Helena received Anna in a newly painted, lush room next to her bedchamber. The murals had been redesigned, far closer to the erotic than Bessarion would have allowed. Anna hid her smile.
Helena was dressed in a loose tunic. She had an ugly rash on her arms. At first, she was frightened and polite. Then, as the herbs and advice began to take effect, she was no longer so concerned and her natural arrogance reasserted itself.
“It still hurts,” Helena said sharply, pulling her arm away.
“It will hurt for a little while longer,” Anna told her. “You must keep the ointment on it, and take the herbs at least twice a day.”
“They’re disgusting!” Helena responded, curling her lip. “Haven’t you got anything that doesn’t taste as if you’re trying to poison me?”
“If I were trying to poison you, I would make it sweet,” Anna replied with a slight smile.
Helena paled. Anna saw it and her interest sharpened. Why had Helena mentioned poison so easily? She looked away and allowed the silk of Helena’s robes to fall back into a more modest position.
“Do you really have any idea what you’re doing?” Helena snapped.
Anna decided on the risk. “If you are worried, I know other physicians who might suit you. And I am sure Zoe would know even more.”
Helena’s eyes were bright and hard, her cheeks flushed. She swallowed as if there were something rank in her throat. “I’m sorry. I spoke in haste. Your skill is quite sufficient. I am unused to pain.”
Anna kept her eyes lowered in case Helena saw in them the contempt she felt. “You are right to be apprehensive. Such things, if not treated quickly, can become serious.”
Helena drew in her breath with a little hiss. “Really? How quickly?”
“As you have done.” Anna had exaggerated the danger. “I have another herb here which will help, but if you wish, I will stay with you, so that if it should have any ill effects in other ways, I can give you the antidote.” That was an invention, but it would take time even to broach the subjects she wished to explore.
Helena gulped. “What sort of effects? Will it make me ill?”
“Faint,” Anna replied, thinking of something not too distressing. “Perhaps a little hot. But it will pass quickly, if I give you the herb which counteracts it. You mustn’t take it if it isn’t needed. I’ll stay with you.”
“And charge extra, no doubt!” Helena snapped.
“For the herb, not for the time.”
Helena considered for several seconds, then accepted. Anna mixed a number of herbs for her and had them steeped in hot water. It would be relaxing, good for the digestion. She soothed her conscience by telling herself she had kept her oath: If she was doing no good, at least she was doing no harm.
Helena saw Anna’s eyes on the murals. “Do you like them?” she asked.
Anna drew in her breath. “I’ve seen nothing like them before.”
“Nor in the flesh, I suppose,” Helena observed with a sneer.
Anna longed to say that she had tended patients in a brothel once and seen something of the sort, but she could not afford to. “No,” she said, clenching her teeth.
Helena laughed.
The servant returned with the steeped herbs in a glass.
Helena sipped it. “It’s sour,” she remarked. She looked at Anna over the top of the glass.
Anna could not afford to delay any longer. “You should look after yourself,” she said, trying to invest her expression with concern. “You have suffered a good deal.” She realized with a jolt that for all she knew, that could be true.
Helena struggled to mask her surprise, not entirely successfully. “My husband was murdered. Of course it is not easy.”
As Anna stood looking at her, she knew it was perfectly possible Helena had actually assisted in his murder, but she hid her disgust behind a pretense of anxiety. “Surely it was worse than that? Was he not killed by men you had supposed to be his friends, and yours?”
“Yes,” Helena said slowly. “I had thought so.”
“I’m sorry,” Anna murmured. “I cannot imagine what it must have been like for you.”
“Of course you can’t,” Helena agreed, a shadow across her face that might have been contempt or only a movement of the light. “Justinian was in love with me, you know?”
Anna gulped. “Really? I had heard it was Antoninus, but perhaps I misunderstood. It was only gossip.”
Helena did not move. “No,” she denied. “Antoninus admired me, perhaps, but that is hardly love, is it?”
“I don’t know,” Anna lied.
Helena smiled. “It isn’t. It is a hunger. Or don’t you know what I mean?” She turned and looked at Anna appraisingly. “It was a euphemism for lust, Anastasius.”
Anna lowered her eyes to prevent Helena from reading them.
“Do I embarrass you?” Helena asked with obvious pleasure.
Anna ached to fight back, to blaze at her that no, she didn’t, she revolted her with greed, manipulation, and lies. But she could not afford to.
“I do embarrass you,” Helena concluded happily. “But you didn’t know Antoninus. He was handsome, in a fashion,” she continued. “But he had not the depth of character of Justinian. He was extraordinary…” She let it hang in the air, the suggestion infinite.
“Were they friends?” Anna asked.
“Oh yes, in many things,” Helena replied. “But Antoninus liked parties, drinking, games, horses, that sort of thing. He was a good friend of Andronicus, the emperor’s son-although perhaps not as much as Esaias. Justinian was an excellent rider, too, but he had more intelligence. He read all sorts of things. He liked architecture, mosaics, philosophy, things that were beautiful.” Regret touched her face, only momentarily, but it was deep.
Anna was touched by it also, with pity, and with a closeness so in that instant she cared for Helena as if they had been one in grief, and perhaps they were.
Then the mood shattered, before she was ready for it.
“You’re right,” Helena said huskily. “I have suffered far more than most people realize. You must take care of me. Don’t look so crushed. You’re a good physician.”
Anna forced her attention back to the present. “I didn’t know that Justinian loved you,” she said, hearing her own voice artificial in her ears. She remembered Constantine saying how Justinian had been revolted by Helena’s advances and rebuffed her. Surely that was the truth? “You must miss him,” Anna added.
“I do,” Helena said with a tight, gleaming smile, unreadable except as a mask for something else. Anna was a servant and a eunuch; why should Helena show her anything she did not have to?
“And your husband, too,” Anna added judiciously.
Helena shrugged. “He was a bore. He was always talking about religion and politics. Away with the damn bishop half the time.”
“Constantine?” Anna said in surprise.
“Of course Constantine,” Helena snapped. She looked at the glass in her hand. “This is disgusting, but it doesn’t make me feel ill. You don’t need to stay,” she dismissed her. “Come again in three days. I’ll pay you then.”
When Anna returned, she had been with Helena only ten minutes when another visitor was announced, Eulogia Mouzakios. Helena had little choice but either to invite her in as soon as she was dressed again or to allow Eulogia to know that she had a physician present-or, more dangerous than that, some other caller she did not wish her to meet.
“If you dare tell her what you came to treat me for, I shall see you never work again,” she snarled. “Do you understand me?”
“Say you have sprained your ankle,” Anna advised. “She will smell the unguent in the air. I will not contradict you.”
Helena straightened her tunic. She did not bother to answer.
Eulogia came in a few moments later, bearing a gift of honeyed fruit. She was an elegant woman, fair-haired and a little thin, several inches taller than Helena. There was a jolting familiarity about her that froze Anna in sudden confusion. She searched her mind for the name and found nothing.