by Robert Shea
XXVIII
Lorenzo's eyes ached as he stared through a peephole in the doorway of astoreroom into the common room of the inn called the Angel. Alternatinghis left and right eye at intervals, he stared at a bench by theopposite wall, where a hooded figure sat alone, holding a cup of wine inhis lap. As Lorenzo had instructed him, the tavern keeper had put alighted candle in a sconce near where Sordello was sitting, so thatLorenzo could watch his quarry.
The candle beside Sordello was one of only four in the common room--justlight enough for the innkeeper to be certain he was paid in honest coinwhile making it hard for his patrons to see the color of his wine. Itwas early evening, and there were only about six men and women in theroom. All of them except Sordello sat on benches at the one long tablenear the wine barrel. Sordello, leaning against the rough-hewn woodenwall, had to set his cup beside him.
The mercenary's square hand lifted the painted pottery cup into theshadow of his hood. Lorenzo knew Sordello was under the tightly drawnhood only because he had followed him diligently through the tangle ofOrvieto's streets from the house where a dozen of the brigosi Lorenzohad recruited were quartered.
Daoud's secret army was growing. The evening after the contessa'sreception Lorenzo had sealed a bargain with Marco di Filippeschi, whowas ready to help Daoud against the alliance if it meant striking a blowagainst the Monaldeschi.
Before any plans were made, though, there remained the question ofSordello.
A stout woman in a black gown came into the common room of the Angel andwent straight to the hooded man. The lower part of her face was coveredby a black scarf. Anyone watching the hooded Sordello and the veiledlady would think theirs was just everyday wickedness--an adulterouscouple meeting for an assignation. She sat beside him on the bench.Their heads drew together, and Lorenzo, behind a door across the room,was too far away to hear.
Lorenzo heard a scratching behind him. He turned, but it was too darkeven to see movement.
_Rats_, he thought. _This work continually brings a man into the companyof rats. Four-legged rats and men like Sordello._ He put his eye to thepeephole again, just in time to see a slip of paper disappear into thewoman's deep sleeve. Whoever Sordello was reporting to, he was puttingit in writing. Interesting that the man _could_ write. That put him acut above the average bravo, in education, at least.
The innkeeper came over to offer the woman wine, but she waved him awaywithout looking at him. She stood up, brushing the seat of her gownfastidiously, like one who was used to sitting in cleaner surroundings.Without a gesture or a handclasp she left Sordello as quickly as she hadcome. Nothing loverlike about those two.
Lorenzo decided to follow the woman, and left by the bolthole the tavernkeeper had shown him. He doubted that the old bravo would do anythingother than sit there and get drunk.
He had to run through the alley beside the inn to catch a glimpse of hergoing around a corner. She was hard to see. The darkness of night wasmade deeper by the jutting upper stories of the houses, and she waswearing black.
He kept running, his footfalls muffled by the mushy layers of molderingrefuse that paved the streets. A woman going through the byways of thepoorest part of town after dark was taking a great chance with her purseand her honor. She was either well paid or very dedicated.
Lorenzo, whispering breathless curses, twice had almost lost her in themaze before she emerged onto a wider street, the Via di San Remo. There,lights from windows made her easier to follow. Now he was quite surewhere she was going, and was not at all surprised when she hurried upthe stairs leading to the front door of the Palazzo Monaldeschi. Thedoor opened. There was a blaze of torchlight, and she pulled down herscarf to identify herself. Even from across the street Lorenzo knew her.
Ana, the woman who interpreted for the Tartars.
* * * * *
Sophia entered Cardinal Ugolini's cabinet holding a letter written bySimon de Gobignon. It had been pressed into her hand by the Frenchcount's young scudiero when she was out walking. She had read it overand over again before bringing it to David.
He was alone in the room. As he looked up from his seat on a pile ofcushions on the floor, she caught her breath. In that white light comingthrough the translucent glass panes, David's grayish eyes took on anopalescence.
The cardinal's cabinet on the top floor was the best-lit chamber in themansion. When Ugolini was not using the room, David often came here tostudy, write, and meditate. And when neither David nor Ugolini wasthere, Sophia sometimes came to draw and paint.
She felt as if David were a magician, and that his eyes had cast a spellon her. In Ugolini's cabinet it was easy to think of magic. She hadalways associated magic with darkened chambers and cellars, but Ugolinipracticed his magic at the top of his mansion, in a room with manywindows.
"The long-awaited answer from Simon has come," Sophia said, tossing theopened scroll down before David.
David spread Simon's letter on his lap and read it, while Sophia lookedaround the room. On a table near a window lay that painted skull Ugolinikept toying with. On one wall were two maps of the heavens. Sophiarecognized the constellations in one of them, but the other was utterlystrange. One arrangement of stars in the second map seemed to take theform of a Latin cross. She studied with interest the paintings onscrolls nailed to the walls, of plants and animals so odd-looking thatshe thought they might be an artist's inventions. One was a bird withoutwings, another a spotted animal that looked like a deer but had anenormously elongated neck. It might be pleasant to try painting suchcreatures herself.
As David's eyes ran over Simon's letter, his lips curled in a faintsmile. Was it a smile of contempt for Simon's passionate outpouring,which she had, in her delight with it, all but memorized?
Lady, I cry you mercy. You know it not, but your gentle eyes are more puissant than a mighty host. From those eyes have flown such bolts as wound but do not kill, and they have pierced my heart. I will bleed forever within my breast where none can see, and all will wonder at my pallor and my weakness that have no outward cause.
The physick for any wound or illness, sages tell us, must be like that which caused the hurt. Thus only you, who have delivered this wound, can cure it. Let me come to you, I beg, under cover of night. Let me but adore you in secrecy for a moment, and my strength will return....
"He is almost as good as an Arab poet," David said mockingly as hehanded her back the letter. Did it bother him, she wondered, that Simonwrote words of love to her? David, she saw, was working on a letter ofhis own on a tiny, thin scrap of vellum on a writing board which he nowlaid over his knees. As if to show her that Simon's letter was of nomoment to him, he added to his own, writing rapidly with a quill dippedin an inkpot--but from right to left.
"You write backwards?" she said, seating herself beside him on the floorto look at his work.
"No, Christians do," he said with a faint smile. He covered what he waswriting with his hand, but she caught a glimpse of lines that waveredand curled like tiny black snakes.
"Why bother to cover it? Do you really imagine that I could read that?"Lightly she touched the hand that covered the writing, noticing the fineyellow hairs on its back.
"I have to keep up the habit of secrecy." He gave her one of his rarefull smiles, and she wanted to reach out and hold his face between herhands. They were so close, she thought, sitting side by side here on thefloor. And alone. They had but to stretch out on this thick Arabiancarpet and wrap their arms around each other. But, of course, Ugolini orone of his servants might come in at any moment. Her longing for Davidwas a constant ache. She had not thought of Manfred, save as a figure inthe background of their lives, in weeks. And as long as she did not haveto meet with Simon, she was fully Sophia Karaiannides, and not troubledby the yearning of Sophia Orfali for the young French count.
If only David did not insist on keeping her at a distance.
"Do you still want me to let Simon de Gobignon visit me
secretly?" sheasked.
There was a momentary silence between them.
Then, "Have I told you of any change in plans?" he said gruffly. Helooked down at his scrap of parchment with the tiny crawling lines.
"What shall I let him do when we are together?" she asked quietly.
_I know David is jealous, and I am goading him. I want to hear hisjealousy._
He stood up abruptly and put his writing board on a table. He walked toan open window and stood looking out, rolling his thin parchment tightlybetween his fingers.
She hated this conversation. It turned him into a panderer and her intoa whore. And she sensed that he hated it as much as she did.
"Do what you think is necessary," he said coldly.
"_Necessary to what?_" she demanded through gritted teeth.
He turned toward her and held up a finger. "To win his trust." He heldup a second finger. "To hear and remember anything he may let slip." Heheld up a third finger. "Most important, to tell him things."
"Tell him what?"
"Tell him that Cardinal Ugolini has persuaded Fra Tomasso d'Aquino tooppose the alliance of Christians and Tartars."
"And if Simon believes you have won over Fra Tomasso, what will thataccomplish?"
"The unbelievers are already desperate to repair the damage I have doneto the reputation of the Tartars," David said. "If they think they havelost Fra Tomasso, they may be provoked to do exactly the wrong thing."
"What would that be?" Sophia had heard that Muslims were devious. Shecertainly could not follow Daoud's mind in this.
"Not knowing Fra Tomasso is actually trying to remain neutral, they willuse every means they have to try to win him back, as they think, totheir side. I am hoping they will try to bring Cardinal de Verceuil'sinfluence to bear. If de Verceuil goes to Fra Tomasso--or, even better,to Fra Tomasso's superiors--he may well drive the learned friar over toour side."
"What if you are wrong? What if de Verceuil and the other Franks dopersuade Fra Tomasso to support the alliance? Would it not be better toleave him where he is, neutral?"
Daoud shook his head. "At least this way we are trying to control whathappens."
She smiled. "I thought you Muslims believed in leaving things up tofate."
"The efforts of men are part of the workings of fate."
She would probably never understand his Muslim way of thinking. Perhapshe would not accept her love because he saw her as an unbeliever. Itmade her angry to think he might hold himself aloof from her because ofher religion, and he not even a Muslim born.
"The Turks killed your parents," she said. "How can you be a Muslim?" Itwas something she had never understood and had wanted to know ever sinceshe learned what he was, but she asked it now to hurt him.
He gave her that silent, burning stare, and she began to wonder, with arippling of fear in the pit of her stomach, if she was in danger.
"That was my fate," he said. "I had to lose my mother and father to findGod."
Before she could catch herself, she started to laugh with a kind ofwildness, a touch of hysteria. She had been angry at him and had goadedhim and feared his striking back, and instead he made a statement thatwas utterly absurd.
_I lost my mother and father, and I gained nothing from it. I becamenothing, neither daughter, nor wife, nor mother._
At her laughter, he took a step backward, as if she had struck him, andhis tan face reddened. Now she felt terror. This time she had surelygone too far.
"Forgive me. Your answer surprised me. It sounds so strange for a man ofyour profession to talk of finding God."
"What profession?"
"Well, you are a warrior and a spy, not a holy man."
"We do not need to speak of this." He turned away from her to stare outthe window. She looked past him at red-tiled rooftops. A flock ofpigeons circled in the distance.
"No," she said. "And as an unbeliever I suppose I would not understand."
Surprisingly he approached her and looked down with eyes that wereserious and free of anger. "If you ever, in sincerity, want to knowabout Islam, come and ask me, and as best I can I will answer yourquestions. But do not speak foolishness. And do not laugh."
She thought she understood a bit better. The Muslims had captured hisbody, but then in his enslavement he had freely given his soul to theirreligion. He did not serve the Turks. He served the God they calledAllah. How this had come about she could not imagine. But she knew alittle better why his sultan had entrusted him with this undertaking. Hewas perfect for it.
"I must go," he said, as if eager not to talk anymore.
"To deliver your message?" She gestured toward the clenched fist thatheld the fragile parchment. "Is there truly someone in Orvieto who canread it?"
He smiled again. Oh, that smile! It so easily overcame her anger andfear.
"There is no harm in my telling you. It goes to my sultan, by carrierpigeon and ship." He must be proud, she thought, of his swift and secretcourier system.
"And do you get messages back in the same way?"
"It takes over a month each way, so I have received but one message fromthe sultan since coming to Italy."
"Does the cardinal keep the pigeons?"
He had taken a tiny leather capsule out of his belt purse and wasinserting the message into it now. "Madama Tilia keeps the pigeons."
"Then are you going to her house?" Sophia remembered with a feeling ofguilt that she had not thought of Rachel in some time. "Please, David,will you see how Rachel is while you are there?"
David looked at her quickly and glanced away. She felt a coldness in herchest.
"What has happened to her?" she demanded. She seized David's arm, lesthe turn away from her.
He did not try to pull free. "She is well. She is already wealthy, infact." His eyes did not meet hers at all now.
"Oh, my God! A man has had her!" She let go of David and turned her backon him.
There was another silence while fury churned in Sophia. She wanted toturn on David, to scratch his face with her nails. She wanted to tearher clothing in anguish, in mourning for Rachel's lost innocence. Shehated herself for her part in the child's degradation.
"Sophia." David's voice came from behind her, soft, a little uncertain."Were you so much older than Rachel when you--became a woman?"
Wrath overpowered her other feelings, and she turned on him. "Do youthink _that_ is what makes a girl into a woman? And you complain aboutspeaking foolishness?"
"How old, Sophia?" His voice was more confident now, as if her anger hadput him on firmer ground.
She thought of Alexis, the boy she had loved, and the long afternoonsthey had spent together hidden under an old broken arch covered withvines and lapped by waves on the Aegean side of Constantinople.
She shook her head. "Yes, I was her age. But I was in love. Doing it formoney or for my city came later, when I was alone in the world andolder."
There was appeal in his look. "But you know what it is to be alone andin need. Just as you freely chose to serve the Emperor of Constantinoplewith your body, so Rachel freely chose to sell her virginity for afortune in gold."
His obtuseness made her more angry than ever. "You know nothing aboutfreedom or women. Rachel was no more free to keep her virginity than youwere free to remain a Christian after the Turks captured you. As for me,at least I know enough to hate the murderers of my parents."
His fingers dug into her shoulders until they hurt and the fire in hiseyes terrified her. But she held her face frozen, refusing to show fearor pain.
"Say no more," he whispered in a strangled voice. "Not another word."
_Saint Simon, protect me._
_Simon._
She could see the struggle in David's face and body. She had enraged himto the point where he wanted to hurt her. But he was not going to lethimself do it. She thought she must have taken a hundred breaths beforehe released his grip on her shoulders, pushing her away a little.
Again she wondered what he had been throu
gh that would give him suchiron self-control. She stood looking at him, breathing heavily in theaftermath of her terror.
_I am a fool to despise anything as powerful as what he has._
He raked her with his eyes, then turned toward the door.
"Do not bother to find out about Rachel for me," she said. "I will gomyself."
He stopped, and the fury in his face made her brace herself again for anattack.
"You cannot go. You cannot be seen going into Tilia's."
"Do you think I have served great men for years without learning how tomove about a city unnoticed?"
"Go, then." His normally fair face was scarlet with rage. "And learnfrom Rachel's own lips what the Tartar did to her."
For a moment she seemed to go blind and deaf. She felt hot and cold atonce. Her body had reacted to the meaning of his words before her brainunderstood them.
"_Tartar!_ The man was a Tartar? You let a Tartar have her?" Sophiaseized the first object near her hand and threw it at him. She saw as itstruck him that it was the painted skull. It hit his chest with a thump,and he took a step backward.
"You filthy bastard!" she screamed. "Pig of a Turk!"
Expressionless, he turned without another word and left her, closing thedoor of Ugolini's cabinet behind him.
She sank weeping to the floor.
_Rachel, Rachel, how could they do this to you? With a Tartar. Oh, no!_
She sat there until her tears stopped and her thoughts began to makesome sense. The skull, lying on its side, seemed to look back at her.
_Thank you, David. You have made my decision for me. Simon de Gobignonshall have me._