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

Stung, Simon wished de Verceuil were not an ordained priest and a prince of the Church, so that he could challenge him. That he could do nothing about de Verceuil's accusation infuriated him.

"The Tartars are safely at the Monaldeschi palace guarded by all of our knights and men-at-arms. When Count Charles d'Anjou laid this task upon me, I understood that I was to help advance the alliance with the Tartars. I cannot do that if I am kept in ignorance." After a pause he added, "Your Eminence."

That was almost as good as a challenge. Simon felt light-headed, and his limbs tingled. He wanted to raise his arms and shake his fists.

De Verceuil's face turned a deep maroon, but before he could speak, a figure also in cardinal's red appeared beside them.

"Paulus de Verceuil! Is this not the young Count de Gobignon, Peer of the Realm? You are remiss, mon ami. You should have realized that the French cardinals here in Orvieto would wish to meet one of France's greatest barons."

This cardinal had a long black beard, and eyes set in deep hollows. He could easily have presented a dour figure, but stood smiling with his hands clasped over a broad stomach.

De Verceuil took several deep breaths, and his cheeks returned to their normal color. "Monseigneur the Cardinal Guy le Gros, I present the Count Simon de Gobignon," he said in a sour monotone.

Simon immediately dropped to one knee and bent his head toward the ring the cardinal held out to him. The stone, as big as[151] Cardinal le Gros's knuckle, was a spherical, polished sapphire with a cross-shaped four-pointed star glowing in its center. Holding the cardinal's cold, soft hand, Simon touched the gem lightly with his lips.

I believe I am supposed to gain an indulgence from kissing this ring, he thought. He rose to his feet. He tried to remember what he knew about Guy le Gros. He had heard a bit about each of the fourteen French cardinals. Le Gros, he recalled, had been a knight and a prominent lawyer, ultimately a member of the king's cabinet. Then he had joined the clergy. He had been the first cardinal elevated by Pope Urban.

"Doubtless you knew Count Simon's late father," said de Verceuil to le Gros. "Since you served as a counselor to the king."

Simon wanted to shrink out of sight at the reminder of Amalric de Gobignon. De Verceuil had mentioned him out of deliberate cruelty, Simon was certain. He felt even more crushed when he saw the pained look that passed briefly over Cardinal le Gros's features.

"Oh, yes, I met your father many years ago," said le Gros, his light tone reassuring Simon a bit. "He was a tall man like you, but blond, as I recall."

The suggestion that he did not resemble Amalric de Gobignon chilled Simon.

"As a father of unmarried daughters, Cardinal le Gros," de Verceuil said, "you might be interested to know that the count has no wife."

Le Gros shrugged and smiled at Simon. "His Eminence never misses an opportunity to remind me that I was once a family man. Perhaps Paulus envies my wider experience of life."

"Not at all!" de Verceuil protested.

"Or perhaps he thinks it a scandal that a cardinal should have daughters," said le Gros, still addressing Simon. "At least mine are legitimate, unlike the offspring of certain other princes of the Church. As for the high office, it was not my choice. His Holiness commanded me." He leaned confidentially toward Simon. "He needed more French cardinals. He cannot trust the Italians to support him against the accursed Manfred von Hohenstaufen."

"Even more than that, he was hoping you could persuade King Louis to give his brother Charles permission to fight Manfred," said de Verceuil. "You failed him in that."

"That case is not closed," said le Gros. "Indeed, what we do[152] here today may lead directly to the overthrow of the odious Manfred, as I am sure you both understand." He smiled, first at Simon, then at de Verceuil. "But should we not be speaking Latin, the mother tongue of the Church? Some lupus might be spying on us."

In Latin de Verceuil answered, "I fear Count Simon would be unable to follow us."

"Not at all, domini mei," Simon cut in quickly, also in Latin. "I have had some instruction in that language." His many and often quarreling guardians had agreed at least that he should have an education far superior to that of most other great barons. Having studied for two years at the University of Paris, Simon had once been the victim of a lupus, a wolf, an informer who reported students for breaking the university rule that Latin must be spoken at all times. The fine he paid was negligible, but his embarrassment was keen.

"Good for you, my boy," said le Gros, patting him lightly on the shoulder. De Verceuil's lips puckered as if he had been sucking on a lemon.

A sudden blast of trumpets silenced the conversation in the hall. Servants swung open double doors near the papal throne, and two men entered. One was Pope Urban, whom Simon had not seen since the day of that ill-omened papal mass for the Tartar ambassadors. His white beard fanned in wispy locks over his chest. The mouth framed by his beard was compressed, and his eyes were hard. Simon knew that he had been born Jacques Pantaleone at Troyes in France, not far from Gobignon, and was a shoemaker's son. Only in the Church could a man from such a humble beginning rise to such high position. Urban had the face of a man who could cut the toughest leather to his pattern.

Age had bent the pope somewhat, and he leaned on the shoulder of a man who walked beside him. This man was so unusual a figure that he drew Simon's attention away from Pope Urban. Like the Holy Father, he was wearing white, but it was the white robe of a Dominican friar, and it curved out around his belly like the sail of a galley with the wind behind it. He was partially bald, his face round as a full moon, and his eyes, nose, and mouth were half buried in flesh the sallow color of new wheat. He nodded repeatedly in response to something the pope was earnestly saying to him.

"Who is that?" Simon whispered, earning himself a black look from de Verceuil.

"Fra Tomasso d'Aquino," said Cardinal le Gros. "I am told he[153] is the wisest man alive. Papa Pantaleone has appointed him to conduct this inquiry, unfortunately."

"Why unfortunately, dominus meus?"

"Bad enough for us that d'Aquino is Italian, he is also a relative of the Hohenstaufens. His older brothers have served both Frederic and Manfred."

"A relative of the Hohenstaufens!" de Verceuil exclaimed loud enough for two nearby bishops to turn and stare at him. "How can His Holiness trust such a man?"

"Fra Tomasso is not that close a relative," said le Gros. "Papa Pantaleone hates the Hohenstaufens more than anyone. Have they not forced him to immure himself here in the hills, when he should by rights be reigning in Rome? And yet he favors Aquino because Aquino is loyal to the Church and well informed. Come, let us find our seats." They walked together toward the pews near the papal throne.

And Simon was suddenly standing alone at the back of the congregation.

Standing at the foot of the steps leading up to his throne, Pope Urban turned, smiled, and spread his hands in benediction. He intoned a prayer beginning, "Dominus Deus," very rapidly in Latin and followed with greetings to all present. He mentioned each cardinal, archbishop, and bishop by name, then several distinguished abbots and monsignori. His white beard fluttered as he spoke.

Then Simon heard, "And we greet with joy our countryman, Simon, Count de Gobignon, who bears one of France's most ancient and honored names."

A stunning brightness blinded Simon, as if lightning had struck right in front of him. Ancient and honored! In front of so many leaders of the Church. If at this moment some hidden enemy were to shoot an arrow at the pope, Simon would have leapt to take it in his own breast with joy.

What magnanimity! Simon thought. He remembered the majordomo saying he would tell the pope Simon was there. He looked to see how de Verceuil had reacted to the pope's singling him out, but the cardinal was hidden somewhere in the rows of red-hatted figures lined up in their pews on either side of the pope. Simon noticed other prelates staring at him, then turning away as he looked at them, and his face went hot.

Meanwhile the pope was talking about the Tartars. "We must soon decide whether it be God's will that Christian princes join[154] with the Tartars and aid them in their war against the Saracens, or whether we should forbid this alliance with pagans. We shall have a private audience later this week with the two ambassadors from Tartary. But today we ask your counsel. So that all may speak freely, we have expressly not invited the Tartar emissaries. We ask God to help us make a wise decision." He introduced Fra Tomasso d'Aquino.

To Simon's surprise, Pope Urban did not then ascend to his throne but instead came down, disappearing into the midst of his counselors. The cardinals sat in their pews. The lesser dignitaries sat on smaller chairs in rows facing the throne. When everyone was in place, Simon could see Pope Urban in a tall oaken chair at the foot of the steps.

There was no chair for Simon, even though the pope had greeted him by name. No matter, many of the lesser clergy also remained standing. He pressed forward through the crowd until he was just behind the seated men so that he could see and hear better.

The corpulent Fra Tomasso took his place behind the table in a heavy chair wider than the pope's, though its back was not as high. He called for Cardinal Adelberto Ugolini. The cardinal, a tiny man with flowing side whiskers and a receding chin, stood up at his place in the pews. He in turn summoned from the audience a knight called Sire Cosmas.

Sire Cosmas, an elderly man, walked stiffly to the pope and knelt before him. Ugolini told the assembly that Cosmas had seen and fought the Tartar invaders in his native Hungary and was driven from his home by them.

The Tartars have long since withdrawn from Hungary, Simon thought. Why did Sire Cosmas never go back there?

Sire Cosmas was lean and dark, with gray hair that fell to his shoulders. Over scarlet gloves he wore many rings that flashed as he gestured.

"They came without warning and all at once, like a summer cloudburst," the Hungarian said. "One moment we were at peace, the next the lines of Tartar horsemen darkened the eastern horizon from the Baltic to the Adriatic."

Sire Cosmas's Latin was very good, fast and fluent.

Simon stood transfixed as Cosmas described the fall of one Russian city after another, how the Tartars leveled Riazan, Moscow, and Kiev and butchered all their people. They would gather all the women, rape them, and cut their throats. The men they cut in two,[155] impaled on stakes, roasted, flayed alive, used as archery targets, or suffocated by pounding dirt down their throats. The details of the atrocities sickened Simon. On into Poland the Tartars came.

Cosmas's tale of the trumpeter of Krakow, who kept sounding the alarm from the cathedral tower until Tartar arrows struck him down, brought tears to Simon's eyes.

Simon found the Hungarian's recital spellbinding. Cosmas had undoubtedly repeated his account many times, polishing his storytelling skills a little more with each occasion. It was probably easy and perhaps profitable for him to remain in western Europe telling and retelling, in great halls and at dinner tables, his adventures with the Tartars.

How much is Cardinal Ugolini paying him for this performance?

The flower of European chivalry engaged the Tartars at Liegnitz in Poland, Sire Cosmas said, and when the battle was over, thousands of knights from Hungary, Poland, Germany, Italy, France, England, and as far away as Spain lay dead and dying on the field and the Tartars were triumphant. They turned then to meet another mighty Christian army, that of King Bela of Hungary, at Mohi.

"I fought in that battle," Cosmas declared. "The dog-faced Tartars bombarded us with terrible weapons that burst into flame and gave off poisonous smoke, so that men died of breathing it. We advanced against them and discovered that we were surrounded. Their pitiless volleys of arrows slowly reduced our numbers all that long day. In the late afternoon we saw their columns gathering for a charge, but we also saw a gap in their line. Many of us, myself among them, rushed for that gap, throwing down our arms and armor so we could escape more quickly. It