"Who gets the messages in Napoli?" he asked.
She turned to him with a smile. "Another brothel keeper. A man. I will not tell you his name. The wives of my piccioni live in his dovecote. When I release a piccione here, he flies to Napoli and visits with his wife until one of my servants rides there and brings him back. Piccioni are much more faithful to their mates than men and women."
Daoud laughed. He enjoyed Tilia's cynicism. The strong light of the setting sun fell in bars through the slats across her face and body.
"How long does it take for the messages to reach El Kahira?"
She looked at him as if he were a simpleton. "Who can say? From Napoli someone must take the message capsules aboard a ship to a port in Outremer. So, how long it takes depends on whether the sea is angry or calm. Once in Outremer they might go on by piccioni again or by camel caravan. Once I had a reply within two months. The longest I had to wait was a year and three months." She had, Daoud noted, the brothel keeper's good memory for numbers.
"May this arrive sooner than that." Daoud reached into a leather scrip at his belt and drew out the two rolled slips of parchment, each crowded with tiny Arabic characters.
"Two letters? Where is the other one going?"
"Both to Baibars. They are duplicates. We do that in the field whenever possible. Twice as much chance that the message will get through."
"I will send one tonight and the other tomorrow morning. What are you telling him?"
Daoud was not sure Tilia should be asking him that. But as "Morgiana" she had sent Baibars dozens of long letters from Orvieto. Surely no one had a better right to know about this correspondence.