"I asked myself, what if the Turks had not overrun Ascalon and killed my parents and carried me off? And the answer came that I would have been very like Simon de Gobignon. He grew up, you see, having all the things I lost."
"What things?"
"A family, a home, the Christian faith, freedom, knighthood, his country. Even his name."
This talk about Simon was making her desperately uneasy. She wondered if she could tell Daoud to go to sleep and forget it all.
"And I saw at last why I hated him so much," Daoud went on. "I hated him in part, of course, because of you. I had already started to love you, and the thought of him possessing you made me furious. And yet it was my duty to send you to bed with him. Fortunately, that never had to happen. But there was an even deeper reason for my hating him."
"What was that?" she asked.
"Envy. Envy that I could not admit to myself."
"Not admit to yourself? Why?"
His hand on her was motionless. She sensed that it was an effort for him to put his thought into words.
"Because I was afraid to. That is always why we do not admit a truth to ourselves. My Sufi sheikh often said, The things you most fear, those you must turn and stare at until you are no longer afraid. I was afraid I might betray my faith."