XXI
"Bonsoir, Messire. I have not seen you since the day the heretic was burned. I trust the spectacle did not disturb you?"
Simon had deliberately addressed David of Trebizond in French, to find out whether the trader spoke that language in addition to Greek and Italian. He might be from the other side of the earth, but there was something very French-looking about him.
They stood facing each other a little apart from the crowd gathered in the sala maggiore, the great hall of the Palazzo Monaldeschi. The large room was lit by hundreds of candles. Four musicians in a distant corner sawed away energetically at vielles of different sizes held between their knees, while two others blew on hautboys. Tables were piled high with meat and pastry along the sides of the hall. Servants circulated, refilling goblets from pitchers of wine. Neither Simon nor David was holding a goblet.
The big blond man, who had not been looking at Simon, turned and stared at him. Simon detected a pallor under his tan. David did not react to the sound of French like a man who had heard an unfamiliar language. He looked more as if he had heard the voice of a ghost.
David bowed. "Pardonnez-moi, Monseigneur. I had not expected to be addressed in French."
Simon was surprised to hear in David's northern French the harsh accents of the English Channel coast.
"Where did you learn my tongue, Messire?" Simon asked.
David shrugged. "Since the Crusades began, many of your countrymen have passed through Trebizond."
Many Crusaders had been Normans, Simon thought. It made sense. But it was odd that this man David, who claimed to be a Greek, not only spoke like a Norman, but looked like nothing so much as a big, blond Norman knight. Simon had seen just such faces—square, with long, straight noses and cold gray-blue eyes—everywhere in Normandy and in England when he had accompanied King Louis on a state visit to the realm of his vassal, King Henry of England.
But David did not dress like a Norman, Simon noted. His apparel was gaudy in the extreme. He wore a white cap with a blood-red feather, a short cloth-of-gold cape, particolored hose—light green and peach—and forest-green boots.
Simon, who, in emulation of King Louis preferred somber colors, had chosen for tonight a brown velvet singlet and maroon hose. The brightest thing about him was the jeweled handle of his prized scimitar.
"I hope that you were not upset by the bloody execution of that heretic last week," Simon said once again.
"Oh, no." David smiled. "But I saw you there, and you seemed to be."
God's wounds, how true that is! was Simon's first thought. He had held himself rigid throughout the heretic's horrible death, afraid that he would throw up.
But how disturbing to discover that this Greek merchant, apparently an enemy, had seen right through Simon's effort to appear imperturbable. Of all the people in Orvieto, this man was the last Simon would want to reveal himself to. He cursed himself for giving David such a perfect opening.
How could I be such a fool? And I thought I was so clever, addressing him in French.
Simon had been anticipating his next encounter with David with a mixture of eagerness, fear, and anger, almost as if it were to be a battle. Now he wished he had stayed away from the man.
"I felt sorry for the poor devil, as I believe a Christian should," Simon said. "Did you not?"
There was a baleful look in David's eyes, as if he hated Simon for his answer.
But the man from Trebizond only shrugged and said, "I have seen much blood and pain in my life."
A broad figure in a white robe billowed up to Simon and David. Simon remembered him from the pope's council—Fra Tomasso d'Aquino, the distinguished Dominican. The friar's belt of rosary beads rattled as he walked. It would take a week, Simon thought, to recite all the Our Fathers and Hail Marys that encircled Fra Tomasso.
"Count, I trust you will forgive my interrupting you. I have already had the pleasure of meeting Messer David of Trebizond, but I have wanted to speak to you ever since you arrived in Orvieto. As a seminarian I studied for a year in Paris under your uncle, Hugues de Gobignon. A friar of great renown. His murder was such a tragedy."
Simon felt uneasy at reminiscence about the uncle who was not really his uncle. As he chatted with Fra Tomasso, his eyes roved through the large room. He noticed the crowd gathered around the Tartars, John and Philip, who were seated in large, comfortable-looking chairs placed near a crowned swan at the center of a serving table. He saw a servant pour wine into a silver cup John held out to him. More of that wonderful wine of Montefiascone?
Beside the Tartars stood a woman named Ana from the land of the Bulgars, territory now ruled by the Tartars. Anything, thought Simon bitterly, to keep Friar Mathieu from achieving too much importance. De Verceuil had found her and had taken her along as interpreter when the Tartars had their first private audience with the pope.
Another group stood around the seated Pope Urban, many of them in the red and purple of cardinals, archbishops, and bishops. There was de Verceuil, of course, as near to the pope as he could get. The cardinal's vanity, as usual, had made him choose layman's garb, a tunic of gold-braided silk and a cape of aquamarine satin trimmed with red-dyed squirrel fur. And between two prelates' shoulders Simon could just make out the top of Cardinal Ugolini's fuzzy gray head.
If Ugolini was here, had his niece Sophia come tonight as well? Yes, there she was, halfway across the hall, talking to the Contessa di Monaldeschi. The pale violet of Sophia's gown made her skin look darker. The poets always sang of fair ladies, but Simon found her dark complexion wondrously attractive. She had let her embroidered silk shawl fall away from her bare shoulders, and he marveled at their sweet delicacy. Under her gauze veil the pearls in her headdress twinkled like stars against hair that was black as night.
"Excuse me, Fra Tomasso, Messer David. I have promised to deliver a most urgent message to the contessa."
Fra Tomasso, in the middle of an anecdote about Friar Hugues's subtlety as an inquisitor, gave Simon leave to go. As David bowed, his eyes met Simon's, and his look was at once both knowing and bitter. He, too, was a guest in Ugolini's house, thought Simon. Was he, too, attracted to Sophia? Who would not be?
As Simon moved toward Sophia, the contessa's majordomo strode to the center of the sala maggiore and called in a deep voice, "Signori e madonne, tables, game boards, and cards are set for your amusement in the inner galleria."
Then Simon was bowing before the contessa, acutely aware of Sophia standing beside her. He kissed the old lady's shiny knuckles, hoping he would have an opportunity to kiss Sophia's hand as well.
"My dear boy, did you hear the announcement? Do you enjoy cards or backgammon? I understand your pious king forbids such amusements at his court. And yet our Holy Father himself loves to play alii." She saw Simon staring at Sophia and smiled.
"You see, my dear?" the contessa said to Sophia. "Does this splendid young Frenchman look as if he is interested in cards or dice? Or in you? Enough of your modesty."
Sophia lowered her eyelids and blushed. How beautiful her olive complexion was, tinted with rose!
"The contessa is merciless," she said in a low voice.
"Merciless!" the contessa cackled. "My dear, if I were the envious sort, then indeed would I show you no mercy. By San Giorgio, I would have you poisoned. But I made up my mind many, many years ago, when I saw my looks beginning to fade, that I had to choose between hating the beauty of other women or enjoying it. I was already spending all my hatred on the odious Filippeschi. So I decided that when I saw beautiful women I would rejoice at their presence in the world and delight myself by remembering my own youth and imagining the pleasures they must be experiencing."
She put her hand on Simon's arm. "What do you think, Count Simon? Would you like me to present this young lady to you?"
"A thousand thanks, Contessa," said Simon, falling into the extravagant style of speaking the occasion seemed to call for. "I have already had the great pleasure of meeting Madonna Sophia at her uncle's mansion."
The contessa nodded. "Ah, you have called upon Cardinal Ugolini. I am glad to hear that. I would have told you to if you had not done it on your own." She turned again to Sophia. "Your uncle and I have been friends ever since the Holy Father moved the papal household to Orvieto. I deeply admire and respect him. When he reads the stars for me, his insights and predictions are remarkably accurate. His remedies for my body's complaints always achieve their purpose, which is more than I can say for other physicians I have consulted. And best of all, he finds time for a lonely old lady, when others who should be more attentive make excuses."
"My uncle is a marvelous man, Your Signory," Sophia murmured. "I am most fortunate to be his niece. Otherwise I could never hope to be present on this magnificent occasion, to meet and talk with you."
"And to be waited upon by this handsome cavaliere," the contessa finished for her, smiling broadly.
The contessa really is enjoying this, Simon thought. The old lady was beaming with pleasure.
Sophia turned to Simon.
"I am most pleased to see you again, Count." Her eyes seemed to shine at him. Was it his imagination?
She held out her hand. His whole body felt more intensely alive as his fingers touched hers. He noticed as he bent over her hand that she wore one ring, a garnet of a red so deep as to be almost black. His lips touched the creamy skin of the back of her hand, and he thought he felt her tremble slightly.
Contessa Elvira eyed both of them, sighed happily, and said, "I think it is time for me to find someone to play rota with. Perhaps I will ask your uncle to tell my fortune with the cards. He reads the cards as well as he reads the stars."
They bowed as she moved off. As she turned her back, Simon noticed that her long blue velvet gown had threadbare patches in the rear. She was so old and so powerful, Simon thought, that such things did not matter to her. Perhaps it was a favorite gown from the days when she was young and beautiful, like Sophia.
But he doubted that she had ever been as beautiful as Sophia.
"May I bring you some wine or something to eat, Madonna?" he asked Sophia.
"Thank you, I am not hungry. But"—she gestured as if to free him from obligation to stand with her—"perhaps you—"
"Oh, no, I am quite content. A hand of cards, then?" Simon hoped she would see that he was making it his responsibility to entertain her.
She took a deep breath, and Simon felt a small thrill as he watched her bosom rise and fall under the fine silk of her violet gown. "What I would really like, Count, would be a stroll in the garden. This room, big as it is, is so hot and crowded. And even though it is September, this evening it is very warm, do you not think so?"
"Very warm," said Simon, delightedly taking her arm.
As Fra Tomasso chatted with him, Daoud watched de Gobignon and Sophia stroll across the brightly candlelit hall to the door leading to the inner galleria.
De Gobignon spoke to me in the language of my parents.
Sire Geoffrey and Dame Evelyn Langmuir, he knew, were of English stock. But Daoud's father had once told him that all the English nobility spoke French.
Tonight was the first time since Daoud landed in Italy that he had heard French or had spoken it. When he first heard himself addressed in French, he had experienced a strange and frightening sensation, as if his dead father were speaking to him. He hated de Gobignon for doing that to him.
And I hate him because he will enjoy the woman I want for myself.
The voice of Fra Tomasso faded away. Black rage filled Daoud's skull, deafening and blinding him. He pictured Sophia naked in Simon de Gobignon's arms, and his body trembled.
And when he did become Sophia's lover, the puppy would have no understanding of how much of a woman he was possessing. To him she would be the sweet Sicilian niece of a cardinal. He would have no idea of the woman behind that mask.
Sophia, Daoud had come to realize, had known suffering and loss. She had survived at the very bottom of the world, and she had risen to be the intimate of an emperor and a king.
She occupied his thoughts, Daoud sensed with some uneasiness, far more often than did Blossoming Reed back in El Kahira.
Simon would know Sophia Orfali, not Sophia Karaiannides, who had told Daoud more than once, he thought with a grim smile, how much she hated Franks. She would make a fool of this Frank.
Fra Tomasso was rambling on about the one sea voyage he had ever taken, from Normandy to Naples. "One would think going around the continent of Europe like that would take much longer than making the same journey overland. It took us only a month, whereas on land it would have taken at least three. The sea is a two-dimensional surface. On land one is traveling over a three-dimensional surface and can encounter many obstacles."
Yes, and a carrier pigeon travels much faster than a ship. In a month or two Daoud's request for the book Fra Tomasso wanted would have reached Baibars, and a few months after that, if Baibars could obtain the book, the Friar's pudgy hands would be holding it.
Listening with half an ear, Daoud looked about him at the marble pillars that ran up to the gilded beams of the ceiling, at the paintings of angels and saints on the plaster walls, at the fragments of old Roman statues that stood here and there—mostly nude torsos. Idolatry, yes, but beautifully done. The arts of the Christians and their pagan predecessors were not altogether as barbaric as he had imagined them.
Ugolini suddenly appeared at Daoud's elbow to interrupt his thoughts and Fra Tomasso's discourse. "Excuse me, Fra Tomasso, but His Holiness wishes a word with David."
The little cardinal's eyes darted about nervously. Obviously, the idea of a conversation between Daoud and the pope terrified him.
"Have you had any wine?" said Ugolini in a low voice as they crossed the room to where Urban, in his white cassock, a red cloak wrapped around his shoulders, was sitting in a large, high-backed chair. The spiritual father of all Christians was dressed heavily for such a warm evening, Daoud thought. A sign of ill health.
"I never drink wine if I can avoid it," he answered Ugolini.
"Well, you will not be able to avoid it tonight. But remember, you have no head for it."
Daoud was about to retort sharply, but he swallowed the impulse. Such unnecessary advice was the cardinal's way of allaying his terror. He had never told Ugolini about the training in resistance to drugs he had undergone with Sheikh Saadi. Al-koahl, the intoxicating element in wine, could affect his body but not his mind.
"This is a very dangerous practice," Sheikh Saadi said as he crouched over a small cooking pot suspended on a tripod above a low fire. "But it is now a necessary one for you."
Whatever was bubbling in the pot gave off a strange, cloying odor that Daoud found frightening and seductive at the same time. They were in the inner garden of Saadi's small house in al-Fustat, the oldest quarter of El Kahira.
Daoud half sat, half reclined on a pile of cushions. He leaned back and saw that the stars were fewer and the sky was lighter. They had been up all night drinking kaviyeh.
The liquid Saadi was brewing now smelled nothing like kaviyeh. Studying the simmering, sweet-smelling liquid, Saadi seemed satisfied. He took the pot off the fire and set it on a stone.
Still on his knees, the sheikh swung around to smile at Daoud. In the firelight his face was many shades of brown and black. But his beard, in the years Daoud had known him, had gone from gray to a white as pure as the wool from which the Sufi took their name.
"Kneel and compose your mind," said Saadi.
Daoud rose from a sitting position to his knees. As Saadi had taught him, and as he had practiced for many years, he visualized his mind as an empty pool, walled with tiles. A fountain sprang up in the center of the pool and filled it slowly with clear water. The walls of the pool disappeared, and there was nothing but clear water in all directions, stretching away to infinity.
Saadi seemed to know when Daoud had reached the vision of infinity, and he spoke again.
"Think of God."
Daoud saw a mountain, a flame, the sun. None of those were God. At last he saw the blackness of the spaces between the stars. There in the infinite lightlessness was the dwelling place of God, like the Black Stone in the Qa'aba. He saw the darkness that veiled God, and he locked the idea of God in his mind.
"Now, hold the thought of God, and drink."
Saadi held a silver cup to his lips. The liquid was sweet and thick. He swallowed, and it burned the lining of his stomach.
"What is it?"
"Wine mixed with hashish."
Daoud was shocked.
Filth, spiritual poison!
Saadi himself had taught him that. And now Saadi had tricked him into sipping the vile stuff.
He swayed on his knees, feeling dizzy and angry. Saadi held up a warning hand.
"Remain in the Presence of God. He will protect you from the ill effects of the poison. This is the practice."
Daoud struggled back to the infinite emptiness that hid God, and as he did so he felt his mind clear. The drugs were spreading like tiny flames through his body, but his body was far away. Too far away for him to feel the heat.
Beside him, Saadi said, "Everything made by God has two sides, a useful side and a harmful side. That which is sometimes a poison can at other times be a medicine. Even kaviyeh, which we drink in such great quantities to give vigor to our minds, can be a poison. If a substance is taken in the right amount, on the right occasion, with the right attitude, it can unlock doors in the mind. Our lord Baibars, peace be upon him, has told me he plans to send you to the Hashishiyya for further training. This practice will help you to gain more from their teachings—and protect you from being corrupted by them. In the months to come you will learn to take in every kind of intoxicating substance and keep your mind free. This is not magic. This is a power of the spirit. What are you feeling?"
"The drug devours my body, but my mind is in the Presence of God."
"One day, when you have learned all you can from the Hashishiyya, I will teach you the secret of the most powerful drug of all—soma, the drug that is made by the mind and does not harm the body at all."
No head for wine? No man in this room is less susceptible to wine.
De Verceuil still stood beside the white-bearded pope. His gloomy face tightened as his eyes met Daoud's.
Daoud dropped to one knee before the pope and kissed the heavy gold ring that bore a tiny engraving of a man in a boat. He saw that the old man was wearing white satin slippers.
Daoud felt so dizzied by the wonder of this moment that the tiled floor seemed to shake under him. He held in his hand the hand of the Pope of Rome, successor to those popes who had sent wave after wave of crusaders crashing against the walls of Islam, whose words had caused the deaths of thousands and thousands of the faithful. He, Daoud ibn Abdallah, once David Langmuir, had penetrated to the very center of Christian power.
Was there ever a moment like this before in all of time, when a servant of the true God and a believer in the word of the Prophet held the hand of a pope in his?
"Messer David of Trebizond, the Venetians have just raised the prices of saffron, curry, ginger, and cardamom," said the pontiff in a deep voice. "All of which are indispensable to my kitchen. Can you furnish me with spices more cheaply?"
It took all of Daoud's self-control to hold in a burst of laughter. A Mameluke comes face-to-face with the pope, and what do they discuss? The price of spices!
But he sobered as he realized how useful the pope's interest in spices could be to him. As a purveyor of spices to the papal palace, his position in Orvieto would be more respected and more secure.
"If you deal with us, Holy Father, you are dealing with the people from whom the Venetians get those spices," said Daoud with a smile as he stood up. "This is exactly the purpose of my visit."
"Good, good. Have Cardinal Ugolini arrange an appointment for you with my steward."
As they walked away, Daoud said softly to Ugolini, "Would it not be amusing if the Sultan of Cairo were to furnish the spices for the pope's kitchen?" The irony of it once again struck him as funny. What a tale for the bazaars of El Kahira.
Ugolini stared at him, side whiskers quivering. "Not amusing at all."
Ugolini is right to be afraid. I saw what they did to that man in the piazza. I must not make jokes. Ugolini needs to feel he can rely on me.
Celino emerged from the circle around the Tartars to stand before Daoud. At Daoud's insistence the Sicilian wore garments tailored specially for this evening, mostly in white, with gold embroidery on the edges of his waist-length ermine-trimmed cape and his satin tunic.
"What are the Tartars doing?" Daoud asked.
"Sitting and drinking and mostly talking to each other," said Celino. "There is a crowd of curious people around them, asking them questions."
"Where is that Friar Mathieu who interprets for them?"
Celino shrugged. "Not here. There is a woman from some eastern country translating."
Daoud felt a tingle of excitement, like a hunter who had sighted prey.
He surveyed the room. Simon de Gobignon—may his right hand rot and wither—had already left with Sophia, as Daoud and Sophia had planned. De Verceuil still hovered near the pope.
"Celino, you heard the contessa's servant announcing games in the next room? See if you can draw Cardinal de Verceuil into a game with you."
"He favors backgammon," said Ugolini.
"All the French dote on backgammon," said Celino.
"Keep him entertained," said Daoud.
"To entertain de Verceuil you will have to bore yourself," said Ugolini. "He prefers a game whose outcome is never in doubt."
Daoud and Ugolini turned to the serving table, and Daoud began methodically to work his way through the various dishes the contessa's servants had set out for her guests. There were eels steeped in a strange, almost rotten-smelling sauce, there were small, tender lobsters and large, meaty ones. There were baby birds meant to be eaten bones and all. There was white bread and there were fine cakes. Daoud filled his stomach, forcing himself to eat even those foods that repelled him, while he watched Celino join the group gathered with the pope.
Daoud used his dagger to cut himself a slice of roast veal. It was juicy and tender, and he cut himself another. The meat tasted as if the calf had been killed that same day; it was not heavily spiced. How pleasant to dine at the home of a wealthy woman. By the time he finished his fourth slice, Celino and de Verceuil were in conversation.
Daoud chatted with Ugolini about astrology. In the cardinal's opinion it was an auspicious night, and that assessment of the heavens helped calm the bewhiskered little man somewhat.
It being harvest season, the contessa's tables were laden with fresh fruits. Daoud enjoyed apricots and grapes, and sliced open an orange. He watched Celino and de Verceuil move toward the galleria, where the contessa's guests were playing games.
Daoud eyed the two brown-skinned men in their shimmering robes sitting at their ease in the sala maggiore in the midst of a circle of curious people. Their chief guardians, de Verceuil, de Gobignon, and Friar Mathieu, were all elsewhere.
Daoud, as was customary among these people, dipped his hands in a basin of water and wiped them on the table linen. Then he began to push his way into the ring of people around the Tartars.
After a few moments he found himself staring down at them. They were laughing together over some private joke, speaking to each other in their chirping language.
Fra Tomasso was part of the group around the Tartars, as were several bishops and two cardinals. A stout, middle-aged woman stood beside John, the older of the two. She wore a stiff, brocaded blue gown, and her hair was tightly wrapped in a net of gold thread.
"Madonna Ana," said Fra Tomasso, "ask Messer John Chagan for me whether the city called Karakorum is still the capital of the Tartar empire."
The woman turned to the white-bearded John and repeated the question in rapid-flowing Tartar speech.
John bowed and smiled to Fra Tomasso and spoke to the woman. Daoud almost felt envy at the sight of John's gorgeous ankle-length silk robe—white, printed with flowers having massive, many-petaled crimson and purple heads, along with clusters of green leaves and wispy gold clouds. He gestured as he spoke, and his hands were square, short-nailed, and hard-looking. Daoud had no doubt that those hands had taken many lives.
"Messer John says the capital of their empire is wherever the Great Khan makes his home," said the Bulgarian woman in a flat tone. "It used to be Karakorum. But now the Great Khan is building a city in the land of Cathay. The city is called—Xanadu."
"And how long would it take to travel from Baghdad to this Xanadu?" Fra Tomasso asked.
"Messer John says for a party of Christians to go to Xanadu from Baghdad might take as long as a year. But for the Tartar post riders it takes two months."
"Two months!" exclaimed Fra Tomasso. "For a journey that would take ordinary men a year? How far is it?"
"Permit me to answer that, Father," Daoud interrupted, "because the Tartars do not know your system of measurements. The roads between Baghdad and the great cities of Cathay are tortuous, and vast deserts and huge mountains stand in the way. But our geographers in Trebizond estimate that a caravan going over that route would travel a distance of three thousand leagues."
"And the Tartars cover that in two months? Do they fly?" The fat monk's jowls quivered. Daoud noticed that the front of his white tunic was stained with what appeared to be spots of gravy and wine.
Daoud turned to Ana. "Kindly ask the ambassadors to explain to Fra Tomasso how their riders cover such a distance so quickly."
After some conversation between Ana and the Tartars, Fra Tomasso had his answer. "The fastest riders and horses in our empire carry messages in relays over the major routes. A message never stops traveling, night and day, until it reaches its destination. At night, runners with torches guide the riders."
The Italians looked awed. Daoud felt unimpressed. The Mamelukes also had post riders. They could carry a message from El Kahira to Damascus in four days.
"How intelligent!" said Fra Tomasso. "I will warrant we would be better governed here in Europe if we had such a system."
The note of admiration in Fra Tomasso's voice made Daoud uneasy. A servant passed, offering cups of wine on a tray. Daoud took a goblet. John and Philip raised the empty cups they held, and Ana refilled them from a pitcher on the table.
"Your empire is so vast, is it not," Daoud said to the Tartars through Ana, "that even messages that travel swiftly cannot hold it together?"
Philip, the black-bearded Tartar, answered that, smiling. "Fear of the Great Khan holds our empire together," Ana translated.
"Is the Great Khan feared even in the lands of Kaidu Khan and Baraka Khan?" Daoud asked, naming the two rebels who did not recognize Hulagu Khan's brother Kublai. He strove for a tone of innocent curiosity.
The faces of the two Tartars remained expressionless, but Daoud, schooled by his Hashishiyya masters to notice signs of emotion in the most guarded of men, observed the flush creeping into their brown cheeks, the slight quickening of their breathing, and the twitching of their fingers. Until he asked his disturbing question they had answered Daoud readily, almost casually, as they would any of the contessa's other guests. Now, in silence, they studied him. Waiting for them to finish their inspection, Daoud held out his wine cup to Ana, who filled it from the pitcher on the table. The pitcher was almost empty, and she signaled to a servant to bring another.
John Chagan said, and Ana translated, "I do not believe we have had the honor of being presented to you, Messere."
Daoud turned to Fra Tomasso, who was following the conversation closely. "Will you be good enough to introduce us, Your Reverence?" Any opportunity to involve himself with the Dominican philosopher could be useful.
While Fra Tomasso presented him and Ana translated, Daoud stared at the Tartars with deliberate challenge, draining his wine cup. Philip caught the meaning of the gesture at once, and drank deep from his silver goblet as well. John followed suit.
"Trebizond," said John. "Not far from our borders." Daoud had wondered whether any of the Tartars' sponsors had told them of David of Trebizond and his testimony against them at the pope's council.
"Your khan, Hulagu, has already pressed our emperor for tribute and submission," said Daoud, refilling his cup. He tensed, wondering whether he was pushing the Tartars too far, too quickly. If they grew insulted and refused to speak to him, he would have accomplished nothing.
He sipped his wine. Before tonight, the taste of wine had always puckered his mouth, and he had had to force himself to drink it. But this straw-colored wine was as sweet as spring water. John and Philip seemed to enjoy it, too. They quickly emptied and refilled their cups.
Daoud watched the two Tartars closely as Ana translated his last remark. A suggestion of amusement played about the eyes of the white-bearded John Chagan. John, he guessed, must be about sixty years of age. Old enough to have ridden under the founder of the Tartar empire, the ruler called Genghis Khan. Philip, whose face was fuller, was probably half John's age.
"We are at peace with Trebizond," said John. "We have exchanged ambassadors." He took a gulp of wine and emitted a deeply satisfied sigh.
"How can a people who believe that the whole world belongs to them remain long at peace with anyone?" asked Daoud. He watched the woman, Ana. If she were to dull the edge of what he said in translating it, his effort would fail. But she seemed unmoved by what he said and repeated it quickly in the Tartar tongue.
But now the two Tartars were glaring at him, Philip in open fury, John with a cold hostility as if Daoud were an insect that needed to be stepped on.
How much farther could he press them, he wondered as he took another sip of wine and stared back.