Daoud suddenly realized that droplets of moisture had appeared on the
grayish-yellow wall near his face. How long the water had been forming
he did not, could not, know. Long enough for some of the droplets to
coalesce and run down the wall, where they joined a line of dampness
where the floor met the wall.
He wondered where the water was coming from. It might be raining
outside, above this dungeon. It would take, he thought, a very great
rainstorm for the water to seep through down here.
He lay on his stomach on the rack table, his stretched arms and legs
feeling like blocks of wood. He had no idea how much time had passed
since d'Ucello left him with the threat that when he returned he would
burn Daoud's manhood away with Greek Fire. Most of that time he had been
awake, but had been dreaming of the paradise of the Hashishiyya.
Erculio had slept on a pile of rags in a corner of the dungeon, leaving
it to the guards to make sure that d'Ucello's order was carried out and
Daoud remained awake. The guards were, as Erculio must have known they
would be, halfhearted about carrying out their mandate. They poked and
struck him with sticks at intervals, but they did not try to injure him.
Daoud was even able to sleep for brief periods between their proddings.
They let most of the candles in the dungeon go out, leaving the great
stone chamber in semidarkness.
Erculio managed to talk to him when the two guards were dozing. He held
up what looked like a large pearl.
"There is a swift-acting poison sealed inside this glass ball. When he
comes to burn your prickle off, I will slip it into your mouth. When you
feel the fire, break the ball with your teeth and swallow. It will look
as though the pain killed you. If you can manage it, swallow the glass,
too, so they do not find it in your mouth after you're dead."
So calm did Daoud's Sufi training keep him that he was able to wonder
where Erculio had got such a thing, and how the poison was sealed inside
the ball, and what kind of poison it was. He could even think calmly
about what it would feel like when the poison was killing him.
Erculio was taking a huge chance, he realized. D'Ucello might well
discover that poison had killed Daoud; the podesta was a very clever and
knowledgeable man. And if he did discover the poison, he would, of
course, reason that Erculio had done it. In the midst of his calm, Daoud
felt admiration for the little bent man's courage.
Inevitably with the passing of so many hours, the pain of the cuts and
bruises and burns he had already suffered, and the ache of lying in the
same position with his limbs stretched beyond endurance, would at times
break through the mental wall he had built up against it. Remembering
the words of Sheikh Saadi--_If pain comes despite your training, invite
it into your soul's tent as you would a welcome guest_--he allowed the
pain to wash over him. And when the first acute shock of it had passed,
he was able to restore the wall.
From time to time he would think of what was soon going to happen to
him. And it would be like a spear of ice driven into his heart. Again,
he let himself feel the terror, the anguish, the agonized wondering,
_When will he come?_ and then, when his mind was numbed by the horror of
it, cast it out again.
If he had not had the training of those two great and very different
masters, Sheikh Saadi and Fayum al-Burz, he would have been mad with
terror by now. Each time the door to the dungeon opened, the spear of
ice pierced him again. Would it be now that he would lose his manhood in
pain beyond imagining, pain so great that he would gladly die at once?
When no one was nearby, Erculio came close, cursed at him loudly,
punched him, and whispered, "He is gone much longer than he said he
would be. It is late afternoon. I told you he does not want to do this."
_But he will do it_, Daoud thought.
* * * * *
Sometime later--Daoud could not tell how long--the door swung open and
d'Ucello strode in. Daoud let the cold fear flood into him. He even let
himself whimper a bit. The tide of maddening terror reached its height
and then receded, and he was in command of himself again.
The two guards snapped to attention, and Erculio scurried over to him.
The podesta's face was set, and when he came close to Daoud, there was
pain in his eyes.
"Has he spoken?" he said to Erculio.
"Not a word, Signore, and I have made him suffer greatly."
_I shall be leaving this world just moments from now. I will fix my
thoughts on God._
"I gave you more time than I intended to," d'Ucello said to Daoud.
"There was a small battaglia at a bordello on the east side of town. A
place you are familiar with. The house run by that fat old whore, Tilia
Caballo. Where, according to her testimony, you were when the French
cavaliere was murdered outside Cardinal Ugolini's. Your putana friend
has been despoiled, I fear, and many of her menservants killed and her
women hurt."
_Rachel._
He desperately wanted to know whether Rachel had been hurt, and he dared
not speak of her to d'Ucello. Anguish for Rachel cracked his armor
against fear. He saw what was going to happen to him, felt the liquid
fire, saw his death. Cold sweat broke out on his body.
He tried to turn his mind back to Tilia's house.
_And Tilia, what of Tilia?_
It surprised him that his anxiety for Tilia was so strong. She had come
to be his friend without his ever realizing it.
He thought of Francesca, who had comforted him so during his first
months in Orvieto. Of the women who had helped him initiate Sordello.
All of them no doubt raped, and perhaps hurt in other ways besides.
_The savages! This would never have happened in El Kahira._