XVII
The beauty of Orvieto, Simon thought, was that, isolated as it was on its great rock, it was as big as it ever could be—and a man could go anywhere in the city quickly on foot. Those of wealth and rank often rode, but a horse or a sedan chair was a mark of distinction rather than a necessity. A bird looking down on the city would see a roughly oval shape, longer from east to west. One might get lost in the twisting side streets but otherwise could walk along the Corso from one end of Orvieto to the other while less than half the sand trickled through an hour glass. From Ugolini's mansion on the south side of the town, Simon reached the Palazzo Monaldeschi, near the northern wall, so quickly, he barely had time to think over the events of the day.
David of Trebizond was a trader, after all, and traders needed armed men to protect their caravans. Why worry about the three men with swords and crossbows he had seen with Giancarlo? They were far from being an army.
But was David actually sending out any caravans?
If I could put someone in the enemy camp ...
Before entering the Palazzo Monaldeschi, he surveyed it with a knight's eye. It was a three-story brown stone building with a flat roof crowned by square battlements. In each of the four corners of the palace there were small turrets with slotted windows for archers. Above the third story rose a block-shaped central tower.
Even as he looked up, he noticed a figure on the battlements, a helmeted man with a crossbow on his shoulder. He looked down at Simon, touched his hand to his helmet, and walked on.
It was good to know that the Monaldeschi family maintained a constant guard on their palace. The hidden enemy of the Tartars could get at them here only by a full-scale siege.
Simon walked around the building. If there were two archers in each turret, their overlapping fields of fire would cover every possible approach. He noted that the piazza in front of the palace and the broad streets on the other three sides allowed attackers no cover. The city wall was nearby, though, he saw. Archers could fire on the Monaldeschi roof from there, and at least two of the city's defensive towers were so close that stone casters set up in them could score hits on the palace.
What if the enemy were to attempt a siege?
We must control that section of the city wall and make it our first line of defense. The buildings around the palace would be our second, and the palace itself the third. To control all that, we really need another forty crossbowmen. But how to pay and feed them and keep them under discipline? I will have to make do with my knights, the Venetians, the Armenians, and the Monaldeschi retainers.
And he felt the weight of responsibility pressing on his back like a boulder. He had studied siege warfare under veterans. But how good, he asked himself, would he be in real combat?
His entire experience of battle consisted of one siege that ended as soon as the rebellious vassal saw the size of Simon's army, one encounter in his private forest with poachers who ran away when he drew his sword, and one tournament, two years ago, in Toulouse.
And yet, if the Monaldeschi palace were attacked, he would be expected to assume command. The thought made his stomach knot with anxiety.
He scrutinized the palace itself. He saw no windows at all on the ground floor, but there were cross-shaped slots for archers. The second story had narrow windows covered with heavy iron bars. On the highest level the windows were wider and the grills that protected them of a more delicate construction. On that floor were the apartments of the Monaldeschi and their more distinguished guests. The darkness and cramped quarters one had to endure in the palace because it was so well-fortified were a measure of the fierceness of the street fighting that had been going on in Orvieto, as in most of the cities of northern and central Italy, for generations.
We French are better off doing most of our fighting in the countryside. City fighting is a dirty business.
There were only two ways into the palace. On the west side a postern gate for horses and carts was protected by a gatehouse with two portcullises and doors reinforced with iron. In front, facing the piazza, a two-story gatehouse with a peaked roof and arrow slots jutted out from the center of the building. The doorway was in the side of the gatehouse on the second floor, and to reach it one climbed a flight of narrow stairs.
Why plan for a siege that probably will never take place? Simon asked himself.
Because I have tried to go beyond my duty this day and accomplished nothing. I had better be sure I can do what I am expected to do.
The door swung open as Simon reached the top step.
"Oh, you look too serious, ragazzo caro. Don't frown so—it will put wrinkles in your smooth brow. Surely your life is not so melancholy as all that?" Fingernails stroked his forehead and then his cheek.
Simon recognized the voice, but after the bright sunlight of the street it took his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness inside the doorway and actually to see Donna Elvira, the Contessa di Monaldeschi.
She took him by the hand and led him through the inner door, which, in the time-honored practice of fortified buildings, was set at right angles to the outer one. The hallway that ran the length of the second floor was dimly illuminated through the barred windows. Unlit brass oil lamps hung at intervals from the ceiling.
"I saw you from my window and came down to let you in myself." The contessa's nose was sharp and hooked like a falcon's beak. It might have been handsome on a man, but it gave her an unpleasantly predatory look. Simon felt distaste at the short silky hairs on her upper lip and uneasiness at the bright black eyes that looked at him so greedily. She gave off a strong smell of wine. How old was she, he wondered. At least eighty.
He politely bowed over her bony knuckles and kissed them quickly. She held his hand longer than necessary.
"Your greeting does me too much honor, Donna Elvira," Simon said, easing his hand away from hers. "I was frowning because I was thinking of what we must do to protect the ambassadors from Tartary. I am happy to see that you have a guard posted on the roof."
"Always." The contessa held up a clenched, bejeweled fist. "But surely you are not afraid for the emissaries. Who would want to hurt those little brown men? No, I am ever on guard against my family's ancient enemies, the Filippeschi."
Simon felt the boulder on his back grow a little heavier.
Something else to worry about.
"Is it possible that the Filippeschi family might attack us here?"
The contessa nodded grimly. "They have wanted blood ever since my retainers killed the three Filippeschi brothers—the father and the uncles of Marco di Filippeschi, who is now their capo della famiglia. They caught them on the road to Rome and cut off the heads of all three, to my eternal joy. Six years ago, that was."
"My God! Why did your retainers do that?"
There was more than a little madness, Simon thought, in the bright-eyed, toothless grin the contessa gave him. "Ah, that was to pay them back for the death of my husband, Conte Ezzelino, twenty years ago, and my son Gaitano, who died fighting beside him, and my nephew Ermanno, whom they shot with an arrow from ambush twelve years ago." She held up bony fingers, totaling up the terrible score. "They cut out my husband's tongue and his heart."
"Horrible!" Simon exclaimed.
"Now there remain only myself and my grandnephew, Vittorio, a ragazzo of twelve, to lead the Monaldeschi."
"What of Vittorio's mother?" Simon asked.
The contessa shrugged. "She went mad."
Well she might, thought Simon.
The contessa's face turned scarlet as she recounted her injuries. "Now that canaglia Marco would surely love to finish us by killing Vittorio and me. But he is not man enough. And one day I will cut out his tongue and his heart."
"Might the Filippeschi attack John and Philip, thinking it would hurt you?" Simon asked.
The contessa thought for a moment and nodded. "Ah, that is very clever of you. Certainly, they would treat any guest of mine as an enemy of theirs." She smiled. "At any rate, you need not worry about protecting the Tartars today. They are not here."
Simon felt as if a trapdoor had opened under his feet. "Where are they?"
The contessa shrugged. "Riding out in the hills. They left hours ago. They took their own guards and the old Franciscan with them. He told me they were restless."
God's wounds!
Simon remembered the bloody fight between the Venetians and the Armenians. He remembered Giancarlo and his bravos. He thought about what the contessa had just said about the enmity of the Filippeschi.
He pictured the mutilated bodies of the Tartars sprawled on a mountain road.
"Did my French knights go with them?"
The contessa shrugged. "They are in the palazzo courtyard, practicing with wooden swords."
Simon ground his teeth in rage.
The idiots! Training themselves for some future battle while their charges go off to face God knows what dangers!
"Which road did the Tartars take? I must go after them."
The contessa was by now rather obviously annoyed at his lack of interest in her. "I do not know. Perhaps Cardinal Paulus knows. He spoke to them before they left."
Simon bade the contessa a polite good-bye. She insisted on embracing him. He wondered if he had looked as foolish to Sophia as Donna Elvira now appeared to him.
For the second time that day Simon found himself sitting in a chair that was too small for him. The back of this one came to an abrupt stop halfway up his spine, and his shoulders ached even though he had been sitting for only a few moments. He had taken off his gloves and tucked them in his sword belt, and he sat with his fists clenched in his lap.
De Verceuil strode across the room and stood over Simon. "I may yet demand that you be sent home. I cannot imagine why the Count of Anjou entrusted such a stripling with a mission of this importance."
"Your Eminence may not approve of my visiting Cardinal Ugolini," Simon said, keeping his voice firm, "but can you show me where I have done wrong?" He did not want to talk about Ugolini; he wanted to find out where the Tartars were. But de Verceuil had not even given him time to ask.
"You could have gone wrong in a thousand ways," said de Verceuil, staring down at Simon. "Both the king and Count Charles have confided in you. Rashly, I believe. You might have revealed more about their intentions than you should have."
Simon remembered how Ugolini had reacted at once to the idea that the purpose of the alliance was to conquer Islam completely. Saying that might indeed have been a blunder. He felt his face grow hot.
Discomfort and anger pushed Simon to his feet. De Verceuil had to take a step backward.
"Why have you allowed the ambassadors to go riding in the hills with only six men to escort them?" Simon demanded. "That is negligence, Your Eminence. A good deal more dangerous than my visit to Cardinal Ugolini. Where have they gone?"
De Verceuil whirled, the heavy gold cross on his chest swinging, and paced to the mullioned window, then turned to face Simon again. His face, a deep crimson, seemed to glow in the light that came in through the translucent glass.
"Guarding the ambassadors is your responsibility, Count." He spoke in a low, relentless tone. "I did not bother to inquire where they were going. If you think they should not have gone out into the countryside, you should have been here to stop them." His voice rose to a shout. "Not waiting upon Cardinal Ugolini!"
Simon's face grew hot with shame. De Verceuil had him.
Even if he had not done anything wrong by visiting Ugolini, he should have first made sure the ambassadors would be safe while he was gone. He could have left explicit orders with Henri de Puys or with Alain de Pirenne.
"I will go after them now." Simon started for the door.
"I have not dismissed you."
Rage boiled up within Simon. "I am the Count de Gobignon. Only the king can command me."
De Verceuil crossed the room to thrust his face into Simon's once again. "God can command you, young man, and the Cardinal-Archbishop of Verceuil is God's spokesman. Have a care, or I doubt not God will show you how fleeting is worldly rank."
Is he trying to use God to threaten me? Simon thought, dumbfounded.
"If you overstep your bounds again," de Verceuil went on, "I promise you my messenger will fly to the Count d'Anjou, demanding that you be removed from this post. If the count must choose between you and me, I have no doubt he will choose the more experienced head and the one more influential with the pope."
"Do that," said Simon, his voice trembling with fury. "And I will make my own report to the count."
He turned on his heel, and de Verceuil's shout of "What do you mean by that?" was cut off by the slam of the heavy oak door.
It seemed to Simon as if the air were filled with motes of gold. He, his equerry, Thierry, and de Pirenne and de Puys were riding high on the western slope of a mountain thickly clad with pines. Shadow drowned the valley below. The horizon to the west was an undulating black silhouette. From beyond that range, the platinum glow of the setting sun dazzled his eyes.
"Look ahead, Monseigneur," said Alain, gripping Simon's shoulder and pointing toward a dark green hill with a rounded top to the north. Simon's stomach tightened as he saw a party of riders strung out along the road. They rode in sunlight, and he recognized the flame-colored tunics of the Armenians.
At last, he thought, sighing and smiling. The Tartars' party had ridden far. He had followed their trail most of the afternoon, and found them only now because they were coming back.
He squinted, trying to see the Tartars. He clucked to his palfrey and spurred her lightly from a walk to a trot. His three companions did the same.
Two carts with high sides lurched down the road behind the Armenians. A single mule pulled the cart in front, two drew the second. A man in a red tunic drove each cart. Where the devil were the Tartars? Bringing up the rear of the party on the back of a donkey, he saw a figure in brown. Friar Mathieu. Simon began to feel panic again.
"Do you see the Tartars?" he asked his men.
De Puys snorted. "They are probably too lazy to ride. They are sitting in one of those carts, fancying themselves lords of the earth."
"Tartars think it unmanly to be carried when they can ride," Simon told de Puys, annoyed at the old knight's ignorance.
"But I see horses without riders," Alain de Pirenne said. "Four of them."
Simon squinted again and saw that each of four Armenians on horseback was leading a riderless horse.
Even though it was a warm evening, he felt as if a sudden blast of cold wind were blowing right through him. He sat frozen in the saddle.
Dear God, are we too late?
"Follow me," he snapped, kicking his palfrey hard.
Riding as quickly as they dared down the rocky, unfamiliar road, they heard church bells chiming out the Angelus. The shadow cast by the hills to the west rose to engulf them as they descended.
The Armenians had gathered on the other side of a meandering river at the very bottom of the valley and seemed to be trying to decide where to cross. Simon still saw no sign of the Tartars, but it was too dark to make anyone out clearly.
In his dread he rode his horse straight into the river. She stumbled on the rocky bed a time or two, and once plunged into a deep place where she had to swim. It being the end of August, all the streams hereabout were at their lowest level. Even so, when Simon got across he was soaked up to his waist.
He saw the Armenians unslinging their bows and nocking arrows. "It is I, de Gobignon!" he shouted. He heard Friar Mathieu call something to the men, and they lowered their bows. Good that they were alert, he thought, but what might have happened to them on the road to make them so?
He rode in among the Armenians, and felt a hollow pit in his stomach as he saw the rich saddles on two of the riderless horses, silver and mother-of-pearl inlays glistening even in the darkness of the forest.
"Simon!" Friar Mathieu, on donkeyback, called.
Simon turned to the nearest cart and looked in over the shoulder of the driver, one of the Armenians, who stared at him from under heavy brows.
There, on a bed of straw, lay two bodies. They had the short, broad build of the Tartar ambassadors. Simon's heart stopped beating.
"Mary, Mother of God!" Simon whispered. He got down from his horse.
Mathieu was beside him, gripping his arm. "Did you come looking for us, Simon?"
Simon was sick with despair. He gestured feebly at the two bodies.
"What happened to them?"
"You might call it a mischance due to their inexperience. I tried to warn them, but they would not heed me."
"Mischance? What sort of mischance?" Did it matter, Simon wondered, how this had happened? He had failed utterly and absolutely, that was all that counted. His foolish decision to go to Ugolini had led to this disaster. Another stain on the house of Gobignon.
He put his hands to his face. "If only I had stayed with them this morning."
Mathieu patted his arm. "Do not reproach yourself. No one will blame you. It would probably have happened just the same even if you were there."
Simon felt the old friar's words like a blow in the face. What shame, to be thought so useless that even his presence would not have saved the Tartars. But, he told himself, turning the knife in his own guts, it was true. Anyone stupid enough to let something like this happen would surely be useless in a moment of danger.
"Did you not know how dangerous these hills could be?" he asked.
"They were determined on a long ride," said Friar Mathieu. "Tartars are used to vast distances and great spaces. You cannot imagine how miserable they were feeling, cooped up in a hill town surrounded by a wall on top of a rock. I felt sorry for them. In fact, I even feared for their health."
Simon was indignant. "Feared for their health! The devil you say! Now look at them."
Friar Mathieu squeezed Simon's arm. "Do not mention the devil. He may come when you call. As for them"—he waved a hand at the two inert forms in the cart—"this is embarrassing, to be sure, but we need not blame ourselves."
"Embarrassing? Embarrassing! Is that all you call it?"
One of the bodies on the straw moved. As Simon stared, it lurched to its knees. He heard a few slurred words in the guttural speech of the Tartars. The figure crawled on hands and knees to the side of the cart, lifted its head, and vomited loudly and copiously.
"They are not dead!" Simon cried.
"Dead drunk," said Friar Mathieu.
Relief was so sudden and stunning that for a moment Simon could not breathe. He caught his breath and gasped. The gasp was followed by a roar of laughter. Simon stood, his head thrown back, helpless with laughter. He pressed his hands against his aching stomach.
Friar Mathieu had gone to attend the sick Tartar. He wiped the man's face with the sleeve of his robe, went to the stream and washed the sleeve, then came back and pressed the wet wool to the Tartar's brow.
"Can you not stop laughing?" he said on his second trip to the stream. "The Armenians do not like you laughing at their masters."
"Dead drunk!" Simon shouted, and went into another spasm of laughter.
It started innocently enough, Friar Mathieu explained as they rode back together. He himself had proposed to take the road to Montefiascone, along which he had heard there was a particularly impressive view of Orvieto. Simon remembered the spot. He had been enjoying that same view when David of Trebizond's servant—what was his name?—Giancarlo, came along with those three heavily armed men.
The Tartars had been pleased enough with the view, but they wanted to ride on. Friar Mathieu felt some trepidation that they might encounter highwaymen in the hills. But he had confidence in the Armenians, too, and so they pressed on along the mountain road.
"They observed everything and talked to each other in such low voices I could not hear them." Mathieu turned to give Simon a pained look. "I think they were discussing how an army might be brought through these hills."
Simon was appalled. He pictured a Tartar army, tens of thousands of fur-clad savages on horseback, sweeping through Umbria on its way to Rome, burning the towns and the farms and slaughtering the people. Simon shook his head in perplexity. If such a thing happened, he would have helped to bring it about.
By the time the Tartars and their entourage reached the little town of Montefiascone, Mathieu went on, in the heart of vineyard-covered hills, they were all hungry and thirsty. They took over the inn—the black looks cast by the Armenians were enough to drive out the other patrons—and proceeded to drink up the host's considerable supply of wine.
"The wine of Montefiascone is a great gift from God," Mathieu said. "Very clear, almost as light as spring water, just a touch sweet, just a touch tart. And the host brought it up from a stone cellar that kept it deliciously cold. Not strong wine, actually, but the Tartars drank all there was."
Friar Mathieu pointed to the young Armenian leader, Prince Hethum, who was now riding beside Alain de Pirenne, at the head of their procession back to Orvieto. The prince was carrying the Tartars' purse, now somewhat less fat with gold florins. The host at the inn had been delighted to serve his thirsty guests, but when his supply of wine was gone, the Tartars turned ugly. Philip Uzbek, the younger Tartar, grabbed the host by the throat. The Armenians, who were careful to drink sparingly, fingered their bows. The innkeeper left his wife as a hostage and went out to the nearby farms, and after a tense hour arrived back with a cartload of wine barrels. This time the wine outlasted the Tartars.
"They have no head for wine, you see," Mathieu said. "Poor innocent world conquerors. They drink a beverage called kumiss, which is fermented mare's milk. Very mild, but it satisfies their desire to get drunk. When they conquered the civilized lands, for the first time they could have as much wine as they wanted. They have an ungodly appetite for it."
When the Tartar ambassadors collapsed, unconscious, Mathieu and the host had both sighed with relief. With the Tartars' gold, Mathieu bought two carts and three mules, and they loaded John Chagan and Philip Uzbek in one and the remaining barrels of Montefiascone wine in the other.
"Montefiascone may be the only town in the world that can say it has been invaded by Tartars and profited," said Mathieu. Simon laughed.
He had thought to bring flint, tinder, a lantern, and a supply of candles with him, and now Thierry rode at the head of the party with the lantern raised on the end of a long tree branch, giving them a little light to follow. At least this way the Tartars would not go over a cliff in their cart in the dark.
"If I could have found you this morning, I would have asked you to come along and bring some of your Frenchmen," the old friar said. "But you were meeting with Cardinal Ugolini, were you not?"
When Mathieu mentioned Ugolini, Simon immediately found himself thinking of the cardinal's beautiful niece. He wondered, was she older than he? How would she react if he tried to see her again? He wished he could forget Tartars and crusaders and Saracens and devote himself to paying court to Sophia. Of course, if he went anywhere near Ugolini's establishment again, de Verceuil would undoubtedly think he was trying to continue the forbidden negotiations.
"My efforts went badly," he told Friar Mathieu. Before going on, he peered as far along the road ahead as he could see. De Pirenne and de Puys were both riding at the head of the party, just behind Thierry with his lantern. Hethum and the other Armenians came next, and they understood no French. Simon and Friar Mathieu were at the end of the line, behind the two carts. There was no risk in talking.
"Cardinal Ugolini nearly convinced me that our efforts to liberate the Holy Land are futile. And then de Verceuil knew that I had gone to Ugolini, and he was furious. How did he know where I had been?"
Friar Mathieu smiled. "He had you followed."
"That snake!"
The Franciscan reached over and laid his fragile hand lightly on Simon's. "Hush, Simon. The cardinal will answer to God one day for his worldly ways."
Simon shook his head. "I tell you, Friar Mathieu, between Ugolini's persuasion and de Verceuil's bullying, I was nearly ready to leave Orvieto today."
But he would not have left under any circumstances, he knew. Especially not after meeting Sophia. He recalled her smoldering eyes and full red lips. And her splendid breasts. Ah, no, he must stay in Orvieto and become better acquainted with Sophia Orfali.