The Saracen: The Holy War by Robert Shea (novels for beginners .TXT) 📕

"Forgive me, Count." Lorenzo laid the crossbow on the bed. "It was rude to call you that. But you did ruin our hope of victory today. Daoud had the battle won. He almost had his hands on your bloody Charles d'Anjou, when you charged out of the hills with your damned army. And now the king I served for twenty years and my good friend are both dead." He rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. "That was hard, Count. Very hard."

So it was Simon's charge that turned the battle, Sophia thought. And it was because of me that he entered this war. Her grief grew heavier still.

"You may hold those things against me," said Simon, "and I might hold against you the deaths of John and Philip, whom I dedicated my life to protecting."

Listening to that grave, quiet voice, Sophia realized that Simon no longer seemed young to her. It was as if he had aged many years since she had seen him last.

As long as she had known him, she had thought of him as a boy. And yet, from what she was hearing, if Charles d'Anjou was now king of southern Italy and Sicily, it was to Simon that he owed the crown.

"But I know who really killed the Tartars," Simon went on. "It was Charles, Count Charles, now King Charles, who no more wants to make war on Islam than your friend Daoud did. Charles kept the Tartars with himself and away from King Louis, and he let them go out on the field while the battle was raging, no doubt hoping they would die."

Lorenzo frowned. "You mean Charles used me to get rid of the Tartars?"

Simon nodded. "He could not have known it would be you, but he made sure they would be in harm's way. Charles is very good at using people. My mother warned me about him long before I let him persuade me to come to Italy to guard the Tartars, but I did[338] not listen. But now, how are we going to get all of you safely out of Benevento?"

He kept coming back to that, Sophia thought. He seemed determined to save them from Charles d'Anjou's vengeance.

"We may still have the wagon I hid out in the forest," Lorenzo said. "And if you truly mean to help us, you might appropriate a horse or two. There are many horses hereabouts whose owners will never need them again."

"I can write you a genuine safe-conduct that will get you past Charles's officials and agents," Simon said. "If you travel quickly enough, you may get ahead of them into territory still friendly to you. There may be no army left to oppose Charles, but it will take him some time to get control of all the territory he has won. Where might you go?"

Sophia took Rachel's hand again, and they sat on the bed. Remembering that she and Daoud had shared this bed last night, Sophia felt the heaped stones of sorrow weigh heavier still.

I will never hold him again.

To distract herself from her pain, she tried to listen to what people around her were saying.

"To Palermo first," said Lorenzo decisively. "At a time like this, with the king gone, every family must fend for itself. I want to get to mine at once." He turned to Rachel, and his mustache stretched in one of the smiles Sophia had seen all too rarely. "My wife, Fiorela, and I would be honored to have you as a member of our family, Rachel."

Rachel gave a little gasp. "Truly?"

"Truly. I have been wanting to propose it for a long time."

Again Sophia thanked God for Lorenzo. She almost wished he would offer to take her into his family too.

Simon stared at Lorenzo. "You are—were—an official at Manfred's court, and your wife's name is Fiorela?"

Lorenzo frowned. "Yes, Count. What of it?"

Simon's interest puzzled Sophia. Could there be some connection between him and Lorenzo?

"We must speak more about her later." Simon flexed his mail-clad arms. "It will not be safe for you to try to leave Benevento until morning. I will see to it that my men guard this house from the looters till then. They will not, of course, know who is in here with me. Meanwhile, you all had better sleep, if you can."

Weary and broken by sorrow though she was, Sophia knew that to try to lie down in the dark would mean nothing but hours of suffering. She would sleep only when she fainted from exhaustion.[339] And she dreaded the agony she would feel when she woke again and remembered what had happened this day.

Tilia cleared her throat politely. "Your Signory, it will be hard to sleep in the same room with dead bodies."

Simon frowned. "Dead bodies?"

"Well—I hope you will not hold it against myself and the cardinal—but besides Sordello here, there are two of his henchmen in the room we have been occupying."

"Also dead?"

"Also dead. They were trying to rob us."

Now Sophia remembered that Sordello had brought two Venetians with him, and she remembered the barks and growls that had come up through the floorboards while she was alone with Sordello. What had happened down there between Ugolini and Tilia and Sordello's men? And Scipio?

Sophia looked at Tilia and noticed that she wore a small smile of satisfaction and was fingering her jeweled pectoral cross.

I need not worry about Tilia, she thought grimly.

Simon sighed. "There must be a basement in this house, a root cellar, something of the kind. Lorenzo, you and I will find a place to take the bodies."

The room grew cold with Sophia and Rachel alone in it, and Sophia put more logs on the fire, thankful that the merchant who had hurriedly vacated this place had left plenty of wood. She lay down in the big bed beside Rachel.

Hesitantly, Rachel told Sophia that she, with Friar Mathieu, had been present at Daoud's death. She showed Sophia the little leather capsule, and Sophia, remembering the many times she had seen it around Daoud's neck, broke into a fresh storm of weeping.

Rachel held it out to her. "I think perhaps you should be the one to have it."

"No. He gave it to you." Sophia wiped her eyes, drew out the locket and opened it, looked sadly at the meaningless tracery of lines on its rock-crystal surface, barely visible in the light from the low fire.

"This locket is what he gave me. It seems the magic in it died with him, but it is a precious keepsake." She remembered that she had been looking at the locket when Sordello tried to kill Simon. Why had he tried to do that? It made no sense, but because of it she had killed Sordello, and of that she was glad. She had avenged Daoud.

Desperately needing to know every detail of Daoud's death, Sophia[340] questioned Rachel until, in the middle of a sentence, the girl fell asleep.

Sophia lay wide awake in the dark, crying silently. Lying there was hell, as she had expected it would be. After what seemed like hours, the fire on the hearth died. She got up and piled three bed carpets over Rachel.

She wrapped herself in her winter cloak and slipped out of the room. Going, she knew not where, but unable to remain still. Wanting only to distract herself from her pain with a little movement.

She went down the stairs, passing the silent second-floor room were Ugolini and Tilia lay. She heard men's voices from a room on the ground floor.

The cabinet of the merchant who owned this house was just inside the front door. There Sophia found Simon and Lorenzo seated facing each other at a long black table. Scipio, lying on the floor near the doorway, opened one eye, twitched an ear at her, and went back to sleep. With a quill Simon was writing out a document, while Lorenzo used a candle flame to melt sealing wax in a small brass pitcher on a tripod.

Simon gave her a brief, sad smile. He had taken off his mail, and wore only his quilted white under-tunic.

Lorenzo stood up, went to a sideboard, and poured a cup of wine. Silent, he handed it to Sophia. It was sweeter than she liked, but it warmed her.

She took a chair at the end of the table. The two men sat there so companionably that it was hard to believe that for more than two years they had been enemies. She recalled with a pang how Daoud had said he no longer hated Simon. If only he could be here to be part of this.

"One cannot predict these things," Lorenzo said, continuing the conversation that had begun before Sophia arrived, "and I certainly do not believe in trying to make them happen, but my son, Orlando, is at a good age for marriage. And so is Rachel."

Simon looked up from his writing. "You would let your son marry a woman who had spent over a year in a brothel?"

Lorenzo gave Simon a level look. "Yes. Do you disapprove?"

Simon shook his head. "From what I know of Rachel, not at all. But there are many who would."

Knowing Lorenzo Celino, Sophia thought warmly, she was not surprised that he did not feel as many other people would.

"Rachel is brave, intelligent, and beautiful," said Lorenzo. "What happened to her was not her fault. And now she knows infinitely more of the world than most women. If she should take[341] an interest in Orlando, he would be lucky to have her. And then Rachel will be your cousin, Count Simon. She will surely be the only Jewish girl in all Europe who is related—if only by marriage—to a great baron of France."

Sophia frowned at Lorenzo. Cousin? What was the man talking about?

Raising his head from his scroll, Simon saw her look and smiled. "I have just discovered, Sophia, that Lorenzo Celino here is my uncle."

Sophia felt somewhat irritated. Were the two of them playing a sort of joke on her?

"No, it's true, Sophia," said Lorenzo. "My wife came from Languedoc years ago as a refugee from the war that was being fought there at the time. Her maiden name was Fiorela de Vency. And her older brother, Roland de Vency, went back to France and eventually married Simon's mother, making him Simon's stepfather. So you see, I am Simon's uncle by marriage."

Simon smiled broadly. "Roland told me long ago that he had a sister Fiorela who was married to a high official of Manfred's. I would far, far rather have you for an uncle, Lorenzo, than Charles d'Anjou, whom I have often called Uncle." He gave Sophia a meaningful look.

She understood. Simon might like Lorenzo, but not well enough to tell him that Roland de Vency was more than a stepfather to him, and therefore Lorenzo's wife more than an aunt by marriage.

Only his mother and father and his confessor know that, he once said.

And I.

Weighed down with grief though she was, she managed to smile back.

Simon put down his quill, closed the lid on the ink pot, and blew on the parchment to dry it. He poured red wax at the bottom of the sheet, took a heavy ring off his finger, and pressed it into the blob. He handed the document to Lorenzo to read.

"You have been well educated," said Lorenzo. "You write as handsomely as a monk."

"Charles will have his men out looking for you, as one of Manfred's ministers," said Simon. "I advise you not to wait for them to catch up with you in Palermo. Of course, Charles may offer you a chance to work for him. The help of men acquainted with Manfred's regime will make it much easier for him to take over."

Lorenzo's mustache twitched as he smiled sourly. "Work for him? I know you do not know me well, but I hope you jest. Otherwise[342] I would have to consider myself insulted. Manfred and his father, Emperor Frederic, built a fair and civilized land here. Learning and the arts of peace flourished, unchecked by superstition. Charles will doubtless destroy all that. I propose to make it very hard for him to hold on to what he has conquered this day. Anjou will not thank you if he learns it was you who turned me loose."

"See that he does not learn it, then."

Lorenzo frowned. "You won the battle for Charles. Now you seem willing to do him all sorts of mischief." He leaned across the table and fixed Simon with his piercing, dark eyes. "Why?"

Sophia leaned forward, too, eager to hear Simon's answer.

Simon sighed and smiled. "Because today at last I saw through Charles's double-dealing with me in the matter of the Tartars." His smile was a very sad one. "And I want to help you, out of what I still feel for