of a sentence, the girl fell
asleep.

Sophia lay wide awake in the dark, crying silently. Lying there was
hell, as she had expected it would be. After what seemed like hours, the
fire on the hearth died. She got up and piled three bed carpets over
Rachel.

She wrapped herself in her winter cloak and slipped out of the room.
Going, she knew not where, but unable to remain still. Wanting only to
distract herself from her pain with a little movement.

She went down the stairs, passing the silent second-floor room were
Ugolini and Tilia lay. She heard men's voices from a room on the ground
floor.

The cabinet of the merchant who owned this house was just inside the
front door. There Sophia found Simon and Lorenzo seated facing each
other at a long black table. Scipio, lying on the floor near the
doorway, opened one eye, twitched an ear at her, and went back to sleep.
With a quill Simon was writing out a document, while Lorenzo used a
candle flame to melt sealing wax in a small brass pitcher on a tripod.

Simon gave her a brief, sad smile. He had taken off his mail, and wore
only his quilted white under-tunic.

Lorenzo stood up, went to a sideboard, and poured a cup of wine. Silent,
he handed it to Sophia. It was sweeter than she liked, but it warmed
her.

She took a chair at the end of the table. The two men sat there so
companionably that it was hard to believe that for more than two years
they had been enemies. She recalled with a pang how Daoud had said he no
longer hated Simon. If only he could be here to be part of this.

"One cannot predict these things," Lorenzo said, continuing the
conversation that had begun before Sophia arrived, "and I certainly do
not believe in trying to make them happen, but my son, Orlando, is at a
good age for marriage. And so is Rachel."

Simon looked up from his writing. "You would let your son marry a woman
who had spent over a year in a brothel?"

Lorenzo gave Simon a level look. "Yes. Do you disapprove?"

Simon shook his head. "From what I know of Rachel, not at all. But there
are many who would."

Knowing Lorenzo Celino, Sophia thought warmly, she was not surprised
that he did not feel as many other people would.

"Rachel is brave, intelligent, and beautiful," said Lorenzo. "What
happened to her was not her fault. And now she knows infinitely more of
the world than most women. If she should take an interest in Orlando,
he would be lucky to have her. And then Rachel wil