He paused a moment, and fixed her with a strangely intent stare. "And because my father did not marry my mother. Even though he loved her only, and never loved any of his three empresses."
He is trying to tell me something, Sophia thought.
But before she could reply, he went on with his tale of the Hohenstaufens and the popes. "As the popes see it, to have a Hohenstaufen ruling southern Italy and Sicily is like having a knife at their throats. This pope, Urban, is a Frenchman, and he is trying to get the French to help him drive us out."
The French. It was the French who, over fifty years ago, had stormed Constantinople, looted it, and ruled over it until driven out by Michael Paleologos.
And now the French threatened Manfred.
From his island of Sicily, how easy to launch another invasion of Constantinople.
In memory she saw Alexis, the boy she loved, fall as the French crossbow bolt hit him. She heard him cry out to her.
Go, Sophia, go!
Why was I saved that night if not that I might help to stop the French from conquering Constantinople again?
"I cannot send an army to Orvieto to stop the pope's intrigues against me," Manfred said. "That would turn all Christendom against me. But I can send my two best people, my brave and clever Lorenzo and my beautiful and clever Sophia. Together with David, you two perhaps can turn my enemies against each other. You may be gone six months or a year. And afterward you can come back."