So Gregory was still in Egypt, even so many years after most other exiles had returned to Constantinople from every other region.
Anna followed Eirene to the courtyard. It too was sparsely beautiful, clean-lined. The fountain fell into a shaded pool, the water catching the light only at its peak.
She spoke to Eirene of the usual things a physician addresses: food, sleep, the benefits of walking.
“Do you imagine I haven’t thought of all that?” Eirene said, disappointment dragging her voice down again.
“I am sure you have,” Anna replied. “Have you done them? They will not cure you, but they will allow your body to begin curing itself.”
“You are as bad as my priest,” Eirene remarked. “Would you like me to say a dozen Paternosters?”
“If you can do it without your mind wandering off to other things,” Anna replied perfectly seriously. “I don’t think I could.”
Eirene looked at her, a beginning of interest in her eyes. “Is that a rather abstruse way of saying that it is sin at the heart of this after all? I do not need to be sheltered from the truth. I am just as strong as Zoe Chrysaphes.” A flash of light, almost like a moment’s laughter, glanced in her eyes. “Or did you wrap up the truth for her, too, like a child’s medicine, hidden in honey?”
“I would not dare,” Anna replied. “Unless, of course, I was sure I could do it well enough that she would never know.”
This time Eirene laughed outright, a rich sound with layers of meaning, at least some of them malicious. How had Zoe hurt her?
“I have an herbal extract for you…” Anna began.
“What is it? A sedative? Something to stop me feeling the pain?” There was contempt in Eirene’s face. “Is that your solution to life’s griefs, physician? Cover them up? Don’t look at what will hurt you?”
Anna should have been insulted, but she was not. “A sedative will relax your muscles so your body does not fight itself and send you into spasm. Relax so you can eat without gulping in air and giving yourself indigestion to cramp your stomach. Relax so your neck does not ache from bearing your head up, and your head pound from the blood trying to pass through flesh that is knotted as if ease were your enemy.”
“I suppose you know what you are talking about,” Eirene said with a shrug. “You can tell Zoe that my household knows you came on her recommendation. I shall hold her responsible for anything that happens to me. Come back tomorrow.”
When she returned, Anna found Eirene much the same. If the pain was less, it could be attributed to the night’s rest, partially induced by the sedative. She was still tired and in considerably short temper.
Afterward, Anna found Eirene’s son, Demetrios, waiting for her. He asked with some concern over his mother’s condition. She could easily understand why Helena was attracted to him.
“How is my mother?” he repeated urgently.
“I believe anxiety and fear are eating inside her,” Anna answered, not meeting his eyes as she would have were her conscience at ease.
“What has she to be afraid of?” Demetrios was watching her closely, but disguising it in a show of disdain.
“We can fear all manner of things, real and unreal,” she replied. “The sack of the city again, if there is another crusade.” In the corner of her vision, she saw the impatient gesture of his hand brushing away the idea. “The forced union of the Church with Rome,” she went on, and this time he stood perfectly still. “Violence in the city if that should happen,” she added, measuring her words as precisely as she could. “Possible attempts to usurp Michael’s power over the Church.” Her voice was shaking a little now. “By those who are passionately against union.”
The silence was so intense, she could hear a servant drop a fork on the tiled floor two rooms away.
“Usurp Michael’s power over the Church?” he asked at length. “What on earth do you mean?” He was very pale. “Michael is emperor. Or do you mean usurp the throne?”
Her heart pounding, she met his eyes. “Do I?”
“That’s ridiculous! Stay with your medicine,” Demetrios snapped. “You know nothing about the world, and still less about the relations of power.”
“There is something that disturbs your mother,” she lied, her mind racing. “Something keeps her from sleeping and takes the pleasure from her food so she eats it badly and too fast.”
“I suppose that’s better than saying her illness is caused by sin,” he conceded dryly. A sudden, very real sadness crossed his face. “But if you think my mother’s a coward, then you are a fool. I never saw her afraid of anything.”
Of course you didn’t, Anna thought. Eirene’s fears were of the heart, not of the mind or the flesh. Like most women, she feared loneliness and rejection, losing the man she loved to someone like Zoe.
Forty-three
A CEILING IN THE PAPAL PALACE IN VITERBO HAD CAVED in, splintering to a thousand shards of wood, plaster, and rubble, killing Pope John XXI. The news reduced Rome to stunned silence, then slowly spread to the rest of Christendom. Once again, the world had no voice for God to lead it.
Palombara heard the news in the Blachernae Palace at an audience with the emperor. Now he stood in one of the great galleries in front of a magnificent statue. It was one of a few that had survived with only the slightest chip in one arm, as if to show that it too was subject to time and chance. It was Greek, from before Christ, preserved here in this seldom used corner, beautiful and almost naked.
Anna was in the same corridor, returning from treating a patient. She saw Bishop Palombara, but he was deep in thought and as unaware of her as if he had been alone. She read in his face in the unguarded moment a vulnerability to beauty, as if it could reach inside him effortlessly past all the barriers he had built up and touch the wounds beyond.
Yet he allowed it. Some part of him hungered for the overwhelming emotion, even if it was so threaded through with pain. Yet its reality eluded him. She knew that when he turned to her, only for an instant she saw it in his eyes.
Then, as if by mutual agreement, he walked away, back toward the main gallery, and she was ashamed of having intruded, even though it had been unintentional.
She heard a noise of swift footsteps and swung around sharply, as if she had been caught somewhere she should not have been. Why should she feel so exposed? Because she had experienced a moment’s empathy with the Roman?
This was the immediate razor edge of the Schism, not arguments about the nature of God; it was the poison in the nature of man, where the lines of enormity were drawn in the ground and one was afraid to stretch out the hand across them.
Forty-four
FROM MAY TO NOVEMBER, THERE WAS ANOTHER LONG VOID in struggle between Rome and Byzantium until Pope Nicholas III was elected toward the end of November. He was Italian, passionately so. He dispossessed Charles of Anjou of his position as senator of Rome, so he could vote in no future papal elections, thus considerably reducing his power. He packed the high offices close to him with his own brothers, nephews, and cousins, gaining a stronghold on Rome.
He also required yet another affirmation of the union between Rome and Byzantium. This time it was not Michael and his son who should sign the promises of the new restrictions, it was all the bishops and senior clergy in what remained of the empire.
Anna found Constantine in despair.
“I shouldn’t have done it!” he said hoarsely. “But how could I have been wrong?” He seemed almost on the edge of tears, his eyes hot, beseeching escape from a reality he could not bear. He flung out his hands in a gesture of pleading. “Pope John forced the emperor into signing the promise to obey Rome, and a month afterward-just a month-the ceiling of his palace fell in on him. It was an act of God, it had to be.”