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

told de Verceuil and d'Ucello that he and Alain had gone wenching. He had besmirched Alain's reputation.

The cortege stopped at every church in Orvieto, and before each Alain's body was blessed by two or three cardinals, who then with their entourages joined the long line of mourners. Looking back over his shoulder, Simon could no longer see the end of the procession. It disappeared around a distant turning in the street.

Not all Orvietans were without feeling. Many girls and young women wept, waved their handkerchiefs, and threw flowers from balconies to the handsome Frenchman, murdered in his prime. Alain would have welcomed more attention from them when he was alive, Simon thought bitterly.

At the convent of the Dominicans, a collection of brown stone buildings behind a high wall, the rotund Fra Tomasso d'Aquino emerged, followed by two dozen or more of his Dominican brothers, all in white wool tunics with black mantles. Three of the leading members of the preaching friars, the superior general, the father visitor for northern Italy, and the prior of the convent blessed the body. Fra Tomasso was to deliver the funeral sermon, a great honor for Alain. It must be downright painful for the fat friar to walk from his convent to the cathedral; that was an honor in itself.

But the sight of Fra Tomasso made Simon cold with anxiety, remembering how Sophia had told him that the stout Dominican had turned against the Tartars.

The one thing that might, even if only in a small way, make up for the infinite tragedy of Alain's death, was that important piece of information Sophia had unwittingly given Simon. And when Simon had told it to Friar Mathieu, the old Franciscan, feeling he[387] had no choice, had taken the news to de Verceuil. Simon hated to see him do that, but he had to agree that de Verceuil was the only one in their party whose position was exalted enough to permit him to make demands on Fra Tomasso.

De Verceuil had paid a call on the superior general of the Dominicans, but what went on behind the walls of the preaching friars' convent Simon and Friar Mathieu had never learned. In his usual infuriating way, de Verceuil had refused to talk about it.

At the gateway to his palace, Pope Urban, all in gold and white, met the procession. As Simon dismounted and knelt on the stone street to receive the pope's blessing, he noted that the old man's face was as pale as his vestments, and that his hands were trembling. Had Alain's murder affected him so, or was he ill? Urban was flanked by six cardinals in broad-brimmed red hats and brilliant red robes. On his right were three French cardinals, including de Verceuil. Beside him was Guy le Gros, whom Simon had met at the pope's council.

Le Gros looked angry. Simon hoped he was angry about Alain's murder; every Frenchman in Orvieto should be. But what a shame that Alain had to die in order that all these people care about him.

On Urban's left were three Italians, the diminutive Ugolini standing right beside the pope. The sight of him was a blow to Simon's heart. Simon had been in his mansion wooing Sophia when Alain was murdered. Alain's bleeding body had lain across the street from Ugolini's mansion, for how many hours?

And where was Sophia? Anxiously Simon scanned the crowd for a sight of her. Would she not come? Had Alain's death frightened her? Would he ever see her again?

He despised himself for still wanting to see Sophia, when his tryst with her had caused Alain's death. He should give her up.

I cannot give her up.

After the blessing, Pope Urban took his place, with his escort of cardinals, at the head of the procession. They moved to the piazza before the cathedral, as packed with people as it had been the day the heretic was executed there. Death, death, here they were again, to celebrate death.

When Alain's body reached the cathedral, Pope Urban blessed it once more. Simon and the other French knights raised a pallet that was hidden under the red samite cloth and carried Alain into the cathedral.

The cathedral was a festival of light, and the sight of it made[388] Simon feel a little better. Simon and de Verceuil had agreed to share the expenses of the funeral, which included the rows of candles lighting the altar, all of the purest beeswax, and the double line of fat candles in tall brass sticks running down the middle of the church. Benches had been cleared from the nave of the cathedral to make room for the funeral procession.

The shadows where the massed candle flames did not reach were illuminated by a dim, underwater glow—faint because the sky was overcast—that seeped in through the narrow stained glass windows, touching a mourner here or there with a spot of red light, or blue or green.

The French knights carried Alain to the front of the cathedral and set his body down on a red-draped platform. Simon took a position to the right of the body. From here he could see rows of cardinals and bishops on either side of him. The cardinals in their red hats sat in the first row, and Simon recognized de Verceuil by his height and by the shining waves of black hair that tumbled from under the wide brim of his tasseled hat.

The Contessa di Monaldeschi walked slowly up the aisle, leaning on the arm of her plump grandnephew. As she neared the altar, Cardinal Ugolini suddenly broke away from his position beside Pope Urban and bustled down to take her other arm. With these two escorts, both the same height, the contessa tottered to a high-backed, cushioned seat on the right side of the altar. Ugolini stroked her hand, whispered to her, kissed her cheek, and went back up the altar steps to stand beside the pope.

I wish he were not so friendly with the contessa. It is a danger to the alliance.

It occurred to Simon suddenly that Alain's death would go for nothing if the pact between Tartars and Christians were not sealed. Now Simon had another reason, beside the restoration of his family honor, beside his love for King Louis, to strive for the alliance.

On the side of the altar opposite the contessa, also in a high-backed armchair, sat a dark young man about Simon's age in a surcoat of blue velvet with a heavy gold chain around his neck. He sat very erect, and his dark eyes burned with hatred as he stared across the altar at the contessa and her grandnephew. He had been pointed out before to Simon as Marco di Filippeschi, capo della famiglia of the Monaldeschi's archenemies.

The contessa herself had suggested that a Filippeschi might have murdered Alain just because he was a guest of the Monaldeschi[389] family. Simon supposed the Filippeschi chieftain was paying public respect to Alain to demonstrate his family's innocence. The Filippeschi, Simon had heard, were opposed to a French presence in Italy—perhaps simply because the Monaldeschi were friendly to the French.

So opposed that they would murder an innocent young man? Simon burned to seize Marco di Filippeschi and throttle the truth from him.

By turning his head slightly, Simon could see Friar Mathieu on the left side of the church, sitting in the midst of the Franciscan congregation.

Beyond the Franciscans, in the shadow of a pillar, stood a stout man in dark cape and tunic. D'Ucello, the podesta, observing the funeral—thinking perhaps that Alain's killer might attend. He prayed that the podesta would stop wasting his time pursuing the nonexistent women Simon and Alain had been with.

Find Alain's killer, damn you! Simon thought, clenching his teeth.

Simon turned briefly to survey the crowd that filled the nave all the way to the doors. Halfway back, a spot of red light from a window fell on a man's blond hair. Simon was almost certain that was David of Trebizond. He still saw no sign of Sophia, and his heart fell.

As Simon watched the pope celebrate the mass, assisted by the two cardinals, the Italian Ugolini and the French le Gros, he wondered whether Alain was watching from heaven. He must be in heaven. Was he not a martyr?

But did Alain care about what was happening on this earth? Surely a man would want to see his own funeral. For a moment Simon imagined he could speak to Alain, reach out and touch him.

How do you like this, my friend? The pope himself says mass for you.

Simon choked on a sob and had to wipe tears from his face.

The pope sang the Gospel in a quavering voice, and a chorus of stout young priests boomed back the responses. The voices, rising and falling in the chant devised by Pope Gregory the Great, unaccompanied by any instrument, rebounded from the heavy stones of the vaulted ceiling.

Simon swore to himself he would write about this to Alain's mother.

When it came time for the sermon, Fra Tomasso d'Aquino rose from the bench that had been set for him at the front of the cathedral.[390] He turned and bowed to the pope, who sat in a throne on the right side of the altar. Pope Urban's hand twitched in a small gesture of blessing.

Standing at the head of Alain's bier, Simon was close enough to Fra Tomasso to hear the breath whistling through his nostrils as he exerted himself to move his bulk from bench to altar steps. The black rosary around his middle rattled with his steps and creaked with his heavy breathing.

A hush, heavy with the odor of incense, fell over the crowd assembled in the nave. For a sermon by a bishop or even a cardinal, this crowd of high-ranking prelates would probably go on whispering to each other. But all were interested in hearing the philosopher-friar who was famous throughout Christendom, whom some revered as a living saint and a few others considered a subtle heretic.

Fra Tomasso spoke Latin, as was customary before any assemblage of churchmen. His tenor voice sent high-pitched reverberations through the nave of the great church. It is a sad moment, he said, when God chooses to cut off a young man in his prime, yet it happens all too often. I share the sorrow of the family and friends of this excellent young knight, he said, and Simon felt comforted. Indeed, all Christendom must mourn the loss of such a fine young man, killed while performing his duty, far from home, guarding an embassy to His Holiness from the other side of the earth.

And accompanying a friend making a secret visit to a lady.

The stout friar waxed philosophic, as was expected of him, discoursing on the Fifth Commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," using Alain as an example. The Sire de Pirenne's death was murder, ambush out of the dark, he said.

Loud coughing interrupted the sermon. Simon looked and saw that it was Pope Urban, bent double, Cardinal le Gros holding his arm and resting a hand on his shoulder, while Cardinal Ugolini looked alarmed. The coughing had a burbling sound to it, as if the old pope's lungs were full of fluid. A cough like that in November was an ominous thing, thought Simon.

Fra Tomasso resumed when His Holiness had quieted. To kill is not always a sin, he said, but to kill the innocent is. It is not a sin, therefore, to wage war on the Saracens, as pope after pope has called upon good Christian warriors to do, because the Saracens are not innocent. They hold in their clutches the most sacred places of Christendom, the lands where Our Lord Jesus Christ was born and died; they rob and murder pilgrims seeking to visit those holy[391] places; and they seek to spread the false religion of Mohammedanism which denies the central mystery of our faith—Christ crucified, dead, and risen again. For all these reasons the Saracens should be fought.

Fra Tomasso paused and looked about him. Simon felt that the pause was intended to be significant, that the great Dominican was about to say something very important. But the silence was disturbed by a whispering. It came from behind Simon and to his right. He glanced in that direction and saw that the Bulgarian woman, Ana, was sitting with the two Tartars and was whispering her translation of Fra Tomasso's sermon to John, the older one, who was immediately on her left.

"We may ask ourselves, why does God permit an innocent young man like this to die?" Fra Tomasso went on. "The answer is, of course, that He permits it to make possible a greater good, the exercise of human free will. I say to you that Our Lord, Jesus Christ, crucified at the age of thirty-three, is the type of all innocent young men done to death by evil. And evil is a necessary consequence of human freedom."

Fra Tomasso looked