Simon swept the crowd with his gaze. "Remember, all of you. Anyone who saw anything, heard anything. You will be paid. Come to the Palazzo Monaldeschi." Simon sat down on the stone street to wait for the horse. Silently the crowd that had gathered waited with him. When the innkeeper's servant brought the horse, Simon lifted Alain's body with the help of two other men and lashed it securely facedown over his horse's back with the rope he had used to climb to Sophia's room. _Sophia._ He had been so happy just moments ago because she said she loved him as they parted. Was she looking down now, seeing this pitiful sight? Fresh sobs forced their way into his throat, and he leaned against his horse, covering his face with his arms. _I have to get away from here quickly._ He forced himself to stop crying and took hold of the reins. The Orvietans fell back as he led the horse up the street leading northward to the Monaldeschi palace. He felt warmth on his neck and looked up to see the sun through a break in the clouds. Alain would never see the sun again. _Whoever did this to you, Alain, I will not rest until I have killed him with my own hands._ XXXIV Sordello's face, looking as if hewn from granite by an indifferent sculptor, was gray with fatigue. His arms bound behind his back, he knelt before Daoud, wearing a tattered brown frieze robe Tilia had somewhere found for him. Daoud sat once again on the former papal throne. Dressed in black cassocks and hoods that covered their faces, Lorenzo and five of Tilia's black servants stood along the walls of the room. Every so often Sordello's eyes flickered to the implements of torture around the room and quickly away again. Yet the night's assault on his mind had not altogether broken his spirit. "If you think to frighten me with this clowning, think again, Messer David. I have stood undaunted before the Inquisition in my day, and they are a good deal more fearsome than you and your henchmen." _Leave him his shred of dignity_, Daoud thought. _A man who has lost that is too dangerous._ "We are beyond fear now, Sordello, are we not?" Sordello's eyes glowed in the torchlight like a trapped animal's. "What kind of devil are you?" Daoud tried to smile kindly. "You call me a devil after I have sent you to paradise?" The old bravo sighed, and his eyes closed. "I did not know that my body was capable of feeling so much pleasure. Even when I was twenty and at my best, I never knew such delight. It shook me to the very root of my soul."