"Your Signory! I save your life and you call me a bastard? The point of his sword right at your eyeball?"
"He was not going to kill me. I could see it in his face."
There was a wild, almost frightened note in Sordello's laughter. "Can Your Signory read men's thoughts? I warrant you, if you had till the Day of Judgment, you could not guess what this archfiend is thinking. You have no idea what he has done."
Daoud almost managed to laugh. The fool Sordello, as usual speaking and acting before he thought. One word more, and he would indeed hang himself.
"Tell the count, Sordello. Tell him what I have done."
God, I will forgive You for making me suffer so, if You will let me see Sordello's face just now.
And God granted Daoud's wish. Sordello crouched again over Daoud, his color maroon, his bloodshot eyes popping. It was wonderful, and Daoud breathed a prayer of thanks.
After a moment Sordello got control of himself enough to speak. "You know what you have done. You killed the Tartars."
He straightened up. "Your Signory, do you not know that John and Philip are dead? And it was this man's servant, Giancarlo, who shot them from ambush with a crossbow on the battlefield. I shot this David of Trebizond not only to save your life, but to avenge the Tartars."
"Killed?" De Gobignon turned away, beating his mailed fist against his leg. "God, God, God! Two years I've kept them alive and Anjou loses them!"