t we
talk."

Cardinal Adelberto Ugolini was a short, stout man with long gray
whiskers that swept out like wings from his full cheeks. His receding
chin was as bare as the bald top of his head, partly covered now by a
red skullcap. He wore a plain black robe, like a priest's, but from a
chain around his neck hung a gold cross set with five matching blue
jewels. Daoud wondered if the cross concealed a poisoned stiletto like
Tilia's. Besides books and scrolls, Daoud noticed, there were rows of
porcelain jars on the shelves against the wall. Each had a Latin word
painted on it. Ugolini might well dabble in poison.

"The man they seized in the cathedral is to be publicly torn to pieces,"
Ugolini said. "They have been torturing him in the Palazzo del Podesta
for three days and two nights, but they have learned nothing from him,
except that he is a member of the Apostolic Brethren, a follower of the
heretic Joachim of Floris."

_If I am to go before the pope, I must learn about the disputes among
Christians. It would not do to offend the Christian leaders by
accidentally uttering heresy._

"What does this Joachim teach?"

Ugolini waved his hands dismissively. "Joachim died long ago, but his
rubbish and madness still stir up the simple folk. The Church is too
wealthy. The clergy are corrupt. The Age of the Holy Spirit is coming,
in which there will be peace, justice, and freedom and all property will
be owned in common."

The doctrines of the Apostolic Brethren sounded to Daoud like the
teachings of the Hashishiyya, as told to him by Imam Fayum al-Burz.

Ugolini shook himself like a wet dog. "It is dangerous for you to
involve yourself with such people as the Brethren."

_It is dangerous for me to be here at all_, Daoud thought, irritated at
Ugolini's timidity.

"This heretic does not know me, so there is nothing he can tell them
that will point to us. You need not fear."

"I feel no fear," Ugolini said grandly. "How did you get that man to
draw a dagger in the cathedral?" Ugolini asked. "And the crowd, how did
you stir them up?"

Daoud saw the tiny quiverings of Ugolini's pupils, the tightness of his
lips, the clenching of his jaws, the signs of a man in a permanent state
of terror.

Daoud shrugged and smiled. "Celino found the madman preaching against
the Tartars at a crossroads and had men in his pay bring him to Orvieto.
We did not tell him what to do. He did what he was moved to do. As for
the crowd, all