The Saracen: Land of the Infidel Part 97

"Your Signory, I have questioned everyone who lives in that neighborhood, and everyone I could find who was pa.s.sing through it last night," he said. "I learned from the innkeeper at the Vesuvio that your friend slept alone last night. I know that you did not meet anyone in the inn, woman or man. You stopped there briefly, left your friend, and went somewhere else. You did not engage a private room for yourself. The innkeeper and several other people agree to that. Will Your Signory be good enough to tell me where you did go?"

Simon heard with dismay the weakness in his tone and was appalled at how easily d'Ucello had exposed his lies. "Those you spoke to about what I did must have been mistaken," he said. "Perhaps they did not notice my return to the inn." An inspiration struck him. "They may be trying to protect the woman I was with."

D'Ucello smiled thinly. "I see. Then you are telling me that you had carnal relations with this woman while your good friend and va.s.sal looked on."

Simon was momentarily at a loss for words. It would have delighted him to reply by running d'Ucello through.

They stood bristling at each other like two hostile hounds when Simon heard a door open. A moment later, to his enormous relief, Friar Mathieu joined them by the marble railing overlooking the atrium.

"If you wish to examine young Sire de Pirenne's body, he lies in Count Simon's room waiting for you, Signore," said Friar Mathieu. "This is a very sad day for us."

With a black look at Simon, d'Ucello bowed to the old priest and left the galleria.

When they were alone, Friar Mathieu grunted. "A good thing I merely extended the wounds Sire Alain had already suffered. The podesta might well bring charges against me for desecrating a corpse if he saw I had made incisions in the body."

"Did you learn anything?" Simon asked.

"I am convinced that Sire Alain was not merely stabbed to death."

"What do you mean?" Simon was eager to get Friar Mathieu's advice on how to handle the podesta, but this was more important.

"When I looked closely at the wound in his stomach, I discovered that it was two wounds," said Friar Mathieu. "He was punctured there by a thin, round object, like a large needle. Then he was stabbed through the heart, and blood poured out of him. And then the killer stabbed him in the belly to try to mask the dart wound."

"How do you know that?"

"The belly wound did not bleed much, so the heart wound must have preceded it. When the killer drove his knife into the puncture in the belly, it did not go in exactly the same direction. The smaller wound goes upward at a slight angle, as if the needle were driven in from the level of the killer's waist. The knife wound goes straight in. I had to dig below the skin and ribs to discover the needle wound."

"A needle could not have killed Alain."

"It could have been a poisoned dart. Alain's lips are blue. That is sometimes a sign of poison."

Simon heard a clumping of boots in the corridor. He hurried in from the galleria to find Cardinal Paulus de Verceuil, accompanied by two black-robed priests, striding toward the room where Alain lay.

"Now one of your knights has been killed!" de Verceuil boomed. He was dressed in a dark cerise tunic with particolored hose and forest-green boots with pointed toes. The only indications of his ecclesiastical office were the absence of a sword and the presence of the large jeweled cross hanging from his neck. A purple velvet cap adorned with a black feather was draped over his glossy black hair.

Simon told the cardinal he and Alain had been out late and had decided to stay at an inn rather than cross town during the dangerous night hours. Friar Mathieu came and stood beside him, greeting the two priests who had accompanied de Verceuil. They loftily eyed the old Franciscan's brown robe and responded with curt nods.

When Simon finished his recital, de Verceuil leaned forward, his small lower lip outthrust. "If you cannot protect your own knights, how can you protect the emissaries from Tartary?"

That was not a question but an a.s.sault, Simon decided, and required no answer. "We are doing everything we can to find his killer, Your Eminence."

"By G.o.d's footprints, I wish this were my bishopric!" de Verceuil exclaimed. "I would take a dozen men from that neighborhood and I would hang one man a day until the killer was found. I would have the man."

The door to the room where Alain lay swung open, and the stout podesta emerged. He stood silently glowering up at de Verceuil. Simon wondered whether d'Ucello had learned anything from looking at poor Alain's corpse.

"And what, Your Eminence, if the people of that neighborhood truly do not know who killed the Sire de Pirenne?" said Friar Mathieu.

Until that moment Simon had a.s.sumed Alain had met his death at the hands of some Orvietan cutthroat. If not such a one, then who? He remembered Giancarlo and the bravos he had met on the road. Alain's money had been taken, but not his weapons. And Giancarlo served David of Trebizond, and David served Ugolini. Was this Ugolini's way of protecting his niece's honor?

If Giancarlo had anything to do with it, Sordello ought to be able to find out.

"If we arrested all the men who live on the street where he was killed,"

said de Verceuil, "more than likely among them would be the man who did it. These Italians--shopkeepers by day and robbers by night."

The faces of the two priests with him tightened. Simon glanced at d'Ucello, and saw a flush darkening his brown cheeks.

"The people of that street are among the most respectable in Orvieto, Signore," the podesta growled. How delightful, Simon thought, if the odious de Verceuil and the odious d'Ucello were to tear into each other.

De Verceuil stared at the podesta in amazement and wrath, while the two priests turned their heads from one to the other in embarra.s.sment. After a moment, one priest murmured de Verceuil's ident.i.ty to d'Ucello, while the other softly told the cardinal who the podesta was.

"Forgive me, Your Eminence, if my tone was less respectful than you deserve," said d'Ucello, bowing to kiss de Verceuil's haughtily extended sapphire ring.

"I have encountered nothing but disrespect from Orvietans since I came here," said the cardinal, and Simon remembered that vile smear of dung on his cheek the day they arrived. "I had actually thought Orvieto had no governor."

"Forgive me again that I did not pay my respects to you before," said d'Ucello. He did not rise to the bait, Simon noticed. An intelligent man.

"A French knight has been murdered in your city, Podesta," de Verceuil said. "Regardless of your high opinion of the people of the quarter where it happened, I expect you to press them hard until you find the killer. A thing like this cannot happen without someone seeing something or hearing something."

That reminded Simon that no one had come forward to claim the reward he had offered. If someone had heard or seen something, that person was doubtless too frightened to speak of it.

"Your Eminence gives me most valuable advice," said d'Ucello. "I promise you, we shall not rest until the killer is found." His round body bobbed forward in a bow, and he turned on his heel, sword and daggers swinging, and marched away.

"Pompous little man," said de Verceuil. "And doubtless incompetent and treacherous."

The cardinal turned to Simon now. "Do not leave it to that watch commander to find the killer. The knight--what was his name?" Simon told him. "De Pirenne was your man, and you are responsible for his death.

Put all the men under you to work hunting down the murderer. Do whatever has to be done. We must not let the death of a French knight go unavenged."

"As Your Eminence wills, so I will," said Simon.

De Verceuil raised a finger. "And we will have a splendid funeral. The pope himself will be present. Let the grandeur of the ceremony show that we French do not take the death of one of our number lightly. Let these sneaking Italians tremble before our wrath."

Again the two priests looked at each other, and one of them shrugged resignedly.

_What barbarians we must seem to them._ Simon's face grew hot with embarra.s.sment.

x.x.xVI

"Canaglia! Give way or I will have your heart on a platter!"

Hearing the shout, Simon stifled a curse and turned to see arms waving, a man in helmet and leather chest armor fall back, pushed by another.

The man shouting and pus.h.i.+ng was Peppino, one of Simon's Venetian crossbowmen. The man Peppino had knocked down was Grigor, one of the Tartars' bodyguards.

_No, dear G.o.d, not today!_

Sunk in grief though he was, he would have to do something. For Alain.