The Sheen of the Silk

Sixty-four

THE JOURNEY BY CARAVAN FROM ST. CATHERINE’S BACK to Jerusalem took fifteen days again. Apparently it always did, whatever one had negotiated.

This time, Anna stared at the stark magnificence of the desert around her with different emotions. It was still beautiful. The shadings ran from black through a hundred shades of umber and gray. In daylight the blue was scorched with the dull ocher of dust on the wind, sometimes raw-edged with cold. Now it was indelible in her heart with the terrible price Justinian had paid for his error, and then to put it right.

She ignored the physical exhaustion, the ache in her body from the hardness of the ground on which she slept.

Had she been in Justinian’s place, she might so easily have done exactly the same, if she had had the courage. Bessarion would have been a disaster as emperor, but he was too arrogant to see it, and the others were too far committed to accept such a bitter truth.

Except perhaps Demetrios. Was Justinian right, and he had planned to kill not only Michael and Andronicus, but perhaps Bessarion also? What irony that would have been! The archconspirator to turn against them as soon as the murder of Michael was accomplished, kill Bessarion and claim to restore order, then step into the breach himself, the hero of the hour!

And would he have got rid of Justinian as well? Because as a Lascaris, he was a threat. Then there would be nobody left but himself. Demetrios would console the widow, poor Helena, and in due course marry her and combine the families of Comnenos, Doukas, and Vatatzes in one glorious dynasty.

Were they still plotting? That was something she needed to know, because she realized with some surprise that she was wholeheartedly behind Michael. He was the only hope the city had now.

She arrived back in Jerusalem windburned and exhausted, her bones aching, but she had no time to rest. She must take the next caravan back to Acre and meet Giuliano on the ship. Carefully she counted out what was left of Zoe’s money. She smiled. It must have hurt Zoe to change it from gold byzants into Venetian ducats. She could not afford to spend it all yet; she would need to wait in Acre if the ship was late. She would need food and lodging. But she knew that walking for another five days was beyond her physical strength.

She had learned a few tactics since last time and considerably sharper words since her stay in Jerusalem and her journey to Sinai and back. The deal was made, and she rode an awkward and highly ill-tempered mule all the way to Acre. Before they arrived there, the beast had discovered that she too could be stubborn and awkward if she chose. Secretly, she thought that they had gained some mutual respect and was quite sorry to part with it. She spent a few coins on buying it a treat of bread dipped in oil. The animal was most surprised but accepted the gift with something approaching grace.

She had one night to purchase poor lodgings, and she had no breakfast. Then she saw the ship come in, on precisely the day Giuliano had said he would return.

She boarded midmorning, not to betray how eager she was to see him.

He hid his relief in front of the crewmen. However, later, alone on deck as they pulled away in the darkening sky, he spoke to her alone, standing a little apart. His voice was gentle, although he looked not at her, but at the white wake of water behind them.

“Was the journey hard? They say it is.”

“I’m not used to riding an ass day after day. A patient little beast, but uncomfortable. The desert’s cold this time of year, especially at night. It’s beautiful-and terrible.”

“And Sinai?” he asked, turning to look at her now. In the stern, his back was to the light as they moved westward. She could not see his face.

“It’s over five thousand feet above the sea,” she began. “And yet the mountains around almost make it look insignificant, until you get to it, and realize the walls are thirty or forty feet high, and massive. Even if you could get a siege engine up there, nothing could break them. There are buttresses and towers, but no doors near the ground. The only way in is through a small opening near the top. You have to be winched up, standing in a rope stirrup.”

“That’s true?” he said, his voice hushed with wonder. “I heard it, but I thought it was imagination.”

“It’s true. Inside it’s beautiful, austere, and you can never forget the mountains that seem to be almost hanging over you, blocking out the sky behind, Mount Sinai and Mount Horeb. There is a pathway upward in the cleft between them, steep stairs now. That’s where Moses climbed up to meet God. I didn’t go. I didn’t have time, and I’m not sure if I wanted to. Maybe I would have met God, and I’m not ready.” She smiled and looked down. “Or maybe I wouldn’t, and I’m not ready to face that, either. But I saw the ‘burning bush.’ It’s still there. It looks like any other bush, but you know it isn’t.”

“How?” he asked.

“Probably because the monk told me I was standing on holy ground-to take my shoes off.”

He laughed, and the tension eased out of his shoulders. Only then did she realize how awkward he had been, without his usual grace. She thought of their parting in Golgotha, of his face when he had seen the painting of Mary-she chose to believe that was who it was. Other moments crowded her mind, and she knew that something had changed. She did not want to understand what it was because it included a hurt she could not reach.