"That indeed he still cares for you. Too much, it seems."
"Too much?"
Daoud's teeth flashed in his blond beard. "His queen, the mother of his four children, Helene of Cyprus, usually looks the other way when Manfred beds beautiful young women. But she saw in you too serious a rival. He had to send you off with me, or the queen would have had you poisoned."
Sophia's eyes strayed to the bed in horror. She remembered now that before she left here, Manfred had hinted at something like that.
"Poisoned! And I am safe now?"
Again the white grin in the blond beard. During the six months they had been apart, she had begun to think that her love for him might have seduced memory and enhanced his good looks beyond reality. But now in the flesh he surpassed even the image her memory had cherished.
"You are safe as long as you stay away from Manfred and he from you. There will be a feast tonight, in honor of Cardinal Ugolini. You will see how carefully the king will avoid you."
Daoud pulled her close to enfold her in his arms. He had taken off his surcoat and breastplate, and with her head against his chest she could feel his heart beating strong and fast under his silk robe.
"And you?" she said. "Do you hate the thought that Manfred and I were lovers?"
In that very bed.