Eirene Vatatzes
Demetrios Vatatzes (her son)
Gregory Vatatzes (her husband)
Arsenios Vatatzes (Gregory’s cousin)
Georgios Vatatzes (Arsenios’s son)
Cosmas Kantakouzenos
Leo (servant to Anna)
Simonis (servant to Anna)
Sabas (servant to Zoe)
Thomais (servant to Zoe)
Charles, Count of Anjou, king of Naples and the Two Sicilies and younger brother of the king of France
ROME
Enrico Palombara
Niccolo Vicenze (both papal legates)
Prologue
THE YOUNG MAN STOOD ON THE STEPS, ADJUSTING HIS eyes to the shadows. The torchlight flickering over the water’s surface made the aisles of the great underground cistern look like some half-drowned cathedral. Only the tops of the columns were visible, holding up the vaulted ceiling. There was no sound but the whispering of damp air and the faint echo of dripping somewhere out of sight.
Bessarion was standing on the stone platform a few feet below him, near the water’s edge. He did not look afraid; in fact, his handsome head with its wavy black hair showed the calm, almost otherworldly repose of an icon. Was his belief really so all-consuming?