The Saracen: Land of the Infidel Part 45

But he had to go on.

"The Saracens believe they are called upon to spread their religion by the sword. They will continue to make war on us unless we conquer them."

Ugolini lifted a finger like a master admonishing a poorly prepared student. "The prophet Muhammad calls upon his followers to _defend_ their faith with the sword, but he explicitly states that conversions made at sword's point are worthless and commands that Christians and Jews who remain devoted to their own worship be left in peace." He sat back and gazed as happily at Simon as at some well-fed mouse who had the whole granary to himself.

"I cannot dispute you, Your Eminence. Truly, I am quite ignorant of the Mohammedan faith." Why study false religions?--that had been the att.i.tude of his teachers.

Ugolini nodded, his side whiskers quivering. "You and most of Europe."

"But Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth--those precious places we hear about in the Gospel," Simon argued. "We cannot leave them in the hands of Christ's enemies."

The cardinal shook his head. "Christ's enemies! Indeed, you know little of them, Count. The Muslim holy book, the Koran, reveres Jesus and His mother, Mary. Our sacred places are sacred to them also. Emperor Frederic von Hohenstaufen had the right idea. He made a treaty with the Saracens. If the crusaders in Syria had not broken it, pilgrims would be happily walking in the footsteps of Our Lord to this day."

_Von Hohenstaufen._ Simon remembered the hatred in the voices of de Verceuil and le Gros when they spoke of the house of Hohenstaufen.

"The crusades were a mistake from the very beginning," Ugolini went on.

Having heard harrowing tales from men who had been there of King Louis's disastrous defeat fourteen years before in Egypt, Simon found it hard to challenge Ugolini's a.s.sertion.

But history could not be undone, and with the help of the Tartars, might this not be the one great crusade that would make any more crusades unnecessary?

"We still hold Acre and Tripoli and Antioch and Cyprus," Simon said.

"The Templars and the Hospitallers have their castles along the coast.

Think of all the men who have died just to get and keep that much. And if we do not beat the Saracens now, they will surely choose their moment and take those last footholds of ours."

Ugolini stood up and walked slowly, red satin robe whispering, to a small door behind his table. The door was slightly ajar, and Ugolini looked into the next room. Was there someone in there, Simon wondered, listening to this conversation?

_I am getting in deeper and deeper. What if my words could somehow be used against me, or against the alliance? I should never have come here._

Whatever he saw beyond the door seemed to satisfy Ugolini. He turned, smiling.

"Count, I am going to suggest something to you that I am sure will shock you at first: Perhaps we should leave the Holy Land in peace."

Simon felt troubled, but, having heard much the same thing from his parents--and, indeed, from some of the knights at the royal palace when King Louis was out of hearing--he was not shocked. But for himself he had never been able to reconcile such views with his sense of his obligations as a Christian.

Even so, he began to see why de Verceuil had spoken of Ugolini as if he were a heretic. How could a man with such opinions get to be a cardinal?

"To leave the Holy Land in the hands of the infidels, Your Eminence?

Would it not betray Our Lord Himself?"

Ugolini, unperturbed, continued to smile as he walked toward Simon. "The whole world belongs to G.o.d. If Our Savior wished the places where He was born, died, buried, and rose again to be occupied by Christian knights from Europe, He would have permitted it to happen. As it is, I truly believe that if we sent every able-bodied man in Christendom to fight in Outremer, we could not take Jerusalem back and we could not prevent the crusader strongholds from falling to the Muslims. The infidels, as you call them, are defending their own lands, and a people fighting for their homeland is always stronger than an invader. Another crusade, even with Tartar help, would be a tragic waste."

Ugolini stood before the seated Simon, and such was the difference in their heights that their eyes were almost on a level. Simon wanted to stand, but somehow he dared not move. He was beginning to feel desperate. He had walked into a trap that he had not antic.i.p.ated. He had feared that he would not persuade the cardinal. He had not imagined that the cardinal might persuade him.

"But you would abandon the Christians who are there now to be overrun and slaughtered by the Turks?" Simon asked.

He reproached himself. It almost sounded as if he were conceding that there should be no more crusades.

The cardinal shook his head. "I would do everything in my power to bring them home."

He sighed and turned away. "You are a most impressive young man, Count Simon. I am glad we have had this chance to hear each other out."

Simon felt deeply shaken, as if he had been galloping in a tournament and had been ignominiously unhorsed. He had been foolish to think he could sway a man of Ugolini's eminence and intelligence.

Courtesy demanded, he supposed, that he take his leave. He could only hope that some of what he said would sink in and influence the cardinal's thinking in the future.

Ugolini, standing before him, thrust his small hand suddenly under Simon's nose, causing Simon to sit back, startled, in his chair. Then Simon realized the cardinal was offering him his ring to kiss. He slid out of the chair and dropped to one knee. He touched his lips to the round, blue sapphire which betokened Ugolini's rank as a cardinal.

While he still knelt, the door behind Ugolini swung open. Feeling awkward, Simon started to scramble to his feet.

As he did so, he saw the woman. Her features were delicate, her lips full, her eyes dark and challenging. She wore a yellow gown tied under her bosom by an orange ribbon. Simon stared at her, open-mouthed, until he realized he was in a half-crouching position that must look perfectly ridiculous. He shut his mouth. He slowly straightened.

"Buon giorno, my dear Sophia!" said Cardinal Ugolini. "Let me introduce our distinguished visitor."

He first presented Simon to the young woman and then presented her to him. "My niece, Sophia Orfali, daughter of my sister who lives at Siracusa, in Sicily."

It registered somewhere in Simon's mind that Sicily was part of the Hohenstaufen kingdom, and it occurred to him to wonder whether Sophia was of gentle birth. It struck him with much greater impact that she was an extraordinarily beautiful woman. Swallowing hard, he bowed over her hand. His fingertips pressing into her palm felt as if they were burning. His lips touched the back of her hand lightly; his eyes filled with smooth, cream-colored skin and the pale blue tint of delicate veins. As he stepped back he noticed that she gave off a faint scent of oranges.

She stood looking at him with a small, self-possessed smile, waiting for him to speak. All sorts of absurd phrases and sentences flooded into his mind--outrageous compliments, declarations of love. The upper part of her gown was pulled tight, and he had to make an effort to keep his eyes from her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. His face burned and his throat felt parched.

"Buon giorno, Signora," he choked out. "It is a great honor to meet you."

Her fine arched eyebrows lifted slightly and she answered him in French.

"Why do you not speak your native language, Monseigneur?"

Simon's cheeks burned hotter. "I a.s.sumed you would prefer Italian, Madame."

She smiled, and Simon felt there was a shade of scorn in the smile. "I would prefer French, Monseigneur, to Italian as _you_ speak it."

"Forgive me, Madame," Simon whispered.

"There is nothing to forgive," she said airily. Simon thought surely the cardinal would reprove his niece for her unkindness, but he stood there beaming like a master showing off a remarkably gifted scholar.

_Ah, lady!_ thought Simon, _I pray you be merciful to me_.

Ringing a small bell that stood on his desk, much like the one Friar Toma.s.so d'Aquino had used to keep order at the pope's court, Ugolini summoned one of the priests on his household staff, and Simon, his head still spinning from his unexpected encounter with Sophia, found himself being escorted out of the cardinal's mansion.

As Simon and the priest were walking through the gallery that led to the main entrance, the outer door swung open and a large gray boarhound trotted in. It was deep-chested, with long ears, a pointed, aristocratic muzzle, and intelligent brown eyes. The dog jumped at Simon, resting his forepaws on Simon's chest and looking up at him as if studying his face.

Simon, who had played and hunted with hounds all his life, took an immediate liking to the dog. He scratched the back of the animal's head.

"Down, Scipio," said a deep voice, and Simon saw the hound's master--the same swarthy man with grizzled, curly hair and thick mustache he had met on the road from the north three days before. The one leading the little company of bravos.

Again that tense, besieged feeling came over Simon, the same as when he met this man on the road. There was too much going on in Orvieto, almost all of it surprising and much of it seemingly dangerous. If he wanted to be sure the Tartars were safe, he would have to give up sleeping.

The dog dropped to all fours and stood beside his master.

The other did not acknowledge having seen Simon before. "Forgive us, Signore. I fear Scipio has gotten dust on your tunic."