On a dais high above Simon, on a gilded throne under a cloth-of-gold canopy, Charles d'Anjou sat, wearing the crown studded with rubies, emeralds, and sapphires placed on his head by Cardinal Paulus de Verceuil, as legate for Pope Clement, a few hours ago. Simon stood below him in a half-circle of Roman nobles and Charles's commanders. The Tartars and Friar Mathieu were beside Simon.
Behind them, the great hall of the Palazzo Laterano, Roman residence of the pope, was packed with French seigneurs and knights and the popolo grosso of Rome. The hall was stifling, and Simon felt sweat trickling inside his tunic. Even in early May Rome was already too hot to live in. He wondered how Anjou and his army would manage to survive the summer here.
Anjou beckoned to Gautier du Mont, who swept his cap from his bowl-shaped head of hair and hurried up the dozen steps, a sword that reached to his ankle swinging at his side.
Simon felt a hollow in his stomach large enough to hold all of Rome. Soon Charles would call him up to the throne, and he would have to give him an answer. A month ago in Viterbo he had been determined to bring the Gobignon army to Italy. In the intervening days, doubts had unsettled him. Did he really dare to commit the fighting men of his domain to the war? Each time he tried to decide, his mind gave a different answer, like dice endlessly tossed. His head ached and his eyes burned from lying awake all last night after his arrival in Rome just in time for the coronation.
Over and over again he heard what Friar Mathieu had said:Not so long ago you even doubted your right to be Count de Gobignon. And are you now ready to lead the men of Gobignon to bloodshed and—for many of them—death?
Du Mont had finished his conversation with Charles and, with repeated bows, was descending from the dais with his face toward the throne and his hindquarters to the gathering. Now that Anjou was a king, one did not turn one's back on him. A far cry from duMont's behavior toward Charles of only a few months earlier, and another mark of Charles's increased stature since his arrival at the gates of Rome. Still, he had been required to compromise on his coronation. He had been crowned in Rome as he wanted, but not by the pope. Only de Verceuil, who felt himself exalted by the occasion, was perfectly happy with that arrangement.
As du Mont rejoined the crowd at the base of the throne, Simon's eye was drawn to the red silk cross sewn on his blue tunic. After the coronation, the pope's proclamation of a crusade against Manfred had been read. Charles's men must have had their crosses sewn on in anticipation.
Men like du Mont, von Regensburg, and FitzTrinian were now holy warriors, all of whose past sins were forgiven. If any of Charles's followers should die in battle, they would go straight to heaven.
Having seen those cutthroats in action, Simon thought their new state of holiness absurd. But now that Pope Clement had declared the war against Manfred a crusade, it would be so much easier to recruit an army from Gobignon.
Simon wore no cross, an outward sign of his indecision.
An equerry in red and black whispered to Friar Mathieu, who turned and spoke to the Tartars. John and Philip ceremoniously unbuckled their jeweled belts and draped them over their necks. As the bowlegged little men started up the steps, Simon heard snickers from among Charles's officers at this Tartar gesture of submission. The more fools they, he thought, to laugh at the customs of men who had conquered half the earth. Friar Mathieu followed the Tartars, holding the equerry's arm.
Innumerable conversations, echoing against the vaulted ceiling of the great Lateran hall, battered on Simon's ears. To his right he heard Cardinal de Verceuil's deep booming. Unwillingly, he turned, and saw the cardinal's wide-brimmed red hat, its heavy tassels swinging, rising above the crowd as did the voice coming from beneath it. De Verceuil was happy to dress like a cardinal today, since he was taking the place of the pope. Simon knew he would soon be trading his scarlet regalia for mail. Eager to share in the spoils of Manfred's kingdom, he was going back to France to raise an army from his fiefs and benefices scattered around the country.
Simon saw several other cardinals' hats here and there in the crowd. He wondered if any of the Italian cardinals supported Charles's adventure.
None of them disapproved openly, that was certain. Only Ugolini had protested, and his form of protest had been flight. Enoughto cost him his red hat. By papal decree Adelberto Ugolini was no longer cardinal-bishop of Palermo. Simon had sought out priests and merchants traveling from southern Italy, asking them what had become of Ugolini. But news from the south was sparse these days, and news of Ugolini nonexistent.
Simon had spoken in Viterbo to a pair of Dominican friars recently come from Palermo. They had known Ugolini before he became a cardinal, but did not remember that he had any sisters, much less a niece. They had never heard of a Siracusa family called Orfali. Simon raged at his inability to learn anything at all about Sophia. It was as if she had fallen into a black pit.
John and Philip were kneeling before Charles at the top of the steps. Friar Mathieu stood beside the Tartars, interpreting for them and for King Charles. Charles was talking loudly enough for Simon to hear. Like many men, he tended to raise his voice when addressing those who did not speak his language.
"You must tell the great Abagha Khan that it is customary for rulers to send gifts to newly made kings. Tell him we look forward with delight to the wonderful things he will send us from the Orient."
More useful, in Simon's opinion, would be a detailed proposal from the late Hulagu Khan's son on how and when Christians and Tartars should launch their war on the Saracens. Stories had come from the East that Hulagu Khan's frustration over his failure to conquer the Mamelukes had hastened his death.
As he waited to climb the stairs and kneel before the new king, Simon reminded himself that he could still refuse to join Charles's war on Manfred.
He became aware of the dull pain around his heart that had been with him ever since he discovered that Sophia had vanished. Even when he forgot the suffering, it weighed down his footsteps and bowed his shoulders.
And the worst of it is that I would rather live perpetually with this misery than stop loving Sophia.
But how could he go on loving her if she had been his enemy all along?
Was there any such person as Sophia Orfali? All the time he was courting her, she could have been working against the alliance. She might even have known the man in black who had nearly killed him.
That thought struck him like a bolt of lightning. For a moment, he was blind to the sights around him, deaf to the sounds.
No! It cannot be!
If she really had been that evil, it could be only because she had been corrupted by living in Manfred's kingdom. He remembered the words of de Verceuil's sermon this morning at Count Charles's coronation.
The Hohenstaufens, that brood of vipers, have too long vexed Holy Church, persecuting pope after pope. May it please God that the bastard Manfred be the last of them. May we see the destruction of that family of blasphemers and infidels, secretly in league with the Saracens. We declare Manfred von Hohenstaufen anathema and outlaw. Blessed be the hand that strikes him down.
If it was Manfred who had turned Sophia into a tool of the infidels, then how right that Simon's hand be the one to strike Manfred down.
Now, bowing, the Tartars were carefully backing down from the royal presence. Friar Mathieu turned and teetered precariously at the top of the steps. Charles, seeming not to understand the Franciscan's infirmity, stared at him without moving from his seat. The equerry who had helped him climb made a move toward him, but Simon was already up the steps and gripping the old Franciscan's arm.
"Thank you, Simon." Friar Mathieu turned to Charles. "Sire, I hope you will forgive the sight of this old man's back. I am afraid my legs lack the power to climb downstairs backward."
"To be sure, Father, to be sure." Charles waved a hand in dismissal.
If King Louis were on that throne, Simon thought, he would probably have lifted Friar Mathieu in his own arms and carried him down. Simon so wished it were Louis, rather than Charles, he was serving. But perhaps by serving Charles he was serving Louis.
Perhaps.
Simon and Friar Mathieu descended a step at a time. Friar Mathieu was leaning on Simon, but he seemed to weigh nothing.
"Count Simon," Charles called when Simon reached the bottom. "I would speak with you next."
When Simon mounted the dais, Charles ordered his herald in red and black to call for silence.
"All honor to Simon, Count de Gobignon!" Charles called from the throne when he had the attention of the assembly. "For nearly two years he has guarded the ambassadors from Tartary. He has risked his very life in battle for them. His sagacity and bravery have brought new glory to his ancient name."
Simon felt dizzy with exaltation. He had not expected this, from the newly crowned king. His face burned. At a gesture fromCharles, he turned to face the crowd. The gathering in the great hall of the Lateran was a multicolored, murmuring blur. The dais on which he stood seemed suddenly turned into a mountaintop.
"Now," Charles went on, "Count Simon and his vassals join us as allies in battle against the godless Manfred. May the deeds he has yet to do bring even more renown to the house of Gobignon. I guarantee you, Messeigneurs, the day will come when Simon de Gobignon will be known as one of Christendom's greatest knights."
Simon's bedazzlement at Charles's tribute to him turned in an instant to anger. By publicly announcing a decision Simon had not yet made, Charles was trying to force him to commit himself to the crusade. For a moment Simon was tempted to tell Charles that he would crusade at his side when the Middle Sea froze over.
But as he stood looking down at Charles's barons and the nobles of Rome, half turned toward Charles, half turned toward the assembly, the clapping and cheering were overwhelming him. His eye was drawn by a red hat above the rest of the crowd, and he was delighted to see that de Verceuil's face seemed a deeper red than his vestments.
Simon's anger at Charles faded as the moment lifted him up in spite of himself.
He who had dwelt in the shadow of treason all his life, who had hidden himself, when in great assemblies, for fear he would be noticed and treated with scorn, now honored by this multitude in the capital of Christendom in the age-old palace of the popes!
Was it not to achieve this that he had come to Italy?
If only Sophia could see.
He did what he felt was required, and knelt before Charles, taking the new king's extended hand and kissing a huge ruby ring.
In a low voice Charles said, "I have prayed that I would have your help, Simon. Can you not tell me that my prayer has been answered?"
If he refused Charles and went back to Gobignon, he would never see Sophia again. And he would probably never again know a moment like this, when he felt sorightas the Count de Gobignon.
But he was still offended by Charles's claiming a commitment that Simon had not given him.
"It seems you already know your prayer has been answered, Sire."
Charles frowned for a moment, then smiled and patted Simon on the shoulder. "Forgive me. I want so much for you to join me that I spoke as if it were already true. Will you make it true?"
He looked up into Charles's large, compelling eyes and nodded slowly.
"I will come after the harvest is in, Sire. I will come with my army."
Rachel slid from the bed, trying to shake it as little as possible so as not to wake John. Letting her robe of yellow silk flutter loosely about her nude body, she hurried behind the screen that hid her commode and opened the chest that held her most private belongings. She took out the device of bladder and tubing Tilia had given her long ago, and with a pitcherful of lukewarm water washed John's seed out of herself quickly. Over the year and more that she had been with John, she had never let him see her using the thing. Men such as John, she knew, took pride in their power to get a woman with child.
She was fourteen now, and her breasts were filling out. Many women had babies at fourteen. She would have to be more careful than ever. She stretched her mouth in a grimace at the thought of a baby that looked like John.
As usual, she had endured, not enjoyed, the Tartar's mating. Another change she had noticed in herself, though, was that she had begun to understand how women could feel pleasure with a man. Several times since last spring a yellow-haired man had appeared naked before her in her dreams, and had lain with her. When she woke she could not remember the man's face, but she still felt the exquisite sensations his body gave her, and she sometimes had to caress herself until a surge of pleasure relieved the yearning stirred up by her dream.
Other times, when John came to her late at night and she was very sleepy, she closed her eyes and was able to imagine that the yellow-haired man was with her, and then she actually enjoyed John's attentions, which pleased him very much.
She tied the robe's sash and went to the window. The breeze from the west was strong and salt-smelling, and she was thankful that she was here, in a villa by the sea, and not in Rome. August, they said, killed one out of every three people in Rome. She sat on the wide sill and looked out. She did not lean out too far; she was four stories up, overlooking jagged boulders piled along the shore.
Afternoon sunlight sparkled on the Tyrrhenean Sea, and a flash of sun on the helmet of a guard patrolling the beach caught her eye. One of Sordello's Venetians, she thought, judging by his bowl-shaped helmet and the crossbow he carried. The men-at-arms of the Orsini family, who had lent this villa to the French party, wore helmets shaped to the head, with crests on top.
She heard the bed creaking behind her, and the Tartar groaned.
"Pour me another cup of wine, Reicho," he called.
"You have had three cups already, Usun," she said, but obediently went to the table and poured red wine from a flagon into his silver cup.
He had taught her his original Tartar name, Usun, and he liked to hear her say it. With the help of Friar Mathieu and Ana the Bulgarian, she had learned to understand and speak his language fairly well. She knew now that "Tartar" was merely a European word for his people, that they called themselves "Mongols."
He pulled his silk trousers up and knotted the drawstring. His belly had been flat when she first met him. Now it was swollen as ifhewere having a baby, and excess flesh sagged on his shoulders and chest. His decline was partly from too much wine and partly from too little activity. She rarely saw John without a wine cup in his hand, and by evening he was often surly or in a stupor. He talked to her less, and was less often able to couple with her. If he spent many more months like this, he would sicken and die like a wild bird kept in a cage.
"I hadsixcups this morning before I came to you," he boasted. "Wine makes me strong." He drank off half his cup and set it on the marble table.
She sat beside him on the rumpled bed. "You need to get out, Usun. Go riding."
He shrugged. "Too hot." He grinned, stroking his white beard. "But next year we will ride to war."
"Next year?"
"King Charr has promised to let me and Nikpai—Philip—ride to war with him when he attacks Manfred."
In her anxiety she seized John's arm—she rarely touched him—and said, "You must insist that your guardians let you go out riding regularly. And you must stop drinking so much wine. Otherwise you will be very sick."
His black eyes were wider and moister than usual. "You worry about me, Reicho?"
She took her hand from his arm. "I don't want to see you die," she said. She did not know why she felt that way. After all, he had enslaved her, and every time he possessed her body it was virtually rape. And if he died, she might be free. But, she supposed, she had gotten to know him so well that she felt sorry for him.
She did not like to hear about this war against King Manfred. Friar Mathieu had told her gently that her lost friends, Sophia, David, and the others, were very likely all spies for Manfred. If Sophia were in King Manfred's employ, that made no difference toRachel. From all she had heard, Jews were better treated in Manfred's kingdom than anywhere else in Italy. The French, on the other hand, were often cruel to Jews. It would bring sorrow and suffering to many people if Charles d'Anjou conquered southern Italy and Sicily.
She wished she could be with Sophia. But Sophia was probably in Sicily, and how could Rachel, all alone, cross half of Italy to find her?
The locked box she kept under the bed, which held all the gold and jewelry Usun had given her, was far too big and heavy for her to carry. And even if she could escape and take it away with her, she could not protect herself from robbery. But it would be the worst sort of stupidity to leave without it. It was all she had from these awful years. It was less like a treasure, though, than like a block of stone to which she was chained.
If she were ever to escape, she would first have to get away from the guards, the Armenians and the Venetians, all of whom had orders to watch her and make sure she did not run away. That Sordello, the capitano of the Venetians, seemed to have his eyes on her whenever she went out of her room.
She was alone in the world. Nowhere to go. There were moments when she felt so lost and unhappy she wanted to climb out the open window of her room and throw herself down to the rocks.
"Maybe next year, when King Charr goes to war, I will not be here," Usun said suddenly.
"You must wish you could be back with your own people," she said.
If I am lonely, think how he must feel. Except for Philip, there is no one like him anywhere in this part of the world. Only a few people speak his language. Everything looks strange to him.
"We are waiting for orders from our new master, Abagha Khan," said Usun. "Another letter must come soon. It is now six months since his father died."
Rachel felt her heart fluttering with anxiety. "And when Abagha Khan's message comes, what do you think it will say?"
"He will order us either to go to the king of the Franks or to go back to Persia." He took a swallow of wine. Rachel saw that his white beard was stained pink from all the red wine he had spilled on it.
"Then you might go home again?" said Rachel. "Would you like that?" Her hands trembled, and she twined her fingers together in her lap to still them.
Usun laughed and drank. "Not home, Reicho. My home is fartheraway from Persia than Persia is from here. It is so far away and there are so many enemies in between that I may never see it again. But I do not care. My people have a fine domain in Persia."
He drank, and held out his empty cup. She filled it with a shaking hand. If he went back to Persia, she might be free of him. Unless her worst fears turned out to be true.
"So, you may soon say good-bye to me." She dared not let him see how eager she was for him to be gone.
He looked up at her, and the light from outside etched the thousand tiny criss-crossed wrinkles around his eyes. "No, Reicho. If I go back, you must come with me."
Her heart turned to ice, just as if he had told her he was going to kill her. She had suspected this and had prayed it would not be so. Everything he said and did, from the day he took her from Tilia's house, showed that he meant never to let her go. She was to be his prisoner for life.
"Usun," she said, trying to keep her voice calm, "I do not want to go with you."
He stared at her, his brown face wooden.
"You are afraid," he said. "But you must not be. When you come with me, you will be a very great lady. I am a baghadur. I am as great a lord as King Charr is here. I know that people of your religion are treated badly by the Christians. Among my people all religions are equal. The Ulang-Yassa, the law of Genghis Khan, commands it." When he spoke the name "Genghis Khan" there was a reverence in his voice, like a Christian speaking of Jesus.
She was reminded of Tilia, telling her why it was better to be a harlot than a wife. She wanted to weep with frustration, as if she had been pounding her fists against a stone wall. How could a man who seemed content to have left his own homeland behind forever understand howshefelt?
"Usun, it does not matter to me that I am lowly here and might be great there. This land is where I was born and grew up, and no matter how much I suffer here, it is my home. I do not want to live among Tartars and Persians. I would be so terribly alone. I beg you, do not try to uproot me from this land."
"You would not be alone," he said in a low, sad voice. "You would have me."
"I could never be happy with you." It was a terrible thing to say, but only the truth might make him change his mind.
He did not look at her. He drained his cup and thrust it at her as if striking a blow.
"The flagon is empty," she said.
"I will go." He stood up and pulled his tunic on over his head. He was no taller than she was, but as she sat on the bed and stared up at him, he seemed to loom over her like a giant. His black gaze was empty of feeling as stone.
"It does not matter whether you are happy. You are mine and you will come with me."
She shrank away from him, terrified. The face he showed her was the face of the man who had dragged her naked through that Orvieto street.
She threw herself full length on the bed, sobbing. Her heart felt ready to burst with anguish.
Oh, God, only You can help me. Send someone to deliver me, or I will die.
Pride swelled Daoud's heart as he watched the column of Muslim cavalry suddenly change direction and sweep like a long roll of thunder through the valley. A flutter of orange banners on their flanks, and the men at the far end of the line launched into an all-out gallop, while the riders at the near end slowed to a high-stepping trot. The whole line pivoted like a great scythe, enveloping the flank of an imaginary enemy.
"Very impressive," said King Manfred. "They get their orders from those colored flags?" He and Daoud stood on the rounded brow of a grassy hill, watching the Sons of the Falcon displaying their skills for their king. The valley Daoud had found for the demonstration was a natural amphitheater, a flat, circular plain at least a league in diameter surrounded by hills. Normally it was used as grazing land.
For over a year Daoud had been training these two hundred men, picked from hundreds of volunteers from Manfred's Saracen guards. With so much time, he had been able to forge and polish the Sons of the Falcon into a weapon that could be the vanguard of Manfred's army.
He hoped that what Manfred saw today would put him in a warlikemood, a mood to ask Daoud for his advice. He prayed for the chance to urge Manfred not to wait for Charles d'Anjou to invade his kingdom, but to march north and attack Charles at once.
O God, open Manfred's mind.
For Manfred to delay the start of his war against Charles d'Anjou even this long could well be disastrous. A year ago Manfred could have moved out from southern Italy and smashed Charles, as a man rises from his couch and crosses the room to crush a mosquito. Sadly, like many a man who sees a mosquito across the room, Manfred had chosen to remain on his couch.
And the mosquito was fast growing into a dragon.
Lorenzo Celino and Landgrave Erhard Barth, the grand marshal of Manfred's army, stood on either side of Daoud and Manfred. Scipio stood beside Celino, who rested his right hand on the dog's big head. Half a dozen nobles and officers of Manfred's court were gathered a short distance away from the king and his three companions. Lower down the hillside, scudieros held the party's horses.
"Those flags would be useless at night," said Barth, speaking Italian with a heavy accent, which Daoud knew to be that of Swabia, the German state from which Manfred's family came. "And they would be hard to see on a rainy day." He was a broad-faced man with a snub nose. All of his upper front teeth were missing, which caused his upper lip to sink in and his lower lip to protrude, giving him a permanent pout.
Irritated, Daoud spoke to Manfred rather than to Barth. "There are many ways to signal. Colored lanterns at night. Horns. Drums. These men have learned all those kinds of signals and can respond to them quickly."
Daoud's muscles tensed as he thought that the big German and he might have it out today. Barth, he felt sure, was one of the advisers who was holding Manfred back.
"I like the idea of signals," said Manfred. "In every battle I have seen, no one knows what is going on once the two sides meet. Our knights do not know how to fight in unified groups as the Turks and the Tartars do."
The Sons of the Falcon rode to the base of the hill from which Manfred was reviewing. Omar, Daoud's black-bearded second in command, spurred his horse up the slope, leapt from the saddle, and rushed forward to kneel and kiss Manfred's hand.
"You ride splendidly," said Manfred in Arabic.
"Tell the men I am very proud of them, Omar," Daoud said. Omar flashed bright white teeth at him.
To Manfred Daoud said, "Now, Sire, if it be your pleasure, theSons of the Falcon will demonstrate their skill in casting the rumh—the lance."
Manfred nodded and waved a gauntleted hand. He was dressed in a long riding cloak of emerald velvet, with an unadorned green cap covering his light blond hair. His only jewelry was the five-pointed silver star with its ruby center, which Daoud had never seen him without.
Just as I still wear the locket Blossoming Reed gave me.
Omar bowed, and vaulted into the saddle with an agility that brought a grunt of appreciation from Manfred. Waving his saber, he rode back down the hill.
A scaffold and swinging target for the lances had been set up halfway across the valley. Recalling his own training—and Nicetas—Daoud watched his riders form a great circle in the plain below them. He heard in his mind a boy's warbling battle cry, and felt a deep pang of sadness.
"Why do you call them the Sons of the Falcon, Daoud?" Manfred asked.
"Because I know the falcon is the favorite bird of your family, Sire," Daoud said. Manfred grinned and nodded.
He thought,And because the falcon does not hesitate.
Daoud admired Manfred. He was said to be the image of his father, and that made it easy to see why Emperor Frederic had been known as "the Wonder of the World."
Easy to see why Sophia loved Manfred for a time.
But as a war leader, Manfred was frustrating to work with. He seemed to have no plan for fighting Charles d'Anjou. All over southern Italy and Sicily, knights and men-at-arms were in training and on the alert, but days, months, seasons, followed one another and Manfred ordered no action.
Daoud's own goal remained the same he had set for himself a year ago in Orvieto: To spur Manfred on to make war and to help him win a victory.
And when the war gave an opportunity, Daoud would once again try to kill the Tartar ambassadors. They were now, Manfred's agents in the north reported, in Rome under Charles's protection. Perhaps he could even rescue poor Rachel.
Daoud smiled with pleasure as the riders below formed a huge circle, one man behind the other. He was able to recognize individual men he had come to know over the past months—Muslims from Manfred's army whom he had picked and trained himself—Abdulhak, Mujtaba, Nuwaihi, Tabari, Ahmad, Said, and many others. They were as eager for this war to begin as he was.
At a shouted command from Omar, who sat on his horse in the center, the circle began to rotate, the horses running faster and faster. Each man balanced a lance in his right hand, and as he rode past the swinging target ring, he hurled it. The ring was pulled from side to side with long ropes by attendants, just as when Daoud had trained as a Mameluke.
As lance after lance flew through the moving target, Manfred gave a low whistle of appreciation. Daoud had ordered the ring to be a yard wide and the distance from horseman to target fifty feet. It was easier than it looked for men who had practiced for months, but the rapidity of it made a beautiful spectacle. Daoud's eye caught a few misses, but he doubted that Manfred noticed.
"Like falcons, swift and fierce and sure," said Manfred. "But a bird is just bone and muscle and feathers, Daoud. These men are lightly armed and armored compared to Christian soldiers. These two hundred of yours could never stop a charge of Frankish knights."
Daoud tensed. This was an opening.
"True, Sire, when Frankish knights in all their mail get those huge armored war-horses going at a gallop, nothing can withstand them. But we Mamelukes have defeated the Franks over and over again by not letting them use their weight and power to advantage. They must close with their enemy. We fight from a distance, raining arrows down upon them. If the enemy pursues you, flee until he wearies himself and spreads his lines out. Then rush in and cut him to pieces. Attack the enemy when he is not expecting it."
"That might do well enough in the deserts of Outremer," said Manfred, "but European warfare is different. There are mountains and rivers and forests. We cannot spread out all over the landscape."
Daoud threw an exasperated look at Lorenzo, whose dark eyes were sympathetic, but who shook his head slightly, as if to warn Daoud to be politic in his argument with the king.
"There is one principle that you can adopt from Mameluke warfare," said Daoud, choosing not to contradict Manfred, "and that is speed."
"Our Swabian knights and our Saracen warriors ride as swiftly as any in Europe," Barth growled.
"Once they get moving," said Lorenzo sharply.
He isn't always politic himself, thought Daoud.
"Forgive me for speaking boldly, Sire," said Daoud, "but a whole summer has gone by since Pope Clement proclaimed a crusade against you and declared that your crown belongs to Charlesd'Anjou. And there has been no fighting. Is this what you mean by European warfare? In the time it takes Europeans to get ready for one war, we Mamelukes would have fought five wars."
As he spoke he proudly recalled what an Arab poet had written of the Mamelukes:They charge like lightning and arrive like thunder.
Manfred turned to watch the riders. A royal privilege, Daoud thought, to conduct an argument at one's chosen pace. He pushed down the urge to say more, forced himself to be patient, waited tensely for Manfred to reply in his own time.
He felt a movement beside him and turned to see that Lorenzo had moved closer to him. He gave Lorenzo a pleading look, trying to ask him to join the discussion. Manfred respected Lorenzo and listened to him.
Lorenzo replied with a frown and a nod. He seemed to be saying he would speak up when he judged the moment right.
When the men who had cast came around to the opposite side of the circle, fresh lances thrust upright in the ground by their servants were waiting for them. Each warrior leaned out of the saddle, seized a lance, and rode back around at top speed to throw at the target again.
After a moment, Manfred turned back to Daoud and said, "Charles d'Anjou has been hanging about in Rome all through the spring and summer claiming to be king of Sicily. This morning I asked to see my crown, and my steward brought it to me from the vault. The pope's words had not made it disappear. Rome is not Sicily. Anjou is welcome to stay in that decaying pesthole until he takes one of those famous Roman fevers and dies."
No doubt, thought Daoud, Manfred's gesture in calling for his crown had amused his whole court. And put heart into any who feared Charles's growing strength. Manfred was charming, no question. But meanwhile Charles d'Anjou, who by all accounts had not a bit of charm,wasin fact growing stronger day by day. Those of Manfred's supporters who were afraid had good reason, and Daoud was one of them.
It was agony to think how the opportunity to beat Charles now was slipping away.
"So, you will wait for Charles to come to you," said Daoud.
Manfred smiled. "And he, I suspect, hopes that I will come to him. Charles has to pay his army to stay in Italy. The longer he puts off attacking me, the more his treasury is depleted. My army waits at home, sustaining itself."
Daoud said, "Now that Charles's war is called a crusade, baronsand knights are joining him from all over Christendom. Many of them are paying their own way. Sire, when Charles decides he is ready to move against you, his strength will be overwhelming."
Lorenzo spoke up. "And meanwhile the pope has placed your whole kingdom under interdict. No sacraments. No Masses. Couples cannot marry in church. Can we weigh the pain of mothers and fathers who think their babies that die unbaptized will never see God? And what about the terror of sinners unable to confess, and the dying who cannot have the last sacraments? And the grief of those who had to bury their loved ones without funerals? Sire, your people have not heard a church bell since last May. They grow more restless and unhappy every day. And it does not help your cause when they see your Muslim and Jewish subjects freely practicingtheirreligions."
"I am surprised to hearyoupay such tribute to the power of religion, Lorenzo," said Manfred with that bright grin of his.
The grim lines of Lorenzo's face were accentuated by the droop of his black and white mustache. "I have never in my life doubted thepowerof religion, Sire."
Having used up all their lances, the Sons of the Falcon were now shooting arrows from horseback, riding toward lines of stationary targets that had been set up at the far end of the valley.
"Do you have a proposal, Daoud?" said Manfred with a sour look. "Let me hear it."
Daoud felt an overwhelming sense of relief. This was the moment he had been hoping for all day.
"Sire, do not wait for Charles to come out of Rome," he said. "In January, February at the latest, assemble your army and march north."
There, he had made his cast. Would it pierce the target?
"I could go all the way to the Papal States only to find Charles lurking behind the walls of Rome. I cannot besiege Rome. That would take ten times as many men as I have."
"No," said Daoud. "His army will not let him stay in Rome. By the end of winter they will have stolen everything in Rome that can be stolen. Charles will have to promise them more spoils and lead them to battle, or they will desert him."
Manfred nodded thoughtfully. "In truth, greed is what drives them."
Daoud added, "And call on your allies in Florence and Siena and the other Ghibellino cities to stop any more of Charles's allies coming into Italy. They cannot all come by sea as he did. Many times I have heard people in your court say that Charles has cutItaly in half. Nonsense. He has put himself between two millstones."
Manfred's eyes lit up. "Yes, I like that way of looking at it."
The Sons of the Falcon had ridden to the far end of the valley and were now roaring back, standing in the saddle and firing arrows over the tails of their horses.
"Sire," said Daoud. "Not to act is to act." He felt urgency building in him as he sensed that he was persuading Manfred.
"I remember my father saying something like that," said Manfred. "What do you think, Erhard?"
Daoud's heart sank. The beefy Swabian would undoubtedly counsel more waiting.
In thought, Landgrave Barth sucked in his upper lip and pushed out the pendulous lower one until it seemed he was trying to pull his nose into his mouth.
"Anjou will have to campaign against you soon, Sire, for the reason Herr Daoud has just given," he said slowly. "His men will not allow him to stay in Rome and endure the privation of a siege. When they learn you are coming, they will demand that he march out to meet you. He is probably planning an attack for next April or May, when the weather is best. He must expect reinforcements—but, so he does not have to pay them for long, he will not want them to come until the very moment he is ready to invade. So, if you attack him in January or February, you catch him unready." He finished with a vigorous nod of his head. "I recommend it."
Daoud felt a new and unexpected warmth toward Barth. The landgrave was not such a dull-witted old soldier after all.
The Sons of the Falcon had finished their archery exercise. In four ranks, fifty mounted men abreast, they drew up at the base of the hill and saluted Manfred, two hundred scimitars flashing in the afternoon sun.
Manfred stepped forward to the crest of the hill and raised his hands above his head. "May God bless your arms!" he shouted in Arabic.
The wild, high-pitched ululations of his Muslim warriors echoed against the surrounding hills as Manfred, smiling, returned to his companions.
He said, "In three months' time, then. No more than four. The weather will decide. I will call in my barons one by one and tell them to prepare. We must keep this a secret for as long as possible."
Daoud, Lorenzo, and Barth all bowed in assent. Daoud felt a surge of joy. He had succeeded in persuading Manfred to strike atCharles. Manfred's reasons for not wanting to move were sound ones, he knew. He had spent long hours considering them himself, but he was certain that if Manfred did nothing, he was surely doomed. At this moment Manfred and Charles were nearly evenly matched, Manfred a little stronger, Charles growing in strength. To a great extent it would be luck—or the will of God—that determined the outcome. Daoud could not control luck or God. But he could make the best possible plan and give his all to it.
Suddenly, he badly wanted to get back to Sophia in Lucera. Usually he enjoyed being out with the troops, overseeing their training. Today he begrudged the time. Every moment seemed precious. Three months would be gone before he and Sophia realized it. Then he would be riding with Manfred's army, perhaps never to see her again.
He must make sure she would be safe no matter what happened. Perhaps Ugolini or Tilia could help. Sophia would want to travel with the army—with him—north. She was not a woman to pine at home while men marched away. He must discourage her; it was too dangerous.
But to discourage her would probably be impossible.
Simon listened to the drumming hooves behind him on the dirt road and thought,I will be hearing this sound all day long every day for months. He supposed that after a while he would no longer notice it, but today, the day after his departure from Château Gobignon, his ears seemed to ache from the incessant pounding.
And the hoofbeats were a constant reminder that he was really leading the Gobignon host to war.
All summer long the conviction had been growing upon him that this was a bad war, and all the suffering it caused, all the deaths and mutilations, would be on his conscience forever. No matter that the pope had proclaimed it a holy crusade against the blasphemer Manfred. Popes could be wrong about wars.
Simon's father, Roland, had vividly described for him the horrors of the Albigensian crusade of a generation ago, when knights of northern France had fallen upon Languedoc like a pack of wolves—like Tartars, in fact—reducing it to ruins. And that crusade had been proclaimed by a pope.
In days to come the rumbling in his ears would be louder, the feeling that he was guilty of great wrongdoing harder to bear. He looked over his shoulder and saw thirty knights mounted on their palfreys, another twenty equerries and servants on smaller horses, two priests on mules, five supply wagons, two of them full of weaponsand armor, one hundred foot soldiers and sixty great war-horses in strings, a page boy riding the lead horse in each string. This was the Gobignon household contingent. At today's end he would have three times that many of every category, and by the end of the week his army would have swollen to its full size of four hundred knights, fifteen hundred foot soldiers, and all the equerries, attendants, horses, and baggage they needed.
And, a year or more from now, how many of them would come back from this war? He thought of Alain de Pirenne, lying on a street in Orvieto. He thought of Teodoro at the Monaldeschi palace, his chest crushed by a stone, his warm blood pouring out of his mouth over Simon's hand. How many of these men would die miserably like that?
Thierry d'Hauteville and Valery de Pirenne—Alain's younger brother—the two young men who rode behind him, caught his eye and grinned delightedly. He managed a smile in return, but feared it must look awfully weak. The bright red silk crosses sewn on their chests caught his eye. He wore one, too, on the breast of his purple and gold surcoat. His oldest sister, Isabelle, a fine seamstress, had sewn it there and embroidered the edges with gold thread.
All three of his sisters, Isabelle, Alix, and Blanche, had worked on the crusaders' banner, red cross on white silk, that rippled above Simon. Equerries took turns riding with the banner according to a roster Simon himself had written. Beside the crusading flag, another equerry carried the banner of the house of Gobignon, three gold crowns, two side by side and one below them, on a purple background.
His sisters' three husbands rode to war behind him today. Since he was unmarried and had no heir, one of them would be Count de Gobignon if he should fall.
And with more right to the title, perhaps, than I have, he thought unhappily. And he felt as if icy fingers stroked the back of his neck when he thought how much one of those three knights back there stood to gain by his death.
His little troop raised no dust; the road was damp and covered with puddles from yesterday's rain. Thank God it had not rained hard enough to turn the road into mud. As it was, the weather made his leave-taking gloomier than it need have been. The empty fields, littered with yellow stubble, lay flat under the vast gray bowl of a cloudy November sky. The only feature in that landscape was a darker gray, the bulk of Château Gobignon with its round towers rising on its great solitary hill. The road they traveled ran back to it as straight as if it had been drawn with a mason's rule.
I should stop this enterprise now, Simon thought.I should turn back before it is too late.
The longer they were on the road, the harder it would be to declare suddenly that Gobignon wasnotgoing to war in Italy, to tell his barons and knights to return to their homes and hang up their arms. If he did so at this moment, he would provoke great anger in these men of his own household. Today and tomorrow great barons would be joining him, mature men—his vassals—but men of weight and power in their own right. Their scorn at his change of heart would be almost unbearable.
But did he want to be another Amalric de Gobignon, leading the flower of his domain's manhood, hundreds of knights and thousands of men-at-arms, to war, with only a handful coming back? If this was a bad war, God might well punish Charles d'Anjou with defeat. And Simon would share, not in the glory as Charles had promised him, but in disaster and death.
And I am not rightfully the Count de Gobignon.
He knew, though these men did not, that he had no right to call them out to war. If Simon de Gobignon, a bastard and an impostor, led this army to its destruction, what name was there for such a crime?
The voice of Valery de Pirenne, Simon's new equerry, broke in on Simon's tormented thoughts.
"I am not sorry to be leaving home this time of year. What better place to spend the winter than sunny Italy?"
I have already caused the death of this young man's brother. Will I kill Valery too?
"It rains much in Italy in January," said Thierry, now Sire Thierry d'Hauteville, having been knighted by Simon at the beginning of November on the Feast of All Saints. His tone was lofty with experience.
"Bad weather for war," said Henri de Puys, whose experience was ten times Thierry's—or Simon's, for that matter. "But the rains should be over by the time we reach that infidel Manfred's kingdom."
"Look there," said Thierry. "More knights coming to meet us."
Simon saw a line of about a dozen men on horseback, three canvas-covered wagons and a straggling column of men on foot with spears over their shoulders. The oncoming knights and men were tiny in the distance, marching along a road that would meet Simon's route.
Oh, God, now it will be harder to turn them back.
"That will be the party from Château la Durie," Thierry said, pointing to the horizon where the four towers of a small castle were just barely visible.
A distant bell was ringing out the noon hour as Simon's troop met those from la Durie. All of the new knights wore red crosses on their tunics. Sire Antoine de la Durie was a stout man about de Puys's age with a huge mustache called an algernon, whose ends grew into his sideburns. Simon and de la Durie brought their horses together and embraced. The knight smelled like a barn.
"How was your harvest, Sire Antoine?"
Large white teeth flashed under the algernon. "Ample, Monseigneur. But not so ample, I trust, as what we shall gather in Sicily."
They all wanted this so much.
How his chief barons had cheered and roared and stamped when he announced this war to them at his Midsummer's Eve feast in the great hall at Château Gobignon! It was at that very moment, when he had seen the ferocious eagerness of his barons for war, that he had begun again to doubt.
Antoine de la Durie gestured with a callused, bare hand to three young men on horseback whose russet cloaks were patched, but whose longswords proclaimed their knighthood. They grinned shyly at Simon.
"These are the Pilchard brothers, Monseigneur. They are not Gobignon vassals, but they are Madame de la Durie's cousin's sons, and I vouch for them. They beg to go crusading under your leadership."
Under my leadership! God help them!
"You are right welcome, Messires. When we stop for the night, see my clerk, Friar Amos, and have him add your names to our roll."
The young men dismounted, rushed to him, and kissed his hands.
Why did he not send them away, send all these knights away, tell them there would be no war in Italy? Because he was afraid of his own barons and knights, the men he was supposed to lead. Because he felt he had set something in motion that could not be stopped, like one of those horrendous avalanches in the Alps.
If they were to keep going, he must—without mishap—cover ten leagues a day to reach Rome by February. He must study again the maps Valery was carrying in his saddlebags, especially the one he had just received, along with a letter, from Count Charles—King Charles.
The infidel Manfred, Charles had written, had stirred up the Ghibellino cities of northern Italy. They were lying in wait for alliesof Anjou, who might come down from France or the Holy Roman Empire. Simon must not waste troops fighting the Sienese or Florentine militia. So he should enter Italy by way of Provence and Liguria, then cut across eastward to Ravenna and thence down to Spoleto and Viterbo, and finally to Rome. The roundabout route would take longer, but Charles would expect Simon in Rome by the first of February. Charles intended to march against Manfred at the beginning of April.
Two months to reach Provence, march along the Ligurian coast, perhaps as far as Genoa, which was safely Guelfo, and then pick his way around the nests of northern Ghibellini to Rome. It could be done, but only if his army met with no unexpected obstacles—a Ghibellino army, for instance, or a bad winter storm.
And then, beyond Rome, what would they find?
Once they were there, at least he would not have to make the decisions that determined the fate of these men. The responsibility—and the blame if they failed—would be Charles's.
The greatest war since you were a child, Charles had promised.
And none of the Gobignon men would ever know that they were fighting because he had fallen in love with a woman named Sophia—if that was truly her name—and she had let him taste her love and then had disappeared.
He remembered a trouvere at a feast singing of how the Greeks went to war because Helen, wife of one of their kings, ran off with Paris, prince of Troy. But that was just a story.
Sophia—her face and form arose in his memory, and there was a strange happiness mixed with the pain, as if he were glad of his suffering. He had heard songs about the sweet pain of love, but he had never before now understood them.
And even now he could not think of Sophia as an enemy. His heartbeat quickened at the thought that there was a chance, very small but still a chance, that Sophia might truly be someone he could love, and that he could free her from whatever entanglement had dragged her into Manfred's power.
By the end of the day the sound of hoofbeats around him was no longer a drumming, but a thundering. And all around and above him was a fluttering of banners. Each of the larger contingents that joined him had brought the standard of its seigneur.
The road south was climbing into forested hills. At the crest of the first hill Simon tugged on the reins to slow his palfrey, and turned to look back. In the fading light of the overcast day, Château Gobignon was a violet outcropping on the flat horizon, its towers indistinct. This would be his last sight of it, perhaps for years. Andtomorrow he would cross the boundary of his domain. That was a point past which there was no return. Once the host was assembled, once they had crossed the Gobignon border, it would not matter what he told them. If he refused to lead them, they would find another leader.
He saw two more banners rising above the crest of a bare ridge to the west. Then the heads and shoulders of men, then the horses they rode. They waved and halloed. More followed them. And still more.
Simon met the newcomers by a stream that trickled through a small valley lined with birch trees. Seigneur Claudius de Marion, the leader of the large new party, lifted his square chin as he reached over and clapped Simon heartily on the shoulder.
"The valley widens out up ahead," he said. "I propose that we camp there. The forest beyond is thick and not a good place to ride through at night. And, Monseigneur, to be frank, I do not want to send my daughter home after dark."
"I will be quite safe, Father, if Monseigneur the Count wishes to press on for the night."
The young woman riding a tall gray and white stallion beside Claudius de Marion had humorous blue eyes and a wide mouth. Her upper lip protruded slightly, an irregularity Simon thought quite pretty in her. She had not inherited her father's nose, which was shaped like an axe blade; hers was small and turned up at the end. Her single yellow-gold braid, which circled round from under her blue hood and hung down between her high breasts, seemed to glow in the gathering dusk.
Simon remembered dancing in a ring that included her at last Midsummer's Eve feast. She had worn a woven wreath of white daisies in her hair.
"Barbara insisted on accompanying me to our meeting," said de Marion with an indulgent grin. "I could not persuade her to bid me farewell from our castle."
Barbara's smile was wide and frank, like her father's. "In truth, Monseigneur, I had to see all the knights and men you have gathered. I knew it would be a brave sight, such as I have never seen the like of. God grant you a glorious victory. Will you take wine?"
She held up an oval wineskin, and at Simon's nod and murmur of thanks she worked her horse over to his with a click of her tongue and a pat on the neck. She rode like one born to it, thought Simon. Which she was.
She squirted the wine into his open mouth. It was red and strong, and it lit a welcome little fire in his belly.
As they rode deeper into the valley, Simon asked himself, where had Barbara de Marion been when he had been earnestly searching for a wife? She had been a child, and his eyes had passed right over her. How different his life might have been if she had been a little older two years ago. Seigneur Claudius was one of his chief vassals and a good friend, and would doubtless have had no objection to a marriage. Simon might never have gone to Italy.
But there was room in this heart for only one love. And there was only one course his life could take now.
Somehow, with the sight of this maiden and the realization that he might have fallen in love with her once but never could now, a door closed in Simon's mind. His destiny lay in Italy. He could no more forget Sophia and return to Château Gobignon like a snail crawling into its shell than he could spit himself on his own sword.
As for these men, they were going to Italy for their own gain, not to help Simon find Sophia, nor yet to help Charles d'Anjou become King of Sicily. Or even to protect the pope from his Hohenstaufen enemies. He had not had to appeal to their feudal obligations in summoning them to war. As Count Charles had predicted, they allwantedto come. All they cared about was a chance for riches and land and glory after years of doing nothing but managing their domains. They marched of their own free will. He only pointed the way.
He remembered something Roland had said to him:Once you have made your choice, put your whole heart and soul into it. Never divide yourself.
Which, Simon thought, was exactly why, even though he would pass near Nicolette and Roland's home in Provence, he would not visit them. He knew well their feelings about crusades, and he could be quite sure of the loathing with which they would view this war. Roland had even spent a good part of his youth at the court of Emperor Frederic, Manfred's father. No, he had enough doubts of his own without letting his parents add more.
Even so, from his belt hung Roland's gift to him, the jeweled Damascus scimitar. He did not like to admit to himself that he was superstitious, but with this scimitar Roland had gotten out of Egypt alive in the face of the most terrible dangers. Somehow, Simon saw the scimitar as a talisman that might also get him through this war.
He glanced over at the beautiful Barbara de Marion and felt a rush of gratitude. Knowing that, lovely as she was, she could never make him forget Sophia, had helped him make his decision.
"It has been four years since I mounted a horse and drew my bow in battle," said John Chagan with a grin. "A man grows old if he does not fight."
Rachel paused in her work of setting up their tent for the night to stare at him, wondering if he knew how unready for fighting he looked. The pouches under his eyes were as prominent as his cheekbones, and the cheekbones themselves were criss-crossed with tiny red lines.
It had been nearly a month since he had taken his pleasure with her in bed. She was glad enough of that, but she felt sorry for him, even knowing that his death in battle would free her. The way his hands trembled, he would be lucky to get an arrow nocked, much less shoot it at an enemy.
The tent flap was pushed aside, and a Venetian crossbowman backed in holding one end of Rachel's traveling chest. Another man followed at the other end.
"What have you got in here—marble blocks?" the first archer grumbled as he set the box down on the carpeted tent floor beside the bed.
"My helmet and sword and coat of mail," said Rachel with a smile. "I would not want to miss the battle."
Fear whispered to her that the armed men who traveled with the Tartars must be aware that she had valuables in that chest. If any of them ever got an opportunity, they would not hesitate to steal it from her. And stab her to death to get at it, if they had to. She hated carrying the heavy box everywhere. But even if she could have found a safe place for it in Rome, she had no way of knowing whether she could ever get back there to claim it. The chest held her prisoner as much as John did.
She had thought that while she and John traveled with Charles d'Anjou's army, she might be able to slip away. Perhaps if there was a battle, she might escape in the confusion. But she could not do it alone, not if she wanted to take the chest.
"You can take my place if you are so eager," the second Venetian laughed. "I've seen battles enough."
"Where are we?" she asked.
"Icerna. Still in papal territory."
"Where are we going?" She heard a movement as she asked the question, and looked over at John. He was pouring himself a goblet of red wine while eyeing Rachel and the Venetians distrustfully. He had learned no Italian, and perhaps he thought she was flirting with the two archers.
"We are coming to a town called Benevento. Right on the Hohenstaufen border. Supposed to be a papal city, but you never know. Border cities usually give their support to whoever is closer to them with the bigger army. The rumor is that whether the town is Guelfo or Ghibellino, King Charles will let the troops have their way with Benevento. And high time. How is a man to live on the miserable wages our would-be king doles out to us?"
"Enough of your damned complaining!" a deep voice boomed. The flap of the tent flew open, letting in a blast of chill air, and Cardinal de Verceuil strode in. Terror raced through Rachel. She quickly dropped a quilted blanket over the chest containing her treasure.
De Verceuil threw back the fur-trimmed hood of his heavy woolen cloak and, though his words had been for the Venetian archers, glared at Rachel accusingly. She felt herself trembling. He was dressed in bright red, but like a soldier, not like a man of the Church. He wore a heavy leather vest over his scarlet tunic, and calf-high black leather boots.
God help me, what is he going to do to me?
Sordello, the capitano of the Tartars' guards, followed the cardinal into the tent. His lopsided grin was as frightening as the cardinal's angry stare. His eyes narrowed, and Rachel felt her face burn as he looked her up and down.
"Out!" Sordello snapped at the two Venetian crossbowmen. After they were gone, the tent flap opened still another time, and Friar Mathieu hobbled in, leaning on his walking stick.
"We do not need you," de Verceuil growled in his French-accented Italian.
"John needs me," said Friar Mathieu. "To translate for him. And I think Rachel needs me too."
"Stupid savage should have learned Italian by now," said Sordello.
Ah, you are very brave, capitano, insulting him in a language he does not understand, thought Rachel contemptuously.
De Verceuil glowered at Friar Mathieu.
"You cannot protect her."
"Protect me from what?" Rachel's voice sounded in her own ears like a scream, and her heart was pounding against the walls of her chest.
"John can protect her," said Friar Mathieu, "if he understands what is happening."
He looked full into Rachel's face, and there was a warning in his old blue eyes. She was almost frantic with fear now. She had not been so frightened since the day John and the rest of them had invaded Tilia's house and carried her off.
What was Friar Mathieu trying to warn her about?
"What do you know of Sophia Orfali, Ugolini's so-called niece?" de Verceuil demanded in his French-accented Italian.
Friar Mathieu has betrayed me!
Rachel looked over at the old Franciscan and saw him close his eyes very slowly and deliberately and open them again.Keep your mouth closed, he seemed to be trying to say to her. She had to trust him. She could not believe he would say anything to turn de Verceuil against her.
"I—I know nothing," she said. "Who is this you are asking about?"
"What happens here?" John asked Friar Mathieu in the Tartar language. "Why are the high priest and this foot archer in my tent? I did not invite them. Tell them I send them away."
Friar Mathieu started to answer in the Tartar tongue. Rachel strained to hear him, but Sordello's ugly laughter overrode the friar's voice.
"I escorted Sophia Orfali to Tilia Caballo's brothel more than once," Sordello said. "And I know she was going to visityoubecause I overheard her telling that to that devil David of Trebizond."
So it was Sordello, not Friar Mathieu, who had been talking to de Verceuil. She should have known.
Rachel heard Friar Mathieu now. "I am talking toyou, not to John," he said in the Tartar's tongue, and she understood that Friar Mathieu meant her. Neither de Verceuil nor Sordello understood the language of the Tartars, or knew that she knew it. As long as Friar Mathieu did not address Rachel by name and kept his eyes on John, who looked confused, it would appear that he was talking to the Tartar and not to Rachel.
De Verceuil strode over to the wine bottle standing on the lowtable by John's bed. Without asking permission, he picked it up and drank deeply from it.
"The Tartars travel with the best wine in this whole army," he declared. "Better than the cheap swill King Charles carries with him." Sophia glanced at John and saw that he was glowering at de Verceuil.
Friar Mathieu said in the Tartar tongue, "Sordello went to the cardinal with the story that you must be some sort of agent for Manfred and therefore it is dangerous for John to keep you with him."
Why would Sordello do that now, Rachel wondered. He could have accused her anytime in the past year. She could not question Friar Mathieu, though, without giving it away that he was talking to her. Did Sordello have some plan to get the chest away from her and desert?
"They know hardly anything about you," Friar Mathieu said. "Do not be afraid. Admit nothing. Deny everything. I think Sordello knows more about Ugolini's household, and about Tilia Caballo's brothel, than is safe for him to admit. Say nothing, and I believe they will frustrate themselves."
John smiled and nodded at Friar Mathieu. "I see what you are doing," he said in Tartar.
De Verceuil was looming over her. "Speak up! What was your connection with Ugolini's niece?Wasshe Ugolini's niece?" Even though she was standing up, he looked down on her from an enormous height. His deep voice and great size terrified her.
She said, "I know nothing about any cardinal or any cardinal's niece."
De Verceuil seized her by the shoulders, his fingers digging in so hard she felt as if nails were being driven into her muscles. She was almost dizzy with panic.
"You lying little Jewess!"
Suddenly Rachel felt a violent shove, and she was thrown back against her quilt-covered chest and sat down on it hard. She looked up and saw that John was standing before de Verceuil. It was he who had pushed them apart. His arms were spread wide.
"Do not dare to touch her again!" John shouted in the Tartar tongue. He turned to Friar Mathieu and jerked his head at de Verceuil.
"Tell him!"
When Friar Mathieu had repeated John's command, the cardinal answered, "Tell Messer John that we have reason to believe that this Jewish whore is an agent of Manfred von Hohenstaufen, theenemy we are marching to destroy. She met with Sophia Orfali, Ugolini's niece, and Ugolini and his niece have both fled to Manfred. Manfred has tried before now to harm Messer John, and he could do it through this girl."
John shrugged and glowered at de Verceuil when he heard this.
"Foolishness. Reicho does nothing but read books and comfort me. She has no friends, and no one comes to talk with her. Except you. Go away."
De Verceuil took another swallow from the wine jar.
"Put that down!" John shouted. De Verceuil did not need to have that translated. He put the jar down, frowning at John, offended.
"Sordello is right," de Verceuil said. "The man is a savage."
"Do you want me to tell him so?" said Friar Mathieu.
De Verceuil replied to this with a haughty stare.
"Tell him this," he said. "Tomorrow we march to Benevento. King Charles has sent scouts and spies into Manfred's lands, and they have learned that Manfred is moving in our direction with a large army. Larger than ours, if the reports are to be believed. We would be stronger still if your friend the pusillanimous Count de Gobignon were to put in an appearance."
Rachel remembered the Count de Gobignon, that tall, thin, sad-looking man who had so frightened her with his questions about Madonna Sophia.
Everyone was asking questions about Madonna Sophia. There was no doubt that Madonna Sophia and her friends had some secret. Rachel had always known that, though she did not want to know what the secret was. Whatever it was, Rachel promised herself that no one would get a hint of it from her.