Sheen on the Silk - Anne Perry [221]
Constantine’s body hung about four feet below her, the sheet tight around his neck, his head lolling sideways. It was not possible that he could still be alive. His last words came back to her, and the Field of Blood beyond Jerusalem. She should have known.
Dizzy and sick, she staggered back into the room and sat down hard on the bed. She remained motionless for some time. Was she guilty of this? Should she have done more to prevent Constantine from ever being involved in trying to create a miracle?
Vicenze had designed it to fail. They should have known that from the start. Palombara knew it. And at the thought of Palombara she leaned forward, buried her face in the blanket, and wept. It was a kind of ease after all the horror and the fear to let the tears come and simply to grieve.
She had lost too much. Constantine was gone in a way that left only pain and a bitter grief. Palombara was different, yet she felt an ache of loss for him, too, because she would miss him.
Later, Anna went back to see Teresa Mocenigo and gave her whatever comfort she could. When it was daylight, she went with her to face the remnant of the crowd still left. Quietly and with the dignity of grief, Teresa asked them to honor Mocenigo’s life by behaving now with the honor that was the best in them. They must deal with Vicenze according to the law. Guilty as he was, to murder him would be to stain their own souls.
Finally, Anna returned to her home to tend to her own wounds of heart and her bleeding, aching body. She wept for her own painful emptiness, for Giuliano, for the loneliness that was at the back of everything.
Ninety-four
IN MARCH OF 1282, THE VAST FLEET OF CHARLES OF ANJOU anchored in the Bay of Messina in the north of Sicily. Giuliano stood on the hillside above the harbor and stared at its size and power, and his heart sank. The force under Charles was enormous, and more ships were expected from Venice. Maybe Pietro Contarini would be with them. He had spoken of it the last time they had met, before that final parting. And it was final. They would not meet as friends again, Pietro had made that clear. His loyalty was always to Venice first. Giuliano could no longer promise that.
He watched now as the fleet commanders walked along the quay and then up the broad streets to be welcomed by the royal vicar and governor of the island, Herbert of Orleans. He lived in the great fortress castle of Mategriffon, known as “The Terror of the Greeks.” That was the thought uppermost in Giuliano’s mind as he thought of the crusader forces pillaging the countryside for food and beasts, in the name of Christ’s war to recover the land of the Savior’s birth and set it again under Christian rule.
Giuliano set out to walk back over the rough terrain of the central mountains, the cone of Etna always on the skyline. He wanted to be back in Palermo before the French forces reached it. If they were to make a stand, he would do it with the people he cared for most, with Giuseppe and his friends.
Not only did his legs ache—his blistered feet remind him with each step—but he was sick at heart at the senseless violence of it, the hatred that drove ignorant men to plunder and destroy. The loss would be immeasurable, not only in life but in beauty and glories that took the breath away, such as the Palatine Chapel with its great soaring Saracen arches and exquisite Byzantine mosaics. Centuries of profound and exquisite thought would be wiped out by men who could barely write their own names.
Perhaps worst of all was the lie that this was done in the service of Christ, the blind belief that sins would be forgiven, that this sea of human blood could wash anything clean.
How had the