The Sheen of the Silk

Seventy-five

ANNA SAT WITH EIRENE VATATZES IN HER RICH, unfeminine bedroom with its somber colors and rigid patterns on the walls. It was at once beautiful and lonely. Now it smelled stale, of perspiration and decay. She did all she could for Eirene to lessen the pain, and simply by being there, by a touch, a word, to still some of her fear. She did not lie to her; it would have been pointless. She knew Eirene would not recover this time. Each day her strength lessened and her times of complete lucidity became briefer.

Anna dearly wished that she could ask Eirene some of the unanswered questions about the plot to usurp Michael.

Eirene tossed in the bed, turning over, dragging the sheet with her. She moaned in pain. Anna leaned over and straightened it where it was crumpled, then dipped a small cloth in a bowl of cool water and herbs and wrung it out, freeing the perfume of it into the air. She placed the cloth gently on Eirene’s brow, and for a few moments she was quiet.

Maybe only Demetrios’s intentions now were important. But Eirene was Anna’s patient, and she could not tax her with it. For nearly an hour she lay motionless on the bed, as if she were sinking into the last peace of death. Then she gasped and started turning again and again, tangling the covers.

“Zoe!” she said suddenly. Her eyes were closed, but there was such an expression of ferocity in her face that it was hard to believe she was not conscious. “Soon you’ll be all alone,” she whispered. “We’ll be dead. What will you do then? Nobody to love, nobody to hate.”

Anna stiffened. She knew what Eirene was thinking-Zoe and Gregory. The jealousy still corroded her inside; nothing could take that away. Anna put out her hand and laid it gently on Eirene’s wrist.

“He had to die,” Eirene began again, shaking her head abruptly from side to side. “Deserved it.”

Anna was startled. Was Eirene’s unforgiveness for her husband really so deep that she had wanted Gregory dead, his throat torn out and his body left bleeding on the stones of some street he did not know?

“No, he didn’t deserve it,” Anna said aloud, not knowing if Eirene still remembered what she had said or even if she could hear anything at all outside her own head.

Eirene’s voice came back so strongly, it startled her. “Yes, he did. He kept the icons his father stole when they were leaving the burning city. He should have given them back. I could have killed him myself, if I’d dared. I should have.”

Anna looked at her and saw her eyes were open and clear, the anger burning hot in them. “You knew that Gregory had the icons from the sack of 1204?” Anna asked.

“Not Gregory, you fool!” Eirene said witheringly, now fully conscious. “His cousin Arsenios. That’s why Zoe killed him.” She closed her eyes again, as if too weary to be bothered with anyone so stupid. “Gregory knew that,” she added as if it were an afterthought. “Revenge. Always revenge.” She sighed and seemed to drift into sleep again.

Anna pieced it together. Zoe had killed Arsenios in revenge for his keeping the icons, and Gregory knew it. He would have felt compelled to retaliate for his cousin’s death, and knowing that, Zoe had struck first.

But Zoe’s revenge had not been only Arsenios’s death, it was his daughter’s humiliation and his son’s death as well. And unwittingly, Anna had contributed to that in her medical treatment of the daughter. She was cold now at the thought. No wonder Eirene hated Zoe. How could she not?

She looked down now at her lying on the bed. Eirene’s face was not so much at peace as totally empty of passion or even intelligence. Had Gregory ever loved her? Did he care about her ugliness, or had she cared about it so much that in the end she had forced him to care also?

For another two days, Eirene seemed to remain much the same. She was often asleep, but apparently easier in her mind, the pain less acute. Then quite suddenly she became worse. She woke in the night barely able to move, her body drenched in sweat. Anna treated her with herbs and drugs as much as she dared. But sometime after midnight of the third day, Anna was standing close to the bed looking at Eirene, and she saw that even in the warm glow of the candlelight her face was haggard and there was a gray pallor to her skin.

Eirene opened her sunken, clouded eyes and stared at Anna.

Anna ached with pity for her, but Eirene was beyond physical help. “Would you like me to send for Demetrios?”

“Given up at last?” Eirene’s lips were dry and her throat tight. “Give me some more of that herb that tastes like gall.” She blinked and stared at Anna. She must know she had not long, and the breaking of her body consumed her.

Anna ached to help her, but if she gave Eirene another dose of the poppy, it might kill her. She decided to do it anyway.

Anna nodded and turned aside to reach for the small bottle. She would put it with a lot of water-in fact, mostly water. The illusion of opium might help as much as the reality. After Eirene took three or four sips, Anna laid her back as gently as she could, straightened the covers, then went to the door and called the servant.

“Fetch Demetrios,” she told him. “I think she has not long left.”

The servant went away, footsteps rapid on the tiled floor. He returned ten minutes later to say that Demetrios had gone out earlier and not yet returned. Apparently, he had not expected to be needed so soon.

“If he returns, tell him his mother is dying,” Anna answered, then turned away and went back into the room.

The candle guttered. She lit another.

Suddenly Eirene opened her eyes again, and her voice was quite clear. “I’m going to die before morning, aren’t I.”

“I think so,” Anna replied honestly.

“Fetch Demetrios. I have something I need to give him.”

“I already sent for him. He’s not in the house, and the servant cannot tell me where he is.”

Eirene was silent for a few moments. “Then I suppose you’ll have to do,” she said at last. “Gregory thought Zoe loved him, but she betrayed him with Michael,” she said. “You didn’t know that, did you?” There was satisfaction in her. “Michael is Helena’s father. Imagine that! That would have given Bessarion a double right to the throne, don’t you see?”

A chill thought struck Anna. This could alter more than she could imagine. It explained Helena’s part in the usurpation totally. “How do you know that Helena is really Michael’s child?” she asked.

“I have letters,” Eirene said, biting her lip as the pain washed over her again. “From him to Zoe.”

Anna was skeptical. “How did you get them?”

Eirene smiled, although it was more a baring of the teeth. “Gregory took them.”

“Does Zoe know you have these letters?”

“She knows Gregory did. She didn’t know I took them from him. He never dared challenge me for them back.”

Anna’s mind was in turmoil, racing from one new meaning to another. “Helena doesn’t know?” she asked yet again.

“It is better she doesn’t,” Eirene repeated wearily. “She would become impossible to manage.”

“Why should I believe all this?”

“Because it is true,” Eirene replied. “I bequeathed some of the letters to Helena. My cousin will give them to her in time But the rest are there in my safe box. The key is under my pillow. Give them to Demetrios.” She smiled slightly. “Once Helena knows, then she’ll have the power. That’s why Zoe has never told her.” She took a long, shuddering breath. “But now I don’t care. It’ll be hell for Zoe… every day.” A faint smile parted her lips, as if to taste something sweet.

She closed her eyes, and gradually all expression emptied out of her face. She slept for perhaps half an hour.

There was a noise in the corridor outside, and the door swung open. Demetrios came in, dalmatica swirling, wet from the rain, his eyes dark and angry.

“Mother?” he said quietly. “Mother?”

Eirene opened her eyes, taking several moments to focus. “Demetrios?”

“I’m here.”

“Good. Get Anastasius to give you… the letters. Don’t lose them! Don’t throw…” She took a long, deep breath and let it out with a sigh, a little gasp in her throat. Then silence.

Demetrios waited for several more minutes and then stood up. “She’s gone. What letters was she talking about? Where are they?”

Anna took the key from under the pillow and went to the box behind the icon on the wall, as Eirene had told her. The letters were in a neatly tied bundle.

“Thank you,” he said, taking them from her hand. “You can go. I would rather be alone with her.”

There was nothing for Anna to do but obey.