The Sheen of the Silk

“Walk slowly,” Zoe replied. “Fetch her a glass of wine, then bring her here.”

Thomais disappeared to obey. Zoe wanted to keep Helena waiting. Her daughter should not simply walk in at a whim and expect Zoe to be available. Helena was Zoe’s only child, and she had molded her carefully, from the cradle; but no matter what she achieved, Helena would never outwit or outwill her mother.

Several minutes later, Helena entered quietly, smoothly. Her eyes were angry. Her respect was in her words, not in the tone of her voice. As was obligatory, she still wore mourning for her murdered husband, and she looked with some resentment at Zoe’s amber-colored tunic, its flowing lines accentuated by the height that Zoe had and she did not.

“Good evening, Mother,” she said stiffly. “I hope you are well?”

“Very, thank you,” Zoe replied with a slight smile of amusement, not warmth. “You look pale, but then mourning is designed to do that. It is appropriate that a new widow should look as if she has been weeping, whether she has or not.”

Helena ignored the remark. “Bishop Constantine came to see me.”

“Naturally,” Zoe responded, sitting down with easy grace. “Considering Bessarion’s status, it is his duty. He would be remiss if he didn’t, and other people would notice. Did he say something interesting?”

Helena turned away so Zoe did not see her face. “He was probing, as if he wondered how much I knew of Bessarion’s death.” She looked back at Zoe for a moment with blazing clarity. “And what I might say,” she added. “Fool!” It was almost a whisper, but Zoe caught the edge of fear in it.

“Constantine has no choice but to be against union with Rome,” she said sharply. “He’s a eunuch. With Rome in charge, he would be nothing. Stay loyal to the Orthodox Church, and everything else will be forgiven you.”

Helena’s eyes widened. “That’s cynical.”

“It’s realistic,” Zoe pointed out. “And practical. We are Byzantine. Never forget it.” Her voice was savage. “We are the heart and the brain of Christianity, and of light and thought and wisdom-of civilization itself. If we lose our identity, we have given away our purpose in living.”

“I know that,” Helena replied. “The question is, does he? What does he really want?”

Zoe looked at her with contempt. “Power, of course.”

“He’s a eunuch!” Helena spat the word. “The days are gone when a eunuch could be everything except emperor. Is he so stupid he doesn’t know that yet?”

“In times of enough need, we will turn to anyone we think can save us,” Zoe said quietly. “You would be wise not to forget that. Constantine is clever, and he needs to be loved. Don’t underestimate him, Helena. He has your weakness for admiration, but he is braver than you are. And you can flatter even a eunuch, if you use your brains as well as your body. In fact, it would be a wise idea if you were to use your brains rather than your body where all men are concerned, for the time being.”

Again the color surged up Helena’s cheeks. “Said with all the wisdom and rectitude of a woman too old to do anything else,” she sneered. She smoothed her hands over her slim waist and flat stomach, lifting her shoulders again, very slightly, to offer an even more voluptuous curve.

The taunt stung Zoe. There were places in her jaw and her neck she hated to see in the glass; the tops of her arms and her thighs no longer had the firmness they used to, even a few years ago.

“Use your beauty while you can,” she replied. “You’ve nothing else. And as short as you are, when your waist thickens, you’ll be square, and your breasts will sit on your belly.”

Helena snatched up a length of silk tapestry from the chair and swung it as a lash, striking out at Zoe. The end of it caught one of the tall, bronze torch brackets and toppled it over, and burning pitch spilled on the floor. Instantly Zoe’s tunic was on fire. She felt the heat of it scorch up her legs.

The pain was intense. She was suffocating in smoke. Her lungs were bursting, yet the shrill sounds deafening her were her own screams. She was hurled back into the far past, the crucible of all she had become. She was engulfed by the flaring red light in the darkness, the noise of walls collapsing, crashing stone on stone, the roar of flames, everywhere terror, confusion, throat and chest seared in the heat.

Helena was there, flinging water at her, shouting something, her voice high-pitched with panic, but Zoe was beyond thought. She was a tiny child clinging to her mother’s hand, ru

She fell again, bruised, aching. She climbed to her feet, and her mother was gone. Then she saw her; one of the crusaders had yanked her mother up off the ground and thrown her against a wall. He slashed at her robe and her tunic with his sword, then leaned against her, jerking violently. Zoe knew now what he had been doing. She could feel it as if it were her own body violated. When he finished, he had cut her mother’s throat and let her slide, gushing blood onto the stones.

Zoe’s father found them both, too late. Zoe was sitting on the ground as motionless as if she too were dead.

Everything after that was pain and loss. They were always in unfamiliar places, aching with hunger and the terrible emptiness of being dispossessed, and a horror inside her head that Zoe could never lose. And after horror came the hate. Prick her anywhere, and she bled rage.

Helena was close to her, wrapping her in something. The light of flames was gone, but the burning was still there, agonizing. Zoe’s legs and thighs were throbbing with pain. She could make out words: Helena’s voice, sharp and strained with fear.

“You’re safe! You’re safe! Thomais has gone for a physician. There’s a good one just moved here, good for burns, for skin. You’ll be all right.”

Zoe wanted to swear at her, curse her for the stupid, vicious thing she had done, wreak a revenge on her that would be so terrible, she would want to die to escape it; but her throat was too tight and she could not speak. The pain robbed her of breath.

Zoe lost all awareness of time. The past was there again, over and over, her mother’s face, her mother’s bleeding body, the smell of burning. Then at last someone else was there, talking to her, a woman’s voice. She was unwrapping the cloths Helena had put around the burns. It hurt appallingly. It felt as if her skin were still on fire. She bit her lips till she tasted blood, to stop herself from screaming. Damn Helena! Damn her, damn her, damn her!

The woman was touching her again, with something cold. The burning eased. She opened her eyes and saw the woman’s face. Except it was not a woman, it was a eunuch. He had soft, hairless skin and his features were womanish, but there was a strength in them, and his gestures, the certainty with which he moved his hands, were masculine.

“It hurts, but it’s not deep,” he told her calmly. “Treat it properly and it’ll heal. I’ll give you ointment which will take the heat out of it.”

It was not the pain now that troubled Zoe but the thought of scarring. She was terrified of disfigurement. She made a gasping sound, but her mouth would not form the words. Her back arched as she struggled.

“Do something!” Helena shouted at the physician. “She’s in pain!”

The eunuch did not turn to Helena but looked steadily at Zoe’s eyes, as if trying to read the terror in her. His own eyes were a curious gray. He was good-looking, in an effeminate way. Good bones, nice teeth. Pity they hadn’t left him whole. Zoe tried to speak again. If she could make some sensible contact with him, she might drive away the panic that was welling up inside her.

“Do something, you fool!” Helena snarled at the eunuch. “Can’t you see she’s in agony? What are you just kneeling there for? Don’t you know anything?”