He hailed a passing servant. "Tell the cook I want Cardinal de Verceuil's supper sent up to me before it is brought around to him at the cathedral. Tell him to be sure there is bread with the cardinal's meal. The cardinal wants plenty of bread. And"—he turned to Simon—"what is your equerry's name?"
"Thierry d'Hauteville." What on earth was Friar Mathieu planning? Simon prayed that, whatever it was, it would work and get the letter through.
"Find Thierry d'Hauteville and have him bring the tray up to me."
Thierry had borrowed a fresh tunic and hose from one of the Baglioni family servants. His dark hair, which usually hung in neat waves, was wild and tangled from being rubbed dry.
He carried Verceuil's dinner, a mixture of pieces of lobster and venison, with bread and fruit, on a circular wooden tray with a dome-shaped iron cover. Friar Mathieu took a knife and sliced lengthwise through the hard crust of a long loaf of bread. Using his fingers, he hollowed out the bread, giving chunks of it to Simon and Thierry and eating the rest of it himself.
"The Lord hates waste," he said with a chuckle. "This is white bread, too, such as only the nobility enjoy."
As Simon watched, holding his breath, Friar Mathieu laid King Louis's scroll lengthwise in the bread and closed it up carefully. The line of the slicing was barely visible. To secure the package, he took a loose thread from one of his blankets, tied it around the loaf, and covered the thread with a bunch of grapes.
"Now, Thierry. Normally one of the cardinal's servants takes his meals to him, but tonight you will. We want as few people as possible to know about this letter. If Cardinal Ugolini found out about it, he would make such a scandal of it that he might even end up being elected pope!"
"Might not Ugolini see de Verceuil reading the letter?" Simon asked.
"No," said Friar Mathieu. "Each cardinal eats and sleeps in a curtained-off cell built along the sides of the cathedral's nave. De Verceuil and King Louis will be quite alone together."