"Do you wish to return to paradise?"
"You are a devil, Maestro. You want my soul."
The man was quick, Daoud thought. For all that he was a flawed man, he had a strong mind. He remembered being made to drink the preparation of wine and hashish. And he already realized why Daoud had done this to him.
So delicate, this part.
Now the bond must be forged. As a succession of Old Men of the Mountain had forged it between themselves and their disciples in Alamut, in Masyaf, in all those mountain strongholds across Persia and Syria from which terror had gone forth for more than a hundred and fifty years.
"I am but a man like you, Sordello. I do not want your soul. I want your loyalty."
"You want my treachery, you mean. You want me to betray my master, the Count de Gobignon."
There was more than quickness here, Daoud thought. There was that foolhardiness he had seen in Sordello before. A man of sense, knowing that he was in the power of a force beyond his control, even beyond his understanding, would do nothing to antagonize that force. Yet Sordello persisted in challenging Daoud.
At the mention of Simon de Gobignon's name, Daoud's concentration wavered. When de Gobignon found his knight dead outside Ugolini's mansion, what would he do? There would be trouble over this, surely there would be trouble. Daoud cursed himself for leaving Tilia's house and going back to the cardinal's mansion.
He forced his mind back to Sordello. How to work with this provoking spirit?