_Put it down!_ Sophia wanted to scream. "Yes. That worm-eaten spy of yours told you, eh?" Lorenzo jerked his head in the direction of Sordello's body. "He was trying to guard them at the time. He did a bad job of it." "Mere de Dieu!" was all Simon said. Anger reddened his face, but he was looking off into space, not at Lorenzo. "After that," Lorenzo went on, "I found the wagon, but Rachel and Friar Mathieu were gone. I found another riderless horse and hitched it up, and I drove the wagon into the forest west of here. Rachel, I buried your chest. I hope I remember where. "By then it was nightfall. I used my forged safe conduct to get me back into Benevento. Then I had to dodge the mobs of drunken Frenchmen running wild all over town. I knew where you were staying, Sophia, but it took me all night to get into this house past Count Simon's guards. I spent hours in hiding and scrambling about on rooftops." "I thought I would die of fright," said Tilia, "when Lorenzo came through our window." _Thank God for Lorenzo! How I love him. Nothing can stop him. Nothing can kill him._ "What were you planning to do with these people when you came here, Count?" Lorenzo said. "Turn them over to your master, Anjou?" Sophia turned to look at Simon. He stood composed, his empty hands at his sides, his face, pink in the glow from the fire, calm as a statue's. "_Your_ master--Daoud the Mameluke--asked me to come here," Simon said. "_Please_ put your crossbow down, Lorenzo," Sophia said again. "Are you sure, Sophia? This crossbow might be the only thing that keeps us from getting dragged off to be hanged. This high-horse bastard has fifty men outside." Greek Fire blazed in Sophia's brain. She screamed, "Do not call him a bastard!" "Sophia!" said Simon wonderingly. "Thank you!" She stood trembling, but almost as soon as the words flew from her mouth, the fit of rage passed. _I must be going mad._ But she had done no harm. She seemed to have made things better. "Forgive me, Count." Lorenzo laid the crossbow on the bed. "It was rude to call you that. But you did ruin our hope of victory today. Daoud had the battle won. He almost had his hands on your bloody Charles d'Anjou, when you charged out of the hills with your damned army. And now the king I served for twenty years and my good friend are both dead." He rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. "That was hard, Count. Very hard." _So it was Simon's charge that turned the battle_, Sophia thought. _And it was because of me that he entered this war._ Her grief grew heavier still. "You may hold those things against me," said Simon, "and I might hold against you the deaths of John and Philip, whom I dedicated my life to protecting." Listening to that grave, quiet voice, Sophia realized that Simon no longer seemed young to her. It was as if he had aged many years since she had seen him last.