She waited in a huge room with high windows that let the light fill the space and magnify the perfect proportions. The walls were inlaid with pink marble and the floor with porphyry. The torch brackets were high, slender, and decorated in gold. Her surroundings pleased her profoundly, and she was happy to gaze at them until she was sent for.
She was conducted by a tall eunuch with a soft face, tired eyes, and an irritating manner of waving his hands. He led her through the halls and galleries into the emperor’s private rooms. There were some conversations that should not be overheard by anyone. Even the ever-present Varangian Guard would stand at a distance, out of earshot. Many of them were yellow-haired, blue-eyed, from God-knew-what remote lands.
This private room was totally restored, the walls repainted with exquisite murals of pastoral scenes at harvesttime. The tall, bronze candle stands were ornate and gleaming, the few statues left undamaged.
She made the usual obeisance. She was twenty-five years older than Michael, and a woman, but he was emperor and Equal of the Apostles. He did not rise to greet her but remained seated, his knees a little apart, covered by the woven, brocaded silk of his dalmatica and the scarlet of the tunic underneath. He was a handsome man with his heavy black hair and beard, fine eyes, and slightly ruddy complexion. He had good hands. Zoe remembered the touch of them with pleasure, even now. They were surprisingly sensitive for a man who had been a brilliant soldier in his prime and still knew more of military strategy than most generals. In battle he had led his army rather than followed it. He was busy now reorganizing the army and the navy and overseeing the repair of the city walls. He was above all a practical man. What he wanted of Zoe would also be practical.
“Come forward, Zoe,” he commanded. “We are alone. There is no need for pretense.” His voice was soft and deep, as a man’s should be.
She stepped closer to him, but slowly. She would never presume and so give him the chance to rebuff her. Let him do the asking, the requesting.
“There is a matter in which you may be of assistance,” he said, watching her intently, his eyes searching her face. She was never sure how far he could read her. He was Byzantine to the core; nothing of the imagination passed him by. He was subtle, devious, and brave, but at the moment he had a heavy burden to carry and a broken and obstinate people to lead. They were blind to the realities of the new threat, because they dared not look at it clearly.
Since Bessarion’s death, Zoe was beginning to see the political situation differently. There was a betrayal still being planned somewhere, and when Zoe found it out, she would punish whoever was responsible, even if it was Helena.
She wished she could have spoken to Justinian before he went into exile, but Constantine had accomplished his rescue so smoothly, and so quickly, that that had not been possible.
Now she needed to know what Michael wanted of her. “Whatever I can do,” she murmured respectfully.
“There are certain people whose services you use…” He measured his words with care. “I would prefer not to be seen to use them, but they have skills I need. I wish for information. Later it may be more than that.”
“Sicily?” She breathed out the word; it was really more of an acknowledgment than a question.
He nodded assent.
She waited. A new bargain must be made, and that was good. She would deal with anyone if it was for Byzantium’s sake, but she would not do it cheaply. The Sicilian she employed was a weasel of a man, a double spy, but she had caught his one mistake and kept the proof of it where all his cunning would never find it. He was dangerous, and she must handle him with care, as one did a serpent. She knew why Michael could not afford to have any connection with him, even through his own spies. Nothing escaped the eunuchs closest to him, or the house servants and palace guards, the priests forever coming and going. He needed someone like Zoe, who was just as clever as he was but who could afford to be ruthless in ways he dared not. There were too many pretenders to the throne, would-be usurpers, plots and counterplots. Michael was only too bitterly aware of it, always watching over his shoulder.
He leaned forward, less than a yard from her now. “I need this man of yours,” he said quietly. “Not to strike yet, but in a while. And I need someone else in Rome also, a second voice.”
“I can find someone,” she promised. “What do you wish to know?”
He smiled. He had no intention of telling her. “Someone close to the pope,” he said. “And to the king of the Two Sicilies.”
“Someone with courage?” Hope flared inside her that after all, he meant to fight. Perhaps Michael would even assassinate the pope? After all, the pope was the enemy of Byzantium, and this was war.
He read her instantly. “Not that kind of courage, Zoe. Those days are past. Popes can be replaced easily enough.” There was anger in his eyes and something that might have been fear. “The king of the Two Sicilies is the real danger, and the pope is the only one who can hold him back. If we are to survive, we must compromise.”
“You cannot compromise the faith,” she retorted.
Temper burned the skin under his heavy beard. She saw the flush across his cheekbones. He leaned even closer to her. “We need skill, Zoe, not bravado. We must use one against the other, in the way we always have. But I will not lose Constantinople again, to pay for anything on earth. I’ll bow the knee to Rome, or let them think I do, but the crusaders will not break one stone of my city, nor tax the smallest coin of tribute from my people.” His black eyes bored into hers. “Sicily may starve, and may even turn to bite the hand that robs it, and if it does, so much the better for us. Until then, I will trade in words and symbols with the pope, or the devil, or King Charles of Anjou and the Two Sicilies, if I have to. Are you with me or against me?”
“I am with you,” she said softly, aware now of a subtle and disturbing irony. “I will defend Byzantium against anyone, within or without. Are you with me?”
He looked straight back at her, unblinking. “Oh yes, Zoe Chrysaphes. You may trust me to choose what I see, and what I don’t.”
“I have my spies by the neck. I shall see they do as you wish,” she promised, smiling also and stepping back. Her mind was busy already. Sicily rising against their king? There was a thought.
Nine
ZOE DID AS MICHAEL HAD REQUESTED, THEN SHE TURNED her mind to revenge. She had not forgotten the bitter lesson of her own brush with death. There was no time to wait.
The eunuch Anastasius was exactly the tool she needed. He had intelligence and the kind of honesty to his profession that made people trust him. She was quite aware that he did not trust her, and there was also this hunger in him to know about Bessarion’s death. One day Zoe would take time to find out exactly why that was.
In the meantime, there was a delicate balance of irony in using him to trick and ruin Cosmas Kantakouzenos, whose family’s greed had robbed Byzantium of some of its greatest art.
Zoe was dressed in a tunic the color of dark wine in shadow and an even darker dalmatica, burgundy warp shot with a black weft, which caught the warmth of reds in the firelight as she passed through the glow of the torches.