He said, "Charles gave it to me. I swear to you, I mean no disrespect to Manfred. Just the opposite. It must hurt you to see it. How thoughtless of me! Anjou insisted on my putting it around my neck just now. I am only going to keep it safe in memory of Manfred, not wear it. Let me take it off."
You are babbling, he told himself. Be still.
"No," she said, touching his hand lightly, briefly. "No one has a better right to wear it than you."
Simon said, "I want you to know this—Daoud succeeded."
"What do you mean—succeeded how?"
They stood just outside the walls of Benevento by the side of the road leading to the south. A group of Charles's men-at-arms, past whom Simon had just escorted Sophia and her friends, lounged before the gate.
"Last night I suspected it, but this morning I talked to Anjou, and now I am certain. There will never be an alliance of Christians and Tartars. Anjou never wanted it, and he will do everything in his power to prevent it. It would interfere with his own ambitions."
Her amber eyes looked into his, and he felt the pain she was holding rigidly at bay within herself.
Oh, God, those eyes! How he had dreamed of spending the rest of his life in their gaze. Now, after today, he would never look into them again.
She said, "Does it disappoint you that there will be no alliance?"