XL
Daoud's hands were cold and his heart was racing. He had been waiting all morning for Ugolini to come back from the Dominican convent.
He sat at Ugolini's worktable, trying to read. He had found an old book in Arabic in Ugolini's library, the Aphorisms of ibn Zaina, a book Saadi had often praised. At another time he would have devoured it, but his mind refused to follow the words. Sending Ugolini to Fra Tomasso was his final effort to learn what had gone wrong and to see what might be saved.
What would Fra Tomasso say to Ugolini? At least Ugolini could be trusted not to make things worse, as de Verceuil had for their opponents.
This was the Christian month of February, and the chill that pervaded Daoud's body came from the air around him as well as from his troubled spirit. The small wood fire that burned on the hearth beside the table did little to dispel the cold in the room.
In the two months that followed the coming of the bloodstained altar cloth to Orvieto, Tomasso d'Aquino had gradually, but completely, reversed himself. According to a Dominican in Ugolini's pay, the philosopher had sent new letters to the European kings confessing that his opposition to an alliance between Christians and Tartars had been an error. At least three Italian cardinals had told Ugolini that Fra Tomasso had come to them personally with the same message. Cardinal Gratiano Marchetti whispered that Pope Urban, who did not expect to live through the winter, had promised the stout friar a voice in the election of the next pope. Where Urban had been neutral toward the alliance, perhaps even opposed, something now caused him to favor it. Just as the tumbling of a single grain of sand could bring a whole dune crashing down to bury a caravan, so those drops of blood at Bolsena had been the start of an avalanche of reversals.
Daoud awaited Ugolini's coming, and the message he bore, as a man accused of a capital crime awaits the verdict of his judge.
And if it was true that Fra Tomasso had irrevocably turned against them? Daoud must begin all over again with a new plan to stop the alliance.
The fire gave off the sour odor of strange substances Ugolini had previously burned on the hearth. Daoud pushed himself out of the cardinal's chair and went to get a breath of fresh air. He opened the casement window and saw Ugolini's sedan chair, borne by four servants, turning in toward the door of the mansion.
The cardinal's chair passed the shop across the street, where rows of large and small pots, brightly painted with floral designs, were laid out on a large blanket. The potter and his wife, bundled up in heavy cloaks, were calling out for the cardinal's blessing. Daoud saw a tiny hand emerge from the curtains of the sedan chair, closed against the February cold. The hand shaped the sign of the cross in the air as the shopkeepers fell to their knees.
Daoud wondered whether the potter and his wife felt they had an unlucky spot to offer their wares. That was where, last August, de Verceuil's archers had shot down two men in the crowd when the Tartars were entering the city. And it was in front of that shop, shuttered then for the night, that Alain de Pirenne's body had been found. Had the shopkeeper or his wife seen anything, and were they keeping silent only out of fear? Months had gone by, but the podesta, d'Ucello, was still investigating the killing, questioning and requestioning everyone who might know something about it.
Daoud paced the room anxiously until Ugolini came in, throwing his fur-trimmed cape and his wide-brimmed red hat to a servant. He sat down in the chair Daoud had been using. Daoud closed the door.
As a man dying of thirst begs for water, Daoud prayed for good news.
But Ugolini's pale face, haggard eyes, and downturned mouth told a different tale. Daoud's heart plunged into despair.
"Has he turned against us?" He hated the note of pleading he heard in his voice.
Ugolini went to his worktable, sighed, and sat down heavily. His eyes seemed to be crossed, staring down his pointed nose at the painted skull that grinned back at him. His restless fingers found the dioptra lying on the table, and he started to roll the brass tube in his hand.
"I used every argument I could think of," he said. "I even repeated back to him the arguments he used in the letters and sermons he wrote against the Tartars."
"Arguing with Fra Tomasso is like trying wrestle a djinn," Daoud said. "I admire your courage in even trying."
Ugolini raised a finger. "I thought I was getting somewhere with him. He kept trying to change the subject. He kept asking me, if the earth moves while the sun stands still—he seems to be convinced that is what happens—then what path does the earth follow? I told him that the Greeks"—he stopped and stared at Daoud—"Oh, never mind the Greeks. The point is, he was mocking me."
"Mocking you?"
"Yes, talking about the heavenly bodies. He was referring to that scroll you gave me to present to him, that work of Aristotle. What a waste, giving that to him. What would I not give to have it myself."
"Why did he keep changing the subject? Did he never tell you where he stands on the alliance?"
Ugolini closed his eyes and nodded. "Yes, finally. He said he made a grave mistake opposing the alliance. He said that if Christians do not seize this chance, the Tartars may be converted to the religion of Mohammed, as those in Russia already have been, which would be the worst of all possible disasters." He opened his eyes and looked at Daoud. "We have lost him."
"Is there nothing we can do to change his mind?"
"I truly believe it is hopeless."
Hearing those words, Daoud felt drained. He sagged against the wall of Ugolini's cabinet, wanting to sit on the floor but unable to do so because then he could not see the cardinal.
"It is Urban who has done this to us," said Ugolini. "He must have decided that supporting the alliance is the only way he can get French help against King Manfred. He tempted Fra Tomasso with something far more valuable to him than an old scroll. He offered him greater glory and power in the Church."
The Angel of Death, thought Daoud, had done it. Feeling himself mortally ill, the pope had realized he could no longer bargain with the King of France on an equal basis. He would have to offer Louis what he wanted, permission to ally himself with the Tartars.
"Will the pope now support the alliance openly?" If Daoud chose to fight, he thought, he would have to strike hard and fast. He would have to strike at the Tartars.
Despite the downward turn of his fortunes, Daoud felt a strange lightness of heart as he considered the prospect. He had tried every other way of preventing Tartars and Christians from forming an alliance—persuasion, bribery, the spreading of lies.
Now he could turn to the way he was best at. War.
"Urban will not come out for the alliance at once," said Ugolini. "Before Bolsena, Fra Tomasso and my Italian colleagues in the Sacred College stirred up so much feeling against the Tartars that Urban would lose support all over Europe if he were to call now for a pact between Christians and Tartars. So he must move slowly, with Fra Tomasso now working with him, winning approval for the alliance."
"What if the French sent an army to him now?" Daoud asked.
Ugolini laughed. "Do you think King Louis of France can sow dragon's teeth and have an army spring up in his fields overnight? He would have to summon the great barons of France. They would have to decide whether they support his cause, then assemble the lesser barons and knights. Supplies must be gathered, money found to pay the knights and men-at-arms. It can take years to raise an army big enough to wage a war."
The Mamelukes would be ready to ride in a day.
How had the crusaders managed to make any inroads at all in the Dar al-Islam?
"If the pope is not ready to declare for the alliance, there is time," said Daoud. "Nothing is settled yet."
"Time for what? What will you do now?"
He pushed himself away from the wall, went to a mullioned window, and pulled open one of the casements. To the northwest a tower of orange brick with square battlements looked arrogantly down upon the huddled masses of peaked red roofs. From the tower fluttered the orange and green banner of the Monaldeschi. There the Tartars were.
He turned from the window and moved slowly toward Ugolini's table.
"I am sorry," he said as gently as he could. "This is not ended."
Ugolini had been playing with the dioptra. He dropped it with a clank.
"What do you mean?" Fear made his voice shrill and quavering.
"I mean, I must attack the Palazzo Monaldeschi."
"Attack the Monaldeschi!" It was almost a scream.
Daoud spread his hands. "I have no choice."
Ugolini sprang to his feet. "Pazzia! You are mad!"
It is you who are almost mad, with terror, Daoud thought. He was going to have trouble with Ugolini, no question.
Aloud he said only, "We will discuss it. You can help us plan. Pardon me, Your Eminence, while I send for Lorenzo."
"It will have to be late at night, of course," said Lorenzo. "And I would think a Friday evening would be best, when the men-at-arms will be off their guard and many of them out carousing. But it finally depends on when Marco di Filippeschi says his family's men can be ready. They need to buy weapons."
Daoud and Lorenzo stood by the cardinal's table while Ugolini paced with many short steps between the windows and the hearth. He muttered to himself, and his hands trembled as he ran them through his tufts of white hair.
"What of our men?" said Daoud.
"We have over two hundred now, scattered throughout the city," said Lorenzo.
If I could be in the palazzo before the fighting begins ...
Ugolini stopped his pacing and faced them. "You talk like moonstruck men! You would unleash a civil war right here in Orvieto?"
"Not us, Your Eminence," said Lorenzo. "Have not these two families been fighting for generations?"
"What is your objection?" said Daoud gently.
Ugolini fixed them with a ferocious glare. "For six months, half a year, I have lain awake imagining arrest, disgrace, torture, execution. Through miracles you have managed to carry out your plans without being caught. Now you want to launch still wilder plans—incredible, fantastic things. I have had enough. God has kept me alive this long. I will not tempt Him further."
"My dear Cardinal," Daoud said, "once the Tartars are dead, this will all be over. I will go back to Egypt. Lorenzo and Sophia will return to Manfred's kingdom. You will have nothing further to fear."
"You could have tried to kill the Tartars at any time since they came here," said Ugolini. "Why now?"
"I needed to create as much ill will as possible between Christians and Tartars," said Daoud. "If I had killed the Tartars at once, I could not have had them discredit themselves out of their own mouths. Fra Tomasso and your colleagues among the Italian cardinals could not have stirred up so much fear and hatred toward them. Now, though, I have done all I can along those lines, and Fra Tomasso is already undoing what together we have accomplished."
"And why involve the Monaldeschi and the Filippeschi?" Ugolini pressed him.
"To make it seem that the Tartars have been killed by feuding Italians. Then Hulagu Khan will think again about whether he wants such people as his allies."
Ugolini shook his head. "I do not have to tell you, of all people, what war is like. And I think Messer Lorenzo, by the way he carries himself, has known battle more than once. You both know that chance rules every moment in war."
"True," said Daoud.
And if chance decided against them? For a moment he saw Sophia naked, being torn apart by the torturers' pincers. He almost shuddered, and had to hold himself rigid.
"I take it you intend to be part of this attack on the Monaldeschi," Ugolini went on.
"I do," said Daoud.
Ugolini threw up his hands as if Daoud had already proved his case for him. "Well then, what if someone recognizes you attacking the palace?"
"I will not openly lead. I will enter the palace and kill the Tartars."
"So," said Ugolini. "You will not just be somewhere in the street outside the Palazzo Monaldeschi. You will be in the palace. In the midst of all your enemies. Alone. Attempting to assassinate the Tartars. Tell me, does that sound like the plan of a reasonable, cautious man to you?"
Daoud thought it sounded as if he were, to put it as Ugolini had, tempting God. But Ugolini did not understand that Daoud had not only the skills of Mameluke, but had also received the secret training of the Hashishiyya fighters, the fedawi, whose powers many in the lands of Islam thought magical.
"I will be masked. I will be dressed in garments that will make it almost impossible to see me. I will not expose myself. I will move in darkness. I have been trained to find my way in darkness as surely as if it were sunlight."
Ugolini shook his head. "Understand me. I would not go on arguing with you like this did I not feel I am arguing for my life. And Tilia's, and the lives of those who depend on you. You must admit that you might be captured or killed. My house guest, found trying to murder the Tartar ambassadors."
Daoud spread his hands. "You would then denounce me. You say you never knew what a demon you had taken into your home."
Ugolini laughed loudly and bitterly. "Are our opponents fools? Do you really think they would believe me, even for a moment? After perhaps hundreds of people have been killed, after a civil war in Orvieto, anyone who is even suspect will die. The Monaldeschi, the French, the Church authorities, all will take their revenge. Surely you understand that."
Daoud's heart grew cold as he looked along the road Ugolini was describing and saw defeat, massacre, the hideous deaths of his comrades, and beyond that iron waves of crusaders and endless columns of Tartar horsemen sweeping over the Dar al-Islam. And he could not look into Ugolini's eyes and declare that all would turn out well.
But what would happen if he did nothing? He looked down that path and saw the same masses of crusaders and Tartars, saw the burning mosques, the emptied cities, the heaps of corpses. He saw the Gray Mosque in El Kahira ruined, his teacher Saadi hacked to pieces by crusader swords.
Then he heard words Saadi had spoken: We are God's instruments, by which He brings about that which He wills. The fool does nothing and leaves the outcome to God. The ordinary man acts and prays that God will grant a good result. The wise man acts and leaves the outcome to God.
He would act.
He turned to Lorenzo, standing near him by the cardinal's table.
"Your life is at stake in this. What do you think?"
Lorenzo's face was as grave as Daoud had ever seen it. "If the Filippeschi attack the Palazzo Monaldeschi, they will be driven off. But with more than five hundred men attacking the palace, it will be impossible for the French to guard the Tartars adequately. If you get in, kill them, and get out safely, I think we can hide our part in the fighting. If you are caught or killed, I think it is as the cardinal says. We are all doomed."
"Exactly!" cried Ugolini from where he stood behind his table. "Then why risk it?"
"Because we must," Lorenzo said to him. "If we do not stop the alliance by force, the pope will strike a bargain with the King of France. There will be a French army marching against my King Manfred, and after that crusaders and Tartars will fall upon Messer David's people."
Ugolini uttered a deep groan and sank into his chair.
Relief swept over Daoud. He had already decided to make the attempt on the Palazzo Monaldeschi even if Lorenzo opposed it, but to have Lorenzo side with him gave him more confidence that he could carry it off.
Lorenzo turned those somber eyes to him again. "It all depends on you. I am gambling that you can do it."
Daoud felt a powerful warmth toward the Sicilian. There were times when he had wished Lorenzo were not with him, times when he distrusted him. The foolishness of involving them with Rachel and her husband. The fact that Lorenzo was a Jew who had abandoned his religion. Even his dog was a nuisance. But at this moment to have Lorenzo's support made him feel as strong and confident as if the Mameluke orta he commanded had suddenly appeared in Orvieto.
He grinned at Lorenzo. "You proved how good a gambler you are by losing to de Verceuil."
Lorenzo chuckled. "What must we do first?"
Daoud said, "Arrange for me to meet secretly with Marco di Filippeschi. And send word to King Manfred that the pope and the French are about to reach agreement on the Tartar alliance, and when they do the French will come pouring into Italy. Tell him now is the time for his Ghibellino allies in the north to march on Orvieto."
Lorenzo nodded. "I will send one of my men to Lucera." He shook his head. "My God, how I wish I could go myself!"
"Once the Tartars are dead," Daoud said, "we will all go home. Now, find Sordello and send him to my room."
As Daoud left Ugolini's cabinet, he glanced back to see the little cardinal slumped over the table, knotting his fingers in his fuzzy white hair. He would have to spend more time with him, to build up his courage.
Sophia was standing in the hallway when Daoud emerged from his room that night, on his way to meet with the Filippeschi chieftain. He was not surprised to see her. Someone, Ugolini or Lorenzo, would have told her about his new plan. He beckoned her into his room and closed the door.
Each time the thought of defeat arose in his mind, he had felt the greatest anguish over what it would mean for Sophia. That forced him to admit to himself how much he cared for her. Now that he looked into her amber eyes and told her what he intended to do, the pain he felt was sharper than ever. He wanted to persuade her that she had nothing to fear. But he knew that would be a lie.
He tried to keep what he said simple, practical. "You, like Sordello, will bear witness that Lorenzo and I had gone to Perugia while the Monaldeschi palazzo was under siege. Lorenzo has allies in Perugia who will confirm that."
Sophia stared at him with wide, solemn eyes. "You are risking everything." She reached out and seized his hand, gripping it urgently. "If they find out who you are while you are in the Monaldeschi palace, it will be the end for all of us."
He felt the strength in her fingers, the softness of her palm, and wanted to take her in his arms, but he held himself in check. There could be nothing between them as long as de Gobignon was alive.
"I know a hundred ways to get into a castle and out again," he said, wishing there had been time to share with her more of his life. "Once I am inside, I will search out and kill the two Tartars while all the armed men are occupied with the fighting outside. And then I will leave." He spread his hands to show how easy it would be.
Inwardly he was ashamed. He was preparing to sacrifice this woman's life, knowing that she might die a terrible death—rape, torture, mutilation, public execution. How could he face her at all? That he had made his decision in order to save hundreds of thousands of his people from slaughter, his faith from destruction, was no comfort at this moment alone with Sophia.
"Will you fight Simon?"
He felt his blood go hot. That she should think at all of de Gobignon at this moment rather than of herself—or of him—made him so angry he forgot for a moment his own guilt and fear for her life.
"The young count will probably be leading the fight on the battlements." Daoud tasted the venom in what he was about to say, but he could not help himself. "It will be quite a shock when he finds the Tartars dead and realizes how he has failed."
Sophia stood breathing hard, her eyes glistening with tears. "If only you were not—"
Daoud was already wishing he had not spoken so to her. "Not what?"
"Not blind!" she cried.
She turned swiftly and reached for the door handle. But Daoud could not let her go. He was there before her, and he faced her and seized her hand.
"I am not blind," he rasped. "I see that pretending to be what you are not is tearing you apart. I wish we could be our true selves with each other—"
"We cannot," she said bitterly. "And to speak of it only makes it hurt more. Let me go."
He relaxed his grip on her hand, and she was gone.
Some day, he thought. Some day, Sophia.
Looking at the closed door, Daoud felt an almost unbearable inner pain. He had thrust her at Simon. He had lashed out at her, hurt her unjustly. Having done that to her, he was about to put her in far worse danger.
How could he claim, even in the secrecy of his own heart, that he loved her?
Daoud could barely see Marco di Filippeschi in the darkness. Moonlight touched the gold medallion that hung from Marco's neck and on the silver badge in his cap. For the rest he was a figure carved out of shadow. Despite the full moon, this narrow alleyway between a stone house and the city wall was almost as black as the bottom of a well.
Daoud's Hashishiyya-trained senses needed no light to see by. He had learned to see with his ears as well as with his sense of smell. He could sense what weapons Marco di Filippeschi was wearing—a shortsword and two daggers at his belt, and, from the difference in footfalls, a third dagger in a sheath in his right boot. He knew the position of Marco's hands, and he knew that Marco had told the truth when he said he had come to this rendezvous alone.
Lorenzo had assured him that Marco would leap like a hungry wolf at any chance to avenge himself on the Monaldeschi. But Daoud wondered, would the volatile young clan chieftain really be willing to undertake an attack on the Monaldeschi that had more chance of failing than succeeding?
"I can offer you over two hundred lusty bravos collected by one who is known to you," Daoud said. Hoping to make Marco a little less certain about who his ultimate benefactor was, he avoided naming Giancarlo. Marco could destroy Daoud and all his comrades by revealing the identity of the man who had incited his attack on the Monaldeschi. If he were captured and tortured, strong and fierce though he might be, it was likely he would tell everything.
Daoud reached into the purse at his belt, where he had earlier put two emeralds. He held them out in his open palm so that the moonlight glistened on their polished surfaces.
"Please accept these as a gift," he said. "If you decide to assault the Palazzo Monaldeschi, your preparations will be costly."
The jewels must be called a gift. The capo della famiglia Filippeschi was not a man you paid to do your work for you.
Marco's hand closed around the emeralds, and his other hand seized Daoud's forearm.
"I shall spend this on weapons," he said. "Crossbows to kill more Monaldeschi. Stone guns to batter down their walls. I care not what price I must pay."
That is good, thought Daoud, because the price may be very high.
"I will need until spring," Marco continued. "It will take that long to buy the weapons. I must work slowly and quietly so the old vulture does not get wind of what I am doing."
"The Monaldeschi are collaborating with this French pope and his French cardinals," Daoud said to spur Marco on. "And the French party is about to invite an army under Charles of Anjou into Italy."
"Damn the French!" said Marco. "And damn that putana and her family for working with them."
"Also, as everyone knows," Daoud said, "the pope has not long to live. Strike a blow now for Italy, and you will frighten the cardinals at a time when they will soon be choosing the next pope. So your attack had better come no later than spring."
"We Filippeschi are as loyal to the papacy as the Monaldeschi. Perhaps more."
"My master, whom I prefer not to name," said Daoud, knowing that Marco would think he meant King Manfred, "does not wish to see the pope in league with the French."
"This war of Guelfi and Ghibellini leaves us prey to every French and German ladrone who wants to come down and loot our country," said Marco. Obviously he had no great love for the Hohenstaufens, either.
"How will you start the fighting?" Daoud asked him.
"Two or three of my cousins will take a walk in the piazza before the Palazzo Monaldeschi on a Friday evening, when everybody strolls," Marco said. "If their mere presence in that part of the city does not cause an incident, they will step on a few toes."
"It will take some courage to go into the lion's den," Daoud remarked.
The young Filippeschi chieftain laughed ruefully. "We possess more of courage than we do of anything else."
If they did not also possess some prudence and the ability to keep a secret, Daoud thought, everything was lost.