Friar Mathieu started to answer in the Tartar tongue. Rachel strained to hear him, but Sordello's ugly laughter overrode the friar's voice.
"I escorted Sophia Orfali to Tilia Caballo's brothel more than once," Sordello said. "And I know she was going to visit you because I overheard her telling that to that devil David of Trebizond."
So it was Sordello, not Friar Mathieu, who had been talking to de Verceuil. She should have known.
Rachel heard Friar Mathieu now. "I am talking to you, not to John," he said in the Tartar's tongue, and she understood that Friar Mathieu meant her. Neither de Verceuil nor Sordello understood the language of the Tartars, or knew that she knew it. As long as Friar Mathieu did not address Rachel by name and kept his eyes on John, who looked confused, it would appear that he was talking to the Tartar and not to Rachel.
De Verceuil strode over to the wine bottle standing on the low table by John's bed. Without asking permission, he picked it up and drank deeply from it.
"The Tartars travel with the best wine in this whole army," he declared. "Better than the cheap swill King Charles carries with him." Sophia glanced at John and saw that he was glowering at de Verceuil.
Friar Mathieu said in the Tartar tongue, "Sordello went to the cardinal with the story that you must be some sort of agent for Manfred and therefore it is dangerous for John to keep you with him."
Why would Sordello do that now, Rachel wondered. He could have accused her anytime in the past year. She could not question Friar Mathieu, though, without giving it away that he was talking to her. Did Sordello have some plan to get the chest away from her and desert?
"They know hardly anything about you," Friar Mathieu said. "Do not be afraid. Admit nothing. Deny everything. I think Sordello knows more about Ugolini's household, and about Tilia Caballo's brothel, than is safe for him to admit. Say nothing, and I believe they will frustrate themselves."
John smiled and nodded at Friar Mathieu. "I see what you are doing," he said in Tartar.