It was a moment before Anna’s voice would come, and even then it was husky, a little tremulous. “Yes, Majesty. Thank you.”
Nicephoras reached out his hand and took her elbow, guiding her backward, out of Michael’s presence.
As soon as they were alone, in a corridor beyond the great hall, she turned to him. “Will they imprison Helena? What happens when the city… falls?”
“The Varangian Guard will break her neck,” he told her. “With Charles’s fleet on the horizon, no one will care. Come. I will find women’s clothes for you, and while you are changing, I will write the letter and the emperor will sign it. Then you must go.” He smiled. “I will miss you.”
She touched his hand. “I will miss you, too. There is no one else with whom I can talk as we have.” Then she looked away, in case he found the loneliness in her too much an echo of his own.
Nicephoras went with her down to the quayside. The summer night was brilliant with stars, but it was too late for the water taxis. Instead there was one of the emperor’s barges waiting to take her across the Golden Horn to Galata. This was the last time she would set foot in Constantinople. She was glad it was too dark for him to see the grief in her face, the love of all that was over and on the brink of destruction.
“You cannot come back,” he warned. “I will send messages to your servants. It is better if they stay here for a few days, at the very least. Helena’s friends and allies will be watching. Esaias and whoever else, Demetrios, perhaps, and others. Helena was like her mother in one thing: Come victory or despair, triumph or ruin, she never forgot a vengeance. You do, sometimes easily, and Zoe thought that was a weakness in you. It kept you from being truly like her.”
She was surprised. “Like her?”
“She saw in you her own passion for life, but weakened by the power to forgive. But I think in the end she realized it was really your strength. It made you whole, where she was not.”
A tide of guilt swept over Anna that she was not worthy of this praise. Certainly she had forgiven many things, small and unimportant. But she had kept the greatest ones, where the injury had wounded her where no healing was possible. She had never forgiven her husband, Eustathius. She had hidden the revulsion she had felt, the guilt because she could not love him, could not bear to carry his child, or for the hunger that had burned inside her, unanswered. She had never let go of blaming him for her own act of provoking that terrible searing, debasing fight. She remembered the shame even more than the pain and the blood.
Was she blaming him because he had allowed all his frustration, his fury of helplessness, confusion, and defeat, to explode in violence? Or was it her own guilt because she had half wanted him to descend so far?
Yes, he had been brutal, but that was a burden on his soul that she could not reach or help now. The time when perhaps she could have was past, and she had wasted it. That was something else for which she needed forgiveness.
She tried to think of what had been good in him. It was difficult, until she thought first of what had been wounded also, and then the pity came, scouring deep with the awareness that she should have been gentler. If she had helped him, instead of lashing out from her own hurt, he might have found the best in himself.
She remembered his skill with animals, how he spoke softly to his horses, sat up all night with them when they were wounded or ill, his total joy at the birth of a foal, and how he had praised the mare, stroked her, loved her. She found the tears wet on her own face with regret that she had let that slip away from him, selfish with her own need.
She let go of her anger and in the darkness bowed her head.
I’m sorry. She said the words in her mind, humbly and passionately. Please God, forgive me. Help me to be whole in spirit, to give others the mercy I so desperately need myself.
Slowly she felt the burden dissolve, and absolution enfolded her like an embrace, easing out all the old pain and washing it away. The ache disappeared, and a sweet warmth filled the emptiness inside.
They reached the edge of the water. The barge was ready, knocking gently against the steps as the ripples carried it. It was time to go.
There was nothing more to say. She was dressed as a woman again; the only other time in nearly ten years had been in Jerusalem with Giuliano. This was difficult. She put her hand up and touched Nicephoras’s face, then kissed his cheek. Then, as his arm tightened around her for a moment, she slipped away and went down the steps into the boat.
It was dawn when she arrived at Avram Shachar’s house, by now long familiar to her. It was far too early to expect anyone to be up, but she dared not wait in the streets. A woman alone was more vulnerable than a eunuch would have been. Even with a fuller tunic and her figure unbound so the outline of her breasts and hips was clear, she had to keep reminding herself that now she looked utterly different. Beneath the minimal veil of decency, her bright chestnut hair was visible.
The heat was oppressive and would be worse when the sun rose. The streets were parched and dusty with summer drought.
She knocked on Shachar’s door and waited. After several minutes had gone by, she knocked again, and almost immediately he appeared, blinking a little, obviously woken from sleep.
“Yes?” He looked her up and down, puzzled but gentle as always. “Is someone in your house ill? You’d better come in.” He stepped back and pulled the door wide for her.
She followed him through to the room where he kept his herbs, treading softly to avoid disturbing the rest of the household.
He lit the candles and turned to look at her again, his face anxious, as if he knew he should know her and was embarrassed that he did not, searching his memory.
“Anna Zarides,” she said quietly.
His eyes widened in amazement when he realized who she was. “What has happened? Tell me. What can I do?”
“I have the emperor’s pardon for my brother,” she replied. “I have to leave Constantinople, but I need to go to Sinai anyway, before the city falls, so I can have Justinian freed while the emperor’s word still counts. Can you help me? I don’t know how I’m going to do it. I need to get a message back to Leo and Simonis, and have them come with what money I can raise. I dare not return to the city myself.”
He nodded slowly, beginning to smile.
“And I must see that they are taken care of. Leo might come with me, but Simonis should go back to Nicea.”
“Of course,” he said softly. “Of course. I will see to it. First you must eat, then rest.”
Ninety-seven
GIULIANO HAD LEFT SICILY IN HASTE, KNOWING THAT Charles would search for him and execute him if he was found. He had taken the first ship leaving and made his way east, stopping at Athens and Abydos only to change ships and go on again as fast as possible. Now at sunrise he was in the harbor of Constantinople at last. He went ashore immediately after he had washed, shaved, and made himself as tidy as possible. He had nothing but the clothes in which he had set fire to the fleet in the Bay of Messina. And what he had bought in haste in Athens.
He walked up the dockside into the narrow streets and made the climb up to the Blachernae Palace. With a stab of grief, he was aware of the pall of fear that hung over the city. No one could fail to notice the empty shops and houses, the unnatural silence, the sense of abandonment. It was as if they were already dying.
When he reached the palace, he was stopped by the Varangian Guard. They would be at their posts until they were mown down or hacked to pieces, but never with their backs to the foe.