She shook herself impatiently. The only thing of importance was that he was the perfect tool for this task and perhaps for others in the future. She realized with surprise just how sorry she would be if it did destroy him.

The sun was making bright patterns on the floor, its warmth soothing her shoulders. What was the cause of this new hate of Anastasius in Helena? Had he bested her too in something, and was she stupid enough to resent it instead of tasting the amusement of it? Zoe’s daughter gave in to emotion instead of using it.

The idea that was forming in her mind had far greater possibilities than merely destroying Arsenios. By using Anastasius, she might also learn the answer to several questions that had become more and more insistent lately. Anastasius was always interested in the murder of Bessarion. Zoe had assumed that the law was correct and Antoninus had killed him, and then Justinian had helped him conceal it. She had thought that she knew why, but possibly she had been mistaken. It could be dangerous to be wrong.

Also dangerous was the possibility of Michael learning that she had deliberately ruined Arsenios. If he discovered this, he might deduce that she had also killed Cosmas. He might feel inclined to stop her.

That must be prevented. Michael was clever, inventive, a true Byzantine. Above all, he would save his country, his people, against their will if necessary, but he would live or die to prevent the crusaders from burning Constantinople again.

If Zoe were indispensable to him in any part of foiling Charles of Anjou, then he would protect her from the devil himself, let alone some mere question of the law.

Even as she stood in the sun, the sounds of the street echoing below her, the far light gleaming on the sea, she began to see how she would do it.

It took over two weeks for Scalini, the Sicilian, to visit her, alone and at night, as she had insisted. He was a weasel of a man, but clever and not without a sense of humor, and that quality alone redeemed him in her eyes.

“I have a job for you, Scalini,” she told him as soon as he sat in the chair opposite her and she had poured wine. It was long after midnight, and she had only one torch lit.

“Of course.” He nodded and reached for the glass. He put it to his long, sharp nose and sniffed. “Ascalon wine, with honey and something else?”

“Wild camomile seeds,” she told him.

He smiled. “Where is the job? Sicily, Naples… Rome?”

“Wherever the king of the Two Sicilies might be,” she replied. “As long as he is not here. By then it would be too late.”

He grinned. His teeth were sharp and white, well cared for. “He will not be here yet,” he said with relish, licking his lips as if tasting something sweet. “The pope has forgiven the emperor of Byzantium. When he heard this piece of news, His Majesty of the Two Sicilies was so beside himself with rage that he snatched up his own scepter and bit off the top of it!”

Zoe laughed until the tears were wet on her face. Scalini joined in, and they finished the wine. She opened a new bottle, and they finished that as well.

It was coming toward three in the morning when at last she leaned forward, her face suddenly grave. “Scalini, for reasons which are not your concern, I need to have something of great worth to offer the emperor. A year from now may be sufficient, but I need to be certain of it.”

He pursed his lips. “The only thing Michael Palaeologus wants is his throne secure and Constantinople safe. He’ll trade anything else on earth for the city’s security-even the Church.”

“And who threatens him?” she whispered.

“Charles of Anjou. The world knows that.”

“I want to know everything I can about him. Everything! Do you understand me, Scalini?”

His small brown eyes searched her face, studying inch by inch. “Yes, I understand.”

IT WAS BEGINNING TO DISTURB ZOE THAT SHE DID NOT know for certain who had betrayed Justinian to the authorities. She had assumed it was some clumsiness that had caused Antoninus to be caught, and he had been tortured, which was a common practice.

But on reflection, she doubted that even under torture Antoninus, an unquestionably brave man and a soldier of excellent record, would betray any friend, let alone one who was as close as Justinian had been. Now she needed to know who it had been, and if Anastasius would discover that for her, so much the better.

In the meanwhile, he was treating Maria Vatatzes precisely according to Zoe’s plan. The whispers as to the exact nature of Maria’s disease were spreading nicely. The tide of anger would in time take back her brother and her father, just as Zoe intended. “If someone is poisoning her, find out who, and give her an antidote,” she said to Anastasius. “If anyone knows such a thing, it is you.”

“Who would poison her?” Anastasius asked.

Zoe raised her eyebrows. “You ask as if I would know. Her brother Georgios is a friend of Andronicus Palaeologus, as Esaias is, and Antoninus was. They play hard, drink hard, and take their pleasure where they wish. Georgios has a high temper, so I have heard. Perhaps he has enemies? I have wondered if it could have a thread of connection with Bessarion’s death.”

“After five years?” Anastasius said with disbelief.

Zoe smiled. She was not quite sure how much Anastasius knew, and it was sharp in her memory that this bland-seeming eunuch could bite very hard indeed. “Five years is nothing. There is much yet to learn,” she said gently. “Antoninus is dead, but Justinian is still alive. You have asked many questions, but never the only one that I ask and cannot answer…”

“What question is that?” Anastasius’s voice had dropped to a whisper. There was no doubt that Zoe had his total attention now.

“Who betrayed Justinian to the authorities?” Zoe answered.

“Antoninus…,” Anastasius replied, but the certainty had gone from his voice.

Zoe felt victory sing inside her, at least for this first step. “I assumed it was, but your questions stirred doubt in me. Shortly before Bessarion was killed Justinian quarreled with him, passionately. Justinian went to Eirene about it, but she gave him no help. He went to Demetrios, but he was no help, either. He did not come to me. Why was that?” Zoe could see the thoughts racing behind Anastasius’s dark gray eyes. Sometimes for an instant he looked like Justinian, the same expression. Except that Justinian had been such a man!

“Do you think this poisoning of Maria, if that’s what it is, could have something to do with Bessarion’s murder?” Anastasius asked, doubt still in his voice. “Georgios Vatatzes?”

“It might.” Not the truth, but close enough to be believable. “Georgios knew Bessarion, and he knew Antoninus even better.”

“Thank you,” Anastasius said quietly. “Perhaps that is true.”

Anna found Georgios as he was leaving the Blachernae Palace. He was a better-looking man than his father, taller and leaner, without the years of soft living larding his body with fat. He recognized her after only a moment’s hesitation.

“Is my sister worse?” he said sharply, stopping in the shadow of the great outer wall with its immense stones fitted so perfectly together and the high windows that let in so much light.

“No,” Anna said with rather more certainty than she felt. “But she may be, if I don’t find the source of the poison.”

He stiffened. “Why do you say it is poison? Or is this just an excuse because you don’t know how to treat her?”

“I don’t know who is poisoning Maria,” she said quietly. “But I think that if you examine everything you know, particularly about other plots, other deaths, you might know.”

He looked totally confused. “Whose death?”