Sheen on the Silk - Anne Perry [50]
Anna took the tray from the side of the bed and rose to put them on a table at the far side of the room. It gave her a chance to compose herself. His words, the story of Justinian and Catalina’s portrait, brought their presence so sharply to her mind that the loss was almost like a physical pain.
She put down the tray and turned back to Constantine. “Then he would have wanted Bessarion alive, wouldn’t he?” she asked. “Both to lead the struggle against the union and to excuse him from having to justify his refusal of Helena?”
“That is another reason I pleaded for his exile,” Constantine said sadly.
“Then who did help kill Bessarion? Could we not prove it, and have Justinian freed?” She saw the surprise in his face. “Would it not be our holy duty?” she amended quickly. “Added to which, of course, he could return and continue in the struggle against Rome.”
“I don’t know who helped kill Bessarion,” he said, spreading his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “If I did, don’t you think I would already have told the emperor?”
His tone had changed. She was convinced he was lying, but it was impossible to challenge him. She should retreat now, before she antagonized him or aroused his suspicion as to why she should care so much.
“I suppose it was some other friend of Antoninus,” she said as lightly as she could. “Why did he kill him, anyway?”
“I don’t know that, either.” Constantine sighed.
Again she was certain he was lying.
“I’m glad you liked the soup,” she said with a slight smile.
“Thank you.” He smiled back. “Now I think I will go to sleep for a while.”
Sixteen
GIULIANO DANDOLO STOOD ON THE STEPS OF THE LANDING stage and watched the water of the canal rippling in the torchlight. He smiled in spite of the faint sense of unrest he felt. One moment the wavelets were crested with glittering ribbons of light, the next they were shadowed and as dense as if he could walk out over them and they would bear his weight. Everything was shifting, beautiful and uncertain, like Venice itself.
His thoughts were disturbed by the sharper slap of water on the steps, and as he moved forward he saw the outline of a small, swiftly moving barge. There were armed men standing on the sides, and it slid smoothly to the mooring post and stopped. The torches blazed up and the slender, heavily robed figure of Doge Lorenzo Tiepolo rose and in an easy movement stepped ashore. He was in his later years. His sons had all risen to eminence, and many suggested it was purely by their father’s favor. But then people always said such things.
Tiepolo walked forward across the marble as the torchlight wavered in the rising breeze. He was smiling, his small, heavy-lidded eyes bright and his hair silver like a halo.
“Good evening, Giuliano,” he said warmly. “Did I keep you waiting?” It was a rhetorical question. He was ruler of Venice; everyone waited for him. He had known Giuliano since he had been brought here as a small child nearly thirty years ago, as he had known and loved Giuliano’s father also.
Still, one did not take liberties. “A spring evening on the canal can hardly be thought of as waiting, Excellency,” Giuliano replied, falling into step with the doge, but just behind him.
“Always the courtier,” Tiepolo murmured as they crossed the piazza in front of the ornate Ducal Palace. “Perhaps it is a good thing. We have sufficient enemies.” He led the way inside through the great doors, the guard before and behind him silent and watchful.
“The day we have no enemies it will mean we have nothing for any man to envy,” Giuliano replied a trifle dryly. They took off their outdoor cloaks and walked along the high-ceilinged hall with its painted walls, their feet loud on the inlaid floor.
Tiepolo’s smile widened. “And no teeth to bite with,” he added.