and the cardinal, but he understood well enough that Rachel was
still his prisoner.

She felt a little better for having an ally in Friar Mathieu. But she
promised herself that whatever John might think, he would never take her
back to his country. She really would kill herself first.

* * * * *

The storm had passed over Orvieto by the time the cart carrying Rachel
was bumping along the road to Perugia. As she sat on a bench beside the
old priest, looking out through the open front end of the cart, Rachel
saw patches of blue sky above the hills to the northeast.

John had gone with Friar Mathieu and helped him find her chest in
Tilia's room and the key to the padlock, hidden under Tilia's mattress.
He had ordered two of his Armenian guards to carry the chest out for
Rachel and load it in the back of the cart, along with another chest of
her books and clothing. He himself had smilingly handed her the key. As
if he expected her to be grateful, she thought.

So she was still a wealthy woman, Rachel thought bitterly, even though
she was also a prisoner.

With Friar Mathieu sitting on the bench up front beside the driver, she
had gone to the back of the cart and opened both chests to make sure
everything was there, even hefting the bags of gold. Then she had dried
herself off and put on a bright blue linen tunic.

On the outside she was more comfortable now; within, desolate. Even
though Tilia had sold her to the Tartar, Tilia's house had been home to
her for nearly a year. She had come to know the men whom today she had
seen murdered, and the women who had been forcibly taken by the Tartars'
bodyguards. They and Sophia, David, and Lorenzo were the only friends
she had known since Angelo was killed. Now she would never see them
again.

She had not felt so wretched since the night of Angelo's death.

To comfort herself, she took out the Hebrew prayer book Angelo had given
her. To have light to read by, she would have to go to the front of the
cart and sit beside Friar Mathieu. The sight of her prayer book might
turn the old priest against her. She remembered Angelo telling her how
priests at Paris had burned a thousand or more volumes of the Talmud.
Tears had come to his eyes at the thought of so many holy books,
lovingly copied by hand, destroyed.

But Friar Mathieu had been kind to her even when she admitted that she
had lain with the Tartar for money. He did not seem like the kind