"Do you think I have served great men for years without learning how to move about a city unnoticed?"
"Go, then." His normally fair face was scarlet with rage. "And learn from Rachel's own lips what the Tartar did to her."
For a moment she seemed to go blind and deaf. She felt hot and cold at once. Her body had reacted to the meaning of his words before her brain understood them.
"Tartar! The man was a Tartar? You let a Tartar have her?" Sophia seized the first object near her hand and threw it at him. She saw as it struck him that it was the painted skull. It hit his chest with a thump, and he took a step backward.
"You filthy bastard!" she screamed. "Pig of a Turk!"
Expressionless, he turned without another word and left her, closing the door of Ugolini's cabinet behind him.
She sank weeping to the floor.
Rachel, Rachel, how could they do this to you? With a Tartar. Oh, no!
She sat there until her tears stopped and her thoughts began to make some sense. The skull, lying on its side, seemed to look back at her.
Thank you, David. You have made my decision for me. Simon de Gobignon shall have me.