“They were friends?” Anna did not look up from her work.

“I suppose so. Esaias was really a companion of the emperor’s son, Andronicus. They used to go riding together, and to the horse races. And of course drinking, gambling, parties of one sort and another.”

“I can’t see Bessarion liking that,” Anna remarked. “From what people say, he was remarkably serious.”

“The word you are looking for is humorless,” Eirene said wryly, at last looking at the sore as Anna finished bandaging it. “You are gentle. Thank you.”

Eirene was too clever to be fooled. If the wild idea in Anna’s mind was right, it would be not only pointless but dangerous to awaken her suspicions. She felt her hands shaking. “I’m sorry,” she apologized.

“It’s nothing,” Eirene said, dismissing the slight brush of Anna’s hand over one of the other wounds. “You are quite right. Bessarion did not like Esaias. I think he merely used him.”

Anna took a deep, quivering breath. “In his struggle to… to save the Church?” She invested her voice with puzzlement, as if she did not understand. “I cannot imagine him working to indulge in such… parties.”

There was a minute’s fleeting pity in Eirene’s eyes for the eunuch robbed of manhood, which she took Anna to be, of both its pleasures and its weaknesses. “He didn’t,” she said gently. “Nor Justinian. Esaias was planning the biggest party with horse races, from the night after Bessarion was killed. It would have been superb. Esaias was a magnificent host; I should add that to his list of qualities.”

Anna pretended interest. “Really? Horse racing? That can be exciting to watch. I suppose everyone would have been there, even Bessarion?”

Eirene hesitated.

“Wouldn’t they?” Anna’s heart was thundering inside her.

Eirene looked away. “No. I believe on that occasion Bessarion was supposed to have an audience with the emperor.”

The silence in the room was heavy, almost prickling. Anna started to roll up the unused bandages and put them away. “So the emperor would not have been there?”

“It hardly matters now,” Eirene said, a sudden, hard edge to her voice. “Bessarion and Antoninus are dead, and Justinian is in exile.” She looked at her bandaged arms. “Thank you.”

“I’ll come and dress them again tomorrow,” Anna told her, standing up. “And bring you more herbs.”

Working quietly in the evening, alone in the room where she kept her medicines, Anna crushed leaves, ground roots and stems, sometimes with mortar and pestle, always being careful never to let one herb contaminate another; and all the while, thoughts crowded her mind as she turned over every possible interpretation of what she had learned.

Did she have all the pieces that mattered, if only she could put them in the right order? Bessarion was a religious fanatic devoted to the Orthodox Church. He was a Comnenos, one of the old imperial families. He was passionate to prevent the union with Rome that Michael Palaeologus had already begun, and that was dividing the nation, because he believed it was the only way to avert another invasion.

Justinian had quarreled several times with Bessarion; the last and worst argument was just before the murder. It made a picture she could no longer deny. They had planned to kill Michael so Bessarion could usurp the throne. Justinian would help him. Esaias and Antoninus were to hold Andronicus, perhaps even kill him also. Then Bessarion would withdraw all agreement to the union with Rome-calling on those loyal to the Church to support him, and that support would naturally be led by Constantine.

All the difficulties had been foreseen and planned for. Justinian to deal with the merchants and the harbormasters. Antoninus to hold the leaders of the army; Demetrios himself to have bribed or otherwise won over the Varangian Guard on duty that night and, once the emperor was dead, to give their loyalty to the new emperor, Bessarion.

Who would actually have killed Michael? The Varangian Guard would not let anyone close enough. There could be only one answer to that. Zoe would do it, if she believed it was to save Byzantium.

Anna poured powder into a jar, labeled it, and cleaned her tools, then began again.

Dynasties had changed violently before and no doubt would again. The more she thought of it, the more did Bessarion seem just the nature of fanatic to whom that would be the necessary and noble thing to do.

It was an explanation that answered far too much for her to discount it. She would have to struggle with the rest, but immeasurably more carefully-and never for the second in which it takes to say a word or make an unguarded gesture forget that all the rest of the conspirators were still here, still alive, and perhaps seeking another pretender to the throne, such as Demetrios Vatatzes.

She shivered as the knots of fear wound tighter inside her.

The next patient she treated required several days of her attention, and he was in the Venetian Quarter, down by the shore. He had been quite severely cut when he was attacked in a brawl near the docks. His family were afraid to ask a local Christian doctor, and Anna’s reputation had spread.

He was bleeding profusely. She had no choice but to try a method she had seen her father use in extreme cases. He had learned it traveling in his youth, north and eastward beyond the Black Sea. She collected the blood in a clean pot and put it near the fire.

Then she cleaned the wound and packed it with cotton cloth until the bleeding eased. It took some little time, during which she talked to the man gently to ease his fear and gave him a tincture to help the pain.

When the blood in the pot had at last coagulated, she took it and painted it gently on the raw wound, sealing it over. When she was sure there was no more bleeding, she mixed the most healing and strengthening herbs, finely powdered, into a paste softened with butter and used them to prevent the cloth of the bandage from sticking to the wound. She stayed in the house with him, going out only to purchase more herbs and then returning to sit by his bedside.

Hearing the rhythm and patterns of the Venetian tongue around her made it impossible not to think of Giuliano Dandolo. She had no idea why he had left so suddenly, but she was aware of missing him, although in a way his absence was also a relief. It was impossible that they should ever be more than occasional friends, people able to speak of dreams deeper than the surface, joys and sorrows that touched the bone, and laughing at the same moment at small absurdities.

But he awoke something else in her that she could not afford.

Yes, it was a relief that Giuliano Dandolo had gone back to Venice. Like Eirene Vatatzes, she needed a little numbing, a rest from the pain of caring.

ANNA RETURNED TO SEE EIRENE AS SOON AS HER venetian patient was sufficiently recovered. She found the ulcers noticeably improved. Eirene was up and dressed in a simple, almost severe tunic. Helena called when Anna was there, but she was not received.

“I am in no mood to receive Helena when I look more like the Gorgon.” Eirene said it wryly, as if it were amusing, but there was pain behind it, and it showed in her eyes and in the tightness of her shoulders as she turned away.

Anna forced herself to smile.

“I wonder what Helen looked like, that they were willing to burn a city and ruin a civilization for her,” Eirene went on, pursuing the conversation as if there were nothing else to remark upon.

“I was taught that their concept of beauty was far deeper than a mere matter of form,” Anna replied. “It needed to be of the mind as well, of the intellect and imagination, and of the heart. If all you want is a beautiful face, a statue will do. And you can own it completely. It doesn’t even need feeding.” She wondered if Eirene’s self-knowledge had created Gregory’s rejection. Was it possible that her belief in her own ugliness had made her seem so to others? Might they have forgotten it, had she allowed them to?