The Sheen on the Silk (49 page)

ANNA HAD BEEN SENT FOR AND ACCOMPANIED THE white-faced messenger to Zoe’s home. Sabas was waiting for her and took her immediately to where Zoe was lying on her bed, Thomais at her side, her face impassive.

“Bishop Constantine excommunicated her from the Church,” Sabas informed Anna. “God has stricken her, but still she lives. Please help her.”

Anna moved forward and looked down at Zoe. Her tunic was crumpled and she lay awkwardly, as if placed there by someone who dared not touch her with any more intimacy. Her eyes were almost closed, but she was breathing quite regularly. Without thinking, Anna smoothed Zoe’s dress over her stomach and thighs, then she felt her pulse. It was weak but quite regular.

“Is it not the bishop’s doing?” Thomais asked.

Anna hesitated. Constantine would not have poisoned her or struck her. He might have frightened her into an apoplectic fit if he had invoked the deep terror inside her of the punishment of God, the abandonment of all light and hope.

She touched Zoe’s hand, gently. It was warm. She was not dead or even dying. “We must not let her get cold. And put a little ointment on her lips to stop them drying. I will fetch herbs and come back.”

Thomais stared at her, her face filled with doubt, perhaps fear.

“God may have struck her,” Anna said gently. “If He takes her life, that is His judgment. It’s not mine.”

She did all she could for Zoe, waiting and watching to see if her condition changed. On the fifth night, she was sitting in the corner of Zoe’s room next to a painted and inlaid screen, half asleep. The room was almost dark. One small candle burned on the table about seven feet from Zoe, just enough to see her outline, not enough to shine on her face.

She still had not opened her eyes or stirred more than to move one hand a few inches. Anna did not know if she ever would again. Thinking of the destruction Zoe had caused, Anna should have been glad. It confused her that she felt instead a sense of loss and a troubling pity.

She was almost asleep when she was suddenly, terrifyingly aware that there was someone else in the room. He was moving soundlessly, no more than a shadow passing across the floor. He couldn’t be a servant or he would have spoken.

She froze, her breath caught in her throat. She watched as he crept toward the bed, a small man, dressed not in a tunic but a shirt and britches. He had a pointed beard, and as he came closer to Zoe the candlelight touched his face and she saw that he had sharp features, thin and clever. His hands were empty.

Her mind raced. She knew from the awkward way the man’s jacket lay over his hip that he had a knife at his belt, and Zoe was defenseless. If Anna called out, there was no one near enough to hear or come in time to help. Anna herself would be dead before then.

She must move silently or the intruder would hear her and strike, probably Zoe first and then her. She had nothing near her, no heavy bowl, no candlestick. But there was the tapestry. If she threw that over him, it might confuse him for long enough to reach for the candlestick on the table.

“Zoe,” he said quietly. “Zoe!”

Could he not see she was not asleep but senseless? No, thank God the candle was small and far enough from her that her face was in the shadow.

“Zoe!” he said more urgently. “It is going well. Sicily is like a tinderbox. One spark, one wrong word or move, and it will burn like a forest fire. Dandolo has worked well, but he has just about served our purposes. Give me the word, and I’ll kill him myself. One quick thrust and it will be over. I’ll use the Dandolo dagger you gave him.” He gave a low, soft laugh. “Then he’ll know the message of death comes from you.”

Anna broke out in a sweat. Whatever happened, she must not move or make the slightest sound. If he knew she was here, he would kill her, too. Her nose itched. Her mouth was dry. Still the intruder sat silently by Zoe’s side.

Then she heard a footstep outside the door, a brief knock, and the door opened. The intruder moved toward the tapestry like a shadow.

Anna turned as the door swung open and Thomais entered. Only then did Anna see, in the widening light, that one of the windows was not fastened.

Anna stirred, as if just waking up. “I’ll come and get a little wine,” she said sleepily to Thomais. “Can you find me some cakes? I’m hungry.”

Anna walked over to the door, not even glancing at the shadow beyond Zoe’s bed where the intruder had melted into the corner. He would not hurt Zoe, and if Anna was out of the room for a few minutes, he would leave as he must have come, through the window into the night.

She must see that from now on all the windows and doors were more carefully barred.

Two days later Zoe opened her eyes, puzzled, frightened, unable to speak. She tried, but the words were garbled, animal sounds. Thomais tried offering her a pen and a piece of paper. She gripped the pen awkwardly, made a few scratches on the white surface, and gave up.

Helena was informed that her mother was awake but unable to speak. She came, stared at Zoe with a strange pleasure, then turned and left. It was after she had gone that Zoe spoke her first comprehensible word. “Anna…” she said clearly.

It was a slow task. By evening, Zoe had managed a few more simple words and names, requests, movement that was a little more coordinated. Anna looked at the terror in her eyes and in spite of herself felt a sharp pity for her. She wished Zoe could have died simply, at the first blow of the apoplexy, rather than inch by inch like this.

And Anna also knew that if she recovered, the intruder would be back, and Zoe would give the order for Giuliano to be murdered. If she could not stop Zoe, perhaps she could find the intruder and stop him. There was only one man she could trust and who had the power to help-Nicephoras.

It was late and raining hard when she reached the Blachernae Palace, and it took her several minutes of argument to persuade the guard to allow her in and then to disturb Nicephoras to receive her.

He looked troubled; his face was grave, still heavy with sleep, his beardless cheeks soft. “What is it?” he asked anxiously. “Is Zoe dead?”

“No, she’s not dead,” Anna replied. “In fact, she may recover completely. Her progress is very rapid, and she has a will of iron.”

Briefly, Anna told Nicephoras of the intruder, his assumption that Zoe could hear him, and his promise to kill Giuliano as soon as she gave the word. “He is trying to provoke a rising in Sicily, against Charles of Anjou… I think,” she added. “But Giuliano Dandolo is an ally, not an enemy. If we destroy those who serve us, or allow them to be destroyed, we will not find many wanting to help us next time we need them. And there will always be a next time.”

Nicephoras smiled. “From your description, it has to have been Scalini. I will not allow Dandolo to be killed-at least not at Zoe’s behest. What else happens to him in Sicily is outside my control. I think Scalini has now served his purpose. And he is Zoe’s creature, not ours.”

“Is he?” she asked quickly.

“Oh, yes.” His expression was bleak. “But I know where to find him. He will not leave Constantinople, I promise you.”

“Thank you,” she said with profound gratitude. “Thank you.”

Zoe continued to recover. In another few days she could form sentences, although many words still eluded her. She began to eat and to drink all the herbs Anna mixed for her. Surprisingly, she was a good patient, obeying every instruction, and she progressed accordingly.

Two weeks after her initial attack, the four Skleros brothers publicly declared total allegiance to the emperor Michael in his efforts to save the empire and privately changed from giving a large donation to the Church to giving a significant part of their fortune to Zoe, to further whatever civil unrest she could effect in the dominions of Charles of Anjou.

CONSTANTINE STOOD ALONE IN THE COURTYARD STARING at the fountain, and in his mind everything shrank into a tiny, crystal-clear picture, sharp-edged as a polar wind and just as simple. He could see the whole pattern as clearly as a great mosaic, every piece in its place. His whole life, every experience good and bad, had been leading up to this time when his understanding was like a shaft of light and at last undeniable. Even betrayed, he had not abandoned the cause. From that surely he must conclude that God would never abandon him?

His task now was the one above all others. Zoe Chrysaphes must be stopped. He had struck her down once, with the power of God in his hand, and Anastasius the vain, the shallow, and fickle as water, had healed her.

He must go to Zoe late in the evening, when he was certain to find her alone. His resolve was absolute. He could not leave the destiny of God’s people on earth in the slippery hands of Zoe Chrysaphes.

It was a dark night, cloud-covered and windy, with pieces of debris blown rattling along the street. He would not have chosen to be out, but this must be done. And perhaps such a night was created for decisions that could never be reversed.

He was admitted warily by her servants and shown into the entrance room with its old mosaic floors and arched doorways leading to her private apartments; but he had to insist, even imply the threat of excommunication to them, in order to see her alone. After his last visit, Zoe’s servants mistrusted him.

Finally, only Anastasius stood in his way.

“I will see her alone,” Constantine said firmly. “That is her right. Would you deny her the final sacrament of extreme unction? Can you face God yourself, if you do such a thing?”

Anastasius reluctantly stepped away, and Constantine went in, closing the door behind him.

The great room was as magnificent as always. The torches were burning in their ornate stands, yellow flames giving it a warm, peaceful feeling, like a fine painting framed and dusted with gold. The great crucifix was hanging in its usual place. It was beautiful, but Constantine did not like it. There was something almost barbaric about it. It made him uncomfortable, like a sort of indecency.

Zoe sat in a huge chair with her back to one of the tapestries, all wines and scarlets and purples, with threads of bronze. She was wearing red again, a brazen color. It lit her face, which was not as gaunt as it should be after her illness, and showed off those golden eyes.

“I know what you have done, Zoe Chrysaphes,” he said quietly. “And what you plan to do.”

“Really?” She seemed barely interested.

He leaned closer. “There are plans in heaven that earth knows nothing of,” he said harshly. “That is the meaning of faith. Trust God that He will provide for us whatever is necessary.”

Her fine eyebrows rose. “Do you believe that, Bishop Constantine?”

“I more than believe it,” he said with ringing certainty. “I know it.”

“You mean I cannot change you?” she persisted.

“Not at all.” He smiled.

“You have such faith!” Her voice was slow, almost a caress.

“I have,” he declared.

“Then why are you here?”

He felt the heat in his skin. Zoe had nearly tricked him.

“To save your soul, woman!” he retorted.

“You told me I had already lost it,” she reminded him. “Are you going to forgive me after all?”

“I can do,” he told her. “If you repent, and come back as an obedient daughter of the Church. Recant all that you have said in support of union with Rome, forgive your enemies, return the money to the Church you have taken, and submit yourself to discipline. Continue the rest of your days in prayer to the Holy Virgin, and you may at the last be washed clean.”

“All that before Charles of Anjou burns us to the ground again?” she said with mocking incredulity.

“God can do anything!” he said forcefully. “If you repent, and obey.”

“I don’t believe you,” she said softly. “We must help ourselves.”

“You blaspheme!” His voice rose in amazement and fury. “God will strike you dead!” He lifted his hand and pointed at her, jabbing his finger in the air as if it were a weapon.

She sat staring at him, smiling slightly lopsidedly, the right side of her face a little stiff. “Then my physician will heal me… again,” she replied. “You have the power to destroy, and he to make whole. Think of that, Bishop! Which of you does that make the greater?”

He lunged forward and seized a cushion from the nearest chair. He flung himself on top of her, pressing the soft, stifling fabric over her face. She struggled, arms and legs thrashing, but he was more than twice her weight and he held her down, crushing her lungs, suffocating her. It was only a few hideous moments before she stopped moving, and his rage went cold, his body covered in icy sweat. He stood up slowly and looked at Zoe where she lay sprawled on the floor, hair tangled, tunic up around her thighs. He should remember her like this: broken, without dignity, at once both exciting and disgusting in her suggestion of sensuality.

Feeling a revulsion he could barely control, he touched her hair with his hand to straighten it around her face. It was soft, so soft that he could barely feel it. The backs of his fingers brushed against her cheek. Her skin was still warm.

He shuddered convulsively. This was obscene! He wanted to strike her, tear down one of the huge tapestries and cover her with it.

But of course he must not do that. He was a bishop, tending a penitent sinner on her deathbed.

He pulled her tunic down as far as it would go. It was not far enough. It still looked as if she had had it lifted, as if… He refused to follow that thought. His mutilation burned in his soul. He lifted her thighs; she was heavy and warm. Then he pulled her tunic straight.

He stood up, his whole body trembling.

He waited several more minutes, then walked to the door and opened it. He stopped abruptly or he would have bumped into Anastasius standing just beyond it.

He looked Anastasius straight in the eye. “She repented of all her errors and saved her soul. It is a time for great rejoicing. Zoe Chrysaphes died a loyal daughter of the true Church.” He took a deep, steadying breath. “She will be buried in the Hagia Sophia. I shall offer the funeral Mass myself.” He forced himself to smile. It was like the rictus of the dead on his face.

Anastasius stared in total disbelief, his eyes wide and, unbelievably, filled with grief.

Constantine crossed himself and walked past him, his huge hands clenched, his heart pounding with victory.