The Saracen: Land of the Infidel Part 94

Even in his trance Sordello's eyes seemed to glow, and his face flushed.

"Yes. Oh, yes, Maestro. Gladly."

That was good. The will must already be there. Then it remained only to shape the deed. Daoud reached inside the collar of his tunic and pulled out the silver locket Blossoming Reed had given him. It was, he had decided, better than a word or combination of words. It was something Sordello would never see again unless Daoud wished him to see it.

He dangled the locket by its chain before Sordello's face, letting it swing from side to side. He held the candle so its flame reflected from the silver disk.

"Watch the locket, Sordello. Look closely at it. The design on its face is like no other in the world. Make certain that you would know it if you saw it again."

For a time he let the locket swing, and Sordello's head turned from side to side, following it.

"Do you know this locket now, Sordello? Truly know it?"

"Yes, Maestro."

"Could you mistake it for another?"

"No, Maestro."

"Good. Now I command you. When you see this locket again, it will be a sign. It will mean that you are to kill Simon de Gobignon at once. As soon as you see the locket, you will take up the first weapon that comes to hand, and you will await your first good chance, and you will strike him down. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Maestro."

"Will you do it?"

"Yes, Maestro. With much joy."

"Say what you will do, Sordello."

"When I see that locket, I will kill Simon de Gobignon at once."

"That is good. Now, in a little while you will wake up. And you will not remember anything I have said to you about the locket and about killing Simon de Gobignon. You will forget all about it until you see the locket again. And then you will strike."

"Yes, Maestro."

Daoud went back to the throne and sat down. He slipped the locket's chain over his head and dropped the silver disk back inside his tunic.

Sordello slumped in his kneeling posture like a figure of wax that had been placed too close to a fire.

Daoud waited patiently, and in a few moments Sordello raised his head, his eyes bloodshot but alert.

"Will you let me visit paradise again soon?" His memory had gone back to the moment before he drank the drug.

"Not _very_ soon," said Daoud. "But serve me well, and it will happen again." He could not make Sordello wait a year, as the Hashishiyya usually did with their initiates. But it must be a wait of some months, or the experience would lose its magic. And in months his work in Orvieto might be done.

_And then again, I might still be here ten years from now._

"Tell me what I have to do, Maestro."

"Serve me faithfully, and from time to time, when it pleases me, you will visit paradise. Disobey me or betray me--we will know instantly if you do--and when you least expect it you will find yourself in h.e.l.l. Not the one we created for you last night. The real one."

"You don't need to threaten me," said Sordello with a flash of his old rebelliousness. "Just tell me what you want."

"Simply go on doing what you have been doing. You will give the Count de Gobignon information about us--but from now on we will tell you what to tell him. And you will keep me informed about the young count. Hardly any work at all, you see."

Sordello grunted. "I doubt it will be that easy. But as long as you offer a reward so great, I am your man."

_My slave_, thought Daoud, hoping that his pity for this creature did not show in his face.

But he must remember that there were hidden places in this man's soul.

And he had never before tried to enslave a man as the Hashishiyya did it. He could not be sure that he had succeeded fully, and so he had made a creature potentially as dangerous to himself as to anyone else. The flesh on the back of his neck crawled.

She was sitting by the window, staring out at the spot on the street where the young man's body had lain. She heard the door open behind her.

She turned, and there was David. Golden-haired, lean, tall, with those light-filled eyes. She forgot herself and felt a leap of love, and then her heart clenched like a fist with anger.

_Wait, let him tell it before I judge him._

He closed the door slowly, a strange expression on his face. She looked from him to the image of the saint. Yes. The look around the eyes was the same. They had accepted pain and sorrow, did not struggle against it as ordinary people did, and they knew _something_.

Except that David's eyes were not the bright blue of the saint's.

David's eyes seemed to reflect whatever color was about him.

How could it be that the icon she had painted could remind her of two such different men as Simon de Gobignon and David of Trebizond?

He stood there looking at her, and she realized that he was waiting for her to speak. He wanted to know what she and Simon had done in this room, and he did not want to ask. And she knew at that instant, watching his face, that he was expecting to be hurt by what she would tell him about herself and Simon.

_But what about that young Frenchman in the street? I saw Simon kneel by him, weep for him, bear him away._

"Something terrible has happened," she said.

His eyes narrowed. "You did not succeed with de Gobignon?"

"No, someone killed his friend, who was waiting for him, down there in the street. Everything is ruined. Simon will not want to see me again.

He will be certain to blame me for that young man's death."

"Why should he?" David walked over to the chest, where the enameled candlesticks on either side of the painting of the saint still held burnt-out stumps of candles. He sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the chest. He rested his forearms on his knees and his gaze on the flame and azure carpet. There were deep lines in his face. He looked as if he had not slept all last night.

His face in front of the saint's face. Looking from one to the other, Sophia saw the resemblance more plainly than ever.

She sighed and spoke with elaborate patience. "What else can Simon think but that his friend was killed by some overzealous protector of mine?"

"Why would a protector kill a man standing in the street when there is another man up in the bedroom with the woman he is supposed to protect?"

There was something in the harshness of his gaze, a flatness in his steel-colored eyes, that told her beyond the possibility of doubt that it was he who had killed Simon's young companion.

But had he not been at Tilia's house all night?

She nodded her head slowly. "Simon will probably think that way, too."