The Sheen on the Silk

Anne Perry's THE SHEEN ON THE SILK is an historical novel about Constantinople in the 13th Century. It fits within the abiding criteria for great historical novels created by Sir Walter Scott when he wrote the first one in 1814: WAVERLEY. Basically, a Walter Scott historical novel is accurate as to time and place (unless otherwise indicated). World historical figures such as Bonnie Prince Charlie or Oliver Cromwell or King Louis XI are active, important players in the drama. And those real historical giants are about to move history past a crossroads, a turning point. Fictional characters, usually including at least one pair of young lovers, interact with the real kings, nobles, saints and flesh out imaginatively the history as recorded in chronicles, annals etc. *****In THE SHEEN ON SILK, Emperor Michael Palaeologus, having retaken some years earlier Constantinople from the Franks and others who had captured it during the Fourth Crusade, is trying to stay in the saddle. From the West he is threatened by Pope Gregory X (1271 - 1276) who is pressuring the Orthodox Church to acknowledge papal supremacy and restore unity to Christendom while at the same time preaching a new Crusade to recapture Jerusalem. The Emperor is trying to placate four popes one after another in the hopes that they will prevent Duke Charles of Anjou from attacking and recapturing Constantinople -- a Christian kingdom -- on the way to retake Jerusalem from the Muslims. Internally, reunion with Rome is not popular with the Byzantine clergy or the people. And the Emperor's treasury is almost empty. If Duke Charles of Anjou manages to persuade the Venetians to build a new fleet for him and bring it to Constantinople, the Byzantine empire is doomed. Period. ***** At novel's beginning Prince Bessarion Comnenos is apparently slain by a young man named Justinian Lascaris on the eve of a plot of leading nobles to overthrow Emperor Michael and prevent re-union with the Pope. The young man's twin sister, a widow, Anna Zarides nee Lascaris, lives a few days away in Nicaea. After her brother is convicted of murder and exiled to the monastery of Saint Catherine deep in the Sinai Desert, Anna, who is a brilliant practitioner of Christian, Arabic and Jewish medicine, travels with two servants to Constantinople. Her goal is to find out who the real murderer of Prince Bessarion was and to win a pardon for her brother. She disguises herself as a man, a castrated eunuch, in order to gain access to patients both male and female to win influence and to gain intelligence about her brother. ***** The story is well told, with 15 or 20 characters important enough that a reader has to keep them straight. All characters are three-dimensional and even memorable. They are all notable mixtures of good and evil. Seventy-something beauty, the wealthy, noble Zoe Chrysaphes is one of the more notable poisoners in literature, Lucrezia Borgia a couple of centuries before Lucrezia. Her only redeeming quality is her patriotic love of Constantinople. She will undertake any evil in order to prevent Western recapture of her empire. She was a small girl when the capital was captured by Crusaders. The author takes inordinate pains -- not always convincing -- to make this thoroughly evil woman (and religious fanatic) loveable and missed by Emperor and others when an irate bishop smothers her over political differences. ***** One striking fact is that all the characters are utterly humorless. Not that Anne Perry doesn't try to make us think of fun and puns. We are told probably fifty times and quite explicitly at that in words to the effect: "You have just seen or heard something witty." But you have not, believe me. I rate this far too long novel 3.4 stars on the strength of its well-drawn characters, rounding down to 3.0 stars AVERAGE. Its interpretation of Byzantine, Venetian and Sicilian history is passable. The descriptions of theological differences are murky at best. The probing of character and the war inside consciences between good and evil is well enough done. The writing is nothing great. -OOO-