"Sophia!"
She dropped a loose dart back into the bag and turned.
Simon de Gobignon stood in the doorway, staring at her. The firelight
made his dirt-streaked face glow. His surcoat was ripped, showing the
mail underneath, and she saw dark stains on the purple and gold. He was
splashed with blood, she thought, her stomach churning. His head was
bare, his mail hood thrown back and his mail collar open. He held his
helmet, adorned with the figure of a winged heraldic beast, under his
arm.
At first sight of him she felt a glow of joy. Simon lived. And she was
safe from Sordello. Triumphantly she glanced over at the bravo and felt
even better at the sight of his scarlet color, his clenched jaw, the
swollen veins throbbing in his temples.
Then suddenly it came back to her that Simon was an enemy too.
_It has always been too easy for me to forget that._
She would have to face his questions, his accusations, his pain, his
rage. She felt like a bird in flight suddenly struck by an arrow and
plummeting to earth.
And a worse thought struck her, piercing her heart like a sword. What
was it that Sordello would have told her about Daoud? In God's name,
what terrible thing had happened to him?
Simon's being here meant he, too, must have learned where she was from
Daoud. Where, then, was Daoud?
She saw figures in the shadows outside the door, one white-haired and
white-bearded, the other a small woman wearing a mantle over her head.
Simon took a few steps into the room, his mail clinking. She could tell
by his movements that he was exhausted. She felt a surge of pity for
him, at what he must have done and suffered. She reminded herself he had
been fighting against Manfred and Daoud, on the side of Anjou. Still,
she felt sorry for him.
"What the devil are you doing here?" Simon said, glaring at Sordello,
his voice crackling with anger.
_Why so much hatred_, Sophia wondered.
"You wanted me to be gone, Your Signory, and it seemed most useful for
me to come here. It occurred to me that important followers of the
infidel Manfred might be here. And, indeed, on the floor below you will
find his agents Tilia Caballo and ex-Cardinal Ugolini, being questioned
by my men."
"And you were _questioning_ this lady. Before God, I do not know what
keeps me from running you through." His mailed hand reached across his
waist to grip the hilt of his sword.
"Easy, Simon," said the white-haired man. He came into the room now, and
Sophia recognized Friar Mathieu, the Tartars' Franciscan companion.
She looked past the elderly priest and saw who was with him.
"Rachel!"
In the midst of her fear and sorrow, Sophia felt an instant of
miraculous happiness, as if the sun had come out at midnight.
She rushed across the room holding out her arms, and the girl flew into
them.
"Rachel, what a joy to see you!"
"Oh, Sophia! Sophia!"
Rachel was crying, but not for joy. She was sobbing heartbrokenly. What
had happened to her?
"How do you come to be with Count Simon?" Sophia asked, hoping that
answering would calm Rachel.
But Rachel went on weeping into Sophia's shoulder, and Friar Mathieu
spoke for her. "Rachel and I fell in with Count Simon, and we thought it
safest to stay with him. And he chose to come here."
"It's all right now," Sophia said, patting Rachel's back as she held her
in her arms. "Everything will be all right."
"No, Sophia, no." Rachel, it seemed, could not stop crying. Bewildered,
Sophia looked up. Friar Mathieu and Simon were standing side by side in
the center of the room. Sordello, his face working with barely
controlled fury, had moved to a far corner. His sword still lay on the
bed, Sophia noticed, but his hand was on the hilt of his dagger.
Simon and the Franciscan were looking, not at Rachel, but at Sophia.
"David told you I was here," Sophia said. "He must have."
In an instant, she understood why Daoud had told Simon where to find
her. And why Rachel kept weeping and weeping.
"Is he dead?" she asked.
They answered her with silence.
A wave of dizziness came over her. She reeled, and Rachel was holding
her up. Friar Mathieu took her arm, and they lowered her into the
armchair. She knocked the candle to the floor, putting it out. Now the
only light in the room was the red glow of the fire.
She felt empty inside.
_I am mortally wounded_, she thought. _I feel now only a shock, a
numbness. The pain will come._
The only reason Daoud would tell Simon where to find her had to be that
he was dying and wanted Simon to protect her. Daoud truly must be dead.
Simon's anguished look, as if he were begging for something, confirmed
it. But to be sure, she had to hear it.
"Has David been killed?"
Simon nodded slowly, his eyes huge with pain. "I was with him when he
died. I even know now that he is not David but--Daoud." He hesitated,
pronouncing the unfamiliar name.
_I was with him when he died._
_Daoud!_
She wanted to scream, but she hurt so much inside that she could not
even scream. She could not make a sound.
Daoud was _gone_. She had seen him, she had spoken to him, she had loved
him for the last time.
But she _had_ to see him again. Her cold hand fumbled at her neck,
pulled the locket up from her bosom by its silver chain. She turned the
screw that opened it and stared at the spirals and squares.
Nothing happened. The pattern, to her eyes a jumble of shapes
representing nothing, remained inert.
Even his likeness was gone.
How had he died? She looked up at Simon to ask him.
And then she did scream.
Sordello crouched in the semidark behind Simon, his two-edged dagger,
reflecting red firelight, poised horizontally to slash Simon's
unprotected throat. His eyes glittered. His mouth shaped a slack-lipped
smile, as if he were drunk, baring his gleaming, broken teeth.
Sordello seemed not even to notice her scream. Without a sound, unseen
by the other three, who were all staring at Sophia, he raised his left
arm to seize Simon and his right hand to strike with the dagger.
Sophia's hand dove into the bag at her waist. The loose dart could
scratch her, and a scratch might be enough to kill her, but that did not
matter. Her fingers found the dart. She wrapped her fist around it and
flung herself out of the chair, straight at Simon.
Simon tried to fend her off, but she darted under his hands, twisted
around him, and drove the dart into Sordello's throat. Blood spurted
over her hand.
Sordello seemed neither to see her nor to feel the dart. His eyes stayed
fixed on Simon's neck. He slashed at Simon. But Sophia's lunge had
pushed the two men apart. Sordello's blade scratched Simon's neck just
under his right ear. Then it fell from the bravo's fingers.
Sordello, the dart still hanging from his throat, staggered backward,
his knees buckling. His body folded, and he lay sideways on the floor.
The four living people in the room were as still as the dead one. Then
Simon touched his fingertips to his neck and winced. Sophia saw a
rivulet of blood running down into his mail collar.
Friar Mathieu tore away a piece of the bedsheet and dabbed Simon's wound
with it. He took Simon's hand as if he were a puppet and pressed his
fingers against the rag to hold it in place. Then he knelt over
Sordello's body and whispered in Latin.
Whimpering, Sophia stumbled back to the armchair where she had been
sitting. A sob forced itself up from her chest into her throat. She felt
Rachel's gentle hands helping her to sit down. Another sob came up,
shaking her body. Another followed it, and another. She lost touch with
everything around her for a time, buried in a black pit where neither
sight nor sound nor even thought could penetrate. She was lost in
wordless, mindless grief.
Then, gradually, she began to hear murmurings, voices.