"Because you let them get beyond your reach," Tilia retorted. "Oh, you feckless man! Let me by."
And then Sophia was alone in the cart and frightened, because she knew she was surrounded by the podesta's men and by townspeople who might well be hostile. For reassurance she smoothed the scarf over her nose and mouth and patted the small dagger that hung at her belt, concealed under her outer tunic.
She heard a creaking noise above her and looked out to see the podesta's men hauling Cassio's body up to the balcony. Tilia, she thought, was taking charge. Left to themselves, the watchmen would probably have just cut the rope and let the poor man's corpse fall to the ground.
Sophia thought of Rachel, helpless, carried off by the Tartar, and Daoud, equally helpless, in the Palazzo del Podesta. She had no idea what was happening to either of them, and horrors filled her mind. Her hands twisted together, her fingers crushing one another, and she started to cry again.
Tilia was crying, too, when she came back and Riccardo helped her climb into the carriage. She could not speak for a time, and Sophia sat with her arm around Tilia's quaking shoulders. It was for this, thought Sophia, she had come. The only way she could help Tilia was to be with her and to comfort her. And in doing so she comforted herself.
After a while Tilia gave a great sigh. "I held Cassio in my arms for a time. I washed his poor face, which I could barely recognize. What hurts most is that all those people, those men and those women, were loyal to me, and I was not there when they suffered this awful thing." She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her green silk dress and looked sadly at Sophia.
Feeling Tilia's pain for her people, Sophia liked her all the more.
"The Tartars' men probably would have killed you if you had been there."
"To be sure. I would have provoked them to it as Cassio did. I would not have let them take Rachel without a fight." She gripped the cross resting on her bosom, and Sophia remembered Daoud saying it held a poisoned blade. "Well, my poor men will have good burials. I have been very generous to the little church of San Severo in the valley south of here, and now the pastor can repay my kindness by burying the seven who died here. They may not have been good Christians, or Christians at all, but at least in a churchyard they will lie in peace. The women who are hurt badly will go to the Hospital of Santa Clara. And I must hire guards to protect the house. My ladies do not want to stay there. I do not blame them, but there is no other roof to shelter them just now, and with guards they will be safe enough. Anyway, those murderers are gone. I will come back and stay with them when I have done everything there is to do."
Sophia smiled at Tilia in admiration. She was hurt, but fought the pain by getting on with what needed to be done.