In a moment she was on her horse again and riding into the rain. She wanted nothing more to do with Sordello.
But the encounter had helped her in one way, and now she felt more confident about talking to David about Simon. Rehearsing the lie with Sordello had helped.
"He is leaving the Tartars behind? After I came so close to killing them?"
"They will be closely guarded. I do not think you will be able to get at them again."
There was a bitterness in the small smile that quirked David's thin lips. "I do not intend to try until the Sienese arrive here. When I seek their lives again, a whole army of guards will not be enough to stop me."
What would David do, Sophia wondered, if he learned that the alliance he had fought so hard to prevent would soon be sealed in France by Simon de Gobignon?
She looked at David's eyes, the color of the thunderclouds outside. Her hatred for herself struck her heart with hammer blows.
He stood by the window of his room, straight and broad-shouldered, wearing a belted gown of black silk with a broad red stripe at the bottom. His wound no longer required a poultice, and it was almost healed. The strange Saracen treatment he had prescribed for himself had worked.