of confession, she because she could not trust him with the truth of why she could not let go of any of it.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "Thank you for listening."
"We shall pray together," he replied. "Come."
She was at the Blachernae Palace, having treated one of the eunuchs for a bad chest infection and been up with him all night until the crisis broke. Then she had been sent for by the emperor over a minor skin irritation. She was still with him when the two papal legates from Rome, Palombara and Vicenze, were granted an audience and were shown in, as was customary, by the Varangian Guard. They were always there, strong men with lean, hard bodies, dressed in full armor. The emperor was never without them, no matter the time of day or night, how formal or trivial the occasion.
Anna stood a little apart, not included, yet neither had she been given leave to go. She recalled her unpleasant journey to Bithynia with Vicenze, during which Cyril Choniates was nearly killed.
All the ritual greetings were exchanged, well-wishes that no one meant. Beside Anna, Nicephoras was watching every inflection while outwardly seeming merely to wait. Only once did he glance at her with a momentary smile. She realized that he would remain here, judging both words and silences, and afterward give Michael his counsel. She was glad of that.
"There is still some dissension among certain factions who do not see the need for Christendom to stand together," Vicenze said with barely concealed impatience. "We must do something decisive to prevent them from causing trouble among the people."
"I'm sure His Majesty is aware of that." Palombara glanced at Vicenze, then away again, both humor and dislike in his eyes.
"He cannot be," Vicenze argued impatiently. "Or he would have addressed it. I seek only to inform, and ask advice." The look of contempt he shot his fellow legate was sharp and cold.
Palombara smiled, and that too was a gesture without warmth. "His Majesty will not tell us everything he knows, Your Grace. He would hardly have led his people back again to their city, and kept them safe, were he ignorant of their nature and their passions, or lacking in either the skill or the courage to govern them."
Anna hid her smile with difficulty. This was becoming interesting. Rome certainly did not speak with a single voice, although it might be only ambition or personal enmity that divided them.
Palombara looked at Michael again. "Time is short, Your Majesty. Is there some way in which we might assist? Are there leaders with whom we might speak, and resolve some of their fears?"
"I have already spoken with the patriarch," Vicenze told him. "He is an excellent man, of great vision and understanding."
For half a second, it was clear in Palombara's face that he had not known that. Then he concealed it and smiled. "I don't think the patriarch is where we need to concentrate our efforts, Your Grace. Actually I believe it is the monks in different abbeys who harbor the greatest reservations about trusting Rome. But perhaps your information is different from mine?"
Two spots of color stained Vicenze's pale cheeks, but he was too furious to trust himself to speak.
Palombara looked at Michael. "Perhaps if we were to discuss the situation, Your Majesty, we might learn of a way in which, in Christian brotherhood, we could find an accord with these holy men, and persuade them of our common cause against the tide of Islam, which I fear is lapping ever closer around us."
This time it was Michael whose face lit with amusement. The conversation continued for a further twenty minutes, and then the two legates withdrew, and shortly afterward Anna went after them, having finally been noticed and given permission to leave.
She was on the way through the last hall before the great doors when she encountered Palombara, apparently alone. He looked at her with interest, and she was unpleasantly aware of a certain curiosity in him because he was clearly unfamiliar with eunuchs. She became self-conscious, aware of her woman's body under the clothes, as if he could see some kind of guilt in her eyes. Perhaps to a man unused to even the concept of a third gender, her masquerade was more apparent. Did she look feminine to him? Or was he simply considering how mutilated she was that her hands were so slender, and her neck, her jaw, lighter than a man's? She must say something to him