The Saracen: Land of the Infidel Part 89

He had thought about holding her b.r.e.a.s.t.s through her gown, then putting his hand on the warm, soft flesh, had thought about lying beside her in her bed, both of them nude. He had even, one cool night, allowed himself to imagine entering her body and lying very still, clasped inside her.

The ultimate act of l'amour courtois, this had been quite beyond his power of self-restraint with the women who played at courtly love with him in Paris. The way Sophia excited him, it was even less likely that he could hold himself back while remaining inside her for hours, as a true courtly lover was expected to do.

And now Sophia went over to the very bed he had imagined, and perched on it. The frame of the canopied bed was high above the floor, and when Sophia sat on it her feet dangled prettily, reminding Simon how much shorter than he she was. The sight of her on the bed made him tremble, frightened by his own pa.s.sion. There was no one here to protect this innocent girl from him, except himself.

"Sit with me," she said, patting the coverlet beside her. He knew that the best way to protect her was to go nowhere near her. But he wanted desperately to sit beside her, to feel her hand in his again, to put his arms around her.

_But if I take her in my arms, on her very bed, how can I stop myself?_

Still, she had invited him to sit with her, and an invitation from his lady was a command.

He had intended to sing a love song to her. He had not the skill at making poetry to be a troubadour, but he had a good tenor voice, and he had learned dozens of troubadour songs early in life from Roland. He had sung them before he understood what they meant, because he liked the sound of them.

He bowed and went to the bed. He sat as far from her as possible.

"Will you let me sing for you?"

When she smiled, he noticed, dimples appeared in her cheeks. "Oh, that would be a pleasure. But softly, please. We do not want to rouse my uncle's servants."

Softly, then, he sang.

My love is the flower that opens at morning, That greets with her petals the radiant sun, Yet methinks 'tis not she who lives by the sun, But the sun gives its light so my lady may shine.

Sophia's smile was itself sunny as he finished the first verse. She leaned back, putting her hands out behind her on the bed, and closed her eyes as he sang the second and third. When he began the fourth verse, she drew closer to him till their legs were touching. Making himself concentrate on his music, he went on to the fifth verse. He resolved that at the end of it he would stand up and move away.

At sunset my love will close up her petals Till with the dawn she awakens again, And her beauty will blaze out to dazzle the day.

To see her the sun will be eager to rise.

By the end of that verse she was leaning against him and had reached around behind him to stroke his neck. Without his consciously willing it, his arm stole around her waist and pulled her to him.

His song, he realized, was insidious in its power. He had thought only to entertain her with his music, but he was seducing her. Her head rested on his shoulder, her eyes closed. Her fingers crept slowly, delicately, across the back of his neck under his hair, sending thrills down his spine. He could not move away from her.

"Stop," he whispered. "Please stop."

"Are you afraid of me?" she asked softly.

"I am afraid for both of us. You do not know what a raging fire a lovely woman like you can kindle in a man like me."

She withdrew her hand from his neck and let it rest on his thigh. That, he thought, made it even more difficult for him.

"I must tell you something," she said. "I am not--wholly innocent."

His heart felt a sudden chill. How could this dear creature be anything but innocent?

Now her hands were in her lap and her eyes were cast down. "As you surely know, most women past twenty, unless they are nuns, have been married for years. You must have wondered what I am doing in Orvieto, unmarried, living with my uncle."

"I never thought about it."

"Then _you_ are very innocent."

Simon felt himself wilt inwardly. How could he have been so blind as not to wonder why Sophia was not married? She had seemed timeless to him and attached to no one. Even her relation to the cardinal, except that it put her in the enemy camp, seemed unimportant.

"You have a husband?" His voice was heavy with sorrow. Foolish as it was, he had dreamed that she might be virginal. But that made no sense, now that he considered it. The rule in courtly love was to fall in love with a lady who was married to someone else. His Parisian courtly lovers had been married women. If Sophia were already married, that should make it better.

Then why did he feel so disappointed?

"I was married at fourteen. His name was Alessandro. He died two years later of the d.a.m.ned fever that takes so many of our good Sicilian people. He was very kind to me, and I was inconsolable."

"Ah. You are still in mourning for him?"

She turned her hands over, showing empty palms. "I loved him so much that I could not think of marrying another man in Siracusa. At length my mother and father decided to send me to live with my uncle in the hope that I could forget Alessandro enough to consider marrying again."

"Do you wish to marry again?"

"I have met no one I am drawn to but you, Simon, and marriage between you and me would be unthinkable. My family's station is so far beneath yours."

His heart leapt happily. She was free, yet, as she said, not wholly innocent. He need not feel quite so guilty about the pa.s.sionate thoughts he had been having about her. And as for marriage between them being unthinkable, she did not know that none of the great houses of France would consider a daughter of theirs taking the name de Gobignon. Her nonclerical family might be of low station, just as the pope's father had been a shoemaker, but Sophia was the niece of a cardinal, a prince of the Church.

It was love, not thoughts of marriage, that had brought him here tonight. Still, he must respect her honorable widowhood. Since she had loved her husband, she might be more susceptible to him, and he must guard her virtue all the more steadfastly. Perhaps she thought that he respected her less as a widow. He must rea.s.sure her.

She was not holding him any longer. He could stand up without tearing himself away from her. He sprang to his feet and strode to the center of the room.

"Believe me, I think you just as pure as if you had never been married at all."

She looked up at him, surprised, her hands still folded in her lap, her dark eyes wide.

"I am delighted to hear that. But"--she cast her eyes down and smiled faintly--"does that mean there is to be nothing at all between us?"

"I love you!" Simon declared. "I will always love you. I think of you night and day. I beg you to love me in return."

"Oh, Simon. How beautiful." She held out her arms to him. But he stayed where he was and raised his hands warningly.

"I mean to love you according to the commandments of l'amour courtois.

With every fiber of my being I yearn to be altogether yours, but you must restrain me."

"I must?"

"You must be what the poets of old Languedoc called 'mi dons'--my lord.

You must rule me. One day we will join together in body, but only after I have been tested and found worthy."

"Is that what courtly love means?"

"Yes, and that is why it is more beautiful than marriage. Husband and wife may embrace carnally the moment the priest says the words over them. No, they are _required_ to. Courtly lovers know each other only when love has fully prepared the way, so that their coming together may be a moment of perfect beauty."

Sophia looked at him silently. Her face was suddenly unreadable.

"Do you understand?" he asked after he had stood awhile gazing into her l.u.s.trous brown eyes. "These ideas are perhaps new to you."