ssibly want a girl with such small breasts. He
certainly would not want to devour them. She felt sick to her stomach
again.

"Reicho. Buona sera, Reicho." He could not pronounce the letter _l_.

"Buona sera, John," she answered. She was about to smile, but she
checked herself. If she seemed to be encouraging him, he would come at
her. Cold sweat broke out over her skin.

_He is going to come at me anyway._

A silver pitcher of wine with two silver goblets stood on a small
marble-topped table beside the bed. Wine might make this easier for her.
Except that too much wine would make her sick. Well, was that not what
she wanted? She stretched a trembling hand toward it.

"Will you take some wine, Messer John?" _Where on earth did he get a
name like John?_

She poured the wine, carefully filling the goblets only two-thirds full
so her trembling hands would not spill their contents.

The Tartar crossed the room and sat in the round-bottomed chair Tilia
had occupied a short while earlier. Rachel held out a goblet to him, and
her hand shook so badly she almost dropped it. He did not seem to
notice. Maybe he was used to being waited on by trembling women. He
smiled and nodded.

Tilia was watching all this, Rachel remembered. She drained her cup
quickly, the silver giving the wine a slightly metallic taste. She
poured a second cup for herself, and looked at him. He barely sipped
from his goblet before setting it on the table, holding his hand palm
down over it. Too bad, she thought. She had heard that men who drank too
much could not get stiff enough to go into women.

John started talking to her in his own tongue. He spoke for a long time
with many gestures, some toward himself, some toward her. She tried
desperately to guess what he was saying. She did not want to respond the
wrong way and anger him.

He seemed quite at ease, and he laughed occasionally, as if he were
telling her funny stories that amused him as well. She saw webs of fine
wrinkles in the brown skin around his eyes and thought, _He could be
older than Angelo_.

He began to make a strange sound, a long-drawn-out moan. Perhaps he was
in pain. Perhaps _he_ was going to be sick. Her heart leapt hopefully.
Then the moan changed pitch, and his mouth began to shape words. They
must be Tartar words. He was singing to her. It was unmistakably a song,
but it was strange and shrill to her ears. She almost burst out
laughing, but immediately felt terror at the