"Of course not." Simon wondered if de Verceuil cared that the Venetians had shot two innocent men. When Simon caught up with the procession, de Verceuil was still furiously scrubbing his face with his pale violet cloak. "If you had done something sooner about the rioting, this outrage would not have happened to me," he said, a quaver of anger in his deep voice. _God help me_, thought Simon. _I could easily grow to hate him. Cardinal or not._ * * * * * Word of the shootings must have spread through the city, Simon thought, because the twisting street leading to the cathedral was nearly empty. But the piazza in front of Orvieto's cathedral of San Giovenale was packed with people. Simon's eye was immediately drawn to the top of the cathedral steps. There stood a white-bearded man wearing a red mantle over white robes glittering with gold ornament. On his head a tall white lozenge-shaped miter embroidered with a red and gold cross. In his hand, a great golden shepherd's crook at least seven feet tall. Simon's mouth fell open and he held his breath. The ruler of the whole Catholic Church the world over, the chosen of God, the anointed of Christ, the heir of Saint Peter. His Holiness, Urban IV, the pope himself. Simon felt almost as much awe as he had that day in Paris when King Louis had let him kiss the Crown of Thorns. _How lucky I am to be here and see this man whom most Christians never see. It is close as one can come to seeing Jesus Christ Himself._ It looked to Simon as if the Holy Father were glowing with a supernatural light. To his left and his right stood a dozen or more men in bright red robes and wide-brimmed red hats with long red tassels dangling down to their shoulders. The cardinals, the princes of the Church. Simon wondered if the Tartars realized what honor this did them. As soon as their sedan chair was set before the pope, the two short brown men stepped out of it, knelt, and pressed their foreheads to the cobblestones. They stayed that way until the pope gestured to de Verceuil, who bent and touched them on the shoulder and raised them up. The pope turned and, followed by the Tartars and then the cardinals, proceeded into the cathedral. For this meeting to succeed, a papal mass was the best possible beginning. So many people were ahead of Simon that Friar Mathieu caught up with him before he was able to enter the door of the cathedral. "What do you think stirred up the crowd like that?" Simon asked as they pushed through the people standing in the nave of the church. "In the cities of Italy the mob is always either furious or ecstatic," said Friar Mathieu. "But to defile a cardinal!" Simon said. "That would never happen in France." "Italians do not reverence the clergy as much as Frenchmen do," the Franciscan said with a little smile. "They have had to put up with the princes of the Church for so long that they are a good deal less awed by them."