And Daoud, slumped in his chair, felt the same implacable resolution he had felt that day, to fight back until the last invader was driven from the Dar al-Islam, the Abode of Islam.
The Tartar army appeared as a darkness across the eastern horizon, deepening as it spread. Curry-colored clouds towered above the gray-black line like mile-high djinns.
The distant thunder of hooves reached the Mameluke commanders as they halted in the plain between the hills of Galilee and the mountains of Gilboa near a village called Ain Jalut, the Well of Goliath. A fierce sun beat down on yellow grass and dusty tamarisks.
El Malik al-Mudhaffar Qutuz was mounted on a milk-white stallion from Hedjaz in the midst of his emirs. Baibars al-Bunduqdari rode a fawn-colored half-blood mare, part Arabian and part steppe pony. Daoud, in his early twenties and risen through the ranks of Baibars's personal guard to be second in command of the orta, fifteen thousand strong, sat on his sturdy Yemenite stallion before the other emirs. His red turban shaded his face and shielded his steel helmet from the sun. His chest was encased in the breastplate of an emir, steel inlaid with gold.
The Mameluke emirs, bashis and muqaddams wore their fortunes into battle—gold bracelets and belts, jeweled rings, necklaces of coins. Jewels sparkled on their belt buckles and the scabbards and hilts of their scimitars, on their turbans, on the toes of their boots, on their fingers. Over their mail shirts and gold-inlaid breastplates the emirs wore velvet vests and long khalats of crimson or gold satin, lined with white silk, fastened with gold buttons, trimmed with silver thread at the collars and cuffs and hems. Silk turbans were wound around their helmets, red, blue, yellow, pinned with jeweled clasps and adorned with the plumes of rare birds. Tied tight around their waists were wide shawls printed with stars and crescents. Their boots were of soft leather, crimson-dyed, with silver spurs, gold buckles, and pointed toes.
And all that I have, Daoud thought, may be torn from me in an instant today.
From Daoud's neck hung the silver locket given to him by his first, and so far only, wife, Baibars's daughter Blossoming Reed. It was, she had told him, a magical thing.
The Mamelukes were now the last defenders of Islam. The Tartars having conquered Baghdad and Damascus, El Kahira was the only remaining center of Muslim strength. If the Tartars overcame the Mamelukes, all that remained of the Dar al-Islam would lie open to the invaders, even the holiest place of all, Mecca, the house of God.