hter figure in gray
veil and gown. They had their heads close together, talking.

"Who is that with Sophia?" Daoud asked Lorenzo.

"Oh, Rachel, I think." Lorenzo studiously examined Scipio's head for
fleas.

"She appears in public with Rachel?" Daoud said angrily.

Lorenzo shrugged. "No one knows who Rachel is." He slapped Scipio's
rump. "Sit."

"I did not like Sophia visiting Rachel," Daoud said. "Even less do I
like their being seen together in public."

Trumpets shrilled and drums sounded as the hymn came to an end. Daoud
looked toward Orvieto. The road that wound down past the gray-yellow
folds of tufa was filled with people.

At the head of the procession walked the pope in gold and white, and the
cardinals of the Sacred College in bright red. The middle of the long
line was bright with the purples of archbishops and bishops and the
variegated raiment of the nobility. The rear was dark with the grays and
browns of common folk.

From this distance Daoud could not see Pope Urban's face, but there was
no mistaking the beehive-shaped mitre with its glittering triple crown.

Lucky for the pope the weather was cold, thought Daoud. Wearing those
heavy vestments on a hot day would surely kill the old man. That today
he chose to go on foot showed how much this miracle meant to him.

Daoud turned and looked to the west. The marchers from Bolsena were
close, and people were falling to their knees all over the meadow.

_I will have to kneel, too, and seem to worship their idols. Forgive me,
God._

Daoud saw Sophia and Rachel drop to their knees.

_Surely they think as little of this as I do._

Coming toward Daoud from the west was a great banner that offended his
every religious feeling. Painted on the red cloth were the head and
shoulders of a bearded man, Jesus the Messiah, with huge, staring eyes.
On his head was a plaited wreath of thorns, and behind it a disk of
gold. From the nail holes that pierced his upraised palms fell painted
drops of blood.

An idol, such as the Koran forbade and the Prophet had come into this
world to destroy.

And then he thought of the great crucifix that hung in the chapel of
Chateau Langmuir outside Ascalon, and his mother taking him by the hand
to pray before it.

"Because _He_ lived and died here," he remembered her sweet voice
saying, "that is why we are here in this Holy Land."

He felt momentarily dizzy. They, his mother and father and all these
people here, though