Sheen on the Silk - Anne Perry [216]
Constantine believed him. “What can we do?” he asked.
Vicenze took a deep breath and let it out softly. “There is a fine man, a good man, one who has helped his fellows, given of his means to the poor, and is deeply loved by all who know him. He is a Venetian living here, by the name of Andrea Mocenigo. He is aware of the situation—that we stand on the brink of destruction—and he will help.”
Constantine was lost. “How? What can he do?”
“Everyone knows Mocenigo is ill,” Vicenze said. “He is prepared to take a poison which will make him collapse. I will carry an antidote to it, and when you come to bless him, in the name of God and the Holy Virgin, I will give it to him, discreetly, and he will recover. People will see a miracle, dramatic and unmistakable. Word will spread, and faith will leap up again as a fire. Hope will be restored.” He did not add that Constantine would be seen as a hero, even a saint.
A sharp whisper of doubt stabbed Constantine’s mind. “Then why do you not do it yourself? Then the people would give Rome the credit.”
Vicenze’s mouth turned down at the corners. “The people mistrust me,” he said simply. “It must be someone they have seen in the service of God all their lives. I know of no one else with that reputation in Constantinople.”
All this was true, Constantine knew. This was what he had worked and waited for all his life.
“Who knows?” Vicenze went on. “Maybe God will grant you a real miracle. Is this not the purpose for which you have lived?”
It was. Whatever Vicenze did, whatever that loathsome Palombara said to him, Constantine would be unshakable, without doubt or fear, his mind as clear as a burning light. He would not fail.
But he still would use his mind, his experience, and his own safeguards. He would say nothing of them to Vicenze, who for all his unwitting usefulness was still the enemy.
“I do not want a theological debate about it!” Constantine said furiously to Anastasius when asking for his help and receiving in return a passionate argument against the whole idea. “I want you there as a physician to attend Mocenigo, in case Vicenze is not to be trusted.”
“Of course he is not to be trusted,” Anastasius said bitterly. “What on earth can I do?”
“Carry another dose of the antidote,” Constantine retorted. “You cannot refuse to do that. If you do, you are turning your back on Mocenigo, and on the people.”
Anastasius sighed. He was caught, and they both knew it. If he spoke out against the plot or betrayed its nature to the people, it would shatter the belief they were clinging to, perhaps even provoke the final panic that could crush them all.
Ninety-three
ANNA ENTERED THE HOUSE OF MOCENIGO WITH ONLY A faint thought in the back of her mind that this was where Giuliano had lived for so long. All her conscious thought was for Mocenigo’s distress. She could feel the anxiety and the fear as soon as she entered. There was that peculiar, tense hush that comes with awareness of profound suffering that is expected to end in the death of someone who is deeply loved.
Mocenigo’s wife, Teresa, met her at the door of his room. Her face was pale and hollow-eyed from lack of sleep, and her hair was pinned back simply to keep it out of the way, with no thought for beauty.
“I am glad you have come,” she said simply. “The last medicine seems to have made him worse. We rely entirely upon Bishop Constantine. God is our last refuge. Perhaps He should have been the first?”
Anna realized that Mocenigo himself might be party to the miracle, but his wife was not. It was too late to matter now. Anna followed her into Mocenigo’s room.
It was stifling. The sun beat on the roofs and the windows were closed. The air smelled of body fluids, of pain and disease.
Mocenigo himself was lying on top of the bed. His face was scarlet and bloated, sheened with sweat, and there were blisters around his mouth. The small