The Sheen of the Silk

Eighty-four

IN MARCH, GIULIANO WAS IN THE PRIVATE QUARTERS OF the new doge, overlooking the canal, seeing the light on the ever shifting water, the sound of it through the open windows like the breathing of the sea stirring in its sleep.

They had been eating a light supper and reminiscing about Giuliano’s father, who had been the doge’s cousin. There were exaggerated tales of fishing, wine drinking, brawls, and loves.

They were laughing when there was a sharp rap on the door, and a moment later a stiff gentleman in an embroidered doublet came into the room and bowed from the neck.

“There is extraordinary news from Berat, Your Serene Highness,” the gentleman said. “There is a soldier here with a firsthand account of it, if you will receive him.”

“Yes. Send him in. Then give him a good meal and wine.”

The man bowed and left. A moment later he conducted in a soldier, obviously newly landed, still wearing his worn and bloodstained clothes.

“Well, tell me!” the doge ordered.

“The fortress at Berat has been relieved and Charles of Anjou’s army completely routed,” the man exclaimed. “Your Serene Highness.”

The doge was startled. “Routed? Are you sure?”

“Yes, sir,” the sailor replied. “Apparently Hugues de Sully himself, their great hero, undefeated before, was captured.” His face was flushed with his delight, not only for the news he carried, but clearly also that he should be the one to tell the doge.

“Really?” The doge glanced at Giuliano. “Do you know this de Sully?”

“No, sir,” Giuliano admitted.

“A Burgundian. A huge man, enormous, a symbol of their invincibility.” The doge held his hands out far apart to suggest his size. “With hair like a roof on fire. Never seemed to get tired, so I am told. In the last two years he has been ordering boatloads of soldiers, horses, arms, money, siege engines. He has taken them to the Balkans to march first on Thessalonica, then on to Constantinople.” The doge turned back to the soldier. “Tell me more.” There was the beginning of a slender thread of skepticism in his voice. “De Sully had an army of above eight thousand men when he marched from Durazzo to take Berat. What happened to it?”

“Yes, Highness,” the soldier agreed, his eyes still brilliant with triumph. “But the Byzantines dared not lose Berat, it holds the gateway through Macedonia, and thus all the way to Constantinople itself. Lose Berat and the empire is Anjou’s for the taking. Michael Palaeologus is no fool-well, not militarily, anyway.”

“But he has no army of size, skill, or experience to relieve the city when it is surrounded by a force such as de Sully’s, or led by such a man,” the doge said. “My information was that they were starving and obliged to smuggle food in by putting it on rafts and floating it down the river by night. What happened?”

The soldier grinned. “I wasn’t there, but I heard it from several who were. De Sully was always arrogant, but he let it pickle his wits. He thought no one would touch him. He rode out to inspect the defenses with only a very small guard. The Byzantines ambushed him and took him prisoner, letting his whole army see what they had done.” His eyes danced with delight. “It was as if the Byzantines had gouged out the hearts of the lot of them. The entire Angevin army turned tail and fled.”

He laughed. “They did not stop running until they reached the Adriatic Sea. Hugues de Sully and the rest of the prisoners were transported back to Constantinople to be paraded through the streets, for the immense good cheer of the crowd.”

Giuliano looked from one to the other of them, seeing the undisguised pleasure in the doge’s face.

“Thank you,” the doge said sincerely. “You did excellently to bring such news, and so rapidly. Venice is grateful. My chamberlain will give you a purse of gold so you may celebrate appropriately. Then go wash, eat, and drink to our prosperity.”

The soldier thanked him profoundly and left, still grinning.

“This is excellent,” the doge said as soon as he was certain they were alone. “After this, any crusade will have no choice but to go by sea, which means in Venetian ships.” He laughed. “I have an excellent red wine. Let us drink a toast to the future.”

But Giuliano woke the following morning with an ache inside himself so deep, it consumed all the elation at victory he had felt the night before. With pale, sharp daylight came reality. Charles of Anjou coveted Constantinople, his soul starved for it. Giuliano had seen it in his eyes, in his clenched fist, as if he could grasp it and hold his fingers around it forever. He wanted to take it by violence and crush it unconditionally.

Giuliano knew Charles’s brutal rule. He had seen it in Sicily, where he taxed his own people into penury. What would he do to a conquered nation, as Byzantium would become? He would crush it, burn it, murder its people.

Such thoughts of Byzantium were disloyal to all that had bred and nurtured Giuliano, and to the promise he had made to Tiepolo on his deathbed, but he could not deny himself.

Perhaps the decision had been there for a long time, and he had needed only to be here in Venice, to see the vast shipyards busy night and day, to make him face the reality of it. He could no longer belong to a place, with the ease of friendship it gave and its torture of conscience. He must choose a morality, a people and belief that he loved and that had held truths bigger than comfort or acceptance.

He might never again serve this doge or any other. The knowledge came with a wrenching loneliness and a sudden high, bright freedom. He must do what he could to prevent the invasion. Charles of Anjou had friends in Rome, but somewhere he must have enemies. Sicily was the place to seek them.

He returned to Sicily, finding lodging again with Giuseppe and Maria, where he had stayed before.

“Ah, Giuliano!” Maria said with joy lighting her face as she came out to greet him in the front room with its shabby chairs and well-trodden floor. She flung her arms around him, holding him tightly, then blushed as she realized that she was making a spectacle of herself.

“Have you come to stay for a while?” she asked him. “You must eat with us. Tell us everything. Are you married yet? What is her name? What is she like? Why did you not bring her?”

“No.” Giuliano was used to her questions and shrugged them off without offense. “I’m here because no one can cook like you, or make me laugh as hard.”

She dismissed this with a wave of her hand, but she colored with pleasure.

“I’ve been to all sorts of places,” he said, following her into the busy, chaotic kitchen where loaves of bread and vegetables were piled up, olives in pottery jars, lemons, onions rich gold and wine-colored, and bright fruit.

“Sit,” she ordered him. “There, out of my way. Now tell me about all these places. Where is it you’ve been that’s better than here?”

“Jerusalem,” he said, grinning at her.

Her hands stopped midair and she turned to look at him gravely. “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you, Giuliano? That would be very wicked.”

“Certainly not!” he said with much indignation. “Do you want me to tell you about it?”

“If you don’t tell me, I won’t feed you. And every word had better be true.”

He told her many things, and the warmth of her friendship eased out the aches from his body and at least some from his heart.

And after Maria had gone to tidy up and the children were in bed, he stood outside with Giuseppe staring across the harbor. They walked together down to the wall to watch the sea lapping against the stones.

“How is it, really?” Giuliano asked. “People complain, but they always do. Is it worse?”

Giuseppe shrugged. “People are angry, and they are afraid. The king is planning another crusade, and as always we are going to pay for his ships and his horses and his armor.” They were going to pay Venice, of course, but he did not say that. It lay an unspoken wound between them.

“The king has friends,” Giuliano said grimly. “The pope is his man. And of course his nephew is king of France. Hasn’t he any enemies?”

Giuseppe stared at him in the fading light. “Peter of Aragon, so they say.”

“Real enemy, or just a petty difference?”

“Real enough, the way I hear it. And John of Procida, for whatever that’s worth.”

Giuliano could not remember hearing the names before. Peter of Aragon explained itself. But John of Procida he did not know. He repeated the name as a question.

“Portugal,” Giuseppe replied, with real anxiety sharpening his voice in the darkness. “What are you going to do? Be careful, my friend. The king has ears everywhere.”

Giuliano smiled and said nothing. It was safer for Giuseppe that he did not know.

A man named Scalini made inquiries and obtained Giuliano passage to the coast of Aragon. It was hard labor being an ordinary seaman; however, that was the only vacancy open to him. Perhaps it was wiser than being conspicuous by seeking command. He also chose to use his mother’s name of Agallon. He was surprised how much pleasure it gave him, even though at times he forgot and was slow to answer.

In Aragon, Giuliano heard more and more anxiety about the growing influence of France through an overtly French pope and a projected crusade led by a prince of France. He began to join in the conversations.

“Bad for trade,” he said, shaking his head judiciously.

“You think so?” the man asked.

“Look at Sicily!” he exclaimed. “Taxed until they can barely afford to eat. Everywhere Frenchmen in the major offices, all the castles, the best lands. Frenchmen in the churches, and marrying the girls. You think they’ll give us a chance to trade on equal terms when they hold the Mediterranean from Egypt to Venice, Sicily, and all the French coast? You’re dreaming!”

“Venice won’t allow that!” another man interrupted. “Never.”

“I don’t see them doing anything to stop it.” Giuliano felt another stab of disloyalty, but what he said was true. “They’re selling them the ships. They’ll profit, as always. They have a treaty with the French pope. No doubt they’re getting something from that.”

The fear was growing, and Giuliano worked to foster it. It would reach the ears of the soldiers and the princes and add to their anger, which was already set against the king of the Two Sicilies.

By October, he had planted all the seeds of trouble he could in Aragon and was in Portugal when he heard that Pope Martin IV had excommunicated Michael of Byzantium from the fellowship of the Christian Church. Charles of Anjou was now the most powerful sovereign in Europe. Perhaps most important of all, the pope was under his influence and in his debt.

Who would dare to ride against a Catholic king who so clearly had the unconditional favor of the pope? Would they then find themselves excommunicated also? Did this now threaten anyone who raised his hand, or his voice, against the crusade and Charles of Anjou?

Giuliano felt that the darkness was closing in on all liberty and honor, and on the people he cared about profoundly.