by Anne Perry
Faces turned to stare, and the gasps told her she had succeeded.
She saw Gregory early on—his height made that inevitable—but it was over an hour before he actually spoke to her. They were briefly alone, cut off from the crowd by a row of exquisitely tiled pillars creating a separate room. He offered her a honey cake decorated with almonds.
“No, thank you,” she declined, perhaps too quickly.
A slow smile spread across his face. He made no remark, but their eyes met, and she knew exactly what he was thinking, as he knew what she thought.
His smile widened. “You look marvelous, as always, Zoe. You make every other woman in the room appear as if she is trying too hard.”
“Perhaps what they wish for can be gained by wealth,” she replied, wondering how he would interpret that.
“How tedious,” he said, still not moving his eyes from hers. “How very young. What can be bought cloys so quickly, don’t you think?”
“What can be bought by one person can also be bought by another,” she agreed. “Eventually it becomes vulgar.”
“But not revenge,” he replied. “The perfect revenge is an art, and that has to be created. It can never be satisfying if it is the work of someone else, do you agree?”
“Oh yes. Creating it is half the flavor. But of course only if it succeeds.”
He looked at her, studying her. “Of course it must, but you disappoint me if you think that it must do so immediately. That would be like pouring good wine down your throat, rather than sipping it a little at a time. And my dear, you were never a barbarian to waste your pleasures.”
So he had not meant to kill her! Not yet, anyway. He was going to play first, a cut here, a cut there, bleeding away courage a little at a time. It was the insult to his proud name that counted to Gregory, her monstrous temerity in daring to kill one of his blood—in fact, counting Georgios, two. It was war. She smiled up at him.
“I am Byzantine,” she replied. “That means that I am both sophisticated and barbaric. Whatever I do, I do it to the ultimate degree. I am surprised you need to be reminded of that.” She looked him up and down. “Is your health failing you?”
“Not at all. Nor will it. I am younger than you are.”
She laughed. “You always were younger, my dear. All men are. It is something women must learn to accept. But I am glad if you have not forgotten. To forget one’s pleasures would be a kind of death, a little one, inch by inch.” She smiled at him, eyes bright. “My memory is perfect.”
He did not answer, but she saw the muscles tighten in his jaw. Whether he admitted it or not, she still had power to arouse him. It was a great pity he had to die.
He moved a step away, distancing himself a fraction.
She allowed her smile to widen, laughter into her eyes. “Too little, or too much?” she asked softly.
Anger flared up in the stain of blood in his cheeks. He put out his hand and caught her arm, his fingers hard and tight. She could not have escaped, even had she wanted to. Physical memory of passion was suddenly so sharp that it ran hot through her body.
She looked up at him. If he did not give in to the temptation and make love to her, she would never forgive him. Then killing him would be easy, hardly even regrettable. If he did, and it had all the old passion and strength, then dear God, killing him would be the hardest thing she had ever had to do.
He kept his grip on her arm and strode out, half dragging her along until they were beyond the public rooms in some private quarters with chairs and cushions. For an instant, she was frightened. If she screamed here, not even the Varangian Guard would come. She must not let him see that she was afraid.
But he had seen; he knew it as if he could smell it in the air. He smiled slowly, then allowed himself to laugh, a deep, rich sound of pure pleasure.
She drew in her breath and let it out very slowly. The seconds seemed to be caught, suspended one by one.
Then he let go of her arm and placed his hand on her chest and pushed. She fell backward, surprised and a little ashamed, landing hard on the cushions. She stayed motionless.
“Frightened, Zoe?” he asked.
She still did not know if he was going to make love to her, or kill her, or possibly both. Any word she said might be the wrong one. What was he waiting for?
She let out her breath in a sigh, as if bored.
He tore open her tunic and kissed her, hard, over and over, as he had done in the days when they had loved. Then she knew that at least he would not be able to kill her, not tonight. There were too many old hungers to answer, too much present fire.
For both of them it was easy, as if the years had never happened. They said nothing. Afterward they kissed once, and both knew it would be the last time.
Forty-nine
ZOE KNEW BEYOND ANY DOUBT THAT SHE WOULD HAVE only one chance to kill Gregory. If she lost it, she lost everything. He would not fail.
She was thinking of this on her way home from the baths, her servant Sabas a few feet behind her, when she was bumped unexpectedly hard by a messenger running around a group of women talking in the street. Zoe lost her balance, and in trying to regain it without falling over, she stepped out into the path of the traffic. She was struck by a cart that had just started moving forward. She fell heavily and felt a sharp pain in her lower leg.
There were shouts of alarm and sympathy around her. People rushed forward, Sabas among them, and a tangle of arms thrust out to help her, pushing and shoving to get the cart backward without startling the horse into bolting. Arms pulled her up, tearing her robe, and she was unceremoniously put down on the ground with her back to the wall of the nearest shop while an old woman wagged her head and looked with alarm at the blood staining the fabric.
Then Sabas was there, bending over her. Without asking permission, he tore the hem off Zoe’s tunic and used it to bind the wound.
“Look where you’re going in future,” an old man said waspishly.
Zoe was too shaken to retaliate, but she looked at his face so she would remember it, and one day she would repay his insolence. He saw something in her gaze and hurried away.
Sabas found a carriage and helped her in, and she was carried home, angry and for the moment consumed with pain.
As soon as she arrived, she sent Sabas off again at a run to fetch Anastasius. He was obliged to ask Simonis where Anastasius was and then follow her to another patient who was not seriously ill. Anastasius left almost immediately and accompanied him back.
Zoe was in too much distress to complain about waiting. Blood had soaked through the makeshift bandage, and the wound was throbbing so she could feel it all the way up to the groin. She told Anastasius what had happened and watched while he unbound the bloody edge of her tunic and exposed the wound. It looked horrible, and it turned her stomach and sent a chill of fear through her, but she would not let him see her avert her eyes.
He worked quickly. She noticed that he had beautiful hands, like a woman’s—slender, long-fingered—and he moved with both delicacy and strength. She wondered what he would have been like had he been allowed to grow into a man. There was something in the turn of his head, an inflection of the voice, that reminded her of Justinian. It came suddenly as he frowned and bent to look more closely at an herb, then the likeness was gone again.
“I need to stitch the sides together,” Anastasius told her. “Otherwise it will take a long time to heal, and it will leave a worse scar. I’m sorry, but it will feel unpleasant.”
“Then do it quickly,” Zoe ordered him. “I want it healed. And I don’t care for blood all over the place.”
Anastasius threaded one of his curved needles with silk. “Now please keep perfectly still. I don’t wish to cause you any more pain than I have to. Would you like Thomais to hold you steady?”
Zoe looked at Anastasius and met the unflinching gray eyes. It was the first time she had looked at him so intently. He had long eyelashes and his eyes were beautiful, but it was the intelligence in
them that excited her, even alarmed her. It was as if his mind touched hers and read it much more intimately than she would have expected.
He had started to stitch, and she had not noticed it. She watched him work quickly, admiring his skill.
“It seems you are busy now, Anastasius,” she remarked. “Your reputation has spread. I hear many people speaking of your abilities.”
He smiled without taking his eyes from his work. “I am grateful to you for that. I owe my first recommendations to you. I believe it was you who gave my name to Eirene Vatatzes. I have attended her since then.”
Zoe froze, her body suddenly rigid.
“I’m sorry,” Anastasius apologized. “I am nearly finished.”
Zoe swallowed. “Tell me about Eirene. It will take my mind off what you are doing. How is she, now that her husband has returned from Alexandria?”
“Recovering.” Anastasius put in the last stitch and, very gently, so as not to pull the flesh, cut the silk with a blade. “It may take her a little while.”
“Thank you. Did you meet her husband?”
Anastasius looked up. “Yes. An interesting man. He mentioned that he knew you.”
“A long time ago. What did he say?”
Anastasius smiled, as if he knew exactly what was in her mind and in Eirene’s. “He said you were the most beautiful woman in Byzantium, not for your face, or even your body, but for the passion in you.”
Zoe looked away. She could not face Anastasius’s eyes. “Really? No doubt he said it to annoy Eirene. She has a temper, and that amuses him. And what did you say?” she demanded, facing him again, the high color in her cheeks masked as anger.
Anastasius smiled. “My answer was unimportant.”
“Oh? What was it?”
“I told him that I was not in a position to appreciate it, but I quite believed him that it was so,” Anastasius replied.
She gasped at his nerve, felt the remembered heat scorch up her face again, then burst into laughter, a rich peal of pure delight.
Anastasius poured some fine powder into a small silk sachet and then placed a jar of ointment on the table beside it. “Take a spoonful of this in hot water once a day.” He handed her a ceramic spoon, wide but shallow. “Level, do not heap it. Draw a knife over the top to make certain of that. It will keep the infection from getting worse. And put the ointment on if it starts to itch. It probably will do, as it heals. I shall call again in a week to remove some of the stitches, and then take out the rest a week or so after that. But if it gives you cause for anxiety because it is inflamed or it suppurates, send for me immediately. Or if you become feverish.”
After Anastasius was gone and Thomais had assisted her to bathe and put on clean clothes, Zoe became aware of the steadily increasing pain in her leg. By nightfall, it was throbbing so powerfully that she could think of little else. She sent for hot water and measured out the powder Anastasius had left and dropped it into the cup. She was about to drink it, and suddenly a hideous thought came to her. What if Gregory was using Anastasius, perhaps the only person outside her own household whom she would trust?
Carefully, in case any of it spilled on her, she threw out the medicine. At first she thought to destroy it with fire and then realized just in time that it might be just as lethal if it was burned and its fumes inhaled. She ended up tipping all the powder into the hot water and pouring it down the drain.
Three days later, she was in even greater pain. In spite of having treated it herself and taken one of her own powders to get rid of fever, the wound was red and angry, and it felt as if it were on fire. Every now and then she was dizzy. She drank glass after glass of water; it tasted even more brackish than usual, and she was always thirsty.
Now she was certain that Gregory was behind the attack and that somehow he had managed to introduce poison into the wound.
“Look for poison!” she told Anastasius when he came. “The wound is infected. Someone is trying to kill me.”
Anastasius looked at her, studying her hot, golden eyes, her flushed skin, and then last the raw wound in her leg, which was beginning to suppurate. He touched it gently with one cool finger, then turned to her. “Did you use the medicine I gave you? And don’t lie, unless you want to lose your leg.”
“No,” she said quietly. “I was afraid that whoever poisoned me might have reached you, too.”
Anastasius nodded. “I see. Then we had better start again, from the beginning. The infection is serious now. I shall stay here and watch you. I have every interest in your recovery. It would be bad for my reputation if you died, so do as I tell you.” He smiled very slightly, a deep, inward humor.
He stayed, nursing her all day and to begin with all night as well. He sat beside her, talking to her through the increasing pain. At first it irritated her. Then gradually she realized that as she answered his questions, she became less aware of how badly she hurt. Obliquely, it was kind of him.
“Demetrios?” she answered his last question, smiling in spite of herself. “Not like his father. Weaker. In love with Helena? Probably not. In love with power, certainly. Thinks he hides it, but he doesn’t. Eirene’s son, but without her intelligence. Brilliant with money, like her.” She laughed, but so deep inside herself that he did not hear it. “Helena thinks he loves her, but then she thinks all sorts of things. Fool.”
“Did Justinian love her?” Anastasius asked, sounding only mildly interested, as if he were still trying to take her mind from the pain.
“Loathed her,” Zoe answered frankly. Damn it, her leg hurt! She was getting a little dizzy. Was she going to die after all?
He made her drink something more that tasted foul. Had Gregory got to him? She searched his eyes, his face, and could read something in it beyond curiosity, but what?
“Anastasius,” Zoe whispered.
“Yes?”
“If I am alive in the morning, I shall tell you why Justinian Lascaris killed Bessarion. Bloody fool! He didn’t come to me, and I was the one person who would have believed him. I can see it for myself now. Only mistake he made, but it cost him everything. Idiot!”
Anastasius looked as if she had struck him, his face an odd mixture of ashen pale and red spots on his cheeks, like weals.
The room was beginning to swim around Zoe. She was growing delirious with fever. He forced her to drink something that was even more vile than the last time, but when she awoke at midday she was much improved.
Anastasius was smiling at her. “Better?” he inquired with some satisfaction.
“Much better.” She sat up slowly, and he offered her something to drink that was pleasant. “Thank you.”
He eased her back down again. He was stronger than she had expected. Or perhaps she was weaker.
“It’s morning,” Anastasius observed.
“I can see that!” Zoe snapped.
A smile flickered in Anastasius’s eyes. “Then you will tell me why Justinian was a fool not to trust you?” he said with an edge to his voice. “Or was I the fool to believe it?”
Memory rushed back. “What was that you just gave me?”
Anastasius smiled. “You haven’t answered my question.”
“Justinian knew Bessarion was useless,” Zoe said quietly. “He would have been a disaster on the throne. But the others wouldn’t believe Justinian. They’d put everything into it and the plans had gone too far. The only way to stop it was to kill Bessarion. Antoninus believed Justinian. He helped.” She almost laughed when she thought of it, except that it was so futile. “Fool. I would have stopped it. They could have done nothing without me. But Justinian didn’t trust me. What was it I just drank?”
Anastasius stared at her as if mesmerized.
“What was it I just drank?” Zoe repeated, her voice more angry and frightened than she had wanted to betray.
“Infusion of camomile,” Anastasius answered. “It’s good for the digestion. Just camomile leaves in hot water, nothing else. It’s bitter because you’ve been ill. Th
at alters your taste.”
She did not want to admire Anastasius, and it was a curious feeling to trust him. Yet at least as far as medicine was concerned, she did. She lay back at last, for the time being content.
After three days, she began to regain strength and the wound was less red and the swelling subsided. After a week, he pronounced it satisfactory and said he would leave and return at the end of another three days.
She thanked him, paid him generously, and also gave him the gift of a small enameled box made of silver and inlaid with aquamarine. He touched it gently, looking first at its beauty, then up at her. His appreciation of it was clear in his face, and she was satisfied. She told him to leave.
Zoe was glad Anastasius had liked it. He had ministered to her not only with skill, but with gentleness. It had given her a serious fright to be so vulnerable. It could not go on like this.
An idea was beginning to take shape in her mind. She would make Gregory’s death count. She would contrive a means to have Giuliano Dandolo blamed for it. That way, she could bear to kill Gregory. She could even do it herself.
Fifty
WITH GREGORY, ZOE WOULD HAVE NO SECOND CHANCE.
In a perverse way, this last battle between them was another kind of bond. She thought of him during the day. She lay awake at night and remembered how it was to be with him.
Another piece of the plan fell into her hands. It was the street attacks upon Bessarion and then upon herself that gave her the idea.
The first thing was to plant the seeds in people’s minds that there was a quarrel between Gregory and Giuliano Dandolo. It must be just a superficial word, so slight that the meaning was recalled only afterward and understood then.
The second thing was to go to Bardas, a maker of daggers whom she knew and had trusted in the past. She put on her heaviest dalmatica and went out into the windy street and the light rain. Walking quickly, she left Sabas far behind her as he was used to being, discreet, seeing and hearing nothing. The pain in her leg was barely there anymore.