I had a report of
him just two days ago. That is one great benefit of this office--" His
gray beard twitched again, and Simon knew that he was smiling. "News
comes to us from everywhere." Then his eyelids lowered. "That is also
what makes being the Holy Father so wearisome."

Yes, of course, King Louis made a journey of inspection through some
portion of his realm nearly every summer. It might be months, Simon
thought with a sinking heart, before he could find the king, deliver the
pope's letter, and get back to the papal court. So much could happen.

_But the most important thing of all has already happened. We have won.
We have the alliance!_

Triumph rang like cathedral bells in his ears. He was bringing victory
to the king and to Count Charles. And his success would restore honor to
the house of Gobignon.

Simon knelt once again, kissing the Fisherman's Ring and thinking that
the hand that wore it would soon be cold.

But as he hurried down a corridor in the Palazzo Papale, already
planning his route to France, the bells of triumph stopped ringing and
in the silence a face appeared before his mind's eye. Amber eyes, olive
skin, and wine-colored lips.

_Sophia! By all the angels and saints, I may never see her again!_

For a moment he felt torn. Duty and honor demanded that he leave Orvieto
at once. But what of love? Sophia's image smiled, and he decided. He
would need at least a day to prepare for his journey anyway. Before he
left Orvieto he must see Sophia and make sure that the meeting would not
be their last.

XLVII

Fat gray clouds hung low over the Umbrian hills, and Sophia thought she
heard thunder rumbling in the west. As Simon's message had promised, he
was waiting for her by the shrine of the Virgin on the road leading
north from Orvieto. But what was he doing here, she wondered, with spare
horses and a loaded baggage mule?

He waved to her and dismounted, and his scudiero--the same man who had
yesterday delivered Simon's note to her--took charge of the beasts.

Clearly Simon was beginning a journey. He had not simply come out here
to meet her. But he would not go anywhere far with no more company than
one squire. And how could he leave the Tartars when hardly two months
ago he had nearly lost his life protecting them?

Trying to puzzle out what was afoot, she rode with Ugolini's man
Riccardo beside her to the shed-covered shrine where a blue-robed Mary
held a smiling baby Jesus. Ric