The Saracen: Land of the Infidel Part 49

"Might the Filippeschi attack John and Philip, thinking it would hurt you?" Simon asked.

The contessa thought for a moment and nodded. "Ah, that is very clever of you. Certainly, they would treat any guest of mine as an enemy of theirs." She smiled. "At any rate, you need not worry about protecting the Tartars today. They are not here."

Simon felt as if a trapdoor had opened under his feet. "Where are they?"

The contessa shrugged. "Riding out in the hills. They left hours ago.

They took their own guards and the old Franciscan with them. He told me they were restless."

_G.o.d's wounds!_

Simon remembered the b.l.o.o.d.y fight between the Venetians and the Armenians. He remembered Giancarlo and his bravos. He thought about what the contessa had just said about the enmity of the Filippeschi.

He pictured the mutilated bodies of the Tartars sprawled on a mountain road.

"Did my French knights go with them?"

The contessa shrugged. "They are in the palazzo courtyard, practicing with wooden swords."

Simon ground his teeth in rage.

_The idiots! Training themselves for some future battle while their charges go off to face G.o.d knows what dangers!_

"Which road did the Tartars take? I must go after them."

The contessa was by now rather obviously annoyed at his lack of interest in her. "I do not know. Perhaps Cardinal Paulus knows. He spoke to them before they left."

Simon bade the contessa a polite good-bye. She insisted on embracing him. He wondered if he had looked as foolish to Sophia as Donna Elvira now appeared to him.

For the second time that day Simon found himself sitting in a chair that was too small for him. The back of this one came to an abrupt stop halfway up his spine, and his shoulders ached even though he had been sitting for only a few moments. He had taken off his gloves and tucked them in his sword belt, and he sat with his fists clenched in his lap.

De Verceuil strode across the room and stood over Simon. "I may yet demand that you be sent home. I cannot imagine why the Count of Anjou entrusted such a stripling with a mission of this importance."

"Your Eminence may not approve of my visiting Cardinal Ugolini," Simon said, keeping his voice firm, "but can you show me where I have done wrong?" He did not want to talk about Ugolini; he wanted to find out where the Tartars were. But de Verceuil had not even given him time to ask.

"You could have gone wrong in a thousand ways," said de Verceuil, staring down at Simon. "Both the king and Count Charles have confided in you. Rashly, I believe. You might have revealed more about their intentions than you should have."

Simon remembered how Ugolini had reacted at once to the idea that the purpose of the alliance was to conquer Islam completely. Saying that might indeed have been a blunder. He felt his face grow hot.

Discomfort and anger pushed Simon to his feet. De Verceuil had to take a step backward.

"Why have you allowed the amba.s.sadors to go riding in the hills with only six men to escort them?" Simon demanded. "That is negligence, Your Eminence. A good deal more dangerous than my visit to Cardinal Ugolini.

Where have they gone?"

De Verceuil whirled, the heavy gold cross on his chest swinging, and paced to the mullioned window, then turned to face Simon again. His face, a deep crimson, seemed to glow in the light that came in through the translucent gla.s.s.

"Guarding the amba.s.sadors is your responsibility, Count." He spoke in a low, relentless tone. "I did not bother to inquire where they were going. If you think they should not have gone out into the countryside, you should have been here to stop them." His voice rose to a shout. "Not waiting upon Cardinal Ugolini!"

Simon's face grew hot with shame. De Verceuil had him.

Even if he had not done anything wrong by visiting Ugolini, he should have first made sure the amba.s.sadors would be safe while he was gone. He could have left explicit orders with Henri de Puys or with Alain de Pirenne.

"I will go after them now." Simon started for the door.

"I have not dismissed you."

Rage boiled up within Simon. "I am the Count de Gobignon. Only the king can command me."

De Verceuil crossed the room to thrust his face into Simon's once again.

"G.o.d can command you, young man, and the Cardinal-Archbishop of Verceuil is G.o.d's spokesman. Have a care, or I doubt not G.o.d will show you how fleeting is worldly rank."

_Is he trying to use G.o.d to threaten me?_ Simon thought, dumbfounded.

"If you overstep your bounds again," de Verceuil went on, "I promise you my messenger will fly to the Count d'Anjou, demanding that you be removed from this post. If the count must choose between you and me, I have no doubt he will choose the more experienced head and the one more influential with the pope."

"Do that," said Simon, his voice trembling with fury. "And I will make my own report to the count."

He turned on his heel, and de Verceuil's shout of "What do you mean by that?" was cut off by the slam of the heavy oak door.

It seemed to Simon as if the air were filled with motes of gold. He, his equerry, Thierry, and de Pirenne and de Puys were riding high on the western slope of a mountain thickly clad with pines. Shadow drowned the valley below. The horizon to the west was an undulating black silhouette. From beyond that range, the platinum glow of the setting sun dazzled his eyes.

"Look ahead, Monseigneur," said Alain, gripping Simon's shoulder and pointing toward a dark green hill with a rounded top to the north.

Simon's stomach tightened as he saw a party of riders strung out along the road. They rode in sunlight, and he recognized the flame-colored tunics of the Armenians.

_At last_, he thought, sighing and smiling. The Tartars' party had ridden far. He had followed their trail most of the afternoon, and found them only now because they were coming back.

He squinted, trying to see the Tartars. He clucked to his palfrey and spurred her lightly from a walk to a trot. His three companions did the same.

Two carts with high sides lurched down the road behind the Armenians. A single mule pulled the cart in front, two drew the second. A man in a red tunic drove each cart. Where the devil were the Tartars? Bringing up the rear of the party on the back of a donkey, he saw a figure in brown.

Friar Mathieu. Simon began to feel panic again.

"Do you see the Tartars?" he asked his men.

De Puys snorted. "They are probably too lazy to ride. They are sitting in one of those carts, fancying themselves lords of the earth."

"Tartars think it unmanly to be carried when they can ride," Simon told de Puys, annoyed at the old knight's ignorance.

"But I see horses without riders," Alain de Pirenne said. "Four of them."

Simon squinted again and saw that each of four Armenians on horseback was leading a riderless horse.

Even though it was a warm evening, he felt as if a sudden blast of cold wind were blowing right through him. He sat frozen in the saddle.

_Dear G.o.d, are we too late?_