Simon was never more glad he was not Amalric's son.
"I must go back and look at the old agreements and treaties, Uncle Charles. I must see what kind of service each baron and each knight owes me, and for how long and under what conditions I can call on them. Let me see what my rights are as seigneur. Then I will be able to tell you how many knights and men I can bring to you."
"Suit yourself, but I will wager few of them will hold you to the letter of their obligations. As I said, when they see the chances for gain, they will want to come. If need be, pay them. Your treasury is fat. You have had no wars to pay for for many years. Whatever you spend, you will make back a hundredfold when we take Manfred's kingdom."
He did not notice that I did not actually promise to bring any men back with me.
To seem to promise and yet not to promise—Simon felt rather proud of himself for finding a way out. He felt like a fox who had thrown a pack of slavering hounds off the scent. He had freed himself from the trap Anjou had built for him. Perhaps the count was right. Perhaps this time in Italyhaddone him some good, made him a cleverer man. He drank deeply of the red Roman wine and secretly toasted himself.
He would honor Charles's request to remain at his side in Rome for a time, fighting for him if need be. Then to Viterbo.
Over a year ago he had agreed to care for the Tartars, and he would be judged, and would judge himself, on how well he had done that. He did not like leaving it to de Verceuil. Even if Papa le Gros, as the Italians called him, were all in favor of the alliance, the Tartars still had many points to settle before the war—the final war—on the Saracens became a reality.
"Before I return to Gobignon," Simon said, "I must go to Viterbo and make sure that the Tartars are well guarded."
"Suit yourself." Charles waved a large hand in acquiescence.
To Viterbo and Sophia.
He felt again the ecstasy of that day by the lake, the closeness, the union of their flesh. How beautiful it had been! Even here, in Charles d'Anjou's tent outside the walls of Rome, he felt a hot stirring in his body at the remembrance of their afternoon of love.
How could she not want that again? She must. He was sure of it. She wanted, as he did, a lifetime of love. That was why she wept whenever he tried to convince her that he meant to marry her.
She had promised him faithfully that the next time they met she would tell him what the obstacle was to their marrying. Whatever the reason was, he would sweep it aside and carry her off to Gobignon with him.
Friar Mathieu could marry them before they even left Viterbo. Then if Grandmère or his sisters had any objections, they would have to swallow them. They could be together in his castle this summer, when the rivers were flowing fast, when the trees were heavy with fruit and the fields were green and the forest was full of fleet deer and clever foxes. How she would love it!
Sophia. A thousand visions of her cascaded through his mind, of her dark red lips smiling, her eyes glowing like precious stones, her proud carriage. And he remembered the feel of her limbs tangled with his, her passion the proof, despite her fears, of the depth of her love for him.
It would be maddening to stay away from her for the two months Charles had asked of him, but after that they would have the whole of their lives together.
Sophia heard a murmur from the riders ahead, and looked up. It was warmer here in the south, and she had opened the curtains of her sedan chair. Following the path around the side of a hill, the two men carrying her had brought Lucera into view.
It seemed not to have changed at all in the year and a half since she had left with Daoud and Lorenzo. The octagonal walls and square towers of Manfred's citadel, warmed by the setting sun, rose above the small city standing in the center of a plain surrounded by hills.
Her skin tingled at the thought of seeing Daoud again. But her heart, which should have been light with happiness, ached, tormented for months by a decision she could not make.
A cry from the men-at-arms leading the way startled her. Her eyes followed a pointing arm and saw, high on the rocky slope of a nearby hill, a mounted warrior.
He glittered in the sunset. He was too far away for her to see the details of his costume, but gold flashed on his breastplate, on his hands and arms, and on the white turban that shaded his face. One of Manfred's Saracens probably, sent out from Lucera to bid them welcome.
She saw that their path descended gradually into a valley. The Saracen's horse was scrambling down a steep slope to meet them. The warrior leaned back in this saddle to balance himself, riding easily down to the valley floor.
As she drew nearer to him, her heart started to hammer in her chest. The lower half of his face was covered by a short blond beard. The face was still in shadow, but the nose was long and straight.
Most of all, it was his carriage that told her who he was. He held himself so perfectly erect that he almost seemed made of some substance lighter and finer than ordinary flesh. And yet there was not a trace of stiffness in his posture. Like a young tree. Somevessel seemed to open within her and spread a gentle, joyous balm throughout her body.
Ahead of her, Ugolini, alerted by his guards, had thrown back the curtains of his sedan chair and was leaning out. He was bareheaded, his white side-whiskers fluttering in the breeze. He must be beside himself with excitement, Sophia thought, at the prospect of reunion with Tilia.
The horseman touched his right hand to his white turban in salute to Ugolini, and rode on past.
How splendidly he was caparisoned, from the white plume in his turban to his jeweled, carved stirrups. The breastplate over his long red riding robe was of polished steel, inlaid with gold in Arabic spirals. Jewels sparkled on the hilt and sheath of his sword.
He was close enough for her to see his face clearly. His new beard gave him a commanding, princely look. Seeing him like this, she understood better what the wordMamelukemeant. She felt as if a new sun had arisen before her. How unbelievably lucky she was to be loved by such a man.
But, like an enemy in ambush, the pain of her indecision struck her in the heart.
The more fool I am to have betrayed him.
He drew up beside her and rode around her sedan chair so that the head of his glistening black horse was toward Lucera. In a sudden movement he leaned down from the saddle. An irresistible arm encircled her waist and pulled her up out of the sedan chair. For a moment she felt alarmed and amazed, as if she were flying through the air. Then, before she could scream, she found herself comfortably seated across the great horse, her shoulder resting on his breastplate, his arms around her.
Her only fear was that she might faint at his touch.
And like that they rode into Lucera. Together for all the world to see.
What exquisite irony! She gazed around the bedchamber Daoud had led her to, hardly able to believe her eyes. The big bed with its golden curtains was the same, and so was the window with its pointed arch. This was the very room, the very bed, in which Manfred and she had made love for the last time.
Manfred must have deliberately chosen to give this room to them.
Daoud's weapons hung on the wall, and his armor was mounted on wooden stands. Chests of clothing and other possessions were lined up along the wall. Soon the servants would be bringing her things in too.
This room—another thing she could not tell him about. She despised herself. But it might well offend him if he knew of Manfred's little joke, and enmity between Daoud and Manfred at this moment could be disastrous.
Manfred needs Daoud. Why is he so foolish as to risk angering him?
Daoud and she stood staring at each other. They had said little so far. She felt overwhelmed, and she supposed he did too. She felt her longing for him as a strange not-quite-pain in the pit of her stomach.
He took her shoulders in his hands. How good to feel his strong fingers holding her.
"How long has this been your room?" she asked.
"For about a month. Rather grand, is it not? The king says it is suitable to my rank. I have my own command, a division of his mounted Muslim warriors. I call them the Sons of the Falcon."
Suitable to my rank.
She wondered how much Daoud knew about herself and Manfred.
"What troubles you?" he asked.
So many things.
"Manfred," she said, choosing the worry easiest to speak of.
He stroked her cheek gently. "No need to torment yourself. I understand how it must have been."
But would you understand about Simon?
She said, "But can Manfred accept what you and I are to each other?"
He shrugged. "You see that we are together in his palace. You saw that I rode with you before me on my horse through the streets of Lucera and into Manfred's castle."
"I see that Manfred must know about us. Are you sure he does not want me back? It can be fatal to cross a king."
"When we got the message that Ugolini and you were coming here instead of going to Viterbo, I talked with Manfred, not as subject and king, but as man and man. He was most gracious, as Manfred usually is."
"What did he tell you?"
"That indeed he still cares for you. Too much, it seems."
"Too much?"
Daoud's teeth flashed in his blond beard. "His queen, the mother of his four children, Helene of Cyprus, usually looks the other way when Manfred beds beautiful young women. But she saw in youtoo serious a rival. He had to send you off with me, or the queen would have had you poisoned."
Sophia's eyes strayed to the bed in horror. She remembered now that before she left here, Manfred had hinted at something like that.
"Poisoned! And I am safe now?"
Again the white grin in the blond beard. During the six months they had been apart, she had begun to think that her love for him might have seduced memory and enhanced his good looks beyond reality. But now in the flesh he surpassed even the image her memory had cherished.
"You are safe as long as you stay away from Manfred and he from you. There will be a feast tonight, in honor of Cardinal Ugolini. You will see how carefully the king will avoid you."
Daoud pulled her close to enfold her in his arms. He had taken off his surcoat and breastplate, and with her head against his chest she could feel his heart beating strong and fast under his silk robe.
"And you?" she said. "Do you hate the thought that Manfred and I were lovers?"
In that very bed.
"It is far in the past," Daoud said. "Before you met me." He held her away from him and looked at her with laughter in his blue eyes. "Even the Prophet married a widow."
His gentle acceptance, his easy assumption that all was over between herself and Manfred, tore at her heart. If she even mentioned Simon, it would be different. That was not in the past. That was after she had met Daoud, after they became lovers. For the thousand-thousandth time she cursed herself for letting it happen.
God, I am a whore! As bad as the worst painted prostitute plying her trade under the arches by the Hippodrome.
No, worse than that, in a way. A prostitute had a clear reason for doing what she did with men. The more Sophia thought about the time she let Simon possess her, the less she understood it. And even a prostitute knew her occupation and her place in the world. From the night that Alexis cast her adrift, Sophia had, in a way, been lost.
But there came to her a glimmering of hope. Daoud had a place here with Manfred, and she had a place beside Daoud. Could it be that at last she had a home?
Then she should do nothing to endanger it. She should say nothing about Simon.
"Come to bed," he whispered, still holding her and taking a step in that direction.
The feel of his arms around her and his body pressing againsther sent ripples of need for him through her. But now, with thoughts of Manfred and—much worse—of Simon, confusing her, she felt frightened, unready. She needed more time.
"I have had no proper bath in days, Daoud. I feel the grime of the road all over me."
"Of course." He smiled. "And now you can have a proper bath. Let me see to it."
In the year and a half since she left this place, Sophia had all but forgotten the bathing rooms in the lowest level of Castello Lucera. She had not used them as much as she had wished to, when she lived here before. In her strange position as a foreigner and one of Manfred's loves, she had not felt comfortable bathing with the other women who lived in the castle.
But tonight, as she and Daoud undressed in the green-tiled anteroom, they had it all to themselves. Daoud must stand high indeed with Manfred to have arranged that, she thought.
In the light of the oil lamp hanging overhead, his naked body was a golden color, and free, as far as she could tell, from the marks of insult the podesta's torturer had inflicted upon it last summer.
She was not naked. She wore a linen gown that opened down the front. Her continued worrying over whether or not to tell him about Simon made her want to stay covered as long as she could.
But with a smile he pulled her gown apart and slipped it off her shoulders and down her back to the floor.
A glance down his body told her that he wanted her now. The sight thrilled her, but she still felt uneasy and not able to give herself wholeheartedly to him and to the act of love.
"Let us attend to the grime," she said with a small smile.
In the next room, its walls tiled in white, she lay in a round sunken tub filled with hot water piped in from the castle kitchen. It was large enough for Daoud to stand over her in it. He took over the task of washing her with scented soap imported from Spain.
At first she simply lay back and enjoyed her renewed acquaintance with the amenities of Manfred's kingdom, so much more like Constantinople than life in the Papal States had been. But as the hot water relaxed her and as Daoud's hands, slippery with soap, slid over her skin, she felt the rising warmth of desire. Nothing mattered but this moment. She wriggled her legs and hips against him in small, almost unwilled movements.
"The grime first," he said with a soft laugh, and continued methodically to soap her until she was mad with wanting him.
He picked her up in his arms and carried her into the next room, its tiles the red-orange of sunset, which was taken up by a great pool of very hot water. Usually this chamber would be occupied by anywhere from six to a dozen men or women. But tonight Sophia and Daoud were quite alone.
Still carrying her, he descended the steps into the hot pool. Ribbons of steam rose around them. He lowered her into the water. When she stood neck-deep in it, the heat was almost unbearable, as if she were about to be boiled to death. But then the heat soaked into her until her very bones felt liquefied. Her whole being melted until she was not a person who felt desire, shewasdesire itself.
With her arms around his neck she pulled his head down and kissed him, flicks of her tongue tip luring his tongue into her mouth.
He pressed her back against the warm tile wall, and she knotted her legs around his waist as he took her standing up.
Moments later her ecstatic cries were echoing through the bathing rooms.
They forgot about time.
Her voice rang again and again in the vaulted chamber. They made love in the hot water and then lying on linen cloths on the masseur's slab beside the pool. They nearly fell asleep in each other's arms.
Laughing at their bodies' foolishness, they plunged into the last pool, cold water in a blue-tiled room, then hurried through a door to the place where they had started and dressed again.
When they were back in their room, Daoud's voice was drowsy as he lay beside her on the gold-curtained bed.
"You must have bypassed Rome when you came down, with the Count of Anjou and Simon de Gobignon both there," he said.
At the mention of Simon's name Sophia's pleasant sleepiness fled, and she felt an ache in the pit of her stomach. Should she tell Daoud or not? She still could not decide. The uncertainty itself had become almost as great an agony as the fear of what would happen if she told him. She rolled over with her back to him, so that he could not see her face.
"Yes," she said. "We went east into the Abruzzi and through L'Aquilia and Sulmona. Terribly mountainous country. It took us much longer, but it was safer."
But if I do not tell him, every time he takes me in his arms I will know that I am lying to him. I will always be aware that I am keeping something back from him that he would want to know. I betrayed him with Simon, and each time I have the chance to tell him and do not, I am betraying him again.
"Before Charles took Rome, Lorenzo and Tilia and I passed near the city, but skirted around it. It would not do to have someone from that inn recognize us."
"How well I remember that night." It was then that she had first seen how resourceful and how ruthless Daoud could be.
"Lorenzo and I could talk about it now without getting angry," Daoud said. "He told me he tried to help the old Jew, Rachel's husband, because a man does not forget the faith and the people he was born to."
"And you wondered about yourself?" said Sophia.
"Exactly." The palm of his hand felt wonderfully hard against the flesh of her buttocks. "And, strangely, I found myself thinking of Simon de Gobignon."
She felt her body stiffen and tried to make herself relax. "What could have made you think of him?" She had never told Daoud about Simon's shadowed childhood. She wondered if he had heard of it from someone else.
"I asked myself, what if the Turks had not overrun Ascalon and killed my parents and carried me off? And the answer came that I would have been very like Simon de Gobignon. He grew up, you see, having all the things I lost."
"What things?"
"A family, a home, the Christian faith, freedom, knighthood, his country. Even his name."
This talk about Simon was making her desperately uneasy. She wondered if she could tell Daoud to go to sleep and forget it all.
"And I saw at last why I hated him so much," Daoud went on. "I hated him in part, of course, because of you. I had already started to love you, and the thought of him possessing you made me furious. And yet it was my duty to send you to bed with him. Fortunately, that never had to happen. But there was an even deeper reason for my hating him."
"What was that?" she asked.
"Envy. Envy that I could not admit to myself."
"Not admit to yourself? Why?"
His hand on her was motionless. She sensed that it was an effort for him to put his thought into words.
"Because I was afraid to. That is always why we do not admit a truth to ourselves. My Sufi sheikh often said,The things you most fear, those you must turn and stare at until you are no longer afraid. I was afraid I might betray my faith."
"You mean renounce Islam?" A chill went through her. What adisaster for all of them that could have been. She could well understand how the thought of that might frighten him.
"Yes. I had to put that possibility out of my mind. So I hated Simon de Gobignon without knowing why. Because I did not understand my hatred, I hated him all the more."
If only we could stop talking about Simon.
But the man she loved was telling her something very important about himself. She had to set her own discomfort aside. She had to listen.
"And now you do not hate him?" She turned over in the bed. She wanted to see his face.
There was a peacefulness in his eyes such as she had never seen before. Always, they had seemed to burn, white-hot. Now they were clear and fathomless, like the sky.
"I do not hate him. I realized, as I rode along with Lorenzo, that if your new faith is strong and your new people are good, you can remember without danger what you loved of the old. I will always love the sound of the Christian priests chanting in the cool dark of a church. I will always feel especially at home in a Christian castle. But the voice I hear in the depths of my soul today is the true voice of God, and that, Simon de Gobignon will never hear. Unless God's all-powerful hand reaches out for him as it did for me."
Awed, Sophia said, "I have never heard anyone speak as you do. With so much wisdom. Except, once or twice, a priest."
He closed his eyes. "I speak as I am inspired to speak. In Islam there are no priests that stand between God and man. There are the more learned and the less learned, but each man and each woman can hear God."
Daoud had bared his soul to her. She wanted to do the same. Love was not merely the coupling of naked bodies, but the union of naked minds. How could she ever be happy with him while lying to him?
But she did not love Simon. What had happened between them had been a moment of being overwhelmed by feeling. It had been done, not by her, but by Sophia Orfali.
She had felt sorry for Simon and wanted to comfort him. She had been moved by the purity of his love for her, and her body, which had not known Daoud for months, ran away with her. It was a shameful thing, but not an important thing, because it did not change her love for Daoud.
It would be important to Daoud, though. He would feel that she had betrayed him. He would want revenge. He would hate Simon.
Most important, the peace with his own childhood, reached after painful struggle, might be destroyed. The beautiful state of mind he had shown her might be lost.
For the sake of his peace, she must keep silent.
She hated the decision. It meant that a part of her would always be locked away from Daoud, and he would never know it.
Very well, then. Letthat, and not his wrath at the revelation, be her punishment for having let herself go that day with Simon by the lake. That would be the mutilation she would always bear. Perfect union with Daoud would be a promised land she would never enter. By suffering that, she would silently make restitution to Daoud for the wrong she had done him.
All the while she had been thinking, he had been gazing at her. Just as she reached her final decision, his eyes closed and his breathing deepened. She reached out and touched the sparse blond hairs in the center of his chest, lightly so as not to wake him.
I lost everything too. He and I are so alike.
Mother and Father. Alexis, whom she had loved in the simple way that Simon loved her. All lost in one night of fire and steel. And after that, the life she led had been so little like that of other women. A life so strange and venturesome she did not know what to think of herself. And yet a life she had loved much of the time.
If Simon reminded Daoud of what he had lost, almost any woman she met did the same for Sophia.
Why, she wondered, had a man's seed never quickened within her? She was twenty-four years old, and she had never been with child. Not once since girlhood had her monthly flow of blood failed.
I am barren, she thought sadly, as she had countless times before.Barren and alone.Just as well. Even one baby would have been an impossible burden in the years since she fled to Michael.
But now, if Daoud were to get her with child, what joy that would be. At this moment, it seemed, she had nothing to do except be a companion to Daoud. There had never been a better time in her life for having a child. And even if she could never be wholly one with Daoud, she could be one with their child.
There were remedies for barrenness, she thought, and sometimes they worked. Wise old women knew them. She might seek out such a woman. Tilia must know a great deal about preventing conception, perhaps she knew something about how to make it happen.
There would be no more work of the sort she had done for Michael and then for Manfred. She was known in the north. She could not go back there. And once Manfred defeated the French and drove them out of Italy, he would wantmento help him govern. Awoman had no place in governing, unless she were married to a man of power or had inherited a title of her own.
A child, after all this was over, might be all she would have left. Daoud could be killed fighting the French. Her heart stopped beating for a moment, and then began pounding in fear.
She put that thought out of her mind quickly. She must believe that he would not be killed. And there was good reason to believe so, with all he had survived already.
No, it was more likely she would lose him when the war was over and he went back to his people. He loved his faith, loved the land that had first enslaved him, then made him a warrior. And she could never go back to Cairo with him. What she had heard about a woman's lot among the Muslims sounded like a living death. He had never said so, but he probably had a wife in Egypt. Several wives perhaps, as Muslims were said to do.
Live as justoneof his wives? Her stomach burned at the idea. Unthinkable!
Could she persuade Daoud to come with her to Constantinople? Daoud could serve the Basileus brilliantly, as a strategos, a general, or as a mediator between Byzantines and Saracens. A man of his experience would be invaluable. Ah, but to achieve to the utmost of his ability, though, Daoud would have to join the Orthodox Church. And that, after the words he had just spoken, she could never imagine him doing.
Well, but shecouldimagine it. Why spoil the beautiful dream of herself and Daoud together amid the glories of the Polis? For the moment she could indulge her fancy and tell herself anything was possible.
Allowing her mind to drift among these visions, she fell asleep.
"Ecco! The residence of Cardinal Paulus de Verceuil," said Sordello with a flourish of his hand. The narrow Viterbo street on which Simon, Sordello, and Thierry had been riding opened out suddenly, and they were facing a huge cylinder built of small stones,blackened with age. Simon felt his mouth fall open in wonder, and he quickly snapped it shut. He would not let anything de Verceuil might do seem to impress him.
They rode across a drawbridge over a moat full of water that smelled of rotting things, its surface coated with a green slime.
"It looks a bit like Castel Sant' Angelo in Rome," Simon remarked.
"It was a pagan temple in ancient times," said Sordello.
After passing through the gatehouse, they found themselves in a stone-paved semicircular courtyard. The palace was built against the rear half of the old Roman inner wall and towered above it.
"No more lodging with some noble family or other," said Sordello proudly. "Now our party has a residence of its own."
I would rather have almost anyone but de Verceuil as my host.
Simon hoped he need stay here for only a short time. Just long enough to find Sophia, overcome her reservations about marrying him, and be off to Gobignon. His heart beat harder as he thought of seeing her again after those lonely, miserable months in Rome.
Thierry took their horses to be stabled, while Sordello ushered Simon through a cavernous hall lit by a few small windows near the ceiling. Two men-at-arms Simon recognized as part of his troop of Venetian crossbowmen snapped to attention just inside the door, and after a frantic scramble through his memory Simon managed to greet them by name.
To Sordello Simon said, "I thank you for meeting Thierry and me at the city gate and guiding us here." They crossed the entrance hall. "After a long ride, one does not want to have to find one's way around a strange city."
Sordello smiled smugly in acknowledgment. "Little enough for me to do, Your Signory, for one who has done so much for me. Come, I'll show you to the room His Eminence has set aside for you."
He led Simon up a great flight of marble stairs from ground level to the first floor of the mansion.
"I am capitano of the crossbow troop again," Sordello said suddenly, halfway up the stairs.
"Who decided that?" said Simon irritably. "I appointed Peppino capitano after Teodoro was killed."
Sordello's bloodshot eyes caught Simon's. "Peppino was most courteous about yielding to me when I rejoined the Tartar ambassadors' guards. After all, I am senior to him." They came to the top of the marble stairs, and he held out a hand to indicate stone steps leading to the second floor.
Damn!Simon had removed Sordello from his position for nearly killing the Armenian prince, and it was pure insubordination for the fellow to bully his way back into it in Simon's absence and without his consent. It was typical of Sordello's infuriating combination of guile and gall.
Simon reproached himself for not leaving clear orders on who was to lead the crossbow troop when he left Sordello with them and was off to join Count Charles in Rome. But his head and heart had been full of Sophia then. Discipline demanded that he depose Sordello and reinstate Peppino.
Yes, he thought, if he were intending to stay here, he would do exactly that. But if he did it and then left again, it would probably only provoke a duel to the death between Peppino and Sordello. Let things be. A few weeks from now, at most, he could forget the whole damned lot of them, Tartars and all.
But Sordello's reemergence as leader of the crossbowmen raised another question: Would it offend the Armenians?
They came now to wooden steps leading into the shadowy upper reaches of de Verceuil's castle. Simon looked dubiously at them.
"Trust me, Your Signory, as in any palace, the best apartments are on the top floor."
Trust you? When God invites Lucifer to move back into heaven.
And it was equally unlikely that de Verceuil would provide anything truly grand for Simon. He shrugged and let Sordello climb the wooden steps ahead of him.
"What about the Armenian prince, Hethum? Does he still want your blood?"
Sordello laughed and looked back over his shoulder. "All settled, Your Signory. I know Viterbo, as I know most of these Umbrian hill towns, and I entertained all the Armenians for a night and a day, at my expense. The best taverns, the best whorehouses. Hethum and I are friends now."
One did not entertain so lavishly on the fifteen florins a month Sordello would receive as capitano of the archers. Doubtless he had found other ways to line his pockets.
The mention of whorehouses reminded Simon of the plight of the girl Rachel. He must find out if Friar Mathieu had done anything to help her.
On the musty-smelling fourth floor of the cardinal's palace, Sordello led Simon through five connected rooms. Two of them were bare of furniture, but Simon saw rumpled beds and traveling chests in the other three. In the last one a black-robed priest sat at a deskby a window, writing. He frowned at Simon and Sordello as if to reprove them for disturbing him.
"These are the good apartments?" Simon said when Sordello ushered him into a bare chamber with a small bed in one corner and a smaller trundle bed beside it. The window was large, but covered by wooden shutters. Simon pushed them open to let in more light.
Sordello shrugged. "This is truly the best available, Your Signory. The cardinal has many people in his employ, and many guests. I would not leave those shutters open too long if I were you. Even though it is only April, the flies and mosquitos are numerous already. A wet winter always brings them out."
Not worth the trouble to complain about the room. I won't be here that long.
"Tell Friar Mathieu I am here, Sordello, and tell Thierry to have a hot bath sent up to me."
"Yes, Your Signory. But unless you are willing to wait till midnight, I suggest you go down to the kitchen for your bath. The cardinal's servants are obedient to him and care not a fig for anyone else, and your equerry will find none willing to carry a tub of hot water up four flights of stairs."
This was too much. "Now damn your lazy buttocks, Sordello! I am paying you out of my own purse, and you have had no work to do since I left you in Perugia. You see that a hot bath reaches me by Vespers, or forget you were ever in my service."
Sordello's weather-beaten cheeks flushed, but he bowed and left.
Simon leaned on the sill of his window, looking out over the tiled rooftops of Viterbo. All the buildings he could see were built of a dark gray stone, giving the place an ancient look even though, for all he knew, many houses might be quite recently built. This palace Cardinal de Verceuil had bought for himself seemed to occupy one of the highest points. Just as Perugia had been bigger than Orvieto, so Viterbo was bigger than Perugia. Guards in the black and gold of the local militia paced the high city wall from one massive tower to another. About twenty years ago this city had withstood a siege by King Manfred's father, Emperor Frederic. That was one of the reasons, Simon had heard, that Cardinal le Gros, now Pope Clement, had chosen it.
He heard a rhythmic thumping behind him, then a knock at his door. He opened it to see Friar Mathieu, bent and thinner, his white beard sparser-looking, leaning on a walking stick. They hugged each other, Simon holding the old Franciscan gingerly.
"The safest place on this floor to talk is the loggia," said FriarMathieu. "We can share our news there." He bowed to the priest in the next room and greeted him by name and was answered with a grunt.
"One of de Verceuil's large staff," said Friar Mathieu when they were out of the priest's chamber. "It is no accident that his room is next to yours."
"I am surprised de Verceuil lets you live here, Father."
"His Eminence would rather have me far away, but Pope Clement insists I stay close to the Tartars. And there was a letter from King Louis saying the same. After all, people who speak the Tartars' language are scarce this side of the Danube. And His Eminence may dislike me, but the king and the pope both trust me. More, perhaps, than they trust him. So the cardinal put me in a cubbyhole near John and Philip, where I am quite content."
They came to the stairs, where a doorway led out to the loggia. The floor was of red tile, and the walls and columns painted a pale green. Benches and potted trees just beginning to bud were set along the loggia. They were facing west, overlooking the courtyard. They sat on a bench, their faces shaded by the overhanging roof, their knees and feet in the sunlight. Simon enjoyed the late afternoon warmth on his legs, tired from a week's riding. He looked forward to his bath.
"I am sure Pope Clement himself will be eager to see you," said Friar Mathieu. "I hear he has been deluging Count Charles with letters demanding to know when he will march against Manfred."
"Count Charles does not have a big enough army yet to attack Manfred," said Simon, thinking how glad he was to be away from the dour, driven count. "And it seems that Manfred would rather wait for him to make the first move. Anjou says he will not be able to recruit more knights and men until the pope officially gives him the crown of southern Italy and Sicily."
"His Holiness wants Charles to come to Viterbo to be crowned. He refuses to set foot in Rome."
"Charles is determined to be crowned by the pope in Rome. He keeps mentioning that Charlemagne was crowned in Rome."
Friar Mathieu smiled. "So, the fate of Italy is in the hands of three men who are each unwilling to make a move." Sunlight turned his beard to silver. "And what are your plans? Have you returned to us for good, or will you go back to Count Charles?"
At the thought of the prospect before him, Simon felt a warmth within rivaling the afternoon sun. "Tell me, Father—where can I find Cardinal Ugolini's niece, Sophia?"
Friar Mathieu's eyes seemed to sink deeper into the hollows under his white brows. "Ugolini and Sophia are not here in Viterbo."
Simon felt as if a wintry chill had fallen on the loggia. "What? Where have they gone?"
"They never came here. None of us, not even the pope, realized Ugolini was gone until the day of the papal coronation, when he still had not appeared. It was a scandal. After all, Ugolini was cardinal camerlengo under Urban. Papa le Gros—Clement—was furious. The rumor is that Ugolini has fled to Manfred. The pope intends to strip him of his rank for leaving the Papal States without permission."
The pain of loss made Simon cry out, "But Sophia! What of Sophia?"
Friar Mathieu shook his head sadly. "She must be with Ugolini. They are probably both in Manfred's kingdom."
Simon fell back against the plaster wall, gasping. "But—a message—there must have been a message for me. She must have left some word."
"With whom?" Friar Mathieu spread his hands. "She knows I am your friend, but I heard nothing from her."
In all the time since he left Perugia, Simon's vision of Sophia, his dreams of their life together, had sustained him. He thought constantly of her during those dreary weeks while Count Charles was parading around Rome, giving orders to sullen Italians, exercising his troops, arguing with his captains, and hanging those who made difficulties.
On a loggia much like this one, at Ugolini's Perugia mansion, Sophia had made the promise that had given him hope. All he needed, he was sure, was to know what stood between them, and he would be able to overcome it.
And now, as suddenly as if Sophia had been on a ship and a wave had swept her overboard, she was gone.
He felt himself getting angry at Friar Mathieu. He could not believe what the old priest was telling him.
"She promised me!" he blurted out.
"Promised you what?" said Friar Mathieu softly.
"That she would tell me why she could not marry me."
There was a long silence, while Simon stared at the rooftops of Viterbo, silhouetted against a golden sky.
"You wanted to marry her?" Friar Mathieu asked in a soft voice.
"Iwantto marry her," said Simon, his voice sullen.
After another long pause he added, "I was hoping you would marry us."
"Simon," said Friar Mathieu quietly. "How much do you really know about Sophia?" Simon thought he heard pity in the old man's voice.
He felt a twinge of fear, and inched away from the Franciscan. Almost against his will, his head turned toward Friar Mathieu. He felt himself forced to repeat the little that Sophia had told him about herself since they met. The thought of that afternoon by the lake came to him, stabbing him like a spear. He would not tell Friar Mathieu about that, not yet. This was not confession.
Friar Mathieu did not meet Simon's intent gaze, but looked downward, and Simon saw deep, shadowed pouches under his eyes.
"Simon—you recall the girl Rachel."
What of her?Simon wondered, annoyed at the change of subject. Then he remembered.
"It was Sophia who asked me to speak to you about Rachel."
"Just so. I had already tried everything, including prayer, to get John Chagan to free Rachel, but I could not move his heart. He prizes her almost to the point of madness. But I did continue my efforts, because you asked me to. I begged, appealed to his better nature—he does have one—and threatened the fires of hell. Nothing worked. For a time, when we learned that Hulagu Khan had died, we thought that John and Philip would have to go back to Persia. John even spoke of taking Rachel with him and making her his chief wife. Do you have any idea what an honor that would be for Rachel?"
"No," said Simon impatiently, not caring.
"Tartars take new wives and concubines, but their chief wives hold that status for life—usually. For John to say he wants to supplant his chief wife with Rachel shows the depth of his passion for the girl."
"Father, what does all this have to do with Sophia?" Simon burst out.
"I come to that now. I had long talks with Rachel to find out if she really wanted to be rescued from the Tartar. She told me about her life before she came to Orvieto, about what it was like in Tilia Caballo's brothel."
"And?"
"While we talked, Rachel let slip some things about Sophia that—I hate to hurt you, Simon, but she said things that made me think Sophia is not what she has seemed to be."
Anger vibrated in Simon's voice. "I do not want to hear anybrothel gossip. Rachel is a prostitute and a child. What could she know about a woman like Sophia?"
He had an urge to get up and leave. But he realized that behind his anger, and fanning it, lurked the fear of learning something he did not want to know.
Friar Mathieu put a gentle hand on Simon's arm. "Did you tell Sophia about Count Amalric's treason, and about who your real father is?"
"Yes."
"Because you wanted her to know you. If you love Sophia and want to marry her, you have to know all about her. There is no other way."
"But I want her to tell me, if there is anything to tell."
"Perhaps she cannot."
"Blood of Christ, why are you torturing me?"
The old priest shook his head. "Do you understand that if there were any way out of this conversation for me, I would take it?"
Simon looked at the faded old eyes and saw the pain. "Yes."
"I do not want to tell you what Rachel said. I respect her confidence. And I do not like passing on suspicions like this. Come and talk with her yourself."
"Right now? Here in this palace?" Simon shivered with an inner cold.
"Yes. De Verceuil and the Tartars have been invited to a supper at the Palazzo Papale. Rachel is alone in her room. I made sure of that a little while ago."
Feeling like a man going obediently to his own beheading, Simon said, "Let us go and talk to her, then."
In the corridor, Simon saw Sordello and Thierry.
"Your bath is ready, Monseigneur," said Thierry.
"I will bathe later," said Simon, trying not to let the whirlwind of his emotions show in his face.
"There is no way to keep the water warm, Your Signory," said Sordello.
"Then let it freeze!" Simon shouted. He turned away quickly and followed Friar Mathieu.
Simon at first did not see the small figure huddled in a far corner of the high, gauze-curtained bed. Rachel's room, on the floor below Simon's, was much bigger than his. The outer wall, which curved slightly because it was part of the old temple, was lined with blue-veined white marble. A large window admitted dim light through oiled parchment and curtains.
"Rachel," said Friar Mathieu softly in Italian. "Here is the Count de Gobignon, whom I told you of. He is in charge of the men who guard your—protector. He is Madonna Sophia's friend. She has asked him to try to help you."
Simon felt a twinge of guilt. Could he be Sophia's friend if he was trying to get Rachel to reveal Sophia's secrets? But Sophia had disappeared without a word to him. If she had secrets, he had to know them, even if he had to deceive this child to get at them.
But at the same time he desperately wanted to learn nothing about Sophia that would hurt him.
Rachel used a red ribbon to mark her place in the book she was reading, climbed down from her bed, and curtsied to Simon. Her skin was as white as the marble on the wall. She wore a pale blue gown. Her small breasts pushed it out in front ever so slightly. Simon could see why Sophia had kept referring to her as a child. He could not imagine how anyone, even a Tartar, could want to couple with so delicate-looking a creature.
Even with books to read and a spacious chamber, she must feel like a prisoner.
He forgot his own anguish momentarily in pity for her plight. He wanted to take the wide-eyed girl gently in his arms and hold her.
Simon and Friar Mathieu sat on small gold-painted chairs, and Rachel sat on the edge of her bed. Simon racked his brain for a way to start the conversation. It must seem to be about Rachel, but it must tell him about Sophia. He was not even sure what he was trying to find out.
Even though he had not spoken and had tried to look friendly and not threatening, he could imagine how much his presence must frighten her. A French count. To her that must almost be like being visited by a king. And she probably feared Christians anyway. If she decided she must protect Sophia from him, he would get nothing from her.
Simon was grateful when Friar Mathieu cleared his throat and spoke.
"Count Simon is anxious about your welfare, my dear," said the old Franciscan. "He was quite surprised to learn that Cardinal Ugolini and Madonna Sophia had not followed the pope here to Viterbo. He was wondering whether Madonna Sophia had left some word with you about where she was going."
Rachel shook her head. "I have not seen her since John took me from Madama Tilia's house." Her black hair was wound in braids around her head, exposing her small ears, made to look smaller still by the large gold hoops she wore in them. Similarly, a goldnecklace with a jeweled pendant emphasized the slenderness of her neck. Her arms and hands seemed weighed down with bracelets and rings. The Tartar must be showering her with gifts.
"And Madonna Sophia gave no hint of her plans when she visited you at Madama Tilia's?"
Friar Mathieu asked it as if it were the most natural question in the world.
My God, what would Sophia be doing at Tilia Caballo's? At a brothel!
Simon felt his stomach clench. He did not want to hear Rachel's answer.
"No, Father. The last thing she told me was that everyone would be leaving Orvieto soon. And when we did, I would not have to stay with Madama Tilia anymore. I begged her to take me back with her to Cardinal Ugolini's, but she said she could not. Later that day John came for me. I never spoke with Madonna Sophia again." She looked uneasily at Simon.
Sophia had said she knew about the girl only through the gossip of servants and townspeople. Could this girl be lying about having met Sophia? But she would have no reason to do that. So it must have been Sophia who lied about never having met Rachel. He felt as if a dagger had struck him in the back.
And she had certainly never said anything about going to Tilia Caballo's. How could he learn the true connection between Sophia and Rachel without making Rachel suspicious?
"That is just it, Rachel," he said. "Things have been happening so rapidly, and I was away from the pope's court and the Tartar ambassadors for months. Sophia and I have not had time to talk to each other or to send messages. But when I last saw her, she asked me to look after you. She cares very much for you."
Rachel smiled faintly. Her lips were a pale pink. Her eyebrows were black and straight over her dark brown eyes, giving her an earnest look.
"Oh, yes, Your Signory. I know she cares for me."
"Are you also from Sicily, Rachel?" Simon asked. "Did you know Sophia's family in Sicily?"
"No, Your Signory. I am from Florence."
Florence. Florence was controlled by the Ghibellini.
"Does anyone in your family know you are here with this Tartar? Is there anyone you would like me to get a message to?"
Rachel's eyes widened and filled with tears. "They are all dead, Your Signory. And if any of them were living, I would rather be dead myself than have them know what has happened to me."
"Then Sophia is the only friend you have in the world?" Simon waited a moment, then tried a blind guess. "Perhaps Sophia has gone back to the place where you first met her."
"No, no," said Rachel. Suddenly, she looked terrified. She shrank back from Simon.
She is dreadfully frightened, Simon thought.
Friar Mathieu was right. Sophia was hiding something. Anguish stabbed Simon again.
"What is it, Rachel?" said Friar Mathieu. He shook his head at Simon.
"If you want to help me, if you love her, just leave me alone. She was kind to me as no one else has ever been. She was my friend. Stop trying to find out about her."
What was this girl hiding? What was Sophia hiding? Simon felt as if he were surrounded by enemies, all of them plunging their daggers into him.
"Does a friend send a young girl like you to a brothel?" said Friar Mathieu softly.
This brought no reply from Rachel. She put her hands to her face and sobbed.
Simon could bear no more. He stood up abruptly. He was torturing this girl. And in a way, she was torturing him.
He said, "Rachel, we will leave now. I am sorry I frightened you. In truth, I have no wish to hurt you. But, I—I am upset too. Listen to me. If you ever decide you want to get away from here, tell me. I will not let John or Cardinal de Verceuil or anyone else stop you if you want to be free."
Rachel took her hands away from her face. "Where can I go? Tell me that, Your Signory. Where can I go?" Her eyes, rimmed with red from crying, were pools of darkness in her pale face. The sight of her tears made Simon's own eyes burn.
Friar Mathieu stood up, leaning heavily on his stick. He took Simon's arm, whispered a good-bye to Rachel, and drew Simon out of the room. Silently they went back up to the top-floor loggia. Simon seethed and churned, his mind full of confusion and pain.
They sat together on a bench in the deepening twilight. The sun was down and the sky over the distant hills was copper-colored.
"How clumsy I was," Simon said. "She will tell us nothing now."
"You learned quite a bit," said Friar Mathieu, "if you think about what she told you."
"I know this much," said Simon. "I have been a fool. Sophia has been lying to me."
"Everyone in love is a fool, Simon. The more in love, the more they want to believe whatever the beloved tells them. Only a man or woman in love with God can be a fool without risk."
From the distant walls of Viterbo, the guards called the hours to one another. Their long-drawn cries echoed against the stone building fronts.
"What did you mean, think about what she told me?"
Friar Mathieu sighed. "Rachel said that Sophia told her after they left Orvieto she would nothaveto stay with Tilia Caballo anymore. Rachel was not at Caballo's of her own free will. And you may have noticed that when I suggested that Sophia sent her there, she did not deny it."
Simon felt another rush of anger at Friar Mathieu for trying to make him believe evil of Sophia. "Are you saying that Sophia forced that girl into a brothel? Father, Sophia is too much of an innocent to be a party to anything like that."
But he remembered that moment of deepest intimacy they had shared last autumn outside Perugia, the moment he had delighted in reliving thousands of times. She had surprised him with the suddenness of her passion, with the swift, sure way she had guided him into taking her and had taken pleasure from him. Of course, he had thought, she would know what to do. She had been married. But surely a chaste widow who had known only one man in her life would have shown some hesitation, some timidity, some inner struggle?
Simon felt rage building up within him. He hated these doubts. He wanted to lash out at someone.
Friar Mathieu's voice came to him again, mild but inexorable. "Rachel said she asked Sophia to take herbackto Ugolini's. Rachel must have lived at Ugolini's when she first came to Orvieto. If you say that Sophia could not have been the one who put Rachel in Caballo's house, I accept it. But Ugolini could have. Or David of Trebizond."
"You will drive me mad. Stop going step by step like a schoolman. Of what are you accusing Sophia?"
Only his reverence for Friar Mathieu kept him from shaking the old priest.
Friar Mathieu patted Simon's knee. "I am going step by step because I myself am trying to think this out. And I want to be sure, for your sake. Rachel knew something, or had learned something. So they put her in Caballo's brothel for safekeeping."
"They?"
"Ugolini. David of Trebizond. And Sophia, at the very least,must have known the reason, or she would not agree to let Rachel go to the brothel. If Sophia knew so much, then perhaps—I say perhaps—she knew more about Ugolini and David and their dealings than she admitted to you. I keep thinking of that night at the Palazzo Monaldeschi when she drew you to the atrium, conveniently for David of Trebizond, who was goading the Tartars into publicly embarrassing themselves. Was she as uninvolved then as she led you to believe?"
Each of Friar Mathieu's sentences was another dagger blow, plunging deep into Simon, sending agony through him, the sharp point searching out his heart.
Friar Mathieu was proceeding in the same painstaking way he had probed Alain's body until he discovered what killed him. Alain, whose murderer had never been found, who had died outside Ugolini's mansion.
Alain! Oh, my God! Could she have known how he was killed?
What had really been happening at Ugolini's mansion?
Simon bent double, digging his fingers into his skull. His head might burst apart if he did not hold it tightly. Could all the love he thought he had found in her be a lie? Could she be anenemy?
"You are destroying my life," he muttered, his hands over his face.
He felt the light touch of the old man's hand on his shoulder. "When a leg wound festers, the surgeon has to cut the leg off to save the man's life."
And the old soldiers tell me the man always dies anyway, Simon thought bitterly.
"I am doing this not just for you, Simon," Friar Mathieu went on. "There was a secret war being waged in Orvieto to prevent us from allying ourselves with the Tartars. The person behind it was probably King Manfred of Sicily, who wants to keep Charles d'Anjou out of Italy. Ugolini was Manfred's agent. And Sophia may have been Ugolini's weapon against you."
No! Impossible! I love her. I could not love her if she were on the side of evil.
Simon struck his knee with his fist. "I must find out the truth. I must go after her."
"After Sophia?"
"Yes. If she is in Manfred's kingdom, I will find her and get her out."
"Whatever Sophia has done, she has already done, Simon. You cannot undo it, or simply pretend that she has done nothing at all."
Simon lurched to his feet. Staggering in his agony, as if thoseknives were still striking him from all sides, he reached the railing of the loggia and gripped it. The sky had deepened to violet, and a single silvery star glowed in the west. He remembered the magic his mother had taught him of wishing on a star. He could not wish this awful pain away.
"I do not know what she has done. And I refuse to believe ill of her until I have spoken to her."
"But you cannot go into Manfred's kingdom and look for her. You are certain to be caught and imprisoned. You could very well be killed."
Simon turned. Friar Mathieu was a dim figure huddled in the deep shadows of the loggia, his beard a light patch in the darkness.
"You think Manfred is behind all this," Simon said.
"Yes. Look you, when Urban died and Clement was elected—it was the letter you carried from King Louis that broke the cardinals' stalemate—Ugolini and Sophia saw they could do no more at the papal court, and they left. Maybe they were afraid they would be discovered."
Manfred. Simon knew little about King Manfred. Up to now he had hardly any reason to dislike him, and so had no reason to join Count Charles in making war on him.
Now all was changed. It plainly had to be to Manfred that Sophia had fled. And if Sophia had betrayed him, she must be serving Manfred.
And Mathieu was right. He could not go alone into Manfred's kingdom and bring Sophia out. If she had lied and betrayed him, she not only would refuse to come with him, she doubtless would betray him again, and he would end up a prisoner.
But there was another way he could go after Sophia.
With an army at his back.
Yes, he would go to Gobignon and send out his heralds. He would summon his vassals to a council of war at the château. Then, after the harvest was in, he would ride forth under the purple and gold banner of the three crowns with all the power of Gobignon behind him.
He would find Sophia if he had to tear Manfred's kingdom apart to do it. Find her and get the truth. As his wife or as prisoner, she would be his!