The Sheen on the Silk Read online

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.

  Fourteen

  CONSTANTINE STOOD IN HIS FAVORITE ROOM OF THE house, his hand caressing the smooth marble of the statue. Its head was buried in thought, its naked limbs perfect. He passed his hand over it again, moving his fingers as if he could knead it and feel muscle and nerve in the stone shoulders.

  His own body was so tightly knotted that he ached.

  Michael had reenacted the signing, affirming it for all Constantinople to see, and to satisfy Rome, and Constantine had been helpless to prevent it. It would be a mark of subservience, a signal to the world, and above all to God, that the people of Byzantium had forsaken their faith. Those who had trusted the leadership of the Church would be destroyed by the very men sworn to save their souls. How infinitely shortsighted! Selling today to purchase tomorrow’s safety. What about their salvation in eternity? Was that not more important than any earthly thing?

  But he had known what to do, and he had done it.

  As he thought of it the sweat broke out on his body, even here in this cool room. The Byzantime people had a right to fight for life!

  And that he had done. He had lit the fire in their hearts and it had exploded into a riot in the streets, scores and then hundreds pouring into the squares and marketplaces, crying out against the union with Rome and everything alien and forced.

  Of course Constantine had contrived to look as if he were doing all in his power to stop them, to sympathize and yet try to stem the violence, to plead for order and respect while leading them on. What difference was there between a gesture of blessing and one of encouragement? It lay in the angle of the hand, the inflection of a voice carefully raised not quite loudly enough to be heard above the din.

  It had been marvelous, superb. They had come in their thousands, filling the streets until they choked the byways. He could still hear their voices as he stood here in his quiet room. There the blood had pounded in his veins, his heart racing, sweat of heat and danger running off his skin as the noise carried him along.

  “Constantine! Constantine! In the name of God and the Holy Virgin, Constantine for the faith!”

  He had smiled at them, stepping back a pace or two as if to decline in modesty, but they had shouted the louder.

  “Constantine! Lead us to victory, for the Holy Virgin’s sake!”

  He had lifted his hands in blessing, and gradually they had calmed, the shouting ceased. They stood in the square and in the streets beyond, silent, waiting for him to tell them what to do.

  “Have faith! God’s power is greater than that of any man!” he had told them. “We know what is truth and what is false, what is of Christ and what of the devil. Go home. Fast and pray. Be loyal to the Church, and God will be loyal to you.”

  God would save them from Rome only if their faith were perfect, and it was Constantine’s mission to do everything heavenly possible to see that it was.

  A few days later, Michael retaliated. The vacant throne of the patriarch of Byzantium was given not to the eunuch Constantine, but to a whole man, John Beccus.

  The servant who brought Constantine the news was white-faced, as if he carried word of death. He stood in front of Constantine, eyes lowered, his breath loud in the room.

  Constantine wanted to scream at the man, but that would expose his pain like his own nakedness, incomplete, marred by circumstance outside his mastery. He had been doubly castrated, robbed of the office that was rightfully his by virtue, faith, and the will to fight. John Beccus was for the union with Rome, a coward and a traitor to his Church.

  “Go!” Constantine’s voice was rasping from a throat raw with pain.

  The servant stared at him and then fled.

  When his footsteps had ceased to sound on the stones, Constantine let out a howl of fury and humiliation. Hatred was like fire in his soul. He could have torn John Beccus apart if he had laid hands on him at this moment. A whole man, an insult to Constantine’s existence. As if organs made the soul! A man was his passions of the heart, his dreams, the things he longed for, the fears he had overcome, the wholeness of his sacrifice, not of his body.

  Was a man better because he could put his seed into a woman? Beasts of the field could do that. Was a man holier because he had that power and abstained from using it?

  Constantine could take a knife and slice Beccus’s testicles: see the blood flow, as it had from his own body as a boy; see the agony, the terror of bleeding to death! Then watch him clutch at what was left of his manhood with a horror at his loss that would never leave him as long as he existed. They would be equal then. See who could lead the Church and save it from Rome!

  But it was only a dream, like other images in the night. He could not do it. His power was in the love and the belief of the people. They must never see his hatred. It was weakness. It was sin.

  Could the Holy Virgin read his heart? His face burned scarlet with shame. Slowly he knelt, tears wet on his face.

  Beccus was wrong! He was a liar, a time server, a seeker after favor and office and his own power. How could a good man pretend to approve that?

  Constantine asked himself whether he was a good man. He could make himself be, and he must.

  He rose to his feet to begin: now, today. There was no time to waste. He would show John Beccus, he would show them all. The people loved him, his faith, his mercy, his humility and courage, his will to fight.

  In the uncounted days that followed, he worked until exhaustion overcame him, taking no thought or care for his own needs. He answered every call he could, walking miles from one house to another to hear confessions of the dying and give them absolution. Families wept with gratitude for such peace of heart. He left with aching legs and blistered feet, but soaring spirits in the certainty that he was loved, and for his sake an ever increasing number of people would remain loyal to the true Ch
urch.

  He celebrated the Mass so often, he felt sometimes as if he were doing it in his sleep, the words reciting themselves. But the eager faces were all the reward he wanted, the humble, grateful hearts. When he lay down, exhausted, it was often on the floor of wherever he was when night came, and he thought nothing of it. He rose at daybreak and ate what the wretched could spare him.

  It was very late one night when he was listening to the confession of a bull-chested man, something of a local leader and a bully, that he began to feel ill.

  “I beat him,” the man said quietly, his eyes meeting Constantine’s uncertainly, clouded with fear. “I broke some of his bones.”

  “Did he …,” Constantine began, and then found he could not draw his breath. His heart was beating so loudly, he thought the man kneeling before him must hear it also. He was dizzy. He tried to speak again, but he could hear nothing but a roaring in his ears, and the moment after he was plunging into oblivion, for all he knew death itself.

  He awoke in his own house, his head pounding, his stomach sick and cramped with pain. His servant Manuel stood beside the bed.

  “Let me send for a physician,” he begged. “We have prayed, but it is not enough.”

  “No,” Constantine said quickly, but even his voice was weak. His stomach knotted again, and he was afraid he was going to be sick.

  He tried to get up to relieve himself urgently, but the pain doubled him over. He called for Manuel to help him. Twenty minutes later, drenched in sweat and so weak that he could not stand without help, he collapsed on the bed and allowed Manuel to pull the covers over him. Now suddenly he was cold, but at least he could lie still.

  Manual asked again for permission to send for a physician, and again Constantine refused. Sleep would cure him.

  Constantine lay still, his belly quiet. But the fear gripped his heart like an iron clamp, twisting inside him. He dared not lie down in the dark when the light spiraled away from him, his skin slick with sweat again and yet his limbs ice cold.

  “Manuel!” His voice was shrill, almost hysterical.

  Manuel appeared, candle in his hand, his face tight with fear.

  “Get Anastasius for me,” Constantine conceded at last. “Tell him it is urgent.” The pain shot through his belly again. “But first assist me.” He must relieve himself again, quickly. He must have help. He also thought he was about to be sick. Anastasius was another eunuch and would not pity his mutilation or be repelled by it. He had had a whole physician once and seen the prurient revulsion in the man’s eyes. Never again; he’d rather die.

  Anastasius would have only understanding. He too was lost, uncertain, carrying a burden somewhere inside him that was too heavy. Constantine had seen it in his face in unguarded moments. One day he would learn what it was.

  Yes, send for Anastasius. Quickly.

  Fifteen

  ANNA COULD SEE FROM THE SERVANT’S MANNER AND THE high pitch of his voice that he was seriously alarmed. But quite apart from that, she knew that Constantine, a proud and private man, would not have sent for her were the matter not grave.

  “How does the illness show itself?” she asked. “Where is the pain?”

  “I don’t know. Please come.”

  “I want to know what to bring with me,” Anna explained. “It would be far better than having to return for it.”

  “Oh.” Now the man understood. “In his abdomen. He does not eat or drink, relieves himself often, and yet the pain does not go.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other impatiently.

  As quickly as she could, she packed in a small case all the herbs she thought mostly likely to help. She also took a few Eastern herbs from Shachar and from al-Qadir, whose names she would not tell Constantine.

  She informed Simonis where she was going, then followed the man out into the street and down the hill as rapidly as she could walk.

  She was ushered straight into the bedchamber where Constantine was lying, his night tunic tangled and soaked with sweat and his skin a pasty gray.

  “I’m sorry you feel so ill,” she said quietly. “When did it begin?” She was startled to see the fear in his sunken eyes, naked and out of control.

  “Last night,” he answered. “I was listening to confession and suddenly the room went black.”

  She touched his brow with her hand. It was cool and clammy. She could smell the sharp, stale odor of sweat and sour body waste. She found his pulse. It was strong, but racing.

  “Do you have pain now?” she asked.

  “Not now.”

  She judged that to be only a half-truth. “When did you last eat?”

  He looked puzzled.

  “If you don’t remember, it was too long ago.” She studied his arm where it lay across his chest. She must never let him know she had seen the terror in him. He would not forgive her that. She must examine him intimately also—at least his belly, to see if it was swollen or perhaps if his bowel was obstructed. He might never forgive her that, either, if his castration was untidy—a bad mutilation. She had heard that they varied a great deal. Some eunuchs had had all organs removed and needed to insert a tube to pass water.

  She hesitated. She was taking a terrible risk; it was an intrusion from which there was no return. Yet her medical duty to him forbade that she withhold any treatment she believed could help. She had no choice.

  Gently she took the skin of his arm between her thumb and finger. It was slack, loose on the underlying flesh. “Bring me water,” she told the servant still waiting at the door. “And get the juice of pomegranates, preferably not quite ripe, if you have them. Bring it to me in a jug. One jugful will do to start with.” She handed the servant the honey and spikenard and told him the proportions to add. Constantine’s body was drained of fluids.

  “Have you vomited?” she asked him.

  He winced. “Yes. Only once.”

  She knew from the feel of his skin and his sunken eyes that he had lost far too much fluid from his body.

  “Perhaps it was unintentional,” she told him, “but you have starved yourself, and drunk too little.”

  “I was working with the poor,” he answered weakly. His eyes avoided hers, but she did not think it was because he was lying. She suspected that he loathed the intrusion of anyone seeing him like this.

  “What is wrong with me?” he asked. “Is it a sin unto death?”

  She was stunned. The fear was deep and raw in him, indecently exposed. How could she answer him with honesty that was true both to medicine and to faith?

  “It is not only guilt which afflicts,” she said gently. “Anger can also, and sometimes grief. You have spent too much of your strength in ministering to others and have neglected yourself. And yes, perhaps that is a sin. God gave you your body to use in His service, not to ill-treat it. That is an ungrateful thing to do. Maybe you need to repent of that.”

  He stared at her, grasping at what she had said, turning it over and weighing it. Gradually some of the fear eased away, as if miraculously she had not said what he dreaded. His hand gripping the sheet loosed a little.

  She smiled. “Take better thought for yourself in future. You cannot serve either God or man in this state.”

  He breathed in deeply and let out a sigh.

  “You must drink,” she told him. “I have brought herbs which will cleanse and strengthen you. You must eat, but with care. Bread that has been well kneaded, hens’ eggs lightly boiled, not goose or duck eggs. You may eat lightly boiled meat of partridge or francolin, or young kid, not older animals. A little stewed apple with honey would be good, but avoid nuts. Then when you are ready, in two or three days, take a little fish; gray mullet is good. Mostly you must drink water with juice mixed in. Have your servant wash you and bring you clean linen. Have him help you so you do not fall. You are weak. I shall give him a list of what other food to buy.”

  She saw in his face that he wished to ask more. Afraid it would be questions she could not answer without causing him confusion or
distress, she gave him no time, bidding him good-bye and promising to return soon.

  Early the following morning, she went to check his progress. He looked gaunt in the full daylight, his cheeks sunken, his skin colorless, papery; oddly like a very large old woman. His pale hands on the bedcover seemed enormous, his arms fleshy. She was moved with a wave of intense pity for him but was careful that he should not see it in her eyes.

  “The people are praying for you,” she told him. “Philippos, Maria, and Angelos stopped me when they heard I had called on you. They are very concerned.”

  He smiled, the light returning to his eyes. “Really?”

  Did he fear she was saying it to please him? “Yes, some even fast and keep vigil. They love you, and I think also they are very afraid of facing the future without you.”

  “Tell them I need their support, Anastasius. Thank them for me.”

  “I will,” she promised, embarrassed by his need for so much reassurance. When he was better, would he remember this and hate her for having seen too much?

  The following day, Manuel once again opened the door to Anna. His eyes went immediately to the basket she was carrying: strengthening foods prepared by Simonis for the ailing bishop.

  “Food for the bishop,” she explained. “How is he?”

  “Much better,” Manuel replied. “The pain is less, but he is still very weak indeed.”

  “It will take time, but he will recover.” She passed him the soup with instructions to heat it and left the bread on the table. She went through to Constantine’s bedroom, knocking on the door and waiting for his answer before she went in.

  While he was sitting up in bed, he still looked hollow-eyed and pale. A whole man would have been stubble-chinned by now, but Constantine’s face looked curiously soft.

  “How are you?” she asked.

  “Improved,” he replied, but she could see he was tired.

  She felt his brow, then his pulse, then gently pinched the skin on his forearm again. He was still clammy and his flesh slack, but his pulse was steadier. She made a few more inquiries about his pain, by which time Manuel arrived with the soup and bread. She sat beside Constantine, steadying his hand as he ate, gently helping him, steeling herself to ask the questions.