Sheen on the Silk - Anne Perry [21]
By August, Zoe’s burns were almost entirely healed and her patronage was bringing other patients to Anna. Some of these were wealthy merchants, dealers in furs and spices, silver, gems, and silks. They were happy to pay two or three solidi for the best herbs and even more for personal attention on demand.
Anna told Simonis to buy lamb or kid, even though they were recommended only for the first half of the month. They had been frugal ever since they had arrived in March. Now it was time for a celebration. She should serve it hot, with honey-vinegar and perhaps some fresh gourd.
“You know what vegetables to eat in August,” Anna added. “And yellow plums.”
“I’ll get some rose wine.” Simonis had the last word.
Anna went back to the local silk shop and picked up the length she had admired before. She let the soft, cool fabric slide through her fingers, almost like liquid, and watched as the light fell on it, turning it slowly. The sheen was first amber, then apricot, then fire, changing as it moved like a living thing. People said that of eunuchs, that the essence of them was elusive, never the same twice. It was meant as condemnation—that they were unreliable.
She saw it only that they were different as they were viewed, because they needed to be to survive; and that they were human, full of hungers, fears, and dreams like everyone else, and had the same ability to be hurt.
She bought a length of the silk sufficient to make a dalmatica for herself and accepted the shop owner’s offer to have it cut and stitched and delivered to her home. She thanked him and left, smiling even in the heat of the road outside and the dust of too many rainless days.
Then she went south toward Mese Street and looked at the shops there. She bought new linen tunics for both Leo and Simonis and a new outdoor cloak for each of them, requesting that they be delivered.
She had attended the nearest church every Sunday except when a patient required her urgent presence, but now she felt like taking a water taxi the considerable distance to the great cathedral of the Hagia Sophia. It stood out on the promontory, at the farthest end of Mese Street, between the Acropolis and the Hippodrome.
It was a calm evening, the air still close and warm, even on the water. As the sun sank lower in the west, color spilled across the Golden Horn, making it look like a sheet of silk. It was its brilliant reflection at sunrise that had given it its name.
The water taxi put ashore at dusk, and she climbed the steep streets up from the harbor as the lamps and torches were lit.
She approached the Hagia Sophia, now black against the fading sky, with a sense of awe and excitement. For a thousand years it had stood on this spot, the largest church in Christendom. It had been completely destroyed by fire in 532. The great dome had collapsed in 558, brought down by an earthquake, and been replaced almost immediately by the dome that now soared huge and dark against the sky.
Of course she had seen it many times from the outside. The building itself was over 250 feet in either direction. The stucco was of a reddish color, and in the rising or setting sun it glowed with such warmth that mariners approaching the city could see it from afar.
She went in through the bronze doors and then stopped in amazement. The vast interior was bathed in light from countless candles. It was like being in the heart of a jewel. The porphyry marble columns were deep red. Her father had told her they were originally from the Egyptian temple in Heliopolis, ancient, beautiful, and priceless. The polychrome marble in the walls was cool green and white, from Greece or Italy. The white of it was inlaid with ivory and pearls, and there were gold icons from the ancient temples of Ephesus. It far surpassed every description she had heard.
The impression of light was everywhere, as if the whole structure floated in the air, needing