"El Malik Dahir," she addressed him. Victorious King.
"God blesses our meeting, Tilia."
She sat back, and he lowered himself to a cross-legged position facing her. In the ten years since she had last seen him, he had aged little. He had won the battle of the Well of Goliath, had made himself sultan, and had reigned over a kingdom threatened from East and West. Yet his yellow face was unlined, and there was no gray in his drooping red mustache. She looked at the white scar that ran vertically down his blind right eye; then she looked at his good left eye, and saw that it was still bright blue and clear.
"Forgive me, Tilia, for not being able to greet you when you arrived in El Kahira. I was inspecting the crusaders' defenses at Antioch—from the inside."
She laughed. Amazing that such a striking-looking man should manage again and again to move among his enemies in disguise. But he had been doing it most of his life.
"My lord travels far and fast, as always."
"You have traveled farther. You are comfortable?"
"Who could fail to be comfortable, under Baibars's tent?"
"And Cardinal Ugolini? Will he be happy here?"
"The happiest he has ever been. He spends his days in your Zahiriya, reading ancient manuscripts, talking to the scholars, working with the philosophical instruments. He hardly sleeps, the sooner he might return to the house of learning you built."