is mouth a tight line, his chin sharp. His hair hung brown and lank to
his shoulders, framing his face.

She had used real gold dust in the paint for the halo. Michael was
generous to her, and he laughed when she told him that she spent some of
the money he gave her on expensive paint for an icon. The idea of a
woman who painted amused him, like the bear that danced in the
Hippodrome.

Beyond the gold of the halo was the ocher of the desert and, standing
lonely over the saint's right shoulder, the pillar on which he had lived
in penance for fifteen years, the pillar that had given him his
name--Simon Stylites.

_Why do I reverence this saint? Because he knew how to endure alone, and
that is what is most important._

_Rest well, dear saint_, she prayed as she lowered the icon into the
cedar chest. She closed the gilded wooden doors that protected the
painting, breaking the grip of Simon's staring blue eyes.

She next opened a small box of dark, polished wood, its lid inlaid with
bits of mother-of-pearl forming a bird with swirling wings. A dozen
small porcelain jars lay in velvet-lined recesses shaped to hold them.
Each jar was ornamented with the same floral pattern in a different
color, each color that of the powdered pigment the tightly corked jar
contained. Take a pinch of the powder, add water and the clear liquid
from a raw egg, and you had a jewel-bright paint. Wrapped in linen at
one end of the box were her quill pens, brushes, and charcoal sticks.

As always, the sight of her materials made her want to stop what she was
doing and paint. She closed the lid gently, stroking its cover,
remembering the merchant from Soldaia in the Crimea who had sold her the
box outside the Church of Saint John in Stoudion, telling her it came
from a land far to the east called Cathay.

_The Cathayans must be as civilized as we are to make such a thing_, she
thought as she put the box in her chest.

This blond Saracen--this Mameluke--whom she had seen briefly and would
meet again tomorrow, would not be a civilized man. He was both Turk and
Frank--barbarity coupled with barbarity.

"Kriste eleison!" she whispered. "Christ have mercy." Until this moment
she had been able to stave off her fear of the danger she was going
into. Now it struck her full force, leaving her paralyzed over her
traveling chest, her trembling hand still resting on her box of paints
as if it were a talisman that could protect her.

She was going amon