The Sheen on the Silk (2 page)

It took them several more minutes to find a shop selling manuscripts, and they inquired.

“Oh, yes,” the shopkeeper said immediately. Short and wiry, with white hair and a quick smile, he opened a drawer behind him and pulled out several scrolls of paper. He unrolled one of them and showed Anna the drawing.

“See? Fourteen districts.” He pointed to the loosely triangular shape drawn in black ink.

“This is Mese Street, going this way.” He showed them on the map. “There’s the Wall of Constantine, and west of that again the Wall of Theodosius. All except district thirteen, across the Golden Horn to the north. That’s called Galata. But you don’t want to live there. That’s for foreigners.” He rolled it up and passed it to her. “That will be two solidi.”

She was taken aback and more than a little suspicious that he knew she was a stranger and was taking advantage. Still, she passed over the money.

They walked the length of Mese Street, trying not to stare around them like the provincials they were. Row after row of merchants’ stalls lined the street. They were shaded by canopies of every color imaginable, tied tightly to wooden posts to anchor them against the wind. Even so they snapped loudly in every gust, as if they were alive and struggling to get free.

In district one there were spice merchants and perfumers. The air was redolent with their wares, and Anna found herself drawing in her breath deeply to savor them. She had neither time nor money to waste, but she could not help gazing at them, lingering a moment to admire their beauty. No other yellow had the depth of saffron, no brown the multitoned richness of nutmeg. She knew the medical values of all of them, even the rarest, but at home in Nicea she had had to order them specially and pay extra for their freight. Here they were laid out as if they were commonplace.

“There’s plenty of money in this district,” Simonis observed with a hint of disapproval.

“More important, they’ll have their own physician already,” Leo replied.

Now they were among the perfumers’ shops and there were rather more women than in the other areas, many of them clearly wealthy. As custom required, they wore tunics and dalmaticas from the neck almost to the ground, and their hair was concealed by headdress and veil. One woman walked past them, smiling, and Anna noticed that she had darkened her brows very delicately, and perhaps her lashes. Certainly there was red clay on her lips to make them look so vivid.

Anna heard her laughter as she met a friend, and together they tried one perfume after another. Their embroidered and brocaded silks stirred in the breeze like flower petals. She envied their lightheartedness.

She would have to find more ordinary women, and male patients, too, or she would never learn why Justinian had been a favorite with the emperor’s court one day and an exile the next, fortunate to have his life. What had happened? What must Anna do to gain justice for him?

The following day, by mutual agreement, they left the Mese and its immediate surroundings and searched farther into the side streets, in little shops, and in the residential districts north of center, almost under the giant arches of the Aqueduct of Valens, catching occasional glimpses of the light on the water of the Golden Horn beyond.

They were on a narrow street, barely wide enough for two donkeys to pass each other, when they came to a flight of steps up to the left. Thinking the height might give them a better sense of their bearings, they began to climb. The passage turned one way, then the other. Anna nearly stumbled over the rubble on the steps.

Without any warning, the path ended abruptly and they were in a small courtyard. Anna was stunned by what lay around her. All the walls were damaged, some by holes where pieces had fallen out, others by the black stains of fire. The broken mosaic floor was scattered with stones and chips of tile, and the doorways were choked with weeds. The single tower left standing was pitted and dark with the grime of smoke. She heard Simonis stifle a sob, and Leo stood silent, his face pale.

Suddenly the terrible invasion of 1204 was real, as if it had been only a few years ago, not more than half a century. Other things they had seen made sense now, the streets where houses were still derelict, weed-strewn and rotting, the occasional broken wharves she had seen from above, the poverty in what had seemed to her first superficial look to be the richest city in the world. The people had been back for over a decade, but the wounds of conquest and exile were still raw underneath.

Anna turned away, imagined terror gripping her and making her body cold even in the sharp spring sunlight, sheltered here from the wind, where it should have been hot.

By the end of the week, they had found a house in a comfortable residential area on a slope to the north of Mese Street, between the two great walls. From several of the windows Anna could see the light on the Golden Horn, a glimpse of blue between the rooftops that gave her a moment’s wild illusion of endlessness, almost as if she could fly.

It was a small house, but in good repair. The tiled floors were beautiful and she particularly liked the courtyard with its simple mosaic and the vines that climbed onto the roof.

Simonis was satisfied with the kitchen, although she made a few disparaging remarks about its size, but Anna could see by the way she poked into every corner and touched the furniture with its marble surfaces, the deep basin and the heavy table, that she liked it. There was a small room for storage of grains and vegetables, racks and drawers for spices, and, like all the rest of the better parts of the city, access to plenty of clean water, even if it was a little salty.

There were enough rooms to have a bedroom each, a dining room, an entrance hall for patients to wait in, and a room for consulting. There was also another room with a heavy door to which Leo could attach a lock and where Anna could keep herbs, ointments, unguents, and tinctures, and of course her surgical blades, needles, and silks. In here she placed the wooden cabinet with its dozens of drawers into which she put the herbs she had, each one labeled, and including one whole leaf or root so one could not be mistaken for another.

But in spite of the discreet notice she put at the front of the house stating her profession, patients would not come to her. She must go out and seek them, let people know of her presence and her skills.

So it was at midday that she stood on the step of a tavern in the hard sunlight and the wind. She pushed open the door and went inside. She walked through the crowd and saw a table with one empty chair. The rest were filled with men eating and talking excitedly. At least one was a eunuch, taller, long-armed, soft-faced, his voice too high, with the strange, altered tone of his gender.

“May I take this seat?” she asked.

It was the eunuch who replied, inviting her in. Perhaps he was pleased to have another of his kind.

A waiter came and offered her food, cut pieces of roast pork wrapped in wheat bread, and she accepted.

“Thank you,” she said. “I have just moved in, the house with the blue door, straight up the hill. My name is Anastasius Zarides. I am a physician.”

One of the men shrugged and introduced himself. “I’ll remember if I am ill,” he said good-naturedly. “If you stitch up wounds, you might stay around. There’ll be business for you when we’ve finished arguing.”

She was uncertain how to reply, not sure if he was joking or not. She had heard raised voices from the doorway as she came in. “I have needle and silk,” she offered.

One of the others laughed. “You’ll need more than that if we’re invaded. How are you at raising the dead?”

“I’ve never had the nerve to try,” she replied as casually as she could. “Isn’t that more of a job for a priest?”

They all laughed, but she heard a hard, bitter sound of fear in it and realized the power of the undercurrents she had barely listened to before, in her own urgency to find a house and begin a practice.

“What kind of a priest?” one of the men said harshly. “Orthodox or Roman, eh? Which side are you on?”

“I’m Orthodox,” she said quietly, answering because she felt compelled to say something. Silence would be deceit.

“Then you better pray harder,” he told her. “God knows we’ll need it. Have some wine, physician.”

Anna held out her glass and found her hand was shaking. Quickly she put the glass on the table. “Thank you.” When the glass was full she held it up, forcing herself to smile. “Here’s to your good health… except for perhaps a slight skin rash, or the occasional hives. I’m good at that, for a small sum.”

They laughed again and lifted their glasses.

ANNA CALLED UPON HER NEIGHBORS ONE BY ONE, INTRODUCING herself and her profession. Several of them already had physicians they chose to consult, but she had expected that. She told them that she specialized in complaints of the skin, especially burns, and of the lungs, then left without pressing the issue.

She also shopped for various household items of as good a quality as she could afford, buying them from smaller shops within two or three streets of her house. Here she also introduced herself and told them of her own skills. For the favor of recommending their wares, they were willing to recommend her to their customers.

In the second week she gained only two consultations, and they were for ailments so slight as to require only a simple potion to ease itching and heat. After the busy practice she had inherited from her father in Nicea, it seemed so small. She had to struggle to keep up her spirits in front of Leo and Simonis.

The third week was better. She was called to an accident in the street in which an elderly man had been knocked over and his legs badly scraped. The boy who came for her described the damage vividly enough that she knew what lotions and ointments to take with her, and herbs for shock and pain. Within half an hour the old man felt markedly better, and by the following day he was speaking her praises. Word spread. In the succeeding days, the number of patients tripled.

Now she could no longer put it off; she must begin to search for information.

The obvious place to begin was with Bishop Constantine, through whose help Justinian had sent his last letter. He had written of the bishop many times previously, telling her of his loyalty to the Orthodox faith, his courage in the cause of resistance against Rome, and his personal kindness to Justinian, then a stranger in the city. Justinian had also mentioned that Constantine was a eunuch, and that was what made Anna nervous now. She stood in her medicine room amid the familiar odors of nutmeg, musk, cloves, and camphor, and her hands were clenched. Every mannerism, every gesture, must be right. Even the slightest deviation would raise Constantine’s suspicion and invite closer scrutiny. More errors would be seen. She might even be perceived to be mocking him.

She found Leo in the kitchen, where Simonis was setting the midday meal on the table: wheat bread, fresh cheese, greens and lettuce dressed with squill vinegar, as prescribed for April. All months had rules for what should be eaten and what should not, and Simonis was well versed in them.

Leo turned as she came in and put down the tools he was using to mend the hinge of the cupboard. She had realized since they moved in just how many skills he had in every practical work.

“It is time I went to see Bishop Constantine,” she said quietly. “But before I do, I need one more lesson… please.”

As a woman, she could have practiced medicine only on female patients and would have been able to learn very little about Justinian’s life here, all the myriad small things he had not told her, in spite of their many letters. But as a eunuch, she could go anywhere.

Another consideration, of less importance but still heavy in her mind, was that she did not want the pressure to marry again. She was a widow, and even though she could sometimes think of Eustathius without rage or pain, it would be impossible to take another husband.

“You try too hard to be like a man,” Leo said. “There are many kinds of eunuchs, depending on the time of castration, and the degree. Some of us castrated late are nearly men, but with your slender build and soft skin and voice, you are pretending to be one castrated in childhood. You must get it exactly right, or you will draw attention to yourself.”

She watched him as he moved about the room. He was tall and slight, a little stooping as the years caught up with him, but surprisingly strong. His thin hands could break wood she could not even bend. He walked with a peculiar grace, neither male nor female. She must copy that gait.

“The way you bend,” Leo was saying to her. “Like this…” He demonstrated, moving easily. “Not like that.” He bent a trifle sideways, like a woman. She immediately saw the difference and cursed her own carelessness.

“And your hands. You don’t use them enough when you are speaking. Look… like this.” He gestured eloquently, his fingers graceful and yet oddly not feminine.

She copied experimentally.

Simonis was watching, her dark, once handsome face creased with anxiety. Was she also afraid? She must see the differences between Anna and Leo, the faults.

“Your food will spoil,” she said dryly, her call for them to eat the meal she had prepared so carefully.

Afterward, Anna rose and went to put on her outdoor robe. It was chilly and raining slightly, but it was less than a mile to the bishop’s house, just the other side of the Wall of Constantine, near the Church of the Holy Apostles. Walking quickly along the streets, she was aware of the occasional glimpse of light gleaming on the water below.

An elderly servant let her in. He informed her gravely that Bishop Constantine was presently occupied, but he was expecting her and would receive her as soon as he was free. The servant’s face was bland, smooth, and beardless. He regarded her completely without interest.

She waited in a great room with a mosaic-tiled floor and ocher-colored walls; two magnificent icons were almost luminous in the somber light. One was of the Virgin Mary, all in blues and golds inside a jeweled frame, the other of Christ Pantocrator, in warm ochers and browns and dark burnt umber.

A slight movement caught her eye and she turned from the icons’ quiet, intense beauty and looked through the archway to a brighter room and, beyond it, an inside court. The large, pale-robed figure of the bishop stood in the reflected sun. There was a smile on his face as he extended his hand to the woman who knelt before him, her dark cloak pooling on the floor around her, her hair caught up in an elaborate coil. Her lips touched his fingers, almost covering the gold ring with its jewel. For a moment the scene was like an icon itself, an image of forgiveness stamped on eternity.

The peace of it gripped Anna with a shaft of pain. She ached to kneel and seek absolution also, to feel the weight lift and free her, let her draw the sweet air into her lungs. But that was impossible.

The woman rose and the vision splintered and fell apart. She was Anna’s age, and her face was wet with tears of relief.

Constantine made the sign of the cross and said something that was inaudible from this distance. The woman turned and went out by another doorway. Anna moved forward. It was time for the first important lie. If she could pass this test, a thousand more lay ahead.

Constantine welcomed her, smiling.

“Anastasius Zarides, Your Grace,” she said deferentially. “Physician, lately come from Nicea.”

“Welcome to Constantinople,” he replied warmly. His voice was deeper than that of most eunuchs, as if he had been castrated well after puberty. His face was smooth and beardless, his strong jaw becoming a trifle jowly. His light brown eyes were sharp. “How may I be of help to you?” He was courteous, but as yet without interest.

She had the lie well practiced. “A distant kinsman of mine, Justinian Lascaris, wrote to me that you had been of great help to him in a time of difficulty,” she began. “Then I did not hear from him again, and there are disturbing rumors of some tragedy, but I do not dare to pursue them, in case I bring him further trouble.” She shivered in spite of the warmth in the room. He was looking at her face and the way she stood, her hands loosely at her sides, as a woman would stand, deferentially. She raised her hands in front of her and then did not know what to do with them and let them fall again. How much did the bishop know about Justinian? That his parents were dead? That he was a widower? She must be careful. “His sister is anxious.” That, at least, was true.

Constantine’s large face was grave, and he nodded slowly. “I am afraid I have not good news for her,” he replied. “Justinian is alive, but in exile in the desert beyond Jerusalem.”

She contrived to look shocked. “But why? What has he done to warrant such a punishment?”

Constantine compressed his lips. “He was accused of complicity in the murder of Bessarion Comnenos. It was a crime that shocked the city. Bessarion was not only of noble birth, but regarded by many as something of a saint. Justinian was fortunate not to be executed.”

Anna’s mouth was dry and she found it hard to draw breath. The Comneni had been emperors for generations, before the Lascaris, and now the Palaeologi.

“That was the difficulty with which you helped him?” she said, as if it were a deduction. “But why would Justinian be accomplice to such a thing?”

Constantine considered for a moment. “Are you aware of the emperor’s intention to send envoys to mediate with the pope in little more than a year’s time?” he asked, unable to conceal the edge from his voice that betrayed his emotions. They clearly lay harsh and close to the surface, like a woman’s feelings, as a eunuch’s were said to be.

“I have heard whispers here and there,” she answered. “I hoped that it was not true.”

“It is true,” he rasped, his body stiff, his pale, strong hands half-raised. “The emperor is prepared to capitulate on everything in order to save us from the crusaders, whatever the blasphemy involved.”

She was aware that in spite of his passion, Constantine was watching her intently. “The Blessed Virgin will save us, if we trust in her,” she replied. “As she has done in the past.”

Constantine’s fine eyebrows rose. “Are you so new to the city you have not seen the stains of the crusaders’ fires seventy years ago?”

Anna swallowed, her mind made up. “If our faith then had been unblemished, I am mistaken,” she replied. “I would rather die faithful than live having betrayed my God to Rome.”

“You are a man of conviction,” Constantine said, a slow, sweet smile lighting his face.

She returned to her first question. “Why would Justinian assist anyone to kill Bessarion Comnenos?”

“He did not, of course,” Constantine replied regretfully. “Justinian was a fine man, and as much against the union with Rome as Bessarion was. There were other suggestions, the truth of which I don’t know.”

“What suggestions?” She remembered her deference just in time and lowered her eyes. “If you can tell me? Who is Justinian suspected of helping, and what happened to him?”

Constantine lifted his hands higher. It was an elegant gesture and yet disturbing in its lack of masculinity. She was sharply aware that he was not a man, but not a woman, either, yet still a passionate and highly intelligent being. He was what she was pretending to be.

“Antoninus Kyriakis.” His voice cut across her thoughts. “He was executed. He and Justinian were close friends.”

“And you saved Justinian?” Her voice was hoarse, no more than a whisper.

He nodded slowly, allowing his hands to fall. “I did. The sentence was exile in the desert.”

She smiled at him, the warmth of her gratitude burning through. “Thank you, Your Grace. You give me great heart for the struggle to keep faith.”

He smiled back and made the sign of the cross.

She went out into the street in a turmoil of emotions: fear, gratitude, dread of what she might find in the future, and in them all a powerful awareness of Constantine, strong, generous, firm in a clean and absolute faith.

Of course Justinian had not murdered this Bessarion Comnenos. Although there were marked physical differences between them, in coloring and balance of features, Justinian was her twin brother. Anna knew him as well as she knew herself. He had written to her in the last desperate moments before being taken into exile and told her that Bishop Constantine had helped him, but not why or in what way.

Now her whole purpose was to prove his innocence. She quickened her pace up the incline of the cobbled street.