He had been going to kill her! He had said so. She had had no choice. She was justified. It was self-defense, to which everyone is entitled. There was no justice in this!
She woke with her body covered in sweat, her clothes sticking to her, ice-cold the minute she threw off the cover and slid out. She knelt on the marble floor, shuddering, her hands folded in prayer, knuckles shining white in the candlelight.
“Blessed Virgin, Holy Mother of God,” she whispered hoarsely. “If I have sinned, forgive me. I did it only to prevent him from keeping the icons which belong to the people. Forgive me, please wash me of my sins.”
She crept back to bed, still shaking with cold, but she dared not sleep.
The following night she did the same, but spending longer on her knees, recounting to the Blessed Virgin the icons Arsenios had taken and his impiety in keeping them all these years-and that was apart from the less precious, less beautiful ones he had sold, anyone could guess as to whom-the buyer with the most money. As if that mattered!
On the fourth day, she heard the news she had prayed for. Arsenios Vatatzes had been buried. They said he had died of a hemorrhage to the stomach shortly after Zoe had visited him. His servants had found him. She listened carefully, but there was no whisper of blame. She had got away with it!
The conclusion was obvious. Heaven was with her; she was an instrument in the hands of God. The rest was just bad dreams, nothing more. They should be forgotten, like any other nonsense.
Tomorrow she would go out and offer her thanks, with gifts, to the Virgin Mary in the Hagia Sophia, knowing that she had divine approval. Candles were not enough, but she would offer them anyway, hundreds of them, enough to light the whole dome, and also perhaps one of her lesser icons.
Thirty-seven
GIULIANO DANDOLO ENJOYED BEING BACK IN CONSTANTINOPLE. The vitality of the city excited him; the tolerance and width of vision was like the wind off a great ocean. It called to him more and more powerfully each time he saw it.
Now he was here at Contarini’s orders to observe for himself, rather than by rumor, whether Byzantium was finally keeping the rules of the union with Rome or, as before, paying them lip service while going its own way.
What he had seen so far should have pleased him for the prospects of a new crusade passing this way and storming the city and the profit that that would mean for Venice. But Giuliano could not rejoice in it. He learned of the strength of the resistance with a sense of foreboding. Not only had the leaders of opposition to the union been blinded, mutilated, or banished; many had fled to separatist Byzantine states. The prisons were crowded, and most embarrassing to Michael, many of his immediate relatives were actively engaged in plotting against him. It seemed he was attacked at the front and beset on all sides.
The Blachernae Palace was beautiful, even if it was poor compared with the glories of Venice. There were still the marks of fire and pillage all through it, and it had none of the sheer grace of pale marble and the endless reflections of light that he was used to.
But when Giuliano was face-to-face with Michael, he saw a man of remarkable composure. There was a weariness in the emperor’s face, but nothing of fear. He received Giuliano with courtesy and even a shadow of wit. Against his will, Giuliano felt both a pity and an admiration for him. Whatever Michael lacked, it was not courage.
“And of course there is the East,” a eunuch told Giuliano as he was conducted away after his audience was over. The eunuch’s name was Nicephoras.
Giuliano dragged his mind back to the issues as they walked side by side along a vaulted corridor paved with mosaics.
“Everything is changing all the time,” Nicephoras added, choosing his words carefully. “It appears at the moment as if the greatest threat to us is from the West, the next crusade, but in truth I think we have as much, if not more, to fear from the East. It is simply that the West will be first, if we do not find some accommodation with Rome, however much we hate it. But there is no accommodation to be found with the East.” He looked at Giuliano. “There is much balancing to be done, and it is hard to know which way to turn first.”
Giuliano wanted to say something intelligent and sympathetic, without betraying Venice or sounding patronizing, but nothing whatever came to him. “I begin to feel as if Venetian politics are relatively simple,” he said quietly. “This is like taking out a boat that is leaking in ten different places.”
“A good analogy,” Nicephoras agreed with appreciation. “But we are good at it. We have had much practice.”
Giuliano was still on the steps, leaving the palace, when he came to the bottom at the same time as another eunuch, apparently also leaving. This person was considerably smaller, several inches shorter than Giuliano himself, and more delicate of appearance. When he turned there was a flash of recognition in his dark gray eyes, and Giuliano remembered him from the Hagia Sophia. This was the same man who had seen him clean Enrico Dandolo’s tomb and whose face had shown such grief and such compassion.
“Good morning,” Giuliano said quickly, then wondered if perhaps he had been precipitate in speaking to him, that it would be taken as overfamiliarity. “Giuliano Dandolo, ambassador from the doge of Venice,” he introduced himself.
The eunuch smiled. His face was effeminate, but certainly not without character and again the burning intelligence Giuliano thought he had seen in the Hagia Sophia. “Anastasius Zarides,” the eunuch said. “Sometime physician to Emperor Michael Palaeologus.”
Giuliano was surprised. He had not placed the man as a physician. But it only reminded him how alien Byzantium was. He hastened to say something else. “I live in the Venetian Quarter.” He made a gesture roughly in the direction of the shore. “But I am beginning to think perhaps that restricts me from knowing the city better.” He stopped, gazing across the rooftops. The Golden Horn was spread below them, shining in the morning sun, dotted with boats from every corner of the Mediterranean. The air was warm, and Giuliano could imagine he smelled the odors of salt and spice drifting up from the harbor front.
Anastasius followed his gaze. “If I could choose, I would live where I could see the sun rise over the Bosphorus, and that requires some height. Such places are expensive.” He laughed with gentle self-mockery. “I would have to save the life of the richest man in Byzantium in order to afford that, and fortunately for him, if less so for me, he is in excellent health.”
Giuliano regarded him with amusement. “And if he were ill, would he send for you?” he asked.
Anastasius shrugged. “Not yet, but by the time he is ill, maybe.” He was joking, lightly.
“In the meantime, healing merely the emperor, where do you live?” Giuliano kept up the easy tone.
Anastasius pointed down the hill. “Over there, beyond those trees. I still have a good view, although only to the north. But there is an excellent place, my favorite in the city, a hundred yards away, up on that hill, where you can see in almost a full circle. And it is quiet. Very few other people seem to go there. Perhaps I am the only one with time to stand and stare.”
Giuliano had a sudden thought that perhaps what he really meant was to stand and dream, but self-consciousness had prevented him from saying so.