Chapter 33

"I must tell you, Simon, that it was I who first fell in love with Daoud. There were moments when I hated him--when he killed your friend, for instance--but as I got to know him better and better I could not help loving him. I had been loved by an emperor and a king, but I had never met a man like Daoud. He had begun as a slave, and he became warrior, philosopher, poet, even a kind of priest, all in one magnificent person. You probably have no idea what I am talking about. You knew him only as the merchant David of Trebizond."

"I knew you only as Sophia Orfali."

"You may despise me now that you have learned so much about me, but the more you knew of him, the more you would have had to admire him."

"How insignificant I must have seemed to you beside such grandeur." She could hear him breathing heavily in the darkness, sounding like a man struggling under a weight he could not bear.

"I did love you, Simon. That was why I cried when you said you wanted to marry me. The word love has many meanings. And your French troubadours may call it blasphemy, but it _is_ possible for a woman to love more than one man."

"Not blasphemy. Trahison. Treachery."

"As you wish. But in that moment you and I shared by the lake near Perugia, I was altogether yours. That, too, is why I fled from you. I could not stand being torn in two."

"Why torn in two, if you find you can love more than one man?" The hate in his voice made her want to throw herself from the balcony, but she told herself it would ease his suffering for him to feel that way.

"I said it was possible. I did not say it was easy. Especially when the two men are at war with each other."

"And did Daoud know about me? Did you tell him what you and I did that day?"

"No," she said, finding it almost impossible to force the words through her constricted throat. "I could never tell him."

"So you could not admit to this _magnificent_ man, this philosopher, this priest, that you had betrayed him with me."

"No," she whispered. "He was jealous, as you are. At first he wanted me to seduce you. But as he came to love me--I saw it happening and I saw him fighting it--he came to hate the idea of letting you make love to me. He came to hate you, because of that, and because he envied you."

"Envied me?"

"Yes. He saw you as one who had all that he never had--a home, a family."

Simon stepped forward and brought his face close to hers. "Did you tell him about my parentage?"

"No, never."

"Why not?" His voice was bitter. "Was that not the sort of thing you were expected to find out? Could he not have found a way to use it? Were you not betraying your war against us--what do you Byzantines call us, Franks?--by withholding it?"

"I told you that loving you both was tearing me apart," she said helplessly.

"But you loved him more--that is clear."

"Yes. I loved him more because he knew me as I was, and loved me as I was. You loved me, and it broke my heart to see how much you loved me. But you loved the woman I was pretending to be. Now that you really know me, you hate me."

"Should I not? How can you tell me all this without shame?"

"I am not ashamed. I am sorry. More sorry than I can ever say. But what have I to be ashamed of? I am a woman of Byzantium. I was fighting for my people. Surely you know what your Franks did to Constantinople. Look and listen to what Anjou's army is doing tonight to Benevento."

"Daoud spoke that way as he lay dying," Simon said slowly.

A sob convulsed Sophia. It was a moment before she could speak again.

"I hope, at least, you understand us--Daoud and me--a little better," said Sophia. "Kill me now, or hang me or burn me tomorrow. As I feel now, death would be a relief."

"I know how you feel," said Simon. "I, too, have lost the one I loved."

"Oh, Simon." She felt herself starting to weep again, for Simon and Daoud both.

"What do you want to do?" he asked.

"What does it matter? I am your prisoner. And Rachel. And Tilia and Ugolini. All of us."

She remembered the hope she had been harboring these past few weeks. If she died now, would another life within her die? If she lived, how would she care for that life?

He sighed. "For me this is all over. If I hurt you, what good would that do me now? It would be just one more unbearable memory to carry with me through life. One more reason to hate myself. I want to know, if you were free to do as you wish, what would you do?"

Her mind, numbed with sorrow, was a blank. With Daoud dead, the remainder of her life seemed worthless to her. Even the thought that she might be carrying Daoud's child seemed only added reason for sorrow.

"Now that all of Italy is in the hands of Manfred's enemies, I suppose I would go back to Constantinople," she said. The thought of returning home to the city she loved was a faint light in the blackness of her despair.

"For my part, I would not stop you from going," he said. The weary sadness in his voice stung her.

If he meant it--and he seemed to--she should be relieved. Overjoyed, even. But all she felt was the weight of her grief, pressing pain into the very marrow of her bones.

"What do you mean to do about Tilia Caballo and Ugolini?" she asked.

"I am sure King Charles wants them, but I do not care to be the one who dooms them by turning them over to him."

_King Charles._ The title sounded so strange. That was how the ones who supported him must speak of him, of course. And her heart wept a little for Manfred, whom she had not thought of in her agony over Daoud's death.

She heard the note of disdain toward Charles in Simon's voice and wondered at it.

"You will not deliver Charles's enemies to him? After coming here and helping him win his war? Have you turned against him?"

"Gradually--too gradually, I am sorry to say--I have come to see that Charles d'Anjou was not the great man I once thought him to be. When I learned that John and Philip were killed, that killed any remaining feeling I have for Charles. So I will help you if I can. But where can you all go? All of southern Italy and Sicily will be overrun with Anjou's men. I cannot keep you, and you cannot safely leave me."

"Let us go back to the others," said Sophia. "It will be best if we talk together about this."

She could hardly believe he was serious about letting her escape. Her pain-wracked mind was unable to come to grips with what was happening to her. How she needed Daoud! He would know what to do. As she entered the firelit room her eyes blurred with tears.

But she saw at once that there were more people in the room than when she had gone out on the balcony with Simon.

One of them was holding a crossbow leveled at Simon. Her heart stopped. Then she recognized him, and she let her breath out in relief. Black and white curly hair, graying mustache, broad shoulders. Lorenzo.

She heard a growling. Scipio stood there, held tightly on a leash by Tilia. Ugolini was beside her.

Rachel hurried to Sophia and took her hand. "I'm glad you are back. I was frightened for you."

"Simon wants to help us," said Sophia, taking Rachel's hand. She could not give up in despair, she thought, while she had Rachel to care for.

"You took long enough to come in off that balcony, Count," Lorenzo said.

"Put down your crossbow," Sophia said. "Count Simon has decided to be a friend to us."

"I would not regret giving our new friend just what _my_ friend Daoud got today from his man Sordello," Lorenzo said.

Tilia said, "Do you--know, Sophia? About Daoud?"

Holding herself rigid against this fresh reminder of her grief, Sophia said only, "Yes."

Friar Mathieu said, "Lorenzo, the man who killed Daoud lies there--on the floor. No need to talk about revenge." He pointed to a corner of the room where Sordello's body lay.

Needing a moment's relief from her pain, Sophia said, "Lorenzo, how did you ever get here?"

Still holding the crossbow pointed at Simon, Lorenzo spoke without looking at her.

"After I got Rachel and Friar Mathieu out of the French camp, I saw this fellow's army charging down from the hills to attack Daoud and his Falcons." Lorenzo shook the crossbow.

Sophia prayed that he would put the crossbow down. What if by accident he unleashed a bolt at Simon? If Simon were to die before her eyes, that would surely be more than she could bear.

"I had to try to warn Daoud," Lorenzo said. "I left Rachel and the friar there and rode off. I never did reach Daoud." He hesitated a moment, eyeing Simon, then smiled, a hard smile without warmth or mirth.

"I got your precious Tartars, though, Count Simon."

Simon nodded, his eyes bitter. "Sordello told me it was you who killed them." He took a step toward Lorenzo, who shook the crossbow at him again.

_Put it down!_ Sophia wanted to scream.

"Yes. That worm-eaten spy of yours told you, eh?" Lorenzo jerked his head in the direction of Sordello's body. "He was trying to guard them at the time. He did a bad job of it."

"Mere de Dieu!" was all Simon said. Anger reddened his face, but he was looking off into space, not at Lorenzo.

"After that," Lorenzo went on, "I found the wagon, but Rachel and Friar Mathieu were gone. I found another riderless horse and hitched it up, and I drove the wagon into the forest west of here. Rachel, I buried your chest. I hope I remember where.

"By then it was nightfall. I used my forged safe conduct to get me back into Benevento. Then I had to dodge the mobs of drunken Frenchmen running wild all over town. I knew where you were staying, Sophia, but it took me all night to get into this house past Count Simon's guards. I spent hours in hiding and scrambling about on rooftops."

"I thought I would die of fright," said Tilia, "when Lorenzo came through our window."

_Thank God for Lorenzo! How I love him. Nothing can stop him. Nothing can kill him._

"What were you planning to do with these people when you came here, Count?" Lorenzo said. "Turn them over to your master, Anjou?"

Sophia turned to look at Simon. He stood composed, his empty hands at his sides, his face, pink in the glow from the fire, calm as a statue's.

"_Your_ master--Daoud the Mameluke--asked me to come here," Simon said.

"_Please_ put your crossbow down, Lorenzo," Sophia said again.

"Are you sure, Sophia? This crossbow might be the only thing that keeps us from getting dragged off to be hanged. This high-horse bastard has fifty men outside."

Greek Fire blazed in Sophia's brain.

She screamed, "Do not call him a bastard!"

"Sophia!" said Simon wonderingly. "Thank you!"

She stood trembling, but almost as soon as the words flew from her mouth, the fit of rage passed.

_I must be going mad._

But she had done no harm. She seemed to have made things better.

"Forgive me, Count." Lorenzo laid the crossbow on the bed. "It was rude to call you that. But you did ruin our hope of victory today. Daoud had the battle won. He almost had his hands on your bloody Charles d'Anjou, when you charged out of the hills with your damned army. And now the king I served for twenty years and my good friend are both dead." He rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. "That was hard, Count. Very hard."

_So it was Simon's charge that turned the battle_, Sophia thought. _And it was because of me that he entered this war._ Her grief grew heavier still.

"You may hold those things against me," said Simon, "and I might hold against you the deaths of John and Philip, whom I dedicated my life to protecting."

Listening to that grave, quiet voice, Sophia realized that Simon no longer seemed young to her. It was as if he had aged many years since she had seen him last.

As long as she had known him, she had thought of him as a boy. And yet, from what she was hearing, if Charles d'Anjou was now king of southern Italy and Sicily, it was to Simon that he owed the crown.

"But I know who really killed the Tartars," Simon went on. "It was Charles, Count Charles, now King Charles, who no more wants to make war on Islam than your friend Daoud did. Charles kept the Tartars with himself and away from King Louis, and he let them go out on the field while the battle was raging, no doubt hoping they would die."

Lorenzo frowned. "You mean Charles used me to get rid of the Tartars?"

Simon nodded. "He could not have known it would be you, but he made sure they would be in harm's way. Charles is very good at using people. My mother warned me about him long before I let him persuade me to come to Italy to guard the Tartars, but I did not listen. But now, how are we going to get all of you safely out of Benevento?"

He kept coming back to that, Sophia thought. He seemed determined to save them from Charles d'Anjou's vengeance.

"We may still have the wagon I hid out in the forest," Lorenzo said. "And if you truly mean to help us, you might appropriate a horse or two. There are many horses hereabouts whose owners will never need them again."

"I can write you a genuine safe-conduct that will get you past Charles's officials and agents," Simon said. "If you travel quickly enough, you may get ahead of them into territory still friendly to you. There may be no army left to oppose Charles, but it will take him some time to get control of all the territory he has won. Where might you go?"

Sophia took Rachel's hand again, and they sat on the bed. Remembering that she and Daoud had shared this bed last night, Sophia felt the heaped stones of sorrow weigh heavier still.

_I will never hold him again._

To distract herself from her pain, she tried to listen to what people around her were saying.

"To Palermo first," said Lorenzo decisively. "At a time like this, with the king gone, every family must fend for itself. I want to get to mine at once." He turned to Rachel, and his mustache stretched in one of the smiles Sophia had seen all too rarely. "My wife, Fiorela, and I would be honored to have you as a member of our family, Rachel."

Rachel gave a little gasp. "Truly?"

"Truly. I have been wanting to propose it for a long time."

Again Sophia thanked God for Lorenzo. She almost wished he would offer to take her into his family too.

Simon stared at Lorenzo. "You are--were--an official at Manfred's court, and your wife's name is Fiorela?"

Lorenzo frowned. "Yes, Count. What of it?"

Simon's interest puzzled Sophia. Could there be some connection between him and Lorenzo?

"We must speak more about her later." Simon flexed his mail-clad arms. "It will not be safe for you to try to leave Benevento until morning. I will see to it that my men guard this house from the looters till then. They will not, of course, know who is in here with me. Meanwhile, you all had better sleep, if you can."

Weary and broken by sorrow though she was, Sophia knew that to try to lie down in the dark would mean nothing but hours of suffering. She would sleep only when she fainted from exhaustion. And she dreaded the agony she would feel when she woke again and remembered what had happened this day.

Tilia cleared her throat politely. "Your Signory, it will be hard to sleep in the same room with dead bodies."

Simon frowned. "Dead bodies?"

"Well--I hope you will not hold it against myself and the cardinal--but besides Sordello here, there are two of his henchmen in the room we have been occupying."

"Also dead?"

"Also dead. They were trying to rob us."

Now Sophia remembered that Sordello had brought two Venetians with him, and she remembered the barks and growls that had come up through the floorboards while she was alone with Sordello. What had happened down there between Ugolini and Tilia and Sordello's men? And Scipio?

Sophia looked at Tilia and noticed that she wore a small smile of satisfaction and was fingering her jeweled pectoral cross.

_I need not worry about Tilia_, she thought grimly.

Simon sighed. "There must be a basement in this house, a root cellar, something of the kind. Lorenzo, you and I will find a place to take the bodies."

The room grew cold with Sophia and Rachel alone in it, and Sophia put more logs on the fire, thankful that the merchant who had hurriedly vacated this place had left plenty of wood. She lay down in the big bed beside Rachel.

Hesitantly, Rachel told Sophia that she, with Friar Mathieu, had been present at Daoud's death. She showed Sophia the little leather capsule, and Sophia, remembering the many times she had seen it around Daoud's neck, broke into a fresh storm of weeping.

Rachel held it out to her. "I think perhaps you should be the one to have it."

"No. He gave it to you." Sophia wiped her eyes, drew out the locket and opened it, looked sadly at the meaningless tracery of lines on its rock-crystal surface, barely visible in the light from the low fire.

"This locket is what he gave me. It seems the magic in it died with him, but it is a precious keepsake." She remembered that she had been looking at the locket when Sordello tried to kill Simon. Why had he tried to do that? It made no sense, but because of it she had killed Sordello, and of that she was glad. She had avenged Daoud.

Desperately needing to know every detail of Daoud's death, Sophia questioned Rachel until, in the middle of a sentence, the girl fell asleep.

Sophia lay wide awake in the dark, crying silently. Lying there was hell, as she had expected it would be. After what seemed like hours, the fire on the hearth died. She got up and piled three bed carpets over Rachel.

She wrapped herself in her winter cloak and slipped out of the room. Going, she knew not where, but unable to remain still. Wanting only to distract herself from her pain with a little movement.

She went down the stairs, passing the silent second-floor room were Ugolini and Tilia lay. She heard men's voices from a room on the ground floor.

The cabinet of the merchant who owned this house was just inside the front door. There Sophia found Simon and Lorenzo seated facing each other at a long black table. Scipio, lying on the floor near the doorway, opened one eye, twitched an ear at her, and went back to sleep. With a quill Simon was writing out a document, while Lorenzo used a candle flame to melt sealing wax in a small brass pitcher on a tripod.

Simon gave her a brief, sad smile. He had taken off his mail, and wore only his quilted white under-tunic.

Lorenzo stood up, went to a sideboard, and poured a cup of wine. Silent, he handed it to Sophia. It was sweeter than she liked, but it warmed her.

She took a chair at the end of the table. The two men sat there so companionably that it was hard to believe that for more than two years they had been enemies. She recalled with a pang how Daoud had said he no longer hated Simon. If only he could be here to be part of this.

"One cannot predict these things," Lorenzo said, continuing the conversation that had begun before Sophia arrived, "and I certainly do not believe in trying to make them happen, but my son, Orlando, is at a good age for marriage. And so is Rachel."

Simon looked up from his writing. "You would let your son marry a woman who had spent over a year in a brothel?"

Lorenzo gave Simon a level look. "Yes. Do you disapprove?"

Simon shook his head. "From what I know of Rachel, not at all. But there are many who would."

Knowing Lorenzo Celino, Sophia thought warmly, she was not surprised that he did not feel as many other people would.

"Rachel is brave, intelligent, and beautiful," said Lorenzo. "What happened to her was not her fault. And now she knows infinitely more of the world than most women. If she should take an interest in Orlando, he would be lucky to have her. And then Rachel will be your cousin, Count Simon. She will surely be the only Jewish girl in all Europe who is related--if only by marriage--to a great baron of France."

Sophia frowned at Lorenzo. Cousin? What was the man talking about?

Raising his head from his scroll, Simon saw her look and smiled. "I have just discovered, Sophia, that Lorenzo Celino here is my uncle."

Sophia felt somewhat irritated. Were the two of them playing a sort of joke on her?

"No, it's true, Sophia," said Lorenzo. "My wife came from Languedoc years ago as a refugee from the war that was being fought there at the time. Her maiden name was Fiorela de Vency. And her older brother, Roland de Vency, went back to France and eventually married Simon's mother, making him Simon's stepfather. So you see, I am Simon's uncle by marriage."

Simon smiled broadly. "Roland told me long ago that he had a sister Fiorela who was married to a high official of Manfred's. I would far, far rather have you for an uncle, Lorenzo, than Charles d'Anjou, whom I have often called Uncle." He gave Sophia a meaningful look.

She understood. Simon might like Lorenzo, but not well enough to tell him that Roland de Vency was more than a stepfather to him, and therefore Lorenzo's wife more than an aunt by marriage.

_Only his mother and father and his confessor know that, he once said._

_And I._

Weighed down with grief though she was, she managed to smile back.

Simon put down his quill, closed the lid on the ink pot, and blew on the parchment to dry it. He poured red wax at the bottom of the sheet, took a heavy ring off his finger, and pressed it into the blob. He handed the document to Lorenzo to read.

"You have been well educated," said Lorenzo. "You write as handsomely as a monk."

"Charles will have his men out looking for you, as one of Manfred's ministers," said Simon. "I advise you not to wait for them to catch up with you in Palermo. Of course, Charles may offer you a chance to work for him. The help of men acquainted with Manfred's regime will make it much easier for him to take over."

Lorenzo's mustache twitched as he smiled sourly. "Work for him? I know you do not know me well, but I hope you jest. Otherwise I would have to consider myself insulted. Manfred and his father, Emperor Frederic, built a fair and civilized land here. Learning and the arts of peace flourished, unchecked by superstition. Charles will doubtless destroy all that. I propose to make it very hard for him to hold on to what he has conquered this day. Anjou will not thank you if he learns it was you who turned me loose."

"See that he does not learn it, then."

Lorenzo frowned. "You won the battle for Charles. Now you seem willing to do him all sorts of mischief." He leaned across the table and fixed Simon with his piercing, dark eyes. "Why?"

Sophia leaned forward, too, eager to hear Simon's answer.

Simon sighed and smiled. "Because today at last I saw through Charles's double-dealing with me in the matter of the Tartars." His smile was a very sad one. "And I want to help you, out of what I still feel for Sophia."

Sophia felt the tide of sorrow rise again within her. Her mouth trembled and her eyes burned. Simon was looking down at the table now, to her relief, and did not see her response to his words. He might have been looking away, she thought, to hide the tears in his own eyes.

Lorenzo stood up briskly. "I am going to try to find an empty bed or a soft carpet for a few hours' sleep. Tomorrow we leave early, and we travel far."

After he and Scipio had gone, Simon said, "I loved you. At least, I loved a woman who had your face and form, but did not really exist. Against my will, I have asked myself, since I saw you again tonight, if there is any way that dream of mine could be salvaged. Have you thought about that?"

Sophia shook her head. In her heart there was room for nothing but pain.

She said, "Just as you wish you had not been the cause of Daoud's death, so I wish I had not hurt you so. But that is all I can say. Simon, a dream may be very beautiful, but it is still only a dream."

"I suppose we are lucky that we can sit here and talk about it, you and I, and that we are not trying to kill each other."

"That is not luck, that is because of who we are. Simon, one thing hurts me very much. I do not know what happened to Daoud after he died. Is there any way I could--see him?"