The Sheen of the Silk

“We can’t stay here,” he told her quietly. “You must change your appearance and get out of the city. How are you getting to Sinai? A caravan?”

“Yes. They go every two or three days.”

“Then you must get out of the pilgrim gray. That’s what they’re looking for. I’ll go and get you something right now. You could dress as a boy…”

She saw the embarrassment in his face, in case he had insulted her, but there was no time or safety to spare for such things.

She took the initiative. “Better still as a woman,” she told him.

He looked startled. “They won’t let women into the monastery.”

“I know. I’ll find another hostelry, on the road outside the walls. Then I’ll change back again.”

He left and she barred the door behind him. She spent a miserable hour waiting for his return, afraid in case he was attacked. She was too tense to sit or even to stand still. She paced the floor back and forth, only a few steps each way. Five times she heard footsteps outside and thought it was Giuliano, then stood with pounding heart and ears straining as they passed and the silence closed in again.

Once someone knocked, and she was about to undo the bolt when she realized it could be anyone. She froze. She could hear someone breathing heavily just on the other side of the wood.

There was a thump against the door, as if someone had tested it with his weight. She stepped back silently. There was another thump, this one harder. The door shook on its hinges.

There were voices, then quick footsteps. Someone stopped outside the door.

“Anastasius!” It was Giuliano’s voice, urgent and sharp with fear.

Relief washed over her like a sudden heat. She tried to loosen the bar and found it jammed by the previous pressure from outside. She jerked her own weight against it, heard it give.

Giuliano stepped in and replaced the bar instantly. He had a bundle of clothes in his arms, some for her and some for himself. “We’ll go tonight,” he said quietly. “Change into these. I’ve got merchants’ clothes for myself. I’ll try to look like an Armenian.” He shrugged. “At least I can speak Greek.” He began slipping off his gray pilgrim cloak.

Was he coming with her? How far? She picked up the women’s clothes and turned her back to put them on. If she made any kind of an issue of modesty now, it would draw his suspicion. If she was quick enough, he might be too occupied with his own clothing to notice anything else.

The dress was wool, dark wine red, roughly shaped, and tied with a girdle. She slipped into it with an ease that tore away the years of pretense as if they had been paper, and once again she was the widow who had returned from Eustathius’s house to that of her parents. She bound her hair like a woman’s, wrapped the outer robe of darker wool around her, and without thinking adjusted it with the grace she had struggled so hard to abandon.

He looked at her. For an instant his face was blank, then it filled with sharp, painful surprise. He picked up the painting and handed it to her. He turned to the door, opened it carefully with his hand on the hilt of his knife. Having looked to right and left, he nodded at her to follow him.

Outside in the street there were several groups of people standing around, apparently arguing or haggling over the prices of goods.

Giuliano went immediately north, keeping a steady pace she could match without appearing to stride like a man. She kept her eyes down and her steps shorter. In spite of the fear tightening her muscles, she enjoyed the brief freedom of being a woman, as if it were a wild, dangerous escape that would have to end too soon.

Jerusalem was a small city. They walked quickly, keeping to the wider streets where possible.

They were climbing steadily, the great site of the Temple Mount to their right. She thought Giuliano was making for the Damascus Gate to the northwest and the Nablus Road.

They were accosted once, and Giuliano stopped and turned, smiling, hand on his belt. It was a peddler selling holy relics. He thought Giuliano was reaching for his purse. A

“No, thank you,” he said briefly. Catching A

His grip was warm and harder than it would have been had he touched a woman. She struggled to keep up with him, never daring to draw attention to herself by looking backward.

The Damascus Gate was crowded with merchants, peddlers, camel drivers, and several pilgrims dressed in gray. Suddenly they appeared sinister, and without realizing it, she slowed her step. Giuliano’s hand tightened again, pulling her forward.

Did he feel her fear, or the slenderness of her bones, and wonder? They knew so much of each other-of dreams and beliefs-and yet so little. It was all shot through with assumptions and lies. Probably the lies were all hers.

They pushed through the crowds at the gate, and then they were out on the open road. After they had gone swiftly for about two hundred yards and strayed off the path downward, Giuliano stopped. “Are you all right?” he said anxiously.

“Yes,” she said. “Do you want to go south now?” She pointed back to the road. “The Jaffa Gate’s that way. That’s Herod’s Gate ahead of us. I could go in there. There’s a pilgrim lodging near St. Stephen’s. I’ll stay there overnight, and go down to the Sion Gate before morning.”

“I’ll come with you,” he said quickly.

“No. Take the painting and go back to Acre and the sea. I’ll stay in this until morning, then I’ll put on the gray again.” She looked at him briefly, then turned away. Beyond his shoulder she saw the scarred hillside with holes in it that seemed at a glance like the eyes and nostrils of a great skull. She shivered.

“What is it?” he asked, swiveling around to follow her line of sight. “There’s no one.”

“I know. It wasn’t that…” Her voice tailed off.

He stood closer to her, his hand on her arm. “Do you know where we are?” he said softly.

“No…” But even as she denied it, she understood. “Yes. Golgotha. The place of the crucifixion.”

“Perhaps. I know some people think it’s inside the city, and perhaps it doesn’t matter. I’d rather it were here, desolate with the earth and the sky. It shouldn’t have a pretty church built over it. That is to efface all it means. It had to be terrible, and alone, like this.”

“Do you think we’ll all come to such a place one day?” she asked. “Or be brought here?”

“Maybe, one day or another,” he answered.

She stood still for several moments longer. Then she turned to him. “But I must go to Sinai, and you must go to Acre. I’ll see you again in thirty-five days, or as close as I can to that.” She found it difficult to keep her voice level, the emotion in control. She wanted to leave before it broke. She glanced down to where he held his sack with the clothes and the picture. “Thank you.” She smiled briefly and turned away, climbing back up the steep incline to the road. At the top, she looked at him once and saw he was still on the same spot, still watching her, the skull of Golgotha behind him. She took a deep breath, swallowed, and started walking again.