been about to stab the friar, who was too useful to the Tartars
and the Christians to be allowed to live. But his arm could not move. It
was as if a powerful hand held it, and he seemed to hear a voice booming
in his head, _You dare to murder a priest?_

In his dread he hesitated, but if he did not escape Sophia would die.
The moment of paralysis passed, and instead of killing Friar Mathieu, he
thrust him aside, to fall from the banisterless stairs.

As he lies in bed the following morning in Ugolini's mansion, Daoud
forces himself to think. He has extended himself to the limit of his
powers and failed, but he must try again. He has to find a new plan,
lest his faith and his people, his whole world, meet annihilation.

In a room near Daoud's, Sophia Karaiannides kneels before an icon of
Saint Simon Stylites that she herself painted. She is thankful that
Daoud escaped alive from the Monaldeschi palace. She is glad that Simon,
who coincidentally shares the name of her favorite saint, is alive, too.
But how much longer, she wonders, will she have to live here in the
midst of enemies with the fear of a hideous death as a spy and an enemy
of the Church dogging her day and night?

Sophia was born in Constantinople during the years when it was ruled by
French invaders. As a very young woman she had seen her parents and her
lover slaughtered by rampaging French troops. She went on to serve the
Byzantine general Michael Paleologos, who drove out the French and
became the Basileus, Emperor of Constantinople.

Michael sent Sophia as a confidential envoy to his ally, Manfred, and
she and Manfred became lovers. But when the blond Saracen who called
himself David of Trebizond arrived at Manfred's court, Manfred told her
she must help David in his mission of preventing the Christian-Tartar
alliance. Manfred hinted at danger to her if she stayed with him. Though
heartbroken at being sent away by Manfred, Sophia accepted the
undertaking because another French crusade might well lead to another
French attack on "the Polis," her beloved home city.

When Rachel joined their party, Sophia, remembering her own orphan
girlhood, befriended her. But Daoud insisted, to protect the secrecy of
the mission, that after they arrived in Orvieto, Rachel be sent to the
brothel run by Tilia Caballo, Cardinal Ugolini's mistress.

After a few months in Daoud's company, Sophia felt powerfully attracted
to him. The Saracen admitted that he was likewise