The Sheen of the Silk

Seventy-eight

GIULIANO DANDOLO RETURNED TO VENICE WITH A SHIP filled with gold from all over Europe. In England, Spain, France, and the Holy Roman Empire, men were preparing for a great crusade. Some of the ships were built already. The shipyards worked night and day. Charles of Anjou had paid his share of the contract; he would receive what he had ordered.

Nevertheless, Giuliano was not happy as he stood on the balcony and stared at the splendor of the dying sun over the Adriatic.

The doge had told him that Venice had abrogated the treaty it had made with Byzantium. It had lasted just two years. Giuliano had had nothing to do with it, neither its creation nor its destruction, yet he felt racked with shame for the betrayal of it.

He stared at the light on the water, watching it change. The translucency of it, the moving shadows, were so subtle that one nameless tone vanished into another. It was like the Bosphorus.

What would happen to Constantinople when the crusaders landed?

The whole issue of fighting over faith was absurd. How far from the teachings of Christ were all these quarrels as to who had power or rights over what. He remembered the conversations he had had with Anastasius at sea and in that desolate site that might, or might not, have been Golgotha.

The thought of Anastasius cut to the heart of his pain. How would the crusaders treat him? How could he protect himself? The thought of it was too terrible to allow into Giuliano’s mind. It was the whole city that mattered, and all the lands around it, but in the end, as perhaps with everyone, it all came down to those you knew, the faces, the voices, the people you broke bread with and who trusted you.

The shadows were stronger. The light was fading rapidly.