his to happen? She felt a twinge of guilt, remembering that she
had betrayed Daoud by not telling him where Simon was going.

"What you tell us is but hearsay, Madama."

"Hearsay! Every lady in that house is a witness."

"In any case, those you accuse are beyond our reach."

"Because you _let_ them get beyond your reach," Tilia retorted. "Oh, you
feckless man! Let me by."

And then Sophia was alone in the cart and frightened, because she knew
she was surrounded by the podesta's men and by townspeople who might
well be hostile. For reassurance she smoothed the scarf over her nose
and mouth and patted the small dagger that hung at her belt, concealed
under her outer tunic.

She heard a creaking noise above her and looked out to see the podesta's
men hauling Cassio's body up to the balcony. Tilia, she thought, was
taking charge. Left to themselves, the watchmen would probably have just
cut the rope and let the poor man's corpse fall to the ground.

Sophia thought of Rachel, helpless, carried off by the Tartar, and
Daoud, equally helpless, in the Palazzo del Podesta. She had no idea
what was happening to either of them, and horrors filled her mind. Her
hands twisted together, her fingers crushing one another, and she
started to cry again.

Tilia was crying, too, when she came back and Riccardo helped her climb
into the carriage. She could not speak for a time, and Sophia sat with
her arm around Tilia's quaking shoulders. It was for this, thought
Sophia, she had come. The only way she could help Tilia was to be with
her and to comfort her. And in doing so she comforted herself.

After a while Tilia gave a great sigh. "I held Cassio in my arms for a
time. I washed his poor face, which I could barely recognize. What hurts
most is that all those people, those men and those women, were loyal to
me, and I was not there when they suffered this awful thing." She wiped
her eyes with the sleeve of her green silk dress and looked sadly at
Sophia.

Feeling Tilia's pain for her people, Sophia liked her all the more.

"The Tartars' men probably would have killed you if you had been there."

"To be sure. I would have provoked them to it as Cassio did. I would not
have let them take Rachel without a fight." She gripped the cross
resting on her bosom, and Sophia remembered Daoud saying it held a
poisoned blade. "Well, my poor men will have good burials. I have been
very generous to the little church of San Severo in the valley