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The first ferry of the day was making its way toward them. Worried once again how she would appear to strangers, A
The ferry, a light, wooden boat big enough to carry half a dozen passengers, was less than a hundred yards away now. The oarsman was fighting the stiff breeze and the perverse currents, treacherous here at the narrows where Europe met Asia. She took a deep breath, feeling the bandages tight around her chest and the slight padding at her waist that concealed her woman’s shape. In spite of all her practice, it still felt awkward. She shivered, pulling her cloak closer.
“No,” Leo said from behind her.
“What’s wrong?” She turned to look at him. He was tall, slender-shouldered, and round-faced, with hairless cheeks. His brow was furrowed with anxiety.
“The gesture,” the eunuch replied gently. “Don’t give in to the cold like a woman.”
She jerked away, furious with herself for making such a stupid mistake. She was endangering them all.
“Are you still sure?” Simonis asked, her voice brittle. “It’s not too late to…to change your mind.”
“I’ll get it right,” A
“You can’t afford mistakes, Anastasius.” Leo deliberately used the name A
“Then I mustn’t get caught,” she said simply.
She had known it would be difficult. But at least one woman had succeeded in the past. Her name was Marina, and she had entered a monastery as a eunuch. No one had known differently until after her death.
A
The ferry reached the dock and the oarsman stood up with the peculiar grace of one accustomed to the sea. Young and handsome, he threw a rope around the stanchion, then stepped up onto the boards of the dockside, smiling.
About to smile back, A
A
They were far out into the current now. Rising sheer from the waterline like a cliff was the wreckage of the seawalls breached by the Latin crusaders who had looted and burned the city seventy years ago and driven its people into exile. She looked at it now, soaring up as vast as if it had been built by nature rather than man, and wondered how anyone could have dared to attack it, never mind succeeded.
She held on to the gunwale and twisted in her seat to look left and right at the magnitude of the city. It seemed to cover every rock face, inlet, and hillside. The rooftops were so close, they gave the illusion you could walk from one to another.
The oarsman was smiling, amused at her wonder. She felt herself coloring at her naiveté and turned away.
They were now close enough to the city that she could see the broken stones, the thready outlines of weeds, and the darker scars of fire. She was startled how raw it looked, even though eleven years had passed since 1262, when Michael Palaeologus had led the people of Constantinople back home from the provinces where they had been driven.
Now A
The oarsman strained against the wash that rocked them hard as a trireme went past, bound for the open sea. It was high-sided, three tiers of oars dipping and rising, water ru
In the shelter of the breakwaters, the sea was calm. Someone somewhere laughed, and the sound carried across the water, above the slap of the waves and the cry of the gulls.
The ferryman guided their way to the quayside and bumped gently against the stones. She paid him four copper folleis, meeting his eyes for no more than a moment, then rose and stepped ashore, leaving him to assist Simonis.
They must hire transport for the boxes, then find an i
She started along the worn stones of the quayside, making a path between bales of wool, carpets, raw silk, piles of crockery, slabs of marble, exotic woods, and smaller bags that gave off the odors of exotic spices. Heavy in the air were also the less pleasant smells of fish, hides, human sweat, and animal dung.
Twice she turned around to make certain Leo and Simonis were both still with her.
She had grown up knowing that Constantinople was the center of the world, the crossroads of Europe and Asia, and she was proud of it, but now the babel of alien voices in among the Byzantines’ native Greek, the teeming, anonymous busyness of it, overwhelmed her.
A bare-chested man with gleaming skin and a sack across his shoulders weighing him down bumped into her and muttered something before staggering on. A tinker laden with pan and kettles laughed loudly and spat on the ground. A turbaned Muslim in a black silk robe walked by without a sound.
A
There were shops to left and right and living quarters above, apparent from the laundry hanging from windows. A hundred yards inland, it was quieter. They passed a bakery, and the smell of fresh bread made her suddenly think of home.
They were still climbing upward, and her arms ached from carrying her medical supplies. Leo must be even more exhausted because he had the heavier boxes, and Simonis carried a bag of clothes.
She stopped and let her case drop for a moment. “We must find somewhere for tonight. At least to leave our belongings. And we need to eat. It is more than five hours since breakfast.”
“Six,” Simonis observed. “I’ve never seen so many people in my life.”
“Do you want me to carry that?” Leo asked, but his face looked tired and he already had far more weight than either Simonis or A
In answer, Simonis picked up her bag again and started forward.
A hundred yards farther, they found an excellent i