The Saracen: Land of the Infidel Part 106

Lorenzo grabbed Scipio's muzzle with both hands, forcing it shut. Scipio kept up a growling through his teeth. Lorenzo growled back, "Be still!"

He wrestled the dog down until the lean gray head was pressed into the gra.s.s.

"Barking is the only way he knows to greet the Savior," said Lorenzo with an ingratiating grin, looking up at the people glaring at him.

"There could be a devil in that dog," a brown-robed friar said ominously. But Scipio relaxed under Lorenzo's hands, and those around Daoud and Lorenzo turned back to the procession.

Daoud was furious. Lorenzo's d.a.m.ned dog had been like a stone in his shoe ever since they set out from Lucera. Lorenzo was a valuable man, but he insisted on attaching others to him who caused endless trouble.

Like the dog. Like Rachel.

A scream rose above the music, so shrill Daoud put his hands over his ears again.

"My G.o.d! I can see!" A woman was standing, clasping her hands together and flinging them wide again and again. One of the Franciscans threw his arms around her, whether to rejoice with her or restrain her, Daoud could not tell. But she pushed him away and went stumbling after Father Kyril. From the way her hands pawed the air, Daoud suspected she could not see very well, but she shouted with joy all the same.

She joined a crowd of people, many of them waving walking sticks and crutches, others with bloodstained bandages trailing from their hands.

One man, Daoud saw to his horror, was missing a foot and was limping along in the dirt road, without the aid of crutch or cane, on one whole leg and one stump bound with a dirty cloth that ended at the ankle. His face was red, sweat-slick, and blindly ecstatic.

Behind the rejoicing invalids walked rows of clergymen from Bolsena.

Daoud recognized a familiar figure in the foreground, Fra Toma.s.so d'Aquino, his cheeks crimson with cold and exertion, his black mantle blowing in the wind. He had spent the last two weeks, Daoud knew, in Bolsena investigating the miracle and overseeing preparations for the altar cloth to be brought to Pope Urban.

What did he think now, Daoud ached to know. Would he still work as hard to defeat the Tartar alliance? Did this miracle mean Daoud had gained ground or lost ground?

A sudden silence fell over the meadow. Pope Urban, with trembling hands upraised, approached Father Kyril, whose back was to Daoud.

Father Kyril went down on his knees before the pope, holding up the white cloth over his head like a banner. Then the pope also knelt, somewhat shakily, with the a.s.sistance of two young priests in white surplices and black ca.s.socks. Urban reached up for the cloth and pulled it down to his face and kissed it.

_He is seeing that cloth for the first time, and yet he seems to have no doubt that he is looking at the blood of his G.o.d that died._

Daoud felt a chill that was colder than the December air.

Daoud pushed his way to the edge of the open pavilion, where the pope, a.s.sisted by Father Kyril and Fra Toma.s.so, was saying high ma.s.s. A band of musicians blew on hautboys and clarions, sawed at vielles, stroked harps, and thumped on drums.

The white cloth with its strange rust-colored stain was stretched on a gilded frame above the altar. Daoud felt uneasy whenever he looked at it. Just when it seemed he had found the key to wrecking the union of Tartars and crusaders--a miracle. What did it portend?

Memory showed him his mother and father celebrating Easter, standing hand in hand before the altar at Chateau Langmuir, receiving Holy Communion--the Sacred Host--from their chaplain. When he was old enough, his mother had told him he, too, would be allowed to take Jesus into his heart by swallowing the Communion wafer. What a strange belief! But at the time it had seemed beautiful.

_I bear witness that G.o.d is One, that Muhammad is the Messenger of G.o.d...._

He glanced around the pavilion, and saw many faces he had come to know in the last few months. There was Cardinal de Verceuil with his big nose and small mouth. There was Ugolini, the size of a child, dressed up as a cardinal, blinking rapidly, looking rather bored. In the front row of standing worshipers were John and Philip, the Tartars, in silk robes.

Beside them, Friar Mathieu, the Franciscan, cleverest of Daoud's opponents. Daoud gauged him to be a genuinely holy man, if an infidel could be called holy.

And next to him was the pale young face of the Count de Gobignon.

As Daoud looked at him, de Gobignon looked back, and his eyes widened slightly.

_One day, Count, you will die by my hand._

The ma.s.s began, and even though there must have been five thousand people in the valley, there was complete silence. The quiet was eerie.

At a Muslim religious celebration this large, the crowd would be chanting in unison, there would be music, dervishes singing and dancing; impromptu sermons would be delivered in various parts of the crowd by mullahs or by ordinary men moved to speak. Here all was focused on the center.

Pope Urban rose to speak. He had removed his mitre to say ma.s.s. His white hair, his long beard, and his trailing mustache seemed much more spa.r.s.e than they had been when Daoud had first seen the pope, last summer. His face was as pale as his hair, and his hands trembled.

A few months ago Daoud had heard Urban's voice rise robustly from the center of his body. Today his voice was high and thin and seemed to come from his throat. He told the story of the miracle of Bolsena, and explained that Father Kyril was a priest from Bohemia who had developed doubts about whether Christ was really present in each and every consecrated Communion wafer. Could a small piece of bread really become the body of Jesus when a priest said a few words over it?

_Where is the illness?_ Daoud's Sufi-trained eye told him it was deep within Pope Urban; it had sunk its claws into his chest.

_I do not think this pope has long to live._

Ugolini had told Daoud that Urban wanted desperately, before he himself died, to strike a death blow against the Hohenstaufen family. He wanted Count Charles d'Anjou, brother of the King of France, to wrest the crown of Sicily from Manfred, but King Louis had thus far forbidden his brother to make war on Manfred.

King Louis wanted a different war, a joint war of Christians and Tartars against Islam. Thus far, the pope had withheld his approval of any Christian monarch's allying himself with the Tartars.

As Urban heard the approaching wings of the Angel of Death, might he be more inclined to grant Louis what he wanted?

The crowd was no longer silent. Daoud heard waves of murmuring run through it as people relayed the pope's words to those who were too far away to hear him. He noticed now the hawklike profile of the Contessa di Monaldeschi. She was seated in a chair in front of the worshipers on the side of the pavilion opposite Daoud. A plump young boy in red velvet stood beside her.

Seeing her, Daoud looked for Marco di Filippeschi. He could not be sure, but the back of a dark head on this side of the pavilion looked like that of the Filippeschi chieftain. Those organizing this ceremony would, of course, be careful to separate the leaders of the two feuding families.

Pope Urban continued: Father Kyril, realizing that he was doomed to eternal d.a.m.nation if he did not overcome his doubts, had set out on a pilgrimage to Rome. But Rome had fallen on evil days, its streets turned into battlefields by the Ghibellini followers of the vile Hohenstaufens, and Father Kyril found no peace there. He decided to ask the prayers of the pope himself at Orvieto. That decision was rewarded before he even reached here. Two months ago, while saying ma.s.s at Bolsena, on his way to Orvieto, and praying that his doubts be resolved, Father Kyril raised the Sacred Host over his head after the Consecration, and hundreds of witnesses saw drops of blood fall from it to the cloth spread on the altar.

And now--Pope Urban gestured to the cloth spread above the altar--we can behold with our own eyes the blood of Christ Himself and see this proof--which, having faith, we should not need to see--that Jesus lives in the Blessed Sacrament.

"We propose to offer triple thanks to G.o.d for His generosity in granting us this miracle," said Pope Urban. "First, let the day on which Father Kyril saw the Host bleed be celebrated henceforward as the feast of the Body of Christ, Corpus Christi. Let this be proclaimed throughout Christendom.

"Second, to house and display this most sacred relic, the blood of Our Savior Himself, let a great and beautiful new cathedral be built here at Orvieto, which will forever be the center for the veneration of the body of Christ."

Daoud sighed inwardly at the thought of still another great building dedicated to idolatry.

Yet the chapel at Chateau Langmuir had been such a lovely and quiet place.

As the pontiff's words were repeated, the murmuring grew louder.

Someone near Daoud said, "But the miracle happened in Bolsena." Someone else hushed the person who protested.

_I should not wonder if these cities went to war with each other over such a relic_, thought Daoud.

"Finally," said Pope Urban, oblivious of the discontent his previous proclamation had caused among the citizens of Bolsena, "we command that all priests of Holy Church shall read a special office on the feast of Corpus Christi of each year, commemorating this miracle. G.o.d has willed that there should be dwelling with us here at Orvieto the most gifted scholar and writer of this age, Fra Toma.s.so d'Aquino."

Daoud saw that Fra Toma.s.so's face was almost as bright a red as a cardinal's hat.

"And we charge our beloved and most gloriously gifted son, Fra Toma.s.so, with the duty of writing this office."

D'Aquino rose heavily from a bench on the right side of the altar.

Puffing, sweating despite the chill of the day, he bowed to the pope with hands clasped before him.

_A great honor, that must be_, Daoud thought. Fra Toma.s.so was silent for the moment, but he would write words that would be repeated by thousands of priests all over the world as long as Christians celebrated this feast. D'Aquino was more than ever indebted to the pope. If the pope were to want d'Aquino's help in persuading the French to go to war against Manfred, he would collect that debt.

Looking at Fra Toma.s.so as he sat listening to Pope Urban talk on about his plans for the feast, for the cathedral, for the office, Daoud saw a glow on those rounded features that made him uneasy. Daoud had felt that with Cardinal Ugolini and Fra Toma.s.so stirring up opposition to the alliance throughout Christendom, he had but to wait for the plan to die of old age.