Euphrosane Dalassena was in her late twenties, but at first she seemed younger. Her features were excellent and she should have been lovely, but there was a certain insipidity about her, and Anna wondered if it were due to illness. She lay on a couch, her light brown hair unadorned, her skin a little waxy. Anna had been shown in by a serving woman, who remained in the unimaginatively ornamented room, standing by the doorway.
Anna introduced herself and asked all the usual questions about symptoms. Then she examined the painful rash that spread across Euphrosane’s back and lower abdomen. She seemed to have a slight temperature and was clearly both embarrassed and distressed by her condition. Her eyes never left Anna’s face, always waiting for the verdict, trying to interpret every expression.
Finally she could bear it no longer. “I go to confession every other day, and I know of no sin of which I have not repented,” she exclaimed. “I’ve fasted and prayed, but nothing comes to my mind. Please help me!”
“God does not punish you for what you can’t help,” Anna said quickly, then immediately wondered at her daring. That was her own conviction, but was it the doctrine of the Church? She felt the blood burn up her face.
Euphrosane’s logic was perfect. “Then I must be able to help it,” she said plaintively. “What haven’t I done? I have prayed to Saint George, who is the patron saint of skin diseases, but he is patron saint of a lot of things. So I have also prayed to Saint Anthony the Abbot, just in case I should be more specific. I attend Mass every day, I go to confession, I give alms to the poor and offerings to the Church. Where have I fallen so far short that this has happened to me? I don’t understand.” She lay back on the couch.
Anna drew in her breath to say that it was nothing to do with sin of any kind, omission or commission, but realized that that might be viewed as heresy.
Euphrosane was still watching her, the sweat dampening her skin and making her hair lank. Anna must answer or lose Euphrosane’s faith in her.
“Could it be that your sin lies in not trusting God’s love enough?” she said, shocked at her own words. “I will give you medicine to take, and ointment to have your maid put on the blisters. Each time you do so, pray, and believe that God loves you, personally.”
“How could He?” Euphrosane said wretchedly. “My husband died young, before he had achieved half the things he could have, and I did not even bear a child! Now I am afflicted with an illness so ugly no other man will want me. How could God love me? I am doing something terribly wrong, and I don’t even know what it is.”
“Yes, you are,” Anna said vehemently. “How dare you dismiss yourself as useless or ugly? God does not need you to get everything right, because nobody is going to do that, but He does expect you to try, and to trust Him.”
Euphrosane stared at her in wonder. “I understand,” she said, the confusion gone. “I shall repent, immediately.”
“And use the medicine as well,” Anna warned. “He gave us herbs and oils, and intelligence to understand their purpose. Don’t throw His gift back at Him. That would be ingratitude, which is also a very serious sin indeed.” And it would make the whole exercise pointless, but she could not tell her that.
“I will! I will!” Euphrosane promised.
A week later, Euphrosane was completely healed, which made Anna wonder if perhaps much of her fever had been due to fear of an imagined guilt.
She went to report to Zoe, as asked, and this time she had to wait nearly half an hour before being admitted. She knew the moment she saw Zoe’s face that she was already aware of Euphrosane’s recovery. Quite probably she also knew how much Anna had been paid, but she could not afford to let her irritation show. She thanked Zoe again for the referral.
“What did you think of her?” Zoe asked casually. Today she wore dark blue and gold. With her warm hair and eyes, the effect was superb. There were times when Anna longed, with almost physical pain, to dress as a woman again herself and to ornament her hair. Then she could face Zoe on an even footing. She forced herself to remember Justinian somewhere in the sterility of the Judean desert, possibly even wearing sackcloth, and the reason she was here posing as a eunuch. Did he imagine she had forgotten him?
Zoe was waiting, her expression impatient. “Is your opinion of Euphrosane so bad you cannot answer me honestly? You owe me that, Anastasius.”
“Gullible,” Anna replied. “A sweet young woman, painfully honest, but easily persuaded. Obedient. Too fearful not to be.”
Zoe’s golden eyes opened wide. “So you bite,” she said with amusement. “Be careful. You cannot afford to nip the wrong person.”
The sweat broke out on Anna’s skin, but she did not look away. She knew never to let Zoe sense weakness. “You asked for the truth. Should I tell you less?”
“Never,” Zoe replied, her eyes bright as faceted gems. “Or if you lie, then do it so well that I never find out.”
Anna smiled. “I doubt I could do that.”
“Interesting that you are wise enough to say so,” Zoe replied softly, almost a purr. “There is something I would like you to do for me. If a merchant named Cosmas Kantakouzenos should ask your opinion of Euphrosane’s character, as he might, would you be as candid with him? Tell him she is honest, guileless, and obedient.”
“Of course,” Anna replied. “I would be grateful if you would tell me more about Bessarion Comnenos.” It was a bold question, and she had not had time to think of any explanation for her interest. But Zoe had not given any reason why she wished Euphrosane recommended to Cosmas.
Zoe walked over to the window and stared out at the complex pattern of rooftops. “I suppose you mean his death,” she said dryly. “Bessarion’s life was uninteresting. He married my daughter, but he was a bore. Pious and chilly.”
“And he was killed for that?” Anna said with disbelief.
Zoe turned around slowly, her eyes sweeping up and down Anna from her woman’s face in the guise of a eunuch, naked of a masculine beard and unsoftened by the lushness of feminine curls and ornaments. Zoe’s eyes traveled down her body, bound at the chest, padded out from shoulder to hip to hide the natural curve.
Anna knew what she looked like. She had worked hard on her appearance. Yet at times like these, in the presence of a woman who was beautiful, even now, she hated it. Her hair no longer than to her shoulders actually became her face. It was less stiff than the highly dressed styles women wore, but still she missed the combs and ornaments she had once had. More than that she missed the color for her brows, the powder to even out the tones of the skin, the artificial color to make her lips less pale.
A servant’s footsteps passed audibly across the floor in the next room.
Deliberately, Anna forced herself to remember Zoe’s terror when she had been burned, the nakedness of the pain in her. It reduced her to a human being in need.
Zoe saw some change in her but did not comprehend it. She gave the slightest shrug of one shoulder. “It was not an isolated incident,” she remarked. “A year before his death he was attacked in the street. We never learned if it was an attempt at robbery, or one of his own bodyguards, perhaps, seizing a chance to stab him in the scuffle but making a mess of it. He was cut only once, but it was quite deep.”