, and it was green. The character of eunuchs was like the sheen on the silk-fluid, unpredictable. A third gender, male and female, yet neither.

Zoe turned the amber over in her hand. “This is worthy of a favor,” she said to Palombara, her eyes bright. “What is it you want?” She flashed a glance at the eunuch. Palombara saw irritation in it and perhaps a momentary contempt. But then a woman of passion and sensuality like Zoe would never forget that Anastasius was not a whole man. What did it feel like to be denied that most basic of appetites? To be hungry is to be alive. Palombara wondered if there was anything Anastasius wanted with that intensity burning in his eyes.

He told her what he had come for. “Knowledge, of course.”

Zoe blinked. “Knowledge of whom?”

He glanced at Anastasius.

Zoe smiled, looking Anastasius up and down, as if measuring whether he was worthy of dismissing or, like a servant, too unimportant to matter.

Anastasius took the decision himself. “The herbs are on the table,” he told Zoe. “If they please you, I will bring more. If not, then I shall suggest something else.” He turned to Palombara. “Your Grace. I hope your stay in Constantinople will be interesting.” He bowed to Zoe and walked away, picking up his bag of herbs as he left. He moved stiffly, as if he had to be careful to keep his balance or maybe his dignity. Palombara wondered if perhaps he had pain of some acutely private nature, a wound never entirely healed. How could a man endure such a thing-such an indignity, a mutilation-without a bitterness of soul? He was sufficiently effeminate; perhaps they had removed not only his testicles, but everything? What an incomprehensible mixture of beauty, wisdom, and barbarity eunuchs were. Rome should fear them more than it did.

He turned back to Zoe, prepared to listen to all she would say of her city and regard it all with interest and skepticism.