"Who is this French count who guards the Tartars?" he asked.
"Count Simon de Gobignon. He is very young and very rich. He holds huge estates in France and numbers his vassals in the thousands. He is close to the French royal family, even King Louis himself and the king's brother, Charles d'Anjou."
Charles d'Anjou. Daoud remembered Lorenzo saying that Charles d'Anjou coveted the throne of Sicily.
A flash of light caught Daoud's eye. A party of helmeted men in yellow and white surcoats had come out of the main gate of Orvieto, formed a ragged column and were patrolling along the base of the city wall, led by a man with a white plume on his helmet.
"Who are those soldiers?" he asked.
Tilia leaned forward to peer through the trees and across the valley, then resettled herself against the tree trunk.
"Pope Urban has two hundred Guelfo fighting men quartered in Orvieto. In all honesty, Daoud—"
"Call me David," he interrupted. "Here I must be known by a Christian name."
"Well, David, I think you had best go quickly back to Egypt. What can one man do against the French royal family, half the cardinals, the pope, the Monaldeschi, and the Tartars themselves?"
He felt a quick spurt of anger. He knew as well as she did the odds he faced. Why was she trying to weaken him by making him afraid?