“I know it is a great deal to ask you to stay,” Anna said quietly, “and I will understand if you don’t wish to, when-”
“I’m staying,” Simonis cut across her, her black eyes fierce. “I do not desert because a battle is coming.”
“It’s not a battle,” Anna pointed out. “It’s death.”
Simonis shrugged. “Well, I wasn’t going to live forever anyway.” Her voice trembled a little, and that was the end of the conversation.
Anna took a brief respite from attending the sick to go again to the Hagia Sophia, not so much for the Mass as to look at the unique beauty of it while it was still there.
As she walked through its outer aisles and saw the gold of the mosaics, the exquisite, brooding, sloe-eyed Madonnas and somber figures of Christ and his Apostles, she thought of Zoe and was touched by grief far deeper than she would have expected. Byzantium was less without her. Life was grayer.
“Can’t make up your mind whether to be on the floor of the men or the women, Anastasius?”
She swung around and saw Helena standing a few feet away. She was magnificently dressed in a dark red tunic and a dalmatica of such a rich blue as to be almost purple, or as close as anyone dared come who was not of the imperial house. The gold borders on it and the reflection of the red made one look a second time to be certain.
Anna wanted to answer with some cutting reply, but all such thought was crowded out of her mind by the sight of a man behind Helena. Anna knew his face, although she had not seen him in at least two years. It was Esaias, the only other man, apart from Demetrios, who had survived the assassination plot unscathed.
Why was he here in the Hagia Sophia with Helena, and she dressed almost in purple? Helena Comnena, Zoe’s daughter to the emperor. She had not married Demetrios. If all she wanted of him was his imperial name, there was no point now. In a matter of weeks, the throne would be in the hands of Charles of Anjou, to give to whomever he wished-some puppet who would rule it at his behest.
Nicephoras had assumed it would be Charles’s son-in-law, but perhaps it would not! Could he have something different in mind, something to curb an ambitious daughter, reward a more trustworthy lieutenant, and at the same time buy from a troublesome people a degree of peace with a turncoat Palaeologus queen? What an exquisite betrayal!
She must not let Helena see the thought in her eyes. She must say something quickly, not a polite reply, which Helena would know was masking another truth.
“I was thinking of your mother,” Anna said, smiling slightly. “Watching Giuliano Dandolo clean the tomb of his great-grandfather. That was the one vengeance she didn’t achieve.”
Helena’s expression froze. “That was all a waste of time,” she said coldly. “An old woman living in the past. I live for the future, but then I have one. She hadn’t. What about you, Anastasia-is that your name?”
“No.”
Helena shrugged. “Well, no matter-whatever it is, you have no place here anymore. I don’t know what delusion ever brought you in the first place.”
Anna would have been stung had not her thoughts been racing as to what Esaias was doing with Helena. She remembered his part in the original plot. It was he who had courted the young Andronicus, with the intent of murdering him also.
If she was planning an alliance of some sort with Charles of Anjou, then was Esaias the one who carried word back and forth? Helena would never be fool enough to commit anything damning to paper. Nor would she travel herself. And she would not have trusted any of Zoe’s men.
Helena was waiting for a response.
“It’s over now anyway,” Anna said quietly. She knew Justinian was guilty of Bessarion’s death, in an act of loyalty to Byzantium, and in a few weeks, even days, it would no longer matter anymore.
Helena lifted her head a little higher and walked away. In dark, glowing reds, Esaias followed after her.
Anna walked slowly into one of the small side chapels and bent her head in thought close to prayer.
She lifted her eyes to the somber face of the Madonna above her, surrounded in a million tiny bricks of gold: If she could tell Michael something he did not know, something he believed still mattered, she might persuade him to pardon Justinian. A letter from the emperor could still be law with the monks of Sinai.
How much proof would it take for Michael to believe? In this darkening time, might he be more willing than before to perform one last act of clemency? Perhaps she might yet succeed.
She closed her eyes. Mary, Mother of God, forgive me for giving up too soon. Please. Perhaps you can’t save the city. We should have saved ourselves. But help me free Justinian… please?
She looked up at the strong, beautiful face. “I don’t know whether we deserve your help, maybe we don’t, but we need it.” Then she swiveled around and walked quickly and silently after Helena, so she could follow Esaias when the Mass was over. She needed to know everything about him that she could.
She told Leo and Simonis because she needed their help.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked, puzzled.
They were sitting over an early supper.
“I need to know if he’s traveled,” she replied. “I can’t prove where to, but I can gain some idea if I can find out which ships he sailed on-”
“I’ll find out when,” Simonis interrupted.
They both turned to her in surprise.
“Servants know,” she said impatiently. “For heaven’s sake, isn’t it obvious enough? Food, supplies, packing clothes, maybe closing off part of the house! He might have brought treasures for himself, for his house, new clothes. They will know where he went, one of them will have gone with him. And they will certainly know for how long.”
Leo looked at Anna. “And when we know, what are you going to do?” he asked grimly, his face shadowed, eyes filled with sadness.
“Tell the emperor,” she replied.
“And he will execute Helena,” Simonis said with satisfaction.
“More likely have her murdered in private,” Leo said before turning to Anna. “But not before she has told the emperor everything she knows about you, including that you are a woman and have fooled him all these years. That you have treated him personally-very personally. You will not walk away without paying for that, perhaps with your life. Will you buy Justinian’s freedom at the cost of your own?” he asked, his voice no more than a whisper. “I am not sure if I am willing to help you do that.”
Simonis blinked, hesitated, looking first at Anna, then at Leo. “Neither am I,” she said at last.
“Don’t you want to stop Helena, if that is what she plans to do?” Anna asked. Receiving no response, she tried again. “We may be killed when the city is taken anyway. Please, find this for me.”
“You should live!” Simonis said angrily, the tears running down her face. “You’re a physician. Think of all the trouble your father took to teach you.”