shuffling Ugolini and the dauntless Tilia leave with Sordello's two men,
she felt her knees trembling so hard under her gown that she could
barely stand.

She would be alone with Sordello.

"Be wary of the dog," Sordello called after his archers. "But be careful
not to hurt it."

"Si, capitano." The door closed with a thump.

"And now, Sophia," said Sordello, lifting the sword from his lap and
laying it carefully on the bed, "we settle accounts."

"I do not know what you mean by accounts," said Sophia, making her voice
as cold and forbidding as she could. "But before anything else, the
truth, if you can manage it. I have seen you serving Simon, and I have
seen you serving David, and now you say you are on the side of Charles
d'Anjou. Who do you truly serve?"

Sordello stretched his booted legs and crossed them, leaning back in the
chair. "Myself, Andrea Sordello, of course. Men may command part of me,
but only I own all of me. In the beginning I was to serve Simon,
reporting secretly to Anjou. In Orvieto David was my master. He offered
me--a rich reward. But then he threatened to kill me. I fled Orvieto,
following Simon. After that I was mostly Simon's man. A little bit
David's man. I sent him information from Perugia and Viterbo, and he
sent me money. But first, last, and always, my own man."

"Why are you here, then?" Sophia let her hand rest on the door handle as
if she might rush out on the balcony and call for help. She hoped
Sordello would expect her to do that rather than try to use a weapon on
him.

Sordello stood up, smiling. "Madonna, you are not aware how I have
suffered because of you. Suffered with longing. You owe me much for
that." He strolled over to the fire, picked up a big log from the pile
next to the hearth, and set it on the burning wood.

_Oh, may God shrivel his phallos!_ Sophia felt her stomach burn at the
idea of this repulsive man lusting after her. She turned quickly, facing
the balcony door, so that he could not see her grope in the bag at her
belt for the tiny crossbow and the box of darts Daoud had given her. How
quickly, she asked herself, could she take the crossbow out, get a
poisoned dart from the box without scratching herself, load it, draw the
bow, aim and shoot?

_He could be across the room and tearing the thing out of my hands
before I got all that done._

Helplessness made her tremble.

Having made sure of the location of crossbow and darts, she turned to
him ag