XV
Simon guided the black palfrey carefully down the road into the wooded valley west of Orvieto. The path, like the streets of the city, was carved from rock and slippery.
When he needed to think, Simon liked to get out of doors, beyond any walls, and to feel a good horse moving under him. It was now a week since the day of the papal council, and its inconclusive outcome troubled him sorely. The pope had repeatedly postponed his audience with the Tartar ambassadors, pleading a sudden excess of phlegm. The Tartars were growing restless, pacing the courtyard of the Palazzo Monaldeschi, muttering to each other angrily and refusing to speak to anyone else.
The longer the negotiations were delayed, the greater the chance they would fail. The Tartars might even die. Friar Mathieu had said that the Tartars, coming from a land so distant and so different, were especially vulnerable to the diseases of Europe.
Charging de Pirenne and de Puys to keep careful watch over the two emissaries, Simon had ridden out into the hills to think what he might do to help his cause along.
But it is not my place to try to speed things up. My task is to guard the ambassadors, nothing more. If I do only that, I have done my duty.
But, as he rode out into the valley under the deep shade of huge old olive trees, he heard in his mind King Louis's voice.
And you, too, Simon, must do whatever you can, seize any opportunity, to further the cause of the alliance.
King Louis lay prostrate on the floor of the Sainte Chapelle, his face buried in his hands. Simon, impatient to speak to Louis about his mission to Italy, knelt on the stone a few paces away from the king's long, black-draped form. The two of them were the entire congregation this morning, far outnumbered by the twelve canons and fourteen chaplains chanting the royal mass.
Unable to keep his mind on the mass, Simon kept gazing up at the stained glass windows. Since the age of eight, when he had become part of the king's household, he had spent hundreds of mornings here in the chapel attached to the royal palace, but the building still amazed him. The walls seemed to be all glass, filled with light, glowing with colors bright as precious stones. What held the chapel up? Pierre de Montreuil, the king's master builder, had patiently explained the principles of the new architecture to Simon, but though Simon understood the logic of it, the Sainte Chapelle, most beautiful of the twenty-three churches of the Île de la Cité, still looked miraculous to him.
The mass ended and the celebrants proceeded down the nave of the chapel two by two, dividing when they came to King Louis as the Seine divides to flow around the Cité, each canon and chaplain bowing as he passed the prone figure.
When they were all gone, King Louis slowly began to push himself to his feet. Simon hurried to help him, gripping his right arm with both hands. The king's arm was thin, but Simon felt muscles like hard ropes moving under his hands. Though almost fifty, the king still, Simon knew, practiced with his huge two-handed sword in his garden. Age had not weakened him, though a mysterious lifelong ailment sometimes forced him to take to his bed.
Louis looked pained. "This is not one of my good days for walking. Let me lean on you."
Simon was grateful for the chance to help King Louis. The vest of coarse horsehair that Louis wore next to his body to torment his flesh—as penance for what faults, Simon could not imagine—creaked as he straightened up. He put his arm over Simon's shoulder, and Simon passed an arm around his narrow waist. He looked down at Simon with round, sad eyes. His nose was large, but blade-thin, his cheeks sunken in.
"Let us visit the Crown of Thorns," he said, pointing to the front of the chapel, the apse.
Louis was leaning all his weight on Simon as they walked slowly up to the wooden gallery behind the altar where the Crown of Thorns reposed. Even so, the king felt light. How could a man be at once so strong and so fragile, Simon wondered.
There was barely room on the circular wooden stairway for them to climb side by side. As they stood before the sandalwood chest containing the reliquary, Louis took his arm from Simon's shoulders. He took two keys from the purse at his plain black belt and used one to open the doors of the chest. Inner doors of gold set with jewels blazed in the light from the stained glass windows.
Louis opened the second set of doors with the other key and, with Simon's help, knelt. Simon saw within the chest, lined with white satin, a gold reliquary that contained the Crown of Thorns. It was shaped like a king's crown and set with pearls and rubies and stood on a gold stem and base, like a chalice. Simon was icy-cold with awe, almost terror, at the sight of it. To think that what lay within this gold case had been worn by Jesus Christ Himself, twelve centuries ago, at the supreme moment of His life—His death.
Still kneeling, Louis slowly drew the reliquary out of the chest, holding it with both hands. His eyes glowed with fervor, as bright as the pearls. Simon prayed he would not open the reliquary. The sight of the actual thorns that pierced Jesus' head would surely be too much to bear.
Louis kissed the lid of the case and held it out to Simon.
"Kiss this relic of Christ's passion, Simon, and beg His blessing on your mission."
Trembling, Simon touched his lips to the cool gold surface. Not one Christian in a hundred thousand had been this close to the Crown of Thorns. He felt ashamed, privileged far beyond what he deserved.
As they walked together out of the chapel, Louis limping and leaning on Simon again, said, "Baldwin, the French emperor of Constantinople, sold us two crowns after Michael Paleologos drove him out. I bought the Crown of Thorns, and my brother Charles bought the title of emperor of Constantinople. Which of us, I wonder, made the better bargain?"
Simon thought, did Count Charles actually hope to conquer Constantinople? And, if so, what did these dealings with the Tartars have to do with it?
"Is it your wish, Sire, as your brother, Count Charles, has told me, that I should guard the ambassadors from Tartary when they arrive in Italy?" he asked.
Louis stopped walking. They were almost to the doorway of the chapel. He turned his round eyes on Simon.
"Oh, yes, it is very much my wish." His thin fingers squeezed Simon's shoulder. "For more than twenty years, ever since I took the crusading vow, I have wanted one thing above all else, to win Jerusalem back for Christendom. I led an army into Egypt, and it was God's will that the Mamelukes defeated me."
God's will and Amalric de Gobignon's treachery, thought Simon.
"Now, with the help of the Tartars, we could wrest the Holy Land from the Saracens' hands," Louis said.
"But if you wish to ally yourself with the Tartars, Sire, should I not bring the ambassadors directly to you instead of to the pope?"
"No, I cannot make a treaty with the Tartars without Pope Urban's permission. Only the Holy Father can proclaim a crusade. If he refuses to do that, I cannot recruit an army to join with the Tartars to rescue the Holy Land. Even if he does declare a crusade, raising an army will be terribly hard. Many of those who went with me last time and endured our terrible defeat and survived with God's help have told me they will not go again—or send their sons. I must have His Holiness's full support."
King Louis turned toward him fully now and put both hands on his shoulders. "You must help me, Simon. I am asking Cardinal Paulus de Verceuil to represent the cause of the alliance at the court of the pope. And Friar Mathieu d'Alcon will be there to testify that the Tartars may yet be won to Christianity. And you, too, Simon, must do whatever you can, seize any opportunity, to further the cause of the alliance."
Simon looked into the king's eyes. Their blue was slightly faded, and age and care had etched red streaks in the whites. Simon's whole frame was shaken by an overwhelming love for the man.
"Sire, I will do anything—everything."
Louis nodded. "I know how you have suffered all your life because of the ill deeds of—one I shall not name. I have tried to shield you from being unjustly punished. But even a king cannot control the hearts of men. In the end only you can win back for the house of Gobignon its place among the great names of France. This alliance with the Tartars, and what follows from it, the liberation of Jerusalem, can help you restore your honor."
Could a man have more than one father, Simon wondered. Surely King Louis had done more than anyone else to make him the man he was today.
"I will work for the alliance, Sire," he said. "Not for my family honor alone, but for you."
For King Louis he would guard the Tartars with his life. For King Louis he would do anything.
His horse slowed down to climb as the road rose along a steep slope opposite Orvieto, green with vineyards. Friar Mathieu had made a better witness than David of Trebizond, Simon thought. But the Italian cardinals remained vociferous in their opposition to the alliance. The pope might be French, but he had to live with the Italians.
Cardinal Ugolini was the key to it. He, it seemed, was the leader of the Italian party in the College of Cardinals. He was the cardinal camerlengo, after all.
Someone must try to reach Ugolini. It could not be de Verceuil, either, with his arrogance and bad manners. Even if the man were to try to talk to Ugolini, which was unlikely, he would doubtless make an even greater enemy of him.
Friar Mathieu should do it. He could speak to Ugolini as one churchman to another. But then Simon shook his head. So many of these princes of the Church looked down on the mendicant friars.
Seize any opportunity.
Simon rode up the hillside, debating with himself. Just before the road passed between two rounded, green-covered peaks, it widened so that carters could pass each other. Simon swung his leg over the saddle and stepped down from his horse to enjoy the view. Against the hillside, under a peaked roof, a statue of Saint Sebastian writhed, his body pierced by arrows. The agony depicted on the saint's face made the countryside look all the more serene.
Oh, patron saint of archers, let no more harm come to innocent people from my crossbowmen.
Simon turned to look at Orvieto. It was like a city from some tale of faeries, a fantastic island on its huge rock. What was it the Italians called that gray-yellow stone? Tufa. Most of the churches and palaces and houses of Orvieto were also built of tufa. Beautiful.
The clatter of hooves interrupted his thoughts. He looked up to see four horsemen approaching from the north, followed by two heavily laden baggage mules.
Simon's mood changed at once from contemplation to tense alertness. His hands moved to check the position of his sword and dagger, making sure he could draw them quickly. You had to be careful of strangers in a strange country. As the men rode closer he saw that they also had short swords and daggers hanging at their sides. Closer still, and he saw long swords slung over their backs, and crossbows hanging from their saddles.
Annoyed with himself for feeling afraid, he yet followed the dictate of prudence and mounted his own horse. He kept his hand near, but not on, the jeweled hilt of his scimitar as the men rode closer. Highwaymen would be willing to kill him just for that precious sword.
The man in the lead wore a soft velvet cap that draped down one side of his head. Under it, Simon saw, was curly black hair shot through with white. The stranger's grizzled mustache was so thick as to hide his mouth. But, courteously enough, he touched his hand to his cap where his visor would be if he were wearing a helmet.
"Buon giorno, Signore," he said in a deep but neutral voice.
Simon returned his salutation and the muttered greetings of the others, thinking he really should ask who they were, where bound, and on what business. In France, especially in his own domains, he would not have hesitated. But then, in France he rarely traveled alone. These men seemed not bent on troubling him, and it seemed wiser not to trouble them.
The other three men in the party looked younger than the leader, and there was insolence, almost a challenge in their dark eyes as they looked him over and rode on. It took an effort of will on Simon's part not to move his hand closer to his sword. But he sat stock-still until they were past and on their way down into the valley.
What business would bravos like that have in Orvieto? Perhaps they had come to join the Monaldeschi or the Filippeschi in their feuding.
Simon felt beleaguered at the thought of more bravos coming into town. Orvieto was already full of armed men serving the local families, as well as others in the retinues of the churchmen who had come here with the pope. Uneasiness made his spine tingle. Anything that added to disorder in Orvieto made it a more dangerous place for the Tartar ambassadors.
We must get this question of the alliance settled quickly.
Someone should speak to Cardinal Ugolini and find out if anything would persuade him to withdraw his objections. Simon wondered why de Verceuil had not already attempted it.
I could meet with Ugolini. He knows who I am. They all do, since the pope greeted me publicly. All I have to do is send Thierry around with a note asking for an audience.
At once he began trying to persuade himself to forget the idea. How could he talk a cardinal into changing his mind about such a great matter? Ridiculous! What could he possibly do or say? And what if this cardinal were one who knew of the shame of the house of Gobignon?
Seize any opportunity.
Cardinal Ugolini shrugged with his bushy gray eyebrows as well as with his shoulders. "The question had been thoroughly discussed, Count. Now it is up to His Holiness. I am delighted to meet you, but what have you and I to say to each other?"
The solar, the large-windowed room on the third floor of the cardinal's palace, was bright with light that streamed in through white glass. The floor was covered with a thick red and black rug, the walls decorated with frescoes of angels and saints lavishly bedecked with gold leaf. Simon's eye kept returning to a voluptuous Eve, no part of her nude body hidden by the leaves or branches artists usually deployed for modesty's sake. She was handing a golden fruit—it might have been an orange or a lemon rather than an apple—to a muscular and also fully displayed Adam. Simon found them disturbingly sensual though they dealt with a religious subject, and he was surprised that a cardinal should have such pictures on his walls.
Ugolini's small, elaborately carved oak table, set beside a window, was polished and quite bare. There were no books or parchments anywhere in the large room. Simon suspected that the cardinal used this room to receive visitors but did little work in it. A five-pointed star was carved in the back of the cardinal's chair above his head. Simon sat in a small, armless chair made somewhat comfortable by the cushion on its seat.
"I have come in the hope of presenting to you our French point of view on this proposed alliance," said Simon. That sounded impressive enough.
"And do you speak for France, young man?"
"Not officially, Your Eminence," said Simon, flustered. "I mean only that I am French, and that both King Louis and his brother Count Charles d'Anjou have deigned to share their views with me."
Ugolini leaned forward. His expression was earnest enough, but there was a twinkle in his eye that gave Simon the uneasy feeling that the cardinal was laughing at him.
"I am eager to hear what you have learned from the king and his brother."
"Quite simply," Simon said, "they look on the advent of the Tartars as a golden opportunity—one might say a God-given opportunity—to do away with the threat of the Saracens once and for all."
Ugolini nodded thoughtfully. "So it is not just a question of rescuing the holy places."
Am I giving away something I should not? Simon asked himself, suddenly panic-stricken. It was Count Charles, he now recalled, who had said that the alliance might make possible the complete destruction of Islam.
I am in this over my head.
But he had to go on.
"The Saracens believe they are called upon to spread their religion by the sword. They will continue to make war on us unless we conquer them."
Ugolini lifted a finger like a master admonishing a poorly prepared student. "The prophet Muhammad calls upon his followers to defend their faith with the sword, but he explicitly states that conversions made at sword's point are worthless and commands that Christians and Jews who remain devoted to their own worship be left in peace." He sat back and gazed as happily at Simon as at some well-fed mouse who had the whole granary to himself.
"I cannot dispute you, Your Eminence. Truly, I am quite ignorant of the Mohammedan faith." Why study false religions?—that had been the attitude of his teachers.
Ugolini nodded, his side whiskers quivering. "You and most of Europe."
"But Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth—those precious places we hear about in the Gospel," Simon argued. "We cannot leave them in the hands of Christ's enemies."
The cardinal shook his head. "Christ's enemies! Indeed, you know little of them, Count. The Muslim holy book, the Koran, reveres Jesus and His mother, Mary. Our sacred places are sacred to them also. Emperor Frederic von Hohenstaufen had the right idea. He made a treaty with the Saracens. If the crusaders in Syria had not broken it, pilgrims would be happily walking in the footsteps of Our Lord to this day."
Von Hohenstaufen. Simon remembered the hatred in the voices of de Verceuil and le Gros when they spoke of the house of Hohenstaufen.
"The crusades were a mistake from the very beginning," Ugolini went on.
Having heard harrowing tales from men who had been there of King Louis's disastrous defeat fourteen years before in Egypt, Simon found it hard to challenge Ugolini's assertion.
But history could not be undone, and with the help of the Tartars, might this not be the one great crusade that would make any more crusades unnecessary?
"We still hold Acre and Tripoli and Antioch and Cyprus," Simon said. "The Templars and the Hospitallers have their castles along the coast. Think of all the men who have died just to get and keep that much. And if we do not beat the Saracens now, they will surely choose their moment and take those last footholds of ours."
Ugolini stood up and walked slowly, red satin robe whispering, to a small door behind his table. The door was slightly ajar, and Ugolini looked into the next room. Was there someone in there, Simon wondered, listening to this conversation?
I am getting in deeper and deeper. What if my words could somehow be used against me, or against the alliance? I should never have come here.
Whatever he saw beyond the door seemed to satisfy Ugolini. He turned, smiling.
"Count, I am going to suggest something to you that I am sure will shock you at first: Perhaps we should leave the Holy Land in peace."
Simon felt troubled, but, having heard much the same thing from his parents—and, indeed, from some of the knights at the royal palace when King Louis was out of hearing—he was not shocked. But for himself he had never been able to reconcile such views with his sense of his obligations as a Christian.
Even so, he began to see why de Verceuil had spoken of Ugolini as if he were a heretic. How could a man with such opinions get to be a cardinal?
"To leave the Holy Land in the hands of the infidels, Your Eminence? Would it not betray Our Lord Himself?"
Ugolini, unperturbed, continued to smile as he walked toward Simon. "The whole world belongs to God. If Our Savior wished the places where He was born, died, buried, and rose again to be occupied by Christian knights from Europe, He would have permitted it to happen. As it is, I truly believe that if we sent every able-bodied man in Christendom to fight in Outremer, we could not take Jerusalem back and we could not prevent the crusader strongholds from falling to the Muslims. The infidels, as you call them, are defending their own lands, and a people fighting for their homeland is always stronger than an invader. Another crusade, even with Tartar help, would be a tragic waste."
Ugolini stood before the seated Simon, and such was the difference in their heights that their eyes were almost on a level. Simon wanted to stand, but somehow he dared not move. He was beginning to feel desperate. He had walked into a trap that he had not anticipated. He had feared that he would not persuade the cardinal. He had not imagined that the cardinal might persuade him.
"But you would abandon the Christians who are there now to be overrun and slaughtered by the Turks?" Simon asked.
He reproached himself. It almost sounded as if he were conceding that there should be no more crusades.
The cardinal shook his head. "I would do everything in my power to bring them home."
He sighed and turned away. "You are a most impressive young man, Count Simon. I am glad we have had this chance to hear each other out."
Simon felt deeply shaken, as if he had been galloping in a tournament and had been ignominiously unhorsed. He had been foolish to think he could sway a man of Ugolini's eminence and intelligence.
Courtesy demanded, he supposed, that he take his leave. He could only hope that some of what he said would sink in and influence the cardinal's thinking in the future.
Ugolini, standing before him, thrust his small hand suddenly under Simon's nose, causing Simon to sit back, startled, in his chair. Then Simon realized the cardinal was offering him his ring to kiss. He slid out of the chair and dropped to one knee. He touched his lips to the round, blue sapphire which betokened Ugolini's rank as a cardinal.
While he still knelt, the door behind Ugolini swung open. Feeling awkward, Simon started to scramble to his feet.
As he did so, he saw the woman. Her features were delicate, her lips full, her eyes dark and challenging. She wore a yellow gown tied under her bosom by an orange ribbon. Simon stared at her, open-mouthed, until he realized he was in a half-crouching position that must look perfectly ridiculous. He shut his mouth. He slowly straightened.
"Buon giorno, my dear Sophia!" said Cardinal Ugolini. "Let me introduce our distinguished visitor."
He first presented Simon to the young woman and then presented her to him. "My niece, Sophia Orfali, daughter of my sister who lives at Siracusa, in Sicily."
It registered somewhere in Simon's mind that Sicily was part of the Hohenstaufen kingdom, and it occurred to him to wonder whether Sophia was of gentle birth. It struck him with much greater impact that she was an extraordinarily beautiful woman. Swallowing hard, he bowed over her hand. His fingertips pressing into her palm felt as if they were burning. His lips touched the back of her hand lightly; his eyes filled with smooth, cream-colored skin and the pale blue tint of delicate veins. As he stepped back he noticed that she gave off a faint scent of oranges.
She stood looking at him with a small, self-possessed smile, waiting for him to speak. All sorts of absurd phrases and sentences flooded into his mind—outrageous compliments, declarations of love. The upper part of her gown was pulled tight, and he had to make an effort to keep his eyes from her breasts. His face burned and his throat felt parched.
"Buon giorno, Signora," he choked out. "It is a great honor to meet you."
Her fine arched eyebrows lifted slightly and she answered him in French. "Why do you not speak your native language, Monseigneur?"
Simon's cheeks burned hotter. "I assumed you would prefer Italian, Madame."
She smiled, and Simon felt there was a shade of scorn in the smile. "I would prefer French, Monseigneur, to Italian as you speak it."
"Forgive me, Madame," Simon whispered.
"There is nothing to forgive," she said airily. Simon thought surely the cardinal would reprove his niece for her unkindness, but he stood there beaming like a master showing off a remarkably gifted scholar.
Ah, lady! thought Simon, I pray you be merciful to me.
Ringing a small bell that stood on his desk, much like the one Friar Tomasso d'Aquino had used to keep order at the pope's court, Ugolini summoned one of the priests on his household staff, and Simon, his head still spinning from his unexpected encounter with Sophia, found himself being escorted out of the cardinal's mansion.
As Simon and the priest were walking through the gallery that led to the main entrance, the outer door swung open and a large gray boarhound trotted in. It was deep-chested, with long ears, a pointed, aristocratic muzzle, and intelligent brown eyes. The dog jumped at Simon, resting his forepaws on Simon's chest and looking up at him as if studying his face.
Simon, who had played and hunted with hounds all his life, took an immediate liking to the dog. He scratched the back of the animal's head.
"Down, Scipio," said a deep voice, and Simon saw the hound's master—the same swarthy man with grizzled, curly hair and thick mustache he had met on the road from the north three days before. The one leading the little company of bravos.
Again that tense, besieged feeling came over Simon, the same as when he met this man on the road. There was too much going on in Orvieto, almost all of it surprising and much of it seemingly dangerous. If he wanted to be sure the Tartars were safe, he would have to give up sleeping.
The dog dropped to all fours and stood beside his master.
The other did not acknowledge having seen Simon before. "Forgive us, Signore. I fear Scipio has gotten dust on your tunic."
"There is nothing to forgive," said Simon. He brushed off his plum-colored tunic. "Do you serve Cardinal Ugolini?" This time he would not let the man pass without questioning him.
"I am Giancarlo, Signore, a servant of Messer David of Trebizond." He bowed deeply.
Feeling angry because he was sure he was being lied to, Simon wanted to ask about the men with Giancarlo on the road, but decided it was better not to appear too suspicious.
Let them think I am a naive young nobleman, easily gulled. Not so far from the truth, anyway.
"Are you also from Trebizond, Messer Giancarlo?"
The dark brown eyes were watchful. "I am a Neapolitan, Signore. Messer David hired me when he arrived in Italy."
So it is David of Trebizond who is bringing bravos into the city. What for?
Out on the street, Simon looked at the spot where the crossbowmen had spilled two men's blood. He felt a weary anger. Two lives cut off because of that fool de Verceuil and his vanity.
Where the men had been shot there now stood rows of bowls and pots, from small to large. They were painted white, with pretty floral designs in red, blue, and green. A woman sat on the ground beside the display, painting a freshly baked jug. She looked up at Simon, then scrambled to her feet and stood, bowing deeply.
"Fine vases and plates, Your Signory? The earthenware of Orvieto is the most beautiful in the world."
Simon smiled. "No doubt, but not today, thank you." He must remember to bring some samples back to Gobignon, though, he thought. It was fine-looking ware, and it might give the potters of Gobignon-la-Ville some good ideas.
He turned and stared back at the mansion, a great cream-colored cube of the same tufa as the rock on which Orvieto stood.
From that rooftop, David of Trebizond had watched the heckling, the throwing of garbage and dung, the sudden killings.
Simon almost expected to see David appear on the roof now, but it remained empty. The cardinal's mansion remained flat and featureless, revealing nothing.
Simon sighed longingly. Oh, for another glimpse of the cardinal's niece.
But there was no sign of her, and he could not stand here any longer. Sighing again, he walked away.