Sheen on the Silk - Anne Perry [109]
What kind of disgrace? She paced the floor of her room, walked over to the great cross, and stared at it, seeing in her mind’s eye the other side with one goal achieved, one of its fourfold emblems meaningless at last. The Vatatzes must be next.
Whom was the necklace for? Someone Arsenios loved, but whom?
It did not take long to find out that he was a widower and had one daughter, Maria, who was soon to make a fortunate marriage into a family with not only wealth, but immense power and ambition. Her beauty and her lineage were her strengths, and therefore Arsenios’s strength also. That was where to strike.
The plan took shape in her mind. It would avenge the humiliation she had suffered in Syracuse all those years ago. Arsenios would pay for that, as he would pay for betraying Byzantium.
Anastasius Zarides was the perfect vehicle. But with a peculiar mixture of emotions, she remembered their last encounter. At first she had thought his saving the monk Cyril was just one of those random pieces of good fortune that happen from time to time to anyone. But then she had seen something in the healer’s eyes that made her believe he knew she had tried to poison Cyril and had himself worked out exactly how.
She could see him in her mind’s eye, and it was almost as if she had caught half an image on some polished surface: herself and yet not herself. The clothes were different, the shape of the body, no lush curves of bosom and hip. Yet the turn of the neck, the refinement of the jaw, just for half a second, the blink of an eye, were the same.
It was a delusion, of course. It was the fire in the mind that was the resemblance, the steel inside.
Of course, Anastasius had serious flaws. He forgave, and that was a weakness that sooner or later would prove fatal. He overlooked faults. Such a defect infuriated Zoe. It was like a chip on the face of an otherwise perfect statue. The mutilation of his manhood was a shame, but he was too young to be of any interest to her, although it was difficult to be accurate about the age of a man who was not a man. A human being without the spirit or the fire to hate was only half-alive. That was a waste. She liked him—apart from that.
She shook herself impatiently. The only thing of importance was that he was the perfect tool for this task and perhaps for others in the future. She realized with surprise just how sorry she would be if it did destroy him.
The sun was making bright patterns on the floor, its warmth soothing her shoulders. What was the cause of this new hate of Anastasius in Helena? Had he bested her too in something, and was she stupid enough to resent it instead of tasting the amusement of it? Zoe’s daughter gave in to emotion instead of using it.
The idea that was forming in her mind had far greater possibilities than merely destroying Arsenios. By using Anastasius, she might also learn the answer to several questions that had become more and more insistent lately. Anastasius was always interested in the murder of Bessarion. Zoe had assumed that the law was correct and Antoninus had killed him, and then Justinian had helped him conceal it. She had thought that she knew why, but possibly she had been mistaken. It could be dangerous to be wrong.
Also dangerous was the possibility of Michael learning that she had deliberately ruined Arsenios. If he discovered this, he might deduce that she had also killed Cosmas. He might feel inclined to stop her.
That must be prevented. Michael was clever, inventive, a true Byzantine. Above all, he would save his country, his people, against their will if