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

machines were set well back from the edge of the roof. The knights did not like supervising the stone casters. They wanted, they told him, a chance to charge the enemy during the attack. Simon tried to be good-humored about insisting that they remain within the palace, but it was hard giving orders to men who were older than himself and combat veterans. He missed Alain, realizing only now how much he had relied on his young friend as a go-between for himself and the other knights.

Returning to the tower roof, Simon kept pacing from one corner to the other. He fingered the jeweled hilt of his scimitar. He tried[448] to divert himself by thinking of Sophia, by imagining how he would phrase his marriage proposal to her. He dreaded the fighting, but wished it would start.

Like a rising tide the shadows spread and deepened, swallowing up the hills beyond the city, then the city walls, then the towers. The four men stood in darkness, no torchlight up here to make them an easy target. The only light on the roof below was the shimmer of charcoals burning in four braziers for fire arrows.

An orange glow appeared over the hills to the east, the moon starting to rise.

Simon heard distant shouting. Battle cries.

"Filippeschi!" It was Teodoro's voice.

Simon saw flickering red light dancing on house walls coming toward them, converging from front, sides, and rear. The streets were too narrow to permit sight of the advancing bravos and their torches.

So, even though they know we are ready for them, they have come.

From the street directly opposite the main entrance to the palace a long, dark shape emerged, like a gigantic tortoise. Similar shapes issued from other streets opening on the piazza. The tortoises were big enough to shelter at least a dozen men. There were six of them, crawling across the open space.

"Use the fire arrows!" Simon shouted. Teodoro repeated the order to his men. On the roof below, men raced from the battlements to the braziers and back again, and streaks of light arced from the rooftop at the tortoise shapes.

Simon could hear the burning arrows sizzle on the wet wooden frameworks and wet hides. The hides did not burn, but the light from the arrows made it easier for the crossbowmen shooting from the battlements to see their targets. Teodoro was down on the roof directing their fire. The archers volleyed at the closest tortoise. The steel bolts tore right through the skins, piercing the men beneath. Simon heard the thump of thirty bolts striking a tortoise at once, then screams. The framework stopped moving, and Simon saw men crawling from under it. Some ran frantically back to the shelter of the side streets; others crept a few paces and collapsed.

Something whizzed past Simon's head and struck the brick merlon beside him. A shower of chips clattered on his mail. One stung his cheek.

"Shooting back," said Teodoro. "From the sides."[449]

Torchlight flickered from behind wooden mantlets at the mouths of the streets approaching the palace from the north and south. The rectangles of wood filled the street from side to side. From this height Simon could see the crowds of men behind each mantlet.

Fire arrows from mantlets and tortoises hissed overhead and fell, trailing sparks, into the atrium of the palace. Simon heard splashes as servants threw water on the trees.

"Put more of your men on the sides," he said to Teodoro, who hurried down the stairs inside the tower.

The moon was now a red oval low in the eastern sky. The light would help the Filippeschi target the defenders on the rooftop, but it would not expose them in the streets.

A loud crash startled Simon, and he felt the tower floor shake. Another crash and another. Stone casters. The stones were coming from all directions, and Simon could hear screams.

He turned to de Puys. "Fire our stone casters."

With de Puys gone, only Simon and the cardinal were left in the tower. They had nothing to say to each other. The cardinal had donned his miter-shaped helmet at the first sign of the Filippeschi, and Simon could not see his face. Simon longed for Teodoro to come back.

It was Simon's equerry, Thierry, who pushed open the trapdoor. "Capitano Teodoro is hit."

"Blood of God!" Simon pushed past de Puys to hurry down the tower's inner staircase.

Teodoro lay near the entrance to the tower, surrounded by a crowd of men-at-arms. His breathing came in hoarse gasps, alternating with grunts of pain. It was too dark for Simon to see him well. He knelt beside Teodoro, and a vile smell of excrement choked him. Someone beside Simon was sobbing. Teodoro had been much liked among the Venetians.

Carefully Simon felt down the capitano's body. The hard leather cuirass he wore was cracked down the center. Just below his chest Simon's hand met the huge rock. It was wet, probably with Teodoro's blood.

"It caught him right in the middle," said an archer standing over Simon. "Broke him in two. Crushed his belly and his spine. Only the part of him above the stone is alive."

A gurgling sound rose in Teodoro's throat. He was vomiting, and warm liquid gushed over Simon's hand. His own stomach writhed, and bile burned his throat. He stood up suddenly, and instantly[450] regretted it, because he had wanted to comfort Teodoro in his dying. But the gasping had stopped.

Teodoro had probably never known he was there.

Simon's hands and knees were trembling.

So this is what it is like to be killed in battle.

He wiped his hand on his surcoat. Careful to make his voice firm, he ordered the archers back to their positions. The weight of his mail almost unbearable, he stumbled back to the doorway to the tower.

He felt his arm gripped and heard Friar Mathieu's voice. "Simon, I heard you lost your capitano of archers."

"This is much worse than I ever thought it would be, Father," he whispered, almost as if confessing.

The hand on his arm squeezed through his mail. "Trust yourself, Simon. You will do what you must do."

By the light of a fire arrow burning itself out in the overhead screen, Simon saw the contessa, her purple gown tied up to her knees so she could move more quickly. She called Friar Mathieu to see to a wounded man, then greeted Simon.

She thinks I am a hero. If only she knew the horror I feel.

Who was Teodoro's second-in-command? Yes, Peppino. Peppino was the one who had fought with the Armenians at Alain's funeral, but a new capitano must be appointed immediately. There was no time to balance considerations.

He managed to find Peppino and appointed him to lead the Venetians. Then on shaking legs he pushed himself back up to the roof of the tower.

"They are bombarding the rear gatehouse with mangonels," de Puys said. Simon heard rocks thudding against the drawbridge at the rear of the palace, the entrance for horses and wagons. By moonlight he was able to make out, across the street from the rear of the palace, four mangonels, stone guns shaped like giant crossbows.

"Where did the Filippeschi get so many men and machines?" Simon wondered aloud.

"One would suppose you could answer that," said de Verceuil, his voice muffled by his helmet. "Are you not our military expert?"

Simon was still too gripped by horror to be angry. But a part of his mind somehow kept trying to think about what the Filippeschi intended.[451]

He became lost in thought as he gnawed at the problem, and all but forgot the battle raging around him. Numerous as they seemed, the Filippeschi had just a chance, no more than that, of overwhelming the Monaldeschi palace, especially having lost the advantage of surprise. Was their hatred of the Monaldeschi so deep that such an uncertain chance was reason enough for them to make this effort?

If I could but capture Marco di Filippeschi and force him to tell me why he is doing this ...

What if this attack were a diversion, a cover for the real blow, to be struck by stealth?

Simon's body went cold.

"I must see to the Tartar ambassadors," he said. He turned toward the trapdoor in the tower roof.

"Monseigneur—look—the Filippeschi are attacking again," de Puys protested. Simon turned back, looked over the edge, and saw the tortoise shapes moving forward again over the piazza while stones from mangonels slammed into the second-story gatehouse.

No, he thought. Even if they break down the door, they could never get up the stairs. This attack is a feint.

"I believe the ambassadors are in danger," he said.

"By God's robe!" de Verceuil boomed from under his helmet. "You are quitting the battle?"

"The battle is where the ambassadors are," Simon said. "The whole purpose of this attack is to get at them."

"The whole purpose of your saying that is to get out of danger," de Verceuil retorted.

Simon quivered with rage. De Verceuil's eyes glittered coldly at him in the moonlight through holes cut in the blood-red helmet. Simon wished he could draw his sword and swing it at the damned cardinal's head. But he felt as if he were suddenly wrapped in chains. With de Verceuil accusing him of cowardice, how could he leave the tower?

De Puys put a steadying hand on his arm. "Monseigneur, no one can get at the ambassadors. Not as long as we hold fast here."

In the florid face with its drooping mustaches Simon saw pity, but also a trace of contempt. The old warrior, too, thought his young seigneur wanted to run away. If Simon left the tower now, he would have to bear his vassal's scorn. Nor was it likely that de Puys would keep silent about this. The tale would spread throughout the Gobignon domain.

But I know I am not a coward.[452]

Searching his heart, he knew that though he was afraid of the flying crossbow bolts and stones, he could direct the battle from the tower all night if need be. Even after Teodoro's death, and the blood still sticky on the mailed glove that hung from his right wrist, he felt strong enough to go on fighting.

If he went to the ambassadors and no one struck at them, he would have been mistaken, but his leaving here would not affect the outcome of the battle. What was happening out here was a simple matter of force against force. If he remained here and the Tartars were attacked and murdered, all would be lost.

If I do not do what I believe I should because I am afraid of what these men think, then truly I am a coward.

He tried to make the other two understand. "The safety of the ambassadors is my first obligation. Enemies could be in the palace now."

De Verceuil brought his steel-masked face close to Simon's. "It is known that there is tainted blood in your family."

Simon's face went as hot as if a torch had suddenly been thrust at him. It was a moment before he could speak.

"If you were not a man of the Church, I would kill you for saying that." His voice trembled.

"Really? I doubt you would dare." De Verceuil turned away.

"Monseigneur!" de Puys cried, his face redder than ever. "Do not make me ashamed to wear the purple and gold."

That hurt even more than what de Verceuil had said. It hurt so much Simon wanted to weep with anger and frustration.

Instead, he bent forward and lifted the trapdoor and hurried down the steps. He heard de Verceuil say something to de Puys, but he could not hear what it was. Fortunately.

He stopped on the roof to look for Friar Mathieu. Groups of crossbowmen were running from one side to the other. Friar Mathieu was making the sign of the cross over a fallen man.

"I think the Tartars may be in danger, Friar Mathieu," Simon said. "I want you to come with me so that I can talk to them."

To Simon's relief the old Franciscan did not object. "Let us take two of the Armenians with us," he said. "If there is danger, you should not go alone."

Now that he was away from de Verceuil and de Puys, Simon could reflect that he might, indeed, be mistaken. But he had to act, even though he doubted himself.

Simon, Friar Mathieu, and two Armenian warriors named Stefan[453] and Grigor hurried down the tower's inner staircase to the ground floor. Single candles, burning low, lit the corridor at long intervals. Here were storerooms and cubbyholes where servants worked and lived. The relentless pounding of rocks reverberated in the stone walls, punctuated by occasional screams penetrating through the arrow slits.

Monaldeschi men-at-arms standing at the embrasures with crossbows kept their backs turned to Simon as he hurried past. An odor of damp stone pervaded the still air. Simon noted that as he had ordered, buckets of water had been