_
their faith with the sword, but he explicitly states that conversions
made at sword's point are worthless and commands that Christians and
Jews who remain devoted to their own worship be left in peace." He sat
back and gazed as happily at Simon as at some well-fed mouse who had the
whole granary to himself.

"I cannot dispute you, Your Eminence. Truly, I am quite ignorant of the
Mohammedan faith." Why study false religions?--that had been the
attitude of his teachers.

Ugolini nodded, his side whiskers quivering. "You and most of Europe."

"But Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth--those precious places we hear about
in the Gospel," Simon argued. "We cannot leave them in the hands of
Christ's enemies."

The cardinal shook his head. "Christ's enemies! Indeed, you know little
of them, Count. The Muslim holy book, the Koran, reveres Jesus and His
mother, Mary. Our sacred places are sacred to them also. Emperor
Frederic von Hohenstaufen had the right idea. He made a treaty with the
Saracens. If the crusaders in Syria had not broken it, pilgrims would be
happily walking in the footsteps of Our Lord to this day."

_Von Hohenstaufen._ Simon remembered the hatred in the voices of de
Verceuil and le Gros when they spoke of the house of Hohenstaufen.

"The crusades were a mistake from the very beginning," Ugolini went on.

Having heard harrowing tales from men who had been there of King Louis's
disastrous defeat fourteen years before in Egypt, Simon found it hard to
challenge Ugolini's assertion.

But history could not be undone, and with the help of the Tartars, might
this not be the one great crusade that would make any more crusades
unnecessary?

"We still hold Acre and Tripoli and Antioch and Cyprus," Simon said.
"The Templars and the Hospitallers have their castles along the coast.
Think of all the men who have died just to get and keep that much. And
if we do not beat the Saracens now, they will surely choose their moment
and take those last footholds of ours."

Ugolini stood up and walked slowly, red satin robe whispering, to a
small door behind his table. The door was slightly ajar, and Ugolini
looked into the next room. Was there someone in there, Simon wondered,
listening to this conversation?

_I am getting in deeper and deeper. What if my words could somehow be
used against me, or against the alliance? I should never have come
here._

Whatever he saw beyond the door seemed to satisfy Ugolini. He turned,
sm