Sheen on the Silk - Anne Perry [219]
“Go!” he said hoarsely. “Get away from here.”
Still she held him. “I’m not leaving you. Just breathe slowly, don’t gasp.”
“I can’t.” His chest was tighter. There was blood in his throat. It was getting harder to concentrate, to stay conscious. “Go!”
She bent down to him, holding him closer, as if she would give him her strength. She was going to wait with him! He did not want her to. He wanted her to survive. Her passion, with its cost, had shown him that hell was worse and heaven far, far more exquisite than he had dreamed—and both were real.
“For God’s sake, get out of here!” he rasped, his mouth filling with blood. “I don’t want to die for nothing. Don’t … don’t do that to me! Give me something …” He could still feel her arms around him, then just as the darkness had closed over him, he felt her let him go, and suddenly it was light. He knew he was smiling. He meant to.
Anna staggered to her feet. In a few moments, there was a break in the crowd and she saw someone holding out a hand to her. She took it and was pulled beyond the fury into a calm, dusty space. Then a door was opened and she was inside a house. She thanked the man. He looked exhausted and frightened, possibly no older than his twenties.
“Are you all right?” she asked him.
He was shaking, embarrassed by his own weakness. “Yes,” he assured her. “More or less. I think they killed the bishop.”
She knew Palombara was dead, but this young man was speaking of Constantine. To him, Palombara was a Roman and of no importance.
The young man was wrong; Constantine was badly beaten, but he was definitely alive and still conscious, although in great pain. His servant, arms bloody, face swollen with bruises, came to Anna and asked her help. They had carried him into a nearby house, and the owner had given up his own room so Constantine could have the best bed, the greatest comfort possible.
She went with the servant; there was no alternative she could live with.
The owner of the house and his wife were waiting, white-faced, horrified at the violence, the tragedy, and above all at what appeared to be a total collapse of sanity.
“Save him,” the wife pleaded as Anna came in. Her eyes beseeched Anna for some hope.
“I will do all I can,” Anna said, then followed the servant up the narrow stairs.
Constantine was lying on the bed, his torn and bloody dalmatica removed. His tunic was crumpled and filthy with dirt from the street, but someone had done his best to straighten it and make him as comfortable as possible. There was a ewer of water on the table and several bottles of wine and jars of perfumed unguent. One look at Constantine’s face told her that they would do little good. His ribs were broken, his collarbones, and one hip. He was certainly bleeding inside where no one could reach it.
She sat on the chair beside him. To touch him would only cause greater pain.
“God has left me,” he said. His eyes were empty of all passion, looking inward on an abyss from which there was no return.
Christ had promised that in the resurrection every human being would be made whole again; not a hair of the head would be lost. That must mean that everything would be restored as it should have been, without accident, withering, or mutilation. Should she tell him that? Would it be of any comfort now, when it was his soul that had been squandered? That was the inner self that remained into eternity.
She remembered Constantine working so hard, until his face was gray with exhaustion and he could barely keep his balance, yet none of the poor, the frightened, or