"And where did this take place, Your Signory?"
"In my private room at the inn."
"Who was she?"
Simon had prepared his answer. "I do not know. A pleasant lady whom I
met in the common room."
The bags under d'Ucello's eyes twitched. "There are no whores in that
part of town, Signore. It is one of my duties to see that the
prostitutes are limited to a quarter of the city where they will not
offend the holy or the well-born. A cardinal has his residence across
the street from where your friend's body was found." D'Ucello's mouth
stretched, but neither his eyes nor the dark bulges under them joined in
the smile. "The woman who entertained you must have been an ordinarily
respectable person who chose to go astray that evening." He paused and
looked grimly up at Simon.
Simon felt as if a clammy hand had taken him by the back of the neck. He
should have realized this vaguely imagined woman would not satisfy any
determined questioner. He struck his fist against his leg. D'Ucello's
eyes flickered, and Simon knew he had caught the gesture. He felt as if
a net were slowly being drawn around him, and he resented it. Back home
no mere city governor would dare trouble the Count de Gobignon any more
than he would disturb the king or one of his brothers.
As d'Ucello continued to stare silently at him, Simon studied the
podesta. This was a man who was jealous of his power, Simon decided. A
man who, despite his politeness, would enjoy embarrassing a young
nobleman.
"What was the woman's name?" d'Ucello pressed him.
"I have no idea."
The thick black eyebrows rose again, wrinkling the balding scalp. "You
spent the entire night with this woman and never called her by name?"
Simon had been intending to claim that honor forbade him to tell the
woman's name. He felt certain the governor would reject that argument as
trivial under the circumstances.
"We spoke very little. I addressed her with various foolish
endearments."
"Could you describe her?"
"Most of the time we were in the dark." Simon felt d'Ucello had pressed
him enough. It was time to fight back. "Signore Podesta, my good friend
and vassal was murdered in the street, a street supposedly under the
protection of your watch. I fail to see how it helps you to do your duty
of finding his killer by questioning me as if I were a criminal."
The podesta's brows drew together, and he took a few steps backward,
diminishing the importance of the difference in height between him and
Simon.
"Your Signory, I have questioned everyone who lives in that
neighborhood, and everyone I could find who was passing through it last
night," he said. "I learned from the innkeeper at the Vesuvio that your
friend slept alone last night. I know that you did not meet anyone in
the inn, woman or man. You stopped there briefly, left your friend, and
went somewhere else. You did not engage a private room for yourself. The
innkeeper and several other people agree to that. Will Your Signory be
good enough to tell me where you did go?"
Simon heard with dismay the weakness in his tone and was appalled at how
easily d'Ucello had exposed his lies. "Those you spoke to about what I
did must have been mistaken," he said. "Perhaps they did not notice my
return to the inn." An inspiration struck him. "They may be trying to
protect the woman I was with."
D'Ucello smiled thinly. "I see. Then you are telling me that you had
carnal relations with this woman while your good friend and vassal
looked on."
Simon was momentarily at a loss for words. It would have delighted him
to reply by running d'Ucello through.
They stood bristling at each other like two hostile hounds when Simon
heard a door open. A moment later, to his enormous relief, Friar Mathieu
joined them by the marble railing overlooking the atrium.
"If you wish to examine young Sire de Pirenne's body, he lies in Count
Simon's room waiting for you, Signore," said Friar Mathieu. "This is a
very sad day for us."
With a black look at Simon, d'Ucello bowed to the old priest and left
the galleria.
When they were alone, Friar Mathieu grunted. "A good thing I merely
extended the wounds Sire Alain had already suffered. The podesta might
well bring charges against me for desecrating a corpse if he saw I had
made incisions in the body."
"Did you learn anything?" Simon asked.
"I am convinced that Sire Alain was not merely stabbed to death."
"What do you mean?" Simon was eager to get Friar Mathieu's advice on how
to handle the podesta, but this was more important.
"When I looked closely at the wound in his stomach, I discovered that it
was two wounds," said Friar Mathieu. "He was punctured there by a thin,
round object, like a large needle. Then he was stabbed through the
heart, and blood poured out of him. And then the killer stabbed him in
the belly to try to mask the dart wound."
"How do you know that?"
"The belly wound did not bleed much, so the heart wound must have
preceded it. When the killer drove his knife into the puncture in the
belly, it did not go in exactly the same direction. The smaller wound
goes upward at a slight angle, as if the needle were driven in from the
level of the killer's waist. The knife wound goes straight in. I had to
dig below the skin and ribs to discover the needle wound."
"A needle could not have killed Alain."
"It could have been a poisoned dart. Alain's lips are blue. That is
sometimes a sign of poison."
Simon heard a clumping of boots in the corridor. He hurried in from the
galleria to find Cardinal Paulus de Verceuil, accompanied by two
black-robed priests, striding toward the room where Alain lay.
"Now one of your knights has been killed!" de Verceuil boomed. He was
dressed in a dark cerise tunic with particolored hose and forest-green
boots with pointed toes. The only indications of his ecclesiastical
office were the absence of a sword and the presence of the large jeweled
cross hanging from his neck. A purple velvet cap adorned with a black
feather was draped over his glossy black hair.
Simon told the cardinal he and Alain had been out late and had decided
to stay at an inn rather than cross town during the dangerous night
hours. Friar Mathieu came and stood beside him, greeting the two priests
who had accompanied de Verceuil. They loftily eyed the old Franciscan's
brown robe and responded with curt nods.
When Simon finished his recital, de Verceuil leaned forward, his small
lower lip outthrust. "If you cannot protect your own knights, how can
you protect the emissaries from Tartary?"
That was not a question but an assault, Simon decided, and required no
answer. "We are doing everything we can to find his killer, Your
Eminence."
"By God's footprints, I wish this were my bishopric!" de Verceuil
exclaimed. "I would take a dozen men from that neighborhood and I would
hang one man a day until the killer was found. I would have the man."
The door to the room where Alain lay swung open, and the stout podesta
emerged. He stood silently glowering up at de Verceuil. Simon wondered
whether d'Ucello had learned anything from looking at poor Alain's
corpse.
"And what, Your Eminence, if the people of that neighborhood truly do
not know who killed the Sire de Pirenne?" said Friar Mathieu.
Until that moment Simon had assumed Alain had met his death at the hands
of some Orvietan cutthroat. If not such a one, then who? He remembered
Giancarlo and the bravos he had met on the road. Alain's money had been
taken, but not his weapons. And Giancarlo served David of Trebizond, and
David served Ugolini. Was this Ugolini's way of protecting his niece's
honor?
If Giancarlo had anything to do with it, Sordello ought to be able to
find out.
"If we arrested all the men who live on the street where he was killed,"
said de Verceuil, "more than likely among them would be the man who did
it. These Italians--shopkeepers by day and robbers by night."
The faces of the two priests with him tightened. Simon glanced at
d'Ucello, and saw a flush darkening his brown cheeks.
"The people of that street are among the most respectable in Orvieto,
Signore," the podesta growled. How delightful, Simon thought, if the
odious de Verceuil and the odious d'Ucello were to tear into each other.
De Verceuil stared at the podesta in amazement and wrath, while the two
priests turned their heads from one to the other in embarrassment. After
a moment, one priest murmured de Verceuil's identity to d'Ucello, while
the other softly told the cardinal who the podesta was.
"Forgive me, Your Eminence, if my tone was less respectful than you
deserve," said d'Ucello, bowing to kiss de Verceuil's haughtily extended
sapphire ring.
"I have encountered nothing but disrespect from Orvietans since I came
here," said the cardinal, and Simon remembered that vile smear of dung
on his cheek the day they arrived. "I had actually thought Orvieto had
no governor."
"Forgive me again that I did not pay my respects to you before," said
d'Ucello. He did not rise to the bait, Simon noticed. An intelligent
man.
"A French knight has been murdered in your city, Podesta," de Verceuil
said. "Regardless of your high opinion of the people of the quarter
where it happened, I expect you to press them hard until you find the
killer. A thing like this cannot happen without someone seeing something
or hearing something."
That reminded Simon that no one had come forward to claim the reward he
had offered. If someone had heard or seen something, that person was
doubtless too frightened to speak of it.
"Your Eminence gives me most valuable advice," said d'Ucello. "I promise
you, we shall not rest until the killer is found." His round body bobbed
forward in a bow, and he turned on his heel, sword and daggers swinging,
and marched away.
"Pompous little man," said de Verceuil. "And doubtless incompetent and
treacherous."
The cardinal turned to Simon now. "Do not leave it to that watch
commander to find the killer. The knight--what was his name?" Simon told
him. "De Pirenne was your man, and you are responsible for his death.
Put all the men under you to work hunting down the murderer. Do whatever
has to be done. We must not let the death of a French knight go
unavenged."
"As Your Eminence wills, so I will," said Simon.
De Verceuil raised a finger. "And we will have a splendid funeral. The
pope himself will be present. Let the grandeur of the ceremony show that
we French do not take the death of one of our number lightly. Let these
sneaking Italians tremble before our wrath."
Again the two priests looked at each other, and one of them shrugged
resignedly.
_What barbarians we must seem to them._ Simon's face grew hot with
embarrassment.