ANNA CONTINUED TO WATCH AND LISTEN, BUT THE answer was always the same: She needed to know more about the people surrounding Bessarion in the last years of his life. Perhaps the women he had known might reveal more to her; she would certainly understand them better. Naturally she did not say this to Zoe when she visited her to offer her some new and interesting herbs, but she did ask her help in widening her practice.
Her reward came a week later, when Zoe asked her to call again. This time she was shown into a different room from the one in which she was usually received. This was more formal and beautiful in a traditional way. There was nothing here that seemed to reveal Zoe’s character, as if in this part of the house she received people whom she wished to keep at arm’s length.
Helena was there, exquisitely dressed in dark wine red set with jewels. Her hair was ornamented and gleamed like black silk. Clearly she was no longer in mourning. She watched Anna with an interest devoid of kindness.
There was another, older woman present of commanding demeanor, as different from Zoe as possible. She was barely of average height and uniquely ugly. Her expensively embroidered blue green dalmatica could not disguise her wide, bony, almost masculine shoulders or her lack of bosom. Her broad nose was too strong for her face. Her light eyes were brilliant with intelligence, and her mouth was delicate but without sensuality.
Zoe introduced her as Eirene Vatatzes, and only then, when she smiled, did she momentarily possess an illusion of loveliness. Then it was gone.
With her was a tall young man. His long, dark face was not quite handsome but held a promise of considerable power to come, perhaps in ten years’ time when he was in his late forties. He was a startling contrast to Eirene, and Anna was surprised when he was introduced as her son, Demetrios.
They spoke politely of trivial matters until finally Zoe mentioned that she had been badly burned in an accident. She told how Anna had healed her, holding out her arm to display the unblemished skin for Eirene’s appreciation. She also looked at Helena with a flash of amusement that was very easy for Anna to read.
From then on, the conversation was less comfortable. Helena was sharp, walking across the room with an exaggeratedly graceful movement as if to display her youth in front of the two older women. She did not even glance at Demetrios, but she might as well have stared at him. It was for his attention; she clearly did not care in the least what Anna thought of her. She passed by her as if she barely existed.
Suddenly, Anna found the muted blues of her own tunic and the necessity of her eunuch mannerisms more than usually imprisoning. She felt as if she stood on the edge of the room like a cipher, while the exchanges, spoken and unspoken, passed in front of her. Did all eunuchs feel like this? Did a woman as unlovely as Eirene Vatatzes feel a little of the same thing?
She saw Zoe looking at her with bright, clever eyes. Too much understanding.
The conversation turned to religion, as sooner or later every conversation in Byzantium did. Helena had no particular faith, which was clear from her manner as much as her words. She was beautiful, physically very immediate, but there was no soul in her. Anna could see that, but was it invisible to a man?
She listened to them, averting her eyes slightly so as not to be noticed.
“Very tedious,” Zoe said with a shrug. “But it all comes to money, in the end.” She was looking at Eirene.
Helena looked from her mother to Eirene and back again. “With Bessarion, it was the faith, pure and simple,” she contradicted.
Eirene’s face flickered with impatience, but she kept it in check. “To organize a faith and keep it alive you need a Church, and to keep a Church you need money, my dear.” The words were gentle, even affectionate, but there was a condescension in them of the highly intelligent to the intellectually shallow. “And to defend a city we need both faith and armaments. Since the Venetians stole our relics we have far fewer pilgrims, even since our return in 1262. And most of the silk trade has gone to Arabia, Egypt, and Venice. Trade may be tedious to you, and perhaps to many of those who buy the artifacts, the games, and the fabrics. Perhaps you find blood messy, it smells ugly, it soils the linen, it attracts flies-but try living without it.”
Helena wrinkled her nose in slight revulsion at the simile, but she did not dare argue.
Amusement flashed in Zoe’s eyes. “Eirene understands finances better than most men do,” she observed, not entirely with kindness. “In fact, I have sometimes wondered if Theodorus Doukas really runs the Treasury, or if it is you, most discreetly, of course.”
Eirene smiled, a faint flush in her sallow cheeks. Anna had the sudden thought that there was much truth in Zoe’s remark, and the fact that she perceived it was not entirely displeasing to Eirene.
Conspicuously, Helena said nothing.
Anna became aware that Zoe was watching her, half smiling.
“Do we bore you with our talk of doctrine and politics?” Zoe asked her. “Perhaps we should ask Demetrios for some tales of his Varangian Guard? Colorful men, from all sorts of barbarous places. Lands where the sun shines at midnight in the summer, and it is dark all winter long.”
“One or two of them,” Demetrios agreed. “Others are from Kiev, or Bulgaria, or the principalities of the Danube, or the Rhine.”
Zoe shrugged. “You see?”
Anna felt herself blushing. She had not been listening. “I was thinking,” she lied. “Realizing how much I still have to learn of politics.”
“Well, if you’ve learned that, I suppose you have achieved something,” Helena said waspishly.
Zoe did not hide her laughter, but there was a crackle of ice in her voice when she turned to Helena. “Your tongue is sharper than your mind, my dear,” she said softly. “Anastasius knows how to dissemble, and mask his intelligence with humility. You would do well to learn the same trick. It is not always wise to appear clever.” She blinked. “Even if you were.”
Eirene smiled, then instantly looked away, and the moment after, Anna found her bright, clear eyes fixed steadily on her, curious and interested.
Helena was talking again, looking at Demetrios.
Antoninus might have loved her because he alone could find the tenderness in her. Anna had no idea what they might have shared. Helena might suffer alone now, not daring to let anyone else see, least of all her mother or this other clever, ugly woman who carried such hurt in her face.
Anna looked across to where Helena was standing with Demetrios. She was smiling, and he appeared self-conscious.
“He is beginning to look like his father,” Zoe observed, glancing sideways at Eirene, then back at Demetrios. “Have you heard from Gregory lately?” she continued.
“Yes,” Eirene said tersely.
Anna saw that she stiffened, her body becoming more angular just in the way she stood.
Zoe seemed amused. “Is he still in Alexandria? I see no reason for him to remain there now. Or does he believe we are going to be decimated by the Latins again? I never knew him to care a jot about the intricacies of religion.”
“Really?” Eirene said with raised eyebrows, her brilliant eyes ice cold. “But then perhaps you did not know him nearly as well as you imagined.”
The color was brighter in Zoe’s cheeks. “Perhaps not,” she agreed. “We had some wonderful conversations, but I cannot recall that they were ever about religion.” She smiled.
“Hardly the circumstances conducive to matters of the spirit,” Eirene agreed. She turned to look at Demetrios again. “Yes, he does look like his father,” she said. “A pity you did not have a son… by any of your… lovers.”
Zoe’s face tightened as if she had been slapped. “I would not advise allowing Demetrios to admire Helena too much,” she said softly, in little more than a whisper. “It could be… unfortunate.”