“Was he a coward?” she asked quietly.

A look of sadness came across Constantine’s face. It was several moments before he spoke again. “I presumed he was simply cautious.” He crossed himself. “God forgive them all. They wished for so much, and all to save the true Church from the dominion of Rome, and the pollution of the faith that will bring.”

She echoed his sign of the cross. She wanted more than anything else to lay the burden of her own guilt at God’s feet and seek His absolution. She remembered her dead husband, Eustathius, with a coldness that still struck: the quarrel, the isolation, the blood, and then the never-ending grief. She would never carry another child. She was fortunate to have healed without crippling. She ached to tell Constantine, to spread all her guilt before him and be cleansed, whatever penance was necessary. But the confession of her imposture would rob her of any chance to help Justinian. There was no punishment fixed for such an offense, it would fall under other laws, but it would be harsh. No one liked to be made a fool of.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. A young priest came in, white-faced and struggling to control his emotion.

“What is it?” Constantine said. “Are you ill? Anastasius is a physician.” He gestured briefly to include Anna.

The priest waved a thin hand. “I am well enough. No physician can heal what ails us all. The envoys are back from Lyons. It was a complete capitulation! They gave up everything! Appeals to the pope, money, the filioque clause.” Tears glistened in his eyes.

Constantine stared at the priest, his face white with horror. Then slowly the blood suffused his skin. “Cowards!” he snarled between his teeth. “What did they bring back with them-thirty pieces of silver?”

“Safety from the crusading armies when they pass this way on their path to Jerusalem,” the priest said wretchedly, his voice quavering.

Anna knew this was a higher reward than perhaps this young priest understood. With a chill passing through her, she remembered Zoe Chrysaphes and the terror that so clearly still haunted her when she felt the flame sear her skin, seventy years afterward.

Constantine was watching her. “They have no faith!” he snapped, his lips drawn back in contempt. “Do you know what happened when we were besieged by barbarians, but kept our faith with the Holy Virgin, and carried her image in our hearts and before our eyes? Do you?”

“Yes.” Anna’s father had told her the story many times, his eyes wistful, half smiling.

Constantine was waiting, standing with his arms spread out, his pale robes splendid in the light. He looked enormous, intimidating.

“The barbarian armies stood before the city,” Anna recounted obediently. “We were vastly outnumbered. Their leader rode forward on his horse, a huge, heavy man, savage as an animal. The emperor went out to meet him, carrying the icon of the Virgin Mary before him. The barbarian leader was struck dead on the spot, and his army fled. Not one of our men was injured and not a stone of the city broken.” Such perfect faith still gave her a strange bubble of excitement inside, as if a warmth had broken open within her. She did not know if the year or the details were exact, but she believed the spirit of it.

“You knew it,” Constantine said triumphantly. “And also when we were besieged by the Avars in 626, we carried the icon of the Blessed Virgin along the halls, and the siege was raised.” He turned to the priest, his face glowing. “Then why is it that the envoys of our emperor, who styles himself ‘Equal of the Apostles,’ do not? How can he even bargain with the devil, let alone yield to him? It’s not the barbarians who will defeat us this time, it’s our own doubt.”

His hands clenched. “We are not conquered by the hordes of Charles of Anjou, or even the liars and hucksters of Rome, but betrayed by our own princes who have lost their faith in Christ and the Holy Virgin.” He swung around to Anna. “You understand, don’t you?”

She saw a desperate loneliness in his eyes. “Michael does not speak for the people,” he said in little more than a whisper. “If we believe enough, we’ll be strong; we may persuade them to trust in God.”

Emotion thickened his voice. “Help me, Anastasius. Be strong. Help me keep the faith we have nurtured and guarded for a thousand years.”

The passions churned inside her, conflicting faith and guilt, love of the beautiful and loathing of the darkness within herself, the memories of hate.

Constantine was quick, sensitive, as if he could taste Anna’s turmoil, even without understanding it. “Be strong,” he urged, his voice now gentle. “You have a great work in your hands. God will help you, if only you believe.”

She was startled. “How? I have no calling.”

“Of course you have,” he answered. “You are a healer. You are the left hand of the priest, the mender of the body, the comforter of pain, the silencer of fears. Speak truth to those to whom you minister. The word of God can heal all ills, protect from the darkness without-but even more, from that within.”

“I will,” she whispered. “We can turn the tide. We will look to God, not to Rome.”

Constantine smiled. He lifted his large white hand in the sign of the cross.

Behind him, the thin young priest echoed it.

“We’d know what to do about it if Justinian were here,” Simonis said grimly as Anna later stood in the warm, herb-scented kitchen, telling her the news. “It’s a disgrace, a blasphemy.” Simonis took a deep breath and turned away from the table to face Anna. “What else have you learned about this Bessarion? We’ve been here almost a year and a half, and his real murderer is still free. Someone must know!” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, her face pinched with guilt. She resumed her work slicing onions and mixing them with aromatic leaves.

“If I’m clumsy, I could make it worse,” Anna tried to explain. “As you said, whoever really killed Bessarion is still here.”

Simonis froze, her body stiffening. “Are you in danger?”

“I don’t think so,” Anna replied. “But you are right. I should look more closely at money. Bessarion was very wealthy, but I can’t find even a whisper that he came by it at anyone else’s cost. He doesn’t seem to have cared very much. He was all about faith.”

“And power,” Simonis added. “Perhaps you should look at that?”

“I will, although I can’t see that it has anything to do with Justinian or Antoninus.”

PALOMBARA AND VICENZE WERE HELD UP BY BAD WEATHER as the year waned and did not reach Constantinople until November. But their first formal duty would be to witness the signing by the emperor and the bishops of the Orthodox Church of the agreement reached at the Council of Lyons. This was to take place on January 16 of the following year, 1275. After that, they would continue as papal legates to Byzantium. It was the job of each to report to His Holiness upon the other, which made the whole exercise a juggling act of lies, evasions, and power.

As envoys of the pope, it was expected that they would live well. Neither humility nor abstinence was expected of them, and their choice of house immediately made even more obvious the differences in their characters.

“This is magnificent,” Vicenze said approvingly of a great house not far from the Blachernae Palace, which would be made available to them at a reasonable price. “No one calling here will mistake our mission or whom we represent.” He stood in the middle of the tessellated floor and surveyed the exquisitely painted walls, the arched ceiling with its perfect proportions, and the ornate pillars.

Palombara looked at it with distaste. “It’s expensive,” he agreed. “But it’s vulgar. I think it’s new.”