First you accuse me of kissing you only to further my
uncle's plots against the Tartars. Then you kneel to me. What am I to
make of you?"

Relief swept over him as he realized she was no longer angry.

"Make me your slave."

"My slave? You are toying with me, Your Signory."

"Toying with you? Never. Call me Simon if it please you."

"You would be my friend?"

"I would be more than your friend, Madonna."

She came to him and held out her hands. Her smile was dazzling.

"Well then, Simon, you may call me Sophia. And you may rise."

Simon grasped her hands, feeling joy in his very fingertips. He vaulted
to his feet and thought of taking her in his arms, but she freed her
hands with a quick, unexpected motion and took a step backward.

_With just a movement of her hands she can lift me up or cast me down._

"For a man to kneel to a woman is not the custom in Sicily, Simon," she
said softly.

It was as he suspected. She was not familiar with the ways of courtly
love.

"If I do anything that seems strange to you, Sophia"--he used her name
for the first time, and it thrilled him--"know that my actions are ruled
by what we call l'amour courtois, which means that we know how to value
women, whose value is beyond price."

"I have heard of courtly love. It sounds blasphemous to me, almost as if
the man worships the woman. I do not think your patron saint would
approve."

"My patron saint?"

"Him." She pointed to the small painting in a gilt wooden case that
stood open on a large black chest. Candles in heavy enamel sticks stood
on either side of the painting.

Sophia took his hand. At the touch of her cool fingers the muscles of
his arms tensed. She led him across the room. Still holding his hand,
she spread the wings of the case wider apart so he could see the image.

That it was a saint was apparent at once from the aureole of gold paint
encircling the black hair. Simon saw a narrow face with huge, staring
blue eyes painted with such bright paint they looked like sapphires.
Compared with the saint's eyes the sky behind his head seemed pale.
There were purplish shadows under the eyes, and the cheeks curved inward
like those of a starving man. The beard and mustache hung straight but
were ragged at the ends, and what little could be seen of the saint's
robe was gray. To the left of the halo, in the background, stood a
fluted ivory pillar with a square base and a flaring top. The pillar
connected the azure sk