_

"What were you planning to do with these people when you came here,
Count?" Lorenzo said. "Turn them over to your master, Anjou?"

Sophia turned to look at Simon. He stood composed, his empty hands at
his sides, his face, pink in the glow from the fire, calm as a statue's.

"_Your_ master--Daoud the Mameluke--asked me to come here," Simon said.

"_Please_ put your crossbow down, Lorenzo," Sophia said again.

"Are you sure, Sophia? This crossbow might be the only thing that keeps
us from getting dragged off to be hanged. This high-horse bastard has
fifty men outside."

Greek Fire blazed in Sophia's brain.

She screamed, "Do not call him a bastard!"

"Sophia!" said Simon wonderingly. "Thank you!"

She stood trembling, but almost as soon as the words flew from her
mouth, the fit of rage passed.

_I must be going mad._

But she had done no harm. She seemed to have made things better.

"Forgive me, Count." Lorenzo laid the crossbow on the bed. "It was rude
to call you that. But you did ruin our hope of victory today. Daoud had
the battle won. He almost had his hands on your bloody Charles d'Anjou,
when you charged out of the hills with your damned army. And now the
king I served for twenty years and my good friend are both dead." He
rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. "That was hard, Count. Very
hard."

_So it was Simon's charge that turned the battle_, Sophia thought. _And
it was because of me that he entered this war._ Her grief grew heavier
still.

"You may hold those things against me," said Simon, "and I might hold
against you the deaths of John and Philip, whom I dedicated my life to
protecting."

Listening to that grave, quiet voice, Sophia realized that Simon no
longer seemed young to her. It was as if he had aged many years since
she had seen him last.

As long as she had known him, she had thought of him as a boy. And yet,
from what she was hearing, if Charles d'Anjou was now king of southern
Italy and Sicily, it was to Simon that he owed the crown.

"But I know who really killed the Tartars," Simon went on. "It was
Charles, Count Charles, now King Charles, who no more wants to make war
on Islam than your friend Daoud did. Charles kept the Tartars with
himself and away from King Louis, and he let them go out on the field
while the battle was raging, no doubt hoping they would die."

Lorenzo frowned. "You mean Charles used me to get rid of the Tartars?"

Simon nodded. "He could no