"And where were you the night the French cavaliere was murdered?"
d'Ucello asked.
"I was with a woman."
"What was her name?"
"I do not think I ever knew it." He tried a flash of sarcasm. "If I had
known there was to be a murder that night, I would have asked her
name."
"Everyone was with a nameless woman that night," d'Ucello sighed. "Yes,
you should have taken more care to arrange for proof of your innocence,
Messere."
He gestured to the clerk, who picked up a small bell on the table beside
his ink pot and shook it, a silvery clangor.
Two broad, leather-faced men in the yellow and blue tunics of the watch
came into the room. They took a few steps toward d'Ucello and stood
awaiting orders like a pair of mastiffs.
"Take him down," said d'Ucello.
"Wait! Will you torture me? I have tried to tell you the truth. Do not
do this, I beg you."
D'Ucello slid off the window ledge. "I am the sort of man who would
rather spend hours picking a lock than break it open." The smile that
stretched his thin mustache was genuine. "But, as we both know, the
Ghibellini of Siena may be upon us at any moment, and I must break you
open quickly. So now I will sleep. And while I am restoring my strength,
my men will prepare you for our next talk."
Daoud tried to keep the Face of Steel firmly in place while with the
Mask of Clay he feigned helpless terror. But his defense against feeling
seemed to have flaws. Genuine terror of what he was about to suffer kept
seeping through. When d'Ucello's guards untied him and forced him to
stand, his knees nearly buckled under him.
The steps Daoud descended must have been hollowed out by the feet of
hundreds of hapless prisoners and their guards. The wall of the circular
stairwell, which Daoud brushed with his fingertips to steady himself,
was of rough-hewn black stone.
His heart was thudding heavily as he descended the stairs, preceded by
one guard, followed by the other and by d'Ucello's clerk. The thought of
hours, perhaps days, of pain he must undergo made every muscle in his
body tremble. The stairwell, lit at long intervals by torches held by
wrought iron cressets, went down so far it seemed to have no bottom.
Many a prisoner must have felt the temptation to throw himself down from
the stairs and escape suffering.
The chamber he entered through a door of thick oak planks had been
carved from the yellow-gray rock of Orvieto's mesa. The room smelled of
fire, blood, rot, and excrement.
A man slid down from a chair when Daoud entered with his guards.
Standing, his head would have come to Daoud's waist. But he was bent
double and held his arms out from his sides to keep his fingers from
touching the ground, so his head was not even as high as Daoud's knees.
Memories flashed through Daoud's mind: The woodcutter who had blessed
himself when Daoud was arrested at Lucera. The executioner who had
tossed the heretic's cod into the air to the delight of the crowd before
Orvieto's cathedral. Daoud had always wondered how the little man had
come to appear in two such different places. The skin crawled on the
back of Daoud's neck. This creature was uncanny.
"You are to keep him awake all night, Erculio," said the guard who had
followed Daoud into the room.
"Did I not sleep all day today, so that I would be able to properly
entertain our guest tonight?" The little man bustled forward to Daoud,
rubbing his hands. His head was as big as that of a full-grown man, but
his hands and feet were small. His mustache bristled in spikes of black
hair, like a portcullis over his mouth.
"Please, in the name of the mercy of God," Daoud pleaded. "I am a
merchant. I am rich. Do not hurt me. I will pay you well."
"We want to hear nothing from you except frequent screams and answers to
the questions the podesta wants me to put to you," said Erculio in a
cold voice. "What do we want to know, Vincenzo?"
D'Ucello's clerk said, "The podesta believes he is a Ghibellino spy sent
here by the bastard King Manfred. He thinks he incited the Filippeschi
uprising. Also he may have killed the French cavaliere."
Erculio nodded vigorously. "Well, then, Messere. Are you prepared to
admit your guilt, now that you see where you are and realize what is
about to happen to you?"
"These accusations are false!" Daoud cried. "I swear it!"
The tonsured clerk, carrying a handful of quills, a bundle of scrolls,
and his ink pot, seated himself at a table in one corner of the room and
began to write.
To gain time, Daoud looked around Erculio's domain, remembering the
similar room in Tilia's brothel where he had subjected Sordello to the
Hashishiyya initiation. This place was starker and more frightful. It
was large, perhaps fifty paces on a side, divided by two rows of thick
columns holding up the weight of the great stone building above it.
Despite its size, the chamber was well lit. The candle sconces were
lined with sheets of tin to throw extra light.
Daoud recognized most of the implements of torment around the room. A
rack, a tilted wooden table with chains and winches. A sharp-pointed
wooden pyramid over which a victim could be suspended. A chair with
spikes protruding at the joints. A coffin lined with spikes. A brazier
full of pokers and branding irons of various sizes. Weights and pulleys.
Whips and cudgels, hung neatly from pegs that lined the walls. A cage
full of rats. A number of smaller devices to crush fingers or limbs--or
even skulls--laid out neatly on tables beside rows of long needles.
Daoud visualized himself drinking from a bowl of liquid light and felt
the mind-created drug Soma pouring down into his stomach and spreading
to his heart and lungs, through all his veins.
But still he must keep up the Mask of Clay.
"I can say no other than what is true," he cried. "I am David of
Trebizond. I came here to sell silk. I have harmed no one. Please be
merciful."