The Saracen: Land of the Infidel Part 26

Lorenzo looked up from where he crouched scratching Scipio's long jaw.

"And we had better get out of the city quickly, before the rulers of Rome start hunting for us."

Rachel went on. "One of the rabbis took Angelo's body, and promised to bury him at once. That much they are willing to do. But they said they could not protect me if I were discovered. Not only that, but it would bring persecution down on them."

David said, "But did you not appear to be a boy at the inn?"

"The people at the inn saw a young person who could be boy or girl,"

said Lorenzo. "The Jews here are constantly spied upon. There are malshins, paid informers, among them. Their leaders think keeping Rachel too much of a risk, and knowing how many lives they have in their care, I cannot blame them."

David glared at Lorenzo. "Could you not do more to persuade them?"

Lorenzo spread his hands. "At first they did not trust me because they thought I was a Christian. When I told them I am a Jew, they still distrusted me because I admitted being from Sicily. That must have made them suspect that I am connected with King Manfred. The Jews of Rome live as clients of the pope. They cannot afford to get involved with Ghibellini."

Rachel pressed her hands on David's knee as he sat on his horse looking grimly down at her. "I beg you, let me come with you. There is no place for me here in Rome."

"There is no place for you where we are going," he said gruffly.

Sophia felt herself melting within as she saw the misery on Rachel's face. Swinging her leg over her mare's back, she slid down, rushed over to the girl, and put her arms around her. She looked up at David.

"David, please."

David looked down at her, his face hard, as if carved from dark wood, the eyes glittering like shards of gla.s.s. She could not read his expression.

_How can I know what is in the mind of a Frank turned Turk?_

David got down from his horse and beckoned to Sophia and Lorenzo. They followed him a short way along the street. When he turned to face them, Sophia saw fury in his eyes, and her heart fluttered like a trapped bird.

He spoke softly, through tight lips, and his voice was as frightening as the hiss of a viper. "I begin to think King Manfred is my enemy, and the enemy of my people, sending the two of you with me on this journey. From now on both of you will do as I command, and you will not question me."

Desperately Sophia turned to Lorenzo. "Can you not speak to him?"

Looking down at the cobblestones, Lorenzo shook his head. "I made a terrible blunder, trying to help Rachel and her husband. From now on things must go as David commands."

If Sophia had been arguing for herself, she could have said no more in the face of David's fury. But she looked away from him to the small figure standing by the horses, and her anguish for the child forced her to speak.

"But, David, what harm can Rachel do?"

Now the burning gaze was bent on her alone. "We will be saying things about ourselves in Orvieto that she already knows are not true." He turned to Lorenzo. "You talk of the lives the Jewish leaders have in their care. You do not understand--you cannot understand--what will happen to my people if I fail. What is it to you if the Tartars kill every man, woman, and child in Cairo?"

His voice was trembling, and Sophia realized he must have seen sights in the East that made the terror of the Tartars real to him, as it could not be to her.

"I owe the girl nothing," David went on vehemently. "Nothing. It was not I who caused this."

But a little girl with her whole life before her, hanged or torn to pieces by a mob-- The thought of it made Sophia want to scream at David.

She remembered the awful, mindless terror when she and Alexis ran through the streets of Constantinople with a roaring pack of Frankish men-at-arms hunting them. Last night she had relived that terror when they fled from the inn. She thought she would rather die herself than let Rachel be taken by a mob.

_I cannot abandon Rachel. I must try to sway him. Is there any way I can touch David's heart?_

_Of course. The same thing that moves me._

"David," she said, "years ago, when you were a little boy--when the Turks killed your parents. Do you remember how you felt?"

David stared at her. So fixed were his eyes that for a moment she thought he might draw his sword and strike her down. She waited, trembling.

"You have no right to speak of that to me," he said. His voice was tight with pain.

"I know I have no right," she said. "Can't you see how desperate I am?"

Hope dawned faintly within her. She had touched him.

His silence stretched on while the turmoil of the city eddied about them. She waited, trembling.

He spoke. "He who taught me Islam said to me, 'To lift up a fallen swallow is to raise up your heart to G.o.d.'"

Relief flooded Sophia's body. She wanted to weep. Instead, she felt herself smiling. But David did not return her smile.

"Swear that this girl will learn nothing of our mission from you," he said. "And you also, Celino. Swear it by all that you hold most holy."

"I swear it by Constantinople," said Sophia fervently and gladly.

"I will swear it on the lives of my wife and my children," said Lorenzo.

"I accept that," said David. "And when we reach Orvieto, the girl leaves us, even if she starves in the streets."

"I will accept _that_," said Lorenzo.

"Lest you later forswear yourselves, there is one more thing that will a.s.sure your compliance," said David. "Know that if this girl learns a word of what we are doing, she will die by my hand." He dropped his hand to the unadorned hilt of his sword.

Sophia felt cold inside. He cared about one thing only, after all.

They turned back. Sophia saw Rachel standing by a straw-seller's shop, looking anxiously at them, holding the gathered reins of their horses in both hands. Sophia realized that the girl might be thinking that they were going to drive her off, and she hurried to Rachel with a smile, holding out her arms. She hugged Rachel, and tentatively, fearfully, Rachel smiled back at her.

"You will come with us," she said. "As far as we are going, to Orvieto.

You will have to leave us there, but we will help you find a home."

"Oh, thank you, thank you," Rachel cried, and she burst into tears.

Lorenzo grinned rea.s.suringly at Rachel. "I told you it would be all right." When he grinned like that, his teeth white under his thick black mustache, he reminded Sophia of a large and satisfied cat.

Rachel looked up at David. "I thank _you_, Signore. I know this is your decision. May I know the name of my benefactor?"

David smiled bitterly. "Benefactor? Rachel, if you had not met us, your protector would still be alive. I am David Burian, a silk merchant of Trebizond. I go to Orvieto hoping to open trade between Trebizond and the Papal States, and I have hired these people to help me."

"May I also help you, Signore?" Rachel said. "I learned something of commerce from my husband."

"I think," David said, looking at Sophia and Lorenzo with sour humor, "I already have all the help I need."

_At least the man is human_, thought Sophia. _He can joke a bit._

She felt encouraged. She had actually been able to touch the heart of this man whose life and world were utterly strange to her.