gs were touching. Making himself
concentrate on his music, he went on to the fifth verse. He resolved
that at the end of it he would stand up and move away.

At sunset my love will close up her petals
Till with the dawn she awakens again,
And her beauty will blaze out to dazzle the day.
To see her the sun will be eager to rise.

By the end of that verse she was leaning against him and had reached
around behind him to stroke his neck. Without his consciously willing
it, his arm stole around her waist and pulled her to him.

His song, he realized, was insidious in its power. He had thought only
to entertain her with his music, but he was seducing her. Her head
rested on his shoulder, her eyes closed. Her fingers crept slowly,
delicately, across the back of his neck under his hair, sending thrills
down his spine. He could not move away from her.

"Stop," he whispered. "Please stop."

"Are you afraid of me?" she asked softly.

"I am afraid for both of us. You do not know what a raging fire a lovely
woman like you can kindle in a man like me."

She withdrew her hand from his neck and let it rest on his thigh. That,
he thought, made it even more difficult for him.

"I must tell you something," she said. "I am not--wholly innocent."

His heart felt a sudden chill. How could this dear creature be anything
but innocent?

Now her hands were in her lap and her eyes were cast down. "As you
surely know, most women past twenty, unless they are nuns, have been
married for years. You must have wondered what I am doing in Orvieto,
unmarried, living with my uncle."

"I never thought about it."

"Then _you_ are very innocent."

Simon felt himself wilt inwardly. How could he have been so blind as not
to wonder why Sophia was not married? She had seemed timeless to him and
attached to no one. Even her relation to the cardinal, except that it
put her in the enemy camp, seemed unimportant.

"You have a husband?" His voice was heavy with sorrow. Foolish as it
was, he had dreamed that she might be virginal. But that made no sense,
now that he considered it. The rule in courtly love was to fall in love
with a lady who was married to someone else. His Parisian courtly lovers
had been married women. If Sophia were already married, that should make
it better.

Then why did he feel so disappointed?

"I was married at fourteen. His name was Alessandro. He died two years
later of the damned fever that takes so many