est-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 assault, Simon decided, and required no
answer. "We are doing everything we can to find his killer, Your
Eminence."

"By God'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 assumed 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 we