Anna pictured Helena’s face. “I think she knows humiliation. She told me Justinian was in love with her. She showed me a beautiful box that she said he gave her.” She saw it in her mind as she said it. It was the sort of thing Justinian would have chosen, but surely not for Helena?

Constantine’s mouth curled with distaste and perhaps a vestige of pity. “Lies,” he said without hesitation. “He disliked her, but he believed that Bessarion could lead the people against the union with Rome, so he hid his feelings.”

“She said he quarreled with Bessarion badly, shortly before he was killed. Was that a lie, too?”

Constantine stared at her. “No,” he said quietly. “That was the truth. He told me of it himself.”

“Why?” she demanded. “Was it about Helena? Did Justinian tell him that Helena had… How could he tell him such a thing?”

“He didn’t.” Constantine shook his head minutely. “It was not to do with Helena.”

“Then what?”

“I can’t tell you,” he replied. “I’m sorry.”

The protest welled up inside her. She saw in his face that he knew the answer and that he would not tell her.

“Was it a confession?” she said shakily. “Justinian?” Now the fear gripped inside her like an iron hand closing.

“I cannot tell you,” Constantine repeated. “To do so would betray others. Some things I know, some I guess. Would you have me speak that aloud, were it your heart and your secret?”

“No,” she said hoarsely. “No, of course I wouldn’t. I’m sorry.”

“Anastasius…” He swallowed hard. His skin was very pale. “Be very careful of Helena, of all of them. There is such a lot that you don’t understand, life and death, cruelty, hatred, old debts and dreams, things that people never let go of.” He leaned farther toward her. “Two men are dead already, and a third exiled, and that is only a tiny part of it. Serve God in your own way, heal their ills, but leave the rest of it alone.”

To argue with him would be pointless and unfair. She had not told him the truth, so how could he understand? They were each trying to reach the other, he failing because he was bound by the sanctity of confession, she because she could not trust him with the truth of why she could not let go of any of it.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “Thank you for listening.”

“We shall pray together,” he replied. “Come.”

She was at the Blachernae Palace, having treated one of the eunuchs for a bad chest infection and been up with him all night until the crisis broke. Then she had been sent for by the emperor over a minor skin irritation. She was still with him when the two papal legates from Rome, Palombara and Vicenze, were granted an audience and were shown in, as was customary, by the Varangian Guard. They were always there, strong men with lean, hard bodies, dressed in full armor. The emperor was never without them, no matter the time of day or night, how formal or trivial the occasion.

Anna stood a little apart, not included, yet neither had she been given leave to go. She recalled her unpleasant journey to Bithynia with Vicenze, during which Cyril Choniates was nearly killed.

All the ritual greetings were exchanged, well-wishes that no one meant. Beside Anna, Nicephoras was watching every inflection while outwardly seeming merely to wait. Only once did he glance at her with a momentary smile. She realized that he would remain here, judging both words and silences, and afterward give Michael his counsel. She was glad of that.

“There is still some dissension among certain factions who do not see the need for Christendom to stand together,” Vicenze said with barely concealed impatience. “We must do something decisive to prevent them from causing trouble among the people.”

“I’m sure His Majesty is aware of that.” Palombara glanced at Vicenze, then away again, both humor and dislike in his eyes.

“He cannot be,” Vicenze argued impatiently. “Or he would have addressed it. I seek only to inform, and ask advice.” The look of contempt he shot his fellow legate was sharp and cold.

Palombara smiled, and that too was a gesture without warmth. “His Majesty will not tell us everything he knows, Your Grace. He would hardly have led his people back again to their city, and kept them safe, were he ignorant of their nature and their passions, or lacking in either the skill or the courage to govern them.”

Anna hid her smile with difficulty. This was becoming interesting. Rome certainly did not speak with a single voice, although it might be only ambition or personal enmity that divided them.

Palombara looked at Michael again. “Time is short, Your Majesty. Is there some way in which we might assist? Are there leaders with whom we might speak, and resolve some of their fears?”

“I have already spoken with the patriarch,” Vicenze told him. “He is an excellent man, of great vision and understanding.”

For half a second, it was clear in Palombara’s face that he had not known that. Then he concealed it and smiled. “I don’t think the patriarch is where we need to concentrate our efforts, Your Grace. Actually I believe it is the monks in different abbeys who harbor the greatest reservations about trusting Rome. But perhaps your information is different from mine?”

Two spots of color stained Vicenze’s pale cheeks, but he was too furious to trust himself to speak.

Palombara looked at Michael. “Perhaps if we were to discuss the situation, Your Majesty, we might learn of a way in which, in Christian brotherhood, we could find an accord with these holy men, and persuade them of our common cause against the tide of Islam, which I fear is lapping ever closer around us.”

This time it was Michael whose face lit with amusement. The conversation continued for a further twenty minutes, and then the two legates withdrew, and shortly afterward Anna went after them, having finally been noticed and given permission to leave.

She was on the way through the last hall before the great doors when she encountered Palombara, apparently alone. He looked at her with interest, and she was unpleasantly aware of a certain curiosity in him because he was clearly unfamiliar with eunuchs. She became self-conscious, aware of her woman’s body under the clothes, as if he could see some kind of guilt in her eyes. Perhaps to a man unused to even the concept of a third gender, her masquerade was more apparent. Did she look feminine to him? Or was he simply considering how mutilated she was that her hands were so slender, and her neck, her jaw, lighter than a man’s? She must say something to him quickly, engage his intellect away from her physical presence.

“You will find it a difficult task persuading the monks of the truth of your doctrine, Your Grace.” Normally she was not conscious of her voice, but now to her it sounded so much that of a woman, without the mellower, more throaty quality of a eunuch. “They have given their lives to Orthodoxy,” she added. “Some in most terrible martyrdom.”

“Is that what you advise the emperor?” he asked, taking a step closer to her. In spite of his bishop’s robes and emblems of office, there was a virility about him that was unpriestly. She wanted to make some uniquely eunuch gesture, to remind both of them that she was not a woman, but she could think of nothing that would not be absurd.

“The last advice I gave him was to drink infusion of camomile,” she answered, and was delighted to see Palombara’s puzzlement.

“For what purpose?” he asked, knowing she was taking some advantage of him to amuse herself.

“It relaxes the mind and assists digestion,” she replied. Then, in case he should think the emperor was ill: “I came to attend one of the eunuchs who had a fever.” Now she was aware of her crumpled dalmatica after a long night of nursing and the pallor of her face from weariness. “I have been with him for many hours, but fortunately he is past the crisis. Now I am free to leave, and attend my other patients.” She moved forward to pass him.