"You don't need to threaten me," said Sordello with a flash of his old rebelliousness. "Just tell me what you want."
"Simply go on doing what you have been doing. You will give the Count de Gobignon information about us—but from now on we will tell you what to tell him. And you will keep me informed about the young count. Hardly any work at all, you see."
Sordello grunted. "I doubt it will be that easy. But as long as you offer a reward so great, I am your man."
My slave, thought Daoud, hoping that his pity for this creature did not show in his face.
But he must remember that there were hidden places in this man's soul. And he had never before tried to enslave a man as the Hashishiyya did it. He could not be sure that he had succeeded fully, and so he had made a creature potentially as dangerous to himself as to anyone else. The flesh on the back of his neck crawled.
She was sitting by the window, staring out at the spot on the street where the young man's body had lain. She heard the door open behind her. She turned, and there was David. Golden-haired, lean, tall, with those light-filled eyes. She forgot herself and felt a leap of love, and then her heart clenched like a fist with anger.
Wait, let him tell it before I judge him.
He closed the door slowly, a strange expression on his face. She looked from him to the image of the saint. Yes. The look around the eyes was the same. They had accepted pain and sorrow, did not struggle against it as ordinary people did, and they knew something.
Except that David's eyes were not the bright blue of the saint's. David's eyes seemed to reflect whatever color was about him.