"Why do you hate the Tartars? You know so little about them."
"I know that they almost made enemies of us because you thought I was kissing you just to help my uncle."
Again she was hinting at her uncle's involvement in all that had gone wrong for the alliance. But if he asked her about it outright, she might think—as he had thought of her—that he was courting her only to further his cause.
"Well, I am sure your uncle is following his conscience, as we all are," said Simon. Actually, he believed nothing of the kind. But he did not want to offend Sophia, and perhaps l'amour courtois would permit a small lapse in one bound to be truthful to his lady.
"And your conscience tells you to guard those savages?"
"I want to see Jerusalem liberated and the Saracens conquered," Simon said. "Every good Christian does."
She sat up in bed, looking at him earnestly. "Do you not fear that the Tartars are worse than the Saracens? That is what my uncle says."
Step by step, as if he were defending a philosophical proposition at the University of Paris, Simon explained to her what he believed. Yes, the Tartars were barbarians and had committed unspeakable atrocities. But the Saracens, united under the Mameluke Sultan of Egypt, were more powerful now than they had been in hundreds of years. If not stopped now, they would sweep all the crusaders out of Outremer, the land beyond the sea.
And a wave of Mohammedan conquests might well not end there. To this day the Moors were a power in Spain, and it was not that long ago that there were Saracens in France and here in Italy. Surely she remembered that her own island of Sicily had been conquered for a time by the Saracens. Indeed, King Manfred von Hohenstaufen's army was made up partly of Saracens, and he himself was an infidel.