"What did you mean, think about what she told me?"
Friar Mathieu sighed. "Rachel said that Sophia told her after they left Orvieto she would not have to stay with Tilia Caballo anymore. Rachel was not at Caballo's of her own free will. And you may have noticed that when I suggested that Sophia sent her there, she did not deny it."
Simon felt another rush of anger at Friar Mathieu for trying to make him believe evil of Sophia. "Are you saying that Sophia forced that girl into a brothel? Father, Sophia is too much of an innocent to be a party to anything like that."
But he remembered that moment of deepest intimacy they had shared last autumn outside Perugia, the moment he had delighted in reliving thousands of times. She had surprised him with the suddenness of her passion, with the swift, sure way she had guided him into taking her and had taken pleasure from him. Of course, he had thought, she would know what to do. She had been married. But surely a chaste widow who had known only one man in her life would have shown some hesitation, some timidity, some inner struggle?
Simon felt rage building up within him. He hated these doubts. He wanted to lash out at someone.
Friar Mathieu's voice came to him again, mild but inexorable. "Rachel said she asked Sophia to take her back to Ugolini's. Rachel must have lived at Ugolini's when she first came to Orvieto. If you say that Sophia could not have been the one who put Rachel in Caballo's house, I accept it. But Ugolini could have. Or David of Trebizond."
"You will drive me mad. Stop going step by step like a schoolman. Of what are you accusing Sophia?"
Only his reverence for Friar Mathieu kept him from shaking the old priest.
Friar Mathieu patted Simon's knee. "I am going step by step because I myself am trying to think this out. And I want to be sure, for your sake. Rachel knew something, or had learned something. So they put her in Caballo's brothel for safekeeping."
"They?"