And so it had come about that Daoud, already trained by Saadi to resist the power of hashish, passed through the gates of paradise and learned, in time, how to administer the same experience to others.
Of course, Sordello, after he went through this, would be no adept. He would learn no secrets. He would be the lowest of the low—a tool, like the fedawi, the devoted killers who were the source of the Sheikh al-Jebal's power.
"This is a lucky man," said Tilia, her big mouth splitting her face in a lascivious grin. "He will experience delights here tonight that many of my most distinguished patrons have never enjoyed. His pleasures will be limited only by what his body can endure."
She walked over to Sordello, asleep on the divan, and ran caressing fingers down his bare chest and belly. "And he looks to be a strong man for his age. These scars. Quite the veteran bravo, eh?"
Though the room seemed cool to Daoud, sweat ran over Tilia's bare bosom down into the deep square collar of her purple gown. Her deadly pectoral cross lay heavily against the purple satin between her breasts. She might need that cross tonight, Daoud thought, if anything went wrong with Sordello.
"I begin to envy the man," said Lorenzo. "Ill-treated as he has been up to now."
"Surely you are not such a fool," said Daoud brusquely. But then, he thought, Lorenzo had no real idea what initiation into the Hashishiyya did to a man.
A few last soft words of instruction to Caterina, Orenetta, and Maiga, and Tilia led Daoud and Lorenzo to a wall panel which swung open at the pressure of her finger on a spring. The room they entered was as cool as the one they had just left, its large open window covered over with fine netting to let in air and keep out insects. But it was darker. Only a single fat candle burned in a large stick enameled green, red, and white.
Francesca, the woman Daoud had lain with on his previous visits to Tilia's, rose with a smile and came to him. As Daoud took her hand and kissed it, she squeezed his fingers. The polished, carved beams that ran up the walls and across the ceiling of this room were the same color as Francesca's hair, a dark brown. Opposite the window there was a small fireplace, dark and empty.
"Here, here, and here are the places from which you can watch what goes on in there," said Tilia, marching along one wall and pointing to tiny circular openings, each one ringed with a little O of wood. Under each opening was a couch, and the openings were low enough in the wall so that one could sit, or even lie down, and still look through them. The light in this room had to be lower than in the room where Sordello was, Daoud realized, or the peepholes would be visible on the other side of the wall.