The Saracen: The Holy War, Robert Shea [best beach reads TXT] 📗

reveal Sophia's secrets? But Sophia had disappeared without a word to him. If she had secrets, he had to know them, even if he had to deceive this child to get at them.

But at the same time he desperately wanted to learn nothing about Sophia that would hurt him.

Rachel used a red ribbon to mark her place in the book she was reading, climbed down from her bed, and curtsied to Simon. Her skin was as white as the marble on the wall. She wore a pale blue gown. Her small breasts pushed it out in front ever so slightly. Simon could see why Sophia had kept referring to her as a child. He could not imagine how anyone, even a Tartar, could want to couple with so delicate-looking a creature.

Even with books to read and a spacious chamber, she must feel like a prisoner.

He forgot his own anguish momentarily in pity for her plight. He wanted to take the wide-eyed girl gently in his arms and hold her.

Simon and Friar Mathieu sat on small gold-painted chairs, and Rachel sat on the edge of her bed. Simon racked his brain for a way to start the conversation. It must seem to be about Rachel, but it must tell him about Sophia. He was not even sure what he was trying to find out.

Even though he had not spoken and had tried to look friendly and not threatening, he could imagine how much his presence must frighten her. A French count. To her that must almost be like being visited by a king. And she probably feared Christians anyway. If she decided she must protect Sophia from him, he would get nothing from her.

Simon was grateful when Friar Mathieu cleared his throat and spoke.

"Count Simon is anxious about your welfare, my dear," said the old Franciscan. "He was quite surprised to learn that Cardinal Ugolini and Madonna Sophia had not followed the pope here to Viterbo. He was wondering whether Madonna Sophia had left some word with you about where she was going."

Rachel shook her head. "I have not seen her since John took me from Madama Tilia's house." Her black hair was wound in braids around her head, exposing her small ears, made to look smaller still by the large gold hoops she wore in them. Similarly, a gold[229] necklace with a jeweled pendant emphasized the slenderness of her neck. Her arms and hands seemed weighed down with bracelets and rings. The Tartar must be showering her with gifts.

"And Madonna Sophia gave no hint of her plans when she visited you at Madama Tilia's?"

Friar Mathieu asked it as if it were the most natural question in the world.

My God, what would Sophia be doing at Tilia Caballo's? At a brothel!

Simon felt his stomach clench. He did not want to hear Rachel's answer.

"No, Father. The last thing she told me was that everyone would be leaving Orvieto soon. And when we did, I would not have to stay with Madama Tilia anymore. I begged her to take me back with her to Cardinal Ugolini's, but she said she could not. Later that day John came for me. I never spoke with Madonna Sophia again." She looked uneasily at Simon.

Sophia had said she knew about the girl only through the gossip of servants and townspeople. Could this girl be lying about having met Sophia? But she would have no reason to do that. So it must have been Sophia who lied about never having met Rachel. He felt as if a dagger had struck him in the back.

And she had certainly never said anything about going to Tilia Caballo's. How could he learn the true connection between Sophia and Rachel without making Rachel suspicious?

"That is just it, Rachel," he said. "Things have been happening so rapidly, and I was away from the pope's court and the Tartar ambassadors for months. Sophia and I have not had time to talk to each other or to send messages. But when I last saw her, she asked me to look after you. She cares very much for you."

Rachel smiled faintly. Her lips were a pale pink. Her eyebrows were black and straight over her dark brown eyes, giving her an earnest look.

"Oh, yes, Your Signory. I know she cares for me."

"Are you also from Sicily, Rachel?" Simon asked. "Did you know Sophia's family in Sicily?"

"No, Your Signory. I am from Florence."

Florence. Florence was controlled by the Ghibellini.

"Does anyone in your family know you are here with this Tartar? Is there anyone you would like me to get a message to?"

Rachel's eyes widened and filled with tears. "They are all dead, Your Signory. And if any of them were living, I would rather be dead myself than have them know what has happened to me."[230]

"Then Sophia is the only friend you have in the world?" Simon waited a moment, then tried a blind guess. "Perhaps Sophia has gone back to the place where you first met her."

"No, no," said Rachel. Suddenly, she looked terrified. She shrank back from Simon.

She is dreadfully frightened, Simon thought.

Friar Mathieu was right. Sophia was hiding something. Anguish stabbed Simon again.

"What is it, Rachel?" said Friar Mathieu. He shook his head at Simon.

"If you want to help me, if you love her, just leave me alone. She was kind to me as no one else has ever been. She was my friend. Stop trying to find out about her."

What was this girl hiding? What was Sophia hiding? Simon felt as if he were surrounded by enemies, all of them plunging their daggers into him.

"Does a friend send a young girl like you to a brothel?" said Friar Mathieu softly.

This brought no reply from Rachel. She put her hands to her face and sobbed.

Simon could bear no more. He stood up abruptly. He was torturing this girl. And in a way, she was torturing him.

He said, "Rachel, we will leave now. I am sorry I frightened you. In truth, I have no wish to hurt you. But, I—I am upset too. Listen to me. If you ever decide you want to get away from here, tell me. I will not let John or Cardinal de Verceuil or anyone else stop you if you want to be free."

Rachel took her hands away from her face. "Where can I go? Tell me that, Your Signory. Where can I go?" Her eyes, rimmed with red from crying, were pools of darkness in her pale face. The sight of her tears made Simon's own eyes burn.

Friar Mathieu stood up, leaning heavily on his stick. He took Simon's arm, whispered a good-bye to Rachel, and drew Simon out of the room. Silently they went back up to the top-floor loggia. Simon seethed and churned, his mind full of confusion and pain.

They sat together on a bench in the deepening twilight. The sun was down and the sky over the distant hills was copper-colored.

"How clumsy I was," Simon said. "She will tell us nothing now."

"You learned quite a bit," said Friar Mathieu, "if you think about what she told you."

"I know this much," said Simon. "I have been a fool. Sophia has been lying to me."[231]

"Everyone in love is a fool, Simon. The more in love, the more they want to believe whatever the beloved tells them. Only a man or woman in love with God can be a fool without risk."

From the distant walls of Viterbo, the guards called the hours to one another. Their long-drawn cries echoed against the stone building fronts.

"What did you mean, think about what she told me?"

Friar Mathieu sighed. "Rachel said that Sophia told her after they left Orvieto she would not have to stay with Tilia Caballo anymore. Rachel was not at Caballo's of her own free will. And you may have noticed that when I suggested that Sophia sent her there, she did not deny it."

Simon felt another rush of anger at Friar Mathieu for trying to make him believe evil of Sophia. "Are you saying that Sophia forced that girl into a brothel? Father, Sophia is too much of an innocent to be a party to anything like that."

But he remembered that moment of deepest intimacy they had shared last autumn outside Perugia, the moment he had delighted in reliving thousands of times. She had surprised him with the suddenness of her passion, with the swift, sure way she had guided him into taking her and had taken pleasure from him. Of course, he had thought, she would know what to do. She had been married. But surely a chaste widow who had known only one man in her life would have shown some hesitation, some timidity, some inner struggle?

Simon felt rage building up within him. He hated these doubts. He wanted to lash out at someone.

Friar Mathieu's voice came to him again, mild but inexorable. "Rachel said she asked Sophia to take her back to Ugolini's. Rachel must have lived at Ugolini's when she first came to Orvieto. If you say that Sophia could not have been the one who put Rachel in Caballo's house, I accept it. But Ugolini could have. Or David of Trebizond."

"You will drive me mad. Stop going step by step like a schoolman. Of what are you accusing Sophia?"

Only his reverence for Friar Mathieu kept him from shaking the old priest.

Friar Mathieu patted Simon's knee. "I am going step by step because I myself am trying to think this out. And I want to be sure, for your sake. Rachel knew something, or had learned something. So they put her in Caballo's brothel for safekeeping."

"They?"

"Ugolini. David of Trebizond. And Sophia, at the very least,[232] must have known the reason, or she would not agree to let Rachel go to the brothel. If Sophia knew so much, then perhaps—I say perhaps—she knew more about Ugolini and David and their dealings than she admitted to you. I keep thinking of that night at the Palazzo Monaldeschi when she drew you to the atrium, conveniently for David of Trebizond, who was goading the Tartars into publicly embarrassing themselves. Was she as uninvolved then as she led you to believe?"

Each of Friar Mathieu's sentences was another dagger blow, plunging deep into Simon, sending agony through him, the sharp point searching out his heart.

Friar Mathieu was proceeding in the same painstaking way he had probed Alain's body until he discovered what killed him. Alain, whose murderer had never been found, who had died outside Ugolini's mansion.

Alain! Oh, my God! Could she have known how he was killed?

What had really been happening at Ugolini's mansion?

Simon bent double, digging his fingers into his skull. His head might burst apart if he did not hold it tightly. Could all the love he thought he had found in her be a lie? Could she be an enemy?

"You are destroying my life," he muttered, his hands over his face.

He felt the light touch of the old man's hand on his shoulder. "When a leg wound festers, the surgeon has to cut the leg off to save the man's life."

And the old soldiers tell me the man always dies anyway, Simon thought bitterly.

"I am doing this not just for you, Simon," Friar Mathieu went on. "There was a secret war being waged in Orvieto to prevent us from allying ourselves with the Tartars. The person behind it was probably King Manfred of Sicily, who wants to keep Charles d'Anjou out of Italy. Ugolini was Manfred's agent. And Sophia may have been Ugolini's weapon against you."

No! Impossible! I love her. I could not love her if she were on the side of evil.

Simon struck his knee with his fist. "I must find out the truth. I must go after her."

"After Sophia?"

"Yes. If she is in Manfred's kingdom, I will find her and get her out."

"Whatever Sophia has done, she has already done, Simon. You cannot undo it, or simply pretend that she has done nothing at all."

Simon lurched to his feet. Staggering in his agony, as if those[233] knives were still striking him from all sides, he reached the railing of the loggia and gripped it. The sky had deepened to violet, and a single silvery star glowed in the west. He remembered the magic his mother had taught him of wishing on a star. He could not wish this awful pain away.

"I do not know what she has done. And I refuse to believe ill of her until I have spoken to her."

"But you cannot go into Manfred's kingdom and look for her. You are certain to be caught and imprisoned. You could very well be killed."

Simon turned. Friar Mathieu was a dim figure huddled in the deep shadows of the loggia, his beard a light patch in the darkness.

"You think Manfred is behind all this," Simon said.

"Yes. Look