t Rachel pushed to the fore.

"All of us are going to be leaving Orvieto soon, and when we do we will
take you with us," she said. Rachel's dark eyes glowed.

Sophia went on. "Wherever we go, you will not have to stay with Tilia
anymore and do--what Tilia expects of you. We will find a home for you."

She was not sure how she was going to keep such a promise, but she
decided that Daoud would have to kill her before she would let him put
Rachel in another brothel.

Again the knife in her breast as she remembered she might never see
Daoud again.

Rachel shrugged. "I may be better off doing this than I would be as some
man's wife." She looked down at her hands, and Sophia saw that her
fingers were long and slender and quite beautiful. "John Chagan has made
me very rich, you know."

Sophia thought of the three locked chests in Tilia's room. She would
have to make sure that Rachel, when she left this place of shame, got
all the gold that was rightfully hers. And how outrageous, that Tilia
had been filling Rachel's head with lies about how lucky she was.

"Tilia and the others here have to believe that this is the right life
for them. But there is not a woman here who would not trade whatever
riches she has earned for a real home, with a husband and children."

Rachel was silent a moment. Her face was all straight lines, Sophia saw,
yet delicate and feminine at the same time.

_As a woman, she will be much more beautiful than I._

"Even you?" Rachel said suddenly.

Sophia was surprised. "We are not talking about me. I am not--a
courtesan."

"What are you?" Rachel asked softly, shyly.

_What word is there to describe me?_

She had thought often about other women and how different their lives
were from hers. Sometimes, to survive, she had to give her body to men
when she did not want to. She had been in danger of death. She had known
love and wealth and power. She had lived this way since her parents and
the boy she had loved were killed, and she could not imagine living any
other way.

"I am just a person who does whatever she needs to," said Sophia. How
could she sit here and talk like this, when Daoud might be dying? A
chill went over her, as if she were in the grip of a fever, and she
almost cried aloud.

"Something is wrong," Rachel said. "Why are you here so early in the
morning?" That look of terror was coming back into her face.

The door opened, and Tilia was there, dressed in a long green silk tun