Sheen on the Silk - Anne Perry [75]
Once they entered the building, it was as if Anna had ceased to exist. Zoe was as wrapped in the intensity of her thoughts as she was in the dark folds of her robe. Zoe stepped to one side, at the tomb of Doge Enrico Dandolo. A look of scalding hate filled her face; her eyes narrowed, and her lips curled into a snarl. Her body clenched, and she spat violently onto the cursed name. Then, chin high, she moved away.
Without looking to left or right, she went straight to one of the outer colonnades of arches and found an icon of the Virgin. She stood before it with her head bowed.
Anna was a little to the left of her and saw her face, eyes closed, mouth soft, and lips slightly parted, as though she breathed in the essence of a holy place. Anna believed she prayed quite genuinely, several times repeating the same words over and over.
Anna looked at the Madonna holding her child, the calm joy radiating from her face more than from the gold of the mosaic creator’s art. There was something purely human in it, a power of the spirit to which she had been a witness.
Anna felt it like an ache within herself for something forever lost, a grief for what could not be. And she felt guilt because she herself had given it away, not in generosity or sacrifice, but in fury and in a revulsion so savage that she had allowed it to possess her. Was there forgiveness for that? She left, tears spilling hot on her face, all but choking her.
As she passed the tomb of Enrico Dandolo on the way out, she saw a man there, a cloth in his hand, carefully wiping away the spittle where Zoe, and others, had vented their hatred. He stopped and looked up at her, his dark eyes finding hers, recognizing the pain but puzzled.
Another woman walked past and, disregarding him, spat on the tomb.
He turned back to it and began patiently cleaning it again.
Anna stood and watched. His hands were beautiful, strong and slender, working as if nothing had happened.
She regarded his face, knowing he was unaware of her, set on his task. There was power in the line of his bones, vulnerability in his mouth. She would like to think he could laugh, quickly, easily if the wit was good, but there was nothing of ease in him now, only an intense loneliness.
Anna felt it also, an ache inside her almost beyond bearing, because outwardly she was neither man nor woman, only a solitary person loved perhaps only by God—but not yet forgiven by Him.
Twenty-three
GIULIANO DANDOLO WALKED OUT INTO THE LIGHT, almost unaware of the heat of the sun on the stones or the glare. This was only the second time he had been inside the Hagia Sophia. Around the base of the vast central dome was a ring of high windows, and the light poured in, making the whole interior like the heart of some great jewel burning with its own fire.
He was used to the veneration of the Virgin Mary, but this was a different kind of femininity; holy wisdom as a woman was a strange concept to him. Surely wisdom was unwavering light, anything but feminine?
Then he had seen the tomb of Enrico Dandolo, soiled with spittle, and stood in front of it confused by loyalty and shame, both tearing at him in the same moment. Since coming here, he had learned far more about the looting of the city on the last crusade. It was the doge Enrico Dandolo who had been personally responsible for taking the four great bronze horses that now adorned St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice. He also had taken first choice among the holiest of the relics stolen, including the vial of Christ’s blood, one of the nails from the Cross, the gold-encased cross that Constantine the Great had carried into battle with him, and much more besides. Yet Enrico had been his great-grandfather. He was part of Giuliano’s history, good or bad.
As he had stood by the tomb, another person had walked past and spat on the plaque inlaid on the floor. This time Giuliano had come determined to clean it, even if only for a few moments, until the next violation.
The person who had watched