The Sheen of the Silk

Eighty-eight

ANNA HAD BEEN SENT FOR AND ACCOMPANIED THE white-faced messenger to Zoe’s home. Sabas was waiting for her and took her immediately to where Zoe was lying on her bed, Thomais at her side, her face impassive.

“Bishop Constantine excommunicated her from the Church,” Sabas informed Anna. “God has stricken her, but still she lives. Please help her.”

Anna moved forward and looked down at Zoe. Her tunic was crumpled and she lay awkwardly, as if placed there by someone who dared not touch her with any more intimacy. Her eyes were almost closed, but she was breathing quite regularly. Without thinking, Anna smoothed Zoe’s dress over her stomach and thighs, then she felt her pulse. It was weak but quite regular.

“Is it not the bishop’s doing?” Thomais asked.

Anna hesitated. Constantine would not have poisoned her or struck her. He might have frightened her into an apoplectic fit if he had invoked the deep terror inside her of the punishment of God, the abandonment of all light and hope.

She touched Zoe’s hand, gently. It was warm. She was not dead or even dying. “We must not let her get cold. And put a little ointment on her lips to stop them drying. I will fetch herbs and come back.”

Thomais stared at her, her face filled with doubt, perhaps fear.

“God may have struck her,” Anna said gently. “If He takes her life, that is His judgment. It’s not mine.”

She did all she could for Zoe, waiting and watching to see if her condition changed. On the fifth night, she was sitting in the corner of Zoe’s room next to a painted and inlaid screen, half asleep. The room was almost dark. One small candle burned on the table about seven feet from Zoe, just enough to see her outline, not enough to shine on her face.

She still had not opened her eyes or stirred more than to move one hand a few inches. Anna did not know if she ever would again. Thinking of the destruction Zoe had caused, Anna should have been glad. It confused her that she felt instead a sense of loss and a troubling pity.

She was almost asleep when she was suddenly, terrifyingly aware that there was someone else in the room. He was moving soundlessly, no more than a shadow passing across the floor. He couldn’t be a servant or he would have spoken.

She froze, her breath caught in her throat. She watched as he crept toward the bed, a small man, dressed not in a tunic but a shirt and britches. He had a pointed beard, and as he came closer to Zoe the candlelight touched his face and she saw that he had sharp features, thin and clever. His hands were empty.

Her mind raced. She knew from the awkward way the man’s jacket lay over his hip that he had a knife at his belt, and Zoe was defenseless. If Anna called out, there was no one near enough to hear or come in time to help. Anna herself would be dead before then.

She must move silently or the intruder would hear her and strike, probably Zoe first and then her. She had nothing near her, no heavy bowl, no candlestick. But there was the tapestry. If she threw that over him, it might confuse him for long enough to reach for the candlestick on the table.

“Zoe,” he said quietly. “Zoe!”

Could he not see she was not asleep but senseless? No, thank God the candle was small and far enough from her that her face was in the shadow.

“Zoe!” he said more urgently. “It is going well. Sicily is like a tinderbox. One spark, one wrong word or move, and it will burn like a forest fire. Dandolo has worked well, but he has just about served our purposes. Give me the word, and I’ll kill him myself. One quick thrust and it will be over. I’ll use the Dandolo dagger you gave him.” He gave a low, soft laugh. “Then he’ll know the message of death comes from you.”

Anna broke out in a sweat. Whatever happened, she must not move or make the slightest sound. If he knew she was here, he would kill her, too. Her nose itched. Her mouth was dry. Still the intruder sat silently by Zoe’s side.

Then she heard a footstep outside the door, a brief knock, and the door opened. The intruder moved toward the tapestry like a shadow.

Anna turned as the door swung open and Thomais entered. Only then did Anna see, in the widening light, that one of the windows was not fastened.

Anna stirred, as if just waking up. “I’ll come and get a little wine,” she said sleepily to Thomais. “Can you find me some cakes? I’m hungry.”

Anna walked over to the door, not even glancing at the shadow beyond Zoe’s bed where the intruder had melted into the corner. He would not hurt Zoe, and if Anna was out of the room for a few minutes, he would leave as he must have come, through the window into the night.

She must see that from now on all the windows and doors were more carefully barred.

Two days later Zoe opened her eyes, puzzled, frightened, unable to speak. She tried, but the words were garbled, animal sounds. Thomais tried offering her a pen and a piece of paper. She gripped the pen awkwardly, made a few scratches on the white surface, and gave up.

Helena was informed that her mother was awake but unable to speak. She came, stared at Zoe with a strange pleasure, then turned and left. It was after she had gone that Zoe spoke her first comprehensible word. “Anna…” she said clearly.

It was a slow task. By evening, Zoe had managed a few more simple words and names, requests, movement that was a little more coordinated. Anna looked at the terror in her eyes and in spite of herself felt a sharp pity for her. She wished Zoe could have died simply, at the first blow of the apoplexy, rather than inch by inch like this.

And Anna also knew that if she recovered, the intruder would be back, and Zoe would give the order for Giuliano to be murdered. If she could not stop Zoe, perhaps she could find the intruder and stop him. There was only one man she could trust and who had the power to help-Nicephoras.

It was late and raining hard when she reached the Blachernae Palace, and it took her several minutes of argument to persuade the guard to allow her in and then to disturb Nicephoras to receive her.

He looked troubled; his face was grave, still heavy with sleep, his beardless cheeks soft. “What is it?” he asked anxiously. “Is Zoe dead?”

“No, she’s not dead,” Anna replied. “In fact, she may recover completely. Her progress is very rapid, and she has a will of iron.”

Briefly, Anna told Nicephoras of the intruder, his assumption that Zoe could hear him, and his promise to kill Giuliano as soon as she gave the word. “He is trying to provoke a rising in Sicily, against Charles of Anjou… I think,” she added. “But Giuliano Dandolo is an ally, not an enemy. If we destroy those who serve us, or allow them to be destroyed, we will not find many wanting to help us next time we need them. And there will always be a next time.”

Nicephoras smiled. “From your description, it has to have been Scalini. I will not allow Dandolo to be killed-at least not at Zoe’s behest. What else happens to him in Sicily is outside my control. I think Scalini has now served his purpose. And he is Zoe’s creature, not ours.”

“Is he?” she asked quickly.

“Oh, yes.” His expression was bleak. “But I know where to find him. He will not leave Constantinople, I promise you.”

“Thank you,” she said with profound gratitude. “Thank you.”

Zoe continued to recover. In another few days she could form sentences, although many words still eluded her. She began to eat and to drink all the herbs Anna mixed for her. Surprisingly, she was a good patient, obeying every instruction, and she progressed accordingly.

Two weeks after her initial attack, the four Skleros brothers publicly declared total allegiance to the emperor Michael in his efforts to save the empire and privately changed from giving a large donation to the Church to giving a significant part of their fortune to Zoe, to further whatever civil unrest she could effect in the dominions of Charles of Anjou.