—The Koran, Surah IV
"Nothing is true. Everything is permissible."
—Hasan ibn-al-Sabbah,
founder of the Hashishiyya
I
In the mist-filled plains around Lucera, cocks crowed.
Daoud ibn Abdallah pushed himself slowly to his feet. After days and nights of walking, his legs ached abominably.
Tired as he was, he looked around carefully, studying the other travelers who rested near him on the road, peering at the city wall a hundred paces away with its shut gate of iron-studded oak. In his stomach he felt the hollow ball of dread that had not left him since he landed in Italy.
I am alone in the land of the infidel.