Ugolini waved his hands dismissively. "Joachim died long ago, but his rubbish and madness still stir up the simple folk. The Church is too wealthy. The clergy are corrupt. The Age of the Holy Spirit is coming, in which there will be peace, justice, and freedom and all property will be owned in common."
The doctrines of the Apostolic Brethren sounded to Daoud like the teachings of the Hashishiyya, as told to him by Imam Fayum al-Burz.
Ugolini shook himself like a wet dog. "It is dangerous for you to involve yourself with such people as the Brethren."
It is dangerous for me to be here at all, Daoud thought, irritated at Ugolini's timidity.
"This heretic does not know me, so there is nothing he can tell them that will point to us. You need not fear."
"I feel no fear," Ugolini said grandly. "How did you get that man to draw a dagger in the cathedral?" Ugolini asked. "And the crowd, how did you stir them up?"
Daoud saw the tiny quiverings of Ugolini's pupils, the tightness of his lips, the clenching of his jaws, the signs of a man in a permanent state of terror.
Daoud shrugged and smiled. "Celino found the madman preaching against the Tartars at a crossroads and had men in his pay bring him to Orvieto. We did not tell him what to do. He did what he was moved to do. As for the crowd, all that was needed was for Celino to drop a word here and a coin there. Many people believe the Tartars are demons from hell. Perhaps they are. Anyway, I think we have turned the people of Orvieto against the Tartars."
"You are like a child playing with flint and tinder in a barn full of straw," said Ugolini, blinking his eyes rapidly.
He must be prodded into action, Daoud thought. Tilia said the idea of my appearing before the pope would terrify him. We must settle that today.