Sheen on the Silk - Anne Perry [185]
Anna had seen Theodosia at her deepest distress, at her most vulnerable and humiliated. Anna understood very well why she did not wish their association to continue. It was forever taking the plaster off the wound to look at it again. It was wiser to leave it alone to mend unseen.
She acknowledged Constantine’s thanks and changed the subject.
Seventy-three
ANNA PICKED DELICATELY AT THE HERB LEAVES IN HER small garden. It was time to harvest many of them. The wild poppy heads were nearly ready to gather. She watered and tended the hellebore, aconite, digitalis, pennyroyal, and the mandrake she was carefully encouraging. If it grew successfully, she would take some of it to Avram Shachar. It would be a small gift in return for all his kindness.
Here in the shelter of the house on one side, and the outer wall on the other, the sun was warm on her shoulders, a memory of summer as the year faded fast. If the union did not become real enough to hold off Charles of Anjou and his crusaders, next summer might be the last before they attacked.
Would she be one of those who tried to escape, or would she stay, as perhaps a physician should? She would be needed here.
And afterward, what then? Life in an occupied city, under an enforced crusader rule. There would be no Orthodox Church then. But if she was honest, it was becoming more and more difficult for her to ally wholeheartedly with the Orthodox faith. She was beginning to accept that the way to God was a solitary one, born of a passion and a hunger of the spirit that no hierarchy, no ritual however beautiful, could give you, nor in the end prevent you from achieving.
She missed Giuliano. She could still remember, as if it had been moments ago, the look in his face when he had seen her in a dress. It was almost as if part of him had known and been repelled so intensely that it had churned his stomach, filled his mind with an inner betrayal he could not bear.
Afterward on the voyage back, he had made a massive effort of will to forget it, but nothing could erase the knowledge from his mind or hers. In a way, they had gone back almost to the beginning again, strangers feeling their way delicately.
Now she would do for him the only thing she could: release him from his own sense of being tainted by his mother’s betrayal, unloved and possibly unable to love, as if her blood in him were a poison in his soul.
If she was able to discover more, perhaps it would not be as bad as Zoe had said.
Where would Zoe have looked for Maddalena Agallon? Was there still an Agallon family in Constantinople, or had they remained in the cities of their exile?
Anna collected what she had harvested and took it inside. She washed her hands, separated the leaves and roots, labeled them, and put them away, all except the lemon thyme and the mandrake root big enough to harvest. She wrapped them separately to take.
She would begin her quest by asking Shachar. Months passed as she awaited his answers.
She came in answer to his summons. The heavy skies of early winter were closing in, and his message told her to come warmly clothed and prepared for a long ride.
“I have made inquiries about the Agallons. We are going to a monastery,” Shachar informed her. “It is several miles outside the city. We may not be back until morning.”
She felt a quickening in her pulse, fear, and surprise.
He smiled, leading the way through to the back courtyard of his house where she had never been before. Two mules were ready, and obviously he intended to leave without delay.
They were a mile beyond the outskirts of the city, and it was dark, almost moonless, when he spoke to her quietly. “I have found Maddalena’s sister, Eudoxia. I have little idea what she will tell you, but she is old and ill, a nun in a monastery. You are calling as a physician to see her and possibly treat her. You may ask what you wish, but you will have to accept whatever she says, and under whatever conditions she imposes. Your treatment is not conditional. If she chooses to tell you nothing, then still