Carefully, in case any of it spilled on her, she threw out the medicine. At first she thought to destroy it with fire and then realized just in time that it might be just as lethal if it was burned and its fumes inhaled. She ended up tipping all the powder into the hot water and pouring it down the drain.
Three days later, she was in even greater pain. In spite of having treated it herself and taken one of her own powders to get rid of fever, the wound was red and angry, and it felt as if it were on fire. Every now and then she was dizzy. She drank glass after glass of water; it tasted even more brackish than usual, and she was always thirsty.
Now she was certain that Gregory was behind the attack and that somehow he had managed to introduce poison into the wound.
“Look for poison!” she told Anastasius when he came. “The wound is infected. Someone is trying to kill me.”
Anastasius looked at her, studying her hot, golden eyes, her flushed skin, and then last the raw wound in her leg, which was beginning to suppurate. He touched it gently with one cool finger, then turned to her. “Did you use the medicine I gave you? And don’t lie, unless you want to lose your leg.”
“No,” she said quietly. “I was afraid that whoever poisoned me might have reached you, too.”
Anastasius nodded. “I see. Then we had better start again, from the beginning. The infection is serious now. I shall stay here and watch you. I have every interest in your recovery. It would be bad for my reputation if you died, so do as I tell you.” He smiled very slightly, a deep, inward humor.
He stayed, nursing her all day and to begin with all night as well. He sat beside her, talking to her through the increasing pain. At first it irritated her. Then gradually she realized that as she answered his questions, she became less aware of how badly she hurt. Obliquely, it was kind of him.
“Demetrios?” she answered his last question, smiling in spite of herself. “Not like his father. Weaker. In love with Helena? Probably not. In love with power, certainly. Thinks he hides it, but he doesn’t. Eirene’s son, but without her intelligence. Brilliant with money, like her.” She laughed, but so deep inside herself that he did not hear it. “Helena thinks he loves her, but then she thinks all sorts of things. Fool.”
“Did Justinian love her?” Anastasius asked, sounding only mildly interested, as if he were still trying to take her mind from the pain.
“Loathed her,” Zoe answered frankly. Damn it, her leg hurt! She was getting a little dizzy. Was she going to die after all?
He made her drink something more that tasted foul. Had Gregory got to him? She searched his eyes, his face, and could read something in it beyond curiosity, but what?
“Anastasius,” Zoe whispered.
“Yes?”
“If I am alive in the morning, I shall tell you why Justinian Lascaris killed Bessarion. Bloody fool! He didn’t come to me, and I was the one person who would have believed him. I can see it for myself now. Only mistake he made, but it cost him everything. Idiot!”
Anastasius looked as if she had struck him, his face an odd mixture of ashen pale and red spots on his cheeks, like weals.
The room was beginning to swim around Zoe. She was growing delirious with fever. He forced her to drink something that was even more vile than the last time, but when she awoke at midday she was much improved.
Anastasius was smiling at her. “Better?” he inquired with some satisfaction.
“Much better.” She sat up slowly, and he offered her something to drink that was pleasant. “Thank you.”
He eased her back down again. He was stronger than she had expected. Or perhaps she was weaker.
“It’s morning,” Anastasius observed.
“I can see that!” Zoe snapped.
A smile flickered in Anastasius’s eyes. “Then you will tell me why Justinian was a fool not to trust you?” he said with an edge to his voice. “Or was I the fool to believe it?”
Memory rushed back. “What was that you just gave me?”
Anastasius smiled. “You haven’t answered my question.”
“Justinian knew Bessarion was useless,” Zoe said quietly. “He would have been a disaster on the throne. But the others wouldn’t believe Justinian. They’d put everything into it and the plans had gone too far. The only way to stop it was to kill Bessarion. Antoninus believed Justinian. He helped.” She almost laughed when she thought of it, except that it was so futile. “Fool. I would have stopped it. They could have done nothing without me. But Justinian didn’t trust me. What was it I just drank?”
Anastasius stared at her as if mesmerized.
“What was it I just drank?” Zoe repeated, her voice more angry and frightened than she had wanted to betray.
“Infusion of camomile,” Anastasius answered. “It’s good for the digestion. Just camomile leaves in hot water, nothing else. It’s bitter because you’ve been ill. That alters your taste.”
She did not want to admire Anastasius, and it was a curious feeling to trust him. Yet at least as far as medicine was concerned, she did. She lay back at last, for the time being content.
After three days, she began to regain strength and the wound was less red and the swelling subsided. After a week, he pronounced it satisfactory and said he would leave and return at the end of another three days.
She thanked him, paid him generously, and also gave him the gift of a small enameled box made of silver and inlaid with aquamarine. He touched it gently, looking first at its beauty, then up at her. His appreciation of it was clear in his face, and she was satisfied. She told him to leave.
Zoe was glad Anastasius had liked it. He had ministered to her not only with skill, but with gentleness. It had given her a serious fright to be so vulnerable. It could not go on like this.
An idea was beginning to take shape in her mind. She would make Gregory’s death count. She would contrive a means to have Giuliano Dandolo blamed for it. That way, she could bear to kill Gregory. She could even do it herself.
Fifty
WITH GREGORY, ZOE WOULD HAVE NO SECOND CHANCE.
In a perverse way, this last battle between them was another kind of bond. She thought of him during the day. She lay awake at night and remembered how it was to be with him.
Another piece of the plan fell into her hands. It was the street attacks upon Bessarion and then upon herself that gave her the idea.
The first thing was to plant the seeds in people’s minds that there was a quarrel between Gregory and Giuliano Dandolo. It must be just a superficial word, so slight that the meaning was recalled only afterward and understood then.
The second thing was to go to Bardas, a maker of daggers whom she knew and had trusted in the past. She put on her heaviest dalmatica and went out into the windy street and the light rain. Walking quickly, she left Sabas far behind her as he was used to being, discreet, seeing and hearing nothing. The pain in her leg was barely there anymore.
“Yes, mistress,” the swordsmith said immediately, pleased to see her again. Only a fool forgot a benefactress or broke his word to a woman who never forgot or forgave. “What can I make for you this time?”
“I want a good dagger,” she replied. “It doesn’t have to be the best, but I want a family crest on the hilt, and I want you to be discreet about it. It is a gift, and it will be spoiled if anyone else hears of it.”
“Your business is no one else’s, lady. Whose crest would that be?”
“Dandolo,” she answered.