by Robert Shea
XI
Simon was surprised at how young Cardinal Paulus de Verceuil looked. Theman who stood with him in a vineyard on the road to Orvieto had a long,fine-skinned face and glossy black hair that fell in waves to hisshoulders. If his scalp was shaved in a clerical tonsure, his red velvetcap covered it. His handsome violet silk tunic reminded Simon that hisown surcoat was travel-stained and that Thierry had not polished hismail in days.
De Verceuil tossed away the cluster of pale green grapes he had beennibbling and spoke suddenly.
"Count, a report has reached me that you spoke rudely to the doge ofVenice." His booming bass voice sounded as if it were emerging from thedepths of a tomb. "You do realize that your actions reflect on the crownof France?"
He thrust his face into Simon's as he spoke, which made Simoninvoluntarily draw back. De Verceuil was one of the few men Simon hadever met who matched his own unusual height.
Simon felt his face grow hot. "Yes, Your Eminence."
"And how could you dismiss the trovatore Sordello from the post to whichCount Charles himself appointed him?"
"If Sordello had stayed with us, the Tartars might have taken suchoffense as to go back to Outremer."
"Do not be absurd. Would they abandon a mission of such importancebecause of a tavern brawl?"
Simon felt shame, but, deeper than that, resentment. He was the Count deGobignon, and not since he was a child had anyone chastised him likethis.
He heard a rustling as someone came down the row of vines where theywere standing. He turned to see Friar Mathieu, and hoped he was about tobe rescued.
After the Franciscan had humbly greeted the cardinal and kissed hissapphire ring, he said, "I must tell Your Eminence that what happenedwas not a mere tavern brawl. Sordello stabbed and nearly killed the heirto the throne of Armenia, an important ally of the Tartars."
De Verceuil stared at Friar Mathieu. The cardinal had a mouth so smallit looked quite out of place below his large nose and above his largechin. A mean mouth, Simon thought.
"Your opinion does not interest me," de Verceuil said. "I cannot imaginewhy King Louis trusted a beggar-priest to conduct diplomacy with theempire of Tartary."
The resentment Simon had felt at the cardinal's harsh speech at hisexpense now flared up in anger.
_I am young and I do make mistakes_, Simon thought. _But, cardinal ornot, this man has no right to stand there in his velvet and satin andjewels and sneer at this fine old man. No right at all._
But the old friar merely stroked his white beard with a wry smile andsaid, "I said that very thing to him myself, when he ordered me to go."
Still angry, Simon took a deep breath and said, "Since Your Eminencefeels I have embarrassed the king and displeased the Count of Anjou,there is only one course open to me. I will resign my command of theambassadors' guards."
Simon stared into de Verceuil's eyes, and the cardinal's eyelidsfluttered. In the silence Simon heard a blackbird calling in nearbyolive trees.
_I never wanted to come here. I let Uncle Charles talk me into it. I donot mind the danger. And it would be exciting to outguess a hidden enemywho is trying to murder the Tartars. But I cannot endure the way thisman humiliates me and my friends. I will go back to Gobignon now._
"You must not let a bit of fatherly correction wound you so deeply,Count," said the cardinal, his voice still deep and dirgelike but nolonger full of scorn. "I would never suggest the Count of Anjou had madea mistake in choosing you for this post."
_Fatherly! What a disgusting thought!_
But Simon could see that his resigning worried de Verceuil. UncleCharles wanted Simon to guard the ambassadors, just as he had wantedSordello to head the archers. He had his reasons. And de Verceuil didnot want to cross Charles d'Anjou.
Friar Mathieu laughed gently, and patted Simon on the shoulder. "If youplease, be kind enough to change your mind about resigning. All of usare aware that you have carried out the task with intelligence and zeal.Is that not right, Your Eminence?"
"Of course," said de Verceuil, his mouth puckered and sour. "Count, Iwould have you present these Tartar dignitaries to me."
"I will be happy to interpret for you, Your Eminence," said FriarMathieu. De Verceuil did not answer him.
As they crossed the vineyard, the cardinal stretched out his long armand said, "I have brought musicians, jongleurs, senators of Orvieto,men-at-arms, two archbishops, six bishops, an abbot, and many monsignorsand priests." A long line of men stretched down the road into the nearbywoods. Most of them wore various shades of red; a few were incloth-of-gold or blue. The points of long spears flashed in thesunlight. Banners with fringes of gold and silver swung at the tops ofpoles. Seeking protection from the mid-August heat, men walked horses inthe shade of the woods.
Beyond the treetops rose a distant pedestal of grayish-yellow rockcrowned by a city. An astonishing sight, Orvieto.
"The Holy Father will be meeting us at the cathedral and will say aspecial mass of thanksgiving for the safe arrival of the ambassadors,"said de Verceuil. "I want the entry of the Tartars into Orvieto toimpress both the Tartars themselves and the pope and his courtiers."
* * * * *
"Monsters!"
"Cannibals!"
Rotten apples, pears and onions, chunks of moldy bread, flew through theair. Small stones that did not injure, but stung. And worse.
The shouts and missiles came from both sides of the street, but alwayswhen Simon was looking the other way, so he could not see hisassailants. The people crowded in front of the shops were mostly youngmen, but women and children were scattered among them. They wore thedull grayish and brownish garments of workers and peasants. Thestreet-level windows behind them were shuttered, and the doors wereclosed tight. That was a sure sign, Simon knew from his Paris studentdays, that the shopkeepers expected trouble.
From the Porta Maggiore, the main gate where they had entered, thestreet curved toward the south side of the town. Though the upperstories of many houses overshadowed the street, there was room enoughfor the procession to move along, four horses abreast, and for theunruly people to gather on either side. Approaching the south wall ofthe city, the street made a sharp bend to the left, and Simon had lostsight of the Tartar emissaries behind, who were--_What amistake!_--being carried in an open sedan chair. Were they being peltedwith garbage?
Why were the people of Orvieto doing this? True, everyone in Christendomhad heard wild tales of the Tartars. That they were monsters with dogs'heads. That they bit off the breasts of women. That they stank soabominably they overcame whole armies just with their smell. That theywere determined to kill or enslave everyone on earth. There werechurches where people prayed every Sunday to be delivered "from the furyof the Tartars."
But it had been over twenty years since the Tartars had invaded Europe,and even then they had come no farther than Poland and Hungary. Whyshould these people of Orvieto turn so violently against them now, whenthey came in peace?
Undoubtedly someone was stirring them up.
_Hang de Verceuil and his orders_, Simon thought. _I should be with theambassadors. If someone wants to kill them, this would be a perfectchance._
He tugged on the reins of his palfrey, pulling her head around. "Makeway!" he shouted, spurring his horse back the way he had come.Men-at-arms with spears and crossbows cursed at him in various Italiandialects, but they opened a path, pushing back the people. Thierry rodea small horse in Simon's wake.
"Imps of Satan!" came a shout from the crowd. "The Tartars are devils!"
Simon scanned the faces below him. Some looked angry, some frightened,many bewildered. No one looked happy. The cardinal's hope for animpressive entry into Orvieto had been quite dashed, and Simon felt asneaking pleasure at that.
Passing the corner where the procession had turned, he saw again abuilding he had passed earlier, a formidable three-story cube of yellowstone with slotted windows on the ground floor and iron bars over thewider upper windows.
He was standing in sunlight, leaning out from the square Guelfobattlements on the roof of the big building. His hair was the color ofbrass, his skin a smooth brown, such as Simon had seen on pilgrims newlyreturned from the crusader strongholds in Outremer. The blond man gazeddown on the jostling, shouting crowd, smiling faintly.
As Simon rode past him, their eyes met. Simon was startled by theintensity of the other's gaze. It was as if a wordless message hadcrossed the space between them. A challenge. But then the blond manlooked away.
The Tartar ambassadors, seated side by side in a large sedan chair, werefarther up the street. Here, Simon noticed with relief, the crowd hadfallen quiet. Perhaps curiosity about the Tartars, with their roundbrown faces and many-colored robes, had overcome whatever had rousedthese people against them. Then, too, the Tartars were surrounded bytheir Armenians marching on foot, curved swords drawn, as well as bySimon's knights on horseback, and Venetian crossbowmen. The archers'bows, Simon noticed, were loaded and drawn. Who had ordered that?
De Verceuil on a huge black horse--no palfrey this, but a powerfulcharger--rode up to Simon. "Why did you not remain in the forefront?What is going on up ahead?"
Without trying to defend himself, Simon described the disturbance.
"Could you not control the rabble?" de Verceuil growled, and turned totake a position beside the Tartars' sedan chair.
Simon's face burned, and his hands trembled as he stared after deVerceuil.
When they passed the yellow stone building, Simon looked up and saw theblond man still there on the roof. The man was staring down at theTartars with that same burning look he had thrown at Simon, but therewere no weapons in the hands that gripped the battlements.
Simon heard a slapping sound and an angry cry. He turned to see deVerceuil, his right cheek smeared brown.
_God's death! Someone threw shit at him! And hit him right in the face._
The cardinal, his face distorted as if he were about to vomit, wasstaring at the stained hand with which he had just wiped his cheek.
There was laughter from the crowd, mixed with angry cries of "Bestioni!Creatures from hell!"
For an instant Simon felt laughter bubbling up to his lips, but coldhorror swept all amusement away as he sensed what was about to happen.
De Verceuil turned to the nearest crossbowmen, who had not suppressedtheir own smiles.
"Shoot!" he shouted. "Shoot whoever did that!"
The smiles remained fixed on the faces of the Venetians as three of themaimed their already-loaded crossbows at the crowd. They did nothesitate. This was not their city; these were not their people. Theywere fighting men who did as they were ordered.
People screamed and shrank back against the shuttered doors and windows.
Three loud snaps of the bowstrings came at the same moment as Simon'scry of "No!"
He shouted without thinking, and was surprised to hear his own voice.His cry echoed in a sudden and terrible quiet.
Screams of agony immediately followed. People darted away from the placewhere the crossbowmen had aimed, leaving that part of the street empty.
Empty save for three people. Two of them screamed. One was silent--ayoung man who half sat, half lay against the stone wall of a house.Blood was pouring out of his mouth and more blood was running from ahole in his chest. Simon saw that the blood was coming in a steadystream, not in rhythmic spurts, which meant the fellow's heart hadstopped. A glance at the white face told Simon the dead youth could beno more than sixteen.
Beside the boy, a woman knelt and wept. She was plump and middle-aged,perhaps his mother. Her white linen tunic was bloodied.
"He did nothing!" she cried. "Oh, Jesus! Mary! He did nothing!" Therewas a plea in her voice, as if she might bring the boy back to life ifonly she could persuade people of his innocence.
The other cries came from a man who stood about a yard from the deadboy. The bolt had gone through his left shoulder just above the armpitand pinned him to the oaken post of a doorway. He wanted to fall, but hehad to stand or suffer unbearable pain.
"Help me!" he begged, casting pain-blinded eyes right and left. "Helpme!"
Simon jumped down from his horse, throwing the reins to Thierry, and ranto the man. He put his left hand on the chest and pulled at the flaringend of the quarrel with his right. He could not move it. The bolt wasburied too deeply in the wood. The man's forehead fell against Simon'sshoulder, and he was silent. Simon hoped he had fainted.
Now Simon saw where the third bolt had gone. Six inches of it, half itslength, was buried in a wall a few feet to Simon's right. The wall wasmade of the same grayish-yellow stone Orvieto was built on.
The crossbow bolt in the man's shoulder was thick and made of hard wood.Simon had nothing that would cut the man loose without hurting him evenmore. He looked up and down the street. It was quite empty now, exceptfor a few people watching from a distance. The procession had gone on.He glanced up and saw that the blond man had left his place on the roof.
Friar Mathieu knelt beside the dead young man, one hand moving inblessing, the other resting on the shoulder of the weeping woman.
De Pirenne and Thierry, both mounted, the equerry holding Simon's horse,looked at him uncertainly.
"Go, Alain!" said Simon impatiently. "Stay with the Tartars."
He himself was neglecting his duty, he thought, as de Pirenne gallopedoff. But now that he was trying to help this poor devil, he could notabandon him.
"Can I do anything, Monseigneur?" Thierry asked.
As Simon was about to answer, he saw a middle-aged man wearing acarpenter's apron.
"Messere, can you bring a saw?" he called. "Hurry!"
It seemed hours before the man returned with a small saw with a pointedend and widely spaced teeth. He held it out to Simon.
Simon wanted to shout at the carpenter, but he took a grip on himselfand said patiently, "You are bound to be better at sawing than I. Perfavore, cut away the end of the crossbow bolt so we can free this man."
Gingerly at first, then working with a will, the carpenter sawed off theflaring end of the bolt with its thin wooden vanes. The pinned man awokeand was sobbing and groaning.
Once the protruding part of the bolt was sawed away, Simon took a deepbreath, wrapped his arms around the sobbing man, and pulled him awayfrom the wall. The man screamed so loudly that Simon's ears rang; thenthe man sagged to the ground. Blood flowed from the wound in hisshoulder, soaking his tunic. Blood coated the stump of the bolt, stillstuck in the door post. Simon dropped to his knees beside the woundedman. A pool of bright red widened rapidly on the flat paving stones.
_Now what do I do with him? I must get back to my duty._
He spoke with the carpenter. "Press your hand on the wound, hard. Thatwill slow the bleeding." Simon took the man's hand and put it on thehole the crossbow bolt had made.
"Here, let me do that." Friar Mathieu was on his knees beside the hurtman, his hand covering the wound. "Messere," he said to the carpenter,"ride my donkey to the hospital of the Franciscans. Tell them there is aman badly hurt here and Friar Mathieu d'Alcon says they are to sendbrothers to take him for treatment."
Simon stood up slowly as the carpenter climbed on Mathieu's donkey.
"It is not safe for you to stay here," he said to Friar Mathieu. "Thepeople know you were part of the procession and may blame you for whathappened."
Mathieu shook his head. "No one will hurt me. Go along now."
Simon jumped into the saddle and spurred his palfrey to a trot. Thierryrode beside him.
"Those two didn't throw anything," Thierry said.
"Of course not." Simon wondered if de Verceuil cared that the Venetianshad shot two innocent men.
When Simon caught up with the procession, de Verceuil was stillfuriously scrubbing his face with his pale violet cloak.
"If you had done something sooner about the rioting, this outrage wouldnot have happened to me," he said, a quaver of anger
in his deep voice.
_God help me_, thought Simon. _I could easily grow to hate him. Cardinalor not._
* * * * *
Word of the shootings must have spread through the city, Simon thought,because the twisting street leading to the cathedral was nearly empty.
But the piazza in front of Orvieto's cathedral of San Giovenale waspacked with people. Simon's eye was immediately drawn to the top of thecathedral steps. There stood a white-bearded man wearing a red mantleover white robes glittering with gold ornament. On his head a tall whitelozenge-shaped miter embroidered with a red and gold cross. In his hand,a great golden shepherd's crook at least seven feet tall. Simon's mouthfell open and he held his breath.
The ruler of the whole Catholic Church the world over, the chosen ofGod, the anointed of Christ, the heir of Saint Peter. His Holiness,Urban IV, the pope himself. Simon felt almost as much awe as he had thatday in Paris when King Louis had let him kiss the Crown of Thorns.
_How lucky I am to be here and see this man whom most Christians neversee. It is close as one can come to seeing Jesus Christ Himself._
It looked to Simon as if the Holy Father were glowing with asupernatural light. To his left and his right stood a dozen or more menin bright red robes and wide-brimmed red hats with long red tasselsdangling down to their shoulders. The cardinals, the princes of theChurch. Simon wondered if the Tartars realized what honor this did them.
As soon as their sedan chair was set before the pope, the two shortbrown men stepped out of it, knelt, and pressed their foreheads to thecobblestones. They stayed that way until the pope gestured to deVerceuil, who bent and touched them on the shoulder and raised them up.
The pope turned and, followed by the Tartars and then the cardinals,proceeded into the cathedral. For this meeting to succeed, a papal masswas the best possible beginning.
So many people were ahead of Simon that Friar Mathieu caught up with himbefore he was able to enter the door of the cathedral.
"What do you think stirred up the crowd like that?" Simon asked as theypushed through the people standing in the nave of the church.
"In the cities of Italy the mob is always either furious or ecstatic,"said Friar Mathieu.
"But to defile a cardinal!" Simon said. "That would never happen inFrance."
"Italians do not reverence the clergy as much as Frenchmen do," theFranciscan said with a little smile. "They have had to put up with theprinces of the Church for so long that they are a good deal less awed bythem."
The interior of the cathedral was ablaze with the light of a thousandcandles, but Simon was not impressed by the windows, which were smalland narrow and filled with dull-colored glass. This was an old church,he thought, remembering the huge windows of many-colored glass in thenewer cathedrals of France.
The crowd was so tightly packed that Simon and Friar Mathieu could notget to the front of the nave, where chairs had been set before the altarfor dignitaries. They had to be content with standing halfway down thelength of the church. Simon thought wryly that he was getting used tobeing pushed into the background. Perhaps he was accepting it tooeasily.
Pope Urban, his white hair uncovered, had raised high the round wafer ofbread for the Consecration of the Mass, when an angry shout echoedthrough the cathedral.
A chill went through Simon's body, cold as a knife blade. Using hisshoulder as a wedge, he forced his way through the crowd toward thesource of the sound, near the front of the church.
"Ex Tartari furiosi!" the man was shouting in Latin. "Libera nos,Domine!" _From the fury of the Tartars, Lord deliver us!_ Cries ofdismay rang out near the disturbance, and people began shouting inItalian.
"Stand aside! Let me through!" Simon shouted. If this were an assassin,reverence for the mass, even for the pope, must be set aside. Again andagain the shout rose, "Ex Tartari furiosi!" It was harder to movethrough the crowd. People were struggling to get away from the manmaking the uproar.
Simon stopped, shoved men right and left to make room, and pulled hisscimitar from his scabbard.
People around him turned at the unmistakable rasp of steel on leather, asound that so often preceded sudden death. They saw the Saracen sword inSimon's hands and drew back. As Simon hoped, more people noticed andfell over one another trying to get out of his way.
Like Moses' rod parting the Red Sea, Simon's scimitar opened a path forhim.
Simon saw a young man with a tangled mass of brown hair whipping abouthis face and a brown beard that spread over his chest. He was big andbroad-shouldered, and he wore a plain white robe, ragged and gray withdirt, and sandals. In one hand he held a dagger.
_Blood of Jesus! He must have come here to kill the Tartars._
Terrified people had opened a circle around the white-robed man, and ashe moved toward the front of the cathedral the open space moved withhim.
"Stop!" Simon cried.
Baring greenish-looking teeth in a snarl, the man swiveled his shaggyhead toward Simon, then immediately rushed at him.
_He's crazy_, Simon thought, a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach.He crouched, holding his sword out before him, diagonally across hischest.
"Do not kill him!" boomed a deep voice that Simon recognized as deVerceuil's.
The man with the dagger hesitated now, just out of reach of Simon'ssword.
_Am I to risk my life to keep this madman alive?_
But de Verceuil's demand made sense. They must try to find out who sentthe man.
Simon took a deep breath. He had practiced sword fighting innumerabletimes, but only twice in his life had he come up against an armed manwith a look in his eyes that said he was willing to kill.
_But this is no different from practice_, he told himself.
He feinted to the white-robed man's left, then jumped forward, liftinghis sword high and bringing the flat of it down with all his strength onthe hand that held the dagger. The dagger tumbled through the air. Simonsaw at once that the man had no martial skill.
The madman darted forward in a crouch to retrieve his dagger, and as hedid so Simon kicked him in the chin. The thick beard protected the man'schin from the full force of Simon's pointed leather boot, but hestaggered. Before the bearded man recovered himself, Alain de Pirennecharged out of the crowd, seized him in a bear hug, and wrestled him tothe ground.
"Ex Tartari furiosi!" The shouts rang out again and again as the pope'sguards dragged the would-be assassin out of the church.
Simon saw Pope Urban shake his bare white head slowly, then turn back tothe high marble altar and raise the Host overhead once more.
De Verceuil and Friar Mathieu reached Simon at the same time.
The cardinal held out his hand for the dagger, which Simon hadretrieved, and studied it. "One could buy a hundred like it in anymarketplace," he said, keeping his voice low now that the mass hadresumed. He thrust the dagger into his black leather belt with a shrug.
"The white robe and sandals are the mark of the Apostolic Brethren,"said Friar Mathieu. "Heretics who preach the doctrine of Joachim ofFloris about a coming new age of enlightenment and equality."
"When it comes to heresy," said de Verceuil with an unfriendly grin,"there is little to choose between the Apostolic Brethren and theFranciscans. Many of your brethren are secret Joachimites."
"Of course, he might have been dressed that way only to deceive us,"Friar Mathieu went on, ignoring the insult.
"We will find out who he is and whence he comes," said de Verceuil."When we are through with him he will tell us everything. I have orderedhim handed over to the podesta of Orvieto, who will subject him toquestioning in his chamber of torment." He turned on the ball of hisfoot, his violet cloak swinging out behind him, and headed back towardthe altar.
_And not a word about my disarming the assassin_, Simon thought angrily.
Friar Mathieu winced and shook his head sadly. "Then again, that man maynot be able to say anything. And the less he can tell us, the more hewill suffer. I pity him."
Simon cringed inwardly at the thought that by capturing the mad heretiche was the cause of the man's being subjected to horrible tortures. Butgreater fears preoccupied him. The Tartars had been in Orvieto only afew hours, and already the people had been stirred up against them andthey had nearly been assassinated. Somewhere in this town an enemylurked, and Simon's body turned cold as he wondered what that enemywould do next.