But she saw in you too serious a
rival. He had to send you off with me, or the queen would have had you
poisoned."

Sophia's eyes strayed to the bed in horror. She remembered now that
before she left here, Manfred had hinted at something like that.

"Poisoned! And I am safe now?"

Again the white grin in the blond beard. During the six months they had
been apart, she had begun to think that her love for him might have
seduced memory and enhanced his good looks beyond reality. But now in
the flesh he surpassed even the image her memory had cherished.

"You are safe as long as you stay away from Manfred and he from you.
There will be a feast tonight, in honor of Cardinal Ugolini. You will
see how carefully the king will avoid you."

Daoud pulled her close to enfold her in his arms. He had taken off his
surcoat and breastplate, and with her head against his chest she could
feel his heart beating strong and fast under his silk robe.

"And you?" she said. "Do you hate the thought that Manfred and I were
lovers?"

_In that very bed._

"It is far in the past," Daoud said. "Before you met me." He held her
away from him and looked at her with laughter in his blue eyes. "Even
the Prophet married a widow."

His gentle acceptance, his easy assumption that all was over between
herself and Manfred, tore at her heart. If she even mentioned Simon, it
would be different. That was not in the past. That was after she had met
Daoud, after they became lovers. For the thousand-thousandth time she
cursed herself for letting it happen.

_God, I am a whore! As bad as the worst painted prostitute plying her
trade under the arches by the Hippodrome._

No, worse than that, in a way. A prostitute had a clear reason for doing
what she did with men. The more Sophia thought about the time she let
Simon possess her, the less she understood it. And even a prostitute
knew her occupation and her place in the world. From the night that
Alexis cast her adrift, Sophia had, in a way, been lost.

But there came to her a glimmering of hope. Daoud had a place here with
Manfred, and she had a place beside Daoud. Could it be that at last she
had a home?

Then she should do nothing to endanger it. She should say nothing about
Simon.

"Come to bed," he whispered, still holding her and taking a step in that
direction.

The feel of his arms around her and his body pressing against her sent
ripples of need for him through her. But now, with thought