Sheen on the Silk - Anne Perry [65]
“Our knowledge of God,” she said immediately. “Our need for the light we have seen, and can never wholly forget. We have to believe that it exists and that if life is lived well, in the end we can become part of it.”
His body eased, and he let out his breath slowly. “Exactly.” A smile ironed the weariness from his face. “Faith. I tried to tell the emperor that, only two days ago. I said to him that the people of Byzantium will not accept any pollution of who we are, and what we have believed since the first days of Christianity. Accepting Rome tells God that we will sacrifice our beliefs when it is expedient to us.”
He saw the understanding in her face, and perhaps something of the peace that he had brought her. “The emperor agreed with me, of course,” he went on. “He said that Charles of Anjou is planning another crusade even now, and that we have no defense. We will be slaughtered, our city burned, and those of our people who survive will be exiled, perhaps this time forever.”
She stared into his face, his eyes. “God can save us, if it is His will,” she said softly.
“God has always saved His people. But only when we are faithful.” He leaned across the table toward her. “We cannot put our trust in the arm of flesh, deny our loyalties, and then when we are losing, turn back to God and expect Him to rescue us.”
“What should we do?” she asked quickly. She must not let him deviate too far in the conversation. “Bessarion Comnenos was passionately against the union, and for the sanctity of the Church as we know it. I have heard so many people praise him and say what a great man he was. What did he plan?” She tried to make it sound almost casual.
Constantine stiffened. Suddenly the room was so silent, she could hear a servant’s feet on the tiles in the outer corridor. At last he sighed. He looked down at the dishes on the table when he spoke.
“I fear Bessarion was something of a dreamer. His plans may not have been as practical as people thought.”
Anna was startled. Was she at last close to the truth? She kept her expression deliberately innocent. “What did they think?”
“He spoke a great deal about the Holy Virgin protecting us,” Constantine began.
“Oh yes,” she said quickly. “I heard that he told the story many times of the emperor riding out of the city when they were besieged by barbarians long ago. He carried an icon of the Virgin with him, and when the barbarian leader saw it he fell dead on the spot, and all the besiegers fled.”
Constantine smiled.
“Do you think the emperor Michael would do that again?” she asked. “Do you think it would stop the Venetians, or the Latins from invading us from the sea? They may be barbarians of the soul,” she added wryly, “but they are sophisticated in the mind.”
“No,” Constantine said reluctantly.
“I cannot imagine Michael Palaeologus doing that,” she admitted. “And Bessarion was neither emperor nor patriarch.”
Was Bessarion looking to be patriarch? He was not even ordained! Or was he? Was that his secret? She could not let the chance slip away. “If Bessarion was no more than a dreamer, why would anyone bother to kill him?”
This time his answer was instant. “I don’t know.”
She had half expected that, but looking at his smooth face, the anxiety easing away from it now, she did not entirely believe him. There was something he felt unable to tell her, possibly something Justinian had told him in the bonds of the confessional. She tried another approach.
“They tried to kill him several times—before they succeeded,” she said gravely. “Someone must have felt he was a very serious threat to them, or to some principle they valued above even safety, or morality.”
Constantine did not disagree, but neither did he interrupt her.
She leaned a little farther across the table. “No one could care for the Church more than you do. Nor, I believe, could anyone serve it so wholeheartedly and with such honor that all the people of Constantinople must be aware of it. Your courage has never deserted you.”
“Thank you,” he said modestly, but his intense pleasure