ached
out his arms, grimacing with pain. She put down the cloth and let him
hold her. Her heart swelled up in her throat and tears burned her eyes.

And suddenly, as if a curtain were lifted, she saw that life with this
man would always be this way. Whenever she was with him, there would
always be a yesterday in which some miracle of good fortune kept him
alive. There would always be a tomorrow in which he must face death yet
again.

Her head rested on his chest for a moment; then she wiped her face and
went back to cleaning and covering his wounds. Never mind her pain.
Whatever he was feeling must be much worse.

He told her how to make poultices for his burns using wet cloths and
powdered medicinal herbs Ugolini had prepared. It was like what she had
done for his arrow wound, only now there were many more hurts to treat.
Silently, in Greek, she cursed d'Ucello and cursed the torturer. She did
not care whether Daoud forgave them. She would never forgive what they
had done to her man.

When he was in the cellar of the Palazzo del Podesta being tortured, had
he grieved at the thought of losing her, as she had sorrowed for him?

She worked her way down his body from head to foot, tying the poultices
in place with strips of cloth. Thank God, they had done nothing to his
manly part. That was often the first place a torturer went for. When
would they make love again, she wondered. That depended on how long it
took him to recover. Perhaps weeks, perhaps even months.

When she was finished with his front, he turned over with her help.
Again she could not hold back her tears. Pain, not bodily, but real just
the same, struck her at the sight of his tormented flesh. For a moment
her eyes were covered with darkness. The skin of his back and buttocks
had been whipped away in large red slashes. She shook her head
violently, spoke a few more curses in her mind, and went to work. Daoud,
who had endured most of her healing efforts in silence, cried out when
she put a wet cloth on a torn spot.

"What more can you tell me about Rachel?" he asked. She suspected he
wanted to take his mind off the pain.

She repeated everything Tilia's women had reported, ending that looking
out the windows they had seen Rachel riding off in a cart with the old
Franciscan who interpreted for the Tartars.

"I am glad to hear that old priest still lives," said Daoud, sighing.
"Ah, Sophia, Rachel is a slave to that Tartar only because she had the
il