The Saracen: The Holy War Part 89

_I was with him when he died._

_Daoud!_

She wanted to scream, but she hurt so much inside that she could not even scream. She could not make a sound.

Daoud was _gone_. She had seen him, she had spoken to him, she had loved him for the last time.

But she _had_ to see him again. Her cold hand fumbled at her neck, pulled the locket up from her bosom by its silver chain. She turned the screw that opened it and stared at the spirals and squares.

Nothing happened. The pattern, to her eyes a jumble of shapes representing nothing, remained inert.

Even his likeness was gone.

How had he died? She looked up at Simon to ask him.

And then she did scream.

Sordello crouched in the semidark behind Simon, his two-edged dagger, reflecting red firelight, poised horizontally to slash Simon's unprotected throat. His eyes glittered. His mouth shaped a slack-lipped smile, as if he were drunk, baring his gleaming, broken teeth.

Sordello seemed not even to notice her scream. Without a sound, unseen by the other three, who were all staring at Sophia, he raised his left arm to seize Simon and his right hand to strike with the dagger.

Sophia's hand dove into the bag at her waist. The loose dart could scratch her, and a scratch might be enough to kill her, but that did not matter. Her fingers found the dart. She wrapped her fist around it and flung herself out of the chair, straight at Simon.

Simon tried to fend her off, but she darted under his hands, twisted around him, and drove the dart into Sordello's throat. Blood spurted over her hand.

Sordello seemed neither to see her nor to feel the dart. His eyes stayed fixed on Simon's neck. He slashed at Simon. But Sophia's lunge had pushed the two men apart. Sordello's blade scratched Simon's neck just under his right ear. Then it fell from the bravo's fingers.

Sordello, the dart still hanging from his throat, staggered backward, his knees buckling. His body folded, and he lay sideways on the floor.

The four living people in the room were as still as the dead one. Then Simon touched his fingertips to his neck and winced. Sophia saw a rivulet of blood running down into his mail collar.

Friar Mathieu tore away a piece of the bedsheet and dabbed Simon's wound with it. He took Simon's hand as if he were a puppet and pressed his fingers against the rag to hold it in place. Then he knelt over Sordello's body and whispered in Latin.

Whimpering, Sophia stumbled back to the armchair where she had been sitting. A sob forced itself up from her chest into her throat. She felt Rachel's gentle hands helping her to sit down. Another sob came up, shaking her body. Another followed it, and another. She lost touch with everything around her for a time, buried in a black pit where neither sight nor sound nor even thought could penetrate. She was lost in wordless, mindless grief.

Then, gradually, she began to hear murmurings, voices.

Friar Mathieu said, "She saved your life."

Simon said, "I know. David--Daoud--told me not to take Sordello with me if I went looking for Sophia. As if he knew this might happen. How could that be?"

Rachel was sitting on the arm of the chair, gently stroking Sophia's shoulder.

Friar Mathieu said, "Why would Sordello try to kill you? Because he was about to rape Sophia when you interrupted? Or because he was afraid you would punish him for killing--Daoud?"

Amazement jolted Sophia's body. She opened her eyes and stared at Friar Mathieu.

"_Sordello_ killed Daoud?"

Simon answered her. "I will tell you how he died. I must talk to you. I have waited more than a year, you know, to see you again."

Sobs still shook her, but she nodded and wiped her face with the sleeve of her gown. He reached down. She took his arm, and he helped her up.

She saw that he had a bloodstained strip of linen tied around his neck.

"The balcony," she said.

"Good."

As she went to her chest to get her cloak, Sophia looked at the icon of the saint of the pillar and thought how much, even though it had Simon's name, the expression looked like Daoud's.

Simon held the door to the balcony for her. The night was cold and moonless. The bitter smell of burning floated on the freezing air. The shouts of frenzied soldiers and the agonized screams of men and women seemed to come from everywhere. Fires blazed in all parts of the town, their glow and smoke turning the night sky a cloudy reddish-gray. On the plain to the north, campfires twinkled. Somewhere out there Daoud lay dead.

She looked up at Simon. Darkness hid his face. The ruddy glow of burning Benevento haloed his head. In a quiet, even voice he told Sophia how he came upon Daoud fighting side by side with Manfred, and how he fought with Daoud after Manfred was killed. How he lay helpless with Daoud's sword pointed at his face.

"He did not move for a long time," Simon said. "It was growing dark, but I saw the look on his face. A gentle look. He did not want to kill me. I am sure of it."

And then without any warning had come the treacherous crossbow bolt out of the circle around them, and Daoud had fallen.

"It was Sordello. He could not understand my rage at him. He kept protesting that he had saved my life. He had not."

Sophia thought of Sordello's attempt to seduce her. She clutched the wooden railing, choking bile rising in her throat.

"I am glad I killed him," she whispered. "I have never killed anyone before tonight. That I killed him was a gift from G.o.d."

Simon did not answer at once.

Then he said, "Tonight, before Daoud died, he told me that you were innocently drawn into his conspiracy against the alliance. He said he took advantage of my love for you, and that you and he were never close.

But now that you've heard he is dead, you are like a woman who has lost a husband or a lover."

He stopped. He needed to say no more. She knew what he was asking.

The enormous aching void inside her made it almost impossible to think.

Daoud, even as he lay dying, had tried to protect her. Simon might have suspicions, but about who she was or what she had done, he knew nothing.

Manfred was dead. Tilia, Ugolini and Lorenzo--wherever they might be now--would say nothing.

She could, if she chose, become the person Simon thought she was--the person who had given herself to Simon in love at the lake outside Perugia. She need only seize the chance Daoud had given her.

In all Italy there was no place for her now. Once again she belonged nowhere and to no one. And she could be a wife to this good young man.

She could be the Countess de Gobignon, with a station in life, with power to accomplish things, to change the world.

"You want to know what Daoud meant to me," she said. "Did you tell him what I meant to you?" She was amazed at how level her voice sounded.

"I think he knew," Simon spoke just above a whisper. "I did not feel I had to tell him anything."

Then Daoud had died not knowing that she and Simon had for a moment been lovers. Did it matter? If Daoud had known, perhaps he would have killed Simon instead of just standing over him with his sword.

His not knowing had not hurt Daoud. But it was hurting her.