"And how could you dismiss the trovatore Sordello from the post to which
Count Charles himself appointed him?"
"If Sordello had stayed with us, the Tartars might have taken such
offense as to go back to Outremer."
"Do not be absurd. Would they abandon a mission of such importance
because of a tavern brawl?"
Simon felt shame, but, deeper than that, resentment. He was the Count de
Gobignon, and not since he was a child had anyone chastised him like
this.
He heard a rustling as someone came down the row of vines where they
were standing. He turned to see Friar Mathieu, and hoped he was about to
be rescued.
After the Franciscan had humbly greeted the cardinal and kissed his
sapphire ring, he said, "I must tell Your Eminence that what happened
was not a mere tavern brawl. Sordello stabbed and nearly killed the heir
to the throne of Armenia, an important ally of the Tartars."
De Verceuil stared at Friar Mathieu. The cardinal had a mouth so small
it looked quite out of place below his large nose and above his large
chin. A mean mouth, Simon thought.
"Your opinion does not interest me," de Verceuil said. "I cannot imagine
why King Louis trusted a beggar-priest to conduct diplomacy with the
empire of Tartary."
The resentment Simon had felt at the cardinal's harsh speech at his
expense now flared up in anger.
_I am young and I do make mistakes_, Simon thought. _But, cardinal or
not, this man has no right to stand there in his velvet and satin and
jewels and sneer at this fine old man. No right at all._
But the old friar merely stroked his white beard with a wry smile and
said, "I said that very thing to him myself, when he ordered me to go."
Still angry, Simon took a deep breath and said, "Since Your Eminence
feels I have embarrassed the king and displeased the Count of Anjou,
there is only one course open to me. I will resign my command of the
ambassadors' guards."
Simon stared into de Verceuil's eyes, and the cardinal's eyelids
fluttered. In the silence Simon heard a blackbird calling in nearby
olive trees.
_I never wanted to come here. I let Uncle Charles talk me into it. I do
not mind the danger. And it would be exciting to outguess a hidden enemy
who is trying to murder the Tartars. But I cannot endure the way this
man humiliates me and my friends. I will go back to Gobignon now._
"You must not let a bit of fatherly correction wound you so deeply,
Count," said the cardinal, his voice still deep and dirgelike but no
longer full of scorn. "I would never suggest the Count of Anjou had made
a mistake in choosing you for this post."
_Fatherly! What a disgusting thought!_
But Simon could see that his resigning worried de Verceuil. Uncle
Charles wanted Simon to guard the ambassadors, just as he had wanted
Sordello to head the archers. He had his reasons. And de Verceuil did
not want to cross Charles d'Anjou.
Friar Mathieu laughed gently, and patted Simon on the shoulder. "If you
please, be kind enough to change your mind about resigning. All of us
are aware that you have carried out the task with intelligence and zeal.
Is that not right, Your Eminence?"
"Of course," said de Verceuil, his mouth puckered and sour. "Count, I
would have you present these Tartar dignitaries to me."
"I will be happy to interpret for you, Your Eminence," said Friar
Mathieu. De Verceuil did not answer him.
As they crossed the vineyard, the cardinal stretched out his long arm
and said, "I have brought musicians, jongleurs, senators of Orvieto,
men-at-arms, two archbishops, six bishops, an abbot, and many monsignors
and priests." A long line of men stretched down the road into the nearby
woods. Most of them wore various shades of red; a few were in
cloth-of-gold or blue. The points of long spears flashed in the
sunlight. Banners with fringes of gold and silver swung at the tops of
poles. Seeking protection from the mid-August heat, men walked horses in
the shade of the woods.
Beyond the treetops rose a distant pedestal of grayish-yellow rock
crowned by a city. An astonishing sight, Orvieto.
"The Holy Father will be meeting us at the cathedral and will say a
special mass of thanksgiving for the safe arrival of the ambassadors,"
said de Verceuil. "I want the entry of the Tartars into Orvieto to
impress both the Tartars themselves and the pope and his courtiers."
* * * * *
"Monsters!"
"Cannibals!"
Rotten apples, pears and onions, chunks of moldy bread, flew through the
air. Small stones that did not injure, but stung. And worse.
The shouts and missiles came from both sides of the street, but always
when Simon was looking the other way, so he could not see his
assailants. The people crowded in front of the shops were mostly young
men, but women and children were scattered among them. They wore the
dull grayish and brownish garments of workers and peasants. The
street-level windows behind them were shuttered, and the doors were
closed tight. That was a sure sign, Simon knew from his Paris student
days, that the shopkeepers expected trouble.
From the Porta Maggiore, the main gate where they had entered, the
street curved toward the south side of the town. Though the upper
stories of many houses overshadowed the street, there was room enough
for the procession to move along, four horses abreast, and for the
unruly people to gather on either side. Approaching the south wall of
the city, the street made a sharp bend to the left, and Simon had lost
sight of the Tartar emissaries behind, who were--_What a
mistake!_--being carried in an open sedan chair. Were they being pelted
with garbage?
Why were the people of Orvieto doing this? True, everyone in Christendom
had heard wild tales of the Tartars. That they were monsters with dogs'
heads. That they bit off the breasts of women. That they stank so
abominably they overcame whole armies just with their smell. That they
were determined to kill or enslave everyone on earth. There were
churches where people prayed every Sunday to be delivered "from the fury
of the Tartars."
But it had been over twenty years since the Tartars had invaded Europe,
and even then they had come no farther than Poland and Hungary. Why
should these people of Orvieto turn so violently against them now, when
they came in peace?
Undoubtedly someone was stirring them up.
_Hang de Verceuil and his orders_, Simon thought. _I should be with the
ambassadors. If someone wants to kill them, this would be a perfect
chance._
He tugged on the reins of his palfrey, pulling her head around. "Make
way!" he shouted, spurring his horse back the way he had come.
Men-at-arms with spears and crossbows cursed at him in various Italian
dialects, but they opened a path, pushing back the people. Thierry rode
a small horse in Simon's wake.
"Imps of Satan!" came a shout from the crowd. "The Tartars are devils!"
Simon scanned the faces below him. Some looked angry, some frightened,
many bewildered. No one looked happy. The cardinal's hope for an
impressive entry into Orvieto had been quite dashed, and Simon felt a
sneaking pleasure at that.
Passing the corner where the procession had turned, he saw again a
building he had passed earlier, a formidable three-story cube of yellow
stone with slotted windows on the ground floor and iron bars over the
wider upper windows.
_And there is a man who looks happy._
He was standing in sunlight, leaning out from the square Guelfo
battlements on the roof of the big building. His hair was the color of
brass, his skin a smooth brown, such as Simon had seen on pilgrims newly
returned from the crusader strongholds in Outremer. The blond man gazed
down on the jostling, shouting crowd, smiling faintly.
As Simon rode past him, their eyes met. Simon was startled by the
intensity of the other's gaze. It was as if a wordless message had
crossed the space between them. A challenge. But then the blond man
looked away.
The Tartar ambassadors, seated side by side in a large sedan chair, were
farther up the street. Here, Simon noticed with relief, the crowd had
fallen quiet. Perhaps curiosity about the Tartars, with their round
brown faces and many-colored robes, had overcome whatever had roused
these people against them. Then, too, the Tartars were surrounded by
their Armenians marching on foot, curved swords drawn, as well as by
Simon's knights on horseback, and Venetian crossbowmen. The archers'
bows, Simon noticed, were loaded and drawn. Who had ordered that?
De Verceuil on a huge black horse--no palfrey this, but a powerful
charger--rode up to Simon. "Why did you not remain in the forefront?
What is going on up ahead?"
Without trying to defend himself, Simon described the disturbance.
"Could you not control the rabble?" de Verceuil growled, and turned to
take a position beside the Tartars' sedan chair.
Simon's face burned, and his hands trembled as he stared after de
Verceuil.
When they passed the yellow stone building, Simon looked up and saw the
blond man still there on the roof. The man was staring down at the
Tartars with that same burning look he had thrown at Simon, but there
were no weapons in the hands that gripped the battlements.
Simon heard a slapping sound and an angry cry. He turned to see de
Verceuil, his right cheek smeared brown.
_God's death! Someone threw shit at him! And hit him right in the face._
The cardinal, his face distorted as if he were about to vomit, was
staring at the stained hand with which he had just wiped his cheek.
There was laughter from the crowd, mixed with angry cries of "Bestioni!
Creatures from hell!"
For an instant Simon felt laughter bubbling up to his lips, but cold
horror swept all amusement away as he sensed what was about to happen.
De Verceuil turned to the nearest crossbowmen, who had not suppressed
their own smiles.
"Shoot!" he shouted. "Shoot whoever did that!"
The smiles remained fixed on the faces of the Venetians as three of them
aimed their already-loaded crossbows at the crowd. They did not
hesitate. This was not their city; these were not their people. They
were fighting men who did as they were ordered.
People screamed and shrank back against the shuttered doors and windows.
Three loud snaps of the bowstrings came at the same moment as Simon's
cry of "No!"
He shouted without thinking, and was surprised to hear his own voice.
His cry echoed in a sudden and terrible quiet.
Screams of agony immediately followed. People darted away from the place
where the crossbowmen had aimed, leaving that part of the street empty.
Empty save for three people. Two of them screamed. One was silent--a
young man who half sat, half lay against the stone wall of a house.
Blood was pouring out of his mouth and more blood was running from a
hole in his chest. Simon saw that the blood was coming in a steady
stream, not in rhythmic spurts, which meant the fellow's heart had
stopped. A glance at the white face told Simon the dead youth could be
no more than sixteen.
Beside the boy, a woman knelt and wept. She was plump and middle-aged,
perhaps his mother. Her white linen tunic was bloodied.
"He did nothing!" she cried. "Oh, Jesus! Mary! He did nothing!" There
was a plea in her voice, as if she might bring the boy back to life if
only she could persuade people of his innocence.
The other cries came from a man who stood about a yard from the dead
boy. The bolt had gone through his left shoulder just above the armpit
and pinned him to the oaken post of a doorway. He wanted to fall, but he
had to stand or suffer unbearable pain.
"Help me!" he begged, casting pain-blinded eyes right and left. "Help
me!"
Simon jumped down from his horse, throwing the reins to Thierry, and ran
to the man. He put his left hand on the chest and pulled at the flaring
end of the quarrel with his right. He could not move it. The bolt was
buried too deeply in the wood. The man's forehead fell against Simon's
shoulder, and he was silent. Simon hoped he had fainted.
Now Simon saw where the third bolt had gone. Six inches of it, half its
length, was buried in a wall a few feet to Simon's right. The wall was
made of the same grayish-yellow stone Orvieto was built on.
The crossbow bolt in the man's shoulder was thick and made of hard wood.
Simon had nothing that would cut the man loose without hurting him even
more. He looked up and down the street. It was quite empty now, except
for a few people watching from a distance. The procession had gone on.
He glanced up and saw that the blond man had left his place on the roof.
Friar Mathieu knelt beside the dead young man, one hand moving in
blessing, the other resting on the shoulder of the weeping woman.
De Pirenne and Thierry, both mounted, the equerry holding Simon's horse,
looked at him uncertainly.
"Go, Alain!" said Simon impatiently. "Stay with the Tartars."
He himself was neglecting his duty, he thought, as de Pirenne galloped
off. But now that he was trying to help this poor devil, he could not
abandon him.
"Can I do anything, Monseigneur?" Thierry asked.
As Simon was about to answer, he saw a middle-aged man wearing a
carpenter's apron.
"Messere, can you bring a saw?" he called. "Hurry!"
It seemed hours before the man returned with a small saw with a pointed
end and widely spaced teeth. He held it out to Simon.
Simon wanted to shout at the carpenter, but he took a grip on himself
and said patiently, "You are bound to be better at sawing than I. Per
favore, cut away the end of the crossbow bolt so we can free this man."
Gingerly at first, then working with a will, the carpenter sawed off the
flaring end of the bolt with its thin wooden vanes. The pinned man awoke
and was sobbing and groaning.
Once the protruding part of the bolt was sawed away, Simon took a deep
breath, wrapped his arms around the sobbing man, and pulled him away
from the wall. The man screamed so loudly that Simon's ears rang; then
the man sagged to the ground. Blood flowed from the wound in his
shoulder, soaking his tunic. Blood coated the stump of the bolt, still
stuck in the door post. Simon dropped to his knees beside the wounded
man. A pool of bright red widened rapidly on the flat paving stones.
_Now what do I do with him? I must get back to my duty._
He spoke with the carpenter. "Press your hand on the wound, hard. That
will slow the bleeding." Simon took the man's hand and put it on the
hole the crossbow bolt had made.
"Here, let me do that." Friar Mathieu was on his knees beside the hurt
man, his hand covering the wound. "Messere," he said to the carpenter,
"ride my donkey to the hospital of the Franciscans. Tell them there is a
man badly hurt here and Friar Mathieu d'Alcon says they are to send
brothers to take him for treatment."
Simon stood up slowly as the carpenter climbed on Mathieu's donkey.
"It is not safe for you to stay here," he said to Friar Mathieu. "The
people know you were part of the procession and may blame you for what
happened."