The Saracen: Land of the Infidel by Robert Shea (best fiction books to read .TXT) 📗

want to be torn to pieces by teams of horses?" she whispered. "I do not, and neither does Cardinal Ugolini. We cannot risk your being found out."

He must overcome her doubt of him by seeming supremely confident.

He said, "Then, for your own protection, you will teach me everything I need to know."

And if Christians moved closer to Tartars despite intrigue and persuasion, he and Baibars had already considered more desperate measures. The risk of failure would be greater and the consequences more dire. He would not tell Tilia about these more drastic steps. If his presence and intentions already frightened her and Ugolini, it was best they not know the lengths he was prepared to go to.

He hoped he would not have to attempt such things. The complexities and difficulties of making them happen, the likelihood of things going disastrously wrong, all made these courses too daunting.

Insh'Allah, if it be God's will, he would manage, with the help of such allies as he found in Orvieto, to oppose and obstruct and delay the alliance until the project died of old age, or the Tartar ambassadors themselves died.

Time fights for Islam, Baibars had told him. The Tartar empire is beginning to break apart, and the Christians are losing their eagerness for crusading. Only delay this alliance long enough, and their opportunity to destroy us will be lost.

Tilia broke in on his thoughts, holding out her hands to him. "Help me up. My legs are getting cramped. I feel hungry. Do you have anything to eat?"[113]

He was not surprised that she asked for food. Mustapha al-Zaid, the chief eunuch of Baibars's harem, was monstrously fat, and was always eating.

He sprang to his feet and pulled her up. The cross on her bosom swung and flashed. The top of her head came only to the middle of his chest, but he suspected that she weighed as much or more than he did.

She smiled at him. "You are strong, and you move like a warrior."

Ignoring the flattery, he said, "Sophia has bread and cheese that we bought at a village called Bagnioregio. And some red wine to wash it down."

Tilia laughed. "Bagnioregio? Then you must have passed near the ruins of Ferento—the town that was destroyed for the heresy of displaying a statue of Christ on the cross with open eyes."

"What? I saw no ruins. Open eyes?"

"The ruins are off the road. But that will give you an idea of how careful one must be where religion is concerned. I cannot imagine that anyone makes decent wine in Bagnioregio. There is another town near here, Montefiascone, where they make the best wine in the world. Wait until you taste that."

"I drink wine only to deceive Christians," he said gruffly. "I do not like it. Let us finish this conversation before you refresh yourself. I do not want those two to know any more than I tell them."

Annoyance flickered in her face. She was not used to being denied, Daoud thought. But she shrugged. "I presume you plan to use that beautiful woman who travels with you as bait to win over some of the high-ranking churchmen."

To Daoud's surprise, the thought pained him.

"She is a skilled courtesan and was Manfred's mistress," he said. "And before that, King Manfred told me, she was a favorite of the Emperor of Constantinople. We will want to keep her in reserve. I have in mind that she could live with the cardinal, pose as his niece."

"Hm. And the other girl? She is very pretty and very young. The older and more powerful churchmen are, the more they are drawn to youth."

"We owe Rachel a debt. We have promised to find a home for her among the Jews of Orvieto."

"Oh, is she a Jew? But there are no Jews in Orvieto."

"Somewhere nearby, then."[114]

"The nearest Jews live in Rome."

Rome—where the Jews had already turned Rachel away. "She cannot go to Rome."

"Well, the girl would find working for me far more rewarding than living on charity."

"I am sure of it," said Daoud. But a dark memory from long ago rose to trouble him.

He fixed his eyes on hers. "You would not force her into whoring, would you?"

Tilia pressed her hand to her bosom in mock horror. "Force! Women beg to be accepted into the family of Tilia Caballo."

A terrible thing to do to the child, but it would solve my problem, thought David. Rachel already must be aware that Sophia and Lorenzo and I are involved together in some secret enterprise. It would be best to keep her where we can watch her.

"For the time being, Rachel will stay with us at the cardinal's mansion, serving Sophia as her maid," he said.

Tilia looked up at him, startled. "You all intend to live with the cardinal?"

Her surprise, in turn, startled Daoud. But then he saw that her eyes were too firmly fixed upon him, and knew that she was dissembling.

"As Morgiana, did you not approve this arrangement with my lord the sultan?"

She shrugged. "That was when we thought you were coming alone."

"Sophia and Lorenzo will be of great help to us. We will give it out that I am the cardinal's guest. Lorenzo will be my servant, Giancarlo. And Sophia will be the cardinal's niece."

"Hm." Tilia frowned. "I am very hungry. Let me sample the delicacies your Greek woman bought in Bagnioregio. Then I will go back to the city and send word to the cardinal of what you have told me."

Daoud heard the false note in her voice and bristled with suspicion.

And you would keep me waiting out here while you warn him of what a danger I am to him.

"I will tell him everything myself."

Her eyes clouded over. "The cardinal will send for you when he has heard my report."

"Great God, woman!" Daoud's voice rasped in his anger. "Do[115] you expect me to wait out here until the Tartars come to Orvieto? I am sent by the sultan, I bring great wealth to you and your master, I am fighting for my faith, and I will not wait!"

Tilia patted his arm placatingly. "Look here, Daoud, in all honesty, Cardinal Ugolini is terrified. When he first got Baibars's message about you, he wept for hours, cursing himself over and over for a fool. Imagine the outrage if the Christians were to discover that a Muslim agent has come so close to their pope. The cardinal would never have taken the first denaro picciolo from your sultan if he had ever known that it would lead to this—a Turk at his door demanding his help in a plot against the pope."

"I am not at his door," said Daoud pointedly.

"No, and before you arrive there, you must give me time to assure him that you know what you are doing, that you do not look anything like a Turk, and above all that you bring him such great wealth as to make the risk worthwhile. If you just appear at his palace when he has insisted that you wait here, it might throw him into a panic. He might do something very foolish."

Anger flared up in him. She was obstructing him and threatening him, and he had had enough.

She means he might expose me. Or order his men-at-arms to kill me. This is Manfred's indecision all over again.

He seized Tilia's arm, his fingers sinking into soft flesh under her silk sleeve. "I am going to the cardinal, with my party. And you will equip me with a message for him, telling him you feel assured it is safe for him to admit us."

She stared up at him, expressionless, for a long time. He sensed that she was trying to see into his heart, to weigh his will.

"No," she said. "You are not going now. First—"

His grip on her arm tightened, and in his anger he was about to shake her, when her hand darted to lift the pectoral cross from her breast. Her thumb pressed a dark red carbuncle between the arms, and a thin blade sprang out of the shaft.

"Please notice that the cross is attached to my neck by a chain, David. I cannot hurt you unless you come too close to me. I have no wish to attack you. There is asp venom on the blade, by the way."

His anger turned against himself. It was foolish to try violence on a woman like this. Had he not told himself he could not force Tilia and Ugolini to do anything, that he must persuade them?

This woman herself is as dangerous as an asp. But I need her.[116]

He let go of her arm. "Pardon my crudity, Madama."

Tilia pointed her blade straight up and pressed another jewel in the cross. The blade dropped back into the shaft.

"I do not mind crudity," she said, "but I do not like to be manhandled." She smiled slyly. "Unless I've invited it. I had already made my mind up, before you laid violent hands on me, that I would agree to your going at once to the cardinal. I have decided that you may be able to accomplish what you set out to do without getting us all killed. You are brave and intelligent, but you know how to bargain, too. You know when to yield and you know when to stand your ground."

Daoud felt pleasure at her compliments, but even more pleasure that she was going to cooperate with him.

"Then why did you just say we would not be going to the cardinal?"

"I was about to add that first you will feed me bread and cheese and the execrable wine of Bagnioregio. Then I will give you a message that will get you into Cardinal Ugolini's mansion."

Daoud laughed. That Tilia had yielded was a great relief. And she was both witty and dangerous, a combination he admired.

XI

Simon was surprised at how young Cardinal Paulus de Verceuil looked. The man who stood with him in a vineyard on the road to Orvieto had a long, fine-skinned face and glossy black hair that fell in waves to his shoulders. If his scalp was shaved in a clerical tonsure, his red velvet cap covered it. His handsome violet silk tunic reminded Simon that his own surcoat was travel-stained and that Thierry had not polished his mail in days.

De Verceuil tossed away the cluster of pale green grapes he had been nibbling and spoke suddenly.

"Count, a report has reached me that you spoke rudely to the doge of Venice." His booming bass voice sounded as if it were[117] emerging from the depths of a tomb. "You do realize that your actions reflect on the crown of France?"

He thrust his face into Simon's as he spoke, which made Simon involuntarily draw back. De Verceuil was one of the few men Simon had ever met who matched his own unusual height.

Simon felt his face grow hot. "Yes, Your Eminence."

"And how could you dismiss the trovatore Sordello from the post to which Count Charles himself appointed him?"

"If Sordello had stayed with us, the Tartars might have taken such offense as to go back to Outremer."

"Do not be absurd. Would they abandon a mission of such importance because of a tavern brawl?"

Simon felt shame, but, deeper than that, resentment. He was the Count de Gobignon, and not since he was a child had anyone chastised him like this.

He heard a rustling as someone came down the row of vines where they were standing. He turned to see Friar Mathieu, and hoped he was about to be rescued.

After the Franciscan had humbly greeted the cardinal and kissed his sapphire ring, he said, "I must tell Your Eminence that what happened was not a mere tavern brawl. Sordello stabbed and nearly killed the heir to the throne of Armenia, an important ally of the Tartars."

De Verceuil stared at Friar Mathieu. The cardinal had a mouth so small it looked quite out of place below his large nose and above his large chin. A mean mouth, Simon thought.

"Your opinion does not interest me," de Verceuil said. "I cannot imagine why King Louis trusted a beggar-priest to conduct diplomacy with the empire of Tartary."

The resentment Simon had felt at the cardinal's harsh speech at his expense now flared up in anger.

I am young and I do make mistakes, Simon thought. But, cardinal or not, this man has no right to stand there in his velvet and satin and jewels and sneer at this fine old man. No right at all.

But the old friar merely stroked his white beard with a wry smile and said, "I said that very thing to him myself, when he ordered me to go."

Still angry, Simon took a deep breath and said, "Since Your Eminence feels I have embarrassed the king and displeased the Count of