Sheen on the Silk - Anne Perry [206]
The day after Philotheos died, Zoe was at the Blachernae Palace and told some of her plan to Michael as they walked together along one of the great galleries. The light streaming in through the long, high windows showed cruelly the chipped marble of pillars, the broken hands of a porphyry statue.
The emperor looked at her wearily, and the defeat in his face frightened her. “It’s too late, Zoe. We must think of defense. I tried everything I know, and I couldn’t carry the people with me. Even now, they don’t see the destruction awaiting them.”
“Not from Charles of Anjou, maybe.” She leaned closer to him, ignoring all the rules of etiquette. “But they will understand shame in the eyes of their peers, the men they see every week, the men they talk to in business and government. The men they will do business with, even in a new exile. They will pay to avoid that.”
He looked at her more closely, his eyes narrowing. “What shame, Zoe?”
She smiled. “Old secrets.”
“If you know them, why didn’t you use them before?” he asked.
“I’ve only just learned them,” she replied. “Philotheos Makrembolites is dead. Did you know that?”
“Even so, it is too late. This pope is France’s creature. Spain and Portugal will ally with him. They can’t afford not to. All the gold in Byzantium won’t change that.”
“He’s pope for as long as he lives,” she replied softly. “What does he need the King of the Two Sicilies for now? Are you saying he will honor all his debts?”
“He’ll pay them only if there is something he still wants,” Michael agreed.
“Think of your own people,” she urged. “Think of their suffering in the long years of exile, and of those who never came back. We have been here a thousand years, we have built great palaces and churches. We have created beauty to the eye, the ear, and the heart. We have imported spices, colored silks like the sun and the moon, jewels from the corners of the earth, bronze and gold, jars, urns, bowls, statues of men and beasts.”
She spread her hands. “We have measured the skies and traced the paths of the stars. Our medicine has cured what no one else could even name.” She spoke with intense intimacy. “But more than any of these, our dreams have lit fire in the minds of half the world. Our lives have brought justice to rich and poor, our literature has furnished the minds of generations of people, and made the world sweeter than it would ever have been without us. Don’t let the barbarians kill us again! We will not rise a second time.”
“You don’t know when you are beaten, do you, Zoe?” he said with a soft, sweet smile.
“Yes, I do,” she answered. “I was beaten the first time, seventy years ago. I saw the fires of hell consume everyone I loved. This time, if it happens, I will go with it.” She took a breath. “But in the name of the Holy Virgin, I will not die without a fight. If we fail, Michael, history will not forgive us.”
“I know,” he admitted quietly. “Tell me, Zoe, Cosmas Kantakouzenos is dead, and Arsenios Vatatzes, and Georgios, and Gregory, and now Eirene. Why is Giuliano Dandolo still alive?”
She should have known he would have understood all along and allowed her to take her revenge only if it suited him.
He was waiting. “He is still useful to me,” she replied. “He is courting enemies of Charles of Anjou, awakening trouble in Sicily. I will have Scalini kill him when we don’t need him. I would have liked something more elegant, but we no longer have time,” she added.
He nodded, his eyes sad. “A pity. I liked him.”
“So did I,” she agreed. “What has that to do with it? He is a Dandolo.”
“I know,” he said softly. “It’s still a pity.”
Eighty-seven
ZOE STOOD AT THE OPEN WINDOW AND STARED AT THE FAR light on the sea. The wind stinging her face was sharp off the water; it still carried the smell of ice from the east, but also present in the breeze was the promise of spring. Zoe’s plans were maturing nicely. She had the money, albeit under bitter protest. Yesterday the Skleros had yielded. And she had exacted