Erculio now stuck the knife, point down, in the platform and used both hands to tear the heretic's eyeballs out. The tormented man was silent now. He must have fainted. The little man danced about him, jabbing him repeatedly with the knife until the screams started again. Were the nobles and churchmen enjoying this as much as the common folk, Daoud wondered. There seemed to be fewer prelates in red and purple on the church and steps when he looked. Ugolini stood with his hands behind his back, turning his eyes away from the scene in the piazza. De Verceuil stared right at the victim, his little mouth open in a grin showing white teeth. D'Ucello stood stolidly between his guards, his arms folded. He did not seem to have moved or changed the expression on his face since Daoud first saw him. Simon de Gobignon was pale as parchment, and even as Daoud watched, the young man turned and hurried into the cathedral. _Weakling! It is because of you, too, that this man suffers, but you cannot face it._ Erculio, dancing, grimacing comically under his black mustache, feinted repeatedly with his knife at the condemned man's groin. When the shouts of the crowd had reached a crescendo, he fell upon his victim and sliced away testicles and penis with quick strokes. The heretic gave a long, shivering howl of agony, then was silent. The little man tossed the bloody organs into the air. An executioner in red caught them and threw them to the other one, who in turn hurled them into the crowd. _I hope dozens of them are killed in the scramble. God forgive me for the pain I have caused this man._ The two men in red untied the condemned man and heaved him to his feet, his face and body so running with blood that he, too, seemed dressed in red. The crowd began to back away from the scaffold, and Daoud felt himself irresistibly carried back with them. The executioners tied the limp form of the heretic to the stake jutting up from the center of the platform. The black-clad dwarf scuttled like a monkey to the edge of the platform, and someone handed him a flaming torch. He danced with it. He whirled it in great circles around his head, and Daoud heard it hissing even over the cheers of the crowd. He swung the flame between his legs and leapt over it. He threw it high in the air, the torch spinning under the thick gray clouds that hung low over Orvieto. Erculio neatly caught it when it came down. For a man so badly deformed, his agility was eerie. Erculio turned toward the cathedral, holding up the torch. Daoud followed the dwarf's gaze and saw d'Ucello, the podesta, his face a white mask, give a wave of assent. Spinning on his heels, the dwarf scurried to the ladder, scrambled down a few rungs, and threw the torch into the tinder piled under the platform. Then he turned and leapt out into space. The other two executioners had left the platform and stood at the bottom of the ladder, and one of them caught Erculio and swung him down.