were
gone, the tent flap opened still another time, and Friar Mathieu hobbled
in, leaning on his walking stick.

"We do not need you," de Verceuil growled in his French-accented
Italian.

"John needs me," said Friar Mathieu. "To translate for him. And I think
Rachel needs me too."

"Stupid savage should have learned Italian by now," said Sordello.

_Ah, you are very brave, capitano, insulting him in a language he does
not understand_, thought Rachel contemptuously.

De Verceuil glowered at Friar Mathieu.

"You cannot protect her."

"Protect me from what?" Rachel's voice sounded in her own ears like a
scream, and her heart was pounding against the walls of her chest.

"John can protect her," said Friar Mathieu, "if he understands what is
happening."

He looked full into Rachel's face, and there was a warning in his old
blue eyes. She was almost frantic with fear now. She had not been so
frightened since the day John and the rest of them had invaded Tilia's
house and carried her off.

What was Friar Mathieu trying to warn her about?

"What do you know of Sophia Orfali, Ugolini's so-called niece?" de
Verceuil demanded in his French-accented Italian.

_Friar Mathieu has betrayed me!_

Rachel looked over at the old Franciscan and saw him close his eyes very
slowly and deliberately and open them again. _Keep your mouth closed_,
he seemed to be trying to say to her. She had to trust him. She could
not believe he would say anything to turn de Verceuil against her.

"I--I know nothing," she said. "Who is this you are asking about?"

"What happens here?" John asked Friar Mathieu in the Tartar language.
"Why are the high priest and this foot archer in my tent? I did not
invite them. Tell them I send them away."

Friar Mathieu started to answer in the Tartar tongue. Rachel strained to
hear him, but Sordello's ugly laughter overrode the friar's voice.

"I escorted Sophia Orfali to Tilia Caballo's brothel more than once,"
Sordello said. "And I know she was going to visit _you_ because I
overheard her telling that to that devil David of Trebizond."

So it was Sordello, not Friar Mathieu, who had been talking to de
Verceuil. She should have known.

Rachel heard Friar Mathieu now. "I am talking to _you_, not to John," he
said in the Tartar's tongue, and she understood that Friar Mathieu meant
her. Neither de Verceuil nor Sordello understood the language of the
Tartars, or knew that she knew it. As long as Friar