The Saracen: Land of the Infidel Part 35

"The cardinal has just had an immense turbot delivered all the way from Livorno, Messer David," said Rachel, her black eyes bright with wonder.

"Alive, in a barrel of water. Look, you can see it down there at the bottom."

Daoud looked down into the clear water, saw a tapering dark shape moving gently just above the yellow pebbles lining the bottom of the pool.

Smaller brown carp darted this way and that above it.

"The cardinal's gold makes great things possible," he said. "Will you leave us for a while, Rachel?"

Sophia handed a small leather-bound book to Rachel. "You may read these poems of Ovid if you like."

Rachel clasped the book to her narrow chest. "I do not read Latin, Signora, but I will look at the pictures."

"Have a care," said Sophia with a light laugh. "Some of them may shock you."

"Then I will try to enjoy being shocked." Rachel bowed and hurried away.

Daoud listened to the banter between the woman and the girl with mixed feelings. He liked both of them, and he enjoyed hearing them joke with each other. He imagined women must talk that way among themselves back in El Kahira, but if they did, men never had a chance to hear.

He also felt deeply uneasy at the growing closeness between Rachel and Sophia. The two of them shared a room on the top floor of Ugolini's mansion, next to Daoud's and Lorenzo's. His stomach tightened as he thought of the long talks they might have. What if Rachel learned that Sophia was actually a Byzantine woman, when she was supposed to be the cardinal's niece from Sicily? And what if Rachel then let that slip to a servant? Byzantines, Greek Catholics, were hated almost as much as Muslims here in the lands of the Latin Church. One small, seemingly harmless revelation like that could destroy them utterly.

_I must get them separated._

Turning to Sophia, Daoud was struck once again that so much beauty should openly display itself outside a harem. A narrow cloth-of-gold ribbon wound around her neck, crossed between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and tied her pale peach gown tightly at the waist. Her l.u.s.trous black hair was bound in a net of gold thread.

She looked at him quizzically. Daoud studied her face. Her long, straight nose, dark red lips and delicate chin made him glad that Christian women went unveiled. He could well believe this woman had enjoyed the attentions of an emperor and a king. He himself could not look at her without wishing he might take her in his arms.

"Well, my Frankish-Turkish master-slave, what has your busy mind found for me to do? Do you wish me to get myself shot in the street by Venetians? Or create a disturbance in church and be tortured to death?"

Her thrusts caught Daoud off balance. Feeling a surge of anger, he was silent for a moment.

Then he jabbed a finger at her. "Do you understand what is at stake here?"

Her full lower lip pushed out. "I do not understand why you had to send a pious simpleton to a horrible death."

Guilt twisted in Daoud's guts like a Hashishiyya dagger. Yet he could not admit to Sophia that he regretted what happened to the heretic. She might approve his feeling, but she would also lose confidence in him.

"I will use any weapon I can find," he said. "Even if it breaks in my hand."

Sophia sat down on the marble lip of the fish pond. After a moment's hesitation Daoud sat beside her, smoothing his red cloak under him.

"Where is Lorenzo?" she asked. "I have not seen him since the day the Tartars arrived."

"He visits Spoleto, to find a few bold men for me." Lorenzo would bring back two or three men from Spoleto. Later he would gather more men in Viterbo, Chiusi, and other nearby cities. Imperceptibly over the coming months, bands of armed men--the Italians called them "bravos"--would gather in Orvieto to do Daoud's bidding.

Acting as a go-between for Daoud and the bravos was a mission at which Lorenzo should do well.

"The men Lorenzo brings here will not know my name or my face," he went on. "In a few days Cardinal Ugolini will take me before the pope, and I will warn him against the Tartars from my own true experience of them.

I must not be connected with other things done against the Tartars, disturbances among the people, armed attacks. That is why Rachel is such a danger."

She had been looking thoughtfully at the pebbled path. When he spoke Rachel's name, she lifted her head to stare at him.

"Are you going to make me give up Rachel?"

That annoyed him. "You agreed. Have you forgotten?"

"No, but I thought now that she has been with us awhile and there has been no trouble, you might change your mind."

"I do not change my mind so easily." By G.o.d, working with this woman was an ordeal. She argued and complained far too much. He wondered whether showing their faces in public made Christian women overbold.

"But where can she go? You would not really cast her out to starve."

"Tilia Caballo will take her in."

"You will force her into that horrible fat woman's brothel? And she only a child?"

"She is nearly thirteen. Many women are married by then."

"She has not even started bleeding yet."

"How do you know that?" Daoud felt somewhat embarra.s.sed.

"She told me, of course."

"She need only be a serving girl at Tilia's."

"No doubt Tilia would find her too precious a commodity _not_ to be sold. There are old men who would give that woman her own weight in gold to get their hands on an intact virgin child. And these high churchmen can afford it."

Daoud remembered the rough hands of the first Turks who captured him and shuddered inside himself. "She does not have to lie with men unless she chooses that life."

"Do you really think you and Tilia would be giving her a choice?" said Sophia angrily.

Again Daoud's feelings struggled against each other. He liked the way she spoke up fiercely for the child. Yet it angered him that she was making it harder for him to deal with the painful problem of Rachel.

"How much choice is anyone in this world given?" he demanded.

"Are you not here by choice, David?"

"I am the slave of my sultan," he said. "That is what the word _Mameluke_ means--slave. He sent me here. But I am also here by choice."

"To save Islam from the Tartars." She reached her fingertips into the water and dabbed the droplets on her forehead.

He caught the note of skepticism in her voice. "Yes. Do you not believe that?"

"Can you see yourself through my eyes?" There was an earnestness in her face, as if she badly wanted not to doubt him.

"No, how do you see me?" he asked gently.

"I see a Frankish warrior, fair of hair and face." She turned and looked directly at him, then quickly cast her eyes down. "Good looking enough, for a Frank." She gestured toward his knee, encased in scarlet silk.

"You show a handsome leg in your new hose."