The Saracen: Land of the Infidel Part 116

But, just then, a dozen or so Monaldeschi archers, crossbows loaded and cranked back, had trotted into the kitchen and nearby rooms and taken up stations by the embrasures. Daoud, his body aquiver with excitement, the little crossbow already in his hands, had sunk back into hiding. If he shot the Tartars, he might have been able to escape the two Armenians, but so many men-at-arms would certainly kill or, worse, capture him. And once they discovered who he was, Sophia, Ugolini, all those working with him, would swiftly be in the hands of the Franks.

Seething with frustration, he had watched an Armenian open a cellar trapdoor. The two Tartars and the two Armenian guards descended out of sight.

Daoud, still crouched behind the water cask, then decided that G.o.d had been kind to him. Even if he had been denied this opportunity to kill them, at least he had seen where the Tartars were.

He had sat in his hiding place, relaxed but alert, listening to the Monaldeschi bowmen shout encouragement to one another as they fired on the Filippeschi trying to cross the piazza. The arrow slits were cut through the thick walls in angled pairs so that two archers side by side would have a full field of fire. After a while Daoud began to despair of ever getting into the cellar.

Several times servants came running to fill buckets from the cask to put out fires in the atrium. Crouched in the darkness behind the cask, Daoud saw, grouped around it, buckets, pots, and kettles, all sorts of vessels, already filled with water for immediate use.

Long after the battle began, a pageboy came running down the stairs to the ground floor with an order for the archers to come up to the roof.

They left only one man to watch through the arrow slots. His back, sheathed in a shiny brown leather cuira.s.s, was turned toward Daoud. The noise of fighting from outside was loud enough, Daoud thought, to mask any sound he might make.

He slipped from behind the cask and picked up a wooden bucket full of water. Carrying the bucket he stepped, silent on his soft-soled boots, to the cellar trapdoor. Keeping his eyes on the crossbowman, he put the bucket down and, holding his breath, grasped the handle of the trapdoor and lifted it. The archer moved as Daoud crouched by the open trapdoor.

Daoud froze. But the man's back remained turned. He was only shifting from one arrow slot to the one beside it, to get a view of the piazza from a different angle.

When the archer was settled in his new position, Daoud crept down the cellar stairs, bucket in one hand, and lowered the door over his head.

He watched the archer until the slab of wood cut off his view. He was in a pitch-black cellar smelling of wine.

He saw a crack of light from under a door and heard voices. He was about to go and knock, pretending to be a man-at-arms with a message. When the two Armenians within opened the door, he would douse their lantern with the water he was carrying, and then move in on the Tartars in the dark.

Just then the trapdoor above had opened. He hid behind the wine barrels as de Gobignon, the friar, and two more Armenians came down to join their Tartar charges.

Stones were slamming into the walls in such rapid succession that the building was continually shaking. This must be the climax of the Filippeschi attack. Next would come a rush of all the fighting men. They would storm the palace and either break through or be driven off.

Probably, Daoud thought, the attack would fail. But even so, it would give him the opportunity he needed.

The two Armenian guards held their bows laxly, resting their backs against the wall by the door. The candle in the sconce was six paces away from the guards. Silently he lifted the bucket of water he had brought down with him and moved it out in front of the wine barrel rack so that later he could quickly reach it. Then he loaded the Scorpion, drawing back its string.

He stepped out from behind the barrels, aiming for the eye of the nearest guard, and fired. The steel dowels snapped forward, propelling the bolt through the eyeball and into the skull. The man collapsed without an outcry. His body, clad in leather and steel, hit the stone floor with a crash.

The other Armenian gave a shrill shout in his native tongue. He stared in horror at Daoud, and his heavy compound bow was up, the iron arrowhead pointing at Daoud's chest.

Daoud had already taken the disk of Hindustan out of the flat pouch on the left side of his belt. Dropping the Scorpion into its pocket, he transferred the disk to his right hand. The disk was heavy; by Frankish weight it would probably be half a pound. Its center was of strong, flexible steel; bonded to its edges was a more brittle steel that would take an edge sharp enough to slice a hair lengthwise.

Daoud scaled the disk at the candle that rested in the sconce at the door to the pantry. It sliced through the candle's tip, just below the wick. The flame went out, plunging the cellar into total darkness. The disk rang against the stone wall, then clanged to the floor. Daoud's trained hearing registered the place where it fell. The Armenian's bolt whistled past him and hit the wall with a sharp crack.

Voices from inside the spice pantry shouted questions. That must be the two Armenians who had first gone in there with the Tartars. The man outside answered, and Daoud could hear fear in his voice. De Gobignon would not want to open the door to help the Armenian, for fear of endangering the Tartars.

Somehow, he had to be made to open the door.

Daoud stood still, listening to the guard's rapid, heavy breathing, the sc.r.a.ping of his boot soles on the stone floor.

After a moment he tiptoed to the side of the chamber, retrieved his disk, and dropped it into its pouch in his tunic.

Silently picking up the water bucket in front of the wine barrel rack, he drifted closer to the guard, thinking of smoke, as the Hashishiyya had taught him, to make himself move even more quietly.

He heard the Armenian sling his bow over his shoulder, and the slithering of his sword coming out of his scabbard.

Daoud set the water down and crept close to the guard, utterly silent, listening for the many small noises that would tell him where the man was and how he was standing--breathing, swallowing and the licking of lips, the creak of leather armor, the rustle of cloth, the clink of steel. Slowly and very carefully Daoud reached out toward the guard's throat, then with a sudden movement seized it, his thumb and fingers gripping like a falcon's talons.

His action had the desired effect. The Armenian screamed, forcing air through his constricted throat again and again.

He tried to slash at Daoud's arm but missed.

With his free hand Daoud grabbed the guard's wrist and gave it a sharp turn. He let go of his opponent's throat and used both hands to force his sword arm down. He straightened the arm out and brought his knee down hard on the elbow, throwing all his weight on it.

The guard screamed with pain, and his sword clattered to the floor.

Daoud kicked it off into the darkness, then danced away. The Armenian fell back against the spice pantry door, groaning in pain and fear.

Daoud heard m.u.f.fled cries from the other side of the door. They demanded to know what was happening. They begged to know what was happening.

The Armenian's agonized voice cried out to them, also begging, to be let in, to be saved from the man who was killing him in the blackness.

Daoud readied himself, finding the water bucket again in the dark and picking it up. He held it with both hands, by the handle and by the base. He would have only a little time to use it, before they found some way to stop him.

He heard the men on the other side of the door slide back the iron bolt.

It was the only thing they could do, Daoud thought. The other Armenians could not bear to keep the door shut and let their comrade die.

The wooden door swung inward. Light sprang out into the cellar from only one oil-fed lantern, but dazzled Daoud because he had been in complete darkness since he put out the candle. He now saw the man he had been fighting, a squat man with a thick black mustache, tears of pain running from his eyes, his right arm dangling limply.

In the fraction of an instant before his enemies saw him, Daoud took in everything in the spice pantry.

De Gobignon was standing just inside the door, holding his beautiful scimitar out before him in his right hand. With his left hand he reached for the wounded guard to pull him in. On either side of him were the other two Armenians, bows drawn, ready to fire. Beyond them Daoud glimpsed the Tartars, also with bows loaded and pulled, and the old priest.

But the most important thing in there was that small, weak flame flickering behind sheets of horn in a box-shaped lantern on the table in the center of the room.

Daoud stepped as close as he dared into the doorway and raised the bucket high, heaving the water in a stream at the table.

He heard a bow thrum and an arrow whistle past his shoulder. His eyes met de Gobignon's just as the light went out.

Like a stone fired from a catapult he hurled himself, crouching low, into the pantry.

Landing silently inside the room, he changed direction once, twice, a third time, ending up at the door. He slammed it shut and bolted it.

They should all now be thoroughly confused.

In total darkness, seeing with his senses of hearing, smell, and touch, he began to stalk the Tartars.

XLIV

Simon heard the thick door slam and the iron bolt driven into place. He stood in a blackness darker than any night outdoors would have been, his scimitar heavy and invisible in his hand. It was all he had against an enemy who was also invisible. He felt death rushing upon him out of the darkness.

Except for the occasional vibrations of a rock hitting the palace wall, all sounds of battle were blocked out of the spice pantry. In the deep silence, Simon's heartbeat thundered in his ears like a kettledrum.