The Saracen: The Holy War Part 33

Lorenzo was with that army, Daoud thought. Lorenzo might be able to rescue him if he got here in time.

"I fear it will be no better for you than before," Erculio went on.

"D'Ucello knows how to make the contessa see things his way. He will probably persuade her that you must be tortured. And since he suspects you of being a Ghibellino agent, he will want you dead before the Ghibellini army comes."

"As G.o.d wills," Daoud croaked. A numbness had come over him as if he were already dead. This was older and simpler and more effective than the techniques of Sufi and Hashishiyya. This deadness was his body's final answer to a night and a day of unbearable pain and fear.

LV

The woman's shoulders shook, and she rocked back and forth. She could not speak. Tilia sat on Sophia's bed holding the sobbing woman in her arms.

Tilia, calling her Francesca, tried to calm her. Sophia at first had thought Francesca was a madwoman. Her tunic was torn and rain-wet, her long black hair not bound up and covered but in wild disarray.

"You are safe now, piccione," Tilia kept saying. "Calm down and tell us what happened." Tilia herself was pale, her wide mouth drawn tight.

Seeing even Tilia's face grim, Sophia felt a chill of apprehension and an even greater anxiety to know what this was all about.

"I know I should not come here, Madama. Forgive me. But I did not know what else to do. I walked so far to get here, and I kept getting lost, and I was afraid to ask anyone where Cardinal Ugolini's mansion was."

"How did you know I was here, Francesca?" Tilia asked.

"Ca.s.sio told me just before--before--" Francesca was convulsed with sobs.

Tilia turned to Sophia. "I have never seen her like this."

"Your house is destroyed," said Francesca, choking and gasping and wiping her nose on her sleeve.

"Destroyed!" Tilia and Sophia stared at each other. A shock of fear swept through Sophia. Already terrified for Daoud, she was now swept by dread for Rachel and pity for Tilia.

_Any more of this, and I will lose my wits._

"And they hanged Ca.s.sio."

"Oh, my G.o.d!" Tilia screamed.

Another jolt of terror. Sophia thought of that day in Constantinople when the Franks had run riot, burning whole districts and murdering townspeople. Was this another such day?

"And they--and they killed Hector and Claudio and Apollonio and the other menservants."

"Who did this?" Tilia was on her feet, standing over Francesca, shouting. "Who? Who?"

Was the whole world turning against them, Sophia wondered. Was it the podesta's men? The Monaldeschi?

Francesca put her hands over her face and wept softly for a moment, then continued. "The Tartars and that French cardinal who always came with them. They came with armed men, dozens of them. They were after Rachel."

_Rachel!_

The horror of it all was like a spear driven through Sophia's breast.

She sat down on her bed as the room went black around her.

"Oh, no," she heard herself saying. "Oh, not Rachel!" Fear stopped her heart. She slumped on the bed, her hand pressed to her chest.

"When Ca.s.sio tried to stop them, they went mad," said Francesca. "The men-at-arms killed every man in the house, and they raped all the women.

Some of us over and over again. And they tore the house apart and stole everything they could carry. What they could not take, they smashed. And all the while they kept laughing, Madama. They kept laughing."

Sophia felt bile burning in her throat. If she had to hear any more horrors, she was going to vomit.

Tilia sat looking stunned, shaking her head from side to side.

"What happened to Rachel?" Sophia managed to choke out.

"She tried to run away. She got out of the house. The white-haired Tartar, the one who beds with her, chased her. He must have caught her, because I heard the cardinal shouting that they had found the one they came for and they must get on the road or they would be fighting the Sienese."

_Rachel wanted to come here with me this morning_, Sophia thought. _If only I had brought her here, we could have saved her._ She sobbed aloud.

Her stomach hurt.

"May G.o.d rot all of them with leprosy," said Tilia. She hugged Francesca hard, and then stood up.

"I must go to my house."

Going back to Tilia's would not help Rachel, Sophia thought. They had probably lost her forever. Despair dragged her down. _Rachel, Rachel!_ What were they doing to her?

"First David is arrested. Now this," she said, tears running steadily down her cheeks.

_I had trusted Daoud to foresee danger and guide us through it_, Sophia thought. _And now Daoud--_

She still did not know whether Daoud was safe, or even still alive.

Would the contessa be able to stop whatever was being done to Daoud?

That had been quite enough to be terrified about.

Francesca's tear-reddened eyes widened. "David has been arrested?"

Something in her tone told Sophia there had been something between Francesca and David.

_Of course_, she told herself. _Did you think the man slept alone until you gave yourself to him?_

She and Francesca shared some of the same grief. Sophia wanted to console her.

"Cardinal Ugolini has persuaded the Contessa di Monaldeschi to intercede for David," Sophia told her, "and the cardinal has gone to the Palazzo del Podesta, hoping to bring David back here again."

"It may be hours before David is released," said Tilia, raising a cautioning hand. "_If_ the podesta does agree. Or he may persuade the contessa that he was right to arrest David."

These were the very thoughts that had been tormenting Sophia. She needed to do something.

"If you want to go to your house, Tilia, I will go with you." It occurred to her immediately after she spoke that the streets might be dangerous for both of them. But she could not stand the agony of sitting here, waiting for the possibility of still worse news.