The Saracen: Land of the Infidel Part 103

said Daoud, "you will have to sacrifice your servant."

Baibars's face tightened. "They will not. They will accept what you and I do."

"Nevertheless, if it seems needful to secure your place on the throne, you must give the killer up. You will not have to explain that to me.

And you will still be my lord. My father."

"Ah, Daoud," Baibars said. Daoud saw a wetness in both Baibars's eyes now, the sighted and the blind.

Daoud stood beside a spiral pillar near the front of the audience hall of the governor of Bilbeis. It was a small chamber, but an elegant one.

The floor was of mottled green marble, and pink columns lined the approach from the front door to the ma.s.sive gilded throne on its dais.

Merchants and small landholders, officials in red fezzes, Bedouin sheikhs in black robes and burnooses, crowded the hall. Each man held a pet.i.tion scroll for the sultan.

Daoud carried no pet.i.tion, but the sleeve of his left arm hid, strapped to his wrist, a scabbard holding a twisting dagger--a flame dagger, the weapon of the Hashishiyya.

He longed for Qutuz to come into the hall, for the dance of death he had rehea.r.s.ed a thousand times in his mind, to begin.

He had prayed this morning longer and with greater fervor than he had for many years.

_When_ would Qutuz come?

At the doorways and around the edges of the room stood warriors of the halkha, the sultan's bodyguard, their steel helmets and breastplates inlaid with gold, their tunics bright yellow. What would they do when they saw him strike at Qutuz? They were Mamelukes. They had seen Qutuz's fear at the Well of Goliath and his pretensions afterward. But it was their duty to protect him. Daoud could not guess what feelings would move them.

Here and there around the room rose the spherical white turbans of the Mameluke emirs who had been at the Well of Goliath. There was Kalawun, called al-Elfi, the Thousander, because his first master had bought him for the incredible price of a thousand gold dinars, there Bektout, beside a blue-white pillar, another Kipchaq like Baibars. Six or so others talked quietly under the pointed arch of the public entrance to the audience chamber. None of the emirs paid attention to the pet.i.tioners who streamed past them into the room.

In the corner of the room farthest from the dais, Baibars stood alone. A head taller than anyone around him, he swung his white-turbaned head from side to side so that he could survey the room with his one good eye. His glance seemed to pa.s.s over Daoud without seeing him.

A side door to the throne room from the governor's private apartments swung open, and two officers of the halkha strode through.

One of the officers drew himself up and shouted, "The Beloved of G.o.d, the Victor of the Well of Goliath, El Malik al-Mudhaffar Qutuz!"

The buzz of conversation in the room at once stilled, and Daoud's heartbeat filled his ears.

Then a roar arose as Qutuz entered briskly, arrayed in a bejeweled green turban and a black and silver robe of honor. His chamberlain, a stout man carrying a basket, followed him.

The pet.i.tioners rushed forward, clamoring and waving their scrolls. The men of the halkha made no attempt to hold them back. A merchant in a blue robe was the first to reach Qutuz, and he hugged the sultan, weeping. He first thrust a small silk bag into Qutuz's hand, which disappeared quickly under the sultan's black robe, then pressed a scroll upon him.

Qutuz handed the scroll to his chamberlain, who put it into the basket.

The pet.i.tioners were the people of Islam, and it was their right, as it had been since the days of the Prophet, to clamor for their ruler's attention. And though they might shout and beg and even manhandle the sultan, he must endure it, because these were the richest men of the district, the men of highest rank, those on whom the sultan's power in this place depended.

Qutuz enjoyed, Daoud knew, playing father to his people. And though one might think the Sultan of El Kahira had wealth enough, he was not averse to increasing it with the gifts of gold and jewels offered him on occasions like this.

Qutuz moved slowly through the pet.i.tioners, head high, his oiled beard pointed like the prow of a majestic ship. A small, indulgent smile played about his lips. He allowed them to impede his progress to the throne. The pet.i.tioners crowded around him, some plucking at his sleeve, some falling at his feet, some pulling at the hem of his robe, even kissing it in their urgency.

Another man, this one a sheikh in desert robes, seized the sultan in an embrace, bellowing his entreaty. This time when Qutuz stopped he disappeared behind a forest of upraised arms.

The babble of voices, each one trying to outshout the other, made Daoud's head ache. Men elbowed those beside them and pushed their hands into one another's faces. Daoud even saw one man claw his way up the backs of two who stood in front of him and climb over their shoulders to get closer to Qutuz.

From his position near the front of the hall Daoud could catch only glimpses of the sultan's green turban from time to time and follow his progress by watching where the turmoil was fiercest. The melee was like one of those towering dust storms that whirl across the desert, and Qutuz was at the center.

When Daoud judged that Qutuz was halfway to the throne, he began to move.

He plunged now into that black cave where G.o.d dwelt somewhere in infinite s.p.a.ces. Doubt and fear he left at the mouth of that cave. He must give all his strength and will to what he was about to do.

He charged into the storm around Qutuz. Though these magistrates and merchants were feeble compared to him, their frenzy and the mere weight of their struggling bodies formed a wall that took all his strength to break through. Each man was so intent upon his own desperate need to reach the sultan that none of them seemed to feel Daoud forcing his way past them.

Qutuz saw him coming. The dark brown eyes met Daoud's, questioning, frowning. A Mameluke emir of Daoud's rank did not usually join a crowd of pet.i.tioners. The sultan's arms and hands were full of scrolls. His chamberlain had long since been carried away from him in the crush.

"Oh, Sultan, grant my prayer!" Daoud shouted in a loud voice.

_For your death._

Qutuz's jaw clenched, and his eyes widened in the beginning of fear as Daoud bore down on him.

Daoud had reached the center of the storm. Color and movement whirled about him. Shouts deafened him. He forced his mind to blot out the chaos all around and to focus totally on Qutuz. He made himself as oblivious to the shrieking men around him as they were to him.

He threw his arms around the sultan, crushing the satin of his kaftan and his armload of scrolls against his body.

When Daoud's arms came together behind Qutuz's back, his right hand reached into his left sleeve and pulled the dagger from its sheath.

Qutuz's hands pushed against Daoud's chest. So tight was Daoud's embrace that he felt the sultan take a deep breath, to cry for help. They were locked together like lovers.

Daoud stretched out his right arm, and then with all the strength in that arm drove the dagger into the sultan's back. He struck for the center of the back, between two ribs, so that the point would reach and stop Qutuz's heart.

His thrust went true. The strong, lean body jerked violently, then went limp in his arms. Qutuz was a weight against him, sliding downward.

Daoud was sure he was already dead, because he did not move or cry out.

Triumph blazed up within him. He had done it. He had killed the sultan.

Daoud let go of the dagger, hilt-deep in Qutuz's back. He stepped backward quickly, pressing himself into the crowd around them. His heartbeat was thundering in his ears and his knees were quivering.

Qutuz toppled toward him as he moved back.

"The sultan falls!" a man next to him screamed.

Hands reached out to catch Qutuz as he fell. Cries of "The sultan has fainted!" "G.o.d help us!" "The sultan is hurt!" went up all around Daoud.

He continued to back away through the crowd. If attacked, he had decided, he would draw his saif and fight. If he must die, he desperately wanted to die fighting, not on the headsman's block.

He had not truly believed he could strike Qutuz down without being seen, but no one was yet pointing at him.

"Blood!" someone shrieked. "A dagger!" The shrieks and prayers were deafening.

All the men who had cl.u.s.tered around the fallen sultan backed away.

Daoud was carried farther from the dead Qutuz by the crowd. Craning his neck over the heads around him, he could see the body lying sprawled face down on the green marble floor, a spreading bright red stain in the black and silver robes around the dagger's hilt.