Sheen on the Silk - Anne Perry [148]
When the water was ready, steam rising, moist on the skin and sweet to the smell, she stepped in slowly, savoring the sensation. The heat, the gentle touch of it, eased out all the tight-knotted aches and fears.
She remembered, with a pleasure made sharper by grief, how Gregory had wanted her, tasted her slowly. It was right that she had killed him physically, violently, face-to-face. That was how they had loved, and hated. Poison was right for men like Arsenios, not for Gregory.
She stood up when the water was cooling and noticed with amusement that Thomais still looked at her with admiration in her eyes.
She dressed in fresh clothes and ordered fruit and a glass of wine. Alone in the silence of the end of night, she stood in front of the window and watched the dawn pale in the east. Today she would go to the Hagia Sophia and offer up her thanks to the Virgin Mary. She would give hundreds of candles, make the whole place a glory of light. Gregory Vatatzes and Giuliano Dandolo destroyed in one superb act. And she was safe.
The dawn broadened. Thomais returned to say that the physician Anastasius had called, requesting to see her immediately.
What on earth could he want at this hour? But since Zoe was up and dressed anyway, it was not an inconvenience.
“Send him in,” she ordered. “And bring more fruit, and another glass.”
A moment later Anastasius came in, his face ashen except for two high spots of color on his cheeks. His hair was barely combed, and he looked both exhausted and furious.
“Good morning, Anastasius,” Zoe said. “May I offer you wine, a little fruit?”
“Gregory Vatatzes is dead,” Anastasius said in a hard, thin voice.
“I did not know he was ill,” Zoe replied with perfect calm. “From your apparent distress, I assume you attended him?”
“There was nothing to attend,” Anastasius replied bitterly. “He was lying in a street in the Venetian Quarter, his throat torn open with the dagger you gave to Giuliano Dandolo.”
“Murdered?” Zoe turned the word over on her tongue, as if uncertain of it. “He must have had more enemies than he realized. Dandolo, you said? Really. I believe Gregory spent some time in Venice, before going to Alexandria. Perhaps it was a family feud?”
“I am sure it was,” Anastasius agreed. “Dandolo is a dangerous name to carry in Constantinople. With the history it has, I would be surprised if you gave him such a gift.” He smiled with scalding irony, his eyes brilliant, the intelligence in them hard and probing. “With the hilt toward him, that is.”
A flash of humor lit Zoe’s smile for an instant. “You think I should have presented it blade first?”
“I think you did,” Anastasius retorted. “Only he did not realize it.”
Zoe shrugged. “Then it looks as if he too is a victim of this murder. I’m sorry he is your friend. I would not intentionally have had it so.”
“He is not a victim,” Anastasius said. “The authorities have concluded that Gregory’s death was a tragic accident. He was apparently struck by a horse and cart, in the darkness, of course, and the unfamiliar streets.”
“And it tore his throat out?” Zoe said incredulously. “Was it the horse which did that, or the cart?”
Anastasius’s face was unreadable. “It looks as if he was in the middle of the street and was knocked down. The wheels of the cart went over Gregory’s throat. At least that is what it looked like to me.”
“And the Dandolo dagger?” Zoe asked sarcastically. “Was the horse carrying that as well? Or the driver, perhaps?”
“That would have been someone else, who left the scene,” Anastasius said. “But since the dagger has disappeared, it doesn’t really matter. No one else saw it, and I daresay Giuliano has it back by now, and will take better care of it in future.”
Zoe had to control her eyes, her mouth, even the pallor in her face. Anastasius must see nothing.
She stood staring at him, his blazing eyes, the face so strong yet so un-masculine with its soft mouth, passionate and vulnerable. He could not be related