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Title: The Saracen: Land of the Infidel

Author: Robert Shea

Release date: April 6, 2009 [eBook #28515]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SARACEN: LAND OF THE INFIDEL ***




Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net









                              THE ASSASSIN
                           AND THE LOVE SLAVE


He is Daoud ibn Abdallah. A warrior who is not afraid to go alone amid
multitudes of enemies. The servant of a very great ruler. Though young,
a wealthy and powerful man in his own land. A spy and a thief in the
lands of others.

He is the man whom Sophia Karaiannides, accomplished courtesan and
mistress to a king, is to serve without reservation.

The alliance has been struck. The adventure begins....




_Also by Robert Shea:_

ILLUMINATUS! (With Robert Anton Wilson)

SHIKE

ALL THINGS ARE LIGHT*


*Published by Ballantine Books




        THE SARACEN:
           LAND OF
         THE INFIDEL

         ROBERT SHEA


 BALLANTINE BOOKS · NEW YORK




Copyright © 1989 by Robert Shea

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
Conventions. Published in the United States of America by Ballantine
Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in
Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 88-92191

ISBN 0-345-33588-0

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition: March 1989




Transcriber's Note:

    Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Variant
    spellings remain as printed, whilst inconsistent hyphenation has
    been standardised.

    Thanks to Michael Shea for giving Project Gutenberg permission to
    distribute _The Saracen: Land of the Infidel_.




       TO MICHAEL ERIK SHEA

 _who helped me learn many things
  about the art of storytelling_




                               BOOK ONE

                               LAND OF
                             THE INFIDEL

                       _Anno Domini 1263-1264
                     Year of the Hegira 661-662_

 "Whoso fighteth in the way of God, be he slain or be he victorious, on
 him We shall bestow a vast reward."
                                             --The Koran, Surah IV

 "Nothing is true. Everything is permissible."
                                            --Hasan ibn-al-Sabbah,
                                        founder of the Hashishiyya




I


In the mist-filled plains around Lucera, cocks crowed.

Daoud ibn Abdallah pushed himself slowly to his feet. After days and
nights of walking, his legs ached abominably.

Tired as he was, he looked around carefully, studying the other
travelers who rested near him on the road, peering at the city wall a
hundred paces away with its shut gate of iron-studded oak. In his
stomach he felt the hollow ball of dread that had not left him since he
landed in Italy.

_I am alone in the land of the infidel._

Dawn gave a pink tint to the pale yellow stones of the wall, about twice
the height of a man. Above it in the distance, covering the summit of
the central hill, rose the citadel of Lucera, surrounded by its own huge
wall set with more than a dozen many-sided towers.

Daoud's feet throbbed in his knee-high boots. For three days he had
walked along the carter's track from the port of Manfredonia on the
Adriatic coast into the hills around Lucera. Yesterday at daybreak he
had been able to see, from a great distance, the outline of the fortress
emerging from the center of a rolling plain. It had taken him another
day and a night to reach its gate.

Around Daoud now were dozens of people who had gathered at the gate
during the night, mostly merchants with packs on their backs. A few
farmers, hitched to carts loaded with melons, peaches, and oranges, had
dragged their burden over the plain. The more prosperous had donkeys to
pull the wagons.

One man with a long stick drove six small sheep. And a cart near Daoud
was piled high with wooden cages full of squawking chickens.

Walking in his direction was a tiny dwarf of a man who appeared
permanently doubled over, as if his back had been broken. It seemed to
Daoud that if the man were not holding his arms out from his sides for
balance, his knuckles would almost have brushed the ground. His little
cart was piled with broken tree limbs, firewood to sell in the city.

The dwarf lifted his head and grinned at Daoud through a bushy black
mustache. Daoud smiled back, thinking, _God be kind to you, my friend_.

From within the city issued a familiar cry, in Arabic, that tore at
Daoud's heart: "Come to prayer. Come to security. God is most great." It
was the adhan, the cry of the muezzins in the minarets of Lucera's
mosques. For, though he was in a Christian land, Lucera was a city
mostly populated by Muslims.

Daoud wanted to fall to his knees, but he was pretending to be a
Christian, and could only stand and ignore the call to prayer as the
Christians around him did. He said the words of the salat, the required
prayer, in his mind.

The people near Daoud spoke to one another sleepily, softly, in the
tongue of southern Italy. Someone laughed. Someone sang a snatch of
song. When the Muslim prayer ended, they expectantly looked up at the
town wall.

Daoud saw two soldiers standing in the tower to the left of the gate.
They were accoutred in the Muslim manner, with turbans wrapped around
their helmets and scimitars at their belts. One lifted a long brass
trumpet to his lips and blew a series of notes that sent shivers along
Daoud's spine. With a few changes it could have been the call that had
awakened him every morning in the Mameluke barracks on Raudha Island in
the Nile.

Using ropes, the other soldier hoisted onto a tall pole a yellow banner
bearing a black bird with spread wings and claws, and two heads facing
in opposite directions. The double-headed eagle of King Manfred's
family, the Hohenstaufen.

With a great squealing of cables and squeaking of hinges, the tall
wooden door swung wide.

Daoud reached down and picked up the leather pack that had lain between
his feet. Leaning forward, he pushed his arms through the shoulder
straps.

He wore draped over his pack a long countryman's cloak of cheap brown
wool. His tunic and hose were of lightweight undyed cotton. Only his
high boots were expensive. He needed good ones for the long walk from
the coast to Lucera. A sword swung at his belt, short and unadorned, the
sort any man of small means might wear. He had chosen it in El Kahira
out of a stack of swords taken from Christian men-at-arms during the
last crusade.

He drew the hood of his cloak over his head. Later his blond hair and
gray eyes would guarantee that no one would suspect what he was. But
here in southern Italy, where most ordinary people were dark
complexioned, his appearance might draw unwanted attention.

Even though the sun had just risen, he felt the heat on his back. But it
was not the dry heat of Egypt that he had known most of his life. A
heaviness in the air called forth a dampness from within his flesh. His
tunic clung to him.

_If a Christian asks me what month this is, I must remember to say
July._

He brushed the dust from his clothing and fell into line behind the bent
man with his cart of firewood.

Once inside Lucera, he would find his way to the inn of al-Kharim. And
tonight the chancellor Aziz would come to him from King Manfred.

The line shuffled forward. Three guards were standing in the shadows
just inside the gateway. They were big dark men wearing long green capes
over red tunics. Red turbans were wrapped around their spike-topped
helmets. Curving swords hung from their belts. A boy in a red tunic and
turban held a sheaf of lightweight spears.

Their thick beards reminded Daoud how much he missed his own beard,
shaved off in preparation for this mission.

_My people._ Daoud felt a sudden warmth at the familiar sight of
warriors of Islam.

The feeling was nonsense, he told himself. These were not his people,
but the Saracens of Manfred von Hohenstaufen. Their Arab ancestors had
once ruled southern Italy, but the Christians had conquered them over a
century before.

No, these Muslim warriors were not Daoud's people. In truth, on this
whole earth there were no people Daoud ibn Abdallah could truly call his
own.

       *       *       *       *       *

Once he had been David Langmuir, living with his crusader father and
mother, in a castle near Ascalon by the plain of Gaza. An English
ancestor had been one of the first crusaders in the Holy Land.

Just after David's ninth birthday Geoffrey Langmuir, his father, had
ridden out to war in gleaming mail with a cross of red silk sewn on his
white surcoat. David never saw him again.

Some weeks later the Saracens appeared before the castle, and there
were days of thirst and hunger and constant fear. He remembered the
thunderous pounding at the walls and the dark men in their yellow robes
and green turbans, their crescent-shaped swords coated with blood. He
remembered his mother, Lady Evelyn, in her blue dress, running up the
spiral stairs of a tower. He heard her distant scream. When the Saracens
dragged him out of the castle, with men being cut down by swords all
around him and women thrown to the ground by laughing Turks who fell
upon them, he saw at the base of the tower a bundle of blue linen
splashed with red that must have been his mother.

On their leisurely journey back to the Nile, the Turks forced him to lie
on his belly, and they used him as men use women. He would never forget
the needle-sharp tip of a curving dagger touched to his eyeball as a
bashi with a flowing black beard demanded that Daoud use his mouth to
give him pleasure. Whenever Daoud remembered that time, his insides
knotted and his face burned with shame.

One day he stood naked on a platform in El Kahira, capital of the
sultans--the city the Christians called Cairo. A fat, laughing slave
dealer, who had raped him till he bled the night before, offered him for
sale.

A tall man with one eye a glittering blue and the other a blank white, a
scimitar in a jeweled scabbard thrust through the embroidered sash
around his waist, came forward.

A silence fell over the crowd of slave buyers, followed by whispers. The
one-eyed warrior paid the price asked in gold dinars and without
haggling. And when the slaver fondled David's loins one last time as he
covered him with a ragged tunic, the warrior seized the slaver by the
throat with one hand, forcing him to his knees, and squeezed till he
collapsed unconscious in the dust of the marketplace.

David was almost mad with terror as the one-eyed warrior took him to his
mansion beside a lake in the center of El Kahira. But the tall man spoke
kindly to him and treated him decently. Amazingly, he could speak
French, David's language, though with a strange and heavy accent. He
told David that he was called Baibars al-Bunduqdari, Baibars the
Crossbowman. He was an emir of the Bhari Mamelukes, which meant, he
said, "slaves of the river." But though the Mamelukes were slaves, they
were also great and powerful warriors.

Baibars gave David a new name--Daoud--and told him that he had selected
him to be a Mameluke. He explained in a firm but kindly way that Daoud
did have a choice but that the alternative was a life of unrelieved
wretchedness as a ghulman, a menial slave. As a Mameluke, Daoud would be
set free when his training was complete, and he could win riches and
glory and be a warrior for God and his emir.

"I have long watched for such a one as you," Baibars said, "who could
look like a Christian but have the mind and heart of a Mameluke. One
like you could be a great weapon against the enemies of the faith."

_But your faith is not my faith_, David, who was to be called Daoud,
thought, not daring to speak, _and your enemies are not my enemies_.

His longing to please this man, the first Muslim to treat him with
respect, struggled as the years passed with his memories of a Christian
childhood. Daoud underwent the training of a Mameluke, and Baibars
watched him closely. Daoud accepted Islam and took the common surname of
a convert, ibn Abdallah. He took naturally to the life of a warrior and
grew in strength and skill.

Year by year Baibars, too, became more powerful. At last he made himself
sultan of El Kahira, ruler of an empire that stretched from North Africa
to Syria. Daoud's hand had wielded the flame dagger of the Hashishiyya
that ended the previous sultan's life.

Now, having raised Daoud, trained him as a Mameluke, and educated him in
statecraft, having sent him to learn wisdom from the Sufi and terror
from the Hashishiyya, having given him a new name and a new faith,
Baibars had sent Daoud into the Christian country called Italy.

       *       *       *       *       *

The stones of the gateway seemed to be marble, unusual for a
fortification. Daoud noticed large iron rings set at intervals under the
arch. His feet crunched on fresh straw.

The space under the arch was about ten paces from outer portal to inner.
On one side a broad-shouldered official sat at a table. The man glanced
up at Daoud, looked down at a leather-bound ledger in which he was
writing, then raised his eyes again for a longer look. This time the
brown eyes met Daoud's.

The official's grizzled hair formed a cap of curls around his head,
hiding his ears. He had a thick mustache, black streaked with white. His
shirt of violet silk looked costly. On the straw beside him lay a huge
dog, doubtless bred for hunting, with short gray fur, forepaws stretched
before it like a sphinx.

_These people live with unclean animals_, Daoud thought with distaste.

When the official leaned back in his chair, Daoud saw the long, straight
dagger that hung from his belt in a scabbard decorated with crossed
bands of gold ribbon.

Fear tightened Daoud's throat.

_Will this man see through me? Will he guess what I am?_

_Come, come_, he chided himself. _You have gone among Christians before.
You have walked in the midst of crusaders in the streets of Acre and
Antioch. You have landed on the island of Cyprus. You have even gone as
Baibars's emissary to the Greeks of Constantinople. Commend yourself to
God and cast fear aside._

He visualized what the Hashishiyya called "the Face of Steel within the
Mask of Clay." What he showed this official would be his Mask of Clay,
the look and manner of the merchant he was pretending to be. Beneath it,
unseen, was his true face, a Face of Steel forged over years of bodily
and spiritual training.

The mustached man allowed most of the people in line to pass into the
city after a few quick questions.

Daoud's heartbeat quickened and he tensed when his turn came to pass.

"Come here. Lower your hood," the man said.

Walking slowly toward him, Daoud reached up and pushed back his hood.

The official raised thick black brows and beckoned to a guard. "If he
makes a move you do not like, skewer him."

"Yes, Messer Lorenzo."

Daoud felt a stiffness in his neck and a knot in his belly. King
Manfred's chancellor, Aziz, had written that Daoud would be quietly
admitted to the town.

The heavyset, black-bearded Muslim soldier took a spear from the boy
standing near him and leveled it at Daoud, his face hard.

"Now then," said Lorenzo, "give us your sword."

This overzealous guard captain, or whatever he was, was paying too much
attention to him. But to avoid more attention, he must readily
cooperate. He unbuckled his sword belt and held it out. Another Muslim
guard took it and stepped beyond Daoud's reach.

Messer Lorenzo said, "Open your pack and show me what is in it."

"Silk, Your Signory." Daoud shrugged the pack off his shoulders and laid
it on the table. He unlaced its flap and drew out a folded length of
deep blue silk and then a crimson one. The shiny cloth slid through his
long fingers.

"I am not a lord," said Lorenzo softly, reaching out to caress the silk.
"Do not insult me by addressing me incorrectly."

"Yes, Messere."

Lorenzo took the pack with both hands and shook it. A shiny circular
object a little larger than a man's hand fell out. Lorenzo picked it up
and frowned at it.

"What is this, a mirror?"

"Yes, Messere. Our Trebizond mirrors are famed in Byzantium, Persia, and
the Holy Land. I brought this as another sample of what we can offer."

"It is a good mirror," Lorenzo agreed. "It shows me my ugly face all too
well."

Daoud was relieved to see Lorenzo had not guessed the secret of the
mirror, that it contained a deadly disk of Hindustan. Thrown properly,
the sharp-edged disk would slice into an opponent like a knife.

At Lorenzo's command, two of the guards searched Daoud briskly and
efficiently. They even made him take off his boots.

The fingers of one guard found the chain around Daoud's neck and pulled
on it. The locket Daoud had hidden under his tunic came out.

"What is that?" Lorenzo growled.

A chill ran over Daoud's body. Could Lorenzo possibly guess what the
locket was?

"A locket with a holy inscription in our Greek language, Messere."

"Open it up."

With a leaden feeling in his belly Daoud turned a small screw in the
hammered silver case. Perhaps he should not have taken the locket with
him. What would Lorenzo see when he looked at it? The cover fell open,
and he glanced down at the intricate etched lines and curves on the
rock-crystal inner face of the locket. When Daoud saw beginning to
appear on the crystal the face of a dark-skinned woman with accents of
blue-black paint around her eyes, he looked away.

He leaned forward to give Lorenzo a closer look at it without taking it
from around his neck. The locket's magic should work only for the person
to whom it was given.

Daoud heard a low growl. The great hound had risen to his feet and was
staring at him with eyes as dark brown as his master's. His upper lip
curled, revealing teeth like ivory scimitars.

"Silence, Scipio," Lorenzo said. His voice was soft, but iron with
command. The dog sat down again, but kept his eyes fixed on Daoud.

Heart pounding, he waited for Lorenzo's reaction to the locket. The
official grasped it, pulling Daoud's head closer still.

"Mh. This is Greek writing, you say? It looks more like Arabic to me."

"It is very ancient, Messere, and the two alphabets are similar. I
cannot read it myself. But it has been blessed by our Christian
priests."

Lorenzo let go of the locket and glowered at him.

"What Christian priests? Where did you say you are from? What is your
name?"

With deep relief Daoud stepped back from Lorenzo, snapped the locket
shut, and dropped it back inside the collar of his tunic.

"I am David Burian, from Trebizond, Messere."

"Trebizond? I never heard of it," said the mustached man.

"It is on the eastern shore of the Black Sea."

"You have come such a great distance with only a few yards of silk and a
mirror in your pack? Would you have me believe this is how you expect to
make your fortune?"

Daoud reached deep in his lungs for breath. Now he would see whether the
Christians would believe the story he and Baibars had devised.

"Messere, my city, Trebizond, lies on the only road to the East not cut
off by the Saracens. A few brave merchants come from the land called
Cathay bearing silk and spices. The samples I have brought with me,
doubtless you can see, are of the highest quality. We can send you many
bales of such silk overland from Trebizond to Constantinople, then by
ship to your port of Manfredonia. I am here to arrange this trade."

"Arrange it with whom?"

Daoud hesitated. He had come to Lucera to meet with King Manfred. If,
through some mistake, he should fall into the wrong hands, he would try
to get word to the king that he was there.

"Your local merchants, your royal officials," he said. "Even your King
Manfred, if he wishes to talk to me."

"So, a dusty peddler comes to our city gate and wants to speak with the
king." He turned to the guard with the spear. "Take him to the
castello."

Daoud molded the Face of Clay into an expression of naive wonderment.
"The castello? Where King Manfred is?"

Lorenzo grinned without mirth. "Where King Manfred's _prison_ is, my
man. Where we hang the people sent by the pope to murder King Manfred."

Lorenzo's eyes were hard as chips of obsidian, and when he said the word
_hang_, Daoud could feel the rough rope tightening around his neck.

But he was more angry now than frightened. His jaw muscles clenched. Why
had Aziz not made sure there would be no mistake like this?

"Why are you doing this to me, Messer Lorenzo? I mean no harm."

"And I intend to see to it that you _do_ no harm in this place, Messere
of Trebizond," Lorenzo shot back. He waved to the guard. "To the
guardroom, Ahmad."

_May a thousand afrits hound this infidel to his death_, thought Daoud
angrily. "And what will you do with me, Messer Lorenzo?"

"I will examine you further at my leisure, after I have passed all these
good people into the city." One violet-sleeved arm made a flowing
gesture toward the waiting throng.

Daoud noticed that the tiny firewood seller, who had already passed by
the guards, had paused at the inner portal. He shook his head sadly and
touched forehead, shoulders, and chest in that sign Christians made to
recall the cross of Jesus, their Messiah.

_Why, I believe he is praying for me. That is kindly done._

Ahmad, the guard, pointed his spear at Daoud and jerked his head. Daoud
stood his ground.

"What of my silk? If you keep it, I will truly have no honest business
in Lucera."

Lorenzo smiled. He stuffed the lengths of silk and the mirror back into
the pack and held it out to Daoud.

"There is not enough here to be worth stealing. Take it, then."

"And my sword?"

Lorenzo laughed gruffly. "Forget your sword. Take him away, Ahmad."

They had missed the precious object hidden in a pouch tied in his groin.
And they missed the Scorpion, the miniature crossbow devised by the
Hashishiyya, its parts concealed in the hem of his cloak. Nor did they
have any idea that the tie that held his cloak at the neck could be
pulled loose to become a long strangling cord, flexible as silk and hard
as steel.

Daoud pulled his hood back over his head, shrugged into the pack under
his cloak, and began walking. Every step he took sent a jolt of anger
through his body. He would like to use his strangling cord on the man
responsible for this blunder.

The news might well travel northward that a blond merchant had been
arrested trying to enter Lucera. And if that man should later appear at
the court of the pope, there might be those who would remember hearing
of him and wonder why he had gone first to the pope's enemy, Manfred von
Hohenstaufen.

His first feelings of anger became a cold turmoil in his belly as he
thought what could happen if his mission failed--El Kahira leveled, its
people slaughtered, Islam crushed beneath the feet of barbarian
conquerors.

He must not let that happen.

The narrow street he walked on was lined with circular houses, their
brick walls a warm yellow color. The conical roofs were covered with
thin slates.

A Muslim sword maker looked up from his forge to stare at Daoud and his
guard as they passed. Veiled women with red pottery jars on their heads
stopped and looked boldly into his eyes.

Daoud lifted his gaze to the octagonal central tower of the citadel,
bright yellow-and-black flags flying from its battlements. Instead of
being squared off, the battlements were topped by forked points, like
the tails of swallows, proclaiming allegiance to the Ghibellini,
partisans of the Hohenstaufen family, enemies of the pope.

Closer to the citadel, noises of men and animals came at Daoud from all
directions. He saw many buildings, all connected with one another, their
small windows protected by iron grillwork. To his right, in a large
grassy open field, a hundred or more Muslim guards in red and green were
swinging their scimitars as an officer on a stone platform called out
the count in Arabic. Daoud and his guard passed by a second yard, where
still more Muslim soldiers were grooming their slender Arab horses.

A pungent smell of many beasts and fowl pent up close hung in the warm,
damp air. Another row of buildings echoed with the shrieks of birds.
Falconers in yellow-and-black tunics walked up and down holding wicker
cages. As he peered into a doorway, Daoud saw the golden eyes of birds
of prey gleaming at him out of the shadows.

The sun was high by the time they came to the gateway of the castello.

_Well, so far they have taken me where I wanted to go_, Daoud thought
grimly.

The entry hall of the castello was a large, vaulted room, as Daoud had
expected. He had studied the citadel of Lucera before leaving Egypt, as
he had studied many other strongholds in Italy, memorizing building
plans and talking at length with agents of the sultan who had been
there.

A strange, almost dizzying sensation came over Daoud. He recognized the
feeling, having had it several times before when, in disguise, he
entered Christian fortresses. As he gazed around the shadowy stone hall,
its gloom relieved by shafts of light streaming in through high, narrow
windows, he seemed to be seeing everything through two pairs of eyes.
One pair belonged to a Mameluke warrior, Daoud ibn Abdallah, scouting an
enemy stronghold. The other eyes were those of a boy named David
Langmuir, to whom a Christian castle had been home. And, as always on
sensing that inner division, Daoud felt a crushing sadness.

Ahmad took Daoud through a series of small, low-ceilinged rooms in the
base of the castle. He spoke briefly to an officer seated at a table,
dressed like himself in red turban and green tunic. He gestured to a
heavy-looking door reinforced with strips of iron.

"In there, Messer David."

Every muscle in Daoud's body screamed out in protest. As part of his
initiation into the Hashishiyya, he had been locked in a tiny black
chamber in the Great Pyramid for days, and, except for the deaths of his
mother and father, it was the worst memory of his life. Now he ached to
strike down Ahmad and the other Muslim soldier and flee.

Instead, he said quietly, "How long will I have to wait?"

Ahmad shrugged. "God alone knows." Ahmad's southern Italian dialect was
as heavily accented as Daoud's own.

_How surprised he would be if I were to address him in Arabic._

"Who is this man who orders me imprisoned?" Daoud demanded.

Ahmad and the other guard shrugged at the question. "He is Messer
Lorenzo Celino of Sicily. He serves King Manfred."

"What does he do for King Manfred?"

"Whatever the king tells him to." Ahmad smiled at Daoud and gestured
again at the ironbound door. "Thank you for making the work of guarding
you easy. May God be kind to you."

Daoud bowed in thanks. Remembering the proper Christian farewell, he
said, "Addio."

The other soldier unlocked the door with a large iron key, and Daoud
walked reluctantly into a shadowy room. The door slammed shut behind
him, and again he went rigid with his hatred of confinement.

The walls had recently been whitewashed, but the little room stank
abominably. The odor, Daoud saw, came from a privy hole in one corner,
where large black flies circled in a humming swarm. Half-light came in
through a window covered with a black iron grill whose openings were
barely wide enough to push a finger through. Noticing what appeared to
be a bundle of bedding against a wall, Daoud approached it and squatted
down for a closer look. He prodded it, feeling straw under a stained
cotton sheet. At his probing, black dots, almost too small to see, began
moving about rapidly over the sheet.

Daoud crossed the room, unslung his pack from his back, and dropped it
to the floor. He sat down on the flagstones, as far from the bedding and
the privy opening as he could get, his back against the wall, his knees
drawn up, like a Bedouin in his tent.

_I am helpless_, Daoud thought, and terror and rage rose up in him like
two djinns released from their jars, threatening to overwhelm him. He
sat perfectly still. To bring himself under control, he began the
contemplative exercise his Sufi teacher, Sheikh Saadi, called the
Presence of God.

"God is everywhere, and most of all in man's heart," Saadi had said, his
old eyes twinkling. "He cannot be seen or heard or touched or smelled or
tasted. Therefore, make your mind as empty as the Great Desert, and you
may converse with God, Whose name be praised."

Daoud touched the farewell present Saadi had given him when he left El
Kahira to begin the journey to Italy. It was a leather case tied around
his neck, and it contained a piece of paper called a tawidh, an
invocation whose words were represented by Arabic numerals.

Like the locket, it would arouse curiosity if someone searching him
found it. But it could be simply explained as one of those curious
objects a traveler from distant places might have about his person.
And, like the locket, it was simply too precious _not_ to be worn.

Saadi said the tawidh would help wounds heal faster. Daoud refused to
let himself think about wounds. He tried to make his mind a blank, and
in the effort he forgot for a time where he was.




II


Messer Lorenzo Celino of Sicily strode into the cell. He held in his
hands a large round slice of bread heaped with steaming slivers of meat
that gave off an unfamiliar but succulent smell.

Daoud slowly climbed to his feet. The hound Scipio, trailing Celino,
watched him, standing in the doorway, as if unwilling to enter the
vile-smelling chamber.

Daoud measured Celino. The top of the Sicilian's head would come to
Daoud's chin, but the shoulders under his violet tunic were broad and
straight, and he moved with menacing grace. Daoud judged that, though
Celino must be close to fifty, he would be quick and deadly with hands
and feet, and a good swordsman as well.

"God's beard, man, I didn't mean to keep you sitting in this room all
day without food or drink," Celino said. "The damned farmers and traders
kept coming and coming. But you cannot eat in this stinking place. Come
out."

Daoud emerged into the next room, and Lorenzo motioned him to sit at the
guards' table. Even though Daoud felt deep relief at being out of the
cell, he sensed he was in greater danger than before. His mouth went dry
and the palms of his hands turned cold as his eyes scanned the room for
weapons or an escape route.

Lorenzo set the trencher and its burden of meat down before Daoud.

"Just butchered. Here, eat in good health. And here is a beaker of our
good red wine of Monte Vultura." Daoud heard a false note in Celino's
present heartiness and liked it even less than his earlier gruff
suspicion.

Wine. An abomination forbidden by the Prophet. As Celino set a pitcher
and two cups down on the table, Daoud recalled the nights he had spent
with Sheikh Saadi learning to master wine and other drugs.

_God prohibits the drinking of wine and the eating of unclean foods, not
for His good, for nothing can harm Him, but for our good. Therefore,
when a man goes among the infidel as a spy, God permits him to eat and
drink the forbidden things lest he be discovered and put to death. You
must learn to separate your mind from your body so that what harms your
body will not affect your mind._

Daoud raised the cup, wondering if he would have as much power over wine
drunk in the land of the infidel as he did when he drank it with his
teacher. He sipped. The red liquid was thick and bitter and burned his
mouth, but he made himself smile, sigh appreciatively, and sip again. He
kept God at the center of his thoughts.

Celino was watching him closely. Raising his cup in salute, he also
drank.

"Good, good. Now eat. Fresh roasted. Pork."

Daoud's fingers, poised over the meat, stopped short. Already made ill
by hunger, by the vile odor of the room in which he had been confined,
and by the wine that made his stomach churn, he felt himself on the
point of vomiting. For nearly twenty years the prohibition against
eating the flesh of pigs had been impressed upon him until the very
thought of pork made him sick. He knew he should have prepared himself
by eating it before he left El Kahira, but he had never found time for
that. So now, a prisoner of the enemy, he faced for the first time the
test of pork.

Celino was watching him with a half smile.

_He would not test me with wine and pig's meat unless he suspected I am
a Muslim._

Daoud's fingers grasped a slice of the hot meat. He tore it in half,
using both his clean right hand and his unclean left as a non-Muslim
would.

He stuffed a slice of pork into his mouth. It had smelled good until he
found out what it was. Now it seemed slimy and tasteless. His stomach
clenched, but he held himself rigid, expressionless. He started to chew,
and found that his mouth was dry. His life might depend on his giving a
convincing imitation of pleasure. He chewed the meat to fragments and,
as though savoring it, swallowed the abomination crumb by crumb.

He realized he was still holding the other scrap of pork in his left
hand. To give himself a respite, he tossed it to the flagstone floor
before Lorenzo's hound.

Unclean to the unclean, he thought.

Scipio looked at Daoud with an almost human look of surprise, then bent
to devour the meat.

"Friday, Scipio," said Celino sharply. "You are forbidden meat."

The dog looked sadly up at Celino, licked its chops, and sat back on its
haunches, leaving the meat untouched. In spite of his predicament, Daoud
laughed.

"You see?" said Celino. "Even a dog can learn to obey the commandments."

Celino gestured to the dog. "All right, Scipio, the bishop of Palermo
gives you a dispensation."

The dog stood and struck at the meat with his long muzzle. It vanished
to the accompaniment of loud gulping sounds.

"He likes it better than you do," Celino said. "You do not act very
hungry for a man who has not eaten all day. Come on, man, fill your
belly."

Realizing that the pork would taste worse as it cooled, Daoud braced
himself and stuffed piece after piece into his mouth, chewing and
swallowing as rapidly as he could.

"And," said Celino, watching him with narrowed eyes, "a dog can be
trained to break the commandments when permitted."

From time to time Daoud threw a scrap to Scipio, grateful for the
hound's help. But as he ate, Daoud noticed that the meat began to taste
better to him, and the juices of his mouth began to flow. The familiar
feeling of sorrow came over him, and he looked around at the white walls
and ceiling, the wooden beams overhead painted blue. In his mind's eye
he saw in their place yellow stone walls and a vaulted ceiling, and
remembered that he had last tasted the flesh of pig at table with his
father and mother.

He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and sat back. "Thank you. I feel
better now."

Celino stood up, took the stale disk of bread, and dropped it to the
floor. Scipio picked it up in his mouth.

"Then have the goodness to accompany me to the Hall of Mars, Messer
David," he said, and turned.

_He shows me that he is not afraid to turn his back_, Daoud thought,
picking up his pack and following Celino. The Hall of Mars, he
remembered, was an indoor exercise hall for Manfred's troops. They
climbed stairs and walked through rooms in which Muslim soldiers were
cleaning and polishing helmets, coats of mail, and weapons. In one room,
men were painting shields. All the shields were yellow and bore the
black two-headed eagle of the Hohenstaufens.

Daoud followed Lorenzo into a very large, bare room with a floor of
polished hardwood. Ropes and chains hung from the walls and the beamed
ceiling. Tall windows cut high up in smooth walls--too high to jump
to--let in afternoon sunlight and fresh air that did not quite dispel a
heavy odor of sweat. Opposite the doorway through which they passed was
another and larger entrance, with double doors. The room was not square;
the walls were of differing lengths and set at angles. Daoud recalled
the octagonal shape of Castello Lucera's central tower.

He reviewed the plan of the castle he had committed to memory in El
Kahira. He was sure that behind the double doors was the great royal
audience hall. The wide doorway would allow troops assembled in the Hall
of Mars to march into the audience chamber for a review.

Daoud noticed a group of Muslim guards lounging in one corner. At
Lorenzo's entrance they touched their hands to their turbans in salute.
Lorenzo responded with the same gesture. Scipio carried the trencher in
his mouth to a corner of the room, where he lay down and began pushing
the hard bread around with his forepaws and, working at it with his
formidable teeth, making loud crunching noises.

Celino led Daoud to the center of the room. He turned suddenly on Daoud.

"Now, spy, you will tell me exactly who you are and exactly where you
come from," he said rapidly. "You will tell me the truth, or you will
die here and now."

Daoud came within a breath of answering, then realized Lorenzo had
spoken in Arabic. Relieved laughter bubbled up toward his throat--he had
not been caught. He choked it down and assumed a puzzled expression.

"I do not understand," Daoud said in Italian. "What tongue are you
speaking, Messer Lorenzo?"

"Liar," said Lorenzo, still in Arabic, his eyes narrowing.

"I understand Italian, Greek, and, of course, the speech of Scythia,"
said Daoud. "If you would question me, speak in one of those tongues."
Daoud sensed that the Sicilian's sudden shifts of mood were calculated.
While his mouth uttered accusations, Celino's eyes watched him with a
calm intelligence that reminded Daoud of an emir examining a
fine-looking horse for hidden flaws.

Daoud saw, at the edge of his vision, that the guards who had been
lounging in the corner of the hall were now in motion. He glanced
quickly left and right. Three men, about fifty paces away, were coming
at him, curved swords drawn. The dog, Scipio, had abandoned the trencher
and risen to his feet, and he, too, was advancing on Daoud, fangs bared.

Lorenzo stepped away from Daoud, still pointing at him.

"Spegni! Kill!"

Tension crackled across Daoud's stomach like a lash. Three swords, and a
dog that looked capable of killing a man. None of the weapons he had
hidden on him would do for this. He slung his pack toward the wall
behind him, leaving both hands free.

He half turned, to keep Lorenzo in sight while watching the advancing
men. The Sicilian had a long dagger in a scabbard hung by his right
side, but he did not draw it.

Facing the three swords, Daoud had not yet raised his hands. But his
legs tensed. He bent at the knees, shifted his weight to the balls of
his feet.

He whirled and sprang at Lorenzo. The Sicilian jumped backward, and
Daoud could hear behind him the pounding of booted feet on the wooden
floor. The dog barked furiously.

Daoud grappled with Lorenzo. The Sicilian grabbed his forearms, trying
to hold him at a distance, and his strength was almost a match for
Daoud's. But Daoud twisted his arms free, drove in, and caught Celino's
neck in the bend of his left arm. He swung him around so that the
Sicilian's body was between himself and the three attacking soldiers.
While Lorenzo stumbled, Daoud plucked the man's dagger out of its
scabbard. It had two sharp edges and came to a diamond-bright point.

Scipio leapt at him, but Daoud shifted Lorenzo between himself and the
hound, and Scipio fell back. His enraged barking was deafening, like the
roar of a lion. His fangs were a row of bone spear-points. He danced
right and left, seeking a way to get past Lorenzo to Daoud.

The joy of battle, the weapon in his hand, made Daoud feel the power
coursing through his arms. But that damned dog had to be stopped. His
teeth were as dangerous to Daoud as the curving blades of the three
Muslim soldiers. Those fangs could rip through his boots, tear the
muscles of his legs, and cripple him. He would prefer death.

Releasing Lorenzo's neck, Daoud gripped Lorenzo's wrist and twisted,
hard and fast. Biting his lip, Lorenzo resisted, but he had to turn and
bend, or the pressure on his arm would break it. Daoud laid the edge of
Lorenzo's dagger against his throat.

"Call off your dog or I cut your throat." Daoud glanced over his
shoulder to make sure no one was behind him.

"By all means cut my throat," Lorenzo flung back at him. "And Scipio
will tear _your_ throat out."

"If the dog jumps at me, I will gut him."

"The devil roast your balls," Lorenzo growled. "Scipio, sit!"

The hound stopped barking and stared at Lorenzo.

"Down, Scipio!" Lorenzo said. "He will not hurt me." To Daoud he said,
"If you do hurt me, you will suffer such things that you will beg us to
kill you."

Scipio reluctantly crouched, murder in his brown eyes and a steady, low
growling issuing from his throat. The three Muslim guards were still
moving forward, far more warily.

Daoud felt strong and able now to deal with these four men, but he could
almost feel the weight of the overwhelming trap he was in. The thick
walls. The thousands of soldiers. It was hopeless. He could fight on
only until he died. And that was not what he had come here for at all.

Daoud stepped back toward the farther doorway, pulling Lorenzo with him.
He glanced over his shoulder to be sure no one was behind him.

"For my part," said Daoud, "I will hurt you till you beg _them_ to put
down their swords. I will start by breaking your arm." He gave the
twisted arm a vicious upward push till he could almost feel the agony of
the tendons. Lorenzo grunted, and Scipio barked angrily. Most men, Daoud
thought, would have screamed aloud at that.

"No matter what you do to me, it will not help you," said Lorenzo.

Three more turbaned Muslim soldiers joined those coming at Daoud. They
spread out in a wide circle, some of them trying to slip around to his
rear.

"Stand where you are, or I'll kill him," Daoud shouted. To show he meant
it, he pressed the knife edge hard against Celino's throat and sliced
with it just enough to draw blood.

"I hope you will enjoy the taste of your own intestines," Lorenzo said.
He dug his boot heels into the wooden floor, trying to slow down Daoud's
effort to drag him to the door. Daoud pushed up harder on his arm to
make him move faster.

Daoud felt no fear of death, and he would not let them take him prisoner
to torture him. He would die fighting. And go straight to paradise.

But how foolish all this was. A waste of his own life and the lives he
would take with him. And many of those he would kill were Muslims, like
himself.

"You must know that you will be the first to die here," he said. "And
believe me I will take many of your men with me. I may even manage to
kill your precious dog. I did not come here to fight with King Manfred's
men. Why are you doing this?"

Celino, who had been struggling against Daoud, now relaxed and turned
his head. "You are too dangerous to live."

"Dangerous to whom?"

"To me," said a deep voice behind Daoud.




III


Daoud turned, dragging Celino. A blond man stood, hands on hips, eyeing
him with a faint smile. One of the big doors leading into the royal
audience chamber was slightly ajar. Daoud was angry at himself for
letting someone slip up behind him unnoticed.

"Sire, get back!" Lorenzo shouted.

_Sire._ Daoud knew at once who this was. The same height as Lorenzo, as
Daoud now saw, the man had the very broad shoulders Christian knights
developed from wielding their huge two-handed swords. Daoud guessed his
age at a little over thirty. His hair, so blond it was almost silver,
hung in soft waves below his ears, curling at the ends. His silver-blond
mustache was carefully trimmed. His eyelids crinkled with amusement. He
wore a tunic of lime-colored silk under a short forest-green cloak
trimmed with white fur. His hose and boots were also shades of green.
From a chain around his neck hung a five-pointed silver star with a
spherical ruby in its center. In every point he fit the description
Daoud had been given.

The despair Daoud had been feeling a moment before gave way to a
profound relief. It had seemed that everything stood in the way of his
meeting this man, and now at last they were face-to-face.

"Sire," Daoud said in Italian, "I know who you are, and you must know
who I am."

"I do indeed," said Manfred von Hohenstaufen, still smiling. "Please
release Messer Lorenzo."

Daoud hesitated only a moment. But if Manfred allowed Lorenzo to hurt
him now, the mission was a failure anyway. Tensed for attack, he let go
of Lorenzo, who sprang away.

In an instant the Sicilian had taken a curving Islamic sword from a
soldier.

"Sire, at least move back from him," Lorenzo said. "You know what we are
dealing with here."

"Quiet, Lorenzo," snapped Manfred. "What we are dealing with is a
peddler from some misty land beyond the Black Sea who happens to be
infernally nimble. That is all."

Daoud was pleased to hear Manfred go along with his disguise. He relaxed
a bit and eyed the king of southern Italy and Sicily. A splendid-looking
man with a charm that Daoud felt after only a moment's acquaintance.

"Will the peddler be so kind as to return my dagger?" Lorenzo asked with
heavy irony. "This side of the Black Sea it is considered discourteous
to stand in the king's presence holding a naked weapon."

"Of course," said Daoud, holding the dagger by its guard and handing it
hilt-first to Lorenzo, who in turn gave the Saracen soldier back his
sword.

Daoud was glad he had not had to kill Lorenzo. The Sicilian, like his
master, Manfred, was clearly a man above the common run. His behavior
toward Daoud so far had been a series of clever pretenses. Indeed, Daoud
was sure he had not gotten to the bottom of Lorenzo yet.

"I thank you for entertaining us with this display of your fighting
skills, Messer David," said King Manfred. "Now let us talk of the silk
trade. Join us, Lorenzo."

Manfred led the way into the audience chamber beyond the Hall of Mars.
Walking beside Daoud, Celino snapped his fingers at Scipio. The big gray
hound rose and followed, casting a hostile look at Daoud.

_Why did they try to kill me?_

In the audience hall, marble pillars supported a vaulted ceiling pierced
by circular glazed windows. A dozen or more men and women stood around,
staring at Daoud. His glance quickly took in the feathered caps of the
men, the pale rose and violet gowns of the women, and the gilded nets
that held their hair.

He tried not to stare at the women, whose faces were bare in the manner
of unbelievers. But they were all, he noted, beautiful in varying
degrees. Several had striking blond hair and blue eyes. Though it was
his own coloring, he was not used to seeing fair women, and his
heartbeat quickened.

But the gaze of a darker woman met his. Her amber-colored eyes seemed to
burn. Her nose was small, the nostrils flaring, her lips full and dark
red. The face was carefully without expression, revealing as little as
if it were indeed covered with a veil.

The dark woman's black hair was coiled on top of her head in braids
intertwined with ropes of pearls. Her scarlet gown was decorated with
long strips of satin embroidered in floral designs. Over her narrow
shoulders she wore a shawl of flame-colored silk. Having been to
Constantinople, Daoud recognized her style of dress as Byzantine. She
made the other women of Manfred's court look like barbarians.

She held his gaze steadily. He bowed his head courteously, and she
responded with a faint nod. Then he was past her.

Standing on a dais at the end of the hall was a large chair of black
wood with painted panels; to the left of the dais sat a small group of
purple-robed men holding string and wind instruments. On the right was a
small doorway. A servant leapt to fling open the door for Manfred, who
strode briskly toward it, tossing pleasantries to his courtiers.

The door led through a series of rooms where clerks wrote busily, and
Daoud noticed with surprise that they went right on scribbling as their
king walked through. Obviously Manfred preferred their work to their
homage.

Daoud sensed that their path was taking them on a circuit of the great
eight-sided structure. They passed through a small kitchen where bakers
were preparing fruit pastries. Manfred plucked a freshly baked cherry
tart from a tray, bit into it, and nodded to the bowing cook.

To his surprise, Daoud noticed a small figure in one corner, the little
bent man who had earlier looked on him with pity. The dwarf lay curled
up on his side with closed eyes on his empty firewood cart. Not a bad
occupation, Daoud thought, supplying firewood to the king's pastry
kitchen.

Beyond the kitchen the three men entered another great hall, so brightly
lit that Daoud's eyes hurt for a moment. The afternoon sun streamed
through arched windows of white glass set, as in the Hall of Mars, high
in the walls. The walls were lined with shelves loaded with books and
compartments filled with scrolls. Walkways at three levels ran around
the walls, and ladders were spaced along them. Men in long gray tunics
browsed at the shelves or sat at tables in the center of the room
reading books and scrolls and making notes on parchment.

A servant opened a wrought-iron grill in the shortest wall of the
library, and the three men stepped out under the sky into an octagonal
space filled with trees and plants, enclosed on all sides by a
colonnaded gallery. In the center of the garden a small fountain played,
topped by a small bronze statue of a naked woman straddling a dolphin,
the water spurting from the dolphin's mouth. Daoud was momentarily
shocked. The most powerful and corrupt emir in Egypt would not dare to
have such a statue where strangers might see it.

Manfred beckoned, and Daoud followed him down a pebble path to the basin
of the fountain. Small dark green fish flickered through the water. The
king seated himself on a marble bench, and the two men stood before him.
At a gesture from Lorenzo, Scipio lay down in the sun beside a bush
bearing dozens of dark-red roses.

The sun gleamed on Manfred's pale hair. "What does your sultan want of
me?" he asked.

"I am ordered to speak openly only to you and your secretary Aziz," said
Daoud, his glance shifting to Lorenzo.

"Ah, you did not know, then, that Aziz is the name Lorenzo Celino uses
when he writes to the Sultan of Cairo for me?"

Lorenzo Celino--Aziz? Daoud turned to Celino and laughed with delighted
surprise.

"You write excellent Arabic. I would never have guessed that you were
not one of us."

Lorenzo accepted Daoud's compliment with a small bow.

"One of _us_?" said Manfred. "And what are you, then, Messere? I see
before me a strapping man, blond enough to be one of my Swabian knights,
yet who claims to come from the Sultan of Cairo. You are no Arab or
Turk."

"Indeed not, Sire," said Daoud. "I am a Mameluke."

"A blond Mameluke." Manfred nodded. "Where are you from, then, Russia or
Circassia?"

Without emotion Daoud told the king of his descent from crusaders and
his capture by the Muslims.

"What a strange world this is," said Manfred. "And when did this happen
to you?"

"Twenty years ago, Sire. For most of those years I have served my lord
Baibars al-Bunduqdari, who is now Sultan of Cairo."

"And you are a Muslim?"

"Of course, Sire."

Manfred stood up and came close to him. "Of course? You say that so
firmly. Do you not remember the Christian teachings of your childhood?"

The question made Daoud angry. _My soul is undivided. King or not, how
dare this infidel question that!_

"God willed that I find the truth, Sire," he said simply.

Manfred shrugged. "It is all the same to me. I have lived among Muslims
all my life."

"May I know, Sire, why your secretary, to whom my master sent me in good
faith, tried to kill me?" Daoud asked.

Manfred turned his back on Daoud and strolled a short distance down the
pebble path. "Lorenzo is neither my secretary nor does he normally
command my gate guards. He performs for me _unusual_ tasks that require
a man of uncommon courage, loyalty, and wit. Such as testing you--first,
by taking you prisoner, then by giving you pork and wine and speaking to
you in Arabic, finally by trying to kill you."

"But I might have killed him."

"I did not realize how much of a risk I was taking," said Lorenzo.

"We did not think Baibars could find anywhere in his empire a man who
could go to the papal court undetected. We hoped to show him his error
and send you back. But you are quite a remarkable man, David."

_Show Baibars his error!_ Manfred might be a brilliant man, but he
evidently underestimated Baibars. Daoud sensed himself feeling a bit
superior and warned himself not to make the same mistake and
underestimate Manfred.

"Perhaps now that you have tested my ability, Sire, you might be more
inclined to help me."

"Help you to do what?" There was a note of irritation in Manfred's
voice. "Your Sultan Baibars has asked me only to help you carry out a
mission in the Papal States. What is your mission?"

Daoud said, "Sire, my master chose not to entrust his plan to writing,
but sent me to tell it to you instead. I am here for one purpose, to
prevent the forming of an alliance between Christians and Tartars."

Manfred looked surprised, and stared intently at Daoud. "Tartars? Those
barbarians who invaded Europe--how long ago, Lorenzo?"

Lorenzo frowned. "Over twenty years, Sire."

Daoud said, "Fifty years ago they were nothing. A scattering of
herdsmen, like the Bedouin. Now they are the most powerful people on
earth."

Manfred nodded. "Yes, I remember now. When they rode into Poland and
Hungary I was just a boy. Everyone was in terror of them. Their emperor
sent letters to all the monarchs of Europe demanding that they
surrender. He contemptuously offered them positions in his court." He
grinned at Daoud. "My father showed me the letter he was sending back.
If Tartar emperor succeeded in conquering Europe, my father said, he
would be well qualified to serve as his falconer."

Daoud inclined his head. "Your family's love of falconry is well known
to your admirers in the lands of Islam. My lord the sultan considers you
an old friend and hopes that you will see fit to help him in his time of
need."

Manfred held out his hands, palms up. "If I can."

"Now the Tartars have fallen upon the lands of Islam," Daoud said. "They
have conquered Persia. They have a hundred thousand mounted warriors in
the field, and allies and auxiliaries. They have leveled our holy city
of Baghdad, destroyed it utterly, and killed every man, woman, and child
who lived there, even the Commander of the Faithful, our caliph himself.
These are no fanciful tales, Sire. I have fought against the Tartars. I
have seen with my own eyes the ashes of Baghdad and the heaps of its
dead."

The scene of desolation arose in his mind as it had so many times
before, the gray plain where a city had been, the unbelievable sight of
a landscape strewn with rotting, headless corpses as far as the eye
could see. To put it out of his mind, he hurried on with what he had to
say.

"Now their armies advance through Syria, threatening the realm of my
lord, the Sultan of Cairo. We have had word that Hulagu Khan, commander
of the Tartar armies in Persia, has sent two high-ranking emissaries to
the pope. They are sailing across the Middle Sea now, from the island of
Cyprus to Venice. Hulagu Khan wants to form an alliance with the
Christian rulers of Europe to attack us from both directions at once,
east and west. Our whole people, our whole Muslim faith, could be
utterly wiped out."

Manfred nodded grimly. "And all of Christian Europe would rejoice at
your destruction. Not I, certainly, but the rest of them. What do you
propose to do about these Tartar emissaries to the pope?"

"For that I will need your help, Sire. I, too, will go to the pope's
court. I understand that he resides at Orvieto, a small town north of
Rome."

"Yes," Lorenzo put in, "and there he will stay. He has not set foot in
Rome since he galloped in to be crowned at Saint Peter's and galloped
out again. He is terrified of the Roman mob. As well he should be, since
most of their leaders are in our pay."

"Trade secrets, Celino," said Manfred, raising a cautioning finger. "So,
you will go to Orvieto. And then?"

"I will present myself at the pope's court as I have here, as David, a
merchant of Trebizond. I will take up residence with--friends--who can
help me reach the ears of men of influence. I will spread stories
throughout Orvieto--true stories--of the horrors the Tartars have
perpetrated everywhere they have gone, of their determination to conquer
the entire world."

Manfred shook his head. "What you plan to do is very dangerous. You've
proven to us that you are a skilled and resourceful man, but still, what
if you are discovered?" He shook his head. "Have you any idea of how
your people are _hated_ in Europe, David? If it were known that I helped
a Muslim spy to steal into the court of the pope, all the kingdoms of
Christendom would turn against me. The pope need but snap his fingers
and I and my little realm would be swept away. No, David. You ask me to
risk too much."

Daoud was momentarily surprised, then angry. He had expected that
Manfred would cooperate with him. If the young king vacillated, Daoud
might have journeyed from Egypt to Italy for nothing.

And then a ripple of fear crept up his spine. If he failed to persuade
Manfred, the Tartars might destroy the world he had come to love and
believe in.

_God, help me to stop them. I must not go back to El Kahira a failure._

He must choose his words with care. He was dealing here with a king, and
one did not argue with kings. Better to ask questions than offer
arguments.

"Does not the pope wish even now to take your throne from you, Sire?" he
said. "How can matters between you and him be any worse?"

Manfred nodded. "True, Pope Urban keeps offering my crown to this prince
and that, claiming that I had no right to inherit it from my father. And
that he had no right to have it in the first place." Manfred bit his
lip, and the light pink of his cheeks reddened. "But only the French are
powerful enough to take it from me. And King Louis of France is kindly
disposed to me and will not permit any of his great barons to make war
on me. I rely on Louis's continued goodwill."

"But the man who wants to join with the Tartars to annihilate Islam is
that same King Louis of France," Daoud said. "France, as you said, is
the only kingdom with the power to help the pope dethrone you. Should
the pope decide against allying with the Tartars, King Louis will
continue to prohibit his subjects from joining the pope's war against
you. Help me, and you come between King Louis and the pope."

"Intrigue requires gold," said Manfred. "Does your master expect me to
pay for your activities?"

"What I have brought with me will pay for all," Daoud replied. He
unbuckled his belt and undid the laces that held his hose tight around
his waist. Celino moved closer, tense, ready in case Daoud should reach
for a weapon. Daoud slipped his fingers into the breeches he wore under
his hose and found the bag tied to the drawstring.

"What is the man doing?" said Manfred with a wondering smile. Celino
shook his head.

Daoud pulled out a bag of heavy red silk, full and round with what it
held. He felt a childlike delight in mystifying the two men.

"Pay me from your royal treasury what this is worth," said Daoud, "and I
shall have gold enough for all I need to do." He pulled apart the mouth
of the silk bag and drew out of it a globe of green fire. He held it out
to Manfred. Celino gasped.

Daoud was gratified at their wonderment.

"Are you not afraid I will steal this from you and dump you in an
unmarked grave?" said Manfred with a bright grin.

"The Hohenstaufen family have been friends of the sultans of Egypt since
your father's day," said Daoud. "We have learned to trust you."

"Just listen to that, Lorenzo," said Manfred. "The Saracens think better
of me than the pope does."

Besides, Daoud thought, Manfred knew that Baibars's arm was long.
Manfred, Daoud was sure, knew that Baibars would not permit anyone, even
a distant head of state, to betray him so flagrantly.

His eyes wide, Manfred extended his palm, and Daoud unhesitatingly
placed the emerald in it. Manfred raised it close to his face, peering
through the dark depths into its glowing heart. The jewel, irregular in
shape but nearly spherical, reflected little spots of pale green light
on his cheeks. He shook his head.

"Green, the color I love best in all the world. The color of hope." He
encircled it with thumb and forefinger. "Look, Lorenzo, I cannot get my
fingers around it. I am amazed that your master is willing to part with
such a wonder. How did he come by it?"

"It has been through many hands, Sire," said Daoud. "It once belonged to
Emir Fakr ad-Din, who commanded the army of Egypt when King Louis
invaded our land."

"To think Baibars let you take this emerald from him, and you came all
this way from Alexandria with it and delivered it to me. And Baibars
trusted you."

"As he trusts you, Sire," Daoud put in quickly.

"_You_ are like a falcon, are you not?" said Manfred, smiling into
Daoud's eyes. "Released to fly far afield for your sultan."

Manfred strode to Daoud suddenly and clapped him on the shoulder. "Let
it be done as your master wishes, then. The trader from Trebizond will
go to Orvieto with my help."

A surge of joy sprang up within Daoud and almost burst past his lips. He
bowed, his heart pounding.

_God be thanked!_

Manfred said, "We must see about turning this jewel of yours into gold
coins. Or smaller jewels. They would be easier to carry than gold."
Manfred looked lovingly at the emerald again, then carefully dropped it
into his belt pouch and smiled at Daoud.

"You should not go alone into the Papal States, David. You may have
studied Europe from afar, but you do not know Italy firsthand. Lorenzo
here shall go with you. I trust Lorenzo to travel far and secretly in my
service, even as your master trusts you."

Celino sighed. Daoud and Celino eyed each other.

Daoud began searching for ways to dissuade Manfred. A short while
earlier he and Celino had been trying to kill each other. And Celino
would be putting Manfred's interests first, not those of Islam.

Obviously aware of his hesitation, Manfred took his arm. "Listen to me,
Mameluke. You will be wise to accept every bit of help that is offered
to you. I have powerful allies in northern Italy, in Florence, Pisa,
Siena, and other cities. But you do not know them and they do not know
you. Lorenzo speaks for me. He knows who the key Ghibellini are in the
north, and they know him. Do not object to taking him with you."

Manfred would not let him go, Daoud realized, unless Celino went with
him. And the argument that Celino could put him in touch with the
Ghibellini of the north was a strong one.

_Lorenzo is perhaps twenty years older than I, but he is quick-witted
and quick on his feet. And, yes, I would rather not go alone. I could
easily make a mistake from ignorance. I am better off with a man like
this to guide me._

A tentative smile played under Celino's grizzled mustache. "My royal
master is determined in this. What do you say?"

Daoud bowed. "I accept. With gratitude. We shall travel this road
together."

"Whatever happens to the two of you," Manfred said, "no one must ever
know that I am involved."

"I guarantee that, Sire," said Celino.

Manfred rubbed the palms of his hands together. "There is one other
person I propose to send with you. She can be a great help to you."

Celino turned quickly to Manfred. "I do not advise it, Sire."

"Why not?" said Manfred. "She will be perfect."

"Because she will not want to go." There was censure in Celino's dark
stare--and a boyish defiance in Manfred's answering look.

"Do not question me," said Manfred. "I have no choice. For her good and
for my own, she must leave here. And she _will_ be useful to you."

Instead of replying, Celino only sighed again.

"A woman?" Daoud was thunderstruck. In El Kahira women left their homes
only to visit other women. He felt anxiety claw at his belly. Any
mistake in planning might wreck the mission and doom him, and Celino, to
a horrible death. And to send a woman to the court of the pope on such a
venture seemed not just a mistake, but utter madness.

"A very beautiful woman," said Manfred, a grin stretching his blond
mustache. "One who has had a lifetime's schooling in intrigue. She is
from Constantinople, and her name is Sophia, which means wisdom in
Greek."

_There are no more treacherous people on this earth than the
Byzantines_, Daoud thought, _and they have ever been enemies of Islam_.

Argument surged up in him, but he saw a hardness in Manfred's eyes that
told him nothing he might say would sway the king. He looked at Celino,
and saw in the dark, mustached face the same reluctant acceptance he had
heard in the sigh.

Whoever this Sophia might be, he would have to take her with him.




IV


Sophia pressed her head back against the pillow and screamed with
pleasure. Her loins dissolved into rippling liquid gold. Her fingers dug
into the man's back and her legs clenched around his hips, trying to
crush him against her.

"Oh--oh--oh--" she moaned. The warmth spread to her toes, her
fingertips, her scalp, filling her with joy. She was so happy that she
wanted to cry.

As the blaze of ekstasia died down, she felt Manfred driving deep inside
her. She felt his hardness, his separateness, as she could not feel it a
moment ago when she was at her peak and they seemed to melt together,
one being.

His rhythm was insistent, inexorable, like a heartbeat. His hands under
her back were tense. He was fighting for his climax.

She delighted in the sight of his massive shoulders overshadowing her.
It was almost like being loved by a god.

Manfred's face was pressed against her shoulder, his open mouth on her
collarbone. She turned toward him and saw the light in his white-gold
hair. She slid one hand up to his hair and stroked it, while with the
other she rubbed his back in a circular motion.

She felt the muscles in his body tighten against her. He drew in a
shuddering breath.

"Yes--yes--good," she whispered, still stroking his hair, still
caressing his back.

He relaxed, panting heavily.

_He never makes much noise. Nothing like my outcries._

They lay without moving, she pleased by the warm weight of him lying
upon her, as if it protected her from floating away. The feel of him
still inside her sent wavelets of pleasure through her.

Still adrift on sensations of delight, she opened her eyes to stare up
into the shadows of the canopy overhead. On the heavy bed curtains to
her left, the late afternoon sun cast an oblong of yellow light with a
pointed arch at the top, the shape of an open window nearby. She knew
well the play of light in this unoccupied bedchamber in an upper part of
the castle. Manfred and she had met here many times.

They rolled together so that they lay side by side in a nest of red and
purple cushions. The down-filled silk bolster under them whispered as
they shifted their weight, and the rope netting that held it creaked.
Manfred propped his head up with one arm. His free hand toyed with the
ringlets of her unbound hair. She slid her palm over his chest.

She remembered an ancient sculpture she had seen in a home outside
Athens. The torso of a man, head missing, arms broken off at the
shoulders, legs gone below the knees, the magnificent body had survived
barbarian invasions, the coming of Christianity, the iconoclasts, the
Frankish conquest, to stand now on a plain pedestal in a room with
purple walls, the yellowish marble gleaming in the light of many
candles. Her host showed it only to his most trusted guests.

"Which god is this?" she had asked.

"I think it is just an athlete," said her host. "The old Greeks made
gods of their athletes."

Manfred's naked torso, pale as marble, seemed as beautiful. And was
alive.

She sighed happily. "How lucky I am that there was time for love in my
king's life this afternoon." She spoke in the Sicilian dialect,
Manfred's favorite of all his languages.

How lucky, she thought, that after all her years of wandering she had at
last found a place in the world where she was loved and needed.

His lips stretched in a smile, but his blue eyes were empty. Uneasiness
took hold of her. She sensed from the look on his face that he was about
to tell her something she did not want to hear.

       *       *       *       *       *

In memory she heard a voice say, _Italy was ours not so long ago and
might be ours again_. So Michael Paleologos, the Basileus, Emperor of
Constantinople, had introduced the suggestion that she go to Italy, and
at just such a moment as this, when they were in bed together in his
hunting lodge outside Nicaea.

She had felt no distress at the idea of being parted from Michael. He
was a scrawny man with a long gray beard, and though she counted herself
enormously lucky to have attracted his attention, she felt no love for
him.

She had come to Lucera acting as Michael's agent and personal emissary
to Manfred--and resenting Michael's use of her but feeling she had no
choice. She was a present from one monarch to another. She ought to be
flattered, she supposed.

She had walked into Manfred's court in the embroidered jeweled mantle
Michael had given her, her hair bound up in silver netting. Lorenzo
Celino had conducted her to the throne, and she bowed and looked up. And
it was like gazing upon the sun.

Manfred von Hohenstaufen's smile was brilliant, his hair white-gold, his
eyes sapphires.

He stepped down from his throne, took her hand, and led her to his
eight-sided garden. First she gave him Michael's messages--news that a
Tartar army had stormed the crusader city of Sidon, leveled it, and
ridden off again--a warning that Pope Urban had secretly offered the
crown of Naples and Sicily, Manfred's crown, to Prince Edward, heir
apparent to the throne of England.

"Your royal master is kind, but the pope's secret is no secret," Manfred
had said, laughing and unconcerned. "The nobility of England have flatly
told Prince Edward that they will supply neither money nor men for an
adventure in Italy. The pope must find another robber baron to steal my
crown." And then he asked her about herself, and they talked about her
and about him.

She had thought all westerners were savages, but Manfred amazed her with
his cultivation. He knew more than many Byzantines, for whom
Constantinople--which they always called "the Polis," the City, as if it
were the only one--was the whole world. In the short time she and
Manfred strolled together that day, he spoke to her in Greek, Latin, and
Italian, and she later found out that he knew French, German, and Arabic
as well.

He sang a song to her in a tongue she did not recognize, and he told her
it was Provençal, the language of the troubadours.

He undid the clasp of her mantle and let it fall to the gravel. He
kissed her in the bright sunlight, and she forgot Michael Paleologos.
She belonged altogether to Manfred von Hohenstaufen.

       *       *       *       *       *

Now, with a chill, she remembered that she did indeed _belong_ to
Manfred. She was not his mate but his servant.

His fingertips stroked her nipple lightly, but she ignored the tingle of
pleasure. She waited for him to say what he had to say.

He said, "Remember the fair-haired Muslim who came to the court today?"

"The man from Egypt? You had him killed?"

"I changed my mind," Manfred said.

She felt relief. She was surprised at herself. She had wanted the man to
live. She remembered her astonishment when, with a gesture like a
performing magician's, Manfred threw open the doors of his audience hall
and the entire court saw the blond man with his dagger at Celino's
throat.

She had been surprised when Manfred told her that this man, dressed in a
drab tunic and hose like a less-than-prosperous Italian merchant, was
the awaited Saracen from the Sultan of Egypt.

The sight of him as he passed through the audience hall had left her
momentarily breathless. He looked like one of those blond men of western
Europe the people of Constantinople called Franks and had learned to
hate at sight. His hair was not as light as Manfred's; it was darker,
more the color of brass than of gold. Manfred's lips were full and red,
but this man's mouth was a down-curving line, the mouth of a man who had
endured cruelty without complaint and could himself be cruel. She
wondered what he had seen and done.

As he had passed her, his eyes caught hers. Strange eyes, she could not
tell what color they were. There was a fixity in them akin to madness.
The face was expressionless, rocklike. This, she was sure, was no
ordinary man, to be disposed of as an inconvenience. She was not
surprised Manfred had decided to let him live.

"Why did you change your mind?"

"I think this Mameluke can help me," Manfred said. "Therefore I am going
to help him. He is going to Orvieto on a mission for his sultan. I am
sending Lorenzo with him."

"What did you call him?"

"A Mameluke. A slave warrior. The Turks who rule in Muslim lands take
very young boys as slaves and raise them in barracks to be soldiers.
They forget their parents and are trained with the utmost rigor. They
are said to be the finest warriors in the world."

_What does a life like that do to a man? It must either destroy him or
make him invincible._

"The man looks like a Frank," she said.

"He comes of English stock," said Manfred. "You Byzantines lump all of
us together, English and French and Germans, as Franks, do you not? So
you can call him a Frank if you like. But whatever he looks like, he is
a Turk at heart. I've learned that from talking to him. It's really
quite amazing."

They were plunged into deep shadow as the arched golden shape on the bed
curtain disappeared, a cloud having passed over the sun. Despite the
summer's heat she felt cold, and even though she did not trust Manfred
she reached for him, wanting him close.

But Manfred drew away from her, preoccupied. She pulled a crimson
cushion from behind him and hugged it against her breasts.

_How alone the Mameluke must feel. Even here, where Muslims are
tolerated, they have tried to kill him. And when he is in the pope's
territory, every man will be his enemy._

She remembered the harsh face with its prominent cheekbones and gray
eyes and thought, Perhaps being alone holds no terror for him.

_After all, I am alone, and I have made the best of it._

"What is his mission in Orvieto?" she asked.

She listened intently as Manfred told her a tale of trying to prevent
the great powers of East and West from joining together to crush Islam
between them.

Manfred continued, "David hopes to influence the pope's counselors to
turn against the Tartars, that they may sway the pope himself."

"How can one man attempt such a huge undertaking?"

"He brought me an exceedingly valuable stone, an emerald, which I will
trade for jewels he can carry to Orvieto and exchange for coins. It
pleases me greatly that the sultan would entrust me with such a gem.
That helped to change my mind about this David. The Saracens are men of
honor in their way." He smiled at her, looking pleased with the
situation and pleased with himself. But she was quiet, unmoving, waiting
for him to say the thing she feared to hear.

"But you are right," Manfred went on. "He cannot do it alone."

Warm yellow light once more filled their curtained cubicle. The cloud
had passed away from the sun. But her heart froze.

"I have decided I must entrust my own most precious jewel to David." He
put his hand on hers.

_Oh, no!_ she thought, anguish tearing at her heart as his words
confirmed her guess. She felt a terrible pain, as if he had run her
through with a spear. She wanted to clutch at him, hold him in spite of
himself. She had not felt so lost since her mother and father and the
boy she loved were killed by the Franks.

She studied his face to memorize it, because soon she would leave him
and probably never see him again. It would do her no good to let him see
how she felt. She must decide what face to show him.

_I am a woman of Constantinople, alone in a country of strangers. And we
are an ancient people, wise and subtle, and we bide our time._

She sat up in the bed, hugging her knees, thinking.

"How will my going with him help you?"

He grunted softly, and she looked at him. He appeared relieved. She was
making it easy for him. She felt the beginning of dislike for him
stirring within her.

"I thought you would be perfect for this. And you are."

His words puzzled her, and she almost let her growing anger show. "I do
not see what you see, Sire."

"We are in bed. You may call me Manfred."

_But I do not want to call you Manfred._

"What is it you think I would be so good at?"

"You can mask your feelings," he said with a smile. "You are doing it
now. You are very good at it."

"Thank you, Sire."

He shook his head, sat up beside her, and put an arm around her
shoulders. "I meant it when I said you are precious to me. But you must
go with this man. I cannot tell you all my reasons, but it is for your
own safety as well."

No doubt he was being honest with her, though he was not telling her
everything. Just the other day one of Manfred's servants, whom she had
cultivated with gifts, warned her that Manfred's queen, Helene of
Cyprus, was demanding that Manfred break with Sophia. Of course, Manfred
would never be willing to admit that his wife could force him to do such
a thing.

She wanted to get off by herself and think this out, and cry, let tears
release some of the pain she felt. This curtained bed confined her like
a dungeon cell. She found her white shift amid the rumpled bedclothes.
Getting up on her knees, she raised the shift over her head and
struggled into it.

"Where are you going?" Manfred asked.

She crawled around the bed to look for her gown and her belt. "I have
arrangements to make. Packing to do."

"I have not dismissed you," he said a bit sullenly.

"Yes, you have," she said, deliberately making her voice so low that it
would be hard for him to hear.

"You have not heard everything." He took her arm. She wanted to pull
away, but she let him hold her.

"I need your help," he went on. "You see, if David fails, in a year or
two I may be dead."

He let go of her. She picked up the blue gown she had so eagerly thrown
off an hour ago. Her fingers crushed the silk. She wanted to be alone,
but she needed to learn more. She paused, kneeling beside him.

"God forbid, Sire! Why should you be dead?"

"This time the pope is offering my crown to the French."

Sitting down, laying the gown in her lap, she sighed and turned all her
attention to him.

"Why can you not make peace with the pope? Why is he so determined to
dethrone you?"

"Like all storied feuds, it goes back so far that no one can remember
what started it," said Manfred, smiling with his lips but not his eyes.
"At present the pope refuses to recognize me because my father promised
to give up the crown of Sicily."

He paused a moment, and fixed her with a strangely intent stare. "And
because my father did not marry my mother. Even though he loved her
only, and never loved any of his three empresses."

_He is trying to tell me something_, Sophia thought.

But before she could reply, he went on with his tale of the
Hohenstaufens and the popes. "As the popes see it, to have a
Hohenstaufen ruling southern Italy and Sicily is like having a knife at
their throats. This pope, Urban, is a Frenchman, and he is trying to get
the French to help him drive us out."

The French. It was the French who, over fifty years ago, had stormed
Constantinople, looted it, and ruled over it until driven out by Michael
Paleologos.

And now the French threatened Manfred.

From his island of Sicily, how easy to launch another invasion of
Constantinople.

In memory she saw Alexis, the boy she loved, fall as the French crossbow
bolt hit him. She heard him cry out to her.

_Go, Sophia, go!_

_Why was I saved that night if not that I might help to stop the French
from conquering Constantinople again?_

"I cannot send an army to Orvieto to stop the pope's intrigues against
me," Manfred said. "That would turn all Christendom against me. But I
can send my two best people, my brave and clever Lorenzo and my
beautiful and clever Sophia. Together with David, you two perhaps can
turn my enemies against each other. You may be gone six months or a
year. And afterward you can come back."

He did not take his eyes from hers as he said it, but there was a
flickering in their depths that told her he was not being honest with
her.

"When will I meet this--Mameluke?"

"Tomorrow we go falconing. The forest is a good place to talk freely."
He paused and grinned at her. "But do not dress just yet. This may be my
last chance to enjoy your lovely body."

She looked away. She felt no desire for him. She was sick of being
enjoyed.

"Forgive me, Sire, I have much to do," she said. Before he could object,
she had slipped through the curtains around the bed and was pulling her
blue gown over her head. She had left half her clothes behind with
Manfred, but that did not matter. Her own quarters were near, and later
she could send a servant for her things.

As she hurried out the door, she pretended not to hear Manfred's angry
cry, muffled by the bed's thick curtains.

       *       *       *       *       *

Sophia wrapped in white linen the satin mantle in which she had been
presented at Manfred's court. She laid it in her traveling chest, then
brought her jewel box from the table on which it had stood since she'd
arrived here, and laid it on the mantle.

Manfred would gladly have ordered servants to do this packing for her,
but it was easier to preserve her privacy when she did for herself.

She looked down at the polished ebony box with the double-headed eagle
of Constantinople in mother-of-pearl inlay. A gift from the Basileus
when he sent her to Sicily. The eagle of Constantinople, tradition said,
was the inspiration for the two-headed Hohenstaufen eagle.

She folded a green woolen tunic and laid it over the jewel box. As she
stood with her hands pressed on the tunic, sorrow welled up within her.

_Was there ever a woman more alone in the world than I am?_

In one night made hideous by the flames of the burning city and the
screams of the dying, she had lost her father, Demetrios Karaiannides,
the silversmith, and her mother, Danuta, and her two sisters, Euphemia
and Eirene. The people of the Polis had risen against the Franks, and
the Franks had retaliated by killing everyone they could lay hands upon.

The boy she was going to marry, the boy she loved, had fled with her to
the Marmara waterfront. There they found a small boat, and then the
crossbow bolt had torn through his back. Dying, he cast her adrift.

_Go, Sophia, go!_

From then on she was alone.

_What am I? What is a woman alone?_

Not a queen or an empress, not a wife or a mother, not a daughter, not a
nun. Not mistress, now that Michael and Manfred had each sent her away.
Not courtesan or even harlot.

Crossing the Bosporus to Asia Minor, she had survived. She did not care
to remember the means by which she survived. Of all of them, the least
dishonorable was theft.

She let herself be used, and she could be very useful. She found her way
to the Byzantine general Michael Paleologos, who wanted to take
Constantinople back from the Franks.

Her help had been important to Michael, and he had rewarded her after he
reconquered the Polis and made himself its Basileus by keeping her as
his favorite for a time. And she had rejoiced to see Constantinople
liberated from the barbarians, even though no one she loved was left
alive in it.

Then Michael had made her leave the one place she loved, sending her to
Manfred in Italy.

And now, just when she had begun to lose the feeling of not belonging
anywhere, just when she felt she had found safe harbor with Manfred, she
was cut loose again.

She felt the tears coming, and fought them. She turned her mind away
from the questions that plagued her and thought about her packing.

_Saint Simon should go into the chest next._

In the center, where clothing above and below would protect him.

She went to the table by the window, where the small icon stood between
two candles in tall brass candlesticks. She picked up the saint and
reverently kissed his forehead, then held the icon out at arm's length
to look at it. The eyes dominated the portrait, transfixing her with a
blue stare.

She had painted it herself a few years before, copying another, larger
icon that belonged to the Basileus Michael. Simon's cheeks were hollow,
his mouth a tight line, his chin sharp. His hair hung brown and lank to
his shoulders, framing his face.

She had used real gold dust in the paint for the halo. Michael was
generous to her, and he laughed when she told him that she spent some of
the money he gave her on expensive paint for an icon. The idea of a
woman who painted amused him, like the bear that danced in the
Hippodrome.

Beyond the gold of the halo was the ocher of the desert and, standing
lonely over the saint's right shoulder, the pillar on which he had lived
in penance for fifteen years, the pillar that had given him his
name--Simon Stylites.

_Why do I reverence this saint? Because he knew how to endure alone, and
that is what is most important._

_Rest well, dear saint_, she prayed as she lowered the icon into the
cedar chest. She closed the gilded wooden doors that protected the
painting, breaking the grip of Simon's staring blue eyes.

She next opened a small box of dark, polished wood, its lid inlaid with
bits of mother-of-pearl forming a bird with swirling wings. A dozen
small porcelain jars lay in velvet-lined recesses shaped to hold them.
Each jar was ornamented with the same floral pattern in a different
color, each color that of the powdered pigment the tightly corked jar
contained. Take a pinch of the powder, add water and the clear liquid
from a raw egg, and you had a jewel-bright paint. Wrapped in linen at
one end of the box were her quill pens, brushes, and charcoal sticks.

As always, the sight of her materials made her want to stop what she was
doing and paint. She closed the lid gently, stroking its cover,
remembering the merchant from Soldaia in the Crimea who had sold her the
box outside the Church of Saint John in Stoudion, telling her it came
from a land far to the east called Cathay.

_The Cathayans must be as civilized as we are to make such a thing_, she
thought as she put the box in her chest.

This blond Saracen--this Mameluke--whom she had seen briefly and would
meet again tomorrow, would not be a civilized man. He was both Turk and
Frank--barbarity coupled with barbarity.

"Kriste eleison!" she whispered. "Christ have mercy." Until this moment
she had been able to stave off her fear of the danger she was going
into. Now it struck her full force, leaving her paralyzed over her
traveling chest, her trembling hand still resting on her box of paints
as if it were a talisman that could protect her.

She was going among the worst enemies her people had on earth, more to
be feared than the Saracens--the Latin Christians of the West. The floor
seemed to shake under her, and her body went cold and then hot as she
thought of what she must face. If they found out that she was a woman of
Constantinople, they would tear the flesh from her bones.

_A woman of Constantinople helping a Saracen to plot against the pope!_

Fear was like a cold, black ocean, and she was drowning in it. She dared
not even let herself imagine the horrors, the torments that would end
her life if those people in Orvieto found her out.

She did not have to go through with it. Once she and Lorenzo and this
David--this Mameluke--were on the road, she could slip away. Manfred had
said they would be carrying jewels. Perhaps she could take some, use
them to buy passage for herself.

_Passage to where?_

There was no place in the world she belonged but Constantinople. And her
place in the Polis was dependent on the basileus, Michael. If she
angered Manfred, she could not dare go back to Michael.

To be forever exiled from Constantinople would be a living death.

In her mind she saw the Polis, glowing golden at the edge of the sea.
She saw the great gray walls that had protected Constantinople against
barbarian invaders from East and West for a thousand years. She saw the
gorgeous pink marble of the Blachernae Palace of the Basileus, the
statue of Justinian astride his horse, his hand raised toward the East,
the great dome of Hagia Sophia, her namesake saint, that seemed to float
over the city, held in place by an army of angels. She heard the roar of
the crowd watching chariots race in the Hippodrome and the cries of the
merchants from their shops along the arcaded Mese. The Polis was the hub
of the world, the fulfillment of all desires.

The vision sent strength and purpose surging through her body, and she
straightened up, took her hand from the paint box, and began moving
around the room again, collecting her possessions.

She would go with Lorenzo and the Mameluke and do, as she had always
done, whatever was necessary. She would see this thing through. With the
help of God, she might prevail.

_And after that?_

What future for a woman as alone as Sophia Karaiannides?

She shrugged. Time enough to think about the future after she had been
to Orvieto and lived through it.

Of one thing she was already sure. She would not come back to Manfred.

She went back to her table. From a reading stand at its side she picked
up her leather-bound book of parchment sheets and opened it to a page
marked by a ribbon. She studied the portrait of Manfred she had begun
only two days before. Most of it was still rough charcoal strokes, but
she had colored his beard in a mixture of yellow and white paints,
because it was the most important color and she wanted to get it down
first so it could control her choice of the other colors. The eyes would
be last, because when she painted in the eyes the picture would, in a
sense, come to life.

Even with the eyes blank the portrait seemed to smile at her, and she
felt a ripple of remembered pleasure. Grief followed almost at once.

_Shall I try to finish this tonight and give it to him as a parting
gift?_

After a moment's thought her fingers clawed at the parchment and tore it
free of the stitches that held it in the book. She rolled it up and held
an end to a candle flame.




V


Keeping his face severe, Simon de Gobignon walked slowly past the six
knights lined up on the wharf. The men's faces were scarlet and
glistening with sweat under their conical steel helmets. Simon felt
rivulets running down his own back, under his padded cotton undershirt,
mail hauberk, and surcoat.

Gulls screamed overhead, and the smell of the salt sea and of rotting
fish hung heavy in the warm air.

Venice in July, Simon thought, was no place to be dressed in full battle
gear.

The two banners held by men-at-arms at the end of the line hung limply:
the royal standard of France, gold fleurs-de-lis on an azure ground, and
that of Gobignon, gold crowns on purple.

Simon reproached himself. He had brought his company down to the
waterfront too early, as soon as he had word that the galley bearing the
Tartar ambassadors from Cyprus was in the harbor. It was there, sure
enough; he could see it, a long, dark shape a few hundred feet from
shore. But it rode at anchor while officials of the Most Serene Republic
inspected it for diseases and registered its cargo, a task that had
already taken hours while Simon and his men sweltered onshore.

Behind the knights stood a lance of archers, forty men in four rows.
They were talking and laughing among themselves in the Venetian dialect,
which Simon could barely understand. While growing up he had learned the
speech of Sicily, but that was nearly a different language.

The crossbowmen should not be chattering, Simon thought. It was
unmilitary. Besides, it irritated him and added to the tension of this
endless waiting.

He took a step back and shouted, "Silencio!" The archers looked up, and
he saw more surprise and annoyance than respect in their faces. Some
eyed him expectantly, as if they thought him about to make a speech. He
glared at the archers for what he felt was a suitable interval, then
turned away and walked out to the edge of the jetty, his thumbs hooked
in his sword belt. He ignored the muttering that arose the moment he
turned his back.

"Scusi, Your Signory," said a rasping voice at his elbow. Simon turned.

Andrea Sordello, capitano of the archers, smiled broadly at him,
revealing a gap where one of his eye teeth should have been. The bridge
of his nose was smashed flat.

"What is it, Sordello?" The capitano had met him in Venice with a letter
of recommendation from Count Charles d'Anjou, brother of King Louis of
France, but a not-quite-hidden insolence in the manner of this bravo
made Simon uneasy.

"If Your Signory wishes to command the crossbowmen, perhaps it would be
better to transmit your orders through me. The men do not understand why
you silenced them just now. They are not used to being told to stand
like statues for no reason."

_And you would like to make yourself popular with them by disputing my
order, would you not?_

"Tell them they have entered the service of the kingdom of France," he
told Sordello. "It is customary for French soldiers to maintain a
military bearing and discipline."

"Forgive me, Your Signory, but that may offend them."

"It is not my duty to tell them what they want to hear but what they
_must_ hear," said Simon. _Rather well put_, he thought to himself.

"Sì, Your Signory." Sordello walked away. He had a slight limp, Simon
noticed. The man had certainly been battered. Even so, Uncle Charles's
letter said he was a fine troubadour. Or trovatore, as they called them
in Italy.

"Monseigneur!" A shout broke in on his thoughts. Alain de Pirenne, his
closest friend among the six Gobignon knights he had brought with him,
was pointing out at the harbor. The two rows of oars on either side of
the long-delayed galley were in motion. Even at this distance Simon
could hear the drumbeat and the overseer calling count. Simon had heard
songs comparing the oars of galleys to the wings of birds, and he could
see the resemblance as the rows of oars, looking delicate as feathers
from this distance, rose and fell over the water in unison.

"Thank heaven," said Simon.

"Indeed," said Alain. "I am starting to feel more like a baked pigeon
than a man."

As the galley swung in to the wharf, ropes flying through the air to
make her fast to shore, Simon heard a sudden outcry behind him and
jerked his head around.

"Make way for the most serene! Make way for the doge!" runners shouted.
Musicians blowing oliphants, cranking hurdy-gurdies, and pounding on
drums led a bright procession along the wharves. Two men in knee-length
scarlet tunics stiff with gold braid held poles between which swung a
huge banner. On the banner a winged lion in gold strode across a green
background. Simon saw rows of gleaming helmets and naked swords held
upright, followed by ranks of men in glittering brocaded robes, emerald
and silver, maroon and gold. Towering over all was a huge sedan chair
with a gilded roof and cloth of gold curtains, followed by a troop of
men with tall spears. A crowd of men and women in bright silk tunics and
satin gowns, laughing and chattering, brought up the rear.

A man in an ankle-length gown, his cap heavy with gold thread,
confronted Simon. He was, Simon recalled, a camerlengo who had been
present two weeks before when he had his brief audience with the doge
and presented his charter from King Louis.

"Count, your troops are occupying the place needed by the doge, that he
may properly greet our guests. Move them, if you please." The "if you
please" was uttered in a tone so perfunctory as to be almost insulting.
Simon's face burned and his muscles tensed, but when the ruler of Venice
demanded that he give way, he was in no position to quarrel. He bowed
curtly and turned to order his men to vacate the wharf.

And so, after waiting for hours, Simon suddenly found himself watching
the arrival of the ambassadors from behind ranks of Venetian archers far
more smartly turned out than his own mercenaries.

Why, Simon wondered, had the doge not made a place for him in this
welcoming ceremony? The slight made him feel angry at himself as much as
at the doge.

_It is me. Uncle Charles should have sent an older man, more able to
command respect._

First to come down the boarding ramp of the galley from Cyprus was a
friar in a brown robe with a white cord wrapped around his waist. The
crown of his scalp was shaved, and his beard was long and white. He
threw himself on the ground and kissed it with a loud smacking sound. He
rose and bowed to the doge's sedan chair.

The doge of Venice, Rainerio Zeno, emerged through curtains held for him
by two equerries in purple. Zeno was a very old, toothless man whose
black eyes glittered like a raven's. His bald head was covered by a
white cap bordered with pearls. His gold-embroidered mantle looked stiff
and hard as the shell of a beetle. Pages stood on either side of him,
and he leaned heavily on their shoulders, using them as crutches. The
friar bent and kissed Zeno's ring.

Simon could not hear what the doge and the friar said to each other. The
friar gestured toward the ship. Armed men--Simon counted ten of
them--tramped down the boarding ramp and formed two lines leading to the
doge. They were short and swarthy, wearing red and black breastplates of
lacquered leather and round steel helmets polished to a dazzling finish,
topped with spikes. Bows were slung crosswise over their shoulders, and
long, curved swords hung from their belts. Were these Tartars, he
wondered.

Their swords looked very much like the one Simon wore. Simon's was an
Egyptian scimitar, one of his most precious possessions, not because of
its jeweled hilt--a pearl set just behind the guard, a ruby at the end
of the hilt, and a row of smaller precious stones all along the
grip--but because of the one who had given it to him. And yet, much as
he prized it, the scimitar hurt him each time he looked at it, reminding
him of his darkest secret, a secret known to only three living people.
Simon's whole life, the scimitar reminded him, was built on a lie.

And he had accepted this mission, in part, to expiate the shame he felt
when he remembered that.

Now Simon, feeling very much out of his depth, touched the hilt of his
scimitar for reassurance. But as he recalled that the sword had once
belonged to a Saracen ruler, his heart leapt in fear.

_One never knows when or how the Saracens may strike_, Count Charles
d'Anjou--Uncle Charles--had warned him. _The arrow from ambush ... the
dagger that cuts the throat of a sleeping victim ... poison. When they
cannot kill they try to corrupt, with gold and lies. And they have
allies in Italy--the Pope's enemy, Manfred von Hohenstaufen, and his
supporters, the Ghibellini. You must be on guard every moment._

Simon's eyes swept the row of stone palaces that overlooked this part of
the waterfront, their battlements offering hundreds of fine hiding
places for killers. An enemy had only to gain surreptitious entrance to
one of those great houses--not hard to do when everyone's attention was
turned toward the galley bringing the Tartars.

_What should I do? The doge's men-at-arms outnumber mine, and look to be
better soldiers. And it seems the Tartars have brought their own
warriors. Perhaps I am not needed now._

The thought brought him momentary relief. But then Simon realized that
he was yielding to the temptation that had assailed him throughout his
life, the urge to conceal himself.

_But did I not undertake this task to uphold my family's good name and
my right to bear it? And besides, it is not only my dignity that must be
upheld here, but the honor of King Louis. If anything happens to the
Tartars now that they are on Christian soil, I will have failed my
king._

Simon was about to push forward to demand room for his men when the
friar who had just disembarked raised his arm. Simon's gaze followed the
direction of the gesture, and came to rest at the head of the boarding
ramp.

There stood two of the strangest-looking men Simon had ever seen. Their
faces were the deep brown of well-tanned leather. The eyebrows were
little black banners flying above black, slitted eyes that peered out
over the battlements of jutting cheekbones. Their mustaches were thin
and hung down in long strands below small chins adorned with sparse
beards. One man's beard was white, the other's black. But even the
black-bearded man was not young; there were deep creases in his face.
Both men wore cylindrical caps, each topped with a polished, spherical
red stone. Their ankle-length robes were of maroon silk, brocaded with
gold thread, and they wore short jackets with flowing sleeves. From the
neck of each man hung a rectangular tablet on a gold chain.

Simon's wonder turned to fear as he realized what perfect targets the
Tartar ambassadors were making of themselves.

He threw his weight against the men and women in front of him, forcing
his way through the crowd--and found himself facing one of the doge's
archers. The man raised his crossbow threateningly, but Simon saw
immediately that it was not loaded. Fine protection for the emissaries.

"De Pirenne! De Puys!" Simon called to the two French knights nearest
him. "Follow me." He turned back to the Venetian crossbowman and
shouted, "Stand aside!" in his loudest voice. "I am the Count de
Gobignon."

As he had hoped, the sound of his command carried to Doge Zeno, whose
face, wrinkled as a yellow raisin, turned in Simon's direction.

"Serenity!" Simon called, using the customary form of address for the
doge. "It is my duty to guard these ambassadors."

Sordello, at Simon's elbow, said in a low voice, "You are a great lord
in your own land, Your Signory, but it would be best if you did not
arouse the wrath of the doge of Venice."

"Be still," Simon snapped.

Helmeted archers moved in on Simon from all sides, but Simon saw the
doge give an abrupt hand signal to their capitano. At a shouted order
from the capitano, the men-at-arms fell back, letting Simon through.

"Why do you disturb our ceremonies, young count?" The doge's voice was a
hoarse whisper. He smiled faintly, but his eyes were cold as winter.
Simon felt painfully embarrassed. The ruler of the mightiest city on the
Middle Sea was, after all, as puissant as any king on earth.

Simon fell to one knee before the doge. "Forgive me, Serenity. I only
wish to aid you in protecting the emissaries from Tartary, as my king
has commanded me." His knees trembled, and he felt as if his heart were
hammering hard enough to break his ribs.

The smile faded and the aged eyes grew icier. "Does the Frankish count
think Venice too feeble to protect her distinguished visitors?"

"Not at all, Serenity," said Simon hastily. "Only let me add my strength
to yours."

"Say no more," said the doge in a voice as sharp as a dagger.

By now the two Tartars had descended the ramp and were standing before
the doge. For a moment Simon's eyes met those of the white-bearded
Tartar, and he felt a new, inexplicable, and powerful fear. He took a
step backward, almost as if he had been struck a physical blow, and he
gripped his sword hilt for reassurance.

The Tartar turned his gaze to the doge, and Simon's fear faded, leaving
him to wonder what there was in this little brown-skinned man to inspire
it. What he had seen in those eyes? A hardness, a gaze as empty of
concern for Simon de Gobignon as the cloudless blue sky overhead.

The friar said, "Serenity, this is John Chagan Noyon," indicating the
older Tartar. "A noyon among the Tartars is equal in rank to a prince in
our lands. The Khan Hulagu sends you a prince to show how earnestly he
wishes to ally himself with Christendom to destroy our mutual enemies,
the Muslims. This other gentleman is Philip Uzbek Baghadur. 'Baghadur'
means valiant, and he is a tuman-bashi, a commander of ten thousand. He
holds high place in the councils of Hulagu Khan." Each Tartar clasped
his hands before him and bowed low to the doge as his name was spoken.

"How is it that they have Christian names?" asked the doge.

The Franciscan friar smiled. "John Chagan comes of an old Christian
family, formerly subject to the great Christian King of Asia, Prester
John. And Philip Uzbek was baptized in his youth by the Bishop of
Karakorum."

The doge waved his bony hands, making his heavy garments rustle.
"Christian Tartars! Prester John! The Bishop of _Karakorum_? This is too
much for an old man to grasp all at once. But surely I can learn much
from you and these noble gentlemen that will be good for Venice. Tell
them that I invite them to bear me company to my palace, where we will
dine together tonight and I will learn more of the marvels of the empire
of Tartary."

Simon knew that the doge's palace was more than half a mile down the
avenue along this bank of the Grand Canal, and the prospect of the
ambassadors parading that distance alarmed him again. His fear of
disaster came back full force, driving him once again, against all
courtesy, to speak out.

"Serenity! I beg the privilege of joining forces with you to escort the
ambassadors to your palace."

Anger blazed in the gaze the doge turned upon him this time. "Young man,
if you speak out of turn once more, I will have you thrown into the
canal."

Simon had no doubt that the doge would enjoy making good on his threat.
But would the ruler of Venice allow an undignified scuffle on the
waterfront in the presence of two ambassadors? Simon doubted it, and
decided to stand his ground.

"Forgive me, Serenity," he said, inclining his head. "It is my concern
for these precious lives that urges me to speak out."

The doge took a deep breath. Then his small mouth twitched in a smile.

"Very well, Count. You may follow after us."

While the doge presented the assembled Venetian dignitaries to the
Tartars, Simon ordered Henri de Puys and Alain de Pirenne to draw up the
knights and Sordello to form up the archers and be ready to follow the
ambassadors' train.

Bearers brought a sedan chair for the Tartars, who climbed into it with
bows and smiles. To Simon's distress, the conveyance was open, naturally
enough, since the Tartars would want to see Venice and the Venetians
would want to see them. But it meant still more danger.

The Franciscan friar came over and put his hand on Simon's arm. "You are
very brave, young man, to speak up to the ruler of Venice as you did.
And who might you be?"

Simon introduced himself, and the friar bowed and addressed him in
French. "How good to speak the language of my homeland again. I am
Mathieu d'Alcon of the Little Brothers of San Francesco, and I was born
near Limoges, which is not far from your estate, Count. Of course, no
place in France is far from Gobignon lands." His broad smile told Simon
the remark was meant in friendly jest. "It was our good King Louis who
sent me to the Tartars years ago. I am glad we will be in French hands
after we leave Venice." He gave Simon's arm a squeeze and returned to
the doge's procession.

Simon had begun to think the whole world had turned against him, and
Friar Mathieu's friendly words cheered him immensely. He watched the
white-bearded friar with a warm feeling as he shook his head at the
attendants who held a sedan chair for him. As befitted a good
Franciscan, sworn to poverty and dedicated to simplicity, the friar
would allow no one to carry him but insisted on walking on his own
sandaled feet behind the Tartars' chair.

Simon and his men followed the last contingent of the doge's foot
soldiers along the waterfront. Ahead, a stone bridge arched over one of
the many Venetian canals.

The procession was moving slowly now. After crossing the bridge, Simon
saw the ambassadors' sedan chair swing around a corner, and his pulse
quickened because those he was to protect were out of his sight.

He wanted to hurry to the corner, but the street narrowed here, with the
windowless white ground floor of a palazzo on one side and an iron
railing on the other. There was no room to bypass those ahead. Simon
hurried his pace until he was all but treading on the leather-shod heels
of the spearman in front of him.

He turned the corner into the small square in front of the doge's
palace. He saw the doge's sedan chair and that of the Tartars pass
through the gateway between the palace and the great basilica of San
Marco.

Then he stopped short, feeling as if he had crashed headfirst into a
wall. The tall gates leading into the palace swung shut, and facing him
was a triple line of men-at-arms of the Most Serene Republic, in green
and gold tunics and armed with long spears.

"Mère de Dieu!" he whispered.

He could not force his way into the palace. If he even tried, he would
only look ridiculous. Indeed, he doubted that his men would fight. The
ill-disciplined mercenaries were Venetians, too, and why would they obey
the command of a French seigneur, who had hired them only yesterday, to
fight their own countrymen?

"It appears we are not welcome at the palace, Your Signory," said a
voice at his side. Simon turned and glared at Sordello, whose
weather-beaten face seemed to mask amusement.

Simon tried to think of a way to rescue his dignity. "Find the leader of
the palace guards and tell him I want to speak to him."

Sordello shrugged. "As you wish, Your Signory."

Alain de Pirenne, his gauntleted fist clenched on the hilt of his sword,
blustered out, "Damned Italian discourtesy! It would serve them right if
somebody did slip a dagger into those Tartars while we stand out here."

_God forbid!_ thought Simon.

Sordello came back with a Venetian man-at-arms, who touched the brim of
his polished kettle-helmet respectfully.

"This sergente has a message for you from His Serenity, the doge, Your
Signory."

"Let him tell it."

Simon's command of the Venetian dialect was not good enough to follow
what the man in the kettle-helmet said, and to make it harder, he spoke
in what appeared to be an embarrassed mumble.

"What did he say, Sordello?"

"Forgive me, Your Signory," said Sordello. "The message may offend you.
I will repeat it only if you wish it."

"What did he say?" said Simon again in a tight voice.

"The doge says you are to wait in quarters of your own choosing until
the ambassadors from Tartary are ready to travel. At that time he will
place them in your keeping. Until then you are to trouble him no more,
unless you are a very good swimmer."

Simon felt rage boil up within him. He clenched his fists and fought it
down.

"Tell him I thank His Serenity for his courtesy and will forever honor
him for it."

Sordello nodded, and there was a look of respect in his craggy face.

As Sordello repeated Simon's words to the sergente of the doge's guards,
Simon wheeled and strode back the way he had come, to stare out to sea.
Tears of frustrated fury burned his eyes. He could feel hot blood
beating in his temples. The doge had treated him like a small boy. That
old gargoyle had insulted him, had insulted the house of Gobignon, had
insulted King Louis.

And there was nothing Simon could do about it. He felt furious and
miserable. A failure, at the very start of his task.




VI


Crushed, Simon decided that at least he would quarter his French knights
and the Venetian archers as near to the doge's palace as possible. The
doge alone would be protecting the Tartars for the time being, and Simon
had no choice about it.

With Sordello's help he found lodgings for his men at the outrageous
price of two deniers a night per man--not all the thieves were on the
highways--at the nearest inn to the Piazza San Marco, just a short
distance down a side street. How much of what he paid the innkeeper, he
wondered, would end up in Sordello's purse?

Then, accompanied by Alain de Pirenne, he walked back to the entrance
gate to the doge's palace, a long three-story building that stretched
from the waterfront to the basilica. He sent a message in by way of a
guard, asking Friar Mathieu to meet him in the piazza. The kindly
Franciscan was, he suspected, the most important person in the Tartars'
entourage.

Simon and Alain had taken off their mail and were more comfortably
dressed in silk tunics, short capes, and velvet caps. Each still wore
his weapons belt, with longsword hung on the left and dagger on the
right. The leather heels of their point-toed boots rang on the stones of
the piazza as they paced, waiting to see if Friar Mathieu would come
out.

Alain was still indignant.

"They have no idea who you are, Simon. Why, you could take this whole
city and set it in one corner of the Gobignon domain and it would never
be noticed." Normally ruddy, Alain was even redder with anger. His blond
mustache bristled.

_As much as Paris goes unnoticed in the midst of the Île de France_,
Simon thought with a smile.

Now that his armor was off and an hour or more had passed, Simon felt
more at ease and was inclined to accept the situation. After all, if he
could not get into the doge's palace, he might reasonably hope that
neither could anyone who would want to harm the Tartars.

"It is wealth and ships that make this city great, Alain, not its size."

"That is all these Venetians care about--money." Like any proper knight,
Alain despised money and those who loved it. In the course of learning
to manage his estate, Simon had acquired more respect for money.

"Even Paris has no beauty to rival this," said Simon, feeling a shade
disloyal even as he said so. "Look at those horses." He pointed to the
façade above the central doorway of the cathedral of San Marco, where
four gilded bronze horses pranced, so proud and energetic as to seem
almost in motion.

Alain whistled in appreciation. "What wizard wrought them, I wonder."

Simon, who had been asking questions in the week they had been there,
said, "They come from Constantinople. About sixty years ago the
Venetians paid an army of French crusaders--our forefathers--to turn
aside from the Holy Land and conquer Constantinople instead. The
Venetians took those horses and set them here to proclaim their
triumph."

"Diverting a crusade is surely a great sin," said Alain. "And theft is
theft. But none of my forefathers had anything to do with the foul deed
you tell of."

"No, nor mine," said Simon. "The French knights who conquered
Constantinople were our forefathers only in a manner of speaking."

_But my predecessor, Count Amalric de Gobignon, did fouler things by
far. As Alain well knows, though he is too good a friend to mention
it._

"Still, the good taste of the Venetians is admirable," Simon said aloud,
still gazing at the horses.

"For all I know, this could be the richest city in the world," said
Alain, missing the point. "But what matter, Simon, if its riches are
stolen goods?"

"Venice is by no means the richest city in the world, Messire," someone
beside them said.

Startled, Simon turned to see Friar Mathieu, who had fallen into step
with them, his eyes warm and friendly. Simon wanted to throw his arms
around the old man and hug him.

"There are cities in the Far East so big and so rich they make Venice
look like a fishing village," Friar Mathieu went on, his long white
beard blowing gently in the breeze from the waterfront.

"People love to tell wild stories about the East," said Alain
skeptically. "I've heard of cities of solid gold, birds as big as an
elephant, and so on and on."

_But this man has been there!_ Simon wanted to shout. Much though he
liked Alain, Simon was discovering in his friend a narrowness that made
him a frustrating traveling companion. With Alain here, the conversation
with Friar Mathieu would plod, and Simon wanted it to gallop.

"Sire Alain," he said, "I fear our hired men-at-arms may get into
trouble drinking, fighting, and wenching unless someone keeps a sharp
eye on them. Will you see to them, please?"

De Pirenne held up a broad hand. "I will slap them down for you, if need
be, Monseigneur." Now that a third party was present, he addressed Simon
formally.

"Travel is said to open a man's mind," said Friar Mathieu when de
Pirenne was gone. "But some minds are like country châteaus. Let
anything strange approach, and the doors and windows slam shut."

He took Simon's arm and steered him over the flagstones of the piazza
toward the cathedral. The many-columned façade of pink, white, and green
marble, sculptures, and mosaics filling the spaces between them took
Simon's breath away. There was an opulence to the five great domes that
seemed to Simon to speak of the storied wealth of the East. They were so
different from the pointed spires of the cathedrals newly built in
France.

"I am very grateful to you, Simon, for trying so hard to protect us
today," Friar Mathieu said. "The doge's discourtesy to you was the
worst kind of rudeness, the rudeness of one who thinks himself more
refined than all others."

Simon felt better, but he wondered if the friar was speaking so only out
of kindness to him.

"It is good of you to reassure me," he said, "but the doge seems to be
guarding the ambassadors well enough."

"All show," said Friar Mathieu. "The Venetians are not alert enough. The
doge has no idea that we are in any danger. Nor does he seem to care. I
believe he has not decided whether he has anything to gain from an
alliance between Christians and Tartars. After all, the Venetians trade
quite happily with the Muslims these days."

Simon was shocked. "Is that not a sin?"

"Against God, perhaps, but not against profit. And the common heading on
your Venetian merchant's account book is 'For God and Profit.' Young
Seigneur de Gobignon, you do not know how happy I am to talk to a
Frenchman again after so many years."

"How long have you been among the Tartars, Friar Mathieu?"

The old Franciscan sighed. "Long enough to learn the Eastern peoples'
way of counting the years in twelve-year cycles. They give each year the
name of a certain animal."

"A strange system."

"A sensible system. It is easier to remember beasts than numbers. Let me
see, this year, Anno Domini 1263, they call the Year of the Sheep, and
when I first entered the camp of Hulagu Khan the Tartars told me it was
the Year of the Dragon. From Dragon to Sheep there are"--he counted on
his fingers while muttering the names of beasts under his breath--"seven
animals. So, seven years since our good King Louis sent me to bear his
messages to the Tartars."

"Then you went in 1256?"

"Anno Domini 1256. That is right."

Simon wanted very much to know more about life among the Tartars. But he
and the old friar could have long talks on the road to Orvieto. For now
there were more pressing questions.

Just as he was about to speak, the friar pointed to the gateway between
the basilica and the doge's palace. "There go the Armenians."

Simon saw six of the swarthy men crossing the piazza in a line.
Short-statured though they were, there was a swagger in the way they
walked. They had doffed their leather armor and wore tunics of white
silk with billowing red trousers over short black boots. Their tunics
were cinched at the waist with black leather belts, and in each belt was
thrust a curving saber in a jeweled scabbard. Their bows were slung
across their backs, along with black leather quivers.

"Four of them stayed behind to guard the Tartars," Friar Mathieu said.

Simon had been wondering just how his knights and archers would share
with the Armenian guards the responsibility of protecting the Tartars.

"Why did the ambassadors bring Armenians, and not their own Tartar
warriors?" he asked Friar Mathieu.

"Because the Armenians are Christians and are more like Europeans than
themselves. The Armenians are allies, not subjects of the Tartars. These
ten who travel with us are great men among the Armenian people. One of
them, Hethum, is in line to be King of Armenia some day. One feels
safer, traveling with such men."

Simon watched the half-dozen Armenians disappear down a narrow side
street leading off the piazza. He felt a twinge of worry, seeing that
they were heading toward the street in which his own men were quartered.
He wanted to follow after the men from the East, but he did not want to
interrupt his conversation with Friar Mathieu. Feeling pulled in two
directions, he held himself to the friar's slow, thoughtful pace as they
approached the cathedral.

"Even some Tartars are Christians, I have heard," Simon said.

"There are many religions among the Tartars." They had reached the front
of San Marco, and Friar Mathieu, still holding Simon's arm, wheeled them
around and started them walking back toward the doge's palace. "Hulagu
Khan's wife, the Khatun, is a Christian, although he is a pagan. But
what all Tartars really worship is strength. In their own language they
call themselves 'Mongols,' which means strong." Simon looked at the
friar and saw a faraway, awe-struck look in those old eyes. "One wonders
why God created them. To punish us for our sins? Or to rule the world
and to bring order to all mankind?"

"Rule the world?" said Simon. He thought about the two slit-eyed men in
silk robes he had seen disembarking from the galley a few hours before.
He remembered the look the older Tartar had given him, so unfeeling, as
if looking down upon him from a vast distance.

"They think it is their destiny to rule the world," said Friar Mathieu.
"And it is not a foolish dream. They have already conquered much of it.
You might sneer at me as your skeptical knight did, Monseigneur, if I
told you how vast the Tartar empire is. Take France, England, and the
Holy Roman Empire together, and they would be swallowed up in the lands
ruled by the Tartars."

"Please call me Simon, Father, if you will. It embarrasses me to be
addressed as monseigneur by one such as you."

Friar Mathieu patted Simon's hand. "Very well, Simon. That is kindly
spoken. It will be good for us to be friends, because we have a very
difficult and doubtful mission."

"Why doubtful?"

"We cannot be sure we are doing the right thing. These two men, John and
Philip, command great armies in the Tartar empire. Watch them, Simon.
Notice how they observe fortifications and weapons. The same monks who
made Christians of them also taught them how to write. Many times at
day's end in Syria and on Cyprus I have seen them talking together,
making notes, drawing maps. Whether they form this alliance or not, they
will have much useful knowledge to bring back to their khan."

_Then might it not be better for all of us if I fail to protect the
Tartars, and some enemy of Christendom succeeds in killing them?_

Simon felt an aching tightness in his forehead. He desperately wanted
the alliance to succeed, and thereby show the nobility of France that
neither he nor his family any longer deserved their scorn. If the
alliance failed, he failed, and the house of Gobignon would sink deeper
into dishonor.

Let others worry, he decided, about whether it was right or wrong to
protect the Tartars.

"Monseigneur!"

There was urgency in the voice that hailed Simon from across the square,
and a feeling of dread came over him. He turned to see his equerry,
Thierry d'Hauteville, his wavy black hair uncovered, running across the
piazza.

"They are fighting, Monseigneur!" Thierry panted. "Our Venetian archers
and those men from Tartary. You'd best come at once."

"Jesus, save us!" Simon heard Friar Mathieu whisper beside him.

Staring into Thierry's anxious eyes, Simon felt himself getting angry.
Six knights he had brought with him. Any knight worthy of his spurs
should be able to stop any pack of commoners from fighting. And if they
could not, he thought with a sudden shift from anger to anxiety, what
more could he do?

There was no time to think. "Father, will you come, please?" he said to
Mathieu, and without waiting for a reply struck Thierry on the shoulder
and began to run with him.

"I follow, as quickly as I can, my son," he heard from behind him.

"Could you not stop them?" he demanded of Thierry as they headed down a
narrow cobblestoned street at a dead run.

Dread made his legs heavy. De Puys, a veteran of the last crusade, de
Pirenne, a strong and well-trained knight--_they_ had sent for _him_.
For Simon de Gobignon, twenty years of age, who had never in his life
been in a battle.

Breath of God, what did they expect of him?

"There was nothing we could do without killing the Tartars' bodyguard,"
said Thierry. "You will see how it is when you get there."

The inn was a stone building with houses on either side. The lower half
of the divided door was shut, but the upper half was open, and Simon
heard shouts from within. Thierry, ahead of him, yanked the door open
for him.

It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness of the large room.
Shadowy figures jostled him as he pushed his way through. A little light
came from the grilled windows and from a single huge yellow candle
burning in a candlestick on a table. The room reeked of sweaty bodies
and old wine.

"Make way for Monseigneur le Comte!" Thierry called uselessly as the
Venetian mercenaries jabbered angrily in Italian.

Simon pushed his way into the corner of the room lit by the candle and
found himself facing a scowling, dark-skinned man pointing a gleaming
sword at him. Five of the Armenians, sabers out, had formed a protective
ring.

Within the ring, the sixth Armenian had a man bent forward over a table.
The man's arms flailed feebly and his eyes bulged. Even in the poor
light Simon could see that his face, turned on its side toward him, was
purple. The Armenian was holding his bow behind the man's neck and was
turning it slowly. Now Simon saw the string cutting into the neck.

It hurt Simon to look at what was happening. He felt his own breath cut
off, his heart pounding as if he were laboring for air. He wanted to
turn away and knew he could not. He must somehow stop this before that
Venetian died.

"Blood of God!" he whispered. He recognized the darkened, distorted
face.

Sordello.

All around Simon the Venetians were edging closer to the Armenians,
their daggers gleaming in the candlelight. But none of the foot soldiers
wanted to be the first to brave those sabers.

That meant, Simon thought, heart pounding, that he would have to face
them.

_Where the devil are my knights?_

Looking to the right and left Simon saw Alain, Henri de Puys, and the
four others, swords out but--like himself--unarmored, standing
irresolutely between the Venetians and the Armenians. Against one wall
he saw a huddle of women, their bare bosoms gleaming in the dim light.
Standing protectively in front of the women was a man Simon recognized
as the innkeeper. For the price Simon was paying, why could not this man
keep order in his own house?

"Aha, now we have the stinking figlii di cagne!" a man behind Simon
cried. Simon turned and saw a crossbow leveled at shoulder height. He
had ordered that the Venetians' weapons be kept under lock and key.
Evidently someone had broken them out. Once the rest of the Venetians
armed themselves with their bows, the Armenians would be slaughtered.

Simon's body grew hot with anger. He would like to kill the fool who
helped the Venetians to their arms.

But the Armenians had their bows, too, and one by one they started to
unsling them. Simon heard the ominous squeaking as the Venetians wound
back their crossbow strings. The Armenians would never be able to get
their arrows nocked and their bows drawn before the crossbow bolts began
to fly.

Simon's actions followed instantly on his thoughts. "Cessi!" he shouted,
hoping the Venetians would understand him.

Now all eyes were turned toward him. The muscles of his belly tightened
as he cast about in his mind for the right thing to do.

The hands of the Venetians hesitated on their crossbows as they
recognized their master.

"De Pirenne, de Puys, the rest of you. Make our men put down their
crossbows."

But just as Simon spoke, the Armenian strangling Sordello gave another
turn to his bow, and the old bravo gagged and gasped.

Simon realized that if he drew his scimitar, the room would be a charnel
house in moments. He approached the Armenian nearest him, spreading his
hands to show their emptiness. He prayed that the man, whose bow and
arrow was aimed at his chest, would not see how those outstretched hands
were trembling.

In his strongest voice he said, "Hold your arrow!" hoping the man would
understand his tone. As he spoke, he firmly grasped the arrow near its
head and pushed it aside. His heart thudded, and he could almost feel
that steel tip stabbing into his chest. And how bare was his back to the
crossbow quarrels!

The Armenian took a step to the side and let Simon pass. Simon let out a
deep breath of relief. As he stepped forward, the soles of his boots
slid a little. The floor, he realized, must be slippery with spilled
wine.

Now he was facing the man who was murdering Sordello. A vagrant thought
struck Simon: _I do not like Sordello. I would not mind if the Armenian
killed him. Why risk my life for him?_

_Because a good seigneur is loyal to his men_, the answer came at once.

He spoke commandingly but softly. "Stop. This is my man and you must not
kill him. Let him go." He put his hand firmly on the forearm of the
Armenian, who was a good deal shorter than he was. The man's dark brows
drew together in a puzzled frown. He was studying Simon's face. Simon
could feel a faint tremor in the muscles under his hand.

Any man would be frightened at a moment like this, no matter how brave,
how hardened, Simon thought. But he saw that the Armenian's face was
unlined, his eyes clear. His black mustache was small and fine.

_He must be about my age. Maybe even younger._

Simon felt a warmth toward the young Armenian, and hoped he could win
him over. But how could such a pleasant-looking fellow bring himself to
strangle a man with a bowstring? Perhaps Sordello had done something
truly evil.

"Come now," Simon said, giving the young man's arm a gentle shake. "Do
let him go." He essayed a smile, hoping it would look friendly.

The Armenian let out a deep sigh and closed his eyes. Then he released
his grip on the bow. He slapped it with one hand to make it twirl. Simon
heard a faint choking sound from Sordello, and then the Italian slid to
the stone floor.

A woman, her henna-dyed hair gleaming red-gold in the candlelight,
rushed to the young Armenian and held his arm, talking soothingly in
Italian. He stiffened at first, then smiled at her.

"Thank you," said Simon to the Armenian, shaky with relief.

He smiled and patted the dark man's free arm, feeling foolish about his
simple words of gratitude. If only Friar Mathieu would get here so that
he could talk to these men from the East.

A cool feeling of relief bathed Simon. So far all had gone amazingly
well. But, he reminded himself, this was not over yet. He must continue
to think quickly.

"De Puys, clear the Venetians out of here. Assemble them outside. Then
march them away from this street altogether. And collect their crossbows
and get them locked up again. You should never have let them get at
those weapons. De Pirenne, you stay here and tell me what happened."

"Well, this is how it was, Monseigneur," said Alain, looking abashed.
"Our men were drinking quietly, and this redheaded woman was sitting
with Sordello. Then these men from Tartary came in. They made no
trouble, just sat down in their own corner. But the woman, she took a
fancy to that man you saw trying to kill Sordello. She served him wine
and sat down with him. Sordello went over and tried to get her back.
There were words. They didn't understand each other, but the meaning was
clear. Sordello went for the other with a knife. And then the other man
_kicked_ it out of his hand--rather a surprise, that was--to Sordello,
too, I think. And the next thing I know he was strangling Sordello and
his companions would not let anyone stop it. Sordello had the key to the
storeroom where the crossbows were kept. After the Armenian seized him,
he threw it to one of the Venetians."

A typical muddle, Simon thought, like most of the cases brought to him
for justice since he had become Seigneur of Gobignon. He felt disgusted
with all these fools. No saying who was at fault. Most likely the damned
woman. Thank the Virgin he did not have to fix blame, just put a stop to
the fighting.

Sordello, who had been lying curled up on the floor, suddenly lashed out
with a booted foot.

The woman screamed. As Simon stared, the young Armenian fell heavily to
the wine-wet floor. Sordello sprang upon him, and a dagger flashed. He
was striking at the Armenian's chest.

Simon had no time to feel the panic that flooded through him. He grabbed
for Sordello's arm, too late to stop the dagger but pulling it back so
that it drove upward through the muscles of the chest instead of
plunging deep. The Armenian bellowed in pain. With all his strength,
Simon yanked Sordello off the Armenian and threw him backward. De
Pirenne caught him and held him.

Shouting in their own language and brandishing their swords, the other
Armenians rushed at Sordello.

A familiar voice cried out a sentence in a strange tongue. Friar Mathieu
rushed into the circle of candlelight, his white beard flying, his arms
upraised. At his sudden appearance the Armenians, who were ready to make
mincemeat of Sordello--and perhaps de Pirenne with him--hesitated.

_Oh, thank God!_ The weight of struggling to control this dreadful
situation was no longer Simon's alone to bear.

Friar Mathieu spoke several sentences to the Armenians. Simon could not
tell from his tone whether he was scolding them or trying to placate
them. There were in the room five angry men who looked to be formidable
fighters, armed with swords and bows and arrows. And, Simon realized, he
had just sent away all but one of his knights and all of his
crossbowmen.

Simon cursed himself for letting Sordello wound the young man.

_Alain said Sordello dropped a dagger. Why did I not think to look for
it?_

He felt himself growing hot and cold as he realized this incident might
wreck everything--for Christendom, for Louis, and for the honor of the
House of Gobignon.

Now Friar Mathieu fell to his knees beside the young Armenian, whose
white tunic was splashed deep scarlet with blood. He spoke comforting
words to him and then turned an agonized face to Simon.

"This is Prince Hethum," said the friar. "The Tartars will be furious
when they learn what has happened. This may destroy any chance of an
alliance. At the very least, they will demand satisfaction."

_I am to protect these emissaries, and one of my own men has stabbed a
prince of Armenia._

Despair was an ache in Simon's chest.

"What sort of satisfaction?"

"I fear they will require that man's life," said Friar Mathieu sadly.

"By God's beard, I have done no wrong!" Sordello rasped. His voice was a
croak.

"Be silent!" Simon snapped, his rage against himself turning to fury at
Sordello. "You are a fool, but being a fool will not save you."

"Your Signory!" Sordello cried. "How could I let him take the woman from
me? My honor--"

"_Your_ honor!" Simon raged. "What is your wandering blackguard's honor
compared to the honor of France? The woman chose him over you. Look at
her."

Sordello glared at Simon, but was silent. The red-haired woman crouched
over the fallen Prince Hethum, crooning softly in Italian.

_And yet, Uncle Charles would not want me to sacrifice Sordello. And the
Armenian did try to kill him. My knights and men-at-arms will lose all
respect for me if I let the Tartars have their way with Sordello._

_But if he goes unpunished, if the Armenian prince goes unrevenged,
there will be no alliance at all._

And it would be his fault. The little honor that was left to the House
of Gobignon would be lost.

A wave of anger at himself swept over him. Had he dedicated himself to
the alliance only so that he might free himself from the agony of his
guilty secret and his house from dishonor? He thought of King Louis and
how pure was his desire to win back for Christendom the places where
Christ had lived. How impure were Simon's own motives!

As long as he put his own needs first, he would continue to deserve the
burdens of guilt and shame.




VII


    In the Name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful.
    All praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds.
    Master of the Day of Judgment.

Daoud stood perfectly still, looking into the violet sky, reciting in
his mind the salat, the prayer required of a Muslim five times daily.
This was Mughrab, the moment when the last light of sunset had drained
away. An evening breeze cooled his face, welcome after a day of
traveling under the summer sky of Italy. Oriented by a bright crescent
moon just rising, he faced southeast, toward Mecca. His back was to the
stone wall of the inn called the Capo di Bue, the Ox's Head, where he
and Sophia and Celino had decided to spend the night. On the other side
of the wall, loud voices contended for attention, the sound of travelers
in the common room settling down to supper.

Praying in the dusk reminded Daoud that he was alone. What would it be
like now in El Kahira, the Guarded One? He would be praying with
hundreds of fellow Muslimin, standing shoulder to shoulder, all equal
before God, in the Gray Mosque, all listening to the call of the blind
muezzins from the minarets--"Come to the house of praise. God is
Almighty. There is no god but God."--all facing the Prophet's birthplace
together in holy submission. Daoud's prayer might be the only one going
up to God tonight from anywhere near Rome.

All around him towered ruins. The silhouettes of broken columns rose
against the darkening sky, and across the Appian Way the ragged shape of
what had once been a wall. Pines stood tall and black where, according
to Lorenzo, some wealthy woman of ancient Rome had her tomb.

He tried to forget his surroundings and to think only of the salat. It
was hard to concentrate when he could not assume the proper positions
for prayer--raise his hands, kneel, strike his forehead on the ground.
He fixed his mind on the infinity of God.

"Do not try to see Him," Abu Hamid al-Din Saadi had told him. "If you
see Him in your mind, you are looking at an idol."

Daoud did not try to see God, but as he prayed, a Muslim all alone in
the heart of Christendom, he could not help but see Sheikh Saadi, the
Sufi master who had brought him to Islam.

       *       *       *       *       *

The face was very dark, the rich black of a cup of kaviyeh. Out of the
blackness peered eyes that _saw_--saw into the very souls of his
students.

Often as he sat listening to Sheikh Saadi read from the Koran, the Book
to be Read, and explain its meaning, voices from the past reproached
him. The voice of Father Adrian, the chaplain of their castle, rang in
his mind. The quiet voice of his mother, teaching him the Lord's Prayer
and the Hail Mary, whispered to him. Like thunder his father spoke of
war and of what it was to be a knight.

He could escape the torment of these voices only by listening closely to
the Sufi sheikh. Saadi was trying to teach him how to be good, and that
was the same thing his mother and father had wanted for him. So they
would not mind if he learned from Saadi.

Sheikh Saadi, wearing the white woolen robe of a Sufi, sat on a
many-colored carpet of Mosul, an open copy of the Koran resting on an
ornately carved lectern before him. His hand, as dark as the mahogany of
the stand, caressed the page as he read aloud.

"'Such as persevere in seeking their Lord's countenance and are regular
in prayer and spend of that which We bestow upon them secretly and
openly, and overcome evil with good: Theirs will be the Heavenly Home.'"

_Mohammedan dogs!_ Daoud remembered Father Adrian in his black and white
robes shouting in the chapel at Château Langmuir. _Satan is the author
of that vile book they call the Koran._

By the age of eleven Daoud had already known cruelty and evil at the
hands of the Turks who had captured him, kindness with Baibars, and
goodness with Sheikh Saadi. The Sufi sheikh had never made any claim,
but Daoud had no doubt that he often walked and talked with God.

"Secretly and openly are we to give," the old man was saying. "God has
been generous to us, and we must be generous in turn. When you are kind
to a bird or a donkey, or even to an unclean animal like a pig or a dog,
He loves you for it. He loves you more when you are kind to a slave or
to a woman or to one of the unfortunate, like a cripple or an
unbeliever."

"Daoud is both a slave and unbeliever," said Gamal ibn Nasir with a
faint sneer. "Must I be kind to him?" Daoud stared at Gamal, burning
with hatred, all the more because what he said was true.

Gamal was a slender, olive-skinned boy whom no one dared cross, because
he was a grandson of the reigning Sultan of Egypt, Al Salih Ayub. Most
of Saadi's students were boys of noble family, and Daoud knew that he
was permitted to enter this circle only because all men feared and
respected Baibars. And even though he studied Islam with them because it
was Baibars's wish, Daoud remained fil-kharij, an outsider, because he
was an unbeliever.

The boys sat in a semicircle, their rectangles of carpet spread over the
blue and white tiles of the inner courtyard of the Gray Mosque, where
Saadi had been teaching since long before these students were born. The
old black man sat with his back to the gray stones of the western wall,
the stones that gave the mosque its name. He taught in the late
afternoon, when he and the boys could sit in the shade.

"God is compassion itself, Gamal," Sheikh Saadi said with a smile, "but
even He may find it hard to love a mean spirit." The sultan's grandson
blushed angrily, and his eyes fell.

Thinking about the compassion of God, Daoud opened his eyes wide as a
startling idea occurred to him. But after the insult from Gamal his
tongue felt thick in his throat and the palms of his hands went cold at
the thought of speaking. He still stumbled over the Arabic tongue in
which Sheikh Saadi conducted his lessons.

Saadi looked warmly upon him. "Daoud has a question?"

Daoud stared down at his hands, which seemed very large as they lay in
his lap. "Yes, master." Those kindly velvet-black eyes seemed to draw
speech out of him. "If God loves the compassionate, how can he look with
favor upon the warrior, who wounds and kills?"

Saadi's turbaned head lifted. His grizzled beard thrust forward, and his
eyes grew round and serious. He looked, Daoud thought, like a
thoroughbred steed pricking up his ears to a trumpet call.

"I say to you, Daoud, and to Gamal and to all of you--the work of a
warrior is a holy calling. When the Prophet Muhammad, may God bless and
salute him, began to teach, he did not want the believers to be men of
the sword. But the pagans beat those who went to hear him, and they
would not let him teach. And so he learned that a true man of God must
go forth with the Book in one hand and the sword in the other."

Daoud felt a warm pride in his chest. He was not a despicable slave. He
would one day be a warrior, in a way a holy man, like Saadi, who helped
spread the teachings of God.

_But I am an unbeliever._

He listened for the Frankish voices in his mind crying out against the
Saracens, against the devilish religion of the one they called Mahound.
But the voices were silent.

A pale boy with a grave face asked, "If God made man, how can He love
one who butchers His creatures?"

Sheikh Saadi raised an admonishing finger. "The Warrior of God is no
butcher. He strikes with sorrow and compassion. He hates evil, but he
loves his fellow men, even the one he fights against. The Warrior of God
is known, not by his willingness to kill, but by his willingness to die.
He is a man who would give his life for his friends."

Saadi went on to speak of other things, but Daoud's mind remained fixed
on the words "Warrior of God."

Ever since the day the Saracens carried him off, he had lived without a
home. He had drunk from gold cups in the palace of Baibars, had seen
that a Mameluke might rise to earthly glory. But such rewards fell to
only one in a thousand. For the rank and file, the life of a Mameluke
was a hard one, often ending in early death.

Lately Baibars had sent him to live with the other Mameluke boys in
training on the island of Raudha in the Bhar al-Nil, the river Nile.
Every morning, when he woke to the rapping of the drill master's stick
on the wooden wall of his sleeping shed, his first feeling was anguish.
Sometimes he prayed before sleeping that he might not wake up again.
Only when he journeyed twice a week, by boat and on foot, to sit at the
feet of Saadi, did he feel any peace.

But what if God had chosen him to be a Mameluke? Then it was a blessed
life, a holy calling, as Saadi had said. There was a world beyond this
one, a place the Koran called a "Heavenly Home." All men, Christian and
Muslim, believed that. As a warrior he could hope that his hardship
would be turned to joy in that Heavenly Home. In that world, not one in
ten thousand, but every good man, would dwell in a palace.

Absorbed in his own thoughts, he heard the soft, deep voice of Saadi as
one hears the constant murmur of the windblown sand in the desert. The
boys around him and the men who came and went in the Gray Mosque--all
were believers. As a warrior of God he could be part of that, and not
the least part. He would no longer be fil-kharij, a stranger in this
world. He would be fil-dakhil, at home.

The lesson was over. The boys stood with Saadi and bowed their heads in
prayer. After the prayers they bowed again to their teacher and, alone
or in pairs, pattered out of the courtyard of the Gray Mosque.

When they were all gone, Daoud stood alone facing Saadi.

"What does Daoud have to say to me?"

In a rush of love for his master, Daoud threw himself to his knees and
struck his forehead on Saadi's red carpet, bumping his head hard enough
to be slightly stunned.

"What is it, Daoud?" Saadi's voice was a comforting rumble.

Daoud sat back and looked up. The figure of the Sufi towered over him.
But Saadi bent his head, and looking into the dark face, Daoud felt as
if someone huge and powerful had taken him into his arms.

"Master, I want to embrace Islam."

       *       *       *       *       *

Daoud was mentally repeating the salat for the third time when he heard
footsteps and the click of hooves coming up the road. He shut his eyes
to resist the distraction.

A voice interrupted the fourth repetition. "Peace be unto you, Signore.
Can you tell me if there is room at the sign of the Capo di Bue for my
son and me and our donkey?"

Daoud was annoyed at having to stop his prayers, but he had to reply or
call unwanted attention to himself. He opened his eyes and saw in the
shadows before him a short man with a full white beard holding the reins
of a donkey that breathed heavily and shifted its feet nervously on the
great black paving stones of the Appian Way. A second figure, obscure in
the darkness, sat on the donkey. The two seemed heavily dressed for
summer. The bearded man wore a round black hat with a narrow brim, of a
type Daoud had never seen before.

"It is not overly full," he said impatiently.

But the man with the black hat still stood before him. "Are you sure
that we will be welcome, Signore?"

"You can pay for a place in the common bed, can you not?" said Daoud,
eager to finish the prayer.

"Oh, we do not require a bed, Signore," said the old man. "We will sleep
in the stable, or sit up"--he chuckled--"or even sleep standing up, as
our donkey does. It is just that we cannot go farther tonight. Rome has
more robbers than a dog has fleas."

Why in the name of God was the man so hesitant? Daoud, seeing no need to
continue the conversation, remained silent.

The old man sighed. "Peace be to you, Signore," he said again. "Come, my
son."

The man's son climbed down, and the two travelers pulled the donkey
through the inn's gate. Leather packs hung from either side of the
donkey, and Daoud wondered what was in them. Probably nothing of value,
but robbers would attack anyone who looked vulnerable, and the old man's
fear was doubtless justified.

Daoud thought of the precious stones he and Celino carried between
them. He felt the cold breath of danger on the back of his neck.

_Here in this inn they may all be honest men, but if they knew what
wealth we had, even honest men would try to cut our throats._

He turned his mind again to his prayers. By the time he finished and
turned to go through the gate leading to the courtyard, he sensed a
change in the noises from within. Shrill, angry voices had replaced the
cheerful murmur of general conversation.

The donkey and the boy who had ridden it huddled in the corner where the
stables met the main building.

Daoud stood listening in the center of the inn yard, his hand resting
lightly on the dagger at his belt. He faced the two-story main building,
the dining hall at ground level, the beds that slept six or more
upstairs. Access to the sleeping room was by way of a flight of outside
wooden stairs leading to a platform and an upper door. The doors and the
window shutters on both levels were open to let in the cool night air.
Stables secured with half doors on his left, a storage shed on his
right.

As Daoud strode past the old man's son, he caught a glimpse of bright
black eyes reflecting the light from oil lanterns hung on wooden pegs
set high on either side of the inn door.

Daoud moved to the doorway, and as he looked into the smoky, candlelit
hall, his heart sank.

The crowd of men and women in the room were turned toward Lorenzo
Celino. He stood against the far wall, the long blade of his sword
gleaming in the candlelight, facing six naked daggers.

Beside Celino, the hound Scipio stood stiff-legged, tail whipping from
side to side, fangs bared, growling softly. Fear of that dog was keeping
Celino's opponents back as much as fear of his sword, thought Daoud.

The bearded old man who had spoken to Daoud was standing to Celino's
left and a little behind him. Celino's eyes flicked toward Daoud for an
instant, and then quickly away before anyone might notice that he had
looked toward the doorway.

Daoud scanned the room for Sophia. She was standing in the shadows,
almost invisible in a long, hooded cloak. No one was threatening her.

One of the men facing Celino, Daoud recognized, was the innkeeper
himself. He was a huge man with broad, rounded shoulders and a shock of
thick black hair cut off at the same length all the way around, so it
looked like a bowl. The dagger he held was a long, murderous blade, but
his big hand made it look like a toy.

"Give us the Jew," the innkeeper said to Celino. "We have no quarrel
with you."

The old man was a Jew? How was it, Daoud demanded of himself, that these
people had known that and he had not?

"You do have a quarrel with me," said Celino, "because I do not care to
see you torment and rob this old man."

Daoud swore to himself. Was this the kind of madman Manfred had yoked
him with? Sworn to the utmost secrecy, carrying a fortune in jewels, and
now he brings a whole inn down around his ears by defending some dusty
old man?

_But does not God love the compassionate?_

_Give us the Jew_, the innkeeper had said. Daoud knew that Christians
took delight in mistreating Jews.

_And I told the old man to go in there. But I did not know he was a Jew.
Or that these people would harm him._

Whether Celino was a madman or not, Daoud would have to get him out of
this, because he was carrying half of their supply of precious stones.
When they left Lucera, Daoud and Celino had divided the twenty-four
jewels Manfred had traded for the great emerald. Each carried half of
the precious stones in a pouch hidden under his tunic.

Daoud studied the room. There must be a good thirty people there, most
of them men. Aside from the six surrounding Celino, few of them seemed
menacing. But if someone jumped in to help Celino, more might join the
other side.

_What do I have to help me? That boy who came with the old man. Sophia.
And Celino and the dog._

If only, he thought, he had the Scorpion. But that was in the dining
hall there, with all their other baggage, which Celino--the fool!--was
supposed to be guarding.

He backed out into the small courtyard and bumped into the boy, who had
followed him to the door. "You. Your father is in danger in there. And
my friend has gotten into trouble trying to help him. We must get them
out, you and I."

"Why should Christians help us?" The bitter voice was high. The boy must
be very young. He was wrapped up like a Bedouin. His head and face were
swathed in a dark cloth, his body cloaked. Only those sparkling eyes
showed.

"I must help my friend," Daoud said. "If he lives, you can ask him why
he chose to defend your father. Are you just going to cower here?"

"What should I do?"

What would make those men leave Celino alone long enough to give him a
chance to escape? Standing outside the doorway with the boy, Daoud's
eyes searched the courtyard again as his mind tried to fit what he saw
into a plan.

Daoud looked up at the lanterns again. Fire was sure to take men's minds
off a fight.

"Take the lanterns and run up those stairs. Throw them into the bedding
and get a good fire going. Make sure the floor is burning. Then come
back down to me."

Daoud took the two lanterns down from their pegs and handed them to the
boy, who raced up the stairs that clung to the outer wall of the inn.
Daoud went to the stable and opened the doors of the stalls that held
their four horses. He dragged out the saddles and bridles and threw them
over the horses' backs. Trained with horses since boyhood, he worked
with practiced speed. By the time the boy was beside him again, he had
two of the horses saddled.

He looked up and saw bright yellow flames flickering in the upper
windows.

"You did that well," he said. "You know how to saddle horses?"

"Yes, Messere."

"Get these two ready, then. Do it right; you will be riding one. And
hold them here with your donkey."

Daoud turned and shouted, "Fire!"

He ran to the doorway, looked in long enough to see the darkened spot
with its glowing center in the wooden ceiling of the dining hall, and
gestured toward it as he again shouted, "Fire!" Then he stepped back to
let the crowd tumble out past him.

The burly innkeeper was among the first to exit, jamming his dagger back
into its scabbard and shouting for help. "Take water from the horse
trough. Get buckets, pots, anything!" Waving his long arms, he towered
over the men milling around him like a giant commanding an army of
dwarves.

When the first rush had pushed through the doorway, Daoud ran into the
dining hall. He could see the blackening circle spreading in the ceiling
and flames licking around its edges.

Celino and the old Jew were still standing together by the far wall.
Only three men faced them now.

"Come on!" Daoud shouted. He strode to the table where they had been
sitting and grabbed up their packs.

"Stay where you are!" a woman's voice cried. It was the innkeeper's
wife, a gaunt woman nearly as tall as her husband, with bulging eyes and
a face as sharp as the carving knife she brandished.

An earthenware jug crashed down on her head. Her eyes rolled up till
only the whites showed. As she slumped to the floor, Daoud saw Sophia
behind her.

_Well done, Byzantine woman._

"Scipio! Spegni!" Celino shouted. With a roar like a lion's, Scipio
leapt at the central figure among the three men confronting his master.
Scipio's prey screamed, then stumbled over a bench and fell to the floor
on his back. The hound sprang onto his chest, snarls of rage all but
drowning out his victim's shrieks. The other two men, their mouths
gaping, their eyes fixed on nothing, ran past Daoud without seeing him.

"Stop your dog," Daoud called to Celino. "I want no killing." Smoke
spreading from above was searing his nostrils.

Daoud, Celino, and Sophia, followed by the old man and the dog, made
their way to the door.

Daoud threw saddlebags to Celino and Sophia. Men were dragging their
panic-stricken, rearing horses out of the stables and through the gate.
The giant innkeeper and other men were racing up and down the outside
stairs, which had also begun to burn, dumping buckets of water on the
fire. Men were fighting their way through smoke and flame into the
bedroom, trying to rescue belongings they had left there.

The boy stood by their horses, exactly where Daoud had left him. Bravely
done, Daoud thought. Hastily tying his packs down, Daoud unlaced one.
There were two weapons inside--a Scorpion, the miniature crossbow of the
Hashishiyya, and a full-size crossbow. Daoud chose the bigger one, a
Genoese arbalest drawn by crank, a present from King Manfred. The
quarrels were loaded by spring from a chamber within the stock that
could hold six at a time, so that the bowman could fire it as quickly as
he could draw it.

Holding the arbalest with one hand, Daoud vaulted into the saddle.
Celino and Sophia were already up. The old man had clambered onto their
spare horse, and his son was on the donkey.

_I should leave that old man behind_, Daoud thought angrily. _Were it
not for him, I would be sleeping comfortably right now._

"_They_ started the fire!" It was the innkeeper's wife in the doorway,
her tall body and long arms silhouetted by leaping flames. She pointed
an accusing hand at Daoud's party. "Stop them!"

The men who had been trying to put out the fire were giving up, and they
turned and started for Daoud and his companions.

"Throw them into the fire!" shrieked the woman in the doorway.

Motioning the others toward the gate, Daoud turned his horse sideways
and swung the crossbow in an arc to cover the attackers. The men stopped
their rush, but the tall woman pushed her way through them, screaming
curses.

Her hulking husband joined her, his long arms reaching for Daoud. He
looked able to knock a horse to the ground.

Daoud used both hands to aim the crossbow at him, gripping the horse
with his knees. He hoped the threat would be enough to stop the man. He
did not want to shoot the innkeeper. If anyone were killed, the deed
could follow them to Orvieto.

As he hesitated, the huge man drew back his arm and threw the dagger
with the force of a catapult. Daoud heard a thump and a groan behind
him. Daoud's thumb pressed the crossbow's release, and the string
snapped forward with a reverberating bang. The innkeeper bellowed with
pain, the cry dying away as he collapsed. The bolt probably went right
through him, thought Daoud.

As the man's dying groan faded, his wife's scream rose. She fell on her
knees beside him, and the other men crowded around them.

"Blood of Jesus! Pandolfo!" the innkeeper's wife wailed.

Jerking the reins with his left hand, Daoud wheeled the horse out the
gate.

_God help us, now they will be after us._

Which one of his people had been hurt?

He found himself, in his anger, hoping it was Celino.

The three other horses and the donkey were bunched together outside the
gate, on the dirt path that led through trees to the Appian Way. Some of
the men from the inn were out there, too, but when Daoud swung the
crossbow in their direction, they backed into the inn yard.

"Leave me here," the old man gasped. "I am dying." So it was he the
dagger had hit. They would have to leave him, Daoud thought, and his son
would insist on staying with him. And the vengeful crowd from the inn
would tear the two of them to pieces. All this fighting would have been
for nothing.

Celino spurred his horse over to where the old man swayed in the saddle
clutching his stomach. "Sorry to hurt you, but we are not leaving you,"
he said. He pulled the groaning wounded man across to his own horse and
swung one of his legs over so that he was riding astride.

Daoud saw blood, black in the faint light of the crescent moon, running
out of the old man's mouth, staining his white beard.

"Can you ride a horse?" Celino barked at the son.

"Yes," the boy sobbed.

"Get up on this one." Celino indicated the horse from which he had just
dragged the old man. "Take your packs off the donkey and put them on
this horse if you want them. Quickly, quickly. Leave the donkey."

Daoud fingered the crossbow as the boy hastily transferred himself and
his goods to the horse.

_Still Celino risks our lives with his care for these strangers. Damned
infidel. I am the leader of this party._

"Here they come!" cried Sophia. Waving swords and long-handled
halberds--God knew where they had gotten them--and sticks and
pitchforks, the crowd from the inn tumbled through the gate. Some of
them were on horses.

"Ride!" shouted Daoud in the voice he used to command his Mameluke
troop.

He kicked his spurs into his horse's side and sent it galloping down the
road.

He and Celino had not talked about which way to flee, but there was
really only one direction they could go--north, toward their
destination. That, he knew, would take them straight into the heart of
Rome.

There would be a price to pay for the blood they had shed this night.

The great Salah ad-Din had said it:

_Blood never sleeps._




VIII


The clatter of four horses' hooves over the broken paving stones of the
Appian Way rang in Daoud's ears. He heard shouts behind him as the men
from the Ox's Head organized a pursuit. And beside him the old man, held
erect by Celino's powerful arm, groaned again and again as the wild ride
jolted his stomach wound. His legs dangled lifelessly on either side of
the horse.

Daoud looked over his shoulder and saw that the boy was keeping up,
riding next to Celino. His robes were hiked up and his skinny, bare legs
gleamed in the faint moonlight. Daoud could hear him sobbing loudly, in
time with his father's groans, as the horses pounded onward.

Glancing over at Sophia, on his right, he saw that she was stiff in the
saddle, like one not used to riding, and the moonlight showed her lips
tight and her jaw clenched. But she rode hard and made no complaint. She
sat astride, wearing trousers under a divided skirt. Daoud felt himself
admiring her. So far the woman had proved no burden. Celino had caused
trouble, but not she.

Glancing quickly again at her profile, outlined by moonlight, he
realized with a start that she reminded him of a face he had not seen in
many years. Nicetas. She had the same high forehead and long, straight
nose. Her mouth was fuller, but her lips had the chiseled shape of
Nicetas's lips. Nicetas. Even amid this moment's perils sorrow gripped
his heart for the one who was lost and could never be recovered.

As if she sensed him looking at her, Sophia turned her face toward him,
but this put her face in shadow, and he could not make out her
expression. He shrugged and looked away.

He rode with one hand holding the arbalest across the saddle in front of
him, the other on the reins, guiding his mount. The horses Manfred had
given them ran well, aided a little by the high crescent moon. Daoud
tried to maneuver his small party to skirt dark patches in the road
where there might be holes in the pavement that could trip them.

The cries of the pursuers were louder, and Daoud heard hoofbeats behind
them. He looked back and saw a dark cluster of horsemen rushing down the
road. Five or six men, he guessed. There could not have been many more
horses than that stabled at the inn.

He felt no fear for himself. The country might be strange to him, but
riding and fighting in darkness were not. But his stomach tensed with
worry about the four people with him. One of them was already badly
hurt. Could he get them away safely? They were in his care now, and it
was a duty.

Celino was the only one of his charges who could look out for himself.
And he, thought Daoud angrily, was the one who had least deserved to
survive.

_But he is carrying half the accursed jewels._

_If we survive this, it might be best for me to kill Celino._

As they rode on, Daoud kept glancing over his shoulder. Their pursuers
were gaining on them. Celino's horse, carrying two riders, was holding
Daoud's party back. But that meant the men from the inn would soon be
within the arbalest's short range. He had only three bolts left in the
box under the stock. He wished he had a heavy Turkish bow, the kind he
had used at the battle of the Well of Goliath. Almost as powerful as a
crossbow, it was easier to handle on horseback and would shoot much
farther.

_Now they will see how Mamelukes fight._

His eyes were now completely adjusted to the faint moonlight. The road
took them into a deep pine wood. They splashed through a puddle in a low
place, then clambered up a slope.

Down the other side. At the bottom of the next slope, Daoud twisted
around in the saddle. Letting go of the reins and guiding the horse with
his knees, he aimed the crossbow at the top of the hill. When the first
rider came over the crest, clearly visible in the moonlight, Daoud
pressed the catch with his thumb and released the bolt. An instant later
the man fell without a sound.

He told himself a warrior of God should not rejoice at the death of an
enemy, but he could not help a small surge of satisfaction at his good
shooting.

Daoud cranked the string back and another bolt snapped into place. He
hit the next man on the downslope. It was a harder shot, and this man
did not die instantly but toppled screaming out of the saddle.

After glancing forward to make sure of the road ahead, Daoud turned
again and saw that the three remaining men had stopped, their horses
milling around the fallen men. They would give up pursuit now, Daoud was
sure of it. Doubtless none of them had any real weapons, and they could
not contend with a crossbow.

He felt his lips stretch in a grin, and he sighed deeply with relief. He
had been more worried than he realized.

He and his companions topped another hill, and when he looked back again
their pursuers had disappeared below its crest.

Daoud raised his hand and called out, "Slow down to a trot. No one seems
to be following us. We can be easier on the old man and the horses."

"And on Scipio," Celino said, pointing down to a great shadow racing
with them along the side of the road. Daoud could hear the hound panting
and his claws drumming on the paving stones. He wondered how long Scipio
could keep up with galloping horses, then reminded himself that this was
a hunting dog. Scipio could probably outrun horses.

"Soon the Appian Way will take us to the old walls of Rome," said
Celino. "The watchmen there would question us. But we can go off to the
left toward the Tiber and skirt the city."

_And because Celino knows such things, I cannot kill him. But I must see
to it that he never again does anything like this to endanger us._

As they rode on, Daoud realized that the old man had stopped moaning. He
heard Celino whispering something that sounded like a prayer.

"How fares the old man?"

Celino sounded angry. "He's dead."

On the other side of Celino the boy let out a wail of anguish, and then
sobbed bitterly. Daoud felt a surge of grief. He was not sure whether it
was for the boy or for himself.

"We should leave his body behind," he said to Celino. "Going this fast,
that horse cannot carry both of you much farther." Anger at all this
useless trouble constricted his throat and made his voice husky.

The boy cried, "No!" It was almost a scream.

"I can manage," said Celino.

"I will not leave him!" the boy shouted.

Sophia whispered, "I wish we had never seen them--without our help, they
might only have been robbed. That poor boy!"

Celino clenched his fist and muttered to himself. Then he looked up and
motioned to Daoud, pointing out a road diverging westward from the
Appian Way. Daoud jerked the reins of his horse, and the hooves no
longer rang on old Roman paving stones but thudded on hard-packed dirt.
The trees closed together overhead, and they rode for a time in almost
total darkness.

Celino dropped back now, and Daoud, glancing over his shoulder a little
later, saw the boy and Celino in conversation as they rode side by side.
After they had gone a mile or so, Celino rode back to join Daoud and
Sophia. The old man's body was draped over his horse's back in front of
him.

"You have much to answer to me for," Daoud said.

"I know that," said Celino. "But as long as we are out of Rome by
morning, we are safe. The Giudecca, the Jewish quarter, is along the
Tiber on the south side of the city. We can leave the boy with them and
they will help him bury his father and take him in. It is not far from
here." Daoud could not see his face clearly in the dark, but there was a
note of pleading in his tone.

"How far?" Daoud demanded.

"We will be there long before dawn."

"But then we will have to go into the city," Daoud said. "How do we
explain to the Roman watchmen why we are carrying an old man, dead of a
knife wound? Surely they will be at least as thorough in inspecting
baggage as you were at Lucera."

Celino was silent a moment. "You two can cross a bridge that will take
you west of the city. I will take the old man's body and the boy to the
Giudecca, and I will be the only one who will have to deal with the
watch."

Sophia spoke up. "As you dealt with those ruffians at the inn? Then we
will have all of Rome hunting us."

"All of Rome?" Celino chuckled. "The Romans can agree on only one
thing--fighting among themselves. There are powerful Ghibellino families
here who will protect us if need be."

He needed this damned Lorenzo, Daoud thought, because of his connections
with the Ghibellini.

"How did the men at the inn know the old man was a Jew?" Daoud asked
Celino.

"The hat he was wearing," Celino said. "All Jews are required to wear
those round black hats in the Papal States. To make it easier for good
Christians to persecute them." Daoud shook his head. Even Christians
were treated better than that in al-Islam.

_I did not know. Somehow, out of all that I learned about the Christian
world, that detail about hats for Jews was left out. A little thing, too
trivial to be mentioned. What other deadly little omissions lie in wait
for me?_

He felt like a man in chains. He would have to keep Celino with him, and
the prospect infuriated him.

As they continued riding westward, Daoud heard the boy weeping. It made
him think of nights in the Mameluke barracks on Raudha Island when he
lay on his pallet, biting his knuckles so no one would hear him sob as
he cried for his mother and father and for himself so lost and lonely.

_I will help the boy bury his father. If it does not endanger us._

This boy, too, was lost and lonely. As Daoud had been while training to
be a Mameluke.

As Nicetas had been.

       *       *       *       *       *

It had been a chilly day, the day that Daoud and Nicetas became friends.

Huge gray clouds billowed in the east, over the Sinai desert. In the lee
of a cliff formed of giant blocks of red sandstone, a dozen small tents
clustered.

On a restless brown pony with a barrel-shaped body, Daoud waited in a
line of nearly thirty julbans, Mamelukes in training, similarly mounted.
Soon it would be his turn to ride past the wooden ring that a pair of
slaves was swinging from side to side between the legs of a scaffold. In
his hand Daoud grasped a rumh, a lightweight lance longer than a man's
body, with a tip of sharpened bone.

On a low rise of brown gravel, Mahmoud, the Circassian naqeeb in charge
of their training troop, sat astride a sleek brown Arab half blood. He
looked almost regal in his long scarlet kaftan and reddish-brown fur
cap. His beard was full and gray, and a necklace of gold coins hung down
to his waist. The boys wore round caps of undyed cotton cloth and
striped robes, and they rode scrubby ponies.

From atop a galloping horse, each boy was expected to hurl his rumh
unerringly through the ring, whose diameter was two handspans. The ring
was attached to three strong, slender ropes. One rope suspended it from
the scaffold; the other two went out to either side, where the slaves
held them. Pulling in turn on the ropes, the two slaves swung the ring
from side to side.

The boy just ahead of Daoud in line was a new member of the troop of
young Mamelukes. His face was smooth and his skin pale, his hair and
eyes very black.

He turned to Daoud and said, "What if we hit one of those slaves by
mistake?"

Daoud had once seen a slave transfixed by a wild cast of the rumh. It
hurt to remember his screams and thrashings.

"Wound a slave and you will be beaten," he said. "Kill a slave, and you
go without water for three days. In this desert that is a death
sentence."

The boy whistled and shrugged. "Hard punishments for us, but not much
comfort to the slaves, I'd say."

"It comforts them to know we have reason to be careful," Daoud answered.

After a moment, the boy smiled hesitantly and said, "I am Nicetas. From
Trebizond. Where are you from?"

Daoud rubbed his pony's neck to settle it down. "Ascalon, not far from
here. I am called Daoud." He saw the puzzlement in Nicetas's face and
added, "My parents were Franks."

"Oh," said Nicetas, and looked sympathetic, as if he had instantly
grasped what had happened to Daoud's mother and father and how he came
to be a Mameluke.

"My mother was a whore," Nicetas said without any sign of embarrassment.
"She sold me to the Turks when I was eight, and I was glad to go. She
had sold me for other things before that. This is a good life. You learn
to ride and shoot. Mamelukes wear gold, and they lord it over everybody
else."

Daoud felt a slight easing of the tension of waiting to cast the rumh.
He enjoyed talking to this new boy. There was a warmth and liveliness in
him that Daoud liked. And even though their lives had been different,
Daoud felt more of a kinship with this boy than he ever had with any of
the others in his training group.

"Mamelukes have a good life if they live," said Daoud. "Where is
Trebizond?"

Nicetas waved his left hand. "North of here. It is a Greek city on the
Black Sea. But I suppose you have never heard of the Black Sea."

"I know where the Black Sea is," said Daoud, somewhat annoyed that
Nicetas should think him totally ignorant. "How did you come to join our
orta?"

"I was enrolled in the Fakri, the Mamelukes of Emir Fakr ad-Din. The
emir was killed by the Frankish invaders last year. The older Fakri are
staying together, but the young ones have been transferred out to the
other ortas."

Daoud found himself feeling somewhat sorry for Nicetas. He knew how
lonely the Greek boy must be. His khushdashiya, his barracks comrades,
were the nearest he had to a family. And even at that he was not really
close to the other boys. He was the only Frank among them, and to talk
to them at all he had to learn their various languages--Turkish, Kurd,
Farsi, Circassian, Tartar. They would not bother to learn the Norman
French, which was still the language he heard in his dreams. Most of the
boys slept two by two in the field, but Daoud had no close friend to
share a tent with.

"Go!" shouted Mahmoud the Circassian to Nicetas.

The Greek boy stood up in the saddle, and rode down the field with a
warbling scream that was a perfect imitation of a Bedouin war cry. His
trousers billowed against his long legs. Daoud watched his handsome,
straight-nosed profile as he turned to fix his eyes on the swinging
target. The lean-muscled bare arm drew back and snapped forward. The
long black pole of the rumh whistled through the air, shot smoothly
through the ring and landed upright, quivering, in the dune beyond it.

Daoud heard murmurs of appreciation around him. At the naqeeb's next cry
of, "Go!" Daoud kicked his pony in the ribs and plunged forward to try
his own cast.

He tried to ignore the fear of missing that knotted his belly muscles,
tried not to think at all about his desperate need to make a good cast.

He guided his mount with the pressure of his knees. He squinted his eyes
against the wind of his rush and fixed them on the ring. His body moved
up and down with the action of the horse, and the ring swung back and
forth. He twisted sideways in the saddle, steadying himself with one
hand on the pony's back. Grasping the rumh at the middle so that it
balanced, he lifted it high over his head. The little horse's muscles
rippled under his palm. If he fixed his gaze and his aim on the point in
space that the ring occupied at the lowest point of its arc, and
released his rumh just as the ring reached the extremity of its swing,
the target and rumh should arrive together.

The pony had carried him opposite the ring now, and he took a deep
breath and whipped his arm forward.

His lance reached the right spot--an instant too late. He wanted to
throw himself down from his horse and weep with frustration.

He heard groans and curses from behind him. Not once this morning had
the troop had a perfect round. He rode around to the back of the
scaffold, where the two slaves were sitting until the next boy should
take his turn. The ghulmans kept their eyes down, their black faces
expressionless. Angrily he yanked his rumh out of the sand and rode back
to the end of the line.

Nicetas patted his arm reassuringly. Two more boys missed after Daoud,
and that also made him feel a bit better. It occurred to Daoud that
Nicetas was one of the few who had not once missed the ring that
morning. He was a good horseman and seemed to have a remarkably keen eye
with the rumh.

The only other boy in the troop who was that good, Daoud thought, was
Kassar, the Kipchaq Tartar. Daoud looked around for Kassar and saw him
sitting on his pony partway out of line, eyeing Nicetas sourly. Kassar's
head was round, his face flat, and he was already old enough to have
grown a small black mustache.

"From now on," the naqeeb bellowed from his hilltop, "anyone who misses
once will not eat today. Anyone who misses twice will sleep in the
desert tonight without tent or blankets."

Nicetas, who was wearing a long, sleeveless robe, grinned and shook
himself. "It will be cold out there tonight."

"What if someone misses a third time, naqeeb?" someone called out.

"He is no longer Mameluke," said Mahmoud in a soft voice that carried.
"He goes back to El Kahira. To be a ghulman for the rest of his life."

He would kill himself first, Daoud thought. He would plunge his dagger
into his own heart before he would let that happen to him.

A frozen silence fell over the troop. The only sound Daoud could hear
was the desert wind hissing past his ears. But he felt the fear all
around him just as he felt the wind.

Mahmoud's threat seemed to help the troop's marksmanship. Only one boy
missed in the next round. In that round and the one that followed,
Daoud's rumh flew true both times. The second time, he felt dizzy with
relief, and he leaned forward and hugged his horse's neck as he rode
back to his place.

One more round and they could rest. Daoud's body ached, especially his
back and his arms. He felt a clenching in his stomach, knowing that he
had to get his lance through the ring this time. His khushdashiya would
hate him, and he would hate himself, if he missed. And the more he
feared missing, the more he would be likely to miss.

"Never mind hitting a slave," said Nicetas just before his turn. "Do us
all a favor, hit the naqeeb."

Daoud laughed. Nicetas rode out and hit the target as usual. Feeling
less tense, Daoud rode out to make his third cast. He held his breath
until he saw his long lance sail smoothly through the dark-rimmed
circle.

He shouted with joy and turned his mount back toward the troop. He did
not hug his horse this time. Laughing, he rode up beside Nicetas, threw
his arms around him, and pulled the skinny body against his larger
frame. Nicetas's eyes seemed to sparkle as they looked into his when
Daoud let him go.

It turned out to be another perfect round, and Mahmoud declared they
could stop to pray and eat.

_Thank God!_ Daoud said fervently to himself.

The sun had crossed from the zenith to the western part of the sky.
Mahmoud led them in reciting the prayers, facing south toward Mecca.
Then each julban took a portion of stale bread and dry goat cheese from
a pouch hanging from his saddle, and a single draft from his water skin.
The swallow of warm water Daoud took tasted foul, but he had to fight
down the impulse to drink more. He sat down before his small tent to
eat.

"May I sit with you?" Daoud squinted up into the sun to see the Greek
boy standing over him.

"Please," said Daoud, gesturing to the sand beside him.

They ate in silence for a time. Daoud looked up from the hard bread he
was relentlessly chewing and saw Nicetas smiling at him. He smiled back.

"You were eating by yourself," Nicetas said. "Do you sleep alone, too?"
Daoud nodded.

"Would you like to have a tent mate?"

Before Daoud could answer, a shadow fell over them. Daoud looked up.
Kassar stood between them and the sun, half a dozen of his friends
around him. He glowered down at Nicetas.

"You think you are good?"

Nicetas's smile was friendly. "It is in the blood. Greeks are good at
games."

"You throw like a girl," Kassar said to Nicetas. The Kipchaq's followers
laughed dutifully.

Daoud felt his face burn with anger. He wanted to say something on
Nicetas's behalf, even though it was the rule that each boy must defend
himself.

Nicetas, still smiling pleasantly and looking quite unafraid, stood up
with lithe grace to face Kassar.

"My rumh pierces the target," he said, making a circle with thumb and
forefinger and pushing his other forefinger into it. "You have to be a
man to do that."

This time the laughter was spontaneous, but Kassar did not smile.

"I will bet with you that I can throw the rumh better than you can,"
said Kassar grimly. "I will make you a handsome bet. I will put up the
mail shirt that I took from a Frankish knight at Mansura."

Daoud felt the sting of envy. If he had only been a year or two older,
he, too, might have souvenirs of that battle.

"I possess nothing of value," said Nicetas. "What can I put up against
your mail shirt?"

Grinning, Kassar stepped closer to the Greek, bringing his face down
till Nicetas's sharp-pointed nose almost touched his flat one. "You will
spend the night in my tent whenever I want you." His thick fingers
gripped Nicetas's chin, kneading the flesh of his face.

Nicetas blushed and pulled away, rubbing his chin, but still he smiled.
"If your hand is that rough, I do not wonder you need a new tent mate."

This time the boys all roared with laughter, and Kassar's eyes narrowed
to angry slits.

Daoud had never before heard anyone speak openly of what all the boys
were aware of but only whispered about. For more than a year Daoud had
seen and felt his body changing and had been tormented by steadily
growing needs within himself. He sensed that others of his khushdashiya
were tormented by the same nearly unbearable hungers. He knew, from
listening to the talk of older men, that the answer to all these
yearnings lay in women. But julbans were forbidden the company of women.
He quickly learned how to relieve himself in solitude, and suspected
many of the others did the same. But some, he was sure, made use of each
other's bodies.

"I accept the contest," said Nicetas, staring fearlessly into Kassar's
eyes.

"We must go to the naqeeb for permission," said Kassar. "But we will not
tell him the stakes. He might get ideas about you." He grinned at
Nicetas with such frank lasciviousness that Daoud, remembering how his
captors had raped him years ago, wanted to smash his fist into the
Tartar's big white teeth.

He followed Nicetas and Kassar as they went to Mahmoud's large silk tent
and explained the contest.

"Yes," said Mahmoud, leading the way back to the practice field. "Put
the one-handspan ring on, and you will ride fifty paces from the target.
You will cast until one of you misses and the other follows with a hit.
If both of you miss, you will be beaten for disturbing my rest."

The slaves changed the two-handspan target ring for the smaller one and
began pulling on the guide ropes that swung the ring from side to side.
The naqeeb paced off the distance for Kassar and Nicetas.

At Mahmoud's command, Kassar rode down the field. He made a perfect
cast, and his friends cheered. It was Nicetas's turn, and he flew past
the target with his warbling scream, standing in the stirrups. There was
something dance-like in the way he stood swaying with the jolting
movement of his pony, left arm outstretched to balance himself, rumh
poised to throw.

_He is beautiful_, Daoud thought.

Nicetas's rumh went perfectly through the ring. The cheer for him was
lower; after all, nobody knew him.

Daoud called out, "God guides your arm, Nicetas!" Some of the other boys
stared at him, and his face grew hot.

Both contestants made successful second casts. But when Kassar made his
third throw, Daoud saw the ring wobble slightly. The rumh must have
brushed its inner edge. Nicetas's third try, once again, was flawless.

"We cannot be at this till sunset," Mahmoud grumbled. "Move out to
seventy paces." He paced off the new distance, and Kassar and Nicetas,
stone-faced, not looking at each other, rode to the spot he pointed out.

To throw the rumh accurately from that distance would take great
strength as well as a keen eye, Daoud thought. Looking at Nicetas's
slender arms and narrow shoulders, he wondered if the Greek boy could
manage it.

A wind rose, stinging Daoud's face with tiny sand particles. It was
blowing from the east, across the field where the boys rode. Nicetas
would be lucky to get his lance anywhere near the scaffold.

At Mahmoud's barking command, Kassar galloped out across the field. He
half rose as he came abreast of the target, and Daoud saw his powerful
shoulder muscles bunch under his thin robe.

There was a loud crack as Kassar's rumh hit the ring. Daoud saw black
fragments fly though the air. He gasped in surprise.

Kassar's lance had hit the side of the target ring, and the desert-dried
wood had shattered under the impact.

"Well." Mahmoud turned to Nicetas with a laugh. "The target is
destroyed."

"Let us put another ring on," said Nicetas promptly, just as Kassar rode
up.

Kassar's face was tight with fury. "The rings are different sizes. It
will not be fair if you have a bigger ring to hit."

"I want a smaller ring," said Nicetas with a faint smile.

Mahmoud sent a boy galloping to the target pullers with the order to
attach a new ring to the ropes. From where he stood, Daoud could not
even see daylight through the new ring. In the distance he saw a
whirlwind raising a cone of sand, a sand devil, spinning near the red
cliff.

"Think that there is a crusader charging at you, and you have to hit him
in the eye to stop him," Mahmoud suggested to Nicetas.

"If it were, I would not let him get close enough for me to _see_ his
eye," said Nicetas dryly.

"Go!" Mahmoud roared.

Nicetas screamed across the field. The rumh flew.

Daoud cried out in amazement as the lance, no bigger than a splinter at
this distance, shot perfectly through the ring.

Joy was a white light momentarily blinding Daoud. His heart was beating
as hard and fast as if it had been he who had made the cast.

"Nicetas! Yah, Nicetas!" he cheered.

Loud cries of admiration went up. Nicetas retrieved his rumh and waved
it over his head, standing in the stirrups as he rode back to the troop.

He jumped down from his horse, and Kassar, already dismounted, went to
meet him. Kassar's heavy walk, his clenched fists, the rage in his face,
told Daoud there was going to be trouble.

He felt hot anger surging up inside him, but he reminded himself again
that Nicetas must fight his own battles.

The boys surrounded Kassar and Nicetas, the naqeeb with his green turban
in their midst. Daoud pushed himself into the innermost circle.

"Bring me the mail shirt," said Nicetas.

"_I_ won," Kassar declared, glowering down at him. "I smashed the ring,
a thing you are too weak to do." He looked away from Nicetas and moved
his head from side to side, glaring around the circle of boys,
challenging any of them to contradict him. No one spoke. No one wanted
to quarrel with Kassar, especially on behalf of a boy no one knew.

Daoud felt angry words rushing up inside him, but he kept himself in
check. To take up Nicetas's quarrel unasked would insult Nicetas. If
things got too far out of hand, the naqeeb would intervene.

Daoud felt himself abruptly pushed to one side. He turned to protest,
and then checked himself. It was Mahmoud, leaving the circle that
surrounded Nicetas and Kassar. As Daoud watched in amazement, the
gray-bearded naqeeb walked to his red-and-white-striped tent and sat
down cross-legged on the carpet in front of it, calmly gazing at the
sandstone cliffs as if what was going on did not concern him at all.

_He should be the one to declare Nicetas the winner_, Daoud thought, as
angry now as he was astonished. _Is he, too, afraid of Kassar?_

"When you broke the ring, that was a miss," said Nicetas. "You lost. The
shirt is mine."

"You will have to take it from me," said Kassar with a grin. "Come to my
tent and you can wrestle me for it." Now he made the gesture encircling
his forefinger that Nicetas had made before.

What would Nicetas do, Daoud wondered. He was not big enough to hurt
Kassar--but if he yielded, Kassar would make a slave of him and subject
him to abominations.

"I had heard that a Tartar never goes back on his word," said Nicetas.
"I see now that at least one Tartar is a lying jackal."

_Good!_ Daoud thought fiercely. In a battle of insults, he felt sure,
the talkative Greek would have the upper hand over the dour Tartar.

Kassar reddened, and he smashed his fist into Nicetas's jaw. The Greek
boy fell to the ground, and Daoud saw that his eyes were blank, dazed.
But Nicetas shook his head and forced himself to his feet.

"Your fist can't restore your honor, Kassar. You have fucked it too many
times."

Loud laughter burst out from the watching boys, choked off as again the
Tartar swung, hitting Nicetas in the mouth. The boy was thrown back
against the onlookers, and blood ran from his nose and mouth.

Daoud felt the blood pounding his temples as his anger grew. As long as
it was just Kassar against Nicetas, he could not get into the fight. But
if Kassar's friends joined in, he promised himself he would help
Nicetas.

"Take back what you said," Kassar growled, advancing on him.

Daoud could not see Nicetas behind Kassar's bulky form. But suddenly
Kassar's head snapped back and his white cap fell off into the sand. The
Kipchaq fell back, and Daoud saw that Nicetas was on his feet, grinning
through the blood and rubbing his knuckles.

"Yah, Nicetas!" he shouted, but he was alone in cheering. He sensed
others looking at him. May they burn in the flames if they did not see
that Nicetas was the better man.

Kassar plowed into Nicetas, pummeling him with both fists. When Nicetas
collapsed under the punishment, Kassar kicked him in the head, sending
him flying backward. Kassar's friends shouted encouragement. Daoud felt
his whole body growing hot with anger.

Nicetas rolled over on his stomach, raised himself on hands and knees,
and spat blood. His eyes searched the crowd of boys watching him and
Kassar, and Daoud knew that he was looking for a friend.

"Nicetas!" Daoud cried, and the Greek boy's dazed eyes found him and his
bloody mouth stretched in a grin.

But if Nicetas did not give up, Kassar would kill him.

Suddenly Daoud turned and pushed his way through the crowd and hurried
to where Mahmoud was still sitting.

"Why do you not stop this?" he demanded. "It is your duty to keep order
among us."

"Do not tell me my duty," said Mahmoud. "Have you forgotten what my cane
feels like?"

"You would use the cane on _me_?" Daoud exclaimed, outraged. "When
Kassar is cheating?"

There were a thousand tiny wrinkles around Mahmoud's blue Circassian
eyes, from a lifetime of squinting into the sun.

"Daoud, I will tell you what my duty is. My duty is to take miserable
julbans and make Mamelukes of you. When you are a full-fledged Mameluke,
there will be no naqeeb over you to right your wrongs. Among Mamelukes,
he who is strongest rules. If Kassar is the strongest among you, you
must be ruled by him."

Daoud growled with disgust and ran back to the fight.

Nicetas had somehow gotten back on his feet, though his face was a mass
of blood and dirt and his breath was coming in gasps. His eyes were
glazed, but he managed to stagger forward and hit Kassar in the nose
with his fist. Blood began to flow from the young Tartar's wide nostrils
into his mustache.

Kassar put his fingers to his upper lip, took them away and stared at
the blood. His eyes widened in fury. His head swung right and left; then
he sidestepped to a boy in front of the circle. From the boy's sash he
pulled a dabbus, a fluted iron cylinder mounted on a wooden staff.

Swinging the dabbus so it whistled through the air, Kassar charged at
Nicetas. The boys fell back, opening the circle wider.

For the first time, Daoud saw fear in Nicetas's eyes. He ducked as
Kassar swung the mace at his head, but his movements were slow and
awkward. He had been hit too many times. He fell, stood up, and
staggered backward.

The naqeeb would not interfere. This could end only one way.

And Daoud knew that he did not want to see Nicetas die before his eyes.

He would not allow it.

Only moments ago rage had raised a great storm within him, but now his
mind was like the desert after the storm has passed, still and empty.
Like the desert, he felt himself full of a terrible power.

Without any more thought he stepped out into the ring behind Kassar and
shouted, "Kassar! Enough!"

The Tartar whirled, holding the dabbus at shoulder height.

"Stay out of this, pigshit Frank."

"Let him be, Kassar." Almost all Daoud's attention was on Kassar, but a
part of his mind was free to wonder why he felt no fear at all. Somehow,
he was not sure how, the hours with Saadi had something to do with it.

"Put that down," Daoud said, pointing at the dabbus.

"In your head!" Kassar shouted, and charged at him.

Daoud kept his eyes on Kassar's, but in the edge of his vision he saw
the ridged mass of iron, heavy enough to crack a steel helmet, rushing
toward his head--his head protected only by a cloth cap.

At the last possible moment he threw up his hand and caught Kassar's
wrist. He stepped back out of the path of the dabbus and jerked downward
on Kassar's arm. The weight of the mace helped throw Kassar off balance,
and he landed on his chest with a grunt, the air driven out of him.

Daoud stamped on Kassar's forearm and yanked the dabbus out of his
grasp. He flung himself down on Kassar and pinned him to the sand.

Though all his attention was on Kassar, there was room in his mind for a
triumphant surprise.

_Allahu akbar! God is great! I never thought I had the strength to throw
the Kipchaq._

"Nicetas won the contest. Admit it, or I'll break your skull," he
growled, holding the dabbus over Kassar's head.

Kassar remained silent. Daoud lowered the dabbus and tapped the Tartar's
round skull through his mop of straight black hair. He hit Kassar just
hard enough to let him feel the weight of the dabbus.

"Admit that Nicetas won."

"All right," Kassar grunted, his face in the sand. "He won."

"Swear by the Prophet you will leave him alone from now on."

"I swear," came the muffled voice.

"By the Prophet."

"By the Prophet."

Daoud stood up warily and handed the dabbus back to the boy Kassar had
taken it from.

Kassar rose slowly, wiping sand from his face. His eyes seemed to spark
with hatred.

_This is not finished yet_, Daoud thought.

He looked for Nicetas. The Greek boy was on his feet. He was wiping the
dirt and blood from his face with the hem of his robe. He looked at
Daoud, and there was something bright and solemn in his eyes. No one had
ever looked at Daoud like that before.

Daoud felt a great rush of gratitude to God for giving him the strength
to save Nicetas's life.

_If I had not fought Kassar, Nicetas would be dead._

That clean-lined face so full of warmth and wit would be so much
lifeless clay. Daoud felt a lightness in his heart and a smile bubbling
to his lips. He was proud of his strength. He had used it to save a
precious life. He was a warrior of God.

Smiling, he went to Nicetas and threw his arm around his shoulders.

He should force Kassar to give Nicetas the mail shirt. But he had done
enough fighting for one day. Nicetas did not need the damned shirt. Let
the Tartar keep it.

"Now then, you wretched sons of desert rats!" came Mahmoud's voice. He
pushed his way into the middle of the ring, coin necklace glittering,
eyes flashing in anger.

"Fighting, eh? Trying to kill each other? Save your fighting for the
emir's enemies. You are khushdashiya, brother Mamelukes of Emir Baibars.
If again I see one of you raise a hand against his brother, I swear I
will stake him out on the sand." He raised his right hand to heaven.
"Hear me, God!"

The naqeeb had a strange way of making Mamelukes out of them, Daoud
thought. But perhaps he knew what he was doing.

That night, without anyone's saying any more, Nicetas brought his tent
and his bedding to Daoud. They compared tents and decided that Daoud's
was the larger. They would sleep in it.

After they had tended their ponies and joined with the rest of the troop
in the final prayer of the night, they crawled into the tent and spread
their bedding side by side. Daoud felt Nicetas moving in his half of the
tent and heard a rustling, as if his new tent mate were shedding his
clothes. Why would he do that on such a cold night?

Nicetas pulled his blankets over both of them and rolled toward Daoud.
The Greek boy's skin felt warm and silk-smooth. Nicetas wriggled even
closer and stroked Daoud's chest, arousing pleasant tingles. Daoud felt,
keener than ever, the powerful longings that had been troubling him. But
then he remembered cruel Turkish laughter and rough hands, the
unbearable pain and shame of his first nights of captivity. He struggled
to free himself from Nicetas's arms.

All at once Nicetas let go of him and turned over, leaving a small space
in the tent between them.

"Sleep well, Daoud." There was hurt in the soft voice.

Remorseful, Daoud reached for his friend. When his hand grasped the bare
shoulder, his fingers tightened of their own volition. Nicetas drew
closer again, until their bodies were pressed together.

"Ah, Daoud!" Nicetas whispered.

After they had made love, Daoud thought, _Perhaps God sent Nicetas to
me_.

Fearing that the thought might be blasphemous, he put it out of his mind
and fell into a sated sleep.

       *       *       *       *       *

Daoud, Sophia, Celino, and the boy came to a riverbank. They had ridden
in silence for so long that the moon's crescent hung low in the western
sky, casting a glow on rippling water. Daoud called a halt and sat
gazing at the Tiber. _Next to the Bhar al-Nil, the river Nile, this is
the most famous river in the world._

It was wide and flowed fast, judging by the ripples, and looked deep.
Looking upriver, he saw that it followed a winding course leading toward
black bulks, lit with yellow lights here and there, that must be great
buildings. Rome.

They laid the old man's body down on a cracked marble platform beside
the river. Celino had long since pulled the dagger out of the old man's
flesh, and now he handed it to Daoud. The dagger was a well-balanced
throwing knife of good steel, stained with a film of dried blood. Daoud
knelt, washed it in the Tiber, and wiped it with the hem of his cloak.
He held it out to the boy.

"I do not want it." The boy's face was still wrapped in a blue scarf,
but Daoud could see tears glittering on his cheek.

"It is a good knife. You may have need of it now that you have no
father."

"It is the knife that killed him." The boy hesitated. "All right, give
it to me."

Daoud handed it to him, and the boy turned and hurled the knife out over
the river. It flew a short distance, and the splash threw off light like
a handful of pearls.

"Well," Daoud said, "no one had a better right to do that than you." He
smiled to himself. He could understand quite well the lad's feelings.

But there was something odd about the way the boy's arm had moved when
he threw the knife. Daoud recalled a phrase that he had heard in memory
while they were riding toward the river.

_You throw like a girl._

That had not been true of Nicetas, but it was true of this boy.

And his voice, though high, was not as light and clear as the voice of a
child. Moved by a sudden suspicion, Daoud reached out too quickly for
the boy to draw away and pulled loose the scarf.

He leaned closer for a good look. He heard Celino, standing behind him,
grunt with surprise. Revealed in the moonlight was, not a lad whose
voice had not yet changed, but a girl. Her eyelids were puffy from her
weeping, but the eyelashes were long and thick, her nose delicate, her
lips full. The eyes that looked back at him with a mixture of fear and
defiance were, in this light, black as obsidian. Her hair was coiled in
a thick braid at the back of her head, where the scarf had hidden it.

He did not have to ask the reason for the pretense. Traveling with only
an aged father to protect her, she was far safer as a boy.

Sophia pushed past Daoud and put her arms around the girl, who began to
cry again. "You poor child, are you all alone now? There, it's all
right. We will help you."

"Who was your father?" said Celino in an equally kindly voice.

"He was not my father," the girl whispered. "He was Angelo Ben Ezra of
Florence, a seller of books, and he was my husband."

Sophia drew back in surprise, then hugged the girl tighter. "Oh, poor
little one. So young, and wed to such an old man. How could your parents
do that to you?"

The girl angrily drew back from Sophia. "Do not speak so! My parents
were good to me--and my husband was. He never touched me. When my mother
and father died of tertian fever, he took me in, and he married me so as
not to give scandal. He taught me to read."

"What is your name, girl?" Celino asked.

"Rachel." She dropped to her knees beside the body stretched out on the
marble, and her tears splashed on the white face. She bent over and
kissed him.

"He is so cold."

"We must wrap him quickly and be on our way," said Daoud. "We have
killed three people and burned down an inn. I assure you, they have
stopped chasing us only for the moment. Celino, I want a word with you.
Sophia, help the girl wrap her husband's body so we can travel on."

"I do not need to be commanded," said Sophia sharply as Daoud turned his
back on her, motioning Celino to follow him.

_What in the name of God am I to do with these people?_

Daoud strode across the marble platform and picked his way down a flight
of cracked stairs to the edge of the Tiber. He followed a line of
tumbled stones, once part of an embankment, until he felt sure Sophia
and the girl could not hear them.

Then he whirled, bringing his face inches from Celino's.

"You fool! I ought to kill you for what you have done."

He heard a soft growl to his right.

"Send your damned dog away," he said, without taking his eyes off
Celino.

"Of course," said Celino calmly. "Scipio!" He snapped his fingers. "To
the horses. Go!"

The hound turned, head and tail lowered, and walked away. But he swung
his long muzzle around to glance back at Daoud as he moved off. His
pupils reflected the moonlight like two silver coins.

"Give me the jewels you're carrying," said Daoud.

"Of course," said Celino again, promptly unbuckling his belt. Daoud
tensed himself in case the Sicilian should go for his dagger. But Celino
held the belt up so that the twelve unset stones--rubies, pearls and
amethysts--could roll out of the hidden pocket into Daoud's palm. Daoud
added them to the twelve already in his pouch.

"There, now you have the stones back. And now are you going to try to
kill me?"

There was a hint of challenge in that word _try_.

"If I had had all these jewels at the inn, I would have left you for
that crowd to kill. How could you be so stupid as to involve us in a
tavern quarrel?"

"I am no man's slave," Celino growled. "Not Manfred's, and surely not
yours."

_But I am a slave. That is what the very word Mameluke means, and I am
proud to be a Mameluke._

"Do you think, Celino," Daoud said softly, "that you are a better man
than I?"

"I think myself better than no man, and no man better than me."

Daoud looked away. _Madman's talk._

Gazing up the river, he noticed a huge round shape bulking against the
horizon, a fortress of some kind. There might be danger from that
direction.

"Celino, you and Sophia and I are a little army in the land of our
enemies. An army can have only one leader."

Celino nodded. "I know that. But you must understand that if I accept
you as our leader, it is of my own free will. I am still my own master."

Daoud felt a strange mixture of admiration and uneasiness at this. He
was painfully aware that among Mamelukes a warrior of Celino's age would
be treated with great respect. Indeed, King Manfred clearly held Lorenzo
in high esteem. His effort to save the old man had been noble in its
way. But an impulse at the wrong time, even a noble impulse, could mean
death for all of them.

"Does that mean you feel free to disobey me?"

"I have done whatever you wanted up to now. Except for what happened at
the inn. That was different."

"Why different?" Daoud demanded. "You are not a stupid man, Celino. Why
did you do such a stupid thing?"

Celino shook his head and turned away. "Angry as you are at me, Daoud,
you cannot be angrier than I am at myself. If I had not intervened, that
man Angelo Ben Ezra might yet be alive and his child-wife not widowed.
They might have been hurt, and they surely would have been robbed. But I
do not think those tavern louts would have gone so far as to kill them."

Daoud was astonished that Celino did not even defend his actions.

"Any more than we meant to kill any of those men," Daoud agreed. "But a
man of your experience knows that once the sword is drawn, only God
knows who will live or die. Yet you drew your sword against them."

"The old man wandered in out of the night seeking hospitality. Instead,
they were beating him, and they were going to take his donkey and
everything he owned and cast him out. Because he was a Jew."

"Yes, you Christians are very cruel to Jews. It is not so in the lands
of Islam. But you should be used to seeing such things."

"I am not a Christian, Daoud. I am a Jew myself. And that is why I went
to that old man's aid."

Daoud blinked in surprise, then began to laugh.

"You find that funny?"

"I am just as surprised to find out that you are a Jew as others would
be to find out that I am a Muslim." Daoud stopped laughing. "I have
known many Jews in Egypt. Abd ibn Adam, Sultan Baibars's personal
physician, is a Jew. But why do you not wear the required hat?"

"It is not required in Manfred's kingdom. And I would not wear it on
this mission any more than you would wear a Muslim's turban." Then
Celino laughed. "But if I were to drop my breeches, you would see the
mark of Abraham."

"I have that as well," said Daoud with a smile. "Muslims are also
circumcised. I was eleven." He remembered with a twinge the old mullah
chanting prayers in Arabic, the knife whose steel looked sharper and
colder than any he had seen before or since.

"Now that mark is all I have left of the religion I was born into,"
Celino said.

"What do you mean? Did you convert to Christianity?"

"I told you I am not a Christian. I profess no faith."

Daoud drew back. A man who had no faith at all was somehow less than
human.

"You believe in nothing?"

"One of Manfred's Saracen scholars gave me a book by your Arab
philosopher Averroës. In it he taught that there are no spirits, no
gods, no angels, no human souls. All things are matter only. That is
what I believe."

Daoud made a casting-away motion. "I have been taught that Averroës is a
great heretic. Now I see how wise we are not to read him."

"It was life that made me a nonbeliever. Averroës only showed me that
there are learned men who think likewise."

Daoud shook his head. Baibars would never allow such a man near him.

"Why does your king permit you to have no religion?"

"The truth of it is, he thinks as I do. As his father, Emperor Frederic,
did before him. In the kingdom of Sicily under the Hohenstaufens, people
may believe as they please, as long as they are discreet about it. Of
course, King Manfred must pretend to be a Catholic, or all the hosts of
Christendom would fall upon his kingdom and destroy him. As for me,
Manfred trusts me because he knows I do not stand in awe of the pope.
The same reason he relies on his Saracen warriors."

Yes, Daoud thought, having no religion might make Celino a more useful
companion for a mission like this. But how could Daoud trust a man who
had no faith in a higher power?

"But why did you try to fight for that old man? Look what you have done
to us."

Celino sighed and shook his head. "He was so much like my own father. I
could not help myself."

"That is a poor excuse."

Celino looked steadily into Daoud's eyes. "It may seem so to you. It is
said that Mamelukes scarcely remember their mothers and fathers."

Daoud's body stiffened with rage. Celino's words were a blow that tore
open an old wound.

"You know nothing of that, and for your own safety you had best not
speak of it to me," Daoud said in a choked whisper.

Celino inclined his head. "I ask your forgiveness."

"Remember that if we fail in this mission, it will mean great harm to
your King Manfred, who has been so good to you and raised you so high,"
Daoud said.

Celino's head was still lowered in submission. "You are right to remind
me of that. I have been foolish."

Daoud gripped Celino's wrist. The Sicilian raised his head and stared
into Daoud's eyes.

Daoud said, "I must have your oath that this will never happen again.
Should you see a hundred Jews having their throats cut, you will smile
like a good Christian and declare the sight pleasing to God."

"I will do my best, Daoud. That is all I can honestly promise you, but I
think it will be good enough."

_By being honest, as he puts it, he still leaves himself room to defy
me._

"And you will obey my commands from now on, as if they came from your
king?"

"You have my word of honor."

_Whatever the honor of an unbeliever is worth. Manfred, what kind of a
crazed camel have you foisted off on me?_

Here he was, far across the sea from the only home he had ever known, in
the midst of people who would kill him in an instant if they knew who he
was. And now he felt he could not trust one of the few men he must
depend upon. He felt a coldness beginning in his palms and spreading
through his body as he wondered what further calamities like tonight's
might lie before them.




IX


_The city that founded my city_, Sophia thought.

Sophia and David rode along the Tiber as it wound its way through Rome
like a brown serpent. Looking up from the riverbank, Sophia saw the
peaked roofs and domes of churches, and the battlements of fortified
palaces. The houses of the common folk huddled at the feet of the hills,
and here and there remnants of old Rome rose like yellowed tombstones.
Today's Romans, Sophia thought, built their hovels in the shadows of
marble ruins.

Sophia was impressed only by the age of the place. Her own city, the
Polis, was everything now that this place had been centuries ago. Rome
had possessed civilization and had lost it. Constantinople had it still,
on a grander scale.

At dawn David's party had reached the place where the Tiber passed
through crumbling city walls. Lorenzo and Rachel crossed the river into
the Trastevere quarter, where the Jews lived. Sophia wondered how they
would get past the watchmen at the city gate with the old man's body.
Would Lorenzo tell a clever story, try bribery, or use his Ghibellino
connections? Or would he fail, and he and Rachel be arrested?

David did not seem worried. She had seen his anger at Lorenzo. Perhaps
he hoped to be rid of him. For her part, she felt Lorenzo was far more
her friend than David. She had known Lorenzo longer, and he had always
been kind to her. She prayed he would return safely to them after
finding a haven for Rachel among the Jews of Rome.

She and David had entered the city through a gate on the east side of
the Tiber without difficulty. Evidently news of the incident at the inn
had not reached the Roman watch. In the city she rode beside David along
the river's east bank.

She touched David's shoulder and pointed to a hilltop.

"That hill is called the Capitoline," she said. "At one time the whole
world was ruled from there."

She supposed David would find that hard to believe, though the hill was
still impressive, with a cluster of marble palaces at its top.

They were passing through one of the most crowded parts of Rome. On
their left, fishermen hauled their nets out of the river, throwing
flopping fish into baskets. On their right, shops in the ground floors
of overhanging houses offered fruits and flowers and vegetables, fish,
shoes, straw, rosaries, icons, relics, candles. Even at this early hour
the street was crowded. Romans jostled the horses David and Sophia rode,
but they gave Scipio plenty of room. Lorenzo had given the great
boarhound a stern lecture, after which Scipio docilely allowed David to
lead him on a leash.

"I have seen two other great imperial cities," said David. "One was
Baghdad, before the Tartars destroyed it. It was then much like this
city is now--its glory shrunken and faded, but still the center of our
faith, as Rome is the center of Christendom."

Sophia was taken aback at his casual error.

"Rome is the center of _Latin_ Christendom," she said sharply.

"Ah, how could I have neglected Constantinople and the Greek Church?" He
smiled. The smile lit his deeply tanned face in a way that surprised
her, held her gaze. She felt a warmth.

_How smooth and brown his skin is._

"You must never forget Constantinople," she admonished him with a small
smile.

"I spent a month in Constantinople some years ago--that was the other
imperial city--and I shall not forget it." This made her feel warmer
still toward him.

Then his smile faded. "Your city, too, has suffered at the hands of
barbarians--the Franks, who would destroy us."

_Destroy us?_ she repeated in her mind. _Is he not a child of those
Frankish barbarians?_

On the road from Lucera to Rome, he had told her--in a brusque fashion,
as if he were speaking of someone other than himself--the story of his
childhood and how he came to be a Mameluke. She found it hard to believe
that he spoke of the killing of his parents and his enslavement by the
Saracens as if it were some kind of blessing--but she had no doubt that
he was a believing Muslim through and through.

"Do you never think of yourself as a Frank, David?"

He smiled again. "Never. And I hope you will not think of me as one
either. Because I know you must hate Franks."

Hate Franks? Dread them was closer to the truth. Last night, when they
fought their way free of those people from the inn, she had remembered
the terror she had known as a girl in Constantinople. It was the return
of that terror that had given her the strength to smash a jug over that
horrid woman's head.

She was about to reply to David when Scipio broke into loud barking.
David frowned at the sight of something ahead. The Tiber made a sharp
bend, and beyond that, on the opposite bank, towered a huge fortress, a
great cylinder of age-browned marble--Castel Sant' Angelo.

At the base of the citadel was a bridge, and Lorenzo was crossing it.
She knew him even from this distance by his purple cap and brown cloak.

Sophia had expected to see Lorenzo return alone. It gave her a little
start of surprise to see that Rachel was still with him, still riding
their spare horse.

David angrily muttered something that Sophia guessed must be an Arabic
curse. He checked his horse. Sophia reined up her gray mare, and they
sat waiting for Rachel and Lorenzo to come up to them.

"They want me as far away from them as possible," Rachel said. She
climbed down from her mount at once, as if acknowledging that she had no
right to be riding it. She looked at David with an expression of appeal.

This was the first time Sophia had gotten a good look at Rachel. The
girl had removed the scarf that hid her hair, which was midnight-black
and hung in a single braid down below her shoulders. A dusty purple
traveling cloak enveloped her slight body. Her skin was white as fine
porcelain. The eyes under her straight black brows were bright, but
Sophia could see fear in them. She remembered herself ten years earlier,
a bewildered, terrified, orphaned girl in Constantinople.

_I must help this child._

"Why will your people not take you?" David said gruffly.

"They are afraid," said Rachel. "When we told them what happened at the
inn last night, they said we had put them all in deadly danger."

Lorenzo looked up from where he crouched scratching Scipio's long jaw.
"And we had better get out of the city quickly, before the rulers of
Rome start hunting for us."

Rachel went on. "One of the rabbis took Angelo's body, and promised to
bury him at once. That much they are willing to do. But they said they
could not protect me if I were discovered. Not only that, but it would
bring persecution down on them."

David said, "But did you not appear to be a boy at the inn?"

"The people at the inn saw a young person who could be boy or girl,"
said Lorenzo. "The Jews here are constantly spied upon. There are
malshins, paid informers, among them. Their leaders think keeping Rachel
too much of a risk, and knowing how many lives they have in their care,
I cannot blame them."

David glared at Lorenzo. "Could you not do more to persuade them?"

Lorenzo spread his hands. "At first they did not trust me because they
thought I was a Christian. When I told them I am a Jew, they still
distrusted me because I admitted being from Sicily. That must have made
them suspect that I am connected with King Manfred. The Jews of Rome
live as clients of the pope. They cannot afford to get involved with
Ghibellini."

Rachel pressed her hands on David's knee as he sat on his horse looking
grimly down at her. "I beg you, let me come with you. There is no place
for me here in Rome."

"There is no place for you where we are going," he said gruffly.

Sophia felt herself melting within as she saw the misery on Rachel's
face. Swinging her leg over her mare's back, she slid down, rushed over
to the girl, and put her arms around her. She looked up at David.

"David, please."

David looked down at her, his face hard, as if carved from dark wood,
the eyes glittering like shards of glass. She could not read his
expression.

_How can I know what is in the mind of a Frank turned Turk?_

David got down from his horse and beckoned to Sophia and Lorenzo. They
followed him a short way along the street. When he turned to face them,
Sophia saw fury in his eyes, and her heart fluttered like a trapped
bird.

He spoke softly, through tight lips, and his voice was as frightening as
the hiss of a viper. "I begin to think King Manfred is my enemy, and the
enemy of my people, sending the two of you with me on this journey. From
now on both of you will do as I command, and you will not question me."

Desperately Sophia turned to Lorenzo. "Can you not speak to him?"

Looking down at the cobblestones, Lorenzo shook his head. "I made a
terrible blunder, trying to help Rachel and her husband. From now on
things must go as David commands."

If Sophia had been arguing for herself, she could have said no more in
the face of David's fury. But she looked away from him to the small
figure standing by the horses, and her anguish for the child forced her
to speak.

"But, David, what harm can Rachel do?"

Now the burning gaze was bent on her alone. "We will be saying things
about ourselves in Orvieto that she already knows are not true." He
turned to Lorenzo. "You talk of the lives the Jewish leaders have in
their care. You do not understand--you cannot understand--what will
happen to my people if I fail. What is it to you if the Tartars kill
every man, woman, and child in Cairo?"

His voice was trembling, and Sophia realized he must have seen sights in
the East that made the terror of the Tartars real to him, as it could
not be to her.

"I owe the girl nothing," David went on vehemently. "Nothing. It was not
I who caused this."

But a little girl with her whole life before her, hanged or torn to
pieces by a mob-- The thought of it made Sophia want to scream at David.
She remembered the awful, mindless terror when she and Alexis ran
through the streets of Constantinople with a roaring pack of Frankish
men-at-arms hunting them. Last night she had relived that terror when
they fled from the inn. She thought she would rather die herself than
let Rachel be taken by a mob.

_I cannot abandon Rachel. I must try to sway him. Is there any way I can
touch David's heart?_

_Of course. The same thing that moves me._

"David," she said, "years ago, when you were a little boy--when the
Turks killed your parents. Do you remember how you felt?"

David stared at her. So fixed were his eyes that for a moment she
thought he might draw his sword and strike her down. She waited,
trembling.

"You have no right to speak of that to me," he said. His voice was tight
with pain.

"I know I have no right," she said. "Can't you see how desperate I am?"
Hope dawned faintly within her. She had touched him.

His silence stretched on while the turmoil of the city eddied about
them. She waited, trembling.

He spoke. "He who taught me Islam said to me, 'To lift up a fallen
swallow is to raise up your heart to God.'"

Relief flooded Sophia's body. She wanted to weep. Instead, she felt
herself smiling. But David did not return her smile.

"Swear that this girl will learn nothing of our mission from you," he
said. "And you also, Celino. Swear it by all that you hold most holy."

"I swear it by Constantinople," said Sophia fervently and gladly.

"I will swear it on the lives of my wife and my children," said Lorenzo.

"I accept that," said David. "And when we reach Orvieto, the girl leaves
us, even if she starves in the streets."

"I will accept _that_," said Lorenzo.

"Lest you later forswear yourselves, there is one more thing that will
assure your compliance," said David. "Know that if this girl learns a
word of what we are doing, she will die by my hand." He dropped his hand
to the unadorned hilt of his sword.

Sophia felt cold inside. He cared about one thing only, after all.

They turned back. Sophia saw Rachel standing by a straw-seller's shop,
looking anxiously at them, holding the gathered reins of their horses in
both hands. Sophia realized that the girl might be thinking that they
were going to drive her off, and she hurried to Rachel with a smile,
holding out her arms. She hugged Rachel, and tentatively, fearfully,
Rachel smiled back at her.

"You will come with us," she said. "As far as we are going, to Orvieto.
You will have to leave us there, but we will help you find a home."

"Oh, thank you, thank you," Rachel cried, and she burst into tears.

Lorenzo grinned reassuringly at Rachel. "I told you it would be all
right." When he grinned like that, his teeth white under his thick black
mustache, he reminded Sophia of a large and satisfied cat.

Rachel looked up at David. "I thank _you_, Signore. I know this is your
decision. May I know the name of my benefactor?"

David smiled bitterly. "Benefactor? Rachel, if you had not met us, your
protector would still be alive. I am David Burian, a silk merchant of
Trebizond. I go to Orvieto hoping to open trade between Trebizond and
the Papal States, and I have hired these people to help me."

"May I also help you, Signore?" Rachel said. "I learned something of
commerce from my husband."

"I think," David said, looking at Sophia and Lorenzo with sour humor, "I
already have all the help I need."

_At least the man is human_, thought Sophia. _He can joke a bit._

She felt encouraged. She had actually been able to touch the heart of
this man whose life and world were utterly strange to her.




X


There is so much water in this country, thought Daoud. Raindrops
sparkled on every branch and leaf of the trees around him. The sky, once
more a bright blue after the thunderstorm that had passed over them, was
reflected in water that still streamed through the ditches beside the
roadway.

Fortunate that Rachel's husband, a man who had spent many months of the
year on the roads of Italy buying and selling books in the Jewish
communities, had carried a tent with him. Daoud, Sophia, Rachel, and
even Scipio had all crowded into it when they saw the storm coming. The
tent had leaked, but the heat of the August afternoon would soon dry
them.

Daoud hoped none of the others had noticed his fear during the storm. He
had been in the desert when lightning crackled in black clouds and the
wind blew smothering waves of sand. But the thunderstorms they had been
through had seemed to be just overhead, and so much water had fallen
from the sky, Daoud was sure they would soon be drowned. It seemed
almost miraculous to him that he could emerge from Rachel's tent alive
and find the world outside as intact as he had left it. Better than he
left it, because it was now washed clean of dust.

He walked to the edge of the road to see if Lorenzo was returning from
Orvieto.

Orvieto.

Across the valley, out of a deep-green forest rose a gigantic yellow
rock shaped like a camel's hump. Crowning the hump, a wall of gray stone
encircled the peaked roofs and bell towers of churches, the battlements
of palaces and the red-tiled roofs of houses. One narrow road zigzagged
up the steep side of the great rock, sometimes disappearing into clumps
of trees, a white streak against the ocher cliffs. A city built on an
almost inaccessible mountaintop, like the strongholds of the
Hashishiyya.

He spied a horseman in purple cap and brown cloak descending the road
from the city. Celino. Following him was a glittering gilt sedan chair
carried by four bearers.

The breeze that had brought the storm had died away, and Daoud was
beginning to feel the heat of the sun on the back of his neck. A mild
sun compared to that of Egypt, even though this was the middle of the
Italian summer, but he drew up his cotton hood to shade his head. He
glanced over his shoulder. Rachel and Sophia were in the clearing on the
other side of the road, watering the horses in a stream that ran down
the hillside. Rachel was nodding eagerly as Sophia talked. He hoped she
was not telling Rachel too much. Just as he himself might have told
Sophia too much, he thought ruefully.

Celino arrived at Daoud's camp well ahead of the sedan chair. Scipio had
bounded up the road to meet his master, and now licked the hand that
Celino held out as he dismounted.

Celino said, "Cardinal Ugolini sends this messenger, who may surprise
you."

When the sedan chair came to rest on the side of the road, Daoud saw
that the four bearers were black men of Africa. They wore scarlet vests,
and sweat glistened on their bare arms and chests. Sheikh Saadi had been
such a man, and there were many such men in the Egyptian army. Daoud
wondered if these, too, were Muslims. In the city of the pope? Not
likely.

Two of the bearers drew back the curtains of the chair and reached
within. Bejeweled white fingers grasped the bearers' muscular arms, and
a turban brocaded with gold pushed out past the curtains, followed by a
round body swathed in lime-green silk.

Daoud was not surprised. This must be the one who called herself
Morgiana in the letters to Baibars that came regularly from Italy by
carrier pigeon and ship, thought Daoud. Still clinging to the bearers,
the stout woman pulled herself erect. Then she waved her servants away
with a flapping of sleeves and a jangling of bracelets and squinted at
Daoud.

"Is it time?" said Daoud. He spoke in Arabic.

"Not yet," she answered in the same language. "But presently." That
completed their prearranged words of recognition.

"Salaam aleikum, Morgiana," he said, smiling. "Peace be to you." He
pushed back his hood and bowed to her. He had a warm sense of meeting an
old friend. He had read many of her reports on matters of state in
Italy.

"Wa aleikum es-salaam, Daoud," she replied. "And peace also to you. You
will have to know my real name now. Tilia Caballo, at your service."

He had pictured Morgiana as a tall, slender woman of mature years,
darkly attractive. The real Morgiana was quite different. Her eyebrows
were thick and black, her nose a tiny button between round red cheeks.
Her face was shiny with sweat even though she had been doing nothing but
sitting in a sedan chair. Looking at her spherical body, Daoud felt
great respect for the strength of the men who carried her. The silk
clinging to her body outlined breasts like divan cushions, and her belly
protruded in a parody of pregnancy. Could she truly be a cardinal's
mistress? Just as sultans and emirs had chief wives who were old and
honored and younger wives for play, perhaps Cardinal Ugolini kept Tilia
Caballo only as his official mistress.

The clasp on her turban was studded with diamonds. A heavy gold necklace
spilled down the broad, bare slope of her chest. From the necklace
dangled a cross set with blue and red jewels.

_The gold Baibars has sent her helped buy the fortune she wears._ He
wondered, how much did Baibars really know about this woman?

"I saw Cardinal Ugolini for a moment only, Messer David," said Celino.
"As soon as he found out I was from you, he insisted that I go to this
lady's establishment." Celino, speaking the dialect of Sicily, uttered
the word stabilimento with a curious intonation. Scipio stood with his
forepaws on Celino's chest, and Celino scratched the hound behind the
ears.

"He means the finest house of pleasure in all the Papal States," said
Tilia Caballo, smoothing the front of her gown with a self-satisfied
look. "Naturally his eminence Cardinal Ugolini cannot risk meeting
openly with you until I have seen you on his behalf." She had switched
from Arabic to an Italian dialect that was new to Daoud. He had trouble
understanding her.

He did not think it had been mentioned, in her letters or by Baibars,
that she was a brothel keeper. He felt slightly repelled. He wondered if
Baibars knew. He must. Baibars knew everything.

"Take yourself away, Celino," Daoud ordered. "And tell those two to come
no closer." He pointed to the forest clearing where Sophia and Rachel
were already starting toward him. "I must be alone with Madonna Tilia."

"Yes, Messere," said Celino with a bow. Scipio paced ahead of him like a
tame lion as he walked off.

"We expected you to enter Orvieto alone," said Tilia, looking at Sophia
and Rachel, who were staring back at her from across the road. "Why this
entourage?"

_And I expected to meet with Cardinal Ugolini at once_, thought Daoud
with growing irritation. _Has he set this woman up as a barrier between
himself and me?_

He explained briefly how Celino, Sophia, and Rachel came to be traveling
with him. Tilia gazed at him with a falcon's piercing stare. Daoud was
not used to being stared at by a woman, and she made him uneasy. But he
met her eyes in silence until she turned to her slaves and made a
dropping gesture with her hand. The Africans immediately squatted in the
grassy clearing where they had set Tilia's chair. Daoud realized that he
had not heard a sound from them, and suspected they must have been made
dumb.

"Come." Tilia took his arm, again surprising him. In Egypt women did not
touch men they had just met. But she owned a house of pleasure. She was
not a respectable woman.

Why should that bother him, he asked himself. He had spent his share of
time in houses of pleasure along the Bhar al-Nil. What he felt toward
their owners was mostly gratitude.

Tilia drew Daoud with her into the thicket along the hillside, stepping
gracefully, despite her bulk, around shrubs and over rocks and fallen
branches. She led him away from the road and into a grove of pine trees
a little way up the slope. Daoud felt his muscles tightening. He was
going to have to undergo more testing before she would let him meet
Ugolini. Did they really think that Baibars would send a fool to
Orvieto?

"Spread your cloak for me." She pointed to a spot under an old pine
whose trunk rose straight and bare twice the height of a man before the
first branch sprouted. Daoud unclasped his brown cloak and laid it on
the thick bed of brown pine needles. Tilia sat down, smiled, and patted
the place beside her.

"A messenger brought the news to the pope yesterday that the Tartar
ambassadors have landed at Venice," she said. "They are on their way to
Orvieto and should be here in a week or so. They are well protected.
They brought their own bodyguard, which is now reinforced by a company
of French knights and Venetian men-at-arms under a certain Count de
Gobignon."

Daoud felt a tingle of anticipation, as he did when he was about to
close with the enemy in a battle.

"So I will be in Orvieto before them. That is good."

"Yes, but Cardinal Paulus de Verceuil has arrived here before _you_. He
speaks for the King of France, and he has already begun to press the
case for a Tartar alliance before Pope Urban. He has arranged for the
Tartars and their guards to live at the palace of the Monaldeschi
family."

Daoud caught an intonation in Tilia's voice that suggested it was a
great accomplishment for the Tartars to live at the Monaldeschi palace.
Was she trying to discourage him?

"What is this Monaldeschi family?" he asked.

"The oldest and richest family in Orvieto," she said. "Right now the
capo della famiglia, the head of the family, is the Contessa Elvira di
Monaldeschi, who is over eighty years old. But she is more ruthless and
savage than many a younger man. Almost all her menfolk have been killed
off by their blood enemies, the Filippeschi, and she has had many
Filippeschi killed."

"What do they fight about?" said Daoud.

"Who knows? A Monaldeschi kills a Filippeschi, so a Filippeschi kills a
Monaldeschi. It has been going on forever." Tilia went on. "What you
must realize is that the Tartars will be well guarded because the
contessa has more men-at-arms than the pope and a very strong palace."

He turned away from Tilia. Daoud stared out through the screen of pine
branches at Orvieto's sunlit rock platform. A wagon inched its way up
the narrow road.

"Who is this French count who guards the Tartars?" he asked.

"Count Simon de Gobignon. He is very young and very rich. He holds huge
estates in France and numbers his vassals in the thousands. He is close
to the French royal family, even King Louis himself and the king's
brother, Charles d'Anjou."

Charles d'Anjou. Daoud remembered Lorenzo saying that Charles d'Anjou
coveted the throne of Sicily.

A flash of light caught Daoud's eye. A party of helmeted men in yellow
and white surcoats had come out of the main gate of Orvieto, formed a
ragged column and were patrolling along the base of the city wall, led
by a man with a white plume on his helmet.

"Who are those soldiers?" he asked.

Tilia leaned forward to peer through the trees and across the valley,
then resettled herself against the tree trunk.

"Pope Urban has two hundred Guelfo fighting men quartered in Orvieto. In
all honesty, Daoud--"

"Call me David," he interrupted. "Here I must be known by a Christian
name."

"Well, David, I think you had best go quickly back to Egypt. What can
one man do against the French royal family, half the cardinals, the
pope, the Monaldeschi, and the Tartars themselves?"

He felt a quick spurt of anger. He knew as well as she did the odds he
faced. Why was she trying to weaken him by making him afraid?

_Ugolini sent her to discourage me. It is he who is afraid._

He felt more respect for her, coming out and meeting him and trying to
influence him, than he did for this Cardinal Ugolini, who was trying to
protect himself. He knew from having read her letters that she was a
shrewd and brave woman. He had to win her cooperation. There was only
one way he might hope to do that.

Daoud smiled at her. "Does not great wealth give one great power?"

She smiled back. He noticed that she had rubbed some kind of red
coloring on her cheeks to make herself look healthier. And she had
painted blue-black shadows around her eyes, as Egyptian women did. But
here and there her sweat had made the paint run in rivulets.

She said, "Only faith is more powerful than money."

"Then here is power." Daoud unbuckled his belt and let the jewels spill
out of its hollow interior into his hand. He heard Tilia gasp. When the
glittering stones filled his hand, he dropped them gently to the thin
woolen cloak he had spread on the ground and shook the rest out of the
belt. In the shadow of the pines the jewels seemed to give off their own
light from their polished, rounded surfaces, red and blue, green and
yellow. A sapphire, a topaz, and a pearl were each set in heavy gold
rings. The others were loose. Some were so small that three or four of
them would fit on the tip of Daoud's finger. One, a ruby, was the size
of a whole fingertip. There were too many of them to count quickly, but
Daoud knew that Manfred had given him twenty-five, and one had gone to
equip them for the journey.

"Sanctissima Maria! May I touch them?"

"You are welcome to," he said, smiling, "but make sure none of them
sticks to your fingers."

She plucked some of the jewels from the cloak and let them trickle
through her fingers, catching the light as they tumbled to the cloak.
She held the big ruby up between thumb and forefinger and studied it,
turning it this way and that.

"A drop of God's blood."

"You should have seen the single emerald I traded to King Manfred for
these smaller stones. There was beauty. A few at a time, these can be
turned into gold."

She looked into his eyes. She took him more seriously now, he thought.
He was not just some strange Muslim whose rashness might get her killed.
He was a source of wealth.

"They must be sold carefully, or their sudden appearance will be
noticed," she said. "After all, even the princes of the Church would
have to stretch their purses for these."

"I have it in mind to buy princes of the Church, not to sell jewelry to
them."

"We can sell some of these gems to the Templars. They have enormous
wealth and they are very discreet."

Noting that she had said "we," Daoud smiled at the thought of those
ferocious enemies of the Mamelukes, the Knights Templar, helping to
provide the financing that would weaken their foothold in Islamic lands.

"Now," he said, "do you think we can accomplish something to keep
Tartars and Christians apart?"

"Yes--something. Used wisely, these jewels--or their worth in gold--will
gain you influence among the men around the pope. You might even pry a
few of the French cardinals loose from their loyalty to King Louis."

Daoud began scooping up the stones and funneling them into the hidden
pocket of his belt. "You must help me to use them wisely."

"Exactly what do you have in mind?" she asked, her eyes fixed on the
jewels as they disappeared.

"I expect Cardinal Ugolini to take some of the gold and use it to build
a strong party in Orvieto that will oppose the alliance." He eyed her,
trying to see into her heart. "Can he manage such a thing?"

"Oh, Adelberto is an old hand at intrigue. How else do you suppose he
got to be a cardinal? Indeed, he is the camerlengo for the College of
Cardinals."

"What does that mean?" Daoud asked as he buckled his belt.

"He acts as a kind of chancellor to the pope, making announcements,
calling the College together, conducting ceremonies--that sort of
thing."

Daoud nodded. "Good. It is my hope that he can use this money to draw
cardinals and Church officials to him, one way or another. And they will
join together to turn the pope against the Tartars."

"With all the money those jewels will bring, you can indeed create such
a faction, but I don't know what effect it will have on the pope. The
Tartars offer the pope a chance to wipe out Islam once and for all."

"Yes, and then after that the Tartars will wipe out Christianity," Daoud
said. "I can tell those who will work with us what the Tartars are truly
like. I have seen them, fought against them. I have seen what they have
done to those they conquered." Like a cloud passing over the sun, a
memory of ruined Baghdad darkened his mind.

Tilia's eyes opened wide. "You intend to meet and talk--to bishops, to
cardinals?"

He touched his face with his fingertips. "This is why Baibars sent
me--because I can go among Christians as a Christian. I will be David of
Trebizond, a silk merchant who has traveled in the lands ravaged by the
Tartars."

"Trebizond?"

He could see the doubt in her face. He must seem confident to her. He
must not let her know that he himself wondered how he, a warrior from a
land utterly strange to these people, could make the great ones of
Christendom listen to him and believe in him. He could do it only with
the help of Tilia and Cardinal Ugolini--and they would not help him
unless they believed he could do it.

"Trebizond is on the eastern shore of the Black Sea. Far enough away
that I am not likely to meet anyone in Orvieto who knows anything about
it."

"Do not be too sure. The pope makes a point of seeing people from
everywhere."

"Then he will probably want to meet me, since I am from a strange and
faraway place."

Her eyes widened and her full lips parted. Her teeth were small, bright,
and widely spaced.

"You even want to meet with the _pope_?"

He knew the enormity of what he was proposing. But he fought down the
doubt that her evident horror had aroused in him. He made himself sound
absolutely sure when he answered.

"Certainly. Cardinal Ugolini will arrange an audience for me. If the
pope has not yet made a decision, he will want to listen to one who has
seen with his own eyes what these Tartars are. I will tell him that an
agreement with them would be like a lamb allying itself with a panther."

"Talk to the pope! How would you know how to behave before the pope?"

"Among my people, Madonna, I am not just a warrior. I stand high in the
highest councils. I have met with kings and great men of religion. As
for the details of etiquette of an audience with the pope, as a traveler
from Trebizond I might be expected to make mistakes."

Daoud saw that her olive skin had turned a yellowish-white. "Do you want
to be torn to pieces by teams of horses?" she whispered. "I do not, and
neither does Cardinal Ugolini. We cannot risk your being found out."

He must overcome her doubt of him by seeming supremely confident.

He said, "Then, for your own protection, you will teach me everything I
need to know."

And if Christians moved closer to Tartars despite intrigue and
persuasion, he and Baibars had already considered more desperate
measures. The risk of failure would be greater and the consequences more
dire. He would not tell Tilia about these more drastic steps. If his
presence and intentions already frightened her and Ugolini, it was best
they not know the lengths he was prepared to go to.

He hoped he would not have to attempt such things. The complexities and
difficulties of making them happen, the likelihood of things going
disastrously wrong, all made these courses too daunting.

Insh'Allah, if it be God's will, he would manage, with the help of such
allies as he found in Orvieto, to oppose and obstruct and delay the
alliance until the project died of old age, or the Tartar ambassadors
themselves died.

_Time fights for Islam_, Baibars had told him. _The Tartar empire is
beginning to break apart, and the Christians are losing their eagerness
for crusading. Only delay this alliance long enough, and their
opportunity to destroy us will be lost._

Tilia broke in on his thoughts, holding out her hands to him. "Help me
up. My legs are getting cramped. I feel hungry. Do you have anything to
eat?"

He was not surprised that she asked for food. Mustapha al-Zaid, the
chief eunuch of Baibars's harem, was monstrously fat, and was always
eating.

He sprang to his feet and pulled her up. The cross on her bosom swung
and flashed. The top of her head came only to the middle of his chest,
but he suspected that she weighed as much or more than he did.

She smiled at him. "You are strong, and you move like a warrior."

Ignoring the flattery, he said, "Sophia has bread and cheese that we
bought at a village called Bagnioregio. And some red wine to wash it
down."

Tilia laughed. "Bagnioregio? Then you must have passed near the ruins of
Ferento--the town that was destroyed for the heresy of displaying a
statue of Christ on the cross with open eyes."

"What? I saw no ruins. Open eyes?"

"The ruins are off the road. But that will give you an idea of how
careful one must be where religion is concerned. I cannot imagine that
anyone makes decent wine in Bagnioregio. There is another town near
here, Montefiascone, where they make the best wine in the world. Wait
until you taste that."

"I drink wine only to deceive Christians," he said gruffly. "I do not
like it. Let us finish this conversation before you refresh yourself. I
do not want those two to know any more than I tell them."

Annoyance flickered in her face. She was not used to being denied, Daoud
thought. But she shrugged. "I presume you plan to use that beautiful
woman who travels with you as bait to win over some of the high-ranking
churchmen."

To Daoud's surprise, the thought pained him.

"She is a skilled courtesan and was Manfred's mistress," he said. "And
before that, King Manfred told me, she was a favorite of the Emperor of
Constantinople. We will want to keep her in reserve. I have in mind that
she could live with the cardinal, pose as his niece."

"Hm. And the other girl? She is very pretty and very young. The older
and more powerful churchmen are, the more they are drawn to youth."

"We owe Rachel a debt. We have promised to find a home for her among the
Jews of Orvieto."

"Oh, is she a Jew? But there are no Jews in Orvieto."

"Somewhere nearby, then."

"The nearest Jews live in Rome."

Rome--where the Jews had already turned Rachel away. "She cannot go to
Rome."

"Well, the girl would find working for me far more rewarding than living
on charity."

"I am sure of it," said Daoud. But a dark memory from long ago rose to
trouble him.

He fixed his eyes on hers. "You would not force her into whoring, would
you?"

Tilia pressed her hand to her bosom in mock horror. "Force! Women _beg_
to be accepted into the family of Tilia Caballo."

_A terrible thing to do to the child, but it would solve my problem_,
thought David. _Rachel already must be aware that Sophia and Lorenzo and
I are involved together in some secret enterprise. It would be best to
keep her where we can watch her._

"For the time being, Rachel will stay with us at the cardinal's mansion,
serving Sophia as her maid," he said.

Tilia looked up at him, startled. "You _all_ intend to live with the
cardinal?"

Her surprise, in turn, startled Daoud. But then he saw that her eyes
were too firmly fixed upon him, and knew that she was dissembling.

"As Morgiana, did you not approve this arrangement with my lord the
sultan?"

She shrugged. "That was when we thought you were coming alone."

"Sophia and Lorenzo will be of great help to us. We will give it out
that I am the cardinal's guest. Lorenzo will be my servant, Giancarlo.
And Sophia will be the cardinal's niece."

"Hm." Tilia frowned. "I am _very_ hungry. Let me sample the delicacies
your Greek woman bought in Bagnioregio. Then I will go back to the city
and send word to the cardinal of what you have told me."

Daoud heard the false note in her voice and bristled with suspicion.

_And you would keep me waiting out here while you warn him of what a
danger I am to him._

"I will tell him everything myself."

Her eyes clouded over. "The cardinal will send for you when he has heard
my report."

"Great God, woman!" Daoud's voice rasped in his anger. "Do you expect
me to wait out here until the Tartars come to Orvieto? I am sent by the
sultan, I bring great wealth to you and your master, I am fighting for
my faith, _and I will not wait_!"

Tilia patted his arm placatingly. "Look here, Daoud, in all honesty,
Cardinal Ugolini is terrified. When he first got Baibars's message about
you, he wept for hours, cursing himself over and over for a fool.
Imagine the outrage if the Christians were to discover that a Muslim
agent has come so close to their pope. The cardinal would never have
taken the first denaro picciolo from your sultan if he had ever known
that it would lead to this--a Turk at his door demanding his help in a
plot against the pope."

"I am not at his door," said Daoud pointedly.

"No, and before you arrive there, you must give me time to assure him
that you know what you are doing, that you do not look anything like a
Turk, and above all that you bring him such great wealth as to make the
risk worthwhile. If you just appear at his palace when he has insisted
that you wait here, it might throw him into a panic. He might do
something very foolish."

Anger flared up in him. She was obstructing him and threatening him, and
he had had enough.

_She means he might expose me. Or order his men-at-arms to kill me. This
is Manfred's indecision all over again._

He seized Tilia's arm, his fingers sinking into soft flesh under her
silk sleeve. "I am going to the cardinal, with my party. And you will
equip me with a message for him, telling him you feel assured it is safe
for him to admit us."

She stared up at him, expressionless, for a long time. He sensed that
she was trying to see into his heart, to weigh his will.

"No," she said. "You are not going now. First--"

His grip on her arm tightened, and in his anger he was about to shake
her, when her hand darted to lift the pectoral cross from her breast.
Her thumb pressed a dark red carbuncle between the arms, and a thin
blade sprang out of the shaft.

"Please notice that the cross is attached to my neck by a chain, David.
I cannot hurt you unless you come too close to me. I have no wish to
attack you. There is asp venom on the blade, by the way."

His anger turned against himself. It was foolish to try violence on a
woman like this. Had he not told himself he could not force Tilia and
Ugolini to do anything, that he must persuade them?

_This woman herself is as dangerous as an asp. But I need her._

He let go of her arm. "Pardon my crudity, Madama."

Tilia pointed her blade straight up and pressed another jewel in the
cross. The blade dropped back into the shaft.

"I do not mind crudity," she said, "but I do not like to be manhandled."
She smiled slyly. "Unless I've invited it. I had already made my mind
up, before you laid violent hands on me, that I would agree to your
going at once to the cardinal. I have decided that you may be able to
accomplish what you set out to do without getting us all killed. You are
brave and intelligent, but you know how to bargain, too. You know when
to yield and you know when to stand your ground."

Daoud felt pleasure at her compliments, but even more pleasure that she
was going to cooperate with him.

"Then why did you just say we would not be going to the cardinal?"

"I was about to add that first you _will_ feed me bread and cheese and
the execrable wine of Bagnioregio. _Then_ I _will_ give you a message
that will get you into Cardinal Ugolini's mansion."

Daoud laughed. That Tilia had yielded was a great relief. And she was
both witty and dangerous, a combination he admired.




XI


Simon was surprised at how young Cardinal Paulus de Verceuil looked. The
man who stood with him in a vineyard on the road to Orvieto had a long,
fine-skinned face and glossy black hair that fell in waves to his
shoulders. If his scalp was shaved in a clerical tonsure, his red velvet
cap covered it. His handsome violet silk tunic reminded Simon that his
own surcoat was travel-stained and that Thierry had not polished his
mail in days.

De Verceuil tossed away the cluster of pale green grapes he had been
nibbling and spoke suddenly.

"Count, a report has reached me that you spoke rudely to the doge of
Venice." His booming bass voice sounded as if it were emerging from the
depths of a tomb. "You do realize that your actions reflect on the crown
of France?"

He thrust his face into Simon's as he spoke, which made Simon
involuntarily draw back. De Verceuil was one of the few men Simon had
ever met who matched his own unusual height.

Simon felt his face grow hot. "Yes, Your Eminence."

"And how could you dismiss the trovatore Sordello from the post to which
Count Charles himself appointed him?"

"If Sordello had stayed with us, the Tartars might have taken such
offense as to go back to Outremer."

"Do not be absurd. Would they abandon a mission of such importance
because of a tavern brawl?"

Simon felt shame, but, deeper than that, resentment. He was the Count de
Gobignon, and not since he was a child had anyone chastised him like
this.

He heard a rustling as someone came down the row of vines where they
were standing. He turned to see Friar Mathieu, and hoped he was about to
be rescued.

After the Franciscan had humbly greeted the cardinal and kissed his
sapphire ring, he said, "I must tell Your Eminence that what happened
was not a mere tavern brawl. Sordello stabbed and nearly killed the heir
to the throne of Armenia, an important ally of the Tartars."

De Verceuil stared at Friar Mathieu. The cardinal had a mouth so small
it looked quite out of place below his large nose and above his large
chin. A mean mouth, Simon thought.

"Your opinion does not interest me," de Verceuil said. "I cannot imagine
why King Louis trusted a beggar-priest to conduct diplomacy with the
empire of Tartary."

The resentment Simon had felt at the cardinal's harsh speech at his
expense now flared up in anger.

_I am young and I do make mistakes_, Simon thought. _But, cardinal or
not, this man has no right to stand there in his velvet and satin and
jewels and sneer at this fine old man. No right at all._

But the old friar merely stroked his white beard with a wry smile and
said, "I said that very thing to him myself, when he ordered me to go."

Still angry, Simon took a deep breath and said, "Since Your Eminence
feels I have embarrassed the king and displeased the Count of Anjou,
there is only one course open to me. I will resign my command of the
ambassadors' guards."

Simon stared into de Verceuil's eyes, and the cardinal's eyelids
fluttered. In the silence Simon heard a blackbird calling in nearby
olive trees.

_I never wanted to come here. I let Uncle Charles talk me into it. I do
not mind the danger. And it would be exciting to outguess a hidden enemy
who is trying to murder the Tartars. But I cannot endure the way this
man humiliates me and my friends. I will go back to Gobignon now._

"You must not let a bit of fatherly correction wound you so deeply,
Count," said the cardinal, his voice still deep and dirgelike but no
longer full of scorn. "I would never suggest the Count of Anjou had made
a mistake in choosing you for this post."

_Fatherly! What a disgusting thought!_

But Simon could see that his resigning worried de Verceuil. Uncle
Charles wanted Simon to guard the ambassadors, just as he had wanted
Sordello to head the archers. He had his reasons. And de Verceuil did
not want to cross Charles d'Anjou.

Friar Mathieu laughed gently, and patted Simon on the shoulder. "If you
please, be kind enough to change your mind about resigning. All of us
are aware that you have carried out the task with intelligence and zeal.
Is that not right, Your Eminence?"

"Of course," said de Verceuil, his mouth puckered and sour. "Count, I
would have you present these Tartar dignitaries to me."

"I will be happy to interpret for you, Your Eminence," said Friar
Mathieu. De Verceuil did not answer him.

As they crossed the vineyard, the cardinal stretched out his long arm
and said, "I have brought musicians, jongleurs, senators of Orvieto,
men-at-arms, two archbishops, six bishops, an abbot, and many monsignors
and priests." A long line of men stretched down the road into the nearby
woods. Most of them wore various shades of red; a few were in
cloth-of-gold or blue. The points of long spears flashed in the
sunlight. Banners with fringes of gold and silver swung at the tops of
poles. Seeking protection from the mid-August heat, men walked horses in
the shade of the woods.

Beyond the treetops rose a distant pedestal of grayish-yellow rock
crowned by a city. An astonishing sight, Orvieto.

"The Holy Father will be meeting us at the cathedral and will say a
special mass of thanksgiving for the safe arrival of the ambassadors,"
said de Verceuil. "I want the entry of the Tartars into Orvieto to
impress both the Tartars themselves and the pope and his courtiers."

       *       *       *       *       *

"Monsters!"

"Cannibals!"

Rotten apples, pears and onions, chunks of moldy bread, flew through the
air. Small stones that did not injure, but stung. And worse.

The shouts and missiles came from both sides of the street, but always
when Simon was looking the other way, so he could not see his
assailants. The people crowded in front of the shops were mostly young
men, but women and children were scattered among them. They wore the
dull grayish and brownish garments of workers and peasants. The
street-level windows behind them were shuttered, and the doors were
closed tight. That was a sure sign, Simon knew from his Paris student
days, that the shopkeepers expected trouble.

From the Porta Maggiore, the main gate where they had entered, the
street curved toward the south side of the town. Though the upper
stories of many houses overshadowed the street, there was room enough
for the procession to move along, four horses abreast, and for the
unruly people to gather on either side. Approaching the south wall of
the city, the street made a sharp bend to the left, and Simon had lost
sight of the Tartar emissaries behind, who were--_What a
mistake!_--being carried in an open sedan chair. Were they being pelted
with garbage?

Why were the people of Orvieto doing this? True, everyone in Christendom
had heard wild tales of the Tartars. That they were monsters with dogs'
heads. That they bit off the breasts of women. That they stank so
abominably they overcame whole armies just with their smell. That they
were determined to kill or enslave everyone on earth. There were
churches where people prayed every Sunday to be delivered "from the fury
of the Tartars."

But it had been over twenty years since the Tartars had invaded Europe,
and even then they had come no farther than Poland and Hungary. Why
should these people of Orvieto turn so violently against them now, when
they came in peace?

Undoubtedly someone was stirring them up.

_Hang de Verceuil and his orders_, Simon thought. _I should be with the
ambassadors. If someone wants to kill them, this would be a perfect
chance._

He tugged on the reins of his palfrey, pulling her head around. "Make
way!" he shouted, spurring his horse back the way he had come.
Men-at-arms with spears and crossbows cursed at him in various Italian
dialects, but they opened a path, pushing back the people. Thierry rode
a small horse in Simon's wake.

"Imps of Satan!" came a shout from the crowd. "The Tartars are devils!"

Simon scanned the faces below him. Some looked angry, some frightened,
many bewildered. No one looked happy. The cardinal's hope for an
impressive entry into Orvieto had been quite dashed, and Simon felt a
sneaking pleasure at that.

Passing the corner where the procession had turned, he saw again a
building he had passed earlier, a formidable three-story cube of yellow
stone with slotted windows on the ground floor and iron bars over the
wider upper windows.

_And there is a man who looks happy._

He was standing in sunlight, leaning out from the square Guelfo
battlements on the roof of the big building. His hair was the color of
brass, his skin a smooth brown, such as Simon had seen on pilgrims newly
returned from the crusader strongholds in Outremer. The blond man gazed
down on the jostling, shouting crowd, smiling faintly.

As Simon rode past him, their eyes met. Simon was startled by the
intensity of the other's gaze. It was as if a wordless message had
crossed the space between them. A challenge. But then the blond man
looked away.

The Tartar ambassadors, seated side by side in a large sedan chair, were
farther up the street. Here, Simon noticed with relief, the crowd had
fallen quiet. Perhaps curiosity about the Tartars, with their round
brown faces and many-colored robes, had overcome whatever had roused
these people against them. Then, too, the Tartars were surrounded by
their Armenians marching on foot, curved swords drawn, as well as by
Simon's knights on horseback, and Venetian crossbowmen. The archers'
bows, Simon noticed, were loaded and drawn. Who had ordered that?

De Verceuil on a huge black horse--no palfrey this, but a powerful
charger--rode up to Simon. "Why did you not remain in the forefront?
What is going on up ahead?"

Without trying to defend himself, Simon described the disturbance.

"Could you not control the rabble?" de Verceuil growled, and turned to
take a position beside the Tartars' sedan chair.

Simon's face burned, and his hands trembled as he stared after de
Verceuil.

When they passed the yellow stone building, Simon looked up and saw the
blond man still there on the roof. The man was staring down at the
Tartars with that same burning look he had thrown at Simon, but there
were no weapons in the hands that gripped the battlements.

Simon heard a slapping sound and an angry cry. He turned to see de
Verceuil, his right cheek smeared brown.

_God's death! Someone threw shit at him! And hit him right in the face._

The cardinal, his face distorted as if he were about to vomit, was
staring at the stained hand with which he had just wiped his cheek.

There was laughter from the crowd, mixed with angry cries of "Bestioni!
Creatures from hell!"

For an instant Simon felt laughter bubbling up to his lips, but cold
horror swept all amusement away as he sensed what was about to happen.

De Verceuil turned to the nearest crossbowmen, who had not suppressed
their own smiles.

"Shoot!" he shouted. "Shoot whoever did that!"

The smiles remained fixed on the faces of the Venetians as three of them
aimed their already-loaded crossbows at the crowd. They did not
hesitate. This was not their city; these were not their people. They
were fighting men who did as they were ordered.

People screamed and shrank back against the shuttered doors and windows.

Three loud snaps of the bowstrings came at the same moment as Simon's
cry of "No!"

He shouted without thinking, and was surprised to hear his own voice.
His cry echoed in a sudden and terrible quiet.

Screams of agony immediately followed. People darted away from the place
where the crossbowmen had aimed, leaving that part of the street empty.

Empty save for three people. Two of them screamed. One was silent--a
young man who half sat, half lay against the stone wall of a house.
Blood was pouring out of his mouth and more blood was running from a
hole in his chest. Simon saw that the blood was coming in a steady
stream, not in rhythmic spurts, which meant the fellow's heart had
stopped. A glance at the white face told Simon the dead youth could be
no more than sixteen.

Beside the boy, a woman knelt and wept. She was plump and middle-aged,
perhaps his mother. Her white linen tunic was bloodied.

"He did nothing!" she cried. "Oh, Jesus! Mary! He did nothing!" There
was a plea in her voice, as if she might bring the boy back to life if
only she could persuade people of his innocence.

The other cries came from a man who stood about a yard from the dead
boy. The bolt had gone through his left shoulder just above the armpit
and pinned him to the oaken post of a doorway. He wanted to fall, but he
had to stand or suffer unbearable pain.

"Help me!" he begged, casting pain-blinded eyes right and left. "Help
me!"

Simon jumped down from his horse, throwing the reins to Thierry, and ran
to the man. He put his left hand on the chest and pulled at the flaring
end of the quarrel with his right. He could not move it. The bolt was
buried too deeply in the wood. The man's forehead fell against Simon's
shoulder, and he was silent. Simon hoped he had fainted.

Now Simon saw where the third bolt had gone. Six inches of it, half its
length, was buried in a wall a few feet to Simon's right. The wall was
made of the same grayish-yellow stone Orvieto was built on.

The crossbow bolt in the man's shoulder was thick and made of hard wood.
Simon had nothing that would cut the man loose without hurting him even
more. He looked up and down the street. It was quite empty now, except
for a few people watching from a distance. The procession had gone on.
He glanced up and saw that the blond man had left his place on the roof.

Friar Mathieu knelt beside the dead young man, one hand moving in
blessing, the other resting on the shoulder of the weeping woman.

De Pirenne and Thierry, both mounted, the equerry holding Simon's horse,
looked at him uncertainly.

"Go, Alain!" said Simon impatiently. "Stay with the Tartars."

He himself was neglecting his duty, he thought, as de Pirenne galloped
off. But now that he was trying to help this poor devil, he could not
abandon him.

"Can I do anything, Monseigneur?" Thierry asked.

As Simon was about to answer, he saw a middle-aged man wearing a
carpenter's apron.

"Messere, can you bring a saw?" he called. "Hurry!"

It seemed hours before the man returned with a small saw with a pointed
end and widely spaced teeth. He held it out to Simon.

Simon wanted to shout at the carpenter, but he took a grip on himself
and said patiently, "You are bound to be better at sawing than I. Per
favore, cut away the end of the crossbow bolt so we can free this man."

Gingerly at first, then working with a will, the carpenter sawed off the
flaring end of the bolt with its thin wooden vanes. The pinned man awoke
and was sobbing and groaning.

Once the protruding part of the bolt was sawed away, Simon took a deep
breath, wrapped his arms around the sobbing man, and pulled him away
from the wall. The man screamed so loudly that Simon's ears rang; then
the man sagged to the ground. Blood flowed from the wound in his
shoulder, soaking his tunic. Blood coated the stump of the bolt, still
stuck in the door post. Simon dropped to his knees beside the wounded
man. A pool of bright red widened rapidly on the flat paving stones.

_Now what do I do with him? I must get back to my duty._

He spoke with the carpenter. "Press your hand on the wound, hard. That
will slow the bleeding." Simon took the man's hand and put it on the
hole the crossbow bolt had made.

"Here, let me do that." Friar Mathieu was on his knees beside the hurt
man, his hand covering the wound. "Messere," he said to the carpenter,
"ride my donkey to the hospital of the Franciscans. Tell them there is a
man badly hurt here and Friar Mathieu d'Alcon says they are to send
brothers to take him for treatment."

Simon stood up slowly as the carpenter climbed on Mathieu's donkey.

"It is not safe for you to stay here," he said to Friar Mathieu. "The
people know you were part of the procession and may blame you for what
happened."

Mathieu shook his head. "No one will hurt me. Go along now."

Simon jumped into the saddle and spurred his palfrey to a trot. Thierry
rode beside him.

"Those two didn't throw anything," Thierry said.

"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."

The interior of the cathedral was ablaze with the light of a thousand
candles, but Simon was not impressed by the windows, which were small
and narrow and filled with dull-colored glass. This was an old church,
he thought, remembering the huge windows of many-colored glass in the
newer cathedrals of France.

The crowd was so tightly packed that Simon and Friar Mathieu could not
get to the front of the nave, where chairs had been set before the altar
for dignitaries. They had to be content with standing halfway down the
length of the church. Simon thought wryly that he was getting used to
being pushed into the background. Perhaps he was accepting it too
easily.

Pope Urban, his white hair uncovered, had raised high the round wafer of
bread for the Consecration of the Mass, when an angry shout echoed
through the cathedral.

A chill went through Simon's body, cold as a knife blade. Using his
shoulder as a wedge, he forced his way through the crowd toward the
source of the sound, near the front of the church.

"Ex Tartari furiosi!" the man was shouting in Latin. "Libera nos,
Domine!" _From the fury of the Tartars, Lord deliver us!_ Cries of
dismay rang out near the disturbance, and people began shouting in
Italian.

"Stand aside! Let me through!" Simon shouted. If this were an assassin,
reverence for the mass, even for the pope, must be set aside. Again and
again the shout rose, "Ex Tartari furiosi!" It was harder to move
through the crowd. People were struggling to get away from the man
making the uproar.

Simon stopped, shoved men right and left to make room, and pulled his
scimitar from his scabbard.

People around him turned at the unmistakable rasp of steel on leather, a
sound that so often preceded sudden death. They saw the Saracen sword in
Simon's hands and drew back. As Simon hoped, more people noticed and
fell over one another trying to get out of his way.

Like Moses' rod parting the Red Sea, Simon's scimitar opened a path for
him.

Simon saw a young man with a tangled mass of brown hair whipping about
his face and a brown beard that spread over his chest. He was big and
broad-shouldered, and he wore a plain white robe, ragged and gray with
dirt, and sandals. In one hand he held a dagger.

_Blood of Jesus! He must have come here to kill the Tartars._

Terrified people had opened a circle around the white-robed man, and as
he moved toward the front of the cathedral the open space moved with
him.

"Stop!" Simon cried.

Baring greenish-looking teeth in a snarl, the man swiveled his shaggy
head toward Simon, then immediately rushed at him.

_He's crazy_, Simon thought, a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach.
He crouched, holding his sword out before him, diagonally across his
chest.

"Do not kill him!" boomed a deep voice that Simon recognized as de
Verceuil's.

The man with the dagger hesitated now, just out of reach of Simon's
sword.

_Am I to risk my life to keep this madman alive?_

But de Verceuil's demand made sense. They must try to find out who sent
the man.

Simon took a deep breath. He had practiced sword fighting innumerable
times, but only twice in his life had he come up against an armed man
with a look in his eyes that said he was willing to kill.

_But this is no different from practice_, he told himself.

He feinted to the white-robed man's left, then jumped forward, lifting
his sword high and bringing the flat of it down with all his strength on
the hand that held the dagger. The dagger tumbled through the air. Simon
saw at once that the man had no martial skill.

The madman darted forward in a crouch to retrieve his dagger, and as he
did so Simon kicked him in the chin. The thick beard protected the man's
chin from the full force of Simon's pointed leather boot, but he
staggered. Before the bearded man recovered himself, Alain de Pirenne
charged out of the crowd, seized him in a bear hug, and wrestled him to
the ground.

"Ex Tartari furiosi!" The shouts rang out again and again as the pope's
guards dragged the would-be assassin out of the church.

Simon saw Pope Urban shake his bare white head slowly, then turn back to
the high marble altar and raise the Host overhead once more.

De Verceuil and Friar Mathieu reached Simon at the same time.

The cardinal held out his hand for the dagger, which Simon had
retrieved, and studied it. "One could buy a hundred like it in any
marketplace," he said, keeping his voice low now that the mass had
resumed. He thrust the dagger into his black leather belt with a shrug.

"The white robe and sandals are the mark of the Apostolic Brethren,"
said Friar Mathieu. "Heretics who preach the doctrine of Joachim of
Floris about a coming new age of enlightenment and equality."

"When it comes to heresy," said de Verceuil with an unfriendly grin,
"there is little to choose between the Apostolic Brethren and the
Franciscans. Many of your brethren are secret Joachimites."

"Of course, he might have been dressed that way only to deceive us,"
Friar Mathieu went on, ignoring the insult.

"We will find out who he is and whence he comes," said de Verceuil.
"When we are through with him he will tell us everything. I have ordered
him handed over to the podesta of Orvieto, who will subject him to
questioning in his chamber of torment." He turned on the ball of his
foot, his violet cloak swinging out behind him, and headed back toward
the altar.

_And not a word about my disarming the assassin_, Simon thought angrily.

Friar Mathieu winced and shook his head sadly. "Then again, that man may
not be able to say anything. And the less he can tell us, the more he
will suffer. I pity him."

Simon cringed inwardly at the thought that by capturing the mad heretic
he was the cause of the man's being subjected to horrible tortures. But
greater fears preoccupied him. The Tartars had been in Orvieto only a
few hours, and already the people had been stirred up against them and
they had nearly been assassinated. Somewhere in this town an enemy
lurked, and Simon's body turned cold as he wondered what that enemy
would do next.




XII


_A letter from Emir Daoud ibn Abdallah to El Malik Baibars
al-Bunduqdari, from Orvieto, 21st day of Rajab, 662 A.H.:_

    Although the central part of Italy, the Papal States, is said to be
    under the control of the pope, I have learned that his army is
    barely large enough to protect his person and nowhere near enough to
    enforce his authority. Manfred could attack the pope whenever he
    wished, but he does not do so because he fears that the other
    princes of Europe would then attack him.

    The northern part of Italy is divided among a number of cities, each
    of which is a small independent nation. These cities are often at
    war with one another. The most important are Venice, Genoa,
    Florence, Milan, Siena, Pisa, and Lucca.

    Within each city there is also constant warfare among various
    factions. The palaces of the great families are all heavily
    fortified.

    Italy is also divided between two parties, the Ghibellini and the
    Guelfi. These parties are to be found everywhere, constantly at each
    other's throats. They arose long ago in the northern part of the
    Holy Roman Empire, where the German language is spoken. The
    Hohenstaufen emperors came from the town of Waiblingen. And in the
    early days of the Hohenstaufens their enemies were a family named
    Welf. In Italy Welfs and Waiblings have become Guelfi and
    Ghibellini.

    Each day I come to realize more and more how complicated the history
    of Europe is. It seems that most of Italy has been claimed by the
    Holy Roman Empire--but Rome itself is not part of that empire.
    Members of the Hohenstaufen family have been Holy Roman Emperors for
    over two hundred years, and they have always been at war with the
    popes. Why the emperor should be called "holy" when he is
    traditionally the enemy of the pope I do not understand.

    Furthermore, at this time there is no Holy Roman Emperor. The last
    one was Conrad, son of Frederic and half brother of Manfred. He died
    ten years ago, and then Manfred proclaimed himself king of southern
    Italy and Sicily. The German part of the Holy Roman Empire is in a
    more chaotic state than Italy, if my lord can imagine such a thing.

    Here in Orvieto, where the pope has settled for his safety, there
    are no Ghibellini. The townsmen have managed to find other reasons
    to fight among themselves. The chief rivalry is between two great
    families, the Monaldeschi and the Filippeschi. Since the Tartar
    emissaries are guests of the Monaldeschi, I hope to make friends
    with the Filippeschi.

       *       *       *       *       *

Seated at a table in his little room at Cardinal Ugolini's, Daoud made
two copies of his letter to Baibars on small sheets of parchment scraped
so thin as to be almost transparent. He had written the letters in a
code using the Arabian system of numbers. Even if the message suffered
the unlikely fate of being intercepted and finding its way to one of the
few Arabic-reading Christians, it would remain an enigma.

Daoud rolled up the two letters tightly and put them in the leather
scrip at his belt. He stepped out of his room into a narrow corridor.
Doors on his right opened into rooms for Ugolini's guests and
high-ranking members of his staff. On his left, oiled-parchment windows
let light into the corridor from the atrium of the mansion.

Ugolini's cabinet, his private workroom, was at the end of the corridor,
where it turned a corner. Daoud walked up to the heavy oaken door and
raised his fist to knock.

He felt light-headed, as he did when going into combat. This was combat
of a kind. He had been a guest in Ugolini's mansion for over two weeks
now, and he had already, he thought, hurt the Tartars' prospects for an
alliance with the Christians. But he needed to do much more, with help
from Ugolini. The cardinal, Daoud knew, would be absolutely terrified at
the thought of his Muslim guest appearing before the pope.

And to appear before the pope, with the cardinal presenting him, was
precisely what Daoud wanted to do.

He knocked on the cabinet door.

To the muffled query from within he answered, "It is David."

He heard a bolt slide back, and he entered the cabinet. Cardinal Ugolini
returned to the high-backed chair at his worktable, which was strewn
with leather-bound books and parchment scrolls. In the middle of the
table lay a large, circular brass instrument Daoud recognized as an
astrolabe. On shelves behind the cardinal, besides many more books and
papers, were a stuffed falcon, a stuffed owl, and a human skull with a
strange diagram painted on the cranium. Windows of translucent white
glass in two walls let in an abundance of light. A good place to work,
thought Daoud.

"I hope I do not disturb you, Your Eminence," said Daoud.

"Not at all, David," said the cardinal. "It is very necessary that we
talk."

Cardinal Adelberto Ugolini was a short, stout man with long gray
whiskers that swept out like wings from his full cheeks. His receding
chin was as bare as the bald top of his head, partly covered now by a
red skullcap. He wore a plain black robe, like a priest's, but from a
chain around his neck hung a gold cross set with five matching blue
jewels. Daoud wondered if the cross concealed a poisoned stiletto like
Tilia's. Besides books and scrolls, Daoud noticed, there were rows of
porcelain jars on the shelves against the wall. Each had a Latin word
painted on it. Ugolini might well dabble in poison.

"The man they seized in the cathedral is to be publicly torn to pieces,"
Ugolini said. "They have been torturing him in the Palazzo del Podesta
for three days and two nights, but they have learned nothing from him,
except that he is a member of the Apostolic Brethren, a follower of the
heretic Joachim of Floris."

_If I am to go before the pope, I must learn about the disputes among
Christians. It would not do to offend the Christian leaders by
accidentally uttering heresy._

"What does this Joachim teach?"

Ugolini waved his hands dismissively. "Joachim died long ago, but his
rubbish and madness still stir up the simple folk. The Church is too
wealthy. The clergy are corrupt. The Age of the Holy Spirit is coming,
in which there will be peace, justice, and freedom and all property will
be owned in common."

The doctrines of the Apostolic Brethren sounded to Daoud like the
teachings of the Hashishiyya, as told to him by Imam Fayum al-Burz.

Ugolini shook himself like a wet dog. "It is dangerous for you to
involve yourself with such people as the Brethren."

_It is dangerous for me to be here at all_, Daoud thought, irritated at
Ugolini's timidity.

"This heretic does not know me, so there is nothing he can tell them
that will point to us. You need not fear."

"I feel no fear," Ugolini said grandly. "How did you get that man to
draw a dagger in the cathedral?" Ugolini asked. "And the crowd, how did
you stir them up?"

Daoud saw the tiny quiverings of Ugolini's pupils, the tightness of his
lips, the clenching of his jaws, the signs of a man in a permanent state
of terror.

Daoud shrugged and smiled. "Celino found the madman preaching against
the Tartars at a crossroads and had men in his pay bring him to Orvieto.
We did not tell him what to do. He did what he was moved to do. As for
the crowd, all that was needed was for Celino to drop a word here and a
coin there. Many people believe the Tartars are demons from hell.
Perhaps they are. Anyway, I think we have turned the people of Orvieto
against the Tartars."

"You are like a child playing with flint and tinder in a barn full of
straw," said Ugolini, blinking his eyes rapidly.

_He must be prodded into action_, Daoud thought. _Tilia said the idea of
my appearing before the pope would terrify him. We must settle that
today._

Daoud walked to one of the four mullioned windows. The casements swung
inward for air. Looking down through the iron bars on the outside of the
window, Daoud regarded the street where the Tartars had passed. The
pottery maker across the road had washed away the bloodstains and was
sitting in front of his shop displaying his brightly colored wares.

What would move this man Ugolini--money, threats, the promise of
personal power?

He turned back and made himself smile.

"You do not want me here, Your Eminence."

Ugolini looked at him for a long moment, and finally said, "For over a
dozen years Baibars has been a far-off figure who sends me small rewards
in return for scraps of harmless information. Now, suddenly, his agent
is in my home, demanding that I, the cardinal camerlengo of the Sacred
College, risk death by torture to deceive the pope and betray the
Church. In a week or two in the cathedral piazza, they will do horrible
things to that poor mad heretic. But his sufferings will not be the
tenth part of what they will do to me--and to you--if we are found out."

Daoud bowed his head. "The sooner I complete my work, the sooner I am
gone."

While he let that sink in, he decided that with his next words he would
pit his boldness against Ugolini's timidity.

"So, you must present me to the pope as soon as possible."

Ugolini's eyes grew wide and his mouth trembled. His stare, with his
sharp nose, tiny chin, and trembling whiskers, gave him the look of a
jerboa, one of those desert rats that Daoud had hunted with hawks in
Palestine.

"Tilia told me you had some such mad notion," said the cardinal. "If you
speak to the pope and his court, every important man in Orvieto will
see you. If you make the slightest slip that could reveal what you
really are, they will be on you like hounds on a fox." He laughed
nervously. "No, no, no, no. I might as well take you to de Verceuil and
say, 'Here is the enemy you are looking for. Behold, a Muslim, even a
Mameluke! And, by the way, it was _I_ who brought him into Orvieto.'"

Ugolini covered his eyes with his hand. He did look as if he had been
losing sleep, Daoud thought, remembering what Tilia had told him.

Daoud felt his teeth grinding together in frustration. It would be
easier to fight a band of Tartars than to try to put courage into this
one little man. And he needed more from the cardinal than compliance.

_I must make him want, not just to help me, but to lead the opposition
to the Tartars. Otherwise this will be like trying to move the arms and
legs of a dead man._

"The cardinals speak Latin to one another, do they not?" Daoud asked. "I
will say my piece in Greek and you will translate it into Latin for me.
So you will have a chance to cover any errors I make."

"Why must you go before the pope?" Ugolini demanded. "It is foolish
bravado. Remain in seclusion and tell me what you want done and I will
have it done for you."

The thought of keeping himself in hiding while trying to act through
others made Daoud's flesh crawl. But there was a bit of hope here. At
least Ugolini was offering to do _something_.

"This is a thing only I can do," Daoud said. "Only I have seen the
Tartars, met them in battle. Only I have seen what they do to a
conquered city." The sight and smell of those heaps of rotting corpses
arose in his mind, and he shut his eyes momentarily. "What I can say is
too important a weapon to be left unwielded. I know the Tartars better
than any man in Orvieto, except for that priest in the brown robe who
came with them. And he is on the other side."

"How will you tell what you know without admitting that you are a Muslim
warrior?"

"Many Christian traders now visit the lands occupied by the Tartars.
David of Trebizond has been one of them." He spread his arms. "As you
see, I now dress like a wealthy merchant."

Celino had gone out with a bag of florins from Ugolini's first sale of
jewels, and he had come back with a chest full of new clothes for Daoud.
Today Daoud wore a silk cape as red as a cardinal's robe. It was light
in weight and came down to his knees, more for display than for
covering. Under the cloak he wore a tunic of deep purple embroidered
with gold thread.

Ugolini shook his head. "Clothing will not deceive the pope and those
around him. You are asking too much of me."

Daoud wished he could give this up. Ugolini was nothing but a sodden
lump of fear. But he had no choice but to keep trying. The cardinal was
his gateway to the papal court.

"Think of the reward," Daoud urged. "Part of the wealth I have brought
with me is already yours. If the pope sends the Tartars away without an
agreement, my sultan will give to you with both hands."

Ugolini looked tormented. "But the peril--"

Daoud had been certain that money would not be enough to enlist
Ugolini's cooperation. Baibars already had been generous with him.

_Bribes alone will not move this man._

As he searched his brain for another approach, his eyes explored the
room. The skull, the powders, the brass instruments. Ugolini was a
student of many strange things, things verging on magic. Were these not
odd interests for a Christian prelate? He knew Greek, which was rare for
a Latin Christian. He had spoken of heresy before. Was he not, in his
willingness to correspond with Baibars, a heretic of a kind? And perhaps
in these studies of his as well.

_I must remind him that he sympathizes with us._

"My master sent me to you because he knows you are a friend to Islam."

Ugolini raised a cautioning hand. "Mind you, I am a Christian."

"I do not doubt it," said Daoud.

"Not a very good Christian," Ugolini went on, sighing and looking off
into space. "God grant that I make a good confession before I breathe my
last. But I am also of the south of Italy, and in my youth I lived side
by side with Muslims. I had Muslim teachers, wise men. From them I
learned about philosophy, medicine, astrology, alchemy. I learned how
much there is to know that I may never know."

Daoud felt his eager heart beat more rapidly. Ugolini was speaking just
as he wanted.

"God help me, I yearn so for more worldly knowledge," Ugolini went on.
"That was why I studied for the priesthood, so I could go to the
University of Napoli. But what one can learn at a Christian university
is not enough. I want to know what you Saracens know. And so I long for
peace between Christendom and Islam."

Daoud felt excitement surge through his arms and legs. He was
exhilarated, as when in battle he sensed his opponent was weakening.

He pressed his point. "You will never possess the knowledge you long for
if the Tartars destroy it. Think what was lost when they leveled
Baghdad. Think what will be lost if they destroy Cairo, Thebes,
Alexandria."

"Oh, God!" Ugolini cried, waving hands bent like claws. "There is so
much I could learn in Egypt. If only this stupid enmity between Muslim
and Christian did not hold me back. I am tortured like Tantalus."

"As cardinal camerlengo, the pope's chamberlain, you could bring before
the pope a traveler from far away whose testimony might influence his
decisions about the Tartars. Because of you, all that would be lost
might be saved."

Daoud held his breath, waiting for Ugolini's reply.

Ugolini smiled resignedly. "To work for what I believe in, to help my
friends. And to be rewarded with riches. How can I refuse?" His
expression changed again as he looked earnestly at Daoud. "I do not know
as much as your great Islamic astronomers, but I have plotted the
courses of some stars, and I know how they rule our destinies. And my
recent readings have told me that I will take a risk that will yield me
rewards beyond my hopes."

"Then you will present me to the pope as a witness?"

Ugolini first shook his head, but then sighed and nodded. "I can propose
a meeting. And may the stars watch over us," he added as his right hand
traced the Christian sign of the cross on his forehead, shoulders, and
breast.

_The stars, your Messiah, and the One God I worship_, thought Daoud. He
allowed himself momentarily to feel the thrill of triumph. Ugolini had
begun to move as he wanted him to. But now he must prepare himself for a
much greater trial, his meeting with the pope.

       *       *       *       *       *

A little while later, walking through a ground-floor doorway into the
sunlit atrium of Ugolini's mansion, Daoud saw Sophia and Rachel standing
by the fish pond, under orange and lemon trees. The polished dark-green
leaves reflected the mid-morning sun upward and cast shade downward on
the stone paths and the pool. Reflected sunlight rippled over Sophia's
peach-colored gown. A narrow gold bracelet on her wrist flashed as she
raised her hand to make a point. The answering smile that lit Rachel's
face foretold that she would be a beautiful woman in a few years. She
was dressed better than she had been when they first met her, Daoud
noticed. That ankle-length blue silk gown must belong to Sophia.

"The cardinal has just had an immense turbot delivered all the way from
Livorno, Messer David," said Rachel, her black eyes bright with wonder.
"Alive, in a barrel of water. Look, you can see it down there at the
bottom."

Daoud looked down into the clear water, saw a tapering dark shape moving
gently just above the yellow pebbles lining the bottom of the pool.
Smaller brown carp darted this way and that above it.

"The cardinal's gold makes great things possible," he said. "Will you
leave us for a while, Rachel?"

Sophia handed a small leather-bound book to Rachel. "You may read these
poems of Ovid if you like."

Rachel clasped the book to her narrow chest. "I do not read Latin,
Signora, but I will look at the pictures."

"Have a care," said Sophia with a light laugh. "Some of them may shock
you."

"Then I will try to enjoy being shocked." Rachel bowed and hurried away.

Daoud listened to the banter between the woman and the girl with mixed
feelings. He liked both of them, and he enjoyed hearing them joke with
each other. He imagined women must talk that way among themselves back
in El Kahira, but if they did, men never had a chance to hear.

He also felt deeply uneasy at the growing closeness between Rachel and
Sophia. The two of them shared a room on the top floor of Ugolini's
mansion, next to Daoud's and Lorenzo's. His stomach tightened as he
thought of the long talks they might have. What if Rachel learned that
Sophia was actually a Byzantine woman, when she was supposed to be the
cardinal's niece from Sicily? And what if Rachel then let that slip to a
servant? Byzantines, Greek Catholics, were hated almost as much as
Muslims here in the lands of the Latin Church. One small, seemingly
harmless revelation like that could destroy them utterly.

_I must get them separated._

Turning to Sophia, Daoud was struck once again that so much beauty
should openly display itself outside a harem. A narrow cloth-of-gold
ribbon wound around her neck, crossed between her breasts and tied her
pale peach gown tightly at the waist. Her lustrous black hair was bound
in a net of gold thread.

She looked at him quizzically. Daoud studied her face. Her long,
straight nose, dark red lips and delicate chin made him glad that
Christian women went unveiled. He could well believe this woman had
enjoyed the attentions of an emperor and a king. He himself could not
look at her without wishing he might take her in his arms.

"Well, my Frankish-Turkish master-slave, what has your busy mind found
for me to do? Do you wish me to get myself shot in the street by
Venetians? Or create a disturbance in church and be tortured to death?"

Her thrusts caught Daoud off balance. Feeling a surge of anger, he was
silent for a moment.

Then he jabbed a finger at her. "Do you understand what is at stake
here?"

Her full lower lip pushed out. "I do not understand why you had to send
a pious simpleton to a horrible death."

Guilt twisted in Daoud's guts like a Hashishiyya dagger. Yet he could
not admit to Sophia that he regretted what happened to the heretic. She
might approve his feeling, but she would also lose confidence in him.

"I will use any weapon I can find," he said. "Even if it breaks in my
hand."

Sophia sat down on the marble lip of the fish pond. After a moment's
hesitation Daoud sat beside her, smoothing his red cloak under him.

"Where is Lorenzo?" she asked. "I have not seen him since the day the
Tartars arrived."

"He visits Spoleto, to find a few bold men for me." Lorenzo would bring
back two or three men from Spoleto. Later he would gather more men in
Viterbo, Chiusi, and other nearby cities. Imperceptibly over the coming
months, bands of armed men--the Italians called them "bravos"--would
gather in Orvieto to do Daoud's bidding.

Acting as a go-between for Daoud and the bravos was a mission at which
Lorenzo should do well.

"The men Lorenzo brings here will not know my name or my face," he went
on. "In a few days Cardinal Ugolini will take me before the pope, and I
will warn him against the Tartars from my own true experience of them.
I must not be connected with other things done against the Tartars,
disturbances among the people, armed attacks. That is why Rachel is such
a danger."

She had been looking thoughtfully at the pebbled path. When he spoke
Rachel's name, she lifted her head to stare at him.

"Are you going to make me give up Rachel?"

That annoyed him. "You agreed. Have you forgotten?"

"No, but I thought now that she has been with us awhile and there has
been no trouble, you might change your mind."

"I do not change my mind so easily." By God, working with this woman was
an ordeal. She argued and complained far too much. He wondered whether
showing their faces in public made Christian women overbold.

"But where can she go? You would not really cast her out to starve."

"Tilia Caballo will take her in."

"You will force her into that horrible fat woman's brothel? And she only
a child?"

"She is nearly thirteen. Many women are married by then."

"She has not even started bleeding yet."

"How do you know that?" Daoud felt somewhat embarrassed.

"She told me, of course."

"She need only be a serving girl at Tilia's."

"No doubt Tilia would find her too precious a commodity _not_ to be
sold. There are old men who would give that woman her own weight in gold
to get their hands on an intact virgin child. And these high churchmen
can afford it."

Daoud remembered the rough hands of the first Turks who captured him and
shuddered inside himself. "She does not have to lie with men unless she
chooses that life."

"Do you really think you and Tilia would be giving her a choice?" said
Sophia angrily.

Again Daoud's feelings struggled against each other. He liked the way
she spoke up fiercely for the child. Yet it angered him that she was
making it harder for him to deal with the painful problem of Rachel.

"How much choice is anyone in this world given?" he demanded.

"Are you not here by choice, David?"

"I am the slave of my sultan," he said. "That is what the word
_Mameluke_ means--slave. He sent me here. But I am also here by choice."

"To save Islam from the Tartars." She reached her fingertips into the
water and dabbed the droplets on her forehead.

He caught the note of skepticism in her voice. "Yes. Do you not believe
that?"

"Can you see yourself through my eyes?" There was an earnestness in her
face, as if she badly wanted not to doubt him.

"No, how do you see me?" he asked gently.

"I see a Frankish warrior, fair of hair and face." She turned and looked
directly at him, then quickly cast her eyes down. "Good looking enough,
for a Frank." She gestured toward his knee, encased in scarlet silk.
"You show a handsome leg in your new hose."

_Why, she cares for me!_ He felt a little leap of delight, and reminded
himself that he must not let himself be drawn to Sophia.

"You and the Turks call all men from western Europe Franks," he said.
"But my parents were not from France, but of English descent."

"You could go back to France or England with your jewels and buy a
castle and lands and an army of retainers and live like a little king.
And forget all about Islam and the Tartars."

He did not want to argue with her. He wanted to reach out and touch her
lips with his fingertips.

"I consider myself blessed by God to have been raised amid the glories
of Egypt rather than in ignorance and dirt among those you call Franks."

She nodded. "We Greeks think the people of Arabia and Egypt are the only
other civilized people in the world. Almost as civilized as we Greeks."
She said the last with a smile, and he noticed that her cheeks dimpled.

He laughed. "What makes you so civilized?"

She clasped her hands between her knees and cast her eyes upward as if
in deep thought. "Ah, well, our churches are huge and magnificent."

"So are our mosques."

"Our paintings and mosaics and statues of saints and angels and emperors
are the most beautiful in the world."

"Idols," he interrupted, but he turned to her and smiled as she had.
"The Prophet ordered idols destroyed."

"And therefore the art of painting languishes among you," she said,
poking her forefinger into his shoulder. "Someday I will show you my
paintings if you promise not to destroy them."

His shoulder tingled where she had touched him. She must have been
carried away by her feelings about the arts of her homeland to make such
a gesture. Surely it could not have been deliberate. His hand rested
between them on the edge of the fountain. He moved a bit closer to her
so that the edge of his hand nearly touched her thigh.

He nodded. "I will teach you the art of calligraphy as my Sufi master
practiced it, and save your soul."

_I would really like to do that. Ah, but I cannot teach her to write
Arabic. What if someone were to see her practice work?_

He sighed inwardly.

"Hm," she grunted. "I doubt that _you_ can save _my_ soul. But as for
writing, we are familiar with dramatists like Sophocles, philosophers
like Aristotle. We read Latin poets like Ovid, whose book I just gave to
Rachel. Here in his native Italy his work is thought licentious."

"I have read Aristotle and Plato in Arabic," he said. "And I have no
doubt our Persian poets sing as gloriously as your Greeks and Latins.
And for licentious tales, those told in our bazaars would turn your
cheeks bright red."

Those cheeks were a smooth cream color, he observed. He looked about
him. There was no one but himself and Sophia in the atrium. A
multistoried gallery lined with columns and arches ran around all four
sides of the central courtyard. There might be servants, spies for the
cardinal, watching them, but he could see no one on any of the levels.

_To the devil with them all._

For weeks he had been wanting to reach out and touch that unveiled
beauty, that ivory skin. Now he did it. Very lightly his fingers
traveled from her cheekbone to her jaw.

She reached up and took his hand--not to remove it, as he had
momentarily thought she might, but to hold it briefly against her cheek,
then let it go.

They sat silently looking at each other. She was so still that she
seemed not even to breathe, while he discovered that his heart was
beating fast and hard. He wanted to kiss her, but not here, where hidden
eyes might be watching.

But kissing her at all would be a mistake.

The thought shook him--the realization that he must not get any closer
to her. He felt as if a rope were tied around his neck and a cruel slave
master had jerked on it.

_She is not for me. She is for my mission._

He turned away from her.

"It is better if we do not grow too close," he said, fixing his eyes on
a nearby orange tree. "I must use you. I will send you as my sultan has
sent me, and you will lie with the man I choose as my quarry."

He looked back and saw that she was smiling sadly, her eyes clouded with
disappointment. It pleased him in a bittersweet way to see that she
shared his unhappiness.

"I am _your_ slave, then?"

He shook his head. "I do not know whose you are--King Manfred's, I
suppose. Or perhaps Emperor Michael's? You have been given to me in
trust, like that emerald I brought here from El Kahira--from Cairo. What
you will have to do here will be no worse, I am sure, than what you must
have had to do before this."

"I am sure." There was a dark note in her voice now. He wished he could
take back what he said and ease her bitterness, but he had spoken truly,
and it was needful that she realize it.

"If you serve me well, I will reward you," he promised. "You will be
able to do anything in the world you want."

"Of that I cannot be sure," she said.

This time it was he who took her hand and held it tightly for a moment.
Her hand felt cool and lifeless in his grasp.

"We may not be lovers," he said, "but perhaps we can be friends."

"Perhaps," she said distantly.

Nettled, he rose and left her. If she would not accept him on those
terms, could he trust her? He turned his back on her and left the
garden.

He longed to know her thoughts. Could she love him? He knew he should
not hope for that, because it would have to come to nothing, but he
hoped she loved him at least a little.

It was not until he was back in his apartment, about to begin his noon
prayer, facing the charcoal mark he had made on the wall to point out
the direction of Mecca, that he realized what she had done to him.

_Rachel! We settled nothing about Rachel._

He struck his fist on the wall. He would have to be more careful with
Sophia. She could be very difficult. Even dangerous.

_It is time I had a woman._

When a man went without the delights of the bedchamber for too long, he
became too susceptible to the cleverness of beautiful women.

It had been four months since that last night in El Kahira when his
wife, Baibars's favorite daughter, Blossoming Reed, had kept him awake
all night with her devouring love, not caring that he must begin a great
journey the following day--yes, _because_ he was leaving her.

He remembered the words she had said to him when she gave him the locket
just before the battle of the Well of Goliath. _Take for your pleasure
as many women as you like. But love always and only me. For if you do
love another, I promise you that your love will destroy both her and
you._

It would be best if he went to Tilia Caballo's brothel and enjoyed a
woman he was not so likely to fall in love with.

       *       *       *       *       *

Daoud strode through the crowded streets at dusk, enjoying the golden
light that fell on the upper stories of the yellow houses of Orvieto.
His scarlet cape blew out behind him, and out of the corner of his eye
he saw heads turn to follow his passage. He walked close to the houses
on his right, keeping away from the ruts and the rivulets of sewage in
the center of the street. Men stepped into the filth, making way for
him. He was bigger and better dressed than anyone he met, and a new
sword with a jeweled hilt swung at his belt. The glances he caught from
the short, dark men of Orvieto were not friendly.

_They think I am a Frank, and like Sophia they hate Franks._

Pigs rooted in garbage in the quintane, the narrow spaces between the
houses. Small dogs ran under his feet. What backward, unsanitary people
these Europeans were! The sights and smells of Orvieto made him wish for
the paved streets of El Kahira, where every day an army of slaves swept
and cleared away refuse.

The cardinal had drawn a map of Orvieto for him, showing the principal
streets and the way to Tilia's house. Daoud had committed the map to
memory, using the concentration technique Saadi had taught him. Most of
the streets had no names. He would have to find his way by landmarks. In
the days to come, he planned, he would explore and add to the map in his
mind until he knew every street in Orvieto.

The house of Tilia Caballo stood on a street that was wider than most
at the east end of town. Even though Ugolini had described it as
ordinary-looking, Daoud was surprised to see how much it resembled the
shabby buildings on either side of it. He had expected some sign of
luxury, some flamboyance. He had thought to hear music as he approached,
as he would have outside one of the brothels of El Kahira--before
Baibars closed them. The house was quiet, unadorned save for a
third-floor balcony above the entryway. It gave no sign of who its
occupants were. He knew it only by counting--fifth house from the
corner, Ugolini had said. Unlike the roof of the cardinal's palace,
which was flat, the roof of Tilia's house was sharply peaked.

It looked like anything but a brothel. And though there were enough
small houses near it to hold two or three hundred people, the street was
not crowded, as were streets everywhere else in Orvieto. He saw a few
men lounging in doorways, a pair of men walking arm in arm past Tilia's
front door, but that was all. Distinguished churchmen and men of wealth
and good family could come here without attracting notice.

_Even so, I seem to be the only visitor who comes before dusk. Well, if
people see me and think I am a well-to-do merchant who frequents
Orvieto's finest brothel, that is exactly what I want them to think._

He felt the heaviness in his groin and the lightness in his stomach that
always accompanied his visits to women when he had done without pleasure
for a long time. He wondered if the Christian courtesan he picked
tonight would be able to match the accomplishments of the women who
served the Mamelukes in El Kahira. She would surely not be able to equal
the incredible pleasures he had enjoyed with Blossoming Reed.

He knocked at the plain dark-brown door, and it swung open immediately,
as if the one behind it had watched him approach. There stood one of
Tilia's black men, wearing a turban, robes, and pantaloons that for all
the world made him look like a harem guard in El Kahira. The costume
made Daoud uneasy. The slave bowed in silence, and with a sweep of his
arm bade Daoud enter.

The entrance hall was a surprise. It seemed much too large for the
building he had just entered. He stood on a Persian carpet in a wide,
high-ceilinged room filled with light. Candles burned in sconces around
the walls and in two chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Two tall,
thick candles stood in twisting brass stands the height of a man on
either side of a marble staircase. A pungent fragrance filled the air,
and Daoud realized that the candles were scented. If Tilia could afford
to burn this many candles every night, her trade must be profitable
indeed.

He understood now why the interior of Tilia's establishment was so
different from the exterior. She must have acquired all the buildings
side by side along this street and then hollowed them out. He noticed
that where the walls of the building through which he had entered should
have been, there stood marble Roman columns two stories high. Counting
the rows of columns stretching right and left, he estimated that this
great hall must be as wide as five of the original houses that had been
absorbed into Tilia's mansion.

The black man struck a large gong beside the door, giving off a low,
mellow note. Almost immediately Tilia appeared at the top of the
staircase. Smiling broadly, she flounced down the steps, the gold and
jewels scattered over her person throwing off sparks in every direction.

"I knew you would be coming soon, David," she said in a low voice. "I am
glad you came early in the evening. We can talk freely now. If more of
my clients were here, we would have to seclude ourselves."

Daoud jerked his head at the black servant. "Why in God's name do you
dress your men as Muslims here, where there is so much fear and hatred
of 'Saracens,' as they call us?"

Tilia laughed, the pillow of flesh under her chin quivering. "Do you not
know that it has long been fashionable among Christians to borrow from
the world of Islam? They copy everything from ways of dressing to words
and ideas. Most people think the Hohenstaufens have gone too far with
their Saracen army, but among the great houses of Italy each must have
its Moorish servants with great turbans and sashes and pantaloons. And
here in Orvieto, the pope's city, it makes my clients feel especially
wicked to enter a house staffed with slaves so dressed."

"I would not enjoy going into a brothel where the servants were dressed
like Christian monks," Daoud said scornfully.

Tilia sighed. "I will tell you what seeing these men in Saracen garb
does for me. It reminds me of when I was a young woman in Cairo." She
looked around at her hall and sighed again. "Young and beautiful and
unhappy. Now I am rich and content, but I tell you in all honesty I
would give all this up to be young and beautiful."

Daoud was surprised. He had not known that Tilia had once lived in El
Kahira. Was that, he wondered, how Baibars came to know her? Was that
why, even though Daoud did not fully trust her, he felt oddly
comfortable with her?

"And where are the young and beautiful and unhappy women in this house,
then?"

She smiled and laid a hand on his arm. "Are you here to avail yourself?"

"First, I want to send a message to my master. Then that."

"Of course. Come with me."

He followed her up the marble steps, idly wondering if her rump looked
as huge with her gown off, and whether Cardinal Ugolini actually did go
to bed with her, and if so how he could be aroused by such a grossly fat
woman. Not that Ugolini, with his rodent's face, was any more attractive
than his mistress.

The stairs to the third floor were narrower and darker and more winding,
and after that there was a maze of corridors to negotiate. Even with the
help of the Sufi mental training for warriors, Daoud knew he would never
be able to find his way here again.

Tilia gestured to a trapdoor. "Push that back for me."

Daoud climbed a ladder, raised the heavy door, and found himself on a
walkway built over the centerline of a roof. It was wide enough for two
men to stand side by side, but there was no railing, and on either side
the red-tiled roof sloped down sharply. The walkway led to a small
structure made of wooden slats, from which Daoud heard fluttering and
cooing. The sight of the dovecote and the sound of the warbling pigeons
reminded Daoud of the rooftops of El Kahira, and for a moment he yearned
for a sight of the Bhar al-Nil flowing swiftly past the city or the
sound of the muezzin's call to prayer.

He stopped to look around. This was an excellent vantage point. From
here he could see that Tilia's mansion was actually shaped like
Ugolini's, a hollow square around an atrium. The difference was that her
establishment was made from the joining of many houses that had once
been separate. From here he could also see most of Orvieto. Rows and
rows of peaked roofs glowed warm red and orange in the sunset. Off in
the northwest corner of the city bulked the great roof of the cathedral,
like a galley among rowboats. To the south, the six square turrets of
the pope's palace. And on all sides of the city, the rounded green hills
of this part of Italy called Umbria.

"The piccioni fly to Napoli," said Tilia breathlessly behind him. Daoud
was amazed at how she had managed to climb so many steps and finally a
ladder. There must be muscle under all that fat.

He pulled open the whitewashed wooden door of the dovecote. His entry
set off a furious flapping of wings, unleashing a storm of feathers in
the dark enclosure. The smell of pigeon droppings was heavy in the warm
air. He began breathing through his mouth to keep the odor out of his
nose. Tilia pushed past him, whistling and clucking to the pigeons and
calming them down.

"Who gets the messages in Napoli?" he asked.

She turned to him with a smile. "Another brothel keeper. A man. I will
not tell you his name. The wives of my piccioni live in his dovecote.
When I release a piccione here, he flies to Napoli and visits with his
wife until one of my servants rides there and brings him back. Piccioni
are much more faithful to their mates than men and women."

Daoud laughed. He enjoyed Tilia's cynicism. The strong light of the
setting sun fell in bars through the slats across her face and body.

"How long does it take for the messages to reach El Kahira?"

She looked at him as if he were a simpleton. "Who can say? From Napoli
someone must take the message capsules aboard a ship to a port in
Outremer. So, how long it takes depends on whether the sea is angry or
calm. Once in Outremer they might go on by piccioni again or by camel
caravan. Once I had a reply within two months. The longest I had to wait
was a year and three months." She had, Daoud noted, the brothel keeper's
good memory for numbers.

"May this arrive sooner than that." Daoud reached into a leather scrip
at his belt and drew out the two rolled slips of parchment, each crowded
with tiny Arabic characters.

"Two letters? Where is the other one going?"

"Both to Baibars. They are duplicates. We do that in the field whenever
possible. Twice as much chance that the message will get through."

"I will send one tonight and the other tomorrow morning. What are you
telling him?"

Daoud was not sure Tilia should be asking him that. But as "Morgiana"
she had sent Baibars dozens of long letters from Orvieto. Surely no one
had a better right to know about this correspondence.

Daoud shrugged. "That I have arrived here safely with two companions
sent with me by King Manfred, and that we have been welcomed by the one
who was awaiting me. Even though this is written in a cipher, your name
and the cardinal's name are not mentioned. I go on to say that we have
stirred up the people of Orvieto against the Tartars and that I will
soon speak against them before the pope. And I tell him something of
what I have learned about Italy. He is very curious about the lands of
the infidel."

"The cardinal has agreed to present you to Pope Urban, then?" Her
eyebrows twitched and her mouth tightened.

Her look of displeasure irritated him. For all he knew, it was her
influence that made Ugolini so difficult. But, he thought with grudging
admiration, she herself seemed more resolute than the cardinal.

"He came to see that it was the only course open to us."

"You are persuasive. I see better why your master sent you." She took
the parchments from him, rolled them even tighter, and tied each one
into a tiny leather capsule. One capsule disappeared into a jeweled
purse that hung on her hip. The other she put aside while she reached
into a cage, whistling and twittering. Her hand came out again grasping
a pigeon.

"This is Tonio. He is ten years old. He always gets through." Daoud was
amazed at how calmly the pigeon reposed in Tilia's hand. He was even
more surprised when she handed the bird to him, but he quickly took him,
holding him around the back with thumb and forefinger behind his head,
leaving his chest free so he could breathe easily.

"You've handled birds before," she said, deftly fastening a capsule
under Tonio's wing. She took the bird back from Daoud. Outside the coop,
she opened her hands and the bird took off with a fanning of wings.

"There now," said Tilia. "With that out of the way, perhaps you would
like a piccione of another sort for your pleasure."

"I would indeed," said Daoud, feeling a warmth spread through his body.

"I have just the one for you," Tilia said, patting him on the arm as
they returned to the trap door. "Her name is Francesca. She is
beautiful, warm-hearted, and very discreet. She will serve you supper,
and if you like her, you may spend the night with her. And you need pay
me nothing."

"You are too generous, Madama," said Daoud, recovering from a small
surprise. He had assumed that Tilia would give him access to her women
out of simple hospitality, and it had never occurred to him that he
would have to pay.




XIII


Simon stood shifting from foot to foot in the graveled yard before the
palace of Pope Urban. An Italian cardinal had just arrived with his
retinue of bishops, monsignori, priests, and monks, and Simon knew it
would be some time before the procession passed all the guards and the
majordomo at the main door.

Alain de Pirenne, beside him, said in a low voice, "I still can't
believe it. We are about to attend a council called by the pope
himself." His blue eyes were huge, and his fair skin was flushed with
excitement. He was dressed in his best, an azure tunic with silver
embroidery at the sleeves and collar, and on his feet poulaines, black
deerskin shoes whose elongated toes came to points. The hilt of the
longsword hanging at his waist was plain, but Simon knew it had been in
the Pirenne family for generations.

"Do not believe it yet, Alain," Simon said wryly. "We were not invited,
and we have not yet been let in."

"Surely they would not keep out so great a seigneur as you," said Alain.
"Especially when you have been faithfully protecting the Tartars for a
month."

"Well, that is what I am counting on," Simon said.

They stood inside a high wall of cream-colored tufa, the same rock on
which Orvieto stood. The wall, topped with square battlements,
surrounded the papal palace. Simon's gaze swept beyond the wall toward
the bluish tops of nearby hills, wreathed in morning mist, then back to
the row of pine trees that stood between the wall and the palace, the
massed green of the needles almost so dark as to appear black. The
palace itself, fortified by six square turrets, was of white limestone.
It must have cost the papal treasury a fortune, Simon thought, to haul
all those big blocks up here. Within this solid edifice, surrounded by
this high wall, atop the impregnable mesa of Orvieto, the Holy Father
was certainly well protected.

The last monk in his gray gown had passed the guards at the door, and
Simon saw more clergymen massing at the outer gate. He took a deep
breath and started up the stairs, de Pirenne hurrying behind him. He
reminded himself, _I am the Count de Gobignon_.

He said as much to the majordomo, who stood before him in white silk
tunic with the keys of Peter embroidered in black on the left breast.

"Ah, Your Signory, I saw your brave battle in the cathedral with that
heretic assassin." The majordomo had a prominent upper lip that made him
look like a horse. "A thousand welcomes to the palace of His Holiness. I
will be happy to tell him that you are attending the council." He showed
big yellow teeth in an unctuous grin.

Then his face fell as he looked down at Simon's belt. "I regret, Your
Signory, but you may not wear your sword in the palace of the pope. Even
though you wielded it most gloriously in His Holiness's service. Only
the papal guards may bear arms within. A thousand pardons, but you must
take it off. You may leave it with the capitano of the guard if you
wish."

Simon's face burned with embarrassment as he realized he was going to
have to disappoint Alain. The scimitar was one of his most precious
possessions, and he would not entrust it to a stranger, even a stranger
in the service of the pope. With a sigh he unbuckled his belt and handed
it, with his dagger and the jewel-handled scimitar, to de Pirenne.

"If only I had thought to bring Thierry with us," he said. "Forgive me,
Alain, but would you be good enough to take these back to the Palazzo
Monaldeschi? Then you can meet me back here."

"Forgive _me_, Your Signory!" the majordomo interjected. "I am desolate,
but His Holiness himself has commanded that no one is to enter after the
council begins."

Simon felt angry words forcing their way to his lips. But he clamped his
mouth shut. This was, after all, the court of the Vicar of Christ on
earth, and he did not dare protest against its customs. He had the
reputation of France to think of. These Italians already thought the
French were all barbarians.

"I knew it was too good to be true," de Pirenne said with a rueful smile
as he turned away. "I will be waiting for you in the yard outside,
Monseigneur."

Simon shared his friend's unhappiness. This would have been something
for Alain to remember for the rest of his life.

"Bring our horses," Simon said. "We can go riding in the country after
the council is over." Alain's downcast face brightened at that. Simon
knew that Alain, born and reared in a country castle, hated being cooped
up in town.

Simon turned away, feeling dread at having to go into the papal court
alone.

       *       *       *       *       *

The great hall of the pope's palace was long, high, narrow, and shadowy.
Even though it was a sunny day outside, the small windows of white glass
on both sides of the room admitted insufficient light, and had to be
supplemented by a double row of three-tiered chandeliers, each bearing
dozens of candles. The pope could have saved himself the cost of a great
many candles, Simon thought, if he had built his great hall in the new
style, like the king's palace in Paris, with buttresses that allowed for
much larger windows.

But this was Italy, he reminded himself, where there was war in the city
streets, even war against the pope. Large glass windows would offer poor
protection. The King of France did not have such worries.

At the far end of the room a long flight of marble steps swept up to an
enormous gilded throne, empty at present. Down the center of the steps
ran a purple carpet, and over the carpet lay a wide strip of white
linen.

Two rows of high-backed pews faced each other on either side of the
throne. Between them was a table laid with rolls of parchment, an
inkstand, and a sheaf of quills. The pews were as yet empty, but around
them stood cardinals in bright red robes with flat, broad-brimmed red
hats--some of them Simon remembered seeing at the cathedral two weeks
before. Farther removed from the throne and more numerous were the
purple-robed archbishops and bishops. Scattered around the hall were
priests, monks, and friars in black, white, brown, and gray. There must
be nearly a hundred men in the room, Simon guessed. The air was filled
with a buzz of conversation.

He felt the hollow in his stomach and the trembling in his knees that
disturbed him whenever he entered a roomful of strangers. And these
strangers were, most of them, the spiritual lords of the Church. He
looked for a place where he could stand inconspicuously. He dared not
speak to anyone. He felt as if a frown from one of these men would be
enough to send him into disordered retreat.

And suddenly before him there was the frowning face of Cardinal Paulus
de Verceuil. The wide red hat with its heavy tassels seemed precariously
balanced on his head. His gold pectoral cross was set with emeralds and
rubies. The buttons that ran down the front of his scarlet cassock,
Simon noticed, were embroidered with gold thread.

"What the devil are you doing here?"

Simon cast about wildly in his mind for a sensible answer. Nothing he
could say, he was sure, would win this cardinal's approval.

"I--I feel it is important that I know what is decided here, Your
Eminence."

"These deliberations are no business of yours. Your duty is to protect
the ambassadors. You have deserted your post."

Stung, Simon wished de Verceuil were not an ordained priest and a prince
of the Church, so that he could challenge him. That he could do nothing
about de Verceuil's accusation infuriated him.

"The Tartars are safely at the Monaldeschi palace guarded by all of our
knights and men-at-arms. When Count Charles d'Anjou laid this task upon
me, I understood that I was to help advance the alliance with the
Tartars. I cannot do that if I am kept in ignorance." After a pause he
added, "Your Eminence."

That was almost as good as a challenge. Simon felt light-headed, and his
limbs tingled. He wanted to raise his arms and shake his fists.

De Verceuil's face turned a deep maroon, but before he could speak, a
figure also in cardinal's red appeared beside them.

"Paulus de Verceuil! Is this not the young Count de Gobignon, Peer of
the Realm? You are remiss, mon ami. You should have realized that the
French cardinals here in Orvieto would wish to meet one of France's
greatest barons."

This cardinal had a long black beard, and eyes set in deep hollows. He
could easily have presented a dour figure, but stood smiling with his
hands clasped over a broad stomach.

De Verceuil took several deep breaths, and his cheeks returned to their
normal color. "Monseigneur the Cardinal Guy le Gros, I present the Count
Simon de Gobignon," he said in a sour monotone.

Simon immediately dropped to one knee and bent his head toward the ring
the cardinal held out to him. The stone, as big as Cardinal le Gros's
knuckle, was a spherical, polished sapphire with a cross-shaped
four-pointed star glowing in its center. Holding the cardinal's cold,
soft hand, Simon touched the gem lightly with his lips.

_I believe I am supposed to gain an indulgence from kissing this ring_,
he thought. He rose to his feet. He tried to remember what he knew about
Guy le Gros. He had heard a bit about each of the fourteen French
cardinals. Le Gros, he recalled, had been a knight and a prominent
lawyer, ultimately a member of the king's cabinet. Then he had joined
the clergy. He had been the first cardinal elevated by Pope Urban.

"Doubtless you knew Count Simon's late father," said de Verceuil to le
Gros. "Since you served as a counselor to the king."

Simon wanted to shrink out of sight at the reminder of Amalric de
Gobignon. De Verceuil had mentioned him out of deliberate cruelty, Simon
was certain. He felt even more crushed when he saw the pained look that
passed briefly over Cardinal le Gros's features.

"Oh, yes, I met your father many years ago," said le Gros, his light
tone reassuring Simon a bit. "He was a tall man like you, but blond, as
I recall."

The suggestion that he did not resemble Amalric de Gobignon chilled
Simon.

"As a father of unmarried daughters, Cardinal le Gros," de Verceuil
said, "you might be interested to know that the count has no wife."

Le Gros shrugged and smiled at Simon. "His Eminence never misses an
opportunity to remind me that I was once a family man. Perhaps Paulus
envies my wider experience of life."

"Not at all!" de Verceuil protested.

"Or perhaps he thinks it a scandal that a cardinal should have
daughters," said le Gros, still addressing Simon. "At least mine are
legitimate, unlike the offspring of certain other princes of the Church.
As for the high office, it was not my choice. His Holiness commanded
me." He leaned confidentially toward Simon. "He needed more French
cardinals. He cannot trust the Italians to support him against the
accursed Manfred von Hohenstaufen."

"Even more than that, he was hoping you could persuade King Louis to
give his brother Charles permission to fight Manfred," said de Verceuil.
"You failed him in that."

"That case is not closed," said le Gros. "Indeed, what we do here today
may lead directly to the overthrow of the odious Manfred, as I am sure
you both understand." He smiled, first at Simon, then at de Verceuil.
"But should we not be speaking Latin, the mother tongue of the Church?
Some lupus might be spying on us."

In Latin de Verceuil answered, "I fear Count Simon would be unable to
follow us."

"Not at all, domini mei," Simon cut in quickly, also in Latin. "I have
had some instruction in that language." His many and often quarreling
guardians had agreed at least that he should have an education far
superior to that of most other great barons. Having studied for two
years at the University of Paris, Simon had once been the victim of a
lupus, a wolf, an informer who reported students for breaking the
university rule that Latin must be spoken at all times. The fine he paid
was negligible, but his embarrassment was keen.

"Good for you, my boy," said le Gros, patting him lightly on the
shoulder. De Verceuil's lips puckered as if he had been sucking on a
lemon.

A sudden blast of trumpets silenced the conversation in the hall.
Servants swung open double doors near the papal throne, and two men
entered. One was Pope Urban, whom Simon had not seen since the day of
that ill-omened papal mass for the Tartar ambassadors. His white beard
fanned in wispy locks over his chest. The mouth framed by his beard was
compressed, and his eyes were hard. Simon knew that he had been born
Jacques Pantaleone at Troyes in France, not far from Gobignon, and was a
shoemaker's son. Only in the Church could a man from such a humble
beginning rise to such high position. Urban had the face of a man who
could cut the toughest leather to his pattern.

Age had bent the pope somewhat, and he leaned on the shoulder of a man
who walked beside him. This man was so unusual a figure that he drew
Simon's attention away from Pope Urban. Like the Holy Father, he was
wearing white, but it was the white robe of a Dominican friar, and it
curved out around his belly like the sail of a galley with the wind
behind it. He was partially bald, his face round as a full moon, and his
eyes, nose, and mouth were half buried in flesh the sallow color of new
wheat. He nodded repeatedly in response to something the pope was
earnestly saying to him.

"Who is _that_?" Simon whispered, earning himself a black look from de
Verceuil.

"Fra Tomasso d'Aquino," said Cardinal le Gros. "I am told he is the
wisest man alive. Papa Pantaleone has appointed him to conduct this
inquiry, unfortunately."

"Why unfortunately, dominus meus?"

"Bad enough for us that d'Aquino is Italian, he is also a relative of
the Hohenstaufens. His older brothers have served both Frederic and
Manfred."

"A relative of the Hohenstaufens!" de Verceuil exclaimed loud enough for
two nearby bishops to turn and stare at him. "How can His Holiness trust
such a man?"

"Fra Tomasso is not _that_ close a relative," said le Gros. "Papa
Pantaleone hates the Hohenstaufens more than anyone. Have they not
forced him to immure himself here in the hills, when he should by rights
be reigning in Rome? And yet he favors Aquino because Aquino is loyal to
the Church and well informed. Come, let us find our seats." They walked
together toward the pews near the papal throne.

And Simon was suddenly standing alone at the back of the congregation.

Standing at the foot of the steps leading up to his throne, Pope Urban
turned, smiled, and spread his hands in benediction. He intoned a prayer
beginning, "Dominus Deus," very rapidly in Latin and followed with
greetings to all present. He mentioned each cardinal, archbishop, and
bishop by name, then several distinguished abbots and monsignori. His
white beard fluttered as he spoke.

Then Simon heard, "And we greet with joy our countryman, Simon, Count de
Gobignon, who bears one of France's most ancient and honored names."

A stunning brightness blinded Simon, as if lightning had struck right in
front of him. _Ancient and honored!_ In front of so many leaders of the
Church. If at this moment some hidden enemy were to shoot an arrow at
the pope, Simon would have leapt to take it in his own breast with joy.

_What magnanimity!_ Simon thought. He remembered the majordomo saying he
would tell the pope Simon was there. He looked to see how de Verceuil
had reacted to the pope's singling him out, but the cardinal was hidden
somewhere in the rows of red-hatted figures lined up in their pews on
either side of the pope. Simon noticed other prelates staring at him,
then turning away as he looked at them, and his face went hot.

Meanwhile the pope was talking about the Tartars. "We must soon decide
whether it be God's will that Christian princes join with the Tartars
and aid them in their war against the Saracens, or whether we should
forbid this alliance with pagans. We shall have a private audience later
this week with the two ambassadors from Tartary. But today we ask your
counsel. So that all may speak freely, we have expressly not invited the
Tartar emissaries. We ask God to help us make a wise decision." He
introduced Fra Tomasso d'Aquino.

To Simon's surprise, Pope Urban did not then ascend to his throne but
instead came down, disappearing into the midst of his counselors. The
cardinals sat in their pews. The lesser dignitaries sat on smaller
chairs in rows facing the throne. When everyone was in place, Simon
could see Pope Urban in a tall oaken chair at the foot of the steps.

There was no chair for Simon, even though the pope had greeted him by
name. No matter, many of the lesser clergy also remained standing. He
pressed forward through the crowd until he was just behind the seated
men so that he could see and hear better.

The corpulent Fra Tomasso took his place behind the table in a heavy
chair wider than the pope's, though its back was not as high. He called
for Cardinal Adelberto Ugolini. The cardinal, a tiny man with flowing
side whiskers and a receding chin, stood up at his place in the pews. He
in turn summoned from the audience a knight called Sire Cosmas.

Sire Cosmas, an elderly man, walked stiffly to the pope and knelt before
him. Ugolini told the assembly that Cosmas had seen and fought the
Tartar invaders in his native Hungary and was driven from his home by
them.

_The Tartars have long since withdrawn from Hungary_, Simon thought.
_Why did Sire Cosmas never go back there?_

Sire Cosmas was lean and dark, with gray hair that fell to his
shoulders. Over scarlet gloves he wore many rings that flashed as he
gestured.

"They came without warning and all at once, like a summer cloudburst,"
the Hungarian said. "One moment we were at peace, the next the lines of
Tartar horsemen darkened the eastern horizon from the Baltic to the
Adriatic."

Sire Cosmas's Latin was very good, fast and fluent.

Simon stood transfixed as Cosmas described the fall of one Russian city
after another, how the Tartars leveled Riazan, Moscow, and Kiev and
butchered all their people. They would gather all the women, rape them,
and cut their throats. The men they cut in two, impaled on stakes,
roasted, flayed alive, used as archery targets, or suffocated by
pounding dirt down their throats. The details of the atrocities sickened
Simon. On into Poland the Tartars came.

Cosmas's tale of the trumpeter of Krakow, who kept sounding the alarm
from the cathedral tower until Tartar arrows struck him down, brought
tears to Simon's eyes.

Simon found the Hungarian's recital spellbinding. Cosmas had undoubtedly
repeated his account many times, polishing his storytelling skills a
little more with each occasion. It was probably easy and perhaps
profitable for him to remain in western Europe telling and retelling, in
great halls and at dinner tables, his adventures with the Tartars.

_How much is Cardinal Ugolini paying him for this performance?_

The flower of European chivalry engaged the Tartars at Liegnitz in
Poland, Sire Cosmas said, and when the battle was over, thousands of
knights from Hungary, Poland, Germany, Italy, France, England, and as
far away as Spain lay dead and dying on the field and the Tartars were
triumphant. They turned then to meet another mighty Christian army, that
of King Bela of Hungary, at Mohi.

"I fought in that battle," Cosmas declared. "The dog-faced Tartars
bombarded us with terrible weapons that burst into flame and gave off
poisonous smoke, so that men died of breathing it. We advanced against
them and discovered that we were surrounded. Their pitiless volleys of
arrows slowly reduced our numbers all that long day. In the late
afternoon we saw their columns gathering for a charge, but we also saw a
gap in their line. Many of us, myself among them, rushed for that gap,
throwing down our arms and armor so we could escape more quickly. It was
a devilish trick. The Tartar heavy cavalry fell upon those who remained
behind, now few in number, and slaughtered all. The light cavalry rode
along the flanks of those who retreated, shooting them down till bodies
in their thousands littered the road. I was one of the few who, by God's
grace and by feigning death, lived."

The Tartars advanced to the Danube, he went on, burning everything,
killing all the people in towns and villages. They burned Pest to the
ground. On Christmas Day in the year 1241 the Danube froze hard. The
Tartars crossed and destroyed Buda. They advanced into Austria. Tartar
columns were sighted from the walls of Vienna. Europe lay helpless
before them.

"Only the hand of God saved us. He willed that at that very moment the
emperor of the Tartars in their far-off homeland should die," Sire
Cosmas concluded. "All the kings and generals of the Tartars had to
depart from Europe, with their armies, to choose their next emperor.
Those parts of Poland and Hungary they had occupied, they left a dead,
silent desert.

"Since then the Tartars have made war on the Saracens, which pleases us,
of course. But is the enemy of our enemy truly our friend? Permit me to
doubt it, good Fathers. We are no better able to fight the Tartars now
than we were after Mohi. I urge you to let the Tartars and Saracens wear
themselves out fighting each other. Let us not help the Tartars with
their distant wars, losing knights and men we might later need to defend
Europe against those devils themselves."

Sire Cosmas's words chilled Simon. He felt himself almost persuaded that
the Tartars were a menace to the world. It might be a grave error to
work for an alliance with them. And yet, for the sake of his family he
had accepted this mission. He could not back down now. Uneasily he
rubbed his damp palms on his tunic.

There was a murmur of conversation as Sire Cosmas finished and bowed.

Fra Tomasso, scribbling notes on a parchment, looked up and asked, "Did
you say that the Tartar soldiers have the faces of dogs, Sire Cosmas?"

Cosmas shook his head, looking himself somewhat sheepish, Simon thought.
"We spoke of them so because their pointed fur caps made them look like
dogs."

"I wondered, because Aristotle writes of men with animals' heads living
in remote regions," said the stout Dominican. He made a note.

Cosmas brightened. "They do eat the flesh of living prisoners. And I
hope I may not offend your chastity by telling you this, but they slice
off the breasts of the women they rape and serve them as delicacies to
their princes. Raw."

Simon thought of John and Philip and wondered whether they had ever done
such horrible things. He wished he had learned more about the Tartars
before agreeing to pursue this cause.

"To hear of such deeds is not likely to cause concupiscent movements in
normal men," said Fra Tomasso dryly. "Have you seen such abominations
with your own eyes?"

"No," said Cosmas, "but I heard it from many people when the Tartars
were invading us."

"Thank you," said d'Aquino, making another note. He put his quill down
and started to heave his bulk up from his chair. Cardinal Ugolini darted
past him, resting his hand momentarily on d'Aquino's shoulder, and the
Dominican settled back down again.

That cardinal looks just like a fat little mouse, Simon thought. One of
the Italians. And it was he who had brought this Sire Cosmas to speak
against the Tartars. He might well be a key opponent of the alliance.
What would it take to change his mind?

Ugolini beckoned toward the audience, and a tall blond man came forward
now to stand beside him.

_I have seen him before_, Simon thought. _Where?_

"Holy Fathers," said Ugolini, "Providence sends us this man, David of
Trebizond, a trader in Cathayan silks. He has traveled in recent years
among the Tartars. David speaks Greek but not Latin. I will translate
what he says."

Simon remembered at last where he had seen David of Trebizond. Standing
on a balcony and looking pleased as the people rioted against the Tartar
ambassadors. And now here to speak against the alliance.

The back of his neck tingling, Simon thought, _This man is an enemy_.




XIV


Ugolini spoke in a low voice to the blond man in a language Simon
guessed was Greek, and David answered at some length.

"You must suppose now that I am David speaking directly to you," said
Ugolini in Latin to the assembly, patting the front of his red satin
robe. "I come from an old merchant family of Trebizond. Caravans from
across Turkestan bring us silks from Cathay. We are Christians according
to the Greek rite."

This provoked a hostile murmur from the audience.

Ugolini hesitated, then said, "I speak in my own person for a moment--I,
too, am inclined to treat as suspect what a so-called Catholic of the
schismatic Greek Church tells me. But I have talked long with David, and
I am convinced he is a virtuous man. After all, the Greeks, like us, are
believers in Christ. And Trebizond is at war with Constantinople, so we
can trust this man the more for that."

Again David spoke in Greek to Ugolini. Unable to understand David's
words, Simon listened to his voice. It was rich and resonant. A virtuous
man? A traveling mountebank, more likely. He felt a deep distrust of
both David and Ugolini.

"From time to time the Saracens tried to conquer us, but with the grace
of God we fought them off," said David through Ugolini. "And when we
were not at war with them we traded with them, for Trebizond lives by
trade. And now that the Tartars have conquered all of Persia, we trade
with them."

Fra Tomasso raised a broad hand and asked, "Do you find the Tartars
honest traders?"

"They would rather take what they want by looting or tribute or
taxation. Eventually they think they will not have to trade. They
believe the blue sky, which they worship, will permit them to conquer
the whole world, and then all peoples will slave for them. Just as they
use subject people, so, if you ally yourselves with them, they will use
you. You will help them destroy the Moslems, and then they will turn on
you."

_He hates the Tartars. I can hear it in his voice, see it in the glow in
his eyes. He is sincere enough about that._

A cardinal shouted out something in Latin too rapid for Simon to
understand. An archbishop bellowed an answer. Two cardinals were arguing
loudly in the pews on the other side of the room. Suddenly all the
Church leaders seemed to be talking at once. Fra Tomasso picked up a
little bell from his desk and rang it vigorously. Simon could barely
hear it, and everyone ignored it.

_The princes of the Church quarrel among themselves like ordinary men._

Pope Urban stood up and lifted his arms. "Silence!" he cried. His voice
was shrill and louder than Fra Tomasso's bell. The argument died down.

"Have you seen the Tartar army in action, Messer David?" d'Aquino asked.

David was silent a long time before answering. His face took on a
haunted look. His eyes seemed to gaze at something far away.

"I was at Baghdad a week after they took it. I came to trade with the
Tartars. There were no other people left in that country to trade with.
The Tartar camp was many leagues away from the ruins of Baghdad. They
had to move away from the city to escape the smell of the dead. I went
to Baghdad because I wanted to see. I saw nothing but ashes and corpses
for miles and miles. The stink of rotting flesh nearly killed me.

"I found people who had survived. Those who had not gone mad told me
what had happened. The Tartars commanded the caliph to surrender. He
said he would pay tribute, but he could not surrender his authority to
them because he was the spiritual head of Islam."

Simon heard murmurs of derision at this, but David ignored them and,
speaking through Ugolini, went on.

"Over a hundred thousand Tartars surrounded Baghdad, and their siege
machines began smashing its walls with great rocks brought down from the
mountains by slave caravans. Soon their standards, which are made of the
horns and hides and tails of beasts, were raised over the southeastern
wall from the Racecourse Gate to the Persian Tower. The city was lost.
The Tartars promised to spare the remaining troops if they would
surrender. The soldiers of Baghdad went out, unarmed, and the Tartars
killed them all with arrows. This is the Tartars' notion of honor."

"They will do the same to us!" shouted a cardinal. The pope slapped his
palm loudly on the arm of his chair, and silence settled again.

"Hulagu Khan, the commander of the Tartar army, now entered the city and
made the caliph serve him a splendid dinner. After dinner the khan
demanded that the caliph show him all the jewels and gold and silver and
other treasures that had been gathered by the caliphs of Baghdad over
the centuries. Hulagu promised to let the caliph live, together with a
hundred of his women."

This brought a loud cackle from under one of the red hats in the front
row.

"Only a hundred women!" a voice followed the laughter. "Poor caliph! How
many was he wont to have?"

"Seeing how ugly those Saracens' women are, I would think one wife too
many," another prelate called out.

Irritated, Simon wished he could silence them all. This was too serious
a matter for such unseemly jokes.

The ribald jests continued, to Simon's annoyance, until Fra Tomasso
rang his bell. Then David, looking grimmer than ever, spoke to Ugolini,
and Ugolini began to address the assembly.

"Next the Tartars commanded all the people of Baghdad to herd out onto
the plain outside the city, telling them that they would be made to
leave the city only while the Tartars searched it for valuables.

"When they had the people at their mercy they separated them into three
groups, men, women, and children. When families are broken up, the
members do not fight as hard to survive. The Tartars slaughtered them
with swords and arrows. Two hundred thousand men, women, and children
they killed that day, after promising them they would not be harmed."

Simon tried to imagine the butchering of those hundreds of thousands of
people. He had never seen any Saracens, and so the victims in his mind's
eye tended to resemble the people of Paris. He shuddered inwardly as he
pictured those countless murders.

"The Tartars now entered the city whose people were all dead, and sacked
and burned it. It had been such a great city that it took them seven
days to reduce it to ruins."

Simon's heart turned to ice.

_What if it were Paris? Could we fight any harder for Paris than the
Saracens did for Baghdad?_

_Ex Tartari furiosi._

"They have a superstition that it is bad luck to shed the blood of royal
personages. So they took the caliph and his three royal sons, who had
seen their city destroyed and all their people killed, tied them in
sacks, and rode their horses over them, trampling them to death."

"These deeds of the Tartars smell sweet in the nostrils of the Lord!"
shouted Cardinal de Verceuil. There were cries of approval.

Without waiting for David to say more, Ugolini replied to de Verceuil.
"Yes, Baghdad was the seat of a false religion. But it was also a city
of philosophers, mathematicians, historians, poets, of colleges,
hospitals, of wealth, of science, of art. And of two hundred thousand
souls, as David has told us. Muslim souls, but souls nevertheless. Now
_it does not exist_. And whoever thinks that the Tartars will do such
things only to Saracen cities is a fool."

Simon hated to admit it, but Ugolini's words made perfect sense to him.

"They will do it everywhere!" cried someone in the audience.

Now David said through Ugolini, "What is more, the Tartars who rule in
Russia have converted to Islam. They still dream of the conquest of
Europe and may return to the attack at any time. Perhaps while your
armies are occupied in Egypt or Syria."

Fra Tomasso raised his quill for attention. "How would you describe the
character of the Tartars, Master David? What sort of men are they?"

David answered and then looked about with his bright, compelling gaze
while Ugolini translated. "I have lived among the Tartars and traveled
with them. The Tartar is unmoved by his own pain or by that of his
fellows. The suffering of other people merely amuses him. His word given
to a foreigner means nothing to him. He thinks his own race superior to
all other peoples on earth."

Fra Tomasso said, "What you have told us has been most enlightening,
Master David, because you have seen with your own eyes. But if your
empire of Trebizond now trades with the Tartars, how is it that you come
here to denounce them?"

"I came to Orvieto as a merchant bearing samples of silk from Cathay,"
said David. "It is only, as Cardinal Ugolini has said, God's providence
that I am here when you are deciding this great question."

Fra Tomasso turned to Pope Urban. "Holy Father, is there anything else
you wish me to ask?"

Pope Urban shook his head. "I believe I have heard enough for now. We do
not want to sit here all day." Smiling, he turned to David. "Master
David, we thank you for coming all this way to bring us this warning."

"Your Holiness." David bowed, a fluid movement that made Simon grunt
with distaste.

_Curse the luck! Why is there no one here who knows the Tartars to
answer this David? How do we know he is not a liar? A Greek silk
merchant is not the sort of person I would trust. He would say anything
if he thought it would help him sell his wares._

But doubt cooled Simon's anger. He did not want to admit it, but
Cosmas's and David's tales had frightened him. He thought of the hard,
cold faces of John and Philip. He _could_ see them beheading women,
shooting children with arrows.

_Do we want to ally ourselves with such creatures?_

King Louis did. Count Charles d'Anjou, Uncle Charles, wanted the
alliance. Simon had agreed to come here. How could he face Uncle
Charles, what could he say, if he changed his mind?

A lifetime of scorn, that was what lay ahead of him if he were to turn
back now.

David sat stiffly upright, his hands resting on his knees, as Cardinal
Ugolini approached the pope, reaching out in appeal.

"Holy Father, your predecessor, Clement III of happy memory, declared a
crusade against the Tartars after the battle of Mohi. I beg you to sound
the alarm again, like that brave trumpeter of Krakow. A Christian prince
should no more make a pact with the Tartars than with the devil. Let the
nations of Christendom be warned in the sternest terms. Let us declare
excommunicate any Christian ruler who allies himself with the Tartars."

Shocked outcries burst from all parts of the hall. Simon went cold. The
thought of King Louis being excommunicated horrified him. But surely it
would not come to that. King Louis was too loyal a Catholic to defy the
pope. But that, then, meant that Simon's mission would fail.

De Verceuil jumped to his feet. "You, Ugolini! You should be
excommunicated for even suggesting such a thing!"

"Cardinal Paulus, you yourself have had much to say out of turn," Pope
Urban said testily. "I give you leave now to speak in favor of this
proposed alliance."

De Verceuil took his stand in front of the papal throne, and Ugolini
returned to his place in the pews.

_If only the pope favored us more. He is a Frenchman, after all. What
about this Manfred von Hohenstaufen? The pope needs French help there.
But what a disaster for us that he asks de Verceuil to speak. If any man
can turn friends into enemies, it is de Verceuil. We need Friar Mathieu.
In God's name, where is he? He could answer this David of Trebizond._

De Verceuil quickly dismissed the Hungarian's testimony. All that, he
said, happened a generation ago. Today the Tartars would not win such
easy victories in Europe because we know more about them, and they would
not invade Europe again because they know more about us. The Tartars
have new leaders since those days, and that is why they have chosen to
make war on the Mohammedans. Christian friars have gone among them, and
many Tartars have been baptized. The wife of Hulagu Khan is a Christian.
Wherever the khan and his wife travel, they take a Christian chapel
mounted on a cart, and mass is said for them daily.

"Yes!" Ugolini cried from his seat. "A Nestorian chapel. The khan's
wife and the other Tartars you call Christians are Nestorian heretics."

"From what I have heard of your dabblings in alchemy and astrology, it
ill behooves you to speak of heresy, Cardinal Ugolini," said de Verceuil
darkly.

Ugolini stood up and advanced on de Verceuil, who was twice his height.
"As for Christian friars going among the Tartars"--he held up a small
book--"let me read--"

De Verceuil turned to Pope Urban. "Holy Father, you have given me leave
to speak."

"True, but more than once you interrupted him," said Urban with a smile.
"Let us hear this."

"The Franciscan Friar William of Rubruk, at the command of King Louis of
France, visited the court of the Tartar emperor in Karakorum," said
Ugolini. "This is his account of his travels in that pagan capital. He
says the Tartars were so stubborn in their ways that he made not a
single convert." He opened to a page marked with a ribbon. "Here is his
conclusion, after years among the Tartars--'Were it allowed me, I would
to the utmost of my power preach war against them throughout the whole
world.'" Ugolini slapped the book shut and sat down, looking triumphant.

De Verceuil failed to respond immediately. What a poor advocate he was,
Simon thought. If only Friar Mathieu were here. He, too, was a
Franciscan like this William of Rubruk, and he might well have the
answer to Rubruk's words.

"Friar William," de Verceuil said at last, "wrote years before the
Tartars conquered Baghdad. As for me, I count myself happy to have heard
the words of this merchant from Trebizond." He pointed a long finger at
David, who stood in the crowd about twenty feet away from Simon. David
looked back at de Verceuil with a rigid face full of raw hatred that
reminded Simon of what he had read about basilisks.

"Happy, I say," de Verceuil went on, "to hear every detail of the utter
destruction of that center of the Satanic worship of Mohammed. I was
reminded of the rain of fire and brimstone that wiped out Sodom and
Gomorrah. My heart sang with joy when I heard of the caliph, successor
of that false prophet, trampled by Tartar horses. I hold that the
Tartars are God's instrument for the final downfall of His enemies. What
wonderful allies they will make as we liberate the Holy Land from the
Saracens once and for all!"

"And who will liberate the Holy Land from the Tartars?" a cardinal,
forgetting his Latin, shouted in Italian.

"Be still, you fool!" cried another cardinal in French.

The Italian advanced on the Frenchman. "Whoever says 'Thou _fool_!'"--he
gave the French cardinal a vicious shove with both hands--"shall be
liable to the _judgment_." Another shove.

Fra Tomasso rang his small bell furiously, but the furious prelates
ignored him.

Now someone had seized the Italian from behind. Simon was shocked,
having never dreamed the leaders of the Church could be so unruly. It
seemed that anything the French cardinals were for, the Italians were
against. And was the pope, though a Frenchman, likely to approve the
alliance, with nearly half the cardinals against it? And even if he did,
could it succeed in the face of that much opposition?

"Pax!" the pope cried, climbing a few steps toward his throne and
lifting his arms heavenward. "Peace!" The angry sound of his voice and
the sight of him slowly brought quiet to the hall.

Urban took them to task. The whole future of Christendom might be at
stake, and they were brawling like university students. Perhaps he
should treat them like students and have them whipped. Sheepishly the
cardinals and bishops took their seats with much rustling of red and
purple robes.

D'Aquino asked de Verceuil if he had finished. He said he had, and
Simon's heart sank.

_I promised Uncle Charles I would work to further the alliance. I want
to believe in it._

But after listening to Ugolini's two witnesses and de Verceuil's feeble
attempt to refute them, he was beset by frightening doubts.

He prayed he would not have to reverse himself. If he changed his colors
now and repudiated the alliance, Count Charles might well feel himself
betrayed and say that Simon was no better than his father.

"But did not a Franciscan named"--the stout Dominican consulted his
notes on parchment--"Mathieu d'Alcon journey from Outremer with these
Tartar ambassadors? Why is he not here to tell us what he knows about
them?"

Hope leapt up in Simon's heart. Yes! If they would only hear Friar
Mathieu, that might yet win the day for the alliance.

_And it might help me to feel I am doing the right thing._

"I assumed, before this august body, my testimony would be sufficient,"
said de Verceuil with a slight stammer. "After all, what could a mere
Franciscan friar add--"

Fra Tomasso raised his eyebrows. "I remind you, Cardinal, that His
Holiness has entrusted the conduct of this inquiry to a 'mere
friar'--myself. And William of Rubruk, whose book was quoted here today,
was a 'mere friar.' Can this Friar Mathieu be found, and quickly?"

De Verceuil spread his hands. "I have no idea where he is, Fra Tomasso.
He parted company with us after we arrived in Orvieto and neglected to
tell us his whereabouts."

_A lie!_

Friar Mathieu had told everyone he would be at the Franciscan Hospital
of Santa Clara. Simon was honor bound to speak out.

Still, it took all his courage to force words through his throat--loud
words at that, to make himself heard over the murmur of many
conversations.

"Reverend Father!" he called out, and his heart hammered in terror as
hundreds of eyes turned toward him, de Verceuil's first of all.
"Reverend Father!"

Fra Tomasso turned toward Simon.

"I know where Friar Mathieu d'Alcon is," Simon called.

D'Aquino raised his eyebrows. "Who are you, young man?" When Simon
announced himself as the Count de Gobignon, Friar Tomasso's smile was
welcoming enough to reassure Simon a bit.

"Friar Mathieu is at the hospital of the Franciscans," said Simon. "He
told me he wanted to work there until his services were needed for the
embassy."

"His services are needed now," said d'Aquino. "Not summoning him here
was an oversight." He glanced coolly at de Verceuil. "The hospital is
not far away."

"I know where it is, Reverend Father." Simon had gone to the hospital to
inquire about the man shot in the street by the Venetians, he who had
died despite Friar Mathieu's urgent efforts.

"Then have the friar fetched at once, Count, if you please," said
d'Aquino.

Simon shot a quick look at de Verceuil before he turned to leave. The
cardinal was staring at him, his long face a deep crimson and his eyes
narrowed to black slits. Their eyes met, and Simon felt almost as if
swords had clashed.

Why was de Verceuil, who wanted the alliance, so angry?

_I know. He wanted to be the authority on the Tartars. He wanted to
carry the day for the alliance all by himself._

Hard to believe, Simon thought, but it seemed de Verceuil would rather
see his cause lost than have someone else win credit for its success.

"I shall fetch him myself, Fra Tomasso," Simon said loudly.

       *       *       *       *       *

To his relief, he found de Pirenne, expecting an outing in the country,
with their two horses just outside the papal palace wall. Simon
explained his errand, and together they made the short ride through the
stone-paved streets to the Franciscan hospital. There the Father
Superior hastily summoned Friar Mathieu.

De Pirenne relinquished his horse to the old Franciscan. Friar Mathieu's
bare skinny shanks, when he hiked up his robe to sit in the saddle,
looked comical to Simon.

"I knew the Holy Father had called a council today," said Friar Mathieu,
"but I assumed Cardinal de Verceuil would send for me if I were needed."

"Better to assume that he will do the opposite of what is needed," said
Simon. Friar Mathieu laughed and slapped Simon's shoulder.

The pope's servants were passing flagons of wine and trays of meat tarts
when Simon and Friar Mathieu entered the hall. The arguments among the
prelates had risen almost to a roar, but died down as men saw Simon
escorting the small figure of Mathieu d'Alcon in his threadbare brown
robe toward the papal throne.

Fra Tomasso spoke softly and respectfully to the elderly Franciscan.
While de Verceuil glowered from the pews, Friar Mathieu stood before the
pope, seeming as serene and self-possessed as if he were in a chapel by
himself.

_And why should he not?_ thought Simon. After what Simon had heard about
the Tartars today, it seemed to him that anyone who could live for years
among them could face anything.

D'Aquino quickly summarized what had been said so far. Hearing the
clarity and simplicity with which the Dominican conveyed the arguments,
Simon could see why he was thought of as a great teacher and
philosopher.

"I must warn Your Excellencies," said Friar Mathieu, "that if you sent a
thousand men to journey among the Tartars, you would get a thousand
reports, each very different. Also, you must keep in mind that the
Tartars are changing so rapidly that what was true of them a year ago
may no longer be so today.

"Italy, France, England, the Holy Roman Empire--all have existed for
hundreds of years. The Church has carried on Christ's work for over a
thousand years. This city of Orvieto is even older. But a mere hundred
years ago the Tartars were tribes of herdsmen, even simpler than the
Hebrews of Moses' day. Now they rule the largest empire the world has
ever seen."

How could such a thing happen, Simon wondered. It seemed almost
miraculous. The Tartars must have had the help of God--or the devil.

"Imagine a baby with the size and strength of a giant," Mathieu said
with a smile. "That is what we are dealing with here. Such a gigantic
infant might, in a moment of ungoverned anger, kill thousands of people,
destroy all manner of precious objects, even sweep away whole cities.
But an infant learns rapidly, and so it is with the Tartars. The new
emperor, or khakhan as they call him, Kublai, reads and writes and
converses in many languages. And he does not destroy cities, he builds
them. He is the brother of Hulagu, who sent the ambassadors here."

Simon began to feel relieved. Friar Mathieu's calm words washed over
him, easing his fear that he was doing wrong by supporting the Tartar
alliance.

Fra Tomasso raised a pudgy finger. "If the Tartars are so powerful and
are gaining in knowledge, does this not make them even more of a danger
to Christendom?"

"It could," said the old Franciscan. "Let me say, Fra Tomasso--and Holy
Father"--with a bow to the pope--"I can tell you only what I have seen,
and then with God's help you must judge what is best for Christendom."

Simon glanced over at the formidable David of Trebizond, who up to now
had been the most expert witness on the Tartars. He stood stiffly,
staring at d'Alcon.

_There is a man sore vexed._

And de Verceuil, who should have been pleased at having this help,
looked just as vexed.

_Friar Mathieu outshines the cardinal, and he is furious._

"We have been told that the Tartars plan to conquer the whole world,"
said d'Aquino.

"For a time they thought they could," Friar Mathieu nodded. "But the
world surprised them by going on and on, and now their empire is so huge
they cannot hold it together. And they are such innocents, the nations
they conquer are destroying them. They die in great numbers of the
diseases of cities. In their prairie homeland they were not familiar
with the strong wine drunk by farmers and city folk, and now many of
their leaders die untimely deaths of drink. Also, as they grow wealthier
and more powerful, they fight over the spoils they have taken. When they
invaded Europe they were still united, and they were able to throw all
their strength into that war. But now they have broken into four almost
independent nations. So divided and extended, they are much less of a
danger to Christendom."

How could they hold their empire together, thought Simon, when they had
been nothing but ignorant herdsmen a generation ago? Mathieu's discourse
made sense.

"So," said Fra Tomasso, "we are no longer dealing with a giant, but with
a creature closer to our own size."

"Yes," said Mathieu, "and the proof is that only a few years ago, for
the first time anywhere in the world, the Tartars lost a great battle.
They were defeated by the Mamelukes of Egypt at a place called the Well
of Goliath in Syria. If Hulagu's army had won that battle, the Tartars
would be in Cairo, and they might be demanding our submission instead of
offering us an alliance."

"But you think it is safe for us to ally ourselves with them now?"

Friar Mathieu looked sad and earnest. "If we and the Tartars make war on
the Mamelukes separately, we will be defeated separately. And then, as
sure as winter follows summer, the Mamelukes will take the few cities
and castles and bits of land our crusaders still hold in Outremer, and
all those generations of blood spilled for God and the Holy Sepulchre
will have been in vain."

Now Simon's relief was total. He felt like singing for joy. He was on
the right side after all.

Friar Mathieu stopped speaking and there was silence in the hall.
Gradually the prelates began talking. But there were no shrill outbursts
from those who opposed the alliance. The voices of all were subdued,
respectful.

The pope beckoned Friar Mathieu to his chair and spoke a few words to
him, holding him by the arm. The old friar slowly lowered himself to his
knees, bent and kissed Urban's ring.

Fra Tomasso called for silence, and Urban rose and blessed the assembly.
Simon fell to his knees and crossed himself, thinking, _If I stay here
very long, I shall get enough of these papal blessings to absolve me
from punishment for a lifetime of sin._

Accompanied by d'Aquino and a phalanx of priests, the Holy Father left
the hall by the side door. The arguments in the hall grew louder.

As he rose to his feet, Simon saw de Verceuil hurrying toward the front
door, his small mouth tight with anger. A protective impulse made Simon
look about for Friar Mathieu.

There he was, at the center of a small group of friars. Simon started
toward him.

A figure blocked his way.

Even though he touched nothing palpable, he stopped as suddenly as if he
had run into a wall. And the face he was looking into was hard as
granite, eyes alight with the icy glow of diamonds. And yet it was not a
cold face. There was something burning deep inside there, a fire this
man kept hidden most of the time. That fire, Simon felt, could destroy
anything in its path if allowed to blaze forth.

David of Trebizond was silent, but as clearly as if he had spoken, Simon
heard a voice say, _I know you, and you are my enemy. Beware._ Simon
realized that David had intended to meet him like this, intended Simon
to seek the unspoken threat in his eyes.

_He is trying to frighten me_, Simon thought, and was angered. He held
his arm still, but he knew that if his sword had been buckled at his
side, nothing could have stopped him from reaching for it.

Simon looked the broad-shouldered man up and down, taking his measure.
David, half a head shorter than Simon, stood relaxed but imposing, his
hands hanging at his sides. That a man could appear at once so composed
and so challenging was unique.

_This man is no trader. It is not just an accident that he has come here
to speak against the alliance._

_Who and what is he--really?_

Simon drew in a deep breath and said in gruff Italian, "Let me pass,
Messere."

Slowly, almost insolently, David drew aside. "Forgive me, Your Signory.
I was studying your face." He spoke Italian with a strange accent. "I
thought I might have seen you a long time ago. But that is not possible,
because a long time ago you would have been a child."

_What does that mean? Is he trying to remind me that I am younger than
he is?_

"I am sure we have never met, Messere," Simon said coldly.

"Quite right, Your Signory," said David. "But no doubt we will meet
again."

Simon walked past the man from Trebizond. His back felt terribly
exposed, and he held his shoulders rigidly. He felt the enmity from
behind him as sharp as a dagger's point.




XV


Simon guided the black palfrey carefully down the road into the wooded
valley west of Orvieto. The path, like the streets of the city, was
carved from rock and slippery.

When he needed to think, Simon liked to get out of doors, beyond any
walls, and to feel a good horse moving under him. It was now a week
since the day of the papal council, and its inconclusive outcome
troubled him sorely. The pope had repeatedly postponed his audience with
the Tartar ambassadors, pleading a sudden excess of phlegm. The Tartars
were growing restless, pacing the courtyard of the Palazzo Monaldeschi,
muttering to each other angrily and refusing to speak to anyone else.

The longer the negotiations were delayed, the greater the chance they
would fail. The Tartars might even die. Friar Mathieu had said that the
Tartars, coming from a land so distant and so different, were especially
vulnerable to the diseases of Europe.

Charging de Pirenne and de Puys to keep careful watch over the two
emissaries, Simon had ridden out into the hills to think what he might
do to help his cause along.

_But it is not my place to try to speed things up. My task is to guard
the ambassadors, nothing more. If I do only that, I have done my duty._

But, as he rode out into the valley under the deep shade of huge old
olive trees, he heard in his mind King Louis's voice.

_And you, too, Simon, must do whatever you can, seize any opportunity,
to further the cause of the alliance._

       *       *       *       *       *

King Louis lay prostrate on the floor of the Sainte Chapelle, his face
buried in his hands. Simon, impatient to speak to Louis about his
mission to Italy, knelt on the stone a few paces away from the king's
long, black-draped form. The two of them were the entire congregation
this morning, far outnumbered by the twelve canons and fourteen
chaplains chanting the royal mass.

Unable to keep his mind on the mass, Simon kept gazing up at the stained
glass windows. Since the age of eight, when he had become part of the
king's household, he had spent hundreds of mornings here in the chapel
attached to the royal palace, but the building still amazed him. The
walls seemed to be all glass, filled with light, glowing with colors
bright as precious stones. What held the chapel up? Pierre de Montreuil,
the king's master builder, had patiently explained the principles of the
new architecture to Simon, but though Simon understood the logic of it,
the Sainte Chapelle, most beautiful of the twenty-three churches of the
Île de la Cité, still looked miraculous to him.

The mass ended and the celebrants proceeded down the nave of the chapel
two by two, dividing when they came to King Louis as the Seine divides
to flow around the Cité, each canon and chaplain bowing as he passed the
prone figure.

When they were all gone, King Louis slowly began to push himself to his
feet. Simon hurried to help him, gripping his right arm with both hands.
The king's arm was thin, but Simon felt muscles like hard ropes moving
under his hands. Though almost fifty, the king still, Simon knew,
practiced with his huge two-handed sword in his garden. Age had not
weakened him, though a mysterious lifelong ailment sometimes forced him
to take to his bed.

Louis looked pained. "This is not one of my good days for walking. Let
me lean on you."

Simon was grateful for the chance to help King Louis. The vest of coarse
horsehair that Louis wore next to his body to torment his flesh--as
penance for what faults, Simon could not imagine--creaked as he
straightened up. He put his arm over Simon's shoulder, and Simon passed
an arm around his narrow waist. He looked down at Simon with round, sad
eyes. His nose was large, but blade-thin, his cheeks sunken in.

"Let us visit the Crown of Thorns," he said, pointing to the front of
the chapel, the apse.

Louis was leaning all his weight on Simon as they walked slowly up to
the wooden gallery behind the altar where the Crown of Thorns reposed.
Even so, the king felt light. How could a man be at once so strong and
so fragile, Simon wondered.

There was barely room on the circular wooden stairway for them to climb
side by side. As they stood before the sandalwood chest containing the
reliquary, Louis took his arm from Simon's shoulders. He took two keys
from the purse at his plain black belt and used one to open the doors of
the chest. Inner doors of gold set with jewels blazed in the light from
the stained glass windows.

Louis opened the second set of doors with the other key and, with
Simon's help, knelt. Simon saw within the chest, lined with white satin,
a gold reliquary that contained the Crown of Thorns. It was shaped like
a king's crown and set with pearls and rubies and stood on a gold stem
and base, like a chalice. Simon was icy-cold with awe, almost terror, at
the sight of it. To think that what lay within this gold case had been
worn by Jesus Christ Himself, twelve centuries ago, at the supreme
moment of His life--His death.

Still kneeling, Louis slowly drew the reliquary out of the chest,
holding it with both hands. His eyes glowed with fervor, as bright as
the pearls. Simon prayed he would not open the reliquary. The sight of
the actual thorns that pierced Jesus' head would surely be too much to
bear.

Louis kissed the lid of the case and held it out to Simon.

"Kiss this relic of Christ's passion, Simon, and beg His blessing on
your mission."

Trembling, Simon touched his lips to the cool gold surface. Not one
Christian in a hundred thousand had been this close to the Crown of
Thorns. He felt ashamed, privileged far beyond what he deserved.

As they walked together out of the chapel, Louis limping and leaning on
Simon again, said, "Baldwin, the French emperor of Constantinople, sold
us two crowns after Michael Paleologos drove him out. I bought the Crown
of Thorns, and my brother Charles bought the title of emperor of
Constantinople. Which of us, I wonder, made the better bargain?"

Simon thought, did Count Charles actually hope to conquer
Constantinople? And, if so, what did these dealings with the Tartars
have to do with it?

"Is it your wish, Sire, as your brother, Count Charles, has told me,
that I should guard the ambassadors from Tartary when they arrive in
Italy?" he asked.

Louis stopped walking. They were almost to the doorway of the chapel. He
turned his round eyes on Simon.

"Oh, yes, it is very much my wish." His thin fingers squeezed Simon's
shoulder. "For more than twenty years, ever since I took the crusading
vow, I have wanted one thing above all else, to win Jerusalem back for
Christendom. I led an army into Egypt, and it was God's will that the
Mamelukes defeated me."

_God's will and Amalric de Gobignon's treachery_, thought Simon.

"Now, with the help of the Tartars, we could wrest the Holy Land from
the Saracens' hands," Louis said.

"But if you wish to ally yourself with the Tartars, Sire, should I not
bring the ambassadors directly to you instead of to the pope?"

"No, I cannot make a treaty with the Tartars without Pope Urban's
permission. Only the Holy Father can proclaim a crusade. If he refuses
to do that, I cannot recruit an army to join with the Tartars to rescue
the Holy Land. Even if he does declare a crusade, raising an army will
be terribly hard. Many of those who went with me last time and endured
our terrible defeat and survived with God's help have told me they will
not go again--or send their sons. I must have His Holiness's full
support."

King Louis turned toward him fully now and put both hands on his
shoulders. "You must help me, Simon. I am asking Cardinal Paulus de
Verceuil to represent the cause of the alliance at the court of the
pope. And Friar Mathieu d'Alcon will be there to testify that the
Tartars may yet be won to Christianity. And you, too, Simon, must do
whatever you can, seize any opportunity, to further the cause of the
alliance."

Simon looked into the king's eyes. Their blue was slightly faded, and
age and care had etched red streaks in the whites. Simon's whole frame
was shaken by an overwhelming love for the man.

"Sire, I will do anything--everything."

Louis nodded. "I know how you have suffered all your life because of the
ill deeds of--one I shall not name. I have tried to shield you from
being unjustly punished. But even a king cannot control the hearts of
men. In the end only you can win back for the house of Gobignon its
place among the great names of France. This alliance with the Tartars,
and what follows from it, the liberation of Jerusalem, can help you
restore your honor."

Could a man have more than one father, Simon wondered. Surely King Louis
had done more than anyone else to make him the man he was today.

"I will work for the alliance, Sire," he said. "Not for my family honor
alone, but for you."

For King Louis he would guard the Tartars with his life. For King Louis
he would do anything.

       *       *       *       *       *

His horse slowed down to climb as the road rose along a steep slope
opposite Orvieto, green with vineyards. Friar Mathieu had made a better
witness than David of Trebizond, Simon thought. But the Italian
cardinals remained vociferous in their opposition to the alliance. The
pope might be French, but he had to live with the Italians.

Cardinal Ugolini was the key to it. He, it seemed, was the leader of the
Italian party in the College of Cardinals. He was the cardinal
camerlengo, after all.

Someone must try to reach Ugolini. It could not be de Verceuil, either,
with his arrogance and bad manners. Even if the man were to try to talk
to Ugolini, which was unlikely, he would doubtless make an even greater
enemy of him.

Friar Mathieu should do it. He could speak to Ugolini as one churchman
to another. But then Simon shook his head. So many of these princes of
the Church looked down on the mendicant friars.

_Seize any opportunity._

Simon rode up the hillside, debating with himself. Just before the road
passed between two rounded, green-covered peaks, it widened so that
carters could pass each other. Simon swung his leg over the saddle and
stepped down from his horse to enjoy the view. Against the hillside,
under a peaked roof, a statue of Saint Sebastian writhed, his body
pierced by arrows. The agony depicted on the saint's face made the
countryside look all the more serene.

_Oh, patron saint of archers, let no more harm come to innocent people
from my crossbowmen._

Simon turned to look at Orvieto. It was like a city from some tale of
faeries, a fantastic island on its huge rock. What was it the Italians
called that gray-yellow stone? Tufa. Most of the churches and palaces
and houses of Orvieto were also built of tufa. Beautiful.

The clatter of hooves interrupted his thoughts. He looked up to see four
horsemen approaching from the north, followed by two heavily laden
baggage mules.

Simon's mood changed at once from contemplation to tense alertness. His
hands moved to check the position of his sword and dagger, making sure
he could draw them quickly. You had to be careful of strangers in a
strange country. As the men rode closer he saw that they also had short
swords and daggers hanging at their sides. Closer still, and he saw
long swords slung over their backs, and crossbows hanging from their
saddles.

Annoyed with himself for feeling afraid, he yet followed the dictate of
prudence and mounted his own horse. He kept his hand near, but not on,
the jeweled hilt of his scimitar as the men rode closer. Highwaymen
would be willing to kill him just for that precious sword.

The man in the lead wore a soft velvet cap that draped down one side of
his head. Under it, Simon saw, was curly black hair shot through with
white. The stranger's grizzled mustache was so thick as to hide his
mouth. But, courteously enough, he touched his hand to his cap where his
visor would be if he were wearing a helmet.

"Buon giorno, Signore," he said in a deep but neutral voice.

Simon returned his salutation and the muttered greetings of the others,
thinking he really should ask who they were, where bound, and on what
business. In France, especially in his own domains, he would not have
hesitated. But then, in France he rarely traveled alone. These men
seemed not bent on troubling him, and it seemed wiser not to trouble
them.

The other three men in the party looked younger than the leader, and
there was insolence, almost a challenge in their dark eyes as they
looked him over and rode on. It took an effort of will on Simon's part
not to move his hand closer to his sword. But he sat stock-still until
they were past and on their way down into the valley.

What business would bravos like that have in Orvieto? Perhaps they had
come to join the Monaldeschi or the Filippeschi in their feuding.

Simon felt beleaguered at the thought of more bravos coming into town.
Orvieto was already full of armed men serving the local families, as
well as others in the retinues of the churchmen who had come here with
the pope. Uneasiness made his spine tingle. Anything that added to
disorder in Orvieto made it a more dangerous place for the Tartar
ambassadors.

_We must get this question of the alliance settled quickly._

Someone should speak to Cardinal Ugolini and find out if anything would
persuade him to withdraw his objections. Simon wondered why de Verceuil
had not already attempted it.

_I could meet with Ugolini. He knows who I am. They all do, since the
pope greeted me publicly. All I have to do is send Thierry around with a
note asking for an audience._

At once he began trying to persuade himself to forget the idea. How
could he talk a cardinal into changing his mind about such a great
matter? Ridiculous! What could he possibly do or say? And what if this
cardinal were one who knew of the shame of the house of Gobignon?

_Seize any opportunity._

       *       *       *       *       *

Cardinal Ugolini shrugged with his bushy gray eyebrows as well as with
his shoulders. "The question had been thoroughly discussed, Count. Now
it is up to His Holiness. I am delighted to meet you, but what have you
and I to say to each other?"

The solar, the large-windowed room on the third floor of the cardinal's
palace, was bright with light that streamed in through white glass. The
floor was covered with a thick red and black rug, the walls decorated
with frescoes of angels and saints lavishly bedecked with gold leaf.
Simon's eye kept returning to a voluptuous Eve, no part of her nude body
hidden by the leaves or branches artists usually deployed for modesty's
sake. She was handing a golden fruit--it might have been an orange or a
lemon rather than an apple--to a muscular and also fully displayed Adam.
Simon found them disturbingly sensual though they dealt with a religious
subject, and he was surprised that a cardinal should have such pictures
on his walls.

Ugolini's small, elaborately carved oak table, set beside a window, was
polished and quite bare. There were no books or parchments anywhere in
the large room. Simon suspected that the cardinal used this room to
receive visitors but did little work in it. A five-pointed star was
carved in the back of the cardinal's chair above his head. Simon sat in
a small, armless chair made somewhat comfortable by the cushion on its
seat.

"I have come in the hope of presenting to you our French point of view
on this proposed alliance," said Simon. That sounded impressive enough.

"And do you speak for France, young man?"

"Not officially, Your Eminence," said Simon, flustered. "I mean only
that I _am_ French, and that both King Louis and his brother Count
Charles d'Anjou have deigned to share their views with me."

Ugolini leaned forward. His expression was earnest enough, but there was
a twinkle in his eye that gave Simon the uneasy feeling that the
cardinal was laughing at him.

"I am eager to hear what you have learned from the king and his
brother."

"Quite simply," Simon said, "they look on the advent of the Tartars as a
golden opportunity--one might say a God-given opportunity--to do away
with the threat of the Saracens once and for all."

Ugolini nodded thoughtfully. "So it is not just a question of rescuing
the holy places."

_Am I giving away something I should not?_ Simon asked himself, suddenly
panic-stricken. It was Count Charles, he now recalled, who had said that
the alliance might make possible the complete destruction of Islam.

_I am in this over my head._

But he had to go on.

"The Saracens believe they are called upon to spread their religion by
the sword. They will continue to make war on us unless we conquer them."

Ugolini lifted a finger like a master admonishing a poorly prepared
student. "The prophet Muhammad calls upon his followers to _defend_
their faith with the sword, but he explicitly states that conversions
made at sword's point are worthless and commands that Christians and
Jews who remain devoted to their own worship be left in peace." He sat
back and gazed as happily at Simon as at some well-fed mouse who had the
whole granary to himself.

"I cannot dispute you, Your Eminence. Truly, I am quite ignorant of the
Mohammedan faith." Why study false religions?--that had been the
attitude of his teachers.

Ugolini nodded, his side whiskers quivering. "You and most of Europe."

"But Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth--those precious places we hear about
in the Gospel," Simon argued. "We cannot leave them in the hands of
Christ's enemies."

The cardinal shook his head. "Christ's enemies! Indeed, you know little
of them, Count. The Muslim holy book, the Koran, reveres Jesus and His
mother, Mary. Our sacred places are sacred to them also. Emperor
Frederic von Hohenstaufen had the right idea. He made a treaty with the
Saracens. If the crusaders in Syria had not broken it, pilgrims would be
happily walking in the footsteps of Our Lord to this day."

_Von Hohenstaufen._ Simon remembered the hatred in the voices of de
Verceuil and le Gros when they spoke of the house of Hohenstaufen.

"The crusades were a mistake from the very beginning," Ugolini went on.

Having heard harrowing tales from men who had been there of King Louis's
disastrous defeat fourteen years before in Egypt, Simon found it hard to
challenge Ugolini's assertion.

But history could not be undone, and with the help of the Tartars, might
this not be the one great crusade that would make any more crusades
unnecessary?

"We still hold Acre and Tripoli and Antioch and Cyprus," Simon said.
"The Templars and the Hospitallers have their castles along the coast.
Think of all the men who have died just to get and keep that much. And
if we do not beat the Saracens now, they will surely choose their moment
and take those last footholds of ours."

Ugolini stood up and walked slowly, red satin robe whispering, to a
small door behind his table. The door was slightly ajar, and Ugolini
looked into the next room. Was there someone in there, Simon wondered,
listening to this conversation?

_I am getting in deeper and deeper. What if my words could somehow be
used against me, or against the alliance? I should never have come
here._

Whatever he saw beyond the door seemed to satisfy Ugolini. He turned,
smiling.

"Count, I am going to suggest something to you that I am sure will shock
you at first: Perhaps we should leave the Holy Land in peace."

Simon felt troubled, but, having heard much the same thing from his
parents--and, indeed, from some of the knights at the royal palace when
King Louis was out of hearing--he was not shocked. But for himself he
had never been able to reconcile such views with his sense of his
obligations as a Christian.

Even so, he began to see why de Verceuil had spoken of Ugolini as if he
were a heretic. How could a man with such opinions get to be a cardinal?

"To leave the Holy Land in the hands of the infidels, Your Eminence?
Would it not betray Our Lord Himself?"

Ugolini, unperturbed, continued to smile as he walked toward Simon. "The
whole world belongs to God. If Our Savior wished the places where He was
born, died, buried, and rose again to be occupied by Christian knights
from Europe, He would have permitted it to happen. As it is, I truly
believe that if we sent every able-bodied man in Christendom to fight in
Outremer, we could not take Jerusalem back and we could not prevent the
crusader strongholds from falling to the Muslims. The infidels, as you
call them, are defending their own lands, and a people fighting for
their homeland is always stronger than an invader. Another crusade, even
with Tartar help, would be a tragic waste."

Ugolini stood before the seated Simon, and such was the difference in
their heights that their eyes were almost on a level. Simon wanted to
stand, but somehow he dared not move. He was beginning to feel
desperate. He had walked into a trap that he had not anticipated. He had
feared that he would not persuade the cardinal. He had not imagined that
the cardinal might persuade him.

"But you would abandon the Christians who are there now to be overrun
and slaughtered by the Turks?" Simon asked.

He reproached himself. It almost sounded as if he were conceding that
there should be no more crusades.

The cardinal shook his head. "I would do everything in my power to bring
them home."

He sighed and turned away. "You are a most impressive young man, Count
Simon. I am glad we have had this chance to hear each other out."

Simon felt deeply shaken, as if he had been galloping in a tournament
and had been ignominiously unhorsed. He had been foolish to think he
could sway a man of Ugolini's eminence and intelligence.

Courtesy demanded, he supposed, that he take his leave. He could only
hope that some of what he said would sink in and influence the
cardinal's thinking in the future.

Ugolini, standing before him, thrust his small hand suddenly under
Simon's nose, causing Simon to sit back, startled, in his chair. Then
Simon realized the cardinal was offering him his ring to kiss. He slid
out of the chair and dropped to one knee. He touched his lips to the
round, blue sapphire which betokened Ugolini's rank as a cardinal.

While he still knelt, the door behind Ugolini swung open. Feeling
awkward, Simon started to scramble to his feet.

As he did so, he saw the woman. Her features were delicate, her lips
full, her eyes dark and challenging. She wore a yellow gown tied under
her bosom by an orange ribbon. Simon stared at her, open-mouthed, until
he realized he was in a half-crouching position that must look
perfectly ridiculous. He shut his mouth. He slowly straightened.

"Buon giorno, my dear Sophia!" said Cardinal Ugolini. "Let me introduce
our distinguished visitor."

He first presented Simon to the young woman and then presented her to
him. "My niece, Sophia Orfali, daughter of my sister who lives at
Siracusa, in Sicily."

It registered somewhere in Simon's mind that Sicily was part of the
Hohenstaufen kingdom, and it occurred to him to wonder whether Sophia
was of gentle birth. It struck him with much greater impact that she was
an extraordinarily beautiful woman. Swallowing hard, he bowed over her
hand. His fingertips pressing into her palm felt as if they were
burning. His lips touched the back of her hand lightly; his eyes filled
with smooth, cream-colored skin and the pale blue tint of delicate
veins. As he stepped back he noticed that she gave off a faint scent of
oranges.

She stood looking at him with a small, self-possessed smile, waiting for
him to speak. All sorts of absurd phrases and sentences flooded into his
mind--outrageous compliments, declarations of love. The upper part of
her gown was pulled tight, and he had to make an effort to keep his eyes
from her breasts. His face burned and his throat felt parched.

"Buon giorno, Signora," he choked out. "It is a great honor to meet
you."

Her fine arched eyebrows lifted slightly and she answered him in French.
"Why do you not speak your native language, Monseigneur?"

Simon's cheeks burned hotter. "I assumed you would prefer Italian,
Madame."

She smiled, and Simon felt there was a shade of scorn in the smile. "I
would prefer French, Monseigneur, to Italian as _you_ speak it."

"Forgive me, Madame," Simon whispered.

"There is nothing to forgive," she said airily. Simon thought surely the
cardinal would reprove his niece for her unkindness, but he stood there
beaming like a master showing off a remarkably gifted scholar.

_Ah, lady!_ thought Simon, _I pray you be merciful to me_.

Ringing a small bell that stood on his desk, much like the one Friar
Tomasso d'Aquino had used to keep order at the pope's court, Ugolini
summoned one of the priests on his household staff, and Simon, his head
still spinning from his unexpected encounter with Sophia, found himself
being escorted out of the cardinal's mansion.

As Simon and the priest were walking through the gallery that led to the
main entrance, the outer door swung open and a large gray boarhound
trotted in. It was deep-chested, with long ears, a pointed, aristocratic
muzzle, and intelligent brown eyes. The dog jumped at Simon, resting his
forepaws on Simon's chest and looking up at him as if studying his face.

Simon, who had played and hunted with hounds all his life, took an
immediate liking to the dog. He scratched the back of the animal's head.

"Down, Scipio," said a deep voice, and Simon saw the hound's master--the
same swarthy man with grizzled, curly hair and thick mustache he had met
on the road from the north three days before. The one leading the little
company of bravos.

Again that tense, besieged feeling came over Simon, the same as when he
met this man on the road. There was too much going on in Orvieto, almost
all of it surprising and much of it seemingly dangerous. If he wanted to
be sure the Tartars were safe, he would have to give up sleeping.

The dog dropped to all fours and stood beside his master.

The other did not acknowledge having seen Simon before. "Forgive us,
Signore. I fear Scipio has gotten dust on your tunic."

"There is nothing to forgive," said Simon. He brushed off his
plum-colored tunic. "Do you serve Cardinal Ugolini?" This time he would
not let the man pass without questioning him.

"I am Giancarlo, Signore, a servant of Messer David of Trebizond." He
bowed deeply.

Feeling angry because he was sure he was being lied to, Simon wanted to
ask about the men with Giancarlo on the road, but decided it was better
not to appear too suspicious.

_Let them think I am a naive young nobleman, easily gulled. Not so far
from the truth, anyway._

"Are you also from Trebizond, Messer Giancarlo?"

The dark brown eyes were watchful. "I am a Neapolitan, Signore. Messer
David hired me when he arrived in Italy."

_So it is David of Trebizond who is bringing bravos into the city. What
for?_

       *       *       *       *       *

Out on the street, Simon looked at the spot where the crossbowmen had
spilled two men's blood. He felt a weary anger. Two lives cut off
because of that fool de Verceuil and his vanity.

Where the men had been shot there now stood rows of bowls and pots, from
small to large. They were painted white, with pretty floral designs in
red, blue, and green. A woman sat on the ground beside the display,
painting a freshly baked jug. She looked up at Simon, then scrambled to
her feet and stood, bowing deeply.

"Fine vases and plates, Your Signory? The earthenware of Orvieto is the
most beautiful in the world."

Simon smiled. "No doubt, but not today, thank you." He must remember to
bring some samples back to Gobignon, though, he thought. It was
fine-looking ware, and it might give the potters of Gobignon-la-Ville
some good ideas.

He turned and stared back at the mansion, a great cream-colored cube of
the same tufa as the rock on which Orvieto stood.

From that rooftop, David of Trebizond had watched the heckling, the
throwing of garbage and dung, the sudden killings.

Simon almost expected to see David appear on the roof now, but it
remained empty. The cardinal's mansion remained flat and featureless,
revealing nothing.

Simon sighed longingly. _Oh, for another glimpse of the cardinal's
niece._

But there was no sign of her, and he could not stand here any longer.
Sighing again, he walked away.




XVI


The door leading from Cardinal Ugolini's private cabinet to the solar
swung back, and David came in. As always when she first caught sight of
David, Sophia felt her heart give a little jongleur's somersault. She
loved the look of his hard eyes with their suggestion of weariness at
having seen too much.

But now those eyes were turned toward her, and they were narrowed
angrily.

"Why were you rude to him?"

His harsh tone, when she was so pleased to see him, hurt her. She had no
ready answer for him. To give herself time to think, she walked to the
small chair Simon had occupied and sat down in it.

Cardinal Ugolini, sitting at his carved oak table, spoke up.

"Sophia put him in his place by demonstrating to him that she could
speak his language better than he could speak Italian, David. There is
no end to the arroganzia of these French."

David was still looking at Sophia. The midday light streaming through
the white panes of glass threw sharp shadows under his cheekbones,
giving him the gaunt look of a desert saint.

_God's breath, how I would like to paint his picture. At least I could
have that much of him._

"Do you think I wanted you to meet him so that you could teach him
better manners?" David demanded.

"Of course not," she said, "but you do not understand men."

David's laugh was as harsh as the planes of his face.

"Oh, yes," Sophia went on impatiently, "you have always lived with men,
and you lead men and fight against men. But you do not understand how
Christian men, especially Frenchmen and Italians, feel about women. You
know nothing, for example, of l'amour courtois."

"Yes," said Ugolini. "The head of every young French nobleman is full of
two things, honor and l'amour courtois."

David looked from Ugolini to Sophia and back again. "What is this
l'amour courtois?" he demanded. "I should know about it. Why have you
not told me?"

Ugolini lifted his shoulders in a gesture that reminded Sophia of a
shopkeeper on the Mese.

"My dear fellow, we cannot guess where the gaps are in your knowledge of
the Christian world. That is why it is so dangerous for you to go about
in public."

David held out his hands in appeal.

"You have seen me testify before the pope himself. How can you still be
afraid?" He curled his fingers in toward himself, inviting Ugolini to go
on. "Tell me about courtly love."

_How graceful his gestures are._

"It was begun many years ago by a number of noble ladies of France, and
especially Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, who led an absolutely scandalous
life," Ugolini said. "She married the King of France, accompanied him on
crusade. Costumed as an Amazon, rode bare-breasted in Jerusalem.
Jerusalem! Divorced the King of France, married the King of England. Had
lovers uncounted besides."

_If I had been born into the nobility, I might have been a woman like
that_, Sophia thought wistfully.

David shook his head as if buzzing flies circled it. "But what has this
to do with Simon de Gobignon?"

"As His Excellency said, this Simon comes out of a world shaped by
courtly love," Sophia answered. "There are many strict rules about how
men and ladies should behave toward one another. One of the most
important is that the woman rules the man."

David smiled thinly. She had rarely seen a full open smile on his face,
but she remembered what a glorious sight it had been and wished he would
smile that way now.

"So, by scorning the way he spoke Italian, you believe you are making
yourself more attractive to him?"

"Far better than I would by letting him put his foot on my neck, the way
your harem women do."

"You know nothing about our women." But his eyes were crinkled with
laughter. "Less than I do about your courtly lovers. And what do you
think of _my_ Italian?"

"Better than his," she said, and was rewarded with a broader smile.

She felt a warmth inside as if her heart were melting. Trained from
childhood to hide her feelings, she turned her gaze toward the wall
paintings of the nude Adam and Eve.

A loud knock shook the outer door of the solar. At Ugolini's summons the
door swung inward. Sophia briefly saw the tops of the sun-dappled palm
and lemon trees in the inner court, beyond the arches and columns of the
galleria. Then the door closed again behind Lorenzo, Scipio at his side.
He carried a small parchment scroll in his hand.

"I met the Count de Gobignon at the entry way just now," he said. "Three
days ago I was bringing men back from Castel Viscardo, and I encountered
him, not knowing then who he was, on the road."

David muttered something in the Saracen tongue. It could have been a
curse or a prayer. But before he could speak, Ugolini's fist struck the
desk.

"He saw you bringing bravos to Orvieto?" he cried at Lorenzo. "You will
get us all killed. I see it now. De Gobignon did not come here to
persuade me to change my mind about the Tartars. He came here to spy on
us." His voice was shrill with fear.

Scipio growled at the cardinal, and Lorenzo slapped him sharply on the
head, then on the rump. The dog fell silent at once and trotted off to
the corner of the room farthest from Lorenzo. Ugolini and David both
eyed the animal with distaste.

"Perhaps the count should be killed, then," said David, "before he can
use against us what he has learned."

_Oh, no, please don't kill him!_

Sophia felt an urge to cry out, to do something to protect Simon. And
with that protective feeling she saw him again--the glossy, dark brown
hair that hung in waves almost to his shoulders--the startling blue eyes
in an angular, intelligent face. The tall, slender body.

And that name--Simon. Was there an omen of some sort in that? Did not
this Simon even look somewhat like her painting of Saint Simon Stylites,
carried with her all the way from Constantinople? As the saint might
have looked when he was a young man?

As Sophia Orfali meeting the Count de Gobignon, she had felt almost half
in love with Simon.

"How can you talk of killing him?" Ugolini cried, his voice almost
cracking. "The French cardinals and their men-at-arms would tear the
city apart. It might be enough to bring Charles d'Anjou or King Louis
himself down here with an army. Sooner or later they would trace it back
to us. And then, if you want to know your fate"--his finger moved in
turn from David to Lorenzo to Sophia--"go see what they do in the Piazza
del Cattedrale to that poor wretch this count captured."

Sophia felt a sickening, falling sensation in her stomach at this
reminder of the danger she was in. Usually she managed to keep calm by
refusing to think about what would happen if she were caught. She cursed
Ugolini for taking her defenses by surprise.

Lorenzo whirled suddenly on Ugolini. "Get hold of yourself, Cardinal.
How can a man think, with you shrieking away like a crazy old nonna?"

_Good for you, Lorenzo_, she thought.

"I am a prince of the Roman Catholic Church," Ugolini shouted. "You will
show respect!"

Unabashed, Lorenzo turned to David. "Despite his hysterics, I do think
the cardinal is right. If de Gobignon were murdered, the city would be
in an uproar. We could not go on with our work."

"Dear God, why did You send these people into my life?" Ugolini groaned.

Lorenzo offered the scroll in his hand to David. "This prince of the
Church has been making such a commotion, I nearly forgot this. A man
with a clerical tonsure brought it to the door just after the young
count left."

David's dagger seemed to leap into his hand. The man could move so fast,
Sophia thought. He cut the black ribbon tying the scroll and slipped the
dagger back into its scabbard. He unrolled the parchment and studied it
with a frown.

"This is in Latin," he said, handing the scroll to Ugolini.

Red-faced and breathing heavily, Ugolini took the scroll and read it,
moving his finger along the lines. He shut his eyes as if in pain.

Whatever this message was, thought Sophia, it was upsetting him still
more.

Ugolini looked up with fear-haunted eyes. "It is from Fra Tomasso
d'Aquino. He invites you to visit him at the convent of the Dominicans.
He says he wants to hear more about your travels."

David nodded. "Excellent. I have been wanting to find a way to meet
privately with him."

Ugolini threw the paper to the floor and shook both fists. "Mother of
God! Do you not understand that this is a trap? The Dominicans are in
charge of the Inquisition. They are called the domini canes, the hounds
of the Lord. They can _smell_ heresy."

David laughed. "They will not smell it on me. I am a good Muslim."

Though Sophia felt inclined to share Ugolini's fear, she delighted in
David's humorous courage. She could not take her eyes from his golden
head as he stood in the middle of the room with the light from the
window shining on him.

"That, d'Aquino will find even easier to detect than heresy," said
Ugolini.

A small, amused smile played about David's lips. "Do you not think I
have prepared myself for such a conversation? We need a respected man
who can write letters and give sermons warning Christendom against the
Tartars. If Fra Tomasso can be convinced the Tartars are dangerous, and
if I can offer him something he wants badly enough, he might be the
man."

"He and his fellow Dominicans will eat you alive," Ugolini moaned.

"I can accomplish nothing hiding here in your palace." David gazed down
at the cardinal, unruffled.

Sophia sat perfectly still, hands folded in her lap, looking down at
Ugolini's beautiful Persian carpet. But the quarreling made her writhe
inwardly. If they could not agree, if they were not careful in their
planning, if they started to hate one another, they surely would end by
being torn to pieces on the public scaffold.

"Let us speak about the young French count," she said. "He, too, might
be a man we can use. I did my best to attract him to me today."

_If he thinks there is hope of my seducing Simon, he will not be so
quick to want to kill him._

David's eyes held hers for a long moment. "That is what I want you to
do. That was why I was angry, not understanding this courtly love." His
face was somber. "That is what I brought you here for."

She nodded, thinking, _If only you could be my lover. There would be
nothing courtly about it, and it would bring us both great happiness._

But only a moment ago, had she not been thinking of Simon, fearing for
Simon's life? Had she not almost felt love for him?

_What is happening to me?_

Her hands in her lap clutched at each other. She felt dizzy. It had
happened so easily, so quickly. Was she becoming more than one person,
like someone possessed by spirits? How could you know who you were
unless you had a place and were firmly attached to other people?

Now, looking at David, she was aware of the feelings Simon had aroused
in her as if they were the feelings of another person. Sophia
Karaiannides wanted David. Her longing for him had been growing in her
ever since their eyes first met in Manfred's audience hall months
before.

"What is troubling you?" David said, frowning.

She felt flustered. "Nothing." When he looked skeptical, she added, "I
am not certain how he feels about me."

David glowered at her. She tried to read his expression. He looked
angry. Was he angry at her for being willing to take Simon as a lover?

_He probably thinks I am nothing but a whore._

She liked to think of herself as a woman who was able to move easily in
many circles, a woman who involved herself in affairs of state. But was
she not deceiving herself? Was it not that all men valued her for was
her body in bed? And David did not even want that; he just wanted to use
her body to ensnare Simon de Gobignon.

Then why did he look at her so angrily?

"How will you find out what he feels for you?" David said. "Will you
wait for him to make the next move?"

"I will send him a small favor, something he recognizes as mine. Then we
will see how interested he is."

"Good," said David briskly.

As if dismissing her, he turned to Lorenzo. "Speaking of ladies and
love, our young friend Rachel is still living here. I want you to escort
her to Madama Tilia's house this afternoon."

Sophia stifled a gasp. She felt as if she had been struck from behind.
She wanted to cry out in protest, but she knew it was useless.

"Must I?" said Lorenzo, and Sophia saw pain in his eyes.

"Remember your promise to me in Rome," David said, fixing him with a
grim stare.

Lorenzo sighed. "I remember."

Sophia's heart, already bruised by her gloomy thoughts about herself,
ached even harder for Rachel. She had tried to save her from being sent
to Tilia's, but there was no more she could do. If Ugolini was right
about their being in such terrible danger, Rachel might be safer at
Tilia's than here.

How could she help Rachel, she thought desolately, when she herself was
a stranger among strangers?




XVII


The beauty of Orvieto, Simon thought, was that, isolated as it was on
its great rock, it was as big as it ever could be--and a man could go
anywhere in the city quickly on foot. Those of wealth and rank often
rode, but a horse or a sedan chair was a mark of distinction rather than
a necessity. A bird looking down on the city would see a roughly oval
shape, longer from east to west. One might get lost in the twisting side
streets but otherwise could walk along the Corso from one end of Orvieto
to the other while less than half the sand trickled through an hour
glass. From Ugolini's mansion on the south side of the town, Simon
reached the Palazzo Monaldeschi, near the northern wall, so quickly, he
barely had time to think over the events of the day.

David of Trebizond was a trader, after all, and traders needed armed men
to protect their caravans. Why worry about the three men with swords and
crossbows he had seen with Giancarlo? They were far from being an army.

But was David actually sending out any caravans?

_If I could put someone in the enemy camp ..._

Before entering the Palazzo Monaldeschi, he surveyed it with a knight's
eye. It was a three-story brown stone building with a flat roof crowned
by square battlements. In each of the four corners of the palace there
were small turrets with slotted windows for archers. Above the third
story rose a block-shaped central tower.

Even as he looked up, he noticed a figure on the battlements, a helmeted
man with a crossbow on his shoulder. He looked down at Simon, touched
his hand to his helmet, and walked on.

It was good to know that the Monaldeschi family maintained a constant
guard on their palace. The hidden enemy of the Tartars could get at them
here only by a full-scale siege.

Simon walked around the building. If there were two archers in each
turret, their overlapping fields of fire would cover every possible
approach. He noted that the piazza in front of the palace and the broad
streets on the other three sides allowed attackers no cover. The city
wall was nearby, though, he saw. Archers could fire on the Monaldeschi
roof from there, and at least two of the city's defensive towers were so
close that stone casters set up in them could score hits on the palace.

What if the enemy were to attempt a siege?

_We must control that section of the city wall and make it our first
line of defense. The buildings around the palace would be our second,
and the palace itself the third. To control all that, we really need
another forty crossbowmen. But how to pay and feed them and keep them
under discipline? I will have to make do with my knights, the Venetians,
the Armenians, and the Monaldeschi retainers._

And he felt the weight of responsibility pressing on his back like a
boulder. He had studied siege warfare under veterans. But how good, he
asked himself, would he be in real combat?

His entire experience of battle consisted of one siege that ended as
soon as the rebellious vassal saw the size of Simon's army, one
encounter in his private forest with poachers who ran away when he drew
his sword, and one tournament, two years ago, in Toulouse.

And yet, if the Monaldeschi palace were attacked, he would be expected
to assume command. The thought made his stomach knot with anxiety.

He scrutinized the palace itself. He saw no windows at all on the ground
floor, but there were cross-shaped slots for archers. The second story
had narrow windows covered with heavy iron bars. On the highest level
the windows were wider and the grills that protected them of a more
delicate construction. On that floor were the apartments of the
Monaldeschi and their more distinguished guests. The darkness and
cramped quarters one had to endure in the palace because it was so
well-fortified were a measure of the fierceness of the street fighting
that had been going on in Orvieto, as in most of the cities of northern
and central Italy, for generations.

_We French are better off doing most of our fighting in the countryside.
City fighting is a dirty business._

There were only two ways into the palace. On the west side a postern
gate for horses and carts was protected by a gatehouse with two
portcullises and doors reinforced with iron. In front, facing the
piazza, a two-story gatehouse with a peaked roof and arrow slots jutted
out from the center of the building. The doorway was in the side of the
gatehouse on the second floor, and to reach it one climbed a flight of
narrow stairs.

_Why plan for a siege that probably will never take place?_ Simon asked
himself.

_Because I have tried to go beyond my duty this day and accomplished
nothing. I had better be sure I can do what I am expected to do._

The door swung open as Simon reached the top step.

"Oh, you look too serious, ragazzo caro. Don't frown so--it will put
wrinkles in your smooth brow. Surely your life is not so melancholy as
all that?" Fingernails stroked his forehead and then his cheek.

Simon recognized the voice, but after the bright sunlight of the street
it took his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness inside the doorway
and actually to see Donna Elvira, the Contessa di Monaldeschi.

She took him by the hand and led him through the inner door, which, in
the time-honored practice of fortified buildings, was set at right
angles to the outer one. The hallway that ran the length of the second
floor was dimly illuminated through the barred windows. Unlit brass oil
lamps hung at intervals from the ceiling.

"I saw you from my window and came down to let you in myself." The
contessa's nose was sharp and hooked like a falcon's beak. It might have
been handsome on a man, but it gave her an unpleasantly predatory look.
Simon felt distaste at the short silky hairs on her upper lip and
uneasiness at the bright black eyes that looked at him so greedily. She
gave off a strong smell of wine. How old was she, he wondered. At least
eighty.

He politely bowed over her bony knuckles and kissed them quickly. She
held his hand longer than necessary.

"Your greeting does me too much honor, Donna Elvira," Simon said, easing
his hand away from hers. "I was frowning because I was thinking of what
we must do to protect the ambassadors from Tartary. I am happy to see
that you have a guard posted on the roof."

"Always." The contessa held up a clenched, bejeweled fist. "But surely
you are not afraid for the emissaries. Who would want to hurt those
little brown men? No, I am ever on guard against my family's ancient
enemies, the Filippeschi."

Simon felt the boulder on his back grow a little heavier.

_Something else to worry about._

"Is it possible that the Filippeschi family might attack us here?"

The contessa nodded grimly. "They have wanted blood ever since my
retainers killed the three Filippeschi brothers--the father and the
uncles of Marco di Filippeschi, who is now their capo della famiglia.
They caught them on the road to Rome and cut off the heads of all three,
to my eternal joy. Six years ago, that was."

"My God! Why did your retainers do that?"

There was more than a little madness, Simon thought, in the bright-eyed,
toothless grin the contessa gave him. "Ah, that was to pay them back for
the death of my husband, Conte Ezzelino, twenty years ago, and my son
Gaitano, who died fighting beside him, and my nephew Ermanno, whom they
shot with an arrow from ambush twelve years ago." She held up bony
fingers, totaling up the terrible score. "They cut out my husband's
tongue and his heart."

"Horrible!" Simon exclaimed.

"Now there remain only myself and my grandnephew, Vittorio, a ragazzo of
twelve, to lead the Monaldeschi."

"What of Vittorio's mother?" Simon asked.

The contessa shrugged. "She went mad."

_Well she might_, thought Simon.

The contessa's face turned scarlet as she recounted her injuries. "Now
that canaglia Marco would surely love to finish us by killing Vittorio
and me. But he is not man enough. And one day I will cut out _his_
tongue and _his_ heart."

"Might the Filippeschi attack John and Philip, thinking it would hurt
you?" Simon asked.

The contessa thought for a moment and nodded. "Ah, that is very clever
of you. Certainly, they would treat any guest of mine as an enemy of
theirs." She smiled. "At any rate, you need not worry about protecting
the Tartars today. They are not here."

Simon felt as if a trapdoor had opened under his feet. "Where are they?"

The contessa shrugged. "Riding out in the hills. They left hours ago.
They took their own guards and the old Franciscan with them. He told me
they were restless."

_God's wounds!_

Simon remembered the bloody fight between the Venetians and the
Armenians. He remembered Giancarlo and his bravos. He thought about what
the contessa had just said about the enmity of the Filippeschi.

He pictured the mutilated bodies of the Tartars sprawled on a mountain
road.

"Did my French knights go with them?"

The contessa shrugged. "They are in the palazzo courtyard, practicing
with wooden swords."

Simon ground his teeth in rage.

_The idiots! Training themselves for some future battle while their
charges go off to face God knows what dangers!_

"Which road did the Tartars take? I must go after them."

The contessa was by now rather obviously annoyed at his lack of interest
in her. "I do not know. Perhaps Cardinal Paulus knows. He spoke to them
before they left."

Simon bade the contessa a polite good-bye. She insisted on embracing
him. He wondered if he had looked as foolish to Sophia as Donna Elvira
now appeared to him.

       *       *       *       *       *

For the second time that day Simon found himself sitting in a chair that
was too small for him. The back of this one came to an abrupt stop
halfway up his spine, and his shoulders ached even though he had been
sitting for only a few moments. He had taken off his gloves and tucked
them in his sword belt, and he sat with his fists clenched in his lap.

De Verceuil strode across the room and stood over Simon. "I may yet
demand that you be sent home. I cannot imagine why the Count of Anjou
entrusted such a stripling with a mission of this importance."

"Your Eminence may not approve of my visiting Cardinal Ugolini," Simon
said, keeping his voice firm, "but can you show me where I have done
wrong?" He did not want to talk about Ugolini; he wanted to find out
where the Tartars were. But de Verceuil had not even given him time to
ask.

"You could have gone wrong in a thousand ways," said de Verceuil,
staring down at Simon. "Both the king and Count Charles have confided in
you. Rashly, I believe. You might have revealed more about their
intentions than you should have."

Simon remembered how Ugolini had reacted at once to the idea that the
purpose of the alliance was to conquer Islam completely. Saying that
might indeed have been a blunder. He felt his face grow hot.

Discomfort and anger pushed Simon to his feet. De Verceuil had to take a
step backward.

"Why have you allowed the ambassadors to go riding in the hills with
only six men to escort them?" Simon demanded. "That is negligence, Your
Eminence. A good deal more dangerous than my visit to Cardinal Ugolini.
Where have they gone?"

De Verceuil whirled, the heavy gold cross on his chest swinging, and
paced to the mullioned window, then turned to face Simon again. His
face, a deep crimson, seemed to glow in the light that came in through
the translucent glass.

"Guarding the ambassadors is your responsibility, Count." He spoke in a
low, relentless tone. "I did not bother to inquire where they were
going. If you think they should not have gone out into the countryside,
you should have been here to stop them." His voice rose to a shout. "Not
waiting upon Cardinal Ugolini!"

Simon's face grew hot with shame. De Verceuil had him.

Even if he had not done anything wrong by visiting Ugolini, he should
have first made sure the ambassadors would be safe while he was gone. He
could have left explicit orders with Henri de Puys or with Alain de
Pirenne.

"I will go after them now." Simon started for the door.

"I have not dismissed you."

Rage boiled up within Simon. "I am the Count de Gobignon. Only the king
can command me."

De Verceuil crossed the room to thrust his face into Simon's once again.
"God can command you, young man, and the Cardinal-Archbishop of Verceuil
is God's spokesman. Have a care, or I doubt not God will show you how
fleeting is worldly rank."

_Is he trying to use God to threaten me?_ Simon thought, dumbfounded.

"If you overstep your bounds again," de Verceuil went on, "I promise you
my messenger will fly to the Count d'Anjou, demanding that you be
removed from this post. If the count must choose between you and me, I
have no doubt he will choose the more experienced head and the one more
influential with the pope."

"Do that," said Simon, his voice trembling with fury. "And I will make
my own report to the count."

He turned on his heel, and de Verceuil's shout of "What do you mean by
that?" was cut off by the slam of the heavy oak door.

       *       *       *       *       *

It seemed to Simon as if the air were filled with motes of gold. He, his
equerry, Thierry, and de Pirenne and de Puys were riding high on the
western slope of a mountain thickly clad with pines. Shadow drowned the
valley below. The horizon to the west was an undulating black
silhouette. From beyond that range, the platinum glow of the setting sun
dazzled his eyes.

"Look ahead, Monseigneur," said Alain, gripping Simon's shoulder and
pointing toward a dark green hill with a rounded top to the north.
Simon's stomach tightened as he saw a party of riders strung out along
the road. They rode in sunlight, and he recognized the flame-colored
tunics of the Armenians.

_At last_, he thought, sighing and smiling. The Tartars' party had
ridden far. He had followed their trail most of the afternoon, and found
them only now because they were coming back.

He squinted, trying to see the Tartars. He clucked to his palfrey and
spurred her lightly from a walk to a trot. His three companions did the
same.

Two carts with high sides lurched down the road behind the Armenians. A
single mule pulled the cart in front, two drew the second. A man in a
red tunic drove each cart. Where the devil were the Tartars? Bringing up
the rear of the party on the back of a donkey, he saw a figure in brown.
Friar Mathieu. Simon began to feel panic again.

"Do you see the Tartars?" he asked his men.

De Puys snorted. "They are probably too lazy to ride. They are sitting
in one of those carts, fancying themselves lords of the earth."

"Tartars think it unmanly to be carried when they can ride," Simon told
de Puys, annoyed at the old knight's ignorance.

"But I see horses without riders," Alain de Pirenne said. "Four of
them."

Simon squinted again and saw that each of four Armenians on horseback
was leading a riderless horse.

Even though it was a warm evening, he felt as if a sudden blast of cold
wind were blowing right through him. He sat frozen in the saddle.

_Dear God, are we too late?_

"Follow me," he snapped, kicking his palfrey hard.

Riding as quickly as they dared down the rocky, unfamiliar road, they
heard church bells chiming out the Angelus. The shadow cast by the hills
to the west rose to engulf them as they descended.

The Armenians had gathered on the other side of a meandering river at
the very bottom of the valley and seemed to be trying to decide where to
cross. Simon still saw no sign of the Tartars, but it was too dark to
make anyone out clearly.

In his dread he rode his horse straight into the river. She stumbled on
the rocky bed a time or two, and once plunged into a deep place where
she had to swim. It being the end of August, all the streams hereabout
were at their lowest level. Even so, when Simon got across he was soaked
up to his waist.

He saw the Armenians unslinging their bows and nocking arrows. "It is I,
de Gobignon!" he shouted. He heard Friar Mathieu call something to the
men, and they lowered their bows. Good that they were alert, he thought,
but what might have happened to them on the road to make them so?

He rode in among the Armenians, and felt a hollow pit in his stomach as
he saw the rich saddles on two of the riderless horses, silver and
mother-of-pearl inlays glistening even in the darkness of the forest.

"Simon!" Friar Mathieu, on donkeyback, called.

Simon turned to the nearest cart and looked in over the shoulder of the
driver, one of the Armenians, who stared at him from under heavy brows.

There, on a bed of straw, lay two bodies. They had the short, broad
build of the Tartar ambassadors. Simon's heart stopped beating.

"Mary, Mother of God!" Simon whispered. He got down from his horse.

Mathieu was beside him, gripping his arm. "Did you come looking for us,
Simon?"

Simon was sick with despair. He gestured feebly at the two bodies.

"What happened to them?"

"You might call it a mischance due to their inexperience. I tried to
warn them, but they would not heed me."

"Mischance? What sort of mischance?" Did it matter, Simon wondered, how
this had happened? He had failed utterly and absolutely, that was all
that counted. His foolish decision to go to Ugolini had led to this
disaster. Another stain on the house of Gobignon.

He put his hands to his face. "If only I had stayed with them this
morning."

Mathieu patted his arm. "Do not reproach yourself. No one will blame
you. It would probably have happened just the same even if you were
there."

Simon felt the old friar's words like a blow in the face. What shame, to
be thought so useless that even his presence would not have saved the
Tartars. But, he told himself, turning the knife in his own guts, it was
true. Anyone stupid enough to let something like this happen _would_
surely be useless in a moment of danger.

"Did you not know how dangerous these hills could be?" he asked.

"They were determined on a long ride," said Friar Mathieu. "Tartars are
used to vast distances and great spaces. You cannot imagine how
miserable they were feeling, cooped up in a hill town surrounded by a
wall on top of a rock. I felt sorry for them. In fact, I even feared for
their health."

Simon was indignant. "Feared for their health! The devil you say! Now
look at them."

Friar Mathieu squeezed Simon's arm. "Do not mention the devil. He may
come when you call. As for them"--he waved a hand at the two inert
forms in the cart--"this is embarrassing, to be sure, but we need not
blame ourselves."

"Embarrassing? Embarrassing! Is that all you call it?"

One of the bodies on the straw moved. As Simon stared, it lurched to its
knees. He heard a few slurred words in the guttural speech of the
Tartars. The figure crawled on hands and knees to the side of the cart,
lifted its head, and vomited loudly and copiously.

"They are not dead!" Simon cried.

"Dead drunk," said Friar Mathieu.

Relief was so sudden and stunning that for a moment Simon could not
breathe. He caught his breath and gasped. The gasp was followed by a
roar of laughter. Simon stood, his head thrown back, helpless with
laughter. He pressed his hands against his aching stomach.

Friar Mathieu had gone to attend the sick Tartar. He wiped the man's
face with the sleeve of his robe, went to the stream and washed the
sleeve, then came back and pressed the wet wool to the Tartar's brow.

"Can you not stop laughing?" he said on his second trip to the stream.
"The Armenians do not like you laughing at their masters."

"Dead drunk!" Simon shouted, and went into another spasm of laughter.

       *       *       *       *       *

It started innocently enough, Friar Mathieu explained as they rode back
together. He himself had proposed to take the road to Montefiascone,
along which he had heard there was a particularly impressive view of
Orvieto. Simon remembered the spot. He had been enjoying that same view
when David of Trebizond's servant--what was his name?--Giancarlo, came
along with those three heavily armed men.

The Tartars had been pleased enough with the view, but they wanted to
ride on. Friar Mathieu felt some trepidation that they might encounter
highwaymen in the hills. But he had confidence in the Armenians, too,
and so they pressed on along the mountain road.

"They observed everything and talked to each other in such low voices I
could not hear them." Mathieu turned to give Simon a pained look. "I
think they were discussing how an army might be brought through these
hills."

Simon was appalled. He pictured a Tartar army, tens of thousands of
fur-clad savages on horseback, sweeping through Umbria on its way to
Rome, burning the towns and the farms and slaughtering the people. Simon
shook his head in perplexity. If such a thing happened, he would have
helped to bring it about.

By the time the Tartars and their entourage reached the little town of
Montefiascone, Mathieu went on, in the heart of vineyard-covered hills,
they were all hungry and thirsty. They took over the inn--the black
looks cast by the Armenians were enough to drive out the other
patrons--and proceeded to drink up the host's considerable supply of
wine.

"The wine of Montefiascone is a great gift from God," Mathieu said.
"Very clear, almost as light as spring water, just a touch sweet, just a
touch tart. And the host brought it up from a stone cellar that kept it
deliciously cold. Not strong wine, actually, but the Tartars drank _all
there was_."

Friar Mathieu pointed to the young Armenian leader, Prince Hethum, who
was now riding beside Alain de Pirenne, at the head of their procession
back to Orvieto. The prince was carrying the Tartars' purse, now
somewhat less fat with gold florins. The host at the inn had been
delighted to serve his thirsty guests, but when his supply of wine was
gone, the Tartars turned ugly. Philip Uzbek, the younger Tartar, grabbed
the host by the throat. The Armenians, who were careful to drink
sparingly, fingered their bows. The innkeeper left his wife as a hostage
and went out to the nearby farms, and after a tense hour arrived back
with a cartload of wine barrels. This time the wine outlasted the
Tartars.

"They have no head for wine, you see," Mathieu said. "Poor innocent
world conquerors. They drink a beverage called kumiss, which is
fermented mare's milk. Very mild, but it satisfies their desire to get
drunk. When they conquered the civilized lands, for the first time they
could have as much wine as they wanted. They have an ungodly appetite
for it."

When the Tartar ambassadors collapsed, unconscious, Mathieu and the host
had both sighed with relief. With the Tartars' gold, Mathieu bought two
carts and three mules, and they loaded John Chagan and Philip Uzbek in
one and the remaining barrels of Montefiascone wine in the other.

"Montefiascone may be the only town in the world that can say it has
been invaded by Tartars and profited," said Mathieu. Simon laughed.

He had thought to bring flint, tinder, a lantern, and a supply of
candles with him, and now Thierry rode at the head of the party with the
lantern raised on the end of a long tree branch, giving them a little
light to follow. At least this way the Tartars would not go over a cliff
in their cart in the dark.

"If I could have found you this morning, I would have asked you to come
along and bring some of your Frenchmen," the old friar said. "But you
were meeting with Cardinal Ugolini, were you not?"

When Mathieu mentioned Ugolini, Simon immediately found himself thinking
of the cardinal's beautiful niece. He wondered, was she older than he?
How would she react if he tried to see her again? He wished he could
forget Tartars and crusaders and Saracens and devote himself to paying
court to Sophia. Of course, if he went anywhere near Ugolini's
establishment again, de Verceuil would undoubtedly think he was trying
to continue the forbidden negotiations.

"My efforts went badly," he told Friar Mathieu. Before going on, he
peered as far along the road ahead as he could see. De Pirenne and de
Puys were both riding at the head of the party, just behind Thierry with
his lantern. Hethum and the other Armenians came next, and they
understood no French. Simon and Friar Mathieu were at the end of the
line, behind the two carts. There was no risk in talking.

"Cardinal Ugolini nearly convinced me that our efforts to liberate the
Holy Land are futile. And then de Verceuil knew that I had gone to
Ugolini, and he was furious. How did he know where I had been?"

Friar Mathieu smiled. "He had you followed."

"That snake!"

The Franciscan reached over and laid his fragile hand lightly on
Simon's. "Hush, Simon. The cardinal will answer to God one day for his
worldly ways."

Simon shook his head. "I tell you, Friar Mathieu, between Ugolini's
persuasion and de Verceuil's bullying, I was nearly ready to leave
Orvieto today."

But he would not have left under any circumstances, he knew. Especially
not after meeting Sophia. He recalled her smoldering eyes and full red
lips. And her splendid breasts. Ah, no, he must stay in Orvieto and
become better acquainted with Sophia Orfali.




XVIII


A swollen yellow moon appeared over the treetops, and Simon was grateful
for its light. Now they would have less trouble following the road.

Friar Mathieu said, "It is not an easy thing for so young a man to match
wits with two powerful churchmen skilled in dialectic. I congratulate
you on doing it at all."

Simon felt a hollow in his stomach. He saw himself going back to France,
sneered at not only for his family's disgrace but for his own
incompetence.

"Our mission _must_ succeed," he said, clenching his fist. His voice
rose above the creak of the wagon wheels, surprising even himself with
his vehemence.

"God has His own ideas about what ought to succeed or fail," said Friar
Mathieu. "Do not try to take the whole burden on yourself."

"I must," said Simon, feeling tears burn his eyes.

The voice in the semidarkness beside him was soft, kindly. "Why _must_?"

"Because of who I am," Simon said in a low voice.

"What do you mean, Simon?"

_Can I tell him_, Simon wondered. Ever since, seven years ago, his
mother and Roland had told him the secret of his birth, questions of who
he really was, questions of right and wrong, had assailed him, and there
had been no one to ask. He loved his mother and he admired Roland, but
they were too close to it all. But to tell anyone else would bring
calamity down on all three of them.

There had been times during the years Simon had lived with King Louis
that the king had seemed ready to listen. But Simon had also known that
King Louis believed in doing right no matter whom it hurt.

Friar Mathieu, though, seemed to have more of a sense that life was not
a matter of simple rights and wrongs. He could see the Tartars for the
ferocious creatures they were, and yet feel kindly toward them. His
wisdom and worldly experience could help Simon sort things out.

Then, too, there was a way to bind Friar Mathieu never to speak of this
to anyone.

But when Simon tried to speak, his chest and throat were constricted by
fear, and his voice came out in a croak. He felt as if he were under a
spell to prevent him from uttering his family secrets.

"Father, may I confide in you under the seal of confession?"

The old Franciscan tugged on the reins of his donkey, so that they fell
farther behind the rest of the party. Simon slowed his palfrey to fall
back beside Mathieu.

"Is it truly a matter for confession, or just a secret?"

Simon's hands were so cold he pressed them against his palfrey's neck to
warm them. How could he tell everything to this priest he had known only
a few months? Perhaps he should just apologize and say no more.

But he thought a little longer and said, "It is a question of right and
wrong. And if I am doing wrong, I am committing a terribly grave sin."

Friar Mathieu looked around him. "Very well, then, what you tell me is
under the seal of the sacrament of confession, and I may repeat it to no
man, under penalty of eternal damnation. Make the sign of the cross and
begin."

Simon touched his fingertips to forehead, chest, and shoulders. For a
moment he hesitated, his mouth dry and his heart hammering. He had
promised his mother and Roland never to tell anyone about this.

_But I must! I cannot have it festering inside me for the rest of my
life._

What, though, if Friar Mathieu disappointed him? What if he had nothing
useful, or even comforting to say on learning Simon's secret? Well,
there was a way to test him.

The secret was really twofold. One part of it was terrible enough, but
already known to the king and queen and many knights who had been on the
last crusade. Simon could tell Friar Mathieu the lesser secret safely
enough, then weigh his response and decide whether to tell him what was
known to only three people in the world.

"I said I must make this mission succeed because of who I am. What have
you heard about the last Count de Gobignon?"

By now the moon had risen high, and Simon could see the old Franciscan's
face quite clearly. Friar Mathieu frowned and stroked his long white
beard.

"Very little, I am afraid. He was a very great landowner, one of the
five Peers of the Realm, as you are now, and he was zealous in putting
down the Cathar heretics in Languedoc." He cast a pained look at Simon.
"I spent the years when your father was prominent wandering the roads as
a beggar, then studying for the priesthood, and I am afraid I paid very
little attention to what was happening in the world."

Friar Mathieu's reply brought a sad smile to Simon's lips.

"That you, like most people, know so little of Amalric de Gobignon I owe
to the generosity of King Louis and those close to him. The man whose
name I inherited was a murderer, an archtraitor, a Judas. But when King
Louis came back from that failed crusade in Egypt, he decreed that Count
Amalric's deeds not be made known."

"I well remember my horror when I heard that the king was captured and
his army destroyed," said Friar Mathieu. "I fell on my knees in the
road, weeping, and prayed for him and the queen and the other captives.
What joy when we learned they were ransomed and would be coming back to
us."

"It was Count Amalric's treachery that caused the calamity." It seemed
to Simon that Nicolette, his mother, and her husband, Roland, had told
him the story hundreds of times. They wanted him to know it by heart.

"He believed that the Cathars had murdered his father, Count Stephen de
Gobignon, my grandfather," Simon went on. "King Louis advocated mercy
toward heretics. Count Amalric had a brother, Hugues, a Dominican
inquisitor, who was killed before his very eyes by an assassin's arrow
in Béziers while he was presiding over the burning of Cathars."

"Ah, those heresy-hunting Dominicans." Friar Mathieu shook his head.

"When Hugues was killed, Count Amalric blamed the king's leniency toward
heretics. After that, it seems, a madness possessed the count. He came
to believe he could overthrow the king and take his throne."

"He must have been mad," said Friar Mathieu. "Never has a King of France
been so loved as this Louis."

"Count Amalric went on crusade with King Louis, taking my mother,
Countess Nicolette, along with him, even as King Louis took Queen
Marguerite. I was a very young child then. They left me in the keeping
of my mother's sisters. The crusaders captured Damietta, at the mouth of
the Nile, left the noncombatants there and marched southward toward
Cairo."

Simon hesitated, feeling himself choke up again. These were the crimes
of the man everyone believed was his father. It was agony to give voice
to them.

But he plunged on. "At a city called Mansura, Count Amalric led part of
his own army into a trap, and most were killed. He tricked the rest of
the army, including the king, into surrendering to the Mamelukes. He
alone escaped. He went to Damietta, supposedly to take charge of the
defense. He made a secret promise to the Sultan of Cairo to deliver
Damietta, together with the ransom money, if the sultan would slay the
king and all the other captive crusaders."

Friar Mathieu gasped. "Why in God's name would a French nobleman do such
dreadful things?"

"With the king and his brothers dead, he would be the most powerful man
in France," said Simon. "He might have succeeded, but for two things.
First, the Mameluke emirs, led by the same Baibars who now rules Egypt,
rose in revolt and killed the sultan with whom Count Amalric was
bargaining. Baibars and the Mamelukes preferred to deal honorably with
their prisoners."

"Ah, yes, Baibars," Friar Mathieu nodded. "The Tartars hate him and all
of Outremer fears him."

"And then a knight-troubadour captured along with the king, one who had
an old grudge against the Count de Gobignon, offered to go to Damietta
and meet the count in single combat. After a fierce combat he slew Count
Amalric. The king and the surviving crusaders were saved and they
ransomed themselves. The troubadour's name was Roland de Vency."

"I never heard of him," said Friar Mathieu.

"No, just as you never heard of Count Amalric's treason. The king wanted
the whole episode buried in an unmarked grave along with the count."

There was silence between them for a moment. Simon listened to the cart
wheels creak and looked up at the moon painting the Umbrian hillsides
silver. Soon they would round a bend and see the lights of Orvieto.

Simon, torn by anguish, wondered what Friar Mathieu thought of him. Did
he despise him, as so many great nobles did? He remembered that Friar
Mathieu had once been a knight himself. How could he not hate a man with
Amalric de Gobignon's blood in him? His muscles knotted as he waited to
hear what Friar Mathieu would say.

He looked at the old Franciscan and saw sadness in his watery eyes.

"But what happened does not lie buried, much as the king and you would
wish it to."

Simon felt tears sting his eyes and a lump grow in his throat. He
remembered the sneers, the slights, the whispers he had endured. Such
heartbreaking moments were among his earliest memories.

He shook his head miserably. "No. What happened has never been
forgotten."

"You are ashamed of the name you bear." The kindness in Friar Mathieu's
voice evoked a warm feeling in Simon's breast.

_I was not mistaken in him._

"You are--how old--twenty?"

Simon nodded.

"At your age most men, especially those like you with vast estates and
great responsibilities, are married or at least plighted."

Pain poured out with Simon's words. "I have been rebuffed twice. The
name of de Gobignon is irrevocably tainted."

Friar Mathieu rubbed the back of his donkey's neck thoughtfully.
"Evidently the king does not think so, or he would not have honored you
with so important a task."

"He did everything possible to help me. When my mother and my
grandmother fought over who should have the rearing of me, the king
settled it by making himself my guardian and taking me to live in the
palace. Then his brother, Count Charles d'Anjou, took me for a time as
his equerry."

"Why did your mother and grandmother fight over you?"

The hollow of dread in Simon's middle grew huge. Now they were coming to
the deepest secret of all.

"My mother married the troubadour, Roland de Vency. My grandmother,
Count Amalric's mother, could never accept as a father to me the man who
slew her son."

He felt dizzy with pain, remembering his grandmother's screams of rage,
his mother's weeping, Roland facing the sword points of a dozen
men-at-arms, long, mysterious journeys, hours of doing nothing in empty
rooms while, somewhere nearby, people argued over his fate. God, it had
been horrible!

Friar Mathieu reached out from the back of his donkey and laid a
comforting hand on Simon's arm. "Ah, I understand you better now.
Carrying this family shame, fought over in childhood, no real parents to
live with. And the burden of all that wealth and power."

Simon laughed bitterly. "Burden! Few men would think wealth and power a
burden."

Friar Mathieu chuckled. "No, of course not. But you know better, do you
not? You have already realized that you must work constantly to use
rightly what you have, or it will destroy you as it destroyed your
father."

_Yes, but ..._

Simon thought of the endless fields and forests of the Gobignon domain
in the north, what pleasure it was to ride through them on the hunt. How
the unquestioning respect of vassals and serfs eased his doubts of
himself. He thought of the complaisant village and peasant girls who
happily helped him forget that no woman of noble blood would marry him.
He reminded himself that only three or four men in all the world were in
a position to tell him what to do. No, if only the name he bore were
free of the accursed stain of treachery, he would be perfectly happy to
be the Count de Gobignon.

Friar Mathieu broke in on his thoughts. "You feel you must do something
grand and noble to make up for your father's wickedness. Listen: A man
can live only his own life. The name de Gobignon, what is it? A puff of
air. A scribble on a sheet of parchment. You are not your name. You are
not Simon de Gobignon."

Simon's blood turned to ice. _Does he know?_

But then he realized Friar Mathieu was speaking only figuratively.

"But men of great families scorn me because I bear the name de
Gobignon," he said. "I will have to live out my life in disgrace."

"God respects you," said Friar Mathieu quietly and intensely. "Weighed
against that, the opinion of men is nothing."

_That is true_, Simon thought, and great chains that had weighed him
down as long as he could remember suddenly fell away. He felt himself
gasping for breath.

Friar Mathieu continued. "The beauty of my vows is that with their help
I have come to know who I truly am. I have given up my name, my
possessions, the love of women, my worldly position. You need not give
up all those things. But if you can part with them in your mind, you can
come to know yourself as God knows you. You can see that you are not
what people think of you."

Tears of joy burned Simon's eyelids. _Thank you, God, for allowing me to
meet this man._

"Yes," Simon whispered. "Yes, I understand."

"But," said Friar Mathieu, a note of light reproof in his voice, "I know
you have not told me everything."

Caught by surprise, Simon was thankful that the lantern up ahead started
swinging from right to left, a ball of light against the stars.

De Pirenne's voice came back faintly to Simon. "Orvieto!"

From the cart in front of Simon, the one carrying the Tartars, came the
sound of loud snoring. An Armenian chuckled and said something in a
humorous tone, and the others laughed. Simon pretended to be intensely
interested in what the Armenians were saying and in the view up ahead.

"Simon," said Friar Mathieu.

_If he has relieved me of one burden, can he not take away the other,
the greater?_

"Patience, Father. We are coming to the spot where the road bends around
the mountain, and we will be able to see Orvieto. Everyone will be
gathering to rest a bit. Let us wait until we are spread out on the road
again."

Friar Mathieu shrugged. "As you wish."

Across the valley the silhouette of Orvieto loomed like an enchanted
castle against the moonlit sky. The yellow squares of candlelit windows
glowed among the dark turrets and terraces. The tall, narrow windows of
the cathedral church of San Giovenale were multicolored ribbons of
light. Simon found himself wondering where Sophia, the cardinal's niece,
was right now, and what she was doing.

When they were stopped by the shrine of San Sebastian, Simon took the
lantern and peered down at the Tartars. The stench of wine and vomit
hung heavily over their bed of straw, and both of them were snoring
loudly. Aside from being in a stupor, they seemed well enough. The
stringy black beard of the younger one, Philip, was clotted with bits of
half-digested food. Friar Mathieu produced a comb from his robe and
cleaned the beard. Simon rode to the head of the party.

"What are you and the old monk gabbling about back there?" asked Alain.

"He is hearing my confession," said Simon lightly.

Alain laughed. "If you have done anything you need to confess, you've
been clever about hiding it from me."

When they were back on the road, Simon and Friar Mathieu took up their
position at the end of the line.

"How did you know there was more, Father?"

"You asked me to keep what you have told me secret under the seal of the
confessional," said Friar Mathieu. "But you have told me nothing that is
a sin on your part."

Guilt pierced Simon's heart like a sword, twisting in the wound as he
thought how he was betraying his true father and his mother.

_I have sworn to Nicolette and Roland never to tell this to anyone._

He took a deep breath.

_But I may never again have a chance to talk about it with a wise person
I can trust._

Another deep breath.

And then: "The truth of it is, Amalric de Gobignon was not my father."

Friar Mathieu was silent for a moment. "The man who slew Count Amalric.
The man your mother married soon after the count was dead." His voice
was soft and full of kindness.

"Yes," said Simon, almost choking. "And now you know my sin. The world
thinks I am the son of a traitor and murderer, which is bad enough. But
I am not even that man's son. I am an impostor, a bastard, and I have no
right to the title of Count de Gobignon."

Simon flicked the reins, and his palfrey started picking her way down
the road into the Vallia de Campesito. Mathieu clucked to his donkey and
kept pace with him.

"Do you believe that you are committing a grave sin by being the Count
de Gobignon?"

"My mother and Roland say no, but I do not think they are very good
Christians. They are full of pagan ideas. I am Count Amalric's only male
heir. And the blood of the house of Gobignon does flow in my veins. I am
not the son of Count Amalric de Gobignon, but I am the grandson of his
father, Count Stephen de Gobignon."

Friar Mathieu clapped his hand to his forehead. "I am lost in the tangle
of bloodlines. What in heaven's name do you mean?"

Simon's entire body burned with shame as he thought how accursed his
family would seem to anyone hearing this for the first time. The bastard
son of a bastard son. The usurper of his half uncle's title. Tangled,
indeed. Twisted was a better word for it.

In his agony he whispered the words. "Roland de Vency, my true father,
is the bastard son of Count Stephen de Gobignon, sired by rape in
Languedoc. Roland and Count Amalric were half brothers."

"God's mercy!" exclaimed Friar Mathieu. "But then you do have some claim
by blood to the title. To whom else could it go?"

"I suppose the fiefdom could go to my oldest sister, Isabelle, and her
husband. He is a landless knight, a vassal of the Count of Artois. My
three sisters married far beneath their stations--because of what Count
Amalric did."

Friar Mathieu sighed. "Would any great evil come of it, do you think, if
you were to give up your estate?"

"My mother and father--my true father, Roland de Vency--would be exposed
as adulterers. We would all be charged as criminals, for defrauding the
kingdom and the rightful heirs, whoever they might be." He saw his
mother kneeling with her head on a chopping block, and a chill of horror
went through him.

"Simon, this is no easy question you have set before me this night. The
lives of thousands of people, even the future of the kingdom, could be
determined by who holds the Gobignon domains. I think it is not so
important that the Count de Gobignon be the _rightful_ person as that he
be the _right_ person. Do you take my meaning?"

"I think so," said Simon. What Friar Mathieu was saying gave him a faint
feeling of hope.

"I know you well enough to know that the people of Gobignon are blessed
to have you as their seigneur. When a bad man inherits a title, we say
it must be God's will, and those who owe him obedience are bound to
accept him. Might we not say that when a man like you is invested with a
title, regardless of how he came by it, that is God's will, too? In any
case, Simon, we cannot settle this question tonight. There is too much
at stake, and we must proceed thoughtfully."

"But what if--if something happens to me while I am in sin?" Simon
pictured himself lying in a street in Orvieto, blood streaming from his
chest as Sophia watched, weeping, from a distant window. And then he saw
grinning Saracen-faced demons in hell jabbing him with spears and
scimitars.

"I can give you absolution conditional on your desire to do whatever is
right," said Friar Mathieu. "Promise God that you will make all haste to
determine His will in this matter and that when you know what He wants,
you will faithfully do it, whether it be to give up the title or to keep
the title and the secret. I need hardly remind you that God sees into
your heart and knows whether you truly mean to set things right. Say an
Act of Contrition."

The weight of shame seemed as crushing as ever, and Simon did not think
Friar Mathieu's speaking Latin words while he himself spoke the formula
of repentance would take the burden away. But he began the Act of
Contrition.

His voice as he uttered the prayer was barely audible over the clicking
of the horses' hooves on the stony road, the rumbling of the two carts
and the rustling of the pines on the hillside. He repeated what Friar
Mathieu had said to him about being ready to follow God's will. Then the
old Franciscan made the Sign of the Cross in the air.

The road narrowed now so that there was not enough room for horses side
by side. Simon fell behind Friar Mathieu.

_Roland and Nicolette need never know I told anyone._

The only way they would find out would be if he felt called upon to
reveal the secret to the world.

He felt as if his whole body were plunged into icy water. He realized
that by his promise to Friar Mathieu--to God--he was embarked on a
course that could end in ruin or worse for his mother and father as well
as himself. Their pretense that Simon was Amalric's child was a crime.
He saw them all brought as prisoners before King Louis.

How could he bear to face the king, whom he admired more than any other
man in France, even more than his own true father?

What punishment would the king mete out to them? Would they spend the
rest of their lives locked away in lightless dungeons? Would they have
to die for their crime?

Surely God would not ask that of him.

And then, Simon might decide, with God's help, that he had the best
right of anyone to the count's coronet. If he kept it, and kept the
secret of his parentage, it would be through his own choice. No mortal
would thrust that choice upon him.

He began to feel better. He started humming a tune, an old crusader song
Roland had taught him, called "The Old Man of the Mountain."

Until now other hands had shaped his life. From this moment on he would
hold his destiny in his own hands.

       *       *       *       *       *

"May I disturb you for a moment, Your Signory, before you retire?" The
Contessa di Monaldeschi's chief steward was a severe-looking man with
long white hair streaked with black.

Simon had just set foot to the steps leading to the third story of the
Monaldeschi palace, where his bedchamber waited. He most definitely did
not want to be disturbed this evening. But the steward had shown gravity
and discretion arranging for the drunken Tartars to be bundled off to
bed, and Simon felt that whatever he might say would be worth listening
to.

"Late this afternoon a vagabondo came to our door. He claims to be a
former retainer of yours. He begs an audience with you--most humbly, he
says to tell you. He waits in the kitchen. We can keep him till
tomorrow. Or we can put him out in the street. Or you can see him.
Whatever Your Signory desires."

A former retainer? A sour suspicion began to grow in Simon's mind.

"Did he at least tell you his name?"

"Yes, Your Signory. Sordello."

Simon felt hot blood pounding at his temples in immediate anger.

_Has that dog had the temerity to follow me all the way to Orvieto?_

"Send him away," he said brusquely. "And do not be gentle about it."

The steward's stern face remained expressionless. "Very good, Your
Signory." He bowed himself away. A good servant, thought Simon. He
showed neither approval nor disapproval. Simon started up the stairs.

_What the devil could Sordello have to talk to me about?_

_Do not call upon the devil. He may hear you and come._

Halfway up the stairs Simon felt the itch of curiosity growing stronger
and stronger. Perhaps Sordello had been to see Count Charles and had
some word from him. The feeling was like a scab Simon knew he should not
pick but could not let alone.

He turned. The steward was almost invisible in the shadows at the end of
the long hallway.

"Wait. I will go to him."

       *       *       *       *       *

In the kitchen on the bottom floor of the Palazzo Monaldeschi, under a
chimney in the center of the room, a cauldron big enough to hold a man
simmered over a low fire. From it came a strong smell of lamb, chicken,
onion, celery, peppers, garlic, cloves, and other ingredients Simon
could not identify. Beyond the cauldron a trapdoor covered the stairs to
a locked cellar pantry where, Simon knew, the Monaldeschi hoarded
possessions as costly as jewels--their collection of spices imported
from the East.

Simon had just a glimpse of the ruddy face with its broken nose before
the crossbowman-troubadour fell to his knees and thumped his forehead on
the brick floor.

_Perhaps I could pop Sordello into that cooking pot and be done with him
for good and all._

"Thank you, Your Signory, for being willing to see me," came the muffled
voice from the floor. "You are far kinder than I deserve."

"Yes, I am," said Simon brusquely. "Get up. Why have you come to me?"

Sordello rocked back on his heels and sprang to his feet in a single,
surprising motion. Simon told himself to be wary. It was all very well
to be gruff with Sordello, but he must keep in mind that the man was a
fighter, a murderer. And one with a vile and overquick temper, as he had
proved in Venice.

"I have no one else to go to." Sordello spread his empty hands. He had
grown a short, ragged black beard, Simon noticed. He wore no hat or
cloak, and his tunic and hose were stained and tattered. His tunic hung
loose, unbelted. No weapons. That made Simon feel a bit easier. The toe
of one boot was worn through, and the other was bound with a bit of rag
to hold the sole to the upper.

"I thought you would see the Count d'Anjou." And Simon had half expected
Uncle Charles would send Sordello back with a message insisting Simon
take the fellow back into his service.

Sordello laughed and nodded. "Easy to say 'see the Count d'Anjou,' Your
Signory. Not so easy to do when you are a masterless man with an empty
purse. The count likes to move about, and quickly at that. But I caught
up with him at Lyons. He already knew the whole story."

"I wrote to him," said Simon.

"Well, your letter must have been most eloquent, Your Signory, because
the count refused to take me back into his service. He called me a fool
and a few other things and told me I deserved exactly what I got. Told
me if I wasn't out of the city in an hour he would have me flogged."

"I assumed that the count reposed great confidence in you, and I felt I
must convince him that I had done the right thing in dismissing you."
He sounded in his own ears as if he were apologizing. He reminded
himself firmly that the scoundrel had no right to an apology.

"You convinced him, all right." Sordello's manner was becoming less
humble by the moment.

_He is either going to attack me or--worse--ask for his position back. I
must not be soft with him._

"Once a man as well known as the Count d'Anjou has expelled you from his
service, you can't find a position anywhere in France or Italy," said
Sordello. "Not if your only skills are fighting and singing. I sold my
horse in Milan. I walked from there on. I ran out of money in Pisa. I
starved and slept in ditches to get here."

"And stole here and there, too, I'll wager," said Simon, determined to
be hard with Sordello. "Well, here you are, and why have you come?" He
knew the answer perfectly well, and was determined, no matter how the
troubadour tried to play on his sympathies, to send him on his way. Even
if he had wanted to take Sordello back into his service--and he most
definitely did not--the Armenians and the Tartars would never permit his
presence among them. At any rate, regardless of what Sordello claimed,
he would not starve. He could sing for his supper in inns. And Italy's
street-warring families and factions could always use a dagger as quick
as Sordello's.

"I could throw my lot in with the Ghibellini, Your Signory, but their
prospects are poor," said Sordello, as if aware of Simon's thoughts.
"The day is coming when all of Italy will be in the power of the Count
d'Anjou. I want to get back into his good graces, and the only way I can
do that is through you, Your Signory. If you take me back, he will take
me back."

_David of Trebizond's servant, Giancarlo! Just today, was I not wishing
I could put someone in the enemy camp?_

Simon stood staring into Sordello's eyes, deliberately making him wait
for an answer. The troubadour's eyelids wrinkled down to slits, but he
held Simon's gaze.

"I was going to tell you I had nothing for you." Simon saw Sordello's
face brighten at the hint that Simon would offer him something. "But
there is a way you can serve me."

Sordello began to smile.

"It does involve throwing your lot in with the Ghibellini," Simon said,
"but you will be serving me and, through me, Count Charles. Does that
interest you?"

Sordello dropped to his knees, seized Simon's hand, and kissed it with
rough lips. "To spy upon them? Your Signory, I was made for such work.
Thank you, thank you for letting me serve you. Command me, Your Signory,
I beg."




XIX


"Are there any great collections of books in Trebizond?" Fra Tomasso
leaned forward intently, and his belly, swathed in the white linen robe
of his order, pushed the small black writing desk toward Daoud.

Fra Tomasso's dialect was easy for Daoud to understand. It was the same
as Lorenzo's, since the friar came from southern Italy. It was the
dialect Daoud had learned in Egypt.

But in another sense, conversing with d'Aquino was not at all easy. His
body tense, Daoud sat on the edge of his chair, alert for any question
that might be meant to trap him. And at the same time, he burned for a
chance to persuade the stout Dominican to oppose the Tartar alliance. He
was both hunted and hunter today.

"Yes, Father. The basileus of Trebizond--the emperor--has the biggest
library, with the monks of Mount Gelesias not far behind. Several of the
great families have large collections of very old manuscripts. I am
afraid I cannot tell you what is in any of those libraries. I know more
about spices and silks than I do about books. Is there a particular book
you are interested in?"

Daoud, relieved, watched the round face glow as the Dominican seemed to
relish the possibilities. It would never have done to admit it to
Ugolini, but Daoud was not without fear. He realized that a slip might
lead to his arrest and torture, the end of his mission, and, finally,
death. His head had begun to ache from the effort of posing and
answering all questions with care.

But now he sensed a way of reaching d'Aquino. More than anything else,
the man would want books--books that would help him write more books of
his own. Perhaps his huge physical appetite was but a reflection of his
hunger for knowledge.

"Ah, Messer David." He smiled, and Daoud realized that his mouth was not
small--it only looked small because of the round cheeks on either side
of it. "There is one book I have heard of that I would give everything I
possess--if I possessed anything--to own. You are familiar with _the_
philosopher, Aristotle?"

Daoud nodded. How wise it had been of Baibars, he thought, to command
him to spend months with a mullah from Andalus who was versed in the
philosophies of the Christians and of their Greek and Roman
predecessors. Daoud had even read works by Aristotle in Arabic.

"Much of my work, like that of my colleagues, is based on the writings
of Aristotle," d'Aquino went on. "He has been called the Master of Those
Who Know. I call him _the_ philosopher. His thought encompassed every
subject under the sun--and the sun itself, I believe. The ancient
writers refer to a book by Aristotle called in Latin _De Caelestiis, Of
the Heavens_. In it _the_ philosopher writes about the movement of
heavenly bodies, the sun, the stars, and the planets, and their
relations with one another. That book disappeared during the long wars
that led to the downfall of the Roman Empire. Every time I meet a
traveler from some distant part of the world, I ask him about _De
Caelestiis_."

"Does it tell how the planets rule men's fates?" Daoud asked.

"That is a ridiculous, irrational, and superstitious notion." Fra
Tomasso waved the suggestion away with a stubby-fingered hand. Daoud
felt a cold wave of terror. Had he said something that gave him away?

But Fra Tomasso, leaning back in his squeaking chair, seemed
unperturbed. And Daoud remembered that Ugolini studied the influence of
the stars on human lives. So it could not be such an un-Christian
belief.

The Dominican pointed over his shoulder to the window of his cell, a
large rectangle cut in the curving whitewashed wall. This was one of the
few rooms Daoud had entered in Italy that was not covered with
idolatrous or obscene paintings, and he liked its austerity. Except, of
course, for the ubiquitous figure of Jesus the Messiah, crucified,
hanging opposite the window. Daoud tried to avoid looking at the
crucifixes because they reminded him of his childhood, but they were
everywhere in Orvieto.

"Aristotle reasoned about the relations of the heavenly bodies to one
another," Fra Tomasso said. "One account of the _De Caelestiis_ declares
that he believed that the sun does not move."

"But we see it move," Daoud said, surprised.

"We think we see it move." D'Aquino smiled. "But have you ever stood on
the deck of a galley as it was pulling away from the quay and had the
feeling that the quay was moving while the ship was standing still? Well
then, what if the earth is moving, just like a ship on whose deck we
stand, while the sun remains fixed?"

Daoud thought about the vast and solid earth and the daily journey of
the sun like a bright lamp across the sky. It was self-evident which one
of them moved. But he sensed that Fra Tomasso was in love with this
idea. He had best not argue too strenuously against it.

"Ingenious," he said.

_Ridiculous_, he thought to himself. _This man dismisses astrology and
approves greater absurdities._

"I myself suspected that the sun might be stationary while the earth
moves long before I learned that Aristotle might also believe so." Fra
Tomasso waved a hand toward the window again. His cell was the top floor
of one of the towers fortifying the Dominican chapter house, an anthill
of constant, mysterious activity. D'Aquino's window overlooked the north
side of Orvieto's wall. There was no covering on the window, and the
shutters were open to let in the cool mountain air. Daoud gazed upon the
rolling hills, bright green in the sunlight, beyond Orvieto's
battlements. This was a lovely country, he thought. Back in Egypt the
hills would be brown this time of year.

"Look how much light and heat we get from the sun," Fra Tomasso went on.
"Yet, the sun appears small--I can hide it with my thumb."

_Your thumb could hide four or five suns._

"Perhaps it _is_ small," Daoud said.

"If it is as big as it must be to produce such light and heat, it must
be very far away--thousands of leagues--to appear so small. But if it is
that far away, it must be bigger still, for its heat and light to travel
such a distance. The bigger it is, the farther away it must be--the
farther away it is, the bigger it must be. Do you follow? There must be
a strict rule of proportion."

Daoud told himself to ignore this nonsense and concentrate on the
important thing--that Fra Tomasso badly wanted a book by this pagan
philosopher Aristotle. That book might be the means of winning Fra
Tomasso. Not that he could be crudely bribed, but certainly such a
present would favorably dispose him to what Daoud had to say.

And he saw another way to make the point he had come to make.

"It may be, Your Reverence, that the book you want has been lost
forever. When I spoke of the destruction of Baghdad the other day, I
should have mentioned that the Tartars burned there a library rivaled
only by the great library of Alexandria in its prime."

His flesh turned cold. That was a mistake. In his zeal he had
momentarily forgotten that it was Christians who had destroyed the
library of Alexandria. As the story was often told in Egypt, when the
Muslim warriors took Alexandria from the Christians, they found that
most of what had once been the world's greatest collection of books had
been used to fuel the fires that warmed the public baths.

But, to Daoud's relief, Fra Tomasso only shut his eyes and shook his
head, his cheeks quivering gently like a bowl of frumenty. "God forgive
the Tartars."

"God will certainly not forgive _us_, Fra Tomasso, if we help the
Tartars to destroy Damascus and Cairo. Or Trebizond and Constantinople."

The Dominican opened his eyes wide. "Constantinople?"

"In the Far East they have taken greater cities and conquered much
larger empires."

Fra Tomasso crossed himself. "But it is God's will, even as Augustine
tells us, that cities be destroyed and empires rise and fall. The
Tartars may be the builders of a Christian empire that embraces the
whole world."

_God forbid it!_ Daoud was becoming exasperated with the fat Dominican's
"perhapses" and "maybes." _Perhaps the earth moves and the sun stands
still. Maybe the Tartars are God's means of making the whole world
Christian._

He warned himself not to let his anger show. This might seem to be a
pleasant conversation, but actually he was tiptoeing around the edge of
a pit of quicksand.

Still, if this clever, restless mind could be recruited to work against
the alliance, how persuasive it would be. Daoud had already noticed that
most of the leaders of Christendom listened when d'Aquino spoke. But
Daoud dared not argue against the belief that God decided the fate of
nations. He recalled a teaching of his Sufi master, Sheikh Saadi. He
framed it in his mind to offer to d'Aquino.

"Your Reverence, truly we must accept as the will of God that which has
happened. But to think we can guess what God wills for the future is
sinful pride. We can be guided only by the knowledge of right and wrong
He has implanted in us."

D'Aquino let his folded hands rest on the great sphere of his belly. His
blue eyes gazed off at a point somewhere behind Daoud, whose muscles
tightened as he waited for the friar to speak. He watched through the
open window as a flock of crows circled in the deep-blue sky. They chose
a direction and dwindled to a cloud of black dots over the green hills.

Daoud realized he had been holding his breath. He let it out just as the
last crow disappeared.

"That is well stated," said Fra Tomasso. "I can find no objection to
that."

Elated, Daoud pressed on. "And it follows that if we think the Tartar
destruction of civilization is wrong, we must fight against it." He
hoped he did not sound too eager. D'Aquino would surely be suspicious if
he saw how badly Daoud wanted his cooperation.

"I will have to consider that," said Fra Tomasso judiciously. "But
perhaps we could teach the Tartars the value of civilization. If we made
allies of them, we could make it a condition that they not destroy any
more of the great cities of the Muslim world. Indeed, our missionaries
will be among them. They can point out what should be saved."

Daoud's breathing quickened as rage rumbled up inside him. It sounded
exactly as if Fra Tomasso meant that the Tartars could slaughter all the
people of Islam as long as they left the libraries intact. Using the
Hashishiyya technique called "the Face of Steel within the Mask of
Clay," he walled off his anger.

He would not contradict Fra Tomasso's last idea. He would try instead to
make the beginning of a bargain.

"Those libraries of Trebizond you asked me about," Daoud said. "I am
sure there are many books in them that exist nowhere else in the world.
Perhaps even the book you mentioned, that rare book of Aristotle. Would
you write down its name for me, Fra Tomasso? I will inquire about it in
my next report to my trading partners."

The Dominican leaned forward until most of his belly disappeared below
the horizon of his desk. In that position he was able to pull the desk
closer and search it for a blank slip of parchment. He dipped his quill
ceremoniously in his inkpot, wrote briefly, then carefully poured fine
white sand from a jar to absorb the excess ink. Daoud rose to take the
parchment from him.

_Now, if only such a book exists somewhere in the lands where Baibars's
power runs. And if only the weather on the Middle Sea allows us to get
the book here quickly. And if only it has the effect on Fra Tomasso that
I want._

So many ifs. Far too many. The outcome of a battle would be easier to
predict. For the thousandth time Daoud wished he were leading troops in
the field rather than intriguing in the chambers of enemy leaders.

"I understand it will be possible to meet the two Tartars when the
Contessa di Monaldeschi gives a reception in their honor next week,"
said Daoud. "Will Your Reverence be attending?"

Fra Tomasso nodded. "But I also intend to talk with them privately as I
have with you." Daoud tensed inwardly as he heard that. "It will be
interesting, though, to see how they comport themselves in a gathering,"
the Dominican went on. "Yes, I shall come to the contessa's. And you?"

"As Cardinal Ugolini's guest," said Daoud with modesty. "And what of the
execution of the heretic who threatened the ambassadors in the
cathedral? Will Your Reverence witness that? I understand it should be a
most edifying spectacle." He folded Fra Tomasso's bit of parchment and
thrust it into the pouch at his belt.

Fra Tomasso shook his head. "The good of the community demands that we
make an example of the poor creature. He refuses to admit his errors.
Still, I cannot stand to see a fellow human being suffer. I will not be
there."

So, thought Daoud contemptuously, the fat Dominican was one of those who
could justify the shedding of blood but could not stand to see it shed.
And in the same way, d'Aquino might decide to be for war or for peace
and never see the consequences of his decision. Daoud might wish to lead
troops in battle, but he reminded himself that it was in studios like
this, where men of influence thought and read and argued, that the real
war was being fought.




XX


The madman had a loud voice. Daoud could hear him long before he could
see the victim and his torturers. The people around Daoud jostled and
craned their necks toward the sound of the screams.

The heretic, in accordance with his sentence, had been dragged through
every street in the city and tormented at every intersection, but most
of Orvieto's citizens had been waiting in the Piazza San Giovenale to
see his final agonies before the cathedral he had desecrated. The piazza
was so packed with people it seemed not another person could squeeze in.

Daoud had positioned himself at the foot of the front steps of the
cathedral. He faced a wooden platform, newly built in the center of the
piazza, on four legs twice the height of a man. Above the platform rose
a tall pole. The whole structure was of white wood, unseasoned and
unpainted--which was only sensible, since it would shortly be destroyed.
Bundles of firewood were piled under it.

Daoud's arms were wedged so tightly to his side by the crowd of people
standing about him that it was an effort for him to wipe his face with
his sleeve. He had expected Italy to be cooler than Egypt now, in the
middle of the Christian month of September, but the damp heat of summer
lingered. Thick gray clouds hung low over the city. Sweat streamed from
under Daoud's red velvet cap, and he wished he could wear a turban or a
burnoose to keep his forehead cool and dry.

At the top of the cathedral steps, in a space cleared by papal guards,
stood six red-robed cardinals. Ugolini was among them. He had not wanted
to witness the execution, but Daoud had persuaded him to go. His
presence, like Daoud's, might counter the suspicion that those who
opposed the alliance with the Tartars were connected with the
disturbances against them.

Near Ugolini stood Cardinal Paulus de Verceuil, the Tartars' chief
supporter in the Sacred College, in a scarlet robe trimmed with ermine,
and a broad-brimmed red hat. He looked disdainfully down at another
cardinal who Ugolini had pointed out to Daoud as Guy le Gros, also a
Frenchman. Every so often de Verceuil would cock an ear to the screams,
which were coming closer, or he would glance that way with bright, eager
eyes.

Behind the cardinals stood a man-at-arms holding a staff bearing the
pope's standard, a gold and white banner blazoned with the crossed keys
of Peter in red. Ugolini had learned from the pope's majordomo that His
Holiness would not attend. Like Fra Tomasso, Urban had neither need nor
desire to see this execution.

One who did have to witness the torture and death of the heretic stood
with folded arms on the cathedral steps. He was stocky and much shorter
than the two guards in yellow and blue, the city colors, who stood
holding halberds on either side of him. His face was grim, and there
were deep shadows around his eyes. A small, thin mustache adorned his
upper lip. Daoud knew him to be Frescobaldo d'Ucello, podesta of
Orvieto.

Daoud's eye moved on. There was the young hero, the man who had captured
the would-be assassin. Count Simon de Gobignon stood a little apart from
the churchmen and the podesta, speaking to no one. It seemed he had
brought none of his Frankish henchmen with him. The black velvet cap he
wore and his long dark-brown hair contrasted with the pallor of his thin
face. His dress was rich but somber, his silk mantle a deep maroon, his
tunic purple. His gloved left hand played nervously with the hilt of his
sword, that very sword that had stricken the blade from the heretic's
hand.

It was surprising, Daoud thought, that the count's sword was a long,
curving scimitar with a jeweled scabbard and hilt. What was the boy
doing with a Muslim sword? A trophy of some past crusade, no doubt.

_Not enjoying your triumph here today, are you, young Frank? Born to
rank and power and wealth, with castles and knights and servants and
lands all around you. You have probably never seen a battle, much less
fought in one. And yet, knowing not what war is, you try to bring
together the Tartar hordes and your crusader knights that they may lay
waste my country, kill my people, and stamp out my faith._

Recalling how he and de Gobignon had faced each other at the pope's
council, Daoud once again felt rage boil up within him and wondered why
he hated the young nobleman so. Was it because he intended to use
Sophia to spy on de Gobignon and corrupt him, and that she must bed with
him? But that was her work, Daoud tried to tell himself, just as warfare
was his.

But was this warfare? To pander to a fat friar's yearning for an old
book? To send a lovely woman to the bed of a spoiled young nobleman? To
incite a poor fool, maddened by God, into getting himself tortured to
death? Daoud wished he could fight openly--draw his sword and challenge
de Gobignon. To drive him to his knees, to cut him down, to strike and
strike for the people he loved and for God.

_To kill him before all, as I did to Kassar._

Daoud, like de Gobignon, was alone. Lorenzo dared not come; the
condemned man might recognize him and call out to him. Daoud would never
bring Sophia to witness such a sight, even though there were many women,
and even children, in the crowd.

The previous night Tilia had told him that she had rented for the day a
house overlooking the piazza, from which some important patrons would
enhance their pleasure with Tilia's women by watching the pain of the
heretic. Daoud looked around at the colonnaded façades of the palaces
around the square, wondering which were the windows through which
Tilia's depraved clients watched.

A howl went up from the crowd in the square, the people around Daoud
shouting so loudly as to deafen him. He saw a cage made of wooden poles
rocking into the piazza. People cheered and laughed. Two executioners in
blood-red tunics, their heads and faces covered with red hoods, stood on
either side of the cage, each man holding in his hands a pair of
long-handled pincers. Standing on tiptoe, Daoud saw on the platform of
the cart a black iron dish from which ribbons of gray smoke arose.

The prisoner, squatting in the cage, was silent for the moment. Even at
this distance Daoud could see his shoulders shaking spasmodically with
his panting. He was naked, and all over his flesh were bleeding,
blackened wounds.

The executioners thrust the ends of their pincers into the coals and
held them there. When they raised them out and brandished them, the
claws were glowing red. They turned to the prisoner, who started
screaming at once. One executioner thrust his pincers through the front
of the cage. The prisoner tried to back away, but the cage was too
small. He only pressed his buttocks against the bars behind him, where
the other executioner had crept and now dug the jaws of his pincers into
the man's flesh as the crowd roared with laughter. Daoud heard the
sizzle. The man's scream rose to a pitch that made Daoud's ears ring.
The executioner held up his pincers with a gobbet of burnt flesh caught
in them for the crowd to see, then slung them so that the bit of meat
flew through the air. Daoud saw people reach up to grab at it.

_This man is dying horribly because of me._ The thought bit into Daoud's
heart like the red-hot claws. When Sophia had said as much accusingly to
him, he had shrugged it off. Now he had to face the fact.

_Let your guilt pierce you through the heart. Do not armor yourself
against it. Do not run away from it. Above all, do not turn your back on
it._ So Saadi had advised him after he avenged himself on Kassar.

       *       *       *       *       *

The sands of the Eastern Desert were the color of drying blood. The
hooves of Daoud's pony sank into them with each step, and he wished he
had a camel to ride.

Their training troop had never traveled this far south, and Nicetas had
been a fool, Daoud thought, to go hunting in unknown and dangerous
country with only a pony to ride. No wonder he had not come back
yesterday. Probably, the sun had killed the pony, and Nicetas was
crouched in some wadi waiting to be rescued.

_I should have gone with him._

But they had been friends, and more than friends, for two years, and
from time to time each needed to be alone. They both understood that.
And so, when the naqeeb Mahmoud gave them a day of rest after the trek
down from El Kahira, and Nicetas said he wanted to go out alone to get
himself a pair of antelope horns, Daoud simply hugged him and sent him
on his way.

Daoud felt the murderous heat of the noon sun on his head through his
burnoose. Ten times hotter here than at El Kahira, now a hundred leagues
to the north. The wind filled the air with red dust, and he had wrapped
a scarf over his nose and mouth. Only his eyes were exposed, looking for
Nicetas.

_Antelope horns! Not even a lizard could live in this desert._

He should get into the shade, but he did not want to stop searching. If
Nicetas were hurt and lying out in this sun, it would burn him to death.
Daoud saw a line of sharp-pointed hills off to his left. There was shade
there, and Nicetas would try to reach shade. He tapped his pony's
shoulder lightly with his switch and turned its head toward the hills.

Nearly there, he saw what looked like a black rock half-buried ahead of
him. Could it be a body? For a moment his heart hammered. No, it was too
big. His pony floundered on through the sand till they reached the dark
shape.

It was Nicetas's pony, dead. Windblown sand half covered it, but he was
sure of it. Nicetas's pony was black.

Daoud swung down from his horse, looping the reins around his wrist so
it could not run off, and knelt to examine the dead pony. He brushed
away sand from the forehead. Three white dots; he knew those markings
well.

He scooped sand away from the dead pony and found an arrow jutting out
of the chest. In spite of the fiery sun his body went cold. Wild
Sudanese were said to prowl this desert.

He jerked on the arrow. It had gone in deep, and the head must be broad.
It took him long to tear it free.

The head was wedge-shaped and made of steel, with sword-sharp edges.
Sudanese tribesmen had no such arrows. Even Mamelukes had only a few.
Each Mameluke carried two or three, to use against a well-armored
opponent.

"Oh, God, help me find Nicetas," he prayed.

Nicetas was out there somewhere. Daoud pushed out of his mind the
thought that he might be dead.

Was this punishment for their sin of loving each other, he wondered as
he mounted his little horse. God frowned on men lying with men, the
mullahs said, but everyone knew that men, especially young men far from
women, often took comfort in one another.

He pulled his burnoose farther down over his eyes to shade them better
against the sun. He wanted water, but he would not let himself drink
until he had reached the hills. He might find Nicetas there, and Nicetas
might need the water.

The hills thrust abruptly out of the sand in long vertical folds. Half
blinded by the glare, he could see only opaque blackness where the sun
did not strike them.

He thought he saw movement in one shadow. He kicked the pony, driving it
to struggle faster through the sand, keeping his eyes fixed on the spot.

A deep crevice sliced into the hillside. Daoud rode into it cautiously.
Whoever killed Nicetas's mount might still be somewhere about.

Once out of the sun, he slid down from the saddle. He saw no water, but
there was a dead tamarisk, its branches like supplicating arms, at the
mouth of the crevice. He tied the pony to a limb and moved, slowly,
deeper into the shadow.

He looked down at the floor of the crevice, paved with drifting sand and
tiny pebbles. He felt a pain in his heart as he saw a trail of dark
circular spots, each about the size of his hand. It could be a wounded
animal, he told himself.

Then he saw a palmprint, the same dried color, and the pain in his heart
sharpened.

He saw the movement again, at the far end of the crevice. A figure lay
with its legs stretched out before it, its back propped against the
brown stone. Pale hands were clasped over its stomach.

He heard a low, moaning sound, and realized it was coming not from
Nicetas but from his own mouth.

Daoud ran and fell to his knees beside him. The half-open eyes widened
and the amber gaze turned in his direction. The Greek boy's face was
reddened with dust that clung to his sweat. His lips, partially open,
were so dry and encrusted they looked like scabs. Daoud put his hand on
Nicetas's cheeks. His face was burning.

Now the hurt in Daoud's heart was like death itself.

_I am going to lose him._

But this was no time to wail and weep. He must do everything he could.
It might yet be God's will that he save his friend.

_Let him live, oh God, and I will never sin with him again._

"I knew you would come." The voice was so faint Daoud could barely hear
it above the wind whistling past the mouth of the crevice.

Daoud sprang to his feet and ran to his pony to get his water bottle. He
untwisted the stopper over his friend's mouth.

The Greek boy shook his head. "I cannot swallow. Just pour a little in
my mouth to wet it." Daoud saw deep red cracks in Nicetas's lips. The
water trickled out the corners of his mouth and streaked his dusty
cheeks.

A hundred half-formed thoughts crowded Daoud's mind. His eyes burned,
and pain pounded at his chest.

All he said was "What happened to you?"

"It was Kassar," Nicetas whispered. "He got me with his first arrow.
Then he shot the pony and it fell on me. He rode me down. He took my bow
before I could get free."

_After all this time!_ Daoud thought. Kassar had said nothing, done
nothing, since the day Nicetas beat him at casting the rumh.

Two years Kassar had waited.

He bent forward to take Nicetas in his arms, but the Greek boy shook his
head. "Do not move me. It will hurt too much."

"Where are you hit?"

"In my back. Still in me. I broke off the shaft."

_Why was I such a fool, to think we were safe?_

"It can't be a very bad wound."

Nicetas closed his eyes. "Bad enough that he could use me for his
pleasure and I could not fight him off."

A dizzying blackness blinded Daoud. His skull felt as if it were going
to burst.

"By God and the Prophet, I will kill him."

"I want you to."

"Did he do any more to hurt you?"

"Yes, he got me here." He parted his hands and raised them from his
stomach. His white cotton robe was caked with black blood, and there was
a tear in the center. The wound was not wide, but Daoud knew that it
must be very deep.

"He made sure to use his rumh, you see."

"Because that was how you beat him."

Daoud wanted only to hold Nicetas and cry, but he sensed that what would
most comfort the Greek boy would be talking about what happened to him.

"After the rumh, I lay very still and held my breath. He thought I was
dead. He left me lying there with the pony. Took my weapons and my water
bottle. I crawled here. In the sun. Yesterday afternoon. I bled and
bled."

_He is going to die_, Daoud thought. He did not want to believe it. For
a moment he was angry at Nicetas. Why had he been such a fool as to come
out here alone? And then at himself. Why had he let him go?

And then at God.

_Why did You let this happen? Do You hate us because we love each
other?_

"I knew you would come for me, Daoud. I stayed alive to greet you."

Daoud took Nicetas's hand. "I will take you back."

"No. Bury me out here. Let him think you never found me. Bide your time,
as he did. Give him no reason to fear you. He fears you already, or he
would never have done it this way."

"Before the year is out, you will look down from paradise and see him
burning in hell."

"I'm sorry. I was never strong enough to be a Mameluke."

"No. You _are_ strong."

"Not strong enough to live," said Nicetas, so faintly Daoud could hardly
hear him. "Good-bye, Daoud. Remember the Greek I taught you. You may
meet someone else who speaks Greek."

"I will never meet anyone like you." The tears spilled out over his
eyelids, and he did not try to brush them away. The hand he held
squeezed his, weakly, then relaxed.

Daoud bent forward and touched his mouth to the split, dust-coated lips.
No breath came from his friend's body. A curtain of shadow swept before
his eyes, and he thought he was going to faint.

He thrust himself to his feet as Nicetas's head fell to one side.

He threw his arms over his head and screamed.

Arms still upraised, he dropped to his knees.

"Oh, God!" His voice echoed back from the walls of the crevice. "God,
God, God!"

The pain in his heart was as if a rumh had impaled it. He felt that he
must die, too. He could not bear this loss. Never to see his friend
smile again, never to hear his laughter. That body he had loved, nothing
now but unmoving, empty clay.

He looked over at Nicetas, hoping to see a movement, the flicker of an
eyelid, the rising of the chest. Nothing. Daoud would never again look
on in admiration as the Greek boy rode wildly, standing in the stirrups
shooting his arrows at the gallop or casting his spear unerringly at the
target. They would never, as he had dreamed, ride side by side into
battle.

Daoud crumpled to the ground in the position of worship, his forehead
pressed against the sharp, broken stones. But he was not worshiping. He
simply did not have the strength to hold himself upright.

It seemed hours later when he at last stirred himself. Sobbing, he
carried Nicetas out to a place near the mouth of the crevice, where the
sand had drifted in, and with his hands he dug there a grave. All along
the base of the hillside were many loose brown stones, chipped away by
the eternal wind. With bleeding hands he piled the stones high over
Nicetas's body, but tried to make the pile look like a rock slide, so
that no one would know someone was buried here. He knelt, weeping and
talking to Nicetas's spirit, until the sun was low in the west.

       *       *       *       *       *

As Nicetas had told him to do, Daoud had pretended, when he came back
from the desert, that he had no idea what had happened to his friend.
The naqeeb had declared that Sudanese tribesmen or wild animals must
have gotten him. Daoud was not alone in his grief. Many of the boys in
the troop had liked Nicetas.

Even Kassar had said words of sympathy, his face expressionless and his
slanted eyes opaque. Daoud held in his rage, a white-hot furnace in his
heart, and in a choked voice he thanked Kassar.

At first he went about in a daze, unable to think. He told himself that
in spite of his dissembling, Kassar would be on guard. He would have to
choose a time to take his revenge when Kassar would be preoccupied. And
Daoud himself must be alert at all times. Kassar might not be satisfied
with killing only Nicetas. In spite of these warnings to himself,
Daoud's mind remained numb. He was, he told himself, like a mall ball,
hit one way by grief, the other way by rage, unable to take control of
his destiny.

That thought of mall gave him the beginning of a plan.

He let three months go by from the day he found Nicetas. His plan was
very simple. It left much to luck, and it might fail utterly--Kassar
might anticipate what he was going to do and turn the moment against
him, killing him and claiming he was defending himself. Kassar's friends
might thwart Daoud.

He would have only this one chance. If he failed, he would be dead or
crippled. Or worst of all, cast out of the Mamelukes to spend the rest
of his life as a ghulman, a menial slave. But if he succeeded, Nicetas
would be avenged before Baibars and Sultan Qutuz and all Daoud's and
Nicetas's khushdashiya.

Whatever punishment might befall him then, he thought he could bear it
for Nicetas's sake.

_The Warrior of God is a man who would give his life for his friends._

On the day Daoud decided to act, the Bhari Mamelukes, the slaves of the
River, rode out to play mall. Emir Baibars al-Bunduqdari led them across
the bridge from Raudha Island to the Nasiri race course, their training
and playing ground, within sight of the great pyramids built by the
ancient idol-worshipers of Egypt. The people of El Kahira watched with
shining eyes as their guardians assembled on the field. Baibars's
tablkhana, his personal mounted band, playing trumpets and kettledrums,
cymbals and hautboys, rode before them. Sultan al-Mudhaffar Qutuz came
down from the citadel of El Kahira to watch the games as the guest of
his Mamelukes.

The troops of julbans, Mamelukes in training, brought up the rear of the
parade on their little ponies, with their naqeebs riding before them,
the oldest boys in the lead and the first- and second-year boys on foot
at the end. They wore plain brown shirts and white cotton trousers and
caps. No special marks of rank were allowed these young slaves until
they became full-fledged Mamelukes.

Daoud's troop, the boys in their fifth year of training, rode
immediately behind the Mamelukes. Each boy carried a mallet, which was
as much part of his equipment as his bow, his rumh, his dabbus, and his
saif. The mallets were made of cedar and were large and heavy. They had
to be, to drive a wooden ball half the size of a man's head.

Slaves had pulled perforated water barrels in carts over the field to
lay the dust. Baibars and the sultan and the highest-ranking emirs
seated themselves on cushions in an open pavilion facing the center of
the field.

Daoud's teammates chattered excitedly. They loved mall, and to play
before the sultan was a special honor. Kassar, the captain of their
team, boasted that he would make ten goals that day. Theirs was to be
the second match.

Hefting his mallet, Daoud watched the first match, also between two
teams of fifth-year trainees. Each team of eight riders tried to drive
the wooden ball between a pair of stone pillars painted with red and
yellow stripes, defended by the other team. With every crack of a mallet
against the ball, a roar went up from the watching Mamelukes.

A judge with an hourglass called time halfway through the match, to let
the field be watered again and the teams change ponies. By the end of
the match, the dust was so thick Daoud could not see who had won. But he
did not care. He felt utterly calm. He was past anger and past fear. He
thought only of watching for the right moment.

Now it was time for their team.

Kassar, Daoud, and the other six riders lined up on the east side of the
field, the eight members of the troop they were playing against forming
on the other side.

The judge set the wooden ball, yellow with a bright red stripe around
its middle, in the center of the field. The sultan held out a blue silk
scarf and dropped it. Kassar and the captain of the other team raced at
the ball from opposite goals, screaming their war cries. Kassar whirled
his mallet over his head, and his pony's legs were a blur in the dust.
He reached the ball an instant before his opponent. His mallet slammed
into the ball with a crack like the splitting of a board, and the ball
flew halfway toward the enemy goal.

The ball was in play, and now the other riders could join in.

_You will make not even one goal today, Kassar_, Daoud thought as he
galloped across the field with his team.

The players on the other side were trying to hit the ball away from
their goal. Kassar had ridden into their midst, his pony nimbly
following the ball. He held his mallet low to hit through the legs of
the opposing team's ponies. Two of the opponents had stayed back by
their goalposts to deflect the ball should Kassar hit it.

Kassar was on top of the ball. Daoud kicked his pony's ribs hard and
galloped after him.

As Kassar swung low from his saddle to hit the ball, Daoud drove in on
him. Kassar glanced up, fear flashing across his broad face. Whatever
passed through his mind was his last thought. Daoud swung his mallet up
from the ground, smashing it into Kassar's jaw. The force of the blow
knocked the white cap from his head. His pony ran free of the melee.
Kassar reeled, unconscious, but his horse nomad's instinct held him in
the saddle.

Daoud jerked his pony around to race after Kassar. In an instant he was
beside his enemy.

He was about to kill a khushdashiyin, a barracks comrade, in open
defiance of the code of the Mamelukes and in front of his emir and his
sultan.

_I am a dead man_, he thought as he swung the mallet high.

His body felt cold as death, and he hesitated. As he did so, Kassar
turned his head, and Daoud saw consciousness struggling to return to his
glazed eyes.

This was Daoud's last chance to avenge Nicetas.

He heard a distant roar of command from the naqeeb Mahmoud, but he
ignored it.

He brought the mallet down with all his strength on the Kipchaq's
glistening black hair. The shock of the contact ran up his arm and into
his shoulder. Kassar started to fall. Daoud struck again with the
mallet.

Kassar pitched from his pony's back. As he struck the ground, Daoud
smashed the mallet into his head a third time, just as if he were
hitting a ball. He tried to hit hard enough to knock Kassar's head
right off his neck. Daoud saw the head suddenly distorted, flattening,
and knew the skull was crushed. Kassar lay on the ground on his back,
only the whites of his eyes showing, his mouth hanging open. Dust half
obscured his body.

Daoud heard shouts from the bystanders, but he paid no attention to what
they were saying. He saw riders, the other players, racing toward him.

A silence fell on the playing field.

"Get down from your horse." It was Mahmoud, who had run out into the
field on foot.

As Daoud and Mahmoud walked across the field, the naqeeb said, "You will
answer to El Malik Qutuz and to Emir Baibars for this. Fool, whatever
your quarrel was, could you not have settled it in private? Have you
forgotten that Baibars is a Kipchaq? He will not forgive you."

Despite his joy at seeing Nicetas's murderer dead, Daoud now felt terror
clutching his throat as he approached the two seated figures in their
splendid robes at the side of the field. Now that the deed was done and
could not be undone, he dreaded facing these two mighty judges.

_Baibars is a Kipchaq, but it was Baibars who bought me for the
Mamelukes_, Daoud thought. _I wonder which will mean more to him this
day._

Baibars and Qutuz sat side by side on cushions in the shade of a silken
canopy. Baibars wore an egret's plume, symbol of valor, on his green
turban. His wide, harsh mouth was tight under the red mustache, his good
eye as empty of feeling as the blind one that was crossed by a vertical
saber scar.

_Beneficent God, if I must die for what I have done, let it be a quick
and clean death. And then I will join Nicetas._

El Malik al-Mudhaffar Qutuz, Sultan of El Kahira, a Mameluke of a
Kurdish tribe, was somewhat older than Baibars. His face was
criss-crossed with tiny wrinkles. His beard, greased so that it jutted
like the prow of a galley, was such a flat black that it must surely be
dyed. He wore a large black turban and full black robes with gold
embroidery.

Daoud fell to his knees and prostrated himself before the sultan.

"Get up and take off your cap," said Qutuz without preliminary. Daoud
rose to his feet, lifting his cap from his head.

"Look at that blond hair," said Qutuz wonderingly. "I thought he had the
look of a Frank about him, Bunduqdari."

"I could have told you that," said Baibars flatly. "He belongs to me. He
is known as Daoud ibn Abdallah. His parents were Franks. We took him
when we freed Ascalon." He talked to Qutuz, Daoud noted, as if they were
equals.

Baibars turned his one eye on Daoud. "Why did you do this?" he said
softly. "You are not a fool, and you would not kill out of foolishness."

"Effendi, he killed my friend," said Daoud, making himself stand
straight and look levelly at Baibars. The emir might sentence him to
death, but he would show himself a true Mameluke. He would not cringe or
beg. He would honor Nicetas.

"How do you know?"

Daoud told Baibars how he had found Nicetas in the desert and what he
had said to him. He kept his voice level, trying not to let his fear
show.

"You should have reported this to me!" shouted Naqeeb Mahmoud, his white
beard quivering. The naqeeb would bear some blame, Daoud thought, for
this breach of discipline.

But Daoud only turned to him and threw his own words back at him, "Among
Mamelukes, he who is strongest rules."

Perhaps he should not be so defiant, he thought. Both the sultan and
Baibars liked to show themselves to be men of great generosity.

_Yes, but not to a julban who has broken the law._

"He cannot kill his comrade and go unpunished," said Qutuz. "He should
be beheaded."

At the words, even though he had thought himself prepared for them,
Daoud felt something shrink with dread inside him. He felt the blade
slicing through his neck. The sultan had spoken. His life was over.

"He is too valuable to be beheaded," said Baibars. "Believe me, My
Lord."

_Valuable?_

Daoud felt as if he had fallen from a cliff and a strong hand had
reached out and was dragging him back. He was breathless with a relief
he barely dared to feel. He tried to keep his face and body still as the
two great ones debated his fate, but he could not stop his fists from
clenching.

The sultan's eyes narrowed, and a deep crease appeared between his brows
as he turned to Baibars. "Is this Frankish murderer a protégé of yours,
then?"

Baibars nodded. "I have seen reason to take a personal interest in him,
if it please My Lord."

What did that mean? What had Baibars seen in him that day in the slave
market, and why had Baibars come there that day?

_I have long watched for such a one as you, who could have the outward
look of a Christian knight but the mind and heart of a Mameluke. One
like you could be a great weapon against the enemies of the faith._

"It does not please me," said Qutuz shortly. "There is too much breaking
of rules among the Bhari Mamelukes." He spoke, Daoud thought, as if he
were not originally a Mameluke himself.

"There is a law among Mamelukes more binding than any lesser rule," said
Baibars quietly. "He who feels himself greatly sinned against must
strike back. If he cannot do that, he is not enough of a man to be a
Mameluke. Even as this foolish boy said, the strong must rule."

Daoud saw grave approval in Baibars's brown face and realized that it
did not matter at all to Baibars that Kassar was a Kipchaq. His joy grew
as he realized that he had Baibars on his side.

Daoud remembered Nicetas's dying words--_I am not strong enough to be a
Mameluke_.

_But together we were strong enough to do what had to be done._

Qutuz said, "If all Mamelukes believed only in the rule of the
strongest, we would have chaos."

"Only if it were not certain who _is_ strongest," said Baibars quietly.

Baibars and Qutuz sat looking at each other in a grave and thoughtful
silence that seemed to stretch on forever. Finally, Qutuz turned away.

"I must allow you to discipline the Bhari Mamelukes--or not discipline
them--as you see fit, Bunduqdari. That is your responsibility."

"Thank you, My Lord," said Baibars with just a hint of sarcasm.

He turned to Mahmoud. "Take him away."

Daoud crossed the field, walking beside Mahmoud, wondering how his
khushdashiya, clustered together around what had been their goal, would
greet him.

_I have killed Kassar_, Daoud thought. _I have taken a life._ It was the
first time, and he felt glad and proud.

But he would gladly give up this proud moment to have Nicetas back. His
grief for Nicetas was sharp as ever, not at all eased by vengeance.

_Is it wrong to have done as I did and to feel this way?_

A sharp voice rang out behind them. "Mahmoud!"

Daoud and the naqeeb turned together, and Daoud was amazed to see that
Baibars, splendid in his red satin robe and green turban, was
approaching them. Daoud and Mahmoud rushed to stand before him, rigid
and trembling.

"Mahmoud," Baibars said, "when we return to Raudha Island tonight, you
will issue this fool the steel helmet of a full-fledged Mameluke,
trimmed with black fur."

He swung that searching blue eye back to Daoud. "Tonight at the Gray
Mosque I will perform the ceremony that frees you. You will be a part of
my personal guard from now on."

Dizzy with exultation, Daoud fell to his knees and pressed his forehead
to the cool brown earth before the emir. Tears burned his eyes and
dripped to the ground.

"May God praise and bless you, Emir Baibars!" he cried.

"Get up," Baibars said briskly. "Had you let your friend go unavenged, I
would no longer be interested in you."

As he scrambled to his feet, Daoud saw Mahmoud smiling through his
beard.

"You learned well the lesson I tried to teach you."

Dizzy, Daoud tried to grasp what had been going on in the minds of these
men without his realizing it.

Baibars said, "Now you must learn to kill with more grace and subtlety.
I shall see that you are trained by masters, as I did when I sent you to
Sheikh Abu Hamid al-Din Saadi."

_And I must go to Sheikh Saadi again_, thought Daoud. _That he may tell
me if I did wrong._

       *       *       *       *       *

Now it was over ten years since Kassar had killed Nicetas and Daoud had
killed Kassar. And though Daoud had never felt guilty for killing
Kassar, he understood what Saadi meant about facing guilt.

If he had not understood, he might have told himself that it was not his
fault, it was these Christian brutes who chose to torment the poor
madman in this way. He might have told himself that Lorenzo, not he, had
found the man and brought him to Orvieto. He might simply have said, as
he had said to Sophia, that in war there must be innocent victims. He
might have reminded himself that he and Lorenzo thought that the man
would only raise a commotion in the church, not that he would draw a
knife.

And if he consented to any of those thoughts, he would have been
pinching off a fragment of his soul, just as the executioners pinched
off bits of this man's body.

He forced himself to watch as the cage moved slowly into the piazza and
the executioners tore again and again at the victim's body with their
red-hot pincers. He saw now that six laughing, well-dressed young men
were pulling the cart. Of course. No beast, its nostrils assailed by the
smell of burning flesh and its ears by the victim's howls of agony,
could remain calm and pull a cart through this frenzied crowd.

These were the same people who had rioted against the Tartars a month
ago, the day this man was arrested. Now they cheered and jeered at the
death of the Tartars' assailant. And that meant, Daoud thought, that the
man's death was in vain.

The cage drew near him now as it approached the scaffold. Daoud held his
breath at the thought that the condemned man might look him in the eye.
_How could I bear that?_ But the man's eyes, he saw, were squeezed shut
with fear and pain.

And guilt continued to cut into Daoud like the twisting knife blade of a
Hashishiyyin.

_A better man than I would have found a way to stir the people and keep
them stirred, so that lives would not be wasted._

The two red-garbed executioners had set aside their red-hot pincers and
were dragging the heretic up the ladder to the scaffold. His feet
dangled on the rungs. On the platform stood another man waiting for the
victim.

Daoud felt his eyes open wide and his lips begin to work silently when
he saw who the third executioner was.

His face was left bare by the executioner's black hood, whose long point
hung down the side of his head past his chin. No use to mask this man's
face; his body made him instantly recognizable to anyone who had ever
seen him before.

He smiled a serene, almost kindly smile down at the moaning man who was
being dragged up the ladder toward him. He held a cook's knife in one
hand with a blade as wide as his wrist and as long as his forearm. If he
were not holding the knife up to display it to his victim, the tip of it
would have rested on the platform, because the executioner's back was
bent forward as if it had been broken in some accident long ago.

_The firewood seller at Lucera!_

Daoud's head swam as he tried to fathom how the crippled dwarf who had
been part of the crowd of tradesmen entering the great Hohenstaufen
stronghold with him, who had witnessed Daoud's arrest by Celino at the
gate and even seemed to pray in his behalf, could be here conducting a
public execution in the city of the pope. He must have been a Guelfo
spy, by coincidence infiltrating Lucera at the same time as Daoud.

He had been in Manfred's pastry kitchen. Had he really been sleeping, or
had he seen Manfred, Lorenzo, and Daoud walk through together?

_If he sees me here in the crowd, he will expose me!_ The people around
Daoud, their breath reeking of onions and garlic, pressed him so tightly
he could barely move. Twisting his body, he managed to get his back
turned to the scaffold. This put him face-to-face with a
broad-shouldered man in a mud-brown tunic, with a thick black beard and
mustache. The man laughed at him.

"Would you turn away? Have you no stomach for Erculio's holy work?"

Daoud fixed the man with a stare, thinking of what he would like to do
to him. He realized, though, that if he tried to fight his way out of
the piazza, the little man on the scaffold would certainly notice him.
If he simply stayed where he was and watched, his would be one face in
thousands, and the dwarf obviously had more pressing business. He
reached up to the soft cap on his head, making sure it covered most of
his blond hair. Without a word to the man in brown, who had shrunk from
his stare, Daoud turned and faced the platform. He was just in time to
see the bent dwarf--Erculio, was that his name?--bless himself, just as
he had at Lucera.

Daoud's heart pounded as he imagined himself and Lorenzo and Ugolini
suffering as this naked, bleeding blistered heretic was.

_And Sophia! God forbid! I would cut her throat myself before I let
anything like this happen to her._

The thought of Sophia being tortured in public was such agony that he
wanted to scream and fight his way out of the piazza. He did Sufi
breathing exercises to calm himself.

They had tied the moaning victim down on a wooden sawhorse. Lying on his
back, he was low enough that the bent man could easily reach any part of
him. One of the executioners in red held the victim's mouth open, and
the little man reached in with one hand, pulled forth the tongue and
sliced it off. Like a jongleur producing an apple from his sleeve, he
waved the severed tongue at the crowd, then threw it. A forest of hands
clutched at it. Common people everywhere, Daoud recalled, believed that
parts of the bodies of condemned men could be used in magic.

It took a moment for Erculio to saw the heretic's nose off. With tongue
and nose gone, the condemned man's screams no longer sounded human. They
were like the bellowings of a steer being clumsily slaughtered.

Daoud realized that he was grateful for the problem that the little man
presented. It gave him something urgent to think about other than what
he was watching.

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.

The flames shot up with a roar, a red and gold curtain around the
heretic. Daoud heard no more cries of pain. Perhaps he was already dead
of his wounds. Daoud prayed to God that it be so.

The smoke did not rise in the hot, moist air, but coiled and spread
around the scaffold. People coughed and wiped their eyes and drew back
farther from the blaze. Daoud was close enough to feel the heat, and on
such a sweltering day it was unbearable. But now, he discovered, he
could move. The crowd was dispersing. There was nothing more to see. The
heretic was surely dead, and the smoke and flames hid the destruction of
his body.

Daoud looked up at the cathedral steps. There were no red or purple
robes there, and the papal banner was gone. The Count de Gobignon had
reappeared and was staring at the fire. As Daoud watched, the count
stumbled down the steps, his arms hanging loosely at his sides.

Daoud turned to go back to Ugolini's.

"Well, Messer David, do they do as thorough a job on heretics in
Trebizond?"

Daoud's path was blocked by a man in a scarlet robe. From beneath the
wide circular brim of a great red hat, the long, dark face of Cardinal
de Verceuil glowered at him. Thick red tassels hung down from the hat
all around the cardinal's head.

Immediately behind de Verceuil stood two attendants. One held high a
white banner blazoned with a red cross and a gold flower shape in two of
the quarters; the other man, a sturdy, shaven-headed young cleric in
black cassock, carried a long golden rod that curved into a tight spiral
at the top. That was called a crosier, Daoud recalled, and was the
cardinal's staff of office. Behind them were four men-at-arms who looked
hard at Daoud, as if expecting him to give offense to their master.
Daoud wondered if the cardinal would consider having him killed here in
public. Daoud stared at him through the smoky air, measuring him,
looking for those small signs of tension to be found in a man about to
order an attack. The man seemed too relaxed for that.

"No, Your Eminence, we only stone our heretics to death."

De Verceuil smiled. "That may be a better way of disposing of them.
After a burning, the unpleasant thought always occurs to me that I am
carrying the heretic away in my nostrils and lungs."

Sickened inwardly at this reminder of the rancid smell that had come
from the heretic's pyre, Daoud smiled at the grisly jest, as he assumed
the cardinal expected him to. He remained silent, waiting for de
Verceuil to reveal the reason for this encounter.

"Ordinarily we merely burn heretics," the cardinal went on. "We had this
man tormented first because he threatened our guests, the Tartar
ambassadors, and disturbed a service in the cathedral with the pope
himself present. We had to be severe with him."

"Assuredly," said Daoud, still smiling. De Verceuil's Italian sounded
strange to him. He must be speaking it with a French accent.

"But perhaps, since you seem to think the Tartars are such a danger to
Christendom," said de Verceuil in a voice that was lower and more
menacing, "you approve of what that man did." He gestured toward the
burning scaffold. The stake and whatever was left of the body bound to
it had fallen through the platform into the pile of faggots. A breeze
had sprung up and was blowing the smoke away from Daoud and the
cardinal, for which Daoud thanked God.

"I came here today to see justice done," Daoud said firmly.

"You profess the Greek Church," said de Verceuil, eyeing him coldly.
"That makes you a heretic yourself."

The men-at-arms behind the cardinal shifted restlessly, and Daoud
wondered again if de Verceuil meant to provoke a fight leading to a
killing. Or perhaps have him arrested. He looked past de Verceuil and
his men and saw that some curious citizens had formed a circle around
himself and the cardinal. And there was de Gobignon, standing watchfully
only a short distance away at the foot of the cathedral steps. Was his
sword, too, at the cardinal's command?

"If you are concerned about justice, it is too bad you chose to be
Cardinal Ugolini's guest during your stay in Orvieto," de Verceuil said.
"You will hear only a corrupt Italian point of view in his household."

Praise God, de Verceuil was not pursuing the matter of Daoud's heresy.

Daoud shrugged. "I have seen what devastation the Tartars do, Your
Eminence. With respect, let me say to you that they are as much a danger
to your country, France, as to Italy."

De Verceuil essayed what he may have thought was an ingratiating smile,
but his small mouth made him look sly and sour.

"I invite you to come to live at the Palazzo Monaldeschi. I have spoken
to the contessa, and she would be most happy to receive you. The
Monaldeschi are the wealthiest family in Orvieto, and they have
connections with other great families in the Papal States. If you wish
to find good customers for your silks and spices here, it is the
contessa you should see. And if you would trade with France, perhaps I
can help you there."

The possibility of spending some days and nights in enemy headquarters
was intriguing. But would it be prudent to put himself into de
Verceuil's and de Gobignon's hands?

Daoud shook his head with what he hoped was a regretful smile. "Forgive
me, Your Eminence. Your offer of the contessa's hospitality overwhelms
me, but I have already promised to remain with Cardinal Ugolini, and he
would be deeply offended if I were to leave him."

De Verceuil glowered. "Ugolini is from Hohenstaufen territory. The
Monaldeschi have always been loyal to the pope and have great influence
with him. Just as I have with King Louis of France and his brother,
Count Charles. Come to us, and when you go back to your own land you
will be a wealthy man."

"Could it be that Your Eminence hopes I might change my testimony about
the Tartars?"

Daoud felt close to laughter as the cardinal's cheeks reddened.

De Verceuil shot back, "Could it be that your enmity to the Tartars is
more important to you than your profit as a merchant?"

Daoud's heart beat harder. That was too close to the mark. It was
foolish of him to jest with a man who had the power to condemn him and
his friends to be tortured and burned like that poor madman.

"I regret that I have offended Your Eminence," he said. "I have seen
what I have seen, and I am honor bound to speak the truth. And profit
will do me no good if the Tartars slaughter us all."

"You are ignorant of our ways," de Verceuil said ominously, after a long
pause during which Daoud felt raindrops strike his face. "Have a care
that you do not slip into pitfalls you cannot possibly foresee."

First de Verceuil joked, then he threatened, then he offered
hospitality, then he threatened again. He seemed to have no sense of how
to deal with men.

_Even if we were on the same side, I would hate him. What a trial he
must be for his allies._

But Daoud was eager to get away without creating any deeper enmity
between himself and the cardinal. "I thank you again for your offer of
hospitality, Your Eminence. Even if I cannot come to live at the
Monaldeschi palace, I do hope to meet the contessa. She has graciously
invited Cardinal Ugolini to her reception for the Tartar ambassadors,
and I shall accompany him."

"Do not think you are free to do as you please in Orvieto," said de
Verceuil angrily. "You are being closely watched." He turned abruptly
and strode off. Daoud bowed politely to his scarlet back. Casting ugly
looks at Daoud, the cardinal's men followed.

Daoud told himself that it would be wise to be frightened. But what he
felt was more a profound disdain for Paulus de Verceuil.

_As a man of religion or of power, how can this squawking bird in red
plumage compare with Sheikh Saadi and the Imam Fayum of the
Hashishiyya?_

The rain was coming down harder. It hissed in the still-burning heap of
wood and bones.

A movement near the cathedral steps caught Daoud's eye. He turned and
saw Simon de Gobignon looking at him. Why was he alone? Had he, like
Daoud, not wanted any of his comrades to see this horror?

How infuriating it must be for that proud young Frank to have to work
closely with a man like Cardinal de Verceuil. The cardinal was so
arrogant, so overbearing, so crude as to turn people _against_ any cause
he might support, no matter how worthy.

As the rain fell on him, Daoud hardly noticed it. He saw a new plan
shimmering like a mirage on the horizon of his mind.




XXI


"Bonsoir, Messire. I have not seen you since the day the heretic was
burned. I trust the spectacle did not disturb you?"

Simon had deliberately addressed David of Trebizond in French, to find
out whether the trader spoke that language in addition to Greek and
Italian. He might be from the other side of the earth, but there was
something very French-looking about him.

They stood facing each other a little apart from the crowd gathered in
the sala maggiore, the great hall of the Palazzo Monaldeschi. The large
room was lit by hundreds of candles. Four musicians in a distant corner
sawed away energetically at vielles of different sizes held between
their knees, while two others blew on hautboys. Tables were piled high
with meat and pastry along the sides of the hall. Servants circulated,
refilling goblets from pitchers of wine. Neither Simon nor David was
holding a goblet.

The big blond man, who had not been looking at Simon, turned and stared
at him. Simon detected a pallor under his tan. David did not react to
the sound of French like a man who had heard an unfamiliar language. He
looked more as if he had heard the voice of a ghost.

David bowed. "Pardonnez-moi, Monseigneur. I had not expected to be
addressed in French."

Simon was surprised to hear in David's northern French the harsh accents
of the English Channel coast.

"Where did you learn my tongue, Messire?" Simon asked.

David shrugged. "Since the Crusades began, many of your countrymen have
passed through Trebizond."

Many Crusaders had been Normans, Simon thought. It made sense. But it
was odd that this man David, who claimed to be a Greek, not only spoke
like a Norman, but looked like nothing so much as a big, blond Norman
knight. Simon had seen just such faces--square, with long, straight
noses and cold gray-blue eyes--everywhere in Normandy and in England
when he had accompanied King Louis on a state visit to the realm of his
vassal, King Henry of England.

But David did not dress like a Norman, Simon noted. His apparel was
gaudy in the extreme. He wore a white cap with a blood-red feather, a
short cloth-of-gold cape, particolored hose--light green and peach--and
forest-green boots.

Simon, who, in emulation of King Louis preferred somber colors, had
chosen for tonight a brown velvet singlet and maroon hose. The brightest
thing about him was the jeweled handle of his prized scimitar.

"I hope that you were not upset by the bloody execution of that heretic
last week," Simon said once again.

"Oh, no." David smiled. "But I saw you there, and you seemed to be."

_God's wounds, how true that is!_ was Simon's first thought. He had held
himself rigid throughout the heretic's horrible death, afraid that he
would throw up.

But how disturbing to discover that this Greek merchant, apparently an
enemy, had seen right through Simon's effort to appear imperturbable. Of
all the people in Orvieto, this man was the last Simon would want to
reveal himself to. He cursed himself for giving David such a perfect
opening.

_How could I be such a fool? And I thought I was so clever, addressing
him in French._

Simon had been anticipating his next encounter with David with a mixture
of eagerness, fear, and anger, almost as if it were to be a battle. Now
he wished he had stayed away from the man.

"I felt sorry for the poor devil, as I believe a Christian should,"
Simon said. "Did you not?"

There was a baleful look in David's eyes, as if he hated Simon for his
answer.

But the man from Trebizond only shrugged and said, "I have seen much
blood and pain in my life."

A broad figure in a white robe billowed up to Simon and David. Simon
remembered him from the pope's council--Fra Tomasso d'Aquino, the
distinguished Dominican. The friar's belt of rosary beads rattled as he
walked. It would take a week, Simon thought, to recite all the Our
Fathers and Hail Marys that encircled Fra Tomasso.

"Count, I trust you will forgive my interrupting you. I have already had
the pleasure of meeting Messer David of Trebizond, but I have wanted to
speak to you ever since you arrived in Orvieto. As a seminarian I
studied for a year in Paris under your uncle, Hugues de Gobignon. A
friar of great renown. His murder was such a tragedy."

Simon felt uneasy at reminiscence about the uncle who was not really his
uncle. As he chatted with Fra Tomasso, his eyes roved through the large
room. He noticed the crowd gathered around the Tartars, John and Philip,
who were seated in large, comfortable-looking chairs placed near a
crowned swan at the center of a serving table. He saw a servant pour
wine into a silver cup John held out to him. More of that wonderful wine
of Montefiascone?

Beside the Tartars stood a woman named Ana from the land of the Bulgars,
territory now ruled by the Tartars. Anything, thought Simon bitterly, to
keep Friar Mathieu from achieving too much importance. De Verceuil had
found her and had taken her along as interpreter when the Tartars had
their first private audience with the pope.

Another group stood around the seated Pope Urban, many of them in the
red and purple of cardinals, archbishops, and bishops. There was de
Verceuil, of course, as near to the pope as he could get. The cardinal's
vanity, as usual, had made him choose layman's garb, a tunic of
gold-braided silk and a cape of aquamarine satin trimmed with red-dyed
squirrel fur. And between two prelates' shoulders Simon could just make
out the top of Cardinal Ugolini's fuzzy gray head.

If Ugolini was here, had his niece Sophia come tonight as well? Yes,
there she was, halfway across the hall, talking to the Contessa di
Monaldeschi. The pale violet of Sophia's gown made her skin look darker.
The poets always sang of _fair_ ladies, but Simon found her dark
complexion wondrously attractive. She had let her embroidered silk shawl
fall away from her bare shoulders, and he marveled at their sweet
delicacy. Under her gauze veil the pearls in her headdress twinkled like
stars against hair that was black as night.

"Excuse me, Fra Tomasso, Messer David. I have promised to deliver a most
urgent message to the contessa."

Fra Tomasso, in the middle of an anecdote about Friar Hugues's subtlety
as an inquisitor, gave Simon leave to go. As David bowed, his eyes met
Simon's, and his look was at once both knowing and bitter. He, too, was
a guest in Ugolini's house, thought Simon. Was he, too, attracted to
Sophia? Who would not be?

As Simon moved toward Sophia, the contessa's majordomo strode to the
center of the sala maggiore and called in a deep voice, "Signori e
madonne, tables, game boards, and cards are set for your amusement in
the inner galleria."

Then Simon was bowing before the contessa, acutely aware of Sophia
standing beside her. He kissed the old lady's shiny knuckles, hoping he
would have an opportunity to kiss Sophia's hand as well.

"My dear boy, did you hear the announcement? Do you enjoy cards or
backgammon? I understand your pious king forbids such amusements at his
court. And yet our Holy Father himself loves to play alii." She saw
Simon staring at Sophia and smiled.

"You see, my dear?" the contessa said to Sophia. "Does this splendid
young Frenchman look as if he is interested in cards or dice? Or in you?
Enough of your modesty."

Sophia lowered her eyelids and blushed. How beautiful her olive
complexion was, tinted with rose!

"The contessa is merciless," she said in a low voice.

"Merciless!" the contessa cackled. "My dear, if I were the envious sort,
then indeed would I show you no mercy. By San Giorgio, I would have you
poisoned. But I made up my mind many, many years ago, when I saw my
looks beginning to fade, that I had to choose between hating the beauty
of other women or enjoying it. I was already spending all my hatred on
the odious Filippeschi. So I decided that when I saw beautiful women I
would rejoice at their presence in the world and delight myself by
remembering my own youth and imagining the pleasures they must be
experiencing."

She put her hand on Simon's arm. "What do you think, Count Simon? Would
you like me to present this young lady to you?"

"A thousand thanks, Contessa," said Simon, falling into the extravagant
style of speaking the occasion seemed to call for. "I have already had
the great pleasure of meeting Madonna Sophia at her uncle's mansion."

The contessa nodded. "Ah, you have called upon Cardinal Ugolini. I am
glad to hear that. I would have told you to if you had not done it on
your own." She turned again to Sophia. "Your uncle and I have been
friends ever since the Holy Father moved the papal household to Orvieto.
I deeply admire and respect him. When he reads the stars for me, his
insights and predictions are remarkably accurate. His remedies for my
body's complaints always achieve their purpose, which is more than I can
say for other physicians I have consulted. And best of all, he finds
time for a lonely old lady, when others who should be more attentive
make excuses."

"My uncle is a marvelous man, Your Signory," Sophia murmured. "I am most
fortunate to be his niece. Otherwise I could never hope to be present on
this magnificent occasion, to meet and talk with you."

"And to be waited upon by this handsome cavaliere," the contessa
finished for her, smiling broadly.

_The contessa really is enjoying this_, Simon thought. The old lady was
beaming with pleasure.

Sophia turned to Simon.

"I am most pleased to see you again, Count." Her eyes seemed to shine at
him. Was it his imagination?

She held out her hand. His whole body felt more intensely alive as his
fingers touched hers. He noticed as he bent over her hand that she wore
one ring, a garnet of a red so deep as to be almost black. His lips
touched the creamy skin of the back of her hand, and he thought he felt
her tremble slightly.

Contessa Elvira eyed both of them, sighed happily, and said, "I think it
is time for me to find someone to play rota with. Perhaps I will ask
your uncle to tell my fortune with the cards. He reads the cards as well
as he reads the stars."

They bowed as she moved off. As she turned her back, Simon noticed that
her long blue velvet gown had threadbare patches in the rear. She was so
old and so powerful, Simon thought, that such things did not matter to
her. Perhaps it was a favorite gown from the days when she was young and
beautiful, like Sophia.

But he doubted that she had ever been as beautiful as Sophia.

"May I bring you some wine or something to eat, Madonna?" he asked
Sophia.

"Thank you, I am not hungry. But"--she gestured as if to free him from
obligation to stand with her--"perhaps you--"

"Oh, no, I am quite content. A hand of cards, then?" Simon hoped she
would see that he was making it his responsibility to entertain her.

She took a deep breath, and Simon felt a small thrill as he watched her
bosom rise and fall under the fine silk of her violet gown. "What I
would really like, Count, would be a stroll in the garden. This room,
big as it is, is so hot and crowded. And even though it is September,
this evening it is very warm, do you not think so?"

"Very warm," said Simon, delightedly taking her arm.

       *       *       *       *       *

As Fra Tomasso chatted with him, Daoud watched de Gobignon and Sophia
stroll across the brightly candlelit hall to the door leading to the
inner galleria.

_De Gobignon spoke to me in the language of my parents._

Sire Geoffrey and Dame Evelyn Langmuir, he knew, were of English stock.
But Daoud's father had once told him that all the English nobility spoke
French.

Tonight was the first time since Daoud landed in Italy that he had heard
French or had spoken it. When he first heard himself addressed in
French, he had experienced a strange and frightening sensation, as if
his dead father were speaking to him. He hated de Gobignon for doing
that to him.

_And I hate him because he will enjoy the woman I want for myself._

The voice of Fra Tomasso faded away. Black rage filled Daoud's skull,
deafening and blinding him. He pictured Sophia naked in Simon de
Gobignon's arms, and his body trembled.

And when he did become Sophia's lover, the puppy would have no
understanding of how much of a woman he was possessing. To him she would
be the sweet Sicilian niece of a cardinal. He would have no idea of the
woman behind that mask.

Sophia, Daoud had come to realize, had known suffering and loss. She had
survived at the very bottom of the world, and she had risen to be the
intimate of an emperor and a king.

She occupied his thoughts, Daoud sensed with some uneasiness, far more
often than did Blossoming Reed back in El Kahira.

Simon would know Sophia Orfali, not Sophia Karaiannides, who had told
Daoud more than once, he thought with a grim smile, how much she hated
Franks. She would make a fool of this Frank.

Fra Tomasso was rambling on about the one sea voyage he had ever taken,
from Normandy to Naples. "One would think going around the continent of
Europe like that would take much longer than making the same journey
overland. It took us only a month, whereas on land it would have taken
at least three. The sea is a two-dimensional surface. On land one is
traveling over a three-dimensional surface and can encounter many
obstacles."

_Yes, and a carrier pigeon travels much faster than a ship._ In a month
or two Daoud's request for the book Fra Tomasso wanted would have
reached Baibars, and a few months after that, if Baibars could obtain
the book, the Friar's pudgy hands would be holding it.

Listening with half an ear, Daoud looked about him at the marble pillars
that ran up to the gilded beams of the ceiling, at the paintings of
angels and saints on the plaster walls, at the fragments of old Roman
statues that stood here and there--mostly nude torsos. Idolatry, yes,
but beautifully done. The arts of the Christians and their pagan
predecessors were not altogether as barbaric as he had imagined them.

Ugolini suddenly appeared at Daoud's elbow to interrupt his thoughts and
Fra Tomasso's discourse. "Excuse me, Fra Tomasso, but His Holiness
wishes a word with David."

The little cardinal's eyes darted about nervously. Obviously, the idea
of a conversation between Daoud and the pope terrified him.

"Have you had any wine?" said Ugolini in a low voice as they crossed the
room to where Urban, in his white cassock, a red cloak wrapped around
his shoulders, was sitting in a large, high-backed chair. The spiritual
father of all Christians was dressed heavily for such a warm evening,
Daoud thought. A sign of ill health.

"I never drink wine if I can avoid it," he answered Ugolini.

"Well, you will not be able to avoid it tonight. But remember, you have
no head for it."

Daoud was about to retort sharply, but he swallowed the impulse. Such
unnecessary advice was the cardinal's way of allaying his terror. He had
never told Ugolini about the training in resistance to drugs he had
undergone with Sheikh Saadi. Al-koahl, the intoxicating element in wine,
could affect his body but not his mind.

       *       *       *       *       *

"This is a very dangerous practice," Sheikh Saadi said as he crouched
over a small cooking pot suspended on a tripod above a low fire. "But it
is now a necessary one for you."

Whatever was bubbling in the pot gave off a strange, cloying odor that
Daoud found frightening and seductive at the same time. They were in the
inner garden of Saadi's small house in al-Fustat, the oldest quarter of
El Kahira.

Daoud half sat, half reclined on a pile of cushions. He leaned back and
saw that the stars were fewer and the sky was lighter. They had been up
all night drinking kaviyeh.

The liquid Saadi was brewing now smelled nothing like kaviyeh. Studying
the simmering, sweet-smelling liquid, Saadi seemed satisfied. He took
the pot off the fire and set it on a stone.

Still on his knees, the sheikh swung around to smile at Daoud. In the
firelight his face was many shades of brown and black. But his beard, in
the years Daoud had known him, had gone from gray to a white as pure as
the wool from which the Sufi took their name.

"Kneel and compose your mind," said Saadi.

Daoud rose from a sitting position to his knees. As Saadi had taught
him, and as he had practiced for many years, he visualized his mind as
an empty pool, walled with tiles. A fountain sprang up in the center of
the pool and filled it slowly with clear water. The walls of the pool
disappeared, and there was nothing but clear water in all directions,
stretching away to infinity.

Saadi seemed to know when Daoud had reached the vision of infinity, and
he spoke again.

"Think of God."

Daoud saw a mountain, a flame, the sun. None of those were God. At last
he saw the blackness of the spaces between the stars. There in the
infinite lightlessness was the dwelling place of God, like the Black
Stone in the Qa'aba. He saw the darkness that veiled God, and he locked
the idea of God in his mind.

"Now, hold the thought of God, and drink."

Saadi held a silver cup to his lips. The liquid was sweet and thick. He
swallowed, and it burned the lining of his stomach.

"What is it?"

"Wine mixed with hashish."

Daoud was shocked.

_Filth, spiritual poison!_

Saadi himself had taught him that. And now Saadi had tricked him into
sipping the vile stuff.

He swayed on his knees, feeling dizzy and angry. Saadi held up a warning
hand.

"Remain in the Presence of God. He will protect you from the ill effects
of the poison. This is the practice."

Daoud struggled back to the infinite emptiness that hid God, and as he
did so he felt his mind clear. The drugs were spreading like tiny flames
through his body, but his body was far away. Too far away for him to
feel the heat.

Beside him, Saadi said, "Everything made by God has two sides, a useful
side and a harmful side. That which is sometimes a poison can at other
times be a medicine. Even kaviyeh, which we drink in such great
quantities to give vigor to our minds, can be a poison. If a substance
is taken in the right amount, on the right occasion, with the right
attitude, it can unlock doors in the mind. Our lord Baibars, peace be
upon him, has told me he plans to send you to the Hashishiyya for
further training. This practice will help you to gain more from their
teachings--and protect you from being corrupted by them. In the months
to come you will learn to take in every kind of intoxicating substance
and keep your mind free. This is not magic. This is a power of the
spirit. What are you feeling?"

"The drug devours my body, but my mind is in the Presence of God."

"One day, when you have learned all you can from the Hashishiyya, I will
teach you the secret of the most powerful drug of all--soma, the drug
that is made by the mind and does not harm the body at all."

       *       *       *       *       *

_No head for wine? No man in this room is less susceptible to wine._

De Verceuil still stood beside the white-bearded pope. His gloomy face
tightened as his eyes met Daoud's.

Daoud dropped to one knee before the pope and kissed the heavy gold ring
that bore a tiny engraving of a man in a boat. He saw that the old man
was wearing white satin slippers.

Daoud felt so dizzied by the wonder of this moment that the tiled floor
seemed to shake under him. He held in his hand the hand of the Pope of
Rome, successor to those popes who had sent wave after wave of crusaders
crashing against the walls of Islam, whose words had caused the deaths
of thousands and thousands of the faithful. He, Daoud ibn Abdallah, once
David Langmuir, had penetrated to the very center of Christian power.

_Was there ever a moment like this before in all of time, when a servant
of the true God and a believer in the word of the Prophet held the hand
of a pope in his?_

"Messer David of Trebizond, the Venetians have just raised the prices of
saffron, curry, ginger, and cardamom," said the pontiff in a deep voice.
"All of which are indispensable to my kitchen. Can you furnish me with
spices more cheaply?"

It took all of Daoud's self-control to hold in a burst of laughter. A
Mameluke comes face-to-face with the pope, and what do they discuss? The
price of spices!

But he sobered as he realized how useful the pope's interest in spices
could be to him. As a purveyor of spices to the papal palace, his
position in Orvieto would be more respected and more secure.

"If you deal with us, Holy Father, you are dealing with the people from
whom the Venetians get those spices," said Daoud with a smile as he
stood up. "This is exactly the purpose of my visit."

"Good, good. Have Cardinal Ugolini arrange an appointment for you with
my steward."

As they walked away, Daoud said softly to Ugolini, "Would it not be
amusing if the Sultan of Cairo were to furnish the spices for the pope's
kitchen?" The irony of it once again struck him as funny. What a tale
for the bazaars of El Kahira.

Ugolini stared at him, side whiskers quivering. "Not amusing at all."

_Ugolini is right to be afraid. I saw what they did to that man in the
piazza. I must not make jokes. Ugolini needs to feel he can rely on me._

Celino emerged from the circle around the Tartars to stand before Daoud.
At Daoud's insistence the Sicilian wore garments tailored specially for
this evening, mostly in white, with gold embroidery on the edges of his
waist-length ermine-trimmed cape and his satin tunic.

"What are the Tartars doing?" Daoud asked.

"Sitting and drinking and mostly talking to each other," said Celino.
"There is a crowd of curious people around them, asking them questions."

"Where is that Friar Mathieu who interprets for them?"

Celino shrugged. "Not here. There is a woman from some eastern country
translating."

Daoud felt a tingle of excitement, like a hunter who had sighted prey.

He surveyed the room. Simon de Gobignon--_may his right hand rot and
wither_--had already left with Sophia, as Daoud and Sophia had planned.
De Verceuil still hovered near the pope.

"Celino, you heard the contessa's servant announcing games in the next
room? See if you can draw Cardinal de Verceuil into a game with you."

"He favors backgammon," said Ugolini.

"All the French dote on backgammon," said Celino.

"Keep him entertained," said Daoud.

"To entertain de Verceuil you will have to bore yourself," said Ugolini.
"He prefers a game whose outcome is never in doubt."

Daoud and Ugolini turned to the serving table, and Daoud began
methodically to work his way through the various dishes the contessa's
servants had set out for her guests. There were eels steeped in a
strange, almost rotten-smelling sauce, there were small, tender lobsters
and large, meaty ones. There were baby birds meant to be eaten bones and
all. There was white bread and there were fine cakes. Daoud filled his
stomach, forcing himself to eat even those foods that repelled him,
while he watched Celino join the group gathered with the pope.

Daoud used his dagger to cut himself a slice of roast veal. It was juicy
and tender, and he cut himself another. The meat tasted as if the calf
had been killed that same day; it was not heavily spiced. How pleasant
to dine at the home of a wealthy woman. By the time he finished his
fourth slice, Celino and de Verceuil were in conversation.

Daoud chatted with Ugolini about astrology. In the cardinal's opinion it
was an auspicious night, and that assessment of the heavens helped calm
the bewhiskered little man somewhat.

It being harvest season, the contessa's tables were laden with fresh
fruits. Daoud enjoyed apricots and grapes, and sliced open an orange. He
watched Celino and de Verceuil move toward the galleria, where the
contessa's guests were playing games.

Daoud eyed the two brown-skinned men in their shimmering robes sitting
at their ease in the sala maggiore in the midst of a circle of curious
people. Their chief guardians, de Verceuil, de Gobignon, and Friar
Mathieu, were all elsewhere.

Daoud, as was customary among these people, dipped his hands in a basin
of water and wiped them on the table linen. Then he began to push his
way into the ring of people around the Tartars.

After a few moments he found himself staring down at them. They were
laughing together over some private joke, speaking to each other in
their chirping language.

Fra Tomasso was part of the group around the Tartars, as were several
bishops and two cardinals. A stout, middle-aged woman stood beside John,
the older of the two. She wore a stiff, brocaded blue gown, and her hair
was tightly wrapped in a net of gold thread.

"Madonna Ana," said Fra Tomasso, "ask Messer John Chagan for me whether
the city called Karakorum is still the capital of the Tartar empire."

The woman turned to the white-bearded John and repeated the question in
rapid-flowing Tartar speech.

John bowed and smiled to Fra Tomasso and spoke to the woman. Daoud
almost felt envy at the sight of John's gorgeous ankle-length silk
robe--white, printed with flowers having massive, many-petaled crimson
and purple heads, along with clusters of green leaves and wispy gold
clouds. He gestured as he spoke, and his hands were square,
short-nailed, and hard-looking. Daoud had no doubt that those hands had
taken many lives.

"Messer John says the capital of their empire is wherever the Great Khan
makes his home," said the Bulgarian woman in a flat tone. "It used to be
Karakorum. But now the Great Khan is building a city in the land of
Cathay. The city is called--Xanadu."

"And how long would it take to travel from Baghdad to this Xanadu?" Fra
Tomasso asked.

"Messer John says for a party of Christians to go to Xanadu from Baghdad
might take as long as a year. But for the Tartar post riders it takes
two months."

"Two months!" exclaimed Fra Tomasso. "For a journey that would take
ordinary men a year? How far is it?"

"Permit me to answer that, Father," Daoud interrupted, "because the
Tartars do not know your system of measurements. The roads between
Baghdad and the great cities of Cathay are tortuous, and vast deserts
and huge mountains stand in the way. But our geographers in Trebizond
estimate that a caravan going over that route would travel a distance of
three thousand leagues."

"And the Tartars cover that in two months? Do they fly?" The fat monk's
jowls quivered. Daoud noticed that the front of his white tunic was
stained with what appeared to be spots of gravy and wine.

Daoud turned to Ana. "Kindly ask the ambassadors to explain to Fra
Tomasso how their riders cover such a distance so quickly."

After some conversation between Ana and the Tartars, Fra Tomasso had his
answer. "The fastest riders and horses in our empire carry messages in
relays over the major routes. A message never stops traveling, night and
day, until it reaches its destination. At night, runners with torches
guide the riders."

The Italians looked awed. Daoud felt unimpressed. The Mamelukes also had
post riders. They could carry a message from El Kahira to Damascus in
four days.

"How intelligent!" said Fra Tomasso. "I will warrant we would be better
governed here in Europe if we had such a system."

The note of admiration in Fra Tomasso's voice made Daoud uneasy. A
servant passed, offering cups of wine on a tray. Daoud took a goblet.
John and Philip raised the empty cups they held, and Ana refilled them
from a pitcher on the table.

"Your empire is so vast, is it not," Daoud said to the Tartars through
Ana, "that even messages that travel swiftly cannot hold it together?"

Philip, the black-bearded Tartar, answered that, smiling. "Fear of the
Great Khan holds our empire together," Ana translated.

"Is the Great Khan feared even in the lands of Kaidu Khan and Baraka
Khan?" Daoud asked, naming the two rebels who did not recognize Hulagu
Khan's brother Kublai. He strove for a tone of innocent curiosity.

The faces of the two Tartars remained expressionless, but Daoud,
schooled by his Hashishiyya masters to notice signs of emotion in the
most guarded of men, observed the flush creeping into their brown
cheeks, the slight quickening of their breathing, and the twitching of
their fingers. Until he asked his disturbing question they had answered
Daoud readily, almost casually, as they would any of the contessa's
other guests. Now, in silence, they studied him. Waiting for them to
finish their inspection, Daoud held out his wine cup to Ana, who filled
it from the pitcher on the table. The pitcher was almost empty, and she
signaled to a servant to bring another.

John Chagan said, and Ana translated, "I do not believe we have had the
honor of being presented to you, Messere."

Daoud turned to Fra Tomasso, who was following the conversation closely.
"Will you be good enough to introduce us, Your Reverence?" Any
opportunity to involve himself with the Dominican philosopher could be
useful.

While Fra Tomasso presented him and Ana translated, Daoud stared at the
Tartars with deliberate challenge, draining his wine cup. Philip caught
the meaning of the gesture at once, and drank deep from his silver
goblet as well. John followed suit.

"Trebizond," said John. "Not far from our borders." Daoud had wondered
whether any of the Tartars' sponsors had told them of David of Trebizond
and his testimony against them at the pope's council.

"Your khan, Hulagu, has already pressed our emperor for tribute and
submission," said Daoud, refilling his cup. He tensed, wondering whether
he was pushing the Tartars too far, too quickly. If they grew insulted
and refused to speak to him, he would have accomplished nothing.

He sipped his wine. Before tonight, the taste of wine had always
puckered his mouth, and he had had to force himself to drink it. But
this straw-colored wine was as sweet as spring water. John and Philip
seemed to enjoy it, too. They quickly emptied and refilled their cups.

Daoud watched the two Tartars closely as Ana translated his last remark.
A suggestion of amusement played about the eyes of the white-bearded
John Chagan. John, he guessed, must be about sixty years of age. Old
enough to have ridden under the founder of the Tartar empire, the ruler
called Genghis Khan. Philip, whose face was fuller, was probably half
John's age.

"We are at peace with Trebizond," said John. "We have exchanged
ambassadors." He took a gulp of wine and emitted a deeply satisfied
sigh.

"How can a people who believe that the whole world belongs to them
remain long at peace with anyone?" asked Daoud. He watched the woman,
Ana. If she were to dull the edge of what he said in translating it, his
effort would fail. But she seemed unmoved by what he said and repeated
it quickly in the Tartar tongue.

But now the two Tartars were glaring at him, Philip in open fury, John
with a cold hostility as if Daoud were an insect that needed to be
stepped on.

How much farther could he press them, he wondered as he took another sip
of wine and stared back.




XXII


Sophia felt cooler here, in the atrium of the Palazzo Monaldeschi, than
she had in the sala maggiore. A breeze blew through the archway that led
to the rear courtyard of the palace, but it did not blow hard enough to
keep the mosquitoes away. Nor did the essence of lemon in the wax
candles in lanterns that lit the atrium repel the whining little pests,
though it scented the air pleasantly, mingling with the sachet of dried
orange cuttings she wore under her gown, between her breasts.

To protect herself from the insects, Sophia wrapped her shawl around her
bare shoulders and drew her gauze veil over her face. She thought it
made her look more mysteriously attractive as well. Perhaps that was the
real reason Muslim women were willing to wear veils. She wondered
whether Daoud had a lover or a wife back in Cairo.

Probably half a dozen of each.

She glanced over at the young French count, walking solemnly beside her
with his hands clasped behind his back. The mosquitoes did not seem to
bother him, or at least he did not slap at them. Well, he was a tall,
thin man with sharp features, dark hair, and pale skin. She imagined the
blood of such a man might taste sour and not draw mosquitoes. He was
good to look at, surely, but there was a bitterness about him. She saw
at once that he was not a happy man.

"Perhaps I should not walk alone with you like this, Madonna," he said.
Actually, his Italian was not difficult for her to understand; she had
criticized it only to throw him off balance when she first met him.
Probably her French was no better than his Italian, but he had been too
gallant to say so.

"Do you fear for your virtue, Your Signory?" she asked lightly.

He smiled, and even in the dim lantern light his face took on a
sweetness that was quite at odds with his previous solemn appearance.
"My virtue, such as it is, is yours to dispose, Madonna." She felt
warmed within by his words and the beauty of his smile.

They paused by a square pool in the center of the atrium. He bent and
dipped his cupped hands, then held them out to her filled with water.

"The contessa has told me that the pool is fed by an underground
spring," he said. "The water is the purest I have ever tasted. Try it."

"Do the Monaldeschi keep fish in it?" She hesitated, thinking of
Cardinal Ugolini's vivarium.

"No. This is their drinking water. Taste it." She lifted her veil and
lowered her mouth into his hands. The water was pure and sweet, just as
he had said. As a lover, she thought, Simon would be like this
water--sweet, not bitter.

The water was gone and her lips touched his palm. Deliberately she
paused a moment before drawing back.

He moved toward her, holding out both hands, but she turned as if she
had not noticed and took a step away from him on the gravel, dropping
the gauze veil before her face.

"You have not explained to me why you think you should not be walking
alone with me, Your Signory."

"Ah--well--" He had to gather his thoughts, she saw. Such a _boy_. She'd
had a middle-aged emperor and a splendid young king as lovers. She now
felt herself in love with a strange Saracen warrior, a Mameluke, who was
subtle, ruthless, kindly, mysterious, daring--so many things, it dizzied
her to think about him.

But Simon's simplicity brought back memories of Alexis, the boy she had
loved when she herself was as innocent as Simon now appeared to be.

Simon said, "Because your uncle leads the faction here in Orvieto that
opposes the Tartars. And because the chief witness against them has been
the merchant David, who dwells, as you do, in the cardinal's house."

_He hates David._ She heard it in his voice.

"What has that to do with you and me, Simon?" This was the right moment,
she thought, to call him by his name. "I care nothing for affairs of
state. In Siracusa we have better things to do with our time than worry
about alliances and wars."

"Everyone will be affected by what happens here concerning the Tartars,"
he said. "Even the people of Siracusa."

She tried to look impressed. "If _you_ think it would be so good for
Christians and Tartars to fight together against the Saracens, I cannot
imagine why my uncle is against it."

"I do not understand that either," said Simon. "Or why he brought this
man David to Orvieto to cause so much trouble."

She shrugged. "I hardly ever see the man from Trebizond. My uncle's
mansion is so big, people can come and go without ever meeting." She
hoped the suggestion would take root. It was vital for him to think
there was no connection between David and herself.

"This is a God-given opportunity for us to rescue the Holy Land," he
said.

"Perhaps I can help you," she said.

"Would you?" His face brightened.

"I could try to find out why my uncle opposes your cause. If you will
tell me why we Christians _should_ ally ourselves with the Tartars, I
will repeat your reasons to him. I will not say they came from you.
Hearing the arguments in private, coming from a loved niece, he might
open his mind to them."

Simon's eyes opened wide in amazement. "You would do all that? But why
are you so willing to help me, Madonna, when your uncle is so opposed to
my cause?"

"Because I would like"--she hesitated just for a breath, then put her
hand on his arm--"I would like to see more of you."

She was on dangerous ground. The tradition of courtly love, in which he
had doubtless been reared, called for the woman to be aloof and for the
man to beg for meetings. But Daoud had told her she did not have the
time to allow this inexperienced young man to proceed at his own pace.

He appeared overwhelmed with happiness. Her answer had just the effect
she had hoped for.

"But you must help _me_," she said with the satisfied feeling that she
was now closing the trap. "You must teach me what to say to my uncle. As
I said, it would be easy for you to come to me without anyone knowing.
Will you visit me when I send for you?"

"Oh, Madonna! Command me." His eyes were huge now, and his smile was
like a full moon shining into the atrium.

"I command you to come over here with me," she said.

She took him by the hand, and, as a light rain began to fall, led him
into a shadowy corner of the open gallery that surrounded the garden. He
pressed her back against a column. She lifted her veil and let him kiss
her fiercely as the rain pattered down on the lemon trees.

She became entirely Sophia Orfali and tasted his kisses hungrily, dizzy
with joy at having won the love of a splendid young nobleman.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Of course I fought in Russia and Poland," Ana said, speaking for John
Chagan, while the old Tartar threw out his arms in a sweeping gesture.
"Everyone went."

Daoud smiled and nodded, leaning back in the chair someone had brought
for him, his right leg crossed over the left. He tried to look relaxed,
though his heart was beating fast. He felt like a man climbing a cliff,
whose slightest misstep might bring a disastrous fall.

He was feeling the effects of the al-koahl--a hissing sound in his
ears, a numbness in his face, a difficulty focusing his eyes, an urge,
difficult to suppress, to splash the contents of his wine cup in John's
ugly face. But his mind was untouched, he knew, and that meant he was
under better control than these two savages whom he had drawn into
telling stories of their wars.

"Was that your first campaign?" he asked.

John made a lengthy speech in answer to Daoud's question, striking his
chest many times and reaching for more wine. Finally Ana translated. She
seemed made of iron, this Bulgarian woman. She did not drink, she did
not get tired, she did not even sit down, and she did not seem to care
what anyone said.

John assured David that as a young man he had participated in the
destruction of the Khwarezmian empire. Khwarezmia, Daoud remembered, a
Turkish nation, was the first Muslim land to fall to the Tartars.

He glanced around and saw that Ugolini and a number of other cardinals,
both French and Italian, had gathered to listen. The contessa was there,
too. And even as Daoud looked, the circle parted for Pope Urban. Two
servants hurried over, carrying a chair for him, and he sat down
heavily.

The Tartars had turned Khwarezmia into a desert, but this audience would
not care overmuch about that. Daoud wondered if he could turn the
conversation back to what they had done in Christian lands.

"What about Moscow?" he said. His voice sounded to him as if his ears
were stuffed with cotton. He worried that John might realize that he was
being led to talk about what he had done against Christians.

"Moscow?" said John. "That was much later." Strange, how John's voice
seemed to be coming from Ana's lips. "I was in command of my own tuman
there, ten thousand men, under our great commander Subotai Baghadur. Ah,
yes, we killed off all the people of Moscow."

Daoud felt like leaping from his chair. Just what he had hoped to hear.
He made himself slump down still more and look sleepier.

"I never could understand how it is possible to kill off the population
of a whole city," he said, affecting a tone of cool curiosity. "It must
take days and be very tiring."

Philip Uzbek laughed when this was translated. Clearly he thought it a
foolish remark. His round, flat face reminded Daoud of Kassar, and with
the thought a red mist of rage passed before Daoud's eyes.

John responded to Daoud's remark. "Not at all tiring. We had five tumans
at Moscow. There were about fifty thousand people living in the city,
and many had died in the siege. Subotai gave the honor of the killing to
the most valorous tuman, which happened to be mine. We just divided them
up. Each of us took about five of them. You can kill five people in no
time. It is not like fighting. Some we shot with arrows. Others we cut
their heads off. The women are especially easy. You just pull their hair
to stretch their necks so the sword will go through easier, and chop!"
Ana, imperturbable even now, repeated the slicing gesture John made with
his hand.

"The children run away sometimes, and you have to chase them," John
chuckled. "It is best to use arrows on them. But the adults are so
terrified, they just stand there."

Daoud looked again at the circle around them. Several people looked a
bit sick. The mouth of the elderly contessa hung open, revealing the
absence of two or three lower front teeth. Pope Urban leaned forward in
his chair, his face expressionless.

Driven by his growing hatred for the Tartars, he pressed them to reveal
more of themselves. He should be pleased, he thought, at this much
success, but he wanted to destroy them utterly.

"You do not mind killing children?" he asked.

John seemed puzzled by the question. "What else could we do with them?
With their parents dead they would only starve to death. Or if they
lived, they would grow up hating us, and we would have to fight them."

_You could make slaves of them_, said a voice inside Daoud, and the red
mist swelled into a cloud of fury billowing up inside him. He had to sit
motionless, his fist clenched on the stem of his silver goblet, waiting
for the feeling to pass. Thank God for Saadi's teaching. It was painful
to look directly with the inner eye at the disorientation of his senses
and at the anger surging through his body, but it saved him from any
fatal mistake.

Philip said, "At Baghdad I found a whole house full of babies, maybe
thirty or forty. I slit all of their throats. Their mothers were dead
already. I suppose they left the babies behind when they went out of the
city to be executed, hoping they would survive. But with no one to
suckle them, the babies would have starved to death. Killing them was an
act of mercy."

Remembering what he had seen of Baghdad, Daoud felt his rage grow cold
and towering as the mountains of the Roof of the World. Those were his
Muslim people. He wanted to draw the dagger at his belt and slash the
throats of the two gloating, drunken savages before him. He bit down
hard on his lower lip to keep himself under control.

"When we shot people with arrows," said John, "we went around and pulled
the arrows out of the bodies afterward so we could use them again. We do
not waste anything."

_He is trying to show how admirable they are._

Daoud watched the stout Bulgarian woman Ana speak John's words in
Italian, still expressionless, still standing motionless. But to his
surprise he saw rivulets of tears on her round cheeks.

She had been in Bulgaria when the Tartars came, he thought. She had seen
what Christians called "the fury of the Tartars." She must have been
among the survivors who submitted to their rule, but she had not
forgotten. Perhaps translating John's and Philip's words exactly as they
spoke them was her way of taking revenge.

John held out his goblet, and Ana refilled it. He laughed softly at
nothing in particular and drank more.

"But why do this to city after city?" Daoud asked.

"When we invade a kingdom, the rulers and people are determined to
resist us," said John. "To fight them might cost us the lives of
thousands of our warriors. But when we wipe out one or two whole cities,
they become terrified. They lose their will to fight and surrender
quickly. It saves many lives on both sides."

Philip grinned broadly. "It shows that we have power like no other
people on earth." He shook both fists. "We can level whole cities. This
teaches all men that Eternal Heaven has given us dominion over the whole
earth."

Daoud heard whispers from the people around him, and Pope Urban coughed
softly.

Daoud could hardly believe his luck. Not luck, he thought. God had
delivered the Tartars into his hands.

"The whole earth?" said Daoud. "Even Europe? Even the Christian lands?"

Philip threw out his arms expansively. "The whole earth. All there is.
Every corner."

Daoud's earlier rage had subsided. Instead, he felt wild triumph, and he
had to grip the seat of his chair to hold himself down.

Daoud heard Cardinal Ugolini declare, "You see? Exactly what we have
been saying."

"You say Eternal Heaven gives you the right to rule the world?" Daoud
asked. "Do you mean God?"

John shrugged. "Eternal Heaven is what our ancestors called Him. Now
that we are Christians we call Him God."

Fra Tomasso suddenly cut in. "But surely you realize that the sky, or
whatever you worshiped before you became Christians, is not the true
God."

After Ana translated this, John questioned her, squinting at the
Dominican as he did so, apparently wanting to make sure of Fra Tomasso's
meaning.

"Would God have neglected us before Christian priests found their way to
our land?" John said through Ana. "Of course He has spoken to us. Has He
not made us the most powerful people on earth?"

"Perhaps He has done so in order that you might _now_ hear His word,"
said Fra Tomasso.

"I am not a priest," John said with a sudden broad grin. "But we have
the highest priests of the Christian faith here tonight. Let them say
whether Eternal Heaven and God are the same." He bowed his round head
and held out his hand in invitation.

A silence fell. The little band of musicians playing vielles and
hautboys in one corner of the room suddenly sounded very loud. Daoud
turned to look once again at the audience his dialogue with the Tartars
had drawn. The Contessa di Monaldeschi, Fra Tomasso, at least half a
dozen cardinals. And Pope Urban himself. Their figures swam before
Daoud, and he knew the wine was overcoming him--bodily, at any rate. The
faces of the Christian leaders looked very grave, though, and the
grimmer they looked, the more pleased he felt.

Fra Tomasso especially, he hoped, had heard enough to sway him.

He turned back to the Tartars. They, too, seemed aware of the uneasy,
unhappy silence. The pope appeared not to feel that John's inquiry
deserved an answer. The older Tartar's smile faded, and he carefully set
down his wine cup. Philip's eyes darted this way and that.

John said something to Philip in a low voice, probably a warning to say
no more. John had the look of a water buffalo beset by village curs, his
eyes smoldering, his white-wreathed head turning from side to side.
Daoud sensed, because he often felt the same way himself, how alone John
must feel, surrounded by enemies.

_He does not have ten thousand warriors at his back now._

Daoud heard a stir behind him, and turned to see the crowd parting to
let Pope Urban leave, the broad back of Fra Tomasso following close
behind him. A priest-attendant in black was coming from a corner of the
room with a cloth-of-gold outer mantle for the pope. The contessa
rustled after Urban, who turned and offered her his hand to kiss. As the
aged hostess knelt unsteadily before Urban, Daoud rejoiced at the
troubled, abstracted expression in the pope's aged eyes.

Daoud heaved himself out of his chair and stood, swaying. For a moment
his eyes would not focus, and he thought he was going to fall. Then he
saw John Chagan giving him a look as piercing as a Tartar lance. Now,
Daoud saw, John understood what he had done to him. As for Philip, he
sat slumped, only half awake, his empty wine cup held loosely. The
stout, dark-haired Ana stood impassive, hands clasped in front of her,
as if content to remain there all night. Her cheeks were now dry.

_We defeated your army at the Well of Goliath, Tartar, and now I have
defeated you at Orvieto._

"Monsters!" It was the voice of the contessa, and Daoud turned to see
her, losing his balance and having to put out a foot to catch himself.

He saw de Verceuil as well, coming across the hall almost at a run, just
ahead of the contessa, his aquamarine cloak flying. His eyes were wide,
his little mouth tight with fury. The contessa, looking just as angry,
was hurrying to keep up with him and tell him what she thought.

"You have brought monsters into my house. Everything bad I have heard
about them they have now admitted. In a year or two they will be at the
gates of Rome. They are the Huns all over again." Her eyes were huge,
and her nostrils flared with passion. Daoud suppressed an urge to laugh
aloud with delight.

De Verceuil checked his rush to get to his Tartar charges, and turned to
the contessa. "Your Signory, I beg you to understand. They have been
drinking. They did not know what they were saying. Old soldiers'
boasting. Exaggerated tales of their exploits. The Tartars are given to
that sort of thing."

"It is not exaggerated," the old lady cried shrilly. "We have heard
tales before of their massacres. Now I have heard the same from their
own lips. These very men whom I have welcomed into my house--their hands
drip with the blood of children. One of them told how he slit the
throats of forty babies. And they are proud of what they have done. They
feel no remorse. Old soldiers' boasting? Old soldiers boast of
overcoming strong enemies. These--these bestioni gloat over the
slaughter of the helpless. Perhaps they look at my palazzo and think
that one day it will be theirs. And you have brought them under my
roof."

"Donna Elvira," de Verceuil pleaded, "let me find out the truth about
what has been happening here."

Daoud's heartbeat quickened. He should slip away now. Drunk as he was,
he would be too vulnerable to de Verceuil.

The French cardinal was shouting at the Bulgarian woman. John the Tartar
was smiling as if de Verceuil's appearance were enough in itself to
extricate him from the consequences of his too-free speech. Philip's
fleshy chin rested on his chest and his eyes were fast shut.

Something white moved in the corner of Daoud's eye, and he looked toward
the doorway leading to the inner galleria, where the gaming had been
going on. Lorenzo was just sauntering out. He was all the way across the
room, and Daoud's vision was too blurred to see his expression, but he
was probably smiling. He walked closer, seeming to be looking at Daoud
for a signal, but Daoud could think of none to send.

_Well done, Lorenzo. How badly, I wonder, did you have to play at
backgammon to keep de Verceuil occupied all this time?_

"How could I stop them from speaking, Your Eminence?" Ana was
protesting. "I am here only to translate what they say. This man came up
to talk to them, and I simply repeated what they said to him and what he
said back to them."

"What man?" de Verceuil asked the question almost in a whisper, and
Ana's eyes turned toward Daoud.

_Too late. Now I must face him._

"You," de Verceuil said in the same low voice.

Daoud swayed, and it came to him at once how best to respond. He would
pretend to be too drunk to understand what was happening.

"You provoked these indiscretions," the cardinal ground out. The jeweled
cross hanging on his chest winked and glittered as it rose and fell with
his deep breathing.

Daoud put out a hand to grasp the back of his chair. Smiling at the
cardinal, he leaned heavily on the chair and circled it methodically. He
sat down heavily on the arm, almost tipping the chair over. Then he slid
into the seat with a thump.

He looked up at de Verceuil and said, "What?"

The cardinal's hands--they were very large, Daoud saw--clenched and
unclenched.

_He wishes he could strangle me._

"Why have you tried to embarrass these ambassadors?" de Verceuil
demanded. His voice was a good deal louder now.

Daoud let his head loll. He caught sight of Lorenzo again. The Sicilian
was much closer. Daoud shook his head ever so slightly and jerked his
chin.

_Go away._

He let his head fall forward.

De Verceuil moved closer. Raising his eyes while keeping his head
lowered, Daoud found himself staring at the cardinal's belt buckle, a
gold medallion displaying an angel's head with wings growing out of its
curly hair.

"I have embarrassed no one," Daoud mumbled thickly. "I know John and
Philip's people. They are our neighbors." He laughed, and let the laugh
go on too long. "We talked about things everybody knows."

He felt those big hands seize the front of his tunic and jerk him to his
feet. De Verceuil's flushed face was less than a hand's width from his
own. The cardinal's eyes were huge and dark.

Daoud felt his muscles bunch, and he forced them to relax. He felt fear.
Not fear of de Verceuil, whom he could easily kill, but fear of losing
control of himself, of letting the Face of Steel show through the Mask
of Clay. Such a revelation could put an end to his mission.

"Who the devil are you? What are you doing in Orvieto? Answer me!" De
Verceuil shook Daoud violently. Daoud's head rocked back and forth, and
he saw two faces of de Verceuil.

Had there been no wine in his blood, it would have been easier for Daoud
to control his fear and his anger. He knew he must play at being a
merchant who would be terrified at having provoked the wrath of a prince
of the Church. But, as it was, he felt himself caught up in a whirlwind
of rage, and his hands came up, going for the cardinal's throat. Just in
time he changed the move into a cringing, self-protective gesture.

"I could have you killed!" de Verceuil shouted. "And I will if you do
not answer me."

"Stop!" The small body of Cardinal Ugolini was beside them, almost
between them. "David of Trebizond is my guest." Daoud glanced down at
Ugolini and saw that he was trembling violently.

_He thinks I might do something that would expose us all._

"Trebizond!" De Verceuil spat the word. "This man is a damned schismatic
Greek who has come here to betray Christianity!"

"On the contrary," said Ugolini, "he may yet save Christendom from a
terrible error. De Verceuil, I demand that you take your hands off him."

Daoud let his body go suddenly limp, so that de Verceuil was holding up
all of his weight by his tunic. At the jerk on his arms, de Verceuil
gave a snort of disgust and let go, pushing Daoud away from him. Daoud
collapsed into his chair.

"I am only a trader," he said plaintively to the room in general. "I am
sorry I ever said a word to the damned Tartars. It has meant nothing but
trouble for me. Why did I not remain silent?" Adding a strong flavoring
of drunkenness, he imitated the gestures of Greek merchants he had seen
in the bazaars of El Kahira. He turned his head from side to side,
surveying the onlookers. He could not see Sophia, which was good. He
wanted her, like Lorenzo, far away. Perhaps she was still in the garden
with de Gobignon.

No. Daoud saw the young French count's head. He was pushing his way
through the audience.

The Contessa di Monaldeschi, her hands nervously smoothing down the
front of her blue velvet gown, confronted de Verceuil.

"Eminence, leave this man alone. He is a guest in this house. As you
are, which is a thing I begin to regret."

"Contessa, this is all a mistake," said de Verceuil pleadingly. Daoud
suspected he feared the ignominy of finding the ambassadors and himself
out in the street.

"It is not a mistake." Ugolini seemed to have plucked up his courage
now. "My esteemed colleague of the Sacred College is trying to punish
David because the Tartars spoke frankly to him. David made no
accusations. The Tartars accused themselves."

The contessa seized Ugolini's arm. "Oh, Your Eminence, will God be angry
with me for harboring these demons?"

Ugolini patted her hands. "You cannot be blamed, dear Contessa. You
acted in good faith at the request of His Holiness himself. He, having
heard what the Tartars said tonight, may also regret this affair."

Ugolini looked accusingly at de Verceuil, who, purple-faced, looked as
if he wished he could tear his little colleague of the Sacred College
limb from limb.

Now Simon de Gobignon, having broken through the circle of onlookers,
declared, "This would not have happened if Friar Mathieu had been here
interpreting for the Tartars, guarding them against indiscretions.
Instead, you found this woman who is altogether ignorant of what is at
stake here. You had her translate for the Tartars because you begrudge
Friar Mathieu his share of the honor of this diplomatic accomplishment.
Except that there will be no accomplishment, because of your bungling."

Tall as de Verceuil was, de Gobignon was taller. Righteous anger made
the French boy's blue eyes flash.

Daoud wanted to laugh aloud at the count's fury and de Verceuil's utter
embarrassment. But he decided he should be too stupidly drunk to
understand what was going on.

"You have no right to criticize me!" de Verceuil shouted.

"Be sure that the Count d'Anjou will hear of this," Simon answered.

_De Verceuil offending Fra Tomasso would be even better than de Verceuil
shouting at de Gobignon. If there were a way I could make that happen.
Sophia, working through de Gobignon?_

Even though his Sufi training helped him keep his mind clear, puzzling
out this new idea was beyond his present powers after all the wine he
had drunk.

Daoud let his head fall forward, and his eyes met the penetrating black
gaze of John Chagan. John was drunk, and he did not speak the language
of these people. But Daoud saw understanding in the crinkled brown face.
John could not know Daoud was a Mameluke, but he knew him for an enemy.
He looked at Daoud with the same icy determination to annihilate all
enemies as Daoud had seen staring at him from under the fur-and-iron
helmets of the Tartars at the Well of Goliath.

And Daoud, slumped in his chair, felt the same implacable resolution he
had felt that day, to fight back until the last invader was driven from
the Dar al-Islam, the Abode of Islam.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Tartar army appeared as a darkness across the eastern horizon,
deepening as it spread. Curry-colored clouds towered above the
gray-black line like mile-high djinns.

The distant thunder of hooves reached the Mameluke commanders as they
halted in the plain between the hills of Galilee and the mountains of
Gilboa near a village called Ain Jalut, the Well of Goliath. A fierce
sun beat down on yellow grass and dusty tamarisks.

El Malik al-Mudhaffar Qutuz was mounted on a milk-white stallion from
Hedjaz in the midst of his emirs. Baibars al-Bunduqdari rode a
fawn-colored half-blood mare, part Arabian and part steppe pony. Daoud,
in his early twenties and risen through the ranks of Baibars's personal
guard to be second in command of the orta, fifteen thousand strong, sat
on his sturdy Yemenite stallion before the other emirs. His red turban
shaded his face and shielded his steel helmet from the sun. His chest
was encased in the breastplate of an emir, steel inlaid with gold.

The Mameluke emirs, bashis and muqaddams wore their fortunes into
battle--gold bracelets and belts, jeweled rings, necklaces of coins.
Jewels sparkled on their belt buckles and the scabbards and hilts of
their scimitars, on their turbans, on the toes of their boots, on their
fingers. Over their mail shirts and gold-inlaid breastplates the emirs
wore velvet vests and long khalats of crimson or gold satin, lined with
white silk, fastened with gold buttons, trimmed with silver thread at
the collars and cuffs and hems. Silk turbans were wound around their
helmets, red, blue, yellow, pinned with jeweled clasps and adorned with
the plumes of rare birds. Tied tight around their waists were wide
shawls printed with stars and crescents. Their boots were of soft
leather, crimson-dyed, with silver spurs, gold buckles, and pointed
toes.

_And all that I have_, Daoud thought, _may be torn from me in an instant
today_.

From Daoud's neck hung the silver locket given to him by his first, and
so far only, wife, Baibars's daughter Blossoming Reed. It was, she had
told him, a magical thing.

The Mamelukes were now the last defenders of Islam. The Tartars having
conquered Baghdad and Damascus, El Kahira was the only remaining center
of Muslim strength. If the Tartars overcame the Mamelukes, all that
remained of the Dar al-Islam would lie open to the invaders, even the
holiest place of all, Mecca, the house of God.

"We are a hundred thousand and they not a fourth of that," said Qutuz
almost petulantly, his eyes fixed on the oncoming Tartars. "How can they
dare to turn and fight us?"

"They are Tartars," said Baibars. "They do not fear the numbers of their
enemies."

"Being a Tartar yourself, you can tell us how they think," said Qutuz.
Daoud heard a faint undertone of contempt in the Kurd's voice. Baibars
must have heard it, too; Daoud saw his lord's cheeks darken slightly.

Looking into the sultan's set face, Daoud realized that Qutuz, despite
his apparent disdain, had already given up the battle. His lips, almost
hidden in his oiled black beard, were pressed tight, in an effort to
keep them from trembling.

The Mamelukes might outnumber the Tartars today, but the Tartars had
never been defeated anywhere in the world. The sultan must have led the
army to what he saw as certain death, for himself and all of them, only
because he knew his Mameluke emirs would depose and kill him if he did
not.

_How can a Mameluke fear death, or even defeat? Qutuz has been sultan
too long._

"With the help of God, my brothers," said Qutuz, his voice hollow, "let
us ride forth and slay them. I will command the center, Kalawun the left
wing, and Baibars the right. When you see my green banner dip, we will
advance to surround and destroy them."

_He does not believe that God will help him_, thought Daoud. _And he
does not believe he can help himself._

Riding over the dusty field to rejoin the men under his command, Daoud
yearned for the fighting to begin. His body felt tight, as if it were
being pressed inward from all directions, and his heart seemed to swell
in his chest, trying to break out of the pressure.

_If I must die today, let me first do a great deed for God!_

By the time the oncoming Tartars were clearly visible, Daoud was back
with the right wing of the Mameluke army, at the head of his own troop.
The Tartars came on at an unhurried trot, spread out in a series of long
ranks, one behind the other, and he could see their fur-trimmed helmets,
their waving lances, their colored signal flags. He could hear their
shrill war cries and the braying of their horns. Above their front rank
flew their savage standard, rows of long black tails of animals waving
from crossbars mounted on a tall pole.

Drawn up across the plain behind Baibars's yellow banner were dark
ranks of Mameluke heavy cavalrymen armed with tall spears and wearing
steel chain mail and helmets.

Daoud saw Qutuz's green flag, small and far to the west, dip, heard
Baibars's cry, relayed the shout to his men.

In a moment the parched earth of the plain of the Well of Goliath was
trembling under the hooves of fifteen thousand Mameluke horses. The
kettledrums of Baibars's tablkhana, his camel-mounted band, thundered,
and the trumpets blared, sending Daoud's blood racing.

Daoud drew his double-curved bow of horn and sinew out of the case
hanging from his saddle and nocked an arrow as the galloping hooves of
his horse jolted his body. He let his voice pour out of him in a long
scream.

The braying of the Tartars' signal horns floated over the plain. They,
too, were galloping, bent over the necks of their ponies. The Tartar
horses were short-legged, their barrel-shaped bodies encased in leather
armor.

_Ugly little horses_, Daoud thought.

The ponies of the Tartar unit passing him all appeared to be white with
black spots. The Tartars' tunics were brown, their trousers gray, and
their fur-trimmed iron helmets painted red.

Ahead of him Daoud saw Baibars's yellow standard fluttering against a
sky gray with dust. Baibars's wing and the Tartars were riding past each
other. The emir was leading his men eastward. To Daoud's left, across an
empty space of grassy plain, the Tartar army was passing them, charging
to the west. Arrows flew from the Tartars, but singly, not in volleys.
Daoud loosed an arrow of his own at the passing horde. It arced over the
bare strip between the two armies and fell in the Tartar mass without
result that he could see.

He looked back toward the center of the Mameluke host and saw small
figures in white robes striding through the grass. They were holy men,
he knew, dervishes dedicated to death. As they marched on foot and
unarmed against the Tartars, they were calling on God to avenge the
martyrs of Islam. Arrows flew at them from the Tartar lines, and in an
instant it seemed the dervishes vanished as they crumpled into the tall
grass.

_They are showing all of us how to die_, thought Daoud. By going
joyfully to their deaths, the dervishes reminded the Mamelukes that each
warrior who died here today would be a mujahid, one who fell in holy war
for Islam. Such a one was destined for paradise.

But he also realized uneasily that he had seen a demonstration of Tartar
marksmanship.

Signal flags, yellow, green, and red, fluttered among the Tartar
horsemen, and horns bellowed. Daoud heard the pounding of a great
battery of drums. From twenty thousand Tartar throats at once there rose
a long, terrifying scream. Daoud turned in the saddle to see the entire
Tartar army, now in a wedge formation, the beast-tail standard at the
point of the triangle rushing upon the green banner of Sultan Qutuz.

A blue flag fluttered beside Baibars's yellow one. The signal to halt.
Daoud raised his arm and shouted the order to his troop. The Mameluke
right wing rumbled to a stop and turned their horses to face the
fighting that had just passed them by. Reining up his horse, Daoud put
his bow back in its case.

He blinked as bright bursts of light flashed above the distant ranks in
the center of the Mameluke army. Swiftly that part of the field was
enveloped in thick clouds of brown smoke. A moment later he heard
popping sounds like the cracking of innumerable boards. The dim shapes
of horses plunged and reared in the smoke.

He heard his men muttering to one another behind him.

_They think it is sorcery._

Daoud, having seen the Tartar army in action when he visited Baghdad
disguised as a Christian trader, recognized the fiery noisemakers.

He turned and shouted, "It is not magic. I've seen this before. It is
like Greek Fire, but it does not hurt. It just makes noise and smoke."

He saw smiles of relief among those who had heard him. They would pass
the word to the others farther back, and the troops would settle down.

He peered anxiously into the chaos of smoke and dust and horses and men,
trying to see the Tartar standard, with its long black tails, and
Qutuz's green banner. They had been close together when he last saw
them. Now he could not find them.

A movement near the western horizon caught his eye. He saw a bit of
green waving just below the blue Galilee hills that separated this plain
of Esdraelon from the coast. Qutuz's banner, smaller, farther away.

Despair clutched at Daoud. But Qutuz could be feigning a retreat to lure
the Tartars into spreading themselves too thin. Then he saw the black
Tartar standard, much closer, in the midst of a furious melee of
fighting men and falling horses half obscured by dust. Qutuz would not
leave part of the center behind to fight the Tartars unless he were
running away. Daoud remembered the tightness he had seen in Qutuz's face
before the battle, the hopelessness in the sultan's voice.

_He is fleeing in terror. We are all dead men. Islam is lost._

Daoud looked to the east and saw that Baibars was still sitting
motionless, a small figure at this distance on his fawn half-blood, the
bearer with the yellow standard sitting behind him.

Daoud turned in the saddle and swept his gaze over the long line of his
own troop. Their red turbans bobbed up and down as their horses danced.
The wind was from the north, and their scarlet cloaks fluttered behind
them. The bearded faces in the front rank were grave, but there was no
fear. There was no murmuring now, no questioning. Their mounts, brown,
white, and black, the finest steeds in al-Islam, stood with necks
stretched and ears laid back, eager for the charge.

An orange pennant beside Baibars's standard summoned the commanders to
confer with their leader.

"I go to the emir for orders," Daoud said loudly, so they would not
think he was fleeing the field.

By the time he reached Baibars, a half circle of five emirs and ten
bashis had formed around their commander. Daoud could hear Baibars
muttering to himself in his boyhood Kipchaq tongue. Curses, no doubt.

Far to the north Daoud saw horsemen riding westward, away from the
battlefield. The left wing, under Kalawun. The Tartars had come nowhere
near them. They must have given way to fear when they saw the center
fall back.

Daoud saw no fear in Baibars's brown face. His wide mouth with its thin
lips was formed in a half smile. The expression around his eyes, the
blue one that saw so deeply and the opaque white, was calm and
confident. He pulled on his reins to turn his half-blood so that his
back was to the field of battle.

"Most of our army has fled." His voice was deep and so full of
confidence Daoud almost thought he heard laughter in it. "The Tartars
think they have won. Now, therefore, let us ride against them."

The commanders looked at one another in wonderment.

Buoyed up by Baibars's calm strength, Daoud felt himself despising the
officers under his and Baibars's command.

_They think Baibars is mad. To the devil with them. Even if he is mad, I
will follow him and die with him._

The thought occurred to him that if Baibars should fall--God
forbid!--then he would have to lead these fifteen thousand men. For a
moment he was seized by fear, whether of his lord's death or of having
to lead alone, he was not sure.

Baibars saw the disbelief of his officers. "You do not deserve to ride
with me," he said, and now there was scorn in his tone. "Have you not
always risked death in battle? Can the Tartars do more to you than kill
you? I tell you, if we are defeated, better to die here than live as
fugitives. Now go to your troops. In a moment you will see my standard
move against them. Do as you will, follow or run away as you choose, and
God will reward you accordingly. If I must, I will ride alone."

Daoud felt the blood rush to his head in dizzy excitement.

"You will not ride alone, Lord," said Daoud fiercely.

"No, Bunduqdari, no," said another emir, Bektout, a Kipchaq like
Baibars. "Let us offer our lives to God and ride out with light hearts."

The other officers shouted their eagerness to die for Islam. Daoud felt
full of gratitude. Baibars had put the spirit of war back into them. He
had done what Qutuz could never do.

After the other emirs had ridden back to their troops, Baibars said
quietly to Daoud, "I truly believe I will win. Until the instant that
they kill me, I will know that I am winning."

Back at the head of his own troop, Daoud watched Baibars and waited. For
a moment a silence fell over this part of the field. The drumming of
hooves, the clash of steel, and the screams of men carried clearly from
far to the west.

Baibars on horseback sat a short distance in front of the long dark
ranks of Mamelukes. He turned and beckoned to his standard bearer, who
trotted forward bearing the yellow silk banner inscribed with the words
of the Koran in black letters, "For the safety of the faith, slay the
enemies of Islam."

Baibars took the banner in his right hand and held it high, then lowered
it till its end rested in a leather socket beside his foot. In his left
hand, his sword hand, his long, curved saif, inlaid with gold, flashed
in the sunlight. His fawn half-blood pawed the air with her front
hooves.

"Oh, God, give us victory!" he shouted. "Yah l'Allah!"

An echoing roar came back from the ranks of the right wing. Half
standing in his copper stirrups, guiding his mare with the pressure of
his legs, Baibars sent her into a headlong gallop. Daoud struck his
spurs into his own horse's flanks and raced after him. He squinted into
the wind that blew his beard back against his neck.

The dark blur of struggling Tartars and Mamelukes grew rapidly larger.
Qutuz's banner was nowhere to be seen, but the beast-tail Tartar
standard rose up in the west, and Kalawun's black banner was waving far
to the north.

They were coming on the Tartar horsemen from the flank and rear. Daoud
was close enough to see faces turn and Tartars wheel their ponies to
meet the attack.

Daoud drew his bow out again, picked a big Tartar with a drooping black
mustache, and loosed an arrow at him. The Tartar fell back over his gray
pony's rump, and the pony slowed, trotted out of the Tartar formation,
and stood nibbling on the tall dead grass while its dead master lay
nearby.

Three Tartars peeled off from their formation and charged at Daoud. His
arrows took two of them, and an arrow from one of his men struck down
the third.

Elated, he whispered a prayer of thanks to God. Baibars's yellow
standard changed direction. Following it, Daoud pulled his horse around
and raced away from the Tartars. He stood in the stirrups, bow and an
arrow in hand with a steel-tipped armor-piercing arrow nocked. Resting
his right knee against his heavy wood and leather saddle, he turned
until he was looking over his horse's rear and took careful aim. To
steady his aim, he fired the arrow just after his horse's four feet
struck the ground. He saw a Tartar thrown off his pony by the force of
the arrow, and he laughed aloud.

He saw files of Tartars pulling away from the main formation, which was
pursuing Qutuz and Kalawun. Baibars's attack was pulling the Tartars
apart.

Love for Baibars surged within him. The Tartars were said to be masters
of warfare, but Baibars could out-general even them.

Following the yellow standard, Daoud rode back and forth over the field.
He lost all sense of the progress of the battle. For brief moments he
took his eyes off the enemy warriors to glance up at the sun, a pale
disk visible through a haze of smoke and dust, to see in which direction
he was riding.

Many times he shot his last arrow, got down from his horse and, standing
in the grass with horsemen galloping all around him, refilled his
quiver from those of fallen Mamelukes and from the bodies of Tartars.

Mounted or on foot, he felt as if no arrow or sword could touch him. He
seemed, when he had ridden out to battle, to have left fear somewhere
behind.

He recognized Mamelukes from other ortas riding beside him, and his
hopes leapt at the sight of them. They must have come back to join the
battle from the shattered left wing and center.

Following the yellow standard, he saw that the Tartars were now always
on his left. For the most part, he kept his eyes on them and stayed
close to the other Mamelukes. The plain was almost featureless, but
glancing to his right from time to time, he noticed certain twisted
trees and black boulders he was sure he had passed before.

The sun was halfway between the zenith and the western horizon when the
yellow standard halted. The Mamelukes turned to face the Tartars, whose
standard rose from their midst. Looking to either side, Daoud saw
curving lines of mounted Mamelukes stretching until they disappeared
around the edges of the packed Tartar mass.

What had happened? Baibars's refusal to abandon the field and the
greater numbers of the Mamelukes must have tipped the scales. Daoud's
heart pounded with joy as he realized that they had ground down the
numbers of the Tartars and surrounded the survivors.

Baibars, down the Mameluke line, called out, "Finish them. One by one.
Hand to hand."

He still held high the banner of the orta. He raised his curved saif and
pointed it at the Tartars.

He turned toward Daoud for a moment, and Daoud saw the exaltation in his
face. Baibars's face was coated with gray dust. His gold khalat was
streaked with blood, and none of it, Daoud was sure, was his. An angel
must be riding on his shoulder.

With another wave of his saif Baibars charged into the mass of Tartars.
Howling in an ecstasy of fury, the rest of the Mamelukes rushed after
him.

Daoud reached over his shoulder and pulled his curving, double-edged
saif from its leather-covered scabbard. He tried to ride near Baibars,
but a wall of Tartars rose up between them. While he fought for his own
life, Daoud could only pray that God would protect Baibars.

And then he was no longer fighting many Tartars, but just one. They had
chosen each other out of the struggling multitudes, like partners in a
dance.

Daoud saw his man as vividly as if he had been staring at him for hours.
Red ribbons fluttered from the sides of his fur-trimmed iron helmet. The
ends of his black mustache hung down on either side of his mouth like
whiplashes. His cheeks and chin bore the ridges of thick scars he seemed
to have cut into his flesh. His nose had been crushed in some past
battle, and it was a shapeless lump between his jutting cheekbones. His
eyes were hard and expressionless.

Daoud rode at the Tartar eagerly, rejoicing that for now the battle was
between himself and this one man. For him now this Tartar was all
Tartars.

The scarred brown face was utterly concentrated on a single purpose, to
kill Daoud. The Tartar reminded Daoud of a tale told by a storyteller in
a bazaar at El Kahira of invincible bronze warriors, statues brought to
life by a magician.

Daoud's Yemenite stallion leapt at the Tartar as Daoud brought his saif
down.

The Tartar raised his round leather-covered shield and easily caught the
blow of Daoud's sword while swinging his own scimitar around at Daoud's
chest. The blade struck Daoud's ribs on the left side. The cunningly
woven rings of Damascene steel under Daoud's tunic stopped the edge of
the blade, but the blow sent a shock of pain through his body.

Daoud struck downward again with his saif and chopped a deep gash in the
Tartar's shield. The force of the blow hurt Daoud's arm. His tall
Yemenite and the Tartar's piebald pony pranced in a cloud of dust as
their riders slashed at each other. The Tartar's brown tunic hung in
ribbons.

Daoud saw a spot of sunlight reflected from his silver locket flash in
the Tartar's eyes. The Tartar glanced at Daoud's chest, his eyes caught
by the light. In that instant Daoud thrust straight at his enemy's
throat.

He thought he had no chance of hitting the right spot, but the point of
his saif went in just below the Tartar's chin and above his high leather
collar. Blood poured after the sword's point as Daoud jerked it out.

_Praise God!_ Daoud thought with delight as he saw that he had won. And
he thought with thankfulness of Blossoming Reed, for her gift of the
locket.

For the first time, an instant away from death, an expression of feeling
crossed the Tartar's face. His lips parted and the corners of his mouth
pulled down in a grimace of pain and disgust.

Daoud had to parry one more blow of the scimitar before the Tartar
slumped over in the saddle and slid to the ground, disappearing in the
dust kicked up by the hooves of a dozen milling horses. In his last
moment the Tartar had still been trying to kill him.

"We have destroyed them!" a voice cried near him. It was Mahmoud, naqeeb
of Daoud's old training troop. He now wore the plain gold belt buckle of
an emir of drums, in command of forty mounted warriors. His beard was
whiter now, but he rode easily and held his scimitar with a young man's
strength.

Mamelukes rode forward on all sides of Daoud, their saifs stabbing the
air.

The victory whoops of his fellow Mamelukes were, for Daoud, a draft of
elixir from paradise filling him with new strength.

"Great Baibars, honor to his name, has defeated those who never knew
defeat!" Mahmoud exulted.

As the last word left his lips, a Tartar arrow, long as a javelin,
thudded into his chest. He gasped, and his pain-filled eyes met Daoud's.
He dropped his scimitar and his hand reached out to grasp Daoud's arm.

"A good moment," he grated. "Praise God!" He slumped in the saddle, the
flowing white beard fluttering in the east wind.

Grief shot through Daoud like the Tartar arrow that had pierced his old
naqeeb.

Daoud knew what Mahmoud's last words meant. It was the best of moments
to die. A moment of triumph.

_But a moment of grief for me, Mahmoud, because I have seen you die._

Daoud rode forward over dead Tartars to the place where the enemy had
planted their standard, on a small hill. Bunched together, the last few
Tartars fought on foot.

A fierce joy swept Daoud. Victory! He had believed that God would not
allow Islam's last defenders to be defeated, but the wonder of a triumph
over the invincible Tartars was so overwhelming that he almost fell from
his saddle.

In the midst of the Tartars one man dashed this way and that, shouting
orders to the few dozen men as if they were still thousands. He wore a
gold tablet stamped with symbols on a chain around his neck, the badge
of a high-ranking Tartar officer. Scouts had reported that this Tartar
army was commanded by one called Ket Bogha. This must be he.

Ket Bogha shot arrows into the tightening circle of Mamelukes until he
had no more arrows left. He threw javelins. Then he stood with his sword
held before him, not the usual Tartar saber, but a two-handed sword that
he swung ferociously at anyone who approached.

With a single swipe of his sword Ket Bogha cut off the foreleg of a
horse that rode at him. The horse toppled screaming to the ground, and
the rider barely managed to jump free and run away as Ket Bogha slashed
at him.

The battle ended for Ket Bogha as six naqeebs clubbed the Tartar general
to the ground with the butt ends of their lances.

_He deserved better than that_, Daoud thought sadly.

But the momentary sympathy for his conquered enemy was swept away in the
ecstatic floodtide of triumph. Now the battle was truly over! And the
Mamelukes had won over the Tartars.

The naqeebs bound Ket Bogha's arms. Baibars himself dismounted and took
the Tartar general's great sword and tied it to his own saddle, then
lifted the gold tablet from around his neck and dropped it into his
saddle pack. Smiling, he spoke to Ket Bogha in the language of the
Tartars and tied a rope around his neck. Then he mounted his own
fawn-colored mare and led the defeated general past heaps of Tartar and
Mameluke dead and clusters of rejoicing Muslim warriors. Daoud, and then
Baibars's other emirs and bashis followed.

The standard of Qutuz was back on the field, looking more black than
green with the afternoon sun behind it.

"Can it be? Can it be that we have truly won?" Mamelukes cried, running
beside Baibars's horse.

"Baibars! Yah, Baibars!" cried the warriors as Baibars rode slowly over
the field.

"Tell us, Baibars, that we have won!"

As an answer Baibars gestured grandly to his captive stumbling along
behind him.

"Baibars, bringer of victory!"

The sultan's servants were already setting up his gold silk pavilion on
the edge of the battlefield. When Baibars rode before Qutuz, pulling Ket
Bogha, a deafening roar went up from the emirs, the bashis, the
muqaddams, the naqeebs, the troopers.

Daoud glanced at Qutuz and saw that his eyes were wide and his face
pale. He must still be dazed by the outcome of this battle.

But the sultan stepped forward to peer at Ket Bogha as the Tartar
general was freed from Baibars's rope. Qutuz gestured to his men to
untie Ket Bogha. A circle of emirs formed around Qutuz and the Tartar
commander, to hear what they would say to each other.

Qutuz had found time at the end of the battle to have his black beard
combed and oiled and to robe himself afresh. His black and gold khalat
glittered in the hazy sunlight. The Mamelukes had stripped Ket Bogha of
his armor, and he stood before the sultan in a dirty, bloodstained tunic
that had once been a bright blue. His shaven head was round as a ball,
and, like most Tartars Daoud had seen, his short legs were bowed from a
lifetime in the saddle.

Once again Daoud felt sorrow for the Tartar leader, who looked like a
lonely island in the midst of a sea of joy.

Since Baibars spoke both Tartar and Arabic, he stood between the sultan
and the Tartar general to translate.

"You have overthrown kingdoms from the Jordan to the Roof of the World,"
said Qutuz through Baibars. "How does it feel to be defeated yourself?"

Released from his bonds, Ket Bogha paced furiously back and forth before
Qutuz. He started to talk so rapidly the interpreter could not keep up
with him.

Daoud was amazed to see that he actually seemed to be laughing at what
Qutuz had said.

_He still feels the excitement of the battle_, Daoud thought. _And by
walking and talking as he does, he keeps at bay his grief at the loss of
his army. His words are as much for himself as for the sultan and the
emirs._

"Defeat?" said Baibars, speaking Ket Bogha's words. "Oh, Sultan, do not
play the fool by claiming this skirmish as a victory. You rashly chose
to overrun this handful of men, but the harm you have done to Hulagu
Khan is that which a gnat does to an elephant. You have not hurt him.
You have angered him. The men and horses he has lost here, the wives of
his soldiers and the mares in his paddocks will make up in a single
night."

"You talk like some old storyteller in the marketplace who tries to
frighten children," said Qutuz in a shrill voice.

_The amazement all of us feel, that we are not only alive but
victorious, must be even stronger in Qutuz. Most of my Mameluke
comrades may think that their sultan planned for victory all along. But
he himself knows better._

Ket Bogha stopped pacing and pointed a stubby finger at Qutuz. "Soon
Hulagu Khan will return from beyond the Oxus and the hooves of his
horses will trample your land all the way to the Nile and beyond. He
will do to your Cairo what he did to Baghdad."

Qutuz laughed harshly. "Your faith in your master is touching, but I
will have your head carried before me on a spear when I ride back to
Egypt. He cannot save you from that."

"I would rather die for my khan than be like you, one who rose to power
by murdering his rightful lord!" Ket Bogha cried.

Baibars smiled wryly as he repeated the Tartar's words in Arabic.

Qutuz went white with fury. "Take him away and cut his head off," he
ordered. "And you, Baibars, how dare you repeat such a slander to me? I
never murdered anyone."

Qutuz's command revolted Daoud. After the poor part the sultan had
played in the battle, he had no right to take the head of a brave enemy.
Daoud heard Baibars give a little snort of disgust, and the emir strode
to Qutuz's side.

Baibars spoke in a low voice, but Daoud heard him. "My Lord, this is not
worthy of a sultan in his hour of victory. This is a brave commander,
and I repeated all that he said because you wished me to."

Qutuz glared wildly at Baibars. "Be still! I will not spare your fellow
Tartar."

Qutuz, Daoud thought with smoldering wrath, was not worthy to be sultan.

Baibars turned his back on Qutuz. The brown face was impassive, but in
the one blue eye Daoud saw death.




XXIII


The rats scavenged in the garbage and the cats hunted the rats. And cats
and rats scurried out of the way of the two men who staggered beneath a
waning moon through the streets of Orvieto.

"I was truly drunk," said Daoud. "But only my body was drunk. It is
still drunk." He walked with one arm thrown over Lorenzo's shoulder to
steady his steps. It must have rained during the evening. The streets
were slippery, and the clean, vaporous scent of drying rain was stronger
than the usual odor of rotting rubbish piled between the houses in the
spaces the Orvietans called quintane.

"You feign the extremity of drunkenness quite well," said Lorenzo. They
had met by prearrangement on the street outside the Monaldeschi palace.
Sophia and Cardinal Ugolini left earlier and separately, carried in
sedan chairs and escorted by the cardinal's guards.

"What hour is it?" Daoud asked.

"Past the third nocturn. Do you know what that means?"

"It was explained to me once, but now my memory seems to be drunk."

"Simply, dawn is not far off," said Celino. "The third nocturn is
between midnight and dawn. The contessa's reception began at the first
nocturn, between sunset and midnight. Tell me, did you never experience
wine in Egypt?"

Daoud decided that, much as he liked Lorenzo, he did not want to confide
any of Saadi's most secret teachings to an atheist.

"Many times we stayed up all night, drinking kaviyeh, talking and
watching the dancers. But we do not drink wine."

"Really?" said Lorenzo, glancing at him. "Permit me to be skeptical. I
know many Muslims who drink wine."

Daoud shook his head. "Most Mamelukes do not drink wine. When Baibars
became sultan, he closed all the wine shops in El Kahira." He also
decided not to tell Lorenzo that in private Baibars enjoyed the Tartar
drink kumiss, made from the fermented milk of mares.

Lorenzo grunted. "Then you Mamelukes are stricter in your observance
than many others who were born to Islam."

They passed the cathedral of San Giovenale. It was lit within, and the
narrow stained glass windows glowed red, yellow, blue, and white.

_You go into a Christian church during the day, and the windows are all
alight with colors. At night the windows are black if you are inside the
church but brightly lit if you are outside. As if the church is calling
to those outside in the darkness._

"So beautiful," Daoud said, "even if the images were idolatrous."

"You should see some of the new cathedrals up near Paris. The windows
are much bigger, and the figures are more lifelike."

"Do you admire the Christian churches?" Daoud asked.

"I admire beauty wherever I find it. On Sicily, there are beautiful
stained glass windows in many synagogues."

"We are building a mosque in El Kahira that will be the wonder of the
world. But when were you in Paris?"

"Four years ago, on a mission for King Manfred."

_Four years ago I was battling Tartars in Palestine._

As they passed the open front doors of the cathedral, Daoud looked up
the steps. He saw the bright yellow light of massed candles and heard a
chorus of male voices raised in song. The voices seemed thin and high,
as if reaching up into the night sky. He had heard such singing
before--a long time before. He felt a catch in his throat.

"Why are the priests singing so late at night?"

"Those are the priests of the cathedral chapter. It is the beginning of
day for them. They are chanting lauds, the dawn prayer of the Church."

Listening to the voices, Daoud felt hot tears running down his face.

Lorenzo glanced at him and chuckled. "I see you are not so impervious to
the attractions of Christianity."

Daoud was embarrassed, but he could not stop the flow of tears. "It is
the wine."

He was remembering high mass in the chapel of the castle, with his
father's hand on his shoulder as they knelt and the chief priest in
dazzling white and gold cope raised the white wafer toward heaven. His
father whispered, "Jesus is come down among us," and then his strong
tenor voice joined in "Veni Creator Spiritus."

_I weep now for my father because I had no chance to weep for him when
he was killed._

"Suppose he is in some Christian heaven looking down at me. What would
he think?"

Daoud started at the sound of his own words.

_I must be drunk. I would never speak so in front of Lorenzo--or
anyone--otherwise._

"Who is looking down at you?" Lorenzo asked. His shoulders were hard and
broad under Daoud's arm, and he seemed to bear Daoud's weight without
the least difficulty. They were past the cathedral now, following a
straight, fairly wide street that gently sloped downward. Broken clouds
drifted away from the half moon. Like a watchman's lantern it hung over
the center of the street, between the overhanging second stories of the
houses.

"My father," said Daoud, and a sob bubbled up in his throat as he softly
spoke the word, albeit in the unfamiliar tongue of Italy. "How he must
hate me and curse me for fighting for Islam."

Lorenzo halted his stride and lifted his head. Then he started walking
again. He raised his hand and gripped the wrist Daoud was resting on his
shoulder.

In a very low voice he said, "Someone is following us."

Now Daoud stopped, tensing. He called on the power of his mind to resist
the wine. His tears dried on the instant.

"Walk on," said Lorenzo in a low voice. "Keep your arm over my shoulder.
Keep talking to me." In a louder voice he said, "I do not believe
people's souls go to a heaven of any sort."

"Can they hear us?" Daoud said softly. De Verceuil, he thought. He must
have decided to have me killed. His body felt cold. His journey from
Egypt and all his work, despite tonight's triumph, might end here on a
rain-wet street. And what would happen to Sophia if he were killed?

"They cannot hear what we say. But careful, they might be able to tell
from the tone of our voices whether we are aware of them. Can you
fight?"

"Not well. Not well at all." The Scorpion, the small crossbow hidden in
his cloak, he thought, might account for one or two of them, if he could
see well enough to aim it. He blinked his eyes. He saw two moons hanging
over the street, blinked again, and saw one.

"Do not Jews believe in an immortal soul?" he asked in a normal voice,
keeping up the pretense of conversation.

He cursed his lack of foresight. Why had he not thought to arrange for
some of their bravos to meet them and escort them back to Ugolini's
palace? Because he did not want himself connected with the fighting men
Lorenzo had brought to Orvieto. That it had been a sensible precaution
did not ease his anguish now.

"Maimonides writes that men and women live on after they die only in the
memory of others," said Lorenzo. "Of course, orthodox rabbis say that
Maimonides was a heretic."

"If the dead live on only in memory, then my father is truly dead,
because I have done nothing for his memory, and I fight against all that
he fought for."

Daoud realized that his wine-numbed mind was hardly working. He was
relying on Lorenzo to think of some way to get them through this. He
hated having his life depend on another man's cleverness. He tried to
free his thoughts from the poisonous grip of al-koahl. It had been
easier earlier this evening, but he was very tired now.

"I prefer to believe that people become more broadminded after they
die," said Lorenzo. "They come face-to-face with the truth, whatever it
is, and they see how each of us, Turk and Jew and Christian, has been
struggling to uphold a dimly glimpsed version of what they see plainly.
If they do not feel sorry for us, then probably they laugh at us.

"And now, this way. Move as silently as you can."

Abruptly, holding tight to Daoud's wrist, Lorenzo made a sharp left turn
into an alley so narrow it was almost invisible. It was scarcely more
than a quintana, a tunnel rather than an alley; the overhanging second
stories of the houses on either side actually had a wall in common.

Lorenzo pulling him, Daoud broke into a trot. All around them was a hot
blackness reeking of decay. Daoud could hear creatures scrabbling out of
his way. Ahead was a bluish oblong--the end of the tunnel and the
moonlit space beyond it.

They stopped abruptly. Lorenzo swung Daoud's arm down and stepped away
from him, gripping him briefly by the shoulders to brace him.

"Now you must clear your head, Messer David. I hear them coming. I think
they saw us duck in here. Get out your sword or your dagger, whatever
suits you best, and get ready to fight."

Daoud heard the sound of running boots. He tried to guess how many
pursuers there were, but his head was not clear enough of wine fumes for
that. He fell against the rough plaster wall. Could he and Lorenzo break
through a doorway into a house and hide there? No, the people within
would probably give them away.

He heard the slithering sound of Lorenzo's sword being drawn. He decided
not to use the Scorpion. It would take too long to load and cock it, and
if he fumbled, he would be cut down without a second chance.

His mind was fairly clear of the toxic power of al-koahl, but his body,
still in its grip, felt half dead to him.

_How can I fight, as dizzy as I am? Thou hast said it, O God, wine is an
abomination. Forgive me for drinking it, and help me now._

He reached for his sword, the handsome new one he had bought in Orvieto.
He drew it out slowly, as quietly as he could, and hefted it in his
hand. A bit late now to wonder how it would stand up in a fight.

The running footsteps stopped suddenly. Looking at the end of the alley,
Daoud saw figures silhouetted by the moonlight. He heard voices
murmuring. Then the figures seemed to fill the rectangular mouth of the
alley. There seemed to be six of them. They moved slowly, cautiously.

"Capons," whispered Lorenzo. "Afraid to charge us. Let us move to where
there is light to fight by."

He pulled Daoud after him. Daoud felt his head clearing. He could hear
better and, despite the darkness, see better. But he staggered as they
ran out of the alley.

They found themselves in a campiello, a courtyard surrounded by houses.
In the center, on a small pedestal, was a statue, one of their saint
idols, with arms outstretched. Daoud looked quickly around him. There
seemed to be no way out but the alleyway they had entered through.

He heard a loud thump to his right. A dark figure suddenly stood there.
Another thump on the left, and another in front. Men were jumping down
from the rooftops.

In a moment, four men in a rough semicircle faced Lorenzo and Daoud.
Blades gleamed silvery in the moonlight.

The six others who had been pursuing them rushed out of the alley.

Filled with a despairing rage, Daoud clenched his teeth and raised his
sword.




XXIV


Rachel's body felt cold. She knew the night outside was warm despite the
lateness of the hour, and the room was stifling, with all its candles
and the heavy silk draperies that held in the heat. But her feet and
hands were icy. It was fear that chilled her so as she sat half
listening to Tilia. She huddled in a corner of the big bed, her feet
tucked under her, her hands clenched in her lap. She wanted to jump out
the window.

Only, she was here of her own free will. And anyway the window was
barred.

"We will be watching through spy holes in the walls," said Tilia. "There
will be at least three of us. If he hurts you in any way, we will be
here in a trice to rescue you."

Tilia Caballo had a face like a frog, Rachel thought. The fat old woman
was trying to be reassuring, but just now Rachel hated her. She could
not believe Tilia would interfere with a wealthy client's pleasure no
matter how badly a girl of hers was being hurt.

The skepticism must have shown in her face, because Tilia had said, "I
know this man. He has been here five times. He is not the kind that
likes to hurt women. I do have patrons of that sort. For them I supply
women like Olivia. Sometime when you are not so frightened I may tell
you what Olivia likes men to do to her. Of course, she pretends not to
like it. Her clients would get no pleasure if they knew Olivia _wanted_
them to do what they do. But no matter how I gain my livelihood, I am
still a woman of honor." She glowered fiercely at Rachel, jowls
quivering slightly. "I do not allow certain things to take place in my
house. I do not allow my women to be mistreated."

"I know," said Rachel. "That is why I have not run away."

"You need not speak of running away," said Tilia loftily. "The door will
be open for you whenever you wish to walk through it." Rachel believed
that, just as she had believed gruff Lorenzo Celino when he told her
she did not have to go to Tilia's house. But she also knew that if she
had not come here, or if she chose now to walk out that door, these
people would do nothing more for her.

Staying, much as she might hate what would happen to her, was better
than wandering alone on the roads of Italy.

She looked up at the canopy over the bed. It was peach-colored, as were
the bed curtains. The walls of the small room were hung with yellow silk
drapes framing frescoes showing nude, smiling women fleeing from
creatures that were half man and half goat, with things that stuck out
before them like spears.

"Real men do not have pizzles as big as that," Tilia had said when she
first showed Rachel the room, pointing with a grin at a bright red
organ. "Although it may look that big to you the first time you see one
in all its glory." Tilia had stopped joking then, and had carefully told
her exactly what would happen on this night.

_I am better prepared_, Rachel thought, _than many a woman is on her
wedding night_.

Indeed, her own mother, months before she died, had already explained
much of this to Rachel. But the thought of her mother fairly broke her
heart now. Her mother would cut her own throat if she could see Rachel
in this place, about to let a man do this thing to her for money.

Her body shrank with dread.

She would rather, far rather, be the ignorant bride of a carpenter or a
traveling merchant like her poor Angelo, who had been her husband in
name only, or even the wife of a butcher, than to lie here in this
gorgeously decorated room and give her most precious gift to a stranger
who had bought the right to deflower her.

She found herself wishing poor old Angelo had asserted his right as her
husband so that she could not now let her virginity be defiled.

_Thank God Angelo is not alive to see this! But if he had lived, I would
not be doing this._

_God will never forgive me._

_But if God does not want me to do what I am doing, why did He let this
happen to me?_

Tilia sat beside the bed in a big chair with a curved bottom. The
jeweled cross she wore--which reminded Rachel that she was among
Christians here and therefore not safe--rested on her bosom, half
covered by the gold lace bordering the neckline of her gown. The cross
quivered minutely with Tilia's heartbeat.

"You are probably wondering, child, whether you are doing the right
thing."

"Yes." Rachel was so choked with fear that she could only whisper the
word.

"Well, I can tell you there are thousands of women who would give
anything to be in your place."

"In my place? To become a putana?"

Tilia laughed. "You think most women are contentedly married, with
husbands to take care of them, with children who love them and neighbors
who respect them--while only a few like me and the women who work for me
are putane, whom the rest look down on. Well, listen to me, little one,
other women _envy_ us. A married woman sells herself, body and soul, to
be some man's slave for life. And she gets damned little in return. We
rent out this little part of our anatomy"--she patted her lap--"for a
moment, and we keep the profit for ourselves. If we are clever, as I
have been, we learn how to keep and increase our money. So when we no
longer have youth and beauty to sell, we can take care of ourselves. And
I tell you that a woman in her later years is likely to be a better
friend to herself than any husband."

_She speaks with conviction. But I cannot trust her, either. I have not
had a true friend in this world since Angelo was killed._

Rachel sighed. "It is just that after tonight there is no turning back.
This is for the rest of my life."

"That is right," said Tilia. "You will give up something that you can
lose only once. When you have a commodity as unique as that, my child,
you owe it to yourself to get the most you can for it." Her eyes
hardened. "Every man wants to be the first to pierce a woman and hear
her cry out and make her bleed. But what woman gets anything worth
having in return? She gives it away on a dark night to some furfante
with a smooth tongue and a handsome leg, or else the tonto she married
takes it from her and then tells her to go wash the bed linen." She
turned to stare at Rachel. "Do you know what I got for my virginity?"
Her cheeks were red with anger.

"What did you get, Signora?" The heat with which Tilia spoke reassured
Rachel. This was what the woman really felt. She was not just talking to
lead Rachel astray.

"Blows and slavery." Tilia thrust her face close to Rachel's to
underline her words. "Blows and slavery. The Genoese, may leprosy devour
their limbs and may their prickles fall off in their hands, raided
Otranto. They raped me--that was how I lost _my_ virginity. They sold me
to the Turks."

"You were a slave to the Turks?" Rachel gasped. "Where?" And how did she
escape them and come to Orvieto and grow so rich and fat?

Tilia looked away. "Never mind. It would take too long to tell you."
Rachel sensed that there was something here Tilia did not want to talk
about. But she resolved to pry the story out of her one day.

Tilia's head swung back to face her. "Have I told you what you are
getting this night for giving this man this proud moment of possessing a
virgin?"

"I--I do not remember." Tilia had named a figure, but it had been so
outrageous and Rachel had been so frightened by the prospect that she
had promptly forgotten it.

"By the five wounds of Jesus, you truly are a child, not to remember
something so important! Well, fix it in your mind this time, and think
of it when you are wondering whether you are doing right. Five hundred
golden florins. Five hundred, newly minted in Florence. That is your
share. That is half of what he is paying. The other half is mine, as is
only just. Think of it. He pays the price of a palazzo for you because
you are a very young, beautiful virgin, and that is what he most
desperately desires. Compare that with what most women get when they let
a man have them for the first time."

_That is far more money than Angelo ever saw in his whole life. Who is
this man who will pay so much to have me?_ Rachel supposed Tilia would
tell her who the man was if she asked, but she had decided it was better
not to know anything about him ahead of time. That way she could imagine
that he would be someone kind and gentle.

"I do not know what I will do with all that money," Rachel said softly.

_If I lose it, all this will have been for nothing._

Tilia's wide mouth stretched even wider in a grin. "I will show you how
to plant it."

"Plant it?"

"Yes, and then watch it grow. There are many, many fields in which to
plant money. You can place it with the Templars or certain Lombards or
men I know among your own Jews, and they use it, and when they give it
back to you there is more. Miracolo! Or you can buy beautiful and
valuable things with it, whose worth increases as they get older. Or you
can buy shares in a ship of Venice or Pisa, or even"--she spat--"Genoa,
or a German caravan, and when the caravan or the ship comes back, if it
comes back, you get your money back tenfold. That is risky, but it is
the quickest way to great wealth."

Rachel felt a momentary excitement. Then she remembered how she was
going to get the money. Her body felt colder than ever, cold as death.
This, she thought, must be the way that poor man they killed last week
felt when he was waiting for the torturers to come for him. She
shuddered and hugged her knees tight against her chest under the gauzy
gown Tilia had given her to wear.

Tilia must have seen the sudden darkening of her mood. She moved over to
the bed and sat down beside Rachel, making the frame of the bed groan
alarmingly. She put a hand lightly on Rachel's arm.

"Listen, Rachel. I was raped. I will not be party to the rape of
another. You do not have to do this. Just tell me that you do not want
to."

A sudden heat rushed through Rachel's body. She was no longer cold. She
burned with anger.

"Stop saying that!" she screamed. "Will you leave me alone?" Being
reminded over and over again that she was doing this of her own free
will was an even worse torture than imagining what the man would do to
her.

_Oh, God, I am going to cry and make myself ugly, and he will not want
me and I will not get the five hundred florins._

She pressed her hands against her face, trying to stop tears.

"I was asking you to think, not carry on," said Tilia reprovingly. "If
you want to walk well in life, you had better learn not to burst into
tears when you have an important decision to make."

Rachel took deep breaths to calm herself.

"I decided days ago that I could not do any better for myself than this,
Signora Tilia. But I am so afraid. Perhaps the man will not want me when
he sees how afraid I am."

Tilia grinned broadly. "Nonsense. The more innocent and timid you
appear, the more you will delight him."

Rachel heard a light tapping at the door, and her heart beat so hard she
thought it would burst.

Tilia rose, brushing down her green satin gown. "The signal that he has
arrived. I thought he would never get here. It's almost morning. I must
go down and greet him, child. But remember, I will be watching
everything."

_I do not really like that._

Tilia winked and pushed on what looked like a plaster panel between two
gold-painted beams in the wall. It swung away from her and she squeezed
through.

Rachel sat in the bed, drawn up into the corner of it that was farthest
from the door, and waited. She played nervously with fingers that felt
like icicles.

A short time later she caught a glimpse of Tilia pushing open the door,
but her eyes fixed on the man standing in the doorway.

She drew in a deep, gasping breath. She wanted to scream.

The man standing in the doorway was short and broad. He wore a long,
brightly colored silk robe. His skin was brown, his eyes little black
slits. A white mustache drooped below his flat nose. A thin white beard
like a goat's hung from his chin.

She had seen this man once before, when she watched from the window of
Sophia's room at Cardinal Ugolini's, the day he arrived in Orvieto in a
great procession.

Rachel's breath, so long held, burst out of her in a moan.

The man who had come to take her virginity was a Tartar.

       *       *       *       *       *

"It was as much by my choice as the cardinal's that I did not attend the
contessa's reception," said Friar Mathieu, yawning. "How could a Little
Brother of San Francesco stay up till all hours with people stuffing
themselves with rich food and drinking wine? And gambling, and kissing
each other in dark corners?"

The old Franciscan's eyes were watery with sleepiness, but the corners
of his mouth quirked with humor under his white mustache. He sat on the
edge of the cot, which, as he had insisted when he moved into the
Palazzo Monaldeschi, was the only piece of furniture in the room. Simon
paced the floor, unable to stand still.

Simon felt the barb in the mention of kissing, but he did not mind it.
When he routed Friar Mathieu out of his narrow bed in a remote corner of
the palace, he admitted at once that he had been in the atrium with
Ugolini's niece, Sophia, while David of Trebizond was so disastrously
baiting the Tartars.

"I was wrong to pay court to the cardinal's niece." He could still feel
her lips under his, still taste them, and his body tingled at the
remembrance. "I am as much at fault as de Verceuil. But it was he who
found that ignorant woman to replace you as interpreter, and then he
went off to gamble--with David's servant, of all people--and left the
Tartars alone and unprotected."

Friar Mathieu shook his head. "Yes, and drinking that wine of
Montefiascone. I wonder why God chose to make those particular grapes so
irresistible."

Simon pounded his fist into his palm. "We must confront de Verceuil,
Friar Mathieu."

A deep crease appeared between the thick white eyebrows. "At this hour?"

Simon saw the fatigue in Mathieu's wrinkled face and felt guilty. "I am
most heartily sorry for awakening you at this ungodly time of night. It
was just--"

"Just that you could not sleep yourself." The friar laughed. "But it is
a most Godly time of night. The fact is, I would have had to get up soon
to say the first part of my office. Were I living with my brother
Franciscans--as I wish I were--I would be up chanting lauds with them.
But I fear the cardinal will be neither willing nor able to talk to us
if we go to him now."

"So much damage has been done, Friar Mathieu. The contessa is furious. I
could not begin to reason with her. She went on and on, talking about
murderers of babies. I would not be surprised if tomorrow morning she
ordered us to leave her palazzo."

The old man raised a hand. "Pope Urban would not let her do that. It
would be an insult to the ambassadors."

"Cardinal le Gros told me the pope looked pale and shaken when he left.
He might not care whether the ambassadors are insulted. We can have no
more of de Verceuil's blundering."

_Or mine._

Friar Mathieu shook a finger at him. "What happened tonight is not the
cardinal's doing. None of this is accidental. What happened tonight
shows that Ugolini will do everything in his power to block this
alliance."

"But Ugolini did nothing tonight. It was all that man from Trebizond."

"That is like saying that the axe chops the tree down, and not the
woodsman wielding it. Ugolini brought David to the contessa's reception.
He brought David's servant, an accomplished gambler as well as a
recruiter of brigosi. And he brought his niece, Sophia."

At the mention of Sophia a sharp pain went through Simon's chest.

_Sophia cannot be part of it. Not when I have just found her._

Was it possible that the passion she had showed in their time together
in the atrium was a sham? That would be too cruel. And yet, how could he
prove that she was innocent?

"It is just a coincidence that Sophia is here in Orvieto now," he said.
"She is as undecided about this matter of the Tartars as the pope
himself is."

_But is the pope still undecided_, Simon wondered as he spoke.

The wrinkles around Friar Mathieu's faded blue eyes deepened a little.
"Well, I would not expect you to say otherwise. A knight does not doubt
the honor of a lady he has kissed."

Simon sensed Friar Mathieu's skepticism, but he could not bring himself
to believe that Sophia had knowingly been the cardinal's agent. This
woman had made Italy a place of enchantment for him.

Friar Mathieu went on. "We both agree, do we not, that the luring of
Cardinal de Verceuil by David's man, Giancarlo, was planned by Ugolini?"

Glad to be on safer ground, Simon nodded vigorously. "We agree on that,
to be sure."

"But we cannot simply go to de Verceuil, as you proposed, and denounce
him for having left the room with Giancarlo. Not when he can at once
point out that you also left the room--with Sophia."

Simon turned his back on Friar Mathieu and stared out, almost unseeing,
toward the window. It had neither glass nor shutters nor parchment, only
a gauze curtain to discourage insects, iron bars to keep out larger
intruders. He felt furious with himself.

The mention of Giancarlo reminded him that he had heard nothing from
Sordello. By now the old mercenary should have insinuated himself into
the band Giancarlo was gathering. Perhaps through Sordello Simon could
prove Sophia's innocence.

He noticed now that some light was coming through the curtain, and he
thought he heard birds singing. He had been up all night.

"Then you think it pointless for us to confront de Verceuil? I suppose
you do not think I should write to Count Charles, either."

"I think it very unlikely that Count Charles would give the cardinal's
responsibilities in this to someone else. I think it very likely that
Cardinal de Verceuil has his intriguers around the count who would learn
of your message and might set themselves to do you harm. No, I do not
think we can rid ourselves of the cardinal. But I agree that we should
meet with him."

Simon was bewildered. "To do what?"

Friar Mathieu shrugged. "No man is beyond redemption. He must realize
that because of his blundering tonight--our blundering--the mission is
perilously close to failing. Perhaps we can convince him that in the
future we must work together. Otherwise there will be no glory for him
to steal from us."

The old friar had been sleeping only in a robe of gray frieze. He pulled
a sleeveless brown mantle over his head and tied a white cord around his
waist, and he was dressed for the day. Simon envied him the simplicity
of his apparel. It took him a good deal longer to dress himself in the
morning, and he knew noblemen who spent hours in their wardrobes, with
servants to help them, before they felt ready to face the world.

"We will go now, then?" he asked.

"Well, you are up. If the cardinal is as upset about this disaster as
you are, he may well have spent a sleepless night, too. Let us go and
see."

They walked side by side down dim corridors cluttered with battered old
chairs and tables, past walls covered with tattered hangings, dented
shields, and rusty coats of mail. The Monaldeschi family, it seemed,
never threw away anything. The rooms set aside for the cardinal and his
entourage were on the third floor of the palazzo, where the windows were
larger and set with white glass. A man wrapped in a blanket lay on a
sack of straw outside the door to the cardinal's rooms. The top of his
head, shaved in a tonsure, gleamed dully in the light of the one fat
candle that illuminated the corridor. A cleric in minor orders, no
doubt. Simon shook him.

"No, Your Signory," the cleric said, yawning and stretching as he stood
up to bow properly to the count. "The cardinal is not sleeping, but
neither is he here. After the contessa's reception he and the Tartars
and their guards all went out. His Eminence did not choose to tell me
where they were bound."

Simon felt the wind knocked out of him, as if he had been running full
tilt and tripped. He looked at Friar Mathieu, who wore a pained, even
sad expression.

After everything else that had gone wrong, how could de Verceuil take
the Tartars into the streets late at night? They might run afoul of
bravos or some of the wild young men of Orvieto's feuding families. Why
would de Verceuil take such a risk?

Then Simon understood the reason for Friar Mathieu's look of sadness.
Men would leave the Palazzo Monaldeschi at this hour for only one
reason--loose women.

Simon had heard that in the darkest hours a corrupt, secret world
glowed brightly in Orvieto, hidden behind discreet walls. Rumor told of
high-ranking churchmen who ventured behind those walls; indeed, it was
said that the secret world existed because of the patronage of such men.
Of course de Verceuil would be a patron of that sinful night world. And
of course he would draw the Tartars into it. Barbarians that they were,
they no doubt expected the attentions of harlots as their due.

_That I am surprised only proves, I suppose, what a bumpkin I am_,
thought Simon, annoyed at himself and disgusted with de Verceuil.

He must pray, he thought with a chill, that the Tartars' guards were
well armed and alert.




XXV


Swords drawn, Daoud and Lorenzo stood back-to-back in the shadowy
courtyard. Lorenzo faced the six men who had emerged from the end of the
alley and were now fanning out to surround them. Daoud confronted the
four who had jumped down into the campiello.

A shutter opened on the overhanging second floor of a house, and Daoud
glanced up to see a face. The shutter slammed with a finality that
declared the householder wanted nothing to do with what was going on
below.

It was too dark to see the faces of the men before him. They wore dark
capes, and two of them carried long daggers in one hand and swords in
the other. One shadowy figure stepped forward now, and Daoud wondered if
they were going to challenge him.

"Messere, let us speak quickly. You are David of Trebizond, are you
not?"

The man had asked the question in an urgent but respectful tone.

Feeling a bit more hopeful, Daoud answered, "Yes, I am David."

"Who the devil are _you_?" called a voice from behind Daoud.

The man addressed his answer to Daoud. "I am Andrea Sordello of Rimini,
Messer David. These three men are my comrades. It would honor us if you
would accept our service."

"Accept his service," Lorenzo said at once from behind Daoud. "We have
nothing to lose."

Daoud made himself decide at once. "If you are willing to help me, I am
grateful."

"Be off with you, Messer Sordello," called one of the original pursuers.
"This is no quarrel of yours."

"And what is _your_ quarrel with these men?" Sordello replied.

"That is no affair of yours, Messere!" It was the voice of a very young
man, intense, passionate.

Daoud turned to face the young voice. At once Sordello moved to take a
position at his side.

Daoud realized that he could see better; the first hint of dawn. And not
only was there more light, but his head was clearer as well. The heat of
his body, aroused to fight, was burning away the intoxicating spirits in
his blood.

The men opposite were spread far apart. The one who spoke for them was
slender and wore a cap that fell over one ear. A silver badge glittered
on the cap.

Sordello spoke again. "Since you will not say, Messere, I will tell
_you_ what your affair is. You are of the famiglia Filippeschi. You saw
these gentlemen leaving the Palazzo Monaldeschi and decided that any
guest of the Monaldeschi must be an enemy of yours. And so you decided
to hunt down and kill these good gentlemen, who have done you no harm
and are not even citizens of Orvieto, for the offense of having enjoyed
the hospitality of your rivals."

Filippeschi. Daoud had been wanting to make contact with them ever since
his arrival in Orvieto. Now he had met them, and--accursed luck--they
wanted to kill him.

"Lorenzo, they are Filippeschi," he muttered. "Talk to them."

"There is no talking to _them_, Messer David," said Sordello. "They are
out for your blood."

"Be still," said Daoud. The man had offered his services. Let him
confine himself to serving, then.

Lorenzo stepped out in front of Daoud, his sword still out before him,
but angled toward the ground.

"Messeres, at least you should know who it is that you have set out to
kill. I am Giancarlo of Naples, and this is my master, David. He is a
merchant from Trebizond, which is very far away. Much too far for him
to have any connection with the quarrels of Orvieto."

One of the Filippeschi bravos, a short man standing to the left of the
slender leader, said, "You spin a tale to try to fool us. Anyone can see
your master is a Frenchman. Too many damned French in Italy. The
Monaldeschi are toadies of the French. Death to the Monaldeschi, and
death to the French!"

What a bitter fate it would be, Daoud thought, if his Frankish looks,
which caused him to be sent here, earned him his death in a stupid
street fight.

"There are six of you," said Lorenzo. "But now that these four men have
joined us, there are six of us. Bad odds for you, because no matter how
much you harm us, you will certainly come out of this quarrel worse off
than you went into it." Lowering his sword even more, he stepped closer
to the young man with the silver badge on his cap. "Signore. Which of
these men are you willing to lose, to pay for the privilege of hurting
us?" With his free hand he pointed from man to man in the circle of six.
"That man? That one? That one? Yourself?"

"We will start with you!" the short man shouted.

He lunged at Lorenzo, his sword thrusting straight for Lorenzo's chest.

Lorenzo's sword was up in an instant, parrying the short man's attack.
At the same moment, out of the corner of his eye Daoud saw Sordello's
arm flash up, then down.

The short man gave a cry and stumbled. He staggered a few steps, then
collapsed in a heap at the feet of one of the other Filippeschi bravos.

Lorenzo stepped back so that he and Sordello flanked Daoud. Sordello's
three men moved up beside them, one to the left, two to the right.

"You may see to the man who is hurt," said Lorenzo. "Unless you want to
continue."

"If he is only hurt, I should retire to a monastery." Sordello laughed.
Indeed, Daoud saw that the man on the ground was not moving.

_I do not like this Sordello_, Daoud thought. _He comes out of nowhere
wanting to work for me. He kills in haste and boasts about it._

The young man with the silver badge on his cap knelt by the fallen
bravo and felt under his cape. "Morte," he said harshly, and stood
again.

"Well, Messeres," said Lorenzo, "we are now six to five. We did not
choose to quarrel. We still do not wish to fight. In fact, we ourselves
are at odds with the Monaldeschi."

"How might that be?" said the young man.

"Are we done fighting? I wish to make a proposal to you."

The Filippeschi spokesman glanced at his fellows. "What say you?"

"Alfredo was my cousin," said a tall bravo in a rust-colored cape. "But
I cannot avenge him alone."

"Alfredo was impetuous," said the young man. "He acted before I gave an
order."

"You are no leader, Marco, if you will not undertake the vendetta for
one of your men."

_The vendetta. These Italians are like the desert tribesmen. Kill one of
them, and you have his family to deal with._

"I will show you what kind of a leader I am if you speak that way to me
again," said Marco.

"Enough, enough," said one of the other bravos, and the man in the
rust-colored cape shrugged.

It was now almost daylight, and Daoud studied the face of the young man
called Marco. He could not be more than seventeen, Daoud thought,
looking at his smooth cheeks and downy black mustache.

_Marco!_ He had heard that the head of the Filippeschi family was a
young Conte Marco di Filippeschi.

"What do you propose, Messere?" said Marco.

"Meet me in front of the Church of Sant' Agnes," Lorenzo said. "This
evening at Compline. Come alone, as I will. There are things we can
discuss, I think, to our mutual profit."

Marco bowed to Lorenzo. "I shall expect you, Messere." He gestured, and
the man in the reddish cape and one other picked up the body of Alfredo.

"Momento, Messeres," said Sordello, moving to the body in three quick
strides. He bent down, reached under the body, and with a jerk of his
hand pulled free a long, thin throwing knife, which he wiped on his
cape.

"I can ill afford to lose so well-balanced a knife as this."

Alfredo's cousin, holding the body by the shoulders, said, "I know your
name, Andrea Sordello, and your face. You will not need that knife much
longer."

Sordello made a mock bow. "Be assured, Messere, this knife will not miss
_you_, if we should meet again."

A moment later the Filippeschi and their burden had disappeared into the
alley.

Daoud studied the dark irregular stain where the fallen man had bled on
the rain-damp paving stones of the campiello. It was dawn, already past
Fajr, the time for morning prayer.

_God is great. In the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful. All
praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds._

"I advise you not to have any dealings with the Filippeschi, Messeres,"
Sordello said suddenly. "They'll betray you."

Even though he had given no outward sign that he was praying, Daoud was
angered at being interrupted. He eyed Sordello. The man was shorter than
he, about fifty years of age, Daoud judged. His hair was a good deal
grayer than Lorenzo's, and it hung lankly down to his jawline under a
shabby maroon cap. The bones of Sordello's nose and brows were thickened
and flattened, as if they had been broken many times. It was the face of
an old fighter, the sort of face that usually commanded Daoud's respect,
be it borne by Christian or Muslim. But when Daoud looked at him,
Sordello stared back fixedly, unnaturally, as if it were an effort to
look Daoud in the eye.

"Was your advice asked, Messere?" Lorenzo growled.

_He feels about the man as I do_, Daoud thought. Now, Daoud thought,
Sordello would bluster about saving their lives, and he would ask for
employment.

"Forgive me," Sordello said. "I presumed too much." He pulled off his
cap and bowed to the surprised Daoud. Either he was a better man than he
seemed at first glance, or he was much more devious.

"Forgive _us_," Daoud said, bowing back, though not as deeply, and
drawing a disapproving grunt from Lorenzo. "We owe you our deepest
gratitude. How came you leaping down from the housetops when we needed
help so badly?"

"I have been looking for a chance to meet Messer Giancarlo. Tonight I
waited outside the Monaldeschi palace, hoping that you would emerge from
the reception in a good mood. While I and my fellows were hanging about
the palace, we chanced to see those brigosi lurking in the shadows
nearby. When you came out, it was you they chose to follow, so we
followed them. When you went down this alley, we took to the rooftops,
the better to surprise your enemies."

"Why were you looking for me?" Lorenzo asked gruffly.

"I heard that you pay well for men who are adept with sword and dagger
and who ask no questions about what they might be hired for."

"I also like a man who does not talk much," said Lorenzo. "You talk a
great deal."

"Yes, Messer Giancarlo." Sordello lowered his eyes. Again, that
disarming humility.

The man was resourceful and quick-thinking. He was arrogant one moment,
humble the next.

"How did you come to Orvieto, Sordello?" Daoud asked him.

"I served Sigismundo Malatesta, governor of Rimini, until his death,"
said Sordello. "Since then I have not found a suitable master. I was
traveling south, thinking perhaps of offering my sword to King Manfred,
when I heard of you, Messer Giancarlo, while passing through Viterbo."

Daoud felt uneasy, hearing that Lorenzo's recruiting expeditions were
being gossiped of in the cities around here. And how easily Sordello had
been able to make the connection between Giancarlo and David of
Trebizond. Just as Tilia had said, it was impossible to hire men without
attracting attention.

He realized Lorenzo was waiting for him to speak.

"You may walk with us to Cardinal Ugolini's mansion," Daoud said.

When they emerged from the alley, there was no sign of the Filippeschi.
Two of Sordello's men walked in front of Daoud and Lorenzo, and Sordello
and the other man followed behind them. The wine had worn off
altogether, but Daoud felt a throbbing pain behind his eyes and a great
need to sleep.

"Well?" Lorenzo said, keeping his voice low. "The man wants us to hire
him."

"We need more men, and we want clever street fighters," said Daoud. "He
is that."

"Yes, but he is the type of man I detest," said Lorenzo. "I did not need
him to kill that Filippeschi bravo for me. He acts before he thinks."

"After tonight we may not have to attack the French directly," Daoud
said. "On the other hand, we are sure to have further need of
bodyguards, and I think Sordello and his three companions would suit.
Let us give ourselves time to think. Tell him you will meet him and give
him our answer in two days."




XXVI


It could not be worse, Rachel thought. She could not be more degraded.
An old man, and a Tartar. Were the Tartars even human, she wondered, or
was she about to commit the further abominable sin of mating with an
animal?

The door had closed behind him with a terribly final sound, and he was
standing in front of it, showing his teeth, large and strong and very
white, in a broad grin.

She wondered if he could see her knees and hands trembling. If only she
had accepted Signora Tilia's offer to release her from this. Was it too
late? Could she rush past the Tartar to the door and pull it open and
run away? If she did that now, doubtless the Tartar would be insulted.
From what she knew about these creatures, it would be very dangerous to
make him angry.

_I will pretend to be sick. When he is not looking, I will stick my
finger down my throat and throw up. That will disgust him so, he will
leave me alone._

Or it might antagonize him enough to kill her. Her body broke out in a
cold sweat. Her eyes were shut, but she heard the monster coming closer.
She thought of what he would do to her, and her stomach heaved--she
would throw up even without trying to. She hoped he _would_ kill her.
Better that than his animal's thing inside her.

She opened her eyes, to see that he had stopped halfway between the
closed door and the bed.

Actually, he was not so hideous. He had a round brown face and bright
black eyes, and his beard was white, as Angelo's had been.

_Ah, Rachel, Rachel, the joy of my old age_, Angelo would say. _My beard
was white before you were born._

_He would not rejoice in his old age if he could see me now._

The Tartar's beard and mustache were not full and flowing, as Angelo's
had been, but stringy. The beard almost seemed like a false beard,
pasted on that small, sharp chin.

He said, "Buona sera, berra feeria." He had learned some Italian. But it
was not evening. It was almost morning. And what was he trying to
say--"bella figlia?" Beautiful daughter? He had probably asked someone
what he should say, and they had told him the wrong things.

"Buona sera, Mio Signore," she answered, inclining her head slightly.
Her voice was a terrified whisper. When she heard how frightened she
sounded, she became more frightened still and huddled into the farthest
corner of the bed, wishing she could squeeze through a crack in the wall
beside her and disappear.

The Tartar tapped his chest, smiling and nodding. "John." He wore a
crimson silk tunic that fell to his knees, and over it a pale green
gown, open in front, with wide sleeves. When she had stood by a window
in the cardinal's palazzo and watched the Tartars' arrival in Orvieto,
he and the other Tartar had worn foreign-looking silk robes, blood red,
covered with blue birds with long golden tails. Now he was dressed like
an Italian.

He was still nodding at her, with a questioning look on his face. He
wanted her to say her name.

"Rachel," she said, touching her chest. How small her breasts were, she
thought. He could not possibly want a girl with such small breasts. He
certainly would not want to devour them. She felt sick to her stomach
again.

"Reicho. Buona sera, Reicho." He could not pronounce the letter _l_.

"Buona sera, John," she answered. She was about to smile, but she
checked herself. If she seemed to be encouraging him, he would come at
her. Cold sweat broke out over her skin.

_He is going to come at me anyway._

A silver pitcher of wine with two silver goblets stood on a small
marble-topped table beside the bed. Wine might make this easier for her.
Except that too much wine would make her sick. Well, was that not what
she wanted? She stretched a trembling hand toward it.

"Will you take some wine, Messer John?" _Where on earth did he get a
name like John?_

She poured the wine, carefully filling the goblets only two-thirds full
so her trembling hands would not spill their contents.

The Tartar crossed the room and sat in the round-bottomed chair Tilia
had occupied a short while earlier. Rachel held out a goblet to him, and
her hand shook so badly she almost dropped it. He did not seem to
notice. Maybe he was used to being waited on by trembling women. He
smiled and nodded.

Tilia was watching all this, Rachel remembered. She drained her cup
quickly, the silver giving the wine a slightly metallic taste. She
poured a second cup for herself, and looked at him. He barely sipped
from his goblet before setting it on the table, holding his hand palm
down over it. Too bad, she thought. She had heard that men who drank too
much could not get stiff enough to go into women.

John started talking to her in his own tongue. He spoke for a long time
with many gestures, some toward himself, some toward her. She tried
desperately to guess what he was saying. She did not want to respond the
wrong way and anger him.

He seemed quite at ease, and he laughed occasionally, as if he were
telling her funny stories that amused him as well. She saw webs of fine
wrinkles in the brown skin around his eyes and thought, _He could be
older than Angelo_.

He began to make a strange sound, a long-drawn-out moan. Perhaps he was
in pain. Perhaps _he_ was going to be sick. Her heart leapt hopefully.
Then the moan changed pitch, and his mouth began to shape words. They
must be Tartar words. He was singing to her. It was unmistakably a song,
but it was strange and shrill to her ears. She almost burst out
laughing, but immediately felt terror at the thought of offending him.

It began to dawn on her, though, that John was not behaving like a
brute, as she had feared he would when she first saw him in the doorway.
If she looked behind the black slits that were his eyes, under the
tanned-leather skin, he seemed a pleasant old man. His language might be
gibberish to her, but it was clear that he was trying to entertain her,
even woo her.

But she hated the thought of what he was trying to woo her _for_.

He ended his song by clapping his hands rhythmically--she counted nine
handclaps. He followed that with more eager smiles and nods. He actually
wanted to know whether she liked his song. She relaxed a bit.

She smiled and nodded back. "Yes. Very good, John. Che bello!" Perhaps
she could get him to sing more, and put off the moment she dreaded.

But he stood up with a look on his face that froze her heart in her
chest. There was nothing ferocious or cruel in it or even lustful. There
was neither kindness nor pity in it, nor anything that recognized her as
a person. It was the satisfied smile of a man looking upon a possession.

He slipped off the wide-sleeved gown and unbuckled his belt. She began
to tremble uncontrollably.

       *       *       *       *       *

Daoud sat slumped with exhaustion on the carpeted floor of Ugolini's
cabinet. The long night just past had drained him of all his energy. He
wanted to sleep, but first he must see to it that Ugolini made good use
of the advantage they had gained at the contessa's reception.

A strong, rich, familiar smell filtered into his nostrils, and his head
lifted, as if a powerful hand had gripped it. The door opened, and a
servant carried in a tray laden with six small porcelain cups, one each
for Ugolini, Daoud, Sophia, and Lorenzo and two extra, as well as two
pitchers. Ugolini pushed aside a pile of parchment on his work table,
and the servant set the tray down.

As the door closed behind the servant, Daoud drew a deep breath to
identify the smell and felt a glow of surprised pleasure.

"Is it possible?" he said to Ugolini. "You have found kaviyeh?"

Ugolini, sitting in the big chair behind his work table, just his head
and shoulders showing, smiled benignly. "You may hate the Tartars for
invading the Islamic lands, my friend, but it means that we Christians
can now trade with that part of the world. The Venetians have been
importing the beans from the uplands of Persia in small--and very
expensive--quantities. I was saving this for a special occasion. This
morning, after your triumph over the Tartars and your narrow escape from
death, seemed appropriate."

Daoud found the strength to stand up and pour the steaming black liquid
from the pitcher into a cup. He held the cup to his face with both hands
and sniffed deeply. He felt happier than he had in a long time.

Sophia, sitting on a padded bench against the wall opposite Ugolini's
table, said, "What is that?" Daoud heard shrill alarm in her voice.

She must suspect it was some sort of drug, thought Daoud with
amusement.

The cardinal chuckled amiably. "Only a beverage, my dear. Long used in
the Orient by sages and poets. It produces a heightened state of
alertness and vigor."

Daoud sipped the hot liquid. The taste was wondrously bracing after
months of deprivation, but it was not quite strong enough.

"This is very good, and I am your grateful slave forever," he said. "But
you should tell your servants to boil it longer."

Having sensed that Sophia feared his pleasure, he wanted to share it
with her that she might see how harmless it was. He went to her and held
out his cup.

"Try this. Be careful, the cup is hot."

She took the cup from him, her fingers brushing his. He felt a tingle in
his arm. She raised the cup, sniffed suspiciously and grimaced, but took
a small sip.

He was disappointed to see her mouth pucker. She did not like it. Well,
he could not expect her to take to it at once. He had been drinking it
ever since he was a child. Even his crusader family had drunk kaviyeh.

"A very interesting taste," she said, handing back the cup. A Byzantine
comment, he thought. He heard Lorenzo chuckle.

A pang of jealousy shot through him. He could not expect her to like
kaviyeh any more than he could expect her to love him. Especially not
after she had been alone in the Monaldeschi atrium with that damned
French count.

His longing for Sophia made his heart ache. If only he could have her
for himself, and not be forced to throw her at Simon de Gobignon. But
she was no more his than that emerald Baibars had entrusted to him.

Resignedly he told himself he must find out what she had accomplished.

"How did you deal with the Frankish count?"

"As you wished me to."

He walked back to the cardinal's table and turned to face her. Her amber
eyes were fixed on him. She must have been watching him cross the room.

"Does he want to see you again?" David demanded.

She shrugged. "He did when I left him. But by now he and Cardinal de
Verceuil will have talked together and may well realize my part in what
we did to them."

"Well," said Ugolini, rubbing his hands together. "There will be no more
need for you to pursue Count Simon, my dear, or for Messer Lorenzo to
play backgammon with the French cardinal. And no need for our
illustrious David to risk further verbal jousting with the Tartars."

Daoud felt a stab of exasperation. Just as he had feared, Ugolini wanted
to believe that with last night's triumph over the Tartars, their work
was done. Would he be able to persuade the cardinal to realize this was
only the beginning of a long struggle--one in which he, Ugolini, must
play the chief part?

"De Verceuil is a clever but sloppy player," Lorenzo interjected. "He
kept leaving blots less than six points away from me. But I managed to
lose eighty florins to him. That kept him interested. Once he decided I
was not a skillful player, he kept doubling the stakes and pressing me
to do the same when the choice was mine." He went over to Ugolini's work
table and poured himself a cup of kaviyeh.

Ugolini laughed. "He must now think his winnings eighty costly florins
indeed." He filled a cup from another pitcher, sprang up, and carried
the cup across the room to Sophia.

"You will enjoy this spiced milk more than the Muslim kaviyeh. It is my
favorite morning drink."

"You think it is all over, then, Cardinal?" Daoud growled. "I can go
away and leave you in peace--and richer?"

From the suddenly outraged face Ugolini turned toward him, Daoud thought
the cardinal might well be wishing the Filippeschi had finished him off.

"Was last night not a victory?" the cardinal asked in a choked voice.

"Do you know the difference between winning a battle and winning a war?"

"What more can the French do?" said Ugolini.

"We must talk about that," said Daoud. "Even though, in spite of this
good kaviyeh, my body screams for rest." He drained the cup, put it
down, and stretched his arms. With difficulty he brought his anger under
control. He must win Ugolini, not turn him into an enemy.

Ugolini had sat down in the high-backed chair behind his work table. His
slender fingers restlessly polished the dome of the skull with the
diagram painted on its cranium that lay before him. He looked as gloomy
as if he were contemplating the day when he himself would be reduced to
bones. Lorenzo quietly got up and poured himself another cup of kaviyeh.

Daoud turned to Sophia. "How do you think de Gobignon feels toward
you?" He hated to ask the question. He watched her face closely. What he
really wanted to know was how _she_ felt about de Gobignon.

Her eyes were heavy-lidded. Even with Hashishiyya-trained senses, he
could not guess what was behind that damnably unrevealing mask.

"I think I persuaded him that the cardinal's niece neither knows nor
cares anything about alliances and crusades. I--believe he could come to
love me."

Rage throbbed in his temples. What, in his sheltered existence, could
the young count have learned of love?

"Love you? Unlikely," Daoud challenged her.

He saw with quick regret that he had hurt her feelings. She recoiled as
if struck.

"Do you not think me worthy of a nobleman's love?"

Daoud crossed the room in three quick steps and stood over her. "Such
pampered creatures as he are not capable of love."

The mask was back. She shrugged.

"Love or lust, he is drawn to me. Do you mean to make some use of it?"

"Send him a note by one of the cardinal's servants asking him to meet
with you in a few days' time." Daoud turned and walked to the celestial
globe beside Ugolini's table and spun it absently as he studied Sophia.
"Let him pick the place, so he feels secure."

Again he had a glimpse through the mask. Her eyes widened in fear. She
thought he meant to kill de Gobignon. That angered him. Did she care so
much for the Frenchman, then, that his possible death made her lose her
composure?

To Daoud's surprise, Ugolini jumped from his chair and advanced on him,
shaking his finger and crying, "All of France will be down on us like an
avalanche if you harm that boy."

Daoud checked an impulse to laugh. Ugolini was such a comical figure in
the flapping white robe he had donned on returning to his mansion.

To Daoud, who had lived most of his life among men for whom death was as
common as fear was rare, the little man's tendency to panic seemed
contemptible. But, anew, he reminded himself that he needed Ugolini and
must treat him with respect.

"Please, Your Eminence," he said. "If I meant to have de Gobignon
killed, I would not involve Sophia. I want her to tell him what we are
supposedly doing. I hope to create conflict among the supporters of the
alliance."

"But Sophia takes a great risk meeting with him," said Ugolini. "What if
de Gobignon attempts to force the truth out of her?"

The thought of de Gobignon laying violent hands on Sophia angered Daoud,
and he spoke impulsively.

"_Then_ I will kill him."

"God help us!" Ugolini went back to his work table and sat down behind
it, his hands over his face.

At once Daoud regretted what he had said. But was there no way to
instill courage into this man?

"There is much work for you to do, Cardinal," he said. "You must not
falter now."

"Then let there be no more talk of killing," said Ugolini fiercely,
taking his hands from his face.

Daoud poured himself another cup of kaviyeh and stood looking down at
Ugolini.

"With so much at stake, surely you know I would not do anything rash."

"You need not think of _doing anything_," Ugolini said, a plea in his
eyes. "As long as the pope delays his decision about the Tartars, your
people are safe."

True enough, Daoud thought. Delay was a large part of his mission. But,
despite what Ugolini might think, it was not enough. For the safety of
Islam, an alliance between Tartars and Christians must be made
impossible.

"Your Eminence, will it please you to visit the cardinals who heard the
Tartars condemn themselves last night?" He tried not to make it sound
like an order.

"I see no need for that," said Ugolini.

Of course, Daoud thought. The little cardinal's mind was so full of fear
that he could not see at all.

"But I am hoping that you can organize a delegation of cardinals to go
to the pope and urge him to give up the idea of an alliance with the
Tartars. After all, you are the cardinal camerlengo. Your word has
weight."

Ugolini made a bridge of his interlaced fingers and rested his forehead
against them, as if his head ached.

"I have attacked the Tartars at the pope's council." He spoke down at
his table, barely loud enough for Daoud to hear him. "I have introduced
you into the highest circles in Orvieto. I have let you recruit
criminals and instigate riots while you live in my mansion. I hear you
plotting murder." He looked up suddenly, wild-eyed. "Basta! Enough!"

Despair made Daoud feel weak. He knew this sick feeling came partly from
being awake all night, poisoning himself with al-koahl, and nearly
getting himself murdered. He told himself it did not matter how he felt.
He was Sufi-trained, and could control his feelings. He was a Mameluke,
and must remain on the attack.

But he chose not to meet Ugolini's refusal directly.

"I also hope that you will be able to persuade Fra Tomasso d'Aquino to
write an open letter, to the pope or to the King of France, denouncing
the Tartars. Copies of the letter can be circulated to men of influence
throughout Christendom."

Ugolini shook his head, whiskers fluttering. "Fra Tomasso is neutral and
wants to stay that way."

_But if I can, I intend to push Fra Tomasso away from his neutrality._

"Surely he could not have failed to be moved by what he heard last
night," said Daoud. "I could see that he was."

"It will take more than one incident to move Fra Tomasso," said Ugolini.

_Now I have him!_ Daoud glanced at Lorenzo, who nodded encouragingly.

Daoud leaned forward, pressing both hands on the table. "There! You
yourself have said the very thing I have been trying to tell you. Last
night was just one incident. It was not enough to move Fra Tomasso _or_
the cardinals _or_ the pope. We must do more. You can accomplish
everything we want by persuasion and cunning and subterfuge. If you do,
I will never have to put my hand to my dagger, and you will have nothing
to fear." He shook his open hand at Ugolini. "Take the lead yourself."

Ugolini sat staring at the skull while Daoud held his breath.

The little cardinal pulled at his whiskers and looked up at Daoud. "What
must I do?"

Daoud let his breath out. Strength surged back into his body, and
despair fled before it.

"Tell me," he said, "if Fra Tomasso were to turn against the Tartars,
what do you think the Franks would do about it?"

Ugolini frowned. "I think that then the only way to reach him would be
through the Dominicans. If his superiors commanded him to change his
opinion on the Tartars, or to be silent, he would have to obey."

"And who, of the alliance's chief supporters, would speak to the
Dominican order for the French?" Daoud pressed.

"Count Simon lacks the authority," Ugolini said. "Friar Mathieu is
eloquent and knows the Tartars well, but I cannot imagine that the chief
Dominicans would pay any attention to an ordinary Franciscan priest."

"What of de Verceuil?" Daoud asked.

Ugolini nodded. "As a cardinal, de Verceuil can speak as an equal to the
head of the Dominican order."

"Good," said Daoud. "That is what I hoped you would tell me." He turned
away from Ugolini. He had accomplished as much as he could for the
moment. Exhaustion struck him like a mace on the back of his head.

"Lorenzo, when you meet that bravo Sordello, tell him that I have
decided he and the three with him can join us. I am going to bed."

"I have a bad feeling about him," said Lorenzo.

Daoud paused to consider this. It was precisely for such advice that he
needed Lorenzo.

He put his hand on Lorenzo's shoulder. "If he is spying on us, we need
to know who sought to place him in our camp. Let him feel he is secure
with us. Then start keeping a close watch on him. See to whom he leads
us."

Daoud turned from Lorenzo to look at Sophia. She was looking at him
intently, but he could not tell what she was thinking or feeling. Tired
as he was, he wished she would come to bed with him. If only she were
willing. If only he could invite her.

       *       *       *       *       *

Rachel lay with her face to the wall, crying silently. She wanted not to
weep because she was still afraid of offending the Tartar, even though
it was all over.

She realized that her gown was still above her waist, and she lifted her
hips to pull it down. But what was the point of modesty for her anymore?
Especially with this man, who had taken her virginity.

She heard the rustling of silk as he dressed behind her. He had not
taken all of his clothes off, just enough to bare his member. It had
been smaller than she imagined. Once, in a stable in Perugia, a boy had
shown himself to her and tried to rape her, but she had run away. That
stableboy's thing had been much bigger.

John said something to her, but she understood only his "Reicho." He was
probably telling her to stop crying.

Even though he had been kindly before getting into the bed with her, she
had expected that he would become like the wild, savage Tartars she had
heard about. His weight on top of her, even though he was a small man,
had frightened her, but he had entered her slowly, and stopped and
waited when she cried out. In the end it had been she, wanting in
desperation to get it over with, who finished the piercing by pressing
upward with her hips. His few quick thrusts and his shout of pleasure--a
drawn-out horseman's yell--followed in a moment. And that was all there
was to it.

She sobbed aloud suddenly and bit into the pillow. The thought that her
whole future had been decided by a moment that had not lasted even as
long as it takes to light a candle was too much to bear.

_Angelo would say I am not a good woman anymore._

The Tartar spoke again, and tapped her on the shoulder. His voice was
soft and kind. Quieting her sobs with one last, deep, shuddering sigh,
she rolled over to look at him. More smiles and nods from him. Yes, he
wanted to cheer her up. She sensed that he knew something about women,
and what he knew had come not just from rapes committed on the
battlefield. He must have a wife in the faraway land he came from, and
he must, long ago, have done to that wife what he had just done to
Rachel. More than one wife, she reminded herself, and more than one
deflowering, because according to Tilia, the Tartars took several wives,
as the Muslims did. He was probably a grandfather many times over back
in that land.

He stood beside the bed, fully dressed. He had even tucked back and
knotted his hair behind his head. His grin broadened when she looked at
him. Rachel had not seen a Jewish or a Christian man as old as John with
such good teeth.

He untied a small bag from his belt. He held it out to her. Should she
take it? Of course she should. Was not getting paid the whole point of
what she had just gone through? Was not money what her body was to be
traded for from now on?

"Thank you, Messer John," she said, and reached out her hand. But he
came closer and rubbed the soft leather of the bag against her cheeks,
to dry her tears. She understood what he was trying to tell her--that
this money should pay her for her pain. Being a pagan, he could not
understand the greater pain of her soul because she had sinned, because
she had shamed her family and dishonored herself forever.

_But I have no family--none living. That is why I am here._

John put the bag into her hand and closed her fingers over it, then
pushed her hand against her chest. The bag was very heavy for its small
size. He frowned, put his finger to his lips, and waved his hand. He was
trying to tell her, she thought, that this was a special present for
her, that she was not to tell Madama Tilia about it. He did not know
that Tilia had been watching everything they had done together.

He pressed the callused palm of his hand against her cheek and said
something, then turned and quickly walked out of the room.

And Rachel was alone with her desolation. She wanted to sleep. There
were no windows in this room, but it must have been morning by now. She
realized that she did not feel sleepy, although she was tired. She felt
a dull ache down inside herself, where he had broken the seal of her
virginity. The bag of money lay heavy in her lap. Perhaps if she drank
some wine it would help her sleep.

She heard men's voices, loud and rough, in other parts of the house. A
man laughed, and then a woman laughed. How many men had come with the
Tartar? She felt too tired even to crawl to the edge of the bed and pour
herself the wine. She picked up the money and pushed it under a pillow.
Perhaps Tilia had not seen him give it to her. She had done this for
money, and she ought to get as much as she could for it.

The door swung open and Tilia was standing there, her wide mouth
stretched in a broad smile, and her hands rose in benediction. "You were
just what he wanted. He seemed most pleased."

Rachel tried to smile. "It was not as bad as I thought it would be."

Tilia shrugged. "Men who are terrible in warfare are sometimes kinder in
bed. I thought his zipolo rather small, did you not? That was lucky for
you."

Rachel felt her face grow hot. "I have seen only one other--when it was
hard like that. And it _was_ bigger."

"Well," said Tilia, "small as this Tartar was, he was able to mount you
twice, and that is remarkable for a white-haired man who has been up
drinking all night." Then she laughed. "Ah, but you should have seen the
French cardinal who came here with this Tartar. He asked for three
women, and he swived each one of them mightily. Those French! I care not
for their high-horse airs, but they are a lusty lot."

Rachel felt herself smiling. Was it so easy to begin to think like a
whore and laugh at whores' jokes?

"Well," said Tilia, "we must get you washed out at once. You do not want
to be giving birth to a little Tartar in your first year as a woman, do
you?" She went to a cabinet and drew out a grayish-white bladder with a
tube coiled beside it.

"Peculiar-looking if you have never seen one before," said Tilia. "But
there is nothing to worry about. It does not hurt. We just fill the
pig's stomach with warm water and squeeze it, and the water goes through
the vellum tube and up inside you. The women of Rome used them centuries
ago when they did not want to get pregnant. I suppose that is why the
barbarians finally overran Italy."

Rachel looked at the thing Tilia laid on the bed beside her and felt
sick.

"Oh, by the way," said Tilia as she went back to the cabinet and got out
a basin and a pitcher, "I will let you keep the purse he gave you. He
looked so happy when he left here, I think you deserve it."

The Tartar could come and go as he pleased, thought Rachel, but she must
stay. Even now, with over five hundred florins, more money than she had
ever had in her life, she was alone. She knew how to travel; she had
traveled for two years with Angelo. But she also knew the terrors and
dangers of the road, dangers that ultimately had killed Angelo.

The best she could hope for was to endure this life for a year or two,
get what she could from it, let it make her rich. When she did leave,
she would have enough money to hire guards to accompany her. She would
make up an elaborate story about her past. She would go where no one
knew her, Sicily perhaps, and begin a new life as a wealthy woman,
venturing into banking or trading for herself.

The hope of a wealthy new life--that was the raft that would bear her up
when she felt she must drown in sorrow.




XXVII


Daoud's tired eyes burned. He shut them, as he entered his bedchamber,
against the bright light coming through the white window glass. But,
tired as he was, sleep did not come. Perhaps he was too tired.

He had missed the proper time for morning prayer, but he poured water
into a basin and washed his hands and face, then turned toward the risen
sun and humbly addressed God, first bowing, then kneeling, then striking
his forehead on the carpet.

_When I pray, I am at home no matter where I am._

After praying, he pushed open the iron casement with its diamond-shaped
glass panels to let in air and then pulled the green velvet curtains
across the window to shut out light.

He moved now in a cool dimness, as if underwater. He must rest, to be
strong for the next battle.

Crossing the room to his sleeping mattress, which lay on the floor
Egyptian-fashion, he stripped off his sweat-soaked tunic and threw it
down. He unbuckled his belt and laid it carefully on the mattress. Then
he kicked off his boots and dropped his hose and his loincloth. He
splashed water over his body and felt cleaner and cooler.

There was another way to be home. He had been waiting for the first time
he could feel he had triumphed. He knew all too well what that way could
do to a man in the aftermath of defeat--sharpen his misery till he could
ease the pain only by destroying himself.

But last night he had unmasked the Tartars before all the great ones of
Orvieto, and he had survived a street encounter with bravos who intended
to kill him. And so this morning he could allow himself this.

He had brought a cup of kaviyeh from Ugolini's room. He set it on the
black marble table beside his sleeping mattress. Then from his traveling
chest he took the dark brown leather pack that had accompanied him here
from Lucera. He felt for the small packet and drew it out. Unwrapping
the oily parchment, he looked at the small black cake, a square about
half the length of his finger on a side. He drew his dagger out of its
sheath--the dagger that would have been poor protection for him earlier
if he had had to fight those Filippeschi men. Carefully he shaved
peelings from the cake to the polished black marble. With the sharp edge
of the dagger he chopped at the peelings until he had a coarse powder.
He held the cup of cooling black liquid below the edge of the table and
scraped the powder into it. He stirred the kaviyeh with the dagger's
point.

Holding the cup up before him as if he were offering a toast, he spoke
the Hashishiyya invocation: "In the name of the Voice comes Brightness."

He put the cup to his lips and sipped it slowly. The lukewarm kaviyeh
masked the other taste, but he knew it would begin to work as soon as it
reached his stomach. He peered into the bottom of the cup to make sure
he had missed no precious grains, then set it down.

_The magic horse that flies to paradise_, so the Hashishiyya called it.

From Sheikh Saadi he had learned how to resist the power of drugs. From
Imam Fayum, the Old Man of the Mountain, he learned how to use them,
when he chose.

Naked, Daoud lay back on his mattress with a sigh that sounded like a
roar in his ears. If the Filippeschi came upon him to kill him now, he
would greet them with a smile and open arms. Lying on his back, his head
resting on a feather-filled cushion, he let his senses expand to fill
the world around him. His eyes traced the intricate red-on-red floral
pattern of a damask wall hanging. The humming of a large black fly that
had blundered in through the open casement and the closed curtains
resounded in his ears like a dervish chorus chanting themselves into an
ecstasy.

Odors swept in through the open window--clean mountain air with the
scent of pines in it, but from nearby the swampy foul reek of every kind
of filth produced by thousands of human beings living too close to one
another. It had rained last night, but not enough to clean the streets,
and the scavenging pigs--Daoud's heightened senses could hear and smell
them, too--could not keep up with the garbage and sewage produced by the
overcrowded people of Orvieto.

But he need not remain in Orvieto. He raised his head and lifted the
chain that held the silver locket about his neck. Turning the little
screw that fastened the lid of the locket, he let it fall open. It
covered most of the palm of his right hand. Holding the crystal disk
backed by silver close to his eyes, he saw his face reflected back at
him from the convex surface. His image was broken up by a pattern etched
into the transparency, a five-part webwork of interlocking angles and
boxes, spirals and concentric circles. The pattern formed a maze too
complex for the eye to grasp. He believed that the man who used a
stylus, doubtless diamond-pointed, to cut the design into the crystal
must have gone blind in the course of his work. No mosque bore a more
intricate--or more beautiful--pattern on its walls.

His eyes, as they always did when he looked into the locket, tried to
follow the pattern and became lost in it. As the drug extended its
empire within him, it seemed that he could actually see his eyes,
coalesced into a single eye, staring back at him from the net of lines
and whorls that entrapped it.

_The captive eye means that the locket now controls what I see._

He saw the face of Sophia Karaiannides. Her dark lips, luscious as red
grapes, were parted slightly, showing even, white teeth. Her
thick-lashed eyelids were half lowered over burning eyes. Her hair hung
unbound in brunette waves on either side of her face. She had splashed
water on her face, and the droplets gleamed on her cheeks and brow like
jewels.

Daoud had no doubt that he was seeing her exactly as she was at this
moment, somewhere else in the cardinal's mansion. The locket had that
property.

_But I do not want to see Sophia. I want Blossoming Reed._

Then Sophia spoke to him. "Oh, David, why will you not come to my bed?"

Her voice was rich as velvet. His muscles tensed with a sudden hunger, a
long-felt need that Francesca, the woman he bedded with now and then at
Tilia Caballo's, could never satisfy. Sophia, he realized, could give
him what he wanted, what he missed so terribly since leaving home.

_No! Let me see Blossoming Reed._

He shut his eyes, and Sophia was still looking at him. The locket and
the drug together could show a man things he did not want to see, make
him feel things he did not want to feel. Things that were inside him
that he did not want to know.

_The knowledge you run from is the most precious of all_, Saadi had
said.

_I know I want Sophia. I do not hide that from myself. But I cannot have
her. Let me therefore see my wife, Blossoming Reed, she who gave me this
locket._

Sophia's image faded now, and he saw again the crystal and its pattern
that caught his soul like a fish in its toils. Gradually the pattern
became the face of Blossoming Reed. Sparks flashed from her slanting
eyes, painted with black rings of kohl. Her wide mouth was a downturned
crescent of scorn. The nostrils of her hawklike nose flared proudly.
There was a message in her face. What did she know, and what was she
trying to tell him?

Blossoming Reed, daughter of Baibars and a Canaanite wife Baibars had
stolen from the crusader stronghold in Sidon. It was rumored that
Blossoming Reed's mother practiced a kind of sorcery that was ancient
even when the Hebrews were in bondage in Egypt. But would Baibars, the
mightiest defender of the faith since Saladin, allow devil-worship in
his own house? Daoud could not believe it.

And yet, what was this locket if not the work of some evil magician? He
would not have touched the thing, much less worn it, had it not come
from Blossoming Reed, whom he loved.

Blossoming Reed, betrothed to him at twelve, married to him at fourteen,
whose breasts were like oranges and whose nails flayed his back in their
lovemaking. Blossoming Reed, Baibars's gift of honor to him, seal and
symbol of eternal friendship between Baibars al-Bunduqdari and Daoud ibn
Abdallah.

Blossoming Reed, who now spoke to him in anger out of the magic of
hashish and the locket.

_Go back to the Well, Daoud!_

Back to the Well?

To the Well of Goliath?

He saw again the plain of tamarisk, thorn bush, and grass, and the long
black line of charging Tartars. Eagerly Daoud leaned forward in the
saddle. Tightly he gripped his bow.

_Now, devils, now you will pay for Baghdad!_

He had relived that day, the greatest battle of his life, hundreds of
times in thoughtful moments, in dreams, in hashish visions. What he saw
now were moments that seemed to leap at him out of the darkness.

       *       *       *       *       *

Screaming a war cry and brandishing a scimitar, a Tartar galloped at
him. They were in open ground. Daoud circled away, sheathing his saif
and pulling his bow from its case. The Tartar chased him, guiding his
horse with his knees and firing arrow after arrow at Daoud. But he was
in too much of a hurry. He was not aiming carefully, and all the arrows
whistled over Daoud's head.

The muscles of the black Yemenite stallion bunched and stretched under
Daoud as its hooves thundered over the plain. He stood in the saddle. He
turned and took aim along the shaft of his arrow at the center of the
Tartar's chest. The arrow went low, to Daoud's annoyance, and struck the
Tartar in the side of the stomach. But he must have been wearing light
leather armor, for the arrow with its steel point went deep into him.
The Tartar gave a short cry and dropped his bow, then fell, like a
stone, from the saddle into the sand.

Daoud wheeled his Yemenite about, then jerked the horse to a stop and
jumped from the saddle with his saif out. The Tartar had somehow risen
to all fours, but was vomiting blood into the sand. Daoud kicked him
with his red-booted foot and rolled him over on his back.

Holding his saif high, he looked into the face of Nicetas, contorted
with pain and fear.

"Oh, God!" he whispered. "Oh, God, no!"

He stood paralyzed. Their eyes met.

Nicetas said, "You have to."

"God be merciful to me," Daoud said, and brought the saif down.




XXVIII


Lorenzo's eyes ached as he stared through a peephole in the doorway of a
storeroom into the common room of the inn called the Angel. Alternating
his left and right eye at intervals, he stared at a bench by the
opposite wall, where a hooded figure sat alone, holding a cup of wine in
his lap. As Lorenzo had instructed him, the tavern keeper had put a
lighted candle in a sconce near where Sordello was sitting, so that
Lorenzo could watch his quarry.

The candle beside Sordello was one of only four in the common room--just
light enough for the innkeeper to be certain he was paid in honest coin
while making it hard for his patrons to see the color of his wine. It
was early evening, and there were only about six men and women in the
room. All of them except Sordello sat on benches at the one long table
near the wine barrel. Sordello, leaning against the rough-hewn wooden
wall, had to set his cup beside him.

The mercenary's square hand lifted the painted pottery cup into the
shadow of his hood. Lorenzo knew Sordello was under the tightly drawn
hood only because he had followed him diligently through the tangle of
Orvieto's streets from the house where a dozen of the brigosi Lorenzo
had recruited were quartered.

Daoud's secret army was growing. The evening after the contessa's
reception Lorenzo had sealed a bargain with Marco di Filippeschi, who
was ready to help Daoud against the alliance if it meant striking a blow
against the Monaldeschi.

Before any plans were made, though, there remained the question of
Sordello.

A stout woman in a black gown came into the common room of the Angel and
went straight to the hooded man. The lower part of her face was covered
by a black scarf. Anyone watching the hooded Sordello and the veiled
lady would think theirs was just everyday wickedness--an adulterous
couple meeting for an assignation. She sat beside him on the bench.
Their heads drew together, and Lorenzo, behind a door across the room,
was too far away to hear.

Lorenzo heard a scratching behind him. He turned, but it was too dark
even to see movement.

_Rats_, he thought. _This work continually brings a man into the company
of rats. Four-legged rats and men like Sordello._ He put his eye to the
peephole again, just in time to see a slip of paper disappear into the
woman's deep sleeve. Whoever Sordello was reporting to, he was putting
it in writing. Interesting that the man _could_ write. That put him a
cut above the average bravo, in education, at least.

The innkeeper came over to offer the woman wine, but she waved him away
without looking at him. She stood up, brushing the seat of her gown
fastidiously, like one who was used to sitting in cleaner surroundings.
Without a gesture or a handclasp she left Sordello as quickly as she had
come. Nothing loverlike about those two.

Lorenzo decided to follow the woman, and left by the bolthole the tavern
keeper had shown him. He doubted that the old bravo would do anything
other than sit there and get drunk.

He had to run through the alley beside the inn to catch a glimpse of her
going around a corner. She was hard to see. The darkness of night was
made deeper by the jutting upper stories of the houses, and she was
wearing black.

He kept running, his footfalls muffled by the mushy layers of moldering
refuse that paved the streets. A woman going through the byways of the
poorest part of town after dark was taking a great chance with her purse
and her honor. She was either well paid or very dedicated.

Lorenzo, whispering breathless curses, twice had almost lost her in the
maze before she emerged onto a wider street, the Via di San Remo. There,
lights from windows made her easier to follow. Now he was quite sure
where she was going, and was not at all surprised when she hurried up
the stairs leading to the front door of the Palazzo Monaldeschi. The
door opened. There was a blaze of torchlight, and she pulled down her
scarf to identify herself. Even from across the street Lorenzo knew her.

Ana, the woman who interpreted for the Tartars.

       *       *       *       *       *

Sophia entered Cardinal Ugolini's cabinet holding a letter written by
Simon de Gobignon. It had been pressed into her hand by the French
count's young scudiero when she was out walking. She had read it over
and over again before bringing it to David.

He was alone in the room. As he looked up from his seat on a pile of
cushions on the floor, she caught her breath. In that white light coming
through the translucent glass panes, David's grayish eyes took on an
opalescence.

The cardinal's cabinet on the top floor was the best-lit chamber in the
mansion. When Ugolini was not using the room, David often came here to
study, write, and meditate. And when neither David nor Ugolini was
there, Sophia sometimes came to draw and paint.

She felt as if David were a magician, and that his eyes had cast a spell
on her. In Ugolini's cabinet it was easy to think of magic. She had
always associated magic with darkened chambers and cellars, but Ugolini
practiced his magic at the top of his mansion, in a room with many
windows.

"The long-awaited answer from Simon has come," Sophia said, tossing the
opened scroll down before David.

David spread Simon's letter on his lap and read it, while Sophia looked
around the room. On a table near a window lay that painted skull Ugolini
kept toying with. On one wall were two maps of the heavens. Sophia
recognized the constellations in one of them, but the other was utterly
strange. One arrangement of stars in the second map seemed to take the
form of a Latin cross. She studied with interest the paintings on
scrolls nailed to the walls, of plants and animals so odd-looking that
she thought they might be an artist's inventions. One was a bird without
wings, another a spotted animal that looked like a deer but had an
enormously elongated neck. It might be pleasant to try painting such
creatures herself.

As David's eyes ran over Simon's letter, his lips curled in a faint
smile. Was it a smile of contempt for Simon's passionate outpouring,
which she had, in her delight with it, all but memorized?

    Lady, I cry you mercy. You know it not, but your gentle eyes are
    more puissant than a mighty host. From those eyes have flown such
    bolts as wound but do not kill, and they have pierced my heart. I
    will bleed forever within my breast where none can see, and all will
    wonder at my pallor and my weakness that have no outward cause.

    The physick for any wound or illness, sages tell us, must be like
    that which caused the hurt. Thus only you, who have delivered this
    wound, can cure it. Let me come to you, I beg, under cover of night.
    Let me but adore you in secrecy for a moment, and my strength will
    return....

"He is almost as good as an Arab poet," David said mockingly as he
handed her back the letter. Did it bother him, she wondered, that Simon
wrote words of love to her? David, she saw, was working on a letter of
his own on a tiny, thin scrap of vellum on a writing board which he now
laid over his knees. As if to show her that Simon's letter was of no
moment to him, he added to his own, writing rapidly with a quill dipped
in an inkpot--but from right to left.

"You write backwards?" she said, seating herself beside him on the floor
to look at his work.

"No, Christians do," he said with a faint smile. He covered what he was
writing with his hand, but she caught a glimpse of lines that wavered
and curled like tiny black snakes.

"Why bother to cover it? Do you really imagine that I could read that?"
Lightly she touched the hand that covered the writing, noticing the fine
yellow hairs on its back.

"I have to keep up the habit of secrecy." He gave her one of his rare
full smiles, and she wanted to reach out and hold his face between her
hands. They were so close, she thought, sitting side by side here on the
floor. And alone. They had but to stretch out on this thick Arabian
carpet and wrap their arms around each other. But, of course, Ugolini or
one of his servants might come in at any moment. Her longing for David
was a constant ache. She had not thought of Manfred, save as a figure in
the background of their lives, in weeks. And as long as she did not have
to meet with Simon, she was fully Sophia Karaiannides, and not troubled
by the yearning of Sophia Orfali for the young French count.

If only David did not insist on keeping her at a distance.

"Do you still want me to let Simon de Gobignon visit me secretly?" she
asked.

There was a momentary silence between them.

Then, "Have I told you of any change in plans?" he said gruffly. He
looked down at his scrap of parchment with the tiny crawling lines.

"What shall I let him do when we are together?" she asked quietly.

_I know David is jealous, and I am goading him. I want to hear his
jealousy._

He stood up abruptly and put his writing board on a table. He walked to
an open window and stood looking out, rolling his thin parchment tightly
between his fingers.

She hated this conversation. It turned him into a panderer and her into
a whore. And she sensed that he hated it as much as she did.

"Do what you think is necessary," he said coldly.

"_Necessary to what?_" she demanded through gritted teeth.

He turned toward her and held up a finger. "To win his trust." He held
up a second finger. "To hear and remember anything he may let slip." He
held up a third finger. "Most important, to tell him things."

"Tell him what?"

"Tell him that Cardinal Ugolini has persuaded Fra Tomasso d'Aquino to
oppose the alliance of Christians and Tartars."

"And if Simon believes you have won over Fra Tomasso, what will that
accomplish?"

"The unbelievers are already desperate to repair the damage I have done
to the reputation of the Tartars," David said. "If they think they have
lost Fra Tomasso, they may be provoked to do exactly the wrong thing."

"What would that be?" Sophia had heard that Muslims were devious. She
certainly could not follow Daoud's mind in this.

"Not knowing Fra Tomasso is actually trying to remain neutral, they will
use every means they have to try to win him back, as they think, to
their side. I am hoping they will try to bring Cardinal de Verceuil's
influence to bear. If de Verceuil goes to Fra Tomasso--or, even better,
to Fra Tomasso's superiors--he may well drive the learned friar over to
our side."

"What if you are wrong? What if de Verceuil and the other Franks do
persuade Fra Tomasso to support the alliance? Would it not be better to
leave him where he is, neutral?"

Daoud shook his head. "At least this way we are trying to control what
happens."

She smiled. "I thought you Muslims believed in leaving things up to
fate."

"The efforts of men are part of the workings of fate."

She would probably never understand his Muslim way of thinking. Perhaps
he would not accept her love because he saw her as an unbeliever. It
made her angry to think he might hold himself aloof from her because of
her religion, and he not even a Muslim born.

"The Turks killed your parents," she said. "How can you be a Muslim?" It
was something she had never understood and had wanted to know ever since
she learned what he was, but she asked it now to hurt him.

He gave her that silent, burning stare, and she began to wonder, with a
rippling of fear in the pit of her stomach, if she was in danger.

"That was my fate," he said. "I had to lose my mother and father to find
God."

Before she could catch herself, she started to laugh with a kind of
wildness, a touch of hysteria. She had been angry at him and had goaded
him and feared his striking back, and instead he made a statement that
was utterly absurd.

_I lost my mother and father, and I gained nothing from it. I became
nothing, neither daughter, nor wife, nor mother._

At her laughter, he took a step backward, as if she had struck him, and
his tan face reddened. Now she felt terror. This time she had surely
gone too far.

"Forgive me. Your answer surprised me. It sounds so strange for a man of
your profession to talk of finding God."

"What profession?"

"Well, you are a warrior and a spy, not a holy man."

"We do not need to speak of this." He turned away from her to stare out
the window. She looked past him at red-tiled rooftops. A flock of
pigeons circled in the distance.

"No," she said. "And as an unbeliever I suppose I would not understand."

Surprisingly he approached her and looked down with eyes that were
serious and free of anger. "If you ever, in sincerity, want to know
about Islam, come and ask me, and as best I can I will answer your
questions. But do not speak foolishness. And do not laugh."

She thought she understood a bit better. The Muslims had captured his
body, but then in his enslavement he had freely given his soul to their
religion. He did not serve the Turks. He served the God they called
Allah. How this had come about she could not imagine. But she knew a
little better why his sultan had entrusted him with this undertaking. He
was perfect for it.

"I must go," he said, as if eager not to talk anymore.

"To deliver your message?" She gestured toward the clenched fist that
held the fragile parchment. "Is there truly someone in Orvieto who can
read it?"

He smiled again. Oh, that smile! It so easily overcame her anger and
fear.

"There is no harm in my telling you. It goes to my sultan, by carrier
pigeon and ship." He must be proud, she thought, of his swift and secret
courier system.

"And do you get messages back in the same way?"

"It takes over a month each way, so I have received but one message from
the sultan since coming to Italy."

"Does the cardinal keep the pigeons?"

He had taken a tiny leather capsule out of his belt purse and was
inserting the message into it now. "Madama Tilia keeps the pigeons."

"Then are you going to her house?" Sophia remembered with a feeling of
guilt that she had not thought of Rachel in some time. "Please, David,
will you see how Rachel is while you are there?"

David looked at her quickly and glanced away. She felt a coldness in her
chest.

"What has happened to her?" she demanded. She seized David's arm, lest
he turn away from her.

He did not try to pull free. "She is well. She is already wealthy, in
fact." His eyes did not meet hers at all now.

"Oh, my God! A man has had her!" She let go of David and turned her back
on him.

There was another silence while fury churned in Sophia. She wanted to
turn on David, to scratch his face with her nails. She wanted to tear
her clothing in anguish, in mourning for Rachel's lost innocence. She
hated herself for her part in the child's degradation.

"Sophia." David's voice came from behind her, soft, a little uncertain.
"Were you so much older than Rachel when you--became a woman?"

Wrath overpowered her other feelings, and she turned on him. "Do you
think _that_ is what makes a girl into a woman? And you complain about
speaking foolishness?"

"How old, Sophia?" His voice was more confident now, as if her anger had
put him on firmer ground.

She thought of Alexis, the boy she had loved, and the long afternoons
they had spent together hidden under an old broken arch covered with
vines and lapped by waves on the Aegean side of Constantinople.

She shook her head. "Yes, I was her age. But I was in love. Doing it for
money or for my city came later, when I was alone in the world and
older."

There was appeal in his look. "But you know what it is to be alone and
in need. Just as you freely chose to serve the Emperor of Constantinople
with your body, so Rachel freely chose to sell her virginity for a
fortune in gold."

His obtuseness made her more angry than ever. "You know nothing about
freedom or women. Rachel was no more free to keep her virginity than you
were free to remain a Christian after the Turks captured you. As for me,
at least I know enough to hate the murderers of my parents."

His fingers dug into her shoulders until they hurt and the fire in his
eyes terrified her. But she held her face frozen, refusing to show fear
or pain.

"Say no more," he whispered in a strangled voice. "Not another word."

_Saint Simon, protect me._

_Simon._

She could see the struggle in David's face and body. She had enraged him
to the point where he wanted to hurt her. But he was not going to let
himself do it. She thought she must have taken a hundred breaths before
he released his grip on her shoulders, pushing her away a little.

Again she wondered what he had been through that would give him such
iron self-control. She stood looking at him, breathing heavily in the
aftermath of her terror.

_I am a fool to despise anything as powerful as what he has._

He raked her with his eyes, then turned toward the door.

"Do not bother to find out about Rachel for me," she said. "I will go
myself."

He stopped, and the fury in his face made her brace herself again for an
attack.

"You cannot go. You cannot be seen going into Tilia's."

"Do you think I have served great men for years without learning how to
move about a city unnoticed?"

"Go, then." His normally fair face was scarlet with rage. "And learn
from Rachel's own lips what the Tartar did to her."

For a moment she seemed to go blind and deaf. She felt hot and cold at
once. Her body had reacted to the meaning of his words before her brain
understood them.

"_Tartar!_ The man was a Tartar? You let a Tartar have her?" Sophia
seized the first object near her hand and threw it at him. She saw as it
struck him that it was the painted skull. It hit his chest with a thump,
and he took a step backward.

"You filthy bastard!" she screamed. "Pig of a Turk!"

Expressionless, he turned without another word and left her, closing the
door of Ugolini's cabinet behind him.

She sank weeping to the floor.

_Rachel, Rachel, how could they do this to you? With a Tartar. Oh, no!_

She sat there until her tears stopped and her thoughts began to make
some sense. The skull, lying on its side, seemed to look back at her.

_Thank you, David. You have made my decision for me. Simon de Gobignon
shall have me._




XXIX


This was a fearsome place, thought Daoud as he gazed around the
underground chamber hewn out of the yellow tufa on which the building
stood. Lit with torches, its vault was festooned with ropes and chains,
one wall lined with whips, rods, and scourges hanging from hooks, pokers
and branding irons heating in smoking braziers, a rack in one corner, a
ring of wood and iron six feet in diameter suspended in the center of
the room, on which a man could be spread-eagled. A veritable bazaar of
torture instruments. Its door was of solid oak reinforced with
criss-crossed strips of iron, designed to dash any hope of escape.

Daoud sat in a thronelike chair painted black--Tilia said it had once
belonged to a pope--on a raised platform against a wall. If the damned
chair had a few cushions in it, it might almost be comfortable. This
place, Tilia had told him, was for patrons of hers who liked to
torture--or be tortured.

It was perfect for his purpose. But could he himself be as perfect as
the room? This was a hard and wily man he had to deal with tonight. It
would be difficult to dominate him.

Beside Daoud, a preparation of wine, hashish, and the distilled juice of
the Anatolian poppy simmered in a pot held on a metal tripod over a
candle flame. He sniffed the faint steam that rose from the warm potion.
He warned himself to do no more sniffing, or he would be unable to
conduct the night's proceedings with a clear head. He glanced down at
one broad arm of the throne, where a small brass bowl lay. In the dish
rested a steel needle as long as a forefinger, its tip covered with a
black paste.

A nervous anticipation tingled in the pit of his stomach, but he held
himself very still.

Daoud heard Lorenzo's voice, and a moment later the oak-and-iron door
swung open. A man stumbled through, his head covered with a black hood,
his hands tied behind him, his ankles chained close together with
hobble-gyves. Two of Tilia's mute black slaves held his arms. Behind him
walked Lorenzo, a broad-bladed dagger held at waist level.

Daoud sat straighter in the throne, resting his hands on the arms. The
door boomed shut, and at Lorenzo's command the slaves untied the
prisoner's wrists and pulled the hood off his head.

Sordello stood before Daoud, blinking and staring angrily around him.
Daoud watched, pleased, as the sight of the irons and chains and
scourges bore in on Sordello and the anger on the bravo's face changed
to alarm.

"Why have you done this to me? What the devil is this place?"

An appropriate question, Daoud thought. "You are in hell," he said.

Sordello squinted at Daoud. "And who are you supposed to be, Messer
David, the Prince of Darkness? Is this some sort of miracle play?"

The man's defiance dismayed Daoud. He had hoped that the mere sight of
the chamber would set Sordello to babbling and begging. He needed to be
frightened more.

"Have them chain him to the ring, Lorenzo."

Sordello aimed a kick at one of the slaves following Lorenzo's orders.
The African gave Sordello's arm a quick twist and got a howl of pain out
of him. Soon the aging bravo, arms stretched out, legs spread apart, was
suspended upright in the great hoop. The ring of iron hung from the
ceiling on a single chain wrapped around a huge beam, allowing it to
rotate slowly. Daoud imagined how helpless Sordello must feel hanging
there.

Lorenzo took hold of the ring and gave it a spin. Face and back, face
and back, face and back, Sordello whirled before Daoud. His eyes bulged.

"Figlii di cagne!" he shouted.

_Still more angry than frightened. But perhaps he is just good at
concealing his fear._

Daoud made a small hand gesture, and Lorenzo stopped the spin of the
ring so that Sordello was facing Daoud.

Daoud studied Sordello, looking for the subtle signs that would reveal
his true feelings. His eyes gleamed like a caged hyena's, full of hatred
for Daoud.

Lorenzo had kept Sordello locked in a pitch-black cubicle in Cardinal
Ugolini's mansion for a day and a night before bringing him here. Daoud
studied the man. It was obvious from his pallor, his red-rimmed
eyelids, and his sagging mouth that Sordello had lain awake much of the
time in the darkness. Daoud could see the fear, too, in the clenching
and unclenching of Sordello's jaw muscles.

Daoud flicked a finger at Lorenzo. "Read the love song you found on this
trovatore when you seized him."

Lorenzo unfolded a square scrap of parchment and read:

    Your Magnificence:

    On Thursday last Donna Sophia left the Cardinal's mansion alone, on
    foot and heavily veiled. As she clearly did not want to be seen,
    your servant thought much was to be gained by following her, and so
    did. I regret to say she spent the afternoon wandering in the
    craftsmen's market, shopping for gloves, purses, and other
    adornments. Before Nones she went to the Church of Sant' Andrea,
    where she prayed a while, then went to Confession. Your servant
    attempted to approach close enough to overhear, but was unable to do
    so without being seen.

Lorenzo looked up and shook his head. "What a furfante you are! Trying
to eavesdrop on penitents." He went on with the reading.

    David of Trebizond has spent his days riding about Orvieto, meeting
    with the fattori of various trading houses that deal in silks and
    spices. Your servant adds a list below. The cardinal sleeps most of
    the day and works through the night behind the locked door of his
    cabinet on the top floor of the palazzo. Sometimes he mounts to the
    roof and studies the stars with the aid of magical instruments. Of
    the servant Giancarlo I am unable to make report, having not seen
    him all this week.

Lorenzo laughed. "That is the only true statement in this list of lies.
You did not see me all week because I have been constantly at _your_
back."

Sordello spat at Lorenzo's feet. "Ladruncolo! Sneak!" At this Lorenzo
and Daoud broke into laughter, while Sordello glared at them helplessly.
The hoop on which he was splayed turned slowly one way and then back the
other.

"You are indignant at being spied upon?" Lorenzo chuckled. "Then imagine
how we feel. And what is worse, you do not even tell the truth about
us."

"I piss in your teeth," Sordello snarled.

"For instance, what you write about Madonna Sophia," Lorenzo went on,
unperturbed. "You lost her a mere three streets from the cardinal's
mansion. She knew you were following her and took pains to rid herself
of your unwanted attentions. But you could not admit to your master what
a buffone you are, so you made up all that about her buying gloves in
the bazaar and going to church."

Actually, Daoud thought, that was the afternoon Sophia had come here, to
Tilia's house, to see Rachel, and it would have been disastrous if
Sordello had followed her. They would then have had to kill him, which
would have been unfortunate, since this way of handling him was so much
better.

Of course, they might still have to kill him. He already knew enough
about them to send them all to the stake if he ever spoke out. He must
be brought under control, to serve their purposes, or he must quietly
disappear.

"So, you not only spy on us, but you lie about us," said Daoud. "And to
whom do you send these lies? When the Bulgarian woman Ana takes your
weekly reports back to the Palazzo Monaldeschi, to whom does she deliver
them? De Verceuil? De Gobignon?"

"Go peddle your silks and spices, Messer David." The man was so
ill-tempered he had not the sense to try to protect himself by hiding
his anger and defiance.

Daoud gritted his teeth in frustration. Sordello was not breaking
quickly enough.

Daoud sent Lorenzo a signal with two fingers. Lorenzo sprang at Sordello
with his blade, a dagger so big it was almost a short sword, and slashed
at his tunic, belt, and hose. The blacks grinned. Sordello roared his
protests. A last flick of the blade cut away his grimy loincloth. In a
moment Sordello hung naked on the ring, his shredded clothes hanging
from his ankles or lying on the flagstone floor. His body was wiry and
muscular, with only a small paunch at the waist. The flickering
torchlight picked out the shadows of scars crossing his chest and belly.
Daoud stared with curiosity and faint distaste at the uncircumcised
penis peeping from its thicket of grizzled hair.

Daoud put his fingertips together and casually crossed his legs,
lounging back in the throne, letting the contrast between his position
and Sordello's sink in. He prayed that the man might succumb. His soul
must be made of sand; how could it be otherwise?

The ring slowly rotated. Sordello twisted his head to look over his
shoulder at Daoud.

"If you kill me, he will know." There was the faintest quiver in his
voice.

Daoud chose not to ask the obvious question--who "he" was--but said,
keeping his voice soft and kindly, "What will he learn from your death,
Sordello?"

Before Sordello could answer, Lorenzo burst out, "We are not going to
kill him for a long while, are we, Messer David? You promised me I could
have some sport."

"Quiet, Giancarlo," said Daoud, narrowing his eyes. "You shall have your
sport."

"Why torture me? Why kill me?" There was a plea in Sordello's voice now.
"I have told nothing that could hurt you."

"You have told _us_ nothing, Sordello." Daoud stood up. The platform on
which the throne chair stood gave him impressive height, and the torches
high in the wall behind him threw his shadow across the room.

"I admire your fidelity to your master, whoever he is," Daoud said with
a smile. "What a pity he will never know about it. As I told you, this
is hell, and you are dead already. You will just vanish, like a bit of
rubbish washed out of the city by the rain. Your master will probably
think you deserted him, as your sort of wandering ladrone so often
does."

"I am not a highwayman!" Sordello's cry echoed against the stone vault.
"I am a man of honor. I am an educated man, a trovatore."

"You are feccia!" Lorenzo shouted, and slapped Sordello's face hard.

"For that I will one day slice open your guts," Sordello growled.

Exasperated, Daoud saw that hurting Sordello only made him angrier. If
they hurt him enough, certainly, they would have him begging for mercy,
but by then they might have injured him so badly he would be of no use
to them.

"Let him be, Giancarlo," Daoud snapped.

"I saved your life," Sordello said to Daoud. "I killed a man for you. Is
this how you repay me--letting this pig strip me and beat me?" His
narrowed eyes gave a hint of slyness. "I could be worth ten of this
Neapolitan mezzano to you."

"You dare call me a pimp!" Lorenzo lunged at Sordello again, this time
aiming the point of the huge dagger at his belly. Sordello twisted his
body in the chains and gave a cry of fright.

"Giancarlo!" Daoud shouted sternly. "Back!"

Sordello hung rigid in his chains. Sweat ran down his face. His whole
body was covered with sweat, glistening in the torchlight, and Daoud
suspected he would be cold to the touch. Sordello's eyes rolled from
Lorenzo, who stood frozen with the dagger outstretched, to Daoud and
back again. The two blacks stood behind Lorenzo, smiling broadly.

"You are worth nothing to me at the moment, Sordello, because you refuse
even to give me the one harmless piece of information I ask for. You
will not tell me who set you to spy on me. So I might as well give you
to Giancarlo here for his amusement." He held a hand out to Lorenzo, as
if giving him leave to proceed.

"It is Simon de Gobignon!" Sordello cried. "It is to him my messages
go."

Daoud's heart leapt with exultation, and he allowed himself a satisfied
little sigh. A flicker of a finger told Lorenzo to lower his knife.
Sordello had made the first surrender, on which all further success with
him depended.

But--de Gobignon. That was a surprise. Daoud had been sure it would be
Cardinal de Verceuil who would try to place a spy in his camp. A
Frankish knight like de Gobignon would prefer the frontal attack, the
pitched battle, to trickery. That was why the Franks were gradually
losing their grip on the land they called Outremer. The French cardinal
was another story. Daoud had seen in him a combination of pride,
ambition, and lack of scruple that would use any means to defeat an
enemy.

How to find out the truth? He ground his teeth.

"You are lying," Daoud said firmly. "It is Cardinal de Verceuil you
serve. Giancarlo--" Daoud gestured, and Lorenzo went over to the brazier
and slowly drew out an iron. The tip of it glowed red in the dim light
of the chamber. His teeth flashing white under his thick mustache,
Lorenzo advanced on Sordello.

"No! It is the truth!" Sordello shrieked, the chain that suspended the
hoop rattling as he tried to pull himself away from Lorenzo and the
smoking metal rod he held. As Lorenzo slowly approached, Sordello
babbled out a tale of having been sent to Venice by Charles d'Anjou,
brother of the King of France, to recruit and command archers for Count
Simon. He had gotten into a brawl and wounded an Armenian prince who had
come to Venice with the Tartars, and Simon had sent him away.

"I cannot serve Count Simon openly because the Armenians still want my
blood," Sordello explained. "So he set me to spy on you instead."

The frantic haste with which Sordello spilled out his story gave it the
sound of truth. This was going much better. Daoud's tense jaw muscles
were relaxing.

Daoud picked up the bowl with the needle in it, gestured Lorenzo back,
and slowly strolled across the chamber to Sordello. He gave the bowl to
Lorenzo to hold, and drew closer until his face was only a hand's width
from Sordello's, until he could smell the inner rot on the man's breath.
Sordello's eyes rolled sideways, trying to watch the needle in the bowl
Lorenzo was holding.

"What does de Gobignon say of me?" Daoud whispered. "What does he think
I am?"

"He thinks you are a foreigner brought here by Ugolini to thwart the
French plans for a crusade," Sordello gasped. "He says Ugolini is an
agent of the Hohenstaufen king. He thinks Giancarlo is gathering a band
of men to murder the Tartars. Please, for the love of God, do not hurt
me, Messere." His eyes would fall out of his head if he stared any
harder at the needle.

"Give me a candle, Giancarlo," said Daoud. He reached out without
looking, and Lorenzo pressed the lighted candle into his hand. Taking a
step back, he held the flame before Sordello's sweating face. His lips
trembling, Sordello turned his head away.

"Look at the flame, Sordello," said Daoud softly. "Just look at the
flame and listen to me. Look at the flame, and I will tell you what I
really am." Daoud passed the candle back and forth before Sordello's
face, murmuring reassurance. Sordello's eyes followed the candle.

He wondered if this would work. It seemed too much like magic. He had
seen it done by Hashishiyya imams, but he had never done it himself.

"I am a sorcerer, Sordello, a mighty wizard. I can pass through any
obstacle. I can see what people are doing thousands of leagues away. I
can bring the dead back to life. I told you that you are a dead man,
Sordello. You are truly dead, but you have nothing to fear, because my
power can bring you back to life."

The bravo hung lax in the chains, his half-shut eyes still moving from
right to left, following the candle flame. His knees had buckled and his
belly sagged.

Daoud handed the candle to Lorenzo and beckoned to one of the Africans,
who took the simmering pot of drugged wine from the tripod, holding it
by a wooden handle, and gave it to Daoud.

"Where are you, Sordello?"

"I am in hell."

"And what are you?"

"A dead man."

"And I?"

"A mighty wizard."

"Very good. Now drink this." Daoud felt the lip of the pot to make sure
it was not too hot, then brought it to Sordello's mouth. Obediently
Sordello lifted his chin and opened his lips, allowing Daoud to pour the
warm wine into his mouth, and then swallowed. Daoud poured more into him
and then gave the pot back to Tilia's servant.

"Now you will truly know my power, Sordello. Prepare yourself for the
most wonderful night of your life. You will make a journey from hell to
heaven. Close your eyes and raise your head." Lorenzo held out the brass
bowl with the needle, and Daoud took the needle, holding it firmly with
his thumb and first two fingers. Gesturing to Lorenzo to bring the
candle close to Sordello's throat, he searched out a vein just where the
neck met the shoulder.

"You can feel nothing. You can feel no pain at all."

Daoud took a deep breath and prayed to God to guide his hand. He jabbed
the needle into Sordello's neck. The bravo remained utterly motionless,
and Daoud heard Lorenzo gasp in amazement. Daoud left the needle stuck
in the pale, pink flesh. He watched Sordello closely and put his palm
before his lax mouth. He could feel Sordello's breath on his palm, slow
and steady, the breath of a sleeping man. After a time the craggy block
of a head fell forward, and the body hung limp in the chains.

So far, all was working as he had hoped. But the man was stronger than
he had thought. He had been harder to break. There was always the danger
that somewhere deep in his soul a part would remain free. Daoud had
heard of such things happening, of slaves of the Old Man of the Mountain
who suddenly rebelled. The methods of the Hashishiyya were not perfect.

He would have to chance it. It was in God's hands now.

"Are you sure he is not dead?" Lorenzo said in a low, awed voice.

"Look for yourself. He breathes. His heart beats."

Lorenzo shook his head. "What is that stuff?"

Daoud pointed to the two Africans, who stood calmly by, awaiting orders.
"_They_ know. In the jungle below the great desert, where it is very hot
and wet, a body can rot in hours. Tiny men, less than half our size,
live there, and they hunt large animals for their meat. They smear this
stuff on their darts. It comes from a mushroom that grows in their
forest. The animal struck is paralyzed and unconscious, but it lives.
They have time to carry it back to their village, which may take days,
and then they can slaughter it and butcher it."

"But what a blessing this could be for the wounded and the sick," said
Lorenzo. "Why does the world not know of it?"

Daoud shrugged. "The tiny men kill those who venture into their forests.
What little is brought back by Arab traders is kept as a precious
secret. Only sultans may permit its use." He turned to the two blacks.
"Take him upstairs now."




XXX


Well satisfied with what Tilia had accomplished, Daoud gazed about at
the frescoed moons, stars, and suns scattered across the dark blue walls
of the apartment. A cool night breeze blew through the rooms from
windows hidden by screens and gauzy curtains. In the large central
chamber an oval pool gave off a scent of roses. Hangings of violet,
silver, and azure turned the rooms into a maze that baffled the eye.

Everywhere Daoud looked he saw beds and divans and cushions. The floors
were covered with soft rugs and the tables laden with pitchers of wine
and plates of peaches, grapes, and melon slices.

In a corner of a smaller room, its walls covered with maroon and black
drapes, the flame of a large candle warmed a solution of wine and
hashish in a green earthenware bowl. A single silver cup stood beside
the candle.

"All this for one lousy traditore?" said Lorenzo.

"After he has experienced what I have prepared for him tonight, he will
no longer be a traitor," said Daoud. "His very soul will be mine, and
that will be worth--all this."

He watched the two silent black men lug in the naked body of Sordello,
and he pointed to a forest-green divan beside the pool. Gently they laid
Sordello there.

Tilia Caballo appeared from behind a curtain. At a gesture from her, the
two black men bowed to Daoud and left.

Three women followed Tilia into the room.

"Goddesses!" whispered Lorenzo, staring.

Daoud, who had chosen them, agreed. Two of them, Tilia had told him,
were sisters whose specialty was working together with one man. They had
hair the color of honey, olive skin, and Grecian profiles. Each had a
gold fillet in her hair and wore a short tunic of pure white linen. Each
tunic left one delicate shoulder and one perfect breast exposed. On
Orenetta the uncovered side was the right, and on Caterina the left.

The third woman was tall, taller than most men, and her bare shoulders
were broad. But her body, tightly wrapped in a gown of black silk that
stopped just above her breasts, was magnificently female. Her long
unbound hair was lustrous and black as her gown, her skin pale as snow.
A gold collar that appeared to be woven of spiral strands encircled her
neck. Maiga, Tilia said, was from Hibernia, an island west of Britain,
and she spoke no Italian and did not need to.

Daoud felt a fluttering in his chest as the sight of the three women,
and the scent of the simmering wine brought back memories of his own
initiation at the hands of the Hashishiyya.

It had been the Tartars, indirectly, who had made it possible for him to
take that training. They had besieged and destroyed Alamut, the great
Persian fortress of the Sheikh al-Jebal, the Old Man of the Mountain,
and kicked him to death after he surrendered. The Old Man's surviving
followers scattered across the lands of Islam. It was inevitable that
some of the highest adepts came for protection to Sultan Qutuz of El
Kahira.

After they were settled, Baibars had gone to them with the proposal that
certain Mameluke emirs be initiated into the secrets of the sect. Fayum
al-Burz, the new Sheikh al-Jebal, saw an opportunity to infiltrate the
highest levels of the Mamelukes and was only too pleased to comply.

And so it had come about that Daoud, already trained by Saadi to resist
the power of hashish, passed through the gates of paradise and learned,
in time, how to administer the same experience to others.

Of course, Sordello, after he went through this, would be no adept. He
would learn no secrets. He would be the lowest of the low--a tool, like
the fedawi, the devoted killers who were the source of the Sheikh
al-Jebal's power.

"This is a lucky man," said Tilia, her big mouth splitting her face in a
lascivious grin. "He will experience delights here tonight that many of
my most distinguished patrons have never enjoyed. His pleasures will be
limited only by what his body can endure."

She walked over to Sordello, asleep on the divan, and ran caressing
fingers down his bare chest and belly. "And he looks to be a strong man
for his age. These scars. Quite the veteran bravo, eh?"

Though the room seemed cool to Daoud, sweat ran over Tilia's bare bosom
down into the deep square collar of her purple gown. Her deadly pectoral
cross lay heavily against the purple satin between her breasts. She
might need that cross tonight, Daoud thought, if anything went wrong
with Sordello.

"I begin to envy the man," said Lorenzo. "Ill-treated as he has been up
to now."

"Surely you are not such a fool," said Daoud brusquely. But then, he
thought, Lorenzo had no real idea what initiation into the Hashishiyya
did to a man.

A few last soft words of instruction to Caterina, Orenetta, and Maiga,
and Tilia led Daoud and Lorenzo to a wall panel which swung open at the
pressure of her finger on a spring. The room they entered was as cool as
the one they had just left, its large open window covered over with fine
netting to let in air and keep out insects. But it was darker. Only a
single fat candle burned in a large stick enameled green, red, and
white.

Francesca, the woman Daoud had lain with on his previous visits to
Tilia's, rose with a smile and came to him. As Daoud took her hand and
kissed it, she squeezed his fingers. The polished, carved beams that ran
up the walls and across the ceiling of this room were the same color as
Francesca's hair, a dark brown. Opposite the window there was a small
fireplace, dark and empty.

"Here, here, and here are the places from which you can watch what goes
on in there," said Tilia, marching along one wall and pointing to tiny
circular openings, each one ringed with a little _O_ of wood. Under each
opening was a couch, and the openings were low enough in the wall so
that one could sit, or even lie down, and still look through them. The
light in this room had to be lower than in the room where Sordello was,
Daoud realized, or the peepholes would be visible on the other side of
the wall.

"Francesca is here for your pleasure, should you find what is happening
on the other side of this wall arousing," said Tilia, dabbing with a
handkerchief at the pool of sweat that kept forming at the top of her
cleavage. It must be her weight, Daoud thought, that made her perspire
so much.

"You have thought of everything, Tilia," said Daoud.

"There is more," she said with a smile, and pulled on an embroidered
strip of purple velvet hanging from the wall. Daoud heard a bell ring
somewhere beyond the wall. Then through the door to the outer gallery
came two more of Tilia's black servants. The first one bore a wide
silver tray, and Daoud smelled a familiar and savory odor that filled
the air of the room. As the servant laid the tray on a round table,
Daoud saw slices of roast kid garnished with shredded cheese on a bed of
rice with peppers.

"Roast yearling!" Daoud exclaimed, delighted.

He bit into a sliver of kid. It was delicious. The meat was accompanied
by sliced boiled lemons sprinkled with nadd and scented with ambergris.

"But where did you learn to prepare such a dish?"

The stout little woman rolled her eyes. "There is much you do not know
about me. If I find you deserving I will tell you, one day. Meanwhile,
partake! And you, Lorenzo. And Francesca. Levantine cookery will not
poison you."

The second servant set a platter of peaches and figs and a flagon of
kaviyeh beside the lamb. A good meal for a long night, thought Daoud.

He sat on one of the couches to peer through a peephole. He could see
the three women gathered around Sordello's inert form. They were
massaging him gently, as instructed.

But it would be a while yet before he woke and found himself with three
beautiful women, every pleasure they gave him enhanced by hashish.

"In the south we know and love Saracen dishes," said Lorenzo with a grin
as he licked his fingers after helping himself to the kid. "But, Madama
Tilia, am I to have food only? Shall I not have a companion to help me
endure this night's work?"

Tilia reached up and pulled at the end of his grizzled mustache. "Only
rarely does a Sicilian bullock set foot in my house. I am saving you for
myself."

"Meraviglioso!" Lorenzo exclaimed. "Instead of one of the handmaidens of
Venus I shall have Venus herself."

Lorenzo's wit was itself meraviglioso, thought Daoud. But for him,
something other than the games of Venus was uppermost in his mind. Ever
since his angry words with Sophia of a few days before, he had been
troubled by the thought of Rachel. And especially tonight when, even as
he passed the time here at Tilia's, Simon de Gobignon was visiting
Sophia. Sophia had been to see Rachel herself, but had refused to talk
about her. He wanted to reassure himself that Sophia had been wrong to
condemn him and that all was well with the girl.

"While we wait, Tilia," he said, "I would have a private word with you."

When they stepped out of the room Daoud said, "I want to see Rachel."

Tilia frowned and was silent for a moment. "In all honesty, she is well
and happy, and richer by nearly two thousand florins. Your companion
Sophia visited her and found nothing amiss. And the roast kid will get
cold."

Two thousand florins. Nearly enough, Daoud reckoned, to buy a mansion
like Ugolini's. But what of Rachel herself?

"Just take me to her, Madama."

       *       *       *       *       *

When he first saw Rachel's surprised smile, he thought that she was
indeed well and happy, as Tilia had said. But then her dark gaze was
averted, her straight brows drawn together in a little frown. She
started playing with the gold lace on the hem of her white satin gown.

Daoud said. "Well, Rachel. You look like a queen sitting there."

Each woman at Tilia's had her special room, Daoud knew. The hangings in
Rachel's room were cream-colored, the tables and chairs and the bedposts
painted ivory, and the canopy over the bed was cloth-of-gold. She sat in
one corner of the bed, with her legs curled under her.

_It must have been on this bed that the Tartar had her._

"I am so pleased to see you, Messer David," she said in a low voice.
"How can I serve you?" She smiled at him, but his trained eye saw that
it was a false smile. And the hint of defiance he had noticed on first
meeting her in Rome was gone.

"Rachel, I only wanted to see with my own eyes that you are content here
and well treated."

Her eyebrows lifted slightly, and she shrugged. "I have never till now
known such comfort, Messer David."

Daoud realized that he should ask her about the Tartar. Tilia herself
had given him an account of Rachel's first night with John Chagan. The
pain Daoud felt at hearing what he had delivered Rachel to was relieved
only slightly by knowing that the Tartar had been surprisingly gentle
with her. At first, though, he had hated Tilia for being willing to risk
Rachel, and, impulsively, he had resolved to kill John. That made him
feel a little better, until, a moment later, he remembered that hating
Tilia and killing the Tartar would be no help whatever to Rachel. And
he, as much as anyone, was guilty of what had happened to her.

Since John Chagan's first visit, Daoud knew, he had been back twice
more, paying a thousand florins each time to spend part of the night
with Rachel. He seemed much taken with her, and continued to be careful
and kindly in his use of her body, Tilia reported. Watching them, Tilia
had learned nothing that Daoud could use. But there were things Rachel
might have noticed, useful things Tilia could not have observed through
a spy hole.

_Not tonight. I will ask her for information another time._

One thing he must know, though, was whether Tilia had been telling him
the truth. "Have you been hurt in any way?"

Rachel looked at him, looked away and sighed. How enormous her dark eyes
were, Daoud thought, how soulful. Her stare made him uncomfortable, and
he was thankful that she soon looked away. She kept on toying with the
hem of her gown.

"Everyone has been very kind. You need not worry about people hurting
me. After all, Messer David, you are a merchant, as my Angelo was, and
you understand that goods must be kept in the best possible condition to
obtain the best price. Everyone here understands that, too."

There was no mistaking the bitterness and despair in her voice. Had he
felt any differently after the Turks captured him, raped him, beat him,
and sold him in the slave market?

"You are being given the money you have earned?"

She nodded, not looking up. "My share is five hundred florins for each
of his visits. And he gave me a purse of three hundred the first time. A
bonus, because I was a virgin. Madama Tilia keeps it for me, but I am
allowed to look at it and count it." She looked up suddenly and said
earnestly, "I could not have fallen into better hands than Madama
Tilia's." But there was a deadness in her eyes that belied what she
said.

"We did not force you to give yourself to the Tartar," he burst out.

A light came into her eyes then, the fire of anger. "Thank you for
reminding me that I became a whore of my own free will. Is that why you
came to see me, Messer David? To tell me that this is all my own fault?"
Her lips stretched in a ferocious grin. "Pay me enough and I will say
anything you want to hear."

Rachel's eyes were fixed on his, and his on hers, and they stayed that
way, frozen, until Daoud shut his eyes and slowly turned away.

He could not even think of a word to say in farewell. As he closed the
door to her room behind him, his eyes burned and there was an aching
heaviness in his chest. Remorse. He felt as if he had killed a
child--two children. Not just Rachel, but the boy David who had always
lived inside him. The pain was unbearable. He longed to escape it.




XXXI


Tilia eyed Daoud apprehensively. "Is it not as I have said--she is well
and happy?" She lifted the pectoral cross to raise its gold chain away
from her bosom and mop her flesh with a square of pale green silk. He
remembered the blade in the cross, and wondered if she was afraid he
might attack her.

He wished he could hate her for what had happened to Rachel. But all
Tilia had done was introduce Rachel to a way of life that Tilia herself
had found rewarding.

"She is as well as I could have hoped," he said, hearing in his own
voice the deadness he had heard in Rachel's. He sat down heavily on a
divan.

Lorenzo looked at him searchingly. His big mustache hid his mouth when
it was in repose, but his eyes were wide, and they glistened wetly in
the light of the one candle that illuminated this small room. The
Sicilian's hands lay limp in his lap, the hands of a man in pain and
unable to do anything about it.

Through a peephole Daoud saw that Sordello had awakened. The gray-haired
bravo was staring about him in wonder, only six feet away from Daoud's
eye, while Maiga gently pressed his shoulders back against the divan,
Orenetta stroked his chest and whispered to him, and Caterina's blond
head rose and fell between his legs.

Francesca sat on the divan beside Daoud, offering him a slice of kid. He
took it and chewed it, but even though Tilia had cooked and seasoned it
perfectly, it was tasteless to him.

It was not only Rachel's fate that troubled him, he realized. It was
what was happening on the other side of this wall--those three lovely
women ministering like houris of paradise to that old ruffian. They
would do it with skill and even with the appearance of enthusiasm
because they had no choice. They did not even think of choosing. They
just did as they were told. Their orders came, through Tilia, from
Daoud. Francesca, here beside him, would do whatever he wanted, not
because it was what _she_ wanted, but because she, too, had no choice.

And he had never really thought what it meant for women to live this way
until he saw, tonight, what had happened to Rachel.

_God is a flame_, Sheikh Saadi used to say, _and each human soul a spark
from that flame. When we treat our brother or sister like a thing, we
trample God Himself._

They were all slaves in this house of Tilia's. He had sent Rachel here
to become a slave.

_I, too, was once a slave._

But as a full-fledged Mameluke he was free. These women did not have
that way of escape. As long as they could, they must perform the act of
love, as it was called, with whoever paid them, or starve.

Baibars had done well to close the brothels of El Kahira. It was the
very meaning of love that it was freely given. Love was free submission
to another, just as Islam was free submission to God. Daoud had first
experienced love when he and Nicetas gave their bodies to each other.
And later with Blossoming Reed, even though theirs was an arranged
marriage, that, too, was love.

He could not lie with Francesca tonight. It would be too much like lying
with Rachel. He could not watch what Orenetta, Caterina, and Maiga would
do with Sordello. The thing he was having them do to Sordello was an
abomination. Despicable though Sordello was, he, too, had a soul, and
tonight Daoud was trampling upon God in the person of Sordello.

And yet he must see that all went as planned tonight. Did he want his
homeland destroyed?

_But I have to get away from here._

He stood up suddenly. "I must go back to Cardinal Ugolini's." Tilia,
Lorenzo, and Francesca stared at him.

Tilia recovered first. "But you were to stay the night here. What
about--" She gestured toward the wall.

Daoud shook his head. "I am not needed. And I have an important matter
to discuss with Ugolini."

"Which you just remembered," Lorenzo said, eyeing him sourly.

Daoud pressed his lips together. "Those three women know what to do.
There is no need for anyone to intervene unless he starts to resist. And
then you can kill him as easily as I can."

Lorenzo stood up and bowed formally. "Thank you for your trust,
Messere."

_If I am right in thinking that he hates this as much as I do, then he
hates me for making him stay here._

       *       *       *       *       *

The thump of Daoud's boots on the cobblestones echoed against the fronts
of the huddled houses. Armed with sword and dagger, his head clear, and
keeping to the wider streets, Daoud felt safe from attack, even though
it was well past midnight. Besides, the Filippeschi had been won over,
so he need no longer fear them. Fear, he thought, was the wrong word for
it. Tonight he would welcome battle.

And he had the Scorpion with him tonight. He no longer ever made the
mistake of going about in the streets of Orvieto at night without
carrying the Scorpion in a concealed pocket in his cloak.

He walked past the cathedral church of San Giovenale, and once again
from the open doors heard the pale voices of the priests of the
cathedral chapter. A heavy odor of incense, carried on the moist night
air, filled his nostrils.

Pain crushed his heart as he passed beyond the pool of light that
spilled out the cathedral door. He seemed to feel a heavy hand on his
shoulder, and looked up. Conjured up from memory, his blond father
appeared to tower over him, a red cross on the shoulder of his white
mantle. A warm hand gripped Daoud's, and his mother, her red-gold hair
bound with pearls, smiled down at him. Her dress was blue, like the
dress she had died in.

_What memories torment Rachel_, he wondered.

       *       *       *       *       *

Just ahead of him, the narrow street opened into the broader one that
ran past Cardinal Ugolini's mansion. He had just passed an inn called
Vesuvio, after the burning mountain near Napoli, when a door opened
softly behind him. Very softly, but it did not escape his trained ear.
He glanced back and saw the upper half of a divided door mate with its
lower half.

_Watching for me?_ That was unlikely, because a spy watching for him
would have had no idea when to expect him and would have had to stand by
that door all night. He looked back again at the doorway and then at the
cardinal's residence. The street was wide enough to allow a person
standing in the doorway of the inn a good view of the front of the
mansion.

He walked out into the square and turned to the right so that he could
no longer be seen from the inn. Behind a filmy curtain on the third
story of the mansion shone a yellow glow. Sophia's room. Was that Simon
de Gobignon in the inn doorway?

No, it was not, because now he saw de Gobignon. The unmistakable tall
figure was standing in the candlelit window behind the curtain. A thin
arm pushed the curtain back, and though the light was behind de
Gobignon, Daoud could see the Frenchman plainly, looking down into the
square. Even though he was sure de Gobignon could not see him, Daoud
stepped farther back into the shadows.

De Gobignon in Sophia's room. Daoud clenched his fists, and his lips
drew back in a snarl.

The Scorpion would not carry that far. No, but he could stride closer in
an instant, aim at that spidery figure silhouetted against Sophia's
lighted window, and bring down his enemy with a single bolt.

_Why am I thinking such a thing?_

Was he going mad? Sophia would let Simon make love to her, and in his
passion he would tell her much. Perhaps Daoud could find out more about
why Simon had sent Sordello into his camp. Perhaps Simon would give
Sophia some hint about the countermove he must be planning. Meanwhile
Sophia would trick Simon into thinking that Fra Tomasso had turned
against the alliance.

Killing Simon would be foolishness. Until now the mishaps that had
befallen the French and the Tartars had seemed accidental. Murder Simon,
and his enemies would have proof that there were plotters in Orvieto,
and they would seek them out. And the first place they would look would
be the place where Simon was killed, the establishment of Cardinal
Ugolini, the chief opponent of the Tartar-Christian alliance.

Still, Daoud felt his blood seethe. He remembered a summer night over
ten years before, when he had bribed a slave and slipped through an
unlocked gate into the arms of Ayesha, the young wife of Emir Tughril
al-Din, then his commanding officer. They had lain together all that
night on the roof of the mansion of Tughril al-Din, bathed in sweat, and
the sweet terror of the blades that would hew his naked body to pieces
if they were discovered goaded him into plunging into her again and
again. Only the moon and stars bore witness that he was enjoying the
wife of his commander, the man who ordered him about and punished him
when he made an error, the man who had the power of life and death over
him. Toward dawn, the delight of it bubbled up in his throat and he
laughed so loudly that the small Circassian girl put her hand over his
mouth.

_And now he does to me that which I did to Tughril al-Din._

Daoud shook his head. Nonsense. Sophia was not his wife, and it was for
this very purpose, to seduce, corrupt, and spy upon the enemy, that he
had brought her here.

_To use her, as I used Rachel and the women at Tilia's. First the Tartar
took Rachel, and now de Gobignon takes Sophia. And I am nothing but a
slave and a panderer._

A second silhouetted figure appeared beside Simon, much shorter, with
unbound hair falling in waves and a narrow waist. Daoud saw Sophia rest
her hand on his shoulder. A moment later she took the Frenchman's hand,
and they both turned away from the window. The curtain fell back in
place behind them.

_She leads him to bed!_

Daoud was shaking with rage. Every muscle in his body ached to kill de
Gobignon.

_Oh, God, give me the chance to destroy him!_

He heard another sound to his left, the scrape of a boot on
cobblestones. His hand darting to his sword, he glanced toward the
street he had just passed through. Nothing.

De Gobignon had brought a friend or servant with him. The friend was
waiting at that inn, where he could watch the front of Ugolini's
mansion, and, perhaps, signal to de Gobignon as dawn approached.

De Gobignon's friend had been watching Daoud. He must be all in a sweat,
knowing that Daoud had seen the young count in Sophia's window. He would
expect Daoud to raise an alarm. And if Daoud did not, then de Gobignon
would guess that David of Trebizond _approved_ Simon's making love to
the cardinal's niece. And from that it would only be a step to realizing
that David and Sophia must be plotting together.

It would extinguish any suspicion of Sophia the count might have if
Daoud were to rush into the mansion, raise an alarm, and pursue Simon.
But if de Gobignon were caught, it would mean a scandal. His French
compatriots would certainly do all they could to stop him from seeing
Sophia again.

Again Daoud heard the scrape of a boot sole on the stone of the street.
He drew farther back under the overhanging upper story of a house facing
the mansion. Now de Gobignon's man could not see him without showing
himself.

There was only one thing to do. And it gave Daoud grim satisfaction to
realize it.

_I cannot kill Simon de Gobignon, but I have to kill his man._

He drew the Scorpion from its pocket in the hem of his cloak. Quickly
and silently he unfolded it. A leather case held a sting for the
Scorpion, a steel dart half again as long as his finger, coated with the
same paste he had used to render Sordello unconscious. He pulled the
string of twisted rawhide back with his fist, slipped the dart into
place.

The Frank took a step out of hiding. Daoud saw him as a big shadow at
the corner of the building. He imagined the Frank's thoughts. He must be
trying desperately to think of some way to warn his master before the
cardinal's guards were roused.

Daoud raised the Scorpion, but the darkness made the shot difficult. De
Gobignon's man was too hard to see.

"Pardonnez-moi, Messire," he said in the language he had not used since
he was ten. "I have a message for Monseigneur the Count de Gobignon." He
spoke in as casual and friendly a tone as he could muster.

Daoud was close enough now to see that the man's hand was on his sword
hilt.

"Why do you speak of the count to me?" The voice was young.

"Because you are his man," said Daoud, and he thumbed the notched wheel
that held the bowstring in place. The string thrummed, the dowels sprang
forward, and the dart buried itself in the Frenchman's body.

To avoid hitting breastbone or rib, Daoud had aimed for the stomach.
The Frank uttered a cry of pain and anger, and his left hand clutched at
his middle as his right hand drew his sword.

"You Greek bastard!" he groaned, and fell first to his knees, then on
his face. So he had recognized him as David of Trebizond. He must surely
die.

Daoud rolled the unconscious man over on his back. His fingers quickly
found the dart. Just a bit of it protruded from the Frank's stomach; his
fall had driven it deeper. Daoud pulled the dart out, keeping his finger
on the wound. He laid the dart on the ground and drew his dagger. He
drove it upward just below the breastbone, striking the heart. The man's
torso jerked violently, the body trying to save itself even though the
mind was asleep. As Daoud pulled the blade out, blood flowed out after
it, warm on his hand. He whispered a curse and wiped his hand and his
blade on the man's tunic.

This must look like a street stabbing, a man murdered for his purse.
Daoud thrust his dagger into the body again, this time in the place
where the dart had gone in.

He felt for a heartbeat and found none. He sheathed his dagger, felt for
the dart on the street beside the Frank, and put it back in its case.
Case and Scorpion went back in the hidden pocket in his cloak.

The Frank's dead body was heavy as he dragged it into the deeper
darkness under the overhang of the nearest house. He fumbled about the
dead man until he found his purse, a small one and not very heavy, and
tucked it into his own belt. The pottery maker would be shocked in the
morning to find a robbed and murdered man on his doorstep.

Had anyone seen? The houses around the square were dark and silent as so
many stone tombs. There was only that one light in the third-floor
window of Ugolini's mansion.

He could not enter the mansion now, with blood on him. Whoever unlocked
the gate for him would be sure to connect him with the murdered man who
would be found in the morning. Orvieto's authorities would be
questioning everyone, and Ugolini could not control what his servants
might say.

Back to Tilia's, then.

He chose another street leading out of the square so as not to pass the
inn where de Gobignon's man had been on watch. As he walked, he cast his
mind back over what he had done. The killing left him troubled.

Saadi had taught him never to waste human life. _To wage war is a holy
obligation. But have a care that you kill, not with a small soul, but
with a great soul._

This had been a necessary murder, Daoud thought. This young Frank had to
die that Islam might be saved from infidel hordes of East and West. But,
looking into his heart, Daoud knew that he had, indeed, killed with a
small soul. He had been forced to kill de Gobignon's man, but he had
also wanted to, and he had felt unworthy triumph over Simon de Gobignon.
It had not even been an honorable fight. The Frank had no chance.

_Purify my heart, oh, God_, he prayed as he walked back to Tilia
Caballo's brothel.




XXXII


Simon remembered those kisses in the garden of the Palazzo Monaldeschi
as he looked again at Sophia, and his arms ached to hold her. But he
must keep himself in check. He was still not sure he could trust her.
And even if he were certain of her honesty, courtly love commanded him
not to touch her until months, perhaps years, of worshipful wooing had
passed.

Sophia said, "I must tell my uncle that his mansion is not as well
protected as he thinks it is. His guards must have been asleep tonight."

Her oval face reflected the warm glow of the five or six small candles
she had placed around her room. Her dark brown hair was unbound and fell
in waves to her shoulders. He felt his heartbeat quicken as he looked at
her.

"You did invite me here, Madonna." Simon felt rather proud of the way he
had scaled the wall by the courtyard gate, waited till the cardinal's
guards were out of sight, then climbed to the roof of the central wing.

"Yes, but I did nothing to help you, and I truly do not see how you got
here." She stood facing him, her hands at her sides. He was not sure
whether the gown she wore was for bed, or for him, or both. It was a
translucent white tunic, sleeveless and cut deep in front, revealing the
swelling of her breasts, pulled in at the waist by a cloth-of-gold belt.
A large gold medallion stamped with a horse's head hung from a gold
chain around her neck. His eyes kept traveling from her shoulders to her
bosom to her narrow waist. The effort of holding himself back from
touching her was agony. Sweet agony.

"I am trained in the art of stealing into castles."

"I thought the French were more given to marching up to a castello in
broad daylight, banners flying, and taking it by storm," she said. Her
teeth flashed in the candlelight. He wished she would invite him to sit
down. But then he saw in what she said an opportunity to raise the
subject of trust.

"True, Madonna. We French excel at open warfare, whereas you Italians
seem more adept at intrigue."

"Intrigue? What do you mean?"

He tried to sound lighthearted. "Oh, for instance the clever way you
diverted my attention at the Palazzo Monaldeschi while David of
Trebizond had the Tartar ambassadors making fools of themselves."

For a moment she did not speak.

Then she said abruptly, "I bid you good night, Your Signory."

He drew back, shocked. "Madonna!"

"The same way you came will see you out."

"I but meant to praise your skill at diplomacy. I hope I have not given
offense."

"A gentleman always _knows_ when he is giving offense."

"I--I merely wish to clear--to set my mind at rest," Simon stammered. He
cursed himself for his heavy-handed attempt to test her. It was true,
the French were no good at intrigue.

"Rest your mind somewhere else." She went to the door and stood there,
back to him. Was she going to call for help? How embarrassing it would
be if he were caught here.

The beautiful curve of her back distracted and confused him still more.

"If you do not leave, I will," said Sophia, grasping the black iron door
handle. "You may stay in this room forever if you wish."

_What a brouillement I have made of this rendezvous._ Casting about
frantically in his mind, Simon wondered what his troubadour father,
Roland, would have done.

_Or Sire Tristan or Sire Gawain, what would they do now?_

There was no more time to think. He must act. He threw himself to his
knees, arms outstretched, and waited. A long, silent moment passed.
Finally Sophia turned her head. Her lips--those tender, rose-colored
lips--parted and her eyes widened. She turned all the way around.

She started to laugh.

"Laugh at me if you will, but do not cast me out." The sound of her
laughter was like the chiming of a bell. After a moment she stopped
laughing and smiled. A lovely smile, he thought, a kindly smile. He
could happily kneel here for as long as she went on smiling.

"I have never had a man kneel to me before." A faint vexation flickered
across her face. "First you accuse me of kissing you only to further my
uncle's plots against the Tartars. Then you kneel to me. What am I to
make of you?"

Relief swept over him as he realized she was no longer angry.

"Make me your slave."

"My slave? You are toying with me, Your Signory."

"Toying with you? Never. Call me Simon if it please you."

"You would be my friend?"

"I would be more than your friend, Madonna."

She came to him and held out her hands. Her smile was dazzling.

"Well then, Simon, you may call me Sophia. And you may rise."

Simon grasped her hands, feeling joy in his very fingertips. He vaulted
to his feet and thought of taking her in his arms, but she freed her
hands with a quick, unexpected motion and took a step backward.

_With just a movement of her hands she can lift me up or cast me down._

"For a man to kneel to a woman is not the custom in Sicily, Simon," she
said softly.

It was as he suspected. She was not familiar with the ways of courtly
love.

"If I do anything that seems strange to you, Sophia"--he used her name
for the first time, and it thrilled him--"know that my actions are ruled
by what we call l'amour courtois, which means that we know how to value
women, whose value is beyond price."

"I have heard of courtly love. It sounds blasphemous to me, almost as if
the man worships the woman. I do not think your patron saint would
approve."

"My patron saint?"

"Him." She pointed to the small painting in a gilt wooden case that
stood open on a large black chest. Candles in heavy enamel sticks stood
on either side of the painting.

Sophia took his hand. At the touch of her cool fingers the muscles of
his arms tensed. She led him across the room. Still holding his hand,
she spread the wings of the case wider apart so he could see the image.

That it was a saint was apparent at once from the aureole of gold paint
encircling the black hair. Simon saw a narrow face with huge, staring
blue eyes painted with such bright paint they looked like sapphires.
Compared with the saint's eyes the sky behind his head seemed pale.
There were purplish shadows under the eyes, and the cheeks curved inward
like those of a starving man. The beard and mustache hung straight but
were ragged at the ends, and what little could be seen of the saint's
robe was gray. To the left of the halo, in the background, stood a
fluted ivory pillar with a square base and a flaring top. The pillar
connected the azure sky and ochre ground. Simon felt admiration for the
face; in that desolate scene the saint must have endured great privation
and come through with holy wisdom.

"A wonderful face," he said, turning to Sophia with a smile. "And you
say this is my patron saint?"

"Simon of the Desert," she said. "Simon Stylites."

"Stylites? What does that mean? I do not know Greek."

"Neither do I," she said, "but a priest told me that his name means 'he
of the pillar.' Saint Simon was a hermit who lived ages ago, when the
Church was young. He dwelt and prayed for thirty years on top of a
pillar that was all that was left of an ancient pagan temple. That is
the pillar behind him."

Live on top of a pillar for thirty years? Questions crowded into Simon's
mind. How did he keep from falling off when he slept? Would not the
burning desert sun have killed him? How did he get food and water? After
thirty years the pillar ought to be surrounded by quite a pile of--

No, he put that thought firmly out of his mind. After all, the whole
point about saints was that they were not subject to natural laws.

He asked only one question. "How high was the pillar?"

She shook her head. "I do not know. So high that he had to climb a
ladder to get to the top. Then his disciples took the ladder away." She
pointed at the pillar in the painting. "I tried to paint it so that it
could be any height you might imagine."

"_You_ painted this?"

"You find that hard to believe," she said with amused resignation. "That
is why I hardly ever tell anyone. Many people would be sure I was lying.
Others would think that a woman who paints is some kind of freak. Or
that it is somehow dishonorable for a lady to paint, as if you, for
instance, were to engage in trade. What do you think?"

"I think God has given you a very great gift," said Simon solemnly.

She squeezed his hand, giving him exquisite pleasure, and then, to his
sorrow, let it go. "I hoped you would understand." She put the
candlestick down, and Saint Simon Stylites receded into the shadows.

"I knew that you were going to be someone very important in my life when
I found out your name is Simon," she said. "I think my saint wished us
to meet."

How sweetly innocent she was, Simon mused. He was ashamed of the
thoughts he had been entertaining about her ever since they had kissed
in the Contessa di Monaldeschi's garden. Over the days and nights he had
gradually grown more and more familiar with her--in his fancy.

He had thought about holding her breasts through her gown, then putting
his hand on the warm, soft flesh, had thought about lying beside her in
her bed, both of them nude. He had even, one cool night, allowed himself
to imagine entering her body and lying very still, clasped inside her.

The ultimate act of l'amour courtois, this had been quite beyond his
power of self-restraint with the women who played at courtly love with
him in Paris. The way Sophia excited him, it was even less likely that
he could hold himself back while remaining inside her for hours, as a
true courtly lover was expected to do.

And now Sophia went over to the very bed he had imagined, and perched on
it. The frame of the canopied bed was high above the floor, and when
Sophia sat on it her feet dangled prettily, reminding Simon how much
shorter than he she was. The sight of her on the bed made him tremble,
frightened by his own passion. There was no one here to protect this
innocent girl from him, except himself.

"Sit with me," she said, patting the coverlet beside her. He knew that
the best way to protect her was to go nowhere near her. But he wanted
desperately to sit beside her, to feel her hand in his again, to put his
arms around her.

_But if I take her in my arms, on her very bed, how can I stop myself?_

Still, she had invited him to sit with her, and an invitation from his
lady was a command.

He had intended to sing a love song to her. He had not the skill at
making poetry to be a troubadour, but he had a good tenor voice, and he
had learned dozens of troubadour songs early in life from Roland. He had
sung them before he understood what they meant, because he liked the
sound of them.

He bowed and went to the bed. He sat as far from her as possible.

"Will you let me sing for you?"

When she smiled, he noticed, dimples appeared in her cheeks. "Oh, that
would be a pleasure. But softly, please. We do not want to rouse my
uncle's servants."

Softly, then, he sang.

    My love is the flower that opens at morning,
    That greets with her petals the radiant sun,
    Yet methinks 'tis not she who lives by the sun,
    But the sun gives its light so my lady may shine.

Sophia's smile was itself sunny as he finished the first verse. She
leaned back, putting her hands out behind her on the bed, and closed her
eyes as he sang the second and third. When he began the fourth verse,
she drew closer to him till their legs were touching. Making himself
concentrate on his music, he went on to the fifth verse. He resolved
that at the end of it he would stand up and move away.

    At sunset my love will close up her petals
    Till with the dawn she awakens again,
    And her beauty will blaze out to dazzle the day.
    To see her the sun will be eager to rise.

By the end of that verse she was leaning against him and had reached
around behind him to stroke his neck. Without his consciously willing
it, his arm stole around her waist and pulled her to him.

His song, he realized, was insidious in its power. He had thought only
to entertain her with his music, but he was seducing her. Her head
rested on his shoulder, her eyes closed. Her fingers crept slowly,
delicately, across the back of his neck under his hair, sending thrills
down his spine. He could not move away from her.

"Stop," he whispered. "Please stop."

"Are you afraid of me?" she asked softly.

"I am afraid for both of us. You do not know what a raging fire a lovely
woman like you can kindle in a man like me."

She withdrew her hand from his neck and let it rest on his thigh. That,
he thought, made it even more difficult for him.

"I must tell you something," she said. "I am not--wholly innocent."

His heart felt a sudden chill. How could this dear creature be anything
but innocent?

Now her hands were in her lap and her eyes were cast down. "As you
surely know, most women past twenty, unless they are nuns, have been
married for years. You must have wondered what I am doing in Orvieto,
unmarried, living with my uncle."

"I never thought about it."

"Then _you_ are very innocent."

Simon felt himself wilt inwardly. How could he have been so blind as not
to wonder why Sophia was not married? She had seemed timeless to him and
attached to no one. Even her relation to the cardinal, except that it
put her in the enemy camp, seemed unimportant.

"You have a husband?" His voice was heavy with sorrow. Foolish as it
was, he had dreamed that she might be virginal. But that made no sense,
now that he considered it. The rule in courtly love was to fall in love
with a lady who was married to someone else. His Parisian courtly lovers
had been married women. If Sophia were already married, that should make
it better.

Then why did he feel so disappointed?

"I was married at fourteen. His name was Alessandro. He died two years
later of the damned fever that takes so many of our good Sicilian
people. He was very kind to me, and I was inconsolable."

"Ah. You are still in mourning for him?"

She turned her hands over, showing empty palms. "I loved him so much
that I could not think of marrying another man in Siracusa. At length my
mother and father decided to send me to live with my uncle in the hope
that I could forget Alessandro enough to consider marrying again."

"Do you wish to marry again?"

"I have met no one I am drawn to but you, Simon, and marriage between
you and me would be unthinkable. My family's station is so far beneath
yours."

His heart leapt happily. She was free, yet, as she said, not wholly
innocent. He need not feel quite so guilty about the passionate thoughts
he had been having about her. And as for marriage between them being
unthinkable, she did not know that none of the great houses of France
would consider a daughter of theirs taking the name de Gobignon. Her
nonclerical family might be of low station, just as the pope's father
had been a shoemaker, but Sophia was the niece of a cardinal, a prince
of the Church.

It was love, not thoughts of marriage, that had brought him here
tonight. Still, he must respect her honorable widowhood. Since she had
loved her husband, she might be more susceptible to him, and he must
guard her virtue all the more steadfastly. Perhaps she thought that he
respected her less as a widow. He must reassure her.

She was not holding him any longer. He could stand up without tearing
himself away from her. He sprang to his feet and strode to the center of
the room.

"Believe me, I think you just as pure as if you had never been married
at all."

She looked up at him, surprised, her hands still folded in her lap, her
dark eyes wide.

"I am delighted to hear that. But"--she cast her eyes down and smiled
faintly--"does that mean there is to be nothing at all between us?"

"I love you!" Simon declared. "I will always love you. I think of you
night and day. I beg you to love me in return."

"Oh, Simon. How beautiful." She held out her arms to him. But he stayed
where he was and raised his hands warningly.

"I mean to love you according to the commandments of l'amour courtois.
With every fiber of my being I yearn to be altogether yours, but you
must restrain me."

"I must?"

"You must be what the poets of old Languedoc called 'mi dons'--my lord.
You must rule me. One day we will join together in body, but only after
I have been tested and found worthy."

"Is that what courtly love means?"

"Yes, and that is why it is more beautiful than marriage. Husband and
wife may embrace carnally the moment the priest says the words over
them. No, they are _required_ to. Courtly lovers know each other only
when love has fully prepared the way, so that their coming together may
be a moment of perfect beauty."

Sophia looked at him silently. Her face was suddenly unreadable.

"Do you understand?" he asked after he had stood awhile gazing into her
lustrous brown eyes. "These ideas are perhaps new to you."

"The woman is ruler of the man?"

"Yes."

The corners of her mouth quirked. "Then what if I were to command you to
get into this bed with me?"

He was certain from her sly smile that she was joking. But he could
think of no clever answer. He considered what he had read, what he had
been told, what he had done with other women. None of it helped. The
women who fell into bed with him on the first tryst had not been serious
about love, nor had he been. In all the lore of l'amour courtois the
woman made the man wait--sometimes for years, sometimes for his entire
life--and the man was happy to wait, and that was all there was to it.

Then he remembered something his mother had said, a secret so precious
he would never tell anyone, not even Sophia. Not even Friar Mathieu
needed to know it. But it guided Simon now.

_The first time your father and I were alone together I wanted him then
and there. But he was strong enough for both of us. It was a whole year
before we possessed each other in body. And you came of that union._

"You will not command me so," he said with cheerful confidence.

Her eyebrows rose--they were strong and dark, like a raven's wings.
"Indeed?"

"Because you know how much better it would be to wait. We both want each
other now. But if we restrain that hunger, it will grow. It will be not
just a desire of the flesh, but a longing of the spirit. It is said that
the souls in paradise know no greater happiness than two lovers do, who
are united in soul as well as body."

"Prodigioso," she said. "But I am just a Sicilian girl, and I do not
perhaps have the refined spiritual appetite of a French nobleman. What
if I cannot wait?"

"It is natural," Simon said, thinking again of what his mother had
confided to him. "Then I must be strong enough for both of us."

The thought of her powerful passions, which she restrained with such
difficulty, excited him. Holding himself back from her was going to be
painful, but delightfully so. And think of the ecstasy when at last they
were united.

Sophia released a long sigh and brought the palms of her hands down on
her knees with a slap of finality. "So be it, Simon. You will teach me
the ways of courtly love, and I will do my best to be your--what did you
call it?"

"Mi dons. My lord."

Her teeth flashed white in the candlelight, and her lips glistened.
Simon's own lips burned to taste hers.

"How strange. As if I were the man. Ah, but you are very much a man,
Simon, and you make me feel very much a maiden."

Simon turned and went to the window. The night air blew through the
gauze curtains, and he felt a wonderful aliveness all over his body. He
wondered whether Alain, out there in the dark somewhere, could see him
here in the window. He pushed the curtain aside so Alain, if he was
there, could get a good look and know that his seigneur was safe and
happy.

Dawn must still be hours away. What would he tell Alain about what
transpired this night? The truth, assuredly. But would Alain believe
him? And if he did, would he mock Simon for not bedding Sophia?

No, Alain would understand. He respected the good in men and women as
much as Simon did. Which was why they were friends as well as lord and
vassal.

Sophia stood beside him and put her hand on his shoulder.

"You cannot stand there all night, Simon. Come back and sit down."

He bowed. "As mi dons commands." He let her take his hand and draw him
away from the window.

There was one chair in the room, and he took it. Foolish to expose
himself to temptation by sitting beside her on the bed again. The chair
was straight, with a tall back and no arms. The only touch of comfort in
its rectilinear shape was a cushion laid upon its seat. Sophia smiled
and shrugged and sat again on her bed.

Would she let him spend the night? Whenever he had been all night with a
woman, they had made love. Should he sing to her again? Would she want
to sleep? He pictured himself watching over her while she slept, perhaps
kneeling by her bedside, and the beauty of it thrilled him.

Now he remembered something she had said earlier, that he had accused
her of kissing him _only to further my uncle's plots against the
Tartars_. She was aware, then, of what Ugolini was doing.

_She has no idea how much she revealed to me._

He sang another troubadour song, "White Hands." She let him draw off her
red silk slippers, and he almost cast away all his promises to himself
as she curled her toes against the palm of his hand. He forced himself
to stand up and pace the room while she lounged back on her bed, her
head propped up on her elbow, watching him with that delicious smile of
hers.

She questioned him about his life, and he offered her a simple version
of it, telling her nothing about his secret illegitimacy and the
dishonor of the man whose name he bore. It struck him while talking to
her that perhaps these two sins that had shaped his life--Amalric de
Gobignon's treason and Nicolette de Gobignon's adultery--had given him
the strength to resist the temptation to assail Sophia's virtue. He told
her how he had spent much of his youth in the household of the King of
France and how this had led to Count Charles d'Anjou's giving him the
task of protecting the Tartar ambassadors.

And thus, inevitably, their talk got around to the Tartars.

"Why did you accept this task from the Count of Anjou?" she asked. "You
have a lofty title, huge estates, everything you could want. Why trouble
yourself with all this intrigue?"

Having decided not to tell her the truth about his past, Simon now could
not answer her question both honestly and fully. He could not say that
he had committed himself to this mission to clear the stain of treason
from the name of de Gobignon and to prove that he had a right to the
title.

So he told her of another reason, equally true.

"I am in part an orphan, and the king was like a second father to me. It
is his wish that Christians and Tartars join together to liberate the
Holy Land. And I would do anything for him."

Sophia frowned. "I find that hard to understand. As for me, I hate the
Tartars."

Simon's mind pounced on that. Could she be more involved in Ugolini's
scheming than she had admitted?

"Why do you hate the Tartars? You know so little about them."

"I know that they almost made enemies of us because you thought I was
kissing you just to help my uncle."

_Walk carefully, Simon._

Again she was hinting at her uncle's involvement in all that had gone
wrong for the alliance. But if he asked her about it outright, she might
think--as he had thought of her--that he was courting her only to
further his cause.

"Well, I am sure your uncle is following his conscience, as we all are,"
said Simon. Actually, he believed nothing of the kind. But he did not
want to offend Sophia, and perhaps l'amour courtois would permit a small
lapse in one bound to be truthful to his lady.

"And your conscience tells you to guard those savages?"

"I want to see Jerusalem liberated and the Saracens conquered," Simon
said. "Every good Christian does."

She sat up in bed, looking at him earnestly. "Do you not fear that the
Tartars are worse than the Saracens? That is what my uncle says."

Step by step, as if he were defending a philosophical proposition at the
University of Paris, Simon explained to her what he believed. Yes, the
Tartars were barbarians and had committed unspeakable atrocities. But
the Saracens, united under the Mameluke Sultan of Egypt, were more
powerful now than they had been in hundreds of years. If not stopped
now, they would sweep all the crusaders out of Outremer, the land beyond
the sea.

And a wave of Mohammedan conquests might well not end there. To this day
the Moors were a power in Spain, and it was not that long ago that there
were Saracens in France and here in Italy. Surely she remembered that
her own island of Sicily had been conquered for a time by the Saracens.
Indeed, King Manfred von Hohenstaufen's army was made up partly of
Saracens, and he himself was an infidel.

With their belief in spreading their religion by the sword, the Saracens
were a far greater danger to Christendom than the Tartars. The Tartars
were simple pagans, easily converted to Christianity. Friar Mathieu had
personally baptized over a dozen high-ranking Tartars.

She listened intently, her golden-brown eyes so fixed on his that he
feared more than once to lose his train of thought. But he persevered to
the end. When he finished, she nodded thoughtfully.

Now, he thought, he could turn the conversation to her uncle.

"All this is so obvious," he said, "it is hard to understand why your
uncle should have formed a party to oppose the alliance."

She touched her fingertips to her mouth in surprise. That mouth--it was
like a blooming rose.

"You mean my uncle is the _leader_ of those who are against the
alliance?"

This reminded him of mornings he had tiptoed through his forest at
Gobignon, longbow drawn, catching a glimpse of a stag's brown coat and
then losing sight of it again in the thick broussailles, trying to stay
downwind and draw close enough for a good shot without frightening the
deer into headlong flight.

"But I thought you already knew that," he said. If she denied that she
knew any such thing, then his quarry had escaped him.

"So, he put David of Trebizond up to baiting the Tartars while you and I
were so delightfully engaged? Wicked uncle! To think I almost lost you
on his account." She clenched a pretty fist that looked as if it had
been chiseled in marble. On one finger her small garnet ring glittered
in the candlelight.

"I believe he brought David of Trebizond and his servant Giancarlo here
to Orvieto, as well as that Hungarian knight, Sire Cosmas, who spoke at
the pope's council, to discredit the Tartars." Simon wondered whether he
should tell Sophia about the bravos Giancarlo was recruiting. No, if he
told her what he knew about them, he would have to require her to keep
it a secret, and that might make her feel disloyal to Ugolini.

She nodded. "Now I understand why he spends so much time closeted with
that silk merchant, talking about--who is Fra Tomasso di--di--?"

_God's robe!_

"Fra Tomasso d'Aquino?"

She nodded. "That was the name. He sent David to see this Fra Tomasso,
and when David came back I overheard my uncle joyfully shouting, 'Fra
Tomasso is with us!' over and over again. Is he an important man, this
Fra Tomasso?"

Simon tried to keep his face calm, but he was horrified. Simon recalled
now that the d'Aquino family were from southern Italy, the kingdom of
Manfred the unbeliever, as was Ugolini. And were not the d'Aquinos even
related to the Hohenstaufens? Something must be done about this at once.
How far had the plotters--that was what they were, plotters--gotten with
d'Aquino?

How much further dare he pursue this subject before Sophia grew
suspicious of him? And how much further before he began to feel that he
was degrading their love?

_Our love? But she has not said she loves me._

The realization was like a thunderclap in his mind.

What he really wanted to know was whether she loved him or not. To come
right out and ask her was not the way of courtly love. He must wait for
her to say. But she would never speak of love as long as they went on
about the Tartars and Ugolini.

_To the devil with Ugolini and David of Trebizond and Fra Tomasso and
the Tartars!_

He had learned enough anyway, he decided. She had confirmed his
suspicion that Ugolini was the ringleader of the forces in Orvieto
arrayed against the Tartars. She had let him know that they had drawn
Fra Tomasso d'Aquino into their conspiracy.

Of one thing he felt certain. If she were working with her uncle to
block the alliance, she would not have let him learn so much.




XXXIII


A hand shook Simon's shoulder. His whole right side ached. He fought
wakefulness, trying to plunge deeper into sleep. He was in a cool blue
lake surrounded by dark masses of spruce. He had just seen a wolf with a
silver-white coat drinking from the lake on the opposite shore and he
was trying to swim to it.

"Simon. You must wake up."

He opened his eyes. Right before his face was a twisting streak of
orange against a royal blue background, and he realized he was lying on
his side on the Persian carpet in Sophia's bedchamber. He rolled over on
his back and rubbed his aching side. He saw Sophia's face just above
him.

He could not help himself. He reached up with both arms and pulled her
down to him and kissed her. Her lips felt cool and dry, and he had a
sudden fear that his breath must be sour from sleep. She pushed herself
away from him and he did not try to hold her.

"There is light coming through the window, and I hear birds singing,"
she said. "You must go now. Many of my uncle's servants get up at dawn."

He sat up. She was kneeling beside him, still wearing the same
cream-colored gown. He remembered now that they had talked of courtly
love, and a little about her childhood in Sicily. To his disappointment,
she had not said that she loved him.

The necessities of nature had forced on them an intimacy of one
sort--while each had pretended not to notice, the other had used the
chamber pot discreetly placed behind the red and green diamonds of a
screen.

She had been the first to fall asleep. Sleep had overtaken him, too, but
each time he dozed off he started to topple off the small straight chair
he was sitting on. The fourth or fifth time this had happened he gave up
sitting and stretched out on the carpet.

"Quickly, Simon, please. If my uncle ever finds out you were here, he
will send me back to Siracusa."

_God forfend!_ The habits of his knightly training took over, and he
strode quickly to the corner, where he had left his sword and belt
leaning against the wall, and buckled them on.

He remembered that Alain was supposed to sing an aubade, a dawn song, in
the street below to warn and rouse him. An old troubadour custom.
Perhaps he had sung, and Simon, sleeping so soundly, had not heard.

"Did you hear anyone singing out in the street?" he asked.

Sophia smiled and shook her head.

_Blast Alain. He must have overslept, too._

Sophia said, "But how will you get out of here? It is not as easy to
climb up to the roof as it is to climb down from it."

Simon went to the window and pushed the curtain aside. The rope he had
climbed down on was still dangling from above. He gave it a hard pull,
and it held firm. He looked up at the sky. It was a deep violet with
only a few faint stars and one brightly shining planet.

_The morning star might be Venus, a good omen for a lover._

His heart was light, even though he was leaving Sophia. It had been a
beautiful night.

A half-filled cup of wine stood on the table by her bed. He swigged it
to rinse his mouth, swallowed, then wiped his lips with the back of his
hand. He tried to think of some parting word worthy of a troubadour, but
none occurred to him.

She stood by the bed, her eyes warm. He held out his arms and she
slipped into them with as much ease as if they had been lovers for
years. She was so much shorter than he that he had to lean down to kiss
her, and as he did she arched her body against him.

"I love you," he whispered, embarrassed by its prosaic simplicity. But
it was simple truth.

"And I love you." She kissed him quickly on the lips and turned away.

Her words stunned him. He felt for a moment as if he were going to fall
dead on the spot. And that if he did, it would be a perfect moment to
die.

The candles were almost burned to the bottom. He looked over at the
painting of Saint Simon Stylites, whose blue eyes seemed to gleam out at
him from the shadows.

He wrapped the rope around both arms, gave it another yank to be sure it
was tied tightly above, and stepped up on the windowsill. He swung
around so that he was facing the wall of the mansion and began to climb,
his joy at her parting words making him feel stronger and more agile.
His hands gripped the rough rope; his feet in calfskin boots pressed
against the wall, pointed toes seeking out cracks. He did not look at
the stone-paved street three stories below.

He heard voices in the street--and froze. There were men gathered down
there. If they looked up, they would see him climbing up the front of
the cardinal's mansion.

_Move quickly_, he told himself. He scrambled up to the square Guelfo
merlon around which his rope was tied, pulled himself over the parapet,
and dropped with relief to the flagstones of the flat roof.

He untied the rope. Curiosity made him want to look at the men whose
raised voices he heard coming from across the street. Something had
disturbed them. But he had the feeling that if he did not look at them,
they would not see him.

_Hurry._ Holding the loosely coiled rope in one gloved hand, he ran as
lightly as he could so as not to disturb anyone in the rooms below him.

He came to the back of the building, where, two stories below him, a
crenelated lower wall protecting the courtyard joined the main building.
He uncoiled the rope, found its center, and doubled the line around an
angled merlon at the corner of the roof battlements so that both halves
dangled down just above the courtyard wall. Then, gripping the doubled
rope, he swung himself out and began to climb down.

A thunderous roar battered at his ears. He saw in the courtyard a big
gray hound racing over the paving stones twice as fast as any man could
run. It kept up a furious, enraged barking in a deep, bone-chilling
voice. In an instant the dog was below him. Its bellowing was sure to
rouse the cardinal's guards. Its huge, pointed white teeth glistened;
its tail lashed from side to side.

_If I fell, that damned dog would eat me alive._

He remembered seeing the dog before with Giancarlo, David of Trebizond's
servant. It had been friendly enough that day. But now it saw him as an
intruder.

_Giancarlo called it by name. What the devil was it? If I could speak
its name, maybe I could get it to shut up._

Simon stood on the courtyard wall, thankful that it was too high for the
dog to reach him. The hound sprang at the top of the wall, at the same
time emitting a bark so loud it almost knocked Simon off his perch.

Simon pulled on one end of the rope, and it snaked around the merlon and
came rippling down to him. To his horror, one end fell past him into the
courtyard.

In an instant those great ivory fangs had sunk into the braided hemp.
Simon yanked on the rope, but there was no tearing it loose. Hoping to
catch the dog by surprise, Simon gave the rope some slack and then
jerked with all his might, but succeeded only in dragging the beast a
foot or so, claws scraping on cobblestones. At least the animal could
not bite the rope and bark at the same time. Enraged, muffled growls
issued around its clenched teeth. It snapped its head from side to side,
trying to tear the rope out of Simon's hands.

He cut part of the rope away with his dagger, letting the end the dog
held fall into the courtyard. Even as he was coiling up the rest of the
rope, the beast gave a howl of fury and with a tremendous leap was
halfway up the wall.

The remaining rope tied to his belt, Simon hung by his hands on the
outside of the wall and let himself drop, hitting the stone street with
a thud that sent jolts of pain through his shinbones. He heard shouts on
the other side of the wall mingling with the roars of the hound.

Limping a little at first from the force of the drop, he staggered into
the nearest side street. He would have to circle back to the avenue that
ran in front of the cardinal's palace, approaching it from another
direction.

It seemed to take hours for him to find his way through the snake's nest
of byways. But he felt not the least bit disturbed. It did not matter.
Nothing mattered, because Sophia's parting words to him had been _And I
love you_. He felt like dancing through the crooked streets.

By the time he emerged near the east side of the cardinal's palace, he
could see quite clearly. There was no sun, though. The morning was damp
and gray. He would have to cross the avenue and walk back past the
cardinal's mansion to find the inn he and Alain had picked for their
rendezvous. It must be near where that crowd of men had formed a circle
around something.

"Are you the watch, Messere?" a man said, coming up to him as he
approached the crowd.

"I am not," said Simon with a slight haughtiness, and the man fell back,
eyeing Simon's rich clothing, sword and dagger.

"Scusi, Signore."

_I really should not let myself be seen around here._

With deference to Simon's dress and manner, the crowd parted for him
when he joined them to see what they were looking at.

It was the body of a dead man.

It was Alain.

Simon staggered back, feeling as if he had been struck in the heart by a
mailed fist.

"No!" he cried.

"Do you know this man, Signore?" someone asked him.

Simon did not answer. He fell to his knees beside Alain, horrified by
the face so white it seemed carved from marble. He saw now the great
bloodstain down the front of Alain's pale green tunic. Flies with
gleaming blue-green bodies were humming above the bloodstain, settling
down again after Simon's arrival disturbed them.

He raised his head, and through the tears that clouded his vision he
recognized a face. Last night's innkeeper. A short, balding man with
large eyes and a generous nose.

"We have sent for the watch, Your Signory," said the man.

"Did anyone see or hear anything?"

"My wife heard your friend go out before dawn. He never came back."

_Jesus, have mercy on me_, thought Simon. _This is my fault. He went out
to await the dawn so he could warn me. And someone killed him._ Tears
were pouring from his eyes. He was sobbing convulsively.

"Poverello," he heard someone mutter sympathetically. Here he was a
knight, a count, kneeling in the street weeping in front of a crowd of
strangers. He did not care.

Guilt crushed him. He wanted to lie beside his friend's body and be dead
with him. But how could he? No, he had to find and kill Alain's
murderer.

Still kneeling beside Alain, he wiped his face with the edge of his cape
and surveyed the crowd. To keep his identity a secret seemed unimportant
now.

"I am the Count de Gobignon of France. I will pay handsomely anyone who
helps me find the man who did this. If anyone can name the murderer, I
will pay"--he thought a moment--"a thousand florins."

A murmuring ran through the crowd. A fortune! Foolish, perhaps, Simon
thought, to offer such a reward. A man would accuse his own brother to
get that much money.

_I may hear many names. I will have to be sure._

He looked down at poor Alain. The flies were crawling on his face, and
he brushed them away. Alain's lips had turned blue. He looked for
Alain's purse and saw none on his belt.

Stabbed to death for the few coins he carried. Dead at twenty years of
age. Tears overflowed his eyes again.

Oddly, Alain still wore his sword and dagger.

Alain's weapons were still both sheathed. Whoever had stabbed him had
not given him time to defend himself. Yet, there were no recessed
doorways or alley openings where an armed robber might hide himself.

The spot was unpleasantly familiar. This was where Simon's archers, at
de Verceuil's orders, had shot two Orvietans.

Had Alain been tricked by someone pretending to be a friend? Was the
killer someone Alain knew?

_Ah, my poor friend, what a shame it is when a young knight dies without
sword in hand._ Simon clenched his fist, the tears falling unceasingly.
_By the wounds in Christ's body I swear I will avenge the wounds that
killed you, Alain._

Simon remembered now that the watch was on the way. When they got here
they would ask him questions about what he and Alain were doing here,
questions he did not want to answer until he had time to think.

_A scandal would give de Verceuil a chance to eat me alive. And I must
get Friar Mathieu to help me._

"Send someone to the Palazzo Monaldeschi for my horse," he said to the
innkeeper, standing suddenly.

"As you wish, Your Signory." The innkeeper hurried off.

Simon swept the crowd with his gaze. "Remember, all of you. Anyone who
saw anything, heard anything. You will be paid. Come to the Palazzo
Monaldeschi."

Simon sat down on the stone street to wait for the horse. Silently the
crowd that had gathered waited with him.

When the innkeeper's servant brought the horse, Simon lifted Alain's
body with the help of two other men and lashed it securely facedown over
his horse's back with the rope he had used to climb to Sophia's room.

_Sophia._ He had been so happy just moments ago because she said she
loved him as they parted. Was she looking down now, seeing this pitiful
sight?

Fresh sobs forced their way into his throat, and he leaned against his
horse, covering his face with his arms.

_I have to get away from here quickly._

He forced himself to stop crying and took hold of the reins. The
Orvietans fell back as he led the horse up the street leading northward
to the Monaldeschi palace. He felt warmth on his neck and looked up to
see the sun through a break in the clouds.

Alain would never see the sun again.

_Whoever did this to you, Alain, I will not rest until I have killed him
with my own hands._




XXXIV


Sordello's face, looking as if hewn from granite by an indifferent
sculptor, was gray with fatigue. His arms bound behind his back, he
knelt before Daoud, wearing a tattered brown frieze robe Tilia had
somewhere found for him.

Daoud sat once again on the former papal throne. Dressed in black
cassocks and hoods that covered their faces, Lorenzo and five of Tilia's
black servants stood along the walls of the room. Every so often
Sordello's eyes flickered to the implements of torture around the room
and quickly away again.

Yet the night's assault on his mind had not altogether broken his
spirit. "If you think to frighten me with this clowning, think again,
Messer David. I have stood undaunted before the Inquisition in my day,
and they are a good deal more fearsome than you and your henchmen."

_Leave him his shred of dignity_, Daoud thought. _A man who has lost
that is too dangerous._

"We are beyond fear now, Sordello, are we not?"

Sordello's eyes glowed in the torchlight like a trapped animal's. "What
kind of devil are you?"

Daoud tried to smile kindly. "You call me a devil after I have sent you
to paradise?"

The old bravo sighed, and his eyes closed. "I did not know that my body
was capable of feeling so much pleasure. Even when I was twenty and at
my best, I never knew such delight. It shook me to the very root of my
soul."

"I know," said Daoud. He was thinking back to his own initiation. Given
sanctuary in Egypt, the Hashishiyya had built a tent-palace of wood and
silk west of El Kahira, at the foot of the pyramids. Over a series of
moonlit nights, Daoud had drunk the Old Man of the Mountain's brew. He
had entered hell in the bowels of the Great Pyramid and then had
ascended into paradise, where the houris promised by the Prophet had
ministered to him for what seemed an eternity. Yes, he knew very well
what spirit-freezing delights Sordello had experienced.

"What are you, then?" Sordello growled, his eyes flashing open. "Some
kind of stregone? What was that witches' potion you made me drink?"

"Do you wish to return to paradise?"

"You _are_ a devil, Maestro. You want my soul."

The man was quick, Daoud thought. For all that he was a flawed man, he
had a strong mind. He remembered being made to drink the preparation of
wine and hashish. And he already realized why Daoud had done this to
him.

_So delicate, this part._

Now the bond must be forged. As a succession of Old Men of the Mountain
had forged it between themselves and their disciples in Alamut, in
Masyaf, in all those mountain strongholds across Persia and Syria from
which terror had gone forth for more than a hundred and fifty years.

"I am but a man like you, Sordello. I do not want your soul. I want your
loyalty."

"You want my treachery, you mean. You want me to betray my master, the
Count de Gobignon."

There was more than quickness here, Daoud thought. There was that
foolhardiness he had seen in Sordello before. A man of sense, knowing
that he was in the power of a force beyond his control, even beyond his
understanding, would do nothing to antagonize that force. Yet Sordello
persisted in challenging Daoud.

At the mention of Simon de Gobignon's name, Daoud's concentration
wavered. When de Gobignon found his knight dead outside Ugolini's
mansion, what would he do? There would be trouble over this, surely
there would be trouble. Daoud cursed himself for leaving Tilia's house
and going back to the cardinal's mansion.

He forced his mind back to Sordello. How to work with this provoking
spirit?

"To send you into the enemy camp as he did, Count Simon must have great
confidence in your ability."

Sordello laughed angrily. "Confidence? That high and mighty French fop?
He was probably hoping you would catch me. Sia maledetto!"

He curses de Gobignon. Excellent. Or is this merely for my benefit?
Daoud peered at Sordello, wishing the room were lit by more than a few
torches burning in cressets. The flickering light was impressive, like
this gilded throne, but if Daoud could get closer to Sordello and see
better, he could be more sure of what the man was really feeling.

Daoud said, "He who is loyal to me is never cast out, no matter how
foolishly he behaves."

"Does he who is loyal to you get to go to paradise often, Maestro?"
Sordello's voice was thick with yearning.

It was time for the final step. Daoud beckoned. The nearest hooded
figure on his right, who was actually Lorenzo, came forward with a green
earthenware cup. He bent and held it before the kneeling Sordello.

"More of your stregoneria? Or have you finally decided to poison me?"

"Would I have showered you with wonders, as I have tonight, only to kill
you? No, I have one final wonder to show you. Drink, Sordello."

_This wonder probably will be the death of you, but not for a while._

After a long hesitation, the old bravo lifted his head and swallowed the
liquid Lorenzo poured down his throat. He made a sour face. "Paugh! It
tastes bad!"

Daoud said nothing and waited. After a few moments of silence Sordello
sat back on his heels. His gray head began to nod. His eyes closed.

Daoud arose from the throne and went down to him, holding a candle in
one hand.

"Look at me, Sordello." The prisoner's head lifted, and his brown eyes
stared fixedly into Daoud's. Daoud bent and passed the candle flame
before Sordello's face, but his eyes remained motionless.

"Do you love Simon de Gobignon, or do you hate him?"

"Hate. I hate him," Sordello said in a dull voice. "I have suffered much
on his account."

"Would you kill him if you had the chance?"

Even in his trance Sordello's eyes seemed to glow, and his face flushed.
"Yes. Oh, yes, Maestro. Gladly."

That was good. The will must already be there. Then it remained only to
shape the deed. Daoud reached inside the collar of his tunic and pulled
out the silver locket Blossoming Reed had given him. It was, he had
decided, better than a word or combination of words. It was something
Sordello would never see again unless Daoud wished him to see it.

He dangled the locket by its chain before Sordello's face, letting it
swing from side to side. He held the candle so its flame reflected from
the silver disk.

"Watch the locket, Sordello. Look closely at it. The design on its face
is like no other in the world. Make certain that you would know it if
you saw it again."

For a time he let the locket swing, and Sordello's head turned from side
to side, following it.

"Do you know this locket now, Sordello? Truly know it?"

"Yes, Maestro."

"Could you mistake it for another?"

"No, Maestro."

"Good. Now I command you. When you see this locket again, it will be a
sign. It will mean that you are to kill Simon de Gobignon at once. As
soon as you see the locket, you will take up the first weapon that
comes to hand, and you will await your first good chance, and you will
strike him down. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Maestro."

"Will you do it?"

"Yes, Maestro. With much joy."

"Say what you will do, Sordello."

"When I see that locket, I will kill Simon de Gobignon at once."

"That is good. Now, in a little while you will wake up. And you will not
remember anything I have said to you about the locket and about killing
Simon de Gobignon. You will forget all about it until you see the locket
again. And then you will strike."

"Yes, Maestro."

Daoud went back to the throne and sat down. He slipped the locket's
chain over his head and dropped the silver disk back inside his tunic.
Sordello slumped in his kneeling posture like a figure of wax that had
been placed too close to a fire.

Daoud waited patiently, and in a few moments Sordello raised his head,
his eyes bloodshot but alert.

"Will you let me visit paradise again soon?" His memory had gone back to
the moment before he drank the drug.

"Not _very_ soon," said Daoud. "But serve me well, and it will happen
again." He could not make Sordello wait a year, as the Hashishiyya
usually did with their initiates. But it must be a wait of some months,
or the experience would lose its magic. And in months his work in
Orvieto might be done.

_And then again, I might still be here ten years from now._

"Tell me what I have to do, Maestro."

"Serve me faithfully, and from time to time, when it pleases me, you
will visit paradise. Disobey me or betray me--we will know instantly if
you do--and when you least expect it you will find yourself in hell. Not
the one we created for you last night. The real one."

"You don't need to threaten me," said Sordello with a flash of his old
rebelliousness. "Just tell me what you want."

"Simply go on doing what you have been doing. You will give the Count de
Gobignon information about us--but from now on we will tell you what to
tell him. And you will keep me informed about the young count. Hardly
any work at all, you see."

Sordello grunted. "I doubt it will be that easy. But as long as you
offer a reward so great, I am your man."

_My slave_, thought Daoud, hoping that his pity for this creature did
not show in his face.

But he must remember that there were hidden places in this man's soul.
And he had never before tried to enslave a man as the Hashishiyya did
it. He could not be sure that he had succeeded fully, and so he had made
a creature potentially as dangerous to himself as to anyone else. The
flesh on the back of his neck crawled.

       *       *       *       *       *

She was sitting by the window, staring out at the spot on the street
where the young man's body had lain. She heard the door open behind her.
She turned, and there was David. Golden-haired, lean, tall, with those
light-filled eyes. She forgot herself and felt a leap of love, and then
her heart clenched like a fist with anger.

_Wait, let him tell it before I judge him._

He closed the door slowly, a strange expression on his face. She looked
from him to the image of the saint. Yes. The look around the eyes was
the same. They had accepted pain and sorrow, did not struggle against it
as ordinary people did, and they knew _something_.

Except that David's eyes were not the bright blue of the saint's.
David's eyes seemed to reflect whatever color was about him.

How could it be that the icon she had painted could remind her of two
such different men as Simon de Gobignon and David of Trebizond?

He stood there looking at her, and she realized that he was waiting for
her to speak. He wanted to know what she and Simon had done in this
room, and he did not want to ask. And she knew at that instant, watching
his face, that he was expecting to be hurt by what she would tell him
about herself and Simon.

_But what about that young Frenchman in the street? I saw Simon kneel by
him, weep for him, bear him away._

"Something terrible has happened," she said.

His eyes narrowed. "You did not succeed with de Gobignon?"

"No, someone killed his friend, who was waiting for him, down there in
the street. Everything is ruined. Simon will not want to see me again.
He will be certain to blame me for that young man's death."

"Why should he?" David walked over to the chest, where the enameled
candlesticks on either side of the painting of the saint still held
burnt-out stumps of candles. He sat cross-legged on the floor in front
of the chest. He rested his forearms on his knees and his gaze on the
flame and azure carpet. There were deep lines in his face. He looked as
if he had not slept all last night.

His face in front of the saint's face. Looking from one to the other,
Sophia saw the resemblance more plainly than ever.

She sighed and spoke with elaborate patience. "What else can Simon think
but that his friend was killed by some overzealous protector of mine?"

"Why would a protector kill a man standing in the street when there is
another man up in the bedroom with the woman he is supposed to protect?"
There was something in the harshness of his gaze, a flatness in his
steel-colored eyes, that told her beyond the possibility of doubt that
it was he who had killed Simon's young companion.

But had he not been at Tilia's house all night?

She nodded her head slowly. "Simon will probably think that way, too."

From his seat on the floor, David looked up at her with a hard smile.
"And, since I am certain you gave him incomparable pleasure in bed, he
will overcome any objections he has to seeing you again."

She felt as if he had stamped on her heart. To him she was nothing but a
harlot to be used to ensnare his enemies.

And if that was all _he_ thought she was, how could she find it possible
to think any better of herself?

_If I am not a whore, what am I?_

But she would tell him the truth whether or not he chose to believe it.

"Nothing happened between us," she said tonelessly.

He stared at the carpet. She saw hope struggling with doubt in his face.

Doubt won. His smile was cynical.

"You failed to seduce him? I cannot believe that."

"Whatever you may believe, that was how it was."

"Why do you bother to lie to me?" Anger smoldered in his face. His
cheeks were reddening.

"Why _would_ I lie to you? It would make no difference to you if I went
to bed with Simon."

"If, as you say, nothing happened, then explain to me why it did not."
He folded his arms and sat hunched forward.

"When a man like Simon is in love--" she said, and stopped. "You _do_
understand what I mean by love?" How did a man brought up in Egypt as a
slave to Turks feel about women? Saracens, she knew, kept their many
wives locked up most of the time.

Daoud shrugged. "I can only guess at what _you_ mean by love."

"A man like Simon shows his love by holding back his ardor. He does not
realize that I know this. I have let him think he is teaching me about
courtly love."

"And what did you learn by letting him woo you in this courtly way?" He
looked pleased. He was beginning to believe her.

"He tried to find out things from me. He is such an innocent. He had no
idea that I was telling him what you told me to tell him."

David sighed, stood up, and walked to the window. She could see the
tension in his back. How broad his shoulders were. Not huge, like those
of some knights, but graceful and powerful. His posture was not just
erect; it was perfect, straight yet flexible, like a blade of the finest
steel. She imagined him with his shirt off. The palms of her hands
tingled at the thought of stroking his shoulders.

"Did you not want to take him into your bed?" His voice was cold.

She thought back to her night with Simon. During those hours when she
had been Sophia Orfali, she had been disappointed when Simon insisted
that he would not touch her. But Sophia Orfali had to accept his
judgment.

Earlier, she had wanted to take Simon to bed as a kind of revenge on
David for letting Rachel be used by the Tartar. But last night she had
let Simon decide what they would do. When she was with Simon, she was
what Simon wanted her to be.

_Is that what I am, a woman who becomes whatever the man she is with
wishes?_

She expelled her breath in a short, sharp sigh.

"I wanted to do whatever was necessary. If it had been necessary to make
love to him, I would have done it."

She shut her eyes momentarily. Her head spun. Now, with David here, she
wanted David, not Simon. And she hated herself for wanting him, when he
saw her as no more than a useful object, as Manfred had.

_If only Alexis had lived. These loves I feel for men, for Manfred, for
Simon, for David. I cannot help myself, and it betrays me. It divides me
against myself. And they do not return my love._

And yet, she was sure David did care for her, perhaps even loved her,
though he would never admit it. Why else this jealous questioning?

_That might even have been why he killed Simon's friend!_

The thought made her heart stop beating for an instant and her body turn
cold. Killing Simon would have upset David's plans, but he might have
taken out his jealous rage on Simon's friend.

"But what did you _want_ to do with de Gobignon?" he demanded, turning
from the window.

He would not let it alone. She slid off the bed and got to her feet. She
went to the chest and stood with her back to David, staring at the
picture of the saint. Anger clouded over her vision so that she could
not see the painting. She clasped her hands together to control their
trembling.

"I do not have to tell you that," she said in a choked voice. "It does
not matter. I do what is necessary."

"As I do!" There was a snarl in his voice.

What did he mean by that, she wondered. She turned and the look she saw
on his face made her stomach knot itself. His teeth were bared and his
eyes were narrowed to glowing slits.

Now she had to hear him say it. "Did you kill that boy?"

She watched him slowly regain command of himself. Calm returned to the
hard, tan features. His eyes held hers, and their color seemed to change
from white-hot to the cold gray of iron.

"Of course."

She felt something break inside her. Grief overwhelmed her. She mourned
for the young Frenchman. She did not know the man David had killed, but
she imagined him to be just like Simon. She wept for him and for Simon.
And for David. She did not want to cry, but she could not help herself.
She walked slowly to her bed and sat down heavily. She could feel the
tears running down her cheeks.

"Why did you kill him?"

"I had to leave Tilia's. I made the mistake of coming back here. From
across the street I saw de Gobignon in this window." His voice was
tight, his words clipped, as if he were trying to hold something in. "At
the same time, the Frank, who was on watch, saw me. If I had allowed him
to live, de Gobignon would have known that I approved of his being with
you. And he was no boy, but a knight, strong and trained."

"He could have been no match for you."

"I gave him no chance to match himself against me. This is not some
tournament. Your life is in as much danger as mine is."

"I never forget that," she said.

David had killed Simon's friend. She wished that she had gone to bed
with Simon.

"Do you think de Gobignon will now be afraid to try to see you again?"
There was a sneer in David's voice, and she felt the heated blood rising
to her face.

"He is no coward."

He looked at her with weary eyes and a tight little smile. "Well, then.
He will want to see you again. Send a message to him. Have him meet you
someplace other than here. Someplace where he will feel safe. A church,
perhaps."

"A church. Yes, that is a good suggestion. Then you will not have to
wonder what we are doing."

"From what I have heard of Christian churches, that is not necessarily
true."

She wished she had the skull to throw at him again. That was all that
poor young knight would soon be--a skull, buried in the earth.

"How dare you insult the religion you were born into?" she shouted.
"Have you forgotten that I am a Christian?"

He glared at her, turned on his heel, and slammed the door behind him.

Feeling alone, unloved, and desolate, not even sure who she was, Sophia
sat heavily on her bed. Sobs racked her chest, one after the other. Not
willing to admit how much Daoud had hurt her, she struggled with her
tears for a time, then gave in and threw herself full length on the bed,
pain spreading through her body.




XXXV


"Is it not a sin, Father, to explore a man's body like that?"

"It is considered a crime in many places. But it is not a sin when it is
done with reverence, to discover the truth."

Watching Friar Mathieu, Simon felt his stomach rebel. The old priest
bent over the long naked form of Alain de Pirenne, stretched out on
Simon's bed, wielding a freshly sharpened carving knife borrowed from
the Monaldeschi kitchen. The knife flashed in the light of the many
candles set around the bed as Friar Mathieu enlarged the wound in
Alain's belly. Simon kept looking away and then staring back,
fascinated.

"It hurts me to see you treat Alain so," said Simon. "Though I know you
mean to do good."

"My brother Franciscan, Friar Roger of Oxford, says that if you want to
know God, you must look as closely as possible at His works. He says
that to read the book of God's creation is better than reading
philosophy, and is a form of prayer."

"Philosophy. Yes," said Simon. "I learned last night that Fra Tomasso
d'Aquino is an enemy."

"One moment." Friar Mathieu had tripled the width of the lower wound and
was now pulling the lips of the gash apart, peering intently into it. If
Alain had been alive, Simon knew, blood would have been pouring out of
that incision.

Sickened, Simon turned away. He wondered if he could sleep again in this
bed, knowing that Alain's poor naked body had been stretched out there,
to be tormented in death by this old Franciscan physician-priest.

If he abandoned the bed, he would have to give up the room, though, and
it was one of the few private rooms in the Monaldeschi palace. It was a
warlike room, as befitted a young knight, decorated with battered
Monaldeschi arms. Crossed halberds, spotted with rust, were hung on the
stone chimney that ran up from the kitchen on the first floor. Shields,
dented and scratched, each almost as tall as a man, faced each other
from opposite walls. They were probably quite old, since they bore
simple blazons. The one on Simon's right was ocher, with a black chevron
dividing it across the middle. The other bore an azure cross against a
white background.

This being the top floor of the palace, the mullioned window was
spacious, and Friar Mathieu had drawn back the curtains and pulled the
twin window frames inward on their hinges to get more light. Simon went
to the window and looked through the protective iron grill down into the
square. Two men and three horses were gathered by the steps leading to
the front door. They wore yellow and blue livery, the colors of the city
of Orvieto.

"I think I have found something," said Friar Mathieu. Just as he
finished speaking, Simon's door shook under a heavy knock.

"Say nothing," said the Franciscan. "I will tell you later."

The knock sounded again. Simon went to the door and opened it. A stocky
man whose bald head came up to the middle of Simon's chest stood there.
Simon observed that the man carried more muscle than fat on his sturdy,
barrel-shaped frame. He wore a yellow silk tunic trimmed with blue, and
a short sky-blue cape. A bright gold medallion on a gold chain hung from
his neck. Two daggers, one long and stout, the other short and slender,
hung from the right side of his belt. The sword on his left side reached
from his waist to his ankle. Simon knew he had seen him before, but he
could not remember where.

"Your Signory, Count de Gobignon, it is my honor to address you," the
stout man said. His words were polite, but his tone was perfunctory. He
had to tilt his head back to look at Simon, but his voice and expression
made Simon feel very young and small. Even so, Simon held his silence
and did not step aside to let the man in. Let him introduce himself
first.

After a pause, the man said, "Your Signory, I am Frescobaldo d'Ucello,
podesta of Orvieto." He stopped, eyeing Simon. He had sparkling black
eyes, and his black mustache was trimmed so that it was no more than a
thin line above his mouth. Simon remembered now having seen this man,
the governor of the city, at the execution of that poor heretic a month
ago.

"Signore Podesta," Simon bowed. "The honor is mine."

"Not at all, Your Signory." Now the stout man looked past Simon into the
room, and his eyebrows flew up. Simon turned and saw Friar Mathieu
anointing Alain's brow with his oil-dipped thumb, forming a cross on the
white forehead. Most of Alain's body was under an embroidered coverlet,
and the kitchen knife had disappeared.

D'Ucello blessed himself and said in a low voice, "I will examine the
body after the good father is finished with the last rites. Would you be
so kind as to step out of the room, Count, so that we can talk?"

Closing the door behind him, Simon followed d'Ucello through the
corridor out to the colonnaded galleria overlooking the lemon trees
where he and Sophia had kissed on the night of the contessa's reception
for the Tartars.

So long ago that seemed now, though it was little more than a month, and
so much tragedy had come of it.

Simon told d'Ucello the story he had worked out, that he and Alain had
gone to that inn searching for women and had gotten separated.

There were large bags under the podesta's eyes, dark as bruises. They
contracted as he listened to Simon.

"Forgive me, Your Signory, but I must be clear. Are you telling me that
you slept with a woman last night?"

Simon tried to look abashed and reluctant to speak. "Yes."

"And where did this take place, Your Signory?"

"In my private room at the inn."

"Who was she?"

Simon had prepared his answer. "I do not know. A pleasant lady whom I
met in the common room."

The bags under d'Ucello's eyes twitched. "There are no whores in that
part of town, Signore. It is one of my duties to see that the
prostitutes are limited to a quarter of the city where they will not
offend the holy or the well-born. A cardinal has his residence across
the street from where your friend's body was found." D'Ucello's mouth
stretched, but neither his eyes nor the dark bulges under them joined in
the smile. "The woman who entertained you must have been an ordinarily
respectable person who chose to go astray that evening." He paused and
looked grimly up at Simon.

Simon felt as if a clammy hand had taken him by the back of the neck. He
should have realized this vaguely imagined woman would not satisfy any
determined questioner. He struck his fist against his leg. D'Ucello's
eyes flickered, and Simon knew he had caught the gesture. He felt as if
a net were slowly being drawn around him, and he resented it. Back home
no mere city governor would dare trouble the Count de Gobignon any more
than he would disturb the king or one of his brothers.

As d'Ucello continued to stare silently at him, Simon studied the
podesta. This was a man who was jealous of his power, Simon decided. A
man who, despite his politeness, would enjoy embarrassing a young
nobleman.

"What was the woman's name?" d'Ucello pressed him.

"I have no idea."

The thick black eyebrows rose again, wrinkling the balding scalp. "You
spent the entire night with this woman and never called her by name?"

Simon had been intending to claim that honor forbade him to tell the
woman's name. He felt certain the governor would reject that argument as
trivial under the circumstances.

"We spoke very little. I addressed her with various foolish
endearments."

"Could you describe her?"

"Most of the time we were in the dark." Simon felt d'Ucello had pressed
him enough. It was time to fight back. "Signore Podesta, my good friend
and vassal was murdered in the street, a street supposedly under the
protection of your watch. I fail to see how it helps you to do your duty
of finding his killer by questioning me as if I were a criminal."

The podesta's brows drew together, and he took a few steps backward,
diminishing the importance of the difference in height between him and
Simon.

"Your Signory, I have questioned everyone who lives in that
neighborhood, and everyone I could find who was passing through it last
night," he said. "I learned from the innkeeper at the Vesuvio that your
friend slept alone last night. I know that you did not meet anyone in
the inn, woman or man. You stopped there briefly, left your friend, and
went somewhere else. You did not engage a private room for yourself. The
innkeeper and several other people agree to that. Will Your Signory be
good enough to tell me where you did go?"

Simon heard with dismay the weakness in his tone and was appalled at how
easily d'Ucello had exposed his lies. "Those you spoke to about what I
did must have been mistaken," he said. "Perhaps they did not notice my
return to the inn." An inspiration struck him. "They may be trying to
protect the woman I was with."

D'Ucello smiled thinly. "I see. Then you are telling me that you had
carnal relations with this woman while your good friend and vassal
looked on."

Simon was momentarily at a loss for words. It would have delighted him
to reply by running d'Ucello through.

They stood bristling at each other like two hostile hounds when Simon
heard a door open. A moment later, to his enormous relief, Friar Mathieu
joined them by the marble railing overlooking the atrium.

"If you wish to examine young Sire de Pirenne's body, he lies in Count
Simon's room waiting for you, Signore," said Friar Mathieu. "This is a
very sad day for us."

With a black look at Simon, d'Ucello bowed to the old priest and left
the galleria.

When they were alone, Friar Mathieu grunted. "A good thing I merely
extended the wounds Sire Alain had already suffered. The podesta might
well bring charges against me for desecrating a corpse if he saw I had
made incisions in the body."

"Did you learn anything?" Simon asked.

"I am convinced that Sire Alain was not merely stabbed to death."

"What do you mean?" Simon was eager to get Friar Mathieu's advice on how
to handle the podesta, but this was more important.

"When I looked closely at the wound in his stomach, I discovered that it
was two wounds," said Friar Mathieu. "He was punctured there by a thin,
round object, like a large needle. Then he was stabbed through the
heart, and blood poured out of him. And then the killer stabbed him in
the belly to try to mask the dart wound."

"How do you know that?"

"The belly wound did not bleed much, so the heart wound must have
preceded it. When the killer drove his knife into the puncture in the
belly, it did not go in exactly the same direction. The smaller wound
goes upward at a slight angle, as if the needle were driven in from the
level of the killer's waist. The knife wound goes straight in. I had to
dig below the skin and ribs to discover the needle wound."

"A needle could not have killed Alain."

"It could have been a poisoned dart. Alain's lips are blue. That is
sometimes a sign of poison."

Simon heard a clumping of boots in the corridor. He hurried in from the
galleria to find Cardinal Paulus de Verceuil, accompanied by two
black-robed priests, striding toward the room where Alain lay.

"Now one of your knights has been killed!" de Verceuil boomed. He was
dressed in a dark cerise tunic with particolored hose and forest-green
boots with pointed toes. The only indications of his ecclesiastical
office were the absence of a sword and the presence of the large jeweled
cross hanging from his neck. A purple velvet cap adorned with a black
feather was draped over his glossy black hair.

Simon told the cardinal he and Alain had been out late and had decided
to stay at an inn rather than cross town during the dangerous night
hours. Friar Mathieu came and stood beside him, greeting the two priests
who had accompanied de Verceuil. They loftily eyed the old Franciscan's
brown robe and responded with curt nods.

When Simon finished his recital, de Verceuil leaned forward, his small
lower lip outthrust. "If you cannot protect your own knights, how can
you protect the emissaries from Tartary?"

That was not a question but an assault, Simon decided, and required no
answer. "We are doing everything we can to find his killer, Your
Eminence."

"By God's footprints, I wish this were my bishopric!" de Verceuil
exclaimed. "I would take a dozen men from that neighborhood and I would
hang one man a day until the killer was found. I would have the man."

The door to the room where Alain lay swung open, and the stout podesta
emerged. He stood silently glowering up at de Verceuil. Simon wondered
whether d'Ucello had learned anything from looking at poor Alain's
corpse.

"And what, Your Eminence, if the people of that neighborhood truly do
not know who killed the Sire de Pirenne?" said Friar Mathieu.

Until that moment Simon had assumed Alain had met his death at the hands
of some Orvietan cutthroat. If not such a one, then who? He remembered
Giancarlo and the bravos he had met on the road. Alain's money had been
taken, but not his weapons. And Giancarlo served David of Trebizond, and
David served Ugolini. Was this Ugolini's way of protecting his niece's
honor?

If Giancarlo had anything to do with it, Sordello ought to be able to
find out.

"If we arrested all the men who live on the street where he was killed,"
said de Verceuil, "more than likely among them would be the man who did
it. These Italians--shopkeepers by day and robbers by night."

The faces of the two priests with him tightened. Simon glanced at
d'Ucello, and saw a flush darkening his brown cheeks.

"The people of that street are among the most respectable in Orvieto,
Signore," the podesta growled. How delightful, Simon thought, if the
odious de Verceuil and the odious d'Ucello were to tear into each other.

De Verceuil stared at the podesta in amazement and wrath, while the two
priests turned their heads from one to the other in embarrassment. After
a moment, one priest murmured de Verceuil's identity to d'Ucello, while
the other softly told the cardinal who the podesta was.

"Forgive me, Your Eminence, if my tone was less respectful than you
deserve," said d'Ucello, bowing to kiss de Verceuil's haughtily extended
sapphire ring.

"I have encountered nothing but disrespect from Orvietans since I came
here," said the cardinal, and Simon remembered that vile smear of dung
on his cheek the day they arrived. "I had actually thought Orvieto had
no governor."

"Forgive me again that I did not pay my respects to you before," said
d'Ucello. He did not rise to the bait, Simon noticed. An intelligent
man.

"A French knight has been murdered in your city, Podesta," de Verceuil
said. "Regardless of your high opinion of the people of the quarter
where it happened, I expect you to press them hard until you find the
killer. A thing like this cannot happen without someone seeing something
or hearing something."

That reminded Simon that no one had come forward to claim the reward he
had offered. If someone had heard or seen something, that person was
doubtless too frightened to speak of it.

"Your Eminence gives me most valuable advice," said d'Ucello. "I promise
you, we shall not rest until the killer is found." His round body bobbed
forward in a bow, and he turned on his heel, sword and daggers swinging,
and marched away.

"Pompous little man," said de Verceuil. "And doubtless incompetent and
treacherous."

The cardinal turned to Simon now. "Do not leave it to that watch
commander to find the killer. The knight--what was his name?" Simon told
him. "De Pirenne was your man, and you are responsible for his death.
Put all the men under you to work hunting down the murderer. Do whatever
has to be done. We must not let the death of a French knight go
unavenged."

"As Your Eminence wills, so I will," said Simon.

De Verceuil raised a finger. "And we will have a splendid funeral. The
pope himself will be present. Let the grandeur of the ceremony show that
we French do not take the death of one of our number lightly. Let these
sneaking Italians tremble before our wrath."

Again the two priests looked at each other, and one of them shrugged
resignedly.

_What barbarians we must seem to them._ Simon's face grew hot with
embarrassment.




XXXVI


"Canaglia! Give way or I will have your heart on a platter!"

Hearing the shout, Simon stifled a curse and turned to see arms waving,
a man in helmet and leather chest armor fall back, pushed by another.
The man shouting and pushing was Peppino, one of Simon's Venetian
crossbowmen. The man Peppino had knocked down was Grigor, one of the
Tartars' bodyguards.

_No, dear God, not today!_

Sunk in grief though he was, he would have to do something. For Alain.
That today of all days, the day of Alain's funeral, might not be marred
by brawling.

From his seat atop a black-caparisoned stallion in the gateway of the
Monaldeschi courtyard, he looked down on a boiling mass of bright
conical helmets, all of them now moving toward the action in the center
of the yard. He kicked his horse's flanks and drove into the crowd. He
had to break up the fight before it started.

The Armenian was on his feet and reaching for his dagger. And Peppino
had his hand on the hilt of his own blade. Before Simon could reach
them, Teodoro, whom Simon had appointed capitano of the crossbowmen
after dismissing Sordello, forced his way between the two men. He turned
his back on the Armenian and gave Peppino a violent shove with both
hands.

"Stupido! Back in line!"

"What devil's work is this?" Simon demanded.

Teodoro turned and saluted Simon smartly. "Your Signory, Peppino is a
fool. But the Armenians provoked him. They insist on marching before us
in the cortege. Are we not to march behind the French knights?"

Idiots! What difference did it make? They had forgotten that this parade
was for Alain; they thought it was for them. He felt a dull hatred for
both the Venetians and the Armenians.

Simon sent for Ana, the multilingual Bulgarian woman, who translated for
the Armenians Simon's explanation that the French knights must ride as
an honor guard directly behind Alain's bier, and that since the
Venetians were directly under the command of the French, they must come
next. Also, no one must come between the Tartar ambassadors and their
Armenian bodyguards; therefore the Venetians must precede the Armenians.

"Sergentes, get your men back into line!" Simon shouted at the leaders
of the hundred Monaldeschi men-at-arms milling about in the courtyard
along with the Venetians and the Armenians.

Simon spurred his horse back to the head of the procession, where he
took his position just behind Alain's bier, which was already in the
street.

The Sire de Pirenne lay upon a huge square of red samite edged with
gold, draped over the flat bed of a four-wheeled cart. Red ribbons were
woven into the spokes of the wheels. The two farm horses that drew the
cart, chosen for their docility, also wore red surcoats. Red, for
martyrdom. Red for the blood poor Alain had shed. Simon sighed inwardly
and hoped that God considered Alain a martyr and had taken him up to
heaven. Had he not died while in the service of the Church? Was this not
a crusade in all but name?

Alain was dressed in a white linen surcoat and a white silk mantle.
Simon, Henri de Puys and the other four knights had dressed him
themselves. What agony! The struggle to get poor dead Alain's big frame
into his garments had taken nearly an hour.

Thank heaven de Puys had stopped Simon from trying to dress Alain in his
mail shirt and hose, as Simon had originally intended. De Puys pointed
out that Alain's family were poor, and that Alain's younger brother
would have need of the expensive armor. So the armor would be sent back
to the Gobignon domain along with the news that Alain was dead.

Oh, the woe Alain's widowed mother and younger brother would feel when
Simon's letter reached them! Friar Mathieu had helped him compose the
impossible lines, but Simon still felt they were not gentle enough, not
comforting enough. He hated himself for feeling relieved that Alain's
family was too far away for him to deliver the news in person. He had
done the best he could, sending the letter and Alain's armor to his
chaplain at Château Gobignon with instructions to take it personally to
the de Pirennes and read it to them, offering them all possible
consolation, they being almost certainly unlettered.

Around Alain's waist was clasped his jeweled belt of knighthood, and to
his leather boots were fastened his knight's silver spurs. His
velvet-gloved hands, resting on his chest, grasped the hilt of his naked
longsword. Simon would buy another sword for his brother. His helmet,
polished to mirror brightness by his sobbing equerry, rested beside his
blond head. His shield, square at the top and pointed at the bottom,
blazoned with five black eaglets on a gold ground, lay crosswise at his
feet. Those things Alain must take to his final rest.

Simon's stomach was a hollow of anguish. Those splendid arms, and Alain
had never had a chance to use any of them.

A breeze stirred the curly yellow locks of the pale head that lay on a
red silk pillow. The air of Orvieto had grown chilly in the three days
since Alain's murder. The city had enjoyed almost summer weather until
late in the fall, but now November had fallen upon it with icy talons.
The sky this morning was a heavy purple-gray, and a dampness in the air
foretold chill rain.

At the very head of the procession walked Henri de Puys, bareheaded but
in full armor, leading Alain's riderless great horse. The cart bearing
the body, driven by a servant in orange and green Monaldeschi livery,
followed. Then came Simon and the other French knights.

_Please, God, let nothing else unseemly happen today. Let us bury your
servant the Sire Alain de Pirenne with honor._

He looked back and saw that the two Tartars, wearing their cylindrical
caps adorned with red stones and their red and blue silk jackets, had
mounted their horses. Because Alain was a warrior and they were
warriors, they rode horses to honor him today.

The sight of them was a reproach to Simon. If he had thought only of the
Tartars and not become involved with Sophia, Alain would be alive today.

After the Tartars, rows of spear points and bowl-shaped helmets
glittered, the Monaldeschi retainers and men-at-arms. Behind the
Monaldeschi banner, two green chevrons on an orange background, rose a
curtained sedan chair draped with black mourning streamers. In it, Simon
knew, were the contessa and her grandnephew.

Simon had been waiting for the contessa to appear. He raised his arm in
a signal to de Puys, who began to walk southward, toward the Corso,
pulling the reins of Alain's horse. The wheels of the cart creaked into
motion.

As the procession wound its way through the larger streets of Orvieto,
the thought occurred to Simon that Alain's killer might be among the
onlookers, one of the faces that watched, with little emotion, from the
sidelines or looked out of a second-story window.

Sordello had sent word through Ana that among Giancarlo's hired bravos,
none had any idea who might have stabbed Alain.

Simon knew what the Orvietans, most of them, must be saying. _A French
knight goes whoring and gets himself stabbed, and they give him the
greatest funeral since Julius Caesar's._

A stab of guilt shot through him. To protect Sophia, he had told de
Verceuil and d'Ucello that he and Alain had gone wenching. He had
besmirched Alain's reputation.

The cortege stopped at every church in Orvieto, and before each Alain's
body was blessed by two or three cardinals, who then with their
entourages joined the long line of mourners. Looking back over his
shoulder, Simon could no longer see the end of the procession. It
disappeared around a distant turning in the street.

Not all Orvietans were without feeling. Many girls and young women wept,
waved their handkerchiefs, and threw flowers from balconies to the
handsome Frenchman, murdered in his prime. Alain would have welcomed
more attention from them when he was alive, Simon thought bitterly.

At the convent of the Dominicans, a collection of brown stone buildings
behind a high wall, the rotund Fra Tomasso d'Aquino emerged, followed by
two dozen or more of his Dominican brothers, all in white wool tunics
with black mantles. Three of the leading members of the preaching
friars, the superior general, the father visitor for northern Italy, and
the prior of the convent blessed the body. Fra Tomasso was to deliver
the funeral sermon, a great honor for Alain. It must be downright
painful for the fat friar to walk from his convent to the cathedral;
that was an honor in itself.

But the sight of Fra Tomasso made Simon cold with anxiety, remembering
how Sophia had told him that the stout Dominican had turned against the
Tartars.

The one thing that might, even if only in a small way, make up for the
infinite tragedy of Alain's death, was that important piece of
information Sophia had unwittingly given Simon. And when Simon had told
it to Friar Mathieu, the old Franciscan, feeling he had no choice, had
taken the news to de Verceuil. Simon hated to see him do that, but he
had to agree that de Verceuil was the only one in their party whose
position was exalted enough to permit him to make demands on Fra
Tomasso.

De Verceuil had paid a call on the superior general of the Dominicans,
but what went on behind the walls of the preaching friars' convent Simon
and Friar Mathieu had never learned. In his usual infuriating way, de
Verceuil had refused to talk about it.

At the gateway to his palace, Pope Urban, all in gold and white, met the
procession. As Simon dismounted and knelt on the stone street to receive
the pope's blessing, he noted that the old man's face was as pale as his
vestments, and that his hands were trembling. Had Alain's murder
affected him so, or was he ill? Urban was flanked by six cardinals in
broad-brimmed red hats and brilliant red robes. On his right were three
French cardinals, including de Verceuil. Beside him was Guy le Gros,
whom Simon had met at the pope's council.

Le Gros looked angry. Simon hoped he was angry about Alain's murder;
every Frenchman in Orvieto should be. But what a shame that Alain had to
die in order that all these people care about him.

On Urban's left were three Italians, the diminutive Ugolini standing
right beside the pope. The sight of him was a blow to Simon's heart.
Simon had been in his mansion wooing Sophia when Alain was murdered.
Alain's bleeding body had lain across the street from Ugolini's mansion,
for how many hours?

And where was Sophia? Anxiously Simon scanned the crowd for a sight of
her. Would she not come? Had Alain's death frightened her? Would he ever
see her again?

He despised himself for still wanting to see Sophia, when his tryst with
her had caused Alain's death. He should give her up.

_I cannot give her up._

After the blessing, Pope Urban took his place, with his escort of
cardinals, at the head of the procession. They moved to the piazza
before the cathedral, as packed with people as it had been the day the
heretic was executed there. Death, death, here they were again, to
celebrate death.

When Alain's body reached the cathedral, Pope Urban blessed it once
more. Simon and the other French knights raised a pallet that was hidden
under the red samite cloth and carried Alain into the cathedral.

The cathedral was a festival of light, and the sight of it made Simon
feel a little better. Simon and de Verceuil had agreed to share the
expenses of the funeral, which included the rows of candles lighting the
altar, all of the purest beeswax, and the double line of fat candles in
tall brass sticks running down the middle of the church. Benches had
been cleared from the nave of the cathedral to make room for the funeral
procession.

The shadows where the massed candle flames did not reach were
illuminated by a dim, underwater glow--faint because the sky was
overcast--that seeped in through the narrow stained glass windows,
touching a mourner here or there with a spot of red light, or blue or
green.

The French knights carried Alain to the front of the cathedral and set
his body down on a red-draped platform. Simon took a position to the
right of the body. From here he could see rows of cardinals and bishops
on either side of him. The cardinals in their red hats sat in the first
row, and Simon recognized de Verceuil by his height and by the shining
waves of black hair that tumbled from under the wide brim of his
tasseled hat.

The Contessa di Monaldeschi walked slowly up the aisle, leaning on the
arm of her plump grandnephew. As she neared the altar, Cardinal Ugolini
suddenly broke away from his position beside Pope Urban and bustled down
to take her other arm. With these two escorts, both the same height, the
contessa tottered to a high-backed, cushioned seat on the right side of
the altar. Ugolini stroked her hand, whispered to her, kissed her cheek,
and went back up the altar steps to stand beside the pope.

_I wish he were not so friendly with the contessa. It is a danger to the
alliance._

It occurred to Simon suddenly that Alain's death would go for nothing if
the pact between Tartars and Christians were not sealed. Now Simon had
another reason, beside the restoration of his family honor, beside his
love for King Louis, to strive for the alliance.

On the side of the altar opposite the contessa, also in a high-backed
armchair, sat a dark young man about Simon's age in a surcoat of blue
velvet with a heavy gold chain around his neck. He sat very erect, and
his dark eyes burned with hatred as he stared across the altar at the
contessa and her grandnephew. He had been pointed out before to Simon as
Marco di Filippeschi, capo della famiglia of the Monaldeschi's
archenemies.

The contessa herself had suggested that a Filippeschi might have
murdered Alain just because he was a guest of the Monaldeschi family.
Simon supposed the Filippeschi chieftain was paying public respect to
Alain to demonstrate his family's innocence. The Filippeschi, Simon had
heard, were opposed to a French presence in Italy--perhaps simply
because the Monaldeschi were friendly to the French.

So opposed that they would murder an innocent young man? Simon burned to
seize Marco di Filippeschi and throttle the truth from him.

By turning his head slightly, Simon could see Friar Mathieu on the left
side of the church, sitting in the midst of the Franciscan congregation.

Beyond the Franciscans, in the shadow of a pillar, stood a stout man in
dark cape and tunic. D'Ucello, the podesta, observing the
funeral--thinking perhaps that Alain's killer might attend. He prayed
that the podesta would stop wasting his time pursuing the nonexistent
women Simon and Alain had been with.

_Find Alain's killer, damn you!_ Simon thought, clenching his teeth.

Simon turned briefly to survey the crowd that filled the nave all the
way to the doors. Halfway back, a spot of red light from a window fell
on a man's blond hair. Simon was almost certain that was David of
Trebizond. He still saw no sign of Sophia, and his heart fell.

As Simon watched the pope celebrate the mass, assisted by the two
cardinals, the Italian Ugolini and the French le Gros, he wondered
whether Alain was watching from heaven. He must be in heaven. Was he not
a martyr?

But did Alain care about what was happening on this earth? Surely a man
would want to see his own funeral. For a moment Simon imagined he could
speak to Alain, reach out and touch him.

_How do you like this, my friend? The pope himself says mass for you._

Simon choked on a sob and had to wipe tears from his face.

The pope sang the Gospel in a quavering voice, and a chorus of stout
young priests boomed back the responses. The voices, rising and falling
in the chant devised by Pope Gregory the Great, unaccompanied by any
instrument, rebounded from the heavy stones of the vaulted ceiling.

Simon swore to himself he would write about this to Alain's mother.

When it came time for the sermon, Fra Tomasso d'Aquino rose from the
bench that had been set for him at the front of the cathedral. He
turned and bowed to the pope, who sat in a throne on the right side of
the altar. Pope Urban's hand twitched in a small gesture of blessing.

Standing at the head of Alain's bier, Simon was close enough to Fra
Tomasso to hear the breath whistling through his nostrils as he exerted
himself to move his bulk from bench to altar steps. The black rosary
around his middle rattled with his steps and creaked with his heavy
breathing.

A hush, heavy with the odor of incense, fell over the crowd assembled in
the nave. For a sermon by a bishop or even a cardinal, this crowd of
high-ranking prelates would probably go on whispering to each other. But
all were interested in hearing the philosopher-friar who was famous
throughout Christendom, whom some revered as a living saint and a few
others considered a subtle heretic.

Fra Tomasso spoke Latin, as was customary before any assemblage of
churchmen. His tenor voice sent high-pitched reverberations through the
nave of the great church. It is a sad moment, he said, when God chooses
to cut off a young man in his prime, yet it happens all too often. I
share the sorrow of the family and friends of this excellent young
knight, he said, and Simon felt comforted. Indeed, all Christendom must
mourn the loss of such a fine young man, killed while performing his
duty, far from home, guarding an embassy to His Holiness from the other
side of the earth.

_And accompanying a friend making a secret visit to a lady._

The stout friar waxed philosophic, as was expected of him, discoursing
on the Fifth Commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," using Alain as an
example. The Sire de Pirenne's death was murder, ambush out of the dark,
he said.

Loud coughing interrupted the sermon. Simon looked and saw that it was
Pope Urban, bent double, Cardinal le Gros holding his arm and resting a
hand on his shoulder, while Cardinal Ugolini looked alarmed. The
coughing had a burbling sound to it, as if the old pope's lungs were
full of fluid. A cough like that in November was an ominous thing,
thought Simon.

Fra Tomasso resumed when His Holiness had quieted. To kill is not always
a sin, he said, but to kill the innocent is. It is not a sin, therefore,
to wage war on the Saracens, as pope after pope has called upon good
Christian warriors to do, because the Saracens are not innocent. They
hold in their clutches the most sacred places of Christendom, the lands
where Our Lord Jesus Christ was born and died; they rob and murder
pilgrims seeking to visit those holy places; and they seek to spread
the false religion of Mohammedanism which denies the central mystery of
our faith--Christ crucified, dead, and risen again. For all these
reasons the Saracens should be fought.

Fra Tomasso paused and looked about him. Simon felt that the pause was
intended to be significant, that the great Dominican was about to say
something very important. But the silence was disturbed by a whispering.
It came from behind Simon and to his right. He glanced in that direction
and saw that the Bulgarian woman, Ana, was sitting with the two Tartars
and was whispering her translation of Fra Tomasso's sermon to John, the
older one, who was immediately on her left.

"We may ask ourselves, why does God permit an innocent young man like
this to die?" Fra Tomasso went on. "The answer is, of course, that He
permits it to make possible a greater good, the exercise of human free
will. I say to you that Our Lord, Jesus Christ, crucified at the age of
thirty-three, is the type of all innocent young men done to death by
evil. And evil is a necessary consequence of human freedom."

Fra Tomasso looked out over his audience for another silent moment, then
said, "God must value freedom very highly if He allows so much evil to
occur, just so freedom can exist."

_I never thought of that._

But there was very little freedom in the world, Simon thought, apart
from the power to sin. Everybody from kings down to the meanest serfs
was bound in a net of obligations, duties, laws, loyalties, obedience.
Simon remembered what Friar Mathieu had said about using Fra Tomasso's
vow of obedience, through de Verceuil's speaking to his Dominican
superior, to force him to give up his opposition to the alliance.

And now Simon noticed that Fra Tomasso was looking at de Verceuil.

"Often, all too often, one man will seek to rob another of the freedom
to do what is right," Fra Tomasso said. "If a superior commands another
to do wrong, and the inferior obeys, the one who gives the wrongful
order bears the greater burden of guilt. But some guilt also falls upon
the one who obeys. It is only with the greatest reluctance and after the
greatest deliberation that one should disobey any order from one of
higher rank. But there are times when it must be done."

Again he looked at de Verceuil.

"Thus when we see a mighty nation that again and again does harm to the
innocent," said Fra Tomasso, "we are bound in conscience to denounce
it."

Simon felt as if he had been struck on the head with a rock. Now he was
sure of what was coming. And so, evidently, were others, because a
murmuring was arising in the church.

Fra Tomasso blinked slowly, as if to show his calm acceptance of the
stir he was causing. "We are obliged to denounce unjust war even when
the evildoer offers us the hand of fellowship. When a puissant nation
takes up arms against the world, when it makes war its chief occupation,
when it attacks peoples that have not harmed it, when it threatens all
humanity, we are not permitted to condone such wrongs. When this nation
carries war to innocent, unarmed men, women, and children, slaughtering
these noncombatants by the tens and hundreds of thousands, we are
obliged to condemn it."

_Oh, my God! If this is the Church's verdict, all is lost._

Simon looked at the pope on his throne to the right of the altar. He sat
slumped, his white mitre tilted forward, his eyes half shut as if in
thought. Simon saw no sign that Urban objected to what Fra Tomasso was
saying.

The murmur was louder now. Despairing, Simon turned to look back at the
Tartars. Little points of candlelight were reflected in their black
eyes, and their brown faces were tight. Simon could imagine what would
happen to anyone, holy man or not, who spoke out against them so in
their own camp.

The stout Dominican stretched an arm in a flowing white sleeve toward
the still, mail-clad body on the red bier. "It may be asked, why do I
speak of such things on this sad day, when we mourn a young man cruelly
struck down in youth? I answer that this young man came here and died
here because Christendom is now faced with this great moral dilemma.
What we owe this young man, what we owe any man who dies in the
performance of his duty, is to do our own duty."

"Enough! Sit down!" came a hoarse whisper from Simon's left, and he
turned to see de Verceuil half out of his chair, fists clenched. It had
been de Verceuil who had wanted Fra Tomasso, as the most distinguished
speaker in Orvieto, to deliver the funeral sermon. And doubtless it was
the cardinal's heavy-handed dealing with Fra Tomasso that had provoked
this particular sermon. And now de Verceuil was trying publicly to
silence Fra Tomasso, making more enemies for their cause.

Fra Tomasso turned in the cardinal's direction, then once again slowly
shut his eyes and slowly opened them as he turned away. He went on
speaking.

"And perhaps God has taken this young man from us to remind us how many
other innocent lives may be lost if we wage war unwisely."

       *       *       *       *       *

Simon and the other five French knights turned the red-draped wooden
pallet so that Alain's head was toward the altar and his feet toward the
church door. The weight had not bothered Simon carrying Alain into the
church, but now the burden seemed twice as heavy. He was afraid, as he
descended the stairs in front of the cathedral, one worn stone step at a
time, that his knees might buckle and he might spill Alain to the
ground. He would be anxious until he got Alain back on the cart that
would carry him to his final resting place in the cemetery on a hill to
the north of Orvieto's great rock.

_And where will I go?_

Trying to get de Verceuil to change Fra Tomasso's mind had been a
serious error in judgment. Every important churchman and official in
Orvieto had heard the greatest thinker in Christendom attack the plan of
Christians and Tartars waging war together on the Saracens. What would
happen now?

_Nothing._

Nothing would happen, and that was all that was needed for the alliance
to fail. The Tartars would go home. They would continue their war
against the Saracens, the war they had been losing lately, without
Christian help. And eventually the Mameluke waves would roll over
Palestine and Syria and the Christian strongholds in Outremer would
crumble like sand castles.

_And the escutcheon of Gobignon is a little more tarnished. And I have
led my dearest vassal to useless death. Whenever the Tartars leave
Italy, and it will probably be soon, I will return to Château Gobignon a
failure._

He thought back to his meeting with Charles d'Anjou on the wall of the
Louvre last July. It had seemed then that helping the Tartars to ally
themselves with the Christians was a way to change his whole life for
the better. He would take his rightful place in the kingdom as a great
baron. He would end the shame and suffering he had always lived with.
He would hold his head up among the nobility, and King Louis and Count
Charles would love and respect him.

Now he would accomplish none of those things. He had been knocked from
his horse and was rolling in the dust. He would go back to the living
death of being afraid to show his face beyond the bounds of Gobignon,
the only place in the world where he was known and respected.

Go back to Gobignon and never see Sophia again? She, at least, would not
think less of him because the grand alliance had failed. She probably
felt sorry for Alain. Perhaps even felt responsible for his death. Simon
should go and reassure her.

And then what? Bid her farewell?

He and de Puys on the other side, two knights behind each of them, slid
Alain's body with a dry, rasping sound along the unpainted gray wood of
the cart bed. The red ribbons on the four tall cartwheels fluttered in
the slight breeze.

A thought that had fleetingly occurred to Simon before now formed itself
solidly in his mind.

What if he were to take Sophia back to Gobignon as his bride?

Many there were who would rail against him for doing it. His grandmother
in particular, herself the daughter of a king, would be beside herself
with fury. King Louis and Uncle Charles might even try to stop him. But
he was the Count de Gobignon, a Peer of the Realm, almost a king in his
own right, and he had tried to do what his elders expected of him, and
he had failed.

Twice he had loved women whose lands and high birth made them proper
matches for him in the eyes of the world, and twice he had been
prevented from marrying the woman of his choice because of Count
Amalric's legacy of wickedness.

Well, the devil take all of them. If they would not accept him as a
member of the noblesse, then he was not obliged to behave as one.

Surely his mother and father, considering the way their own marriage had
come about, would understand and approve his choice.

And somehow he doubted that Cardinal Ugolini would raise any objection
to his marrying his niece, Sophia.




XXXVII


_An open letter from Fra Tomasso d'Aquino of the Order of Preaching
Friars to the Christian sovereigns of Europe, from Orvieto, 7th day of
November A.D. 1263_

    Let us leave these wild beasts, Tartars and Muslims alike, to devour
    each other, that they may all be consumed and perish; and we, when
    we proceed against the enemies of Christ who remain, will slay them
    and cleanse the face of the earth, so that all the world will be
    subject to the one Catholic Church and there be one Shepherd and one
    fold.

       *       *       *       *       *

When Simon and Friar Mathieu climbed the stone steps into Fra Tomasso's
cell, pushing up a trapdoor to enter, he was bent over a scroll. He held
the two rolled-up ends apart with his fingertips, and as he read he very
gently pushed down the bottom part of the roll, allowing the part he had
read to roll up. The scroll looked very old, and the Dominican friar
handled it as if it might fall apart in his hands.

He did not look up at his two visitors. His large head moved ever so
slightly from side to side as he scanned the lines of writing, and Simon
could hear his loud breathing just as he had a week ago in the
cathedral. Simon and Friar Mathieu stood quietly and waited for Fra
Tomasso to stop reading and notice them.

It had taken Friar Mathieu's Franciscan superiors a week of delicate
negotiations after Alain's funeral to arrange an audience with the
Dominican philosopher for Friar Mathieu and Simon. Simon prayed, feeling
the sweat break out on his forehead, that their intrusion would not
annoy Fra Tomasso. He desperately hoped that they could persuade him to
change his mind about the alliance.

It was really up to Friar Mathieu, he thought. That Simon could have any
effect on such a brilliant philosopher was unthinkable.

Simon noticed a single deep crease between the great Dominican's
eyebrows. His forehead bulged on either side of the crease, as if the
muscles that made him frown had grown from much exercise. The brows
themselves were so fair and sparse as to seem almost invisible.

Fra Tomasso laid a broad right hand on the scroll to hold it open,
picked up a feather pen with his left hand, dipped the sharpened tip
into a tiny ink jar, and began making small, rapid marks on a piece of
parchment. Simon watched with interest. Since his university days, he
rarely saw people reading and writing, and could not remember ever
seeing anyone write with his left hand. When the pen ran dry, Fra
Tomasso happened to glance up as he dipped it again.

"Dear Lord, forgive me," he said, his eyes round with surprise.
"Friends, I did not hear you enter. Please pardon my rudeness." Simon
was gratified to hear him speak French and impressed by his fluency.

"It is we who are guilty of rudeness, Fra Tomasso," said Friar Mathieu,
"for interrupting your work."

"My brothers in Christ are more important than books," said the stout
Dominican, gesturing to them to take seats on his bed.

His cell was a circular room occupying the top floor of a tower in the
compound that housed his order in Orvieto. The curved walls of the room
were painted as white as Fra Tomasso's robe. A black wooden cross
surmounted by a white ivory figure of Jesus hung over the bed. Fra
Tomasso sat, his chair hidden by his great bulk, with his back to a
window, at a large trestle table with stacks of books and boxes of
scrolls on either side of him. His bed was a wide, sturdy wooden
platform covered with a straw-filled mattress and a blanket the size of
a galley's sail. A giant could lie on that bed, Simon thought.

"I must admit this scroll is a great treasure, and I am reluctant to
tear my eyes from it," he said. "A hitherto lost treatise of Aristotle
on the composition and movements of the heavenly bodies. This copy might
be over six hundred years old. In Greek. You are familiar with _the_
philosopher?" He looked from Friar Mathieu to Simon eagerly.

"I did study for a year at Père Sorbonne's college in Paris, Your
Reverence," said Simon. "We read the works of several philosophers."

Fra Tomasso smiled indulgently. "I always refer to Aristotle as _the_
philosopher because I can learn more from him than from any other
ancient or modern thinker. Do you not agree, Reverend Father?" He
turned to Friar Mathieu. "Or are you, like so many of your fellow
Franciscans, uninterested in philosophy?"

_Oh, God, he scorns Franciscans_, thought Simon with dread. _We're sure
to fail._

"I truly would like to find the time for it," said Friar Mathieu,
unruffled. "But I seem to be always traveling."

Fra Tomasso nodded. "You and that merchant from Trebizond are the only
two Christians in Orvieto who have traveled among the Tartars. I found
your testimony at His Holiness's council quite fascinating."

"But not persuasive?" Friar Mathieu leaned forward intently.

Simon caught his breath. Fra Tomasso had given them an opening.

"I presumed that was why you had come to see me," said Fra Tomasso with
a self-satisfied smile. "Let me assure you, good friar and noble count,
that until a little over a week ago I had tried to keep to a strict
neutrality, feeling that in that way I could be more useful to His
Holiness. Even after hearing the Tartars condemn themselves out of their
own mouths at the Contessa di Monaldeschi's reception. But then I
changed my mind."

"Let me ask you a rather delicate question, Your Reverence," said Friar
Mathieu.

Fra Tomasso leaned back and rested his hands, fingers laced, on his huge
belly. "Any question at all."

"Did Cardinal de Verceuil's behavior toward you have anything to do with
your change of mind?"

The crease in the Dominican philosopher's forehead deepened. Simon
winced inwardly. What if, now, they had truly offended Fra Tomasso?

"Surely you do not suggest that I would let personal pique determine my
position on a matter so important to the future of Christendom?"

"I am not surprised, knowing Your Reverence's reputation, that you grasp
just how important the matter is," Friar Mathieu said.

Neatly sidestepping Fra Tomasso's question, Simon thought.

"Exactly. Thus it was that when Cardinal de Verceuil went to Fra
Augustino da Varda, my Superior General, demanding that he order me to
change my position on the Tartars, I realized it was time for me to come
to a conclusion."

"I made a terrible mistake," said Friar Mathieu as much to himself and
Simon as to Fra Tomasso. "May God forgive me."

"What mistake was that?" asked Fra Tomasso.

"Not trying to discuss this with Your Reverence myself, as I am doing
now. To be honest, I feared you would not care to meet with a poor
Franciscan."

"Again you do me an injustice," said Fra Tomasso. "_The_ philosopher
tells us that we acquire knowledge first of all through the senses.
Therefore, if you would know about something, ask of those who have seen
it firsthand."

"Then perhaps you have new questions," said Friar Mathieu.

Simon felt despair pressing on him like a mail shirt that was too heavy.
Fra Tomasso was a man whose whole life was argument. How could Friar
Mathieu hope to persuade him to change his mind about anything?

His chair creaking loudly, Fra Tomasso leaned forward and rested his
elbows on the table in front of him. "I am so sure of my conclusions
that I have written to Emperor Sigismund in Germany, King Boleslav in
Poland, and King Wenceslas in Hungary--all lands that have suffered from
the depredations of the Tartars, urging them to beg His Holiness to
repudiate this scheme that will bring the frontier of Tartary so much
closer to us. I have written to King Louis of France, your liege lord,
too, young Count de Gobignon, even though he is said to be eager for a
pact with the Tartars. Furthermore, Father da Varda is considering my
proposal that the Dominican order all over Christendom preach against an
alliance with the Tartars."

Hearing in Fra Tomasso's words the ruin of all his hopes, Simon could
not contain himself. He burst out. "_Why?_"

Fra Tomasso looked surprised, even a bit affronted. "For all the reasons
you heard in church last Friday. They are not simple savages, my young
friend. They are diabolical."

It was hopeless. Simon's heart sank lower and lower. The great
preacher's mind was made up.

"Yes, but, Your Reverence"--Simon felt driven by desperation to debate
with a man whom he knew was invincible in argument--"we all know of many
times when Christians and Saracens have been just as cruel."

Friar Mathieu gave a little grunt of agreement.

Fra Tomasso looked down at his thumbs, the tips pressed together as they
rested on his wide belly. There was a moment of silence. He was
thinking, Simon realized. Hardly ever had Simon seen a man stop to
think before speaking in an argument. He began to tremble inwardly,
expecting to be crushed.

Fra Tomasso raised a fat finger. "Yes, I know that Christian knights
have also committed barbarities. But they did so in mindless rage, and
afterward they were ashamed. Even the Mohammedan faith teaches the
Saracens to wage only just wars, to be compassionate, to spare the
innocent and helpless. I stipulate that neither Christians nor
Mohammedans live up to these laws. But they _profess_ them. The Tartars
have no such laws. In their bottomless ignorance they think that it is
_good_ to commit deeds of unimaginable horror, and they do it with
calculation. Exemplum: As David of Trebizond has told me, when they wipe
out the population of a city, they know there will be a few survivors.
So, weeks later, they return to the ruins when the remaining few people
have emerged from hiding, and they slaughter them all. That is the worst
sort of evil--evil done with utter deliberation."

_David of Trebizond, may he roast in hell!_ thought Simon.

"With respect, Your Reverence," said Friar Mathieu, "the Tartars have
lived isolated in their prairie homeland since the beginning of time.
But I beg of you to believe that they can be won to the mercy of Christ.
I have seen it. I have _done_ it."

_We are gaining ground_, Simon thought. If Fra Tomasso really could be
swayed by the testimony of a person who had seen with his own eyes, they
had a chance.

A hammering from beneath the floor made Simon start. Someone was
knocking on the trapdoor. Friar Mathieu nibbled at his mustache in
vexation while Fra Tomasso smiled broadly and called, "Come up."

The heavy door creaked upward, pushed by a hand in a white sleeve. A
shiny, tonsured scalp reflected the light from the tower window.

The young Dominican who emerged was almost too breathless to speak.
"Reverend Father! News from Bolsena! Un miracolo!"

Fra Tomasso's eyes widened. "Bolsena? Is that near here?"

"So near, Reverend Father, that the miracle happened yesterday and the
news reached us this afternoon."

"What miracle?"

"A foreign priest--from some eastern country--was saying mass. And when
he got to the consecration and raised the Sacred Host"--the young
friar's eyes glowed--"the Host dripped blood!"

Simon's head spun in confusion. Frustrated rage at being interrupted
when they were so close to victory struggled with amazement at this tale
of a bleeding Communion wafer. He looked at Fra Tomasso, and all hope
ebbed away. The philosopher's face fairly glowed with relief. Sadness
swelled in Simon. They did not have a chance. Perhaps they had never had
one.

       *       *       *       *       *

Before they knew it, it seemed, Friar Mathieu and Simon were walking
together out the gate of the Dominican convent. Behind them there were
shouts and white-robed friars bustling to and fro like a flock of
startled doves. The whole convent, it seemed, was in an uproar over the
miracle at Bolsena.

Fra Tomasso had courteously but firmly dismissed Mathieu and Simon,
saying that he must question the one who brought the news. He might, he
said, be called upon to look further into the event at Bolsena, and he
must be fully prepared.

Simon had wanted to protest. If Fra Tomasso would only give them a
little more time, he would surely have to change his mind about the
Tartars. But Simon sensed that Fra Tomasso did not want to change his
mind.

The sky was cold and gray as chain mail. Carters, horsemen, and laborers
on foot bustled along, their cloaks pulled tight around them against the
chill north wind.

_All is lost_, Simon thought, as he had after Alain's funeral. Just when
they were gaining ground with Fra Tomasso, news of a miracle. Was God
Himself against them?

Skulking back to Gobignon. Forever to be known, not as the count who
helped liberate Jerusalem, but as the son of the traitor Amalric.

_Maybe I should give it all up and become a Franciscan, like Friar
Mathieu._

"Where did he get that scroll?" Friar Mathieu wondered.

"What can we do now?" said Simon. He was not really asking; it was only
a way of saying he thought nothing could be done. He was in despair over
the failure of their mission.

Then he thought of Sophia.

In an instant a light bloomed within him. Skulking back to Gobignon? No,
riding back in triumph, with the most beautiful woman in the world
beside him as his bride.

He had not yet nerved himself to propose to Sophia, but now that they
had failed with Fra Tomasso, he could not wait to see her again.

Friar Mathieu scratched his white beard thoughtfully. "It was de
Verceuil who tipped the scales against the Tartars. And it was we who
sent de Verceuil. I thought this might be the one time he could be
useful to us."

"Fra Tomasso had already sided with Ugolini's faction," Simon said.
"That is why we sent de Verceuil."

"He told us today that he had been trying to be neutral," said Friar
Mathieu. "But Sophia told you that Fra Tomasso had already sided with
Ugolini's party. Do you suppose the great Dominican was not being candid
with us? Or was it Sophia who was not being candid?"

Simon gasped at the sudden pain of a blow that was worse than their
failure with Fra Tomasso. Sophia not honest? No, he could not live with
that.

He stiffened so suddenly that his horse stopped walking. He stared at
Friar Mathieu in dismay.

Friar Mathieu reached over and put his hand on Simon's arm. His touch
was light but firm.

"Know where you are going, Simon. Do not travel blindly."

Simon nodded. There was a way to find out the truth about Sophia.

He must put Sordello to work. The mere thought of that blackguard spying
on Sophia twisted his heart with anguish. But he had to know the truth.




XXXVIII


_A letter from Emir Daoud ibn Abdallah to El Malik Baibars
al-Bunduqdari, from Orvieto, 13th day of Muharram, 663 A.H.:_

    O Pillar of the Faith, the gift of the ancient scroll to the
    Christian scholar Tomasso d'Aquino has served our purposes beyond my
    expectations. At the same time that I delivered the scroll to him, I
    arranged for the allies of the Tartars to be deceived into thinking
    that the priest Tomasso was already in our camp. They chose the
    arrogant Cardinal de Verceuil, of whom I have told you, to bring
    his influence to bear on the priest Tomasso. The cardinal's
    treatment of Tomasso so offended him that he was driven to take the
    side we wished of him.

    This Tomasso has turned the clouds Ugolini and I stirred up into a
    veritable thunderstorm. The pope cannot proclaim a crusade unless he
    has the support of the Christian kingdoms and peoples. Otherwise,
    they will support him only halfheartedly or not at all. I confess I
    am surprised at how often the Christians of Europe choose to neglect
    or even refuse to do what the pope demands of them.

    As we know, the Christians of today have not the zeal to make war on
    us that their forefathers had. Let time pass, and Hulagu Khan will
    lose patience and recall his ambassadors. The Christians will fight
    among themselves here in Europe. And, if God wills it, Islam will
    know peace. Such is my deepest desire.

    Time, O Malik Dahir, is our ally.

       *       *       *       *       *

Daoud stood at his writing desk, smiling at the tiny Arabic characters
with which he had covered the thin square of parchment.

El Malik Dahir--the victorious king. How well Daoud remembered the day
Baibars had, with his help, assumed that title.

       *       *       *       *       *

Riding back from the victory at the Well of Goliath, the Mameluke army
was camped outside Bilbeis, two days' ride northeast of El Kahira.
Tomorrow Sultan Qutuz would hold audience at Bilbeis, and soon after he
would ride into El Kahira in triumph, a triumph Baibars had earned for
him.

Baibars was alone in his tent when Daoud answered his summons. His blue
eye glittered out of deep shadows cast on his face by a small oil lamp
that hung in the center of the tent. With his own hand Baibars served
Daoud kaviyeh from a pot on a brazier, and the two men sat side by side,
turned toward each other.

"Again he refused me," Baibars said. "I have given him every chance,
Daoud."

Baibars's face was calm, but Daoud knew that the fury of a Tartar was
boiling within him.

A reddish haze obscured the tent for Daoud as he fought back his own
rage at the injustice to Baibars.

"He thinks I want to be governor of Aleppo merely out of ambition,"
Baibars said.

"The sultan is a fool," said Daoud.

The single sighted eye transfixed him. "No, not a fool. He played the
game of power well enough when he made himself sultan. No one could
blame him for the murders of Ai Beg and Spray of Pearls. He restored
order to El Kahira. His mistake now is in not trusting me. And that is
an understandable mistake." Baibars stretched his thin lips in a sudden
grin.

"Understandable how?" Daoud experienced that unsettling sense he often
had that the one-eyed emir was always two or three jumps ahead of him.

"It comes of too much cleverness," said Baibars. "He does not believe me
when I say I want to be governor of Aleppo because it is the first city
Hulagu Khan will attack. He suspects me of a hidden motive. He thinks
that if he gives me Aleppo I will break with El Kahira and claim all of
Syria for my own, because that is what _he_ would do. But Hulagu Khan,
seeking vengeance for the Well of Goliath, is coming from Persia with
all his power. May God send to the eternal fire a commander wicked
enough to divide the kingdom at such a time."

The kaviyeh Daoud held had cooled. He drained the glazed earthenware cup
and put it down beside him.

"The sultan himself divides the kingdom," said Daoud, "by dishonoring
you."

"It is more than dishonor. It is war. If he thinks me too dangerous to
be ruler of Aleppo, it means that he thinks me too dangerous to live."

Daoud felt as if his heart had dropped into the cold, black bottom of a
well. If Qutuz destroyed Baibars, he would destroy Islam and El Kahira
and all of them. Daoud's whole world.

"What will you do?" said Daoud.

"I do not know what I will do," said Baibars, fixing his one eye on
Daoud. "But you know that if he kills me, he will kill all close to me.
What will _you_ do?"

Daoud felt the edge of the headsman's blade on the back of his neck as
he had not felt it since that day Qutuz demanded his death. The thought
of being executed at Qutuz's command outraged him. It was one thing to
die as a mujahid, a martyr in holy war for Islam, destined to be taken
at once into paradise. But what a shameful fate, to be murdered because
your own sovereign lord did not trust you.

"I am your slave, Effendi."

"Not slave, Daoud. You are as near a son to me as a Mameluke can be. Are
you not the husband of my favorite daughter? I speak now with you
because I must speak, and in all this camp you are the only one I can
rely on absolutely."

Daoud felt tears coming to his eyes. He was embarrassed, even though he
knew it was a manly thing to weep easily. For him crying was rare.

Baibars rested a large, strong hand on Daoud's arm.

"Never to know any brothers but our khushdashiya, our barracks mates,
never to know any father but the emir who trained and freed us, it makes
us the hardest, the finest warriors in the world. But we long for the
loving families we never had."

Daoud wiped his face with the sleeve of his robe.

They sat in silence for a long time, while Daoud, stroking his thick
blond beard, grappled with what Baibars was asking of him. Asking, not
in words, but in the spaces between the words.

Baibars spoke. "Remember what the Tartar general, Ket Bogha, called
Qutuz? The murderer of his master. The world belittles us because each
sultan has climbed to the throne over the murdered body of the last
sultan. Turan Shah, murdered."

He held up his left hand, his sword hand.

"I myself killed Turan Shah because he betrayed the Mamelukes. Next, Ai
Beg, murdered. The Sultana Spray of Pearls, murdered. Ali, son of Ai
Beg, murdered. Each murder weakens the throne itself."

"The throne is as strong as the man who holds it," said Daoud.

Baibars continued to look at his left hand, his head turned to the side
in his one-eyed way. "Even so, Ai Beg did not himself kill Turan Shah
and Qutuz did not himself kill Ali. If I kill Qutuz and take the throne
with his blood on my hand, I am inviting every other Mameluke emir to
kill me when my back is turned. The title of El Malik, the sultan, chief
sovereign of Islam, will be like a ball in a game of mall, flying this
way and that."

Daoud felt as if he were standing at the mouth of an enormous black
cave. It was one thing to know that Qutuz was not fit to rule. It was
another thing to think of striking down the sultan, the anointed of God.
If Daoud entered this cave, he might never come out again. He might
leave it only to fall into the flames of hell. He seemed to see stars in
the depths of the cave, as if he were looking into the world beyond the
world. Somewhere among those stars, God dwelt in His paradise with those
He loved around Him, the Archangel Gabriel, and the Prophet, and Abraham
and Jesus, and the saints and martyrs of Islam.

_Is it God's will that I kill the sultan? How can I know?_

He could not know. But he did know that second only to his submission
to God, the most important thing in his life was devotion to his emir.
As Baibars said, his khushdashiya and his emir were all a Mameluke had.

He leaned closer to Baibars.

"Whoever dishonors my lord Baibars deserves instant death at the hands
of my lord's servant."

Baibars closed both eyes with a look of satisfaction.

"Have I asked you to kill--anyone?" he said.

"No, Effendi."

They sat in silence again. The desert wind hummed in the ropes of
Baibars's tent, and the poles shifted and creaked.

"If someone wished to kill Qutuz," said Baibars, "he should recall that
we are now very close to El Kahira. Once Qutuz rides on streets
festooned with silks and carpeted with flowers, once people see him as
the victor of the Well of Goliath, they will love him too much. They
would never accept his being taken from them. We could not control their
fury."

Daoud said, "Tomorrow, when he holds audience at the palace of the
governor of Bilbeis, men from all over the district with requests for
favors, with claims, with grievances, will surround him, clamoring.
Anyone could easily approach him."

Baibars nodded. "Let him be struck down before the eyes of many. Let it
be like a public sacrifice. I would rather see it done so than by poison
or ambush." His thin lips curved in a smile. "I seem to recall that you,
too, have a preference for taking vengeance in public."

"If the other emirs demand that he who killed the sultan be punished,"
said Daoud, "you will have to sacrifice your servant."

Baibars's face tightened. "They will not. They will accept what you and
I do."

"Nevertheless, if it seems needful to secure your place on the throne,
you must give the killer up. You will not have to explain that to me.
And you will still be my lord. My father."

"Ah, Daoud," Baibars said. Daoud saw a wetness in both Baibars's eyes
now, the sighted and the blind.

       *       *       *       *       *

Daoud stood beside a spiral pillar near the front of the audience hall
of the governor of Bilbeis. It was a small chamber, but an elegant one.
The floor was of mottled green marble, and pink columns lined the
approach from the front door to the massive gilded throne on its dais.

Merchants and small landholders, officials in red fezzes, Bedouin
sheikhs in black robes and burnooses, crowded the hall. Each man held a
petition scroll for the sultan.

Daoud carried no petition, but the sleeve of his left arm hid, strapped
to his wrist, a scabbard holding a twisting dagger--a flame dagger, the
weapon of the Hashishiyya.

He longed for Qutuz to come into the hall, for the dance of death he had
rehearsed a thousand times in his mind, to begin.

He had prayed this morning longer and with greater fervor than he had
for many years.

_When_ would Qutuz come?

At the doorways and around the edges of the room stood warriors of the
halkha, the sultan's bodyguard, their steel helmets and breastplates
inlaid with gold, their tunics bright yellow. What would they do when
they saw him strike at Qutuz? They were Mamelukes. They had seen Qutuz's
fear at the Well of Goliath and his pretensions afterward. But it was
their duty to protect him. Daoud could not guess what feelings would
move them.

Here and there around the room rose the spherical white turbans of the
Mameluke emirs who had been at the Well of Goliath. There was Kalawun,
called al-Elfi, the Thousander, because his first master had bought him
for the incredible price of a thousand gold dinars, there Bektout,
beside a blue-white pillar, another Kipchaq like Baibars. Six or so
others talked quietly under the pointed arch of the public entrance to
the audience chamber. None of the emirs paid attention to the
petitioners who streamed past them into the room.

In the corner of the room farthest from the dais, Baibars stood alone. A
head taller than anyone around him, he swung his white-turbaned head
from side to side so that he could survey the room with his one good
eye. His glance seemed to pass over Daoud without seeing him.

A side door to the throne room from the governor's private apartments
swung open, and two officers of the halkha strode through.

One of the officers drew himself up and shouted, "The Beloved of God,
the Victor of the Well of Goliath, El Malik al-Mudhaffar Qutuz!"

The buzz of conversation in the room at once stilled, and Daoud's
heartbeat filled his ears.

Then a roar arose as Qutuz entered briskly, arrayed in a bejeweled
green turban and a black and silver robe of honor. His chamberlain, a
stout man carrying a basket, followed him.

The petitioners rushed forward, clamoring and waving their scrolls. The
men of the halkha made no attempt to hold them back. A merchant in a
blue robe was the first to reach Qutuz, and he hugged the sultan,
weeping. He first thrust a small silk bag into Qutuz's hand, which
disappeared quickly under the sultan's black robe, then pressed a scroll
upon him.

Qutuz handed the scroll to his chamberlain, who put it into the basket.

The petitioners were the people of Islam, and it was their right, as it
had been since the days of the Prophet, to clamor for their ruler's
attention. And though they might shout and beg and even manhandle the
sultan, he must endure it, because these were the richest men of the
district, the men of highest rank, those on whom the sultan's power in
this place depended.

Qutuz enjoyed, Daoud knew, playing father to his people. And though one
might think the Sultan of El Kahira had wealth enough, he was not averse
to increasing it with the gifts of gold and jewels offered him on
occasions like this.

Qutuz moved slowly through the petitioners, head high, his oiled beard
pointed like the prow of a majestic ship. A small, indulgent smile
played about his lips. He allowed them to impede his progress to the
throne. The petitioners crowded around him, some plucking at his sleeve,
some falling at his feet, some pulling at the hem of his robe, even
kissing it in their urgency.

Another man, this one a sheikh in desert robes, seized the sultan in an
embrace, bellowing his entreaty. This time when Qutuz stopped he
disappeared behind a forest of upraised arms.

The babble of voices, each one trying to outshout the other, made
Daoud's head ache. Men elbowed those beside them and pushed their hands
into one another's faces. Daoud even saw one man claw his way up the
backs of two who stood in front of him and climb over their shoulders to
get closer to Qutuz.

From his position near the front of the hall Daoud could catch only
glimpses of the sultan's green turban from time to time and follow his
progress by watching where the turmoil was fiercest. The melee was like
one of those towering dust storms that whirl across the desert, and
Qutuz was at the center.

When Daoud judged that Qutuz was halfway to the throne, he began to
move.

He plunged now into that black cave where God dwelt somewhere in
infinite spaces. Doubt and fear he left at the mouth of that cave. He
must give all his strength and will to what he was about to do.

He charged into the storm around Qutuz. Though these magistrates and
merchants were feeble compared to him, their frenzy and the mere weight
of their struggling bodies formed a wall that took all his strength to
break through. Each man was so intent upon his own desperate need to
reach the sultan that none of them seemed to feel Daoud forcing his way
past them.

Qutuz saw him coming. The dark brown eyes met Daoud's, questioning,
frowning. A Mameluke emir of Daoud's rank did not usually join a crowd
of petitioners. The sultan's arms and hands were full of scrolls. His
chamberlain had long since been carried away from him in the crush.

"Oh, Sultan, grant my prayer!" Daoud shouted in a loud voice.

_For your death._

Qutuz's jaw clenched, and his eyes widened in the beginning of fear as
Daoud bore down on him.

Daoud had reached the center of the storm. Color and movement whirled
about him. Shouts deafened him. He forced his mind to blot out the chaos
all around and to focus totally on Qutuz. He made himself as oblivious
to the shrieking men around him as they were to him.

He threw his arms around the sultan, crushing the satin of his kaftan
and his armload of scrolls against his body.

When Daoud's arms came together behind Qutuz's back, his right hand
reached into his left sleeve and pulled the dagger from its sheath.

Qutuz's hands pushed against Daoud's chest. So tight was Daoud's embrace
that he felt the sultan take a deep breath, to cry for help. They were
locked together like lovers.

Daoud stretched out his right arm, and then with all the strength in
that arm drove the dagger into the sultan's back. He struck for the
center of the back, between two ribs, so that the point would reach and
stop Qutuz's heart.

His thrust went true. The strong, lean body jerked violently, then went
limp in his arms. Qutuz was a weight against him, sliding downward.
Daoud was sure he was already dead, because he did not move or cry out.

Triumph blazed up within him. He had done it. He had killed the sultan.

Daoud let go of the dagger, hilt-deep in Qutuz's back. He stepped
backward quickly, pressing himself into the crowd around them. His
heartbeat was thundering in his ears and his knees were quivering.

Qutuz toppled toward him as he moved back.

"The sultan falls!" a man next to him screamed.

Hands reached out to catch Qutuz as he fell. Cries of "The sultan has
fainted!" "God help us!" "The sultan is hurt!" went up all around Daoud.

He continued to back away through the crowd. If attacked, he had
decided, he would draw his saif and fight. If he must die, he
desperately wanted to die fighting, not on the headsman's block.

He had not truly believed he could strike Qutuz down without being seen,
but no one was yet pointing at him.

"Blood!" someone shrieked. "A dagger!" The shrieks and prayers were
deafening.

All the men who had clustered around the fallen sultan backed away.
Daoud was carried farther from the dead Qutuz by the crowd. Craning his
neck over the heads around him, he could see the body lying sprawled
face down on the green marble floor, a spreading bright red stain in the
black and silver robes around the dagger's hilt.

The babble of voices was so confused that Daoud could no longer tell
what anyone was saying. Mansur ibn Ziri, commander of the halkha, and
Anis, master of the hunt, pushed their way through to Qutuz's body,
while some men still clutching scrolls ran from the chamber. They must
fear even being in the room where the sultan was murdered.

_I have killed the sultan._

Though his whole body shook with reaction and his limbs felt weak, his
heart was full of joy.

His hand on his sword hilt, Daoud surveyed the large chamber. The
Mameluke emirs were looking, not at Qutuz's body, but at one another.
And they kept glancing at Daoud.

_They_ had seen Daoud throw his arms around Qutuz. They knew who had
killed Qutuz. And they knew why he had done it.

Baibars still stood apart in a far corner. His good eye met Daoud's, but
his face was a mask.

As the last of the local men fled the place of death, a silence fell
over the room. The Mamelukes were alone with the body of their sultan.
The men of the halkha, the sultan they were sworn to protect now dead,
looked at the emirs. The only voices now were the murmured words of
Mansur and Anis as they bent over Qutuz's body.

With an effort Mansur pulled the dagger from Qutuz's back. Anis grunted
when he saw the twisting blade.

Heart hammering, Daoud tensed himself. Would Mansur turn and accuse him?
He glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was behind him and took
gliding steps backward until his shoulders were pressed against a
pillar.

Mansur said in a voice that carried through the room, "The flame dagger.
Our lord has been struck down by the Hashishiyya."

Daoud almost laughed aloud with relief. With an immense effort he held
himself rigid, his fists clenched so tightly at his side they hurt.
Mansur was telling everyone who knew what had happened what they were to
tell everyone who did not know.

Would anyone contradict Mansur? No one did. Relief spread through him.

Carefully, almost delicately, Mansur laid the dagger on the floor beside
Qutuz. He stood up, wiping his hands on his mantle.

With rapid strides the commander of the halkha crossed the chamber
toward Baibars. To arrest him? What choice had Mansur made?

To bow deeply before Baibars. He made a graceful, sweeping gesture
toward the vacant throne.

"My Lord, the power is yours."

_Praise to God!_

Baibars's single-eyed gaze paused for an instant, Daoud saw, as it fell
upon each of the emirs. In the look he fixed upon each there was both
question and challenge.

Some of the emirs bowed their turbaned heads slightly. Others, like
Kalawun al-Elfi, simply looked back at him in silence, and that was
assent enough.

Baibars raised his right hand toward the vaulted ceiling, the wide
sleeve of his robe falling away from his powerful arm.

"With Your help, O God." He did not shout, but his deep voice carried
through the room.

Slowly but with a terrible firmness he walked across the room. So quiet
was the audience chamber that Daoud at the other end of the room could
hear the scrape of Baibars's boots on the three marble steps to the
throne. Baibars turned and sat on the throne, resting his hands on its
arms. He leaned back a little, and his eye seemed to rest on some spot
above and beyond the heads of those who watched him.

Mansur ibn Ziri turned to an officer of the halkha. "Let runners be sent
to El Kahira. Let them tell the people, 'Pray for God's mercy on El
Malik al-Mudhaffar Qutuz. Pray for the long life of your Sultan
Baibars.'"

_Let me hail him first_, thought Daoud. _And if he wants to kill me for
what I did, let it be now._

Trembling with exhilaration, he strode through the crowd and up the
center of the room toward the throne. "Lord Sultan!" he said in a loud
voice, "El Malik Dahir! Victorious King!"

He dropped to his knees and prostrated himself, striking his forehead on
the hard, cold floor.

       *       *       *       *       *

Hearing a knock at his chamber door, Daoud rolled up the slip of thin
parchment and dropped it into the purse at his belt.

Sordello entered at his command, greeting and saluting him.

"I see you are one of us, Messer David."

"One of who?"

Sordello pointed to the writing desk where Daoud had been standing and
the sheaf of quill pens. "One who had his letters. I write down all my
songs."

Daoud had no wish to feel kinship with Sordello. The bravo had not
bothered to clean the whiskers from his face for several days, and there
was untidy-looking gray stubble, like fur, under his nose and on his
cheeks and chin. A man should grow a beard, Daoud thought, or keep his
cheeks smooth.

"What brings you to me?" Daoud asked curtly.

"The Count de Gobignon sent a message to me by way of Ana, the Bulgarian
woman. Would you care to read it?"

De Gobignon's note read: "The lady Sophia, Cardinal Ugolini's niece, has
represented herself to me as an honest woman who knows nothing of
politics and takes sides neither for nor against the Tartar alliance.
Find out if she is telling the truth. Report to me in three days' time."

Daoud felt pleased with himself. Turning Sordello into a spy for himself
was yielding useful results. It was not surprising that the Frenchman
was suspicious of Sophia. She was so close to the party opposing the
alliance; how could he think otherwise? But now, Daoud thought happily,
they had the means to put his suspicions to rest.

Daoud handed the note back to Sordello, saying, "That is short and to
the point, but he does not tell you how you are to learn whether Madonna
Sophia is telling him the truth or not."

"I could tell him that I have sung at dinner for the cardinal's
household," said Sordello. "I could report a conversation at table which
shows Madonna Sophia to be the innocent he would like to think she is."

"You keep talking about your songs and your singing," Daoud said.
"Answer me truly--are you any good at those things?"

Sordello shrugged. "I could claim to be one of the finest trovatores in
all Italy, but if I did, you would rightfully ask why I have to make my
living as a hired man-at-arms. So I will say only that I am good enough
that I wish I could spend all my time making poetry and singing."

A worthy wish, Daoud thought. Hearing his careful self-estimate, Daoud's
respect for the man increased a bit.

"Then you _will_ sing at the cardinal's table. Your suggestion is a good
one. I will also arrange for you to be with Madonna Sophia at other
times as well, so that you can honestly claim to know something about
her."

"Very good, Messer David." Sordello turned to go, then turned back
again. "Messere?"

"Yes?"

"Do you think you might send me on another trip to paradise sometime
soon?" The eager light in his eyes sickened Daoud.

"Do your work well, and I will see that you are properly rewarded."

Sordello left, and Daoud brooded over his shame at what he had done to
the man--turned him into something less than human, less than animal, a
kind of demon with a single appetite.

After a moment he forced himself to put that out of his mind. A fighter
in jihad, holy war, must do many an ugly thing, but all was for the
greater glory of God.




XXXIX


The hymn "O Salutaris Hostia," sung by over a thousand strong voices
abetted by several thousand more uncertain ones, echoed from the
hillsides. The entire clergy of Orvieto, from the pope down to the
lowliest subdeacon, had come out of the city, and so had most of the lay
population. But Daoud's attention was drawn, not by the great procession
coming down the cliffside road, or by the crowd in the meadow around
him, but by the astonishing change that had come over the landscape.

It was as if some devastating disease had struck all the growing things
of the region, from the tallest trees to the very blades of grass. The
leafless groves raised black, skeletal arms up to the bright blue sky,
like men praying. The vineyards on the slopes were gray clumps of
shrubbery. The meadow grass on which he stood was yellow and brittle; it
broke to bits underfoot.

He had known, of course, that such changes came over the European
landscape each winter. But to see such desolation with his own eyes was
more amazing, even frightening, than he realized it would be. Soon the
Christians would be celebrating the birth of Jesus the Messiah, whom
they believed was God. Seeing death in the landscape all around him,
Daoud found it easier to understand why these idolators might feel
driven to worship a God who rose from the dead.

He hoped it would help his mission that the wave of enthusiasm for the
miracle at Bolsena had swept everyone in Orvieto from the pope on down.
He hoped they would have neither time to think about the Tartars nor
interest in dealing with them.

But this miracle and all the talk about it made him uneasy. The frenzy
in the Christian faces around him might be turned, he thought, in any
direction. It must be the same frenzy that had driven generations of
crusaders to hurl themselves against the Dar al-Islam.

Fra Tomasso was at the very center of the furor. It was he who had sent
word from Bolsena that in his judgment the miracle was indeed authentic.
Might this new preoccupation distract him from his efforts to prevent
the alliance?

And there was something else, something that revived a terror buried
deep in Daoud's soul. Jesus, the crucified God of the Christians,
stirred in this miracle. As a boy growing up among Muslims, Daoud had
renounced belief in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Now he
felt again his father's ghostly hand on his shoulder, and the hairs
lifted on the back of his neck.

"Look at the sick people and the cripples lining the road," said
Lorenzo. "I would not have thought there could be that many infirm
people in Orvieto." He and Daoud stood side by side, at a spot where the
road between Bolsena and Orvieto passed through a wide valley, their
horses tethered in a nearby grove of poplar trees. They had moved back a
few paces from the edge of the road to make room for a dozen men and
women on stretchers, wrapped in blankets, who had been carried here by
Franciscan friars from their hospital.

All around Lorenzo and Daoud stood Cardinal Ugolini's men-at-arms,
servants, and maids. Ugolini's entire household was here except for the
few of highest rank who would march with the cardinal, who marched
behind the pope.

Fearing that Scipio would go uncared for, Lorenzo had brought him along,
holding him on a thick leather leash. The gray boarhound paced nervously
and growled from time to time.

In the meadow across the road the pope's servants had erected a pavilion
without walls--just a roof of silk, gold and white, the papal colors,
coming to three points held up by a dozen or more stout poles. There
Pope Urban would say mass after receiving the sanctified cloth.

Daoud glanced down the road to where Sophia stood. They had agreed that
in public it would be best for them to appear far apart from each other.
She was dressed as any well-to-do Italian woman might be, her hair
covered with a round, flat linen cap bound under her chin, a
midnight-blue chemise with long, tight sleeves, and a sleeveless gown of
light blue silk over it. Beside Sophia stood a slighter figure in gray
veil and gown. They had their heads close together, talking.

"Who is that with Sophia?" Daoud asked Lorenzo.

"Oh, Rachel, I think." Lorenzo studiously examined Scipio's head for
fleas.

"She appears in public with Rachel?" Daoud said angrily.

Lorenzo shrugged. "No one knows who Rachel is." He slapped Scipio's
rump. "Sit."

"I did not like Sophia visiting Rachel," Daoud said. "Even less do I
like their being seen together in public."

Trumpets shrilled and drums sounded as the hymn came to an end. Daoud
looked toward Orvieto. The road that wound down past the gray-yellow
folds of tufa was filled with people.

At the head of the procession walked the pope in gold and white, and the
cardinals of the Sacred College in bright red. The middle of the long
line was bright with the purples of archbishops and bishops and the
variegated raiment of the nobility. The rear was dark with the grays and
browns of common folk.

From this distance Daoud could not see Pope Urban's face, but there was
no mistaking the beehive-shaped mitre with its glittering triple crown.

Lucky for the pope the weather was cold, thought Daoud. Wearing those
heavy vestments on a hot day would surely kill the old man. That today
he chose to go on foot showed how much this miracle meant to him.

Daoud turned and looked to the west. The marchers from Bolsena were
close, and people were falling to their knees all over the meadow.

_I will have to kneel, too, and seem to worship their idols. Forgive me,
God._

Daoud saw Sophia and Rachel drop to their knees.

_Surely they think as little of this as I do._

Coming toward Daoud from the west was a great banner that offended his
every religious feeling. Painted on the red cloth were the head and
shoulders of a bearded man, Jesus the Messiah, with huge, staring eyes.
On his head was a plaited wreath of thorns, and behind it a disk of
gold. From the nail holes that pierced his upraised palms fell painted
drops of blood.

An idol, such as the Koran forbade and the Prophet had come into this
world to destroy.

And then he thought of the great crucifix that hung in the chapel of
Château Langmuir outside Ascalon, and his mother taking him by the hand
to pray before it.

"Because _He_ lived and died here," he remembered her sweet voice
saying, "that is why we are here in this Holy Land."

He felt momentarily dizzy. They, his mother and father and all these
people here, thought that the bearded man, with the wounds of
crucifixion in his hands, was God. And he had believed it once, too.

No, God was One. He could not be a Father who reigned in heaven and a
Son who came down to earth. God was glorious and all-powerful; He could
not be crucified. God was the Creator; He could not be part of His
creation.

And yet--the cold hand still lay upon his shoulder. A gentle hand, but
it frightened him.

All around Daoud the infidels were throwing themselves on their knees,
even on their faces, in the road before the advancing banner. A man in a
black robe was walking before the banner bearer. Despite his long gray
beard there was something about his staring eyes and wide, downturned
mouth that reminded Daoud of a fish.

The bearded priest, Father Kyril, was holding up by its corners a white
square of linen. That, thought Daoud, must be the altar cloth on which
the drops of blood had fallen from the wafer of bread. As he walked he
slowly, solemnly, turned from side to side to allow people on both sides
of the road to see the cloth.

"_Kneel_, David, for God's sake!" Lorenzo ground out beside him.

His curiosity had made him forget himself. He dropped to his knees,
feeling dry grass prick his skin through his silk hose. Lorenzo knelt
beside him, gripping the dog's collar. The sick and crippled people
lying beside the road were wailing and holding up their arms in
supplication.

Again Daoud asked God's forgiveness for his seeming idolatry.

Father Kyril and the altar cloth were only a dozen paces away, and now
Daoud could see the brown bloodstains on the white cloth. Amazingly they
appeared to form the profile of a bearded man.

As a cold wind against his spine, he felt his long-buried fear of the
wrath of the Christian God.

The big hound, right beside him, let out a thunderous bark. Daoud
started with surprise. His heart pounded in his chest.

Scipio barked and barked, so loudly Daoud put his hands over his ears.
Father Kyril took a step backward. People who had been venerating the
bloodstained cloth turned with angry shouts. The hands of the
men-at-arms escorting Father Kyril twitched, groping for the weapons
they were not carrying.

"Scipio!" Lorenzo gave the hound a sharp slap on the side of the head.
The dog kept up its barking. Father Kyril had stopped walking and looked
frightened. He clutched the stained cloth to his breast. At a word from
him, Daoud thought, the crowd would tear to pieces the dog, Lorenzo, and
perhaps Daoud himself.

Lorenzo grabbed Scipio's muzzle with both hands, forcing it shut. Scipio
kept up a growling through his teeth. Lorenzo growled back, "Be still!"
He wrestled the dog down until the lean gray head was pressed into the
grass.

"Barking is the only way he knows to greet the Savior," said Lorenzo
with an ingratiating grin, looking up at the people glaring at him.

"There could be a devil in that dog," a brown-robed friar said
ominously. But Scipio relaxed under Lorenzo's hands, and those around
Daoud and Lorenzo turned back to the procession.

Daoud was furious. Lorenzo's damned dog had been like a stone in his
shoe ever since they set out from Lucera. Lorenzo was a valuable man,
but he insisted on attaching others to him who caused endless trouble.
Like the dog. Like Rachel.

A scream rose above the music, so shrill Daoud put his hands over his
ears again.

"My God! I can see!" A woman was standing, clasping her hands together
and flinging them wide again and again. One of the Franciscans threw his
arms around her, whether to rejoice with her or restrain her, Daoud
could not tell. But she pushed him away and went stumbling after Father
Kyril. From the way her hands pawed the air, Daoud suspected she could
not see very well, but she shouted with joy all the same.

She joined a crowd of people, many of them waving walking sticks and
crutches, others with bloodstained bandages trailing from their hands.
One man, Daoud saw to his horror, was missing a foot and was limping
along in the dirt road, without the aid of crutch or cane, on one whole
leg and one stump bound with a dirty cloth that ended at the ankle. His
face was red, sweat-slick, and blindly ecstatic.

Behind the rejoicing invalids walked rows of clergymen from Bolsena.
Daoud recognized a familiar figure in the foreground, Fra Tomasso
d'Aquino, his cheeks crimson with cold and exertion, his black mantle
blowing in the wind. He had spent the last two weeks, Daoud knew, in
Bolsena investigating the miracle and overseeing preparations for the
altar cloth to be brought to Pope Urban.

What did he think now, Daoud ached to know. Would he still work as hard
to defeat the Tartar alliance? Did this miracle mean Daoud had gained
ground or lost ground?

A sudden silence fell over the meadow. Pope Urban, with trembling hands
upraised, approached Father Kyril, whose back was to Daoud.

Father Kyril went down on his knees before the pope, holding up the
white cloth over his head like a banner. Then the pope also knelt,
somewhat shakily, with the assistance of two young priests in white
surplices and black cassocks. Urban reached up for the cloth and pulled
it down to his face and kissed it.

_He is seeing that cloth for the first time, and yet he seems to have no
doubt that he is looking at the blood of his God that died._

Daoud felt a chill that was colder than the December air.

       *       *       *       *       *

Daoud pushed his way to the edge of the open pavilion, where the pope,
assisted by Father Kyril and Fra Tomasso, was saying high mass. A band
of musicians blew on hautboys and clarions, sawed at vielles, stroked
harps, and thumped on drums.

The white cloth with its strange rust-colored stain was stretched on a
gilded frame above the altar. Daoud felt uneasy whenever he looked at
it. Just when it seemed he had found the key to wrecking the union of
Tartars and crusaders--a miracle. What did it portend?

Memory showed him his mother and father celebrating Easter, standing
hand in hand before the altar at Château Langmuir, receiving Holy
Communion--the Sacred Host--from their chaplain. When he was old enough,
his mother had told him he, too, would be allowed to take Jesus into his
heart by swallowing the Communion wafer. What a strange belief! But at
the time it had seemed beautiful.

_I bear witness that God is One, that Muhammad is the Messenger of
God...._

He glanced around the pavilion, and saw many faces he had come to know
in the last few months. There was Cardinal de Verceuil with his big nose
and small mouth. There was Ugolini, the size of a child, dressed up as a
cardinal, blinking rapidly, looking rather bored. In the front row of
standing worshipers were John and Philip, the Tartars, in silk robes.
Beside them, Friar Mathieu, the Franciscan, cleverest of Daoud's
opponents. Daoud gauged him to be a genuinely holy man, if an infidel
could be called holy.

And next to him was the pale young face of the Count de Gobignon.

As Daoud looked at him, de Gobignon looked back, and his eyes widened
slightly.

_One day, Count, you will die by my hand._

The mass began, and even though there must have been five thousand
people in the valley, there was complete silence. The quiet was eerie.
At a Muslim religious celebration this large, the crowd would be
chanting in unison, there would be music, dervishes singing and dancing;
impromptu sermons would be delivered in various parts of the crowd by
mullahs or by ordinary men moved to speak. Here all was focused on the
center.

Pope Urban rose to speak. He had removed his mitre to say mass. His
white hair, his long beard, and his trailing mustache seemed much more
sparse than they had been when Daoud had first seen the pope, last
summer. His face was as pale as his hair, and his hands trembled.

A few months ago Daoud had heard Urban's voice rise robustly from the
center of his body. Today his voice was high and thin and seemed to come
from his throat. He told the story of the miracle of Bolsena, and
explained that Father Kyril was a priest from Bohemia who had developed
doubts about whether Christ was really present in each and every
consecrated Communion wafer. Could a small piece of bread really become
the body of Jesus when a priest said a few words over it?

_Where is the illness?_ Daoud's Sufi-trained eye told him it was deep
within Pope Urban; it had sunk its claws into his chest.

_I do not think this pope has long to live._

Ugolini had told Daoud that Urban wanted desperately, before he himself
died, to strike a death blow against the Hohenstaufen family. He wanted
Count Charles d'Anjou, brother of the King of France, to wrest the crown
of Sicily from Manfred, but King Louis had thus far forbidden his
brother to make war on Manfred.

King Louis wanted a different war, a joint war of Christians and Tartars
against Islam. Thus far, the pope had withheld his approval of any
Christian monarch's allying himself with the Tartars.

As Urban heard the approaching wings of the Angel of Death, might he be
more inclined to grant Louis what he wanted?

The crowd was no longer silent. Daoud heard waves of murmuring run
through it as people relayed the pope's words to those who were too far
away to hear him. He noticed now the hawklike profile of the Contessa di
Monaldeschi. She was seated in a chair in front of the worshipers on the
side of the pavilion opposite Daoud. A plump young boy in red velvet
stood beside her.

Seeing her, Daoud looked for Marco di Filippeschi. He could not be sure,
but the back of a dark head on this side of the pavilion looked like
that of the Filippeschi chieftain. Those organizing this ceremony would,
of course, be careful to separate the leaders of the two feuding
families.

Pope Urban continued: Father Kyril, realizing that he was doomed to
eternal damnation if he did not overcome his doubts, had set out on a
pilgrimage to Rome. But Rome had fallen on evil days, its streets turned
into battlefields by the Ghibellini followers of the vile Hohenstaufens,
and Father Kyril found no peace there. He decided to ask the prayers of
the pope himself at Orvieto. That decision was rewarded before he even
reached here. Two months ago, while saying mass at Bolsena, on his way
to Orvieto, and praying that his doubts be resolved, Father Kyril raised
the Sacred Host over his head after the Consecration, and hundreds of
witnesses saw drops of blood fall from it to the cloth spread on the
altar.

And now--Pope Urban gestured to the cloth spread above the altar--we can
behold with our own eyes the blood of Christ Himself and see this
proof--which, having faith, we should not need to see--that Jesus lives
in the Blessed Sacrament.

"We propose to offer triple thanks to God for His generosity in granting
us this miracle," said Pope Urban. "First, let the day on which Father
Kyril saw the Host bleed be celebrated henceforward as the feast of the
Body of Christ, Corpus Christi. Let this be proclaimed throughout
Christendom.

"Second, to house and display this most sacred relic, the blood of Our
Savior Himself, let a great and beautiful new cathedral be built here at
Orvieto, which will forever be the center for the veneration of the body
of Christ."

Daoud sighed inwardly at the thought of still another great building
dedicated to idolatry.

Yet the chapel at Château Langmuir had been such a lovely and quiet
place.

As the pontiff's words were repeated, the murmuring grew louder.
Someone near Daoud said, "But the miracle happened in Bolsena." Someone
else hushed the person who protested.

_I should not wonder if these cities went to war with each other over
such a relic_, thought Daoud.

"Finally," said Pope Urban, oblivious of the discontent his previous
proclamation had caused among the citizens of Bolsena, "we command that
all priests of Holy Church shall read a special office on the feast of
Corpus Christi of each year, commemorating this miracle. God has willed
that there should be dwelling with us here at Orvieto the most gifted
scholar and writer of this age, Fra Tomasso d'Aquino."

Daoud saw that Fra Tomasso's face was almost as bright a red as a
cardinal's hat.

"And we charge our beloved and most gloriously gifted son, Fra Tomasso,
with the duty of writing this office."

D'Aquino rose heavily from a bench on the right side of the altar.
Puffing, sweating despite the chill of the day, he bowed to the pope
with hands clasped before him.

_A great honor, that must be_, Daoud thought. Fra Tomasso was silent for
the moment, but he would write words that would be repeated by thousands
of priests all over the world as long as Christians celebrated this
feast. D'Aquino was more than ever indebted to the pope. If the pope
were to want d'Aquino's help in persuading the French to go to war
against Manfred, he would collect that debt.

Looking at Fra Tomasso as he sat listening to Pope Urban talk on about
his plans for the feast, for the cathedral, for the office, Daoud saw a
glow on those rounded features that made him uneasy. Daoud had felt that
with Cardinal Ugolini and Fra Tomasso stirring up opposition to the
alliance throughout Christendom, he had but to wait for the plan to die
of old age.

He could no longer be sure of that. Fra Tomasso's opposition to the
alliance had a fragile basis at best, and this miracle might have
shattered it.

The blood of the Messiah had power to change the course of events. Daoud
felt himself trembling.




XL


Daoud's hands were cold and his heart was racing. He had been waiting
all morning for Ugolini to come back from the Dominican convent.

He sat at Ugolini's worktable, trying to read. He had found an old book
in Arabic in Ugolini's library, the _Aphorisms_ of ibn Zaina, a book
Saadi had often praised. At another time he would have devoured it, but
his mind refused to follow the words. Sending Ugolini to Fra Tomasso was
his final effort to learn what had gone wrong and to see what might be
saved.

What would Fra Tomasso say to Ugolini? At least Ugolini could be trusted
not to make things worse, as de Verceuil had for their opponents.

This was the Christian month of February, and the chill that pervaded
Daoud's body came from the air around him as well as from his troubled
spirit. The small wood fire that burned on the hearth beside the table
did little to dispel the cold in the room.

In the two months that followed the coming of the bloodstained altar
cloth to Orvieto, Tomasso d'Aquino had gradually, but completely,
reversed himself. According to a Dominican in Ugolini's pay, the
philosopher had sent new letters to the European kings confessing that
his opposition to an alliance between Christians and Tartars had been an
error. At least three Italian cardinals had told Ugolini that Fra
Tomasso had come to them personally with the same message. Cardinal
Gratiano Marchetti whispered that Pope Urban, who did not expect to live
through the winter, had promised the stout friar a voice in the election
of the next pope. Where Urban had been neutral toward the alliance,
perhaps even opposed, something now caused him to favor it. Just as the
tumbling of a single grain of sand could bring a whole dune crashing
down to bury a caravan, so those drops of blood at Bolsena had been the
start of an avalanche of reversals.

Daoud awaited Ugolini's coming, and the message he bore, as a man
accused of a capital crime awaits the verdict of his judge.

And if it was true that Fra Tomasso had irrevocably turned against them?
Daoud must begin all over again with a new plan to stop the alliance.

The fire gave off the sour odor of strange substances Ugolini had
previously burned on the hearth. Daoud pushed himself out of the
cardinal's chair and went to get a breath of fresh air. He opened the
casement window and saw Ugolini's sedan chair, borne by four servants,
turning in toward the door of the mansion.

The cardinal's chair passed the shop across the street, where rows of
large and small pots, brightly painted with floral designs, were laid
out on a large blanket. The potter and his wife, bundled up in heavy
cloaks, were calling out for the cardinal's blessing. Daoud saw a tiny
hand emerge from the curtains of the sedan chair, closed against the
February cold. The hand shaped the sign of the cross in the air as the
shopkeepers fell to their knees.

Daoud wondered whether the potter and his wife felt they had an unlucky
spot to offer their wares. That was where, last August, de Verceuil's
archers had shot down two men in the crowd when the Tartars were
entering the city. And it was in front of that shop, shuttered then for
the night, that Alain de Pirenne's body had been found. Had the
shopkeeper or his wife seen anything, and were they keeping silent only
out of fear? Months had gone by, but the podesta, d'Ucello, was still
investigating the killing, questioning and requestioning everyone who
might know something about it.

Daoud paced the room anxiously until Ugolini came in, throwing his
fur-trimmed cape and his wide-brimmed red hat to a servant. He sat down
in the chair Daoud had been using. Daoud closed the door.

As a man dying of thirst begs for water, Daoud prayed for good news.

But Ugolini's pale face, haggard eyes, and downturned mouth told a
different tale. Daoud's heart plunged into despair.

"Has he turned against us?" He hated the note of pleading he heard in
his voice.

Ugolini went to his worktable, sighed, and sat down heavily. His eyes
seemed to be crossed, staring down his pointed nose at the painted skull
that grinned back at him. His restless fingers found the dioptra lying
on the table, and he started to roll the brass tube in his hand.

"I used every argument I could think of," he said. "I even repeated back
to him the arguments he used in the letters and sermons he wrote against
the Tartars."

"Arguing with Fra Tomasso is like trying wrestle a djinn," Daoud said.
"I admire your courage in even trying."

Ugolini raised a finger. "I thought I was getting somewhere with him. He
kept trying to change the subject. He kept asking me, if the earth moves
while the sun stands still--he seems to be convinced that is what
happens--then what path does the earth follow? I told him that the
Greeks"--he stopped and stared at Daoud--"Oh, never mind the Greeks. The
point is, he was mocking me."

"Mocking you?"

"Yes, talking about the heavenly bodies. He was referring to that scroll
you gave me to present to him, that work of Aristotle. What a waste,
giving that to him. What would I not give to have it myself."

"Why did he keep changing the subject? Did he never tell you where he
stands on the alliance?"

Ugolini closed his eyes and nodded. "Yes, finally. He said he made a
grave mistake opposing the alliance. He said that if Christians do not
seize this chance, the Tartars may be converted to the religion of
Mohammed, as those in Russia already have been, which would be the worst
of all possible disasters." He opened his eyes and looked at Daoud. "We
have lost him."

"Is there nothing we can do to change his mind?"

"I truly believe it is hopeless."

Hearing those words, Daoud felt drained. He sagged against the wall of
Ugolini's cabinet, wanting to sit on the floor but unable to do so
because then he could not see the cardinal.

"It is Urban who has done this to us," said Ugolini. "He must have
decided that supporting the alliance is the only way he can get French
help against King Manfred. He tempted Fra Tomasso with something far
more valuable to him than an old scroll. He offered him greater glory
and power in the Church."

The Angel of Death, thought Daoud, had done it. Feeling himself mortally
ill, the pope had realized he could no longer bargain with the King of
France on an equal basis. He would have to offer Louis what he wanted,
permission to ally himself with the Tartars.

"Will the pope now support the alliance openly?" If Daoud chose to
fight, he thought, he would have to strike hard and fast. He would have
to strike at the Tartars.

Despite the downward turn of his fortunes, Daoud felt a strange
lightness of heart as he considered the prospect. He had tried every
other way of preventing Tartars and Christians from forming an
alliance--persuasion, bribery, the spreading of lies.

Now he could turn to the way he was best at. War.

"Urban will not come out for the alliance at once," said Ugolini.
"Before Bolsena, Fra Tomasso and my Italian colleagues in the Sacred
College stirred up so much feeling against the Tartars that Urban would
lose support all over Europe if he were to call now for a pact between
Christians and Tartars. So he must move slowly, with Fra Tomasso now
working with him, winning approval for the alliance."

"What if the French sent an army to him now?" Daoud asked.

Ugolini laughed. "Do you think King Louis of France can sow dragon's
teeth and have an army spring up in his fields overnight? He would have
to summon the great barons of France. They would have to decide whether
they support his cause, then assemble the lesser barons and knights.
Supplies must be gathered, money found to pay the knights and
men-at-arms. It can take years to raise an army big enough to wage a
war."

_The Mamelukes would be ready to ride in a day._

_How had the crusaders managed to make any inroads at all in the Dar
al-Islam?_

"If the pope is not ready to declare for the alliance, there is time,"
said Daoud. "Nothing is settled yet."

"Time for what? What will you do now?"

He pushed himself away from the wall, went to a mullioned window, and
pulled open one of the casements. To the northwest a tower of orange
brick with square battlements looked arrogantly down upon the huddled
masses of peaked red roofs. From the tower fluttered the orange and
green banner of the Monaldeschi. There the Tartars were.

He turned from the window and moved slowly toward Ugolini's table.

"I am sorry," he said as gently as he could. "This is not ended."

Ugolini had been playing with the dioptra. He dropped it with a clank.

"What do you mean?" Fear made his voice shrill and quavering.

"I mean, I must attack the Palazzo Monaldeschi."

"Attack the Monaldeschi!" It was almost a scream.

Daoud spread his hands. "I have no choice."

Ugolini sprang to his feet. "Pazzia! You are mad!"

_It is you who are almost mad, with terror_, Daoud thought. He was going
to have trouble with Ugolini, no question.

Aloud he said only, "We will discuss it. You can help us plan. Pardon
me, Your Eminence, while I send for Lorenzo."

       *       *       *       *       *

"It will have to be late at night, of course," said Lorenzo. "And I
would think a Friday evening would be best, when the men-at-arms will be
off their guard and many of them out carousing. But it finally depends
on when Marco di Filippeschi says his family's men can be ready. They
need to buy weapons."

Daoud and Lorenzo stood by the cardinal's table while Ugolini paced with
many short steps between the windows and the hearth. He muttered to
himself, and his hands trembled as he ran them through his tufts of
white hair.

"What of our men?" said Daoud.

"We have over two hundred now, scattered throughout the city," said
Lorenzo.

_If I could be in the palazzo before the fighting begins ..._

Ugolini stopped his pacing and faced them. "You talk like moonstruck
men! You would unleash a civil war right here in Orvieto?"

"Not us, Your Eminence," said Lorenzo. "Have not these two families been
fighting for generations?"

"What is your objection?" said Daoud gently.

Ugolini fixed them with a ferocious glare. "For six months, half a year,
I have lain awake imagining arrest, disgrace, torture, execution.
Through miracles you have managed to carry out your plans without being
caught. Now you want to launch still wilder plans--incredible, fantastic
things. I have had enough. God has kept me alive this long. I will not
tempt Him further."

"My dear Cardinal," Daoud said, "once the Tartars are dead, this will
all be over. I will go back to Egypt. Lorenzo and Sophia will return to
Manfred's kingdom. You will have nothing further to fear."

"You could have tried to kill the Tartars at any time since they came
here," said Ugolini. "Why now?"

"I needed to create as much ill will as possible between Christians and
Tartars," said Daoud. "If I had killed the Tartars at once, I could not
have had them discredit themselves out of their own mouths. Fra Tomasso
and your colleagues among the Italian cardinals could not have stirred
up so much fear and hatred toward them. Now, though, I have done all I
can along those lines, and Fra Tomasso is already undoing what together
we have accomplished."

"And why involve the Monaldeschi and the Filippeschi?" Ugolini pressed
him.

"To make it seem that the Tartars have been killed by feuding Italians.
Then Hulagu Khan will think again about whether he wants such people as
his allies."

Ugolini shook his head. "I do not have to tell you, of all people, what
war is like. And I think Messer Lorenzo, by the way he carries himself,
has known battle more than once. You both know that chance rules every
moment in war."

"True," said Daoud.

And if chance decided against them? For a moment he saw Sophia naked,
being torn apart by the torturers' pincers. He almost shuddered, and had
to hold himself rigid.

"I take it you intend to be part of this attack on the Monaldeschi,"
Ugolini went on.

"I do," said Daoud.

Ugolini threw up his hands as if Daoud had already proved his case for
him. "Well then, what if someone recognizes you attacking the palace?"

"I will not openly lead. I will enter the palace and kill the Tartars."

"So," said Ugolini. "You will not just be somewhere in the street
outside the Palazzo Monaldeschi. You will be _in the palace_. In the
midst of all your enemies. Alone. Attempting to assassinate the Tartars.
Tell me, does that sound like the plan of a reasonable, cautious man to
you?"

Daoud thought it sounded as if he were, to put it as Ugolini had,
tempting God. But Ugolini did not understand that Daoud had not only the
skills of Mameluke, but had also received the secret training of the
Hashishiyya fighters, the fedawi, whose powers many in the lands of
Islam thought magical.

"I will be masked. I will be dressed in garments that will make it
almost impossible to see me. I will not expose myself. I will move in
darkness. I have been trained to find my way in darkness as surely as if
it were sunlight."

Ugolini shook his head. "Understand me. I would not go on arguing with
you like this did I not feel I am arguing for my life. And Tilia's, and
the lives of those who depend on you. You must admit that you might be
captured or killed. My house guest, found trying to murder the Tartar
ambassadors."

Daoud spread his hands. "You would then denounce me. You say you never
knew what a demon you had taken into your home."

Ugolini laughed loudly and bitterly. "Are our opponents fools? Do you
really think they would believe me, even for a moment? After perhaps
hundreds of people have been killed, after a civil war in Orvieto,
anyone who is even suspect will die. The Monaldeschi, the French, the
Church authorities, all will take their revenge. Surely you understand
that."

Daoud's heart grew cold as he looked along the road Ugolini was
describing and saw defeat, massacre, the hideous deaths of his comrades,
and beyond that iron waves of crusaders and endless columns of Tartar
horsemen sweeping over the Dar al-Islam. And he could not look into
Ugolini's eyes and declare that all would turn out well.

But what would happen if he did nothing? He looked down that path and
saw the same masses of crusaders and Tartars, saw the burning mosques,
the emptied cities, the heaps of corpses. He saw the Gray Mosque in El
Kahira ruined, his teacher Saadi hacked to pieces by crusader swords.

Then he heard words Saadi had spoken: _We are God's instruments, by
which He brings about that which He wills. The fool does nothing and
leaves the outcome to God. The ordinary man acts and prays that God will
grant a good result. The wise man acts and leaves the outcome to God._

He would act.

He turned to Lorenzo, standing near him by the cardinal's table.

"Your life is at stake in this. What do you think?"

Lorenzo's face was as grave as Daoud had ever seen it. "If the
Filippeschi attack the Palazzo Monaldeschi, they will be driven off. But
with more than five hundred men attacking the palace, it will be
impossible for the French to guard the Tartars adequately. If you get
in, kill them, and get out safely, I think we can hide our part in the
fighting. If you are caught or killed, I think it is as the cardinal
says. We are all doomed."

"Exactly!" cried Ugolini from where he stood behind his table. "Then why
risk it?"

"Because we must," Lorenzo said to him. "If we do not stop the alliance
by force, the pope will strike a bargain with the King of France. There
will be a French army marching against my King Manfred, and after that
crusaders and Tartars will fall upon Messer David's people."

Ugolini uttered a deep groan and sank into his chair.

Relief swept over Daoud. He had already decided to make the attempt on
the Palazzo Monaldeschi even if Lorenzo opposed it, but to have Lorenzo
side with him gave him more confidence that he could carry it off.

Lorenzo turned those somber eyes to him again. "It all depends on you. I
am gambling that you can do it."

Daoud felt a powerful warmth toward the Sicilian. There were times when
he had wished Lorenzo were not with him, times when he distrusted him.
The foolishness of involving them with Rachel and her husband. The fact
that Lorenzo was a Jew who had abandoned his religion. Even his dog was
a nuisance. But at this moment to have Lorenzo's support made him feel
as strong and confident as if the Mameluke orta he commanded had
suddenly appeared in Orvieto.

He grinned at Lorenzo. "You proved how good a gambler you are by losing
to de Verceuil."

Lorenzo chuckled. "What must we do first?"

Daoud said, "Arrange for me to meet secretly with Marco di Filippeschi.
And send word to King Manfred that the pope and the French are about to
reach agreement on the Tartar alliance, and when they do the French will
come pouring into Italy. Tell him now is the time for his Ghibellino
allies in the north to march on Orvieto."

Lorenzo nodded. "I will send one of my men to Lucera." He shook his
head. "My God, how I wish I could go myself!"

"Once the Tartars are dead," Daoud said, "we will all go home. Now, find
Sordello and send him to my room."

As Daoud left Ugolini's cabinet, he glanced back to see the little
cardinal slumped over the table, knotting his fingers in his fuzzy white
hair. He would have to spend more time with him, to build up his
courage.

       *       *       *       *       *

Sophia was standing in the hallway when Daoud emerged from his room that
night, on his way to meet with the Filippeschi chieftain. He was not
surprised to see her. Someone, Ugolini or Lorenzo, would have told her
about his new plan. He beckoned her into his room and closed the door.

Each time the thought of defeat arose in his mind, he had felt the
greatest anguish over what it would mean for Sophia. That forced him to
admit to himself how much he cared for her. Now that he looked into her
amber eyes and told her what he intended to do, the pain he felt was
sharper than ever. He wanted to persuade her that she had nothing to
fear. But he knew that would be a lie.

He tried to keep what he said simple, practical. "You, like Sordello,
will bear witness that Lorenzo and I had gone to Perugia while the
Monaldeschi palazzo was under siege. Lorenzo has allies in Perugia who
will confirm that."

Sophia stared at him with wide, solemn eyes. "You are risking
everything." She reached out and seized his hand, gripping it urgently.
"If they find out who you are while you are in the Monaldeschi palace,
it will be the end for all of us."

He felt the strength in her fingers, the softness of her palm, and
wanted to take her in his arms, but he held himself in check. There
could be nothing between them as long as de Gobignon was alive.

"I know a hundred ways to get into a castle and out again," he said,
wishing there had been time to share with her more of his life. "Once I
am inside, I will search out and kill the two Tartars while all the
armed men are occupied with the fighting outside. And then I will
leave." He spread his hands to show how easy it would be.

Inwardly he was ashamed. He was preparing to sacrifice this woman's
life, knowing that she might die a terrible death--rape, torture,
mutilation, public execution. How could he face her at all? That he had
made his decision in order to save hundreds of thousands of his people
from slaughter, his faith from destruction, was no comfort at this
moment alone with Sophia.

"Will you fight Simon?"

He felt his blood go hot. That she should think at all of de Gobignon at
this moment rather than of herself--or of him--made him so angry he
forgot for a moment his own guilt and fear for her life.

"The young count will probably be leading the fight on the battlements."
Daoud tasted the venom in what he was about to say, but he could not
help himself. "It will be quite a shock when he finds the Tartars dead
and realizes how he has failed."

Sophia stood breathing hard, her eyes glistening with tears. "If only
you were not--"

Daoud was already wishing he had not spoken so to her. "Not what?"

"Not blind!" she cried.

She turned swiftly and reached for the door handle. But Daoud could not
let her go. He was there before her, and he faced her and seized her
hand.

"I am not blind," he rasped. "I see that pretending to be what you are
not is tearing you apart. I wish we could be our true selves with each
other--"

"We cannot," she said bitterly. "And to speak of it only makes it hurt
more. Let me go."

He relaxed his grip on her hand, and she was gone.

_Some day_, he thought. _Some day, Sophia._

Looking at the closed door, Daoud felt an almost unbearable inner pain.
He had thrust her at Simon. He had lashed out at her, hurt her unjustly.
Having done that to her, he was about to put her in far worse danger.

How could he claim, even in the secrecy of his own heart, that he loved
her?

       *       *       *       *       *

Daoud could barely see Marco di Filippeschi in the darkness. Moonlight
touched the gold medallion that hung from Marco's neck and on the silver
badge in his cap. For the rest he was a figure carved out of shadow.
Despite the full moon, this narrow alleyway between a stone house and
the city wall was almost as black as the bottom of a well.

Daoud's Hashishiyya-trained senses needed no light to see by. He had
learned to see with his ears as well as with his sense of smell. He
could sense what weapons Marco di Filippeschi was wearing--a shortsword
and two daggers at his belt, and, from the difference in footfalls, a
third dagger in a sheath in his right boot. He knew the position of
Marco's hands, and he knew that Marco had told the truth when he said he
had come to this rendezvous alone.

Lorenzo had assured him that Marco would leap like a hungry wolf at any
chance to avenge himself on the Monaldeschi. But Daoud wondered, would
the volatile young clan chieftain really be willing to undertake an
attack on the Monaldeschi that had more chance of failing than
succeeding?

"I can offer you over two hundred lusty bravos collected by one who is
known to you," Daoud said. Hoping to make Marco a little less certain
about who his ultimate benefactor was, he avoided naming Giancarlo.
Marco could destroy Daoud and all his comrades by revealing the identity
of the man who had incited his attack on the Monaldeschi. If he were
captured and tortured, strong and fierce though he might be, it was
likely he would tell everything.

Daoud reached into the purse at his belt, where he had earlier put two
emeralds. He held them out in his open palm so that the moonlight
glistened on their polished surfaces.

"Please accept these as a gift," he said. "If you decide to assault the
Palazzo Monaldeschi, your preparations will be costly."

The jewels must be called a gift. The capo della famiglia Filippeschi
was not a man you paid to do your work for you.

Marco's hand closed around the emeralds, and his other hand seized
Daoud's forearm.

"I shall spend this on weapons," he said. "Crossbows to kill more
Monaldeschi. Stone guns to batter down their walls. I care not what
price I must pay."

_That is good_, thought Daoud, _because the price may be very high_.

"I will need until spring," Marco continued. "It will take that long to
buy the weapons. I must work slowly and quietly so the old vulture does
not get wind of what I am doing."

"The Monaldeschi are collaborating with this French pope and his French
cardinals," Daoud said to spur Marco on. "And the French party is about
to invite an army under Charles of Anjou into Italy."

"Damn the French!" said Marco. "And damn that putana and her family for
working with them."

"Also, as everyone knows," Daoud said, "the pope has not long to live.
Strike a blow now for Italy, and you will frighten the cardinals at a
time when they will soon be choosing the next pope. So your attack had
better come no later than spring."

"We Filippeschi are as loyal to the papacy as the Monaldeschi. Perhaps
more."

"My master, whom I prefer not to name," said Daoud, knowing that Marco
would think he meant King Manfred, "does not wish to see the pope in
league with the French."

"This war of Guelfi and Ghibellini leaves us prey to every French and
German ladrone who wants to come down and loot our country," said Marco.
Obviously he had no great love for the Hohenstaufens, either.

"How will you start the fighting?" Daoud asked him.

"Two or three of my cousins will take a walk in the piazza before the
Palazzo Monaldeschi on a Friday evening, when everybody strolls," Marco
said. "If their mere presence in that part of the city does not cause an
incident, they will step on a few toes."

"It will take some courage to go into the lion's den," Daoud remarked.

The young Filippeschi chieftain laughed ruefully. "We possess more of
courage than we do of anything else."

If they did not also possess some prudence and the ability to keep a
secret, Daoud thought, everything was lost.




XLI


The stained glass in the cathedral's deeply recessed rear windows broke
the sunlight of the April morning into blue, yellow, and red beams.
Walking slowly through the nave, Simon wondered why Sordello had
insisted this time on meeting him in person in the cathedral rather than
sending his news through Ana. The departure from their routine gave
Simon an uneasy feeling that some disaster was about to befall him.

The miraculous altar cloth with the dark spots in its center was mounted
in a gilded frame above the altar. On each side of it a tall white
candle burned. At the foot of the altar two priests in black cassocks
and white surplices knelt on benches, their heads resting on their
folded arms so that it was impossible to tell whether they were sleeping
or praying. In the four months since the cloth had been brought to
Orvieto, it had never been left unattended. The pope had decreed that
priests in hourly shifts would watch day and night before the blood of
the Savior.

Simon suspected reverence was not the only motive for this vigil. He
knew several tales of famous relics being stolen, not only from pious
zeal, but because relics attracted pilgrims and their money. And the
people of Bolsena might still be jealous.

Hearing footsteps behind him, Simon approached the altar, genuflected,
and walked into the shadows on the left side of the cathedral. He paused
by a fluted pillar that rose like a tree trunk. Approaching him was a
beggar in a tattered gray cloak that hung to his ankles. A deep hood hid
his face. The man gripped Simon's arm. The face of Sordello looked out
of the shadows under the hood. Simon pulled his arm free.

"I have something important to tell Your Signory, but it is not about
Cardinal Ugolini and his circle." Sordello spoke in a hoarse whisper.
"The Filippeschi are going to make a surprise attack on the Palazzo
Monaldeschi."

The news hit Simon like a kick in the belly.

The Tartars--and he and his men--would be caught in the middle. He
thought back to Alain's murder. Even since then he had felt that Orvieto
could be a death trap for him and all his men.

Simon leaned forward to peer into Sordello's pinkish eyes. "When will
the attack come?"

"Tonight, after vespers."

_Tonight!_ Now Simon's blood froze. _No time! No time!_ a voice shrieked
inside him. He wanted to run back to the palace shouting warnings all
the way. It took all his strength to keep him standing with Sordello, to
force his mind, galloping like a runaway horse, to slow down and frame
questions.

"How did you find out?"

"Tavern talk. Some of Giancarlo's hired bravos were drinking with
Filippeschi men."

Sweat that felt like a cold rain broke out all over Simon's body. The
Tartars--he must get them out of the Monaldeschi palace. But the
contessa had been his hostess for many months. He himself had no quarrel
with the Filippeschi, but he had an obligation to defend the contessa.

"How long have you known this?"

"I just learned it last night, but they must have been preparing for
months."

"Why _now_?"

Sordello's eyes met his. "The Filippeschi think the Monaldeschi are
betraying Italy to you French."

If the Filippeschi were attacking now because he was at the Palazzo
Monaldeschi, then indeed he had a quarrel with them, whether or not he
wanted one. And it was his fault, in a sense, that the contessa was in
danger.

"Betraying Italy to the French? What does that mean?"

Sordello ticked off points on his fingers. "The pope is French. He asks
the contessa to take the Tartars into her house. Then you and Cardinal
de Verceuil come with the Tartars. And now everyone has heard that the
pope wants Charles d'Anjou to come in and take Sicily and southern Italy
from King Manfred. The Filippeschi want to turn the tide now, they say,
before the French own all of Italy."

The face of Uncle Charles flashed vividly before Simon's mind, the big
nose, the staring eyes. When they had talked of this mission over a year
ago at the Louvre, he had said nothing of Sicily, had spoken only of the
liberation of Jerusalem and the destruction of Islam. Was Sicily what he
really wanted--or perhaps even all of Italy?

What should he do? It struck Simon with frightening force that there was
no one but he to take the responsibility. He was in command. He must
make the plans and the decisions. His heart thudded frantically, and he
prayed that Sordello could not see the consternation that filled him.

"What forces do they have, what weapons?"

Sordello shook his head. "As to that, Your Signory, I know very little.
I have been at Cardinal Ugolini's mansion, not among the Filippeschi. I
would guess they must have at least five hundred men and siege weapons.
They would be mad to start this thing with less."

"Five hundred men and siege weapons!"

Simon pictured the Monaldeschi palace with its great tower crumbling
under a bombardment of boulders. He saw men swarming over it like ants.
He saw the defenders lying dead in the ruins--de Puys, Thierry, the
Armenians, the Venetians--himself. He saw the Tartars with their throats
cut.

Again he felt the urge to run back to the palace to prepare at once.
Again he suppressed the urge so he could ask more questions.

"Where did they get such forces?"

Sordello shrugged. "They are a big family. They have relatives in the
outlying towns."

Simon bent down to look deep into Sordello's bloodshot eyes. "Are you
sure Ugolini and David of Trebizond and the rest are not involved? If we
French and the Tartars are the provocation, Ugolini must be behind
this."

Sordello tapped his cheek just under his right eye. "Your Signory, I
watch them as closely as those priests watch the miraculous altar cloth.
Ugolini has been in despair all winter, since Fra Tomasso changed sides.
He buries himself in his cabinet with his magical instruments. David
has lost interest in the Tartars and thinks only about trade. He talks
to Giancarlo of making up a caravan to go back to Trebizond. The two of
them left for Perugia on business yesterday."

"What about Giancarlo's bravos?"

"Altogether, Giancarlo has hired only a dozen such men, including
myself. We guard David's goods and escort his caravans." Sordello waved
a hand in dismissal.

"And what of the cardinal's niece?" said Simon, trying not to sound
especially interested.

Sordello shrugged. "That lovely lady stays apart. She goes to church,
she reads, she paints."

Worried though he was about the impending Filippeschi attack, Simon's
heart felt lightened by joy. Sophia was innocent. His love for her was
vindicated. After this was over he would come to her and broach
marriage.

"You must watch Madonna Sophia for me," Simon said. "Stay close to her.
Do not let her go out tonight."

"Stay close to her." Sordello grinned. "That will not be hard, Your
Signory."

Simon seized the front of Sordello's tunic. "Never speak that way of
her."

Sordello jerked away from Simon and brushed his tunic. "I am a man, Your
Signory. Do not treat me like a slave." The coarse face was pale with
outraged pride.

_He forgets his place so easily. But there is no one else to guard
Sophia for me._

"I want you to be thinking about her safety, and that alone," he said in
a calmer voice.

Sordello bowed. "I understand, Your Signory." But resentment still
burned in his narrowed eyes.

In the midst of his fear, like a single candle glowing in a pitch-black
cathedral, Simon felt a tingle of anticipation. There was something in
him, deeply buried but powerful, that keenly looked forward to taking
command in battle.

"If you learn any more, try to get word to me," he told Sordello.

He turned and hurried through the nave of the cathedral to the front
doors, still holding in check the urge to run.

       *       *       *       *       *

"For them to attack is pazzia," said the contessa. "We have twice the
men-at-arms they do. Yet I pray God this rumor is true. By tomorrow
morning Marco di Filippeschi will be hanging from our battlements." The
cords in her neck stood out, her nose was thrust forward like a falcon's
beak, and her eyes glittered.

Simon said, "With respect, Contessa, they must have more men than you
do. I was told they might have five hundred. And siege machines."

They were seated in the small council room of the Monaldeschi
palace--Simon, the contessa, de Verceuil, Sire Henri de Puys, and Friar
Mathieu--around a circular table of warm brown wood.

"But surely we have better men," said Henri de Puys in French. "What
sort of fighters could these Philippe-whatever-they-are muster?
Routiers, highwaymen?"

Friar Mathieu turned to de Verceuil. "Might I suggest that Your Eminence
use your influence with Pope Urban. Perhaps his holiness can stop this
battle."

"Yes," said de Verceuil. "I will try to speak to him. But he is sick,
and pays little attention to anything."

_Probably de Verceuil is annoyed because he did not think first of going
to the pope._

"I should think it would endanger his health even more if a war broke
out in Orvieto," said Friar Mathieu.

"I will _see_ him," said de Verceuil. "But I will also arm myself and my
men to help defend this place."

Simon expected de Verceuil to next propose himself as commander of the
defense, but, to his delight, the cardinal had nothing more to say. Then
the suspicion crossed his mind that de Verceuil did not want to have to
take the blame in case of defeat.

"Grazie, Your Eminence," said the contessa.

Simon said, "I must go to Signore d'Ucello. Surely the podesta will not
let civil war break out in the city he governs."

The contessa laughed, a knowing cackle. "Go to him if you like, but you
waste your time. He cannot--will not--stop the Filippeschi. He has
Filippeschi relatives, you know. But he could not stop me, either, if I
chose to attack them."

Friar Mathieu said, "Perhaps we should take the ambassadors to the papal
palace. That would get them out of harm's way until this is over."

Simon's body went rigid. The Tartars were his responsibility. He would
never give them up to the pope's men-at-arms.

"No!" he said. "The duty of guarding them is mine, and I will surrender
it to no one."

De Puys struck the table with his open palm. "Bravely spoken,
Monseigneur."

Friar Mathieu sighed.

De Verceuil pointed a finger at Simon. "Count, you have no right to risk
the ambassadors' lives just for your own glory."

Simon looked around the table. He was the youngest person here, and they
were treating him like a child. He remembered the Doge Zeno's threat to
have him thrown into the water of Venice's San Marco Canal. He
remembered the many times de Verceuil had been overbearing with him. To
think _that_ man would accuse anyone else of being too concerned with
his own glory.

He was about to shout defiance when he thought of royal councils he had
attended as a page to King Louis. Those close to the king often
disagreed with him, but they usually ended up doing what he wanted.
Louis was perhaps the strongest man, in his gentle way, Simon had ever
met, but he had never heard him raise his voice.

Instead of defying de Verceuil and the others, he tried to speak with
dignity, even humility, as King Louis himself might.

"His Majesty's brother, Count Charles, entrusted this task to me. Shall
I give it up at the first threat? Shall I turn over the ambassadors'
protection to men unknown to me, some of whom may be moved by the same
hatred of us French that moves the Filippeschi? I have a duty not to let
the ambassadors go beyond the walls I guard."

When he finished there was silence.

Friar Mathieu said, "Count Simon makes an excellent point. John and
Philip may well be safer guarded by our men, even under attack."

Now that they had agreed, Simon's heart sank. If the Tartars were killed
in the coming battle because he had insisted on keeping them in the
palace, he would bear the guilt. Instead of restoring his name, he would
end by plunging it deeper into the mire.

De Puys looked from Simon to the cardinal and said, "Perhaps our knights
and crossbowmen could go with the Tartars to the Pope's palace."

"No!" cried the contessa. "Now, when I am attacked because I opened my
home to the Tartars and the French, will you all abandon me? All the men
of my family are dead but the boy Vittorio." She turned to Simon and
seized his wrist with her clawlike hand. "You must stay and defend me.
You must be my cavaliere."

Simon pressed her hand in both of his and saw tears running down her
withered cheeks.

"I would not think of leaving you, Contessa."

"But, Contessa," said Friar Mathieu, "if the Tartars were to leave your
palace, the Filippeschi might not attack you."

"No, no." The contessa shook her head. "If they think they are strong
enough to attack me, they will. They have long sought to kill me and
Vittorio. Canaglia! May God send that little bastard Marco and all the
Filippeschi straight to hell!"

Friar Mathieu winced and made the sign of the cross.

Inwardly Simon winced, too, as he always did at the word bastard. But,
bastard or not, he was about to command a palace under siege. He felt
his chest swelling at the thought.

       *       *       *       *       *

The candlelit audience chamber of the podesta was hung with somber
maroon drapes drawn against the night air. On the wall behind d'Ucello,
a tapestry depicted Jesus and Barabbas being offered to the crowd in
Jerusalem while Pilate washed his hands. Simon had never seen such a
large scene with such finely embroidered figures, and he admired it
aloud.

"I keep it here as a reminder that a judge who heeds the popular clamor
may make a grave error," said the small man behind the large table. "How
may I serve you, Count?"

As Simon told the podesta what he knew of the planned Filippeschi
assault on the contessa's palace, d'Ucello leaned back in a tall chair
that seemed too big for him, his eyes distant, the corners of his mouth
turned down under his thin mustache.

When Simon finished, d'Ucello asked, "Are Cardinal Ugolini or any of his
guests involved in this?"

_The very question I asked Sordello. Interesting that the podesta shares
my suspicions._

"The person who warned me said they were not."

D'Ucello peered at him. "And who warned you?"

"I would rather not say. I have an informant in Cardinal Ugolini's
household."

"Really? Good for you." The podesta gave him a look of amused respect
that kindled a warm glow of pride in him. "Well, Your Signory, if there
is a battle between the Monaldeschi and the Filippeschi, I can do
nothing about it."

Simon was swept by strange mixed feelings. He was ready to do almost
anything to prevent the coming battle. But in the midst of his despair
at d'Ucello's refusal to help, he kept seeing himself in armor rallying
his men on the Monaldeschi battlements.

But he had to try to persuade d'Ucello to help. He could not leave
without having done his best.

"Is it not your duty to keep the peace in Orvieto?"

"All my watchmen together are not a tenth of the number of armed men the
Monaldeschi and the Filippeschi can put into the streets. I assure you
that if the watch did try to stop the fight, the Monaldeschi and the
Filippeschi would join forces and annihilate my men before they went on
to tear each other to pieces. Look, Your Signory, mine is a lifetime
appointment, which means that how long I live depends on how well I
please those who appointed me. The families wish me to prevent or punish
fraud, theft, rape, and murder. But when the families have quarrels that
can be settled only by bloodshed, they want no interference. Did the
contessa send you here to appeal for my help?"

"No, she told me you could not stop the Filippeschi," said Simon,
appalled at this glimpse of the chaos that lay under the pretty surface
of this town.

D'Ucello nodded with a look of satisfaction. "Of course. No doubt she
sees this as her chance to kill off Marco di Filippeschi, something she
has longed to do for years. I cannot do what you ask. I know the limits
of my power."

Power, thought Simon. Brute strength. That was what would decide this
clash, and all he could do was make sure his side was stronger. He felt
a resolve, at once grim and gleeful, growing inside him.

He stood up and inclined his head. The stout little man rose and bowed
back.

"Then I cannot rely on you?" Simon said.

D'Ucello shrugged. "I am still trying to discover the murderer of your
companion. I have learned that neither David of Trebizond nor his
servant, Giancarlo, were in Cardinal Ugolini's palace when your friend
was killed. I think tonight while the Monaldeschi and the Filippeschi
are at each other's throats, the best place for me would be at
Ugolini's, asking those two worthies where they were that night. If I
cannot find out, perhaps your informant in that household could help.
Why not ask her?"

_He thinks I was talking about Sophia._

Simon wished he could go to Sophia. What if he were killed tonight and
never saw her again? He wished there was at least time to send her a
poem.

D'Ucello had probably guessed that Simon was visiting Sophia when Alain
was murdered. Simon felt his face grow hot with chagrin. He had failed
to keep his secret--his and Sophia's.

He remembered Sordello telling him that David and Giancarlo had gone to
Perugia. Simon could save d'Ucello from a waste of time by telling him
that.

_But why bother? He's been no help to me._

Angry with the podesta and with himself, and unwilling to yield any more
information to the little man, Simon took his leave.

       *       *       *       *       *

With two of his knights, the Sires de Borione and de Vilbiz, flanking
him, Simon hurried back from the podesta's palace to the Palazzo
Monaldeschi. They looked over their shoulders so often as they strode
through the darkening street that Simon began to feel they were looking
backward as much as forward. But no bravos sprang at them from ambush,
no arrows flew from housetops. Indeed, the streets were unusually quiet
and empty for late Saturday afternoon, with the clink of the knights'
spurs and the tramp of their heels on the cobbles the loudest sounds of
all.

Windows were shuttered, doors closed tight. The whole neighborhood,
thought Simon, must be aware of what was about to happen.

They turned a corner into the square before the Monaldeschi palace and
heard the sound of hammers. Simon had ordered de Puys to supervise the
building of slanting wooden screens above the battlements to be covered
with wet blankets to protect the roof from fire arrows. The job was
almost done, and Simon reminded himself to compliment de Puys when he
saw him.

His first task here at the palace was to insure the safety of the
Tartars. He had already decided that the safest place in the palace was
the spice pantry in the cellar.

And what if the palace were overwhelmed and the Tartars were trapped and
killed in the spice pantry? Simon made up his mind that he himself would
not surrender. The Filippeschi would have to kill him to get to the
Tartars.

Friar Mathieu answered Simon's knock. Simon had never seen the Tartars'
chambers before, and he was shocked. Mattresses covered with blankets
lay along the walls. Rugs and cushions were scattered about, but there
was no bed, table, or chair to be seen. An overpowering smell of burnt
meat filled the first room Simon entered. In the center of the wooden
floor an area about three feet across was covered with blackened
flagstones, and atop the stones was a heap of charred wood. Beside this
crude hearth was a pile of broken animal bones, melon rinds, and other
refuse. An open wine barrel added its sweetish smell to the general odor
of smoke and decay.

Simon wondered whether the contessa had seen this squalor. She had shown
the Tartars special favor, giving them three rooms in the northwest
corner of the third floor. In most palaces a single room was the most
even a very distinguished visitor could expect. If she thought they were
savages after David of Trebizond had baited them at her reception, what
would she think after seeing this pigsty?

John and Philip rose at Simon's entrance and bowed, smiling broadly.
They seemed not the least embarrassed by the foul condition of their
chambers. Simon bowed back, trying also to smile.

"If Cardinal Ugolini were to show these rooms to the Sacred College,
many of the cardinals would join him in detesting the Tartars," Simon
said to Friar Mathieu. "A wonder the smoke has not smothered them."

With a wry smile Friar Mathieu pointed at the ceiling. An irregular hole
had been broken through above the Tartars' hearth.

"Fortunately for everyone, they are on the top floor of the palace," the
Franciscan said. "All they have tried to do is reproduce the kind of
home they are used to living in, even to the smoke hole in the roof."

The white-bearded John said something in the Tartar tongue to Friar
Mathieu.

"They have heard of the coming fight," the Franciscan said. "They want
weapons and a place on the battlements. They say it is their duty as
guests to defend their hostess, the contessa."

Simon tensed himself for trouble. He had feared this. He chose his words
carefully.

"I am sure the contessa will be overwhelmed with gratitude when I tell
her of such a gracious offer. But we would not want to have to answer to
the mighty Hulagu Khan if something happened to them or to their noble
mission. Tell them that, and that it is _our_ duty to keep _them_ safe.
There is a stone storeroom underneath the kitchen, a spice pantry. I
have explored the palace, and that is the securest place. They must go
there the moment the Filippeschi attack. They should take the Armenians
with them."

The Tartars looked angry and shouted vigorous staccato protests when
Friar Mathieu translated this. Philip, the younger, black-haired one,
especially addressed himself to Simon. Philip seized the oblong gold
tablet of office that hung around his neck and shook it at Simon.

"He reminds you that his title is Baghadur, which means Valiant. He says
you insult him by asking him to hide in the cellar. Among his people
nobody hides. Even the women and children fight."

Simon felt his assurance collapsing. What if the Tartars simply refused
to seek safety? He could not put them in chains.

Earnestly he said, "Tell them it is their duty to their khan to stay
alive and continue negotiations. Be as courteous as you have the power
to be in their language."

"Oh, I am being very polite. One always is, with them."

After another exchange Friar Mathieu said, "They say Hulagu Khan would
expect them to fight."

Simon had a sudden inspiration. "Tell them that if they were to fight
and if anything happened to them, even the slightest injury, the King of
France would cut my head off."

There was a particle of truth in that, Simon thought as Friar Mathieu
translated. Kindly as King Louis was, decapitation would be preferable
to facing his reproach if Simon's weakness caused the Tartars' death.

John shrugged and answered Friar Mathieu quietly. Simon held his breath,
praying that this last effort would work.

Friar Mathieu said, "John says that you are a brave young warrior, and
it would be a shame to have your head cut off when you have a lifetime
of battles ahead of you. For your sake they will forgo the pleasure of
this fight. But they insist on taking only two guards with them. They
insist that the rest of their men fight beside yours."

Relief washed over Simon. He hoped he would be able to think as quickly
in the coming battle as he had just then.

"I can use their other men. Have whatever the ambassadors need for their
comfort carried to the spice pantry." He looked again at the pile of
garbage. "Tell them they will be next to the kitchen. They should like
that."




XLII


"Count Simon!" Simon recognized the crackling voice of the contessa.

She was wearing a floor-length gown of deep purple velvet. She held up a
disk-shaped bronze medallion on a silver chain.

"Please take this, my young paladino. Wear it into battle for me."

Simon went to her, his steel-shod feet echoing in the hallway. All his
movements felt slow and clumsy in the mail shirt that hung to his thighs
and the mail breeches that protected him from waist to ankle.

Embossed on the medallion was a mounted knight driving his lance into a
coiling bat-winged dragon baring huge fangs in rage. Where the lance
pierced the scales was set a tiny, teardrop-shaped ruby.

"Thank you, Donna Elvira," he breathed, full of admiration for the
workmanship. "It is most beautiful."

She reached up and put it around his neck. He could feel its weight
through his mail shirt.

"San Giorgio. It was my husband's, and I have kept it locked away in my
jewel casket since the day the puzzolenti Filippeschi murdered him. It
is yours now. San Giorgio will give you victory." She raised her thin
body on tiptoe and he felt her dry lips press against his cheek.

"I will never forget this moment, Madonna." He touched her yellow cheeks
with his fingertips to brush away her tears.

He did not want her to know that this was his first--his very
first--battle.

       *       *       *       *       *

Climbing the spiral stairs to the tower, his legs ached as he pushed his
mailed weight upward, and his neck felt strained under his mail hood and
steel helmet. It had been weeks since he had worn his mail, days since
he had practiced his sword drill. He swore at himself.

He emerged through a trapdoor onto a square platform paved with
flagstone. Three helmeted heads turned to him: De Puys, his head covered
with tight-laced mail leaving only a circle for his eyes, nose, and
mustached mouth; Teodoro, capitano of Simon's Venetian crossbowmen,
wearing a bowl-shaped helmet; and de Verceuil, whose tall helmet was
painted bright red and shaped like a cardinal's mitre covering his
entire face with the stem of a gold cross running up the center and the
arms of the cross spread over the eyeholes.

Dressed for war, de Verceuil looked more like a cardinal than he usually
did, Simon thought ironically.

Of the four men on the tower platform, de Verceuil wore the most
elaborate armor with steel plates over his mail at his shoulders, knees,
and shins. Hanging from a broad belt at his side was a mace, an iron
ball on the end of a steel handle a foot long. This was, Simon knew, the
proper weapon for a clergyman, who was not supposed to shed blood.

Over his mail shirt de Verceuil wore a long crimson surcoat sewn with
cloth-of-gold Maltese crosses. De Puys, like Simon, wore a purple
surcoat on which the three gold crowns of Gobignon were embroidered over
and over again. Teodoro's simple breastplate of hardened leather was
reinforced with steel plates.

Leaning into a crenel between two square merlons, Simon took a deep
breath of the mild spring air. It would be a pleasant evening, did he
not know that many men were going to die.

He watched the last wagons bringing in casks of water and wine, loads of
hay and sacks of grain and beans--supplies in case the fighting dragged
on--over the drawbridge through the rear gate. Water, especially, was in
short supply in the city on the rock. The palace had its own spring, but
it did not produce enough water to supply the whole establishment. Simon
remembered Sophia drinking from his hands in the garden.

He stopped short at the thought of her to whisper a little prayer for
her safety. But she was in no danger. No one was threatening Cardinal
Ugolini.

Simon had ordered that every cask of water available in Orvieto be
bought and every vessel filled. The attackers would surely use fire as a
weapon. He had also sent for a supply of rocks from a quarry outside
the city, extra ammunition for the stone casters mounted on the roof.

He recalled that Sordello had said the Filippeschi intended a surprise
attack. They were certain to learn of these preparations and realize
that the Monaldeschi had discovered their plan. What if they did not
come at all?

If the fact that the Monaldeschi were ready was enough to prevent the
attack, that would be the best possible outcome. But Simon realized with
a pang that if the Filippeschi did not come, he would be terribly
disappointed.

He shook his head at his own madness.

Sunset reddened the tile roofs surrounding the Monaldeschi palace. From
up there Simon could see the tall campaniles of Orvieto's five churches
and the towers of the other palaces--all battlements square, because
this was a Guelfo city. A green flag, too small from this distance to
make out the device on it, flew over a tower on the southwest side of
the city, the palace of the Filippeschi.

He went to the other side of the tower to look at the city wall. Orange
and green Monaldeschi banners flew there. He had assigned twenty
Monaldeschi archers, all he dared subtract from the defenders of the
palace, to secure the nearest section of the wall. He had wanted to
station men in the houses near the palace as well, but de Puys persuaded
him that such outposts would surely be overrun and the men speedily
lost. Better to concentrate his forces in the palace itself.

He could not make out Cardinal Ugolini's house, somewhere to the
southeast of him. It had no tower to distinguish it. But he thought
again of Sophia. How lovely it would be to be with her sitting and
chatting instead of up in this tower awaiting a deadly onslaught. How
wonderful if his only worry were whether or not she would accept his
marriage proposal.

He stared out over the city and thought, somewhere out there was another
enemy. Even if, as Sordello reported, Cardinal Ugolini were not behind
this attack, there might be someone behind both the Filippeschi and
Cardinal Ugolini. Ever since he had come to Orvieto, Simon had sensed
the presence in this city of a hidden enemy. An enemy who knew him and
watched him, but whom he did not know. The one--Simon was sure of
it--who had killed Alain.

_I am waiting for you_, he said, gripping the red bricks of the
battlements.

       *       *       *       *       *

Every old soldier Simon had ever talked to had said that war consisted
more of waiting than of fighting. Simon found the combination of boredom
and fear well nigh unbearable.

De Puys sat with his back against the battlements and dozed like a large
cat. De Verceuil also sat, his helmet on the tower floor beside him,
reading from a small leather-bound book, whispering the Latin words.
Simon supposed it must be his office, the prayers every priest was
required to say every day. The cardinal would have to get today's office
read quickly; the light was fading fast.

Capitano Teodoro preferred to be busy. He kept shuttling back and forth
between the tower and rooftop two stories below, where his men were
deployed. Teodoro would make a circuit of the tower battlements,
frowning down at his company of archers. Then he would go down and order
six or so men to change position. He would inspect everyone's weapons.
He inspected the bows of even the eight Armenians, in their bright red
surcoats, who would fight beside the Venetians. The friction between the
Armenians and the Venetians, Simon had noticed, had lessened
considerably after he promoted Teodoro. He was a good leader. At the
contessa's request Teodoro inspected the Monaldeschi men-at-arms, who
were mostly stationed at the two gates and in the hallways and apartment
windows.

After each inspection tour, Teodoro would come back up, study the
situation, then go down and rearrange the men, likely as not returning
them to their earlier positions.

But staying busy made sense. It kept everyone alert.

Simon left the tower once to visit his four knights on the rooftop, each
one stationed, with six men-at-arms, by a stone caster at a corner of
the roof. So that their missiles would clear the screening he had built
over the battlements, the long-armed machines were set well back from
the edge of the roof. The knights did not like supervising the stone
casters. They wanted, they told him, a chance to charge the enemy during
the attack. Simon tried to be good-humored about insisting that they
remain within the palace, but it was hard giving orders to men who were
older than himself and combat veterans. He missed Alain, realizing only
now how much he had relied on his young friend as a go-between for
himself and the other knights.

Returning to the tower roof, Simon kept pacing from one corner to the
other. He fingered the jeweled hilt of his scimitar. He tried to divert
himself by thinking of Sophia, by imagining how he would phrase his
marriage proposal to her. He dreaded the fighting, but wished it would
start.

Like a rising tide the shadows spread and deepened, swallowing up the
hills beyond the city, then the city walls, then the towers. The four
men stood in darkness, no torchlight up here to make them an easy
target. The only light on the roof below was the shimmer of charcoals
burning in four braziers for fire arrows.

An orange glow appeared over the hills to the east, the moon starting to
rise.

Simon heard distant shouting. Battle cries.

"Filippeschi!" It was Teodoro's voice.

Simon saw flickering red light dancing on house walls coming toward
them, converging from front, sides, and rear. The streets were too
narrow to permit sight of the advancing bravos and their torches.

_So, even though they know we are ready for them, they have come._

From the street directly opposite the main entrance to the palace a
long, dark shape emerged, like a gigantic tortoise. Similar shapes
issued from other streets opening on the piazza. The tortoises were big
enough to shelter at least a dozen men. There were six of them, crawling
across the open space.

"Use the fire arrows!" Simon shouted. Teodoro repeated the order to his
men. On the roof below, men raced from the battlements to the braziers
and back again, and streaks of light arced from the rooftop at the
tortoise shapes.

Simon could hear the burning arrows sizzle on the wet wooden frameworks
and wet hides. The hides did not burn, but the light from the arrows
made it easier for the crossbowmen shooting from the battlements to see
their targets. Teodoro was down on the roof directing their fire. The
archers volleyed at the closest tortoise. The steel bolts tore right
through the skins, piercing the men beneath. Simon heard the thump of
thirty bolts striking a tortoise at once, then screams. The framework
stopped moving, and Simon saw men crawling from under it. Some ran
frantically back to the shelter of the side streets; others crept a few
paces and collapsed.

Something whizzed past Simon's head and struck the brick merlon beside
him. A shower of chips clattered on his mail. One stung his cheek.

"Shooting back," said Teodoro. "From the sides."

Torchlight flickered from behind wooden mantlets at the mouths of the
streets approaching the palace from the north and south. The rectangles
of wood filled the street from side to side. From this height Simon
could see the crowds of men behind each mantlet.

Fire arrows from mantlets and tortoises hissed overhead and fell,
trailing sparks, into the atrium of the palace. Simon heard splashes as
servants threw water on the trees.

"Put more of your men on the sides," he said to Teodoro, who hurried
down the stairs inside the tower.

The moon was now a red oval low in the eastern sky. The light would help
the Filippeschi target the defenders on the rooftop, but it would not
expose them in the streets.

A loud crash startled Simon, and he felt the tower floor shake. Another
crash and another. Stone casters. The stones were coming from all
directions, and Simon could hear screams.

He turned to de Puys. "Fire our stone casters."

With de Puys gone, only Simon and the cardinal were left in the tower.
They had nothing to say to each other. The cardinal had donned his
miter-shaped helmet at the first sign of the Filippeschi, and Simon
could not see his face. Simon longed for Teodoro to come back.

It was Simon's equerry, Thierry, who pushed open the trapdoor. "Capitano
Teodoro is hit."

"Blood of God!" Simon pushed past de Puys to hurry down the tower's
inner staircase.

Teodoro lay near the entrance to the tower, surrounded by a crowd of
men-at-arms. His breathing came in hoarse gasps, alternating with grunts
of pain. It was too dark for Simon to see him well. He knelt beside
Teodoro, and a vile smell of excrement choked him. Someone beside Simon
was sobbing. Teodoro had been much liked among the Venetians.

Carefully Simon felt down the capitano's body. The hard leather cuirass
he wore was cracked down the center. Just below his chest Simon's hand
met the huge rock. It was wet, probably with Teodoro's blood.

"It caught him right in the middle," said an archer standing over Simon.
"Broke him in two. Crushed his belly and his spine. Only the part of him
above the stone is alive."

A gurgling sound rose in Teodoro's throat. He was vomiting, and warm
liquid gushed over Simon's hand. His own stomach writhed, and bile
burned his throat. He stood up suddenly, and instantly regretted it,
because he had wanted to comfort Teodoro in his dying. But the gasping
had stopped.

Teodoro had probably never known he was there.

Simon's hands and knees were trembling.

_So this is what it is like to be killed in battle._

He wiped his hand on his surcoat. Careful to make his voice firm, he
ordered the archers back to their positions. The weight of his mail
almost unbearable, he stumbled back to the doorway to the tower.

He felt his arm gripped and heard Friar Mathieu's voice. "Simon, I heard
you lost your capitano of archers."

"This is much worse than I ever thought it would be, Father," he
whispered, almost as if confessing.

The hand on his arm squeezed through his mail. "Trust yourself, Simon.
You will do what you must do."

By the light of a fire arrow burning itself out in the overhead screen,
Simon saw the contessa, her purple gown tied up to her knees so she
could move more quickly. She called Friar Mathieu to see to a wounded
man, then greeted Simon.

_She thinks I am a hero. If only she knew the horror I feel._

Who was Teodoro's second-in-command? Yes, Peppino. Peppino was the one
who had fought with the Armenians at Alain's funeral, but a new capitano
must be appointed immediately. There was no time to balance
considerations.

He managed to find Peppino and appointed him to lead the Venetians. Then
on shaking legs he pushed himself back up to the roof of the tower.

"They are bombarding the rear gatehouse with mangonels," de Puys said.
Simon heard rocks thudding against the drawbridge at the rear of the
palace, the entrance for horses and wagons. By moonlight he was able to
make out, across the street from the rear of the palace, four mangonels,
stone guns shaped like giant crossbows.

"Where did the Filippeschi get so many men and machines?" Simon wondered
aloud.

"One would suppose you could answer that," said de Verceuil, his voice
muffled by his helmet. "Are you not our military expert?"

Simon was still too gripped by horror to be angry. But a part of his
mind somehow kept trying to think about what the Filippeschi intended.

He became lost in thought as he gnawed at the problem, and all but
forgot the battle raging around him. Numerous as they seemed, the
Filippeschi had just a chance, no more than that, of overwhelming the
Monaldeschi palace, especially having lost the advantage of surprise.
Was their hatred of the Monaldeschi so deep that such an uncertain
chance was reason enough for them to make this effort?

_If I could but capture Marco di Filippeschi and force him to tell me
why he is doing this ..._

What if this attack were a diversion, a cover for the real blow, to be
struck by stealth?

Simon's body went cold.

"I must see to the Tartar ambassadors," he said. He turned toward the
trapdoor in the tower roof.

"Monseigneur--look--the Filippeschi are attacking again," de Puys
protested. Simon turned back, looked over the edge, and saw the tortoise
shapes moving forward again over the piazza while stones from mangonels
slammed into the second-story gatehouse.

_No_, he thought. _Even if they break down the door, they could never
get up the stairs. This attack is a feint._

"I believe the ambassadors are in danger," he said.

"By God's robe!" de Verceuil boomed from under his helmet. "You are
quitting the battle?"

"The battle is where the ambassadors are," Simon said. "The whole
purpose of this attack is to get at them."

"The whole purpose of your saying that is to get out of danger," de
Verceuil retorted.

Simon quivered with rage. De Verceuil's eyes glittered coldly at him in
the moonlight through holes cut in the blood-red helmet. Simon wished he
could draw his sword and swing it at the damned cardinal's head. But he
felt as if he were suddenly wrapped in chains. With de Verceuil accusing
him of cowardice, how could he leave the tower?

De Puys put a steadying hand on his arm. "Monseigneur, no one can get at
the ambassadors. Not as long as we hold fast here."

In the florid face with its drooping mustaches Simon saw pity, but also
a trace of contempt. The old warrior, too, thought his young seigneur
wanted to run away. If Simon left the tower now, he would have to bear
his vassal's scorn. Nor was it likely that de Puys would keep silent
about this. The tale would spread throughout the Gobignon domain.

_But I know I am not a coward._

Searching his heart, he knew that though he was afraid of the flying
crossbow bolts and stones, he could direct the battle from the tower all
night if need be. Even after Teodoro's death, and the blood still sticky
on the mailed glove that hung from his right wrist, he felt strong
enough to go on fighting.

If he went to the ambassadors and no one struck at them, he would have
been mistaken, but his leaving here would not affect the outcome of the
battle. What was happening out here was a simple matter of force against
force. If he remained here and the Tartars were attacked and murdered,
all would be lost.

_If I do not do what I believe I should because I am afraid of what
these men think, then truly I am a coward._

He tried to make the other two understand. "The safety of the
ambassadors is my first obligation. Enemies could be in the palace now."

De Verceuil brought his steel-masked face close to Simon's. "It is known
that there is tainted blood in your family."

Simon's face went as hot as if a torch had suddenly been thrust at him.
It was a moment before he could speak.

"If you were not a man of the Church, I would kill you for saying that."
His voice trembled.

"Really? I doubt you would dare." De Verceuil turned away.

"Monseigneur!" de Puys cried, his face redder than ever. "Do not make me
ashamed to wear the purple and gold."

That hurt even more than what de Verceuil had said. It hurt so much
Simon wanted to weep with anger and frustration.

Instead, he bent forward and lifted the trapdoor and hurried down the
steps. He heard de Verceuil say something to de Puys, but he could not
hear what it was. Fortunately.

He stopped on the roof to look for Friar Mathieu. Groups of crossbowmen
were running from one side to the other. Friar Mathieu was making the
sign of the cross over a fallen man.

"I think the Tartars may be in danger, Friar Mathieu," Simon said. "I
want you to come with me so that I can talk to them."

To Simon's relief the old Franciscan did not object. "Let us take two of
the Armenians with us," he said. "If there is danger, you should not go
alone."

Now that he was away from de Verceuil and de Puys, Simon could reflect
that he might, indeed, be mistaken. But he had to act, even though he
doubted himself.

Simon, Friar Mathieu, and two Armenian warriors named Stefan and Grigor
hurried down the tower's inner staircase to the ground floor. Single
candles, burning low, lit the corridor at long intervals. Here were
storerooms and cubbyholes where servants worked and lived. The
relentless pounding of rocks reverberated in the stone walls, punctuated
by occasional screams penetrating through the arrow slits.

Monaldeschi men-at-arms standing at the embrasures with crossbows kept
their backs turned to Simon as he hurried past. An odor of damp stone
pervaded the still air. Simon noted that as he had ordered, buckets of
water had been placed along the corridor to douse fires.

The kitchen was on the north side of the building. It was dark as a
cave. The cooking fire in the great fireplace, big enough for a man to
walk into it, had been put out. They passed empty cauldrons, piles of
full sacks, rows of barrels, all barely visible in the light of a
half-consumed taper in a candlestick on a table. A large water cask
surrounded by buckets and pots stood in the center of the kitchen.

Attackers could be hiding here. But Simon knew he did not have enough
men to search. He must get to the Tartars and stay with them.

The pantry where the contessa kept her costly stock of spices imported
from the East was below ground. Stefan lifted a heavy trapdoor, and one
by one they climbed down a narrow flight of wooden steps without a
banister. Grigor, bringing up the rear, held a candle to light their
way.

A door of rough oaken planks bound together with iron straps stood
before him. He felt his stomach knot as he walked up to it. What if he
were too late?

Simon had ordered that the square black iron lock set in the door be
left unlocked in the case the Tartars should have to escape. He pulled
on the handle. The door was bolted from the inside, of course, with a
bolt he had only that afternoon ordered the Monaldeschi carpenter to
install. From the other side a voice asked a half-audible question.

"It is Count Simon," he said. "Let us in." Friar Mathieu added a few
words in the Tartar tongue.

The bolt slid back and the door opened inward. Simon stepped forward to
see how his charges had fared.

The storeroom was dimly lit by a small oil lantern. The two Armenians
within had risen from chairs. They had their bows in their hands,
arrows nocked. They stood in front of the Tartars. John, the
white-haired Tartar, and Philip, the black-haired one, sat on cushions
on the floor, leaning back against the shelves of spice jars that
covered three walls of the room. Their bows were on the table and their
curving swords, in scabbards, lay in their laps.

Simon was pleased to see that they looked alert. It must be maddening to
sit down here in semidarkness and do nothing while a battle raged above.

He reminded himself that if no one attacked the Tartars while the
Filippeschi besieged the palace, his reputation would be ruined. He felt
a momentary pang of anguish, and found himself actually hoping that the
enemy would come here. Quickly he stifled the feeling.

_Do not call on the devil. He may hear you and come._




XLIII


Hidden in the cellar behind a rack of wine barrels, Daoud watched the
Frankish count, the old priest, and the two Armenians as they paused
before the door of the spice pantry.

He thought: _Man can plan and plan, but God will surprise and surprise._

He had been just about to try to trick the Tartars into letting him into
the spice pantry when de Gobignon and the others came down the stairs.
He suppressed his fury and forced himself to stay calm.

The spice pantry door opened for de Gobignon and those with him. From
his hiding place Daoud caught just a glimpse of the Tartars, both
sitting with sheathed swords in their laps, their two guards standing in
front of them. Their refuge appeared to be lit by a single lantern.

Daoud was perhaps only twelve paces from the doorway, but the cellar was
mostly in darkness, and he was dressed entirely in black, his head
covered with a tight black hood, his face masked. For ease and silence
of movement he wore no mail. The garb of a fedawi, a Hashishiyya
fighter.

With gestures de Gobignon ordered his two Armenians to stand guard
outside the door. One set a candle in a sconce high in the cellar wall.
Then they unslung their bows and nocked arrows and stood on either side
of the door, which closed behind Gobignon and the old priest. Daoud
heard a bolt slide shut with a clank.

Baffled, he bit his lower lip. What demon had inspired de Gobignon to
come down from the battlements and join the Tartars just at this moment?
Now he could not get to the pantry door without being seen and having to
fight the two Armenians outside. That would alert those inside, and the
door was bolted from within. He took deep breaths to clear his head of
frustration.

He would have to change his plan of attack.

       *       *       *       *       *

To get into the Monaldeschi palace he had used a peasant's cloak and
high boots like those he had worn last summer when he'd landed at
Manfredonia. It had been an easy matter paying a few silver denari to a
farmer and then helping with the loading and unloading of sacks of rice
being delivered to the Monaldeschi. Once inside the palace courtyard it
had been the work of a moment to slip away from the carts and hide
himself in the maze of dark rooms on the ground floor of the palace.
There he had shed the peasant costume, leaving his black Hashishiyya
garb, and he'd pulled the hood and mask over his head.

But the very thing that made it easy for him to get into the palace with
that cartload of rice left him shocked and uneasy. The Monaldeschi were
preparing for a siege. He had seen screens against fire arrows being set
up on the roof and householders in the neighborhood locking their doors
and fleeing.

Someone had warned the Monaldeschi. When the Filippeschi came tonight,
their hereditary enemies would be ready for them.

Heart pounding, he pondered. What if the Filippeschi called off the
attack? He tried to tell himself that it would not matter. Even the
expectation of a siege would so distract the Tartars' protectors that he
would be able to get at them.

And, he promised himself, if he came out alive, he would search out and
repay whoever had betrayed him.

He had rechecked his weapons--the strangling cord, the Scorpion, the
tiny vessel of Greek fire in its padded pouch, the disk of Hindustan and
a dagger, its blade painted black. After nightfall he would seek out
the Tartars' apartment, which he knew was on the third floor of the
palace, where the best rooms were. In the meantime, he had hidden in a
corner of the kitchen behind a large water cask. He had squatted there
and waited, taut as a bowstring, to find out whether the Filippeschi
would attack.

When he heard the first battle shouts through the narrow embrasures on
the ground floor, he let out a little sigh of relief. Of course Marco di
Filippeschi would go through with the attack. Even without surprise, he
was doubtless better prepared tonight to fight the Monaldeschi than ever
before in his life. And Marco was not the sort of man who, once
committed to a course, would turn back.

Even as these thoughts passed through his mind, Daoud had been surprised
to see the two Tartars with two of their Armenian guards stride past
him.

Of course, he thought, de Gobignon must have realized that the Tartars
might be a target, and he was moving them to a safer place.

For a moment the Tartars had been abreast of him. Two poisoned darts
from the Scorpion would do it.

But, just then, a dozen or so Monaldeschi archers, crossbows loaded and
cranked back, had trotted into the kitchen and nearby rooms and taken up
stations by the embrasures. Daoud, his body aquiver with excitement, the
little crossbow already in his hands, had sunk back into hiding. If he
shot the Tartars, he might have been able to escape the two Armenians,
but so many men-at-arms would certainly kill or, worse, capture him. And
once they discovered who he was, Sophia, Ugolini, all those working with
him, would swiftly be in the hands of the Franks.

Seething with frustration, he had watched an Armenian open a cellar
trapdoor. The two Tartars and the two Armenian guards descended out of
sight.

Daoud, still crouched behind the water cask, then decided that God had
been kind to him. Even if he had been denied this opportunity to kill
them, at least he had seen where the Tartars were.

He had sat in his hiding place, relaxed but alert, listening to the
Monaldeschi bowmen shout encouragement to one another as they fired on
the Filippeschi trying to cross the piazza. The arrow slits were cut
through the thick walls in angled pairs so that two archers side by side
would have a full field of fire. After a while Daoud began to despair of
ever getting into the cellar.

Several times servants came running to fill buckets from the cask to put
out fires in the atrium. Crouched in the darkness behind the cask,
Daoud saw, grouped around it, buckets, pots, and kettles, all sorts of
vessels, already filled with water for immediate use.

Long after the battle began, a pageboy came running down the stairs to
the ground floor with an order for the archers to come up to the roof.

They left only one man to watch through the arrow slots. His back,
sheathed in a shiny brown leather cuirass, was turned toward Daoud. The
noise of fighting from outside was loud enough, Daoud thought, to mask
any sound he might make.

He slipped from behind the cask and picked up a wooden bucket full of
water. Carrying the bucket he stepped, silent on his soft-soled boots,
to the cellar trapdoor. Keeping his eyes on the crossbowman, he put the
bucket down and, holding his breath, grasped the handle of the trapdoor
and lifted it. The archer moved as Daoud crouched by the open trapdoor.
Daoud froze. But the man's back remained turned. He was only shifting
from one arrow slot to the one beside it, to get a view of the piazza
from a different angle.

When the archer was settled in his new position, Daoud crept down the
cellar stairs, bucket in one hand, and lowered the door over his head.
He watched the archer until the slab of wood cut off his view. He was in
a pitch-black cellar smelling of wine.

He saw a crack of light from under a door and heard voices. He was about
to go and knock, pretending to be a man-at-arms with a message. When the
two Armenians within opened the door, he would douse their lantern with
the water he was carrying, and then move in on the Tartars in the dark.

Just then the trapdoor above had opened. He hid behind the wine barrels
as de Gobignon, the friar, and two more Armenians came down to join
their Tartar charges.

       *       *       *       *       *

Stones were slamming into the walls in such rapid succession that the
building was continually shaking. This must be the climax of the
Filippeschi attack. Next would come a rush of all the fighting men. They
would storm the palace and either break through or be driven off.
Probably, Daoud thought, the attack would fail. But even so, it would
give him the opportunity he needed.

The two Armenian guards held their bows laxly, resting their backs
against the wall by the door. The candle in the sconce was six paces
away from the guards. Silently he lifted the bucket of water he had
brought down with him and moved it out in front of the wine barrel rack
so that later he could quickly reach it. Then he loaded the Scorpion,
drawing back its string.

He stepped out from behind the barrels, aiming for the eye of the
nearest guard, and fired. The steel dowels snapped forward, propelling
the bolt through the eyeball and into the skull. The man collapsed
without an outcry. His body, clad in leather and steel, hit the stone
floor with a crash.

The other Armenian gave a shrill shout in his native tongue. He stared
in horror at Daoud, and his heavy compound bow was up, the iron
arrowhead pointing at Daoud's chest.

Daoud had already taken the disk of Hindustan out of the flat pouch on
the left side of his belt. Dropping the Scorpion into its pocket, he
transferred the disk to his right hand. The disk was heavy; by Frankish
weight it would probably be half a pound. Its center was of strong,
flexible steel; bonded to its edges was a more brittle steel that would
take an edge sharp enough to slice a hair lengthwise.

Daoud scaled the disk at the candle that rested in the sconce at the
door to the pantry. It sliced through the candle's tip, just below the
wick. The flame went out, plunging the cellar into total darkness. The
disk rang against the stone wall, then clanged to the floor. Daoud's
trained hearing registered the place where it fell. The Armenian's bolt
whistled past him and hit the wall with a sharp crack.

Voices from inside the spice pantry shouted questions. That must be the
two Armenians who had first gone in there with the Tartars. The man
outside answered, and Daoud could hear fear in his voice. De Gobignon
would not want to open the door to help the Armenian, for fear of
endangering the Tartars.

Somehow, he had to be made to open the door.

Daoud stood still, listening to the guard's rapid, heavy breathing, the
scraping of his boot soles on the stone floor.

After a moment he tiptoed to the side of the chamber, retrieved his
disk, and dropped it into its pouch in his tunic.

Silently picking up the water bucket in front of the wine barrel rack,
he drifted closer to the guard, thinking of smoke, as the Hashishiyya
had taught him, to make himself move even more quietly.

He heard the Armenian sling his bow over his shoulder, and the
slithering of his sword coming out of his scabbard.

Daoud set the water down and crept close to the guard, utterly silent,
listening for the many small noises that would tell him where the man
was and how he was standing--breathing, swallowing and the licking of
lips, the creak of leather armor, the rustle of cloth, the clink of
steel. Slowly and very carefully Daoud reached out toward the guard's
throat, then with a sudden movement seized it, his thumb and fingers
gripping like a falcon's talons.

His action had the desired effect. The Armenian screamed, forcing air
through his constricted throat again and again.

He tried to slash at Daoud's arm but missed.

With his free hand Daoud grabbed the guard's wrist and gave it a sharp
turn. He let go of his opponent's throat and used both hands to force
his sword arm down. He straightened the arm out and brought his knee
down hard on the elbow, throwing all his weight on it.

The guard screamed with pain, and his sword clattered to the floor.
Daoud kicked it off into the darkness, then danced away. The Armenian
fell back against the spice pantry door, groaning in pain and fear.

Daoud heard muffled cries from the other side of the door. They demanded
to know what was happening. They begged to know what was happening.

The Armenian's agonized voice cried out to them, also begging, to be let
in, to be saved from the man who was killing him in the blackness.

Daoud readied himself, finding the water bucket again in the dark and
picking it up. He held it with both hands, by the handle and by the
base. He would have only a little time to use it, before they found some
way to stop him.

He heard the men on the other side of the door slide back the iron bolt.
It was the only thing they could do, Daoud thought. The other Armenians
could not bear to keep the door shut and let their comrade die.

The wooden door swung inward. Light sprang out into the cellar from only
one oil-fed lantern, but dazzled Daoud because he had been in complete
darkness since he put out the candle. He now saw the man he had been
fighting, a squat man with a thick black mustache, tears of pain running
from his eyes, his right arm dangling limply.

In the fraction of an instant before his enemies saw him, Daoud took in
everything in the spice pantry.

De Gobignon was standing just inside the door, holding his beautiful
scimitar out before him in his right hand. With his left hand he
reached for the wounded guard to pull him in. On either side of him were
the other two Armenians, bows drawn, ready to fire. Beyond them Daoud
glimpsed the Tartars, also with bows loaded and pulled, and the old
priest.

But the most important thing in there was that small, weak flame
flickering behind sheets of horn in a box-shaped lantern on the table in
the center of the room.

Daoud stepped as close as he dared into the doorway and raised the
bucket high, heaving the water in a stream at the table.

He heard a bow thrum and an arrow whistle past his shoulder. His eyes
met de Gobignon's just as the light went out.

Like a stone fired from a catapult he hurled himself, crouching low,
into the pantry.

Landing silently inside the room, he changed direction once, twice, a
third time, ending up at the door. He slammed it shut and bolted it.
They should all now be thoroughly confused.

In total darkness, seeing with his senses of hearing, smell, and touch,
he began to stalk the Tartars.




XLIV


Simon heard the thick door slam and the iron bolt driven into place. He
stood in a blackness darker than any night outdoors would have been, his
scimitar heavy and invisible in his hand. It was all he had against an
enemy who was also invisible. He felt death rushing upon him out of the
darkness.

Except for the occasional vibrations of a rock hitting the palace wall,
all sounds of battle were blocked out of the spice pantry. In the deep
silence, Simon's heartbeat thundered in his ears like a kettledrum.

_It was my stupidity that opened the door to him._

He had caught only a glimpse of the enemy. All in black from head to
foot, eyes shining through oval holes in his mask. Truly like a devil.

The stalker had deliberately doused the light, which must mean he could
find his victims in the dark.

Simon's body went from hot to cold. While he stood here helplessly, the
men with him could be dying. He tried to force himself to think, but his
mind was motionless as a stone.

All around Simon was confusion. He heard Grigor, the guard who had
staggered into the room just before the light went out, moaning with
pain. He heard men stumbling about. They kept bumping into him. He
lowered his scimitar to avoid stabbing someone by accident.

A crash made Simon jump. That was the lantern, smashed probably, by the
man in black, so that no one could relight it.

Next he would start killing them, one by one.

_God, if only I had some light. Just a little._

The odors of the precious spices the Monaldeschi stored in this pantry
pervaded the air--saffron, cardamom, pepper, cloves, ginger, nutmeg,
cinnamon. When Simon had first entered the spice pantry a short time ago
it had seemed a pleasant enough smell. Now it was making him sick.

Was there still a lighted candle in the cellar outside?

"The door!" he shouted. "Get the door open." Friar Mathieu repeated his
command in the Armenian tongue.

He heard a scraping, as of someone pulling on the heavy bolt that held
the door shut. Then a thud and a choking cry of pain. Then a sound like
a heavy sack being dropped.

Simon groaned inwardly. He could picture what had happened. Now the door
was held shut, not just by a bolt, but by a dead body.

He felt ice cold, but sweat trickled under his mail. The blackness was
thick, a blanket, smothering him. The smells of the spices were cloying,
dizzying. His stomach felt queasy.

"Flint and tinder!" Simon shouted, and Friar Mathieu repeated his words
for the Armenians and Tartars. Everything he said had to be translated.
The delay was maddening.

And, Simon realized, anyone who tried to strike a light would make
himself the enemy's next target.

God's blood, even by answering Friar Mathieu the Tartars would give away
their location to the stalker. The man in black must be able to find his
victims by listening for them.

So, if sound would make them visible, then the only way to thwart this
demon would be by silence. And even now men were starting to answer
Simon's call for flint.

"Silence!" he shouted. His voice sounded shrill in his ears, like a
frightened boy's.

For a moment there was no sound in the blackness.

"He finds us by the sounds we make," Simon said. "Everyone remain still,
and we will hear him when he moves."

As Friar Mathieu translated, Simon realized that either he or Friar
Mathieu could be the next victim. The stalker would want to kill the
Franciscan so Simon could not communicate with the others.

And one Armenian was badly hurt, one was probably dead outside and one
dead by the door. Left able to fight were only Simon, the Tartars, and
one Armenian guard. They had swords and bows, but the bows would just be
encumbrances in this total blackness.

In minutes the ambassadors could be dead. Simon felt terrified, drowning
in darkness, almost overcome with helplessness.

_I must make him come to me._

The thought frightened Simon even more. He did not know whether he would
have the courage to act on it.

What weapons did the stalker have? In the glimpse Simon had of him
before he put the candle out, the man in black had seemed to be
empty-handed. His weapons must be small ones that could kill, but might
not be quite so dangerous to a man in mail.

"Everyone remain still," Simon said loudly. "You will hear me moving
steadily about. If you hear someone else as well, it is the enemy."

He racked his brain to remember the size and shape of the room. Holding
his sword low, he put his hand up before his face and forced himself to
take one step, then another. An attack might come from any direction.
The trembling of his hands and knees made his mail jingle faintly.

The mailed glove dangling from his wrist rattled as his bare hand
encountered a man's face. The man gasped and pulled away.

"C'est moi," said Simon, just to let the man hear his voice, knowing it
did not matter what language he spoke. He was not afraid of calling
attention to himself. He wanted the stalker to come for him. And he
wanted those on his side to know where he was so they would not attack
him by mistake.

The face he felt was hot, sweaty, with a bushy mustache--one of the
Armenians. The killer had been masked. Simon patted the man on the
shoulder and moved on. He doubted that he could find the man in black
this way. If the stalker were as skilled at moving about in the dark as
he seemed to be, he could easily evade Simon.

The Tartars seemed to have understood the peril they were in; they had
been silent now for a long time.

The thought struck him like ice between his shoulder blades: What if the
killer had already gotten to them, and they were silent because they
were dead? He wanted to call out to them, or to Friar Mathieu, to be
sure they were all right. He suppressed the urge and reached out for
another face.

This time he felt a beard. It was long and full. Friar Mathieu.

"C'est moi," Simon said again, and a hand reached up and squeezed his
reassuringly.

The next face was hard, bony. There was a mustache that his fingers
followed long below the mouth. The beard was thin, sprouting from the
chin only. One of the Tartars. Simon felt the face move under his touch.
Thank God, the man was alive.

He reached beyond the Tartar and felt a shoulder. This must be the other
Tartar. But no--the shoulder was high, as high as the Tartar's head.

Just as he was about to jump back he felt something brush over his hair.

A cord was around his neck.

It jerked tight with such force that Simon's breath was instantly cut
off. Pain circled his neck like a band of fire.

His scream forced its way through his throat as a drawn-out grunt as the
cord tightened still more. He could feel the blood in his head pressing
out against his temples and eyeballs. He felt as if nails were being
driven into his head.

He had his scimitar. He raised it and drove it back over his right
shoulder. It went through empty air. The killer had felt it coming and
ducked out of the way. But for a moment the cord cutting into Simon's
throat let up just a bit.

He heard voices all around him. The others knew what was happening. They
stumbled about, but they could not see to reach him. He felt himself
being dragged backward, pulled away from his comrades. The cord was
digging into his windpipe harder and harder. In a moment his mind would
go black. He would not even know when he died. He fought his terror,
knowing that if he yielded to it, he would surely die.

He _would_ live. He _would_ see Sophia again.

He tried to lean forward, to bend his knees, to find some purchase on
the stone for his iron-shod feet. Still, the attacker pulled him. Simon
felt he had only a child's strength compared to the man in black.

Dizzily Simon remembered tug-of-war games when he had been a page at the
royal palace.

_When one side lets go, everyone on the other side falls down._

With his last bit of consciousness, Simon squeezed his whole body into a
crouch, then sprang up and backward, like a bow released.

His mail-clad weight and the attacker's momentum threw them both
backward. They crashed together against shelving, and Simon heard
porcelain shatter. Clouds of ground spices enveloped them, and they fell
sideways to the floor, Simon on top of his attacker.

He heard a gasp as the man's breath was knocked out of him. And now _he_
could breathe. He choked on air saturated with cinnamon and curry, but
the cord was loose.

The fall had knocked his scimitar out of his hand. Anguished, he felt
for it, but it was as if it had fallen into a well.

"Simon! Where are you?" Friar Mathieu shouted.

"Ah! Ah!" Simon let his breath out and sucked it in, gasping. He wanted
to cry for help, but he could not use his voice. His body shook with
terror.

And he felt the body under him moving with swift and terrible power. The
cord snapped tight again.

But not before Simon got his right hand under it. The killer gave a
vicious jerk on the thin cord, and it felt as if it might slice through
his fingers. But Simon pushed against it with all the strength in his
right arm, and loosened the cord enough to be able to pull air into his
throat. He worked his other hand under it.

His shout burst from his throat. "M'aidez! Help me! Here! Here!"

Boots pounded toward him. He felt men around him. He heard them coughing
and sneezing from the spices that filled the air. A sword poked him
through his mail.

"Under me! Stab! Stab! You cannot hurt me!"

The cord went lax. The attacker had let go of it. Simon drew air
frantically through his tortured windpipe.

Before he could get to his feet, an arm, hard as if clad in mail,
whipped around his neck, clamping him to his enemy. He felt the edge of
a dagger at his throat.

Simon could hear the devil's breathing right by his ear. Frantic, he
jerked his head forward and drove it back, ramming the back of his head
into his attacker's face, slamming the enemy's head against the stone
floor. Simon felt stunned, but the other must have been stunned, too. He
heard a whispered gasp.

_How can the devil be so silent?_

He heard men speaking above him and feet shuffling around him, but
despite his command, no swords were jabbing downward. They were afraid
of stabbing him, even though he was wearing mail.

He arched his body and brought all his mailed weight down hard. He felt
the edge of the enemy's dagger scrape across the chain around his neck.
A bolt of terror shot through him. If not for that medallion, he would
be bleeding to death right now. Simon thrust his steel-encased elbows
into his enemy's ribs. The gasp was louder this time, and with a violent
heave he freed himself.

He twisted over, arms reaching to wrap around his enemy.

_I have to pin him down. I cannot let him get loose in this room again._

But the knees below him drew up and the feet kicked against him,
throwing him back.

"Right in front of me!" Simon cried. "Get him!" And then he realized
despairingly that none of the armed men on his side could understand
him.

And no one, it seemed, had flint and steel to strike a light. He knew he
was carrying none. Such a simple thing, yet tonight its lack might be
his death.

His foot kicked something that rang against the stone floor. His sword.
He swooped down on it, seized it, and thrust blindly straight ahead. The
point struck a stone wall, and he felt the blade bend. He checked his
thrust just in time to keep the scimitar from breaking.

He heard a movement to his left and stabbed again. Again he struck blank
stone.

_The devil is somewhere in this part of the room._

"The door!" Simon shouted. "Mathieu, get the door open."

He heard the iron bolt shoved back, the creak of hinges, the scrape of a
body being pushed aside.

But the blackness remained absolute.

_He must have put out the candle in the cellar before he broke in here._

Simon heard running footsteps outside the spice pantry. Sandals slapping
up wooden stairs. The creaking of the trapdoor at the top of the cellar
steps. And then there was light. Gray, faint, but after what seemed like
hours spent in utter darkness, it was as if the sun had suddenly risen.

_God bless you, Mathieu._

Scimitar at the ready, Simon swept the room with his gaze.

A shadowy figure stood halfway along one of the side walls, holding
something out before him in both hands. A miniature crossbow, a
vicious-looking thing. Simon turned to see where it was pointed.

He saw John Chagan on the other side of the pantry facing the killer.

He heard a snap.

But Grigor, the Armenian who had been hurt outside the spice pantry, had
stepped between John and the crossbow, and he took the bolt in his
leather cuirass. Simon felt his mind moving much more slowly than things
were happening, trying to grasp it all.

Grigor's eyes opened wide. Perhaps, Simon thought, he had expected that
a bolt from such a little bow would merely bounce off his hardened
leather armor. Or perhaps he knew that it would kill him.

In the semidarkness Simon could not see the hole in the cuirass, but
Grigor's hand went to his chest, and then he toppled over.

The Tartar Philip had picked up a bow from the floor, and so had the
other Armenian. Both raised their weapons toward the man in black.

_Now we have him cornered and in a moment I will rip off his mask and
know who he is._

The stalker's black-gloved hand flashed upward and he threw a tiny,
round object into the pile of broken wooden shelves on the floor. A roar
deafened Simon, and a blaze of white flame blinded him. The wooden
shelves were afire, the flames feeding on the powdered spices that
floated in the air. Heat seared Simon's face.

_Death of God! He truly is a devil!_

By the time Simon and the others had recovered from the burst of fire,
the enemy was out the door and running for the cellar stairs. Simon
cried out wordlessly in frustrated rage. He must not get away, not after
all he had done to them.

As the man in black reached the foot of the stairs, Philip stepped into
the doorway, drew his bow as calmly and carefully as if he were hunting,
and loosed an arrow. The man in black jerked to a stop. Simon could see
the shaft of the arrow protruding from his right thigh.

The man reached down and with a sudden movement snapped away the arrow
shaft. He drew a dagger with a strange blade that did not gleam; it was
dead black. He raced on up the stairs, limping, but with inhuman
strength and speed. Two more arrows flew at him, but missed, clattering
against the cellar walls.

Friar Mathieu stood at the top of the stairs. He held his arms out, a
lit white candle in one hand, blocking the stalker's path. The man came
at him with the dagger.

"No!" Simon screamed.

With a sweep of his arm the man in black threw Friar Mathieu down from
the banisterless stairs. The old priest fell six feet to the cellar
floor, struck with a loud, sickening thump, and lay there, still.

And the enemy was gone.

By the time Simon and the others had climbed up to the kitchen, the man
in black had vanished into the maze of dark rooms on the first floor of
the palace.

Simon, wild with rage and grief, forced himself to think. He was alive,
God be thanked, and he had saved the Tartars, but just for this moment.
The man in black, seemingly routed, might renew his attack at any time.

_And Friar Mathieu. Dear God, don't let him be dead!_

What was the creature Simon had fought in the darkness? Christian?
Saracen? Or, as his most frightening imaginings hinted, a being from
hell itself?

Clearly it was not some Filippeschi bravo who had somehow broken through
the palace's defenses. Simon's inspiration on the battlements had been
right; the Filippeschi attack had been only a diversion.

If a demon of this sort opposed the alliance, Simon felt more than ever
determined that the alliance must succeed. This was the hidden enemy
whose presence he had sensed since coming to Orvieto. The force
determined to prevent the alliance of Christians and Tartars. The one
who had incited Orvieto's people against the Tartars when they first
came. Who had set that poor devil of a heretic to draw his dagger
against them in the cathedral. Alain's murderer. Stalker. Enemy. Killer.
Devil.

Hatred blazed up within Simon.

If only he could have killed the man in black or caught him before he
escaped. Now he must guard against an enemy as evil as Satan. An enemy
powerful enough to throw an army against a fortified palace, subtle
enough to reach into an impregnable chamber and strike at his intended
victims. A being whose strength and skills made him seem more than
human. Cruel and pitiless, ready to murder anyone who stood in his way.

It was as certain as the judgment of God that they would fight again.
This was war to the death.


   To be concluded in
      THE HOLY WAR
 Book Two of THE SARACEN




ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Robert Shea has given his full time to writing novels since 1977. He is
the co-author of the science-fiction novel ILLUMINATUS!, which won the
Hall of Fame Award of the Libertarian Futurist Society and was produced
as a play in the United States and in Europe. His historical novels are
SHIKE, set in medieval Japan, and ALL THINGS ARE LIGHTS, which, like THE
SARACEN, takes place in the era of the Crusades. He was a magazine
editor for twenty years and is also a prolific magazine writer. He lives
with his wife and son near Chicago.




                IN THE SWEEPING FIRES OF THE
                         THIRTEENTH CENTURY,
                            A BOLD NEW WORLD
                               IS FORGED....

   Into the furious whirlwind of war set off
       by the bloody Crusades, one man dares
          to step. His legacy belongs to the
      Mamelukes, legendary warrior-slaves of
 Egypt. His arsenal consists of no more than
 a sword and a bag of jewels. His mission is
  to enter Europe's powerful and treacherous
        realms of king and pope, conspirator
       and courtesan--and to single-handedly
             turn the tide of battle between
                    continent and continent.

      The man is the one they call the White
    Emir, the blond assassin and spy skilled
            in combat and sorcery, who moves
     adeptly and lethally through the worlds
          of both East and West. Against him
          stands Simon de Gobignon, a proud,
   young nobleman from one of the great--and
            accursed--houses of France. Each
    fights gallantly and desperately for the
 civilization he serves--and for the love of
        the ravishing Sophia, whose powerful
     erotic allure no other mortal woman can
       surpass, and no man alive can resist.





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