ms and carried her into the next room, its
tiles the red-orange of sunset, which was taken up by a great pool of
very hot water. Usually this chamber would be occupied by anywhere from
six to a dozen men or women. But tonight Sophia and Daoud were quite
alone.

Still carrying her, he descended the steps into the hot pool. Ribbons of
steam rose around them. He lowered her into the water. When she stood
neck-deep in it, the heat was almost unbearable, as if she were about to
be boiled to death. But then the heat soaked into her until her very
bones felt liquefied. Her whole being melted until she was not a person
who felt desire, she _was_ desire itself.

With her arms around his neck she pulled his head down and kissed him,
flicks of her tongue tip luring his tongue into her mouth.

He pressed her back against the warm tile wall, and she knotted her legs
around his waist as he took her standing up.

Moments later her ecstatic cries were echoing through the bathing rooms.

They forgot about time.

Her voice rang again and again in the vaulted chamber. They made love in
the hot water and then lying on linen cloths on the masseur's slab
beside the pool. They nearly fell asleep in each other's arms.

Laughing at their bodies' foolishness, they plunged into the last pool,
cold water in a blue-tiled room, then hurried through a door to the
place where they had started and dressed again.

When they were back in their room, Daoud's voice was drowsy as he lay
beside her on the gold-curtained bed.

"You must have bypassed Rome when you came down, with the Count of Anjou
and Simon de Gobignon both there," he said.

At the mention of Simon's name Sophia's pleasant sleepiness fled, and
she felt an ache in the pit of her stomach. Should she tell Daoud or
not? She still could not decide. The uncertainty itself had become
almost as great an agony as the fear of what would happen if she told
him. She rolled over with her back to him, so that he could not see her
face.

"Yes," she said. "We went east into the Abruzzi and through L'Aquilia
and Sulmona. Terribly mountainous country. It took us much longer, but
it was safer."

_But if I do not tell him, every time he takes me in his arms I will
know that I am lying to him. I will always be aware that I am keeping
something back from him that he would want to know. I betrayed him with
Simon, and each time I have the chance to tell him and do not, I am
betraying him again._

"