The Saracen: Land of the Infidel Part 107

He could no longer be sure of that. Fra Toma.s.so's opposition to the alliance had a fragile basis at best, and this miracle might have shattered it.

The blood of the Messiah had power to change the course of events. Daoud felt himself trembling.

XL

Daoud's hands were cold and his heart was racing. He had been waiting all morning for Ugolini to come back from the Dominican convent.

He sat at Ugolini's worktable, trying to read. He had found an old book in Arabic in Ugolini's library, the _Aphorisms_ of ibn Zaina, a book Saadi had often praised. At another time he would have devoured it, but his mind refused to follow the words. Sending Ugolini to Fra Toma.s.so was his final effort to learn what had gone wrong and to see what might be saved.

What would Fra Toma.s.so say to Ugolini? At least Ugolini could be trusted not to make things worse, as de Verceuil had for their opponents.

This was the Christian month of February, and the chill that pervaded Daoud's body came from the air around him as well as from his troubled spirit. The small wood fire that burned on the hearth beside the table did little to dispel the cold in the room.

In the two months that followed the coming of the bloodstained altar cloth to Orvieto, Toma.s.so d'Aquino had gradually, but completely, reversed himself. According to a Dominican in Ugolini's pay, the philosopher had sent new letters to the European kings confessing that his opposition to an alliance between Christians and Tartars had been an error. At least three Italian cardinals had told Ugolini that Fra Toma.s.so had come to them personally with the same message. Cardinal Gratiano Marchetti whispered that Pope Urban, who did not expect to live through the winter, had promised the stout friar a voice in the election of the next pope. Where Urban had been neutral toward the alliance, perhaps even opposed, something now caused him to favor it. Just as the tumbling of a single grain of sand could bring a whole dune crashing down to bury a caravan, so those drops of blood at Bolsena had been the start of an avalanche of reversals.

Daoud awaited Ugolini's coming, and the message he bore, as a man accused of a capital crime awaits the verdict of his judge.

And if it was true that Fra Toma.s.so had irrevocably turned against them?

Daoud must begin all over again with a new plan to stop the alliance.

The fire gave off the sour odor of strange substances Ugolini had previously burned on the hearth. Daoud pushed himself out of the cardinal's chair and went to get a breath of fresh air. He opened the cas.e.m.e.nt window and saw Ugolini's sedan chair, borne by four servants, turning in toward the door of the mansion.

The cardinal's chair pa.s.sed the shop across the street, where rows of large and small pots, brightly painted with floral designs, were laid out on a large blanket. The potter and his wife, bundled up in heavy cloaks, were calling out for the cardinal's blessing. Daoud saw a tiny hand emerge from the curtains of the sedan chair, closed against the February cold. The hand shaped the sign of the cross in the air as the shopkeepers fell to their knees.

Daoud wondered whether the potter and his wife felt they had an unlucky spot to offer their wares. That was where, last August, de Verceuil's archers had shot down two men in the crowd when the Tartars were entering the city. And it was in front of that shop, shuttered then for the night, that Alain de Pirenne's body had been found. Had the shopkeeper or his wife seen anything, and were they keeping silent only out of fear? Months had gone by, but the podesta, d'Ucello, was still investigating the killing, questioning and requestioning everyone who might know something about it.

Daoud paced the room anxiously until Ugolini came in, throwing his fur-trimmed cape and his wide-brimmed red hat to a servant. He sat down in the chair Daoud had been using. Daoud closed the door.

As a man dying of thirst begs for water, Daoud prayed for good news.

But Ugolini's pale face, haggard eyes, and downturned mouth told a different tale. Daoud's heart plunged into despair.

"Has he turned against us?" He hated the note of pleading he heard in his voice.

Ugolini went to his worktable, sighed, and sat down heavily. His eyes seemed to be crossed, staring down his pointed nose at the painted skull that grinned back at him. His restless fingers found the dioptra lying on the table, and he started to roll the bra.s.s tube in his hand.

"I used every argument I could think of," he said. "I even repeated back to him the arguments he used in the letters and sermons he wrote against the Tartars."

"Arguing with Fra Toma.s.so is like trying wrestle a djinn," Daoud said.

"I admire your courage in even trying."

Ugolini raised a finger. "I thought I was getting somewhere with him. He kept trying to change the subject. He kept asking me, if the earth moves while the sun stands still--he seems to be convinced that is what happens--then what path does the earth follow? I told him that the Greeks"--he stopped and stared at Daoud--"Oh, never mind the Greeks. The point is, he was mocking me."

"Mocking you?"

"Yes, talking about the heavenly bodies. He was referring to that scroll you gave me to present to him, that work of Aristotle. What a waste, giving that to him. What would I not give to have it myself."

"Why did he keep changing the subject? Did he never tell you where he stands on the alliance?"

Ugolini closed his eyes and nodded. "Yes, finally. He said he made a grave mistake opposing the alliance. He said that if Christians do not seize this chance, the Tartars may be converted to the religion of Mohammed, as those in Russia already have been, which would be the worst of all possible disasters." He opened his eyes and looked at Daoud. "We have lost him."

"Is there nothing we can do to change his mind?"

"I truly believe it is hopeless."

Hearing those words, Daoud felt drained. He sagged against the wall of Ugolini's cabinet, wanting to sit on the floor but unable to do so because then he could not see the cardinal.

"It is Urban who has done this to us," said Ugolini. "He must have decided that supporting the alliance is the only way he can get French help against King Manfred. He tempted Fra Toma.s.so with something far more valuable to him than an old scroll. He offered him greater glory and power in the Church."

The Angel of Death, thought Daoud, had done it. Feeling himself mortally ill, the pope had realized he could no longer bargain with the King of France on an equal basis. He would have to offer Louis what he wanted, permission to ally himself with the Tartars.

"Will the pope now support the alliance openly?" If Daoud chose to fight, he thought, he would have to strike hard and fast. He would have to strike at the Tartars.

Despite the downward turn of his fortunes, Daoud felt a strange lightness of heart as he considered the prospect. He had tried every other way of preventing Tartars and Christians from forming an alliance--persuasion, bribery, the spreading of lies.

Now he could turn to the way he was best at. War.

"Urban will not come out for the alliance at once," said Ugolini.

"Before Bolsena, Fra Toma.s.so and my Italian colleagues in the Sacred College stirred up so much feeling against the Tartars that Urban would lose support all over Europe if he were to call now for a pact between Christians and Tartars. So he must move slowly, with Fra Toma.s.so now working with him, winning approval for the alliance."

"What if the French sent an army to him now?" Daoud asked.

Ugolini laughed. "Do you think King Louis of France can sow dragon's teeth and have an army spring up in his fields overnight? He would have to summon the great barons of France. They would have to decide whether they support his cause, then a.s.semble the lesser barons and knights.

Supplies must be gathered, money found to pay the knights and men-at-arms. It can take years to raise an army big enough to wage a war."

_The Mamelukes would be ready to ride in a day._

_How had the crusaders managed to make any inroads at all in the Dar al-Islam?_

"If the pope is not ready to declare for the alliance, there is time,"

said Daoud. "Nothing is settled yet."

"Time for what? What will you do now?"

He pushed himself away from the wall, went to a mullioned window, and pulled open one of the cas.e.m.e.nts. To the northwest a tower of orange brick with square battlements looked arrogantly down upon the huddled ma.s.ses of peaked red roofs. From the tower fluttered the orange and green banner of the Monaldeschi. There the Tartars were.

He turned from the window and moved slowly toward Ugolini's table.

"I am sorry," he said as gently as he could. "This is not ended."

Ugolini had been playing with the dioptra. He dropped it with a clank.

"What do you mean?" Fear made his voice shrill and quavering.