bed, contemptuously
rejecting him.

He lay there, gasping, terrified.

_Take as many women as you like. But love always and only me. For if you
do love another, I promise you that your love will destroy both her and
you._

Had he truly heard the voice of Blossoming Reed, burning and cruel in
his mind, coming from as far off as the stars? The locket fell to the
floor with a crash that seemed to shake the stone building in which he
lay. He remained motionless, paralyzed with dread.

XLIX

Feeling as if he would burst into flames with anger, Simon stood under a
bright blue sky dappled with high white clouds on a wooden quay at
Livorno, two weeks after leaving Orvieto. The masts of small boats lined
the waterfront like a forest of tree trunks stripped of their leaves.

_If I were traveling with a proper entourage, a few knights and a troop
of archers, by God's wounds they'd carry me. These shipmasters are too
damned independent._

One large ship, anchored midway between the shore and the arm of the
harbor, looked to Simon like his last chance. Leaving Thierry on the
quay, he dropped a silver denaro into the callused palm of a man with a
dinghy and had himself rowed out to the big ship.

From what he knew of ships, this was a middle-size buss, sitting high in
the water, with rounded prow and stern. The name _Constanza_ was painted
on the stern. Human muscle moved it; Simon counted ten oarholes on each
side.

As he trod the catwalk from the prow of the ship to the stern castle
where the captain stood, Simon saw no one sitting at the oars and no
chains. So the ship must be rowed by its crew, free mariners. A square
sail, furled at present, mounted on a single mast amidships would help
the rowers when the wind was right.

The captain, whose bald scalp was brown as well-tanned leather, bowed
deeply when Simon presented himself. He was half Simon's height, twice
as broad, and all muscle. He smiled, showing a full set of bright white
teeth when Simon explained that he needed passage to Marseilles.

"Bon seigner, you must understand that it is not a simple matter to
engage a ship of this size to carry you wherever you wish to go." The
language the captain spoke was neither French nor Italian. Simon
recognized it at once, and he felt a little inner leap, because it was
the tongue his parents spoke, the Langue d'Oc, the speech of Aquitaine,
Toulouse, and Provence.

"Of course I understand that," Simon replied