After suffering the joy of loveI have no abiding place.I live only to beWith 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 very strong, and above the narrow streets and tiny gardens, dust rose. Daoud found the climate more to his liking. Although he believed he would never have a true home or enjoy peace in this life, he felt a happiness such as he had never known before. And this was strange, because Hulagu Khan's emissaries to the Christians still lived, and al-Islam was still threatened with destruction, and while he turned many plans over in his mind, he was not sure what to do next.
But when he and Sophia were together he was able almost entirely to forget those threats. And when he was not with her, he carried her image in 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. He knew the podesta's men must be watching him, but he feared them less now, because they would not see him limp. They might wonder when he had returned to Orvieto from Perugia, but they would have to suppose it was after the podesta took the clerks away from the gates. Each day he wandered through the town, forming plans, observing.
He sensed a tension in the air, growing a little stronger each day, like the summer's heat. Around the palace of the Filippeschi on the south side of the town, in its windows and on its battlements, men stood watchful, holding crossbows, hands on their sword hilts. They were not as strong as they had been last April. The bravos Lorenzo had gathered and Daoud had lent to their cause had quietly left Orvieto. The Filippeschi had lost many men and were thrown back on their own resources now. Their grim apprehension was obvious.
Daoud did not speak directly to the Filippeschi. Aside from his one meeting with their leader, Marco, he had avoided any contact with them that might compromise him. He wondered whether Marco had given any thought to a suggestion Lorenzo had made to him: that aid might be forthcoming if the Filippeschi switched their allegiance to the Ghibellino cause. Apparently Filippeschi loyalty to the pope went back centuries, and was not easily changed. That was something to be discussed when Lorenzo returned.
At the Palazzo Monaldeschi Daoud saw an air of preparation, of forces gathering, of confidence. One afternoon Vittorio de Monaldeschi, aged eleven, in full mail—a child's mail shirt and hose must cost as much as a man's, and be usable for only a short time—wearing an orange and green surcoat, rode slowly along the length of the Corso with a dozen horsemen, orange and green pennons on their lances. A show to intimidate his enemies.
Both sides seemed to be awaiting something, and the air of the city felt to Daoud as it did when a thunderstorm was approaching.
The petty street wars of Orvieto would mean nothing to him soon, Daoud thought. Lorenzo had managed to send two messages by way of Ghibellino merchants passing through Orvieto. He had made his way safely to Siena, was negotiating with Rinaldo di Stefano, Duke of Siena, and was recruiting bravos by the hundred. But all was not going quickly enough for Daoud. With the pope on the verge of leaving Orvieto, it appeared the Sienese would not come quickly enough. Unless Lorenzo and the Sienese arrived in time to trap the pope and the Tartars here, he would have to follow them to Perugia.
Or he could go to Manfred and urge him to make immediate waron the pope. Every rumormonger in Orvieto claimed that Manfred was on the brink of marching out of southern Italy to make the whole peninsula his. But Daoud doubted it. It would probably be difficult to persuade Manfred to take any action against the pope, unless the French actually invaded Italy.
Every day he and Sophia spent hours together, sometimes in his chamber, sometimes in hers. They chose different times of the day, hoping to make their meetings less obvious.
The best times were the afternoons. Most Orvietans slept an hour or two after their noon meal, just as most Egyptians did. Sophia and Daoud would draw the curtains to hold out the heat and dust. They would make love, their bodies slippery with sweat. Then they would lie side by side and let themselves cool, talking of what they felt about each other, of the world, of the mission they had come to Orvieto to accomplish.
They never spent an entire night together. This would cause too much gossip among Ugolini's servants. For the benefit of the podesta and whoever else might be watching them, Daoud wanted to maintain the fiction that he was a trader from Trebizond, far to the east, and Sophia a Sicilian girl from Siracusa, and they had very little to do with each other. Alone in his bed at night, Daoud sometimes lay awake thinking about what Sophia had come to mean to him. He had fallen in love with her, he realized now, long before he first possessed her body.
If it was their fate to die here in Italy, at least they would have known this happiness first. But if he succeeded in his mission, and if he and Sophia were still alive after that, what then? Return to his emir's palace in El Kahira, to Blossoming Reed, bringing Sophia with him? A Greek Christian woman entering a Mameluke's harem? And even if Sophia were willing, Blossoming Reed would try to kill her. But Sophia would 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. He had left it only to protect it. He must return.
All this thinking, he decided, was foolishness. What would happen was written in the book of God, and one could be sure only that it would be very different from what he expected. Let him concentrate on following the path as far ahead as he could see clearly, and the next stage would be revealed when God turned the page.
An orange radiance suffused Cardinal Ugolini's dining hall, gilding dust motes that hung in the air. A stout maidservant clearedaway the trenchers, the round slices of bread on which Ugolini had served spring lamb to Daoud and Sophia. She bundled up the knives and forks in her apron. Daoud's fork was clean. He preferred, among friends, not to use the strange implement, which seemed to him a bida, an undesirable innovation. He ate with the fingers of his right hand.
"His Holiness takes the road for Perugia a week from tomorrow," said Ugolini. "You have not told me what you intend to do, David."
"We must await Lorenzo's coming. He and the Sienese may be here before the pope leaves."
"I assure you that if that were possible, the pope would be galloping out of town right now," said Ugolini. "His information is better than ours."
Sophia daintily wiped her hands and lips with the linen cloth that covered the table. "Your Eminence, Messer David, I want to use these long 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 the room, tall and straight in a cherry-red gown. He found himself picturing the 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 a lubricious 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 on the top floor of my mansion. The groans, the screams—"
"I have heard nothing, Your Eminence," said Daoud, keeping his face expressionless.
"I should have been concerned for the lovely lady, except that she is obviously so healthy and serene. Much more serene, I believe, than when she 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. "The Princess Sheherazade."
The sun had set by the time Daoud left Cardinal Ugolini, and the third-floor corridor was nearly dark. Servants had placed small candles on tables at each end of the corridor. Daoud had allowed himselfa cup of wine with the cardinal because there was nothing else to drink, and now his face felt slightly numb.
A large figure walked slowly toward him from the opposite end of the corridor as he approached his room. With the candlelight behind him, the man'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 my life that Sordello is not in Orvieto. He went out the Perugia gate after talking to Madonna Sophia. I do not think he ever came back."
Dismissing Riccardo, Daoud went into his room to think and to pray. He felt baffled. He would have stakedhislife that no man bound by the powers of the Hashishiyya would ever turn against the one who showed him the delights of paradise.
But I did threaten him with death, and he saw that I wanted to kill him. That might have been enough to break the bond.
And I did wonder, even when I initiated him, whether there might not be some part of him that remained free.
Daoud bolted the door of his room. He needed to be alone, to think and to refresh his mind.
He faced the charcoal-marked spot on his wall that marked the direction of Mecca and, with care and thought, went through the sequence of the salat, standing, bowing, kneeling, striking his head on the floor again and again until he was done. He asked God, as he did every night, to favor his efforts here in Italy with success, out of His love for the people of Islam.
I place all in Your hands.
After he was finished praying, he unlocked his traveling chest and began to take things from it. First came a small grinder box he had bought from an Orvieto ironsmith, a grinder such as women used to make small amounts of flour. Next, from a cotton bag he took two handfuls of roasted kaviyeh beans given him by Ugolini and put them in the top of the grinder box. He ran the beans through the grinder, rapidly turning the 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 of hashish wrapped in oiled parchment. It nestled in the palm of his hand, and he weighed it, wondering whether he deserved this pleasure. For that matter, did he deserve Sophia? His attempt to kill the Tartars had failed, and now they might be slipping out of his grasp.
With money and the threat of a French invasion, Lorenzo shouldbe able to persuade the Ghibellino leaders of Siena to follow their natural inclination and send an army against Orvieto. But that army would not be enough to counter the forces the pope could gather around himself at Perugia.
I must get Manfred to march.
With Manfred's help he could capture the pope and kill the Tartars. And he saw an even larger vision. Under Manfred, Italy could become a bulwark against the crusaders from northern Europe. Manfred was not just friendly to Egypt. He had Muslim officials and soldiers and was not far from being a Muslim himself.
There was so much to be done. Daoud wanted to go to Siena to hasten the Ghibellino attack on Orvieto. He wanted to ride to Manfred and urge him to invade the Papal States. But he had to remain here as long as the Tartars were here. Were it not for Sophia, these months of inactivity since that night at the Monaldeschi palace would be driving him mad.
He held the black hashish cake over the grinder, using his dagger to shave small, coiling peels into the ground kaviyeh beans. Then he filled a 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 the flame 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 of the 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 cup painted with bright flowers. He carried the cup to his window and pulled the window open. Even though Orvieto was atop a great rock, the starry sky seemed much farther away here than when he lay on his back and looked up at the stars in the desert. He wondered how far it was to the crystalline sphere in which the stars were set, like jewels. Was it farther than the distance between Orvieto and El Kahira?
He recited to himself the invocation,In the name of the Voice comes the 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 magic horse had begun its flight to paradise, he started to walk to his bed. A sudden impulse took him, and he went to his pack again.
Folded inside a square of blue silk he found the silver locket Blossoming Reed had given him. Since he had started lying with Sophia he had stopped wearing it. He remembered the suggestionhe had planted in Sordello's mind, that at the sight of the locket he would kill Simon de Gobignon. With Sordello and Simon both gone, the locket was useless for that purpose.
As he held it in his hands, he remembered what Baibars's daughter had said to him:
I will always know if you are well or ill, alive or dead, and how you fare and what you feel. And if you would know how it is with me, seek me in this.
He lay in bed propped up on one elbow and turned the tiny screw that held 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 had taken this bypath. He remembered now how troubled he had been when last he 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 have no will of his own. He raised the lid of the locket and looked down into it, at the design incised on rock crystal that looked like an interweaving of Arabic letters with circles and triangles. He waited to see 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 of straight and curved lines seemed to crumble into it as the pool spread. And it began to rotate, slowly at first, then faster. He was looking into 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 not breathe. He was drowning in blackness.
At the last moment, when he thought he would die, suffocated, the black pool released him and flung him back on his bed, contemptuously rejecting him.
He lay there, gasping, terrified.
Take 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.
Had he truly heard the voice of Blossoming Reed, burning and cruel in his mind, coming from as far off as the stars? The locket fell to the floor with a crash that seemed to shake the stone building in which he lay. He remained motionless, paralyzed with dread.
Feeling as if he would burst into flames with anger, Simon stood under a bright blue sky dappled with high white clouds on a wooden quay at Livorno, two weeks after leaving Orvieto. The masts of small boats lined the waterfront like a forest of tree trunks stripped of their leaves.
If I were traveling with a proper entourage, a few knights and a troop of archers, by God's wounds they'd carry me. These shipmasters are too damned independent.
One large ship, anchored midway between the shore and the arm of the harbor, looked to Simon like his last chance. Leaving Thierry on the quay, he dropped a silver denaro into the callused palm of a man with a dinghy and had himself rowed out to the big ship.
From what he knew of ships, this was a middle-size buss, sitting high in the water, with rounded prow and stern. The nameConstanzawas painted on the stern. Human muscle moved it; Simon counted ten oarholes on each side.
As he trod the catwalk from the prow of the ship to the stern castle where the captain stood, Simon saw no one sitting at the oars and no chains. So the ship must be rowed by its crew, free mariners. A square sail, furled at present, mounted on a single mast amidships would help the rowers when the wind was right.
The captain, whose bald scalp was brown as well-tanned leather, bowed deeply when Simon presented himself. He was half Simon's height, twice as broad, and all muscle. He smiled, showing a full set of bright white teeth when Simon explained that he needed passage to Marseilles.
"Bon seigner, you must understand that it is not a simple matter to engage a ship of this size to carry you wherever you wish to go." The language the captain spoke was neither French nor Italian. Simon recognized it at once, and he felt a little inner leap, because it was the tongue his parents spoke, the Langue d'Oc, the speech of Aquitaine, Toulouse, and Provence.
"Of course I understand that," Simon replied in the same tongue. "But if you—"
"Bon seigner," the captain interrupted, "there are no words to describe how honored I would be to carry you. And no words to describe my grief that I cannot take you." That could be taken two ways, Simon thought.
"I am prepared to pay prodigiously, Captain," said Simon with sinking heart.
If the captain noticed that Simon was speaking in his own tongue, he did not remark on it. "I do not own this ship. That is the point, you see, bon seigner. The owners have instructed me to wait here for a cargo of olive oil, which I must take to Cyprus. So I cannot leave now, and when I do leave, I must sail away from France."
The captain was respectful enough, but Simon sensed a hidden glee in his refusal.
"But you have not heard how much I will offer you," he said, desperate.
The bald man shut his eyes as if in pain. "It does not matter. Merce vos quier, forgive me, but I have a duty to those who have entrusted this ship to me. Surely there must be some other captain in this harbor who will let you make him wealthy."
"I have been to every other captain," said Simon. "All have refused me for one reason or another. Yours is the only ship left."
The captain of theConstanzaspread his hands. "Ah, well, Pisa is only a little farther north, and there are many more ships docked at its quays along the Arno. You are bound to find one that will carry you. Or, failing that, this is the best time of the year to make the journey to France overland. The roads are good."
Simon knew that Pisa had been a Ghibellino city for generations. Word of his coming might even have reached enemies in Pisa. He was sure that he and Thierry had been followed along the road they had taken up the Tyrrhenean seacoast. The Pisans would be only too glad to put an end to his mission, and quite possibly to him. And following the endlessly winding coastal road—which would require him to pass dangerously close to Pisa—it would take him a month or more to get to French territory. He decided that this captain meant him nothing but ill. He broke off abruptly and made his way back to the rowboat.
A shout of laughter came floating across the water from theConstanzaas the boatman rowed him back, putting Simon in an even fouler mood.
Looking toward shore, he saw a man in a short, dark cape standing on the dock with Thierry.
The boat tied up at a piling, and Simon gave the rower a second denaro and climbed up a short ladder to the quay. With a jolt of anger he recognized the man talking to Thierry as Sordello.
What the devil is he doing here?
Instantly Sordello was kneeling at Simon's feet, clutching at his hand and kissing it and weeping copiously.
"I followed you all the way from Orvieto, Your Signory. I did not make myself known to you before this because I feared you would send me away."
"Get up," said Simon impatiently. "We thought we were being followed by enemies. We took unnecessary precautions, thanks to you." This utterly unwelcome encounter with Sordello, added to the impossibility of finding a ship, filled him with an almost uncontrollable rage.
"Your Signory, on the roads of Italy there are no unnecessary precautions." The man's expression shifted in the blink of an eye from fawning tears to a cocksure grin showing his missing teeth.
"What are you doing here?" Simon demanded. "I did not give you leave to stop watching Cardinal Ugolini's household."
"Circumstances gave me leave, Your Signory, as I was just explaining to my good friend Thierry here." Thierry looked startled at being so described. "The woman Ana who carried my reports to you betrayed me. She told Giancarlo, the henchman of the merchant from Trebizond, that I was in your service. That Giancarlo is the sort who opens a second mouth in your throat before you can explain yourself with the first one."
"Does anyone else in Orvieto know where I am going?"
Good God, was he lurking about when I was with Sophia?
Sordello looked at him out of the corners of his eyes. "No one knew, Your Signory. I had to think it out for myself. I heard you had gone to Perugia. But, I asked myself, whyever would you do that? There is nothing in Perugia until the pope moves there. What, then, would be important enough to make you leave off watching over the Tartars? A message for Count Charles, I guessed—or perhaps for your king—too important to be carried by anyone but yourself. Then I had to decide which road you'd take. Directly north would lead to Siena, and we have all heard that an army of Ghibellini is gathering in Siena to attack Orvieto. So, you must be headed for the coast. And, as we see, my guesses all turned out right." He finished up with a broad, self-satisfied grin.
How could a man so often foolish also be so shrewd? Simon turned and stared out at the water of the harbor, a deeper blue than the sky. What a nuisance this fellow was! Turning up now, whenSimon had problem enough trying to find a way to get to France. Simon momentarily saw himself running Sordello through with his scimitar and kicking the body into the harbor.
And that story about Ana betraying him is almost surely a lie. She is not at all the sort who would do such a thing. Probably he himself did something stupid that gave him away.
Sordello broke in on his thoughts. "Thierry tells me you want to sail to Marseilles, Your Signory." He pointed to the high-sided, round-hulled ship that Simon had just left. "That buss you were on out there, is that not theConstanza? I think I know the master—his name is Guibert. Did you arrange passage with him?"
Grudgingly Simon told Sordello of his failure with the captain of the big ship. Sordello grunted.
"It is not right that a man of your distinction and wealth and gentle birth should have to go up and down the dockside begging for a ship." Simon despised the flattery but could not help agreeing with it. His situation was indeed embarrassing.
"It is past midday, Your Signory," Sordello continued. "Thierry tells me you are staying at the Hare. A good inn, I know it well. You can get a decent noonday meal there for a denier or two. Meanwhile, let me try my luck. I warrant I will find a ship for you before you finish your last cup of wine."
Tired, hungry, and discouraged, Simon thought:At least it will give me an excuse to rest.
And Sordello had not yet asked him for money or employment. That was a relief, but Simon told himself to be ready; the begging would start soon enough.
Feeling more relaxed, Simon was draining his third cup of red wine when Sordello reappeared. Bread, cheese, and a stew of goose, onions, and cabbage for Simon and Thierry had cost twelve denari. Simon suspected the price had gone up when the host saw the scarlet silk cape and gold-embroidered purple surcoat he had worn in the vain hope of impressing the ships' captains.
"Being cheated and lied to is a normal part of traveling," he told Thierry. "If you wish to avoid it, stay home. One must be philosophical about it."
"Your Signory!" Simon saw Sordello's burly figure silhouetted against the blue sky in the open doorway of the inn. He waved him in.
"Success!" Sordello sat down at their table without asking permission. "We have passage on a large ship sailing north and west along the coast, and stopping not just at Marseilles, but at Aigues-Mortes,whence we can travel north through the Rhone valley." Simon noticed the "we" but said nothing. "It takes on a cargo of woolen cloth and silk and spices this afternoon, and it leaves tomorrow at sunup. We can board our animals and sleep on the ship tonight."
"How much will this cost—us—Sordello?" said Simon, his improved mood making him feel a bit like joking.
A quick glance from Sordello's bloodshot eyes showed he understood that Simon understood. "Thirty florins, Your Signory. Oh, and I promised him an additional forty-five florins when we get to Aigues-Mortes. That little extra after the passage helps guarantee that you get where you want to go."
Thierry whistled. "Seventy-five florins! We could buy five more horses for that."
Sordello shrugged. "But more horses would not get you as far and as fast as that ship will. And it is no more than Count Simon would have had to pay if he had done the bargaining himself."
"Less," Simon admitted. In his desperation he had actually been thinking of offering Guibert a flat hundred florins.
Wait! What is happening here?he asked himself suddenly. When he had first seen Sordello this morning, he had fully intended to turn him away here in Livorno. Now he was paying his passage to France. Again he was being taken advantage of.
He leaned forward suddenly, planting his folded arms on the table.
"But why must I take you, Sordello, eh? What further use are you to me? Can I not save some florins if I leave you on the dock here?"
Sordello looked pained, brushing the curly gray hair back from his forehead. "What I have just accomplished shows Your Signory how useful I can be."
"Thus far you have nearly ruined my mission by attempting to murder an Armenian prince—"
"That was more than a year ago, Your Signory."
"And you have failed to learn anything useful as my agent in Ugolini's household."
"Your Signory! If not for me, you would have been totally unprepared for the attack on the Monaldeschi palace."
Simon saw that Sordello's rough skin was reddening. His bad temper was threatening to break through.
It was true, though, that Sordello's warning about the Filippeschi attack by itself made up for all the man's misdeeds.
The mention of Ugolini's household brought back the pain of thatparting from Sophia. He pictured again that dizzying moment when he almost possessed her, remembered how he had poured out all his secrets to her. He saw again her tears and remembered his own, that he had shed after she ran from him. The memory made him feel like weeping now.
Hoping to sound casual, Simon said, "The cardinal's niece—I believe her name is Sophia. Did you see her before you left Orvieto?"
Sordello's discolored eyes met Simon's. "No, Your Signory. I have seen little of her since the night of the Filippeschi uprising."
Damn this gap-toothed brigand!
Simon continued to pretend to be casual. He stood up and yawned. The wine made him feel less in control of his feelings than he liked.
"Let us go and see this ship you have found for us."
"Your Signory, you have not told me whether you will take me back into your service."
Simon shook his head, as if tormented by gnats. "After we see the ship."
Sordello sighed and led the way out of the inn. They crossed the cobble-paved roadway that led along Livorno's waterfront, Simon breathing deeply of the salt-smelling air to clear his head.
Sordello pointed. "There it is."
He was pointing toward the same big, ungainly buss that Simon had visited earlier, whose captain had refused Simon.
"But he said he was going to Cyprus!"
"He lied to you," said Sordello. "I know the man. Guibert was shipmaster for a boatload of us mercenaries in the last war between Pisa and Genoa. He feared that if you were to travel on his ship, you might find him out."
"Find out what?"
"He is one of those Languedoc heretics who hate the Church and the French nobility, a follower of the Waldensian heresy. He was imprisoned once and sentenced to death in Montpellier. He recanted his heresy and was released after signing over all that he possessed to the Church. But then he came to Italy, made a new start, and backslid to Waldensianism. If the Inquisition got him now, he would go to the stake even if he recanted a thousand times."
"Then why has he agreed to carry us?" To think, the man had seen Simon as an enemy. Simon, who had inherited his Languedoc parents' loathing of the persecution of heretics.
"I told him that if he did not take us where we wanted to go, Iwould tell the officers of the Inquisition here in Livorno about him," said Sordello blandly.
"What!" Simon was outraged.
Sordello looked hurt. "Surely, Your Signory does not see any wrong in forcing a heretic to do a good turn for the pope and the king. Especially when it means he gets to go unpunished. So we do our duty, but with a leavening of charity."
For Simon to say more would reveal too much about himself and his family. Fuming, he bit his lip. But another objection came to him.
"We will have to take turns standing guard the whole voyage," he said. "That captain will want to slit our throats to make sure his secret is safe."
"We would have to stand guard anyway, Your Signory. A sea captain knows no law but his own greed as soon as he puts out from shore. If you can pay him seventy-five florins, that tells him you must be carrying a great deal more money. But I have insured our safety another way. I have told him that an old friend of mine here in Livorno knows his secret, and if that friend does not receive a message from me in due course assuring him of our safety, he will report Guibert to the Inquisition. Guibert would never be able to come back to Livorno, his home base, and he would not really be safe anywhere in Italy."
Simon shook his head angrily. "I like none of it."
"Even the greatest barons, even kings, must put up with much they do not like," said Sordello sententiously, "if they are to get anything done."
"As you said before, Monseigneur," said Thierry in a comforting tone, "a man must be philosophical."
"Philosophical, yes," said Simon wearily. He could, he supposed, afford to be philosophical. If the heretic sea captain did not manage to kill them, in three or four days he would be in France, on his way to find King Louis. All these unsavory doings, indignities, and discomforts would mean nothing if his mission ended in triumph.
The thought of the King's gratitude, of Uncle Charles's respect, of the way the tale would spread among the noblesse of France, bringing him new honor, sent a thrill of pride through him.
At last he would have proven himself.
The sky was iron-gray, and a cold wind, unseasonably cold for August, blew down from the north. Daoud stood near the entrance to the courtyard of the Palazzo Papale, facing a row of the podesta's guards, in yellow and blue, who held back the watching crowd. A troop of mounted lancers clattered out under the gateway arch. Then, in mule-borne litters, came the nine cardinals who had elected to go with the pope to Perugia. Each had his own small procession of clergy and guards. In a sedan chair borne by six burly men rode Fra Tomasso d'Aquino, reading a small leather-bound book. Then came a hundred mounted archers, their conical helmets gleaming dully under the overcast sky.
Finally, as the people threw themselves to their knees, some crying out and stretching their arms wide, Urban himself, on a litter carried by eight men-at-arms, with a column of priests on either side, came through the open gate of the palace. He wore white gloves on the trembling hands that he raised to bless the people. He was bundled up in a white wool cloak, and his head was covered by a hood of fur so white that it made his own hair and his beard look yellowish.
Reluctantly, but knowing it would be dangerous not to do so, Daoud dropped to his knees as Urban passed him.
"Do not leave us, Holy Father!" a man next to him cried out.
Daoud thought of the whispers he had been hearing in his wanderings through the streets and marketplaces. People were frightened. Some said that terrible things would happen after Urban left. There would be new bloodshed between the Monaldeschi and the Filippeschi. The Sienese would besiege Orvieto and massacre its people.
Daoud himself believed d'Ucello, the podesta, would use the pope's departure to try to increase his own power over the city.
And that bodes ill for me.
The podesta was a clever man. Daoud felt certain d'Ucello suspectedhim of the killing of the French knight and of involvement in the Filippeschi uprising.
Daoud followed the procession along the curving street to the Porta Maggiore, intending to watch it follow the road to the north, wishing the Sienese army might appear suddenly in the distance and intercept it. But at the gate a sergente in yellow and blue stepped into his path.
"I am not leaving," Daoud said, staring at the man. "I want to stand just outside the gate."
The sergente shrugged. He was a broad-shouldered man with a square brown face and a mustache cut straight across. As they stood talking, he darted little glances at Daoud's hands and feet, half smiling. Daoud sensed that he was ready for a fight, perhaps even wanted one. The sergente thought, of course, that he was dealing with a merchant, who would not be as skilled in combat as a professional soldier.
Daoud felt a chill along his spine. D'Ucello was still determined to keep him prisoner in Orvieto. That confirmed Daoud's suspicions that the podesta might soon move against him.
"You can watch the procession from the top of the wall," the podesta's man said. "The view is better from up there anyway. You may not go beyond the gate, Messer David."
Angered by the feeling of confinement, Daoud thought about throwing the guard, disarming him, and walking through the gate just to teach him a lesson. But that was hardly what a trader would do. That would only bring more suspicion down on him. He nodded curtly and walked away.
The following Sunday, Daoud stood at the front of the cathedral, reluctantly hearing Mass, bodies pressing him from all sides. Four of Ugolini's men-at-arms, including the massive Riccardo, stood with Daoud. The little cardinal, required by the etiquette of the Sacred College to attend but made fearful by the rumors of fighting and killing to come, had begged Daoud to come with him and stay near him. The noonday heat together with the heat of packed human flesh turned the interior of the cathedral into an oven. The reek of sweat mixed with the heavy smell of incense rendered the air almost unbreathable.
A gilded screen standing on the altar displayed the miraculous linen cloth of Bolsena, lighted candles massed around it. The pope, at least, had left that to Orvieto. Ugolini was one of six red-robed cardinals, half hidden under their huge, circular red hats, who sat in chairs in a row before the altar. Each one had a cluster of assistantsand guards behind him. Cardinal de Verceuil was among them. Daoud recognized him from the rear because he was the tallest of the six.
That meant the Tartars were still in Orvieto. If Lorenzo and the Ghibellino army from Siena arrived in time, there would be a chance to kill the Tartars before they rejoined the pope in Perugia. It was maddening, not knowing what Lorenzo had accomplished or where he was. This was one time he wished Christian armies could move with the speed and decisiveness of Muslims. Or Tartars.
The elderly Cardinal Piacenza, his arms supported by priest-assistants, held up the gold cup of wine which Christians believed, in a sense that Daoud had never been able to understand, to be the blood of Jesus the Messiah. The cathedral was filled with a reverent quiet.
A burst of angry men's voices from the rear of the cathedral broke the silence. Shouts echoed against the heavy stone walls. Daoud heard thuds, scuffling, the clash of steel. A jolt of alarm went through him, and his hand went to his sword.
Everyone, including Piacenza, turned to stare. The last time there had been a clash of arms in the cathedral it had been the Count de Gobignon and that heretic preacher, Daoud thought.
Daoud was amazed that Christians would interrupt the most sacred moment of their Mass. He tried to see over the heads of the people around him. One voice, roaring in protest, was raised over the others. It sounded familiar to Daoud.
People were passing word back from the middle of the nave, where the struggle was. "It is Marco di Filippeschi," a man near Daoud cried. "They have come to kill him."
Daoud's body went cold. Might whoever was coming after Marco attack him too?
The fighting seemed to be moving toward the doors, and the crowd flowed after it. Mass was forgotten as the congregation, cardinals and bishops included, rushed to see.
Ugolini hurried to Daoud and took his arm. The two of them were carried with the crowd toward the rear of the cathedral. Ugolini clutched at Daoud so tightly that his fingers hurt. The servants, Daoud noticed, managed to stay with them.
"Stay close to me," Ugolini said.
"You might be safer in the cathedral," said Daoud.
"Outside there is more room to run."
The short-legged Ugolini could not run very far, thought Daoud. He steeled himself. If they were attacked by a large number of enemies, they were dead men.
Daoud and Ugolini came through the main door of the cathedral together and stood on the crowded steps.
"I cannot see!" Ugolini cried. People on the steps below him were blocking his view.
Daoud was tall enough to see quite well. His heart, beating rapidly, seemed to be rising from his chest to his throat. Marco di Filippeschi, his long black hair flying as he jerked his body from side to side, was struggling with four men who held him, while a fifth wrapped a rope around his arms. Other men used pikes to push back the crowd, forming a ring of space around the young Filippeschi leader and his captors.
Marco is going to die, Daoud thought, feeling cold sweat all over his skin.
He looked to the edges of the piazza and the mansions that overlooked it. He saw crossbowmen in the orange and green livery of the Monaldeschi on rooftops and in windows, and mounted lancers in the outlets to the square.
The Filippeschi should have missed Mass today.
"God damn your puzzolenti souls, you bastards!" Marco roared as he fought. "May your mothers and fathers burn in Hell!"
Some men were trying to help Marco; Daoud saw little knots of struggle as his eyes traveled over the crowd. But no one could reach Marco because the orange Monaldeschi tunics were everywhere.
"What ishappening?" Ugolini demanded.
"They are killing Marco di Filippeschi," said Daoud, thinking:He helped me. He needs help now.His hand gripped the hilt of his sword tightly, and he wanted to draw it and rush down the stairs to fight beside Marco.
But the knowledge that anyone who went to Marco's aid would die with him held him motionless. Daoud was not free to draw his sword for Marco, not while the Tartar ambassadors lived and the pope might yet proclaim a new crusade.
Marco was shouting obscenities so rapidly that Daoud's Italian failed him and he could not understand. The Filippeschi chieftain was tightly bound and helpless, and the men around him pushed him to his knees.
God be merciful to him, Daoud prayed.
"Lift me up so I can see!" Ugolini cried to his men-at-arms.
"You do not want to see," said Daoud, but Riccardo obediently hoisted him up to sit on his shoulders. The cardinal looked ridiculous, Daoud thought, like an overdressed child being carried by his father.
A man holding a long two-handed sword stepped out of the emptyspace surrounding Marco di Filippeschi. Daoud drew in a breath. The crowd gasped. The blade flashed in the sun like a mirror as he swung it up. Marco struggled, shouting curses, twisting and thrashing to escape the sword. Blood splashed over the gray-black paving stones as the sword came down. Marco cried out in agony. It took three strokes to behead him.
As much death as Daoud had seen, this sickened him. He felt bile flooding his stomach and rising in his throat.
After Marco's head lay apart from his still-trembling body in a rapidly spreading pool of blood, the silence was shocking in the piazza that had an instant before rung with his cries. As shocking as the look of the bound body without its head.
A woman's piercing scream broke the silence. Holding a baby in her arms, she burst out of the ring of men who had cordoned off the beheading. She knelt, screaming and sobbing, and reached out with one hand to touch Marco's severed head.
Another woman ran out of the crowd with a dagger in her hand. She pounced on the mother and baby and stabbed and stabbed. A pikeman in an orange tunic dragged the baby from its mother's arms, tossed it in the air, and caught it on the end of his pike, spitting it. Some in the crowd screamed with horror. Others cheered and laughed.
Daoud's stomach lurched. He pressed his hand against his middle and hoped the mother had not lived to see what had been done to her baby.
He wanted desperately to be away from there, not just because he himself might be in danger, but because he could not stand to watch.
He looked up at Ugolini. The little cardinal sat rigid on Riccardo's shoulders, his face white and blank, his whiskers quivering. How foolish he had been to want to see.
Not far away, de Verceuil's dark face under his wide-brimmed red hat stood out above the other faces in the crowd on the steps. The little mouth was set in a satisfied smile. Daoud wished he could slash that smug face with his sword.
Another Monaldeschi man-at-arms set Marco di Filippeschi's head on the end of his pike and waved it in the air for all to see. The mob in the piazza began to boil. It was a chaos that Daoud's eyes could take in only piecemeal. Men and women fought with swords and daggers and clubs; masses of people shrieking with terror surged toward the streets leading off the piazza where mounted Monaldeschi retainers slashed at them with swords anddrove lances into them; crossbowmen fired into the crowd from balconies.
Now Daoud's heart was beating so hard that the booming of his blood in his ears almost drowned out the noise in the piazza. This was a war breaking out all around him.
A continuation, he reminded himself guiltily, of the war he had started.
No, he need not blame himself. He had not started this. These people had been slaughtering one another long before he came to Orvieto.
How could the Monaldeschi tell their friends, or the innocent, from their enemies, Daoud wondered. Perhaps, he thought, it did not matter to them.
He now made out, on a balcony opposite the cathedral steps, the stooped figure of the Contessa di Monaldeschi. Her cloak glittered with gold embroidery, and on her gray hair she wore a small silver coronet. She rested one hand on the shoulder of a boy, her grandnephew Vittorio.
What a monster that child must be!
Daoud heard Ugolini's choking whisper from above him: "Get me out of here."
There was only one way to escape, back into the cathedral and out one of the side doors. Daoud helped Ugolini down from Riccardo's back, and they hurried through the center doorway, followed by his men-at-arms.
"Do not draw your weapons," Daoud said to Riccardo and the others. "Or you might get pulled into the fighting. But be ready to stand and fight if we must."
The din of the massacre in the piazza echoed within the cathedral, which was now mostly emptied out. Cardinal Piacenza had brought his Mass to a quick end. He was sitting in a chair near the altar, looking stricken, and a young priest was mopping the old cardinal's forehead with a white cloth. On one side of the nave stood the podesta, d'Ucello, surrounded by a group of his sergentes in yellow and blue.
There is murder in the piazza, and the keeper of public order hides in the cathedral, Daoud thought.
The podesta's eyes met Daoud's as Ugolini's retinue hurried past him toward the rear doors of the cathedral. There was a menace in d'Ucello's set face, but he said nothing as Daoud strode by.
The look in d'Ucello's eyes told Daoud that the moment when the podesta would strike at him was not far away. Daoud felt as if a ghost had gripped the back of his neck with an icy hand.
Ugolini, muttering to himself, led the way to the north transept. A half-dozen men in orange and green tunics, swords drawn, barred the door.
"Stand aside in the name of God!" Ugolini cried as he approached the Monaldeschi men-at-arms. "Your damned bloody quarrels have nothing to do with me."
Daoud was surprised. He had often seen Ugolini frightened, but now fear seemed to have given him sudden strength. The men guarding the door stepped aside. The cardinal's servants held the door for him, and in a moment they were in the narrow street running along the north side of the cathedral, where they joined a crowd of weeping, shouting people who had managed to break loose from the piazza. There were splashes of blood, Daoud saw, on the tunics of many men and the dresses of many women. Ugolini's servants formed a wedge around him, and in stunned silence they walked back to his mansion.
Daoud felt shaken and sick. His hands were trembling.
The Filippeschi could have been allies for Daoud against the podesta. Now he was alone.
Ugolini's small contingent of armed retainers could not resist the town militia. A cold feeling of helplessness settled over Daoud. If only Lorenzo would come back.
Bars of afternoon sunlight slanted through the windows of Ugolini's cabinet, giving a fiery tinge to his red rug and glistening in the eyes of his stuffed owl. Ugolini sat behind his table, holding the painted skull in both hands and staring intently at it, as if it held the explanation of what had happened at the cathedral this morning. Sophia sat in a chair on the other side of the table, and Daoud stood by the window.
"The Monaldeschi and the Filippeschi are both Guelfo families, and the Filippeschi have high connections with the Church," Ugolini said. "That is why the contessa waited until the pope left before taking her revenge."
"I have seen Christians slaughter Muslims and Muslims massacre Christians," Daoud said. "But today Christians were killing mothers and infants that could have been their own. Women were doing some of the killing."
Ugolini smiled at the skull, but there was no laughter in his round eyes. "Are not family quarrels the cruelest of all?"
Daoud noticed that Ugolini's hands, fingertips pressed against the smooth curve of the skull's cranium, were still quivering. As for Daoud himself, he was quite calm now.
The last time I was really terrified was when I looked into the locket and saw whirling blackness.
He was still angry with himself about that, knowing what a foolish thing it had been to partake of hashish when he was already in a dark mood. The fear he had felt a month earlier after taking the drug and looking into the locket remained with him, clinging to his mind like some parasitic insect. It rose to confront him now, as he looked at Sophia. Would something horrible happen to her because of him? Blossoming Reed had threatened just that, and so far Blossoming Reed's magic had worked well. Since that vision, the joy he felt with Sophia had been chilled somewhat by fear for her.
"How safe arewenow, with the Monaldeschi rampaging through the streets?" Sophia asked.
Ugolini shuddered. "And the Filippeschi. Those who are left will be striking back. This city will destroy itself, like a rat eating its own innards. I say leave now. All of us."
Leave?Daoud thought. He would be less afraid for Sophia if she were in a safer place. But where should he go?
"Where do you want to go?" he asked Ugolini.
The little cardinal drew himself up. "I am still the cardinal camerlengo, and will be as long as Urban is alive. I am obliged to follow the pope as quickly as I can to Perugia. There is peace and order in Perugia." He looked at Daoud uneasily. "What doyouwant to do? Stay here?"
He is hoping to be rid of me.Daoud considered Perugia, but there he would have everything against him and no forces to help him.
He must go to Manfred. Once the pope and the Tartars were safely in Perugia, only Manfred's army would be powerful enough to get at them. Manfred might not want to go to war, but war was inevitable. Clearly the pope was no longer neutral. He favored the Tartar-Christian alliance and was waiting only for the right moment to announce it. When the pope came out for the alliance, the French would come into Italy.
The time for Manfred to act was now. If he marched north and seized all of Italy, including the person of the pope and as many cardinals as he could capture, the French neverwouldinvade, because a Ghibellino pope would not approve a joint campaign of Christians and Tartars against Muslims. Then, for certain, there would be no alliance.
"Now that the pope has moved to a place of safety," he said aloud, "only King Manfred can dislodge him."
Ugolini wrung his hands. "First you incite the Filippeschi againstthe Monaldeschi. Then Siena against Orvieto. Now Manfred against the Papal States? Sometimes I think you are like one of the horsemen of the Apocalypse, spreading war wherever you go."
All too true, Daoud thought. He turned to Sophia to see whether she agreed with the accusation. She looked at him somberly, but did not speak.
He sighed. "I am fighting for my people. For my God."
"I, too, formypeople," said Sophia quietly. Her tone told Daoud she sided with him, and he felt an inner warmth.
"And what have your people to do with this?" Ugolini cried. "Have you forgotten that you are not Sicilian but Greek?"
"Not at all," said Sophia. "I want to see Manfred in control of Italy. He is a friend of Byzantium. The Franks are our enemies."
Ugolini shook his head. "I am the only Italian in this room. And I weep formypeople."
Daoud strode over to Ugolini's table, pressed his hands flat on it, and stared into his eyes.
"Bestrongfor your people," he said. The hairs on the back of his neck rose with excitement as he spoke. He had wanted to try to put strength into Ugolini for such a long time.
Ugolini looked bewildered. "What do you mean?"
"Think what Italy would be with Manfred von Hohenstaufen ruling from the Alps to Sicily and a pope who supports him."
"A Ghibellino pope?" Ugolini looked surprised, then nodded. "Why not? As a Ghibellino myself, I would rejoice at that. But it will happen only if Manfred has the College of Cardinals in his power."
"Yes," said Daoud. "And that is why I must go all the way south to Lucera, where Sophia and Lorenzo and I started from." Ugolini's eyes were brighter, and Daoud felt with pleasure that he had breathed new life into the little man.
"But the podesta won't let you leave the city!" Sophia exclaimed.
Again Daoud felt that cold hand grasp his neck. Perhaps he should have left long ago. He turned from Sophia to Ugolini.
"You must demand that he let me leave, Cardinal," said Daoud, feeling less confident than he tried to sound.
Or, he thought, he could escape the way Lorenzo did. He had never truly been a prisoner here.
"I will order the servants to start packing for me," Ugolini said. "Of course, I must make arrangements for Tilia to move, too, and that might take time. Although many of her best clients are gonenow." He sounded like a man who knew what he was doing and Daoud was relieved to hear it.
Daoud turned from Ugolini to Sophia. The knowledge that he would soon leave Orvieto, where he had seen too much of defeat and slaughter, lifted his spirits. He smiled at Sophia, and she smiled back. He knew she was thinking the same thought he was—that they had hours to spend together this afternoon.
Daoud and Sophia lay naked in her bed, legs entwined, her head resting on his bare chest.
"What about me?" Sophia asked. "Will I go south with you to Manfred, or north to Perugia with Ugolini?"
"With me, of course," said Daoud. At the mention of leaving her, he felt as if a cold wind had blown across his naked body. He was surprised that she was even considering staying with Ugolini.
"I want to be with you," she said, caressing his chest with a circular movement of her palm. "I hate the thought of our being apart. But with the pope and the Tartars in Perugia, you need someone there besides Ugolini. Someone who has an aim in common with yours. I can help him and make sure that what he does helps you. Helps us."
He ran his fingers through her long, unbound hair. "I will think about what you've said. But I do not like it."
"Neither do I. But it may be necessary."
A loud knock at Sophia's door interrupted them.
Something in the urgency of the knock made Daoud spring out of bed and reach for his sword, hanging from a peg on the wall. Putting a finger to her lips, Sophia got out of bed more slowly and went to the door.
"It is I," the cardinal called through the door in answer to her question. "I know David is there with you. Let me in. The podesta is here."
The ghost that haunted him whenever he thought of himself and d'Ucello seized Daoud's entire body in a cold, paralyzing embrace. His first thought was of escape. But d'Ucello probably had the mansion surrounded.
Sophia and Daoud dressed quickly and opened the door for the cardinal.
"D'Ucello has come here with twenty or more men-at-arms," Ugolini said. "He demands that you go with him to the Palazzo del Podesta, David."
"Can you not order him away?" Sophia demanded. "You are a prince of the Church. You did that before."
"He waited until most of the power of the Church had left Orvieto," said Ugolini.
"And until the Filippeschi had been crushed, thinking I might call upon them for help," Daoud said.
"You must try to escape," said Sophia.
"Then what would happen to you?"
"We will escape together!"
Daoud looked at her drawn face, and at that moment he loved her more than ever. His love warmed him, and freed him from the grip of fear. This woman—who had spoken a short time ago so calmly of separation—was ready to run, to dodge arrows, to hide in ditches, to climb walls, to do whatever she had to, to be near him.
"If he finds out what you are, we are all doomed," said Ugolini. Daoud saw that the small body was aquiver with fear.
He could imagine what Ugolini was thinking, that the evil he had dreaded since Daoud came to Orvieto had come upon them at last. Just when he thought he was about to escape it.
"He will learn nothing," said Daoud.
"He will torture you." Ugolini sat down on Sophia's bed and wrapped his arms around his stomach. "We will all die horribly—me, Sophia, Tilia—everyone who helped you." He raised hands curved like claws and shook them at Daoud. "Oh, God, how I wish you had never come here!"
Sophia sat beside Ugolini and put her hand on his knee. "If we can stay calm, dear Eminence, we can think of a way out of this."
"Even if he tortures me, I will tell him nothing, except that I am David, the trader from Trebizond," said Daoud. The methods of resisting pain that he had learned from the Hashishiyya would serve him now.
"You must not think of going with him!" Sophia cried.
"It is the only way. If I cooperate, it shows my innocence. The cardinal can use his influence to get me freed."
She jumped up and threw herself against him, weeping. "You are going to your death!" He held her tightly.
"D'Ucello has nothing to gain by killing me," he said. "And surrendering to him is the only thing I can do." He looked at Ugolini. "Do you agree?"
Ugolini sighed and shook his head. "I cannot think."
Gently Daoud freed himself from Sophia's embrace. "Insh'Allah, God willing, I will return to you."
He turned to the door. Every muscle in his body screamed at him to run, or to draw his sword and try to fight his way out. Hecringed inwardly from the thought of imprisonment and torture. He remembered the poor madman whose body they had torn apart with red-hot pincers. He forced himself not to tremble. He took the first step toward the door, then another.
God, make me strong in the face of my enemies.