need a map," Leo said with a frown. "The city is far too big to know where we are without one."
"We need to be in a good residential district," Simonis added, probably thinking about the home they had left in Nicea. But she had willed to come almost as much as Anna herself. Justinian had always been her favorite, even though he and Anna were twins. Simonis had grieved when he left Nicea to come to Constantinople. When Anna had received that last, desperate letter about his exile, Simonis had thought of nothing but rescuing him, at any cost. It was Leo who had had the cooler head and wanted a plan first and who had cared so much for Anna's safety as well.
It took them several more minutes to find a shop selling manuscripts, and they inquired.
"Oh, yes," the shopkeeper said immediately. Short and wiry, with white hair and a quick smile, he opened a drawer behind him and pulled out several scrolls of paper. He unrolled one of them and showed Anna the drawing.
"See? Fourteen districts." He pointed to the loosely triangular shape drawn in black ink.
"This is Mese Street, going this way." He showed them on the map. "There's the Wall of Constantine, and west of that again the Wall of Theodosius. All except district thirteen, across the Golden Horn to the north. That's called Galata. But you don't want to live there. That's for foreigners." He rolled it up and passed it to her. "That will be two solidi."
She was taken aback and more than a little suspicious that he knew she was a stranger and was taking advantage. Still, she passed over the money.
They walked the length of Mese Street, trying not to stare around them like the provincials they were. Row after row of merchants' stalls lined the street. They were shaded by canopies of every color imaginable, tied tightly to wooden posts to anchor them against the wind. Even so they snapped loudly in every gust, as if they were alive and struggling to get free.
In district one there were spice merchants and perfumers. The air was redolent with their wares, and Anna found herself drawing in her breath deeply to savor them. She had neither time nor money to waste, but she could not help gazing at them, lingering a moment to admire their beauty. No other yellow had the depth of saffron, no brown the multitoned richness of nutmeg. She knew the medical values of all of them, even the rarest, but at home in Nicea she had had to order them specially and pay extra for their freight. Here they were laid out as if they were commonplace.
"There's plenty of money in this district," Simonis observed with a hint of disapproval.
"More important, they'll have their own physician already," Leo replied.
Now they were among the perfumers' shops and there were rather more women than in the other areas, many of them clearly wealthy. As custom required, they wore tunics and dalmaticas from the neck almost to the ground, and their hair was concealed by headdress and veil. One woman walked past them, smiling, and Anna noticed that she had darkened her brows very delicately, and perhaps her lashes. Certainly there was red clay on her lips to make them look so vivid.
Anna heard her laughter as she met a friend, and together they tried one perfume after another. Their embroidered and brocaded silks stirred in the breeze like flower petals. She envied their lightheartedness.
She would have to find more ordinary women, and male patients, too, or she would never learn why Justinian had been a favorite with the emperor's court one day and an exile the next, fortunate to have his life. What had happened? What must Anna do to gain justice for him?
The following day, by mutual agreement, they left the Mese and its immediate surroundings and searched farther into the side streets, in little shops, and in the residential districts north of center, almost under the giant arches of the Aqueduct of Valens, catching occasional glimpses of the light on the water of the Golden Horn beyond.
They were on a narrow street, barely wide enough for two donkeys to pass each other, when they came to a flight of steps up to the left. Thinking the height might give them a better sense of their bearings, they began to climb. The passage turned one way, then the other. Anna nearly stumbled over the rubble on the steps.