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

was no boy, but a knight, strong and trained."

"He could have been no match for you."

"I gave him no chance to match himself against me. This is not some tournament. Your life is in as much danger as mine is."

"I never forget that," she said.[375]

David had killed Simon's friend. She wished that she had gone to bed with Simon.

"Do you think de Gobignon will now be afraid to try to see you again?" There was a sneer in David's voice, and she felt the heated blood rising to her face.

"He is no coward."

He looked at her with weary eyes and a tight little smile. "Well, then. He will want to see you again. Send a message to him. Have him meet you someplace other than here. Someplace where he will feel safe. A church, perhaps."

"A church. Yes, that is a good suggestion. Then you will not have to wonder what we are doing."

"From what I have heard of Christian churches, that is not necessarily true."

She wished she had the skull to throw at him again. That was all that poor young knight would soon be—a skull, buried in the earth.

"How dare you insult the religion you were born into?" she shouted. "Have you forgotten that I am a Christian?"

He glared at her, turned on his heel, and slammed the door behind him.

Feeling alone, unloved, and desolate, not even sure who she was, Sophia sat heavily on her bed. Sobs racked her chest, one after the other. Not willing to admit how much Daoud had hurt her, she struggled with her tears for a time, then gave in and threw herself full length on the bed, pain spreading through her body.

XXXV

"Is it not a sin, Father, to explore a man's body like that?"

"It is considered a crime in many places. But it is not a sin when it is done with reverence, to discover the truth."

Watching Friar Mathieu, Simon felt his stomach rebel. The old priest bent over the long naked form of Alain de Pirenne, stretched out on Simon's bed, wielding a freshly sharpened carving knife[376] borrowed from the Monaldeschi kitchen. The knife flashed in the light of the many candles set around the bed as Friar Mathieu enlarged the wound in Alain's belly. Simon kept looking away and then staring back, fascinated.

"It hurts me to see you treat Alain so," said Simon. "Though I know you mean to do good."

"My brother Franciscan, Friar Roger of Oxford, says that if you want to know God, you must look as closely as possible at His works. He says that to read the book of God's creation is better than reading philosophy, and is a form of prayer."

"Philosophy. Yes," said Simon. "I learned last night that Fra Tomasso d'Aquino is an enemy."

"One moment." Friar Mathieu had tripled the width of the lower wound and was now pulling the lips of the gash apart, peering intently into it. If Alain had been alive, Simon knew, blood would have been pouring out of that incision.

Sickened, Simon turned away. He wondered if he could sleep again in this bed, knowing that Alain's poor naked body had been stretched out there, to be tormented in death by this old Franciscan physician-priest.

If he abandoned the bed, he would have to give up the room, though, and it was one of the few private rooms in the Monaldeschi palace. It was a warlike room, as befitted a young knight, decorated with battered Monaldeschi arms. Crossed halberds, spotted with rust, were hung on the stone chimney that ran up from the kitchen on the first floor. Shields, dented and scratched, each almost as tall as a man, faced each other from opposite walls. They were probably quite old, since they bore simple blazons. The one on Simon's right was ocher, with a black chevron dividing it across the middle. The other bore an azure cross against a white background.

This being the top floor of the palace, the mullioned window was spacious, and Friar Mathieu had drawn back the curtains and pulled the twin window frames inward on their hinges to get more light. Simon went to the window and looked through the protective iron grill down into the square. Two men and three horses were gathered by the steps leading to the front door. They wore yellow and blue livery, the colors of the city of Orvieto.

"I think I have found something," said Friar Mathieu. Just as he finished speaking, Simon's door shook under a heavy knock.

"Say nothing," said the Franciscan. "I will tell you later."

The knock sounded again. Simon went to the door and opened[377] it. A stocky man whose bald head came up to the middle of Simon's chest stood there. Simon observed that the man carried more muscle than fat on his sturdy, barrel-shaped frame. He wore a yellow silk tunic trimmed with blue, and a short sky-blue cape. A bright gold medallion on a gold chain hung from his neck. Two daggers, one long and stout, the other short and slender, hung from the right side of his belt. The sword on his left side reached from his waist to his ankle. Simon knew he had seen him before, but he could not remember where.

"Your Signory, Count de Gobignon, it is my honor to address you," the stout man said. His words were polite, but his tone was perfunctory. He had to tilt his head back to look at Simon, but his voice and expression made Simon feel very young and small. Even so, Simon held his silence and did not step aside to let the man in. Let him introduce himself first.

After a pause, the man said, "Your Signory, I am Frescobaldo d'Ucello, podesta of Orvieto." He stopped, eyeing Simon. He had sparkling black eyes, and his black mustache was trimmed so that it was no more than a thin line above his mouth. Simon remembered now having seen this man, the governor of the city, at the execution of that poor heretic a month ago.

"Signore Podesta," Simon bowed. "The honor is mine."

"Not at all, Your Signory." Now the stout man looked past Simon into the room, and his eyebrows flew up. Simon turned and saw Friar Mathieu anointing Alain's brow with his oil-dipped thumb, forming a cross on the white forehead. Most of Alain's body was under an embroidered coverlet, and the kitchen knife had disappeared.

D'Ucello blessed himself and said in a low voice, "I will examine the body after the good father is finished with the last rites. Would you be so kind as to step out of the room, Count, so that we can talk?"

Closing the door behind him, Simon followed d'Ucello through the corridor out to the colonnaded galleria overlooking the lemon trees where he and Sophia had kissed on the night of the contessa's reception for the Tartars.

So long ago that seemed now, though it was little more than a month, and so much tragedy had come of it.

Simon told d'Ucello the story he had worked out, that he and Alain had gone to that inn searching for women and had gotten separated.[378]

There were large bags under the podesta's eyes, dark as bruises. They contracted as he listened to Simon.

"Forgive me, Your Signory, but I must be clear. Are you telling me that you slept with a woman last night?"

Simon tried to look abashed and reluctant to speak. "Yes."

"And where did this take place, Your Signory?"

"In my private room at the inn."

"Who was she?"

Simon had prepared his answer. "I do not know. A pleasant lady whom I met in the common room."

The bags under d'Ucello's eyes twitched. "There are no whores in that part of town, Signore. It is one of my duties to see that the prostitutes are limited to a quarter of the city where they will not offend the holy or the well-born. A cardinal has his residence across the street from where your friend's body was found." D'Ucello's mouth stretched, but neither his eyes nor the dark bulges under them joined in the smile. "The woman who entertained you must have been an ordinarily respectable person who chose to go astray that evening." He paused and looked grimly up at Simon.

Simon felt as if a clammy hand had taken him by the back of the neck. He should have realized this vaguely imagined woman would not satisfy any determined questioner. He struck his fist against his leg. D'Ucello's eyes flickered, and Simon knew he had caught the gesture. He felt as if a net were slowly being drawn around him, and he resented it. Back home no mere city governor would dare trouble the Count de Gobignon any more than he would disturb the king or one of his brothers.

As d'Ucello continued to stare silently at him, Simon studied the podesta. This was a man who was jealous of his power, Simon decided. A man who, despite his politeness, would enjoy embarrassing a young nobleman.

"What was the woman's name?" d'Ucello pressed him.

"I have no idea."

The thick black eyebrows rose again, wrinkling the balding scalp. "You spent the entire night with this woman and never called her by name?"

Simon had been intending to claim that honor forbade him to tell the woman's name. He felt certain the governor would reject that argument as trivial under the circumstances.

"We spoke very little. I addressed her with various foolish endearments."[379]

"Could you describe her?"

"Most of the time we were in the dark." Simon felt d'Ucello had pressed him enough. It was time to fight back. "Signore Podesta, my good friend and vassal was murdered in the street, a street supposedly under the protection of your watch. I fail to see how it helps you to do your duty of finding his killer by questioning me as if I were a criminal."

The podesta's brows drew together, and he took a few steps backward, diminishing the importance of the difference in height between him and Simon.

"Your Signory, I have questioned everyone who lives in that neighborhood, and everyone I could find who was passing through it last night," he said. "I learned from the innkeeper at the Vesuvio that your friend slept alone last night. I know that you did not meet anyone in the inn, woman or man. You stopped there briefly, left your friend, and went somewhere else. You did not engage a private room for yourself. The innkeeper and several other people agree to that. Will Your Signory be good enough to tell me where you did go?"

Simon heard with dismay the weakness in his tone and was appalled at how easily d'Ucello had exposed his lies. "Those you spoke to about what I did must have been mistaken," he said. "Perhaps they did not notice my return to the inn." An inspiration struck him. "They may be trying to protect the woman I was with."

D'Ucello smiled thinly. "I see. Then you are telling me that you had carnal relations with this woman while your good friend and vassal looked on."

Simon was momentarily at a loss for words. It would have delighted him to reply by running d'Ucello through.

They stood bristling at each other like two hostile hounds when Simon heard a door open. A moment later, to his enormous relief, Friar Mathieu joined them by the marble railing overlooking the atrium.

"If you wish to examine young Sire de Pirenne's body, he lies in Count Simon's room waiting for you, Signore," said Friar Mathieu. "This is a very sad day for us."

With a black look at Simon, d'Ucello bowed to the old priest and left the galleria.

When they were alone, Friar Mathieu grunted. "A good thing I merely extended the wounds Sire Alain had already suffered. The[380] podesta might well bring charges against me for desecrating a corpse if he saw I had made incisions in the body."

"Did you learn anything?" Simon asked.

"I am convinced that Sire Alain was not merely stabbed to death."

"What do you mean?" Simon was eager to get Friar Mathieu's advice on how to handle the podesta, but this was more important.

"When I looked closely at the wound in his stomach, I discovered that it was two wounds," said Friar Mathieu. "He was punctured there by a thin, round object, like a large needle. Then he was stabbed through the heart, and blood poured out of him. And then the killer stabbed him in the belly to try to mask the dart wound."

"How do you know that?"

"The belly wound did not bleed much, so the heart wound must have preceded it. When the killer drove his knife into the puncture in the belly, it did not go in exactly the same direction. The smaller wound goes upward at a slight angle, as if the needle were driven in from the level of the killer's