The Saracen: The Holy War Read online

  XLVIII

  Just as Sophia and Riccardo arrived at the Porta Maggiore in the citywall of Orvieto, the air around them seemed to glow and crackle. A coldwind blew across the road leading up to the gate. Sophia spurred herbay, but the horse hardly needed encouragement to gallop the last fewpaces to the shelter of the gatehouse. A shaft of lightning dazzledSophia, and a mighty thunderclap, loud enough to shake the rock on whichOrvieto stood, deafened her. She and Riccardo were in the shelter of thegatehouse before the first fat drops began to fall, making craters inthe dust of the road.

  They identified themselves to the guards without dismounting. Clerkswere no longer posted at the gates to interrogate and record the name ofevery person entering and leaving Orvieto. Evidently the podesta hadgiven up on that.

  Sophia, Daoud, and Ugolini had, even so, been chilled by a polite letterfrom d'Ucello to Ugolini requesting that "His Eminence's distinguishedguest from Trebizond" not leave Orvieto without the podesta'spermission. Sophia, on the other hand, seemed free to come and go as shepleased.

  The thought crossed Sophia's mind that she would be soaked as she rodefrom the gate to Ugolini's mansion. But the meeting with Simon had lefther in misery, and the storm suited her mood. David knew that she wasmeeting Simon outside the town. Now what would she tell David aboutwhere Simon was going?

  She was about to ride on into the city streets when a man stepped out ofthe crowd that had gathered for shelter under the gateway arch. Heraised a hand.

  "Madonna!" It was Sordello. "A private word, I beg of you."

  She saw fear in his face, but in his bloodshot eyes burned anotherfeeling she could not identify. She disliked the man and did not want totalk to him, especially not now, carrying secrets as she was. But heserved David, and his disturbed look suggested that what he had to saymight be important. Sighing, she dismounted, gave the reins of herhorse to Riccardo, and walked beside Sordello to an unoccupied corner ofthe gatehouse.

  "You know that Messer David has set me to find the informer among us,and he says he will kill me if I fail." He had backed her into thecorner and pressed uncomfortably close to her. His breath smelled ofonions, and he was altogether repellent.

  "What do you want of me?"

  "The one person who might give me a clue is the Count de Gobignon, andhe has disappeared. No one at the Monaldeschi palace will tell meanything about why he left."

  _Does he know that I just met with Simon?_

  "Why ask me?"

  "I know that it is Messer David's wish that you allow de Gobignon tocourt you. If he has left Orvieto, perhaps you have heard where he isgoing." He smiled, showing a gap in his upper front teeth. And now sherealized what the hidden feeling was. It was lust. She was disgusted,and pushed past him to give herself room.

  He said, "I saw you ride out earlier today, and I waited here at thegatehouse for you to come back. You must have met with the count.Madonna, I do not know what to do. And Messer David will kill me if I donot tell him something."

  She desperately wanted to get away. "I am going to Messer David myselfto tell him that Count Simon has left for Perugia. Where the pope isgoing. He is recruiting more guards and preparing a refuge for theTartar ambassadors. You'll gain nothing with Messer David by telling himthe same thing."

  Sordello frowned thoughtfully. "No, but I might try to catch Count Simonon the road and talk to him."

  Sophia's heart leapt with alarm and seemed to lodge in her throat. Whatif Sordello followed Simon and discovered he was on his way to Franceand came back and reported _that_ to Daoud?

  "You needn't go to all that trouble," she said, keeping a grip on hervoice. "We will all be going to Perugia shortly, and you can questionCount Simon there."

  He nodded, as if satisfied with that, and she felt a little better.

  He bowed again and again. "Thank you, Madonna, thank you."

  In a moment she was on her horse again and riding into the rain. Shewanted nothing more to do with Sordello.

  But the encounter had helped her in one way, and now she felt moreconfident about talking to David about Simon. Rehearsing the lie withSordello had helped.

  * * * * *

  "He is leaving the Tartars behind? After I came so close to killingthem?"

  "They will be closely guarded. I do not think you will be able to get atthem again."

  There was a bitterness in the small smile that quirked David's thinlips. "I do not intend to try until the Sienese arrive here. When I seektheir lives again, a whole army of guards will not be enough to stopme."

  What would David do, Sophia wondered, if he learned that the alliance hehad fought so hard to prevent would soon be sealed in France by Simon deGobignon?

  She looked at David's eyes, the color of the thunderclouds outside. Herhatred for herself struck her heart with hammer blows.

  He stood by the window of his room, straight and broad-shouldered,wearing a belted gown of black silk with a broad red stripe at thebottom. His wound no longer required a poultice, and it was almosthealed. The strange Saracen treatment he had prescribed for himself hadworked.

  She saw pain in his eyes, a pain of the heart. "No doubt you will missthe count," he said in a low voice. He turned to look out the window.

  He had pulled the leaded pane of glass slightly inward on its hinge,letting into the room the cold breeze stirred up by the storm. Locks ofhis blond hair fluttered around his forehead. She studied his profile,the nose long and straight, the chin sharp, the brows seeming to frowneven when relaxed.

  "You wanted me to make love to him," she said softly.

  He kept his face turned. "Yes."

  "You did not want me to make love to him."

  "Yes."

  She stood in the center of the room, about ten paces from him, her handsclasped before her. Her shawl and her gown were cold and wet. A net ofsmall pearls held her hair in place, but her hair, too, was sodden withrain. She felt on the verge of shivering, but she held herself verystill.

  White light filled the room. David's body jerked, and his lipstightened. A long, rolling peal of thunder followed the lightning,ending in a crash so loud it hurt her head.

  He was afraid of thunderstorms. She had noticed that before. There waslittle rain in the part of the world where he had grown up. He wasafraid of nothing else, as far as she could see. There was nothing hewould not do, nothing he _could_ not do. If only he were Greek, what afighter for the Polis he would be.

  But when he winced away from the lightning, she wanted to cradle hisblond head against her breasts.

  The rain beat down on the walls and roof of Ugolini's mansion withredoubled intensity. She saw a small pool of water on the wood floor,rain blown in through the open window.

  "I never did make love to him," she said, raising her voice to be heardover the wind and rain.

  "I know that." He took a step toward her.

  _I am doing worse than that now_, she thought with a stab of guilt. _Iam keeping from David something he would badly want to know._

  "He put his arms around me and kissed me many times," she said.

  David turned fully to look at her, saying nothing.

  "Whenever he took me in his arms, I thought of you."

  He closed his eyes.

  When she was with David she never grieved over the turns her life hadtaken. She never felt sorry for herself, as she did with Simon, becauseshe had not married and could not marry. Simon had actually said hewanted to marry her, and in the end she had believed him. That seemedlike a dream now. A pleasant dream, but an impossible one.

  For an instant she tried to picture herself, a woman of Constantinoplewed to a Frankish lord and living in a castle in the north of France. Ifsuch a preposterous thing should come about, she would be enormouslywealthy and powerful--though she had not really thought about that whenshe was with Simon. She was not herself when she was with Simon. Andnow, when she _was_ herself and able to see things clearly, the wealthand power still did not matter, because they w
ould give her no pleasureif she had to live among barbarians.

  When she was with David she never worried or even thought about herfuture, what life would be like for her when she was older. With Davidshe thought only of now.

  He had opened his eyes and was staring at her. She looked at him,standing tall and fair.

  _I love you, David. I want you so._

  Why had it not happened? Soon it would be a year since they had met atLucera, and she had long known that she wanted him, and believed that hewanted her as well. But something had always held him back.

  Her body grew warm inside her cold garments.

  _It is not because of me that we have waited this long._

  There was a question in his eyes, and she felt something inside herpulling her toward him. She took a faltering step across the tile floor.Then another, surer one.

  He held out his arms, his harsh mouth softening as his lips partedslightly.

  "Come to me," he said.

  * * * * *

  He watched her walking toward him one step at a time, and he thought shelooked like a woman in a trance. Her head was lifted to receive hiskiss.

  "How like rose petals your lips are," he said in Greek. He had neverspoken Greek to her before. She stopped her slow march toward him andgave a long, shuddering sigh.

  Then she ran the last few steps and threw herself into his arms. Joyflooded his chest as he pulled her against him.

  _At last, at last, at last!_

  He had wanted to hold her like this for so long, and much of the timehad not even been aware that he wanted it.

  He had not wanted to be aware of it, he thought, knowing that he mustuse her against his enemy. And how he had hated Simon de Gobignon simplybecause Simon was to have Sophia.

  _I should have known then that my hatred for de Gobignon was a measureof my love for her._

  But he had not wanted to know that either, because Blossoming Reed, thedaughter of the sultan, awaited him in El Kahira, and he had sworn to befaithful to her all his life.

  _Take as many women as you like. But love always and only me._

  He felt a chill, and realized that he was feeling cold not merelybecause of the memory of Blossoming Reed's warning, but because Sophiawas rain-wet against him. She had ridden through the storm stillthundering away outside, and he felt a cold dampness soaking through hisgown.

  "Your clothes are wet," he said, continuing to speak Greek.

  She rubbed herself against him. "I am wet to the skin. I need to takethese clothes off."

  "Yes. Why not do that?"

  Without hesitation she stepped out of the circle of his arms and undidthe brooch that held her printed shawl around her shoulders. She wouldnot be shy, he realized. There had not been time, in the life she hadled, for hesitation with men. Only, he hoped that she would not, likesome of the experienced women he had known, show little feeling herselfwhile she let him use her in any way that pleased him.

  _She is not that sort. I know it._

  Foolish of him to even think it. But some part of him needed to doubt.This moment was too good to be true.

  And too frightening. Because what they were about to do was not justsatisfy their bodies' hungers; it would seal the bond of love betweenthem. And then he would not be able to send Sophia like a falcon tostrike at his enemies. He would not be the same man when he went back toBlossoming Reed. What they were about to do would change both theirlives.

  Standing in the crumpled heap of orange and green silk that was hershawl, she turned her back to him.

  "Help me with the laces," she said. He saw that her gown laced down theback.

  "One small moment," he said, running his hand caressingly over her back.He walked to the door. There was still pain in his right thigh when hemoved quickly, but now it was overwhelmed by his body's yearning to havethis woman. He felt the swelling and pressure of arousal in his loins.

  He opened the door of his room partway and looked up and down theshadowy corridor. There was no one in sight. He closed the door firmlyand slid home the heavy iron bolt that would guarantee their privacy.

  She was standing where he had left her, watching him, her amber eyeswarm. He went quickly to her and untied the knot in the laces at herback, marveling at the slenderness of her neck. She could have unlacedthe dress herself, he saw, but she wanted him to.

  She wore no belt, and the dress fell away. Under it was a white silkchemise without sleeves. Still standing behind her, he dropped his handsgently on her small, square shoulders and slid the chemise down. Hiseyes followed its fall, savoring her delicate shoulder blades, theshadowed hollow of her back. All that remained now were light green hoseattached to a wisp of silk that girdled her hips.

  Sophia shivered, and he knew it was not the cold, though the storm wasblowing a strong, moist breeze through the partly opened window.

  He put his hands on her shoulders, firmly now, and turned her around.She threw back her head and laughed as he stared at her breasts and bithis lower lip.

  What Daoud carried under his black gown felt as big and heavy as a mace.

  He dropped to one knee before her. He reached around to her buttocks,his palms tingling at their cool firmness, and he slid down the last ofher garments. She stood, all exposed, before him.

  "Will I not see you naked?" she said with a throaty chuckle. "Is thatthe Turkish way, for the man to remain clothed?"

  "You will soon learn what the Turkish way is, my lady." He leanedforward, still genuflecting, and dropped a dozen light kisses on herbelly and thighs, and then buried his face in the rich triangle of hairbetween her legs and kissed her deeply.

  She cried out in surprise and pleasure.

  Suddenly he stood up and swung her up in his arms like a Bedouinchieftain carrying his bride to his tent. She laughed delightedly. Shefelt as light as a child. He strode across the room to the bed and laidher down.

  He wrestled his black silk gown over his head and threw it off. Quicklyhe pulled off the locket Blossoming Reed had given him and dropped it onthe gown. He stood over her, looking down at her, and letting her lookher fill at him.

  "The blond Turk," she said in Greek with a small smile, and moved herhips from side to side.

  Slowly she reached up to her head and pulled free the net of pearlswoven into her hair. Long locks, black as raven's wings, spread outaround her head on the pillow.

  "I must look like Medusa," she said.

  "Who?"

  "A woman with snakes for hair. Men who saw her were turned to stone."

  He remembered now: In a bazaar at El Kahira he had listened to the storyof the she-monster.

  "The sight of you would bring a stone to life," he said.

  "Ah, but part of you is already hard as stone. How long are you going tostand there? I want you." The yearning in her voice made somethingvibrate inside him, as if she had plucked a taut string in his verysoul. He was seized by a violent urge to throw himself upon her and takeher at once. And she would welcome it, too, he knew.

  But this moment was too precious to be allowed to pass so quickly.

  He sank to his knees and reached out to pull her hips to the edge of thebed. She squirmed across the bed to help him.

  * * * * *

  Just after he grew out of boyhood, when he was very wild and afraid ofnothing, Ayesha, the youngest wife of Emir Faruk abu Husain, discoveredthat he existed, and showed him a way to come to her in abu Husain'sharem. He knew he would die writhing on a spike if the emir's slavescaught him, but he was also quite certain that such a thing could neverreally happen to him.

  With a boy's eagerness and excitability, he had spent himself an instantafter he joined Ayesha in the darkness on her couch.

  "The emir is very old and has many wives," she purred. "Rarely can weslip a beautiful young man like you past the harem guards. So we mustlearn how to pleasure each other. There are many things that willdelight a woman's body besides a man's rumh. Shall I show you?" />
  He was curious, and at his whispered agreement she pushed his head downbetween her legs and told him what to do.

  "And put your fingers _here_ at the same time. Ah, that feels verygood."

  * * * * *

  He looked at Sophia lying open before him and said again, "How like aflower." He saw dew on this flower, and he bent to taste.

  He did to her the things he had learned from Ayesha and later on fromother harem women.

  As he worked upon Sophia the magic of the harem, he listened to herbreathing as it grew faster and faster. He watched her breasts rise andfall, her chestnut-color nipples standing up.

  She groaned and tossed her head from side to side, the groans turning toscreams as she reached a pinnacle. He brought her to another, andanother.

  Panting, almost crying, she put her hand on his head. "No more. This wayof the Turks is wonderful, but I want you inside me now."

  He stretched himself full length beside her, put his face, wet with herown sweet liquor, against hers and kissed her with lips and tongue. Sheseized his shoulders, her nails digging into his muscles, and pulled himover on top of her.

  The way was so well prepared that he was within her in an instant. Heknew that he could not hold himself back very long, and he gave himselfup to the floodtide of pleasure. He raised his head a little so that hecould look down into her wide amber eyes, and so that she could see intohis soul at the moment when he gave all his force to her.

  Almost at the same moment the muscles in her face tensed and her neckcorded. Through clenched teeth she cried out again and again and again.

  Their bodies relaxed together. Daoud felt that now, in the aftermath offrenzy, their flesh was melting and flowing together and becoming one.

  They lay in silence, and a distant growl of thunder told him that thestorm outside had passed. He had not noticed its dying away. He felt acool breeze blowing through the windows.

  It seemed as if hours passed while they lay there in silence, armsaround each other, legs entwined, and he listened to her breathingslowly grow calmer.

  She stroked his cheek and played with the blond hairs on his chest. "Isanything changed now?"

  "For us, I think, much is changed."

  She kissed him lightly on the cheek. "I love you. Does love meananything to you Muslims?"

  He laughed softly. "Of course it does. _In this world, women and perfumeare dearest to me._ So spoke our Prophet, may God commend and salutehim."

  She shook her head and ran her finger down his forehead and nose. "I amglad I am as dear to you as perfume. You say 'our Prophet,' lying therelooking more French than Simon de Gobignon. Of course, that is why yoursultan sent you here. If I, who know what you are, still find it hard toaccept you as a Saracen, those who do not know would never suspect."

  As she spoke the name de Gobignon, he felt a twinge of anger. Just hisname, mentioned in their bed, was an intrusion. Her eyes flickeredmomentarily away from his, as if she, too, realized it was an error.Best, he thought, to say nothing about it.

  "Yes, I am truly a Muslim, and Muslims know more of love, I believe,than most Christians." But now he thought of Blossoming Reed.

  _Why must these ghosts hover over us?_

  She reached out to touch the little leather capsule tied by a thongaround his neck, the only thing he was wearing at the moment. "What isthat?"

  "It is called a tawidh. Inside are numbers written on a scroll. Itprotects me from death by wounding and causes any wounds I do receive toheal quickly."

  "Tawidh?" She mimicked exactly the Arabic pronunciation. "How cannumbers on a scroll protect from wounds?"

  He did not fully understand himself the Sufi belief that all things arenumbers, and that numbers written by a holy man could control objectsand events.

  "One must be of my faith to understand it," he said briefly.

  She looked at him earnestly. "It is so hard to think of you as aMohammedan, David."

  "Not Mohammedan--Muslim. And David is not my name. My true name isArabic. Shall I tell it to you?"

  "Oh, yes, please. I will use it with you when we are alone together."

  "I am called Daoud ibn Abdallah. Daoud is Arabic for David."

  "Then your name _is_ David."

  "No, it is Daoud," he said. "The sound matters a great deal. It is thesound that God hears."

  "You believe that God speaks Arabic?"

  "It is the language most pleasing to Him. Did He not give His message tothe Prophet--may God praise and salute him--in Arabic?"

  She pulled herself closer to him. "Ah, David--Daoud--do not talk to meof religion now. Here and now, let us think not of religions and empiresand wars, but only of you and me." She paused and looked at him a littleanxiously. "Do you think the servants or anyone else heard mescreaming?"

  "I saw no one outside. Most of them probably suspect that we have beenlovers for a long time. But suspicion is one thing. To confirm it by ouroutward behavior could be dangerous. We must continue to act as if thisnever happened."

  "We will do this again, will we not?"

  He touched her dark red lips with his fingertips and said:

  After suffering the joy of love I have no abiding place. I live only to be With the one I love.

  "Yes, we will do it again. Very soon now. I feel my strength returning."He curved his hand around the softness of her breast.

  "Ah, good! I did not want it to be over yet--Daoud."

  * * * * *

  In the first days of the Christian month of July the sun grew verystrong, and above the narrow streets and tiny gardens, dust rose. Daoudfound the climate more to his liking. Although he believed he wouldnever have a true home or enjoy peace in this life, he felt a happinesssuch as he had never known before. And this was strange, because HulaguKhan's emissaries to the Christians still lived, and al-Islam was stillthreatened with destruction, and while he turned many plans over in hismind, he was not sure what to do next.

  But when he and Sophia were together he was able almost entirely toforget those threats. And when he was not with her, he carried her imagein his heart, and his heart was the lighter for it.

  His leg had healed, and it was safe for him to walk the streets now. Heknew the podesta's men must be watching him, but he feared them lessnow, because they would not see him limp. They might wonder when he hadreturned to Orvieto from Perugia, but they would have to suppose it wasafter the podesta took the clerks away from the gates. Each day hewandered through the town, forming plans, observing.

  He sensed a tension in the air, growing a little stronger each day, likethe summer's heat. Around the palace of the Filippeschi on the southside of the town, in its windows and on its battlements, men stoodwatchful, holding crossbows, hands on their sword hilts. They were notas strong as they had been last April. The bravos Lorenzo had gatheredand Daoud had lent to their cause had quietly left Orvieto. TheFilippeschi had lost many men and were thrown back on their ownresources now. Their grim apprehension was obvious.

  Daoud did not speak directly to the Filippeschi. Aside from his onemeeting with their leader, Marco, he had avoided any contact with themthat might compromise him. He wondered whether Marco had given anythought to a suggestion Lorenzo had made to him: that aid might beforthcoming if the Filippeschi switched their allegiance to theGhibellino cause. Apparently Filippeschi loyalty to the pope went backcenturies, and was not easily changed. That was something to bediscussed when Lorenzo returned.

  At the Palazzo Monaldeschi Daoud saw an air of preparation, of forcesgathering, of confidence. One afternoon Vittorio de Monaldeschi, agedeleven, in full mail--a child's mail shirt and hose must cost as much asa man's, and be usable for only a short time--wearing an orange andgreen surcoat, rode slowly along the length of the Corso with a dozenhorsemen, orange and green pennons on their lances. A show to intimidatehis enemies.

  Both sides seemed to be awaiting something, and the air of the city feltto Daoud as it did
when a thunderstorm was approaching.

  The petty street wars of Orvieto would mean nothing to him soon, Daoudthought. Lorenzo had managed to send two messages by way of Ghibellinomerchants passing through Orvieto. He had made his way safely to Siena,was negotiating with Rinaldo di Stefano, Duke of Siena, and wasrecruiting bravos by the hundred. But all was not going quickly enoughfor Daoud. With the pope on the verge of leaving Orvieto, it appearedthe Sienese would not come quickly enough. Unless Lorenzo and theSienese arrived in time to trap the pope and the Tartars here, he wouldhave to follow them to Perugia.

  Or he could go to Manfred and urge him to make immediate war on thepope. Every rumormonger in Orvieto claimed that Manfred was on the brinkof marching out of southern Italy to make the whole peninsula his. ButDaoud doubted it. It would probably be difficult to persuade Manfred totake any action against the pope, unless the French actually invadedItaly.

  Every day he and Sophia spent hours together, sometimes in his chamber,sometimes in hers. They chose different times of the day, hoping to maketheir meetings less obvious.

  The best times were the afternoons. Most Orvietans slept an hour or twoafter their noon meal, just as most Egyptians did. Sophia and Daoudwould draw the curtains to hold out the heat and dust. They would makelove, their bodies slippery with sweat. Then they would lie side by sideand let themselves cool, talking of what they felt about each other, ofthe world, of the mission they had come to Orvieto to accomplish.

  They never spent an entire night together. This would cause too muchgossip among Ugolini's servants. For the benefit of the podesta andwhoever else might be watching them, Daoud wanted to maintain thefiction that he was a trader from Trebizond, far to the east, and Sophiaa Sicilian girl from Siracusa, and they had very little to do with eachother. Alone in his bed at night, Daoud sometimes lay awake thinkingabout what Sophia had come to mean to him. He had fallen in love withher, he realized now, long before he first possessed her body.

  If it was their fate to die here in Italy, at least they would haveknown this happiness first. But if he succeeded in his mission, and ifhe and Sophia were still alive after that, what then? Return to hisemir's palace in El Kahira, to Blossoming Reed, bringing Sophia withhim? A Greek Christian woman entering a Mameluke's harem? And even ifSophia were willing, Blossoming Reed would try to kill her. But Sophiawould make a formidable enemy for Blossoming Reed.

  No, he could not subject either of them to that. Or himself.

  But for him what else was there? El Kahira was the only home he knew. Hehad left it only to protect it. He must return.

  All this thinking, he decided, was foolishness. What would happen waswritten in the book of God, and one could be sure only that it would bevery different from what he expected. Let him concentrate on followingthe path as far ahead as he could see clearly, and the next stage wouldbe revealed when God turned the page.

  * * * * *

  An orange radiance suffused Cardinal Ugolini's dining hall, gilding dustmotes that hung in the air. A stout maidservant cleared away thetrenchers, the round slices of bread on which Ugolini had served springlamb to Daoud and Sophia. She bundled up the knives and forks in herapron. Daoud's fork was clean. He preferred, among friends, not to usethe strange implement, which seemed to him a bida, an undesirableinnovation. He ate with the fingers of his right hand.

  "His Holiness takes the road for Perugia a week from tomorrow," saidUgolini. "You have not told me what you intend to do, David."

  "We must await Lorenzo's coming. He and the Sienese may be here beforethe pope leaves."

  "I assure you that if that were possible, the pope would be gallopingout of town right now," said Ugolini. "His information is better thanours."

  Sophia daintily wiped her hands and lips with the linen cloth thatcovered the table. "Your Eminence, Messer David, I want to use theselong July hours of daylight for painting. I beg to be excused."

  She refused more wine and genially overrode Ugolini's protests.Carefully keeping his face blank, Daoud watched her walk out of theroom, tall and straight in a cherry-red gown. He found himself picturingthe things they had done not long ago, while Orvieto rested at midday.He turned back to Ugolini to see the little cardinal was also, with alubricious smile, watching Sophia.

  Ugolini's long nose twitched with amusement as he turned to Daoud."There have been times when I thought there was a chamber of torment onthe top floor of my mansion. The groans, the screams--"

  "I have heard nothing, Your Eminence," said Daoud, keeping his faceexpressionless.

  "I should have been concerned for the lovely lady, except that she isobviously so healthy and serene. Much more serene, I believe, than whenshe first came here. What do you suppose accounts for that?"

  Daoud shrugged. "In silence is security from error."

  "Is that a saying of one of your Muslim philosophers?"

  "Yes," said Daoud, allowing himself the faintest of smiles. "ThePrincess Sheherazade."

  * * * * *

  The sun had set by the time Daoud left Cardinal Ugolini, and thethird-floor corridor was nearly dark. Servants had placed small candleson tables at each end of the corridor. Daoud had allowed himself a cupof wine with the cardinal because there was nothing else to drink, andnow his face felt slightly numb.

  A large figure walked slowly toward him from the opposite end of thecorridor as he approached his room. With the candlelight behind him, theman's face was in darkness, and Daoud tensed himself.

  "Messer David, it is Riccardo."

  Now they stood face-to-face, Daoud having to look up a little.

  "I searched everywhere. Questioned everyone I know. I would stake mylife that Sordello is not in Orvieto. He went out the Perugia gate aftertalking to Madonna Sophia. I do not think he ever came back."

  Dismissing Riccardo, Daoud went into his room to think and to pray. Hefelt baffled. He would have staked _his_ life that no man bound by thepowers of the Hashishiyya would ever turn against the one who showed himthe delights of paradise.

  _But I did threaten him with death, and he saw that I wanted to killhim. That might have been enough to break the bond._

  _And I did wonder, even when I initiated him, whether there might not besome part of him that remained free._

  Daoud bolted the door of his room. He needed to be alone, to think andto refresh his mind.

  He faced the charcoal-marked spot on his wall that marked the directionof Mecca and, with care and thought, went through the sequence of thesalat, standing, bowing, kneeling, striking his head on the floor againand again until he was done. He asked God, as he did every night, tofavor his efforts here in Italy with success, out of His love for thepeople of Islam.

  _I place all in Your hands._

  After he was finished praying, he unlocked his traveling chest and beganto take things from it. First came a small grinder box he had boughtfrom an Orvieto ironsmith, a grinder such as women used to make smallamounts of flour. Next, from a cotton bag he took two handfuls ofroasted kaviyeh beans given him by Ugolini and put them in the top ofthe grinder box. He ran the beans through the grinder, rapidly turningthe crank on the box until they were a coarse powder.

  He took his old pack out of the chest and found in it the brick ofhashish wrapped in oiled parchment. It nestled in the palm of his hand,and he weighed it, wondering whether he deserved this pleasure. For thatmatter, did he deserve Sophia? His attempt to kill the Tartars hadfailed, and now they might be slipping out of his grasp.

  With money and the threat of a French invasion, Lorenzo should be ableto persuade the Ghibellino leaders of Siena to follow their naturalinclination and send an army against Orvieto. But that army would not beenough to counter the forces the pope could gather around himself atPerugia.

  _I must get Manfred to march._

  With Manfred's help he could capture the pope and kill the Tartars. Andhe saw an even larger vision. Under Manfred, Italy could become abulwark against the crusaders f
rom northern Europe. Manfred was not justfriendly to Egypt. He had Muslim officials and soldiers and was not farfrom being a Muslim himself.

  There was so much to be done. Daoud wanted to go to Siena to hasten theGhibellino attack on Orvieto. He wanted to ride to Manfred and urge himto invade the Papal States. But he had to remain here as long as theTartars were here. Were it not for Sophia, these months of inactivitysince that night at the Monaldeschi palace would be driving him mad.

  He held the black hashish cake over the grinder, using his dagger toshave small, coiling peels into the ground kaviyeh beans. Then he filleda small iron pot from his water jar. He poured the mixture of water,kaviyeh, and hashish into the pot and set it to boil on a rack over theflame of short, fat candle.

  He smiled and inhaled deeply as the rich, burnt smell filled the room.Just the smell of kaviyeh could give him visions, making him think ofthe gaily lighted streets of El Kahira, of the dome of the Gray Mosque,of the white arms of Blossoming Reed.

  When his brew was ready he poured it into an Orvieto porcelain cuppainted with bright flowers. He carried the cup to his window and pulledthe window open. Even though Orvieto was atop a great rock, the starrysky seemed much farther away here than when he lay on his back andlooked up at the stars in the desert. He wondered how far it was to thecrystalline sphere in which the stars were set, like jewels. Was itfarther than the distance between Orvieto and El Kahira?

  He recited to himself the invocation, _In the name of the Voice comesthe Light_.

  Standing at the window, he drank his hashish-laced kaviyeh in slow sips.When he knew, by a peculiar intensity in the starlight, that the magichorse had begun its flight to paradise, he started to walk to his bed. Asudden impulse took him, and he went to his pack again.

  Folded inside a square of blue silk he found the silver locketBlossoming Reed had given him. Since he had started lying with Sophia hehad stopped wearing it. He remembered the suggestion he had planted inSordello's mind, that at the sight of the locket he would kill Simon deGobignon. With Sordello and Simon both gone, the locket was useless forthat purpose.

  As he held it in his hands, he remembered what Baibars's daughter hadsaid to him:

  _I will always know if you are well or ill, alive or dead, and how youfare and what you feel. And if you would know how it is with me, seek mein this._

  He lay in bed propped up on one elbow and turned the tiny screw thatheld the locket closed. He had meant to think about Manfred and Sophia,to try to catch some glimpse of the future. It troubled him that he hadtaken this bypath. He remembered now how troubled he had been when lasthe looked into the locket. He had not meant to use it again.

  Now, though, it was somehow too late for him to stop. He seemed to haveno will of his own. He raised the lid of the locket and looked down intoit, at the design incised on rock crystal that looked like aninterweaving of Arabic letters with circles and triangles. He waited tosee what visions the locket would give him tonight.

  _The knowledge you run from is the most precious of all._

  He gasped.

  A pool of darkness opened in the center of the design. The network ofstraight and curved lines seemed to crumble into it as the pool spread.And it began to rotate, slowly at first, then faster. He was lookinginto a whirlpool of blackness.

  It drew him in. He felt as if his eyes were spinning, then his head;then he fell into the whirlpool and it sucked him down. He could notbreathe. He was drowning in blackness.

  At the last moment, when he thought he would die, suffocated, the blackpool released him and flung him back on his bed, contemptuouslyrejecting him.

  He lay there, gasping, terrified.

  _Take as many women as you like. But love always and only me. For if youdo love another, I promise you that your love will destroy both her andyou._

  Had he truly heard the voice of Blossoming Reed, burning and cruel inhis mind, coming from as far off as the stars? The locket fell to thefloor with a crash that seemed to shake the stone building in which helay. He remained motionless, paralyzed with dread.