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

the Tartars are worse than the Saracens? That is what my uncle says."

Step by step, as if he were defending a philosophical proposition at the University of Paris, Simon explained to her what he believed. Yes, the Tartars were barbarians and had committed unspeakable atrocities. But the Saracens, united under the Mameluke Sultan of Egypt, were more powerful now than they had been in hundreds of years. If not stopped now, they would sweep all the crusaders out of Outremer, the land beyond the sea.

And a wave of Mohammedan conquests might well not end there. To this day the Moors were a power in Spain, and it was not that long ago that there were Saracens in France and here in Italy. Surely she remembered that her own island of Sicily had been conquered for a time by the Saracens. Indeed, King Manfred von Hohenstaufen's army was made up partly of Saracens, and he himself was an infidel.

With their belief in spreading their religion by the sword, the Saracens were a far greater danger to Christendom than the Tartars. The Tartars were simple pagans, easily converted to Christianity. Friar Mathieu had personally baptized over a dozen high-ranking Tartars.

She listened intently, her golden-brown eyes so fixed on his that he feared more than once to lose his train of thought. But he persevered to the end. When he finished, she nodded thoughtfully.

Now, he thought, he could turn the conversation to her uncle.

"All this is so obvious," he said, "it is hard to understand why your uncle should have formed a party to oppose the alliance."

She touched her fingertips to her mouth in surprise. That mouth—it was like a blooming rose.[359]

"You mean my uncle is the leader of those who are against the alliance?"

This reminded him of mornings he had tiptoed through his forest at Gobignon, longbow drawn, catching a glimpse of a stag's brown coat and then losing sight of it again in the thick broussailles, trying to stay downwind and draw close enough for a good shot without frightening the deer into headlong flight.

"But I thought you already knew that," he said. If she denied that she knew any such thing, then his quarry had escaped him.

"So, he put David of Trebizond up to baiting the Tartars while you and I were so delightfully engaged? Wicked uncle! To think I almost lost you on his account." She clenched a pretty fist that looked as if it had been chiseled in marble. On one finger her small garnet ring glittered in the candlelight.

"I believe he brought David of Trebizond and his servant Giancarlo here to Orvieto, as well as that Hungarian knight, Sire Cosmas, who spoke at the pope's council, to discredit the Tartars." Simon wondered whether he should tell Sophia about the bravos Giancarlo was recruiting. No, if he told her what he knew about them, he would have to require her to keep it a secret, and that might make her feel disloyal to Ugolini.

She nodded. "Now I understand why he spends so much time closeted with that silk merchant, talking about—who is Fra Tomasso di—di—?"

God's robe!

"Fra Tomasso d'Aquino?"

She nodded. "That was the name. He sent David to see this Fra Tomasso, and when David came back I overheard my uncle joyfully shouting, 'Fra Tomasso is with us!' over and over again. Is he an important man, this Fra Tomasso?"

Simon tried to keep his face calm, but he was horrified. Simon recalled now that the d'Aquino family were from southern Italy, the kingdom of Manfred the unbeliever, as was Ugolini. And were not the d'Aquinos even related to the Hohenstaufens? Something must be done about this at once. How far had the plotters—that was what they were, plotters—gotten with d'Aquino?

How much further dare he pursue this subject before Sophia grew suspicious of him? And how much further before he began to feel that he was degrading their love?

Our love? But she has not said she loves me.

The realization was like a thunderclap in his mind.[360]

What he really wanted to know was whether she loved him or not. To come right out and ask her was not the way of courtly love. He must wait for her to say. But she would never speak of love as long as they went on about the Tartars and Ugolini.

To the devil with Ugolini and David of Trebizond and Fra Tomasso and the Tartars!

He had learned enough anyway, he decided. She had confirmed his suspicion that Ugolini was the ringleader of the forces in Orvieto arrayed against the Tartars. She had let him know that they had drawn Fra Tomasso d'Aquino into their conspiracy.

Of one thing he felt certain. If she were working with her uncle to block the alliance, she would not have let him learn so much.

XXXIII

A hand shook Simon's shoulder. His whole right side ached. He fought wakefulness, trying to plunge deeper into sleep. He was in a cool blue lake surrounded by dark masses of spruce. He had just seen a wolf with a silver-white coat drinking from the lake on the opposite shore and he was trying to swim to it.

"Simon. You must wake up."

He opened his eyes. Right before his face was a twisting streak of orange against a royal blue background, and he realized he was lying on his side on the Persian carpet in Sophia's bedchamber. He rolled over on his back and rubbed his aching side. He saw Sophia's face just above him.

He could not help himself. He reached up with both arms and pulled her down to him and kissed her. Her lips felt cool and dry, and he had a sudden fear that his breath must be sour from sleep. She pushed herself away from him and he did not try to hold her.

"There is light coming through the window, and I hear birds singing," she said. "You must go now. Many of my uncle's servants get up at dawn."

He sat up. She was kneeling beside him, still wearing the same[361] cream-colored gown. He remembered now that they had talked of courtly love, and a little about her childhood in Sicily. To his disappointment, she had not said that she loved him.

The necessities of nature had forced on them an intimacy of one sort—while each had pretended not to notice, the other had used the chamber pot discreetly placed behind the red and green diamonds of a screen.

She had been the first to fall asleep. Sleep had overtaken him, too, but each time he dozed off he started to topple off the small straight chair he was sitting on. The fourth or fifth time this had happened he gave up sitting and stretched out on the carpet.

"Quickly, Simon, please. If my uncle ever finds out you were here, he will send me back to Siracusa."

God forfend! The habits of his knightly training took over, and he strode quickly to the corner, where he had left his sword and belt leaning against the wall, and buckled them on.

He remembered that Alain was supposed to sing an aubade, a dawn song, in the street below to warn and rouse him. An old troubadour custom. Perhaps he had sung, and Simon, sleeping so soundly, had not heard.

"Did you hear anyone singing out in the street?" he asked.

Sophia smiled and shook her head.

Blast Alain. He must have overslept, too.

Sophia said, "But how will you get out of here? It is not as easy to climb up to the roof as it is to climb down from it."

Simon went to the window and pushed the curtain aside. The rope he had climbed down on was still dangling from above. He gave it a hard pull, and it held firm. He looked up at the sky. It was a deep violet with only a few faint stars and one brightly shining planet.

The morning star might be Venus, a good omen for a lover.

His heart was light, even though he was leaving Sophia. It had been a beautiful night.

A half-filled cup of wine stood on the table by her bed. He swigged it to rinse his mouth, swallowed, then wiped his lips with the back of his hand. He tried to think of some parting word worthy of a troubadour, but none occurred to him.

She stood by the bed, her eyes warm. He held out his arms and she slipped into them with as much ease as if they had been lovers for years. She was so much shorter than he that he had to lean down to kiss her, and as he did she arched her body against him.[362]

"I love you," he whispered, embarrassed by its prosaic simplicity. But it was simple truth.

"And I love you." She kissed him quickly on the lips and turned away.

Her words stunned him. He felt for a moment as if he were going to fall dead on the spot. And that if he did, it would be a perfect moment to die.

The candles were almost burned to the bottom. He looked over at the painting of Saint Simon Stylites, whose blue eyes seemed to gleam out at him from the shadows.

He wrapped the rope around both arms, gave it another yank to be sure it was tied tightly above, and stepped up on the windowsill. He swung around so that he was facing the wall of the mansion and began to climb, his joy at her parting words making him feel stronger and more agile. His hands gripped the rough rope; his feet in calfskin boots pressed against the wall, pointed toes seeking out cracks. He did not look at the stone-paved street three stories below.

He heard voices in the street—and froze. There were men gathered down there. If they looked up, they would see him climbing up the front of the cardinal's mansion.

Move quickly, he told himself. He scrambled up to the square Guelfo merlon around which his rope was tied, pulled himself over the parapet, and dropped with relief to the flagstones of the flat roof.

He untied the rope. Curiosity made him want to look at the men whose raised voices he heard coming from across the street. Something had disturbed them. But he had the feeling that if he did not look at them, they would not see him.

Hurry. Holding the loosely coiled rope in one gloved hand, he ran as lightly as he could so as not to disturb anyone in the rooms below him.

He came to the back of the building, where, two stories below him, a crenelated lower wall protecting the courtyard joined the main building. He uncoiled the rope, found its center, and doubled the line around an angled merlon at the corner of the roof battlements so that both halves dangled down just above the courtyard wall. Then, gripping the doubled rope, he swung himself out and began to climb down.

A thunderous roar battered at his ears. He saw in the courtyard a big gray hound racing over the paving stones twice as fast as any man could run. It kept up a furious, enraged barking in a deep,[363] bone-chilling voice. In an instant the dog was below him. Its bellowing was sure to rouse the cardinal's guards. Its huge, pointed white teeth glistened; its tail lashed from side to side.

If I fell, that damned dog would eat me alive.

He remembered seeing the dog before with Giancarlo, David of Trebizond's servant. It had been friendly enough that day. But now it saw him as an intruder.

Giancarlo called it by name. What the devil was it? If I could speak its name, maybe I could get it to shut up.

Simon stood on the courtyard wall, thankful that it was too high for the dog to reach him. The hound sprang at the top of the wall, at the same time emitting a bark so loud it almost knocked Simon off his perch.

Simon pulled on one end of the rope, and it snaked around the merlon and came rippling down to him. To his horror, one end fell past him into the courtyard.

In an instant those great ivory fangs had sunk into the braided hemp. Simon yanked on the rope, but there was no tearing it loose. Hoping to catch the dog by surprise, Simon gave the rope some slack and then jerked with all his might, but succeeded only in dragging the beast a foot or so, claws scraping on cobblestones. At least the animal could not bite the rope and bark at the same time. Enraged, muffled growls issued around its clenched teeth. It snapped its head from side to side, trying to tear the rope out of Simon's hands.

He cut part of the rope away with his dagger, letting the end the dog held fall into the courtyard. Even as he was