The Saracen: Land of the Infidel Part 100

And then what? Bid her farewell?

He and de Puys on the other side, two knights behind each of them, slid Alain's body with a dry, rasping sound along the unpainted gray wood of the cart bed. The red ribbons on the four tall cartwheels fluttered in the slight breeze.

A thought that had fleetingly occurred to Simon before now formed itself solidly in his mind.

What if he were to take Sophia back to Gobignon as his bride?

Many there were who would rail against him for doing it. His grandmother in particular, herself the daughter of a king, would be beside herself with fury. King Louis and Uncle Charles might even try to stop him. But he was the Count de Gobignon, a Peer of the Realm, almost a king in his own right, and he had tried to do what his elders expected of him, and he had failed.

Twice he had loved women whose lands and high birth made them proper matches for him in the eyes of the world, and twice he had been prevented from marrying the woman of his choice because of Count Amalric's legacy of wickedness.

Well, the devil take all of them. If they would not accept him as a member of the n.o.blesse, then he was not obliged to behave as one.

Surely his mother and father, considering the way their own marriage had come about, would understand and approve his choice.

And somehow he doubted that Cardinal Ugolini would raise any objection to his marrying his niece, Sophia.

x.x.xVII

_An open letter from Fra Toma.s.so d'Aquino of the Order of Preaching Friars to the Christian sovereigns of Europe, from Orvieto, 7th day of November A.D. 1263_

Let us leave these wild beasts, Tartars and Muslims alike, to devour each other, that they may all be consumed and perish; and we, when we proceed against the enemies of Christ who remain, will slay them and cleanse the face of the earth, so that all the world will be subject to the one Catholic Church and there be one Shepherd and one fold.

When Simon and Friar Mathieu climbed the stone steps into Fra Toma.s.so's cell, pushing up a trapdoor to enter, he was bent over a scroll. He held the two rolled-up ends apart with his fingertips, and as he read he very gently pushed down the bottom part of the roll, allowing the part he had read to roll up. The scroll looked very old, and the Dominican friar handled it as if it might fall apart in his hands.

He did not look up at his two visitors. His large head moved ever so slightly from side to side as he scanned the lines of writing, and Simon could hear his loud breathing just as he had a week ago in the cathedral. Simon and Friar Mathieu stood quietly and waited for Fra Toma.s.so to stop reading and notice them.

It had taken Friar Mathieu's Franciscan superiors a week of delicate negotiations after Alain's funeral to arrange an audience with the Dominican philosopher for Friar Mathieu and Simon. Simon prayed, feeling the sweat break out on his forehead, that their intrusion would not annoy Fra Toma.s.so. He desperately hoped that they could persuade him to change his mind about the alliance.

It was really up to Friar Mathieu, he thought. That Simon could have any effect on such a brilliant philosopher was unthinkable.

Simon noticed a single deep crease between the great Dominican's eyebrows. His forehead bulged on either side of the crease, as if the muscles that made him frown had grown from much exercise. The brows themselves were so fair and spa.r.s.e as to seem almost invisible.

Fra Toma.s.so laid a broad right hand on the scroll to hold it open, picked up a feather pen with his left hand, dipped the sharpened tip into a tiny ink jar, and began making small, rapid marks on a piece of parchment. Simon watched with interest. Since his university days, he rarely saw people reading and writing, and could not remember ever seeing anyone write with his left hand. When the pen ran dry, Fra Toma.s.so happened to glance up as he dipped it again.

"Dear Lord, forgive me," he said, his eyes round with surprise.

"Friends, I did not hear you enter. Please pardon my rudeness." Simon was gratified to hear him speak French and impressed by his fluency.

"It is we who are guilty of rudeness, Fra Toma.s.so," said Friar Mathieu, "for interrupting your work."

"My brothers in Christ are more important than books," said the stout Dominican, gesturing to them to take seats on his bed.

His cell was a circular room occupying the top floor of a tower in the compound that housed his order in Orvieto. The curved walls of the room were painted as white as Fra Toma.s.so's robe. A black wooden cross surmounted by a white ivory figure of Jesus hung over the bed. Fra Toma.s.so sat, his chair hidden by his great bulk, with his back to a window, at a large trestle table with stacks of books and boxes of scrolls on either side of him. His bed was a wide, st.u.r.dy wooden platform covered with a straw-filled mattress and a blanket the size of a galley's sail. A giant could lie on that bed, Simon thought.

"I must admit this scroll is a great treasure, and I am reluctant to tear my eyes from it," he said. "A hitherto lost treatise of Aristotle on the composition and movements of the heavenly bodies. This copy might be over six hundred years old. In Greek. You are familiar with _the_ philosopher?" He looked from Friar Mathieu to Simon eagerly.

"I did study for a year at Pere Sorbonne's college in Paris, Your Reverence," said Simon. "We read the works of several philosophers."

Fra Toma.s.so smiled indulgently. "I always refer to Aristotle as _the_ philosopher because I can learn more from him than from any other ancient or modern thinker. Do you not agree, Reverend Father?" He turned to Friar Mathieu. "Or are you, like so many of your fellow Franciscans, uninterested in philosophy?"

_Oh, G.o.d, he scorns Franciscans_, thought Simon with dread. _We're sure to fail._

"I truly would like to find the time for it," said Friar Mathieu, unruffled. "But I seem to be always traveling."

Fra Toma.s.so nodded. "You and that merchant from Trebizond are the only two Christians in Orvieto who have traveled among the Tartars. I found your testimony at His Holiness's council quite fascinating."

"But not persuasive?" Friar Mathieu leaned forward intently.

Simon caught his breath. Fra Toma.s.so had given them an opening.

"I presumed that was why you had come to see me," said Fra Toma.s.so with a self-satisfied smile. "Let me a.s.sure you, good friar and n.o.ble count, that until a little over a week ago I had tried to keep to a strict neutrality, feeling that in that way I could be more useful to His Holiness. Even after hearing the Tartars condemn themselves out of their own mouths at the Contessa di Monaldeschi's reception. But then I changed my mind."

"Let me ask you a rather delicate question, Your Reverence," said Friar Mathieu.

Fra Toma.s.so leaned back and rested his hands, fingers laced, on his huge belly. "Any question at all."

"Did Cardinal de Verceuil's behavior toward you have anything to do with your change of mind?"

The crease in the Dominican philosopher's forehead deepened. Simon winced inwardly. What if, now, they had truly offended Fra Toma.s.so?

"Surely you do not suggest that I would let personal pique determine my position on a matter so important to the future of Christendom?"

"I am not surprised, knowing Your Reverence's reputation, that you grasp just how important the matter is," Friar Mathieu said.

Neatly sidestepping Fra Toma.s.so's question, Simon thought.

"Exactly. Thus it was that when Cardinal de Verceuil went to Fra Augustino da Varda, my Superior General, demanding that he order me to change my position on the Tartars, I realized it was time for me to come to a conclusion."

"I made a terrible mistake," said Friar Mathieu as much to himself and Simon as to Fra Toma.s.so. "May G.o.d forgive me."

"What mistake was that?" asked Fra Toma.s.so.

"Not trying to discuss this with Your Reverence myself, as I am doing now. To be honest, I feared you would not care to meet with a poor Franciscan."

"Again you do me an injustice," said Fra Toma.s.so. "_The_ philosopher tells us that we acquire knowledge first of all through the senses.

Therefore, if you would know about something, ask of those who have seen it firsthand."

"Then perhaps you have new questions," said Friar Mathieu.

Simon felt despair pressing on him like a mail shirt that was too heavy.

Fra Toma.s.so was a man whose whole life was argument. How could Friar Mathieu hope to persuade him to change his mind about anything?