Should she attack Gregory from behind? No, that was a coward’s way. He would suspect anyone following him, but not an old woman face-to-face. She bent farther forward, as if age crippled her.
There was laughter down the street, lights going the other way. The wind was saltier here, close to the waterfront.
There was someone else coming, a tall man carrying a lantern. She recognized his step. She hobbled, barely glancing at his face, her voice whining, high-pitched, and servile. “Spare an old woman a few pence? May God bless you…”
He stopped, his hand going toward his side. Money or a weapon? There was no time to wait and see. Zoe drew out the knife from beneath her cloak and clawed upward with it, at the same time kicking him as hard as she could on the shin. He jerked forward with surprise, and she swept the blade hard across his throat, using all her strength, helped by the weight of his body as he lurched off balance from the kick. The lantern crashed and went out, but her eyes were accustomed to the night. There was blood jetting out of his throat, warm and sticky on her hand. She could smell it. He did not even cry out, making only a terrible gurgle as he choked, wrenching around, grabbing at her as his life gushed out of him. He tore at her shoulder, pulling the muscles, hurting as if he had stabbed her, but he was already losing his balance, carrying her down with him. She felt herself falling, and the ground hit her hard with a pain in her elbow that took her breath away.
But his grasp had loosened. She did not want him to go without knowing it was she who had done it.
“Gregory!” she said clearly. “Gregory!”
For a moment, his eyes focused on her and his lips formed something that might have been her name; then the light in him went out, and his tar black eyes were empty.
Slowly, her bones aching, her muscles stiff, she rose and turned to walk away. Her vision was blurred; hot tears streamed down her face. It puzzled her why she felt as if the void were not at her feet but inside her, and she knew with certainty that it would never again be filled.
Fifty-one
ANNA WOKE IN THE NIGHT TO FIND SIMONIS STANDING over her with a candle in her hand.
Simonis’s voice was sharp with irritation. “It’s a man from the Venetian Quarter, on horseback. Says you’re to come right away. There’s been an accident and they need help. He wants you to go on his horse. They’re mad people. I’ll go and tell him to get one of their own.” She half turned away.
“Tell him I’ll be there in a minute,” Anna ordered.
She went with the Venetian, accepting his hand to haul her up into the saddle behind him, clutching her bag.
“You won’t need it,” he told her. “He’s dead. We… we need your help to get rid of the body so it won’t be found and we won’t get the blame for his murder.”
She was stunned. “Why on earth would I help you?” she demanded, preparing to slide off and return to her bed.
He urged the animal forward, gathering speed too quickly for her to do such a thing. They clattered down the hill and along the level. If he replied to her question, she did not hear his words. It was a quarter of an hour of clinging to him awkwardly in the hazy darkness, her bag slapping against her legs, before they came to a halt in an alley. A little knot of people had gathered outside the doorway of a small shop. At their feet was sprawled the body of a man. One of the group produced a lantern and held it up. In its wavering light, she could see the fear in his face and the scarlet of blood on the stones.
“We found him in our doorway,” the man said quietly. “We didn’t do it. He’s not one of us, he’s a nobleman, and Byzantine. What shall we do?”
Anna took the lantern from him and lowered it to look at the body. She saw straightaway that it was Gregory Vatatzes. His throat had been cut in a terrible, jagged wound, and scarlet with gore on the road beside him was a fine dagger with the Dandolo crest on the hilt. She had seen it before, less than a week ago, in Giuliano’s hands. He had cut a ripe peach with it, offering her half. They had laughed together over something trivial. There had been only the one peach. It had been his, and he had shared it with her.
She ran her hands over the body, searching to see if he was armed, if there had been a fight. She was cold with fear that Giuliano could have been injured as well.
She found a weapon, another jeweled knife, this one with a different shape of blade, still in its sheath at his belt and unstained. Gregory had not even drawn it. There was a piece of paper in his pocket: an invitation to meet about three hundred yards from here, signed by Giuliano.
With stiff hands, she tore the paper into tiny pieces and put the Dandolo dagger in her own bag, then turned to the man who had come for her. “Help me move him into the middle of the road. Somebody get a horse with any kind of cart. As many of you as can, climb into it and drive over the body, just once, over his neck, so we can hide the wound. Go on! Quickly!”
Anna bent down, forcing herself to grip Gregory’s body. It was heavy. It was hard work to drag it into the middle of the street where the traffic had worn the stones concave over the years. The sweat broke out on her body, yet she was shivering so violently that her teeth chattered. She tried not to think of what she was doing, only what it would cost Giuliano if she failed, and these people who had trusted her and would pay a terrible price to the authorities if it was thought to be murder.
When the task was completed, in swaying, jerking lantern light, the women helped her find the place where Gregory had been killed so that in daylight the blood would not make it obvious he had been moved. They worked hard, with lye and potash and brushes to get rid of every trace, scrubbing, swilling, scraping between the stones.
By the time they were satisfied, the man had returned with the cart, drawn by a swaybacked horse. He did not say where he had got it, and no one asked.
It was a fearful job. The horse was frightened by the smell of blood and death, and it did everything it could to avoid treading on the corpse. It had to be led, talked to softly, encouraged against its will, in order to draw the wheels over Gregory’s neck and shoulders.
“It’s not good enough,” Anna told them, staring at the mangled flesh and hideously exposed bone. She could not leave it looking so obviously like a murder. “Do it once more. No one will believe it an accident if it’s clear the cart went over him several times. They might accept that the horse was frightened and backed once. Be careful.” The cart began to move, the man dragging at the halter of the reluctant animal, which was sweating, its flanks lathered, its eyes rolling.
“To the left!” she said urgently, waving her arm. “More!… That’s it. Now forward.”
She forced herself to look. The body looked terrible. Anyone seeing it would assume he had been knocked down and then dragged until the wheels finally went over him as the animal panicked. She turned away.
“Thank you,” the man said. His voice cracked with emotion. “I’ll take you back home.”
“You stay here. Clean the cart and the horse’s hooves. Do that very carefully or they’ll find it if they look. I’ll tell the authorities you called me to an accident.” She gulped again, her head swimming. “It’s easy to explain. Dark night, frightened horse, a man returned from a long exile in Alexandria who didn’t know the Venetian Quarter well. Bad accident, but they happen. Don’t add to it.” She felt her stomach churning. “You found him. You called me because you knew me. You didn’t see in the dark how bad it was.”