"Not us, Your Eminence," said Lorenzo. "Have not these two families been fighting for generations?"
"What is your objection?" said Daoud gently.
Ugolini fixed them with a ferocious glare. "For six months, half a year, I have lain awake imagining arrest, disgrace, torture, execution. Through miracles you have managed to carry out your plans without being caught. Now you want to launch still wilder plans—incredible, fantastic things. I have had enough. God has kept me alive this long. I will not tempt Him further."
"My dear Cardinal," Daoud said, "once the Tartars are dead, this will all be over. I will go back to Egypt. Lorenzo and Sophia will return to Manfred's kingdom. You will have nothing further to fear."
"You could have tried to kill the Tartars at any time since they came here," said Ugolini. "Why now?"
"I needed to create as much ill will as possible between Christians and Tartars," said Daoud. "If I had killed the Tartars at once, I could not have had them discredit themselves out of their own mouths. Fra Tomasso and your colleagues among the Italian cardinals could not have stirred up so much fear and hatred toward them. Now, though, I have done all I can along those lines, and Fra Tomasso is already undoing what together we have accomplished."
"And why involve the Monaldeschi and the Filippeschi?" Ugolini pressed him.
"To make it seem that the Tartars have been killed by feuding Italians. Then Hulagu Khan will think again about whether he wants such people as his allies."
Ugolini shook his head. "I do not have to tell you, of all people, what war is like. And I think Messer Lorenzo, by the way he carries himself, has known battle more than once. You both know that chance rules every moment in war."
"True," said Daoud.