The Sheen of the Silk

Forty-eight

FOR ZOE, TOWERING OVER SUCH RELATIVELY SMALLER considerations as how to destroy Gregory was the fact that he was forewarned.

Poison was her weapon, either of the mind or of the body. She could anger, tempt, or provoke people, even mislead them into destroying themselves. Every quality that was power could become a weakness, if carried to excess. Even the gold byzant, that most exquisite of coins, had two sides.

She stared at herself in the glass. In this dim room, shaded from the sunlight, she was still beautiful. She had never been indecisive, never a coward. Would he use those things against her? Of course he would, if he could find a way.

How? By baiting her to attack him. That is what she would have done. Use her courage to tempt her to seize the chance, recklessly, and then trap her. Should she do the same? Bluff? Double bluff? Triple bluff? Abandon them all and act simply? Nothing Byzantine, nothing Egyptian-just crude as a Latin and therefore unexpected from her.

What if she just waited and watched, to see what he did? How soon would he decide to act? After all, it was Gregory who wanted revenge for Arsenios’s death; she could afford time.

Care, always the utmost care.

Even so, three days later, after a trip to the baths and eating fruit afterward, she was dreadfully ill. By the time she got home, she was nauseated and filled with stabbing pains. Already she was beginning to grow dizzy. How had he reached her? She had eaten only what she had seen others eat: harmless things, apricots and pistachios from a common dish.

She staggered into her bedroom, Thomais supporting her.

“No!” she gasped as Thomais tried to help her lie down. “I have been poisoned, you fool! I must mix an emetic. Fetch me a bowl, and my herbs. Be quick! Don’t stand there like an idiot!” She heard the fear in her own voice as the room swayed and blurred around her, darkening as if the candles were burning down.

Thomais returned with a bowl and a jug of water in the other hand. She set them down and waited, gray-faced, to be told what to do next.

Zoe told her precisely which bottle and which jar to bring. Fingers shaking, she put a tiny spoonful of one in a glass, then two crushed leaves of the other, and drank them. The taste was vile, and she knew that in a few moments the pain would get worse and she would vomit terribly. But it would not last long, and her stomach would be empty. By tomorrow morning, she would begin to recover.

Damn Gregory! Damn him!

It was nearly two weeks before she saw him again. It was at the Blachernae Palace. Everyone who mattered from church or state was there, old blood or new money. A king’s ransom of jewels was worn by men and women alike, although admittedly there were few women present. Zoe could not outshine the empress, so she chose to wear no gems at all, simply to use her height and her magnificent hair to accentuate the beautiful bones of her face and thus mark herself as different. Her tunic was of bronze silk, sheened light and dark as she moved, and she wore a rope of gold in her hair like a crown.

Faces turned to stare, and the gasps told her she had succeeded.

She saw Gregory early on-his height made that inevitable-but it was over an hour before he actually spoke to her. They were briefly alone, cut off from the crowd by a row of exquisitely tiled pillars creating a separate room. He offered her a honey cake decorated with almonds.

“No, thank you,” she declined, perhaps too quickly.

A slow smile spread across his face. He made no remark, but their eyes met, and she knew exactly what he was thinking, as he knew what she thought.

His smile widened. “You look marvelous, as always, Zoe. You make every other woman in the room appear as if she is trying too hard.”

“Perhaps what they wish for can be gained by wealth,” she replied, wondering how he would interpret that.

“How tedious,” he said, still not moving his eyes from hers. “How very young. What can be bought cloys so quickly, don’t you think?”

“What can be bought by one person can also be bought by another,” she agreed. “Eventually it becomes vulgar.”

“But not revenge,” he replied. “The perfect revenge is an art, and that has to be created. It can never be satisfying if it is the work of someone else, do you agree?”

“Oh yes. Creating it is half the flavor. But of course only if it succeeds.”

He looked at her, studying her. “Of course it must, but you disappoint me if you think that it must do so immediately. That would be like pouring good wine down your throat, rather than sipping it a little at a time. And my dear, you were never a barbarian to waste your pleasures.”

So he had not meant to kill her! Not yet, anyway. He was going to play first, a cut here, a cut there, bleeding away courage a little at a time. It was the insult to his proud name that counted to Gregory, her monstrous temerity in daring to kill one of his blood-in fact, counting Georgios, two. It was war. She smiled up at him.

“I am Byzantine,” she replied. “That means that I am both sophisticated and barbaric. Whatever I do, I do it to the ultimate degree. I am surprised you need to be reminded of that.” She looked him up and down. “Is your health failing you?”

“Not at all. Nor will it. I am younger than you are.”

She laughed. “You always were younger, my dear. All men are. It is something women must learn to accept. But I am glad if you have not forgotten. To forget one’s pleasures would be a kind of death, a little one, inch by inch.” She smiled at him, eyes bright. “My memory is perfect.”

He did not answer, but she saw the muscles tighten in his jaw. Whether he admitted it or not, she still had power to arouse him. It was a great pity he had to die.

He moved a step away, distancing himself a fraction.

She allowed her smile to widen, laughter into her eyes. “Too little, or too much?” she asked softly.

Anger flared up in the stain of blood in his cheeks. He put out his hand and caught her arm, his fingers hard and tight. She could not have escaped, even had she wanted to. Physical memory of passion was suddenly so sharp that it ran hot through her body.

She looked up at him. If he did not give in to the temptation and make love to her, she would never forgive him. Then killing him would be easy, hardly even regrettable. If he did, and it had all the old passion and strength, then dear God, killing him would be the hardest thing she had ever had to do.

He kept his grip on her arm and strode out, half dragging her along until they were beyond the public rooms in some private quarters with chairs and cushions. For an instant, she was frightened. If she screamed here, not even the Varangian Guard would come. She must not let him see that she was afraid.

But he had seen; he knew it as if he could smell it in the air. He smiled slowly, then allowed himself to laugh, a deep, rich sound of pure pleasure.

She drew in her breath and let it out very slowly. The seconds seemed to be caught, suspended one by one.

Then he let go of her arm and placed his hand on her chest and pushed. She fell backward, surprised and a little ashamed, landing hard on the cushions. She stayed motionless.

“Frightened, Zoe?” he asked.

She still did not know if he was going to make love to her, or kill her, or possibly both. Any word she said might be the wrong one. What was he waiting for?

She let out her breath in a sigh, as if bored.

He tore open her tunic and kissed her, hard, over and over, as he had done in the days when they had loved. Then she knew that at least he would not be able to kill her, not tonight. There were too many old hungers to answer, too much present fire.

For both of them it was easy, as if the years had never happened. They said nothing. Afterward they kissed once, and both knew it would be the last time.