The Sheen of the Silk

Ninety

ANNA WALKED INTO THE ROOM AND STARED DOWN AT the body of Zoe. She saw the blue face, the bitten lip, and the blood on it. She bent down beside her, pushing back a stray lock of hair off her brow. Gently she lifted one eyelid. She saw the tiny pinpricks of red and knew what had happened. She stood up slowly and faced Thomais.

“Lay her out,” she said. “Make her look beautiful.” Her voice strangled in her throat. It was not only Zoe who was dead, it was Constantine also, and in an infinitely more terrible way.

Anna went outside into the rising wind and the first spots of rain. She walked alone to Helena’s house to give her the news. She did not want to do it, so it was best done quickly. Now the weight of what Constantine had said lay increasingly heavily on her. He would claim that Zoe had taken back all her support for union with Rome and died in the bosom of the Church. He would make pomp and display of it.

Helena took a long time to appear. The servants had admitted Anna only with great reluctance, but she had told them why she had come, and not one of them wished to tell Helena of Zoe’s death themselves. Anna waited, grateful for the wine and bread she was offered. She was cold through to the bone now, and her eyes stung with tiredness and with sorrow.

Helena came across the room, and Anna rose to her feet.

“What on earth have you to say that cannot wait until morning?” Helena said irritably.

“I am very sorry indeed to tell you that your mother is dead,” Anna replied.

Helena’s dark eyes widened in momentary disbelief. “Dead?”

“Yes.”

“Really? At last.” Helena straightened her back and held her head a little higher. A slight smile touched the corner of her mouth, and one might have thought it was superb courage and dignity in the face of loss. Anna had the ugly thought that in fact it was an attempt to contain her victory.

She felt the tears for Zoe welling behind her own eyelids. Something of Byzantium was gone. It was more than an age that was past, it was a passion, a fury, a love of life, and its leaving took something irreplaceable from the world.