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

coiling up the rest of the rope, the beast gave a howl of fury and with a tremendous leap was halfway up the wall.

The remaining rope tied to his belt, Simon hung by his hands on the outside of the wall and let himself drop, hitting the stone street with a thud that sent jolts of pain through his shinbones. He heard shouts on the other side of the wall mingling with the roars of the hound.

Limping a little at first from the force of the drop, he staggered into the nearest side street. He would have to circle back to the avenue that ran in front of the cardinal's palace, approaching it from another direction.

It seemed to take hours for him to find his way through the snake's nest of byways. But he felt not the least bit disturbed. It did not matter. Nothing mattered, because Sophia's parting words to[364] him had been And I love you. He felt like dancing through the crooked streets.

By the time he emerged near the east side of the cardinal's palace, he could see quite clearly. There was no sun, though. The morning was damp and gray. He would have to cross the avenue and walk back past the cardinal's mansion to find the inn he and Alain had picked for their rendezvous. It must be near where that crowd of men had formed a circle around something.

"Are you the watch, Messere?" a man said, coming up to him as he approached the crowd.

"I am not," said Simon with a slight haughtiness, and the man fell back, eyeing Simon's rich clothing, sword and dagger.

"Scusi, Signore."

I really should not let myself be seen around here.

With deference to Simon's dress and manner, the crowd parted for him when he joined them to see what they were looking at.

It was the body of a dead man.

It was Alain.

Simon staggered back, feeling as if he had been struck in the heart by a mailed fist.

"No!" he cried.

"Do you know this man, Signore?" someone asked him.

Simon did not answer. He fell to his knees beside Alain, horrified by the face so white it seemed carved from marble. He saw now the great bloodstain down the front of Alain's pale green tunic. Flies with gleaming blue-green bodies were humming above the bloodstain, settling down again after Simon's arrival disturbed them.

He raised his head, and through the tears that clouded his vision he recognized a face. Last night's innkeeper. A short, balding man with large eyes and a generous nose.

"We have sent for the watch, Your Signory," said the man.

"Did anyone see or hear anything?"

"My wife heard your friend go out before dawn. He never came back."

Jesus, have mercy on me, thought Simon. This is my fault. He went out to await the dawn so he could warn me. And someone killed him. Tears were pouring from his eyes. He was sobbing convulsively.

"Poverello," he heard someone mutter sympathetically. Here he was a knight, a count, kneeling in the street weeping in front of a crowd of strangers. He did not care.[365]

Guilt crushed him. He wanted to lie beside his friend's body and be dead with him. But how could he? No, he had to find and kill Alain's murderer.

Still kneeling beside Alain, he wiped his face with the edge of his cape and surveyed the crowd. To keep his identity a secret seemed unimportant now.

"I am the Count de Gobignon of France. I will pay handsomely anyone who helps me find the man who did this. If anyone can name the murderer, I will pay"—he thought a moment—"a thousand florins."

A murmuring ran through the crowd. A fortune! Foolish, perhaps, Simon thought, to offer such a reward. A man would accuse his own brother to get that much money.

I may hear many names. I will have to be sure.

He looked down at poor Alain. The flies were crawling on his face, and he brushed them away. Alain's lips had turned blue. He looked for Alain's purse and saw none on his belt.

Stabbed to death for the few coins he carried. Dead at twenty years of age. Tears overflowed his eyes again.

Oddly, Alain still wore his sword and dagger.

Alain's weapons were still both sheathed. Whoever had stabbed him had not given him time to defend himself. Yet, there were no recessed doorways or alley openings where an armed robber might hide himself.

The spot was unpleasantly familiar. This was where Simon's archers, at de Verceuil's orders, had shot two Orvietans.

Had Alain been tricked by someone pretending to be a friend? Was the killer someone Alain knew?

Ah, my poor friend, what a shame it is when a young knight dies without sword in hand. Simon clenched his fist, the tears falling unceasingly. By the wounds in Christ's body I swear I will avenge the wounds that killed you, Alain.

Simon remembered now that the watch was on the way. When they got here they would ask him questions about what he and Alain were doing here, questions he did not want to answer until he had time to think.

A scandal would give de Verceuil a chance to eat me alive. And I must get Friar Mathieu to help me.

"Send someone to the Palazzo Monaldeschi for my horse," he said to the innkeeper, standing suddenly.

"As you wish, Your Signory." The innkeeper hurried off.[366]

Simon swept the crowd with his gaze. "Remember, all of you. Anyone who saw anything, heard anything. You will be paid. Come to the Palazzo Monaldeschi."

Simon sat down on the stone street to wait for the horse. Silently the crowd that had gathered waited with him.

When the innkeeper's servant brought the horse, Simon lifted Alain's body with the help of two other men and lashed it securely facedown over his horse's back with the rope he had used to climb to Sophia's room.

Sophia. He had been so happy just moments ago because she said she loved him as they parted. Was she looking down now, seeing this pitiful sight?

Fresh sobs forced their way into his throat, and he leaned against his horse, covering his face with his arms.

I have to get away from here quickly.

He forced himself to stop crying and took hold of the reins. The Orvietans fell back as he led the horse up the street leading northward to the Monaldeschi palace. He felt warmth on his neck and looked up to see the sun through a break in the clouds.

Alain would never see the sun again.

Whoever did this to you, Alain, I will not rest until I have killed him with my own hands.

XXXIV

Sordello's face, looking as if hewn from granite by an indifferent sculptor, was gray with fatigue. His arms bound behind his back, he knelt before Daoud, wearing a tattered brown frieze robe Tilia had somewhere found for him.

Daoud sat once again on the former papal throne. Dressed in black cassocks and hoods that covered their faces, Lorenzo and five of Tilia's black servants stood along the walls of the room. Every so often Sordello's eyes flickered to the implements of torture around the room and quickly away again.[367]

Yet the night's assault on his mind had not altogether broken his spirit. "If you think to frighten me with this clowning, think again, Messer David. I have stood undaunted before the Inquisition in my day, and they are a good deal more fearsome than you and your henchmen."

Leave him his shred of dignity, Daoud thought. A man who has lost that is too dangerous.

"We are beyond fear now, Sordello, are we not?"

Sordello's eyes glowed in the torchlight like a trapped animal's. "What kind of devil are you?"

Daoud tried to smile kindly. "You call me a devil after I have sent you to paradise?"

The old bravo sighed, and his eyes closed. "I did not know that my body was capable of feeling so much pleasure. Even when I was twenty and at my best, I never knew such delight. It shook me to the very root of my soul."

"I know," said Daoud. He was thinking back to his own initiation. Given sanctuary in Egypt, the Hashishiyya had built a tent-palace of wood and silk west of El Kahira, at the foot of the pyramids. Over a series of moonlit nights, Daoud had drunk the Old Man of the Mountain's brew. He had entered hell in the bowels of the Great Pyramid and then had ascended into paradise, where the houris promised by the Prophet had ministered to him for what seemed an eternity. Yes, he knew very well what spirit-freezing delights Sordello had experienced.

"What are you, then?" Sordello growled, his eyes flashing open. "Some kind of stregone? What was that witches' potion you made me drink?"

"Do you wish to return to paradise?"

"You are a devil, Maestro. You want my soul."

The man was quick, Daoud thought. For all that he was a flawed man, he had a strong mind. He remembered being made to drink the preparation of wine and hashish. And he already realized why Daoud had done this to him.

So delicate, this part.

Now the bond must be forged. As a succession of Old Men of the Mountain had forged it between themselves and their disciples in Alamut, in Masyaf, in all those mountain strongholds across Persia and Syria from which terror had gone forth for more than a hundred and fifty years.[368]

"I am but a man like you, Sordello. I do not want your soul. I want your loyalty."

"You want my treachery, you mean. You want me to betray my master, the Count de Gobignon."

There was more than quickness here, Daoud thought. There was that foolhardiness he had seen in Sordello before. A man of sense, knowing that he was in the power of a force beyond his control, even beyond his understanding, would do nothing to antagonize that force. Yet Sordello persisted in challenging Daoud.

At the mention of Simon de Gobignon's name, Daoud's concentration wavered. When de Gobignon found his knight dead outside Ugolini's mansion, what would he do? There would be trouble over this, surely there would be trouble. Daoud cursed himself for leaving Tilia's house and going back to the cardinal's mansion.

He forced his mind back to Sordello. How to work with this provoking spirit?

"To send you into the enemy camp as he did, Count Simon must have great confidence in your ability."

Sordello laughed angrily. "Confidence? That high and mighty French fop? He was probably hoping you would catch me. Sia maledetto!"

He curses de Gobignon. Excellent. Or is this merely for my benefit? Daoud peered at Sordello, wishing the room were lit by more than a few torches burning in cressets. The flickering light was impressive, like this gilded throne, but if Daoud could get closer to Sordello and see better, he could be more sure of what the man was really feeling.

Daoud said, "He who is loyal to me is never cast out, no matter how foolishly he behaves."

"Does he who is loyal to you get to go to paradise often, Maestro?" Sordello's voice was thick with yearning.

It was time for the final step. Daoud beckoned. The nearest hooded figure on his right, who was actually Lorenzo, came forward with a green earthenware cup. He bent and held it before the kneeling Sordello.

"More of your stregoneria? Or have you finally decided to poison me?"

"Would I have showered you with wonders, as I have tonight, only to kill you? No, I have one final wonder to show you. Drink, Sordello."[369]

This wonder probably will be the death of you, but not for a while.

After a long hesitation, the old bravo lifted his head and swallowed the liquid Lorenzo poured down his throat. He made a sour face. "Paugh! It tastes bad!"

Daoud said nothing and waited. After a few moments of silence Sordello sat back on his heels. His gray head began to nod. His eyes closed.

Daoud arose from the throne and went down to him, holding a candle in one hand.

"Look at me, Sordello." The prisoner's head lifted, and his brown eyes stared fixedly into Daoud's. Daoud bent and passed the candle flame before Sordello's face, but his eyes remained motionless.

"Do you love Simon de Gobignon, or do you hate him?"

"Hate. I hate him," Sordello said in a dull voice. "I have suffered much on his account."

"Would you kill him if you had the chance?"

Even in his trance Sordello's eyes seemed to glow, and his face flushed. "Yes. Oh, yes, Maestro. Gladly."

That was good. The will must already be there. Then it remained only to shape the deed. Daoud reached inside the collar of his tunic and pulled out the silver locket Blossoming Reed had given him. It was, he had decided, better than a word or combination of words. It was something Sordello would never see again unless Daoud wished him to see