"Many think I have little power in this city," said Frescobaldo d'Ucello. He sat in a dark window recess with one foot up on the ledge and the other dangling, his fingers tapping the raised knee. Lashed to a chair in the center of the long, narrow chamber, Daoud had to turn his head to look at him. Daoud's back ached from being held rigid by the back of the chair, and the ropes bit into the muscles of his arms and legs.
At the end of the room, a clerk with scalp shaved in the clerical tonsure sat in the podesta's high-back chair behind a heavy black table, writing down what was said on a scroll with a feather pen. Four tall candles set in brass stands formed a square around Daoud, casting a bright light on him. A row of candles burned in a wrought-iron candelabrum beside the clerk, lighting a wall hanging behind him that depicted some idolatrous Christian religious scene. D'Ucello sat in the shadows that lay upon the rest of the chamber.
Daoud sensed that d'Ucello meant what he had just said as a sort of challenge.
"All I know is that for my part I have very little power in this city, Signore," Daoud said with a smile. "I depend altogether on those who have befriended me." That was the way David of Trebizond should respond. Not very frightened, because not guilty of anything. Humble, ingratiating, but retaining some scrap of dignity.
D'Ucello stood up suddenly, strode briskly across the room to Daoud, and stood over him.
"Do you think your friends will save you from this?" he said tonelessly. His eyes had an unfocused look, as though they were made of glass.
"Save me from what, Signore?" Daoud put bewilderment and a shade of anger into his voice.
D'Ucello swung his hand. Daoud felt the sting of a hard palm against his jaw, and the crack of flesh slapping flesh made his ear ring. The blow jolted his head to one side.
It was not very painful. It was meant to insult more than to hurt. To test. And rage did erupt in Daoud like a fountain of fire. His muscles tensed, the bindings cutting deeper, and the chair creaked.
D'Ucello was trying to break through the Mask of Clay. But the mask held firm, because the Face of Steel, Daoud's spiritual armor, was beneath it. The fury of Daoud the Mameluke, who yearned to tear d'Ucello apart, remained hidden. It was David of Trebizond who blustered at the indignity of being slapped without cause.
"How dare you strike me, Signore!" he protested. "I have done nothing to deserve that, nothing to deserve being dragged here in the night and tied up. I demand to know—what do you want of me?"
D'Ucello sighed like a chess player whose opponent had escaped check, and went back to his seat in the window recess. Daoud saw the flickering glow of heat lightning through the thick leaded-glass window behind the podesta.
"I dislike intensely being made to waste time," said d'Ucello, drumming his fingers on his knee. "Listen carefully: Every time you force me to tell you something we both already know, I will prolong your suffering another hour."
Daoud allowed a note of fear to creep into his voice. "Suffering? I beg you, Signore, believe me. Even if you torture me, I still cannot tell you anything different from what I will freely tell you. Ask me whatever you want."
The Mask of Clay was useless with this man, Daoud saw. The podesta's mind had pierced it. How had he been able to do that? Because he was a man who observed much and thought much, unlike most men Daoud had met in Orvieto, who let their passions rule them.
Yet d'Ucello had passions. He was a proud man, who must hate standing by helplessly, holding the supreme office in Orvieto, watching the two great families bespatter his city with blood. If he could not stop the Filippeschi and the Monaldeschi from murdering each other, at least he could dosomething.
D'Ucello had seen enough of Daoud's comings and goings to make him suspicious. Like a hawk soaring above a plain, the podesta might be too high up to know exactly what he saw below, buthe knew when he sighted prey. And perhaps d'Ucello saw that this prey, if hunted rightly, would lead him to others.
D'Ucello leaned forward, out of the shadow of the window recess.
"There was a man in black who tried to kill the Tartars the night of the Filippeschi uprising. What do you know about him?"
"I know little about the uprising, Signore, since I was not here. I was in Perugia."
"Why Perugia?"
"To speak with several silk merchants."
"Are there those in Perugia who will vouch for you?"
"Certainly," said Daoud, feeling uneasily that d'Ucello was not deceived.
"I will write to the podesta of Perugia and ask that your witnesses be examined," said d'Ucello. "Give me their names."
Daoud had a struggle to remember the names of the witnesses. Lorenzo had given them to him months before, members of the Ghibellino network who were willing to perform this service for Manfred. The clerk's pen scratched rapidly as he haltingly brought out the names of five men.
"When did you return from Perugia?"
The clerks, Daoud recalled, had been removed from the town gates at the end of May.
"Sometime in June," Daoud said. "Forgive me, I did not think to bring my journal with me, and I cannot tell you the exact date." He tried a weak smile.
"Where is your man Giancarlo?"
On his way here from Siena with an army, Insh'Allah.
"I sent him on from Perugia," Daoud said. "He travels to Rimini, then Ravenna, eventually to Venice, looking for those who would be interested in receiving shipments of silks and spices from Trebizond. He had not been punctilious about writing to me, or perhaps his letters have been lost, so I do not know exactly where he is now."
"I thought you were in competition with the Venetians."
Daoud essayed another smile. "That is why I sent Giancarlo."
"And where were you the night the French cavaliere was murdered?" d'Ucello asked.
"I was with a woman."
"What was her name?"
"I do not think I ever knew it." He tried a flash of sarcasm. "If I had known there was to be a murder that night, I would have asked her name."
"Everyone was with a nameless woman that night," d'Ucello sighed. "Yes, you should have taken more care to arrange for proof of your innocence, Messere."
He gestured to the clerk, who picked up a small bell on the table beside his ink pot and shook it, a silvery clangor.
Two broad, leather-faced men in the yellow and blue tunics of the watch came into the room. They took a few steps toward d'Ucello and stood awaiting orders like a pair of mastiffs.
"Take him down," said d'Ucello.
"Wait! Will you torture me? I have tried to tell you the truth. Do not do this, I beg you."
D'Ucello slid off the window ledge. "I am the sort of man who would rather spend hours picking a lock than break it open." The smile that stretched his thin mustache was genuine. "But, as we both know, the Ghibellini of Siena may be upon us at any moment, and I must break you open quickly. So now I will sleep. And while I am restoring my strength, my men will prepare you for our next talk."
Daoud tried to keep the Face of Steel firmly in place while with the Mask of Clay he feigned helpless terror. But his defense against feeling seemed to have flaws. Genuine terror of what he was about to suffer kept seeping through. When d'Ucello's guards untied him and forced him to stand, his knees nearly buckled under him.
The steps Daoud descended must have been hollowed out by the feet of hundreds of hapless prisoners and their guards. The wall of the circular stairwell, which Daoud brushed with his fingertips to steady himself, was of rough-hewn black stone.
His heart was thudding heavily as he descended the stairs, preceded by one guard, followed by the other and by d'Ucello's clerk. The thought of hours, perhaps days, of pain he must undergo made every muscle in his body tremble. The stairwell, lit at long intervals by torches held by wrought iron cressets, went down so far it seemed to have no bottom. Many a prisoner must have felt the temptation to throw himself down from the stairs and escape suffering.
The chamber he entered through a door of thick oak planks had been carved from the yellow-gray rock of Orvieto's mesa. The room smelled of fire, blood, rot, and excrement.
A man slid down from a chair when Daoud entered with his guards. Standing, his head would have come to Daoud's waist. But he was bent double and held his arms out from his sides to keep his fingers from touching the ground, so his head was not even as high as Daoud's knees.
Memories flashed through Daoud's mind: The woodcutter whohad blessed himself when Daoud was arrested at Lucera. The executioner who had tossed the heretic's cod into the air to the delight of the crowd before Orvieto's cathedral. Daoud had always wondered how the little man had come to appear in two such different places. The skin crawled on the back of Daoud's neck. This creature was uncanny.
"You are to keep him awake all night, Erculio," said the guard who had followed Daoud into the room.
"Did I not sleep all day today, so that I would be able to properly entertain our guest tonight?" The little man bustled forward to Daoud, rubbing his hands. His head was as big as that of a full-grown man, but his hands and feet were small. His mustache bristled in spikes of black hair, like a portcullis over his mouth.
"Please, in the name of the mercy of God," Daoud pleaded. "I am a merchant. I am rich. Do not hurt me. I will pay you well."
"We want to hear nothing from you except frequent screams and answers to the questions the podesta wants me to put to you," said Erculio in a cold voice. "What do we want to know, Vincenzo?"
D'Ucello's clerk said, "The podesta believes he is a Ghibellino spy sent here by the bastard King Manfred. He thinks he incited the Filippeschi uprising. Also he may have killed the French cavaliere."
Erculio nodded vigorously. "Well, then, Messere. Are you prepared to admit your guilt, now that you see where you are and realize what is about to happen to you?"
"These accusations are false!" Daoud cried. "I swear it!"
The tonsured clerk, carrying a handful of quills, a bundle of scrolls, and his ink pot, seated himself at a table in one corner of the room and began to write.
To gain time, Daoud looked around Erculio's domain, remembering the similar room in Tilia's brothel where he had subjected Sordello to the Hashishiyya initiation. This place was starker and more frightful. It was large, perhaps fifty paces on a side, divided by two rows of thick columns holding up the weight of the great stone building above it. Despite its size, the chamber was well lit. The candle sconces were lined with sheets of tin to throw extra light.
Daoud recognized most of the implements of torment around the room. A rack, a tilted wooden table with chains and winches. A sharp-pointed wooden pyramid over which a victim could be suspended. A chair with spikes protruding at the joints. A coffin lined with spikes. A brazier full of pokers and branding irons of various sizes. Weights and pulleys. Whips and cudgels, hung neatly frompegs that lined the walls. A cage full of rats. A number of smaller devices to crush fingers or limbs—or even skulls—laid out neatly on tables beside rows of long needles.
Daoud visualized himself drinking from a bowl of liquid light and felt the mind-created drug Soma pouring down into his stomach and spreading to his heart and lungs, through all his veins.
But still he must keep up the Mask of Clay.
"I can say no other than what is true," he cried. "I am David of Trebizond. I came here to sell silk. I have harmed no one. Please be merciful."
Erculio grunted. "Strip him and string him up."
Daoud protested weakly, letting his voice tremble as the guards pulled the clothes from his body. He felt the cool, dank air of the cellar on his bare skin.
"Be careful," Erculio said. "That is a good embroidered tunic. The hose and boots are new. Those clothes are my property now." Fussily, he folded the garments as they fell away from Daoud and laid them on a chair.
"Will you not return them to me—afterward?" Daoud quavered.
"Afterward?" Erculio laughed.
"What is this?" said one guard as he used his dagger to cut the thong that held the leather capsule around Daoud's neck. The tawidh, that healed his wounds and protected him from death.
Daoud said nothing.
Now they can truly destroy my body.
The guard handed the tawidh to Erculio, who glanced at it and threw it on his low chair. He frowned at Daoud.
"Put a loincloth on him, fools," he growled. "Did I say to strip him stark naked? Are we not decent fellows here?" He fumbled about in a pile of rags and threw one to a guard.
"That's the first time you've complained about a prisoner being naked, Erculio," the guard grumbled as he wrapped the cloth around Daoud's hips and passed it between his legs. "Don't you need to be able to get at his cock?"
"Do not try to teach me my craft," Erculio said snappishly. "Up with him now."
The guards grabbed Daoud by the arms and pushed him under dangling chains. They lifted his arms over his head and bound his wrists with thick leather cuffs. Then they went to a winch with a crank on each side, next to the wall, and began to turn in unison.
Daoud cried out in pain as his body was jerked into the air. The leather cuffs cut into his wrists. His shoulders felt as if his arms were being torn out of their sockets.
He pictured the Soma cascading through his body, and the pain receded. But he continued to cry out as if in unbearable agony until the two guards stopped raising him. He hung there, the Mask of Clay sobbing and whimpering.
Erculio scuttled over to stand under him, holding a thick stick as long as a man's arm. Daoud's feet were just level with Erculio's head. Leaning on the stick, Erculio looked up at Daoud, appraising his body, and a pink tongue tip flickered under the bristling mustache.
"You have a beautiful body, Messere. Well-proportioned, with powerful muscles. You are un bello pezzo di carne, a fine piece of meat." Erculio walked around behind him and stopped there for a moment, where Daoud could not see him.
"Scars from old wounds, too, I see," the little man said.
Perhaps in this light the scar left by the Tartar's arrow looks old.
Erculio stood before him again. "You look able to endure much, so you will last longer. You may think when a guest comes down here I just pick the first instrument that comes to mind. Not so. I follow a strict order. You will get to know every instrument here, if you live long enough. This will be very educational for you."
"I have been telling you the truth," Daoud moaned. "Will you not believe me?"
"Bugiardo! Liar!" Erculio struck him hard on the shin with the stick. Pain blazed through his leg. Daoud could have remained silent, but he shrieked loudly, knowing that fear, as much as pain, would make the man he was pretending to be cry out.
Turning to the others, Erculio said, "What will you wager against these handsome clothes of his that I get this pezzo di carne to speak the words our honorable podesta wants to hear? A bet makes this game more interesting. What say you, any takers?"
"The man is quivering like a frumenty now," said one guard. "He would have been talking long ago if he had anything to say."
"You think so?" Erculio snapped his fingers. "Good. Bet with me, then."
The guard fumbled in a purse at his belt and drew out a glittering coin. "There you are. A gold florin, not ten years old and barely worn. I won it dicing last night."
Erculio examined the coin. "Twenty years old, and the lilies are a bit wilted. But it's heavy enough, I suppose. Done! Now, Messer Pezzo-di-Carne—I call you that because I do not know your real name—you had better tell us what we want to know, or I willreallymake you suffer." He dropped the coin on top of Daoud's clothing.
Erculio brought the stick against Daoud's shin, in the spot he hadstruck a moment ago. The pain shot through Daoud. But Soma turned the pain to a tingling, and Daoud visualized it as a glow that spread from toe to hip. He screamed, as he knew he should, but behind the Face of Steel he felt at peace.
Erculio let out a laugh that sounded more like the clucking of a chicken. "You see, we do not need elaborate instruments. We can inflict unbearable pain with the simplest means—like this!" And he swung the stick to hit precisely the same spot on Daoud's shin he had struck twice before.
Daoud bellowed and felt the tingling and saw the glow in his leg, and the Soma, the drug created by his spirit, preserved his sanity.
How small Erculio looked, crouched down on the stone floor. So man must look to God. God was so infinitely far above man, the miracle was that God was mindful of man at all. But God was inside of man—inside of each human being—as well as above him.
It is blasphemy to liken myself to God.
He called to mind the Koran's admonition,There is none like unto Him.
His mind occupied with God, he barely noticed the activities of the spiderlike creature that crawled about on the floor below him as he hung like a trapped fly. Erculio worked on his legs for a long time, bruising the shins with his heavy stick until Daoud thought both legs must be broken. Then the torturer pressed a red-hot poker against the soles of his feet.
Erculio had the guards let Daoud down and force him to walk on his burned feet to the rack table, where they chained him facedown and stretched him till the ligaments that held his bones together were ready to snap.
The Mask of Clay screamed and pleaded for mercy and insisted he had already told them everything. But the pain lay as far from his consciousness as the sea lies from the desert tent of a Bedouin.
Erculio applied more instruments to Daoud's body, inflicting many kinds of pain—burning, stabbing, bruising, crushing. He kept Daoud awake, and Daoud knew that hours must have gone by, perhaps the whole night.
Daoud's outcries grew hoarser and weaker, and at last Erculio's efforts brought forth nothing from him but soft groans and whimpers.
Daoud saw the clerk, Vincenzo, rise yawning and leave as another clerk, also shaven-headed, but with a short brown beard, came in to replace him. He saw the two guards in yellow and blue sit down on the floor, their backs to the wall, and doze off. He saw after a time the second clerk lower his head on his folded arms. Hesaw all this while Erculio pranced about him, hurting him and hurting him.
Erculio looked around at the others in the chamber. He left off pushing a needle into Daoud's ankle and rushed over to the guards and shouted at them to wake up. He poked them with his stick. They cursed him and kicked at him and went back to sleep. He scurried to the sleeping clerk.
"You are supposed to be writing down everything the prisoner says. Come now, wake up! Indolento! The podesta will hear of this, I promise you."
The clerk mumbled something without raising his head from his arms. Erculio nodded with satisfaction and hurried across the chamber to Daoud. He stood by Daoud's head.
"As-salaam aleikem, Daoud ibn Abdallah," the torturer whispered.
For a moment Daoud could not believe he had really heard it. The drug that he had brewed in his mind had taken control of his ears. Or else this was their way of tricking him into talking freely.
But if they knew my Muslim name and that I speak Arabic, they would not waste time accusing me of being a Ghibellino.
"Wa aleikem salaam," he replied. The uprush of joy he felt at finding a friend here in this terrible cellar momentarily shattered the Face of Steel. What madness this was, that the friend should be the source of all his torment? He bit back hysterical laughter.
"Like you, I serve El Malik Dahir," Erculio said in Arabic. Hearing that title, Daoud thought it even less likely that the little man was trying to trick him.
"I have been watching you since Lucera, My Lord," Erculio went on. "You have done well, even if it has been God's will that you should not succeed. You have been clever. But you should have taken the tawidh off before you surrendered. Do you think there are no Christians who can recognize Arabic numerals?"
Now Daoud was sure the little man was an ally of some sort.
In Arabic he said, "Does the scar on the back of my leg look fresh?"
"It has healed so completely that no one would believe you got it a few months ago. They know nothing of our Islamic medicine. You bear another wound, though, that would have much to say to the observant—your circumcision. That was why I had them put a loincloth on you and lay you facedown on this rack."
"Lucky for me you were here," Daoud said.
"Not luck," said Erculio. "El Malik deemed it wise that, shouldyou be made a prisoner, one of his men ought to be among your captors."
Even here, Baibars's hand reaches out to me, thought Daoud, feeling a rush of gratitude.
"Help me to escape," said Daoud. "The guards and the clerk are asleep."
Erculio brought his small hand downward in a gesture of flat rejection. "There are a hundred men-at-arms on duty up above. The podesta himself will be down here in an hour. Why can you not make up a story that will satisfy him? Say you are a Ghibellino. That is what he believes, and since it is not true, it will not help him. In a thousand years he would never guess the truth."
"No. The only way I can protect those close to me is to admit nothing."
Erculio shook his head, and his black eyes were liquid with sadness. "What a pity. Your case is hopeless, then. Ever since I saw you in Lucera I have felt sorry for you. How can El Malik expect one man to change the course of nations? You are like a man trying to hold apart two ships about to collide." He sighed. "I have done all I can for you. I have hurt you as much as I can without doing you permanent injury—so far. There is only one other service I can perform for you."
"What is that?" said Daoud, though he felt sure he already knew the answer.
"You would not want to reveal under torture that you are an agent of the Sultan of El Kahira, and provoke the very crusade you were sent here to prevent. You would not want to give your friends away. If you break, I will see to it that you die before you might speak."
"I will not break," said Daoud. "And when it is all over, and d'Ucello has killed me, he will at last come to believe that I was telling the truth. Because he believes that no one can hold out against torture to the very end. But promise me one thing."
"Insh'Allah, anything."
"If you must cripple me, see that I do not leave this dungeon alive."
Understanding and respect glowed in the black eyes peering at Daoud over the edge of the rack. "As you wish, My Lord."
He knew he should be grateful that he had this man here to guarantee him a decent death. But a great sadness came over him at the thought that his life must end miserably in this dungeon. He had always hoped that he would meet his fate amid the glory of jihad, holy war.
Well, this is jihad of a kind.
The respite was over. Erculio fell upon Daoud with renewed vigor, driving needles under his toenails and fingernails and beating him with a whip of knotted rawhide cords that tore open his back. Daoud felt the blood running down his sides and pooling underneath him. The little man took a red-hot poker and pressed it, hissing, against the scar made by the Tartar's arrow and Lorenzo's knife. That, Daoud realized, would make it impossible to tell what sort of wound it had been.
The pain seemed to be happening to someone miles away as Daoud converted it to ripples of light passing through his body. He understood that Erculio was applying tortures whose effects could be seen. The podesta would be satisfied that Erculio had done his work well.
Daoud did his part too. The rest had restored his strength, and now Daoud screamed so loudly he woke the guards and the clerk. Erculio set the guards to work replacing the burned-down candles in the sconces around the dungeon. When Daoud turned his throbbing head to look at the candles, he saw hazy rings around them and rays radiating from them. Sweat stung his eyes.
The thick wooden door of the cellar swung inward, and d'Ucello entered. He walked over to where Daoud lay on the rack, and stood staring at him with his peculiar, glazed expression. D'Ucello's face was more sour than usual, and his eyelids were puffed. He looked just awakened from a sleep that had given him little refreshment. His mouth twitched under the thin mustache.
Daoud noticed that in one hand d'Ucello held a small silver flask with a narrow neck and a glass stopper. D'Ucello clenched his hand around it tightly, as if he feared to drop it.
"What has he said?" he demanded, turning to Erculio.
"Just much screaming, Signore." Erculio looked across the room at the bearded clerk, who nodded vigorously.
"You have not hurt him enough, then, Erculio," said the podesta. "He should be offering ussomethingby now. To withstand torture for so long almost smacks of sorcery."
"Perhaps he really has nothing to tell," Erculio ventured.
"Nonsense!" D'Ucello glared at the dwarf. "Even an innocent man would make the torture stop, if he had to lie to do it. And this man is not innocent."
By that one remark Erculio risks much for me, thought Daoud, praying the little man would not again endanger himself.
"Attenzione," said d'Ucello, coming close to Daoud's head and holding the flask so Daoud could see it. He withdrew the stopper,a long icicle of glass. He held the flask low over the rack table and tilted it momentarily. A few drops of dark brown liquid splashed onto the wood. At once d'Ucello righted and stopped the flask.
A white flash, bright as lightning, burst before Daoud's face, blinding him.
He jerked his head back and squeezed his eyes shut. He heard Erculio curse in Italian and the clerk and the guards cry out.
Smoke burned Daoud's nostrils and throat. As he coughed, he opened his eyes and saw a small fire burning its way into the wood a hand's breadth from his face. He felt a wave of heat. D'Ucello and his men watched in silence as the fire ate through the thick planking of the rack table. Gradually the blaze lost its intensity as the liquid that started it was used up. It ended in a hole a man could pass his fist through, with glowing, smoking edges.
"Whatisthat?" said the clerk, tugging nervously at his brown beard.
"Witchcraft," said d'Ucello with a grim chuckle. The clerk and the guards stared at him. Erculio was expressionless.
In spite of Soma, in spite of his years of training, Daoud felt a scream of horror rising inside him at the thought of what d'Ucello was threatening.
"Not witchcraft, but just as evil," d'Ucello went on. "It is a weapon devised by the Byzantines."
"Ah!" said the clerk. "This must be that Greek Fire I have heard crusaders tell of. I always thought it another of their lies about the East."
"It is real," said d'Ucello. "Perhaps our guest, being from the East, has seen it before. The Turks stole the secret from the Byzantines and have been using it against the crusaders. It starts burning the moment it is exposed to air. It clings to whatever it touches, and its flames cannot be put out. Maligno."
The podesta turned to Daoud. "But in this case we will be using it for a good purpose. Messer David, do you love your organs of manhood?"
"What are you saying to me?" Daoud cried, determined that he would be David of Trebizond to the very end. His real terror now matched his pretended terror, but he managed to keep them two separate feelings. The scream trying to escape him battered itself like a trapped animal against the inner wall of the Face of Steel.
D'Ucello bent closer to Daoud, and from his painful position, belly down, arms and legs stretched taut, Daoud lifted his head to look at the podesta. D'Ucello glowered at him, his lips tight under his thin mustache.
"I mean that if you do not tell me who you really are and what you are doing in Orvieto, I will apply this healing potion to your male member. It should not take more than a drop to burn away everything you have there." D'Ucello feinted at Daoud's face with the flask, and Daoud flinched back and cried out. He strained desperately against the chains that held him.
Greek Fire—what a cruel turn of fate that a thing invented by Sophia's people should destroy him. Grief swelled in his throat as he mourned the end of those hours of delight they had passed together.
But, Daoud thought, d'Ucello did not need Greek Fire to destroy his manhood. He could burn it with oil and a torch, or he could order Erculio to slash it away with a knife. The podesta had chosen Greek Fire because it was strange, hinted of magic—maligno. Daoud remembered what d'Ucello had said, an eon ago, when they were talking upstairs: that he would prefer picking a lock to forcing it. Even now the podesta was trying to use fear rather than pain to make Daoud tell him what he wanted to know. D'Ucello himself did not really relish inflicting physical pain; he preferred to work on men's emotions.
D'Ucello peered at him. "Under the appearance of a helpless and terrified merchant, there is bravado. But now you know what a terrible thing is going to happen to you if you persist. I will give that understanding time to ripen."
He drew away and turned to Erculio. "I will return at midday, after my morning audiences. See that he thinks about what is going to happen to him."
Erculio bowed. "Signore."
The podesta left the dungeon, still holding the silver flask.
He has to put off carrying out his threat, Daoud thought.Once he has poured that Greek Fire on my loins, he has done his worst. If the fear does not force me to speak, the deed is pointless. After it is done I will have little more to lose. If he were a true torturer, he would have begun with my toes.
Even so, Daoud was sure d'Ucello would carry out his threat.
Therefore, I must prepare myself for death.
If d'Ucello used the Greek Fire on him, Daoud would want Erculio to kill him. And he was sure Erculio would do it.
He turned his mind again to thoughts of God. Soon he would be face-to-face with God in paradise.
He heard Erculio talking to the guards, making preparations for some new torment. Rather than wallow in fear, Daoud visualized a fresh flood of Soma coursing through his heart and mind andlimbs. Saadi had explained that there was no limit to how much of a spiritual drug a man could take.
This time, as Soma detached his spirit from his body, something happened to him unlike anything he had never known before. He was looking down at himself. He saw himself lying facedown, nearly nude on the rack, his blond hair darkened and plastered down with sweat. He saw the bloody slashes across his back, the blackened burn mark on his leg.
He was floating near the ceiling of the dungeon. He looked down at the spider shape of Erculio, talking with the guards and the clerk. Amazing that they did not look up here and see him. They thought he was still on the rack.
He rose through solid stone, a space of lightlessness. Then he was moving over tiled floors through the upper levels of the Palazzo del Podesta, and he was out through its iron-sheathed oak door.
The vault of the sky over him was as black and heavy as the stones of the dungeon where his body lay. It must be the final hour of night. Even though he was a spirit, he sensed that the air was hot and damp.
He rose higher and higher over Orvieto, and amazingly he was able to see despite the absence of light. He could see the entire oval shape of the city from end to end, and the deep valleys that surrounded it. There at the west end was the cathedral of San Giovenale, with the great piazza where public events took place. There was Cardinal Ugolini's mansion, near the palace where the pope had lived. On the north side of the town, the Palazzo Monaldeschi, where he had hoped to end the threat to Islam with swift blows of his dagger. And there—
From such a height—and since it was not yet dawn—he should not have been able to recognize her, but he saw and knew at once the small figure of a cloaked and hooded woman striding purposefully through a twisting street. She was walking through the eastern side of the town, in the direction of Tilia's house, which he could see from up here, with the dovecote on its roof and its crenellated balconies, though Sophia could not. Beside Sophia, a hulking figure carried a torch to light their way. Ugolini's man-at-arms Riccardo.
Without knowing how he did it, Daoud was down from the sky in an instant and walking invisibly beside her. Her black brows were drawn together in a frown, her nose and mouth covered by a silk scarf. She looked almost like a Muslim woman. She was full of fear for him, he knew. He wanted to tell her not to be afraid, but how could he, knowing he was going to die?
He thanked God for letting him see Sophia one last time.
I love you, Sophia. Remember our joy.
Fighting billows of terror that threatened to engulf her, Sophia pulled her veil aside so that Tilia's servant Cassio could recognize her. Yawning, Cassio led Sophia and Riccardo into the large, column-lined reception room and left them. Ugolini's man threw himself down on a padded bench. Sophia, too agitated to sit still, unpinned her hooded cloak and dropped it beside Riccardo. Even though she had just walked halfway across town, she paced the carpeted floor, twisting her fingers.
Would Tilia be able to help, or would she be as powerless as Ugolini? This journey across the city might be utterly futile, but Sophia, unable to sleep and tormented by demon-inspired visions of what was happening to Daoud, had to do something.
Tilia quickly appeared on the landing of the second floor gallery, followed by Cassio, who held a candle. Despite her bulk, she seemed to flow down the stairs in her trailing red silk gown.
"Quickly, tell me what has happened," she said. "For you to come this late it must be disastroso." Her voice was calm but hoarse. Her face was puffy and creased with deep wrinkles. She wore one piece of jewelry, her bishop's cross.
"We had better talk alone," Sophia said. Tilia nodded. Riccardo was already sitting on a couch in the entry hall with his eyes shut. Cassio looked inquiringly at Tilia. His shoulder-length black hair, usually well-combed and glossy, was a nest of unruly locks pointing every which way.
"Give me the candle, Cassio," said Tilia. "Come up to my room, Sophia. Your escort can wait here." She sighed. "A few weeks ago there would have been clients waiting in this room even at this hour. Since the pope left—" She waved a hand at the emptiness of the great chamber.
Sophia felt herself wanting to cling to Tilia, as if the short, fat woman were her mother. A few months before she had felt nothingbut hatred for the brothel keeper because she had introduced Rachel into whoredom. Now she prayed only that Tilia could help her.
Her bedroom was cool, the shutters of a large double window having been swung open to let in the night air. Tilia sat on her wide bed, which was covered with embroidered cushions and silk sheets that draped over the four posts. Sophia went to the window and drew back the curtain to look out. The street outside was dark and empty.
What was happening to Daoud in the Palazzo del Podesta? Were they crippling his beautiful body? Was he dying? Dead? She felt like crying at the thought of how they might be hurting him. But she could not help him unless she kept her head.
Sophia quickly told Tilia about Daoud's arrest. Tilia lay back on the bed, her beady eyes fixed on Sophia, and fingered the cross on her ample bosom. Every so often she nodded, as if this were just what she had expected.
She covered her eyes momentarily with her hand. "May God be kind to Daoud ibn Abdallah. He is worth ten of any ordinary men."
She knows Daoud's Muslim name!
But Sophia had no time to pursue the thought. Tilia had quickly wiped her tears away and turned to Sophia expectantly.
"With Lorenzo away you are the only one who might be able to do something," Sophia said.
"What do you expect of me, if David lets himself be taken away and the cardinal does nothing?" Tilia asked. "Have I more power than they?" Clearly her use of "Daoud" was a momentary indiscretion.
"We need someone who can think," Sophia said, realizing how vague she sounded in her desperation.
"How is Adelberto taking it?" Tilia asked.
"He is almost speechless with terror. He just moans and weeps and wrings his hands. I am afraid he may try to run away, or confess everything or do something equally foolish."
Tilia nodded again, grimly. "He is picturing all the things they will do to him if he is found guilty of conspiring with the enemies of Christendom." She looked at Sophia keenly. "What about you? Are you not afraid for yourself?"
"I am dying of fear."
Tilia reached over and squeezed her hand. "I am frightened too. Who would not be? But you're right—giving way to panic just leaves us helpless. Let us go back to Adelberto's mansion. He is a changeable man. I may be able to get him to think sensibly. I will see what I can do with him."
A wave of relief swept over Sophia. At least she was no longer struggling alone.
Sophia could see a bluish light on the tile roofs of the houses across from Tilia's window. It would soon be morning.
God, they have had Daoud for a whole night! What have they done to him?
"D'Ucello has men watching the cardinal's mansion," Sophia said. "Riccardo and I slipped out through the tunnel that leads under the street to the potterymaker's shop, but we cannot get back in that way."
"Getting there is the easiest part of it," said Tilia. "Cassio will hire a covered cart for us. The hard part will be deciding what to do once we have arrived." She smiled and patted her breasts, accentuated by the gossamer fabric of her sleeping gown. "I must put some clothes on."
"While you dress, can I see Rachel?" Sophia asked. She noticed three ironbound chests, ornamented with circular enameled medallions, standing in a row against the wall beside Tilia's bed. Each was secured with a padlock. They must hold the gold Tilia's customers brought to her.
"I will take you to Rachel," said Tilia. "She is as well and happy as when you saw her last. But do not tell her what has happened to David."
"There is no point in frightening her," Sophia agreed. "But when we leave Orvieto, I want to take her with us."
"Whether you believe it or not, I am looking after her welfare," Tilia said. "Just yesterday, John the Tartar offered me five thousand florins to let him take her to Perugia with him when he follows the pope there. He flew into a rage when I refused him. So, you see, I have even braved the fury of the Tartars for Rachel's sake. Perhaps you will begin to judge me a little more kindly."
Turning to leave the room, Sophia froze momentarily. It had not occurred to her that Tilia would know that she had once hated her. The womanwaspenetrating. She felt a little more confident that Tilia would have the wisdom to help her in this calamity.
Tilia, holding a candle, opened Rachel's door for Sophia. More glittering gold had been added to the girl's bedroom since Sophia had last visited her, and when the candle flame illuminated it, the room seemed to blaze. Sophia blinked at the gold curtains before the windows and the heavy cloth-of-gold draperies surrounding the bed.
All this, she thought, was to impress that horrible Tartar whocame here to lie with Rachel. How lucky Sophia had been to be able to share her bed with a man she loved.
But thoughts of happiness with Daoud—memories—were like a knife in her heart, now that he had been taken from her.
Tilia pulled the drape aside, and there was Rachel, curled up nude on top of yellow silk sheets. Her skinny arms and legs made her look even younger than she was. Sophia felt heartsick as Rachel's eyes opened wide at the sudden light. She sat up in bed, dragging the sheet across her body, then drew back against the wall. She looked terrified. Sophia wondered what sort of awakenings Rachel was used to in this place, and a sudden return of her rage at Tilia made her tremble.
Well and happy, is she?
But she dared not be angry with Tilia now. Tilia was the only person who could help her.
Rachel's black eyes fell on Sophia, and the fear went out of her face. It was replaced by a glad smile that hurt Sophia's heart all the more.
I abandoned her to this, and yet she is happy to see me.
"I will leave you two to talk," Tilia said.
Sophia sat on the gold sheets and took Rachel's hand when Tilia was gone. For a moment she forgot her own grief and fear, as an urge to comfort Rachel pushed to the fore.
"All of us are going to be leaving Orvieto soon, and when we do we will take you with us," she said. Rachel's dark eyes glowed.
Sophia went on. "Wherever we go, you will not have to stay with Tilia anymore and do—what Tilia expects of you. We will find a home for you."
She was not sure how she was going to keep such a promise, but she decided that Daoud would have to kill her before she would let him put Rachel in another brothel.
Again the knife in her breast as she remembered she might never see Daoud again.
Rachel shrugged. "I may be better off doing this than I would be as some man's wife." She looked down at her hands, and Sophia saw that her fingers were long and slender and quite beautiful. "John Chagan has made me very rich, you know."
Sophia thought of the three locked chests in Tilia's room. She would have to make sure that Rachel, when she left this place of shame, got all the gold that was rightfully hers. And how outrageous, that Tilia had been filling Rachel's head with lies about how lucky she was.
"Tilia and the others here have to believe that this is the rightlife for them. But there is not a woman here who would not trade whatever riches she has earned for a real home, with a husband and children."
Rachel was silent a moment. Her face was all straight lines, Sophia saw, yet delicate and feminine at the same time.
As a woman, she will be much more beautiful than I.
"Even you?" Rachel said suddenly.
Sophia was surprised. "We are not talking about me. I am not—a courtesan."
"What are you?" Rachel asked softly, shyly.
What word is there to describe me?
She had thought often about other women and how different their lives were from hers. Sometimes, to survive, she had to give her body to men when she did not want to. She had been in danger of death. She had known love and wealth and power. She had lived this way since her parents and the boy she had loved were killed, and she could not imagine living any other way.
"I am just a person who does whatever she needs to," said Sophia. How could she sit here and talk like this, when Daoud might be dying? A chill went over her, as if she were in the grip of a fever, and she almost cried aloud.
"Something is wrong," Rachel said. "Why are you here so early in the morning?" That look of terror was coming back into her face.
The door opened, and Tilia was there, dressed in a long green silk tunic and a yellow satin surcoat. Light was beginning to show through Rachel's windows. Sophia held Rachel's hand for a moment and then let go of it and stood up to leave.
"Take me with you," Rachel said, seizing Sophia's wrist.
"Not now," said Sophia quickly. "We will all be together when we leave Orvieto."
Rachel's eyes overflowed with tears. "I do not want to stay here. I want to go with you now."
"What have you been saying to her?" Tilia said angrily.
"Nothing," said Sophia. She turned to Rachel. "See, Madama will be angry with me. She thinks I have been frightening you. Now show her that you are calm and are willing to stay here."
Rachel's thin shoulders slumped. "As you wish, Signora."
In the midst of her fear for Daoud, a pang of guilt shot through Sophia. She had upset Rachel and then spoken gruffly to her. She rushed to her and hugged the thin body against hers.
She kissed Rachel quickly and followed Tilia out.
Sophia followed Tilia through the door of Ugolini's cabinet after Tilia thrust it open without even knocking. Ugolini's eyes bulged at the sight of Tilia, and he threw down his pen.
He was still in a panic, Sophia saw, heartsick. Even if they could come up with a plan to rescue Daoud, would he be willing to do anything?
"Now, of all times, you should not be here," he cried at Tilia.
Without a word Tilia marched across the Syrian carpet, her broad hips swinging under her green gown. She went around Ugolini's desk and held out her arms to him. With a slightly embarrassed glance at Sophia, he stood up—he was the same height as Tilia—and let her take him into her arms. He leaned his head on her shoulder for a moment, then handed her into his chair.
They really are lovers, thought Sophia, seeing the little cardinal's sudden wistful smile. The sight of that smile gave her new hope. Perhaps Tilia could restore his courage. Only Ugolini had the power and authority to do anything about Daoud's imprisonment. Tilia had to bring him back to himself.
"Did you not want me to know, Adelberto, what happened to David?" she demanded, looking down at the parchment he had been writing on. "What is this?"
"I am calculating my horoscope for this day. The stars are telling me I have overreached myself and have only myself to blame for my downfall."
"For your downfall? Dear God, Adelberto, have you given up hope already?"
His words dimmed Sophia's hopes. He believed in his stars.
Ugolini, dressed in a white gown tied at the waist with a cord, walked to the half-open windows and pulled the violet drapes across them, darkening the room. A breeze made the drapes billow inward and blew out the flame of the candle on his desk, plunging the room into a deeper darkness. Unbidden, Sophia picked up a wax taper from Ugolini's worktable, igniting it from the fat, hour-marked candle in the corner away from the window, and went lighting candles in the candelabra around the room. Talking in the dark would only drive their spirits lower.
If only Lorenzo were here. He would have a plan by now, and be doing something about it.
Ugolini held out his hands to Tilia. "I am doomed, and I do not want you dragged down with me." He turned to Sophia, whiskers bristling over his grimace. "You should have left her out of this."
If I had left her out of it, there would be no hope at all, Sophiathought, sitting on the small chair facing Ugolini's worktable. She looked with appeal at Tilia, who nodded reassuringly.
"Tilia needs just as much as any of us to know what is happening," said Sophia. "And you need to talk to her." Ugolini's hands were trembling, she saw. She, too, was afraid, both for herself and Daoud. Fear was a black hollow eating away at her insides.
Oh, Daoud, what are they doing to you?
He might come out of the Palazzo del Podesta blind, or with arms or legs cut off, or mad, she thought. When she saw him again, she might wish him dead—and herself along with him.
She wiped the cold sweat from her brow with the hem of her silk cloak. In the heavy, hot air, the scent of Tilia's rose-petal sachet filled the room.
"Only a miracle can save us," said Ugolini, pacing and waving his hands. "I have been praying to God that He take the soul of David of Trebizond before he breaks under torture and dooms us all."
Sophia reeled with the pain his words brought her. She wanted to claw Ugolini's eyes out. She sprang up from her chair, fists clenched.
"May God takeyoursoul!" she screamed at him. "And send you straight to hell!"
Ugolini turned and stared at her as if she had struck him.
"Be still, Sophia," said Tilia quietly. "That will not help."
Panting heavily, Sophia sat down again. They needed Ugolini so badly, and he was souseless. She wanted to weep with frustration.
"Of course God will damn me," Ugolini cried, throwing his arms into the air as he paced the room, his white gown rippling. "Why should He spare me or any of us, when we have been working against His Church?"
It is not my Church, thought Sophia resentfully.It is the schismatic Latin Church he speaks of.Remembering that she was probably the only person of her faith in Orvieto, she felt terribly alone.
Almost as alone as Daoud must feel.
"It seems that you no longer know who you are," said Tilia sourly to Ugolini.
"Eh? What do you mean?" He turned quickly and peered at her.
She talks to him as if she were his nursemaid, Sophia thought.And that is what he needs.
"You are one of twenty-two men whorulethe Church," said Tilia firmly. "You will elect the next pope, and very soon, by all signs. You are not a citizen of Orvieto, subject to this podesta."She spat the word. "You are one of the most powerful men in Italy."
"I am the creature of the Sultan of Egypt, and soon the whole world will know it," Ugolini moaned. "Oh, God, how I wish you had never come to me with his bribes."
So it was Tilia who had recruited Ugolini for this work. There were depths to this woman. If anyone could have an effect on Ugolini now, she could. But Sophia wondered if even Tilia could reach the cardinal in his present state.
"Are you sorry you met me, Adelberto?" said Tilia softly.
"No, no!" said Ugolini hastily.
He rushed over to where she sat at his table and put his hands on her shoulders.
"Without you," he said earnestly, "my life would have been flat and empty."
Love, thought Sophia.He loves her. That might make the difference.
"And I helped you become wealthier than you ever dreamed possible. I helped you buy the red hat."
"True," said Ugolini. "But Fortune raises men high only so they may fall farther when she casts them down."
Tilia brought her large hand down hard on Ugolini's marble-topped table. "Enough of this talk of the stars and Fortune. Look here, Adelberto, for this little cimice, this bedbug of a man, d'Ucello, to walk into the house of Cardinal Ugolini and arrest one of his guests—it is insufferable! You must not permit it."
Sophia did not dare to breathe as she watched Ugolini's face for a sign of returning strength.
"No doubt you are right," said Ugolini, nodding slowly like a boy being taught his lessons.
"You must bring pressure to bear on this man," Tilia went on. "With most of the cardinals following the pope to Perugia, you are now even more important in Orvieto."
Thank God for Tilia.At this moment Sophia was willing to forgive Tilia even the corrupting of Rachel.
Ugolini said, "Yes, but if last night I could not stop him from taking David, what can I do now?" He spread his empty hands.
Another gust of wind lifted the purple drapes and sent scraps of parchment from Ugolini's table to the carpet. Sophia saw circles and triangles and whole constellations flying across the room.
They would have to enlist the aid of someone who had influence over the podesta, Sophia thought, someone who was friendlyenough to Ugolini to be willing to speak on his behalf. With the pope gone, the most powerful person in the city was—
As soon as the thought came to her, she spoke. "The Contessa di Monaldeschi. Cardinal, you must go to her and ask her help."
Her heart rose to her throat, choking her. Tilia and Ugolini stared at her. Would they listen? Would they spurn her idea?
"Why shouldshehelp me?" said Ugolini.
"She admires you," said Sophia. "She told me so the night of the reception she gave for the Tartars. Now that the pope has left Orvieto, she probably feels neglected."
Wide-eyed, Ugolini shook his head. "But David is accused of involvement in the attack on her palace. Just yesterday I saw her cackling like a strega while her men chopped off Marco di Filippeschi's head and murdered half his family. They even impaled a baby on a spear, and she shouted with glee."
"That has nothing to do with us," said Sophia, though the image revolted her. "She has no reason to connect David with the Filippeschi."
Tilia nodded vigorously, shaking her body and the chair she was sitting in. "Sophia has an excellent idea, Adelberto. If the Contessa di Monaldeschi pleads for David, ifshe, the injured party, is convinced of his innocence, the podesta must yield."
Sophia felt more confident as she saw that Tilia was on her side. She pressed the attack.
"Again and again d'Ucello has shown that he does whatever the Monaldeschi expect of him," she urged.
"He used to do whatevereitherfamily expected of him," said Ugolini. "Until so many Filippeschi perished that they ceased to matter."
Ugolini went to the window. A blast of hot, damp wind roared into the room, and he raised his hand protectively in front of his face.
"It will storm soon," said Tilia. "It cannot be soon enough to suit me. A storm will break this terrible heat. As soon as the storm passes, you must go to her."
Ugolini nodded slowly. "If I fail to convince her, I will be no worse off than I am now."
"You will convince her," said Tilia. "You might as well start to put on your red robes."
Real hope sailed across the sea of terror to Sophia now, and it was a galley, a galley with sails painted a cardinal's red. She felt it bearing her up over her dread for Daoud and for herself.
"I will go to the contessa with you," said Sophia. If he gave way to panic again, she could stop him from doing too much damage.
"And I will return to my house," said Tilia, standing up.
"No," said Ugolini. "It was dangerous enough for you to come here. We know this mansion is being watched. Stay here until nightfall."
Tilia smiled, went to him, and held his small, pointed face between her hands. "I will stay. And if you succeed in persuading the contessa to have David freed, we will have something to celebrate, you and I."
To celebrate! What a wonderful thought. Sophia had begun to feel she would never celebrate anything again.
But moving Ugolini to act was only the first step, she reminded herself. The contessa might prove to be against them, and Daoud might still be doomed.
Sophia watched, eaten up by anxiety, as the Contessa di Monaldeschi advanced slowly into her smaller audience chamber, leaning on her grandnephew, a plump boy in red velvet.
"I hope you have not come to scold me, Cardinal Ugolini," the contessa rasped.
Could this old woman really have laughed to see a baby impaled on a spear, Sophia wondered as she and Ugolini bowed.
"Dear Contessa, scold you?" Ugolini said with a chuckle. "Whatever for?" Sophia was delighted to see how completely he had, to all outward appearances, cast off the terror that gripped him a short time before.
Like all of us, when terror strikes, he needs to feel he can do something.
"Ah, Cardinal. Surely you know." When she reached Ugolini, the tall, bony old woman clutched at the boy's arm with both clawlike hands and began, with an effort that made her compress her withered lips, to lower herself to the floor. It hurt Sophia just to watch her struggle to genuflect before the cardinal.
The contessa had aged a great deal, Sophia thought, since she first saw her, over a year ago. She was thinner, more bent, moved with much greater difficulty. Ugolini reached out to try to stop her from kneeling.
"Please, Dona Elvira!" he cried. "Do not trouble yourself so."
"No, I am a good daughter of the Church," said the contessa. "And through you I pay homage to God."
The old woman's maroon satin gown crackled as she bent her knees. Even kneeling, she was almost as tall as Ugolini. Goldbracelets rattled around her skinny arms, and heavy medallions dangled from gold chains around her neck. A net of gold threads held the coiled braids of her white hair in place.
Once she was on her knees, her grandnephew pulled off his red cap and bowed to Ugolini with a sweeping gesture. His hair was a mass of tight black curls. Had he, too, watched the massacre of the Filippeschi, Sophia wondered. And what had that done to the boy?
"Please let me kiss your ring," the contessa said. She seized his hand and planted a loud, smacking kiss on his sapphire cardinal's ring.
"It is I who should pay homage to you, Dona Elvira," said Ugolini.
Sophia immediately stepped forward to help the contessa struggle to her feet. The boy took the old lady from the other side. Sophia caught a glimpse of him looking at her with bright, amused eyes. Eyes that were too old for the face of an eleven-year-old boy.
When she got close to the contessa, Sophia smelled an odor that made her think of a damp cellar. Together Sophia and the Monaldeschi heir walked with the old lady to a broad-armed chair, where she settled herself, gasping. Two manservants set smaller chairs for the cardinal and Sophia facing the contessa.
The contessa's grandnephew leaned elegantly against the back of the old lady's chair, the fingers of his chubby hands interlinked. Sophia glanced at him and caught his glittering eyes roving over her body. He saw her looking at him, and smiled faintly and without embarrassment.
Contessa Elvira raised a trembling hand. "Cardinal Piacenza had been most unkind. I had a letter from him this morning condemning me in the rudest terms for our triumph over the Filippeschi canaglia yesterday in the Piazza San Giovenale. He accused me of sacrilege, because I shed the blood of Marco during a Mass. When else could I have taken him and his foul brood unawares? God gave me the opportunity."
"Nothing happens save by the will of God," Ugolini murmured.
"Esattamente! Yet Cardinal Piacenza has the audacity to tell me that I am in a grave state of sin and that I have led Vittorio here into sin as well."
Glancing again at Vittorio, Sophia noticed the sword, short enough for a boy but long enough to kill, that hung from his jeweled belt.
Ugolini shook his head. "No one has the right to say that another is in sin. Only God sees the soul.Judge not, lest ye be judged."
Sophia found it hard to believe that this was the same man whosepanic she had struggled to overcome a few hours earlier. He was suddenly the perfect clergyman, attentive, sympathetic, sententious.
"Yes, and for what should I be judged?" The contessa lifted both hands now. "For exacting justice?"
"If you have any doubts, dear Madama," Ugolini said, "I will be happy to give you absolution."
That was a nice touch, thought Sophia. If she confessed to him, that would certainly put her under his influence.
But even as they talked, across town the podesta's men might be tearing Daoud's body to pieces. Sophia felt her stomach knot. She shook her head as vigorously as she dared, to drive away the hideous images without attracting attention to herself.
Hurry! Dear God, make them hurry!
"Ihaveno doubts," said the old lady firmly. "Besides, I have my own chaplain. I would not wish another person on earth to know me as well as he does. But I do thank you for your kind thought, Cardinal. I am glad to see that not all the princes of the Church think alike in this matter."
"I am sure Cardinal Piacenza is quite alone," said Ugolini.
The contessa shrugged. "I do not know about that. Since His Holiness left, no one has called on me. I have been feeling quite abandoned."
Now Sophia began to feel a stronger hope than ever. The old lady liked to be flattered by princes of the Church. Perhaps she could be won over after all.
"Surely your guest, Cardinal de Verceuil, attends you often," Ugolini ventured.
The contessa sniffed. "That Frenchman. He is no more civilized than his Tartars. I would rather he left me alone. The French are all rather barbaric. Of course, that fine young Simon de Gobignon—he is most attractive." She grinned with a lasciviousness that startled Sophia. "This palace has not been the same since he went back to France."
"Back to France?" Ugolini stared. "I thought he, too, was going to Perugia."
Sophia felt a ball of ice suddenly encase her heart. She had told Ugolini, as she told Daoud, that Simon was going to Perugia. She prayed Ugolini would not suspect that she had been lying.
"Oh, no," said the contessa. "France. He told me himself when he took leave of me. And when he returns, I think Ghibellini everywhere in Italy will have reason to tremble. Because the might of France will follow him. I am only sorry he will not come in timeto save Orvieto from the Sienese. One of my sergentes just reported that the Sienese army is but a day or two away from here."
And Lorenzo with it, thought Sophia.If only he would hurry.
"What will you do, Contessa?" Ugolini asked. "As a Guelfo family, do the Monaldeschi intend to leave Orvieto before the Sienese arrive?"
He was straying from the subject, thought Sophia impatiently.
Never mind the damned Sienese army. They cannot do us any good.
The old lady tossed her head, her hooked nose jutting defiantly. She laid her hand on Vittorio's.
"We will stand fast. This family has lived in this city since the days of the Etruscans. I expect our militia to put up a good fight. After our honor has been satisfied, we will ask, with dignity, for terms."
"Very brave," said Ugolini.
The militia of Orvieto, thought Sophia, was under the command of the podesta. If d'Ucello was involved in fighting the Sienese, what might that mean for Daoud?
Dona Elvira looked at the cardinal slyly. "Are you also staying in Orvieto, Your Eminence?"
"For the moment," said Ugolini.
Sophia was surprised that Ugolini did not say more, but the conversation seemed to be going the way he wanted it to.
"You may be able to help us, Your Eminence."
Sophia felt more elated than ever. If she wanted help from Ugolini, then surely she would be willing to help him.
"Nothing would please me more, Contessa."
"You are from the south, from Manfred's kingdom. You might have some influence with these Ghibellini. Perhaps a word from you would help to keep our house and our property intact."
Ugolini threw out his arms. "Dear Contessa, anything. Of course, as a loyal supporter of the pope I do not ordinarily have dealings with Ghibellini."
"Of course not," the contessa agreed. Vittorio smiled. He had a small, chiseled mouth, such as Sophia had seen on the men in ancient Roman sculptures.
"But whatever little I might be able to do, I am entirely at your service," Ugolini said.
"I have always considered you my very good friend, Your Eminence. Even though you opposed the alliance of Christians and Tartars and they were my houseguests."
That startled Sophia. The contessa made it sound as if the Tartars had left her home.