s of Manfred
and--much worse--of Simon, confusing her, she felt frightened, unready.
She needed more time.

"I have had no proper bath in days, Daoud. I feel the grime of the road
all over me."

"Of course." He smiled. "And now you can have a proper bath. Let me see
to it."

* * * * *

In the year and a half since she left this place, Sophia had all but
forgotten the bathing rooms in the lowest level of Castello Lucera. She
had not used them as much as she had wished to, when she lived here
before. In her strange position as a foreigner and one of Manfred's
loves, she had not felt comfortable bathing with the other women who
lived in the castle.

But tonight, as she and Daoud undressed in the green-tiled anteroom,
they had it all to themselves. Daoud must stand high indeed with Manfred
to have arranged that, she thought.

In the light of the oil lamp hanging overhead, his naked body was a
golden color, and free, as far as she could tell, from the marks of
insult the podesta's torturer had inflicted upon it last summer.

She was not naked. She wore a linen gown that opened down the front. Her
continued worrying over whether or not to tell him about Simon made her
want to stay covered as long as she could.

But with a smile he pulled her gown apart and slipped it off her
shoulders and down her back to the floor.

A glance down his body told her that he wanted her now. The sight
thrilled her, but she still felt uneasy and not able to give herself
wholeheartedly to him and to the act of love.

"Let us attend to the grime," she said with a small smile.

In the next room, its walls tiled in white, she lay in a round sunken
tub filled with hot water piped in from the castle kitchen. It was large
enough for Daoud to stand over her in it. He took over the task of
washing her with scented soap imported from Spain.

At first she simply lay back and enjoyed her renewed acquaintance with
the amenities of Manfred's kingdom, so much more like Constantinople
than life in the Papal States had been. But as the hot water relaxed her
and as Daoud's hands, slippery with soap, slid over her skin, she felt
the rising warmth of desire. Nothing mattered but this moment. She
wriggled her legs and hips against him in small, almost unwilled
movements.

"The grime first," he said with a soft laugh, and continued methodically
to soap her until she was mad with wanting him.

He picked her up in his ar