On June 29, Gregory celebrated the Mass in the Cathedral of St. Jean again. The Epistle, Gospel, and Creed were sung both in Latin and in Greek.

On July 6, the emperor’s letter was read aloud and the Byzantine ambassadors promised fidelity to the Latin Church and abjured all the propositions it denied.

Gregory held the world in his hands. It was all accomplished; unworthy bishops had been deposed, certain mendicant orders suppressed, and the orders of St. Francis and St. Dominic warmly approved. The cardinals would no longer be able to dither and delay the election of a new pope. Rudolph of Hapsburg was recognized as the future monarch of the Holy Roman Empire.

In spite of the death of Thomas Aquinas on his way to Lyons, and of St. Bonaventure in Lyons itself, Gregory’s cup of triumph ran over.

Palombara felt as if there was nothing left for him to do.

Still, Gregory wished both Palombara and Vicenze to return briefly to Rome and then prepare to sail to Constantinople. If they met with the same weather the Byzantine envoys had, this could take as long as six weeks. They would not arrive until October. But they had something priceless to deliver: an embassy of hope for the unity of the Christian world.

It was August and miserably hot in Rome when Palombara, returning from Lyons, walked across the familiar square toward the great arches in front of the Vatican Palace, the enormous building stretching left and right to either side, windows glinting in the sun. As always, people came and went; the wide steps were dotted with the colors of pale robes, purple hats and capes, touches of scarlet.

This was to be Palombara’s last audience before departing again. He already knew their purpose was to make sure that the emperor Michael Palaeologus kept all the great promises he had written to the pope, that there was indeed substance behind the words. It might become necessary to warn Michael of the cost to his own people should they fail. The balance of power was delicate. Another crusade led by Charles of Anjou might not be far away. Men and ships would sail for Constantinople by the thousand, armed for war. The city’s survival depended upon them coming in peace, as brothers in Christ, not as invading conquerors of an alien faith, as they had been at the beginning of the century, killing and burning, destroying the last bastion against Islam.

Palombara looked forward to the challenge of it, and the adventure. It would stretch his intelligence, test his judgment, and, if he was successful, considerably advance his career. And he also looked forward to being immersed in a new culture. The great buildings were still left, the Hagia Sophia, at least, and the libraries, the markets with all the spices, silks, and artifacts of the East. He would enjoy a different lifestyle, more of the Arab and the Jewish thought, and of course more of the Greek than was easy to find here in Rome.

But he would miss what he was leaving behind. Rome was the city of the Caesars, the heart of the greatest empire the world had ever seen. Even St. Paul had been proud to claim its citizenship.

But Palombara was also an intruder here, a Tuscan, not a Roman, and he missed the beauty of his own land. He loved the long view of rolling hills, so many of them forested. He missed the light on them at dawn, the color of sunset and shadow, the silence of the olive groves.

He smiled as he walked toward the wide steps. He was halfway up when he realized that one of the men standing waiting was Niccolo Vicenze, his pale, zealous eyes studying Palombara.

He looked at Vicenze’s dour face with its pale brows and felt a chill of warning.

Vicenze smiled with his lips, his eyes unchanging as he moved into Palombara’s path. “I have our instructions from the Holy Father,” he said with no inflection in his voice except a slight lift. It almost hid his satisfaction. “But no doubt you would like the Holy Father’s blessing upon you also, before we leave.”

In one sentence he had made Palombara redundant: an escort, there simply because one was customary.

“How considerate of you,” Palombara replied, as if Vicenze had been a servant who had obliged him beyond his duty.

Vicenze looked momentarily confused. Their natures were so utterly disparate that they could have used the same words to convey opposite meanings.

“It will be a great achievement to bring Byzantium back into the true Church,” Vicenze added.

“Let us hope we can accomplish it,” Palombara observed dryly, then saw the gleam in Vicenze’s pale eyes and wished he had not been so candid. There were seldom meanings behind meaning with Vicenze, only the obsession for control and conformity. It was a strangely inhuman trait of character. Was it holiness, the dedication of a saintly man, or the madness of one who had not too much love of God so much as too little of mankind? Since he last saw him, he had forgotten how much he disliked Vicenze.

“We will be equal to the task. We will not cease until we are,” Vicenze said slowly, giving each word weight. Perhaps he had a sense of humor after all.

Palombara stood in the sun and watched Vicenze walk down the steps and into the square with a slight swagger, papers in his hand. Then he turned and went up past the guard and into the coolness of the shadowed hall.

BY SEPTEMBER, ANNA HAD DISCOVERED MORE INFORMATION about both Antoninus and Justinian himself, but what she had found all seemed superficial, and she could see in it no meaning or connection with the murder of Bessarion. There seemed nothing the three men all had in common except a dislike for the proposed union with Rome.

From all accounts, Bessarion had been not only serious-minded, but extremely sober of nature and spoke often and with great passion about the doctrine and history of the Orthodox Church. While respected, even admired, he allowed no intimacy. She felt an unwilling flicker of sympathy for Helena.

Like Bessarion, Justinian was a member of an imperial family, but much further from the center of it. Unlike Bessarion, he had no inherited wealth. His importing business was necessary for his survival, and he appeared to have succeeded with it, although with his exile all his property had been forfeited. The merchants of the city and ships’ captains in the harbors all still knew his name. They were shocked that he had stooped to murder Bessarion. They had not only trusted Justinian, they had liked him.

It was hard for Anna to listen and control her sense of loss. The bitter loneliness inside her was so vast, it threatened to tear through her skin.

Antoninus had been a soldier. It was far more difficult for her to learn more of him. The few soldiers she treated spoke well of him, but he had been their senior in rank, and all they knew was repute and hearsay. He was strict and he was unquestionably brave. He enjoyed wine and a good joke-not the sort of man Bessarion would have liked.

But Justinian would. It made no sense, no pattern.

She sought the only person she trusted-Bishop Constantine. He had helped Justinian, even at risk to his own safety.

He welcomed her into a smaller room in his house than the warm, ocher one with the marvelous icons. This had cooler earth tones and looked down at a courtyard. The murals were pastoral, with muted colors. The floor was green-tiled, and there was a table set for dining and two chairs beside it. At his insistence, she sat in one of them to leave sufficient space for him to walk gently back and forth, deep in thought.

“You ask about Bessarion,” he said, absentmindedly smoothing his fingers over the embroidered silk of his dalmatica. “He was a good man, but perhaps lacking the fire to stir men’s souls. He weighed, he measured, he judged. How can a man be at once so passionate of mind and so indecisive?”