David smiled bitterly. "Benefactor? Rachel, if you had not met us, your protector would still be alive. I am David Burian, a silk merchant of Trebizond. I go to Orvieto hoping to open trade between Trebizond and the Papal States, and I have hired these people to help me."
"May I also help you, Signore?" Rachel said. "I learned something of commerce from my husband."
"I think," David said, looking at Sophia and Lorenzo with sour humor, "I already have all the help I need."
At least the man is human, thought Sophia. He can joke a bit.
She felt encouraged. She had actually been able to touch the heart of this man whose life and world were utterly strange to her.
X
There is so much water in this country, thought Daoud. Raindrops sparkled on every branch and leaf of the trees around him. The sky, once more a bright blue after the thunderstorm that had passed over them, was reflected in water that still streamed through the ditches beside the roadway.
Fortunate that Rachel's husband, a man who had spent many months of the year on the roads of Italy buying and selling books in the Jewish communities, had carried a tent with him. Daoud, Sophia, Rachel, and even Scipio had all crowded into it when they saw the storm coming. The tent had leaked, but the heat of the August afternoon would soon dry them.