The six priests carrying the painting set it onto the shoulders of a hulking monk in crimson velvet with a thick embroidered band across his chest. Wobbling under his load, the icon-bearer processes barefoot through the city from church to church, going wherever the Hodegetria leads him. Two deacons follow his every step, propping a golden canopy over the icon, dignitaries with staves behind them, novices and nuns and citizens and slaves and soldiers in the back, many carrying candles and performing an eerie and beautiful chant. Children run alongside holding garlands of roses or little pieces of cotton that they hope to touch to the Virgin’s likeness.

Anna and Chryse, with Maria draped over Chryse’s back, march in the wake of the procession as the Hodegetria winds toward the Third Hill. All morning the city glows. Wildflowers carpet the ruins; a breeze scatters little white flower petals across the cobblestones; chestnut trees wave the ivory candles of their blooms. But as the parade climbs toward the huge crumbling fountain of the nymphaeum, the day darkens. The air turns chill, black clouds appear as if from nowhere, doves stop warbling, dogs start barking, and Anna glances up.

Not a single bird crosses the sky. Thunder rolls over the houses. A gust snuffs half the candles in the parade, and the chanting falters. In the stillness that follows, Anna can hear a drummer, out in the camps of the Saracens, pounding his drum.

“Sister?” asks Maria, her cheek pressed to Chryse’s spine. “What is happening?”

“A storm.”

Forks of lightning lash the domes of the Hagia Sophia. Trees thrash, shutters bang, sheets of hail assault the rooftops, and the procession scatters. At its head, the wind rips the gold canopy sheltering the icon from its standards and carries it off between houses.

Chryse scrambles for cover, but Anna waits a moment longer, watching the monk at the front of the train try to keep carrying the Hodegetria up the hill. Wind drives him back, whipping debris past his feet. Still he pushes higher. He nearly crests the hill. Then he staggers, and slips, and the thirteen-hundred-year-old painting falls crucifixion-side-down onto the rain-soaked street.

Agata rocks at the table with her head in her hands; Widow Theodora mumbles into the cold hearth; Chryse curses over the wreckage of her vegetable garden. The hallowed Hodegetria has failed; the Mother of God has forsaken them; the beast of the apocalypse rises from the sea. The Antichrist scratches at the gate. Time is a circle, Licinius used to say, and every circle eventually must close.

As darkness falls, Anna crawls onto the horsehair pallet and sits with Maria’s head in her lap, the old manuscript open in front of them. The storm propels Aethon-the-crow past the moon and tumbles him into the blackness between the stars. There is not much left to go.

Omeir