Sheen on the Silk - Anne Perry [126]
Yet he had no hesitation in allowing the helmsman to take the boat through heavier seas, close in past jagged rocks of a promontory with the surge roaring past it. It was failure Charles feared, not death.
Giuliano felt a sudden understanding for him, born after his father’s death and unloved by his mother. His oldest brother had been king of France and perceived by many as a saint. What was there left for a man of hunger and passion to do except demand attention by achieving the impossible?
They passed the point and were out into calmer deep water, with the mainland falling away to the west and the islands of Alicudi and Filicudi far to the north, Salina, Panara, and beyond that the smoking crown of Stromboli staining the horizon.
Charles swiveled round, ignoring the current now, his face toward the east. “That way lies Byzantium,” he said jubilantly. “We’ll be there, Dandolo. Like your great-grandfather, I shall leap from my ship to the sand and lead the assault. We too shall storm the walls again and break them down.” He lifted both his arms, balancing in the rocking boat, his hands locked into fists. “I shall be crowned in the Hagia Sophia myself!”
Then he turned and smiled at Giuliano, ready at last to talk details about money and ships, numbers of men to be transported with all their armor, horses, engines of war, and other necessary equipment.
Forty-two
IN THE EARLY EVENING, ANNA STOOD IN THE PLACE HIGH on the hill overlooking the sea where she had stood with Giuliano Dandolo and spoken of the glory of the city spread below them. It was still as beautiful, but it was the shore of Asia beyond that she stared at now. Above it, the sun was making shining towers of the slow clouds sailing like ships around the edges of heaven.
The silence was heavy in the air. Lately she had been so busy with patients that she had had little opportunity to come here, and the solitude was welcome.
Yet she would have liked to be able to speak to Giuliano or even simply meet his eyes and know that he saw the same beauty in it that she did. Words would be unnecessary.
But even as the thoughts came to her, she was conscious of her own foolishness. She could not afford to think of him in such a way. His friendship was something to savor, then to let go, not to cling to as if it could be permanent.
She could stand here and watch the light fade over the water only for a little longer, see the shadows turn gold and then darken and color fill the hollows in purple and amber, blurring the outlines, splashing the windows with fire.
She had not accomplished much in clearing Justinian’s name. He was still in a desert monastery, imprisoned and useless, fretting away the hours, let alone the days and the years, while she gathered shreds too small to weave into anything.
She was not even certain that Bessarion’s death was a result of his religious fervor. It could have been personal. He had clearly been abrasive, difficult to be at ease with, and Helena had been bored with him. That she could understand too easily.
She had thought that Bessarion himself must be the key to his own death. It had not been difficult to ask about him. The city was still full of memories, and as the stories of torture and imprisonment mounted, his stature as a hero grew. But Anna had found that the humanity of the man eluded her. He had shared the fire of his belief with everyone, but never the hunger of his dreams.
Then why had he been murdered?
It was like looking at a mosaic picture with the center missing. It could have been any of a score of things. Without it she was floundering, wasting more precious time.
Again and again she came back to the Church and its danger of being consumed by Rome. Had Justinian loved it with the passion that would drive him to spend time, energy, and loyalty with people he did not like in order to preserve its identity from corruption?
She shivered in the dying sun, even though the whisper of a breeze rising held no chill at all.
She needed to meet others like Esaias Glabas, who had been an unlikely friend of Justinian