"Ah!" Urban half turned in his chair to look at Simon. Simon saw that the pope's wrinkled face was a deep pink, and his eyes glittered. Loose strands of gray hair escaping from under his hood quivered as his head shook with a slight, constant tremor. Simon had heard that men sometimes rallied in the final stages of an illness, before the slide into darkness. That, perhaps, accounted for the pope's color and energy. Simon's heart ached for the old man. This was the spiritual father of the world, and his troubles, troubles Simon had in part brought to him, were aiding whatever disease was destroying him. "Simon de Gobignon!" Urban cried, raising bony hands in benediction. "If you had not come to me, I should have sent for you." His pale blue eyes shifted from side to side, and Simon felt even more pain for him. _This man should not think of traveling. It will kill him._ Urban half stood, and his majordomo rushed past Simon to turn his chair so that the pope could face his visitor. He was sitting in a simple straight-back chair without arms. Simon stepped into the room and dropped to one knee. The pope extended his trembling right hand, and Simon kissed his gold Fisherman's Ring. On its circular face was an engraving of a bearded man whom Simon guessed must be Saint Peter, casting a net from the stern of a boat. Seen close at hand and without the tall tiara and the crozier and the heavy robes of office, Urban was very short. Simon wondered whether he had always been a little man or whether age and the strains of his office had shrunk him. "Stand up, Monseigneur le Comte, s'il vous plait," said the pope, changing to French. "I am sorry there is no chair, but this is where I do all my real work, and it is best not to encourage visitors to sit. Ludovico, leave us and shut the door behind you. And do not hang about in the corridor eavesdropping." Simon rose, and found himself looking down at the skullcap on top of the pope's head. Feeling awkward, he took a few steps backward until his back was against the door of the tiny chamber. Urban said, "I have long wanted to hear from your own lips what happened at the Palazzo Monaldeschi." Simon gave the pope a detailed account of the battle. He ended with his fight with the man in black. Urban's eyes widened, and the trembling of his head grew more pronounced. When Simon told how the enemy had escaped, throwing Friar Mathieu from the cellar stairs, the pope winced in pain. "So," Urban mused, "this murderer--doubtless sent by Manfred von Hohenstaufen--still lurks somewhere in Orvieto." "We have tried to track him down," said Simon. "But the Filippeschi deny any knowledge of him, and the podesta, it seems, has not the power to make them answer our questions." He allowed the contempt he felt for d'Ucello to creep into his voice. "Open the door and see if that sneaking Ludovico is listening outside," Pope Urban said. His lips twitched under his flowing gray beard in what was probably a smile.