did not
want to offend Sophia, and perhaps l'amour courtois would permit a small
lapse in one bound to be truthful to his lady.

"And your conscience tells you to guard those savages?"

"I want to see Jerusalem liberated and the Saracens conquered," Simon
said. "Every good Christian does."

She sat up in bed, looking at him earnestly. "Do you not fear that the
Tartars are worse than the Saracens? That is what my uncle says."

Step by step, as if he were defending a philosophical proposition at the
University of Paris, Simon explained to her what he believed. Yes, the
Tartars were barbarians and had committed unspeakable atrocities. But
the Saracens, united under the Mameluke Sultan of Egypt, were more
powerful now than they had been in hundreds of years. If not stopped
now, they would sweep all the crusaders out of Outremer, the land beyond
the sea.

And a wave of Mohammedan conquests might well not end there. To this day
the Moors were a power in Spain, and it was not that long ago that there
were Saracens in France and here in Italy. Surely she remembered that
her own island of Sicily had been conquered for a time by the Saracens.
Indeed, King Manfred von Hohenstaufen's army was made up partly of
Saracens, and he himself was an infidel.

With their belief in spreading their religion by the sword, the Saracens
were a far greater danger to Christendom than the Tartars. The Tartars
were simple pagans, easily converted to Christianity. Friar Mathieu had
personally baptized over a dozen high-ranking Tartars.

She listened intently, her golden-brown eyes so fixed on his that he
feared more than once to lose his train of thought. But he persevered to
the end. When he finished, she nodded thoughtfully.

Now, he thought, he could turn the conversation to her uncle.

"All this is so obvious," he said, "it is hard to understand why your
uncle should have formed a party to oppose the alliance."

She touched her fingertips to her mouth in surprise. That mouth--it was
like a blooming rose.

"You mean my uncle is the _leader_ of those who are against the
alliance?"

This reminded him of mornings he had tiptoed through his forest at
Gobignon, longbow drawn, catching a glimpse of a stag's brown coat and
then losing sight of it again in the thick broussailles, trying to stay
downwind and draw close enough for a good shot without frightening the
deer into headlong flight.

"But I thought you already knew that," he said.