Sheen on the Silk - Anne Perry [151]
Every vestige of blood drained from Giuliano’s face.
Anna spoke impulsively, out of a passion to protect him. Nothing could undo the wound, nothing could make him imagine she had not heard or seen his pain.
“I suppose some are better at whoring than others,” she said, looking Zoe full in the face. “But even the most beautiful fade eventually. The lips crease, the breasts sag, the thighs become lumpy, the skin wrinkles and falls away. Lust becomes empty, and then only love matters.”
Giuliano gasped, swinging around to Anna in amazement, even taking a step toward her as if physically to protect her from Zoe’s fury.
Zoe’s eyes widened. “The little eunuch has teeth, Signor Dandolo. I do believe he likes you. How grotesque.”
The blood burned up Giuliano’s cheeks and he turned away. “Thank you for taking the trouble to find the information for me,” he said, his voice choking. “I will leave you to your … treatment.” He walked out of the room, and they both heard the footsteps of his leather boots along the marbled corridor.
“You are leaving me to bleed,” Zoe remarked, looking down at her ankle and foot, now dripping scarlet onto the floor. “I thought you were a more honorable physician than that, Anastasius.”
Anna saw the gloating in Zoe’s face. This was vengeance on Giuliano because of his great-grandfather and on Anna for loving a Dandolo. And she did love him; it would be pointless now to deny it to herself.
“It is good for it to bleed,” she said, forming the words deliberately, even though her voice shook. “It will carry away the poison the spelk may have left.” She picked up the knife again and touched the wound with the point of it, pricking, but no more deeply than she had to. “Then it will be clean, and I shall bind it.”
Several moments of silence went by.
“This must be hard for you,” Zoe said quietly.
Anna smiled. “But not impossible. I decide who I am, you don’t. But you are right: Beauty can be dangerous. It can give people delusions of being loved when in truth they are only consumed, like a peach or a fig. Eirene Vatatzes said that Gregory liked figs.”
Zoe’s foot dripped blood onto the floor more rapidly, making a little pool of scarlet.
“I think it is ready to be bound up.” Anna met Zoe’s eyes and smiled. “I have just the ointment here to put on it. It would be very serious if it were to become poisoned now, when the flesh is so … vulnerable.”
A sudden shadow of fear crossed Zoe’s face. She leaned forward. “Be careful,” she whispered. “Your love for Dandolo could cost you very dear, even your life. If my foot does not heal, you will regret it.”
Anna smiled at her even more widely, her eyes ice cold. “There is nothing wrong with it that removing the spelk did not cure. You were wise enough not to pick a poisonous wood.”
The surprise flashed in Zoe’s eyes for only an instant. “I would not like to destroy you,” she said casually. “Don’t oblige me to do so.”
Fifty-four
GIULIANO LEFT ZOE’S HOUSE AND WALKED OUT INTO THE broad, open street, barely seeing where he was going. The pain seemed so huge, it threatened to tear through his skin from the inside and overwhelm him. He was filled with shame and the knowledge that this woman he could just remember—a lovely face, tears, warmth, and a sweet smell—not only had not loved him enough to keep him, but had descended to that most despicable of trades.
He had seldom used whores himself; he was handsome and charming and had had no need to. He shivered with a new revulsion at himself when he remembered the times he had.
He barely saw the street around him. Other people were so many blurs of color and movement. He felt sick, cold to the very pit of his belly, and shivering. Thank God at least his father had never known that Maddalena had died by her own hand, beyond the reach of the Church, even in death.
He crossed