The Saracen: Land of the Infidel Part 115

He tried to make the other two understand. "The safety of the amba.s.sadors is my first obligation. Enemies could be in the palace now."

De Verceuil brought his steel-masked face close to Simon's. "It is known that there is tainted blood in your family."

Simon's face went as hot as if a torch had suddenly been thrust at him.

It was a moment before he could speak.

"If you were not a man of the Church, I would kill you for saying that."

His voice trembled.

"Really? I doubt you would dare." De Verceuil turned away.

"Monseigneur!" de Puys cried, his face redder than ever. "Do not make me ashamed to wear the purple and gold."

That hurt even more than what de Verceuil had said. It hurt so much Simon wanted to weep with anger and frustration.

Instead, he bent forward and lifted the trapdoor and hurried down the steps. He heard de Verceuil say something to de Puys, but he could not hear what it was. Fortunately.

He stopped on the roof to look for Friar Mathieu. Groups of crossbowmen were running from one side to the other. Friar Mathieu was making the sign of the cross over a fallen man.

"I think the Tartars may be in danger, Friar Mathieu," Simon said. "I want you to come with me so that I can talk to them."

To Simon's relief the old Franciscan did not object. "Let us take two of the Armenians with us," he said. "If there is danger, you should not go alone."

Now that he was away from de Verceuil and de Puys, Simon could reflect that he might, indeed, be mistaken. But he had to act, even though he doubted himself.

Simon, Friar Mathieu, and two Armenian warriors named Stefan and Grigor hurried down the tower's inner staircase to the ground floor. Single candles, burning low, lit the corridor at long intervals. Here were storerooms and cubbyholes where servants worked and lived. The relentless pounding of rocks reverberated in the stone walls, punctuated by occasional screams penetrating through the arrow slits.

Monaldeschi men-at-arms standing at the embrasures with crossbows kept their backs turned to Simon as he hurried past. An odor of damp stone pervaded the still air. Simon noted that as he had ordered, buckets of water had been placed along the corridor to douse fires.

The kitchen was on the north side of the building. It was dark as a cave. The cooking fire in the great fireplace, big enough for a man to walk into it, had been put out. They pa.s.sed empty cauldrons, piles of full sacks, rows of barrels, all barely visible in the light of a half-consumed taper in a candlestick on a table. A large water cask surrounded by buckets and pots stood in the center of the kitchen.

Attackers could be hiding here. But Simon knew he did not have enough men to search. He must get to the Tartars and stay with them.

The pantry where the contessa kept her costly stock of spices imported from the East was below ground. Stefan lifted a heavy trapdoor, and one by one they climbed down a narrow flight of wooden steps without a banister. Grigor, bringing up the rear, held a candle to light their way.

A door of rough oaken planks bound together with iron straps stood before him. He felt his stomach knot as he walked up to it. What if he were too late?

Simon had ordered that the square black iron lock set in the door be left unlocked in the case the Tartars should have to escape. He pulled on the handle. The door was bolted from the inside, of course, with a bolt he had only that afternoon ordered the Monaldeschi carpenter to install. From the other side a voice asked a half-audible question.

"It is Count Simon," he said. "Let us in." Friar Mathieu added a few words in the Tartar tongue.

The bolt slid back and the door opened inward. Simon stepped forward to see how his charges had fared.

The storeroom was dimly lit by a small oil lantern. The two Armenians within had risen from chairs. They had their bows in their hands, arrows nocked. They stood in front of the Tartars. John, the white-haired Tartar, and Philip, the black-haired one, sat on cus.h.i.+ons on the floor, leaning back against the shelves of spice jars that covered three walls of the room. Their bows were on the table and their curving swords, in scabbards, lay in their laps.

Simon was pleased to see that they looked alert. It must be maddening to sit down here in semidarkness and do nothing while a battle raged above.

He reminded himself that if no one attacked the Tartars while the Filippeschi besieged the palace, his reputation would be ruined. He felt a momentary pang of anguish, and found himself actually hoping that the enemy would come here. Quickly he stifled the feeling.

_Do not call on the devil. He may hear you and come._

XLIII

Hidden in the cellar behind a rack of wine barrels, Daoud watched the Frankish count, the old priest, and the two Armenians as they paused before the door of the spice pantry.

He thought: _Man can plan and plan, but G.o.d will surprise and surprise._

He had been just about to try to trick the Tartars into letting him into the spice pantry when de Gobignon and the others came down the stairs.

He suppressed his fury and forced himself to stay calm.

The spice pantry door opened for de Gobignon and those with him. From his hiding place Daoud caught just a glimpse of the Tartars, both sitting with sheathed swords in their laps, their two guards standing in front of them. Their refuge appeared to be lit by a single lantern.

Daoud was perhaps only twelve paces from the doorway, but the cellar was mostly in darkness, and he was dressed entirely in black, his head covered with a tight black hood, his face masked. For ease and silence of movement he wore no mail. The garb of a fedawi, a Has.h.i.+s.h.i.+yya fighter.

With gestures de Gobignon ordered his two Armenians to stand guard outside the door. One set a candle in a sconce high in the cellar wall.

Then they unslung their bows and nocked arrows and stood on either side of the door, which closed behind Gobignon and the old priest. Daoud heard a bolt slide shut with a clank.

Baffled, he bit his lower lip. What demon had inspired de Gobignon to come down from the battlements and join the Tartars just at this moment?

Now he could not get to the pantry door without being seen and having to fight the two Armenians outside. That would alert those inside, and the door was bolted from within. He took deep breaths to clear his head of frustration.

He would have to change his plan of attack.

To get into the Monaldeschi palace he had used a peasant's cloak and high boots like those he had worn last summer when he'd landed at Manfredonia. It had been an easy matter paying a few silver denari to a farmer and then helping with the loading and unloading of sacks of rice being delivered to the Monaldeschi. Once inside the palace courtyard it had been the work of a moment to slip away from the carts and hide himself in the maze of dark rooms on the ground floor of the palace.

There he had shed the peasant costume, leaving his black Has.h.i.+s.h.i.+yya garb, and he'd pulled the hood and mask over his head.

But the very thing that made it easy for him to get into the palace with that cartload of rice left him shocked and uneasy. The Monaldeschi were preparing for a siege. He had seen screens against fire arrows being set up on the roof and householders in the neighborhood locking their doors and fleeing.

Someone had warned the Monaldeschi. When the Filippeschi came tonight, their hereditary enemies would be ready for them.

Heart pounding, he pondered. What if the Filippeschi called off the attack? He tried to tell himself that it would not matter. Even the expectation of a siege would so distract the Tartars' protectors that he would be able to get at them.

And, he promised himself, if he came out alive, he would search out and repay whoever had betrayed him.

He had rechecked his weapons--the strangling cord, the Scorpion, the tiny vessel of Greek fire in its padded pouch, the disk of Hindustan and a dagger, its blade painted black. After nightfall he would seek out the Tartars' apartment, which he knew was on the third floor of the palace, where the best rooms were. In the meantime, he had hidden in a corner of the kitchen behind a large water cask. He had squatted there and waited, taut as a bowstring, to find out whether the Filippeschi would attack.

When he heard the first battle shouts through the narrow embrasures on the ground floor, he let out a little sigh of relief. Of course Marco di Filippeschi would go through with the attack. Even without surprise, he was doubtless better prepared tonight to fight the Monaldeschi than ever before in his life. And Marco was not the sort of man who, once committed to a course, would turn back.

Even as these thoughts pa.s.sed through his mind, Daoud had been surprised to see the two Tartars with two of their Armenian guards stride past him.

Of course, he thought, de Gobignon must have realized that the Tartars might be a target, and he was moving them to a safer place.

For a moment the Tartars had been abreast of him. Two poisoned darts from the Scorpion would do it.