"I would be more than your friend, Madonna."
She came to him and held out her hands. Her smile was dazzling.
"Well then, Simon, you may call me Sophia. And you may rise."
Simon grasped her hands, feeling joy in his very fingertips. He vaulted to his feet and thought of taking her in his arms, but she freed her hands with a quick, unexpected motion and took a step backward.
With just a movement of her hands she can lift me up or cast me down.
"For a man to kneel to a woman is not the custom in Sicily, Simon," she said softly.
It was as he suspected. She was not familiar with the ways of courtly love.
"If I do anything that seems strange to you, Sophia"—he used her name for the first time, and it thrilled him—"know that my actions are ruled by what we call l'amour courtois, which means that we know how to value women, whose value is beyond price."
"I have heard of courtly love. It sounds blasphemous to me, almost as if the man worships the woman. I do not think your patron saint would approve."
"My patron saint?"