“How could He?” Euphrosane said wretchedly. “My husband died young, before he had achieved half the things he could have, and I did not even bear a child! Now I am afflicted with an illness so ugly no other man will want me. How could God love me? I am doing something terribly wrong, and I don’t even know what it is.”

“Yes, you are,” Anna said vehemently. “How dare you dismiss yourself as useless or ugly? God does not need you to get everything right, because nobody is going to do that, but He does expect you to try, and to trust Him.”

Euphrosane stared at her in wonder. “I understand,” she said, the confusion gone. “I shall repent, immediately.”

“And use the medicine as well,” Anna warned. “He gave us herbs and oils, and intelligence to understand their purpose. Don’t throw His gift back at Him. That would be ingratitude, which is also a very serious sin indeed.” And it would make the whole exercise pointless, but she could not tell her that.

“I will! I will!” Euphrosane promised.

A week later, Euphrosane was completely healed, which made Anna wonder if perhaps much of her fever had been due to fear of an imagined guilt.

She went to report to Zoe, as asked, and this time she had to wait nearly half an hour before being admitted. She knew the moment she saw Zoe’s face that she was already aware of Euphrosane’s recovery. Quite probably she also knew how much Anna had been paid, but she could not afford to let her irritation show. She thanked Zoe again for the referral.

“What did you think of her?” Zoe asked casually. Today she wore dark blue and gold. With her warm hair and eyes, the effect was superb. There were times when Anna longed, with almost physical pain, to dress as a woman again herself and to ornament her hair. Then she could face Zoe on an even footing. She forced herself to remember Justinian somewhere in the sterility of the Judean desert, possibly even wearing sackcloth, and the reason she was here posing as a eunuch. Did he imagine she had forgotten him?

Zoe was waiting, her expression impatient. “Is your opinion of Euphrosane so bad you cannot answer me honestly? You owe me that, Anastasius.”

“Gullible,” Anna replied. “A sweet young woman, painfully honest, but easily persuaded. Obedient. Too fearful not to be.”

Zoe’s golden eyes opened wide. “So you bite,” she said with amusement. “Be careful. You cannot afford to nip the wrong person.”

The sweat broke out on Anna’s skin, but she did not look away. She knew never to let Zoe sense weakness. “You asked for the truth. Should I tell you less?”

“Never,” Zoe replied, her eyes bright as faceted gems. “Or if you lie, then do it so well that I never find out.”

Anna smiled. “I doubt I could do that.”

“Interesting that you are wise enough to say so,” Zoe replied softly, almost a purr. “There is something I would like you to do for me. If a merchant named Cosmas Kantakouzenos should ask your opinion of Euphrosane’s character, as he might, would you be as candid with him? Tell him she is honest, guileless, and obedient.”

“Of course,” Anna replied. “I would be grateful if you would tell me more about Bessarion Comnenos.” It was a bold question, and she had not had time to think of any explanation for her interest. But Zoe had not given any reason why she wished Euphrosane recommended to Cosmas.

Zoe walked over to the window and stared out at the complex pattern of rooftops. “I suppose you mean his death,” she said dryly. “Bessarion’s life was uninteresting. He married my daughter, but he was a bore. Pious and chilly.”

“And he was killed for that?” Anna said with disbelief.

Zoe turned around slowly, her eyes sweeping up and down Anna from her woman’s face in the guise of a eunuch, naked of a masculine beard and unsoftened by the lushness of feminine curls and ornaments. Zoe’s eyes traveled down her body, bound at the chest, padded out from shoulder to hip to hide the natural curve.

Anna knew what she looked like. She had worked hard on her appearance. Yet at times like these, in the presence of a woman who was beautiful, even now, she hated it. Her hair no longer than to her shoulders actually became her face. It was less stiff than the highly dressed styles women wore, but still she missed the combs and ornaments she had once had. More than that she missed the color for her brows, the powder to even out the tones of the skin, the artificial color to make her lips less pale.

A servant’s footsteps passed audibly across the floor in the next room.

Deliberately, Anna forced herself to remember Zoe’s terror when she had been burned, the nakedness of the pain in her. It reduced her to a human being in need.

Zoe saw some change in her but did not comprehend it. She gave the slightest shrug of one shoulder. “It was not an isolated incident,” she remarked. “A year before his death he was attacked in the street. We never learned if it was an attempt at robbery, or one of his own bodyguards, perhaps, seizing a chance to stab him in the scuffle but making a mess of it. He was cut only once, but it was quite deep.”

“Why would one of his own bodyguards do that?” Anna asked.

“I have no idea,” Zoe answered, then saw instantly from Anna’s face that that was an error. Zoe would always know, and she would never admit ignorance. Now to cover the disadvantage Zoe would attack. “It was before you came,” she said. “Why does it concern you?”

“I need to know friends and enemies,” Anna answered her. “Bessarion’s death still seems to be of interest to many people.”

“Of course,” Zoe said tartly. “He was of one of the old imperial families, and led the cause against union with Rome. Many people placed their hopes in him.”

“And now in whom?” Anna asked-too quickly.

There was a flash of humor in Zoe’s eyes. “And you imagine this was a bid for sainthood. Or that Bessarion is some kind of martyr?”

Anna blushed, angry with herself for opening the way for such a remark. “I want to know the allegiances, for my own safety.”

“Very wise,” Zoe said softly with a flicker of appreciation, an inner light of laughter. “And if you succeed, you will be cleverer than anyone else in Byzantium.”

WHEN ANASTASIUS WAS GONE, ZOE REMAINED ALONE IN the room, standing at the window. She never tired of the view. Up that shining strip of water had sailed Jason and his Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece. He had found Medea and betrayed her. Her revenge had been terrible. Zoe could well understand. She was nearly ready to exact her own revenge on the Kantakouzenos. Cosmas was Zoe’s age. It was his father, Andreas, who had told the crusaders where the vial was with the blood of Christ in it, in order to save himself. Dead now, he was beyond Zoe’s reach, let God burn him in hell. But Cosmas was alive and well and now here again in Constantinople, prospering. He had much to lose. She watched him as she would watch a fruit ripening, read to be plucked.

Her eyes moved to the golden bowl on the table. It was full of apricots, like liquid amber touched with the red of the sun. She picked one up and bit into it, crushing its flesh between her teeth and letting the juice run over her lips onto her chin.

Euphrosane’s grandfather Georgios Doukas had helped steal icons from the Hagia Sophia, the Mother Church of Byzantium. He had even helped them take the Holy Shroud of Christ itself. Its loss to the Orthodox faith could never be forgiven. Now the coarse, irreverent fingers of the Latins would hold it. Zoe’s whole body shuddered at the thought, as if she herself had been touched intimately by something foul.

It was a stroke of good fortune that Euphrosane had fallen ill with a disease of the skin that her own physician could not heal. It had enabled Zoe to send the eunuch physician to her, and he in turn would get Cosmas to trust her.