Her voice was rich as velvet. His muscles tensed with a sudden hunger, a
long-felt need that Francesca, the woman he bedded with now and then at
Tilia Caballo's, could never satisfy. Sophia, he realized, could give
him what he wanted, what he missed so terribly since leaving home.
_No! Let me see Blossoming Reed._
He shut his eyes, and Sophia was still looking at him. The locket and
the drug together could show a man things he did not want to see, make
him feel things he did not want to feel. Things that were inside him
that he did not want to know.
_The knowledge you run from is the most precious of all_, Saadi had
said.
_I know I want Sophia. I do not hide that from myself. But I cannot have
her. Let me therefore see my wife, Blossoming Reed, she who gave me this
locket._
Sophia's image faded now, and he saw again the crystal and its pattern
that caught his soul like a fish in its toils. Gradually the pattern
became the face of Blossoming Reed. Sparks flashed from her slanting
eyes, painted with black rings of kohl. Her wide mouth was a downturned
crescent of scorn. The nostrils of her hawklike nose flared proudly.
There was a message in her face. What did she know, and what was she
trying to tell him?
Blossoming Reed, daughter of Baibars and a Canaanite wife Baibars had
stolen from the crusader stronghold in Sidon. It was rumored that
Blossoming Reed's mother practiced a kind of sorcery that was ancient
even when the Hebrews were in bondage in Egypt. But would Baibars, the
mightiest defender of the faith since Saladin, allow devil-worship in
his own house? Daoud could not believe it.
And yet, what was this locket if not the work of some evil magician? He
would not have touched the thing, much less worn it, had it not come
from Blossoming Reed, whom he loved.
Blossoming Reed, betrothed to him at twelve, married to him at fourteen,
whose breasts were like oranges and whose nails flayed his back in their
lovemaking. Blossoming Reed, Baibars's gift of honor to him, seal and
symbol of eternal friendship between Baibars al-Bunduqdari and Daoud ibn
Abdallah.
Blossoming Reed, who now spoke to him in anger out of the magic of
hashish and the locket.
_Go back to the Well, Daoud!_
Back to the Well?
To the Well of Goliath?
He saw again the plain of tamarisk, thorn bush, and grass, and the long
black line of charging Tartars. Eagerly Daoud leaned forward in the
saddle. Tightly he gripped his bow.
_Now, devils, now you will pay for Baghdad!_
He had relived that day, the greatest battle of his life, hundreds of
times in thoughtful moments, in dreams, in hashish visions. What he saw
now were moments that seemed to leap at him out of the darkness.
* * * * *
Screaming a war cry and brandishing a scimitar, a Tartar galloped at
him. They were in open ground. Daoud circled away, sheathing his saif
and pulling his bow from its case. The Tartar chased him, guiding his
horse with his knees and firing arrow after arrow at Daoud. But he was
in too much of a hurry. He was not aiming carefully, and all the arrows
whistled over Daoud's head.
The muscles of the black Yemenite stallion bunched and stretched under
Daoud as its hooves thundered over the plain. He stood in the saddle. He
turned and took aim along the shaft of his arrow at the center of the
Tartar's chest. The arrow went low, to Daoud's annoyance, and struck the
Tartar in the side of the stomach. But he must have been wearing light
leather armor, for the arrow with its steel point went deep into him.
The Tartar gave a short cry and dropped his bow, then fell, like a
stone, from the saddle into the sand.
Daoud wheeled his Yemenite about, then jerked the horse to a stop and
jumped from the saddle with his saif out. The Tartar had somehow risen
to all fours, but was vomiting blood into the sand. Daoud kicked him
with his red-booted foot and rolled him over on his back.
Holding his saif high, he looked into the face of Nicetas, contorted
with pain and fear.
"Oh, God!" he whispered. "Oh, God, no!"
He stood paralyzed. Their eyes met.