Sordello spoke again. "Since you will not say, Messere, I will tell you what your affair is. You are of the famiglia Filippeschi. You saw these gentlemen leaving the Palazzo Monaldeschi and decided that any guest of the Monaldeschi must be an enemy of yours. And so you decided to hunt down and kill these good gentlemen, who have done you no harm and are not even citizens of Orvieto, for the offense of having enjoyed the hospitality of your rivals."
Filippeschi. Daoud had been wanting to make contact with them ever since his arrival in Orvieto. Now he had met them, and—accursed luck—they wanted to kill him.
"Lorenzo, they are Filippeschi," he muttered. "Talk to them."
"There is no talking to them, Messer David," said Sordello. "They are out for your blood."
"Be still," said Daoud. The man had offered his services. Let him confine himself to serving, then.
Lorenzo stepped out in front of Daoud, his sword still out before him, but angled toward the ground.
"Messeres, at least you should know who it is that you have set out to kill. I am Giancarlo of Naples, and this is my master, David. He is a merchant from Trebizond, which is very far away. Much too far for him to have any connection with the quarrels of Orvieto."
One of the Filippeschi bravos, a short man standing to the left of the slender leader, said, "You spin a tale to try to fool us. Anyone can see your master is a Frenchman. Too many damned French in Italy. The Monaldeschi are toadies of the French. Death to the Monaldeschi, and death to the French!"
What a bitter fate it would be, Daoud thought, if his Frankish looks, which caused him to be sent here, earned him his death in a stupid street fight.
"There are six of you," said Lorenzo. "But now that these four men have joined us, there are six of us. Bad odds for you, because no matter how much you harm us, you will certainly come out of this quarrel worse off than you went into it." Lowering his sword even more, he stepped closer to the young man with the silver badge on his cap. "Signore. Which of these men are you willing to lose, to pay for the privilege of hurting us?" With his free hand he pointed from man to man in the circle of six. "That man? That one? That one? Yourself?"