ble score. "They cut out my husband's
tongue and his heart."

"Horrible!" Simon exclaimed.

"Now there remain only myself and my grandnephew, Vittorio, a ragazzo of
twelve, to lead the Monaldeschi."

"What of Vittorio's mother?" Simon asked.

The contessa shrugged. "She went mad."

_Well she might_, thought Simon.

The contessa's face turned scarlet as she recounted her injuries. "Now
that canaglia Marco would surely love to finish us by killing Vittorio
and me. But he is not man enough. And one day I will cut out _his_
tongue and _his_ heart."

"Might the Filippeschi attack John and Philip, thinking it would hurt
you?" Simon asked.

The contessa thought for a moment and nodded. "Ah, that is very clever
of you. Certainly, they would treat any guest of mine as an enemy of
theirs." She smiled. "At any rate, you need not worry about protecting
the Tartars today. They are not here."

Simon felt as if a trapdoor had opened under his feet. "Where are they?"

The contessa shrugged. "Riding out in the hills. They left hours ago.
They took their own guards and the old Franciscan with them. He told me
they were restless."

_God's wounds!_

Simon remembered the bloody fight between the Venetians and the
Armenians. He remembered Giancarlo and his bravos. He thought about what
the contessa had just said about the enmity of the Filippeschi.

He pictured the mutilated bodies of the Tartars sprawled on a mountain
road.

"Did my French knights go with them?"

The contessa shrugged. "They are in the palazzo courtyard, practicing
with wooden swords."

Simon ground his teeth in rage.

_The idiots! Training themselves for some future battle while their
charges go off to face God knows what dangers!_

"Which road did the Tartars take? I must go after them."

The contessa was by now rather obviously annoyed at his lack of interest
in her. "I do not know. Perhaps Cardinal Paulus knows. He spoke to them
before they left."

Simon bade the contessa a polite good-bye. She insisted on embracing
him. He wondered if he had looked as foolish to Sophia as Donna Elvira
now appeared to him.

* * * * *

For the second time that day Simon found himself sitting in a chair that
was too small for him. The back of this one came to an abrupt stop
halfway up his spine, and his shoulders ached even though he had been
sitting for only a few moments. He had taken off his gloves and tucked
them in his swo