of man
who would despise her for being a Jew.

Right now she desperately needed to be able to trust someone, and she
decided that she could trust Friar Mathieu.

Balancing herself against the swaying of the cart, she climbed on the
bench beside the old priest.

Her book was a collection of writings and prayers, including passages
from the Torah. Some rabbi, or perhaps more than one, with quill pens
and parchments, had taken years and years to copy it out. She had marked
the Psalms with a ribbon and turned to them now.

_For lowly people You save, but haughty eyes You bring low ..._

For the first time since she had seen those hooded riders approaching
Tilia's house, she felt some measure of peace.

After a moment she realized Friar Mathieu was reading over her shoulder.
Fear chilled her.

"One rarely finds a _man_ learned enough to read Hebrew," said Friar
Mathieu gently. "In a woman as young as yourself it is positively
miraculous."

She smiled timidly in answer to the kindliness in his eyes. "My husband
was a seller of books. He taught me to read the language of our
ancestors."

"Your husband?" His eyes, their blue irises pale with age, opened wider.
"You have been married?" He shook his head. "People never cease to
surprise me. I would like to know you better, child. Will you tell me
about your life?"

His gentle tone gave her heart. Not since Sophia had talked to her on
the road from Rome to Orvieto had anybody been interested in who she
was. Talking to this good priest about her past, she could forget for a
while the terror of present and future. She would tell him everything.

LIV

Daoud suddenly realized that droplets of moisture had appeared on the
grayish-yellow wall near his face. How long the water had been forming
he did not, could not, know. Long enough for some of the droplets to
coalesce and run down the wall, where they joined a line of dampness
where the floor met the wall.

He wondered where the water was coming from. It might be raining
outside, above this dungeon. It would take, he thought, a very great
rainstorm for the water to seep through down here.

He lay on his stomach on the rack table, his stretched arms and legs
feeling like blocks of wood. He had no idea how much time had passed
since d'Ucello left him with the threat that when he returned he would
burn Daoud's manhood away with Greek Fire. Most of that time he had been
awake, but had been dreaming of the paradi