“No.” She was interested and knew that it showed in her voice. This was the calling that Constantine had wanted, even though he was obliged to hide it.
“He is with the emperor now. If you wait a short while, I shall introduce you,” Nicephoras offered.
“Thank you,” she accepted quickly. They fell into conversation about art, moving into history and the events that had inspired certain styles, and from that into philosophy and religion. She found his views more liberal than she had expected, teasing her mind with new and broader ideas.
“I have just been reading some works by an Englishman named Roger Bacon,” he said with intense enthusiasm. “I have never discovered a mind like his. He writes of mathematics, optics, alchemy, and the manufacture of a fine black powder which can explode”-he jerked his hands apart to demonstrate-“with great force, when it is ignited. The thought is exciting and terrifying. It could be used for immense good, and perhaps even greater evil.” He looked at Anna’s face to judge her appreciation of what he had said, the sheer intellectual excitement of it.
“He is an Englishman?” Anna repeated. “Did he discover this stuff, or invent it?”
“I don’t know. Why?” Then he understood. “He is a Franciscan, not a crusader,” he said quickly. “He has many practical ideas, such as how lenses could be ground and then assembled into a machine so that the tiniest objects could appear enormous, and you could see them quite clearly.” His voice lifted again with the love of pure knowledge. “And other lenses so that objects miles distant could seem to be only yards away. Consider what that could do for the traveler, especially at sea. He is either one of the greatest geniuses in the world, or he lives in an ecstasy of madness.”
She looked down, hating what she was thinking. “Perhaps he is a genius, and can see all these things, but is he wise? The two are not the same.”
“I have no idea,” Nicephoras answered gently. “What is it you are afraid of? Would it be bad to see things in the distance more clearly? He writes of being able to fix some of these lenses in a contraption so you could wear them on your nose, and those who cannot now see would be able to read.” His voice rose with his excitement. “And he studies also the size, position, and paths of celestial bodies. He has worked out great theories on the movement of water, and how it could be used in machines to lift and carry things, and to create an engine that transforms steam into power which could drive ships across the sea, regardless of the wind or the oar! Imagine it.”
“Can we make these things that explode?” she asked softly. “Machines that create steam to drive ships across the sea, without the wind in the sails, or men at the oars?” She could not rid herself of the fear of such things, the power it would give the nation that possessed them.
“I expect so.” He frowned slightly, as if at the first touch of a chill. “Then we need not be prisoners of the wind.”
She looked up at him. “The kings and princes of England come on crusade, don’t they?” It was a statement. Everyone knew of Richard, known as the Lionheart, and of course more recently Prince Edward.
“You think they will use these things in war?” Nicephoras was pale now, his excitement bled away, leaving horror like an open wound.
“Would you trust them not to?”
“Bacon is a scientist, an inventor, a discoverer of the miracles of God in the universe.” He shook his head. “He is not a man of war. His religion is one of wonder, the conquest of ignorance, not of lands.”
“And perhaps he thinks all other men are the same,” she said dryly, an edge of sarcasm in her tone. “I don’t, do you?”
He was about to respond again when the door opened and John Beccus emerged from the emperor’s presence. He was imposing, a gaunt and hatchet-faced man. He wore his magnificent robes with elegance, the silk tunic under a heavy, sweeping dalmatica. But far more than his mere physical presence, there was a power of emotion in him that commanded attention.
After acknowledging Anna, he looked at Nicephoras. “There will be a great deal to do,” he said almost by way of an order. “We must have no more disturbances like that last miserable affair. Constantine seems incapable of controlling his adherents. Personally, I have doubts about his own loyalties.” He frowned. “We must either persuade him, or silence him. The union must be carried through. You understand that? Independence is no longer a luxury we can afford. We must pay a certain price in order to avoid having to pay everything. Is that not obvious enough? The survival of both church and state are tied to the issue.”
He chopped his large-knuckled hand savagely in the air, his rings gleaming. “If Charles of Anjou invades-and make no mistake, if we are separate from Rome he will-then it will be the end of Byzantium. Our people will be decimated, exiled to who knows where? And without our churches, our city, our culture, how will the faith survive?”
“I know that, Your Grace,” Nicephoras answered gravely, his face pale. “Either we yield something now, or everything later. I have spoken to Bishop Constantine, but he believes that faith is our best shield, and I cannot shake him from that.”
A shadow crossed Beccus’s high face, and a flash of arrogance. “Fortunately, the emperor sees the stakes even more clearly than I do,” he replied. “And he will save every jot he can, whether some of our more naive religious orders can see that or not.” He made an almost cursory sign of the cross and swept away in a swirl of jewel-encrusted robes, the light flickering on him as if it were fire.
Walking away from the palace and back down the hill toward her own house, the wind in her face, Anna thought hard about the passions and the issues she had heard, both from Nicephoras and from the new patriarch.
There was ruthlessness in John Beccus she had not expected, yet she realized that without it he would be useless. Maybe she had been too emotional and simplistic in her judgment? Constantine might need to be just as devious to succeed, just as willing to use all the weapons he could reach.
And what of this Englishman who could see for miles, drive ships without wind or oar, and, perhaps worst of all, create a powder that exploded? Whose hands might that fall into? Charles of Anjou? If Nicephoras knew of it, who else did?
Now murder did not seem so unlikely, to get rid of both Bessarion and Justinian by murdering one and contriving that the other should be blamed for it. Antoninus might be incidental, not an intended victim at all. She shivered as she realized how much more likely it was that whoever had done this, one person or several, had actually intended Justinian to be the one executed.
When she knew just a little more, she must find a way to ask Nicephoras about the trial of Justinian and Antoninus. As one of the most intimate advisers of the emperor, he had to know. There was no office of prosecutor. The emperor himself was regarded as “living law,” and his word was final, as to both verdict and punishment. Michael had chosen to execute one man and yet only exile the other.
The punishment of Justinian and Antoninus not only would get rid of them from the scene, but would also frighten and confuse any other conspirators against union, leaving only Constantine and the leaderless masses who were against every disturbance and change.
Who was the real killer? A betrayer among them, an infiltrator or intruder? Even an agent provocateur on Michael’s behalf? It would be understandable. The emperor was embattled on all sides, surrounded by ambition, bigotry, religious fanaticism. Yet he alone was responsible to make the final decisions for his people’s survival, not only in the world, but perhaps in heaven also.
Twenty-two
