The Saracen: Land of the Infidel

by Robert Shea

  XXXVI

  "Canaglia! Give way or I will have your heart on a platter!"

  Hearing the shout, Simon stifled a curse and turned to see arms waving,a man in helmet and leather chest armor fall back, pushed by another.The man shouting and pushing was Peppino, one of Simon's Venetiancrossbowmen. The man Peppino had knocked down was Grigor, one of theTartars' bodyguards.

  _No, dear God, not today!_

  Sunk in grief though he was, he would have to do something. For Alain.That today of all days, the day of Alain's funeral, might not be marredby brawling.

  From his seat atop a black-caparisoned stallion in the gateway of theMonaldeschi courtyard, he looked down on a boiling mass of brightconical helmets, all of them now moving toward the action in the centerof the yard. He kicked his horse's flanks and drove into the crowd. Hehad to break up the fight before it started.

  The Armenian was on his feet and reaching for his dagger. And Peppinohad his hand on the hilt of his own blade. Before Simon could reachthem, Teodoro, whom Simon had appointed capitano of the crossbowmenafter dismissing Sordello, forced his way between the two men. He turnedhis back on the Armenian and gave Peppino a violent shove with bothhands.

  "Stupido! Back in line!"

  "What devil's work is this?" Simon demanded.

  Teodoro turned and saluted Simon smartly. "Your Signory, Peppino is afool. But the Armenians provoked him. They insist on marching before usin the cortege. Are we not to march behind the French knights?"

  Idiots! What difference did it make? They had forgotten that this paradewas for Alain; they thought it was for them. He felt a dull hatred forboth the Venetians and the Armenians.

  Simon sent for Ana, the multilingual Bulgarian woman, who translated forthe Armenians Simon's explanation that the French knights must ride asan honor guard directly behind Alain's bier, and that since theVenetians were directly under the command of the French, they must comenext. Also, no one must come between the Tartar ambassadors and theirArmenian bodyguards; therefore the Venetians must precede the Armenians.

  "Sergentes, get your men back into line!" Simon shouted at the leadersof the hundred Monaldeschi men-at-arms milling about in the courtyardalong with the Venetians and the Armenians.

  Simon spurred his horse back to the head of the procession, where hetook his position just behind Alain's bier, which was already in thestreet.

  The Sire de Pirenne lay upon a huge square of red samite edged withgold, draped over the flat bed of a four-wheeled cart. Red ribbons werewoven into the spokes of the wheels. The two farm horses that drew thecart, chosen for their docility, also wore red surcoats. Red, formartyrdom. Red for the blood poor Alain had shed. Simon sighed inwardlyand hoped that God considered Alain a martyr and had taken him up toheaven. Had he not died while in the service of the Church? Was this nota crusade in all but name?

  Alain was dressed in a white linen surcoat and a white silk mantle.Simon, Henri de Puys and the other four knights had dressed himthemselves. What agony! The struggle to get poor dead Alain's big frameinto his garments had taken nearly an hour.

  Thank heaven de Puys had stopped Simon from trying to dress Alain in hismail shirt and hose, as Simon had originally intended. De Puys pointedout that Alain's family were poor, and that Alain's younger brotherwould have need of the expensive armor. So the armor would be sent backto the Gobignon domain along with the news that Alain was dead.

  Oh, the woe Alain's widowed mother and younger brother would feel whenSimon's letter reached them! Friar Mathieu had helped him compose theimpossible lines, but Simon still felt they were not gentle enough, notcomforting enough. He hated himself for feeling relieved that Alain'sfamily was too far away for him to deliver the news in person. He haddone the best he could, sending the letter and Alain's armor to hischaplain at Chateau Gobignon with instructions to take it personally tothe de Pirennes and read it to them, offering them all possibleconsolation, they being almost certainly unlettered.

  Around Alain's waist was clasped his jeweled belt of knighthood, and tohis leather boots were fastened his knight's silver spurs. Hisvelvet-gloved hands, resting on his chest, grasped the hilt of his nakedlongsword. Simon would buy another sword for his brother. His helmet,polished to mirror brightness by his sobbing equerry, rested beside hisblond head. His shield, square at the top and pointed at the bottom,blazoned with five black eaglets on a gold ground, lay crosswise at hisfeet. Those things Alain must take to his final rest.

  Simon's stomach was a hollow of anguish. Those splendid arms, and Alainhad never had a chance to use any of them.

  A breeze stirred the curly yellow locks of the pale head that lay on ared silk pillow. The air of Orvieto had grown chilly in the three dayssince Alain's murder. The city had enjoyed almost summer weather untillate in the fall, but now November had fallen upon it with icy talons.The sky this morning was a heavy purple-gray, and a dampness in the airforetold chill rain.

  At the very head of the procession walked Henri de Puys, bareheaded butin full armor, leading Alain's riderless great horse. The cart bearingthe body, driven by a servant in orange and green Monaldeschi livery,followed. Then came Simon and the other French knights.

  _Please, God, let nothing else unseemly happen today. Let us bury yourservant the Sire Alain de Pirenne with honor._

  He looked back and saw that the two Tartars, wearing their cylindricalcaps adorned with red stones and their red and blue silk jackets, hadmounted their horses. Because Alain was a warrior and they werewarriors, they rode horses to honor him today.

  The sight of them was a reproach to Simon. If he had thought only of theTartars and not become involved with Sophia, Alain would be alive today.

  After the Tartars, rows of spear points and bowl-shaped helmetsglittered, the Monaldeschi retainers and men-at-arms. Behind theMonaldeschi banner, two green chevrons on an orange background, rose acurtained sedan chair draped with black mourning streamers. In it, Simonknew, were the contessa and her grandnephew.

  Simon had been waiting for the contessa to appear. He raised his arm ina signal to de Puys, who began to walk southward, toward the Corso,pulling the reins of Alain's horse. The wheels of the cart creaked intomotion.

  As the procession wound its way through the larger streets of Orvieto,the thought occurred to Simon that Alain's killer might be among theonlookers, one of the faces that watched, with little emotion, from thesidelines or looked out of a second-story window.

  Sordello had sent word through Ana that among Giancarlo's hired bravos,none had any idea who might have stabbed Alain.

  Simon knew what the Orvietans, most of them, must be saying. _A Frenchknight goes whoring and gets himself stabbed, and they give him thegreatest funeral since Julius Caesar's._

  A stab of guilt shot through him. To protect Sophia, he had told deVerceuil and d'Ucello that he and Alain had gone wenching. He hadbesmirched Alain's reputation.

  The cortege stopped at every church in Orvieto, and before each Alain'sbody was blessed by two or three cardinals, who then with theirentourages joined the long line of mourners. Looking back over hisshoulder, Simon could no longer see the end of the procession. Itdisappeared around a distant turning in the street.

  Not all Orvietans were without feeling. Many girls and young women wept,waved their handkerchiefs, and threw flowers from balconies to thehandsome Frenchman, murdered in his prime. Alain would have welcomedmore attention from them when he was alive, Simon thought bitterly.

  At the convent of the Dominicans, a collection of brown stone buildingsbehind a high wall, the rotund Fra Tomasso d'Aquino emerged, followed bytwo dozen or more of his Dominican brothers, all in white wool tunicswith black mantles. Three of the leading members of the preachingfriars, the superior general, the father visitor for northern Italy, andthe prior of the convent blessed the body. Fra Tomasso was to deliverthe funeral sermon, a great honor for Alain. It must be downrightpainful for the fat friar to walk from his convent to the cathedral;that was an honor in itself.

 
But the sight of Fra Tomasso made Simon cold with anxiety, rememberinghow Sophia had told him that the stout Dominican had turned against theTartars.

  The one thing that might, even if only in a small way, make up for theinfinite tragedy of Alain's death, was that important piece ofinformation Sophia had unwittingly given Simon. And when Simon had toldit to Friar Mathieu, the old Franciscan, feeling he had no choice, hadtaken the news to de Verceuil. Simon hated to see him do that, but hehad to agree that de Verceuil was the only one in their party whoseposition was exalted enough to permit him to make demands on FraTomasso.

  De Verceuil had paid a call on the superior general of the Dominicans,but what went on behind the walls of the preaching friars' convent Simonand Friar Mathieu had never learned. In his usual infuriating way, deVerceuil had refused to talk about it.

  At the gateway to his palace, Pope Urban, all in gold and white, met theprocession. As Simon dismounted and knelt on the stone street to receivethe pope's blessing, he noted that the old man's face was as pale as hisvestments, and that his hands were trembling. Had Alain's murderaffected him so, or was he ill? Urban was flanked by six cardinals inbroad-brimmed red hats and brilliant red robes. On his right were threeFrench cardinals, including de Verceuil. Beside him was Guy le Gros,whom Simon had met at the pope's council.

  Le Gros looked angry. Simon hoped he was angry about Alain's murder;every Frenchman in Orvieto should be. But what a shame that Alain had todie in order that all these people care about him.

  On Urban's left were three Italians, the diminutive Ugolini standingright beside the pope. The sight of him was a blow to Simon's heart.Simon had been in his mansion wooing Sophia when Alain was murdered.Alain's bleeding body had lain across the street from Ugolini's mansion,for how many hours?

  And where was Sophia? Anxiously Simon scanned the crowd for a sight ofher. Would she not come? Had Alain's death frightened her? Would he eversee her again?

  He despised himself for still wanting to see Sophia, when his tryst withher had caused Alain's death. He should give her up.

  _I cannot give her up._

  After the blessing, Pope Urban took his place, with his escort ofcardinals, at the head of the procession. They moved to the piazzabefore the cathedral, as packed with people as it had been the day theheretic was executed there. Death, death, here they were again, tocelebrate death.

  When Alain's body reached the cathedral, Pope Urban blessed it oncemore. Simon and the other French knights raised a pallet that was hiddenunder the red samite cloth and carried Alain into the cathedral.

  The cathedral was a festival of light, and the sight of it made Simonfeel a little better. Simon and de Verceuil had agreed to share theexpenses of the funeral, which included the rows of candles lighting thealtar, all of the purest beeswax, and the double line of fat candles intall brass sticks running down the middle of the church. Benches hadbeen cleared from the nave of the cathedral to make room for the funeralprocession.

  The shadows where the massed candle flames did not reach wereilluminated by a dim, underwater glow--faint because the sky wasovercast--that seeped in through the narrow stained glass windows,touching a mourner here or there with a spot of red light, or blue orgreen.

  The French knights carried Alain to the front of the cathedral and sethis body down on a red-draped platform. Simon took a position to theright of the body. From here he could see rows of cardinals and bishopson either side of him. The cardinals in their red hats sat in the firstrow, and Simon recognized de Verceuil by his height and by the shiningwaves of black hair that tumbled from under the wide brim of histasseled hat.

  The Contessa di Monaldeschi walked slowly up the aisle, leaning on thearm of her plump grandnephew. As she neared the altar, Cardinal Ugolinisuddenly broke away from his position beside Pope Urban and bustled downto take her other arm. With these two escorts, both the same height, thecontessa tottered to a high-backed, cushioned seat on the right side ofthe altar. Ugolini stroked her hand, whispered to her, kissed her cheek,and went back up the altar steps to stand beside the pope.

  _I wish he were not so friendly with the contessa. It is a danger to thealliance._

  It occurred to Simon suddenly that Alain's death would go for nothing ifthe pact between Tartars and Christians were not sealed. Now Simon hadanother reason, beside the restoration of his family honor, beside hislove for King Louis, to strive for the alliance.

  On the side of the altar opposite the contessa, also in a high-backedarmchair, sat a dark young man about Simon's age in a surcoat of bluevelvet with a heavy gold chain around his neck. He sat very erect, andhis dark eyes burned with hatred as he stared across the altar at thecontessa and her grandnephew. He had been pointed out before to Simon asMarco di Filippeschi, capo della famiglia of the Monaldeschi'sarchenemies.

  The contessa herself had suggested that a Filippeschi might havemurdered Alain just because he was a guest of the Monaldeschi family.Simon supposed the Filippeschi chieftain was paying public respect toAlain to demonstrate his family's innocence. The Filippeschi, Simon hadheard, were opposed to a French presence in Italy--perhaps simplybecause the Monaldeschi were friendly to the French.

  So opposed that they would murder an innocent young man? Simon burned toseize Marco di Filippeschi and throttle the truth from him.

  By turning his head slightly, Simon could see Friar Mathieu on the leftside of the church, sitting in the midst of the Franciscan congregation.

  Beyond the Franciscans, in the shadow of a pillar, stood a stout man indark cape and tunic. D'Ucello, the podesta, observing thefuneral--thinking perhaps that Alain's killer might attend. He prayedthat the podesta would stop wasting his time pursuing the nonexistentwomen Simon and Alain had been with.

  _Find Alain's killer, damn you!_ Simon thought, clenching his teeth.

  Simon turned briefly to survey the crowd that filled the nave all theway to the doors. Halfway back, a spot of red light from a window fellon a man's blond hair. Simon was almost certain that was David ofTrebizond. He still saw no sign of Sophia, and his heart fell.

  As Simon watched the pope celebrate the mass, assisted by the twocardinals, the Italian Ugolini and the French le Gros, he wonderedwhether Alain was watching from heaven. He must be in heaven. Was he nota martyr?

  But did Alain care about what was happening on this earth? Surely a manwould want to see his own funeral. For a moment Simon imagined he couldspeak to Alain, reach out and touch him.

  _How do you like this, my friend? The pope himself says mass for you._

  Simon choked on a sob and had to wipe tears from his face.

  The pope sang the Gospel in a quavering voice, and a chorus of stoutyoung priests boomed back the responses. The voices, rising and fallingin the chant devised by Pope Gregory the Great, unaccompanied by anyinstrument, rebounded from the heavy stones of the vaulted ceiling.

  Simon swore to himself he would write about this to Alain's mother.

  When it came time for the sermon, Fra Tomasso d'Aquino rose from thebench that had been set for him at the front of the cathedral. Heturned and bowed to the pope, who sat in a throne on the right side ofthe altar. Pope Urban's hand twitched in a small gesture of blessing.

  Standing at the head of Alain's bier, Simon was close enough to FraTomasso to hear the breath whistling through his nostrils as he exertedhimself to move his bulk from bench to altar steps. The black rosaryaround his middle rattled with his steps and creaked with his heavybreathing.

  A hush, heavy with the odor of incense, fell over the crowd assembled inthe nave. For a sermon by a bishop or even a cardinal, this crowd ofhigh-ranking prelates would probably go on whispering to each other. Butall were interested in hearing the philosopher-friar who was famousthroughout Christendom, whom some revered as a living saint and a fewothers considered a subtle heretic.

  Fra Tomasso spoke Latin, as was customary before any assemblage ofchurchmen. His tenor voice sent high-pitched reverberations through thenave of the great church. It is a sad moment,
he said, when God choosesto cut off a young man in his prime, yet it happens all too often. Ishare the sorrow of the family and friends of this excellent youngknight, he said, and Simon felt comforted. Indeed, all Christendom mustmourn the loss of such a fine young man, killed while performing hisduty, far from home, guarding an embassy to His Holiness from the otherside of the earth.

  _And accompanying a friend making a secret visit to a lady._

  The stout friar waxed philosophic, as was expected of him, discoursingon the Fifth Commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," using Alain as anexample. The Sire de Pirenne's death was murder, ambush out of the dark,he said.

  Loud coughing interrupted the sermon. Simon looked and saw that it wasPope Urban, bent double, Cardinal le Gros holding his arm and resting ahand on his shoulder, while Cardinal Ugolini looked alarmed. Thecoughing had a burbling sound to it, as if the old pope's lungs werefull of fluid. A cough like that in November was an ominous thing,thought Simon.

  Fra Tomasso resumed when His Holiness had quieted. To kill is not alwaysa sin, he said, but to kill the innocent is. It is not a sin, therefore,to wage war on the Saracens, as pope after pope has called upon goodChristian warriors to do, because the Saracens are not innocent. Theyhold in their clutches the most sacred places of Christendom, the landswhere Our Lord Jesus Christ was born and died; they rob and murderpilgrims seeking to visit those holy places; and they seek to spreadthe false religion of Mohammedanism which denies the central mystery ofour faith--Christ crucified, dead, and risen again. For all thesereasons the Saracens should be fought.

  Fra Tomasso paused and looked about him. Simon felt that the pause wasintended to be significant, that the great Dominican was about to saysomething very important. But the silence was disturbed by a whispering.It came from behind Simon and to his right. He glanced in that directionand saw that the Bulgarian woman, Ana, was sitting with the two Tartarsand was whispering her translation of Fra Tomasso's sermon to John, theolder one, who was immediately on her left.

  "We may ask ourselves, why does God permit an innocent young man likethis to die?" Fra Tomasso went on. "The answer is, of course, that Hepermits it to make possible a greater good, the exercise of human freewill. I say to you that Our Lord, Jesus Christ, crucified at the age ofthirty-three, is the type of all innocent young men done to death byevil. And evil is a necessary consequence of human freedom."

  Fra Tomasso looked out over his audience for another silent moment, thensaid, "God must value freedom very highly if He allows so much evil tooccur, just so freedom can exist."

  _I never thought of that._

  But there was very little freedom in the world, Simon thought, apartfrom the power to sin. Everybody from kings down to the meanest serfswas bound in a net of obligations, duties, laws, loyalties, obedience.Simon remembered what Friar Mathieu had said about using Fra Tomasso'svow of obedience, through de Verceuil's speaking to his Dominicansuperior, to force him to give up his opposition to the alliance.

  And now Simon noticed that Fra Tomasso was looking at de Verceuil.

  "Often, all too often, one man will seek to rob another of the freedomto do what is right," Fra Tomasso said. "If a superior commands anotherto do wrong, and the inferior obeys, the one who gives the wrongfulorder bears the greater burden of guilt. But some guilt also falls uponthe one who obeys. It is only with the greatest reluctance and after thegreatest deliberation that one should disobey any order from one ofhigher rank. But there are times when it must be done."

  Again he looked at de Verceuil.

  "Thus when we see a mighty nation that again and again does harm to theinnocent," said Fra Tomasso, "we are bound in conscience to denounceit."

  Simon felt as if he had been struck on the head with a rock. Now he wassure of what was coming. And so, evidently, were others, because amurmuring was arising in the church.

  Fra Tomasso blinked slowly, as if to show his calm acceptance of thestir he was causing. "We are obliged to denounce unjust war even whenthe evildoer offers us the hand of fellowship. When a puissant nationtakes up arms against the world, when it makes war its chief occupation,when it attacks peoples that have not harmed it, when it threatens allhumanity, we are not permitted to condone such wrongs. When this nationcarries war to innocent, unarmed men, women, and children, slaughteringthese noncombatants by the tens and hundreds of thousands, we areobliged to condemn it."

  _Oh, my God! If this is the Church's verdict, all is lost._

  Simon looked at the pope on his throne to the right of the altar. He satslumped, his white mitre tilted forward, his eyes half shut as if inthought. Simon saw no sign that Urban objected to what Fra Tomasso wassaying.

  The murmur was louder now. Despairing, Simon turned to look back at theTartars. Little points of candlelight were reflected in their blackeyes, and their brown faces were tight. Simon could imagine what wouldhappen to anyone, holy man or not, who spoke out against them so intheir own camp.

  The stout Dominican stretched an arm in a flowing white sleeve towardthe still, mail-clad body on the red bier. "It may be asked, why do Ispeak of such things on this sad day, when we mourn a young man cruellystruck down in youth? I answer that this young man came here and diedhere because Christendom is now faced with this great moral dilemma.What we owe this young man, what we owe any man who dies in theperformance of his duty, is to do our own duty."

  "Enough! Sit down!" came a hoarse whisper from Simon's left, and heturned to see de Verceuil half out of his chair, fists clenched. It hadbeen de Verceuil who had wanted Fra Tomasso, as the most distinguishedspeaker in Orvieto, to deliver the funeral sermon. And doubtless it wasthe cardinal's heavy-handed dealing with Fra Tomasso that had provokedthis particular sermon. And now de Verceuil was trying publicly tosilence Fra Tomasso, making more enemies for their cause.

  Fra Tomasso turned in the cardinal's direction, then once again slowlyshut his eyes and slowly opened them as he turned away. He went onspeaking.

  "And perhaps God has taken this young man from us to remind us how manyother innocent lives may be lost if we wage war unwisely."

  * * * * *

  Simon and the other five French knights turned the red-draped woodenpallet so that Alain's head was toward the altar and his feet toward thechurch door. The weight had not bothered Simon carrying Alain into thechurch, but now the burden seemed twice as heavy. He was afraid, as hedescended the stairs in front of the cathedral, one worn stone step at atime, that his knees might buckle and he might spill Alain to theground. He would be anxious until he got Alain back on the cart thatwould carry him to his final resting place in the cemetery on a hill tothe north of Orvieto's great rock.

  _And where will I go?_

  Trying to get de Verceuil to change Fra Tomasso's mind had been aserious error in judgment. Every important churchman and official inOrvieto had heard the greatest thinker in Christendom attack the plan ofChristians and Tartars waging war together on the Saracens. What wouldhappen now?

  _Nothing._

  Nothing would happen, and that was all that was needed for the allianceto fail. The Tartars would go home. They would continue their waragainst the Saracens, the war they had been losing lately, withoutChristian help. And eventually the Mameluke waves would roll overPalestine and Syria and the Christian strongholds in Outremer wouldcrumble like sand castles.

  _And the escutcheon of Gobignon is a little more tarnished. And I haveled my dearest vassal to useless death. Whenever the Tartars leaveItaly, and it will probably be soon, I will return to Chateau Gobignon afailure._

  He thought back to his meeting with Charles d'Anjou on the wall of theLouvre last July. It had seemed then that helping the Tartars to allythemselves with the Christians was a way to change his whole life forthe better. He would take his rightful place in the kingdom as a greatbaron. He would end the shame and suffering he had always lived with.He would hold his head up among the nobility, and King Louis and CountCharles would love and respect him.

  Now he wou
ld accomplish none of those things. He had been knocked fromhis horse and was rolling in the dust. He would go back to the livingdeath of being afraid to show his face beyond the bounds of Gobignon,the only place in the world where he was known and respected.

  Go back to Gobignon and never see Sophia again? She, at least, would notthink less of him because the grand alliance had failed. She probablyfelt sorry for Alain. Perhaps even felt responsible for his death. Simonshould go and reassure her.

  And then what? Bid her farewell?

  He and de Puys on the other side, two knights behind each of them, slidAlain's body with a dry, rasping sound along the unpainted gray wood ofthe cart bed. The red ribbons on the four tall cartwheels fluttered inthe slight breeze.

  A thought that had fleetingly occurred to Simon before now formed itselfsolidly in his mind.

  What if he were to take Sophia back to Gobignon as his bride?

  Many there were who would rail against him for doing it. His grandmotherin particular, herself the daughter of a king, would be beside herselfwith fury. King Louis and Uncle Charles might even try to stop him. Buthe was the Count de Gobignon, a Peer of the Realm, almost a king in hisown right, and he had tried to do what his elders expected of him, andhe had failed.

  Twice he had loved women whose lands and high birth made them propermatches for him in the eyes of the world, and twice he had beenprevented from marrying the woman of his choice because of CountAmalric's legacy of wickedness.

  Well, the devil take all of them. If they would not accept him as amember of the noblesse, then he was not obliged to behave as one.

  Surely his mother and father, considering the way their own marriage hadcome about, would understand and approve his choice.

  And somehow he doubted that Cardinal Ugolini would raise any objectionto his marrying his niece, Sophia.