"Why?"
"Be good enough to wait for an explanation until we are in private."
Daoud tried to read d'Ucello's round, swarthy face, but he could not
tell whether the podesta was relieved or angry.
When Daoud did try to stand and put his weight on the burned and beaten
soles of his feet, he had to clench his teeth to keep himself from
screaming. His legs, which had borne the brunt of Erculio's attentions,
felt lifeless, and his knees buckled. He toppled forward, and d'Ucello
caught him. The podesta staggered under Daoud's weight. He snapped his
fingers at a guard, who hurried over to help hold Daoud up.
As Daoud, gasping, leaned against him, d'Ucello unclasped his cloak and
wrapped it around Daoud to cover his nakedness.
_Such solicitude_, Daoud thought wryly. _I think I have suddenly become
terribly valuable to him._
This could not be just the contessa's influence, he thought. He did not
mean that much to her.
_The Sienese._
That must be it. Erculio had said d'Ucello believed Daoud was a
Ghibellino agent, and therefore he would want to kill Daoud before the
Ghibellino army from Siena got here. But not, Daoud thought, if d'Ucello
intended to surrender.
Erculio pressed something into his hand, a small leather pouch--the
tawidh.
Daoud painfully bent his head toward Erculio and read gladness in the
beady eyes.
"May you find work that suits you better, Messer Erculio," said Daoud.
_God give you joy_, he thought.
"What he does suits him all too well, the little monster," said
d'Ucello.
The podesta's men brought a litter, and two big guards, complaining
about Daoud's size, slowly climbed the basement steps, stopped to rest
for a time at the top and then carried Daoud up the marble staircase
leading from the ground floor to the first floor of the Palazzo del
Podesta. They were staggering by the time they lifted Daoud onto a bed
in a small room. D'Ucello ordered the guards to send Fra Bernardino to
him.
Two walls of the room were lined with books and boxes of scrolls. So
many books must be worth a fortune, Daoud thought. The other walls were
painted a pleasant lemon color, the ceiling a deep blue. A concave
mirror, set at an angle in the wall beside the glazed mullioned window,
could direct daylight toward the writing table. The translucent window
glass appeared nearly black; it must be night outside. The floor was of
hardwood planks, very clean and highly polished. Moving very slowly and
painfully, Daoud stretched himself out on the yellow satin bedcarpet and
drew d'Ucello's cloak over him like a blanket.
This was a great deal more comfortable than the table on which he had
lain for what seemed like endless days and nights. He could hardly
believe the vast change that had taken place.
_Maybe I have gone mad and this is all like a hashish dream._
D'Ucello sat at a plain oak table piled with parchments, rolled and
unrolled. The candelabra on the table supplied the light for the room. A
slender blue vase with graceful twin handles stood on one corner of the
table.
Though this was not a room that would find favor in the world of Islam,
Daoud recognized that d'Ucello, in his own Venetian way, had a highly
refined sense of beauty.
The podesta unlocked a tall box of dark wood, inlaid with ivory, that
stood on his desk. Lifting the lid, he held the flask of Greek Fire over
it.
"We are both lucky I did not use this," he said. He took a folded white
cloth from the box and wrapped the flask. Then, carefully, he set the
flask upright in the box, closed the lid, and locked it.
Daoud let out a slow sigh of relief as he saw d'Ucello push the box to
one side. It was becoming easier and easier to believe that he was
saved.
In spite of the pain that stabbed at a thousand places on his body,
Daoud was able to smile. "I know why it is lucky for me. Why for you?"
"Cardinal Ugolini and his niece went to the Contessa di Monaldeschi and
insisted that you were innocent, that you were the cardinal's guest.
They begged her to command me to release you at once. The contessa is
very simple in her way, and she likes to do favors for churchmen. So she
sent a message to me that I must stop your torture and come to her at
once."
Daoud could not think. He felt so light-headed that it might have been
easy now for d'Ucello to extract admissions from him. He had been in
pain and had not eaten or slept in over a day. He must pay careful
attention to what he was saying. It would never do to be careless with
d'Ucello.
D'Ucello smiled at Daoud, a humorless grimace that stretched his thin
mustache.
"I am not going to ask your forgiveness," d'Ucello said. "I was doing
what I thought right."
Daoud said nothing. He felt d'Ucello was being frank with him, but he
could not find it in his heart to forgive a man who had caused him so
much pain and nearly killed him. Still, searching his heart, as Sheikh
Saadi would have recommended, he found that he felt no hatred for
d'Ucello. Just the wariness he would have felt toward a very large
crocodile.
"I have stopped torturing you not because the contessa told me to,"
d'Ucello went on. "I probably could have changed her mind. But then she
and I spoke of something else. A Ghibellino army from Siena is about to
assault Orvieto. The contessa insisted that the militia, which I
command, defend Orvieto to the last drop of our blood." He smiled, again
without mirth.
_As I suspected_, Daoud thought triumphantly. _He wants me to intercede
for him with the Ghibellini of Siena._