es are
more puissant than a mighty host. From those eyes have flown such
bolts as wound but do not kill, and they have pierced my heart. I
will bleed forever within my breast where none can see, and all will
wonder at my pallor and my weakness that have no outward cause.

The physick for any wound or illness, sages tell us, must be like
that which caused the hurt. Thus only you, who have delivered this
wound, can cure it. Let me come to you, I beg, under cover of night.
Let me but adore you in secrecy for a moment, and my strength will
return....

"He is almost as good as an Arab poet," David said mockingly as he
handed her back the letter. Did it bother him, she wondered, that Simon
wrote words of love to her? David, she saw, was working on a letter of
his own on a tiny, thin scrap of vellum on a writing board which he now
laid over his knees. As if to show her that Simon's letter was of no
moment to him, he added to his own, writing rapidly with a quill dipped
in an inkpot--but from right to left.

"You write backwards?" she said, seating herself beside him on the floor
to look at his work.

"No, Christians do," he said with a faint smile. He covered what he was
writing with his hand, but she caught a glimpse of lines that wavered
and curled like tiny black snakes.

"Why bother to cover it? Do you really imagine that I could read that?"
Lightly she touched the hand that covered the writing, noticing the fine
yellow hairs on its back.

"I have to keep up the habit of secrecy." He gave her one of his rare
full smiles, and she wanted to reach out and hold his face between her
hands. They were so close, she thought, sitting side by side here on the
floor. And alone. They had but to stretch out on this thick Arabian
carpet and wrap their arms around each other. But, of course, Ugolini or
one of his servants might come in at any moment. Her longing for David
was a constant ache. She had not thought of Manfred, save as a figure in
the background of their lives, in weeks. And as long as she did not have
to meet with Simon, she was fully Sophia Karaiannides, and not troubled
by the yearning of Sophia Orfali for the young French count.

If only David did not insist on keeping her at a distance.

"Do you still want me to let Simon de Gobignon visit me secretly?" she
asked.

There was a momentary silence between them.

Then, "Have I told you of any change in plans?" he said gruffly.