But did Alain care about what was happening on this earth? Surely a man would want to see his own funeral. For a moment Simon imagined he could speak 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 stout young priests boomed back the responses. The voices, rising and falling in the chant devised by Pope Gregory the Great, unaccompanied by any instrument, 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 the bench that had been set for him at the front of the cathedral. He turned and bowed to the pope, who sat in a throne on the right side of the 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 Fra Tomasso to hear the breath whistling through his nostrils as he exerted himself to move his bulk from bench to altar steps. The black rosary around his middle rattled with his steps and creaked with his heavy breathing.
A hush, heavy with the odor of incense, fell over the crowd assembled in the nave. For a sermon by a bishop or even a cardinal, this crowd of high-ranking prelates would probably go on whispering to each other. But all were interested in hearing the philosopher-friar who was famous throughout Christendom, whom some revered as a living saint and a few others considered a subtle heretic.
Fra Tomasso spoke Latin, as was customary before any assemblage of churchmen. His tenor voice sent high-pitched reverberations through the nave of the great church. It is a sad moment, he said, when God chooses to cut off a young man in his prime, yet it happens all too often. I share the sorrow of the family and friends of this excellent young knight, he said, and Simon felt comforted. Indeed, all Christendom must mourn the loss of such a fine young man, killed while performing his duty, far from home, guarding an embassy to His Holiness from the other side of the earth.
And accompanying a friend making a secret visit to a lady.