Memory showed him his mother and father celebrating Easter, standing hand in hand before the altar at Château Langmuir, receiving Holy Communion—the Sacred Host—from their chaplain. When he was old enough, his mother had told him he, too, would be allowed to take Jesus into his heart by swallowing the Communion wafer. What a strange belief! But at the time it had seemed beautiful.
I bear witness that God is One, that Muhammad is the Messenger of God....
He glanced around the pavilion, and saw many faces he had come to know in the last few months. There was Cardinal de Verceuil with his big nose and small mouth. There was Ugolini, the size of a child, dressed up as a cardinal, blinking rapidly, looking rather bored. In the front row of standing worshipers were John and Philip, the Tartars, in silk robes. Beside them, Friar Mathieu, the Franciscan, cleverest of Daoud's opponents. Daoud gauged him to be a genuinely holy man, if an infidel could be called holy.
And next to him was the pale young face of the Count de Gobignon.
As Daoud looked at him, de Gobignon looked back, and his eyes widened slightly.
One day, Count, you will die by my hand.
The mass began, and even though there must have been five thousand people in the valley, there was complete silence. The quiet was eerie. At a Muslim religious celebration this large, the crowd would be chanting in unison, there would be music, dervishes singing and dancing; impromptu sermons would be delivered in various parts of the crowd by mullahs or by ordinary men moved to speak. Here all was focused on the center.
Pope Urban rose to speak. He had removed his mitre to say mass. His white hair, his long beard, and his trailing mustache seemed much more sparse than they had been when Daoud had first seen the pope, last summer. His face was as pale as his hair, and his hands trembled.
A few months ago Daoud had heard Urban's voice rise robustly from the center of his body. Today his voice was high and thin and seemed to come from his throat. He told the story of the miracle of Bolsena, and explained that Father Kyril was a priest from Bohemia who had developed doubts about whether Christ was really present in each and every consecrated Communion wafer. Could a small piece of bread really become the body of Jesus when a priest said a few words over it?
Where is the illness? Daoud's Sufi-trained eye told him it was deep within Pope Urban; it had sunk its claws into his chest.