They stood facing each other a little apart from the crowd gathered in the sala maggiore, the great hall of the Palazzo Monaldeschi. The large room was lit by hundreds of candles. Four musicians in a distant corner sawed away energetically at vielles of different sizes held between their knees, while two others blew on hautboys. Tables were piled high with meat and pastry along the sides of the hall. Servants circulated, refilling goblets from pitchers of wine. Neither Simon nor David was holding a goblet.
The big blond man, who had not been looking at Simon, turned and stared at him. Simon detected a pallor under his tan. David did not react to the sound of French like a man who had heard an unfamiliar language. He looked more as if he had heard the voice of a ghost.
David bowed. "Pardonnez-moi, Monseigneur. I had not expected to be addressed in French."
Simon was surprised to hear in David's northern French the harsh accents of the English Channel coast.
"Where did you learn my tongue, Messire?" Simon asked.
David shrugged. "Since the Crusades began, many of your countrymen have passed through Trebizond."
Many Crusaders had been Normans, Simon thought. It made sense. But it was odd that this man David, who claimed to be a Greek, not only spoke like a Norman, but looked like nothing so much as a big, blond Norman knight. Simon had seen just such faces—square, with long, straight noses and cold gray-blue eyes—everywhere in Normandy and in England when he had accompanied King Louis on a state visit to the realm of his vassal, King Henry of England.
But David did not dress like a Norman, Simon noted. His apparel was gaudy in the extreme. He wore a white cap with a blood-red feather, a short cloth-of-gold cape, particolored hose—light green and peach—and forest-green boots.
Simon, who, in emulation of King Louis preferred somber colors, had chosen for tonight a brown velvet singlet and maroon hose. The brightest thing about him was the jeweled handle of his prized scimitar.
"I hope that you were not upset by the bloody execution of that heretic last week," Simon said once again.