The cardinal found his voice and roared back at the friar, jabbing a
bejeweled finger at Rachel and turning on her a glare of utter contempt.
His look hurt Rachel as much as if he had hit her in the face with dung.
She pulled the soaking blanket tighter around herself. She saw that,
staunch as the friar might be, all the power was on the other side.
"Father," she said, "if nothing can stop them from taking me, at least
let me get the things I own from the house. My clothes and books." She
did not mention the bags of gold ducats in Tilia's chest, though John
might know of them. "Let me take them with me and travel with you."
Friar Mathieu nodded and spoke again angrily to the cardinal.
The cardinal yanked on the reins of his horse, turning the black head
around, up the street. He flung his answer over his shoulder.
Friar Mathieu turned a sad face toward Rachel. "He says you and I and
John can go back into the house and get what belongs to you. And you can
travel in my cart. But I am not to interfere if the Tartar desires you."
He shook his head. "I promise you, child, as long as you are with me,
John will not touch you. I was a knight before I was a priest. They can
make me stand by and witness murder and robbery. But not rape."
Rachel looked up to see John grinning at her with proprietary pride.
Like Rachel, he had not understood a word of the argument between the
friar and the cardinal, but he understood well enough that Rachel was
still his prisoner.
She felt a little better for having an ally in Friar Mathieu. But she
promised herself that whatever John might think, he would never take her
back to his country. She really would kill herself first.
* * * * *
The storm had passed over Orvieto by the time the cart carrying Rachel
was bumping along the road to Perugia. As she sat on a bench beside the
old priest, looking out through the open front end of the cart, Rachel
saw patches of blue sky above the hills to the northeast.
John had gone with Friar Mathieu and helped him find her chest in
Tilia's room and the key to the padlock, hidden under Tilia's mattress.
He had ordered two of his Armenian guards to carry the chest out for
Rachel and load it in the back of the cart, along with another chest of
her books and clothing. He himself had smilingly handed her the key. As
if he expected her to be grateful, she thought.
So she was still a wealthy woman, Rachel thought bitterly, even though
she was also a prisoner.
With Friar Mathieu sitting on the bench up front beside the driver, she
had gone to the back of the cart and opened both chests to make sure
everything was there, even hefting the bags of gold. Then she had dried
herself off and put on a bright blue linen tunic.
On the outside she was more comfortable now; within, desolate. Even
though Tilia had sold her to the Tartar, Tilia's house had been home to
her for nearly a year. She had come to know the men whom today she had
seen murdered, and the women who had been forcibly taken by the Tartars'
bodyguards. They and Sophia, David, and Lorenzo were the only friends
she had known since Angelo was killed. Now she would never see them
again.
She had not felt so wretched since the night of Angelo's death.
To comfort herself, she took out the Hebrew prayer book Angelo had given
her. To have light to read by, she would have to go to the front of the
cart and sit beside Friar Mathieu. The sight of her prayer book might
turn the old priest against her. She remembered Angelo telling her how
priests at Paris had burned a thousand or more volumes of the Talmud.
Tears had come to his eyes at the thought of so many holy books,
lovingly copied by hand, destroyed.
But Friar Mathieu had been kind to her even when she admitted that she
had lain with the Tartar for money. He did not seem like the kind of man
who would despise her for being a Jew.
Right now she desperately needed to be able to trust someone, and she
decided that she could trust Friar Mathieu.
Balancing herself against the swaying of the cart, she climbed on the
bench beside the old priest.
Her book was a collection of writings and prayers, including passages
from the Torah. Some rabbi, or perhaps more than one, with quill pens
and parchments, had taken years and years to copy it out. She had marked
the Psalms with a ribbon and turned to them now.
_For lowly people You save, but haughty eyes You bring low ..._
For the first time since she had seen those hooded riders approaching
Tilia's house, she felt some measure of peace.
After a moment she realized Friar Mathieu was reading over her shoulder.
Fear chilled her.
"One rarely finds a _man_ learned enough to read Hebrew," said Friar
Mathieu gently. "In a woman as young as yourself it is positively
miraculous."
She smiled timidly in answer to the kindliness in his eyes. "My husband
was a seller of books. He taught me to read the language of our
ancestors."
"Your husband?" His eyes, their blue irises pale with age, opened wider.
"You have been married?" He shook his head. "People never cease to
surprise me. I would like to know you better, child. Will you tell me
about your life?"
His gentle tone gave her heart. Not since Sophia had talked to her on
the road from Rome to Orvieto had anybody been interested in who she
was. Talking to this good priest about her past, she could forget for a
while the terror of present and future. She would tell him everything.