The Saracen: The Holy War Part 96

"I doubt that even if I wished to I could cause bad feeling between you," Simon said. "He has known you all your life, and if he has not broken with you by now, it must be because he loves you too much."

He turned abruptly and left Charles standing alone on his little hill.

The star swung at his neck, and he thought of going back and throwing it at Charles's feet. But, no, he decided he would keep it, and honor Manfred's memory.

The grief of these two days still darkened his world, but there was one small brightness. He might not have accomplished anything to liberate the Holy Land, but he had freed himself from Charles d'Anjou.

It hurt Simon to see Sophia's face. Her eyelids were red and puffed. Her cheeks were hollow and her lips pale. She was still beautiful, but it was a sorrowful beauty, like that of a grieving Madonna.

"I see you are wearing Manfred's star," Sophia said.

"Forgive me." He felt a flash of hatred for himself. How stupid of him!

She must think he was wearing it like a captured trophy.

He said, "Charles gave it to me. I swear to you, I mean no disrespect to Manfred. Just the opposite. It must hurt you to see it. How thoughtless of me! Anjou insisted on my putting it around my neck just now. I am only going to keep it safe in memory of Manfred, not wear it. Let me take it off."

_You are babbling_, he told himself. _Be still._

"No," she said, touching his hand lightly, briefly. "No one has a better right to wear it than you."

Simon said, "I want you to know this--Daoud succeeded."

"What do you mean--succeeded how?"

They stood just outside the walls of Benevento by the side of the road leading to the south. A group of Charles's men-at-arms, past whom Simon had just escorted Sophia and her friends, lounged before the gate.

"Last night I suspected it, but this morning I talked to Anjou, and now I am certain. There will never be an alliance of Christians and Tartars.

Anjou never wanted it, and he will do everything in his power to prevent it. It would interfere with his own ambitions."

Her amber eyes looked into his, and he felt the pain she was holding rigidly at bay within herself.

Oh, G.o.d, those eyes! How he had dreamed of spending the rest of his life in their gaze. Now, after today, he would never look into them again.

She said, "Does it disappoint you that there will be no alliance?"

"Once it would have. After all, I gave everything I had to trying to make the alliance succeed. But I did that for King Louis and for my own honor more than because I believed the alliance was a good thing.

Indeed, I often had doubts. I pray my people will never take part in such horrors as the Tartars have committed."

Sophia shook her head. "If you are right, then I only wish Daoud could have known before he died that his purpose was accomplished."

The thought came to Simon that Daoud might be aware of that, in the next world, but it seemed a childish fancy in the face of her sorrow, and he said nothing.

Even now, she thought only of Daoud.

Oh, why could not everything be different? Why could she not be the cardinal's niece, the lovely woman he had fallen in love with? Why must she be a stranger with a Greek name he had already forgotten because he had heard it only once, a plotter, a spy, an enemy?

He looked at the jagged blue mountains, mostly bare rock, that rose behind Sophia, and in despair thought of climbing up there and throwing himself off a cliff. The road she would be taking led into those mountains.

Celino, mounted on a st.u.r.dy brown mare, held Sophia's chestnut horse for her. Ugolini and Tilia Caballo, dressed in dark peasants' clothes, sat together on the driver's seat of Celino's cart, Tilia holding the reins.

Where were those two going, Simon wondered. When he said good-bye to them he had not thought to ask. No place in Sicily would be safe for them. Well, they probably would not have wanted to tell him.

Rachel, sitting on a powerful-looking black mule, gave Simon a little smile and a nod when he glanced her way. He smiled back.

_May you find a good man, Celino's son or another. And may the rest of your life be entirely happy._

"You are going back to Constantinople, then?" he said to Sophia. He had to drag the words out of himself.

She nodded. "I can get a s.h.i.+p from Palermo. Rachel has kindly offered to pay my pa.s.sage. Lorenzo found the chest full of gold she got from the Tartar, right where he buried it out in the woods. So Rachel is still rich. As for me, I am quite dest.i.tute."

_G.o.d's mantle! That never occurred to me. What an idiot I am._

"Would you--"

She raised a hand to silence him and shook her head. "I would not."

He shrugged and nodded. "Take this from me at least--a warning to your emperor. Charles wants Constantinople. He has a claim to the crown of Byzantium. He told me just today that he means to do to Michael what he did to Manfred."

Sophia gave him a crooked little smile. "Michael will never let him even get near Constantinople. I hope I can help with that."

"If ever I can do anything for you--"

Her smile grew wider. "Do not be too quick to promise that, Simon. If we ever meet again, we may be on opposite sides." In a softer, sadder tone she added, "Again."

He took a step closer to her. "If so, I will not be so easily deceived.

Now I know the real Sophia, the one who did not love me."

Her smile fell away. "I think the real Sophia did love you, Simon. Every time you told me how you loved me, it was as if you were taking me up to a mountaintop and showing me a beautiful land I could never enter. And the worst of it was that because I could not enter, neither could you.

We were both barred forever from happiness."

The look on her face made him want to burst out weeping. He held his breath and pressed his lips together hard to stifle the sob.

When he was able to speak, he said, "I think I would have loved the real Sophia if I could have known her."

She shut her eyes as if in terrible pain and pressed the palms of her hands against her stomach.

He reached out to take Sophia in his arms, but she stepped back from him, and he saw that the tears were streaming down her pale cheeks. She held out her hand.

He clasped her cold hand in both of his and said, "I will never forget you."

The sun was setting in the desert to the west of El Kahira, the Guarded One, giving a red tint to the white dust that drifted above the many roads that led to this city. Tilia Caballo sat on a silk cus.h.i.+on by the pool in the vast interior garden of the palace of the sultan, known as the Multicolored Palace because its walls and floors were inlaid with many different kinds of marble and its ceilings painted in azure and gold. Tilia dabbled her hand in the pool and breathed deep of the scent of jasmine. A fountain threw white water high in the air, and orange and black fish circled in the rippling pool. In the shadows nearby a peac.o.c.k screamed.

She heard footsteps behind her. The merest glance over her shoulder told her who it was, and she swiftly turned and knelt, pressing her forehead and the palms of her hands against the cool blue tiles.

She saw the pointed toes of scarlet boots before her. She raised her head a bit and saw the boots themselves, gem-encrusted leather.