"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."