Escorted by two scarlet-liveried sedarii of the outer palace, the small party of pilgrims passed through a seemingly endless sequence of corridors and antechambers, halting occasionally before the ornate table of some new official who examined credentials and goose-quilled his signature on a licet adire for a sedarius to hand to the next official, whose title grew progressively longer and less pronounceable as the party proceeded. Brother Francis was shivering. Among his fellow pilgrims were two bishops, a man wearing ermine and gold, a clan chief of the forest people, converted but still wearing the panther skin tunic and panther headgear of his tribal totem, a leather-clad simpleton carrying a hooded peregrine falcon on one wrist-evidently as a gift to the Holy Father-and several women, all of whom seemed to be wives or concubines-as best Francis could judge by their actions-of the "converted" clan chief of the panther people; or perhaps they were ex-concubines put away by canon but not by tribal custom.