The Saracen: Land of the Infidel Part 37

Daoud strode through the crowded streets at dusk, enjoying the golden light that fell on the upper stories of the yellow houses of Orvieto.

His scarlet cape blew out behind him, and out of the corner of his eye he saw heads turn to follow his pa.s.sage. He walked close to the houses on his right, keeping away from the ruts and the rivulets of sewage in the center of the street. Men stepped into the filth, making way for him. He was bigger and better dressed than anyone he met, and a new sword with a jeweled hilt swung at his belt. The glances he caught from the short, dark men of Orvieto were not friendly.

_They think I am a Frank, and like Sophia they hate Franks._

Pigs rooted in garbage in the quintane, the narrow s.p.a.ces between the houses. Small dogs ran under his feet. What backward, unsanitary people these Europeans were! The sights and smells of Orvieto made him wish for the paved streets of El Kahira, where every day an army of slaves swept and cleared away refuse.

The cardinal had drawn a map of Orvieto for him, showing the princ.i.p.al streets and the way to Tilia's house. Daoud had committed the map to memory, using the concentration technique Saadi had taught him. Most of the streets had no names. He would have to find his way by landmarks. In the days to come, he planned, he would explore and add to the map in his mind until he knew every street in Orvieto.

The house of Tilia Caballo stood on a street that was wider than most at the east end of town. Even though Ugolini had described it as ordinary-looking, Daoud was surprised to see how much it resembled the shabby buildings on either side of it. He had expected some sign of luxury, some flamboyance. He had thought to hear music as he approached, as he would have outside one of the brothels of El Kahira--before Baibars closed them. The house was quiet, unadorned save for a third-floor balcony above the entryway. It gave no sign of who its occupants were. He knew it only by counting--fifth house from the corner, Ugolini had said. Unlike the roof of the cardinal's palace, which was flat, the roof of Tilia's house was sharply peaked.

It looked like anything but a brothel. And though there were enough small houses near it to hold two or three hundred people, the street was not crowded, as were streets everywhere else in Orvieto. He saw a few men lounging in doorways, a pair of men walking arm in arm past Tilia's front door, but that was all. Distinguished churchmen and men of wealth and good family could come here without attracting notice.

_Even so, I seem to be the only visitor who comes before dusk. Well, if people see me and think I am a well-to-do merchant who frequents Orvieto's finest brothel, that is exactly what I want them to think._

He felt the heaviness in his groin and the lightness in his stomach that always accompanied his visits to women when he had done without pleasure for a long time. He wondered if the Christian courtesan he picked tonight would be able to match the accomplishments of the women who served the Mamelukes in El Kahira. She would surely not be able to equal the incredible pleasures he had enjoyed with Blossoming Reed.

He knocked at the plain dark-brown door, and it swung open immediately, as if the one behind it had watched him approach. There stood one of Tilia's black men, wearing a turban, robes, and pantaloons that for all the world made him look like a harem guard in El Kahira. The costume made Daoud uneasy. The slave bowed in silence, and with a sweep of his arm bade Daoud enter.

The entrance hall was a surprise. It seemed much too large for the building he had just entered. He stood on a Persian carpet in a wide, high-ceilinged room filled with light. Candles burned in sconces around the walls and in two chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Two tall, thick candles stood in twisting bra.s.s stands the height of a man on either side of a marble staircase. A pungent fragrance filled the air, and Daoud realized that the candles were scented. If Tilia could afford to burn this many candles every night, her trade must be profitable indeed.

He understood now why the interior of Tilia's establishment was so different from the exterior. She must have acquired all the buildings side by side along this street and then hollowed them out. He noticed that where the walls of the building through which he had entered should have been, there stood marble Roman columns two stories high. Counting the rows of columns stretching right and left, he estimated that this great hall must be as wide as five of the original houses that had been absorbed into Tilia's mansion.

The black man struck a large gong beside the door, giving off a low, mellow note. Almost immediately Tilia appeared at the top of the staircase. Smiling broadly, she flounced down the steps, the gold and jewels scattered over her person throwing off sparks in every direction.

"I knew you would be coming soon, David," she said in a low voice. "I am glad you came early in the evening. We can talk freely now. If more of my clients were here, we would have to seclude ourselves."

Daoud jerked his head at the black servant. "Why in G.o.d's name do you dress your men as Muslims here, where there is so much fear and hatred of 'Saracens,' as they call us?"

Tilia laughed, the pillow of flesh under her chin quivering. "Do you not know that it has long been fas.h.i.+onable among Christians to borrow from the world of Islam? They copy everything from ways of dressing to words and ideas. Most people think the Hohenstaufens have gone too far with their Saracen army, but among the great houses of Italy each must have its Moorish servants with great turbans and sashes and pantaloons. And here in Orvieto, the pope's city, it makes my clients feel especially wicked to enter a house staffed with slaves so dressed."

"I would not enjoy going into a brothel where the servants were dressed like Christian monks," Daoud said scornfully.

Tilia sighed. "I will tell you what seeing these men in Saracen garb does for me. It reminds me of when I was a young woman in Cairo." She looked around at her hall and sighed again. "Young and beautiful and unhappy. Now I am rich and content, but I tell you in all honesty I would give all this up to be young and beautiful."

Daoud was surprised. He had not known that Tilia had once lived in El Kahira. Was that, he wondered, how Baibars came to know her? Was that why, even though Daoud did not fully trust her, he felt oddly comfortable with her?

"And where are the young and beautiful and unhappy women in this house, then?"

She smiled and laid a hand on his arm. "Are you here to avail yourself?"

"First, I want to send a message to my master. Then that."

"Of course. Come with me."

He followed her up the marble steps, idly wondering if her rump looked as huge with her gown off, and whether Cardinal Ugolini actually did go to bed with her, and if so how he could be aroused by such a grossly fat woman. Not that Ugolini, with his rodent's face, was any more attractive than his mistress.

The stairs to the third floor were narrower and darker and more winding, and after that there was a maze of corridors to negotiate. Even with the help of the Sufi mental training for warriors, Daoud knew he would never be able to find his way here again.

Tilia gestured to a trapdoor. "Push that back for me."

Daoud climbed a ladder, raised the heavy door, and found himself on a walkway built over the centerline of a roof. It was wide enough for two men to stand side by side, but there was no railing, and on either side the red-tiled roof sloped down sharply. The walkway led to a small structure made of wooden slats, from which Daoud heard fluttering and cooing. The sight of the dovecote and the sound of the warbling pigeons reminded Daoud of the rooftops of El Kahira, and for a moment he yearned for a sight of the Bhar al-Nil flowing swiftly past the city or the sound of the muezzin's call to prayer.

He stopped to look around. This was an excellent vantage point. From here he could see that Tilia's mansion was actually shaped like Ugolini's, a hollow square around an atrium. The difference was that her establishment was made from the joining of many houses that had once been separate. From here he could also see most of Orvieto. Rows and rows of peaked roofs glowed warm red and orange in the sunset. Off in the northwest corner of the city bulked the great roof of the cathedral, like a galley among rowboats. To the south, the six square turrets of the pope's palace. And on all sides of the city, the rounded green hills of this part of Italy called Umbria.

"The piccioni fly to Napoli," said Tilia breathlessly behind him. Daoud was amazed at how she had managed to climb so many steps and finally a ladder. There must be muscle under all that fat.

He pulled open the whitewashed wooden door of the dovecote. His entry set off a furious flapping of wings, unleas.h.i.+ng a storm of feathers in the dark enclosure. The smell of pigeon droppings was heavy in the warm air. He began breathing through his mouth to keep the odor out of his nose. Tilia pushed past him, whistling and clucking to the pigeons and calming them down.

"Who gets the messages in Napoli?" he asked.

She turned to him with a smile. "Another brothel keeper. A man. I will not tell you his name. The wives of my piccioni live in his dovecote.

When I release a piccione here, he flies to Napoli and visits with his wife until one of my servants rides there and brings him back. Piccioni are much more faithful to their mates than men and women."

Daoud laughed. He enjoyed Tilia's cynicism. The strong light of the setting sun fell in bars through the slats across her face and body.

"How long does it take for the messages to reach El Kahira?"

She looked at him as if he were a simpleton. "Who can say? From Napoli someone must take the message capsules aboard a s.h.i.+p to a port in Outremer. So, how long it takes depends on whether the sea is angry or calm. Once in Outremer they might go on by piccioni again or by camel caravan. Once I had a reply within two months. The longest I had to wait was a year and three months." She had, Daoud noted, the brothel keeper's good memory for numbers.

"May this arrive sooner than that." Daoud reached into a leather scrip at his belt and drew out the two rolled slips of parchment, each crowded with tiny Arabic characters.

"Two letters? Where is the other one going?"

"Both to Baibars. They are duplicates. We do that in the field whenever possible. Twice as much chance that the message will get through."

"I will send one tonight and the other tomorrow morning. What are you telling him?"

Daoud was not sure Tilia should be asking him that. But as "Morgiana"

she had sent Baibars dozens of long letters from Orvieto. Surely no one had a better right to know about this correspondence.

Daoud shrugged. "That I have arrived here safely with two companions sent with me by King Manfred, and that we have been welcomed by the one who was awaiting me. Even though this is written in a cipher, your name and the cardinal's name are not mentioned. I go on to say that we have stirred up the people of Orvieto against the Tartars and that I will soon speak against them before the pope. And I tell him something of what I have learned about Italy. He is very curious about the lands of the infidel."

"The cardinal has agreed to present you to Pope Urban, then?" Her eyebrows twitched and her mouth tightened.

Her look of displeasure irritated him. For all he knew, it was her influence that made Ugolini so difficult. But, he thought with grudging admiration, she herself seemed more resolute than the cardinal.

"He came to see that it was the only course open to us."

"You are persuasive. I see better why your master sent you." She took the parchments from him, rolled them even tighter, and tied each one into a tiny leather capsule. One capsule disappeared into a jeweled purse that hung on her hip. The other she put aside while she reached into a cage, whistling and twittering. Her hand came out again grasping a pigeon.

"This is Tonio. He is ten years old. He always gets through." Daoud was amazed at how calmly the pigeon reposed in Tilia's hand. He was even more surprised when she handed the bird to him, but he quickly took him, holding him around the back with thumb and forefinger behind his head, leaving his chest free so he could breathe easily.

"You've handled birds before," she said, deftly fastening a capsule under Tonio's wing. She took the bird back from Daoud. Outside the coop, she opened her hands and the bird took off with a fanning of wings.

"There now," said Tilia. "With that out of the way, perhaps you would like a piccione of another sort for your pleasure."

"I would indeed," said Daoud, feeling a warmth spread through his body.