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

waist. The knife wound goes straight in. I had to dig below the skin and ribs to discover the needle wound."

"A needle could not have killed Alain."

"It could have been a poisoned dart. Alain's lips are blue. That is sometimes a sign of poison."

Simon heard a clumping of boots in the corridor. He hurried in from the galleria to find Cardinal Paulus de Verceuil, accompanied by two black-robed priests, striding toward the room where Alain lay.

"Now one of your knights has been killed!" de Verceuil boomed. He was dressed in a dark cerise tunic with particolored hose and forest-green boots with pointed toes. The only indications of his ecclesiastical office were the absence of a sword and the presence of the large jeweled cross hanging from his neck. A purple velvet cap adorned with a black feather was draped over his glossy black hair.

Simon told the cardinal he and Alain had been out late and had decided to stay at an inn rather than cross town during the dangerous night hours. Friar Mathieu came and stood beside him, greeting the two priests who had accompanied de Verceuil. They loftily eyed the old Franciscan's brown robe and responded with curt nods.

When Simon finished his recital, de Verceuil leaned forward, his[381] small lower lip outthrust. "If you cannot protect your own knights, how can you protect the emissaries from Tartary?"

That was not a question but an assault, Simon decided, and required no answer. "We are doing everything we can to find his killer, Your Eminence."

"By God's footprints, I wish this were my bishopric!" de Verceuil exclaimed. "I would take a dozen men from that neighborhood and I would hang one man a day until the killer was found. I would have the man."

The door to the room where Alain lay swung open, and the stout podesta emerged. He stood silently glowering up at de Verceuil. Simon wondered whether d'Ucello had learned anything from looking at poor Alain's corpse.

"And what, Your Eminence, if the people of that neighborhood truly do not know who killed the Sire de Pirenne?" said Friar Mathieu.

Until that moment Simon had assumed Alain had met his death at the hands of some Orvietan cutthroat. If not such a one, then who? He remembered Giancarlo and the bravos he had met on the road. Alain's money had been taken, but not his weapons. And Giancarlo served David of Trebizond, and David served Ugolini. Was this Ugolini's way of protecting his niece's honor?

If Giancarlo had anything to do with it, Sordello ought to be able to find out.

"If we arrested all the men who live on the street where he was killed," said de Verceuil, "more than likely among them would be the man who did it. These Italians—shopkeepers by day and robbers by night."

The faces of the two priests with him tightened. Simon glanced at d'Ucello, and saw a flush darkening his brown cheeks.

"The people of that street are among the most respectable in Orvieto, Signore," the podesta growled. How delightful, Simon thought, if the odious de Verceuil and the odious d'Ucello were to tear into each other.

De Verceuil stared at the podesta in amazement and wrath, while the two priests turned their heads from one to the other in embarrassment. After a moment, one priest murmured de Verceuil's identity to d'Ucello, while the other softly told the cardinal who the podesta was.

"Forgive me, Your Eminence, if my tone was less respectful[382] than you deserve," said d'Ucello, bowing to kiss de Verceuil's haughtily extended sapphire ring.

"I have encountered nothing but disrespect from Orvietans since I came here," said the cardinal, and Simon remembered that vile smear of dung on his cheek the day they arrived. "I had actually thought Orvieto had no governor."

"Forgive me again that I did not pay my respects to you before," said d'Ucello. He did not rise to the bait, Simon noticed. An intelligent man.

"A French knight has been murdered in your city, Podesta," de Verceuil said. "Regardless of your high opinion of the people of the quarter where it happened, I expect you to press them hard until you find the killer. A thing like this cannot happen without someone seeing something or hearing something."

That reminded Simon that no one had come forward to claim the reward he had offered. If someone had heard or seen something, that person was doubtless too frightened to speak of it.

"Your Eminence gives me most valuable advice," said d'Ucello. "I promise you, we shall not rest until the killer is found." His round body bobbed forward in a bow, and he turned on his heel, sword and daggers swinging, and marched away.

"Pompous little man," said de Verceuil. "And doubtless incompetent and treacherous."

The cardinal turned to Simon now. "Do not leave it to that watch commander to find the killer. The knight—what was his name?" Simon told him. "De Pirenne was your man, and you are responsible for his death. Put all the men under you to work hunting down the murderer. Do whatever has to be done. We must not let the death of a French knight go unavenged."

"As Your Eminence wills, so I will," said Simon.

De Verceuil raised a finger. "And we will have a splendid funeral. The pope himself will be present. Let the grandeur of the ceremony show that we French do not take the death of one of our number lightly. Let these sneaking Italians tremble before our wrath."

Again the two priests looked at each other, and one of them shrugged resignedly.

What barbarians we must seem to them. Simon's face grew hot with embarrassment.

[383]

XXXVI

"Canaglia! Give way or I will have your heart on a platter!"

Hearing the shout, Simon stifled a curse and turned to see arms waving, a man in helmet and leather chest armor fall back, pushed by another. The man shouting and pushing was Peppino, one of Simon's Venetian crossbowmen. The man Peppino had knocked down was Grigor, one of the Tartars' bodyguards.

No, dear God, not today!

Sunk in grief though he was, he would have to do something. For Alain. That today of all days, the day of Alain's funeral, might not be marred by brawling.

From his seat atop a black-caparisoned stallion in the gateway of the Monaldeschi courtyard, he looked down on a boiling mass of bright conical helmets, all of them now moving toward the action in the center of the yard. He kicked his horse's flanks and drove into the crowd. He had to break up the fight before it started.

The Armenian was on his feet and reaching for his dagger. And Peppino had his hand on the hilt of his own blade. Before Simon could reach them, Teodoro, whom Simon had appointed capitano of the crossbowmen after dismissing Sordello, forced his way between the two men. He turned his back on the Armenian and gave Peppino a violent shove with both hands.

"Stupido! Back in line!"

"What devil's work is this?" Simon demanded.

Teodoro turned and saluted Simon smartly. "Your Signory, Peppino is a fool. But the Armenians provoked him. They insist on marching before us in the cortege. Are we not to march behind the French knights?"

Idiots! What difference did it make? They had forgotten that this parade was for Alain; they thought it was for them. He felt a dull hatred for both the Venetians and the Armenians.[384]

Simon sent for Ana, the multilingual Bulgarian woman, who translated for the Armenians Simon's explanation that the French knights must ride as an honor guard directly behind Alain's bier, and that since the Venetians were directly under the command of the French, they must come next. Also, no one must come between the Tartar ambassadors and their Armenian bodyguards; therefore the Venetians must precede the Armenians.

"Sergentes, get your men back into line!" Simon shouted at the leaders of the hundred Monaldeschi men-at-arms milling about in the courtyard along with the Venetians and the Armenians.

Simon spurred his horse back to the head of the procession, where he took his position just behind Alain's bier, which was already in the street.

The Sire de Pirenne lay upon a huge square of red samite edged with gold, draped over the flat bed of a four-wheeled cart. Red ribbons were woven into the spokes of the wheels. The two farm horses that drew the cart, chosen for their docility, also wore red surcoats. Red, for martyrdom. Red for the blood poor Alain had shed. Simon sighed inwardly and hoped that God considered Alain a martyr and had taken him up to heaven. Had he not died while in the service of the Church? Was this not a crusade in all but name?

Alain was dressed in a white linen surcoat and a white silk mantle. Simon, Henri de Puys and the other four knights had dressed him themselves. What agony! The struggle to get poor dead Alain's big frame into his garments had taken nearly an hour.

Thank heaven de Puys had stopped Simon from trying to dress Alain in his mail shirt and hose, as Simon had originally intended. De Puys pointed out that Alain's family were poor, and that Alain's younger brother would have need of the expensive armor. So the armor would be sent back to the Gobignon domain along with the news that Alain was dead.

Oh, the woe Alain's widowed mother and younger brother would feel when Simon's letter reached them! Friar Mathieu had helped him compose the impossible lines, but Simon still felt they were not gentle enough, not comforting enough. He hated himself for feeling relieved that Alain's family was too far away for him to deliver the news in person. He had done the best he could, sending the letter and Alain's armor to his chaplain at Château Gobignon with instructions to take it personally to the de Pirennes and read it to them, offering them all possible consolation, they being almost certainly unlettered.[385]

Around Alain's waist was clasped his jeweled belt of knighthood, and to his leather boots were fastened his knight's silver spurs. His velvet-gloved hands, resting on his chest, grasped the hilt of his naked longsword. Simon would buy another sword for his brother. His helmet, polished to mirror brightness by his sobbing equerry, rested beside his blond head. His shield, square at the top and pointed at the bottom, blazoned with five black eaglets on a gold ground, lay crosswise at his feet. Those things Alain must take to his final rest.

Simon's stomach was a hollow of anguish. Those splendid arms, and Alain had never had a chance to use any of them.

A breeze stirred the curly yellow locks of the pale head that lay on a red silk pillow. The air of Orvieto had grown chilly in the three days since Alain's murder. The city had enjoyed almost summer weather until late in the fall, but now November had fallen upon it with icy talons. The sky this morning was a heavy purple-gray, and a dampness in the air foretold chill rain.

At the very head of the procession walked Henri de Puys, bareheaded but in full armor, leading Alain's riderless great horse. The cart bearing the body, driven by a servant in orange and green Monaldeschi livery, followed. Then came Simon and the other French knights.

Please, God, let nothing else unseemly happen today. Let us bury your servant the Sire Alain de Pirenne with honor.

He looked back and saw that the two Tartars, wearing their cylindrical caps adorned with red stones and their red and blue silk jackets, had mounted their horses. Because Alain was a warrior and they were warriors, they rode horses to honor him today.

The sight of them was a reproach to Simon. If he had thought only of the Tartars and not become involved with Sophia, Alain would be alive today.

After the Tartars, rows of spear points and bowl-shaped helmets glittered, the Monaldeschi retainers and men-at-arms. Behind the Monaldeschi banner, two green chevrons on an orange background, rose a curtained sedan chair draped with black mourning streamers. In it, Simon knew, were the contessa and her grandnephew.

Simon had been waiting for the contessa to appear. He raised his arm in a signal to de Puys, who began to walk southward, toward[386] the Corso, pulling the reins of Alain's horse. The wheels of the cart creaked into motion.

As the procession wound its way through the larger streets of Orvieto, the thought occurred to Simon that Alain's killer might be among the onlookers, one of the faces that watched, with little emotion, from the sidelines or looked out of a second-story window.

Sordello had sent word through Ana that among Giancarlo's hired bravos, none had any idea who might have stabbed Alain.

Simon knew what the Orvietans, most of them, must be saying. A French knight goes whoring and gets himself stabbed, and they give him the greatest funeral since Julius Caesar's.

A stab of guilt shot through him. To protect Sophia, he had