s recently come
from Palermo. They had known Ugolini before he became a cardinal, but
did not remember that he had any sisters, much less a niece. They had
never heard of a Siracusa family called Orfali. Simon raged at his
inability to learn anything at all about Sophia. It was as if she had
fallen into a black pit.

John and Philip were kneeling before Charles at the top of the steps.
Friar Mathieu stood beside the Tartars, interpreting for them and for
King Charles. Charles was talking loudly enough for Simon to hear. Like
many men, he tended to raise his voice when addressing those who did not
speak his language.

"You must tell the great Abagha Khan that it is customary for rulers to
send gifts to newly made kings. Tell him we look forward with delight to
the wonderful things he will send us from the Orient."

More useful, in Simon's opinion, would be a detailed proposal from the
late Hulagu Khan's son on how and when Christians and Tartars should
launch their war on the Saracens. Stories had come from the East that
Hulagu Khan's frustration over his failure to conquer the Mamelukes had
hastened his death.

As he waited to climb the stairs and kneel before the new king, Simon
reminded himself that he could still refuse to join Charles's war on
Manfred.

He became aware of the dull pain around his heart that had been with him
ever since he discovered that Sophia had vanished. Even when he forgot
the suffering, it weighed down his footsteps and bowed his shoulders.

_And the worst of it is that I would rather live perpetually with this
misery than stop loving Sophia._

But how could he go on loving her if she had been his enemy all along?

Was there any such person as Sophia Orfali? All the time he was courting
her, she could have been working against the alliance. She might even
have known the man in black who had nearly killed him.

That thought struck him like a bolt of lightning. For a moment, he was
blind to the sights around him, deaf to the sounds.

_No! It cannot be!_

If she really had been that evil, it could be only because she had been
corrupted by living in Manfred's kingdom. He remembered the words of de
Verceuil's sermon this morning at Count Charles's coronation.

_The Hohenstaufens, that brood of vipers, have too long vexed Holy
Church, persecuting pope after pope. May it please God that the bastard
Manfred be the last of them. May we see the destruction of that family
of blasphemers an