The Saracen: Land of the Infidel Part 108

"I mean, I must attack the Palazzo Monaldeschi."

"Attack the Monaldeschi!" It was almost a scream.

Daoud spread his hands. "I have no choice."

Ugolini sprang to his feet. "Pazzia! You are mad!"

_It is you who are almost mad, with terror_, Daoud thought. He was going to have trouble with Ugolini, no question.

Aloud he said only, "We will discuss it. You can help us plan. Pardon me, Your Eminence, while I send for Lorenzo."

"It will have to be late at night, of course," said Lorenzo. "And I would think a Friday evening would be best, when the men-at-arms will be off their guard and many of them out carousing. But it finally depends on when Marco di Filippeschi says his family's men can be ready. They need to buy weapons."

Daoud and Lorenzo stood by the cardinal's table while Ugolini paced with many short steps between the windows and the hearth. He muttered to himself, and his hands trembled as he ran them through his tufts of white hair.

"What of our men?" said Daoud.

"We have over two hundred now, scattered throughout the city," said Lorenzo.

_If I could be in the palazzo before the fighting begins ..._

Ugolini stopped his pacing and faced them. "You talk like moonstruck men! You would unleash a civil war right here in Orvieto?"

"Not us, Your Eminence," said Lorenzo. "Have not these two families been fighting for generations?"

"What is your objection?" said Daoud gently.

Ugolini fixed them with a ferocious glare. "For six months, half a year, I have lain awake imagining arrest, disgrace, torture, execution.

Through miracles you have managed to carry out your plans without being caught. Now you want to launch still wilder plans--incredible, fantastic things. I have had enough. G.o.d has kept me alive this long. I will not tempt Him further."

"My dear Cardinal," Daoud said, "once the Tartars are dead, this will all be over. I will go back to Egypt. Lorenzo and Sophia will return to Manfred's kingdom. You will have nothing further to fear."

"You could have tried to kill the Tartars at any time since they came here," said Ugolini. "Why now?"

"I needed to create as much ill will as possible between Christians and Tartars," said Daoud. "If I had killed the Tartars at once, I could not have had them discredit themselves out of their own mouths. Fra Toma.s.so and your colleagues among the Italian cardinals could not have stirred up so much fear and hatred toward them. Now, though, I have done all I can along those lines, and Fra Toma.s.so is already undoing what together we have accomplished."

"And why involve the Monaldeschi and the Filippeschi?" Ugolini pressed him.

"To make it seem that the Tartars have been killed by feuding Italians.

Then Hulagu Khan will think again about whether he wants such people as his allies."

Ugolini shook his head. "I do not have to tell you, of all people, what war is like. And I think Messer Lorenzo, by the way he carries himself, has known battle more than once. You both know that chance rules every moment in war."

"True," said Daoud.

And if chance decided against them? For a moment he saw Sophia naked, being torn apart by the torturers' pincers. He almost shuddered, and had to hold himself rigid.

"I take it you intend to be part of this attack on the Monaldeschi,"

Ugolini went on.

"I do," said Daoud.

Ugolini threw up his hands as if Daoud had already proved his case for him. "Well then, what if someone recognizes you attacking the palace?"

"I will not openly lead. I will enter the palace and kill the Tartars."

"So," said Ugolini. "You will not just be somewhere in the street outside the Palazzo Monaldeschi. You will be _in the palace_. In the midst of all your enemies. Alone. Attempting to a.s.sa.s.sinate the Tartars.

Tell me, does that sound like the plan of a reasonable, cautious man to you?"

Daoud thought it sounded as if he were, to put it as Ugolini had, tempting G.o.d. But Ugolini did not understand that Daoud had not only the skills of Mameluke, but had also received the secret training of the Has.h.i.+s.h.i.+yya fighters, the fedawi, whose powers many in the lands of Islam thought magical.

"I will be masked. I will be dressed in garments that will make it almost impossible to see me. I will not expose myself. I will move in darkness. I have been trained to find my way in darkness as surely as if it were sunlight."

Ugolini shook his head. "Understand me. I would not go on arguing with you like this did I not feel I am arguing for my life. And Tilia's, and the lives of those who depend on you. You must admit that you might be captured or killed. My house guest, found trying to murder the Tartar amba.s.sadors."

Daoud spread his hands. "You would then denounce me. You say you never knew what a demon you had taken into your home."

Ugolini laughed loudly and bitterly. "Are our opponents fools? Do you really think they would believe me, even for a moment? After perhaps hundreds of people have been killed, after a civil war in Orvieto, anyone who is even suspect will die. The Monaldeschi, the French, the Church authorities, all will take their revenge. Surely you understand that."

Daoud's heart grew cold as he looked along the road Ugolini was describing and saw defeat, ma.s.sacre, the hideous deaths of his comrades, and beyond that iron waves of crusaders and endless columns of Tartar hors.e.m.e.n sweeping over the Dar al-Islam. And he could not look into Ugolini's eyes and declare that all would turn out well.

But what would happen if he did nothing? He looked down that path and saw the same ma.s.ses of crusaders and Tartars, saw the burning mosques, the emptied cities, the heaps of corpses. He saw the Gray Mosque in El Kahira ruined, his teacher Saadi hacked to pieces by crusader swords.

Then he heard words Saadi had spoken: _We are G.o.d's instruments, by which He brings about that which He wills. The fool does nothing and leaves the outcome to G.o.d. The ordinary man acts and prays that G.o.d will grant a good result. The wise man acts and leaves the outcome to G.o.d._

He would act.

He turned to Lorenzo, standing near him by the cardinal's table.

"Your life is at stake in this. What do you think?"

Lorenzo's face was as grave as Daoud had ever seen it. "If the Filippeschi attack the Palazzo Monaldeschi, they will be driven off. But with more than five hundred men attacking the palace, it will be impossible for the French to guard the Tartars adequately. If you get in, kill them, and get out safely, I think we can hide our part in the fighting. If you are caught or killed, I think it is as the cardinal says. We are all doomed."

"Exactly!" cried Ugolini from where he stood behind his table. "Then why risk it?"

"Because we must," Lorenzo said to him. "If we do not stop the alliance by force, the pope will strike a bargain with the King of France. There will be a French army marching against my King Manfred, and after that crusaders and Tartars will fall upon Messer David's people."

Ugolini uttered a deep groan and sank into his chair.

Relief swept over Daoud. He had already decided to make the attempt on the Palazzo Monaldeschi even if Lorenzo opposed it, but to have Lorenzo side with him gave him more confidence that he could carry it off.

Lorenzo turned those somber eyes to him again. "It all depends on you. I am gambling that you can do it."

Daoud felt a powerful warmth toward the Sicilian. There were times when he had wished Lorenzo were not with him, times when he distrusted him.

The foolishness of involving them with Rachel and her husband. The fact that Lorenzo was a Jew who had abandoned his religion. Even his dog was a nuisance. But at this moment to have Lorenzo's support made him feel as strong and confident as if the Mameluke orta he commanded had suddenly appeared in Orvieto.

He grinned at Lorenzo. "You proved how good a gambler you are by losing to de Verceuil."