"Yes," said Simon after a moment's thought. "De Verceuil is a cardinal.

And is it not his task to treat with the pope? Mine is to guard the amba.s.sadors."

"Are you not close to King Louis, Simon? Almost a foster son?"

Simon hesitated. "That is putting it a bit strongly. But he knows me well."

Friar Mathieu gestured with his left hand. "Then you are the person to carry His Holiness's appeal for help to King Louis."

The suggestion dismayed Simon. It meant he would have to leave the Tartars for months. And just when they would be much more vulnerable to attack, following the pope from one city to another.

"No, Father," he said. "I cannot leave the Tartars."

Friar Mathieu shook his head patiently. "Do you not see, Simon? If the pope does decide to approve an alliance with the Tartars, John and Philip's work is done."

Standing on the gravel walk of the Franciscan cloister garden, Simon felt as if the earth were shaking under him. He could not picture himself speaking to the pope as one statesman to another. Persuade the pope suddenly to take a stand, when he had vacillated for nearly a year?

And yet, he told himself, he was the Count de Gobignon, and the lands he held were larger than some kingdoms.

But that only reminded him that he held the t.i.tle through a lie.

The courtyard before the papal palace was crowded with covered wagons and open carts, horses and donkeys, men carrying crates and bales. Here and there, mailed papal archers in gold and white surcoats strode, crossbows on their shoulders, alert for pilfering. Simon asked a series of servants for the pope's majordomo and was directed to that official, clad in a glittering embroidered tunic, who stood at the center of the papal library overseeing the packing of books and scrolls. Simon summoned up all his confidence and presented himself to the man.

"The Count de Gobignon of France?" the horse-faced majordomo repeated.

"I will try to find His Holiness for you, Your Signory."

They found Pope Urban in a tiny chamber on the second floor of the palace, writing furiously at a desk that faced a window opposite the door. He was wearing a white ca.s.sock with a white linen hood drawn up over his head. On his desk Simon saw a jar of ink, a sheaf of quills, and a stack of parchment sheets. A wrought-iron stand held a black earthenware pitcher over a candle flame.

"Holy Father--" the majordomo began, addressing the pope's back. Simon watched with fascination the rapid movements of Pope Urban's right arm as his quill raced over the parchment, leaping after each line to the ink jar and back again.

"Maledizione!" the pope exclaimed. "Not now, Ludovico. G.o.d's pity, let me get at least one letter done without you interrupting me. The Archangel Michael run you through if you speak another word to me."

Simon was momentarily shocked, but then recalled that the pope was a shoemaker's son. Once a bourgeois, always a bourgeois, he thought, even if one becomes G.o.d's vicar on earth. But, by G.o.d's robe, the man could write fast. In a moment he had filled a sheet of parchment with the short, unadorned black strokes of a chancery hand. Simon estimated it would take him the better part of a morning to write that much. Of course Pope Urban, being a churchman all his life, had a good deal more practice at writing.

Urban folded the parchment and poured melted red wax from the black pitcher to seal it. He took the large gold ring from his finger and stamped it into the wax. Without looking around, he handed the letter to his majordomo.

"To Duke Alberto Baglione at Perugia by our best horses," said Pope Urban. "Have Pietro Pettorini carry it; he is our fastest man."

"Holiness," said the majordomo diffidently, taking the letter, "the Count de Gobignon wishes to see you."

"Ah!" Urban half turned in his chair to look at Simon. Simon saw that the pope's wrinkled face was a deep pink, and his eyes glittered. Loose strands of gray hair escaping from under his hood quivered as his head shook with a slight, constant tremor. Simon had heard that men sometimes rallied in the final stages of an illness, before the slide into darkness. That, perhaps, accounted for the pope's color and energy.

Simon's heart ached for the old man. This was the spiritual father of the world, and his troubles, troubles Simon had in part brought to him, were aiding whatever disease was destroying him.

"Simon de Gobignon!" Urban cried, raising bony hands in benediction. "If you had not come to me, I should have sent for you." His pale blue eyes shifted from side to side, and Simon felt even more pain for him.

_This man should not think of traveling. It will kill him._

Urban half stood, and his majordomo rushed past Simon to turn his chair so that the pope could face his visitor. He was sitting in a simple straight-back chair without arms.

Simon stepped into the room and dropped to one knee. The pope extended his trembling right hand, and Simon kissed his gold Fisherman's Ring. On its circular face was an engraving of a bearded man whom Simon guessed must be Saint Peter, casting a net from the stern of a boat.

Seen close at hand and without the tall tiara and the crozier and the heavy robes of office, Urban was very short. Simon wondered whether he had always been a little man or whether age and the strains of his office had shrunk him.

"Stand up, Monseigneur le Comte, s'il vous plait," said the pope, changing to French. "I am sorry there is no chair, but this is where I do all my real work, and it is best not to encourage visitors to sit.

Ludovico, leave us and shut the door behind you. And do not hang about in the corridor eavesdropping."

Simon rose, and found himself looking down at the skullcap on top of the pope's head. Feeling awkward, he took a few steps backward until his back was against the door of the tiny chamber.

Urban said, "I have long wanted to hear from your own lips what happened at the Palazzo Monaldeschi."

Simon gave the pope a detailed account of the battle. He ended with his fight with the man in black. Urban's eyes widened, and the trembling of his head grew more p.r.o.nounced. When Simon told how the enemy had escaped, throwing Friar Mathieu from the cellar stairs, the pope winced in pain.

"So," Urban mused, "this murderer--doubtless sent by Manfred von Hohenstaufen--still lurks somewhere in Orvieto."

"We have tried to track him down," said Simon. "But the Filippeschi deny any knowledge of him, and the podesta, it seems, has not the power to make them answer our questions." He allowed the contempt he felt for d'Ucello to creep into his voice.

"Open the door and see if that sneaking Ludovico is listening outside,"

Pope Urban said. His lips twitched under his flowing gray beard in what was probably a smile.

Simon went to the door, and saw no one in the corridor but a helmeted man-at-arms standing about ten paces away. Servants with a huge bed frame struggled past. He closed the door and turned again to the pope.

"Yes," said Urban. "What was I saying? Ah, yes--Simon, I expect to be in my grave before the year is out."

"G.o.d forbid, Your Holiness!"

"G.o.d do me that kindness, you mean." Urban raised a deprecating hand. "I am worn out. I am ready to go home. But I have a last task to do before I die. I must insure the destruction of the odious Manfred. I must not let him kill me before my work is done, and I must not fall into the hands of the Ghibellini. So, though it will shorten my life even more, I must leave Orvieto. Now that the Ghibellini have stirred up the Filippeschi to make civil war, I am no longer safe on this mountaintop.

Perugia is more secure. It has a big army, and it is surrounded by a strong ring of other Guelfo cities and castles. After I am gone, the cardinals will be safe there while they elect a new pope."

Simon realized that he was indeed looking at a dying man. From here to Perugia was a journey of at least two weeks, through difficult, mountainous country. Urban might get there safely, but he would not live there long. The election of a new pope would take months; it had been known to take years. And Urban's successor might be even more reluctant to join forces with the Tartars than Urban had been. What if it were Cardinal Ugolini--he was as eligible as anyone--or someone under his influence? The little they had accomplished so far might be wholly undone.

Time. Time was the most terrible enemy of all. The more time pa.s.sed, the less likely that the alliance would be formed, the joint attack on the Saracens launched. Simon saw time as a black river in flood, sweeping away everything he had worked and fought for.

_I must prevail upon him to give his permission--now. But how can I sway a man three times my age--the pope himself?_

The only way to keep from giving in to despair was to plunge in, as if this were a tournament, or a fight to the death. Simon plunged in.

"Your Holiness, before you leave Orvieto, I beg you to recognize that we must join with the Tartars to crush the infidel."

Urban sighed. "You think just as your King Louis does." He held up an admonitory finger. "Europe first, Simon. The Church must be strong in Europe before our princes go adventuring in Outremer."

"But it was the popes who preached the Crusades in the first place,"

Simon answered, baffled.

Urban's eyes grew wide and he leaned forward. "And I will preach yet another crusade, Simon. Against Manfred the Antichrist. That is why I would have sent for you if you had not come here. You must make the journey to King Louis and tell him that this crusade that I will preach is the most important war of his lifetime. He must come to my aid. I will make his brother Charles king of southern Italy and Sicily. I will write the letter to King Louis, and you will carry it to him."

_Now I must make my effort._

"He will heed your appeal if you give him what he wants, Your Holiness.

Write that letter. But in it give your permission for King Louis to ally himself with the Tartars and begin preparations for a new crusade."