When she was finished with his front, he turned over with her help. Again she could not hold back her tears. Pain, not bodily, but real just the same, struck her at the sight of his tormented flesh. For a moment her eyes were covered with darkness. The skin of his back and buttocks had been whipped away in large red slashes. She shook her head violently, spoke a few more curses in her mind, and went to work. Daoud, who had endured most of her healing efforts in silence, cried out when she put a wet cloth on a torn spot. "What more can you tell me about Rachel?" he asked. She suspected he wanted to take his mind off the pain. She repeated everything Tilia's women had reported, ending that looking out the windows they had seen Rachel riding off in a cart with the old Franciscan who interpreted for the Tartars. "I am glad to hear that old priest still lives," said Daoud, sighing. "Ah, Sophia, Rachel is a slave to that Tartar only because she had the ill luck to cross my path. I have brought destruction to many, many people." Slowly, painfully, he turned on his back again, with Sophia helping. Lovingly she stroked the few patches of his skin that were not torn or burned or bruised. When he was settled, he looked up at her and smiled in what she thought was a strange way. She did not see the cause of his smile at first, until he looked down at himself, and she followed his eyes. She saw that his key of life had begun to raise itself. "Daoud! After all you have been through?" "I want you, Sophia, _because_ of what I have been through. Because of what I nearly lost. I will tell you more tomorrow about what, God be thanked, did not happen. For now"--he reached out a hand to her--"come to me." She understood. He must feel like a man who had come back from the dead. Life was more precious to him than ever--and love. Tired and pain-racked though he was, he wanted this moment of being with her again, which must seem to him like a gift from God. And, indeed, perhaps that was exactly what it was. He lay back on the bed, his tortured body naked except for the cloth wrappings tied over the worst of his wounds. His beautiful circumcised phallos pulsed as it grew larger. She wanted to be naked with him, and she threw off her outer tunic, unbelted her red silk gown, and pulled it over her head. Her shift followed. Then she stepped out of the purple felt slippers and stood before him, her arms held away from her body, to let him see her. She felt the warmth of her own desire for him spread through her. He said, "You are a spring that gushes out of barren rock. I thirst for you." Carefully she climbed on the bed, straddling him. Slowly, so as not to hurt him, she lowered herself over him, guiding him into her with gentle fingers. A long sigh escaped him. She moved for both of them.