Giuliano gasped, swinging around to Anna in amazement, even taking a step toward her as if physically to protect her from Zoe’s fury.

Zoe’s eyes widened. “The little eunuch has teeth, Signor Dandolo. I do believe he likes you. How grotesque.”

The blood burned up Giuliano’s cheeks and he turned away. “Thank you for taking the trouble to find the information for me,” he said, his voice choking. “I will leave you to your… treatment.” He walked out of the room, and they both heard the footsteps of his leather boots along the marbled corridor.

“You are leaving me to bleed,” Zoe remarked, looking down at her ankle and foot, now dripping scarlet onto the floor. “I thought you were a more honorable physician than that, Anastasius.”

Anna saw the gloating in Zoe’s face. This was vengeance on Giuliano because of his great-grandfather and on Anna for loving a Dandolo. And she did love him; it would be pointless now to deny it to herself.

“It is good for it to bleed,” she said, forming the words deliberately, even though her voice shook. “It will carry away the poison the spelk may have left.” She picked up the knife again and touched the wound with the point of it, pricking, but no more deeply than she had to. “Then it will be clean, and I shall bind it.”

Several moments of silence went by.

“This must be hard for you,” Zoe said quietly.

Anna smiled. “But not impossible. I decide who I am, you don’t. But you are right: Beauty can be dangerous. It can give people delusions of being loved when in truth they are only consumed, like a peach or a fig. Eirene Vatatzes said that Gregory liked figs.”

Zoe’s foot dripped blood onto the floor more rapidly, making a little pool of scarlet.

“I think it is ready to be bound up.” Anna met Zoe’s eyes and smiled. “I have just the ointment here to put on it. It would be very serious if it were to become poisoned now, when the flesh is so… vulnerable.”

A sudden shadow of fear crossed Zoe’s face. She leaned forward. “Be careful,” she whispered. “Your love for Dandolo could cost you very dear, even your life. If my foot does not heal, you will regret it.”

Anna smiled at her even more widely, her eyes ice cold. “There is nothing wrong with it that removing the spelk did not cure. You were wise enough not to pick a poisonous wood.”

The surprise flashed in Zoe’s eyes for only an instant. “I would not like to destroy you,” she said casually. “Don’t oblige me to do so.”

GIULIANO LEFT ZOE’S HOUSE AND WALKED OUT INTO THE broad, open street, barely seeing where he was going. The pain seemed so huge, it threatened to tear through his skin from the inside and overwhelm him. He was filled with shame and the knowledge that this woman he could just remember-a lovely face, tears, warmth, and a sweet smell-not only had not loved him enough to keep him, but had descended to that most despicable of trades.

He had seldom used whores himself; he was handsome and charming and had had no need to. He shivered with a new revulsion at himself when he remembered the times he had.

He barely saw the street around him. Other people were so many blurs of color and movement. He felt sick, cold to the very pit of his belly, and shivering. Thank God at least his father had never known that Maddalena had died by her own hand, beyond the reach of the Church, even in death.

He crossed the busy street, traffic stopping, drivers of carts shouting at him, but their words did not penetrate his mind. He went on down the steep incline toward the Venetian Quarter by the shore.

She had borne him, carried him within her body, and given him life. He hated her for what she had become, yet he had learned love at his father’s knee, at his side. Her name had been the last word he spoke. What was Giuliano if he denied her now?

Damn Zoe Chrysaphes-damn her to a hell of pain that would last all life long-as his would.

Anastasius had been extraordinary. He was a true friend, first rescuing him from being blamed for Gregory Vatatzes’s murder, which he deserved for stupidity, if nothing else, and then defending him against Zoe. Both times it had been at risk to himself: Giuliano was realizing now just how great a risk. And Anastasius had asked for nothing in return. Still, Giuliano could not bear to be with Anastasius again, after this. He was the one person who had seen and heard, and he would never be able to forget it, even if only in anger at Zoe. Or in pity. It was the pity that hurt the deepest.

After stopping at his lodging, he went along to the busy dockyards, looking for any Venetian ship in the harbor. There were two. The first was a merchantman bound for Caesarea, the second just berthed and due out to Venice again within the week.

“Giuliano Dandolo, on the doge’s business,” he introduced himself. “I seek passage home, to report to the doge as soon as possible.”

“Excellent,” the captain said enthusiastically. “A little earlier than I expected, but excellent all the same. Welcome aboard. Boito will be delighted. You may use my cabin. You will not be interrupted.”

Giuliano had no idea what the man was speaking about. “Boito?” he said slowly, searching for meaning in it.

“The doge’s emissary,” the captain replied. “He has letters for you, and no doubt other things too complex or too secret to commit to paper. I was not aware he had even sent word to you yet, but he said it would be today, as soon as possible. Come. I’ll take you.”

In the cramped but well-furnished cabin that was the captain’s domain, Giuliano found himself sitting opposite a narrow-faced, handsome man in his early fifties who produced letters of authority from the doge. He thanked the captain and asked permission to be uninterrupted until he and Giuliano had finished their business.

As soon as the door closed, Boito looked gravely at Giuliano. “I have seen you before. I served Doge Tiepolo. You must have news to have sought me even before I sent you word I was here. Tell me about the Venetian Quarter of the city.”

Giuliano had done his job, spoken casually to all the major families in the quarter, and, perhaps more tellingly, listened to the younger men talking in the cafés and bars along the waterfront and in the street where the best food was served from the stalls. They had been born in Byzantine territory. Their loyalties were torn.

“Those who still have family in Venice will probably remain loyal to us,” he said carefully.

“And the younger ones?” Boito said impatiently.

“Most of them are Byzantine now. They have never been to Venice. Some of them are married to Byzantines, they have homes and business here. There is always the chance that if loyalty to Venice did not move them, faith in the Church of Rome might.”

Boito breathed out very slowly, and his shoulders eased, so slightly that it was visible only in the smallest alteration of the way the creases in his coat changed a fraction. “And you think that faith will not hold them?”

“I doubt it,” he answered.

Boito frowned. “I see. And what is the likelihood of Constantinople accepting the union with the Church of Rome? I know some of the monasteries and maybe most of the outlying towns, perhaps all of Nicea, will refuse. There are even members of the imperial family imprisoned for refusing.”

Giuliano was Venetian. That was where his loyalties must be. And he had promised Tiepolo. The thought of his Byzantine mother was too bitter even to touch. The friends he had made here were mostly Venetian anyway. Constantinople was Zoe Chrysaphes and people like her. Except Anastasius. But you could not distort the fate of nations or the course of a crusade on the friendship of one person, however passionate, generous, or vulnerable.