The Sheen of the Silk

Five

ZOE CHRYSAPHES STOOD AT THE WINDOW OF HER FAVORITE room and stared across the rooftops of the city to where the sunlight streamed onto the Golden Horn till the water was like molten metal. Her hands caressed the stones in front of her, still warm in the last glow of the day. Constantinople was spread out below her like a jeweled mosaic. The ancient magnificence of the Aqueduct of Valens was behind her, its arches sweeping in from the north like a Titan from the Roman past, an age when Constantinople was the eastern pillar of an empire that ruled the world. The Acropolis, far to the right, was far more Greek and therefore more comfortable to her, her language, her culture. Although its great days had been before she was born, the elderly woman still felt a pride in the thought of it.

She could see the tops of the trees that hid the ruins of the Bukoleon Palace, where her father had taken her as a child. She tried to bring back those bright memories, but they were too far away and slipped out of her grasp.

The radiance of the setting sun momentarily hid the squalor of the unmended walls, covering their scars with a veil of gold.

But Zoe never forgot the pain of the enemy invasion, of ignorant and careless feet trampling what had once been beautiful. She looked at the city now and saw it as exquisite and defiled, but still throbbing with a passion to taste every last drop of life and drain it to the lees.

The light was kind to her. She was past seventy, but the skin was smooth over her cheekbones. Her golden eyes were shadowed and hooded under her winged brows. Her mouth had always been too wide, but the curve of it was full. The luster of her hair was less than it had been and closer to brown than chestnut-there was only so much that herbs and dyes could do-but it was still beautiful.

She stared a few moments longer at the glittering skyline of Galata as the torches were lit. The east was fading rapidly, and the harbor was masked in purple. The spires and domes were sharper against the enamel blue of the sky. In thought she communed with the heart of the city, that part of it that was more than palaces or shrines, more even than the Hagia Sophia or the light on the sea. The soul of Constantinople was alive, and that was what she had seen raped by the Latins when she was a small child.

As the sun slid behind the low clouds and the air grew suddenly cold, she turned away at last. She stepped back into the room and its dazzling torchlight. She could smell the tar burning, see the faint shimmer of the flames in the draft. Between two of the finest tapestries in dark reds, purples, and umber, there was a gold crucifix more than a foot’s length from top to bottom. She walked over and stood in front of it, staring at the Christ in agony. It was exquisitely wrought: Every fold of His loincloth, the sinews of His limbs, His face hollowed by pain, all were perfect.

Gently she reached up, eased it off its hook, and held it in her hands. She did not need to look at it, knowing as she did every line and shadow of the images on each of the four arms. Her fingers felt them now, going over them softly, like faces of those she loved; except that it was hate that moved Zoe, the envisioning over and over again of revenge: exquisite, slow, and complete.

On the top, above the Christ, was the family emblem of the Vatatzes, who had ruled Byzantium in the past. It was green, with a double-headed eagle in gold, above each head a silver star. They had betrayed Constantinople when the crusaders had come, fleeing the invaded city and taking with them priceless icons, not to save them from the Latins, but to sell for money. They had run like cowards, thieving from the holy sanctuaries as they went, abandoning to fire and the sword what they could not carry.

On the right arm was the emblem of the Doukas family, also rulers until more recently. Their arms were blue, with an imperial crown, a two-headed eagle with a silver sword in each claw; they were traitors as well, plunderers of those already robbed, homeless, and helpless. They would know in time what it was to starve.

On the left arm was the emblem of the Kantakouzenos, an imperial family older still; their arms were red, with the double-headed eagle in gold. They had been greedy, blasphemous, without honor or shame. To the third and fourth generation, they would pay. Constantinople did not forgive the violation of her body or her soul.

On the main trunk, against which hung the figure of Christ, was the emblem of the worst of them all, the Dandolo of Venice. Their coat of arms was just a simple lozenge horizontally halved, white above, red below. It was Doge Enrico Dandolo, over ninety years old and blind as a stone, who had stood in the prow of the leading ship of the Venetian fleet, impatient to invade, despoil, and then burn the Queen of Cities. When no one else had had the courage to be the first ashore, he had leapt down onto the sand, sightless and alone, and charged forward. The Dandolo family would pay for that as long as the scorch marks of ruin scarred the stones of Constantinople.

She heard a sound behind her, a clearing of the throat. It was Thomais, her black serving woman, with her close-cropped head and beautiful, fluid grace. “What is it?” Zoe asked without taking her eyes off the cross.

“Miss Helena has come to see you, my lady,” Thomais replied. “Shall I ask her to wait?”

Zoe carefully replaced the cross on the wall and stepped back to regard it. Over the years since her return from exile, she had put it back up there hundreds of times, always perfectly straight.

“Walk slowly,” Zoe replied. “Fetch her a glass of wine, then bring her here.”

Thomais disappeared to obey. Zoe wanted to keep Helena waiting. Her daughter should not simply walk in at a whim and expect Zoe to be available. Helena was Zoe’s only child, and she had molded her carefully, from the cradle; but no matter what she achieved, Helena would never outwit or outwill her mother.

Several minutes later, Helena entered quietly, smoothly. Her eyes were angry. Her respect was in her words, not in the tone of her voice. As was obligatory, she still wore mourning for her murdered husband, and she looked with some resentment at Zoe’s amber-colored tunic, its flowing lines accentuated by the height that Zoe had and she did not.

“Good evening, Mother,” she said stiffly. “I hope you are well?”

“Very, thank you,” Zoe replied with a slight smile of amusement, not warmth. “You look pale, but then mourning is designed to do that. It is appropriate that a new widow should look as if she has been weeping, whether she has or not.”

Helena ignored the remark. “Bishop Constantine came to see me.”

“Naturally,” Zoe responded, sitting down with easy grace. “Considering Bessarion’s status, it is his duty. He would be remiss if he didn’t, and other people would notice. Did he say something interesting?”

Helena turned away so Zoe did not see her face. “He was probing, as if he wondered how much I knew of Bessarion’s death.” She looked back at Zoe for a moment with blazing clarity. “And what I might say,” she added. “Fool!” It was almost a whisper, but Zoe caught the edge of fear in it.

“Constantine has no choice but to be against union with Rome,” she said sharply. “He’s a eunuch. With Rome in charge, he would be nothing. Stay loyal to the Orthodox Church, and everything else will be forgiven you.”

Helena’s eyes widened. “That’s cynical.”

“It’s realistic,” Zoe pointed out. “And practical. We are Byzantine. Never forget it.” Her voice was savage. “We are the heart and the brain of Christianity, and of light and thought and wisdom-of civilization itself. If we lose our identity, we have given away our purpose in living.”

“I know that,” Helena replied. “The question is, does he? What does he really want?”

Zoe looked at her with contempt. “Power, of course.”

“He’s a eunuch!” Helena spat the word. “The days are gone when a eunuch could be everything except emperor. Is he so stupid he doesn’t know that yet?”

“In times of enough need, we will turn to anyone we think can save us,” Zoe said quietly. “You would be wise not to forget that. Constantine is clever, and he needs to be loved. Don’t underestimate him, Helena. He has your weakness for admiration, but he is braver than you are. And you can flatter even a eunuch, if you use your brains as well as your body. In fact, it would be a wise idea if you were to use your brains rather than your body where all men are concerned, for the time being.”

Again the color surged up Helena’s cheeks. “Said with all the wisdom and rectitude of a woman too old to do anything else,” she sneered. She smoothed her hands over her slim waist and flat stomach, lifting her shoulders again, very slightly, to offer an even more voluptuous curve.

The taunt stung Zoe. There were places in her jaw and her neck she hated to see in the glass; the tops of her arms and her thighs no longer had the firmness they used to, even a few years ago.

“Use your beauty while you can,” she replied. “You’ve nothing else. And as short as you are, when your waist thickens, you’ll be square, and your breasts will sit on your belly.”

Helena snatched up a length of silk tapestry from the chair and swung it as a lash, striking out at Zoe. The end of it caught one of the tall, bronze torch brackets and toppled it over, and burning pitch spilled on the floor. Instantly Zoe’s tunic was on fire. She felt the heat of it scorch up her legs.

The pain was intense. She was suffocating in smoke. Her lungs were bursting, yet the shrill sounds deafening her were her own screams. She was hurled back into the far past, the crucible of all she had become. She was engulfed by the flaring red light in the darkness, the noise of walls collapsing, crashing stone on stone, the roar of flames, everywhere terror, confusion, throat and chest seared in the heat.

Helena was there, flinging water at her, shouting something, her voice high-pitched with panic, but Zoe was beyond thought. She was a tiny child clinging to her mother’s hand, running, falling, dragged up and on, stumbling over the broken walls, bodies slashed and burned, blood on the pavement. She could smell the stench of human flesh on fire.

She fell again, bruised, aching. She climbed to her feet, and her mother was gone. Then she saw her; one of the crusaders had yanked her mother up off the ground and thrown her against a wall. He slashed at her robe and her tunic with his sword, then leaned against her, jerking violently. Zoe knew now what he had been doing. She could feel it as if it were her own body violated. When he finished, he had cut her mother’s throat and let her slide, gushing blood onto the stones.

Zoe’s father found them both, too late. Zoe was sitting on the ground as motionless as if she too were dead.

Everything after that was pain and loss. They were always in unfamiliar places, aching with hunger and the terrible emptiness of being dispossessed, and a horror inside her head that Zoe could never lose. And after horror came the hate. Prick her anywhere, and she bled rage.

Helena was close to her, wrapping her in something. The light of flames was gone, but the burning was still there, agonizing. Zoe’s legs and thighs were throbbing with pain. She could make out words: Helena’s voice, sharp and strained with fear.

“You’re safe! You’re safe! Thomais has gone for a physician. There’s a good one just moved here, good for burns, for skin. You’ll be all right.”

Zoe wanted to swear at her, curse her for the stupid, vicious thing she had done, wreak a revenge on her that would be so terrible, she would want to die to escape it; but her throat was too tight and she could not speak. The pain robbed her of breath.

Zoe lost all awareness of time. The past was there again, over and over, her mother’s face, her mother’s bleeding body, the smell of burning. Then at last someone else was there, talking to her, a woman’s voice. She was unwrapping the cloths Helena had put around the burns. It hurt appallingly. It felt as if her skin were still on fire. She bit her lips till she tasted blood, to stop herself from screaming. Damn Helena! Damn her, damn her, damn her!

The woman was touching her again, with something cold. The burning eased. She opened her eyes and saw the woman’s face. Except it was not a woman, it was a eunuch. He had soft, hairless skin and his features were womanish, but there was a strength in them, and his gestures, the certainty with which he moved his hands, were masculine.

“It hurts, but it’s not deep,” he told her calmly. “Treat it properly and it’ll heal. I’ll give you ointment which will take the heat out of it.”

It was not the pain now that troubled Zoe but the thought of scarring. She was terrified of disfigurement. She made a gasping sound, but her mouth would not form the words. Her back arched as she struggled.

“Do something!” Helena shouted at the physician. “She’s in pain!”

The eunuch did not turn to Helena but looked steadily at Zoe’s eyes, as if trying to read the terror in her. His own eyes were a curious gray. He was good-looking, in an effeminate way. Good bones, nice teeth. Pity they hadn’t left him whole. Zoe tried to speak again. If she could make some sensible contact with him, she might drive away the panic that was welling up inside her.

“Do something, you fool!” Helena snarled at the eunuch. “Can’t you see she’s in agony? What are you just kneeling there for? Don’t you know anything?”

The eunuch continued to ignore her. He seemed to be studying Zoe’s face.

“Get out!” Helena ordered. “We’ll get someone else.”

“Bring me a goblet of light wine with two spoonfuls of honey in it,” the eunuch told her. “Dissolve the honey well.”

Helena hesitated.

“Please get it quickly,” he urged.

Helena spun on her heel and left.

The eunuch busied himself putting more ointment on the burns, then binding them with cloths, but lightly. He was right; it took the heat away, and gradually the fearful pain subsided.

Helena returned with the wine. The physician took it and eased Zoe up gently until she was sitting and could hold the wine in her own hands. To begin with, her throat felt raw; but each mouthful was easier, and by the time she had drunk half of it, she could speak.

“Thank you,” she said a little huskily. “How bad will the scarring be?”

“If you are lucky, keep the wounds clean, and the ointment on them, maybe there will be none at all,” he replied.

Burning always scarred. Zoe knew that. She’d seen other people burned. “Liar!” she said between her teeth. Her body was stiff again, resisting his arms around her. “I saw the crusaders sack the city when I was a child,” she told him. “I’ve seen fire burning before. I’ve smelled the stench of human flesh roasting and seen bodies you wouldn’t recognize as having once been human.”

There was pity in the eunuch’s eyes as he looked at her, but Zoe was not sure whether pity was what she wanted.

“How bad?” Zoe hissed at him again.

“As I told you,” he replied calmly. “If you look after the wounds properly, and use the ointment, there will be no scarring. You must take care of them. The burns are not deep; that is why they hurt so much. Deep ones don’t, but often they don’t heal, either.”

“I suppose if you come back in a day or two, you’ll want paying twice,” Zoe snapped.

The physician smiled, as though it amused him. “Of course. Does that trouble you?”

Zoe leaned back a little. Suddenly she was desperately tired, and the pain had eased so much, she could almost put it from her mind. “Not in the slightest. My servant will attend to you.” She closed her eyes. It was dismissal.

Zoe did not remember much of the next few hours, and when she awoke in her own bed, it was the middle of the following day. Helena stood beside her mother, looking down, and the light through the window was clear and harsh on her face. Her daughter’s skin was blemishless, but the sun picked out the hardening line of her lips and the faintest slackening of the flesh under her chin. Helena’s brow was puckered with anxiety. She smoothed away all sign of it as soon as she realized Zoe was awake.

Zoe looked at her coldly. Let her be afraid. Deliberately Zoe closed her eyes again, shutting her daughter out. The balance of power between them was changed. Helena had caused her both pain and terror, and the terror was worse. Neither of them would forget that.

The burning in her legs was no more than discomfort now. The eunuch was good. If he was right and there was no scarring, she would reward him well. It could also be profitable to cultivate his acquaintance and his gratitude by finding him other patients. Physicians found themselves in places others did not. They saw people at their most vulnerable; they learned their weaknesses, their fears, just as this one had learned Zoe’s. He might also learn their strengths. Strength was a good place to attack because no one expected it. People did not realize that their strengths, if nurtured, praised, carried to excess, could also become their undoing.

She was intensely aware that she could have been crippled by the burning, even killed. If she waited any longer to begin her revenge, it could be too late. Something else might happen to her.

Or there was always that other unwelcome possibility-her enemies might die naturally, in their own beds, and she would be robbed of the victory. She had waited so long only that the full flavor might be realized. Before her foes had returned from exile and gained power and wealth in the new empire, there would have been no point. If they had nothing to lose, no riches to hold on to, vengeance would have no sweetness.

She breathed out slowly and smiled. It was time to begin.