Chapter 17

Rain and darkness made it hard for him to see it in detail, but lighted torches and candles glowing inside the windows limned its general shape. The square central tower loomed high above the surrounding city, its stone face ruddy in the glow from the upper windows of four cylindrical corner turrets. The palace was surrounded by a high outer wall, and Simon supposed there was an expanse of bare ground between the wall and the main building. To him, the palace looked more like a great French country chateau than a noble Italian family's town house.

Streamers of purple cloth, betokening mourning, were draped from one turret of the gatehouse to the other, the rain-soaked ends flapping across the arch of the gateway.

The tall wooden gate, sheltered from the rain by a pointed arch, was adorned with painted carvings of the lion, symbol of the Guelfi, and the griffin, symbol of the city of Perugia. Simon and Sordello pounded on the gate, and men-at-arms admitted them. Simon unstrapped a flat leather case from his saddle and then left Thierry to unload and stable the animals. He and Sordello hurried through the rain to the front door of the palace.

Simon identified himself to the steward, who conducted him, with much solicitude about the bad weather, to the sala maggiore of the palace. In the great hall, Simon was glad to see a fire of logs burning on a stone hearth under a chimney opening. He headed for it, throwing his sopping cloak and leather hat to the stone floor. Let the servants pick them up. Riding all day in the rain had made him irritable.

"Simon!" Friar Mathieu was shuffling toward him, leaning heavily on a walking stick. The old Franciscan's painfully slow movements alarmed him. Simon put his arms about him, but gently.

"Are you feeling worse, Father?"

"The weather is reminding my bones that they were cracked not long ago. I have a fire on the hearth in my room upstairs. Come up with me and you can get out of those wet clothes."

Simon sent Sordello to the kitchen and, still carrying the leather case, followed Friar Mathieu up a long flight of stone steps.

Wrapped in a blanket, seated on a bench before the fire in Friar Mathieu's chamber with a cup of hot spiced wine in his hand, he began to feel more comfortable, and he told the old priest about his journey back to Italy from Avignon.

"King Louis dismissed me on the twentieth of September. I paid fifty livres for a fast galley to Livorno. Then we rode our horses almost to death through the hills to get here. It took us less than two weeks. Very good time, but not good enough."

Simon paused. He remembered the old pope so vividly, writing letters furiously and dispatching them hither and yon, feeling surrounded by enemies on all sides and knowing he was going to die. He had so wanted to bring the Holy Father good news. Now Pope Urban was no more, and Simon was deeply disappointed.

_But surely he is happier out of all this turmoil. He is with God and at peace now._

"And what news do you bring?" said Friar Mathieu.

Simon leaned toward him enthusiastically. "The pope's last wish has been granted! King Louis has agreed to let his brother Charles make war on King Manfred."

Instead of looking delighted as Simon had expected, Friar Mathieu surprised him by sighing and staring into the fire.

"Are you not pleased?" Simon prodded him.

"Pleased about a war?" Friar Mathieu's eyes were sad under his snow-white brows.

Simon felt as if his chair had been pulled out from under him and he had been dumped on the floor. His whole being had been focused on bringing good news to Perugia.

"But Father Mathieu, this means that the alliance of Tartars and Christians is approved. By Pope Urban, anyway."

Now that Pope Urban was dead, did that mean anything? He hesitated, confused.

Friar Mathieu sighed again. "I want the Tartars to embrace Christianity. I want the holy places liberated. But this warfare in Italy seems to me a false turning in the road. However--neither you nor I can stop the march of events. What is it you are carrying?"

Simon unbuckled the fastenings of the leather case and took out a package wrapped in silk. "Two letters written by King Louis. One was for Pope Urban. The other is for de Verceuil if Pope Urban should die."

"You will have trouble delivering either one."

"The one for Pope Urban I will keep as the king ordered me, until a new pope is elected. But the other one--why? Where is de Verceuil?"

"Locked away with the other cardinals in the Cathedral of Perugia, trying to make himself pope."

The thought of Paulus de Verceuil as supreme head of the Church made Simon's lip curl. "Pope? Not him!"

"He has the support of about half the French cardinals," Friar Mathieu said, shaking his white beard. "The cardinals are supposed to be in absolute seclusion, with no messages going in or out, but the servants who bring them their meals report things in both directions. The other cardinals lean to Gerard de Tracey, cardinal-bishop of Soissons. A former inquisitor." Friar Mathieu made a sour face.

"What of the Italians?"

"Amazingly, despite the rumors about his heresy and sorcery, Ugolini has four Italian cardinals voting for him. The servants say he has promised large sums of money to those four. The other three Italian votes are going to Piacenza. That must include Ugolini's vote, since the rules forbid a cardinal to vote for himself. Voting for old Piacenza is just a gesture, of course. He probably has less than a year of life left to him. But until one or two Italians can be persuaded to vote for a French candidate, no Frenchman can get the necessary two thirds."

"Are there not fourteen French cardinals to seven Italians?" Simon asked.

"Yes, but right now there are only twenty cardinals in conclave altogether. One of the French cardinals is in England on a diplomatic mission, sent by Pope Urban before his death. So, even united, the thirteen French would be one short of two thirds. And they are far from united. It could take years to elect a new pope."

Years! Simon was horrified. What a disaster! Without a pope, the question of the alliance would languish. The Tartar ambassadors might yet be assassinated, or just die. Hulagu Khan might die. Even King Louis, God forbid, might die, and the next king would probably not be interested in crusading.

Simon, for his part, had pinned his hopes for the restoration of his family honor on the success of the Tartar alliance. A new pope must be elected, and soon.

He carefully took the two scrolls out of their silk wrappings. Both were tied with red ribbons and sealed with blobs of red wax which King Louis had stamped with his personal seal, a shield bearing fleurs-de-lis. Simon held up the one addressed "His Eminence, Cardinal Paulus de Verceuil."

"We must try to get this letter to de Verceuil at once. It names King Louis's choice for the next pope. It could end the deadlock."

Father Mathieu stroked his white beard thoughtfully. "Exactly the sort of letter the rule against messages was instituted to keep out. A king attempting to influence a papal election." The old Franciscan took the scroll in one hand and tapped it against the palm of the other. "But I think for the good of the Church and for the success of our own mission we had better get this letter to de Verceuil at once. King Louis's choice cannot be worse than de Verceuil, de Tracey, or Ugolini."

"Yes!" said Simon eagerly. "But how do we get the letter to him?"

The old Franciscan pushed himself to his feet. It hurt Simon to see how slow and painful his movements were. Damn that devil in black who had tried to kill the Tartars!

The Tartars! He had thought they were well guarded enough, and that it was safe to leave them while he carried Urban's letter and the king's reply. But if the question of the alliance were to drag on, the foes of the alliance would try again to strike at them. Fear clutched at his heart.

"Are the Tartars here in this palace?" he called after Friar Mathieu, who was hobbling out of the room holding King Louis's scroll.

"Oh, yes. The Baglioni family have given them a whole quarter of the palace. They are well enough, though they hate being trapped indoors by the weather and by the need to keep them under guard. John Chagan has with him a young Jewish girl named Rachel, whom he kidnapped from a brothel in Orvieto. The girl was an orphan, and she has been terribly abused. She is virtually their prisoner."

Simon's mouth twisted. "And we want to ally ourselves with such men. How can such things go on in the same city with the Sacred College?"

Friar Mathieu shook his head grimly. "Nothing I have said has made any difference. De Verceuil insists that the Tartars must have whatever they want, even though it will damn their souls. They are Christians, after all. If John dies with this girl on his conscience, he will go straight to hell."

Simon sighed. "Little de Verceuil cares about that."

"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?"