Chapter 18

Simon wanted to talk about their future, not about Charles d'Anjou's plans for war with Manfred. But he tried to answer her question.

"He is pressing his people for money now. Then he must gather his army. And it can take months to move an army from the south of France to southern Italy. With winter coming on, he will probably wait until next year to cross the Alps. My guess is he'll be here in Italy next summer."

She was about to speak again, probably to ask another question about Count Charles. He quickly broke in.

"What I told you last time--that I am a bastard and that the last Count de Gobignon was not my real father--does that make you less willing to marry me?"

Her face squeezed together, as if a sharp pain had struck her. "You are not going to start talking about marriage again, Simon?"

Her words were like a knife wound in his chest. While he searched for words, his eyes explored the steep brown hills that surrounded this secluded lake. Their tops were veiled in mist, like his past.

"I have never stopped thinking about marrying you. Sophia, you are the one person in the world who can make me happy." He reached over into her lap and took her hand. It felt cool and smooth.

"I could never, never make you happy," she said. "You know nothing about me."

Why was she always saying that? What was there to know about a woman who had lived a quiet life in Sicily, was widowed at an early age, and had come to live with her cardinal uncle?

"I know enough." His eyes felt on fire with longing. "And you know enough about me to see that the differences between our families do not matter. You know what I am. And we care more about each other than we do about your uncle opposing what my king wants."

"Oh, Simon!" Now there were tears running down her cheeks, but she did not try to pull her hand away. It pained him to see how this was hurting her, though he did not understand why it should.

She said, "You are telling tales to yourself if you imagine we could ever marry. You should not even think of it. Whatever your mother did, you are still the Count de Gobignon. You are almost a member of the French royal family."

"I am sure Cardinal Ugolini does not agree that your family is so obscure," Simon said. "It is time I talked to him about this. Then you will believe I mean it."

She struck her hands against his chest. "No, no! You must not do that. Do you not realize how upset he is about this war, and how he feels toward the French? If he even knew that I had been alone with you today, he would force me to go back to Siracusa at once."

The feel of her hands on him, even to hit him in reproof, excited him.

"I would not let that happen," he said gravely.

He heard wild geese flying southward calling in the distance. Their cries made this place seem terribly lonely. Even though the little lake was only a short ride from Perugia, he had seen no sign of a human being anywhere.

The fire was burning low. He went to gather more wood.

Sophia frowned at him when he came back. "What did you mean, you would not allow my uncle to send me away?"

He leaned closer, seizing both of her hands in his. The pleasure of holding her hands rippled through him like a fluttering of angels' wings. In his exalted state he was moved to utter extravagant words.

"I mean that if you were to leave Perugia, I would ride after you. I would fight any men your uncle had set to guard you. I would take you back to Gobignon with me, and there with you inside my castle I would defy the world."

"Oh, Simon!"

His words sounded foolish to him after he spoke them aloud. Yet men, he knew, had done such things--Lancelot--Tristan--if the old songs were to be believed. How better to prove his love than to commit crimes and risk disgrace for her?

She was crying again. She put her hands over her face. Why, he wondered, when he declared his love for her and told her he wanted to marry her, did it make her so unhappy? If she did not care for him, she should be indifferent or angry. Why, instead, did she cry so hard?

_It must be that she wants me but cannot believe it is possible._

The sight of her slender body shaking with sobs tore at his heart. He could not hold himself back; even if she fought him again, he must put his arms around her. He reached out to hold her. She fell against him. She felt wonderful in his arms, solid enough to assure him that this was no dream, yet light enough to allow him to feel that he could do anything he wanted with her.

He remembered how angry she had been in the pine forest outside Orvieto when he had tried to make love to her. Though he might be eaten up with longing for her, he must just hold her and be glad she allowed him to do that.

She raised her tear-streaked face and kissed him lightly on the lips.

The soft pressure of her lips on his made his arms ache to hold her tighter. But he fought the feeling down.

"Why do you cry so hard when I speak to you of love?" he whispered.

"Because no one has ever loved me as you do," she said. She rested her head against his chest, and he stroked her hair. His eyes lingered over the curves of her breasts. He wanted to drop his hand from her hair to her breast. He felt the yearning to touch her breast as a pain in the palm of his hand.

"But you have been married," he said. "Did not your husband love you?"

He felt her head shaking. His heart was beating so hard he was sure she must hear it.

"We were little more than children."

"I am not a child, and neither are you. Believe me when I say I want to marry you."

"Oh, Simon, I do believe you!" she cried, and she broke out in a fresh storm of sobs.

Now he could not help himself; he had to hold her tight. She leaned against him, and they slipped back until they were both lying down, he on his back and she on top of him. His hand felt the small of her back. How narrow her waist was!

He felt her move against him in a new way.

Her arms slid around him, her hands on his neck. Her lips were on his again, but this time pressing hard, ferocious, devouring. He felt her teeth and tongue, her breath hot in his mouth.

She was suddenly a different woman, not the shy cardinal's niece. She was demanding, brimming over with a need to match his. Their hands hurried over each other's bodies, touching through their clothes and then under their clothes. Simon had no time to be surprised at the change that had come over her.

She was undoing the laces down the front of her gown, then taking his hands and holding them against her naked breasts. He nearly fainted with the wonder of it.

And while he held her breasts, unable to take his hands away, her hands moved downward, fumbling at his clothing and at her own, her body sliding against him, her hand seizing his manhood, her legs opening to receive him.

He groaned and squeezed his eyes shut, and she cried out with delight as he entered her. She pushed herself upward, pressing her hands against his shoulders, arching her back. His hands moved in gentle circles over her breasts, her hard nipples pressing into his palms. Her hips thrust against him furiously. He felt waves of pleasure rising to a crest in his loins. His eyes came open and he saw, under the olive skin of her face and neck and bosom, a deep crimson flush.

Her joyous scream echoed cross the lake.

* * * * *

"You shall come with me to Gobignon," he whispered in her ear. They lay wrapped in his cloak, legs entangled, clothing in disarray, the wind rattling the bare branches overhead. He heard his palfrey and her horse in the brush nearby stamping and snorting restlessly. The horses must be hungry.

"You shall marry me," he said.

She lay motionless, her head under his, resting on his arm. "I will not. I cannot." Her tone was leaden, despairing.

After what had just happened, how could she still refuse him? Was she ashamed? Did she feel she had sinned?

"We are as good as married now."

"Oh, Simon." She sounded as if she were talking to a hopelessly innocent boy.

"There will be a new pope, and the alliance will be sealed, and my work will be done," he said. "I agreed to do this, and I will see it through. But I do not have to be a part of the war between Count Charles and the king of Sicily, and neither do you. All I want is to go home and to take you with me. With you beside me, my home will be all of the world that I want."

Her arms were tight around him, but she was silent. It did not matter if she did not answer him. After what had just happened between them, he felt as if he knew her mind as fully as he knew her body. She loved him and would marry him. He was sure of it.

Overhead, wild geese called.

LX

_Why did I ever make love to him?_

Sophia had asked herself the same question countless times since that day by the wooded lake. For two months she had managed to keep away from Simon. Now he was here, in Ugolini's mansion.

She stood before the door of Ugolini's audience room. The servant who had come to fetch her was about to open it. Sophia's hands felt coated with frost. Terrified of being with Simon again, she hated herself for what she had done. To Daoud, to Simon. And to herself.

The servant opened the door. She stepped through quickly and he closed it behind her.

And there was Simon de Gobignon, tall and handsome as ever, looking down at her reproachfully. Tension made her heart beat so hard that she wanted to put her hand on her chest to still it. Instead, she held her hand out so that Simon could bend down from his towering height and kiss it. She was so upset by his unexpected arrival that she did not comprehend his murmured greeting.

Behind Simon's back Ugolini, sitting at a large writing desk, rolled his eyes and stretched his mouth in a grimace at her. Simon was still bent over her hand, so she was able to shake her head slightly in answer to his unspoken question. Simon must have come here as a last resort, because after yielding to him in secret she had tried to shut him out of her life. She could hardly convey that to Ugolini now, even if she wanted to.

"The Count de Gobignon has come to call on you, my dear," said Ugolini, his smooth voice betraying none of his anxiety. "I have given my permission, provided it is also your wish."

"Your Signory pays me too much honor," she said softly to Simon. Her mind spun. How could she talk to Simon, when she did not understand herself well enough to know what lies to tell him?

She wondered what Ugolini would think of her if he knew all of what had happened between her and Simon when they met that day. Would he be shocked? Contemptuous? Would he tell Daoud? All he knew of her meeting with Simon in October was that Simon had again proposed marriage to her, and she had rejected him.

She said, "I find it hard to believe that Your Signory even remembers me. I do not believe we have seen each other since the reception for the Tartar ambassadors at the Palazzo Monaldeschi last year. Is that not so?"

An appreciative smile replaced the somber expression on Simon's face. His eyes twinkled at her. Doubtless he thought they were conspirators together.

_The poor, poor boy._

But she could not see that look warming his sharp-pointed features without feeling it again--that surge of desire that had driven her to give herself to him two months ago.

_What is happening to me?_

"Many months have passed and much has happened, Madonna," he said, "but--forgive me if I am too forward--I have found it impossible to forget you. Now that we are together in a new city, I hoped to renew your acquaintance."

"This endless moving about will be the death of me," said Ugolini unhappily. "Papa le Gros no sooner arrives from England and is officially elected than he tells us he will be crowned in Viterbo and make that the new papal seat. I have hardly had time to unpack here in Perugia."

"Your furnishings seem in good order to me, Your Eminence," said Simon with a smile, looking around the large room with its row of large windows, its thick carpeting, and its heavy black chairs and tables. A large shield carved in stone over the fireplace behind Ugolini was painted with five red bands on a white background.

"These are not mine," said Ugolini, waving a hand dismissively. "Not my idea of comfortable surroundings at all. No, I simply bought this house and its furnishings from a Genoese merchant who was using it only part of the year. I would be ashamed to tell you how much I paid for it--you would think me a fool. A typical Genoese, he took advantage of my need. And now I must sell all, probably to the same merchant and probably at a loss."

"That is another reason why I wanted to see you, Madonna Sophia," said Simon. "I feared that you, like your good uncle, might find all this uprooting tiresome and might return to Sicily, and I would be hard put to find you again."

With an inward shudder, Sophia realized the strength of Simon's resolve to possess her. Only the truth would kill that determination, and she would never dare to tell him that. Besides, there was a part of her that, mad as it was, delighted in seeing how powerfully he was drawn to her.

"I am thinking of going home myself," said Ugolini. "What need for me to go with the new pope on this tedious search for ever-safer safety?"

"If you returned to Sicily," said Simon to Sophia, "it might be ages before I see you again."

His words frightened her. Was he about to ask Ugolini for her hand, and how would the cardinal deal with that?

"Forgive me if I raise an unpleasant subject," said Ugolini, "but if your Count Charles d'Anjou accepts the pope's offer of the crown of southern Italy and Sicily, it may be a long time before any French nobleman will be welcome in my homeland."

There was no "if" about what Charles d'Anjou would do, Sophia thought. That was just Ugolini's courtesy.

"I know, Your Eminence," said Simon, looking grim. "I hope you will still think of me as your friend, despite events. Just as we have been friends while we disagreed over this matter of the Tartar alliance."

Ugolini clapped his hands suddenly. "Well, it is a happy occasion when my niece has such a distinguished visitor. Count, this house has a second-story loggia overlooking the atrium. It is private enough to shield you from prying eyes, yet not so private as to place you lovely young people in peril of temptation. Sophia will show you the way."

Bowing and thanking Ugolini, Simon followed Sophia out of the room.

She turned to Simon as soon as the door of Ugolini's audience chamber had closed behind them and said, "I need my cloak for the cold. Wait here, and I will go to my room and get it." Without giving him a chance to answer, she hurried down the corridor, desperately trying to make sense of her thoughts and feelings.

Their lovemaking had been a terrible mistake. And yet, there had been times in those two months when the recollection of the two of them, wrapped in his cloak, lying on a bed of leaves, the depth of his passion for her and the wildness of her answering feelings, crept up on her unexpectedly and sent thrills of pleasure coursing through her.

As she rummaged in her chest for a warm cloak, her eyes met those of her icon of Saint Simon Stylites, and she felt shame wash over her.

_How can I think that I truly love Daoud, when I gave myself so freely to his enemy?_

But had that not been what Daoud had expected her to do all along? He had always been jealous, had always made it obvious that he hated the idea of her letting Simon court her. And yet, from the time he first encountered Simon, he had made it equally obvious that he expected Sophia to do whatever was necessary to make Simon fall in love with her. And from the moment Simon had kissed her in the Contessa di Monaldeschi's atrium, he had loved her, and never stopped loving her.

But to make him love her, she had pretended to be an innocent young Sicilian woman who could be overwhelmed by her love for a French nobleman. Sadly enough, she felt more joy and peace of mind as that Sicilian girl than she ever had known as a woman of Byzantium. And the confusion about who she really was had become much worse after she decided to keep secret from Daoud Simon's destination when he left Orvieto.

She felt a pounding pain inside her skull, and she pressed her hands against her bound-up hair. She shut her eyes so tight that she forced tears from them, and a little groan escaped her.

She was sure of one thing: If she had much more to do with Simon de Gobignon, the confusion she felt would probably drive her mad.

She fumbled through her chest and found a rose-colored winter cloak lined with red squirrel fur. She threw it over her shoulders and clasped it around her neck, the fur collar gently brushing her chin.

Simon was waiting where she had left him. He had allowed his bright blue cloak to fall closed around his lanky frame, so that he looked like a pillar. She wrapped her own cloak around herself, and side by side they walked to the stairs at the end of the corridor.

They said nothing to each other until they were out on the loggia under a gray sky. A chill wind stung Sophia's cheeks. She looked down at the rows of fruit trees in the atrium below. Their bare branches reached up at her like long, slender fingers.

"I cannot understand you," he said. "Why have you been so cruel to me?"

That sounded like typical courtly lover's talk, but she knew he meant the words literally. She looked at his face and saw the whiteness, the strain around his mouth, the slight tremor of his lips. He looked like a mortally wounded man.

"I, cruel to you? Did I not beg you to stay away from my uncle? Look what you have done today. He will send me to Siracusa for certain."

But she felt something break inside her at the sight of his pain. She had done this to him. She had hoped to give him something by letting him possess her one time, to make up for all that she could never give him. Instead, with the gift of her body she had bound him to her more tightly than ever. And then, haunted by her own feelings and the memory of what they had done together, she had simply tried to have nothing further to do with him. And now her effort to break with him was hurting both of them far more than if she had refused him that day.

"You drove me to this," he said, his eyes wide with anger. "You did not answer my letters or acknowledge my poems. When I tried to speak to you in the street and in church, you avoided me. I sent you gifts, and you sent them back."

She really would have to get out of Perugia. Back to Daoud. This would tear her to pieces.

_But what about Rachel?_

If she left Perugia, that would be as good as abandoning Rachel. She had sworn to herself never to do that.

_Simon guards the Tartars. He must know what has happened to Rachel. Perhaps he can help her._

She stopped walking and leaned against the stone railing of the loggia. The leafless branches in the atrium below them rattled in the wind.

"There are many reasons that I did not want to see you. I do not know whether you would understand all of them. But one is that I have heard something very ugly about those Tartars of yours." She had decided not to admit that she knew Rachel. That would take too much explaining and too many more lies, and the lies would be like hidden holes in a leaf-strewn path, to trip her up.

"One of the Tartars, those men you guard so carefully, kidnapped a young girl from Orvieto and is holding her a prisoner now, here in Perugia at the Baglioni palace. It makes me unhappy to know that you are the protector of men who would do such things."

Down below, two of Ugolini's servants brought out baskets of newly washed tablecloths and bedlinens and began spreading them on the branches of the trees to dry. Sophia spoke in a lower voice, giving details of the attack on Tilia's house by de Verceuil and the Tartars as if it were something she knew about only through hearsay, while Simon looked more and more unhappy.

He frowned at her. "I know of this girl. It is John Chagan who keeps her. But what is she to you? She is not even a Christian. I am surprised that a woman of good family like you should worry about a prostitute."

How easy for a count to look down on a girl like Rachel. She felt her back stiffen with anger.

_How he would despise me if he knew what I was._

_But what am I?_

"Does it lower me in your eyes that I worry about such a girl?"

He waved his hands placatingly. "No, no. Such charitable feelings do you credit. I _would_ like to help her, and I know Friar Mathieu has already tried. I just wondered how _you_ came to know and care about this girl's case." He looked earnestly into her eyes. His eyes were a blue as clear and bright as that lake where they had lain together.

"The story is talked about by all the servants and common folk of the town. I feel very sorry for her. She is just a child. I find myself imagining how she feels--kidnapped, helpless, raped by this barbarian, a prisoner. Have you not seen her yourself?"

Simon nodded reluctantly, looking away. "Yes, glimpses. She stays in her room."

"She is forced to stay in her room." Sophia sensed that Simon knew more than he admitted about what the Tartar had done to Rachel and was ashamed to be connected with it.

"What has this to do with you and me?" he demanded.

"You are close to the Tartars. You might be able to help her."

Simon glowered. "If I had been there that day in Orvieto, you may be sure they would not have raided that brothel."

He might be on the enemy side, she thought, but he was not a savage like the Franks of her childhood. He was a genuinely good man, and that was what made the hopeless dream of marrying him so painful.

She put her hand on his arm and squeezed. "Will you try to get the Tartar to release the girl? Cardinal Ugolini will take her in."

When she laid her hand on the hard, wiry muscle in his arm, she did not want to let go.

_I still want him! My God, what is the matter with me?_

"De Verceuil would oppose me if I tried to take the girl away from John. Incredible, is it not? A cardinal involved in kidnapping a young girl for the pleasure of a barbarian?"

Sophia, taught by her Greek Orthodox priests that the Roman Church was a fountainhead of wickedness, did not think the cardinal's actions all that incredible. Besides, was she not in league with another cardinal who was helping the Muslims?

"There _must_ be a way to help Rachel," she said.

He brought his face close to hers. "Sophia, I will speak to Friar Mathieu. But, as I said, he has already tried to persuade John to let the girl go free. With no success. And I am sure there is nothing more Friar Mathieu can do before tomorrow, when I leave Perugia."

She loved that serious, intent look. It was as if light were coming from his eyes.

But what he had just said took her by surprise.

"Leave Perugia? Where are you going?"

He shook his head. "No one is supposed to know."

"Simon!" She put anger into her voice, knowing he was vulnerable. If she could get some information of use to Daoud from him, she would have an excuse for having let Simon make love to her. And with Daoud far away in Manfred's kingdom, there was no chance this time that he could hurt Simon.

He touched her cheek with the tips of his long fingers, and she could feel him struggling with himself.

"Swear you will tell no one."

"Of course."

_He really thinks I can be depended upon to keep an oath._

"All right. I had a message from Count Charles--he who gave me this task of guarding the Tartars. He calls me to meet him at Ostia. That is why I came here today, even though I knew you would not want me to. Knowing I would be leaving here and might not see you for months made me desperate."

Charles d'Anjou at Ostia--the seaport of Rome!

As she realized what Simon's words meant, terror raced through Sophia. She was going to fall from the loggia and break into a thousand pieces, like an icicle.