"But why no smoke?" Simon asked.

"When a cardinal acclaims a candidate orally after a deadlock, and the others follow suit, it is called election by quasi-inspiratio. Because it is as if the cardinals have been divinely inspired. No ballots are needed, so there is nothing to burn. In this case they were inspired by King Louis, with some help from you and me.

"When two Italian cardinals--Piacenza, who knew he was too old to be pope for long, and Marchetti, who was always opposed to Ugolini--joined the cry for le Gros, it was all over. Ugolini collapsed in tears, but he was revived enough to make the arrangements to send to England for le Gros to come in haste. Everybody was sworn to silence, and Ugolini went out to make the public announcement. Of course, despite the secrecy, all Perugia knows it will be le Gros."

"But the alliance?" Simon asked anxiously.

Friar Mathieu reached out and took his hand. "We will have to wait until le Gros is officially crowned. But we can count on one of his first acts being a call for an alliance between the princes of Christendom and the khans of Tartary. And right after that will follow a declaration that Manfred von Hohenstaufen is deposed and Charles d'Anjou is the rightful king of southern Italy and Sicily."

A feeling of triumph swept Simon.

"Once the alliance is secured," he said, "I can really believe that I have the right to be the Count de Gobignon."

"Oh?" said Friar Mathieu. "Is that the a.s.surance you need?" He spoke in a dubious tone that made Simon uneasy. "Well, then, I hope for your sake le Gros gets here from England all the sooner. Even though I do not look forward to the war he will unleash."

_I care nothing about this war between Charles d'Anjou and Manfred von Hohenstaufen_, Simon thought. His work would be done when he delivered the Tartars, with the pope's blessing, to King Louis.

And at the same time, he thought, he might bring Sophia to France. In his present happy mood, the thought of her was like a sunrise. If there was to be war in Italy, if Charles d'Anjou was to invade her homeland of Sicily, she might be all the more grateful to him for offering her a marriage that would take her away from all that.

He must arrange a rendezvous with her at once.

Luckily, Simon thought, the rain that plagued Umbria this time of year had let up for three days, and the roads leading out of Perugia into the countryside were fairly dry. He would have braved a flood or a blizzard to see Sophia again, but it pleased him that there were blue breaks in the gray dome of cloud overhead. After meeting on a road northwest of Perugia, Simon and Sophia had ridden to a woodland lake that reflected the blue in a darker tone on its rippling surface.

Simon felt himself breathing rapidly with excitement as he surveyed the lake sh.o.r.e. It seemed almost miraculous that Sophia was standing beside him.

They were at the bottom of a bowl of land. Big rocks that looked as if they might have rolled down the surrounding hillsides lay on the sh.o.r.e of the small lake. The floor of the wood was thick with brown leaves.

This forest, Simon thought, probably belonged to some local n.o.bleman.

Most of the countryside around here was farmland.

Even though denuded by autumn, the ma.s.ses of trees on the opposite sh.o.r.e looked impenetrable, ramparts of gray spikes frequently interrupted by the dark green of pines. The place had all the privacy he had hoped for.

He prayed that this time alone together would not end in disaster as their last meeting outside Orvieto had.

Holding Sophia's arm and guiding her down to the edge of the lake gave Simon a warm, pleasant feeling. A tremor ran through his hands when he grasped her slender waist and lifted her--how light she felt!--to perch on a big black boulder.

She laughed gaily, and her laughter was like church bells at Easter.

He scooped up leaves and piled them at the base of the rock. When he had a pile big enough for two people to sit on, he spread his cloak over it.

He held out his hand, and she slid from the boulder to the leaves.

He went foraging in the wood and quickly gathered an armload of broken branches and a few heavy sticks. He made a ring of stones near the water's edge and piled the branches within it, putting leaves and small twigs that would catch fire easily under the larger pieces of wood. He added some dried moss and took flint and steel out of a pouch at his belt, struck sparks several times, and got the moss to smoke. He blew on the glowing spots till a bright orange flame appeared. In a moment the pile of branches was afire.

Sophia crawled to the fire and held her hands out to its warmth. Simon sat beside her, so close their shoulders touched. He felt a pang of disappointment when she moved just a bit away from him.

"How comfortable you've made us!" she said, sounding a little surprised.

She was very much a city woman, Simon thought. She seemed to know little about the country, and he had noticed that she never looked entirely relaxed on horseback.

"Are you surprised that I know how to make a fire in the woods?" He felt inordinate pride at being able to show off this small skill to her.

"I did think you relied on servants to do that sort of thing for you."

"A knight may not always have equerries or servants to help him. I know dozens of useful things that might surprise you. I can even cook and sew for myself."

"Marvelous! The woman you marry will be fortunate indeed."

As soon as she said it, the light went out of her eyes and she looked quickly away. An uneasy silence fell over them. Her obvious dismay threw him into despair. Again he remembered their struggles and her tears--and his own--that morning in the pine forest outside Orvieto.

After a pause, with an obviousness that sunk him into an even deeper gloom, she changed the subject. "Uncle told me all about what they did when the pope died. He was with the Holy Father right to the end. Just before he died, Pope Urban said, 'Beware the Tartars, Adelberto.' I would have thought Uncle made that up, but he says all the pope's attendant priests and servants heard it. Uncle says it proves Pope Urban had changed his mind at the end about that alliance you are all so worried about."

"Maybe the pope was warning your uncle that the Tartars are angry at him for all the trouble he has caused them," said Simon, forcing himself to comment on something that, at the moment, did not interest him.

He refused to worry about whether Pope Urban had a deathbed change of heart. How beautiful her eyes were, such a warm brown color! He had everything planned out for both of them. She had only to agree. He would present her first to King Louis. How could the king disapprove his marriage to a cardinal's niece? And with the king's support, no one else could object. Besides, Nicolette and Roland would love her; he was sure of it.

She went on. "Anyway, Uncle said that the pope's chest filled up with black bile, and that was what killed him. The pope's priest-physician felt for a heartbeat, and when there was none, Uncle took a silver hammer and tapped the pope on the forehead with it."

"Really!" Simon had no idea they did that. The strange scene interested him in spite of his longing for Sophia.

"To make sure he was dead. And then Uncle called his name--his baptismal name, not his name as pope--'Jacques, are you dead?' He did this three times. And when the pope did not answer, he said, 'Pope Urban is truly dead.' And he took the Fisherman's Ring off the Pope's finger and cut it to bits with silver shears. And with the hammer he broke the pope's seal. So they must make a new ring for the new pope."

"When Cardinal le Gros is made pope, he will confirm the alliance of Christians and Tartars," said Simon, eager to put a finish to the topic and bring the conversation back to the two of them.

Sophia, her hands folded in her lap, lovely hands with long slender fingers, looked sadly toward the lake. "I suppose that pleases you."

"Why not be happy for me? My work is nearly done."

_And_, he wanted to add but dared not, _we can be married_.

She turned to look at him, her eyes troubled. "Uncle says the new pope will call Charles d'Anjou to invade Italy and make war on King Manfred.

Will you be with the invaders?"

_Count Charles will surely expect me to join him_, Simon thought. Well, he would simply tell Uncle Charles that he had no wish to spend any more time in Italy.

"When the alliance with the Tartars is settled, I mean to go home."

He was about to tell her again that he wanted her to come with him, but she spoke first. "You know this Count Charles well, do you not? How soon do you think he will march into Italy?"

Simon wanted to talk about their future, not about Charles d'Anjou's plans for war with Manfred. But he tried to answer her question.

"He is pressing his people for money now. Then he must gather his army.

And it can take months to move an army from the south of France to southern Italy. With winter coming on, he will probably wait until next year to cross the Alps. My guess is he'll be here in Italy next summer."

She was about to speak again, probably to ask another question about Count Charles. He quickly broke in.

"What I told you last time--that I am a b.a.s.t.a.r.d and that the last Count de Gobignon was not my real father--does that make you less willing to marry me?"

Her face squeezed together, as if a sharp pain had struck her. "You are not going to start talking about marriage again, Simon?"