The Saracen: Land of the Infidel by Robert Shea (best fiction books to read .TXT) 📗

suppose they left the babies behind when they went out of the city to be executed, hoping they would survive. But with no one to suckle them, the babies would have starved to death. Killing them was an act of mercy."[260]

Remembering what he had seen of Baghdad, Daoud felt his rage grow cold and towering as the mountains of the Roof of the World. Those were his Muslim people. He wanted to draw the dagger at his belt and slash the throats of the two gloating, drunken savages before him. He bit down hard on his lower lip to keep himself under control.

"When we shot people with arrows," said John, "we went around and pulled the arrows out of the bodies afterward so we could use them again. We do not waste anything."

He is trying to show how admirable they are.

Daoud watched the stout Bulgarian woman Ana speak John's words in Italian, still expressionless, still standing motionless. But to his surprise he saw rivulets of tears on her round cheeks.

She had been in Bulgaria when the Tartars came, he thought. She had seen what Christians called "the fury of the Tartars." She must have been among the survivors who submitted to their rule, but she had not forgotten. Perhaps translating John's and Philip's words exactly as they spoke them was her way of taking revenge.

John held out his goblet, and Ana refilled it. He laughed softly at nothing in particular and drank more.

"But why do this to city after city?" Daoud asked.

"When we invade a kingdom, the rulers and people are determined to resist us," said John. "To fight them might cost us the lives of thousands of our warriors. But when we wipe out one or two whole cities, they become terrified. They lose their will to fight and surrender quickly. It saves many lives on both sides."

Philip grinned broadly. "It shows that we have power like no other people on earth." He shook both fists. "We can level whole cities. This teaches all men that Eternal Heaven has given us dominion over the whole earth."

Daoud heard whispers from the people around him, and Pope Urban coughed softly.

Daoud could hardly believe his luck. Not luck, he thought. God had delivered the Tartars into his hands.

"The whole earth?" said Daoud. "Even Europe? Even the Christian lands?"

Philip threw out his arms expansively. "The whole earth. All there is. Every corner."

Daoud's earlier rage had subsided. Instead, he felt wild triumph, and he had to grip the seat of his chair to hold himself down.[261]

Daoud heard Cardinal Ugolini declare, "You see? Exactly what we have been saying."

"You say Eternal Heaven gives you the right to rule the world?" Daoud asked. "Do you mean God?"

John shrugged. "Eternal Heaven is what our ancestors called Him. Now that we are Christians we call Him God."

Fra Tomasso suddenly cut in. "But surely you realize that the sky, or whatever you worshiped before you became Christians, is not the true God."

After Ana translated this, John questioned her, squinting at the Dominican as he did so, apparently wanting to make sure of Fra Tomasso's meaning.

"Would God have neglected us before Christian priests found their way to our land?" John said through Ana. "Of course He has spoken to us. Has He not made us the most powerful people on earth?"

"Perhaps He has done so in order that you might now hear His word," said Fra Tomasso.

"I am not a priest," John said with a sudden broad grin. "But we have the highest priests of the Christian faith here tonight. Let them say whether Eternal Heaven and God are the same." He bowed his round head and held out his hand in invitation.

A silence fell. The little band of musicians playing vielles and hautboys in one corner of the room suddenly sounded very loud. Daoud turned to look once again at the audience his dialogue with the Tartars had drawn. The Contessa di Monaldeschi, Fra Tomasso, at least half a dozen cardinals. And Pope Urban himself. Their figures swam before Daoud, and he knew the wine was overcoming him—bodily, at any rate. The faces of the Christian leaders looked very grave, though, and the grimmer they looked, the more pleased he felt.

Fra Tomasso especially, he hoped, had heard enough to sway him.

He turned back to the Tartars. They, too, seemed aware of the uneasy, unhappy silence. The pope appeared not to feel that John's inquiry deserved an answer. The older Tartar's smile faded, and he carefully set down his wine cup. Philip's eyes darted this way and that.

John said something to Philip in a low voice, probably a warning to say no more. John had the look of a water buffalo beset by village curs, his eyes smoldering, his white-wreathed head turning from[262] side to side. Daoud sensed, because he often felt the same way himself, how alone John must feel, surrounded by enemies.

He does not have ten thousand warriors at his back now.

Daoud heard a stir behind him, and turned to see the crowd parting to let Pope Urban leave, the broad back of Fra Tomasso following close behind him. A priest-attendant in black was coming from a corner of the room with a cloth-of-gold outer mantle for the pope. The contessa rustled after Urban, who turned and offered her his hand to kiss. As the aged hostess knelt unsteadily before Urban, Daoud rejoiced at the troubled, abstracted expression in the pope's aged eyes.

Daoud heaved himself out of his chair and stood, swaying. For a moment his eyes would not focus, and he thought he was going to fall. Then he saw John Chagan giving him a look as piercing as a Tartar lance. Now, Daoud saw, John understood what he had done to him. As for Philip, he sat slumped, only half awake, his empty wine cup held loosely. The stout, dark-haired Ana stood impassive, hands clasped in front of her, as if content to remain there all night. Her cheeks were now dry.

We defeated your army at the Well of Goliath, Tartar, and now I have defeated you at Orvieto.

"Monsters!" It was the voice of the contessa, and Daoud turned to see her, losing his balance and having to put out a foot to catch himself.

He saw de Verceuil as well, coming across the hall almost at a run, just ahead of the contessa, his aquamarine cloak flying. His eyes were wide, his little mouth tight with fury. The contessa, looking just as angry, was hurrying to keep up with him and tell him what she thought.

"You have brought monsters into my house. Everything bad I have heard about them they have now admitted. In a year or two they will be at the gates of Rome. They are the Huns all over again." Her eyes were huge, and her nostrils flared with passion. Daoud suppressed an urge to laugh aloud with delight.

De Verceuil checked his rush to get to his Tartar charges, and turned to the contessa. "Your Signory, I beg you to understand. They have been drinking. They did not know what they were saying. Old soldiers' boasting. Exaggerated tales of their exploits. The Tartars are given to that sort of thing."

"It is not exaggerated," the old lady cried shrilly. "We have heard tales before of their massacres. Now I have heard the same[263] from their own lips. These very men whom I have welcomed into my house—their hands drip with the blood of children. One of them told how he slit the throats of forty babies. And they are proud of what they have done. They feel no remorse. Old soldiers' boasting? Old soldiers boast of overcoming strong enemies. These—these bestioni gloat over the slaughter of the helpless. Perhaps they look at my palazzo and think that one day it will be theirs. And you have brought them under my roof."

"Donna Elvira," de Verceuil pleaded, "let me find out the truth about what has been happening here."

Daoud's heartbeat quickened. He should slip away now. Drunk as he was, he would be too vulnerable to de Verceuil.

The French cardinal was shouting at the Bulgarian woman. John the Tartar was smiling as if de Verceuil's appearance were enough in itself to extricate him from the consequences of his too-free speech. Philip's fleshy chin rested on his chest and his eyes were fast shut.

Something white moved in the corner of Daoud's eye, and he looked toward the doorway leading to the inner galleria, where the gaming had been going on. Lorenzo was just sauntering out. He was all the way across the room, and Daoud's vision was too blurred to see his expression, but he was probably smiling. He walked closer, seeming to be looking at Daoud for a signal, but Daoud could think of none to send.

Well done, Lorenzo. How badly, I wonder, did you have to play at backgammon to keep de Verceuil occupied all this time?

"How could I stop them from speaking, Your Eminence?" Ana was protesting. "I am here only to translate what they say. This man came up to talk to them, and I simply repeated what they said to him and what he said back to them."

"What man?" de Verceuil asked the question almost in a whisper, and Ana's eyes turned toward Daoud.

Too late. Now I must face him.

"You," de Verceuil said in the same low voice.

Daoud swayed, and it came to him at once how best to respond. He would pretend to be too drunk to understand what was happening.

"You provoked these indiscretions," the cardinal ground out. The jeweled cross hanging on his chest winked and glittered as it rose and fell with his deep breathing.

Daoud put out a hand to grasp the back of his chair. Smiling at[264] the cardinal, he leaned heavily on the chair and circled it methodically. He sat down heavily on the arm, almost tipping the chair over. Then he slid into the seat with a thump.

He looked up at de Verceuil and said, "What?"

The cardinal's hands—they were very large, Daoud saw—clenched and unclenched.

He wishes he could strangle me.

"Why have you tried to embarrass these ambassadors?" de Verceuil demanded. His voice was a good deal louder now.

Daoud let his head loll. He caught sight of Lorenzo again. The Sicilian was much closer. Daoud shook his head ever so slightly and jerked his chin.

Go away.

He let his head fall forward.

De Verceuil moved closer. Raising his eyes while keeping his head lowered, Daoud found himself staring at the cardinal's belt buckle, a gold medallion displaying an angel's head with wings growing out of its curly hair.

"I have embarrassed no one," Daoud mumbled thickly. "I know John and Philip's people. They are our neighbors." He laughed, and let the laugh go on too long. "We talked about things everybody knows."

He felt those big hands seize the front of his tunic and jerk him to his feet. De Verceuil's flushed face was less than a hand's width from his own. The cardinal's eyes were huge and dark.

Daoud felt his muscles bunch, and he forced them to relax. He felt fear. Not fear of de Verceuil, whom he could easily kill, but fear of losing control of himself, of letting the Face of Steel show through the Mask of Clay. Such a revelation could put an end to his mission.

"Who the devil are you? What are you doing in Orvieto? Answer me!" De Verceuil shook Daoud violently. Daoud's head rocked back and forth, and he saw two faces of de Verceuil.

Had there been no wine in his blood, it would have been easier for Daoud to control his fear and his anger. He knew he must play at being a merchant who would be terrified at having provoked the wrath of a prince of the Church. But, as it was, he felt himself caught up in a whirlwind of rage, and his hands came up, going for the cardinal's throat. Just in time he changed the move into a cringing, self-protective gesture.[265]

"I could have you killed!" de Verceuil shouted. "And I will if you do not answer me."

"Stop!" The small body of Cardinal Ugolini was beside them, almost between them. "David of Trebizond is my guest." Daoud glanced down at Ugolini and saw that he was trembling violently.

He thinks I might do something that would expose us all.

"Trebizond!" De Verceuil spat the word. "This man is a damned schismatic Greek who has come here to betray Christianity!"

"On the contrary," said Ugolini, "he may yet save Christendom from a terrible error. De Verceuil, I demand that you take your hands off him."

Daoud let his body go suddenly limp, so that de Verceuil was holding up all of his weight by his tunic. At the jerk on his arms, de Verceuil gave a snort of disgust and let go, pushing Daoud away from him. Daoud collapsed into his