The Sheen on the Silk Read online

  And he had one weakness she should not forget—he forgave. Some of the patients she had recommended had treated him badly, but he did not seem to bear a grudge. He had had opportunity to take advantage of them in return, and he had not taken it. Zoe did not think it was cowardice; there would have been no danger to himself—indeed, no price to pay of any sort. That was stupid. With no fear there would be no respect. She would have known better. She would have to protect Anastasius, as long as he was useful. All scores must be evened.

  She turned back and faced the room and the great gold crucifix on the wall. She would help the physician in his quest for information about Bessarion, but she knew it had nothing to do with understanding alliances in Constantinople. Then why was he asking about it?

  Naturally she could not tell him even a whisper of the truth. Could she say that Helena had been bored witless by Bessarion and that he had probably never been interested in her—not as a man should be interested in a woman?

  She relaxed and threw back her head, smiling in a rare moment of self-mockery She had tried to seduce Bessarion herself once, just to see if there was any fire in his loins, or his soul. There wasn’t. He was willing, eventually, but it wasn’t worth the trouble.

  No wonder Helena’s eyes were wandering! Far cleverer to seduce Antoninus and then use him to dispose of Bessarion and so get rid of both of them—if that was what had happened. That was worthy of a daughter of Zoe’s. She had been slow to learn, but apparently she had succeeded well enough in the end. Pity Helena had compromised Justinian, too. He was a real man, too much for Helena. If she had caused that, Zoe would not forgive her for it.

  She walked slowly across the room to the doorway, swinging her arm out a fraction to make the silk of her robe flutter and shine in the light. The sheen changed color from russet to gold and back again, deceiving the eye, firing the imagination.

  A week later, the emperor sent for her. There was a man worth lying with. The memory was still a good one, even all these years after. Not the best; Gregory Vatatzes would always be that. But Zoe forced him out of her mind. There was pain in every thought of him, as well as pleasure.

  Michael wanted something, or he would not have sent for her. She dressed carefully, gorgeous in a bronze and black silk tunic that clung to her. A high necklace would conceal the aging of her skin under her jaw. Her hands were soft. She knew exactly what ingredients to use in unguents to keep them pale and the knuckles from swelling. She wore topaz, set in gold. None of it was to seduce him; their relationship was beyond that now. He wanted her skill, her cunning, not her flesh.

  Since the return of the empire from exile in Nicea and scattered cities to the north along the coast of the Black Sea, Michael had made his residence in the Blachernae Palace, on the other side of the city from the old Imperial Palace. The Blachernae overlooked the Golden Horn, as did her own house, and it was not more than a mile and a half away. She could walk it easily, accompanied by Sabas, her most loyal servant.

  She did not hurry, it was unseemly. She had time to notice the weeds where paving stones were missing, the broken windows in a church, never replaced.

  Even the Blachernae Palace itself was scarred, some of the magnificent arches of its upper windows shattered, threatening to topple over and smash on the steps below.

  The Imperial Varangian Guard did not question her. They knew better than to ask who she was. No doubt they had been told to expect her. She swept past them with just a slight inclination of her head.

  She remembered the old days, before the Latins came, when she was a tiny child and her father had taken her to the old Imperial Palace, high up on the headland overlooking the city and the sea. Alexios V had been emperor of Byzantium, which to her was the world. That was just before the terrible days of the invasion.

  She waited in a huge room with high windows that let the light fill the space and magnify the perfect proportions. The walls were inlaid with pink marble and the floor with porphyry. The torch brackets were high, slender, and decorated in gold. Her surroundings pleased her profoundly, and she was happy to gaze at them until she was sent for.

  She was conducted by a tall eunuch with a soft face, tired eyes, and an irritating manner of waving his hands. He led her through the halls and galleries into the emperor’s private rooms. There were some conversations that should not be overheard by anyone. Even the ever-present Varangian Guard would stand at a distance, out of earshot. Many of them were yellow-haired, blue-eyed, from God-knew-what remote lands.

  This private room was totally restored, the walls repainted with exquisite murals of pastoral scenes at harvesttime. The tall, bronze candle stands were ornate and gleaming, the few statues left undamaged.

  She made the usual obeisance. She was twenty-five years older than Michael, and a woman, but he was emperor and Equal of the Apostles. He did not rise to greet her but remained seated, his knees a little apart, covered by the woven, brocaded silk of his dalmatica and the scarlet of the tunic underneath. He was a handsome man with his heavy black hair and beard, fine eyes, and slightly ruddy complexion. He had good hands. Zoe remembered the touch of them with pleasure, even now. They were surprisingly sensitive for a man who had been a brilliant soldier in his prime and still knew more of military strategy than most generals. In battle he had led his army rather than followed it. He was busy now reorganizing the army and the navy and overseeing the repair of the city walls. He was above all a practical man. What he wanted of Zoe would also be practical.

  “Come forward, Zoe,” he commanded. “We are alone. There is no need for pretense.” His voice was soft and deep, as a man’s should be.

  She stepped closer to him, but slowly. She would never presume and so give him the chance to rebuff her. Let him do the asking, the requesting.

  “There is a matter in which you may be of assistance,” he said, watching her intently, his eyes searching her face. She was never sure how far he could read her. He was Byzantine to the core; nothing of the imagination passed him by. He was subtle, devious, and brave, but at the moment he had a heavy burden to carry and a broken and obstinate people to lead. They were blind to the realities of the new threat, because they dared not look at it clearly.

  Since Bessarion’s death, Zoe was beginning to see the political situation differently. There was a betrayal still being planned somewhere, and when Zoe found it out, she would punish whoever was responsible, even if it was Helena.

  She wished she could have spoken to Justinian before he went into exile, but Constantine had accomplished his rescue so smoothly, and so quickly, that that had not been possible.

  Now she needed to know what Michael wanted of her. “Whatever I can do,” she murmured respectfully.

  “There are certain people whose services you use …” He measured his words with care. “I would prefer not to be seen to use them, but they have skills I need. I wish for information. Later it may be more than that.”

  “Sicily?” She breathed out the word; it was really more of an acknowledgment than a question.

  He nodded assent.

  She waited. A new bargain must be made, and that was good. She would deal with anyone if it was for Byzantium’s sake, but she would not do it cheaply. The Sicilian she employed was a weasel of a man, a double spy, but she had caught his one mistake and kept the proof of it where all his cunning would never find it. He was dangerous, and she must handle him with care, as one did a serpent. She knew why Michael could not afford to have any connection with him, even through his own spies. Nothing escaped the eunuchs closest to him, or the house servants and palace guards, the priests forever coming and going. He needed someone like Zoe, who was just as clever as he was but who could afford to be ruthless in ways he dared not. There were too many pretenders to the throne, would-be usurpers, plots and counterplots. Michael was only too bitterly aware of it, always watching over his shoulder.

  He leaned forward, less than a yard from her now. “I need this man of yours,” he said quietly. “Not
to strike yet, but in a while. And I need someone else in Rome also, a second voice.”

  “I can find someone,” she promised. “What do you wish to know?”

  He smiled. He had no intention of telling her. “Someone close to the pope,” he said. “And to the king of the Two Sicilies.”

  “Someone with courage?” Hope flared inside her that after all, he meant to fight. Perhaps Michael would even assassinate the pope? After all, the pope was the enemy of Byzantium, and this was war.

  He read her instantly. “Not that kind of courage, Zoe. Those days are past. Popes can be replaced easily enough.” There was anger in his eyes and something that might have been fear. “The king of the Two Sicilies is the real danger, and the pope is the only one who can hold him back. If we are to survive, we must compromise.”

  “You cannot compromise the faith,” she retorted.

  Temper burned the skin under his heavy beard. She saw the flush across his cheekbones. He leaned even closer to her. “We need skill, Zoe, not bravado. We must use one against the other, in the way we always have. But I will not lose Constantinople again, to pay for anything on earth. I’ll bow the knee to Rome, or let them think I do, but the crusaders will not break one stone of my city, nor tax the smallest coin of tribute from my people.” His black eyes bored into hers. “Sicily may starve, and may even turn to bite the hand that robs it, and if it does, so much the better for us. Until then, I will trade in words and symbols with the pope, or the devil, or King Charles of Anjou and the Two Sicilies, if I have to. Are you with me or against me?”

  “I am with you,” she said softly, aware now of a subtle and disturbing irony. “I will defend Byzantium against anyone, within or without. Are you with me?”

  He looked straight back at her, unblinking. “Oh yes, Zoe Chrysaphes. You may trust me to choose what I see, and what I don’t.”

  “I have my spies by the neck. I shall see they do as you wish,” she promised, smiling also and stepping back. Her mind was busy already. Sicily rising against their king? There was a thought.

  Nine

  ZOE DID AS MICHAEL HAD REQUESTED, THEN SHE TURNED her mind to revenge. She had not forgotten the bitter lesson of her own brush with death. There was no time to wait.

  The eunuch Anastasius was exactly the tool she needed. He had intelligence and the kind of honesty to his profession that made people trust him. She was quite aware that he did not trust her, and there was also this hunger in him to know about Bessarion’s death. One day Zoe would take time to find out exactly why that was.

  In the meantime, there was a delicate balance of irony in using him to trick and ruin Cosmas Kantakouzenos, whose family’s greed had robbed Byzantium of some of its greatest art.

  Zoe was dressed in a tunic the color of dark wine in shadow and an even darker dalmatica, burgundy warp shot with a black weft, which caught the warmth of reds in the firelight as she passed through the glow of the torches.

  She crossed herself and stepped out into the night, Sabas following behind her, for safety in the shadows of twilight and for their return in the dark.

  She stood for a moment in the street, reciting the Ave Maria to herself, hands folded. Then she started to walk again.

  She drew a deep breath into her lungs. This was her vengeance at last. By tomorrow, the first of those whose emblems were on the back of her crucifix would be dead.

  She left Sabas outside as the servant showed her in to Cosmas’s house. Even the entrance hall was magnificent, especially the marble bust of a Roman senator on a plinth, his elderly face lined with the emotion and experience of a lifetime. Blue Venetian glasses stood on a table, the light making them look like jewels. An Egyptian alabaster dog with huge ears took pride of place on a carved wooden table.

  When she was shown into his room, Cosmas was sitting in a wide chair, staring at an inlaid table on which stood a jug of Sicilian wine, which was now more than half-empty. Beside it was a dish of dates and honeyed fruits. He was a short man with a curved nose and heavy-lidded eyes, red-rimmed in shadowed sockets.

  “I don’t owe you anything,” he said sourly. “So I assume you have come to see what you can plunder.”

  She wanted to do more than gloat; she needed a quarrel, one that could be escalated into violence.

  “You are a wretched judge of character,” she replied, still standing. He did not rise. “I have not come to make financial profit out of you. I will buy icons to give to the church so all may worship them there and be blessed. I will pay you a fair price.”

  His shoulders straightened and his head lifted a little.

  “But I will see them first,” she added with a slight smile.

  “Of course. Wine?”

  “With pleasure.” She had no intention of drinking anything in his house, but she wanted the glass. A pity to break it—it was exquisite.

  He rose stiffly, knees creaking, and fetched another glass from a cupboard. He poured it half-full for her and set it within her reach. “Let us talk money. The icons are on the wall in there.” He indicated an archway leading to a dimly lit room beyond.

  She accepted the invitation and walked through. Then she stopped, her heart pounding. There were still half a dozen icons left, images of St. Peter and St. Paul, of Christ. One icon of the Virgin was in gold leaf and green-and-azure enamel, and blue so dark as to be almost black. She was somber-faced, with a tenderness that held the viewer in amazement.

  Others had jewels encrusted on the clothes of the figures or were inlaid with ivory. There was such beauty in them that momentarily she forgot why she was here or why the hatred scorched inside her.

  There was a sound behind her, and she froze. Very slowly she turned. He was there in the doorway, fat and soft, full of good living and the savor of profit.

  “I would rather destroy them than be robbed,” he said between his teeth. “I know you, Zoe Chrysaphes. You do nothing without a reason. Why are you really here?”

  “The icons are beautiful,” she said, as if that were a reply.

  “Worth a great deal of money.” His merchant’s heart was in his face.

  “Then let us haggle,” she said, unable to keep the contempt out of her voice as she brushed past him, accidentally touching the protrusion of his belly as he stood in the middle of the archway. “Let us argue how many byzants the face of Mary is worth.”

  “It is an icon,” he said with a sneer. “The creation of man’s hands, made of wood and paint.”

  “And of gold leaf, Cosmas; never forget the gold leaf or the gems,” she responded.

  He frowned at her. “Do you want to buy one of them or not?” he snapped.

  “How many pieces of silver, Cosmas, for the Mother of God? Forty seems an appropriate number.” She took a small purse of silver solidi out of her robe and placed the coins on the table.

  Temper flared up his face. “It is an icon, you stupid woman! An artist’s work, no more. It is not Christ I sell!”

  “Blasphemy!” she shrieked at him, her fury only in part pretense. She lunged for one of the glasses, her hand sweeping high, making clear her intention to smash it and use it as a weapon.

  He darted forward first and seized it, dashing off the lovely golden rim of it and leaving jagged ends bristling from the stem. He held it out like a dagger, his eyes wide, flickering with fear, his lips parted.

  She hesitated. She had borne pain before, and she hated it. Body’s ecstasy and agony were equally deep for her, right on the cliff edge of the unbearable. But this was revenge—what she had lived for over the long, arid years. She pushed forward again, using the end of her cloak to dull some of the cutting edge when he struck her.

  He jerked upward at her with the ragged stem, impelled by fear.

  She felt the glass cut, and she twisted away and grasped it with the other hand, screaming out, intending the servants to hear her. Afterward, she would need their testimony. He must be the aggressor, only one glass broken, she merely defending herself.

  He w
as caught by surprise. He had expected her to fall backward, bleeding. Instead she pressed on up to him, turning the stem against him with her weight and her other hand over his. The broken edge caught him, a thin, slashing cut.

  Then she drew back, allowing surprise into her face as servants came rushing into the room.

  “It’s nothing!” Cosmas said angrily, shouting at them but still looking at her. His face was red, his eyes blazing.

  Zoe turned toward the two men and the woman, forcing herself to sound apologetic. This was what they must remember. “I dropped a glass and it broke,” she said with a charming smile, rueful, just a little ashamed. “We reached for it at the same moment and … and bumped into each other. I am afraid we both grasped for the glass, and have cut ourselves on its shards. Perhaps you would bring water, and bandages.”

  They hesitated.

  “Do it!” Cosmas yelled at them, clutching the wound where the blood was already staining his robe.

  “I have a tincture to ease pain,” Zoe said helpfully, reaching inside her tunic for the fold of oiled silk with the antidote in it.

  “No,” he refused instantly. “I will use my own.” There was a slight sneer in his voice, as if he had seen her trick and sidestepped it.

  “As you please.” She emptied the powder into her mouth and took a sip of the wine from his glass, still whole on the table.

  “What’s that?” he demanded.

  “A powder against the pain,” she replied, holding up her bleeding arm. “Do you want some?”

  “No!” There was derision in his eyes.

  The servants returned and carefully washed the wounds of both of them.

  “I have a salve….” Zoe reached with her other hand for the porcelain jar of ointment with its painted chrysanthemums. She put a little on her wound. It was mildly soothing, but she relaxed her body, as if it had brought great ease. She held out the open jar to Cosmas; her face was composed, as close to indifferent as she could make it.