"Quite so," said Friar Mathieu. "Well, we must get the king's letter to
him."
He hailed a passing servant. "Tell the cook I want Cardinal de
Verceuil's supper sent up to me before it is brought around to him at
the cathedral. Tell him to be sure there is bread with the cardinal's
meal. The cardinal wants plenty of bread. And"--he turned to
Simon--"what is your equerry's name?"
"Thierry d'Hauteville." What on earth was Friar Mathieu planning? Simon
prayed that, whatever it was, it would work and get the letter through.
"Find Thierry d'Hauteville and have him bring the tray up to me."
Thierry had borrowed a fresh tunic and hose from one of the Baglioni
family servants. His dark hair, which usually hung in neat waves, was
wild and tangled from being rubbed dry.
He carried Verceuil's dinner, a mixture of pieces of lobster and
venison, with bread and fruit, on a circular wooden tray with a
dome-shaped iron cover. Friar Mathieu took a knife and sliced lengthwise
through the hard crust of a long loaf of bread. Using his fingers, he
hollowed out the bread, giving chunks of it to Simon and Thierry and
eating the rest of it himself.
"The Lord hates waste," he said with a chuckle. "This is white bread,
too, such as only the nobility enjoy."
As Simon watched, holding his breath, Friar Mathieu laid King Louis's
scroll lengthwise in the bread and closed it up carefully. The line of
the slicing was barely visible. To secure the package, he took a loose
thread from one of his blankets, tied it around the loaf, and covered
the thread with a bunch of grapes.
"Now, Thierry. Normally one of the cardinal's servants takes his meals
to him, but tonight you will. We want as few people as possible to know
about this letter. If Cardinal Ugolini found out about it, he would make
such a scandal of it that he might even end up being elected pope!"
"Might not Ugolini see de Verceuil reading the letter?" Simon asked.
"No," said Friar Mathieu. "Each cardinal eats and sleeps in a
curtained-off cell built along the sides of the cathedral's nave. De
Verceuil and King Louis will be quite alone together."
* * * * *
The following afternoon the sky was heavily overcast, but the rain had
stopped. From the northwest tower of the Palazzo Baglioni, Simon could
see that Perugia was a much bigger city than Orvieto. Like most Italian
cities, it was built on a hilltop. But while Orvieto was flat on top of
its great rock, Perugia stood on sloping ground, and the town had
several levels.
"Simon!"
Simon turned to see Friar Mathieu's white head emerge from the trapdoor
opening to the tower roof. As he hurried over to give the old man a hand
up, his heartbeat speeded up. The wait for news must be at an end. When
he saw Friar Mathieu smiling, he started grinning himself.
"The letter did it," the priest said cheerfully. "We have a pope, and it
is neither de Verceuil nor de Tracey nor Ugolini."
Simon felt like shouting for joy.
"Who, then?"
"Why, the person named in the letter you brought, of course," said Friar
Mathieu teasingly.
"Spare me this riddling, Father," Simon begged. "Not now. This means too
much to me."
"All right, all right." Friar Mathieu patted Simon on the shoulder.
"This morning at Tierce I joined the crowd at the cathedral to see the
color of the smoke of the burning ballots from the chimney of the
bishop's palace. If the king's letter had its effect, the smoke should
be white, but it was not."
Simon's heart sank. Had he misunderstood Friar Mathieu?
"Black smoke, then? But you said they did elect a pope."
"No smoke at all. The people were puzzled, and so was I, and we all
waited to see if anything would happen. I was about to give up and leave
when the doors of the cathedral opened, and there stood little Cardinal
Ugolini, with most of the Sacred College behind him. He looked as if he
had been eating rotten figs. When I saw that, I knew the news must be
good. As cardinal camerlengo, he announced, 'We _believe_ we have a
pope.' Well, you can imagine, that took everyone aback. He explained
that the one elected was not present, and his name could not be
announced until he had come to Perugia and had officially accepted. Then
the cardinals came down the steps one by one. Most of them looked happy
to be out of the cathedral after a week of imprisonment, but de
Verceuil and de Tracey looked as ill as Ugolini. De Verceuil has come
back to the palace now, so you had better walk carefully."
Simon remembered that Friar Mathieu had said the cardinals had elected
the man named in King Louis's letter. But apparently the man was _not_
yet elected. Simon felt uneasy. The chosen one was not even in Perugia.
Too much could go wrong. He searched his brain. Friar Mathieu had said
something last night about one of the cardinals being absent. Which one?
"Who is the man they elected?" Simon cried. The way Friar Mathieu was
telling this was maddening.
Smiling, Friar Mathieu said, "That is why I did not come to you at once.
A priest in de Verceuil's entourage is an old friend of mine, and I
waited until I could get the rest of the story from him."
"Could the letter I brought make such a difference?" Simon exclaimed.
"Well, de Verceuil sent Thierry away before looking inside that loaf of
bread. His servant and his secretary, who were living with him, stood
outside his cell and heard groans and cries of rage from within. De
Verceuil threw his dinner on the floor and stamped out of his cell.
While the servant cleaned the cell, de Verceuil visited and spoke
secretly with each of the other French cardinals in turn.
"This morning, when it came time for them to vote, de Verceuil rose and
said, 'Ego eligo Guy le Gros'--I elect Guy le Gros. Then each of the
other French cardinals said the same thing after him."
_Le Gros!_ Simon thought. _Le Gros is the cardinal who is not here._
So, that was who King Louis wanted. Simon remembered meeting him at Pope
Urban's council a year ago, a stout, genial man with a long black beard.
De Verceuil had mocked him because he had once been married and had
daughters. De Verceuil would have to eat that mockery now.
What did this mean for the alliance? Le Gros must be favorable. Why else
would King Louis have chosen him?
"But why no smoke?" Simon asked.
"When a cardinal acclaims a candidate orally after a deadlock, and the
others follow suit, it is called election by quasi-inspiratio. Because
it is as if the cardinals have been divinely inspired. No ballots are
needed, so there is nothing to burn. In this case they were inspired by
King Louis, with some help from you and me.
"When two Italian cardinals--Piacenza, who knew he was too old to be
pope for long, and Marchetti, who was always opposed to Ugolini--joined
the cry for le Gros, it was all over. Ugolini collapsed in tears, but he
was revived enough to make the arrangements to send to England for le
Gros to come in haste. Everybody was sworn to silence, and Ugolini went
out to make the public announcement. Of course, despite the secrecy, all
Perugia knows it will be le Gros."
"But the alliance?" Simon asked anxiously.
Friar Mathieu reached out and took his hand. "We will have to wait until
le Gros is officially crowned. But we can count on one of his first acts
being a call for an alliance between the princes of Christendom and the
khans of Tartary. And right after that will follow a declaration that
Manfred von Hohenstaufen is deposed and Charles d'Anjou is the rightful
king of southern Italy and Sicily."
A feeling of triumph swept Simon.
"Once the alliance is secured," he said, "I can really believe that I
have the right to be the Count de Gobignon."
"Oh?" said Friar Mathieu. "Is that the assurance you need?" He spoke in
a dubious tone that made Simon uneasy. "Well, then, I hope for your sake
le Gros gets here from England all the sooner. Even though I do not look
forward to the war he will unleash."
_I care nothing about this war between Charles d'Anjou and Manfred von
Hohenstaufen_, Simon thought. His work would be done when he delivered
the Tartars, with the pope's blessing, to King Louis.
And at the same time, he thought, he might bring Sophia to France. In
his present happy mood, the thought of her was like a sunrise. If there
was to be war in Italy, if Charles d'Anjou was to invade her homeland of
Sicily, she might be all the more grateful to him for offering her a
marriage that would take her away from all that.
He must arrange a rendezvous with her at once.
* * * * *
Luckily, Simon thought, the rain that plagued Umbria this time of year
had let up for three days, and the roads leading out of Perugia into the
countryside were fairly dry. He would have braved a flood or a blizzard
to see Sophia again, but it pleased him that there were blue breaks in
the gray dome of cloud overhead. After meeting on a road northwest of
Perugia, Simon and Sophia had ridden to a woodland lake that reflected
the blue in a darker tone on its rippling surface.
Simon felt himself breathing rapidly with excitement as he surveyed the
lake shore. It seemed almost miraculous that Sophia was standing beside
him.
They were at the bottom of a bowl of land. Big rocks that looked as if
they might have rolled down the surrounding hillsides lay on the shore
of the small lake. The floor of the wood was thick with brown leaves.
This forest, Simon thought, probably belonged to some local nobleman.
Most of the countryside around here was farmland.
Even though denuded by autumn, the masses of trees on the opposite shore
looked impenetrable, ramparts of gray spikes frequently interrupted by
the dark green of pines. The place had all the privacy he had hoped for.
He prayed that this time alone together would not end in disaster as
their last meeting outside Orvieto had.
Holding Sophia's arm and guiding her down to the edge of the lake gave
Simon a warm, pleasant feeling. A tremor ran through his hands when he
grasped her slender waist and lifted her--how light she felt!--to perch
on a big black boulder.
She laughed gaily, and her laughter was like church bells at Easter.
He scooped up leaves and piled them at the base of the rock. When he had
a pile big enough for two people to sit on, he spread his cloak over it.
He held out his hand, and she slid from the boulder to the leaves.
He went foraging in the wood and quickly gathered an armload of broken
branches and a few heavy sticks. He made a ring of stones near the
water's edge and piled the branches within it, putting leaves and small
twigs that would catch fire easily under the larger pieces of wood. He
added some dried moss and took flint and steel out of a pouch at his
belt, struck sparks several times, and got the moss to smoke. He blew on
the glowing spots till a bright orange flame appeared. In a moment the
pile of branches was afire.
Sophia crawled to the fire and held her hands out to its warmth. Simon
sat beside her, so close their shoulders touched. He felt a pang of
disappointment when she moved just a bit away from him.
"How comfortable you've made us!" she said, sounding a little surprised.
She was very much a city woman, Simon thought. She seemed to know little
about the country, and he had noticed that she never looked entirely
relaxed on horseback.
"Are you surprised that I know how to make a fire in the woods?" He felt
inordinate pride at being able to show off this small skill to her.
"I did think you relied on servants to do that sort of thing for you."
"A knight may not always have equerries or servants to help him. I know
dozens of useful things that might surprise you. I can even cook and sew
for myself."
"Marvelous! The woman you marry will be fortunate indeed."
As soon as she said it, the light went out of her eyes and she looked
quickly away. An uneasy silence fell over them. Her obvious dismay threw
him into despair. Again he remembered their struggles and her tears--and
his own--that morning in the pine forest outside Orvieto.
After a pause, with an obviousness that sunk him into an even deeper
gloom, she changed the subject. "Uncle told me all about what they did
when the pope died. He was with the Holy Father right to the end. Just
before he died, Pope Urban said, 'Beware the Tartars, Adelberto.' I
would have thought Uncle made that up, but he says all the pope's
attendant priests and servants heard it. Uncle says it proves Pope Urban
had changed his mind at the end about that alliance you are all so
worried about."
"Maybe the pope was warning your uncle that the Tartars are angry at him
for all the trouble he has caused them," said Simon, forcing himself to
comment on something that, at the moment, did not interest him.
He refused to worry about whether Pope Urban had a deathbed change of
heart. How beautiful her eyes were, such a warm brown color! He had
everything planned out for both of them. She had only to agree. He would
present her first to King Louis. How could the king disapprove his
marriage to a cardinal's niece? And with the king's support, no one else
could object. Besides, Nicolette and Roland would love her; he was sure
of it.
She went on. "Anyway, Uncle said that the pope's chest filled up with
black bile, and that was what killed him. The pope's priest-physician
felt for a heartbeat, and when there was none, Uncle took a silver
hammer and tapped the pope on the forehead with it."
"Really!" Simon had no idea they did that. The strange scene interested
him in spite of his longing for Sophia.
"To make sure he was dead. And then Uncle called his name--his baptismal
name, not his name as pope--'Jacques, are you dead?' He did this three
times. And when the pope did not answer, he said, 'Pope Urban is truly
dead.' And he took the Fisherman's Ring off the Pope's finger and cut it
to bits with silver shears. And with the hammer he broke the pope's
seal. So they must make a new ring for the new pope."
"When Cardinal le Gros is made pope, he will confirm the alliance of
Christians and Tartars," said Simon, eager to put a finish to the topic
and bring the conversation back to the two of them.
Sophia, her hands folded in her lap, lovely hands with long slender
fingers, looked sadly toward the lake. "I suppose that pleases you."
"Why not be happy for me? My work is nearly done."
_And_, he wanted to add but dared not, _we can be married_.
She turned to look at him, her eyes troubled. "Uncle says the new pope
will call Charles d'Anjou to invade Italy and make war on King Manfred.
Will you be with the invaders?"
_Count Charles will surely expect me to join him_, Simon thought. Well,
he would simply tell Uncle Charles that he had no wish to spend any more
time in Italy.
"When the alliance with the Tartars is settled, I mean to go home."
He was about to tell her again that he wanted her to come with him, but
she spoke first. "You know this Count Charles well, do you not? How soon
do you think he will march into Italy?"
Simon wanted to talk about their future, not about Charles d'Anjou's
plans for war with Manfred. But he tried to answer her question.
"He is pressing his people for money now. Then he must gather his army.
And it can take months to move an army from the south of France to
southern Italy. With winter coming on, he will probably wait until next
year to cross the Alps. My guess is he'll be here in Italy next summer."
She was about to speak again, probably to ask another question about
Count Charles. He quickly broke in.
"What I told you last time--that I am a bastard and that the last Count
de Gobignon was not my real father--does that make you less willing to
marry me?"
Her face squeezed together, as if a sharp pain had struck her. "You are
not going to start talking about marriage again, Simon?"
Her words were like a knife wound in his chest. While he searched for
words, his eyes explored the steep brown hills that surrounded this
secluded lake. Their tops were veiled in mist, like his past.
"I have never stopped thinking about marrying you. Sophia, you are the
one person in the world who can make me happy." He reached over into her
lap and took her hand. It felt cool and smooth.
"I could never, never make you happy," she said. "You know nothing about
me."
Why was she always saying that? What was there to know about a woman who
had lived a quiet life in Sicily, was widowed at an early age, and had
come to live with her cardinal uncle?
"I know enough." His eyes felt on fire with longing. "And you know
enough about me to see that the differences between our families do not
matter. You know what I am. And we care more about each other than we do
about your uncle opposing what my king wants."
"Oh, Simon!" Now there were tears running down her cheeks, but she did
not try to pull her hand away. It pained him to see how this was hurting
her, though he did not understand why it should.
She said, "You are telling tales to yourself if you imagine we could
ever marry. You should not even think of it. Whatever your mother did,
you are still the Count de Gobignon. You are almost a member of the
French royal family."
"I am sure Cardinal Ugolini does not agree that your family is so
obscure," Simon said. "It is time I talked to him about this. Then you
will believe I mean it."
She struck her hands against his chest. "No, no! You must not do that.
Do you not realize how upset he is about this war, and how he feels
toward the French? If he even knew that I had been alone with you today,
he would force me to go back to Siracusa at once."
The feel of her hands on him, even to hit him in reproof, excited him.
"I would not let that happen," he said gravely.
He heard wild geese flying southward calling in the distance. Their
cries made this place seem terribly lonely. Even though the little lake
was only a short ride from Perugia, he had seen no sign of a human being
anywhere.
The fire was burning low. He went to gather more wood.
Sophia frowned at him when he came back. "What did you mean, you would
not allow my uncle to send me away?"
He leaned closer, seizing both of her hands in his. The pleasure of
holding her hands rippled through him like a fluttering of angels'
wings. In his exalted state he was moved to utter extravagant words.
"I mean that if you were to leave Perugia, I would ride after you. I
would fight any men your uncle had set to guard you. I would take you
back to Gobignon with me, and there with you inside my castle I would
defy the world."
"Oh, Simon!"
His words sounded foolish to him after he spoke them aloud. Yet men, he
knew, had done such things--Lancelot--Tristan--if the old songs were to
be believed. How better to prove his love than to commit crimes and risk
disgrace for her?
She was crying again. She put her hands over her face. Why, he wondered,
when he declared his love for her and told her he wanted to marry her,
did it make her so unhappy? If she did not care for him, she should be
indifferent or angry. Why, instead, did she cry so hard?
_It must be that she wants me but cannot believe it is possible._
The sight of her slender body shaking with sobs tore at his heart. He
could not hold himself back; even if she fought him again, he must put
his arms around her. He reached out to hold her. She fell against him.
She felt wonderful in his arms, solid enough to assure him that this was
no dream, yet light enough to allow him to feel that he could do
anything he wanted with her.
He remembered how angry she had been in the pine forest outside Orvieto
when he had tried to make love to her. Though he might be eaten up with
longing for her, he must just hold her and be glad she allowed him to do
that.
She raised her tear-streaked face and kissed him lightly on the lips.
The soft pressure of her lips on his made his arms ache to hold her
tighter. But he fought the feeling down.
"Why do you cry so hard when I speak to you of love?" he whispered.
"Because no one has ever loved me as you do," she said. She rested her
head against his chest, and he stroked her hair. His eyes lingered over
the curves of her breasts. He wanted to drop his hand from her hair to
her breast. He felt the yearning to touch her breast as a pain in the
palm of his hand.
"But you have been married," he said. "Did not your husband love you?"
He felt her head shaking. His heart was beating so hard he was sure she
must hear it.
"We were little more than children."
"I am not a child, and neither are you. Believe me when I say I want to
marry you."
"Oh, Simon, I do believe you!" she cried, and she broke out in a fresh
storm of sobs.
Now he could not help himself; he had to hold her tight. She leaned
against him, and they slipped back until they were both lying down, he
on his back and she on top of him. His hand felt the small of her back.
How narrow her waist was!
He felt her move against him in a new way.
Her arms slid around him, her hands on his neck. Her lips were on his
again, but this time pressing hard, ferocious, devouring. He felt her
teeth and tongue, her breath hot in his mouth.
She was suddenly a different woman, not the shy cardinal's niece. She
was demanding, brimming over with a need to match his. Their hands
hurried over each other's bodies, touching through their clothes and
then under their clothes. Simon had no time to be surprised at the
change that had come over her.
She was undoing the laces down the front of her gown, then taking his
hands and holding them against her naked breasts. He nearly fainted with
the wonder of it.
And while he held her breasts, unable to take his hands away, her hands
moved downward, fumbling at his clothing and at her own, her body
sliding against him, her hand seizing his manhood, her legs opening to
receive him.
He groaned and squeezed his eyes shut, and she cried out with delight as
he entered her. She pushed herself upward, pressing her hands against
his shoulders, arching her back. His hands moved in gentle circles over
her breasts, her hard nipples pressing into his palms. Her hips thrust
against him furiously. He felt waves of pleasure rising to a crest in
his loins. His eyes came open and he saw, under the olive skin of her
face and neck and bosom, a deep crimson flush.
Her joyous scream echoed cross the lake.
* * * * *
"You shall come with me to Gobignon," he whispered in her ear. They lay
wrapped in his cloak, legs entangled, clothing in disarray, the wind
rattling the bare branches overhead. He heard his palfrey and her horse
in the brush nearby stamping and snorting restlessly. The horses must be
hungry.
"You shall marry me," he said.
She lay motionless, her head under his, resting on his arm. "I will not.
I cannot." Her tone was leaden, despairing.
After what had just happened, how could she still refuse him? Was she
ashamed? Did she feel she had sinned?
"We are as good as married now."
"Oh, Simon." She sounded as if she were talking to a hopelessly innocent
boy.
"There will be a new pope, and the alliance will be sealed, and my work
will be done," he said. "I agreed to do this, and I will see it through.
But I do not have to be a part of the war between Count Charles and the
king of Sicily, and neither do you. All I want is to go home and to take
you with me. With you beside me, my home will be all of the world that I
want."
Her arms were tight around him, but she was silent. It did not matter if
she did not answer him. After what had just happened between them, he
felt as if he knew her mind as fully as he knew her body. She loved him
and would marry him. He was sure of it.
Overhead, wild geese called.