The Saracen: The Holy War Part 15

The mention of Ugolini's household brought back the pain of that parting from Sophia. He pictured again that dizzying moment when he almost possessed her, remembered how he had poured out all his secrets to her. He saw again her tears and remembered his own, that he had shed after she ran from him. The memory made him feel like weeping now.

Hoping to sound casual, Simon said, "The cardinal's niece--I believe her name is Sophia. Did you see her before you left Orvieto?"

Sordello's discolored eyes met Simon's. "No, Your Signory. I have seen little of her since the night of the Filippeschi uprising."

_d.a.m.n this gap-toothed brigand!_

Simon continued to pretend to be casual. He stood up and yawned. The wine made him feel less in control of his feelings than he liked.

"Let us go and see this s.h.i.+p you have found for us."

"Your Signory, you have not told me whether you will take me back into your service."

Simon shook his head, as if tormented by gnats. "After we see the s.h.i.+p."

Sordello sighed and led the way out of the inn. They crossed the cobble-paved roadway that led along Livorno's waterfront, Simon breathing deeply of the salt-smelling air to clear his head.

Sordello pointed. "There it is."

He was pointing toward the same big, ungainly buss that Simon had visited earlier, whose captain had refused Simon.

"But he said he was going to Cyprus!"

"He lied to you," said Sordello. "I know the man. Guibert was s.h.i.+pmaster for a boatload of us mercenaries in the last war between Pisa and Genoa.

He feared that if you were to travel on his s.h.i.+p, you might find him out."

"Find out what?"

"He is one of those Languedoc heretics who hate the Church and the French n.o.bility, a follower of the Waldensian heresy. He was imprisoned once and sentenced to death in Montpellier. He recanted his heresy and was released after signing over all that he possessed to the Church. But then he came to Italy, made a new start, and backslid to Waldensianism.

If the Inquisition got him now, he would go to the stake even if he recanted a thousand times."

"Then why has he agreed to carry us?" To think, the man had seen Simon as an enemy. Simon, who had inherited his Languedoc parents' loathing of the persecution of heretics.

"I told him that if he did not take us where we wanted to go, I would tell the officers of the Inquisition here in Livorno about him," said Sordello blandly.

"What!" Simon was outraged.

Sordello looked hurt. "Surely, Your Signory does not see any wrong in forcing a heretic to do a good turn for the pope and the king.

Especially when it means he gets to go unpunished. So we do our duty, but with a leavening of charity."

For Simon to say more would reveal too much about himself and his family. Fuming, he bit his lip. But another objection came to him.

"We will have to take turns standing guard the whole voyage," he said.

"That captain will want to slit our throats to make sure his secret is safe."

"We would have to stand guard anyway, Your Signory. A sea captain knows no law but his own greed as soon as he puts out from sh.o.r.e. If you can pay him seventy-five florins, that tells him you must be carrying a great deal more money. But I have insured our safety another way. I have told him that an old friend of mine here in Livorno knows his secret, and if that friend does not receive a message from me in due course a.s.suring him of our safety, he will report Guibert to the Inquisition.

Guibert would never be able to come back to Livorno, his home base, and he would not really be safe anywhere in Italy."

Simon shook his head angrily. "I like none of it."

"Even the greatest barons, even kings, must put up with much they do not like," said Sordello sententiously, "if they are to get anything done."

"As you said before, Monseigneur," said Thierry in a comforting tone, "a man must be philosophical."

"Philosophical, yes," said Simon wearily. He could, he supposed, afford to be philosophical. If the heretic sea captain did not manage to kill them, in three or four days he would be in France, on his way to find King Louis. All these unsavory doings, indignities, and discomforts would mean nothing if his mission ended in triumph.

The thought of the King's grat.i.tude, of Uncle Charles's respect, of the way the tale would spread among the n.o.blesse of France, bringing him new honor, sent a thrill of pride through him.

At last he would have proven himself.

L

The sky was iron-gray, and a cold wind, unseasonably cold for August, blew down from the north. Daoud stood near the entrance to the courtyard of the Palazzo Papale, facing a row of the podesta's guards, in yellow and blue, who held back the watching crowd. A troop of mounted lancers clattered out under the gateway arch. Then, in mule-borne litters, came the nine cardinals who had elected to go with the pope to Perugia. Each had his own small procession of clergy and guards. In a sedan chair borne by six burly men rode Fra Toma.s.so d'Aquino, reading a small leather-bound book. Then came a hundred mounted archers, their conical helmets gleaming dully under the overcast sky.

Finally, as the people threw themselves to their knees, some crying out and stretching their arms wide, Urban himself, on a litter carried by eight men-at-arms, with a column of priests on either side, came through the open gate of the palace. He wore white gloves on the trembling hands that he raised to bless the people. He was bundled up in a white wool cloak, and his head was covered by a hood of fur so white that it made his own hair and his beard look yellowish.

Reluctantly, but knowing it would be dangerous not to do so, Daoud dropped to his knees as Urban pa.s.sed him.

"Do not leave us, Holy Father!" a man next to him cried out.

Daoud thought of the whispers he had been hearing in his wanderings through the streets and marketplaces. People were frightened. Some said that terrible things would happen after Urban left. There would be new bloodshed between the Monaldeschi and the Filippeschi. The Sienese would besiege Orvieto and ma.s.sacre its people.

Daoud himself believed d'Ucello, the podesta, would use the pope's departure to try to increase his own power over the city.

_And that bodes ill for me._

The podesta was a clever man. Daoud felt certain d'Ucello suspected him of the killing of the French knight and of involvement in the Filippeschi uprising.

Daoud followed the procession along the curving street to the Porta Maggiore, intending to watch it follow the road to the north, wis.h.i.+ng the Sienese army might appear suddenly in the distance and intercept it.

But at the gate a sergente in yellow and blue stepped into his path.

"I am not leaving," Daoud said, staring at the man. "I want to stand just outside the gate."

The sergente shrugged. He was a broad-shouldered man with a square brown face and a mustache cut straight across. As they stood talking, he darted little glances at Daoud's hands and feet, half smiling. Daoud sensed that he was ready for a fight, perhaps even wanted one. The sergente thought, of course, that he was dealing with a merchant, who would not be as skilled in combat as a professional soldier.

Daoud felt a chill along his spine. D'Ucello was still determined to keep him prisoner in Orvieto. That confirmed Daoud's suspicions that the podesta might soon move against him.

"You can watch the procession from the top of the wall," the podesta's man said. "The view is better from up there anyway. You may not go beyond the gate, Messer David."

Angered by the feeling of confinement, Daoud thought about throwing the guard, disarming him, and walking through the gate just to teach him a lesson. But that was hardly what a trader would do. That would only bring more suspicion down on him. He nodded curtly and walked away.

The following Sunday, Daoud stood at the front of the cathedral, reluctantly hearing Ma.s.s, bodies pressing him from all sides. Four of Ugolini's men-at-arms, including the ma.s.sive Riccardo, stood with Daoud.