She did not argue.
“I told the people so,” he went on urgently. “Even the cardinals in Rome must have seen it. What more do they need as a sign? Do they not believe it was God who brought down the walls of Jericho on the sinners within?” His voice was rising in a wild plea. “I told them it was the miracle we had waited for. I had promised them that the Blessed Virgin would save us, if only we had faith.” He choked, gagging for breath. “I have betrayed them.”
She was embarrassed for him. This was the sort of crisis of faith one should have alone and afterward be able to pretend had not happened. “No one said it would be easy,” she began. “At least no one who tells the truth. Or that it wouldn’t hurt, and we would always win. The crucifixion must have looked like the end of everything.”
He breathed out heavily. “We must keep on fighting, to the death, if necessary. We must find new heart somehow. If we haven’t the truth, then we have nothing at all.” The faintest flicker of a smile touched his eyes, and he moved absently to straighten his robe. “Thank you, Anastasius. Your faith in me has given me strength. This is a setback, it is not a defeat. Tomorrow will see the resurrection, if we have faith.” He straightened his shoulders. “I shall begin immediately.”
“Your Grace…” She reached out as if to touch him, then dropped her hand at the last moment. “Be careful,” she warned, thinking of his arrest, perhaps worse. “If you speak out too clearly against the union, you will be thrown out of office,” she said urgently. “And then who will minister to the poor and the sick? You will end up in exile, like Cyril Choniates, and what good will that do?”
“I have no intention of being so impractical,” he promised her. “I shall walk quietly and keep the faith.”
Constantine was on the steps of the Church of the Holy Apostles. A crowd was pressing forward anxiously, looking to Constantine, waiting for him to speak and reassure them, tell them that their ancient comforts were not empty. He was not aware of Anna in the shadow a few yards behind him. His eyes and his mind were on the eager faces in front of him.
“Be patient,” he said quietly. In order to hear him, they ceased talking to one another, and gradually the silence spread. “We are entering a difficult time,” he went on. “We must be outwardly obedient, or we will cause dissension in the community, perhaps violence. Old ways vie with new ones, but we know the truth of our faith, and we will practice virtue in our homes, even should it become impossible in our streets or churches. We will keep the faith and abide in hope. God will yet rescue us.”
The panic ebbed away. Anna could see the faces begin to smile, the jostling cease.
“God bless the bishop!” someone called out. “Constantine! Bishop Constantine!” The cry was taken up and repeated like an incantation.
Constantine smiled. “Go in peace, my brethren. Never lose faith. To the true heart there is no such thing as defeat, only a time of waiting, an exercise of trust, and a keeping of God’s Commandments, until the dawn.”
Again the cry came, his name, blessings, then again his name, over and over. Anna looked at him and saw the humble bearing of his head, the gesture of declining the praise. But she also saw his body shiver, his fist half-hidden in his robes tighten into a clench, and the sheen of sweat on his skin. When he turned toward her, modestly withdrawing from the adulation, his eyes were shining and his cheeks were flushed. She had seen the same look on Eustathius’s face the first time he had made love to her, back in the beginning, when the hunger and the anticipation had burned through both of them, before the bitterness.
Suddenly she was revolted and ashamed, wishing she had not seen it, but it was too late. The look in Constantine’s face was printed on her mind.
He did not notice. He was reveling in being adored.
She stood in the shadow and was hot with guilt because she was aware of the ugliness in him, the doubt and then the lust, and she had not the honesty to tell him.
Constantine had given her a link to the vast body of the Church again, a purpose to strive for beyond the daily healing of the sick. To separate from him irrevocably-and it would be irrevocable-would mean standing alone.
Which was the greater betrayal, to face him with the truth or not to face him? She turned and walked away, ahead of him, so she could not see his eyes nor he see hers.
Forty-five
ANNA STOOD IN EIRENE VATATZES’S ELEGANT, QUIET bedroom and looked down at the woman lying on the bed. Her clothes were rumpled and marked with blood, and around her neck there were stains of an ointment. In two places was also the yellow mucus of suppuration. There was an open ulcer on her cheek and another just under her jawline on the opposite side. Her hands were covered in red weals, some already swollen where the pus was gathering into a head.
Anna knew from her son, Demetrios, that his father, Gregory, was due to return shortly from Alexandria, this time to remain indefinitely. Eirene was in physical pain, but her distress was greater.
“Is the rest of your body affected as well?” Anna asked gently.
Eirene glared at her. “That doesn’t matter.” She made a sharp gesture with her hands. “Cure my face. Do whatever you have to. The cost is unimportant.” She drew in a long breath. “So is the pain.” Her voice was brittle; Anna could hear the edges of the words like shards of glass grating together.
Anna’s mind raced over every possibility she could think of, every treatment, however radical-Christian, Jewish, or Arabic. Were any of them of use if the source of the illness was the fear in Eirene’s mind?
Anna’s imagination flew to the wounds she guessed at: the rejection of clever, ugly, vulnerable Eirene for the sensuous Zoe, who would laugh and enjoy, then leave, taking whatever she wanted and needing nothing. Was Gregory a man bored by what he could have and fascinated by what he could not? How shallow. How cruel. And yet how desperately understandable.
What was the point in healing the skin from outside, only to have it erupt again a day later?
“Don’t stand there like a fool!” Eirene snapped, twisting a little to look at her. “If you don’t know what to do, say so. I’ll call someone else. If you’re in poverty, for God’s sake take some money, but don’t stare at me as if you expected me to heal myself. What are you going to tell me? That I should pray? Do you think I haven’t prayed all my life, you stupid…” Suddenly she turned her face away, tears wet on her blemished cheeks.
“I am considering what remedies there are, and which would be best,” Anna said gently. Some form of intoxication would relieve the self-consciousness that prevented Eirene from allowing her passion or her anger to show and that had perhaps masked the laughter that could have made her less easy to read. It might even allow the sensuality that could have made her entertaining and just beyond Gregory’s total reach. It would be a short-term answer, but what use was a long-term cure if she perished of misery now?
“I will give you an ointment to take away the heat,” she said aloud.
“I don’t care what it feels like, you fool!” Eirene shouted at her. “Can you see nothing, you-”
“And the redness,” Anna finished calmly. Eirene needed her to understand, yet if she did, that would be intolerable also, another humiliation. “And an infusion to heal it from within, so it does not recur,” she added. “For the suppuration you will just have to wait. I will wash them with a tincture I have prepared, and put on light bandages to keep them from rubbing.”