who put Rachel in Caballo's house, I
accept it. But Ugolini could have. Or David of Trebizond."

"You will drive me mad. Stop going step by step like a schoolman. Of
what are you accusing Sophia?"

Only his reverence for Friar Mathieu kept him from shaking the old
priest.

Friar Mathieu patted Simon's knee. "I am going step by step because I
myself am trying to think this out. And I want to be sure, for your
sake. Rachel knew something, or had learned something. So they put her
in Caballo's brothel for safekeeping."

"They?"

"Ugolini. David of Trebizond. And Sophia, at the very least, must have
known the reason, or she would not agree to let Rachel go to the
brothel. If Sophia knew so much, then perhaps--I say perhaps--she knew
more about Ugolini and David and their dealings than she admitted to
you. I keep thinking of that night at the Palazzo Monaldeschi when she
drew you to the atrium, conveniently for David of Trebizond, who was
goading the Tartars into publicly embarrassing themselves. Was she as
uninvolved then as she led you to believe?"

Each of Friar Mathieu's sentences was another dagger blow, plunging deep
into Simon, sending agony through him, the sharp point searching out his
heart.

Friar Mathieu was proceeding in the same painstaking way he had probed
Alain's body until he discovered what killed him. Alain, whose murderer
had never been found, who had died outside Ugolini's mansion.

_Alain! Oh, my God! Could she have known how he was killed?_

_What had really been happening at Ugolini's mansion?_

Simon bent double, digging his fingers into his skull. His head might
burst apart if he did not hold it tightly. Could all the love he thought
he had found in her be a lie? Could she be an _enemy_?

"You are destroying my life," he muttered, his hands over his face.

He felt the light touch of the old man's hand on his shoulder. "When a
leg wound festers, the surgeon has to cut the leg off to save the man's
life."

_And the old soldiers tell me the man always dies anyway_, Simon thought
bitterly.

"I am doing this not just for you, Simon," Friar Mathieu went on. "There
was a secret war being waged in Orvieto to prevent us from allying
ourselves with the Tartars. The person behind it was probably King
Manfred of Sicily, who wants to keep Charles d'Anjou out of Italy.
Ugolini was Manfred's agent. And Sophia may have been Ugolini's weapon
against you."

_No! Impossible! I love her. I could n