Sheen on the Silk - Anne Perry [2]
“Then I mustn’t get caught,” she said simply.
She had known it would be difficult. But at least one woman had succeeded in the past. Her name was Marina, and she had entered a monastery as a eunuch. No one had known differently until after her death.
Anna nearly asked Leo if he wished to go back, but it would be insulting, and he did not deserve that. Anyway, she needed to observe and mimic him.
The ferry reached the dock and the oarsman stood up with the peculiar grace of one accustomed to the sea. Young and handsome, he threw a rope around the stanchion, then stepped up onto the boards of the dockside, smiling.
About to smile back, Anna remembered not to only just in time. She let go of her cloak, allowing the wind to chill her, and the boatman passed by her to offer his hand to Simonis, who was older, plumper, and obviously a woman. Anna followed, taking her seat in the ferry. Leo came last, loading their few boxes, which held her precious medicines, herbs, and instruments. The oarsman took his place again and they moved out into the current.
Anna did not look behind. She had left everything that was familiar, and she had no idea when she would see it again. But it was only the task ahead that mattered.
They were far out into the current now. Rising sheer from the waterline like a cliff was the wreckage of the seawalls breached by the Latin crusaders who had looted and burned the city seventy years ago and driven its people into exile. She looked at it now, soaring up as vast as if it had been built by nature rather than man, and wondered how anyone could have dared to attack it, never mind succeeded.
She held on to the gunwale and twisted in her seat to look left and right at the magnitude of the city. It seemed to cover every rock face, inlet, and hillside. The rooftops were so close, they gave the illusion you could walk from one to another.
The oarsman was smiling, amused at her wonder. She felt herself coloring at her naiveté and turned away.
They were now close enough to the city that she could see the broken stones, the thready outlines of weeds, and the darker scars of fire. She was startled how raw it looked, even though eleven years had passed since 1262, when Michael Palaeologus had led the people of Constantinople back home from the provinces where they had been driven.
Now Anna too was here, for the first time in her life, and for all the wrong reasons.
The oarsman strained against the wash that rocked them hard as a trireme went past, bound for the open sea. It was high-sided, three tiers of oars dipping and rising, water running bright from their blades. Beyond it were two other boats almost round, men busy furling their sails, scrambling to lash them fast enough so they could let down anchor in exactly the right place. She wondered if they had come from the Black Sea and what they had brought to sell or trade.
In the shelter of the breakwaters, the sea was calm. Someone somewhere laughed, and the sound carried across the water, above the slap of the waves and the cry of the gulls.
The ferryman guided their way to the quayside and bumped gently against the stones. She paid him four copper folleis, meeting his eyes for no more than a moment, then rose and stepped ashore, leaving him to assist Simonis.
They must hire transport for the boxes, then find an inn to offer them food and shelter until she could look for a house to rent and set up her practice. She would have no help here, no recommendations as she would have had from her father’s good name at home in Nicea, the ancient, magnificent capital of Bithynia across the Bosphorus to the southeast. It was only a day’s ride away, yet Constantinople was a new world for her. Apart from Leo and Simonis, she was alone. Their loyalty was absolute. Even knowing the truth, they had come with her.
She started along the worn stones of the quayside, making a path between bales of wool, carpets, raw silk, piles of crockery, slabs of marble, exotic