"By the five wounds of Jesus, you truly are a child, not to remember something so important! Well, fix it in your mind this time, and think of it when you are wondering whether you are doing right. Five hundred golden florins. Five hundred, newly minted in Florence. That is your share. That is half of what he is paying. The other half is mine, as is only just. Think of it. He pays the price of a palazzo for you because you are a very young, beautiful virgin, and that is what he most desperately desires. Compare that with what most women get when they let a man have them for the first time." _That is far more money than Angelo ever saw in his whole life. Who is this man who will pay so much to have me?_ Rachel supposed Tilia would tell her who the man was if she asked, but she had decided it was better not to know anything about him ahead of time. That way she could imagine that he would be someone kind and gentle. "I do not know what I will do with all that money," Rachel said softly. _If I lose it, all this will have been for nothing._ Tilia's wide mouth stretched even wider in a grin. "I will show you how to plant it." "Plant it?" "Yes, and then watch it grow. There are many, many fields in which to plant money. You can place it with the Templars or certain Lombards or men I know among your own Jews, and they use it, and when they give it back to you there is more. Miracolo! Or you can buy beautiful and valuable things with it, whose worth increases as they get older. Or you can buy shares in a ship of Venice or Pisa, or even"--she spat--"Genoa, or a German caravan, and when the caravan or the ship comes back, if it comes back, you get your money back tenfold. That is risky, but it is the quickest way to great wealth." Rachel felt a momentary excitement. Then she remembered how she was going to get the money. Her body felt colder than ever, cold as death. This, she thought, must be the way that poor man they killed last week felt when he was waiting for the torturers to come for him. She shuddered and hugged her knees tight against her chest under the gauzy gown Tilia had given her to wear. Tilia must have seen the sudden darkening of her mood. She moved over to the bed and sat down beside Rachel, making the frame of the bed groan alarmingly. She put a hand lightly on Rachel's arm. "Listen, Rachel. I was raped. I will not be party to the rape of another. You do not have to do this. Just tell me that you do not want to." A sudden heat rushed through Rachel's body. She was no longer cold. She burned with anger. "Stop saying that!" she screamed. "Will you leave me alone?" Being reminded over and over again that she was doing this of her own free will was an even worse torture than imagining what the man would do to her. _Oh, God, I am going to cry and make myself ugly, and he will not want me and I will not get the five hundred florins._ She pressed her hands against her face, trying to stop tears.