Simonis blushed hotly.

Anna too was caught by surprise. “Thank you, Leo,” she said to him gravely. “The story is simple, and now that I know from Justinian that it is true, I shall tell you, but if you value your lives, or mine, you will not repeat it.” She waited for their word. “This is as Justinian wishes.”

Simonis nodded reluctantly, her face still hot and angry.

“Of course,” Leo promised.

Briefly she told them, not elaborating any of the details.

Simonis looked crushed. She stared in miserable silence.

“Anna, you must obey Justinian’s wishes,” Leo said with concern. “You can’t let anyone know that you are aware of all this, or they will destroy you.”

Simonis was looking at her, too, but she expected action. “You’ll go to the emperor and tell him who the other conspirators were,” she said as if it were a conclusion they had all agreed. “You’ll say you saw Justinian, and he told you who they were. Then the emperor will free him.”

“No, I can’t,” Anna said. “They tortured Justinian to make him tell, and he didn’t. You want me to do it now, after the price he has paid…”

Simonis shouted at her, “Men are fools. They keep to people who betray them when there’s no sense in it. You must do it for him. That way his hands are clean-”

“Not if she says that it was Justinian who told her,” Leo interrupted her.

“It doesn’t matter!” Anna said desperately. “He doesn’t want it done, by me, or himself, or anyone.”

“Of course he does,” Simonis contradicted her witheringly. “Why else would he tell you?”

“He didn’t need to tell me, I already knew,” Anna pointed out. She did not mention her conversation with Nicephoras.

“Oh, so it’s your honor now, is it?” Simonis almost choked on her words. “He sits in prison in the desert, beaten and tortured, and you increase your practice here in Constantinople and grow fat, wearing silks, but you don’t want to stain some honor you imagine you have. You didn’t mind sacrificing his whole future over your mistakes in Nicea, did you? Or have you chosen to forget that? None of this would ever have happened if you’d owned up then. He’d be a doctor and you wouldn’t! Where was your precious honor then, you… you coward…” Sobbing, gasping for breath, she blundered out of the room and they heard her feet down the passageway.

Anna found the tears were hot in her eyes. “He begged me not to,” she whispered. “It’s not for me… it’s for him.”

“I will speak to her,” Leo said quietly. “Perhaps you should send her back to Nicea…”

“No.” She shook her head. “I can’t do that.”

“You can’t excuse what she said,” he replied. “It was unforgivable.”

“Very little is unforgivable,” she said wearily. “And anyway, I can’t afford to have a stranger here in her place, not in the house.”

“Are you afraid she will betray you?” he asked.

“No, of course not,” she denied too quickly. “She would never do that. Justinian wouldn’t forgive her.”

Anna took the picture to Zoe Chrysaphes the following day. There were no servants present, simply the two of them in the silent room. It was filled with sharp, pale spring sunlight. She handed over the package, quite small, heavily wrapped, just as Giuliano had passed it back to her.

Zoe did not pretend to be interested in Anna. She cut the fastenings with a small, thin-bladed knife, then undid them and stared at the wooden panel. For a long time she did not speak, her face transfixed with crowding emotions: awe, amazement, overwhelming joy. Strangely, there was no open victory in it-rather the opposite: a sense of sudden humility. Finally she looked up at Anna, and her eyes were totally without guile.

“You did well, Anastasia,” she said quietly, as one woman might speak to another who was an equal-possibly, for a moment, even her friend. “I could pay you in gold for your skill and your hardship, but that seems crass. There is a jeweled candlestick on the table. It is yours. Take it, and set your taper in it to carry the light.”

Anna turned and saw it. It was exquisite: small-not more than a few inches high-but set with rubies and pearls that burned softly even in the harsh morning light. She picked it up and turned to thank Zoe, but Zoe’s head was bent and she was totally absorbed in the picture.

Anna left without breaking the silence.

MICHAEL PALAEOLOGUS, EMPEROR OF BYZANTIUM, STOOD in the pale sunlight in his private chamber. On the chest in front of him was a simple picture, but the face in it was that of the Mother of God. He knew it without question. The artist who had painted it had known, and the passion, the suffering, and the beauty of soul were attempted in the lines. It was not his imagination, not an ideal, he was trying to capture in line and shading what he saw in front of him.

Zoe Chrysaphes had sent the eunuch physician to Jerusalem to bring it back. It was a gift not to the Church, but to Michael personally.

Of course, Michael knew why Zoe had given it to him. She was afraid that he was aware of her part in Bessarion Comnenos’s plan to usurp the throne and that one day when Michael would have no need of her, he would take his revenge for that. This was to buy him off. It had succeeded. If it was not the greatest relic in Christendom, it was certainly the most beautiful, the most moving to the soul.

Very slowly he bent to his knees, the tears wet on his cheeks. The Blessed Virgin was back in Byzantium again, in a way she had never been before. How strange that Zoe, of all people, had caused her to be brought.

IN CONSTANTINOPLE, THE SUMMER OF 1278 WAS HOT AND still. Palombara was again in the city, surrounded by its vivid mixture of sounds and colors, its racing ideas, its passionate religious debate.

Unfortunately, he had once more been accompanied by Niccolo Vicenze. The Holy Father had told Palombara that Vicenze knew nothing of his real mission, which was supporting the emperor in obeying the act of union with Rome. And naturally to preserve the emperor’s life and power, should they be threatened. It was implicit that it was also Palombara’s task to be sure he was aware of such threats, whoever posed them.

Of course, what the Holy Father had actually said to Vicenze could be completely different. That must never be forgotten.

The priority now was to deal with Bishop Constantine. He was foremost among those still irrevocably opposed to the union. Arguing with him was pointless. He must be defeated. It was an ugly thought, but too many lives rested on it to be squeamish. The question was one of means.

At Constantine’s side, through hunger and disease, had been the physician Anastasius. If anyone knew the bishop’s weaknesses, it was he. And what was equally certain in Palombara’s mind was that Anastasius would never willingly betray them, least of all to Rome. Deceiving him was not something Palombara looked forward to.

Another thought occurred to him, subtle and dangerous. If he were in Constantine’s place, determined at any cost to save the freedom of the Orthodox Church, the one man above all others who stood in his way was Michael himself. Remove the emperor, put an Orthodox believer in his place, without either his intelligence or his steel, and all this other maneuvering would be unnecessary.

His urgency to see Anastasius doubled. Fragments of conversation came back to his mind, old plots and murders, imperial names like Lascaris and Comnenos, his intimacy with Zoe Chrysaphes, that most Byzantine of women, and his treatment of the emperor.

It was over a week before the opportunity came without forcing it. He had been attempting to cross Anastasius’s path by chance, and eventually they met on the hill above the docks. Palombara had just arrived by water taxi, and Anastasius was walking along the cobbles. It was early evening, the sun low and hazy, healing the jagged scars of violence and poverty beneath a patina of gold.