Sheen on the Silk - Anne Perry [165]
“I am a physician, not a painter,” Anna argued. “I can still see that that is poor. She was the Mother of Christ. There has to have been something in her greater than this.”
He put the picture on the ground and returned to the cupboard. He took out another painting, a fraction smaller, unwrapped it, and turned it toward her.
This one was also of a woman, her face touched by age and grief, but her eyes had seen visions beyond human pain. She had endured the best and the worst and knew herself with an inner peace that the artist had tried to capture, ending with only the grace to understand that he could not catch the infinite with the strokes of a brush.
Ben Ehud was studying her. “You wish for this one?”
“I do.”
He wrapped it again carefully and then took another, larger piece of linen and wrapped that around it also. He ignored the first painting as if it were not worth consideration. It had served its purpose.
“I do not know if it is what you hope,” he said quietly.
“We will choose to believe that it is,” she replied. “That will be as good.”
After settling with ben Ehud, she carried the painting back to the hostelry, clutching it inside her robe.
She was not far from the hotel when she was aware of someone behind her. She touched the knife at her belt, but it was little comfort. She had only ever used it for food or a few brief moments of first aid.
She forced herself to walk, rapidly but quelling the panic inside her. She reached the entrance of the hostelry just as Giuliano approached from the opposite direction. He saw the fear in her face, perhaps in the haste of her movement as well.
He grasped her by the arms and pulled her up the steps and then into an archway. Three men, heavily robed in gray, their faces hidden, hurried past them and up into an open square. One had a curved knife still in his hand.
“I’ve got it!” she gasped as soon as they were in his room and the door latched. “It’s beautiful. I think it’s real, but it doesn’t matter. It’s the face of a woman who has seen something of God that the rest of us only hope for.”
“And the questions about Sinai?” Giuliano asked. “Was that to do with the painting?”
Anna was startled. She thought she had been discreet, but somehow he had heard.
“That’s my own search.” She knew as she said it that she was opening a door she would not ever be able to close again. “It has nothing to do with Zoe.”
“But she knows about it,” he insisted. “That’s how she was able to make you come.” He was guessing; she could see the puzzlement and the hurt in his face that she had not trusted him.
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. She must tell him now; there was no alternative. “There is a relative of mine who has been accused of a crime, and exiled somewhere near here.”
“What is he accused of?”
“Collusion in murder,” she replied. “But his reasons were noble ones. I think I could prove that if I could speak to him, learn from him the details, not just the pieces I already have.”
“Who is he supposed to have killed?”
“Bessarion Comnenos.”
His eyes widened, and he breathed out slowly. “You’re fishing in deep waters. Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“I’m not at all sure,” she said bitterly. “But I have no choice.”
He did not argue. “I’ll help you. First we’d better put the picture somewhere where it will be safe.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. How big is it?”
She took it out, unwrapped it carefully, and held it up for him to see. She watched his face, seeing the disbelief in his eyes melt away and wonder take its place.
“We must put it on the ship,” he said simply. “It’s the only place where it’ll be safe.”
“Do you think those men were after it?” she asked.
“Don’t you? And whether they were or not, others will be. If Zoe knew of it, so do they.”
“The monastery I want is at Mount Sinai.” She forced out the words.
He studied her face, trying to understand. “A relative?” he said softly.
How much dared she tell him? The longer she hesitated, the more anything she said would seem to be false. “My brother,” she said in a whisper. “I’m sorry.