The Saracen: Land of the Infidel Part 86

"We did not force you to give yourself to the Tartar," he burst out.

A light came into her eyes then, the fire of anger. "Thank you for reminding me that I became a wh.o.r.e of my own free will. Is that why you came to see me, Messer David? To tell me that this is all my own fault?"

Her lips stretched in a ferocious grin. "Pay me enough and I will say anything you want to hear."

Rachel's eyes were fixed on his, and his on hers, and they stayed that way, frozen, until Daoud shut his eyes and slowly turned away.

He could not even think of a word to say in farewell. As he closed the door to her room behind him, his eyes burned and there was an aching heaviness in his chest. Remorse. He felt as if he had killed a child--two children. Not just Rachel, but the boy David who had always lived inside him. The pain was unbearable. He longed to escape it.

x.x.xI

Tilia eyed Daoud apprehensively. "Is it not as I have said--she is well and happy?" She lifted the pectoral cross to raise its gold chain away from her bosom and mop her flesh with a square of pale green silk. He remembered the blade in the cross, and wondered if she was afraid he might attack her.

He wished he could hate her for what had happened to Rachel. But all Tilia had done was introduce Rachel to a way of life that Tilia herself had found rewarding.

"She is as well as I could have hoped," he said, hearing in his own voice the deadness he had heard in Rachel's. He sat down heavily on a divan.

Lorenzo looked at him searchingly. His big mustache hid his mouth when it was in repose, but his eyes were wide, and they glistened wetly in the light of the one candle that illuminated this small room. The Sicilian's hands lay limp in his lap, the hands of a man in pain and unable to do anything about it.

Through a peephole Daoud saw that Sordello had awakened. The gray-haired bravo was staring about him in wonder, only six feet away from Daoud's eye, while Maiga gently pressed his shoulders back against the divan, Orenetta stroked his chest and whispered to him, and Caterina's blond head rose and fell between his legs.

Francesca sat on the divan beside Daoud, offering him a slice of kid. He took it and chewed it, but even though Tilia had cooked and seasoned it perfectly, it was tasteless to him.

It was not only Rachel's fate that troubled him, he realized. It was what was happening on the other side of this wall--those three lovely women ministering like houris of paradise to that old ruffian. They would do it with skill and even with the appearance of enthusiasm because they had no choice. They did not even think of choosing. They just did as they were told. Their orders came, through Tilia, from Daoud. Francesca, here beside him, would do whatever he wanted, not because it was what _she_ wanted, but because she, too, had no choice.

And he had never really thought what it meant for women to live this way until he saw, tonight, what had happened to Rachel.

_G.o.d is a flame_, Sheikh Saadi used to say, _and each human soul a spark from that flame. When we treat our brother or sister like a thing, we trample G.o.d Himself._

They were all slaves in this house of Tilia's. He had sent Rachel here to become a slave.

_I, too, was once a slave._

But as a full-fledged Mameluke he was free. These women did not have that way of escape. As long as they could, they must perform the act of love, as it was called, with whoever paid them, or starve.

Baibars had done well to close the brothels of El Kahira. It was the very meaning of love that it was freely given. Love was free submission to another, just as Islam was free submission to G.o.d. Daoud had first experienced love when he and Nicetas gave their bodies to each other.

And later with Blossoming Reed, even though theirs was an arranged marriage, that, too, was love.

He could not lie with Francesca tonight. It would be too much like lying with Rachel. He could not watch what Orenetta, Caterina, and Maiga would do with Sordello. The thing he was having them do to Sordello was an abomination. Despicable though Sordello was, he, too, had a soul, and tonight Daoud was trampling upon G.o.d in the person of Sordello.

And yet he must see that all went as planned tonight. Did he want his homeland destroyed?

_But I have to get away from here._

He stood up suddenly. "I must go back to Cardinal Ugolini's." Tilia, Lorenzo, and Francesca stared at him.

Tilia recovered first. "But you were to stay the night here. What about--" She gestured toward the wall.

Daoud shook his head. "I am not needed. And I have an important matter to discuss with Ugolini."

"Which you just remembered," Lorenzo said, eyeing him sourly.

Daoud pressed his lips together. "Those three women know what to do.

There is no need for anyone to intervene unless he starts to resist. And then you can kill him as easily as I can."

Lorenzo stood up and bowed formally. "Thank you for your trust, Messere."

_If I am right in thinking that he hates this as much as I do, then he hates me for making him stay here._

The thump of Daoud's boots on the cobblestones echoed against the fronts of the huddled houses. Armed with sword and dagger, his head clear, and keeping to the wider streets, Daoud felt safe from attack, even though it was well past midnight. Besides, the Filippeschi had been won over, so he need no longer fear them. Fear, he thought, was the wrong word for it. Tonight he would welcome battle.

And he had the Scorpion with him tonight. He no longer ever made the mistake of going about in the streets of Orvieto at night without carrying the Scorpion in a concealed pocket in his cloak.

He walked past the cathedral church of San Giovenale, and once again from the open doors heard the pale voices of the priests of the cathedral chapter. A heavy odor of incense, carried on the moist night air, filled his nostrils.

Pain crushed his heart as he pa.s.sed beyond the pool of light that spilled out the cathedral door. He seemed to feel a heavy hand on his shoulder, and looked up. Conjured up from memory, his blond father appeared to tower over him, a red cross on the shoulder of his white mantle. A warm hand gripped Daoud's, and his mother, her red-gold hair bound with pearls, smiled down at him. Her dress was blue, like the dress she had died in.

_What memories torment Rachel_, he wondered.

Just ahead of him, the narrow street opened into the broader one that ran past Cardinal Ugolini's mansion. He had just pa.s.sed an inn called Vesuvio, after the burning mountain near Napoli, when a door opened softly behind him. Very softly, but it did not escape his trained ear.

He glanced back and saw the upper half of a divided door mate with its lower half.

_Watching for me?_ That was unlikely, because a spy watching for him would have had no idea when to expect him and would have had to stand by that door all night. He looked back again at the doorway and then at the cardinal's residence. The street was wide enough to allow a person standing in the doorway of the inn a good view of the front of the mansion.

He walked out into the square and turned to the right so that he could no longer be seen from the inn. Behind a filmy curtain on the third story of the mansion shone a yellow glow. Sophia's room. Was that Simon de Gobignon in the inn doorway?

No, it was not, because now he saw de Gobignon. The unmistakable tall figure was standing in the candlelit window behind the curtain. A thin arm pushed the curtain back, and though the light was behind de Gobignon, Daoud could see the Frenchman plainly, looking down into the square. Even though he was sure de Gobignon could not see him, Daoud stepped farther back into the shadows.

De Gobignon in Sophia's room. Daoud clenched his fists, and his lips drew back in a snarl.

The Scorpion would not carry that far. No, but he could stride closer in an instant, aim at that spidery figure silhouetted against Sophia's lighted window, and bring down his enemy with a single bolt.

_Why am I thinking such a thing?_

Was he going mad? Sophia would let Simon make love to her, and in his pa.s.sion he would tell her much. Perhaps Daoud could find out more about why Simon had sent Sordello into his camp. Perhaps Simon would give Sophia some hint about the countermove he must be planning. Meanwhile Sophia would trick Simon into thinking that Fra Toma.s.so had turned against the alliance.

Killing Simon would be foolishness. Until now the mishaps that had befallen the French and the Tartars had seemed accidental. Murder Simon, and his enemies would have proof that there were plotters in Orvieto, and they would seek them out. And the first place they would look would be the place where Simon was killed, the establishment of Cardinal Ugolini, the chief opponent of the Tartar-Christian alliance.

Still, Daoud felt his blood seethe. He remembered a summer night over ten years before, when he had bribed a slave and slipped through an unlocked gate into the arms of Ayesha, the young wife of Emir Tughril al-Din, then his commanding officer. They had lain together all that night on the roof of the mansion of Tughril al-Din, bathed in sweat, and the sweet terror of the blades that would hew his naked body to pieces if they were discovered goaded him into plunging into her again and again. Only the moon and stars bore witness that he was enjoying the wife of his commander, the man who ordered him about and punished him when he made an error, the man who had the power of life and death over him. Toward dawn, the delight of it bubbled up in his throat and he laughed so loudly that the small Circa.s.sian girl put her hand over his mouth.

_And now he does to me that which I did to Tughril al-Din._