To protect herself from the insects, Sophia wrapped her shawl around her bare shoulders and drew her gauze veil over her face. She thought it made her look more mysteriously attractive as well. Perhaps that was the real reason Muslim women were willing to wear veils. She wondered whether Daoud had a lover or a wife back in Cairo.
Probably half a dozen of each.
She glanced over at the young French count, walking solemnly beside her with his hands clasped behind his back. The mosquitoes did not seem to bother him, or at least he did not slap at them. Well, he was a tall, thin man with sharp features, dark hair, and pale skin. She imagined the blood of such a man might taste sour and not draw mosquitoes. He was good to look at, surely, but there was a bitterness about him. She saw at once that he was not a happy man.
"Perhaps I should not walk alone with you like this, Madonna," he said. Actually, his Italian was not difficult for her to understand; she had criticized it only to throw him off balance when she first met him. Probably her French was no better than his Italian, but he had been too gallant to say so.
"Do you fear for your virtue, Your Signory?" she asked lightly.
He smiled, and even in the dim lantern light his face took on a sweetness that was quite at odds with his previous solemn appearance. "My virtue, such as it is, is yours to dispose, Madonna." She felt warmed within by his words and the beauty of his smile.
They paused by a square pool in the center of the atrium. He bent and dipped his cupped hands, then held them out to her filled with water.
"The contessa has told me that the pool is fed by an underground spring," he said. "The water is the purest I have ever tasted. Try it."
"Do the Monaldeschi keep fish in it?" She hesitated, thinking of Cardinal Ugolini's vivarium.
"No. This is their drinking water. Taste it." She lifted her veil and lowered her mouth into his hands. The water was pure and sweet, just as he had said. As a lover, she thought, Simon would be like this water—sweet, not bitter.