XX
The madman had a loud voice. Daoud could hear him long before he could see the victim and his torturers. The people around Daoud jostled and craned their necks toward the sound of the screams.
The heretic, in accordance with his sentence, had been dragged through every street in the city and tormented at every intersection, but most of Orvieto's citizens had been waiting in the Piazza San Giovenale to see his final agonies before the cathedral he had desecrated. The piazza was so packed with people it seemed not another person could squeeze in.
Daoud had positioned himself at the foot of the front steps of the cathedral. He faced a wooden platform, newly built in the center of the piazza, on four legs twice the height of a man. Above the platform rose a tall pole. The whole structure was of white wood, unseasoned and unpainted—which was only sensible, since it would shortly be destroyed. Bundles of firewood were piled under it.
Daoud's arms were wedged so tightly to his side by the crowd of people standing about him that it was an effort for him to wipe his face with his sleeve. He had expected Italy to be cooler than Egypt now, in the middle of the Christian month of September, but the damp heat of summer lingered. Thick gray clouds hung low over the city. Sweat streamed from under Daoud's red velvet cap, and he wished he could wear a turban or a burnoose to keep his forehead cool and dry.
At the top of the cathedral steps, in a space cleared by papal guards, stood six red-robed cardinals. Ugolini was among them. He had not wanted to witness the execution, but Daoud had persuaded him to go. His presence, like Daoud's, might counter the suspicion that those who opposed the alliance with the Tartars were connected with the disturbances against them.
Near Ugolini stood Cardinal Paulus de Verceuil, the Tartars' chief supporter in the Sacred College, in a scarlet robe trimmed with ermine, and a broad-brimmed red hat. He looked disdainfully down at another cardinal who Ugolini had pointed out to Daoud as Guy le Gros, also a Frenchman. Every so often de Verceuil would cock an ear to the screams, which were coming closer, or he would glance that way with bright, eager eyes.
Behind the cardinals stood a man-at-arms holding a staff bearing the pope's standard, a gold and white banner blazoned with the crossed keys of Peter in red. Ugolini had learned from the pope's majordomo that His Holiness would not attend. Like Fra Tomasso, Urban had neither need nor desire to see this execution.
One who did have to witness the torture and death of the heretic stood with folded arms on the cathedral steps. He was stocky and much shorter than the two guards in yellow and blue, the city colors, who stood holding halberds on either side of him. His face was grim, and there were deep shadows around his eyes. A small, thin mustache adorned his upper lip. Daoud knew him to be Frescobaldo d'Ucello, podesta of Orvieto.
Daoud's eye moved on. There was the young hero, the man who had captured the would-be assassin. Count Simon de Gobignon stood a little apart from the churchmen and the podesta, speaking to no one. It seemed he had brought none of his Frankish henchmen with him. The black velvet cap he wore and his long dark-brown hair contrasted with the pallor of his thin face. His dress was rich but somber, his silk mantle a deep maroon, his tunic purple. His gloved left hand played nervously with the hilt of his sword, that very sword that had stricken the blade from the heretic's hand.
It was surprising, Daoud thought, that the count's sword was a long, curving scimitar with a jeweled scabbard and hilt. What was the boy doing with a Muslim sword? A trophy of some past crusade, no doubt.
Not enjoying your triumph here today, are you, young Frank? Born to rank and power and wealth, with castles and knights and servants and lands all around you. You have probably never seen a battle, much less fought in one. And yet, knowing not what war is, you try to bring together the Tartar hordes and your crusader knights that they may lay waste my country, kill my people, and stamp out my faith.
Recalling how he and de Gobignon had faced each other at the pope's council, Daoud once again felt rage boil up within him and wondered why he hated the young nobleman so. Was it because he intended to use Sophia to spy on de Gobignon and corrupt him, and that she must bed with him? But that was her work, Daoud tried to tell himself, just as warfare was his.
But was this warfare? To pander to a fat friar's yearning for an old book? To send a lovely woman to the bed of a spoiled young nobleman? To incite a poor fool, maddened by God, into getting himself tortured to death? Daoud wished he could fight openly—draw his sword and challenge de Gobignon. To drive him to his knees, to cut him down, to strike and strike for the people he loved and for God.
To kill him before all, as I did to Kassar.
Daoud, like de Gobignon, was alone. Lorenzo dared not come; the condemned man might recognize him and call out to him. Daoud would never bring Sophia to witness such a sight, even though there were many women, and even children, in the crowd.
The previous night Tilia had told him that she had rented for the day a house overlooking the piazza, from which some important patrons would enhance their pleasure with Tilia's women by watching the pain of the heretic. Daoud looked around at the colonnaded façades of the palaces around the square, wondering which were the windows through which Tilia's depraved clients watched.
A howl went up from the crowd in the square, the people around Daoud shouting so loudly as to deafen him. He saw a cage made of wooden poles rocking into the piazza. People cheered and laughed. Two executioners in blood-red tunics, their heads and faces covered with red hoods, stood on either side of the cage, each man holding in his hands a pair of long-handled pincers. Standing on tiptoe, Daoud saw on the platform of the cart a black iron dish from which ribbons of gray smoke arose.
The prisoner, squatting in the cage, was silent for the moment. Even at this distance Daoud could see his shoulders shaking spasmodically with his panting. He was naked, and all over his flesh were bleeding, blackened wounds.
The executioners thrust the ends of their pincers into the coals and held them there. When they raised them out and brandished them, the claws were glowing red. They turned to the prisoner, who started screaming at once. One executioner thrust his pincers through the front of the cage. The prisoner tried to back away, but the cage was too small. He only pressed his buttocks against the bars behind him, where the other executioner had crept and now dug the jaws of his pincers into the man's flesh as the crowd roared with laughter. Daoud heard the sizzle. The man's scream rose to a pitch that made Daoud's ears ring. The executioner held up his pincers with a gobbet of burnt flesh caught in them for the crowd to see, then slung them so that the bit of meat flew through the air. Daoud saw people reach up to grab at it.
This man is dying horribly because of me. The thought bit into Daoud's heart like the red-hot claws. When Sophia had said as much accusingly to him, he had shrugged it off. Now he had to face the fact.
Let your guilt pierce you through the heart. Do not armor yourself against it. Do not run away from it. Above all, do not turn your back on it. So Saadi had advised him after he avenged himself on Kassar.
The sands of the Eastern Desert were the color of drying blood. The hooves of Daoud's pony sank into them with each step, and he wished he had a camel to ride.
Their training troop had never traveled this far south, and Nicetas had been a fool, Daoud thought, to go hunting in unknown and dangerous country with only a pony to ride. No wonder he had not come back yesterday. Probably, the sun had killed the pony, and Nicetas was crouched in some wadi waiting to be rescued.
I should have gone with him.
But they had been friends, and more than friends, for two years, and from time to time each needed to be alone. They both understood that. And so, when the naqeeb Mahmoud gave them a day of rest after the trek down from El Kahira, and Nicetas said he wanted to go out alone to get himself a pair of antelope horns, Daoud simply hugged him and sent him on his way.
Daoud felt the murderous heat of the noon sun on his head through his burnoose. Ten times hotter here than at El Kahira, now a hundred leagues to the north. The wind filled the air with red dust, and he had wrapped a scarf over his nose and mouth. Only his eyes were exposed, looking for Nicetas.
Antelope horns! Not even a lizard could live in this desert.
He should get into the shade, but he did not want to stop searching. If Nicetas were hurt and lying out in this sun, it would burn him to death. Daoud saw a line of sharp-pointed hills off to his left. There was shade there, and Nicetas would try to reach shade. He tapped his pony's shoulder lightly with his switch and turned its head toward the hills.
Nearly there, he saw what looked like a black rock half-buried ahead of him. Could it be a body? For a moment his heart hammered. No, it was too big. His pony floundered on through the sand till they reached the dark shape.
It was Nicetas's pony, dead. Windblown sand half covered it, but he was sure of it. Nicetas's pony was black.
Daoud swung down from his horse, looping the reins around his wrist so it could not run off, and knelt to examine the dead pony. He brushed away sand from the forehead. Three white dots; he knew those markings well.
He scooped sand away from the dead pony and found an arrow jutting out of the chest. In spite of the fiery sun his body went cold. Wild Sudanese were said to prowl this desert.
He jerked on the arrow. It had gone in deep, and the head must be broad. It took him long to tear it free.
The head was wedge-shaped and made of steel, with sword-sharp edges. Sudanese tribesmen had no such arrows. Even Mamelukes had only a few. Each Mameluke carried two or three, to use against a well-armored opponent.
"Oh, God, help me find Nicetas," he prayed.
Nicetas was out there somewhere. Daoud pushed out of his mind the thought that he might be dead.
Was this punishment for their sin of loving each other, he wondered as he mounted his little horse. God frowned on men lying with men, the mullahs said, but everyone knew that men, especially young men far from women, often took comfort in one another.
He pulled his burnoose farther down over his eyes to shade them better against the sun. He wanted water, but he would not let himself drink until he had reached the hills. He might find Nicetas there, and Nicetas might need the water.
The hills thrust abruptly out of the sand in long vertical folds. Half blinded by the glare, he could see only opaque blackness where the sun did not strike them.
He thought he saw movement in one shadow. He kicked the pony, driving it to struggle faster through the sand, keeping his eyes fixed on the spot.
A deep crevice sliced into the hillside. Daoud rode into it cautiously. Whoever killed Nicetas's mount might still be somewhere about.
Once out of the sun, he slid down from the saddle. He saw no water, but there was a dead tamarisk, its branches like supplicating arms, at the mouth of the crevice. He tied the pony to a limb and moved, slowly, deeper into the shadow.
He looked down at the floor of the crevice, paved with drifting sand and tiny pebbles. He felt a pain in his heart as he saw a trail of dark circular spots, each about the size of his hand. It could be a wounded animal, he told himself.
Then he saw a palmprint, the same dried color, and the pain in his heart sharpened.
He saw the movement again, at the far end of the crevice. A figure lay with its legs stretched out before it, its back propped against the brown stone. Pale hands were clasped over its stomach.
He heard a low, moaning sound, and realized it was coming not from Nicetas but from his own mouth.
Daoud ran and fell to his knees beside him. The half-open eyes widened and the amber gaze turned in his direction. The Greek boy's face was reddened with dust that clung to his sweat. His lips, partially open, were so dry and encrusted they looked like scabs. Daoud put his hand on Nicetas's cheeks. His face was burning.
Now the hurt in Daoud's heart was like death itself.
I am going to lose him.
But this was no time to wail and weep. He must do everything he could. It might yet be God's will that he save his friend.
Let him live, oh God, and I will never sin with him again.
"I knew you would come." The voice was so faint Daoud could barely hear it above the wind whistling past the mouth of the crevice.
Daoud sprang to his feet and ran to his pony to get his water bottle. He untwisted the stopper over his friend's mouth.
The Greek boy shook his head. "I cannot swallow. Just pour a little in my mouth to wet it." Daoud saw deep red cracks in Nicetas's lips. The water trickled out the corners of his mouth and streaked his dusty cheeks.
A hundred half-formed thoughts crowded Daoud's mind. His eyes burned, and pain pounded at his chest.
All he said was "What happened to you?"
"It was Kassar," Nicetas whispered. "He got me with his first arrow. Then he shot the pony and it fell on me. He rode me down. He took my bow before I could get free."
After all this time! Daoud thought. Kassar had said nothing, done nothing, since the day Nicetas beat him at casting the rumh.
He bent forward to take Nicetas in his arms, but the Greek boy shook his head. "Do not move me. It will hurt too much."
"Where are you hit?"
"In my back. Still in me. I broke off the shaft."
Why was I such a fool, to think we were safe?
"It can't be a very bad wound."
Nicetas closed his eyes. "Bad enough that he could use me for his pleasure and I could not fight him off."
A dizzying blackness blinded Daoud. His skull felt as if it were going to burst.
"By God and the Prophet, I will kill him."
"I want you to."
"Did he do any more to hurt you?"
"Yes, he got me here." He parted his hands and raised them from his stomach. His white cotton robe was caked with black blood, and there was a tear in the center. The wound was not wide, but Daoud knew that it must be very deep.
"He made sure to use his rumh, you see."
"Because that was how you beat him."
Daoud wanted only to hold Nicetas and cry, but he sensed that what would most comfort the Greek boy would be talking about what happened to him.
"After the rumh, I lay very still and held my breath. He thought I was dead. He left me lying there with the pony. Took my weapons and my water bottle. I crawled here. In the sun. Yesterday afternoon. I bled and bled."
He is going to die, Daoud thought. He did not want to believe it. For a moment he was angry at Nicetas. Why had he been such a fool as to come out here alone? And then at himself. Why had he let him go?
And then at God.
Why did You let this happen? Do You hate us because we love each other?
"I knew you would come for me, Daoud. I stayed alive to greet you."
Daoud took Nicetas's hand. "I will take you back."
"No. Bury me out here. Let him think you never found me. Bide your time, as he did. Give him no reason to fear you. He fears you already, or he would never have done it this way."
"Before the year is out, you will look down from paradise and see him burning in hell."
"I'm sorry. I was never strong enough to be a Mameluke."
"No. You are strong."
"Not strong enough to live," said Nicetas, so faintly Daoud could hardly hear him. "Good-bye, Daoud. Remember the Greek I taught you. You may meet someone else who speaks Greek."
"I will never meet anyone like you." The tears spilled out over his eyelids, and he did not try to brush them away. The hand he held squeezed his, weakly, then relaxed.
Daoud bent forward and touched his mouth to the split, dust-coated lips. No breath came from his friend's body. A curtain of shadow swept before his eyes, and he thought he was going to faint.
He thrust himself to his feet as Nicetas's head fell to one side.
He threw his arms over his head and screamed.
Arms still upraised, he dropped to his knees.
"Oh, God!" His voice echoed back from the walls of the crevice. "God, God, God!"
The pain in his heart was as if a rumh had impaled it. He felt that he must die, too. He could not bear this loss. Never to see his friend smile again, never to hear his laughter. That body he had loved, nothing now but unmoving, empty clay.
He looked over at Nicetas, hoping to see a movement, the flicker of an eyelid, the rising of the chest. Nothing. Daoud would never again look on in admiration as the Greek boy rode wildly, standing in the stirrups shooting his arrows at the gallop or casting his spear unerringly at the target. They would never, as he had dreamed, ride side by side into battle.
Daoud crumpled to the ground in the position of worship, his forehead pressed against the sharp, broken stones. But he was not worshiping. He simply did not have the strength to hold himself upright.
It seemed hours later when he at last stirred himself. Sobbing, he carried Nicetas out to a place near the mouth of the crevice, where the sand had drifted in, and with his hands he dug there a grave. All along the base of the hillside were many loose brown stones, chipped away by the eternal wind. With bleeding hands he piled the stones high over Nicetas's body, but tried to make the pile look like a rock slide, so that no one would know someone was buried here. He knelt, weeping and talking to Nicetas's spirit, until the sun was low in the west.
As Nicetas had told him to do, Daoud had pretended, when he came back from the desert, that he had no idea what had happened to his friend. The naqeeb had declared that Sudanese tribesmen or wild animals must have gotten him. Daoud was not alone in his grief. Many of the boys in the troop had liked Nicetas.
Even Kassar had said words of sympathy, his face expressionless and his slanted eyes opaque. Daoud held in his rage, a white-hot furnace in his heart, and in a choked voice he thanked Kassar.
At first he went about in a daze, unable to think. He told himself that in spite of his dissembling, Kassar would be on guard. He would have to choose a time to take his revenge when Kassar would be preoccupied. And Daoud himself must be alert at all times. Kassar might not be satisfied with killing only Nicetas. In spite of these warnings to himself, Daoud's mind remained numb. He was, he told himself, like a mall ball, hit one way by grief, the other way by rage, unable to take control of his destiny.
That thought of mall gave him the beginning of a plan.
He let three months go by from the day he found Nicetas. His plan was very simple. It left much to luck, and it might fail utterly—Kassar might anticipate what he was going to do and turn the moment against him, killing him and claiming he was defending himself. Kassar's friends might thwart Daoud.
He would have only this one chance. If he failed, he would be dead or crippled. Or worst of all, cast out of the Mamelukes to spend the rest of his life as a ghulman, a menial slave. But if he succeeded, Nicetas would be avenged before Baibars and Sultan Qutuz and all Daoud's and Nicetas's khushdashiya.
Whatever punishment might befall him then, he thought he could bear it for Nicetas's sake.
The Warrior of God is a man who would give his life for his friends.
On the day Daoud decided to act, the Bhari Mamelukes, the slaves of the River, rode out to play mall. Emir Baibars al-Bunduqdari led them across the bridge from Raudha Island to the Nasiri race course, their training and playing ground, within sight of the great pyramids built by the ancient idol-worshipers of Egypt. The people of El Kahira watched with shining eyes as their guardians assembled on the field. Baibars's tablkhana, his personal mounted band, playing trumpets and kettledrums, cymbals and hautboys, rode before them. Sultan al-Mudhaffar Qutuz came down from the citadel of El Kahira to watch the games as the guest of his Mamelukes.
The troops of julbans, Mamelukes in training, brought up the rear of the parade on their little ponies, with their naqeebs riding before them, the oldest boys in the lead and the first- and second-year boys on foot at the end. They wore plain brown shirts and white cotton trousers and caps. No special marks of rank were allowed these young slaves until they became full-fledged Mamelukes.
Daoud's troop, the boys in their fifth year of training, rode immediately behind the Mamelukes. Each boy carried a mallet, which was as much part of his equipment as his bow, his rumh, his dabbus, and his saif. The mallets were made of cedar and were large and heavy. They had to be, to drive a wooden ball half the size of a man's head.
Slaves had pulled perforated water barrels in carts over the field to lay the dust. Baibars and the sultan and the highest-ranking emirs seated themselves on cushions in an open pavilion facing the center of the field.
Daoud's teammates chattered excitedly. They loved mall, and to play before the sultan was a special honor. Kassar, the captain of their team, boasted that he would make ten goals that day. Theirs was to be the second match.
Hefting his mallet, Daoud watched the first match, also between two teams of fifth-year trainees. Each team of eight riders tried to drive the wooden ball between a pair of stone pillars painted with red and yellow stripes, defended by the other team. With every crack of a mallet against the ball, a roar went up from the watching Mamelukes.
A judge with an hourglass called time halfway through the match, to let the field be watered again and the teams change ponies. By the end of the match, the dust was so thick Daoud could not see who had won. But he did not care. He felt utterly calm. He was past anger and past fear. He thought only of watching for the right moment.
Now it was time for their team.
Kassar, Daoud, and the other six riders lined up on the east side of the field, the eight members of the troop they were playing against forming on the other side.
The judge set the wooden ball, yellow with a bright red stripe around its middle, in the center of the field. The sultan held out a blue silk scarf and dropped it. Kassar and the captain of the other team raced at the ball from opposite goals, screaming their war cries. Kassar whirled his mallet over his head, and his pony's legs were a blur in the dust. He reached the ball an instant before his opponent. His mallet slammed into the ball with a crack like the splitting of a board, and the ball flew halfway toward the enemy goal.
The ball was in play, and now the other riders could join in.
You will make not even one goal today, Kassar, Daoud thought as he galloped across the field with his team.
The players on the other side were trying to hit the ball away from their goal. Kassar had ridden into their midst, his pony nimbly following the ball. He held his mallet low to hit through the legs of the opposing team's ponies. Two of the opponents had stayed back by their goalposts to deflect the ball should Kassar hit it.
Kassar was on top of the ball. Daoud kicked his pony's ribs hard and galloped after him.
As Kassar swung low from his saddle to hit the ball, Daoud drove in on him. Kassar glanced up, fear flashing across his broad face. Whatever passed through his mind was his last thought. Daoud swung his mallet up from the ground, smashing it into Kassar's jaw. The force of the blow knocked the white cap from his head. His pony ran free of the melee. Kassar reeled, unconscious, but his horse nomad's instinct held him in the saddle.
Daoud jerked his pony around to race after Kassar. In an instant he was beside his enemy.
He was about to kill a khushdashiyin, a barracks comrade, in open defiance of the code of the Mamelukes and in front of his emir and his sultan.
I am a dead man, he thought as he swung the mallet high.
His body felt cold as death, and he hesitated. As he did so, Kassar turned his head, and Daoud saw consciousness struggling to return to his glazed eyes.
This was Daoud's last chance to avenge Nicetas.
He heard a distant roar of command from the naqeeb Mahmoud, but he ignored it.
He brought the mallet down with all his strength on the Kipchaq's glistening black hair. The shock of the contact ran up his arm and into his shoulder. Kassar started to fall. Daoud struck again with the mallet.
Kassar pitched from his pony's back. As he struck the ground, Daoud smashed the mallet into his head a third time, just as if he were hitting a ball. He tried to hit hard enough to knock Kassar's head right off his neck. Daoud saw the head suddenly distorted, flattening, and knew the skull was crushed. Kassar lay on the ground on his back, only the whites of his eyes showing, his mouth hanging open. Dust half obscured his body.
Daoud heard shouts from the bystanders, but he paid no attention to what they were saying. He saw riders, the other players, racing toward him.
A silence fell on the playing field.
"Get down from your horse." It was Mahmoud, who had run out into the field on foot.
As Daoud and Mahmoud walked across the field, the naqeeb said, "You will answer to El Malik Qutuz and to Emir Baibars for this. Fool, whatever your quarrel was, could you not have settled it in private? Have you forgotten that Baibars is a Kipchaq? He will not forgive you."
Despite his joy at seeing Nicetas's murderer dead, Daoud now felt terror clutching his throat as he approached the two seated figures in their splendid robes at the side of the field. Now that the deed was done and could not be undone, he dreaded facing these two mighty judges.
Baibars is a Kipchaq, but it was Baibars who bought me for the Mamelukes, Daoud thought. I wonder which will mean more to him this day.
Baibars and Qutuz sat side by side on cushions in the shade of a silken canopy. Baibars wore an egret's plume, symbol of valor, on his green turban. His wide, harsh mouth was tight under the red mustache, his good eye as empty of feeling as the blind one that was crossed by a vertical saber scar.
Beneficent God, if I must die for what I have done, let it be a quick and clean death. And then I will join Nicetas.
El Malik al-Mudhaffar Qutuz, Sultan of El Kahira, a Mameluke of a Kurdish tribe, was somewhat older than Baibars. His face was criss-crossed with tiny wrinkles. His beard, greased so that it jutted like the prow of a galley, was such a flat black that it must surely be dyed. He wore a large black turban and full black robes with gold embroidery.
Daoud fell to his knees and prostrated himself before the sultan.
"Get up and take off your cap," said Qutuz without preliminary. Daoud rose to his feet, lifting his cap from his head.
"Look at that blond hair," said Qutuz wonderingly. "I thought he had the look of a Frank about him, Bunduqdari."
"I could have told you that," said Baibars flatly. "He belongs to me. He is known as Daoud ibn Abdallah. His parents were Franks. We took him when we freed Ascalon." He talked to Qutuz, Daoud noted, as if they were equals.
Baibars turned his one eye on Daoud. "Why did you do this?" he said softly. "You are not a fool, and you would not kill out of foolishness."
"Effendi, he killed my friend," said Daoud, making himself stand straight and look levelly at Baibars. The emir might sentence him to death, but he would show himself a true Mameluke. He would not cringe or beg. He would honor Nicetas.
"How do you know?"
Daoud told Baibars how he had found Nicetas in the desert and what he had said to him. He kept his voice level, trying not to let his fear show.
"You should have reported this to me!" shouted Naqeeb Mahmoud, his white beard quivering. The naqeeb would bear some blame, Daoud thought, for this breach of discipline.
But Daoud only turned to him and threw his own words back at him, "Among Mamelukes, he who is strongest rules."
Perhaps he should not be so defiant, he thought. Both the sultan and Baibars liked to show themselves to be men of great generosity.
Yes, but not to a julban who has broken the law.
"He cannot kill his comrade and go unpunished," said Qutuz. "He should be beheaded."
At the words, even though he had thought himself prepared for them, Daoud felt something shrink with dread inside him. He felt the blade slicing through his neck. The sultan had spoken. His life was over.
"He is too valuable to be beheaded," said Baibars. "Believe me, My Lord."
Valuable?
Daoud felt as if he had fallen from a cliff and a strong hand had reached out and was dragging him back. He was breathless with a relief he barely dared to feel. He tried to keep his face and body still as the two great ones debated his fate, but he could not stop his fists from clenching.
The sultan's eyes narrowed, and a deep crease appeared between his brows as he turned to Baibars. "Is this Frankish murderer a protégé of yours, then?"
Baibars nodded. "I have seen reason to take a personal interest in him, if it please My Lord."
What did that mean? What had Baibars seen in him that day in the slave market, and why had Baibars come there that day?
I have long watched for such a one as you, who could have the outward look of a Christian knight but the mind and heart of a Mameluke. One like you could be a great weapon against the enemies of the faith.
"It does not please me," said Qutuz shortly. "There is too much breaking of rules among the Bhari Mamelukes." He spoke, Daoud thought, as if he were not originally a Mameluke himself.
"There is a law among Mamelukes more binding than any lesser rule," said Baibars quietly. "He who feels himself greatly sinned against must strike back. If he cannot do that, he is not enough of a man to be a Mameluke. Even as this foolish boy said, the strong must rule."
Daoud saw grave approval in Baibars's brown face and realized that it did not matter at all to Baibars that Kassar was a Kipchaq. His joy grew as he realized that he had Baibars on his side.
Daoud remembered Nicetas's dying words—I am not strong enough to be a Mameluke.
But together we were strong enough to do what had to be done.
Qutuz said, "If all Mamelukes believed only in the rule of the strongest, we would have chaos."
"Only if it were not certain who is strongest," said Baibars quietly.
Baibars and Qutuz sat looking at each other in a grave and thoughtful silence that seemed to stretch on forever. Finally, Qutuz turned away.
"I must allow you to discipline the Bhari Mamelukes—or not discipline them—as you see fit, Bunduqdari. That is your responsibility."
"Thank you, My Lord," said Baibars with just a hint of sarcasm.
He turned to Mahmoud. "Take him away."
Daoud crossed the field, walking beside Mahmoud, wondering how his khushdashiya, clustered together around what had been their goal, would greet him.
I have killed Kassar, Daoud thought. I have taken a life. It was the first time, and he felt glad and proud.
But he would gladly give up this proud moment to have Nicetas back. His grief for Nicetas was sharp as ever, not at all eased by vengeance.
Is it wrong to have done as I did and to feel this way?
A sharp voice rang out behind them. "Mahmoud!"
Daoud and the naqeeb turned together, and Daoud was amazed to see that Baibars, splendid in his red satin robe and green turban, was approaching them. Daoud and Mahmoud rushed to stand before him, rigid and trembling.
"Mahmoud," Baibars said, "when we return to Raudha Island tonight, you will issue this fool the steel helmet of a full-fledged Mameluke, trimmed with black fur."
He swung that searching blue eye back to Daoud. "Tonight at the Gray Mosque I will perform the ceremony that frees you. You will be a part of my personal guard from now on."
Dizzy with exultation, Daoud fell to his knees and pressed his forehead to the cool brown earth before the emir. Tears burned his eyes and dripped to the ground.
"May God praise and bless you, Emir Baibars!" he cried.
"Get up," Baibars said briskly. "Had you let your friend go unavenged, I would no longer be interested in you."
As he scrambled to his feet, Daoud saw Mahmoud smiling through his beard.
"You learned well the lesson I tried to teach you."
Dizzy, Daoud tried to grasp what had been going on in the minds of these men without his realizing it.
Baibars said, "Now you must learn to kill with more grace and subtlety. I shall see that you are trained by masters, as I did when I sent you to Sheikh Abu Hamid al-Din Saadi."
And I must go to Sheikh Saadi again, thought Daoud. That he may tell me if I did wrong.
Now it was over ten years since Kassar had killed Nicetas and Daoud had killed Kassar. And though Daoud had never felt guilty for killing Kassar, he understood what Saadi meant about facing guilt.
If he had not understood, he might have told himself that it was not his fault, it was these Christian brutes who chose to torment the poor madman in this way. He might have told himself that Lorenzo, not he, had found the man and brought him to Orvieto. He might simply have said, as he had said to Sophia, that in war there must be innocent victims. He might have reminded himself that he and Lorenzo thought that the man would only raise a commotion in the church, not that he would draw a knife.
And if he consented to any of those thoughts, he would have been pinching off a fragment of his soul, just as the executioners pinched off bits of this man's body.
He forced himself to watch as the cage moved slowly into the piazza and the executioners tore again and again at the victim's body with their red-hot pincers. He saw now that six laughing, well-dressed young men were pulling the cart. Of course. No beast, its nostrils assailed by the smell of burning flesh and its ears by the victim's howls of agony, could remain calm and pull a cart through this frenzied crowd.
These were the same people who had rioted against the Tartars a month ago, the day this man was arrested. Now they cheered and jeered at the death of the Tartars' assailant. And that meant, Daoud thought, that the man's death was in vain.
The cage drew near him now as it approached the scaffold. Daoud held his breath at the thought that the condemned man might look him in the eye. How could I bear that? But the man's eyes, he saw, were squeezed shut with fear and pain.
And guilt continued to cut into Daoud like the twisting knife blade of a Hashishiyyin.
A better man than I would have found a way to stir the people and keep them stirred, so that lives would not be wasted.
The two red-garbed executioners had set aside their red-hot pincers and were dragging the heretic up the ladder to the scaffold. His feet dangled on the rungs. On the platform stood another man waiting for the victim.
Daoud felt his eyes open wide and his lips begin to work silently when he saw who the third executioner was.
His face was left bare by the executioner's black hood, whose long point hung down the side of his head past his chin. No use to mask this man's face; his body made him instantly recognizable to anyone who had ever seen him before.
He smiled a serene, almost kindly smile down at the moaning man who was being dragged up the ladder toward him. He held a cook's knife in one hand with a blade as wide as his wrist and as long as his forearm. If he were not holding the knife up to display it to his victim, the tip of it would have rested on the platform, because the executioner's back was bent forward as if it had been broken in some accident long ago.
The firewood seller at Lucera!
Daoud's head swam as he tried to fathom how the crippled dwarf who had been part of the crowd of tradesmen entering the great Hohenstaufen stronghold with him, who had witnessed Daoud's arrest by Celino at the gate and even seemed to pray in his behalf, could be here conducting a public execution in the city of the pope. He must have been a Guelfo spy, by coincidence infiltrating Lucera at the same time as Daoud.
He had been in Manfred's pastry kitchen. Had he really been sleeping, or had he seen Manfred, Lorenzo, and Daoud walk through together?
If he sees me here in the crowd, he will expose me! The people around Daoud, their breath reeking of onions and garlic, pressed him so tightly he could barely move. Twisting his body, he managed to get his back turned to the scaffold. This put him face-to-face with a broad-shouldered man in a mud-brown tunic, with a thick black beard and mustache. The man laughed at him.
"Would you turn away? Have you no stomach for Erculio's holy work?"
Daoud fixed the man with a stare, thinking of what he would like to do to him. He realized, though, that if he tried to fight his way out of the piazza, the little man on the scaffold would certainly notice him. If he simply stayed where he was and watched, his would be one face in thousands, and the dwarf obviously had more pressing business. He reached up to the soft cap on his head, making sure it covered most of his blond hair. Without a word to the man in brown, who had shrunk from his stare, Daoud turned and faced the platform. He was just in time to see the bent dwarf—Erculio, was that his name?—bless himself, just as he had at Lucera.
Daoud's heart pounded as he imagined himself and Lorenzo and Ugolini suffering as this naked, bleeding blistered heretic was.
And Sophia! God forbid! I would cut her throat myself before I let anything like this happen to her.
The thought of Sophia being tortured in public was such agony that he wanted to scream and fight his way out of the piazza. He did Sufi breathing exercises to calm himself.
They had tied the moaning victim down on a wooden sawhorse. Lying on his back, he was low enough that the bent man could easily reach any part of him. One of the executioners in red held the victim's mouth open, and the little man reached in with one hand, pulled forth the tongue and sliced it off. Like a jongleur producing an apple from his sleeve, he waved the severed tongue at the crowd, then threw it. A forest of hands clutched at it. Common people everywhere, Daoud recalled, believed that parts of the bodies of condemned men could be used in magic.
It took a moment for Erculio to saw the heretic's nose off. With tongue and nose gone, the condemned man's screams no longer sounded human. They were like the bellowings of a steer being clumsily slaughtered.
Daoud realized that he was grateful for the problem that the little man presented. It gave him something urgent to think about other than what he was watching.
Erculio now stuck the knife, point down, in the platform and used both hands to tear the heretic's eyeballs out. The tormented man was silent now. He must have fainted. The little man danced about him, jabbing him repeatedly with the knife until the screams started again.
Were the nobles and churchmen enjoying this as much as the common folk, Daoud wondered. There seemed to be fewer prelates in red and purple on the church and steps when he looked. Ugolini stood with his hands behind his back, turning his eyes away from the scene in the piazza. De Verceuil stared right at the victim, his little mouth open in a grin showing white teeth. D'Ucello stood stolidly between his guards, his arms folded. He did not seem to have moved or changed the expression on his face since Daoud first saw him.
Simon de Gobignon was pale as parchment, and even as Daoud watched, the young man turned and hurried into the cathedral.
Weakling! It is because of you, too, that this man suffers, but you cannot face it.
Erculio, dancing, grimacing comically under his black mustache, feinted repeatedly with his knife at the condemned man's groin. When the shouts of the crowd had reached a crescendo, he fell upon his victim and sliced away testicles and penis with quick strokes. The heretic gave a long, shivering howl of agony, then was silent. The little man tossed the bloody organs into the air. An executioner in red caught them and threw them to the other one, who in turn hurled them into the crowd.
I hope dozens of them are killed in the scramble. God forgive me for the pain I have caused this man.
The two men in red untied the condemned man and heaved him to his feet, his face and body so running with blood that he, too, seemed dressed in red. The crowd began to back away from the scaffold, and Daoud felt himself irresistibly carried back with them. The executioners tied the limp form of the heretic to the stake jutting up from the center of the platform.
The black-clad dwarf scuttled like a monkey to the edge of the platform, and someone handed him a flaming torch. He danced with it. He whirled it in great circles around his head, and Daoud heard it hissing even over the cheers of the crowd. He swung the flame between his legs and leapt over it. He threw it high in the air, the torch spinning under the thick gray clouds that hung low over Orvieto. Erculio neatly caught it when it came down. For a man so badly deformed, his agility was eerie.
Erculio turned toward the cathedral, holding up the torch. Daoud followed the dwarf's gaze and saw d'Ucello, the podesta, his face a white mask, give a wave of assent.
Spinning on his heels, the dwarf scurried to the ladder, scrambled down a few rungs, and threw the torch into the tinder piled under the platform. Then he turned and leapt out into space. The other two executioners had left the platform and stood at the bottom of the ladder, and one of them caught Erculio and swung him down.
The flames shot up with a roar, a red and gold curtain around the heretic. Daoud heard no more cries of pain. Perhaps he was already dead of his wounds. Daoud prayed to God that it be so.
The smoke did not rise in the hot, moist air, but coiled and spread around the scaffold. People coughed and wiped their eyes and drew back farther from the blaze. Daoud was close enough to feel the heat, and on such a sweltering day it was unbearable. But now, he discovered, he could move. The crowd was dispersing. There was nothing more to see. The heretic was surely dead, and the smoke and flames hid the destruction of his body.
Daoud looked up at the cathedral steps. There were no red or purple robes there, and the papal banner was gone. The Count de Gobignon had reappeared and was staring at the fire. As Daoud watched, the count stumbled down the steps, his arms hanging loosely at his sides.
Daoud turned to go back to Ugolini's.
"Well, Messer David, do they do as thorough a job on heretics in Trebizond?"
Daoud's path was blocked by a man in a scarlet robe. From beneath the wide circular brim of a great red hat, the long, dark face of Cardinal de Verceuil glowered at him. Thick red tassels hung down from the hat all around the cardinal's head.
Immediately behind de Verceuil stood two attendants. One held high a white banner blazoned with a red cross and a gold flower shape in two of the quarters; the other man, a sturdy, shaven-headed young cleric in black cassock, carried a long golden rod that curved into a tight spiral at the top. That was called a crosier, Daoud recalled, and was the cardinal's staff of office. Behind them were four men-at-arms who looked hard at Daoud, as if expecting him to give offense to their master. Daoud wondered if the cardinal would consider having him killed here in public. Daoud stared at him through the smoky air, measuring him, looking for those small signs of tension to be found in a man about to order an attack. The man seemed too relaxed for that.
"No, Your Eminence, we only stone our heretics to death."
De Verceuil smiled. "That may be a better way of disposing of them. After a burning, the unpleasant thought always occurs to me that I am carrying the heretic away in my nostrils and lungs."
Sickened inwardly at this reminder of the rancid smell that had come from the heretic's pyre, Daoud smiled at the grisly jest, as he assumed the cardinal expected him to. He remained silent, waiting for de Verceuil to reveal the reason for this encounter.
"Ordinarily we merely burn heretics," the cardinal went on. "We had this man tormented first because he threatened our guests, the Tartar ambassadors, and disturbed a service in the cathedral with the pope himself present. We had to be severe with him."
"Assuredly," said Daoud, still smiling. De Verceuil's Italian sounded strange to him. He must be speaking it with a French accent.
"But perhaps, since you seem to think the Tartars are such a danger to Christendom," said de Verceuil in a voice that was lower and more menacing, "you approve of what that man did." He gestured toward the burning scaffold. The stake and whatever was left of the body bound to it had fallen through the platform into the pile of faggots. A breeze had sprung up and was blowing the smoke away from Daoud and the cardinal, for which Daoud thanked God.
"I came here today to see justice done," Daoud said firmly.
"You profess the Greek Church," said de Verceuil, eyeing him coldly. "That makes you a heretic yourself."
The men-at-arms behind the cardinal shifted restlessly, and Daoud wondered again if de Verceuil meant to provoke a fight leading to a killing. Or perhaps have him arrested. He looked past de Verceuil and his men and saw that some curious citizens had formed a circle around himself and the cardinal. And there was de Gobignon, standing watchfully only a short distance away at the foot of the cathedral steps. Was his sword, too, at the cardinal's command?
"If you are concerned about justice, it is too bad you chose to be Cardinal Ugolini's guest during your stay in Orvieto," de Verceuil said. "You will hear only a corrupt Italian point of view in his household."
Praise God, de Verceuil was not pursuing the matter of Daoud's heresy.
Daoud shrugged. "I have seen what devastation the Tartars do, Your Eminence. With respect, let me say to you that they are as much a danger to your country, France, as to Italy."
De Verceuil essayed what he may have thought was an ingratiating smile, but his small mouth made him look sly and sour.
"I invite you to come to live at the Palazzo Monaldeschi. I have spoken to the contessa, and she would be most happy to receive you. The Monaldeschi are the wealthiest family in Orvieto, and they have connections with other great families in the Papal States. If you wish to find good customers for your silks and spices here, it is the contessa you should see. And if you would trade with France, perhaps I can help you there."
The possibility of spending some days and nights in enemy headquarters was intriguing. But would it be prudent to put himself into de Verceuil's and de Gobignon's hands?
Daoud shook his head with what he hoped was a regretful smile. "Forgive me, Your Eminence. Your offer of the contessa's hospitality overwhelms me, but I have already promised to remain with Cardinal Ugolini, and he would be deeply offended if I were to leave him."
De Verceuil glowered. "Ugolini is from Hohenstaufen territory. The Monaldeschi have always been loyal to the pope and have great influence with him. Just as I have with King Louis of France and his brother, Count Charles. Come to us, and when you go back to your own land you will be a wealthy man."
"Could it be that Your Eminence hopes I might change my testimony about the Tartars?"
Daoud felt close to laughter as the cardinal's cheeks reddened.
De Verceuil shot back, "Could it be that your enmity to the Tartars is more important to you than your profit as a merchant?"
Daoud's heart beat harder. That was too close to the mark. It was foolish of him to jest with a man who had the power to condemn him and his friends to be tortured and burned like that poor madman.
"I regret that I have offended Your Eminence," he said. "I have seen what I have seen, and I am honor bound to speak the truth. And profit will do me no good if the Tartars slaughter us all."
"You are ignorant of our ways," de Verceuil said ominously, after a long pause during which Daoud felt raindrops strike his face. "Have a care that you do not slip into pitfalls you cannot possibly foresee."
First de Verceuil joked, then he threatened, then he offered hospitality, then he threatened again. He seemed to have no sense of how to deal with men.
Even if we were on the same side, I would hate him. What a trial he must be for his allies.
But Daoud was eager to get away without creating any deeper enmity between himself and the cardinal. "I thank you again for your offer of hospitality, Your Eminence. Even if I cannot come to live at the Monaldeschi palace, I do hope to meet the contessa. She has graciously invited Cardinal Ugolini to her reception for the Tartar ambassadors, and I shall accompany him."
"Do not think you are free to do as you please in Orvieto," said de Verceuil angrily. "You are being closely watched." He turned abruptly and strode off. Daoud bowed politely to his scarlet back. Casting ugly looks at Daoud, the cardinal's men followed.
Daoud told himself that it would be wise to be frightened. But what he felt was more a profound disdain for Paulus de Verceuil.
As a man of religion or of power, how can this squawking bird in red plumage compare with Sheikh Saadi and the Imam Fayum of the Hashishiyya?
The rain was coming down harder. It hissed in the still-burning heap of wood and bones.
A movement near the cathedral steps caught Daoud's eye. He turned and saw Simon de Gobignon looking at him. Why was he alone? Had he, like Daoud, not wanted any of his comrades to see this horror?
How infuriating it must be for that proud young Frank to have to work closely with a man like Cardinal de Verceuil. The cardinal was so arrogant, so overbearing, so crude as to turn people against any cause he might support, no matter how worthy.
As the rain fell on him, Daoud hardly noticed it. He saw a new plan shimmering like a mirage on the horizon of his mind.