"I have not dismissed you," he said a bit sullenly.
"Yes, you have," she said, deliberately making her voice so low that it would be hard for him to hear.
"You have not heard everything." He took her arm. She wanted to pull away, but she let him hold her.
"I need your help," he went on. "You see, if David fails, in a year or two I may be dead."
He let go of her. She picked up the blue gown she had so eagerly thrown off an hour ago. Her fingers crushed the silk. She wanted to be alone, but she needed to learn more. She paused, kneeling beside him.
"God forbid, Sire! Why should you be dead?"
"This time the pope is offering my crown to the French."
Sitting down, laying the gown in her lap, she sighed and turned all her attention to him.
"Why can you not make peace with the pope? Why is he so determined to dethrone you?"
"Like all storied feuds, it goes back so far that no one can remember what started it," said Manfred, smiling with his lips but not his eyes. "At present the pope refuses to recognize me because my father promised to give up the crown of Sicily."