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

or chair to be seen.[442] An overpowering smell of burnt meat filled the first room Simon entered. In the center of the wooden floor an area about three feet across was covered with blackened flagstones, and atop the stones was a heap of charred wood. Beside this crude hearth was a pile of broken animal bones, melon rinds, and other refuse. An open wine barrel added its sweetish smell to the general odor of smoke and decay.

Simon wondered whether the contessa had seen this squalor. She had shown the Tartars special favor, giving them three rooms in the northwest corner of the third floor. In most palaces a single room was the most even a very distinguished visitor could expect. If she thought they were savages after David of Trebizond had baited them at her reception, what would she think after seeing this pigsty?

John and Philip rose at Simon's entrance and bowed, smiling broadly. They seemed not the least embarrassed by the foul condition of their chambers. Simon bowed back, trying also to smile.

"If Cardinal Ugolini were to show these rooms to the Sacred College, many of the cardinals would join him in detesting the Tartars," Simon said to Friar Mathieu. "A wonder the smoke has not smothered them."

With a wry smile Friar Mathieu pointed at the ceiling. An irregular hole had been broken through above the Tartars' hearth.

"Fortunately for everyone, they are on the top floor of the palace," the Franciscan said. "All they have tried to do is reproduce the kind of home they are used to living in, even to the smoke hole in the roof."

The white-bearded John said something in the Tartar tongue to Friar Mathieu.

"They have heard of the coming fight," the Franciscan said. "They want weapons and a place on the battlements. They say it is their duty as guests to defend their hostess, the contessa."

Simon tensed himself for trouble. He had feared this. He chose his words carefully.

"I am sure the contessa will be overwhelmed with gratitude when I tell her of such a gracious offer. But we would not want to have to answer to the mighty Hulagu Khan if something happened to them or to their noble mission. Tell them that, and that it is our duty to keep them safe. There is a stone storeroom underneath the kitchen, a spice pantry. I have explored the palace, and that is the securest place. They must go there the moment the Filippeschi attack. They should take the Armenians with them."[443]

The Tartars looked angry and shouted vigorous staccato protests when Friar Mathieu translated this. Philip, the younger, black-haired one, especially addressed himself to Simon. Philip seized the oblong gold tablet of office that hung around his neck and shook it at Simon.

"He reminds you that his title is Baghadur, which means Valiant. He says you insult him by asking him to hide in the cellar. Among his people nobody hides. Even the women and children fight."

Simon felt his assurance collapsing. What if the Tartars simply refused to seek safety? He could not put them in chains.

Earnestly he said, "Tell them it is their duty to their khan to stay alive and continue negotiations. Be as courteous as you have the power to be in their language."

"Oh, I am being very polite. One always is, with them."

After another exchange Friar Mathieu said, "They say Hulagu Khan would expect them to fight."

Simon had a sudden inspiration. "Tell them that if they were to fight and if anything happened to them, even the slightest injury, the King of France would cut my head off."

There was a particle of truth in that, Simon thought as Friar Mathieu translated. Kindly as King Louis was, decapitation would be preferable to facing his reproach if Simon's weakness caused the Tartars' death.

John shrugged and answered Friar Mathieu quietly. Simon held his breath, praying that this last effort would work.

Friar Mathieu said, "John says that you are a brave young warrior, and it would be a shame to have your head cut off when you have a lifetime of battles ahead of you. For your sake they will forgo the pleasure of this fight. But they insist on taking only two guards with them. They insist that the rest of their men fight beside yours."

Relief washed over Simon. He hoped he would be able to think as quickly in the coming battle as he had just then.

"I can use their other men. Have whatever the ambassadors need for their comfort carried to the spice pantry." He looked again at the pile of garbage. "Tell them they will be next to the kitchen. They should like that."

[444]

XLII

"Count Simon!" Simon recognized the crackling voice of the contessa.

She was wearing a floor-length gown of deep purple velvet. She held up a disk-shaped bronze medallion on a silver chain.

"Please take this, my young paladino. Wear it into battle for me."

Simon went to her, his steel-shod feet echoing in the hallway. All his movements felt slow and clumsy in the mail shirt that hung to his thighs and the mail breeches that protected him from waist to ankle.

Embossed on the medallion was a mounted knight driving his lance into a coiling bat-winged dragon baring huge fangs in rage. Where the lance pierced the scales was set a tiny, teardrop-shaped ruby.

"Thank you, Donna Elvira," he breathed, full of admiration for the workmanship. "It is most beautiful."

She reached up and put it around his neck. He could feel its weight through his mail shirt.

"San Giorgio. It was my husband's, and I have kept it locked away in my jewel casket since the day the puzzolenti Filippeschi murdered him. It is yours now. San Giorgio will give you victory." She raised her thin body on tiptoe and he felt her dry lips press against his cheek.

"I will never forget this moment, Madonna." He touched her yellow cheeks with his fingertips to brush away her tears.

He did not want her to know that this was his first—his very first—battle.

Climbing the spiral stairs to the tower, his legs ached as he pushed his mailed weight upward, and his neck felt strained under his mail hood and steel helmet. It had been weeks since he had worn his[445] mail, days since he had practiced his sword drill. He swore at himself.

He emerged through a trapdoor onto a square platform paved with flagstone. Three helmeted heads turned to him: De Puys, his head covered with tight-laced mail leaving only a circle for his eyes, nose, and mustached mouth; Teodoro, capitano of Simon's Venetian crossbowmen, wearing a bowl-shaped helmet; and de Verceuil, whose tall helmet was painted bright red and shaped like a cardinal's mitre covering his entire face with the stem of a gold cross running up the center and the arms of the cross spread over the eyeholes.

Dressed for war, de Verceuil looked more like a cardinal than he usually did, Simon thought ironically.

Of the four men on the tower platform, de Verceuil wore the most elaborate armor with steel plates over his mail at his shoulders, knees, and shins. Hanging from a broad belt at his side was a mace, an iron ball on the end of a steel handle a foot long. This was, Simon knew, the proper weapon for a clergyman, who was not supposed to shed blood.

Over his mail shirt de Verceuil wore a long crimson surcoat sewn with cloth-of-gold Maltese crosses. De Puys, like Simon, wore a purple surcoat on which the three gold crowns of Gobignon were embroidered over and over again. Teodoro's simple breastplate of hardened leather was reinforced with steel plates.

Leaning into a crenel between two square merlons, Simon took a deep breath of the mild spring air. It would be a pleasant evening, did he not know that many men were going to die.

He watched the last wagons bringing in casks of water and wine, loads of hay and sacks of grain and beans—supplies in case the fighting dragged on—over the drawbridge through the rear gate. Water, especially, was in short supply in the city on the rock. The palace had its own spring, but it did not produce enough water to supply the whole establishment. Simon remembered Sophia drinking from his hands in the garden.

He stopped short at the thought of her to whisper a little prayer for her safety. But she was in no danger. No one was threatening Cardinal Ugolini.

Simon had ordered that every cask of water available in Orvieto be bought and every vessel filled. The attackers would surely use fire as a weapon. He had also sent for a supply of rocks from a[446] quarry outside the city, extra ammunition for the stone casters mounted on the roof.

He recalled that Sordello had said the Filippeschi intended a surprise attack. They were certain to learn of these preparations and realize that the Monaldeschi had discovered their plan. What if they did not come at all?

If the fact that the Monaldeschi were ready was enough to prevent the attack, that would be the best possible outcome. But Simon realized with a pang that if the Filippeschi did not come, he would be terribly disappointed.

He shook his head at his own madness.

Sunset reddened the tile roofs surrounding the Monaldeschi palace. From up there Simon could see the tall campaniles of Orvieto's five churches and the towers of the other palaces—all battlements square, because this was a Guelfo city. A green flag, too small from this distance to make out the device on it, flew over a tower on the southwest side of the city, the palace of the Filippeschi.

He went to the other side of the tower to look at the city wall. Orange and green Monaldeschi banners flew there. He had assigned twenty Monaldeschi archers, all he dared subtract from the defenders of the palace, to secure the nearest section of the wall. He had wanted to station men in the houses near the palace as well, but de Puys persuaded him that such outposts would surely be overrun and the men speedily lost. Better to concentrate his forces in the palace itself.

He could not make out Cardinal Ugolini's house, somewhere to the southeast of him. It had no tower to distinguish it. But he thought again of Sophia. How lovely it would be to be with her sitting and chatting instead of up in this tower awaiting a deadly onslaught. How wonderful if his only worry were whether or not she would accept his marriage proposal.

He stared out over the city and thought, somewhere out there was another enemy. Even if, as Sordello reported, Cardinal Ugolini were not behind this attack, there might be someone behind both the Filippeschi and Cardinal Ugolini. Ever since he had come to Orvieto, Simon had sensed the presence in this city of a hidden enemy. An enemy who knew him and watched him, but whom he did not know. The one—Simon was sure of it—who had killed Alain.

I am waiting for you, he said, gripping the red bricks of the battlements.[447]

Every old soldier Simon had ever talked to had said that war consisted more of waiting than of fighting. Simon found the combination of boredom and fear well nigh unbearable.

De Puys sat with his back against the battlements and dozed like a large cat. De Verceuil also sat, his helmet on the tower floor beside him, reading from a small leather-bound book, whispering the Latin words. Simon supposed it must be his office, the prayers every priest was required to say every day. The cardinal would have to get today's office read quickly; the light was fading fast.

Capitano Teodoro preferred to be busy. He kept shuttling back and forth between the tower and rooftop two stories below, where his men were deployed. Teodoro would make a circuit of the tower battlements, frowning down at his company of archers. Then he would go down and order six or so men to change position. He would inspect everyone's weapons. He inspected the bows of even the eight Armenians, in their bright red surcoats, who would fight beside the Venetians. The friction between the Armenians and the Venetians, Simon had noticed, had lessened considerably after he promoted Teodoro. He was a good leader. At the contessa's request Teodoro inspected the Monaldeschi men-at-arms, who were mostly stationed at the two gates and in the hallways and apartment windows.

After each inspection tour, Teodoro would come back up, study the situation, then go down and rearrange the men, likely as not returning them to their earlier positions.

But staying busy made sense. It kept everyone alert.

Simon left the tower once to visit his four knights on the rooftop, each one stationed, with six men-at-arms, by a stone caster at a corner of the roof. So that their missiles would clear the screening he had built over the battlements, the long-armed