t all his secrets
to her. He saw again her tears and remembered his own, that he had shed
after she ran from him. The memory made him feel like weeping now.

Hoping to sound casual, Simon said, "The cardinal's niece--I believe her
name is Sophia. Did you see her before you left Orvieto?"

Sordello's discolored eyes met Simon's. "No, Your Signory. I have seen
little of her since the night of the Filippeschi uprising."

_Damn this gap-toothed brigand!_

Simon continued to pretend to be casual. He stood up and yawned. The
wine made him feel less in control of his feelings than he liked.

"Let us go and see this ship you have found for us."

"Your Signory, you have not told me whether you will take me back into
your service."

Simon shook his head, as if tormented by gnats. "After we see the ship."

Sordello sighed and led the way out of the inn. They crossed the
cobble-paved roadway that led along Livorno's waterfront, Simon
breathing deeply of the salt-smelling air to clear his head.

Sordello pointed. "There it is."

He was pointing toward the same big, ungainly buss that Simon had
visited earlier, whose captain had refused Simon.

"But he said he was going to Cyprus!"

"He lied to you," said Sordello. "I know the man. Guibert was shipmaster
for a boatload of us mercenaries in the last war between Pisa and Genoa.
He feared that if you were to travel on his ship, you might find him
out."

"Find out what?"

"He is one of those Languedoc heretics who hate the Church and the
French nobility, a follower of the Waldensian heresy. He was imprisoned
once and sentenced to death in Montpellier. He recanted his heresy and
was released after signing over all that he possessed to the Church. But
then he came to Italy, made a new start, and backslid to Waldensianism.
If the Inquisition got him now, he would go to the stake even if he
recanted a thousand times."

"Then why has he agreed to carry us?" To think, the man had seen Simon
as an enemy. Simon, who had inherited his Languedoc parents' loathing of
the persecution of heretics.

"I told him that if he did not take us where we wanted to go, I would
tell the officers of the Inquisition here in Livorno about him," said
Sordello blandly.

"What!" Simon was outraged.

Sordello looked hurt. "Surely, Your Signory does not see any wrong in
forcing a heretic to do a good turn for the pope and the king.
Especially when it means he gets to go unpunished. So we do our d