She walked away quickly, and as soon as she was around the corner, she retched. It took her several minutes before she was well enough to stand up and go on. She was less than a mile from the house where Giuliano lodged, and he should have returned by now. The time of his appointment with Gregory was long past. Before she could report Gregory’s death to the night watch, she must give Giuliano back the dagger.
She reached the door he used at the side of the house and rapped on it hard. There was no answer. She tried again and waited. She had tried a third time and was about to walk away, but then she heard a brief noise, and the door swung open to show light and the bulk of a man behind it.
“Giuliano?” she said urgently.
He pulled it wider, his face stunned with surprise in the upward glow of the lantern. “Anastasius? What’s happened? You look terrible. Come in, man.” He pulled the door wide. “Are you hurt? Let me…”
She had forgotten how filthy she was, stained with dirt from the street and with Gregory’s blood. “I’m not hurt!” she said sharply. “Close the door… please.”
He was standing in a nightshirt, his hair tousled as if he had already been back in bed. She felt her face burning.
She took the bloody dagger out of her bag and showed it to him, gripping it by the handle, but so that he could see the Dandolo crest. The blade was scarlet with blood-congealing but not yet dry.
Giuliano’s face went white. He stared at her in horror.
“I found it in the street a mile from here,” she told him. “Beside the body of Gregory Vatatzes. His throat had been torn out.”
He started to speak but choked on the words.
She told him briefly how she had been sent for and what she had done. “They’ll assume it was an accident. Clean your knife. Soak it until there isn’t a smear of blood on it anywhere, even in the crevices of the handle. Did you go to meet him?”
“Yes,” Giuliano said hoarsely, having to clear his throat to force out the word. “He wasn’t there. That’s my knife. Zoe Chrysaphes gave it to me, because it has the Dandolo crest on it. But it was stolen a couple of days ago.”
“Zoe?” she said incredulously.
He still did not comprehend. “She’s helping me… to find my mother’s sister, who may still be alive. That’s why I went to meet Gregory. He wrote to me, saying he had word of her.” He walked over toward a chest by the wall, carrying the lantern with him so he could find the paper. He held it out to her, the light high for her to read it.
It was almost immaterial what it said. It was Zoe’s writing. The slant of the letters was different from her usual-bolder, more masculine-but Anna recognized the characteristic capitals. She had seen Zoe’s script often enough on letters and instructions, lists of ingredients.
“Zoe Chrysaphes,” she said softly, her voice rasped with fury. “You fool!” She was shaking in spite of the effort to control herself. “She’s Byzantine to the soul, and you are not only a Venetian, you’re a Dandolo! You let her give you a dagger anyone would recognize? Where were your wits?”
He stood frozen to the spot.
She closed her eyes. “Please God, no one will ask you, but if they do, stick to the truth that you were out. Someone may have seen you. I shan’t tell you where it happened because you shouldn’t know. Don’t mention the dagger. I think I’m the only one who really saw it. Just clean the damn thing!” Without giving him more than a glance, Anna opened the door and went out into the corridor and then the street again. Quickly, stumbling and shivering, she hurried to the nearest watch point of the civil authority of the city. Thank heaven it was in the Venetian Quarter still, and the watchmen had no willingness to consider it anything more than the accident it appeared to be.
“And what were you doing there?” the watchman asked her.
“I have several patients in the quarter,” she replied.
“At that hour of night?”
“No, sir. I was just a physician they had consulted. They knew that I would come.”
“The man was dead, you say. What could you do for him?” The man frowned at her.
“Nothing, I’m afraid. But they were very distressed, especially the women. They needed help… treatment.”
“I see. Thank you.”
She stayed only a little longer, leaving her name and address for them to find her again if necessary. Then, still shaking with horror and fear, still wretched with nausea, the sweat cold on her skin, she began the long walk back up the hill homeward.
Fifty-two
ZOE WAS TOO EXCITED TO SLEEP WHEN SHE RETURNED TO her house. She took off her old woman’s rags and burned them in the hearth. No one must see them, especially soaked with blood as they were. Fortunately, she had little of it on herself. As if she had merely found herself having a restless night, she sent for Thomais and told her to heat water for her to bathe and to fetch towels. Carefully she chose her most precious, luxurious oils and perfumes and unguents for her skin.
When the water was ready, steam rising, moist on the skin and sweet to the smell, she stepped in slowly, savoring the sensation. The heat, the gentle touch of it, eased out all the tight-knotted aches and fears.
She remembered, with a pleasure made sharper by grief, how Gregory had wanted her, tasted her slowly. It was right that she had killed him physically, violently, face-to-face. That was how they had loved, and hated. Poison was right for men like Arsenios, not for Gregory.
She stood up when the water was cooling and noticed with amusement that Thomais still looked at her with admiration in her eyes.
She dressed in fresh clothes and ordered fruit and a glass of wine. Alone in the silence of the end of night, she stood in front of the window and watched the dawn pale in the east. Today she would go to the Hagia Sophia and offer up her thanks to the Virgin Mary. She would give hundreds of candles, make the whole place a glory of light. Gregory Vatatzes and Giuliano Dandolo destroyed in one superb act. And she was safe.
The dawn broadened. Thomais returned to say that the physician Anastasius had called, requesting to see her immediately.
What on earth could he want at this hour? But since Zoe was up and dressed anyway, it was not an inconvenience.
“Send him in,” she ordered. “And bring more fruit, and another glass.”
A moment later Anastasius came in, his face ashen except for two high spots of color on his cheeks. His hair was barely combed, and he looked both exhausted and furious.
“Good morning, Anastasius,” Zoe said. “May I offer you wine, a little fruit?”
“Gregory Vatatzes is dead,” Anastasius said in a hard, thin voice.
“I did not know he was ill,” Zoe replied with perfect calm. “From your apparent distress, I assume you attended him?”
“There was nothing to attend,” Anastasius replied bitterly. “He was lying in a street in the Venetian Quarter, his throat torn open with the dagger you gave to Giuliano Dandolo.”
“Murdered?” Zoe turned the word over on her tongue, as if uncertain of it. “He must have had more enemies than he realized. Dandolo, you said? Really. I believe Gregory spent some time in Venice, before going to Alexandria. Perhaps it was a family feud?”
“I am sure it was,” Anastasius agreed. “Dandolo is a dangerous name to carry in Constantinople. With the history it has, I would be surprised if you gave him such a gift.” He smiled with scalding irony, his eyes brilliant, the intelligence in them hard and probing. “With the hilt toward him, that is.”
A flash of humor lit Zoe’s smile for an instant. “You think I should have presented it blade first?”
“I think you did,” Anastasius retorted. “Only he did not realize it.”
Zoe shrugged. “Then it looks as if he too is a victim of this murder. I’m sorry he is your friend. I would not intentionally have had it so.”