The Sheen of the Silk

chapter 13-14

Thirteen

PALOMBARA BUSIED HIMSELF LEARNING MORE ABOUT HOW the emperor might strengthen his position in the eyes of his people. If they truly regarded him as "Equal of the Apostles," then they might believe he guided them righteously in their religious choice, as he had in their military and governmental ones.

He went to the great cathedral of the Hagia Sophia, but it was not to worship, and certainly not to partake in the Orthodox Mass. He wished to experience the differences between the Greek and the Roman.

The service was more emotionally moving than he had expected. There was a passionate solemnity to it in this ancient cathedral with its mosaics, its icons, and its pillars, the gold-surfaced niches surrounding the marvelous, somber-eyed figures of saints, the Madonna, and Christ Himself. In the dim light they glowed with an almost animate presence, and in spite of himself he found his intellectual appreciation overtaken by awe for the genius and the beauty of it. The vast dome seemed almost to float above its high circle of windows, as if there were no support for it of brick or stone. He had heard the legend that the building of it was beyond human ability, and that the dome itself had been miraculously suspended from heaven by a golden chain, held by angels until the pillars could be secured. The tale had amused him at the time, but here in this glory it did not seem impossible.

He was on the outer steps when he saw, a little apart from the crowd, a woman of more than average height. She had an extraordinary face. She was at least sixty, possibly more, but she stood with a perfect, even arrogant posture. She had high cheekbones, a mouth too wide, too sensuous, and heavy-lidded, golden eyes. She was looking at him, singling him out. He felt both flattered and uncomfortable as she approached him.

"You are the papal legate from Rome." Her voice was strong, and seen closer up her face was full of a vitality that demanded his attention and his interest.

"I am," he agreed. "Enrico Palombara."

She gave a slight shrug; it was almost a voluptuous gesture. "Zoe Chrysaphes," she answered. "Have you come to see the home of the Holy Wisdom, before you attempt to destroy it? Does its beauty touch your soul, or only your eyes?"

Nothing in her invited pity. She was an aspect of Byzantium he had not seen before-perhaps the ancient spirit that had survived the barbarians when Rome had fallen: passionate, dangerous, and intensely Greek. The energy in her fascinated him, as a flame draws a night insect.

"What is perceived only by the eyes does not necessarily have meaning," he replied.

She smiled, instantly aware of the subtle flattery implied and amused by it. This could be the beginning of a long duel, if she really cared about the Orthodox faith and keeping it from Roman contamination.

She arched her fine brows. "How could I know? We have nothing meaningless." The laughter in her was almost expressed.

He waited.

"Have you no fear that perhaps you are wrong to demand our submission?" she asked at length. "Does it not waken you in the night, when you are alone, and the darkness around you is full of thoughts, good and evil? Then do you not wonder if it is the devil who speaks to you and not God?"

He was startled. It was not what he had expected her to say.

She was staring at him, searching his eyes. Then she laughed, a full-throated, rich sound of pulsing life. "Ah, I see! You don't hear anyone's voice at all-do you-only silence. Eternal silence. That is Rome's secret-there is no one there except yourselves!"

He looked at the intelligence and the victory in her face. She had seen the emptiness inside him.

He stood still facing her while the departing people swirled around them. He could sense her pain, like the touch of fire. He could even empathize with her, but in the end the union was going to happen, with or without Zoe Chrysaphes's agreement. All this unique glory of the eye, the ear, and, above all, the mind could be destroyed by the ignorant, if the crusader armies stormed through here yet again.

Knowing her might give him an advantage it would be wise not to let Vicenze know about.

In the weeks that followed, Palombara pursued his interest in Zoe Chrysaphes discreetly, listening for her name rather than raising it himself, collecting many facts about her once powerful family. Her only child, Helena, who had married into the ancient imperial house of Comnenos, had been recently widowed by murder.

It was rumored that Zoe had been mistress to many men, possibly Michael Palaeologus himself. Palombara was inclined to believe it. Even now there was a sensuality about her, a savagery and a life force that made other women seem tame.

For a moment, he regretted that he was a papal legate, abroad where he dared not slip the traces. Vicenze was always watching; and anyway, Zoe would not entertain lovers simply for the pleasure of it. Physical passion with her would have been a good battle, one worth the fighting, win or lose. It would always have been of the mind as well, even if rarely of the heart.

It was up to him to bring about the next encounter, which he did by hunting along Mese Street for an unusual gift for her. He wanted something individual that would earn her curiosity. Then he could visit her, ostensibly to seek her advice. He knew enough about her now to make that credible.

He was shown into her magnificent room, which overlooked the city and the Bosphorus beyond. It was like stepping back into the old city, before the sack: its glory fading only a little, its pride still secure. There were tapestries on the walls, rich and dark. Their colors were subdued by the centuries but not worn dim, only muted in places where the light had softened their tones. The floor was marble, smoothed by the passage of generations of feet. The ceiling in places was inlaid with gold. On one wall hung a gold cross nearly two feet long, the figure on it so exquisitely crafted that it seemed about to twist in a last agony.

Zoe wore a tunic of amber color under a darker, more vibrant dalmatica, and it was fastened with a gold pin set with garnets. She looked amused, as if she had known he would come, but perhaps not so soon.

There was another person present, about Zoe's height but dressed in a plain tunic and dark blue dalmatica. He stood nearer the corner of the room, occupied with packing away powders into little boxes. Palombara could smell the rich aroma of them: some sort of crushed herbs.

Zoe ignored the other person, so Palombara did also.

"I found a small gift I hope will interest you," he said, holding out what he had brought, wrapped in red silk. It fitted neatly into the palm of his lean, outstretched hand.

She looked at it, her golden eyes curious, as yet unimpressed. "Why?" she asked.

"Because from you I can learn more of the soul of Byzantium than from anyone else," he replied with total honesty. "And I wish to have that knowledge, rather than my fellow legate, Vicenze." He allowed himself to smile.

A flash of amusement lighting her expression, she then opened the silk and took out a piece of amber the size of a small bird's egg. Inside it a spider was caught perfectly, immortalized in the moment before victory, the fly a hairbreadth beyond its reach. She did not hide her fascination with it, or her pleasure. "Anastasius!" she said, turning to the person with the herbs. "Come see what the papal legate from Rome has brought me!"

Palombara saw that it was another eunuch, smaller in stature and younger than Bishop Constantine, but with the same smooth, hairless face and-when he spoke-the same unbroken voice.

"Disturbing," he remarked, looking at it closely. "Very clever."

"You think so?" Zoe asked him.

Anastasius smiled. "A graphic picture of the instant, and of eternity," he replied. "You think the prize is in your grasp, and it eludes you forever. That moment is frozen, and a thousand years later you are still poised, and empty-handed." He looked across at Palombara, who was struck by the intelligence and the courage in his eyes. They were cool and gray, utterly unlike Zoe's, although the rest of his coloring was almost the same. And he too had high cheekbones and a sensuous mouth. It disturbed Palombara that Anastasius had seen so much in the amber, more than he had himself.

Zoe was watching. "Is that what you mean to say to me, Enrico Palombara?" she asked. She refused to call him "Your Grace," because he was a bishop of Rome, not of Byzantium.

"I wished it to give you pleasure, and interest," he answered, speaking to her, not the eunuch. "It will say whatever you read into it."

"Speaking of mortality," Zoe went on, "if you should fall ill while you are in Constantinople, I can recommend Anastasius. He is an excellent physician. And he will cure your illness without preaching to you of your sins. A trifle Jewish, but very effective. I know my sins already, and find it tedious being told of them again, don't you? Especially when I am not feeling well."

"That depends upon whether they are being envied or despised," Palombara said lightly.

He saw a flicker of laughter in the eunuch's face, but it was gone again almost before he was certain of it.

Zoe saw it also. "Explain yourself," she ordered Anastasius.

Anastasius shrugged. It was a gesture oddly feminine, yet he seemed not to have the volatile emotionalism of Constantine. "I think that contempt is the cloak that envy wears," he replied to Zoe, smiling as he said it.

"What should we feel for sin?" Palombara asked quickly, before Zoe could speak. "Anger?"

Anastasius looked at him steadily, with an oddly unnerving stare. "Not unless one is afraid of it," he said. "Do you suppose God is afraid of sin?"

Palombara's reply was instant. "That would be ridiculous. But we are not God. At least we in Rome do not think we are," he added.

Anastasius's smile broadened. "We in Byzantium do not think you are either," he agreed.

Palombara laughed in spite of himself, but it was out of embarrassment as well as humor. He did not know what to make of Anastasius. One moment he seemed lucid, intellectual like a man, and the next joltingly feminine. Palombara found himself wrong-footed too often. He thought of one of the silks he had seen in the markets: Hold it up one way and the light picked up the blue; then turn it, and it was green. The character of eunuchs was like the sheen on the silk-fluid, unpredictable. A third gender, male and female, yet neither.

Zoe turned the amber over in her hand. "This is worthy of a favor," she said to Palombara, her eyes bright. "What is it you want?" She flashed a glance at the eunuch. Palombara saw irritation in it and perhaps a momentary contempt. But then a woman of passion and sensuality like Zoe would never forget that Anastasius was not a whole man. What did it feel like to be denied that most basic of appetites? To be hungry is to be alive. Palombara wondered if there was anything Anastasius wanted with that intensity burning in his eyes.

He told her what he had come for. "Knowledge, of course."

Zoe blinked. "Knowledge of whom?"

He glanced at Anastasius.

Zoe smiled, looking Anastasius up and down, as if measuring whether he was worthy of dismissing or, like a servant, too unimportant to matter.

Anastasius took the decision himself. "The herbs are on the table," he told Zoe. "If they please you, I will bring more. If not, then I shall suggest something else." He turned to Palombara. "Your Grace. I hope your stay in Constantinople will be interesting." He bowed to Zoe and walked away, picking up his bag of herbs as he left. He moved stiffly, as if he had to be careful to keep his balance or maybe his dignity. Palombara wondered if perhaps he had pain of some acutely private nature, a wound never entirely healed. How could a man endure such a thing-such an indignity, a mutilation-without a bitterness of soul? He was sufficiently effeminate; perhaps they had removed not only his testicles, but everything? What an incomprehensible mixture of beauty, wisdom, and barbarity eunuchs were. Rome should fear them more than it did.

He turned back to Zoe, prepared to listen to all she would say of her city and regard it all with interest and skepticism.

Fourteen

CONSTANTINE STOOD IN HIS FAVORITE ROOM OF THE house, his hand caressing the smooth marble of the statue. Its head was buried in thought, its naked limbs perfect. He passed his hand over it again, moving his fingers as if he could knead it and feel muscle and nerve in the stone shoulders.

His own body was so tightly knotted that he ached.

Michael had reenacted the signing, affirming it for all Constantinople to see, and to satisfy Rome, and Constantine had been helpless to prevent it. It would be a mark of subservience, a signal to the world, and above all to God, that the people of Byzantium had forsaken their faith. Those who had trusted the leadership of the Church would be destroyed by the very men sworn to save their souls. How infinitely shortsighted! Selling today to purchase tomorrow's safety. What about their salvation in eternity? Was that not more important than any earthly thing?

But he had known what to do, and he had done it.

As he thought of it the sweat broke out on his body, even here in this cool room. The Byzantime people had a right to fight for life!

And that he had done. He had lit the fire in their hearts and it had exploded into a riot in the streets, scores and then hundreds pouring into the squares and marketplaces, crying out against the union with Rome and everything alien and forced.

Of course Constantine had contrived to look as if he were doing all in his power to stop them, to sympathize and yet try to stem the violence, to plead for order and respect while leading them on. What difference was there between a gesture of blessing and one of encouragement? It lay in the angle of the hand, the inflection of a voice carefully raised not quite loudly enough to be heard above the din.

It had been marvelous, superb. They had come in their thousands, filling the streets until they choked the byways. He could still hear their voices as he stood here in his quiet room. There the blood had pounded in his veins, his heart racing, sweat of heat and danger running off his skin as the noise carried him along.

"Constantine! Constantine! In the name of God and the Holy Virgin, Constantine for the faith!"

He had smiled at them, stepping back a pace or two as if to decline in modesty, but they had shouted the louder.

"Constantine! Lead us to victory, for the Holy Virgin's sake!"

He had lifted his hands in blessing, and gradually they had calmed, the shouting ceased. They stood in the square and in the streets beyond, silent, waiting for him to tell them what to do.

"Have faith! God's power is greater than that of any man!" he had told them. "We know what is truth and what is false, what is of Christ and what of the devil. Go home. Fast and pray. Be loyal to the Church, and God will be loyal to you."

God would save them from Rome only if their faith were perfect, and it was Constantine's mission to do everything heavenly possible to see that it was.

A few days later, Michael retaliated. The vacant throne of the patriarch of Byzantium was given not to the eunuch Constantine, but to a whole man, John Beccus.

The servant who brought Constantine the news was white-faced, as if he carried word of death. He stood in front of Constantine, eyes lowered, his breath loud in the room.

Constantine wanted to scream at the man, but that would expose his pain like his own nakedness, incomplete, marred by circumstance outside his mastery. He had been doubly castrated, robbed of the office that was rightfully his by virtue, faith, and the will to fight. John Beccus was for the union with Rome, a coward and a traitor to his Church.

"Go!" Constantine's voice was rasping from a throat raw with pain.

The servant stared at him and then fled.

When his footsteps had ceased to sound on the stones, Constantine let out a howl of fury and humiliation. Hatred was like fire in his soul. He could have torn John Beccus apart if he had laid hands on him at this moment. A whole man, an insult to Constantine's existence. As if organs made the soul! A man was his passions of the heart, his dreams, the things he longed for, the fears he had overcome, the wholeness of his sacrifice, not of his body.

Was a man better because he could put his seed into a woman? Beasts of the field could do that. Was a man holier because he had that power and abstained from using it?

Constantine could take a knife and slice Beccus's testicles: see the blood flow, as it had from his own body as a boy; see the agony, the terror of bleeding to death! Then watch him clutch at what was left of his manhood with a horror at his loss that would never leave him as long as he existed. They would be equal then. See who could lead the Church and save it from Rome!

But it was only a dream, like other images in the night. He could not do it. His power was in the love and the belief of the people. They must never see his hatred. It was weakness. It was sin.

Could the Holy Virgin read his heart? His face burned scarlet with shame. Slowly he knelt, tears wet on his face.

Beccus was wrong! He was a liar, a time server, a seeker after favor and office and his own power. How could a good man pretend to approve that?

Constantine asked himself whether he was a good man. He could make himself be, and he must.

He rose to his feet to begin: now, today. There was no time to waste. He would show John Beccus, he would show them all. The people loved him, his faith, his mercy, his humility and courage, his will to fight.

In the uncounted days that followed, he worked until exhaustion overcame him, taking no thought or care for his own needs. He answered every call he could, walking miles from one house to another to hear confessions of the dying and give them absolution. Families wept with gratitude for such peace of heart. He left with aching legs and blistered feet, but soaring spirits in the certainty that he was loved, and for his sake an ever increasing number of people would remain loyal to the true Church.

He celebrated the Mass so often, he felt sometimes as if he were doing it in his sleep, the words reciting themselves. But the eager faces were all the reward he wanted, the humble, grateful hearts. When he lay down, exhausted, it was often on the floor of wherever he was when night came, and he thought nothing of it. He rose at daybreak and ate what the wretched could spare him.

It was very late one night when he was listening to the confession of a bull-chested man, something of a local leader and a bully, that he began to feel ill.

"I beat him," the man said quietly, his eyes meeting Constantine's uncertainly, clouded with fear. "I broke some of his bones."

"Did he...," Constantine began, and then found he could not draw his breath. His heart was beating so loudly, he thought the man kneeling before him must hear it also. He was dizzy. He tried to speak again, but he could hear nothing but a roaring in his ears, and the moment after he was plunging into oblivion, for all he knew death itself.

He awoke in his own house, his head pounding, his stomach sick and cramped with pain. His servant Manuel stood beside the bed.

"Let me send for a physician," he begged. "We have prayed, but it is not enough."

"No," Constantine said quickly, but even his voice was weak. His stomach knotted again, and he was afraid he was going to be sick.

He tried to get up to relieve himself urgently, but the pain doubled him over. He called for Manuel to help him. Twenty minutes later, drenched in sweat and so weak that he could not stand without help, he collapsed on the bed and allowed Manuel to pull the covers over him. Now suddenly he was cold, but at least he could lie still.

Manual asked again for permission to send for a physician, and again Constantine refused. Sleep would cure him.

Constantine lay still, his belly quiet. But the fear gripped his heart like an iron clamp, twisting inside him. He dared not lie down in the dark when the light spiraled away from him, his skin slick with sweat again and yet his limbs ice cold.

"Manuel!" His voice was shrill, almost hysterical.

Manuel appeared, candle in his hand, his face tight with fear.

"Get Anastasius for me," Constantine conceded at last. "Tell him it is urgent." The pain shot through his belly again. "But first assist me." He must relieve himself again, quickly. He must have help. He also thought he was about to be sick. Anastasius was another eunuch and would not pity his mutilation or be repelled by it. He had had a whole physician once and seen the prurient revulsion in the man's eyes. Never again; he'd rather die.

Anastasius would have only understanding. He too was lost, uncertain, carrying a burden somewhere inside him that was too heavy. Constantine had seen it in his face in unguarded moments. One day he would learn what it was.

Yes, send for Anastasius. Quickly.