The Sheen of the Silk

Seven

IN EARLY OCTOBER, ZOE SENT A MESSENGER TO ANNA, REQUESTING that she attend her immediately. Zoe drew her like a flame that was dangerous, unpredictable, at times destructive, but above all a blazing light, and Anna was in urgent need of more information.

When she arrived Zoe received her at once, which was in itself a compliment. Today she was dressed in a wine red tunic with a lighter red dalmatica over it, clasped at the shoulder with an enormous gold-and-amber jewel. More gold and amber hung on her ears and around her neck and was echoed at the embroidered hems of her garments. With her topaz eyes and deep bronze hair, Zoe was breathtaking.

“Ah! Anastasius,” she said eagerly, walking toward Anna, smiling. “How is your business? I hear good reports of you from my friends.” It was a courteous question and asked with enthusiasm. It was also a reminder that most of Anna’s best patients-the ones with money who paid on time and recommended her further-had come because of Zoe.

“Good, and getting better all the time,” Anna answered. “I thank you for your recommendations.”

“I am happy they have been useful.” Zoe waved one elegant hand, sharp-nailed and decorated with rings, indicating the table with a jug of wine, several goblets, and a green glass bowl of almonds.

“Thank you,” Anna said, as if accepting, but she made no move toward it. She was too tense with expectation as to what Zoe wanted. She looked in good health, even if some of it was achieved with her own salves and potions and a great deal of willpower.

“How can I be of service?” Anna asked. She had learned not to compliment women as if she were a whole man or to commiserate as if she were another woman.

Zoe smiled, amused. “Quick to the point, Anastasius. Have I drawn you away from another patient?” She was probing, seeing how Anastasius would walk the razor’s edge between flattery and truth, keeping his own dignity, maintaining the respect for his skill, yet also being available to do whatever Zoe wished. He could not yet afford to refuse, and they both knew it. Zoe was not a patient in this instance, yet it would be absurdly arrogant for Anastasius ever to imagine they were social acquaintances. He was a eunuch from the provinces who earned his own living; Zoe was of an aristocratic family and not just a native of the city, but almost an embodiment of its soul.

Anna measured her words, smiling a little. “Is this not business?”

Zoe’s golden eyes flashed with laughter. “Of course. It is a friend, a young woman named Euphrosane Dalassena. She has a disease of the skin, and it is somewhat embarrassing to her. You seem to be skilled in such things. I have told her you will come.”

Anna swallowed the sting of arrogance at being so taken for granted. Even so, Zoe saw the flicker and knew what it meant. It pleased her.

“If you tell me where I may find her, I shall call,” Anna answered.

Zoe nodded slowly, satisfied, and named the house and the street. “Urgently, if you please. Study her carefully, consider her mind as well as her body. It is of concern to me how she progresses. Do you understand?”

“I shall be happy to tell you that she is doing well, or not so well,” she replied.

“I don’t care about her skin!” Zoe snapped. “You can take care of that, I have no doubt. She is recently widowed. I am interested in her state of mind, the strength of her character.”

Anna hesitated on the brink of further restrictions on what she felt free to say, then decided it would be pointless. It would anger Zoe for no reason. She would decide how much to tell her later.

“I’ll go straight away,” she said graciously.

Zoe smiled. “Thank you.”

Euphrosane Dalassena was in her late twenties, but at first she seemed younger. Her features were excellent and she should have been lovely, but there was a certain insipidity about her, and Anna wondered if it were due to illness. She lay on a couch, her light brown hair unadorned, her skin a little waxy. Anna had been shown in by a serving woman, who remained in the unimaginatively ornamented room, standing by the doorway.

Anna introduced herself and asked all the usual questions about symptoms. Then she examined the painful rash that spread across Euphrosane’s back and lower abdomen. She seemed to have a slight temperature and was clearly both embarrassed and distressed by her condition. Her eyes never left Anna’s face, always waiting for the verdict, trying to interpret every expression.

Finally she could bear it no longer. “I go to confession every other day, and I know of no sin of which I have not repented,” she exclaimed. “I’ve fasted and prayed, but nothing comes to my mind. Please help me!”

“God does not punish you for what you can’t help,” Anna said quickly, then immediately wondered at her daring. That was her own conviction, but was it the doctrine of the Church? She felt the blood burn up her face.

Euphrosane’s logic was perfect. “Then I must be able to help it,” she said plaintively. “What haven’t I done? I have prayed to Saint George, who is the patron saint of skin diseases, but he is patron saint of a lot of things. So I have also prayed to Saint Anthony the Abbot, just in case I should be more specific. I attend Mass every day, I go to confession, I give alms to the poor and offerings to the Church. Where have I fallen so far short that this has happened to me? I don’t understand.” She lay back on the couch.

Anna drew in her breath to say that it was nothing to do with sin of any kind, omission or commission, but realized that that might be viewed as heresy.

Euphrosane was still watching her, the sweat dampening her skin and making her hair lank. Anna must answer or lose Euphrosane’s faith in her.

“Could it be that your sin lies in not trusting God’s love enough?” she said, shocked at her own words. “I will give you medicine to take, and ointment to have your maid put on the blisters. Each time you do so, pray, and believe that God loves you, personally.”

“How could He?” Euphrosane said wretchedly. “My husband died young, before he had achieved half the things he could have, and I did not even bear a child! Now I am afflicted with an illness so ugly no other man will want me. How could God love me? I am doing something terribly wrong, and I don’t even know what it is.”

“Yes, you are,” Anna said vehemently. “How dare you dismiss yourself as useless or ugly? God does not need you to get everything right, because nobody is going to do that, but He does expect you to try, and to trust Him.”

Euphrosane stared at her in wonder. “I understand,” she said, the confusion gone. “I shall repent, immediately.”

“And use the medicine as well,” Anna warned. “He gave us herbs and oils, and intelligence to understand their purpose. Don’t throw His gift back at Him. That would be ingratitude, which is also a very serious sin indeed.” And it would make the whole exercise pointless, but she could not tell her that.

“I will! I will!” Euphrosane promised.

A week later, Euphrosane was completely healed, which made Anna wonder if perhaps much of her fever had been due to fear of an imagined guilt.

She went to report to Zoe, as asked, and this time she had to wait nearly half an hour before being admitted. She knew the moment she saw Zoe’s face that she was already aware of Euphrosane’s recovery. Quite probably she also knew how much Anna had been paid, but she could not afford to let her irritation show. She thanked Zoe again for the referral.

“What did you think of her?” Zoe asked casually. Today she wore dark blue and gold. With her warm hair and eyes, the effect was superb. There were times when Anna longed, with almost physical pain, to dress as a woman again herself and to ornament her hair. Then she could face Zoe on an even footing. She forced herself to remember Justinian somewhere in the sterility of the Judean desert, possibly even wearing sackcloth, and the reason she was here posing as a eunuch. Did he imagine she had forgotten him?

Zoe was waiting, her expression impatient. “Is your opinion of Euphrosane so bad you cannot answer me honestly? You owe me that, Anastasius.”

“Gullible,” Anna replied. “A sweet young woman, painfully honest, but easily persuaded. Obedient. Too fearful not to be.”

Zoe’s golden eyes opened wide. “So you bite,” she said with amusement. “Be careful. You cannot afford to nip the wrong person.”

The sweat broke out on Anna’s skin, but she did not look away. She knew never to let Zoe sense weakness. “You asked for the truth. Should I tell you less?”

“Never,” Zoe replied, her eyes bright as faceted gems. “Or if you lie, then do it so well that I never find out.”

Anna smiled. “I doubt I could do that.”

“Interesting that you are wise enough to say so,” Zoe replied softly, almost a purr. “There is something I would like you to do for me. If a merchant named Cosmas Kantakouzenos should ask your opinion of Euphrosane’s character, as he might, would you be as candid with him? Tell him she is honest, guileless, and obedient.”

“Of course,” Anna replied. “I would be grateful if you would tell me more about Bessarion Comnenos.” It was a bold question, and she had not had time to think of any explanation for her interest. But Zoe had not given any reason why she wished Euphrosane recommended to Cosmas.

Zoe walked over to the window and stared out at the complex pattern of rooftops. “I suppose you mean his death,” she said dryly. “Bessarion’s life was uninteresting. He married my daughter, but he was a bore. Pious and chilly.”

“And he was killed for that?” Anna said with disbelief.

Zoe turned around slowly, her eyes sweeping up and down Anna from her woman’s face in the guise of a eunuch, naked of a masculine beard and unsoftened by the lushness of feminine curls and ornaments. Zoe’s eyes traveled down her body, bound at the chest, padded out from shoulder to hip to hide the natural curve.

Anna knew what she looked like. She had worked hard on her appearance. Yet at times like these, in the presence of a woman who was beautiful, even now, she hated it. Her hair no longer than to her shoulders actually became her face. It was less stiff than the highly dressed styles women wore, but still she missed the combs and ornaments she had once had. More than that she missed the color for her brows, the powder to even out the tones of the skin, the artificial color to make her lips less pale.

A servant’s footsteps passed audibly across the floor in the next room.

Deliberately, Anna forced herself to remember Zoe’s terror when she had been burned, the nakedness of the pain in her. It reduced her to a human being in need.

Zoe saw some change in her but did not comprehend it. She gave the slightest shrug of one shoulder. “It was not an isolated incident,” she remarked. “A year before his death he was attacked in the street. We never learned if it was an attempt at robbery, or one of his own bodyguards, perhaps, seizing a chance to stab him in the scuffle but making a mess of it. He was cut only once, but it was quite deep.”

“Why would one of his own bodyguards do that?” Anna asked.

“I have no idea,” Zoe answered, then saw instantly from Anna’s face that that was an error. Zoe would always know, and she would never admit ignorance. Now to cover the disadvantage Zoe would attack. “It was before you came,” she said. “Why does it concern you?”

“I need to know friends and enemies,” Anna answered her. “Bessarion’s death still seems to be of interest to many people.”

“Of course,” Zoe said tartly. “He was of one of the old imperial families, and led the cause against union with Rome. Many people placed their hopes in him.”

“And now in whom?” Anna asked-too quickly.

There was a flash of humor in Zoe’s eyes. “And you imagine this was a bid for sainthood. Or that Bessarion is some kind of martyr?”

Anna blushed, angry with herself for opening the way for such a remark. “I want to know the allegiances, for my own safety.”

“Very wise,” Zoe said softly with a flicker of appreciation, an inner light of laughter. “And if you succeed, you will be cleverer than anyone else in Byzantium.”