"The woman is ruler of the man?"
"Yes."
The corners of her mouth quirked. "Then what if I were to command you to get into this bed with me?"
He was certain from her sly smile that she was joking. But he could think of no clever answer. He considered what he had read, what he had been told, what he had done with other women. None of it helped. The women who fell into bed with him on the first tryst had not been serious about love, nor had he been. In all the lore of l"amour courtois the woman made the man wait--sometimes for years, sometimes for his entire life--and the man was happy to wait, and that was all there was to it.
Then he remembered something his mother had said, a secret so precious he would never tell anyone, not even Sophia. Not even Friar Mathieu needed to know it. But it guided Simon now.
_The first time your father and I were alone together I wanted him then and there. But he was strong enough for both of us. It was a whole year before we possessed each other in body. And you came of that union._
"You will not command me so," he said with cheerful confidence.
Her eyebrows rose--they were strong and dark, like a raven"s wings.
"Indeed?"
"Because you know how much better it would be to wait. We both want each other now. But if we restrain that hunger, it will grow. It will be not just a desire of the flesh, but a longing of the spirit. It is said that the souls in paradise know no greater happiness than two lovers do, who are united in soul as well as body."
"Prodigioso," she said. "But I am just a Sicilian girl, and I do not perhaps have the refined spiritual appet.i.te of a French n.o.bleman. What if I cannot wait?"
"It is natural," Simon said, thinking again of what his mother had confided to him. "Then I must be strong enough for both of us."
The thought of her powerful pa.s.sions, which she restrained with such difficulty, excited him. Holding himself back from her was going to be painful, but delightfully so. And think of the ecstasy when at last they were united.
Sophia released a long sigh and brought the palms of her hands down on her knees with a slap of finality. "So be it, Simon. You will teach me the ways of courtly love, and I will do my best to be your--what did you call it?"
"Mi dons. My lord."
Her teeth flashed white in the candlelight, and her lips glistened.
Simon"s own lips burned to taste hers.
"How strange. As if I were the man. Ah, but you are very much a man, Simon, and you make me feel very much a maiden."
Simon turned and went to the window. The night air blew through the gauze curtains, and he felt a wonderful aliveness all over his body. He wondered whether Alain, out there in the dark somewhere, could see him here in the window. He pushed the curtain aside so Alain, if he was there, could get a good look and know that his seigneur was safe and happy.
Dawn must still be hours away. What would he tell Alain about what transpired this night? The truth, a.s.suredly. But would Alain believe him? And if he did, would he mock Simon for not bedding Sophia?
No, Alain would understand. He respected the good in men and women as much as Simon did. Which was why they were friends as well as lord and va.s.sal.
Sophia stood beside him and put her hand on his shoulder.
"You cannot stand there all night, Simon. Come back and sit down."
He bowed. "As mi dons commands." He let her take his hand and draw him away from the window.
There was one chair in the room, and he took it. Foolish to expose himself to temptation by sitting beside her on the bed again. The chair was straight, with a tall back and no arms. The only touch of comfort in its rectilinear shape was a cushion laid upon its seat. Sophia smiled and shrugged and sat again on her bed.
Would she let him spend the night? Whenever he had been all night with a woman, they had made love. Should he sing to her again? Would she want to sleep? He pictured himself watching over her while she slept, perhaps kneeling by her bedside, and the beauty of it thrilled him.
Now he remembered something she had said earlier, that he had accused her of kissing him _only to further my uncle"s plots against the Tartars_. She was aware, then, of what Ugolini was doing.
_She has no idea how much she revealed to me._
He sang another troubadour song, "White Hands." She let him draw off her red silk slippers, and he almost cast away all his promises to himself as she curled her toes against the palm of his hand. He forced himself to stand up and pace the room while she lounged back on her bed, her head propped up on her elbow, watching him with that delicious smile of hers.
She questioned him about his life, and he offered her a simple version of it, telling her nothing about his secret illegitimacy and the dishonor of the man whose name he bore. It struck him while talking to her that perhaps these two sins that had shaped his life--Amalric de Gobignon"s treason and Nicolette de Gobignon"s adultery--had given him the strength to resist the temptation to a.s.sail Sophia"s virtue. He told her how he had spent much of his youth in the household of the King of France and how this had led to Count Charles d"Anjou"s giving him the task of protecting the Tartar amba.s.sadors.
And thus, inevitably, their talk got around to the Tartars.
"Why did you accept this task from the Count of Anjou?" she asked. "You have a lofty t.i.tle, huge estates, everything you could want. Why trouble yourself with all this intrigue?"
Having decided not to tell her the truth about his past, Simon now could not answer her question both honestly and fully. He could not say that he had committed himself to this mission to clear the stain of treason from the name of de Gobignon and to prove that he had a right to the t.i.tle.
So he told her of another reason, equally true.
"I am in part an orphan, and the king was like a second father to me. It is his wish that Christians and Tartars join together to liberate the Holy Land. And I would do anything for him."
Sophia frowned. "I find that hard to understand. As for me, I hate the Tartars."
Simon"s mind pounced on that. Could she be more involved in Ugolini"s scheming than she had admitted?
"Why do you hate the Tartars? You know so little about them."
"I know that they almost made enemies of us because you thought I was kissing you just to help my uncle."
_Walk carefully, Simon._
Again she was hinting at her uncle"s involvement in all that had gone wrong for the alliance. But if he asked her about it outright, she might think--as he had thought of her--that he was courting her only to further his cause.
"Well, I am sure your uncle is following his conscience, as we all are,"
said Simon. Actually, he believed nothing of the kind. But he did not want to offend Sophia, and perhaps l"amour courtois would permit a small lapse in one bound to be truthful to his lady.
"And your conscience tells you to guard those savages?"
"I want to see Jerusalem liberated and the Saracens conquered," Simon said. "Every good Christian does."
She sat up in bed, looking at him earnestly. "Do you not fear that the Tartars are worse than the Saracens? That is what my uncle says."
Step by step, as if he were defending a philosophical proposition at the University of Paris, Simon explained to her what he believed. Yes, the Tartars were barbarians and had committed unspeakable atrocities. But the Saracens, united under the Mameluke Sultan of Egypt, were more powerful now than they had been in hundreds of years. If not stopped now, they would sweep all the crusaders out of Outremer, the land beyond the sea.
And a wave of Mohammedan conquests might well not end there. To this day the Moors were a power in Spain, and it was not that long ago that there were Saracens in France and here in Italy. Surely she remembered that her own island of Sicily had been conquered for a time by the Saracens.
Indeed, King Manfred von Hohenstaufen"s army was made up partly of Saracens, and he himself was an infidel.
With their belief in spreading their religion by the sword, the Saracens were a far greater danger to Christendom than the Tartars. The Tartars were simple pagans, easily converted to Christianity. Friar Mathieu had personally baptized over a dozen high-ranking Tartars.
She listened intently, her golden-brown eyes so fixed on his that he feared more than once to lose his train of thought. But he persevered to the end. When he finished, she nodded thoughtfully.
Now, he thought, he could turn the conversation to her uncle.