The Saracen: Land of the Infidel Part 25

"You know nothing of that, and for your own safety you had best not speak of it to me," Daoud said in a choked whisper.

Celino inclined his head. "I ask your forgiveness."

"Remember that if we fail in this mission, it will mean great harm to your King Manfred, who has been so good to you and raised you so high,"

Daoud said.

Celino's head was still lowered in submission. "You are right to remind me of that. I have been foolish."

Daoud gripped Celino's wrist. The Sicilian raised his head and stared into Daoud's eyes.

Daoud said, "I must have your oath that this will never happen again.

Should you see a hundred Jews having their throats cut, you will smile like a good Christian and declare the sight pleasing to G.o.d."

"I will do my best, Daoud. That is all I can honestly promise you, but I think it will be good enough."

_By being honest, as he puts it, he still leaves himself room to defy me._

"And you will obey my commands from now on, as if they came from your king?"

"You have my word of honor."

_Whatever the honor of an unbeliever is worth. Manfred, what kind of a crazed camel have you foisted off on me?_

Here he was, far across the sea from the only home he had ever known, in the midst of people who would kill him in an instant if they knew who he was. And now he felt he could not trust one of the few men he must depend upon. He felt a coldness beginning in his palms and spreading through his body as he wondered what further calamities like tonight's might lie before them.

IX

_The city that founded my city_, Sophia thought.

Sophia and David rode along the Tiber as it wound its way through Rome like a brown serpent. Looking up from the riverbank, Sophia saw the peaked roofs and domes of churches, and the battlements of fortified palaces. The houses of the common folk huddled at the feet of the hills, and here and there remnants of old Rome rose like yellowed tombstones.

Today's Romans, Sophia thought, built their hovels in the shadows of marble ruins.

Sophia was impressed only by the age of the place. Her own city, the Polis, was everything now that this place had been centuries ago. Rome had possessed civilization and had lost it. Constantinople had it still, on a grander scale.

At dawn David's party had reached the place where the Tiber pa.s.sed through crumbling city walls. Lorenzo and Rachel crossed the river into the Trastevere quarter, where the Jews lived. Sophia wondered how they would get past the watchmen at the city gate with the old man's body.

Would Lorenzo tell a clever story, try bribery, or use his Ghibellino connections? Or would he fail, and he and Rachel be arrested?

David did not seem worried. She had seen his anger at Lorenzo. Perhaps he hoped to be rid of him. For her part, she felt Lorenzo was far more her friend than David. She had known Lorenzo longer, and he had always been kind to her. She prayed he would return safely to them after finding a haven for Rachel among the Jews of Rome.

She and David had entered the city through a gate on the east side of the Tiber without difficulty. Evidently news of the incident at the inn had not reached the Roman watch. In the city she rode beside David along the river's east bank.

She touched David's shoulder and pointed to a hilltop.

"That hill is called the Capitoline," she said. "At one time the whole world was ruled from there."

She supposed David would find that hard to believe, though the hill was still impressive, with a cl.u.s.ter of marble palaces at its top.

They were pa.s.sing through one of the most crowded parts of Rome. On their left, fishermen hauled their nets out of the river, throwing flopping fish into baskets. On their right, shops in the ground floors of overhanging houses offered fruits and flowers and vegetables, fish, shoes, straw, rosaries, icons, relics, candles. Even at this early hour the street was crowded. Romans jostled the horses David and Sophia rode, but they gave Scipio plenty of room. Lorenzo had given the great boarhound a stern lecture, after which Scipio docilely allowed David to lead him on a leash.

"I have seen two other great imperial cities," said David. "One was Baghdad, before the Tartars destroyed it. It was then much like this city is now--its glory shrunken and faded, but still the center of our faith, as Rome is the center of Christendom."

Sophia was taken aback at his casual error.

"Rome is the center of _Latin_ Christendom," she said sharply.

"Ah, how could I have neglected Constantinople and the Greek Church?" He smiled. The smile lit his deeply tanned face in a way that surprised her, held her gaze. She felt a warmth.

_How smooth and brown his skin is._

"You must never forget Constantinople," she admonished him with a small smile.

"I spent a month in Constantinople some years ago--that was the other imperial city--and I shall not forget it." This made her feel warmer still toward him.

Then his smile faded. "Your city, too, has suffered at the hands of barbarians--the Franks, who would destroy us."

_Destroy us?_ she repeated in her mind. _Is he not a child of those Frankish barbarians?_

On the road from Lucera to Rome, he had told her--in a brusque fashion, as if he were speaking of someone other than himself--the story of his childhood and how he came to be a Mameluke. She found it hard to believe that he spoke of the killing of his parents and his enslavement by the Saracens as if it were some kind of blessing--but she had no doubt that he was a believing Muslim through and through.

"Do you never think of yourself as a Frank, David?"

He smiled again. "Never. And I hope you will not think of me as one either. Because I know you must hate Franks."

Hate Franks? Dread them was closer to the truth. Last night, when they fought their way free of those people from the inn, she had remembered the terror she had known as a girl in Constantinople. It was the return of that terror that had given her the strength to smash a jug over that horrid woman's head.

She was about to reply to David when Scipio broke into loud barking.

David frowned at the sight of something ahead. The Tiber made a sharp bend, and beyond that, on the opposite bank, towered a huge fortress, a great cylinder of age-browned marble--Castel Sant' Angelo.

At the base of the citadel was a bridge, and Lorenzo was crossing it.

She knew him even from this distance by his purple cap and brown cloak.

Sophia had expected to see Lorenzo return alone. It gave her a little start of surprise to see that Rachel was still with him, still riding their spare horse.

David angrily muttered something that Sophia guessed must be an Arabic curse. He checked his horse. Sophia reined up her gray mare, and they sat waiting for Rachel and Lorenzo to come up to them.

"They want me as far away from them as possible," Rachel said. She climbed down from her mount at once, as if acknowledging that she had no right to be riding it. She looked at David with an expression of appeal.

This was the first time Sophia had gotten a good look at Rachel. The girl had removed the scarf that hid her hair, which was midnight-black and hung in a single braid down below her shoulders. A dusty purple traveling cloak enveloped her slight body. Her skin was white as fine porcelain. The eyes under her straight black brows were bright, but Sophia could see fear in them. She remembered herself ten years earlier, a bewildered, terrified, orphaned girl in Constantinople.

_I must help this child._

"Why will your people not take you?" David said gruffly.

"They are afraid," said Rachel. "When we told them what happened at the inn last night, they said we had put them all in deadly danger."