The Sheen on the Silk by Anne Perry Page B

deliver: an embassy of hope for the unity of the Christian world.
    It was August and miserably hot in Rome when Palombara, returning from Lyons, walked across the familiar square toward the great arches in front of the Vatican Palace, the enormous building stretching left and right to either side, windows glinting in the sun. As always, people came and went; the wide steps were dotted with the colors of pale robes, purple hats and capes, touches of scarlet.
    This was to be Palombara’s last audience before departing again. He already knew their purpose was to make sure that the emperor Michael Palaeologus kept all the great promises he had written to the pope, that there was indeed substance behind the words. It might become necessary to warn Michael of the cost to his own people should they fail. The balance of power was delicate. Another crusade led by Charles of Anjou might not be far away. Men and ships would sail for Constantinople by the thousand, armed for war. The city’s survival depended upon them coming in peace, as brothers in Christ, not as invading conquerors of an alien faith, as they had been at the beginning of the century, killing and burning, destroying the last bastion against Islam.
    Palombara looked forward to the challenge of it, and the adventure. It would stretch his intelligence, test his judgment, and, if he was successful, considerably advance his career. And he also looked forward to being immersed in a new culture. The great buildings were still left, the Hagia Sophia, at least, and the libraries, the markets with all the spices, silks, and artifacts of the East. He would enjoy a different lifestyle, more of the Arab and the Jewish thought, and of course more of the Greek than was easy to find here in Rome.
    But he would miss what he was leaving behind. Rome was the city of the Caesars, the heart of the greatest empire the world had ever seen. Even St. Paul had been proud to claim its citizenship.
    But Palombara was also an intruder here, a Tuscan, not a Roman, and he missed the beauty of his own land. He loved the long view of rolling hills, so many of them forested. He missed the light on them at dawn, the color of sunset and shadow, the silence of the olive groves.
    He smiled as he walked toward the wide steps. He was halfway up when he realized that one of the men standing waiting was Niccolo Vicenze, his pale, zealous eyes studying Palombara.
    He looked at Vicenze’s dour face with its pale brows and felt a chill of warning.
    Vicenze smiled with his lips, his eyes unchanging as he moved into Palombara’s path. “I have our instructions from the Holy Father,” he said with no inflection in his voice except a slight lift. It almost hid his satisfaction. “But no doubt you would like the Holy Father’s blessing upon you also, before we leave.”
    In one sentence he had made Palombara redundant: an escort, there simply because one was customary.
    “How considerate of you,” Palombara replied, as if Vicenze had been a servant who had obliged him beyond his duty.
    Vicenze looked momentarily confused. Their natures were so utterly disparate that they could have used the same words to convey opposite meanings.
    “It will be a great achievement to bring Byzantium back into the true Church,” Vicenze added.
    “Let us hope we can accomplish it,” Palombara observed dryly, then saw the gleam in Vicenze’s pale eyes and wished he had not been so candid. There were seldom meanings behind meaning with Vicenze, only the obsession for control and conformity. It was a strangely inhuman trait of character. Was it holiness, the dedication of a saintly man, or the madness of one who had not too much love of God so much as too little of mankind? Since he last saw him, he had forgotten how much he disliked Vicenze.
    “We will be equal to the task. We will not cease until we are,” Vicenze said slowly, giving each word weight. Perhaps he had a sense of humor after all.
    Palombara stood in the sun