The contessa thought for a moment and nodded. "Ah, that is very clever of you. Certainly, they would treat any guest of mine as an enemy of theirs." She smiled. "At any rate, you need not worry about protecting the Tartars today. They are not here."
Simon felt as if a trapdoor had opened under his feet. "Where are they?"
The contessa shrugged. "Riding out in the hills. They left hours ago. They took their own guards and the old Franciscan with them. He told me they were restless."
God's wounds!
Simon remembered the bloody fight between the Venetians and the Armenians. He remembered Giancarlo and his bravos. He thought about what the contessa had just said about the enmity of the Filippeschi.
He pictured the mutilated bodies of the Tartars sprawled on a mountain road.
"Did my French knights go with them?"
The contessa shrugged. "They are in the palazzo courtyard, practicing with wooden swords."
Simon ground his teeth in rage.
The idiots! Training themselves for some future battle while their charges go off to face God knows what dangers!