“A Church can help,” she went on, in order to fill the silence, so he knew she was still there. “People can always help. We need people. There’s nothing if we don’t care. But the real climb is made not because this person or that person told you what to do, or lifted you on the way, it is made because you hunger for it so much, no one can stop you. You have to want it so that you will pay what it costs.”
“Didn’t I save souls?” he pleaded.
How could she refuse him? Love forgave. In all her anger and pain, she must remember she walked beside, not above. She too needed grace. If it was for a different sin, it was no less necessary.
“You have helped, but Christ redeemed them, and they saved themselves by being the best they could, and trusting in God to mend what was left.”
“Theodosia?” he asked. “I gave her absolution. She needed it. Wasn’t I right?”
“No,” she said softly. “You forgave her without demanding penance because you wanted to please her. You lied to her, and it destroyed her faith. Perhaps it was fragile anyway, but she couldn’t trust a God who would permit what she did to Joanna. You would have known that, if you’d thought about it honestly.”
“No, that’s not true.” But there was no conviction in his voice.
“Yes, it is. You defaced your own truth.”
He stared at her, and very slowly something of what she had said became real to him, and the abyss widened.
She saw it and was seized with pity, and then remorse. But it was too late to take it back. “She walked there willingly.” She touched the cloth to his face again, very gently. “We all do.” She met his eyes. Whatever she would see there, she had no right to look away now.
She took his hand in hers. “We all make mistakes. You are right, I have made some for which I have not yet repented, and I need to. But we are here to help, not to judge. Only God can teach you how to do that, not even the best of men, not when the pain is beyond bearing. Be gentle. Reach out. What gain is in it for you doesn’t matter.”
His face was ashen, his lips dry, as if he were already dead. He said the words so softly she had to strain to hear: “I am become Judas…”
She bathed his face and hands, his neck. She wet his lips and touched his skin with the perfumed unguent. It may have eased the pain for a while. Certainly he seemed calmer for it.
After a few moments longer, she stood up and went out of the room to ask for water to wash some of the dust and blood off herself. Every part of her body hurt. She had not realized it until now, but her left arm was soaked with her own blood, and her ribs were so badly bruised that it hurt to move. One side of her face was painful and swelling up so that her eye was half-closed, and now that she moved, she limped badly.
It was half an hour later when Anna returned to the upper bedroom to sit with Constantine again, in case there was something she could do for him. Perhaps as much as anything, it was so as not to leave him alone.
She stopped abruptly just beyond the door. The candle was still burning, although the flame was wavering. The bed was empty. Even the sheet was gone. Then she realized that the window was open and it was the slight draft of air from it that was moving the candle flame. She walked over to close the window and saw the torn end of linen tied around the central bar. She leaned out slowly and stared downward.
Constantine’s body hung about four feet below her, the sheet tight around his neck, his head lolling sideways. It was not possible that he could still be alive. His last words came back to her, and the Field of Blood beyond Jerusalem. She should have known.
Dizzy and sick, she staggered back into the room and sat down hard on the bed. She remained motionless for some time. Was she guilty of this? Should she have done more to prevent Constantine from ever being involved in trying to create a miracle?
Vicenze had designed it to fail. They should have known that from the start. Palombara knew it. And at the thought of Palombara she leaned forward, buried her face in the blanket, and wept. It was a kind of ease after all the horror and the fear to let the tears come and simply to grieve.
She had lost too much. Constantine was gone in a way that left only pain and a bitter grief. Palombara was different, yet she felt an ache of loss for him, too, because she would miss him.
Later, Anna went back to see Teresa Mocenigo and gave her whatever comfort she could. When it was daylight, she went with her to face the remnant of the crowd still left. Quietly and with the dignity of grief, Teresa asked them to honor Mocenigo’s life by behaving now with the honor that was the best in them. They must deal with Vicenze according to the law. Guilty as he was, to murder him would be to stain their own souls.
Finally, Anna returned to her home to tend to her own wounds of heart and her bleeding, aching body. She wept for her own painful emptiness, for Giuliano, for the loneliness that was at the back of everything.
Ninety-four
IN MARCH OF 1282, THE VAST FLEET OF CHARLES OF ANJOU anchored in the Bay of Messina in the north of Sicily. Giuliano stood on the hillside above the harbor and stared at its size and power, and his heart sank. The force under Charles was enormous, and more ships were expected from Venice. Maybe Pietro Contarini would be with them. He had spoken of it the last time they had met, before that final parting. And it was final. They would not meet as friends again, Pietro had made that clear. His loyalty was always to Venice first. Giuliano could no longer promise that.
He watched now as the fleet commanders walked along the quay and then up the broad streets to be welcomed by the royal vicar and governor of the island, Herbert of Orleans. He lived in the great fortress castle of Mategriffon, known as “The Terror of the Greeks.” That was the thought uppermost in Giuliano’s mind as he thought of the crusader forces pillaging the countryside for food and beasts, in the name of Christ’s war to recover the land of the Savior’s birth and set it again under Christian rule.
Giuliano set out to walk back over the rough terrain of the central mountains, the cone of Etna always on the skyline. He wanted to be back in Palermo before the French forces reached it. If they were to make a stand, he would do it with the people he cared for most, with Giuseppe and his friends.
Not only did his legs ache-his blistered feet remind him with each step-but he was sick at heart at the senseless violence of it, the hatred that drove ignorant men to plunder and destroy. The loss would be immeasurable, not only in life but in beauty and glories that took the breath away, such as the Palatine Chapel with its great soaring Saracen arches and exquisite Byzantine mosaics. Centuries of profound and exquisite thought would be wiped out by men who could barely write their own names.
Perhaps worst of all was the lie that this was done in the service of Christ, the blind belief that sins would be forgiven, that this sea of human blood could wash anything clean.
How had the message of Christ ever come to be twisted into this atrocity?
Giuliano reached Palermo tired and dirty and went quickly through the familiar streets in the clear early morning sun. There was little sound but the music of the fountains, the occasional hurrying footsteps, then the breathless hush of waiting.