WHEN WE REACHED THE DOGE’S CAMP, THE VER-milion tent and the smaller pavilions surrounding it and the slimy steps down to the water were seething with servants and cooks and monks and vintners and falconers and blacksmiths and people hoping for an audience with the Doge, and I don’t know whom else. I listened to a man practicing the wheedling bagpipes; then two Black Monks told me about the Rule of Saint Benedict, and I told them I knew about how Saint Maurus walked on the water. Simona and I talked to a surgeon called Taddeo, who told me the gut of a cat stretches for one hundred paces, and the worst way of dying is to be hanged and drawn and quartered, and once he trepanned a man whose blood was blue.
“I don’t want bone cut out of my skull,” I said.
The surgeon’s mouth twisted. “Few people do,” he said. “I please the Doge most when I’m doing least!”
We waited, but the Doge and his councillors still didn’t come back.
“Come on!” said Lord Stephen. “We’re wasting our time here.”
We weren’t, though. I found out about all kinds of things.
Early this morning I hurried back to the Doge’s camp, taking Bertie with me. It was already packed. We had to elbow our way through the crowd, but Bertie used his head and feet as well.
“Sometimes you’re a squire and sometimes a beast.”
“A leucrota!” said Bertie, grinning.
“What’s that?”
“Me!” exclaimed Bertie. “The body of a donkey, buttocks like a deer’s, a lion’s chest, a mouth that opens right back to its ears. And it talks like a human. You’d still be one as well if you weren’t a knight. Your boots are splitting.”
In the middle of the tent, a square space had been cordoned off, and a guard with a spear stood at each corner. On one side sat the Doge, wearing his cotton cap with the scarlet cross. His face was quite bloodless, except for his angry cheek-blotches.
Gennaro and the other councillors were standing behind the Doge, and so were the French leaders. I caught Milon’s eye, and he nodded firmly. I think he was pleased that Bertie and I were witnesses.
On the other side stood Count Simon de Montfort, Enguerrand and Robert de Boves, and an abbot.
“In the name of God!” began the Doge in his high, light voice. “While all your fellow leaders begged me, yes, they begged me, to accept the surrender, you went behind our backs, telling the Zarans not to surrender. I was ready to spare limb and life. What do you want? The blood of Christian Zara?”
The count shook his head, but the Doge wasn’t finished.
“Do you want to split our army? To wreck our great crusade? You are traitors to God!”
Count Simon turned to the abbot and the abbot stepped forward.
“I am Guy de Vaux,” he said. “I have a letter. A letter from the Holy Father.”
“Yes, from Rome. From Pope Innocent himself. My lords, in the name of the Pope, I forbid you to attack this city. The people here are Christians, and you have all taken the Cross.”
The abbot shuffled across the space and put the piece of parchment into the Doge’s hands.
“If you ignore the Holy Father’s warning,” he continued, “he will cut you off from the grace of God. He will excommunicate you!”
Some people began to cross themselves and get down on their knees. But others shouted insults at the abbot.
The Doge waited, then raised his right hand. He turned round to face the French leaders.
“My lords,” he said, “you have encouraged and authorized me to accept the surrender. But your own fellow Frenchmen have gone behind our backs, and the Zarans believed them. So there is no surrender to accept.” The Doge paused. He raised his blue, shining, blind eyes to heaven. “My lords,” he said, “in Saint Mark’s we made a solemn agreement. You swore to help me recapture this city, and now you will keep your word.”
At this, yelling and hissing and jeering began, and there was cheering as well. Count Simon and the brothers and the abbot angrily barged out of one door of the tent, the French leaders bowed to the Doge and left by another, and Bertie and I ran back to our camps not knowing what was going to happen.…
This evening, Milon and Bertie walked in while we were all eating supper. Milon came straight to the point, as he always does.
“Against Pope or against agreement with Doge? Rome or Venice?”
“Well, which?” asked Sir William.
“If we go against Rome,” said Milon, “ex…ex…”
“Excommunication,” I said.
Milon winced. “If against Venice, we lose ships. Finish!”
Bertie kicked at his right heel with his left toecap.
“We are God’s pilgrims,” Milon said. “The Pope promise us pardons for all our sins.”
“To hell with pardons!” muttered Sir William.
Lord Stephen wiped his mouth, and kept blinking.
“But we will not allow de Montfort and de Vaux to wreck our crusade,” Milon said. He spat on the ground. “We send four envoys to the Pope to explain. We help the Doge to recapture Zara.”