I WAS FREE, the Tafur had said. Free!

I started to laugh once more. The irony was bursting through my sides. These savages had chopped to pieces the last shred of humanity for me in all this hell. Now... they were setting me free!

If the Turk had not hesitated just a moment ago, I'd have been dead myself. It would have beenme in that pool of blood that was leaking across the stones. Yet he'd spared me. In all this madness I had found a moment of clarity and truth with this Turk, whose name I did not even know. We'd touched souls. And the vermin had told me I was free.

I struggled to my feet. I stepped over to the body of the man who had spared me and looked, horrified, at his bloody corpse. I knelt down and touched his hand.Why... ? I could walk out of this church. I could be cut down as soon as I stepped out on the street, or I could live for years, a full life. For what end?

Why did you spare me? I looked into the Turk's dull, still eyes. What did you see?

It was laughter that had saved me. Laughter that had somehow touched the Turk. I was only a breath away from death and yet instead of panic and fear, laughter had entered my soul. Amid all this fighting, I had simply made him smile. Now he was gone and I was here. A calm came over me.You are right ,Tafur....I am finally free.

I had to get out of here. I knew I could no longer fight. I was a different man. Different from a moment ago. This cross on my tunic meant nothing to me. I stripped it from my chest. I had to go back. I had to see Sophie again. What else could matter? I was a fool to have left her.For freedom? Suddenly, the truth seemed so clear. A child could have seen it.

It was only with Sophie tha............