The Sheen of the Silk

Two

ANNA CALLED UPON HER NEIGHBORS ONE BY ONE, INTRODUCING herself and her profession. Several of them already had physicians they chose to consult, but she had expected that. She told them that she specialized in complaints of the skin, especially burns, and of the lungs, then left without pressing the issue.

She also shopped for various household items of as good a quality as she could afford, buying them from smaller shops within two or three streets of her house. Here she also introduced herself and told them of her own skills. For the favor of recommending their wares, they were willing to recommend her to their customers.

In the second week she gained only two consultations, and they were for ailments so slight as to require only a simple potion to ease itching and heat. After the busy practice she had inherited from her father in Nicea, it seemed so small. She had to struggle to keep up her spirits in front of Leo and Simonis.

The third week was better. She was called to an accident in the street in which an elderly man had been knocked over and his legs badly scraped. The boy who came for her described the damage vividly enough that she knew what lotions and ointments to take with her, and herbs for shock and pain. Within half an hour the old man felt markedly better, and by the following day he was speaking her praises. Word spread. In the succeeding days, the number of patients tripled.

Now she could no longer put it off; she must begin to search for information.

The obvious place to begin was with Bishop Constantine, through whose help Justinian had sent his last letter. He had written of the bishop many times previously, telling her of his loyalty to the Orthodox faith, his courage in the cause of resistance against Rome, and his personal kindness to Justinian, then a stranger in the city. Justinian had also mentioned that Constantine was a eunuch, and that was what made Anna nervous now. She stood in her medicine room amid the familiar odors of nutmeg, musk, cloves, and camphor, and her hands were clenched. Every mannerism, every gesture, must be right. Even the slightest deviation would raise Constantine’s suspicion and invite closer scrutiny. More errors would be seen. She might even be perceived to be mocking him.

She found Leo in the kitchen, where Simonis was setting the midday meal on the table: wheat bread, fresh cheese, greens and lettuce dressed with squill vinegar, as prescribed for April. All months had rules for what should be eaten and what should not, and Simonis was well versed in them.

Leo turned as she came in and put down the tools he was using to mend the hinge of the cupboard. She had realized since they moved in just how many skills he had in every practical work.

“It is time I went to see Bishop Constantine,” she said quietly. “But before I do, I need one more lesson… please.”

As a woman, she could have practiced medicine only on female patients and would have been able to learn very little about Justinian’s life here, all the myriad small things he had not told her, in spite of their many letters. But as a eunuch, she could go anywhere.

Another consideration, of less importance but still heavy in her mind, was that she did not want the pressure to marry again. She was a widow, and even though she could sometimes think of Eustathius without rage or pain, it would be impossible to take another husband.

“You try too hard to be like a man,” Leo said. “There are many kinds of eunuchs, depending on the time of castration, and the degree. Some of us castrated late are nearly men, but with your slender build and soft skin and voice, you are pretending to be one castrated in childhood. You must get it exactly right, or you will draw attention to yourself.”

She watched him as he moved about the room. He was tall and slight, a little stooping as the years caught up with him, but surprisingly strong. His thin hands could break wood she could not even bend. He walked with a peculiar grace, neither male nor female. She must copy that gait.

“The way you bend,” Leo was saying to her. “Like this…” He demonstrated, moving easily. “Not like that.” He bent a trifle sideways, like a woman. She immediately saw the difference and cursed her own carelessness.

“And your hands. You don’t use them enough when you are speaking. Look… like this.” He gestured eloquently, his fingers graceful and yet oddly not feminine.

She copied experimentally.

Simonis was watching, her dark, once handsome face creased with anxiety. Was she also afraid? She must see the differences between Anna and Leo, the faults.

“Your food will spoil,” she said dryly, her call for them to eat the meal she had prepared so carefully.

Afterward, Anna rose and went to put on her outdoor robe. It was chilly and raining slightly, but it was less than a mile to the bishop’s house, just the other side of the Wall of Constantine, near the Church of the Holy Apostles. Walking quickly along the streets, she was aware of the occasional glimpse of light gleaming on the water below.

An elderly servant let her in. He informed her gravely that Bishop Constantine was presently occupied, but he was expecting her and would receive her as soon as he was free. The servant’s face was bland, smooth, and beardless. He regarded her completely without interest.

She waited in a great room with a mosaic-tiled floor and ocher-colored walls; two magnificent icons were almost luminous in the somber light. One was of the Virgin Mary, all in blues and golds inside a jeweled frame, the other of Christ Pantocrator, in warm ochers and browns and dark burnt umber.

A slight movement caught her eye and she turned from the icons’ quiet, intense beauty and looked through the archway to a brighter room and, beyond it, an inside court. The large, pale-robed figure of the bishop stood in the reflected sun. There was a smile on his face as he extended his hand to the woman who knelt before him, her dark cloak pooling on the floor around her, her hair caught up in an elaborate coil. Her lips touched his fingers, almost covering the gold ring with its jewel. For a moment the scene was like an icon itself, an image of forgiveness stamped on eternity.

The peace of it gripped Anna with a shaft of pain. She ached to kneel and seek absolution also, to feel the weight lift and free her, let her draw the sweet air into her lungs. But that was impossible.

The woman rose and the vision splintered and fell apart. She was Anna’s age, and her face was wet with tears of relief.

Constantine made the sign of the cross and said something that was inaudible from this distance. The woman turned and went out by another doorway. Anna moved forward. It was time for the first important lie. If she could pass this test, a thousand more lay ahead.

Constantine welcomed her, smiling.

“Anastasius Zarides, Your Grace,” she said deferentially. “Physician, lately come from Nicea.”

“Welcome to Constantinople,” he replied warmly. His voice was deeper than that of most eunuchs, as if he had been castrated well after puberty. His face was smooth and beardless, his strong jaw becoming a trifle jowly. His light brown eyes were sharp. “How may I be of help to you?” He was courteous, but as yet without interest.

She had the lie well practiced. “A distant kinsman of mine, Justinian Lascaris, wrote to me that you had been of great help to him in a time of difficulty,” she began. “Then I did not hear from him again, and there are disturbing rumors of some tragedy, but I do not dare to pursue them, in case I bring him further trouble.” She shivered in spite of the warmth in the room. He was looking at her face and the way she stood, her hands loosely at her sides, as a woman would stand, deferentially. She raised her hands in front of her and then did not know what to do with them and let them fall again. How much did the bishop know about Justinian? That his parents were dead? That he was a widower? She must be careful. “His sister is anxious.” That, at least, was true.

Constantine’s large face was grave, and he nodded slowly. “I am afraid I have not good news for her,” he replied. “Justinian is alive, but in exile in the desert beyond Jerusalem.”

She contrived to look shocked. “But why? What has he done to warrant such a punishment?”

Constantine compressed his lips. “He was accused of complicity in the murder of Bessarion Comnenos. It was a crime that shocked the city. Bessarion was not only of noble birth, but regarded by many as something of a saint. Justinian was fortunate not to be executed.”

Anna’s mouth was dry and she found it hard to draw breath. The Comneni had been emperors for generations, before the Lascaris, and now the Palaeologi.

“That was the difficulty with which you helped him?” she said, as if it were a deduction. “But why would Justinian be accomplice to such a thing?”

Constantine considered for a moment. “Are you aware of the emperor’s intention to send envoys to mediate with the pope in little more than a year’s time?” he asked, unable to conceal the edge from his voice that betrayed his emotions. They clearly lay harsh and close to the surface, like a woman’s feelings, as a eunuch’s were said to be.

“I have heard whispers here and there,” she answered. “I hoped that it was not true.”

“It is true,” he rasped, his body stiff, his pale, strong hands half-raised. “The emperor is prepared to capitulate on everything in order to save us from the crusaders, whatever the blasphemy involved.”

She was aware that in spite of his passion, Constantine was watching her intently. “The Blessed Virgin will save us, if we trust in her,” she replied. “As she has done in the past.”

Constantine’s fine eyebrows rose. “Are you so new to the city you have not seen the stains of the crusaders’ fires seventy years ago?”

Anna swallowed, her mind made up. “If our faith then had been unblemished, I am mistaken,” she replied. “I would rather die faithful than live having betrayed my God to Rome.”

“You are a man of conviction,” Constantine said, a slow, sweet smile lighting his face.

She returned to her first question. “Why would Justinian assist anyone to kill Bessarion Comnenos?”

“He did not, of course,” Constantine replied regretfully. “Justinian was a fine man, and as much against the union with Rome as Bessarion was. There were other suggestions, the truth of which I don’t know.”

“What suggestions?” She remembered her deference just in time and lowered her eyes. “If you can tell me? Who is Justinian suspected of helping, and what happened to him?”

Constantine lifted his hands higher. It was an elegant gesture and yet disturbing in its lack of masculinity. She was sharply aware that he was not a man, but not a woman, either, yet still a passionate and highly intelligent being. He was what she was pretending to be.

“Antoninus Kyriakis.” His voice cut across her thoughts. “He was executed. He and Justinian were close friends.”

“And you saved Justinian?” Her voice was hoarse, no more than a whisper.

He nodded slowly, allowing his hands to fall. “I did. The sentence was exile in the desert.”

She smiled at him, the warmth of her gratitude burning through. “Thank you, Your Grace. You give me great heart for the struggle to keep faith.”

He smiled back and made the sign of the cross.

She went out into the street in a turmoil of emotions: fear, gratitude, dread of what she might find in the future, and in them all a powerful awareness of Constantine, strong, generous, firm in a clean and absolute faith.

Of course Justinian had not murdered this Bessarion Comnenos. Although there were marked physical differences between them, in coloring and balance of features, Justinian was her twin brother. Anna knew him as well as she knew herself. He had written to her in the last desperate moments before being taken into exile and told her that Bishop Constantine had helped him, but not why or in what way.

Now her whole purpose was to prove his innocence. She quickened her pace up the incline of the cobbled street.