The Saracen: The Holy War Part 2

"Send someone to fetch Sordello to me."

"You should be resting."

He laughed and touched her hand lightly. "Resting! Our enemies are not resting." She sighed, but went.

When Sordello entered Daoud's room, Lorenzo followed him closely, eyes boring into the back of the mercenary's skull. Sophia entered behind Lorenzo.

Trembling, Sordello knelt by Daoud's bed. "I feared for you, Messer David. I am happy to see you looking so well."

Would Sordello give up the pleasures of hashish and the promise of a paradise with beautiful women? What reward could Simon de Gobignon offer him that could be more enticing?

_Yet, I have always known that this man was a two-edged sword that could turn in my hand._

"The Monaldeschi were prepared for us," said Daoud. "They were armed and on their battlements when we came. Someone warned them."

"You do not suspect me, Messer David?" Sordello, crouched on the floor by Daoud's bed, looked up slyly sideways at him. "I would be a fool to injure one who has been so great a benefactor to me."

Daoud felt rage boil up inside him at Sordello's false abjectness. He glared at the old bravo and saw a faint tremor in his jaw.

Propping himself up on one elbow, he leaned toward Sordello. "Your fawning insults me. I think you lie."

Hatred briefly twisted Sordello's face. Then a knowing smile made it even uglier.

"Messer David, if I had told the Count de Gobignon what I know about you, you would surely be dead by now."

Daoud forced himself to his feet. The pain shot through him like a lightning bolt, but in his fury he ignored it. He bent down and seized Sordello's throat with his right hand. He fell back sitting on the bed, pulling the popeyed bravo toward him so that his good knee pressed into the Sordello's chest.

Somewhere, nearby, he heard Sophia cry out in protest, but he paid no attention.

"Confess that it was you, and I will kill you quickly," Daoud whispered.

"I have shown you paradise, and I can show you h.e.l.l. If you do not give yourself up now, and I find out later that it was you, I will inflict torments of mind and body on you beyond your imagining."

"David, stop, you will kill him!" Sophia screamed. She gripped Daoud's arm, digging her nails into his muscle.

Gradually Daoud released his hold on the corded throat. With his eyes alone, employing the Hashishiyya "look that imprisons," he held Sordello fast. The bravo's eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed.

He was glad Sophia had stopped him. She must have realized that he would regret it if he killed Sordello in a fit of rage. If Sordello had not betrayed them, his false reports to Simon de Gobignon would still be useful. And in any case his sudden disappearance immediately after the attack on the Monaldeschi palace would draw de Gobignon's attention.

"If it is not you, then there is another among us who told Simon de Gobignon about my plans. If you want to save your life, you will find out who it is."

"I promise you, Messere." Sordello's voice was a hoa.r.s.e croak. "Whoever the escremento is, I will deliver his life into your hands."

Sordello stood up, then turned to Sophia and bowed.

"Madonna," Sordello gasped. "My eternal grat.i.tude--"

"Just get out," Sophia snapped.

Was there a suggestion of a leer in Sordello's lumpy face as he stared at Sophia? But pain spread from the wound in Daoud's leg in great ripples through him, and he lay back and concentrated on the Sufi exercise that detached him from his body.

The heavy oak door closed behind Sordello. They were all three silent for a moment. Then Lorenzo jerked the door open and looked out into the corridor. He nodded, indicating Sordello had truly gone.

"It might have been wiser to strangle him," said Lorenzo. "He has all our lives in his hands."

Daoud held up his hand. "What he said was true. He could have delivered us to our enemies before the attack. I believe he is still in my power."

When alone with Sophia, Daoud lay back on his cushions. She stood looking down at him, and he wondered if that was pity he saw in her face.

"You are in such pain," she said.

He shook his head. "It is nothing."

"I do not mean the pain of the body."

She understood, then, what he was feeling. He smiled at her and shut his eyes.

She sat in silence on the edge of the bed while he lay there, brooding.

Again he escaped into drowsiness. His mind drifted back to the sands of Egypt. He dreamed again of riding as a Mameluke.

When he woke, a short time had pa.s.sed, and Sophia was still sitting there, gazing down at him.

Hints of a new plan began to come together in his mind. As fever purged him of poison, it had brought him dreams of battle. Not of intrigues with the priests and bishops around the pope. Not of ambushes in narrow streets. Rather, open war.

That was the meaning of those dreams. Perhaps G.o.d Himself had sent them.

He was called upon to wage jihad against the enemies of Islam as a Mameluke, on horseback, at the head of an army.

He held out his arm to Sophia. "Help me up. You and Lorenzo and I must meet with Ugolini."

Later that morning, a heavy spring rain hammered on the windows of Ugolini's cabinet. The storm had so darkened the room that the cardinal's servants had lit extra candles. Daoud, Lorenzo, and Sophia sat in a semicircle across from Ugolini's worktable.

The painted gla.s.s eyes of Ugolini's stuffed owl glared disapprovingly down from the bookshelves at Daoud, who had a sense that the cardinal felt as the owl looked. The skull on the table seemed to be laughing at him.

He understood now what he had to do, but would the others, especially Ugolini, go along with it? Over Ugolini's frantic protests he had insisted on inciting the Filippeschi to attack the Palazzo Monaldeschi.

That attack having failed of its purpose, would the three of them still accept Daoud's authority? Ugolini, surely, would think that events had proved him right about the futility of the attack on the Monaldeschi.

How could he be won over to the idea of a wider war? _Make war utterly on the idolaters_--that, he had decided, was the meaning of his dream.

"Manfred's supporters, the Ghibellini, must take the pope captive," he said. "I know that you would prefer peace to war, but now that I have tried to kill the Tartars and failed, we do not have that choice." It was best, he thought, to admit his failure openly before Ugolini threw it in his face.

The cardinal's eyes were almost as wide and as stark as the owl's. "You would plunge the whole of Italy into war?"

"No," said Daoud, "but that is what is going to happen. The one thing that has kept the French out of Italy is the pope's refusal to give the Christian kings, especially the king of France, permission to ally themselves with the Tartars. But now that Urban is ill, he may give King Louis what he wants. When the pope allows the alliance, Louis will give his brother Charles permission to attack Manfred. It is not I who will plunge Italy into war. I am proposing only that we act before the French do."

Ugolini shook his head. "What do you mean, take the pope captive?"

"The Papal States are surrounded by cities ruled by Manfred's Ghibellino supporters. The nearest is Siena. With gold and with timely warnings about the danger from the French, we can persuade Siena to move against the pope." He held up his fist. "And then we can make sure that the next pope elected is favorable to Manfred. And through him, well disposed toward peace with Islam."