"The same way you came will see you out."
"I but meant to praise your skill at diplomacy. I hope I have not given
offense."
"A gentleman always _knows_ when he is giving offense."
"I--I merely wish to clear--to set my mind at rest," Simon stammered. He
cursed himself for his heavy-handed attempt to test her. It was true,
the French were no good at intrigue.
"Rest your mind somewhere else." She went to the door and stood there,
back to him. Was she going to call for help? How embarrassing it would
be if he were caught here.
The beautiful curve of her back distracted and confused him still more.
"If you do not leave, I will," said Sophia, grasping the black iron door
handle. "You may stay in this room forever if you wish."
_What a brouillement I have made of this rendezvous._ Casting about
frantically in his mind, Simon wondered what his troubadour father,
Roland, would have done.
_Or Sire Tristan or Sire Gawain, what would they do now?_
There was no more time to think. He must act. He threw himself to his
knees, arms outstretched, and waited. A long, silent moment passed.
Finally Sophia turned her head. Her lips--those tender, rose-colored
lips--parted and her eyes widened. She turned all the way around.
She started to laugh.
"Laugh at me if you will, but do not cast me out." The sound of her
laughter was like the chiming of a bell. After a moment she stopped
laughing and smiled. A lovely smile, he thought, a kindly smile. He
could happily kneel here for as long as she went on smiling.
"I have never had a man kneel to me before." A faint vexation flickered
across her face. "First you accuse me of kissing you only to further my
uncle's plots against the Tartars. Then you kneel to me. What am I to
make of you?"
Relief swept over him as he realized she was no longer angry.
"Make me your slave."
"My slave? You are toying with me, Your Signory."
"Toying with you? Never. Call me Simon if it please you."
"You would be my friend?"
"I would be more than your friend, Madonna."
She came to him and held out her hands. Her smile was dazzling.
"Well then, Simon, you may call me Sophia. And you may rise."
Simon grasped her hands, feeling joy in his very fingertips. He vaulted
to his feet and thought of taking her in his arms, but she freed her
hands with a quick, unexpected motion and took a step backward.
_With just a movement of her hands she can lift me up or cast me down._
"For a man to kneel to a woman is not the custom in Sicily, Simon," she
said softly.
It was as he suspected. She was not familiar with the ways of courtly
love.
"If I do anything that seems strange to you, Sophia"--he used her name
for the first time, and it thrilled him--"know that my actions are ruled
by what we call l'amour courtois, which means that we know how to value
women, whose value is beyond price."
"I have heard of courtly love. It sounds blasphemous to me, almost as if
the man worships the woman. I do not think your patron saint would
approve."
"My patron saint?"
"Him." She pointed to the small painting in a gilt wooden case that
stood open on a large black chest. Candles in heavy enamel sticks stood
on either side of the painting.
Sophia took his hand. At the touch of her cool fingers the muscles of
his arms tensed. She led him across the room. Still holding his hand,
she spread the wings of the case wider apart so he could see the image.
That it was a saint was apparent at once from the aureole of gold paint
encircling the black hair. Simon saw a narrow face with huge, staring
blue eyes painted with such bright paint they looked like sapphires.
Compared with the saint's eyes the sky behind his head seemed pale.
There were purplish shadows under the eyes, and the cheeks curved inward
like those of a starving man. The beard and mustache hung straight but
were ragged at the ends, and what little could be seen of the saint's
robe was gray. To the left of the halo, in the background, stood a
fluted ivory pillar with a square base and a flaring top. The pillar
connected the azure sky and ochre ground. Simon felt admiration for the
face; in that desolate scene the saint must have endured great privation
and come through with holy wisdom.
"A wonderful face," he said, turning to Sophia with a smile. "And you
say this is my patron saint?"
"Simon of the Desert," she said. "Simon Stylites."
"Stylites? What does that mean? I do not know Greek."
"Neither do I," she said, "but a priest told me that his name means 'he
of the pillar.' Saint Simon was a hermit who lived ages ago, when the
Church was young. He dwelt and prayed for thirty years on top of a
pillar that was all that was left of an ancient pagan temple. That is
the pillar behind him."
Live on top of a pillar for thirty years? Questions crowded into Simon's
mind. How did he keep from falling off when he slept? Would not the
burning desert sun have killed him? How did he get food and water? After
thirty years the pillar ought to be surrounded by quite a pile of--
No, he put that thought firmly out of his mind. After all, the whole
point about saints was that they were not subject to natural laws.