The podesta left the dungeon, still holding the silver flask.
_He has to put off carrying out his threat_, Daoud thought. _Once he has
poured that Greek Fire on my loins, he has done his worst. If the fear
does not force me to speak, the deed is pointless. After it is done I
will have little more to lose. If he were a true torturer, he would have
begun with my toes._
Even so, Daoud was sure d'Ucello would carry out his threat.
_Therefore, I must prepare myself for death._
If d'Ucello used the Greek Fire on him, Daoud would want Erculio to kill
him. And he was sure Erculio would do it.
He turned his mind again to thoughts of God. Soon he would be
face-to-face with God in paradise.
He heard Erculio talking to the guards, making preparations for some new
torment. Rather than wallow in fear, Daoud visualized a fresh flood of
Soma coursing through his heart and mind and limbs. Saadi had explained
that there was no limit to how much of a spiritual drug a man could
take.
This time, as Soma detached his spirit from his body, something happened
to him unlike anything he had never known before. He was looking down at
himself. He saw himself lying facedown, nearly nude on the rack, his
blond hair darkened and plastered down with sweat. He saw the bloody
slashes across his back, the blackened burn mark on his leg.
He was floating near the ceiling of the dungeon. He looked down at the
spider shape of Erculio, talking with the guards and the clerk. Amazing
that they did not look up here and see him. They thought he was still on
the rack.
He rose through solid stone, a space of lightlessness. Then he was
moving over tiled floors through the upper levels of the Palazzo del
Podesta, and he was out through its iron-sheathed oak door.
The vault of the sky over him was as black and heavy as the stones of
the dungeon where his body lay. It must be the final hour of night. Even
though he was a spirit, he sensed that the air was hot and damp.
He rose higher and higher over Orvieto, and amazingly he was able to see
despite the absence of light. He could see the entire oval shape of the
city from end to end, and the deep valleys that surrounded it. There at
the west end was the cathedral of San Giovenale, with the great piazza
where public events took place. There was Cardinal Ugolini's mansion,
near the palace where the pope had lived. On the north side of the town,
the Palazzo Monaldeschi, where he had hoped to end the threat to Islam
with swift blows of his dagger. And there--
From such a height--and since it was not yet dawn--he should not have
been able to recognize her, but he saw and knew at once the small figure
of a cloaked and hooded woman striding purposefully through a twisting
street. She was walking through the eastern side of the town, in the
direction of Tilia's house, which he could see from up here, with the
dovecote on its roof and its crenellated balconies, though Sophia could
not. Beside Sophia, a hulking figure carried a torch to light their way.
Ugolini's man-at-arms Riccardo.
Without knowing how he did it, Daoud was down from the sky in an instant
and walking invisibly beside her. Her black brows were drawn together in
a frown, her nose and mouth covered by a silk scarf. She looked almost
like a Muslim woman. She was full of fear for him, he knew. He wanted to
tell her not to be afraid, but how could he, knowing he was going to
die?
He thanked God for letting him see Sophia one last time.
_I love you, Sophia. Remember our joy._