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

God, he scorns Franciscans, thought Simon with dread. We're sure to fail.

"I truly would like to find the time for it," said Friar Mathieu, unruffled. "But I seem to be always traveling."

Fra Tomasso nodded. "You and that merchant from Trebizond are the only two Christians in Orvieto who have traveled among the Tartars. I found your testimony at His Holiness's council quite fascinating."

"But not persuasive?" Friar Mathieu leaned forward intently.

Simon caught his breath. Fra Tomasso had given them an opening.

"I presumed that was why you had come to see me," said Fra Tomasso with a self-satisfied smile. "Let me assure you, good friar and noble count, that until a little over a week ago I had tried to keep to a strict neutrality, feeling that in that way I could be more useful to His Holiness. Even after hearing the Tartars condemn themselves out of their own mouths at the Contessa di Monaldeschi's reception. But then I changed my mind."

"Let me ask you a rather delicate question, Your Reverence," said Friar Mathieu.

Fra Tomasso leaned back and rested his hands, fingers laced, on his huge belly. "Any question at all."

"Did Cardinal de Verceuil's behavior toward you have anything to do with your change of mind?"

The crease in the Dominican philosopher's forehead deepened. Simon winced inwardly. What if, now, they had truly offended Fra Tomasso?

"Surely you do not suggest that I would let personal pique determine my position on a matter so important to the future of Christendom?"

"I am not surprised, knowing Your Reverence's reputation, that you grasp just how important the matter is," Friar Mathieu said.

Neatly sidestepping Fra Tomasso's question, Simon thought.

"Exactly. Thus it was that when Cardinal de Verceuil went to Fra Augustino da Varda, my Superior General, demanding that he order me to change my position on the Tartars, I realized it was time for me to come to a conclusion."

"I made a terrible mistake," said Friar Mathieu as much to himself and Simon as to Fra Tomasso. "May God forgive me."[398]

"What mistake was that?" asked Fra Tomasso.

"Not trying to discuss this with Your Reverence myself, as I am doing now. To be honest, I feared you would not care to meet with a poor Franciscan."

"Again you do me an injustice," said Fra Tomasso. "The philosopher tells us that we acquire knowledge first of all through the senses. Therefore, if you would know about something, ask of those who have seen it firsthand."

"Then perhaps you have new questions," said Friar Mathieu.

Simon felt despair pressing on him like a mail shirt that was too heavy. Fra Tomasso was a man whose whole life was argument. How could Friar Mathieu hope to persuade him to change his mind about anything?

His chair creaking loudly, Fra Tomasso leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table in front of him. "I am so sure of my conclusions that I have written to Emperor Sigismund in Germany, King Boleslav in Poland, and King Wenceslas in Hungary—all lands that have suffered from the depredations of the Tartars, urging them to beg His Holiness to repudiate this scheme that will bring the frontier of Tartary so much closer to us. I have written to King Louis of France, your liege lord, too, young Count de Gobignon, even though he is said to be eager for a pact with the Tartars. Furthermore, Father da Varda is considering my proposal that the Dominican order all over Christendom preach against an alliance with the Tartars."

Hearing in Fra Tomasso's words the ruin of all his hopes, Simon could not contain himself. He burst out. "Why?"

Fra Tomasso looked surprised, even a bit affronted. "For all the reasons you heard in church last Friday. They are not simple savages, my young friend. They are diabolical."

It was hopeless. Simon's heart sank lower and lower. The great preacher's mind was made up.

"Yes, but, Your Reverence"—Simon felt driven by desperation to debate with a man whom he knew was invincible in argument—"we all know of many times when Christians and Saracens have been just as cruel."

Friar Mathieu gave a little grunt of agreement.

Fra Tomasso looked down at his thumbs, the tips pressed together as they rested on his wide belly. There was a moment of silence. He was thinking, Simon realized. Hardly ever had Simon[399] seen a man stop to think before speaking in an argument. He began to tremble inwardly, expecting to be crushed.

Fra Tomasso raised a fat finger. "Yes, I know that Christian knights have also committed barbarities. But they did so in mindless rage, and afterward they were ashamed. Even the Mohammedan faith teaches the Saracens to wage only just wars, to be compassionate, to spare the innocent and helpless. I stipulate that neither Christians nor Mohammedans live up to these laws. But they profess them. The Tartars have no such laws. In their bottomless ignorance they think that it is good to commit deeds of unimaginable horror, and they do it with calculation. Exemplum: As David of Trebizond has told me, when they wipe out the population of a city, they know there will be a few survivors. So, weeks later, they return to the ruins when the remaining few people have emerged from hiding, and they slaughter them all. That is the worst sort of evil—evil done with utter deliberation."

David of Trebizond, may he roast in hell! thought Simon.

"With respect, Your Reverence," said Friar Mathieu, "the Tartars have lived isolated in their prairie homeland since the beginning of time. But I beg of you to believe that they can be won to the mercy of Christ. I have seen it. I have done it."

We are gaining ground, Simon thought. If Fra Tomasso really could be swayed by the testimony of a person who had seen with his own eyes, they had a chance.

A hammering from beneath the floor made Simon start. Someone was knocking on the trapdoor. Friar Mathieu nibbled at his mustache in vexation while Fra Tomasso smiled broadly and called, "Come up."

The heavy door creaked upward, pushed by a hand in a white sleeve. A shiny, tonsured scalp reflected the light from the tower window.

The young Dominican who emerged was almost too breathless to speak. "Reverend Father! News from Bolsena! Un miracolo!"

Fra Tomasso's eyes widened. "Bolsena? Is that near here?"

"So near, Reverend Father, that the miracle happened yesterday and the news reached us this afternoon."

"What miracle?"

"A foreign priest—from some eastern country—was saying mass. And when he got to the consecration and raised the Sacred Host"—the young friar's eyes glowed—"the Host dripped blood!"

Simon's head spun in confusion. Frustrated rage at being interrupted[400] when they were so close to victory struggled with amazement at this tale of a bleeding Communion wafer. He looked at Fra Tomasso, and all hope ebbed away. The philosopher's face fairly glowed with relief. Sadness swelled in Simon. They did not have a chance. Perhaps they had never had one.

Before they knew it, it seemed, Friar Mathieu and Simon were walking together out the gate of the Dominican convent. Behind them there were shouts and white-robed friars bustling to and fro like a flock of startled doves. The whole convent, it seemed, was in an uproar over the miracle at Bolsena.

Fra Tomasso had courteously but firmly dismissed Mathieu and Simon, saying that he must question the one who brought the news. He might, he said, be called upon to look further into the event at Bolsena, and he must be fully prepared.

Simon had wanted to protest. If Fra Tomasso would only give them a little more time, he would surely have to change his mind about the Tartars. But Simon sensed that Fra Tomasso did not want to change his mind.

The sky was cold and gray as chain mail. Carters, horsemen, and laborers on foot bustled along, their cloaks pulled tight around them against the chill north wind.

All is lost, Simon thought, as he had after Alain's funeral. Just when they were gaining ground with Fra Tomasso, news of a miracle. Was God Himself against them?

Skulking back to Gobignon. Forever to be known, not as the count who helped liberate Jerusalem, but as the son of the traitor Amalric.

Maybe I should give it all up and become a Franciscan, like Friar Mathieu.

"Where did he get that scroll?" Friar Mathieu wondered.

"What can we do now?" said Simon. He was not really asking; it was only a way of saying he thought nothing could be done. He was in despair over the failure of their mission.

Then he thought of Sophia.

In an instant a light bloomed within him. Skulking back to Gobignon? No, riding back in triumph, with the most beautiful woman in the world beside him as his bride.

He had not yet nerved himself to propose to Sophia, but now that they had failed with Fra Tomasso, he could not wait to see her again.[401]

Friar Mathieu scratched his white beard thoughtfully. "It was de Verceuil who tipped the scales against the Tartars. And it was we who sent de Verceuil. I thought this might be the one time he could be useful to us."

"Fra Tomasso had already sided with Ugolini's faction," Simon said. "That is why we sent de Verceuil."

"He told us today that he had been trying to be neutral," said Friar Mathieu. "But Sophia told you that Fra Tomasso had already sided with Ugolini's party. Do you suppose the great Dominican was not being candid with us? Or was it Sophia who was not being candid?"

Simon gasped at the sudden pain of a blow that was worse than their failure with Fra Tomasso. Sophia not honest? No, he could not live with that.

He stiffened so suddenly that his horse stopped walking. He stared at Friar Mathieu in dismay.

Friar Mathieu reached over and put his hand on Simon's arm. His touch was light but firm.

"Know where you are going, Simon. Do not travel blindly."

Simon nodded. There was a way to find out the truth about Sophia.

He must put Sordello to work. The mere thought of that blackguard spying on Sophia twisted his heart with anguish. But he had to know the truth.

XXXVIII

A letter from Emir Daoud ibn Abdallah to El Malik Baibars al-Bunduqdari, from Orvieto, 13th day of Muharram, 663 A.H.: