Sordello's face, looking as if hewn from granite by an indifferent
sculptor, was gray with fatigue. His arms bound behind his back, he
knelt before Daoud, wearing a tattered brown frieze robe Tilia had
somewhere found for him.
Daoud sat once again on the former papal throne. Dressed in black
cassocks and hoods that covered their faces, Lorenzo and five of Tilia's
black servants stood along the walls of the room. Every so often
Sordello's eyes flickered to the implements of torture around the room
and quickly away again.
Yet the night's assault on his mind had not altogether broken his
spirit. "If you think to frighten me with this clowning, think again,
Messer David. I have stood undaunted before the Inquisition in my day,
and they are a good deal more fearsome than you and your henchmen."
_Leave him his shred of dignity_, Daoud thought. _A man who has lost
that is too dangerous._
"We are beyond fear now, Sordello, are we not?"
Sordello's eyes glowed in the torchlight like a trapped animal's. "What
kind of devil are you?"
Daoud tried to smile kindly. "You call me a devil after I have sent you
to paradise?"
The old bravo sighed, and his eyes closed. "I did not know that my body
was capable of feeling so much pleasure. Even when I was twenty and at
my best, I never knew such delight. It shook me to the very root of my
soul."
"I know," said Daoud. He was thinking back to his own initiation. Given
sanctuary in Egypt, the Hashishiyya had built a tent-palace of wood and
silk west of El Kahira, at the foot of the pyramids. Over a series of
moonlit nights, Daoud had drunk the Old Man of the Mountain's brew. He
had entered hell in the bowels of the Great Pyramid and then had
ascended into paradise, where the houris promised by the Prophet had
ministered to him for what seemed an eternity. Yes, he knew very well
what spirit-freezing delights Sordello had experienced.
"What are you, then?" Sordello growled, his eyes flashing open. "Some
kind of stregone? What was that witches' potion you made me drink?"
"Do you wish to return to paradise?"
"You _are_ a devil, Maestro. You want my soul."
The man was quick, Daoud thought. For all that he was a flawed man, he
had a strong mind. He remembered being made to drink the preparation of
wine and hashish. And he already realized why Daoud had done this to
him.
_So delicate, this part._
Now the bond must be forged. As a succession of Old Men of the Mountain
had forged it between themselves and their disciples in Alamut, in
Masyaf, in all those mountain strongholds across Persia and Syria from
which terror had gone forth for more than a hundred and fifty years.
"I am but a man like you, Sordello. I do not want your soul. I want your
loyalty."
"You want my treachery, you mean. You want me to betray my master, the
Count de Gobignon."
There was more than quickness here, Daoud thought. There was that
foolhardiness he had seen in Sordello before. A man of sense, knowing
that he was in the power of a force beyond his control, even beyond his
understanding, would do nothing to antagonize that force. Yet Sordello
persisted in challenging Daoud.
At the mention of Simon de Gobignon's name, Daoud's concentration
wavered. When de Gobignon found his knight dead outside Ugolini's
mansion, what would he do? There would be trouble over this, surely
there would be trouble. Daoud cursed himself for leaving Tilia's house
and going back to the cardinal's mansion.
He forced his mind back to Sordello. How to work with this provoking
spirit?
"To send you into the enemy camp as he did, Count Simon must have great
confidence in your ability."
Sordello laughed angrily. "Confidence? That high and mighty French fop?
He was probably hoping you would catch me. Sia maledetto!"
He curses de Gobignon. Excellent. Or is this merely for my benefit?
Daoud peered at Sordello, wishing the room were lit by more than a few
torches burning in cressets. The flickering light was impressive, like
this gilded throne, but if Daoud could get closer to Sordello and see
better, he could be more sure of what the man was really feeling.
Daoud said, "He who is loyal to me is never cast out, no matter how
foolishly he behaves."
"Does he who is loyal to you get to go to paradise often, Maestro?"
Sordello's voice was thick with yearning.
It was time for the final step. Daoud beckoned. The nearest hooded
figure on his right, who was actually Lorenzo, came forward with a green
earthenware cup. He bent and held it before the kneeling Sordello.
"More of your stregoneria? Or have you finally decided to poison me?"
"Would I have showered you with wonders, as I have tonight, only to kill
you? No, I have one final wonder to show you. Drink, Sordello."
_This wonder probably will be the death of you, but not for a while._
After a long hesitation, the old bravo lifted his head and swallowed the
liquid Lorenzo poured down his throat. He made a sour face. "Paugh! It
tastes bad!"
Daoud said nothing and waited. After a few moments of silence Sordello
sat back on his heels. His gray head began to nod. His eyes closed.
Daoud arose from the throne and went down to him, holding a candle in
one hand.
"Look at me, Sordello." The prisoner's head lifted, and his brown eyes
stared fixedly into Daoud's. Daoud bent and passed the candle flame
before Sordello's face, but his eyes remained motionless.
"Do you love Simon de Gobignon, or do you hate him?"
"Hate. I hate him," Sordello said in a dull voice. "I have suffered much
on his account."
"Would you kill him if you had the chance?"
Even in his trance Sordello's eyes seemed to glow, and his face flushed.
"Yes. Oh, yes, Maestro. Gladly."
That was good. The will must already be there. Then it remained only to
shape the deed. Daoud reached inside the collar of his tunic and pulled
out the silver locket Blossoming Reed had given him. It was, he had
decided, better than a word or combination of words. It was something
Sordello would never see again unless Daoud wished him to see it.
He dangled the locket by its chain before Sordello's face, letting it
swing from side to side. He held the candle so its flame reflected from
the silver disk.
"Watch the locket, Sordello. Look closely at it. The design on its face
is like no other in the world. Make certain that you would know it if
you saw it again."
For a time he let the locket swing, and Sordello's head turned from side
to side, following it.
"Do you know this locket now, Sordello? Truly know it?"
"Yes, Maestro."
"Could you mistake it for another?"
"No, Maestro."
"Good. Now I command you. When you see this locket again, it will be a
sign. It will mean that you are to kill Simon de Gobignon at once. As
soon as you see the locket, you will take up the first weapon that
comes to hand, and you will await your first good chance, and you will
strike him down. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Maestro."
"Will you do it?"
"Yes, Maestro. With much joy."
"Say what you will do, Sordello."
"When I see that locket, I will kill Simon de Gobignon at once."
"That is good. Now, in a little while you will wake up. And you will not
remember anything I have said to you about the locket and about killing
Simon de Gobignon. You will forget all about it until you see the locket
again. And then you will strike."
"Yes, Maestro."
Daoud went back to the throne and sat down. He slipped the locket's
chain over his head and dropped the silver disk back inside his tunic.
Sordello slumped in his kneeling posture like a figure of wax that had
been placed too close to a fire.
Daoud waited patiently, and in a few moments Sordello raised his head,
his eyes bloodshot but alert.
"Will you let me visit paradise again soon?" His memory had gone back to
the moment before he drank the drug.
"Not _very_ soon," said Daoud. "But serve me well, and it will happen
again." He could not make Sordello wait a year, as the Hashishiyya
usually did with their initiates. But it must be a wait of some months,
or the experience would lose its magic. And in months his work in
Orvieto might be done.
_And then again, I might still be here ten years from now._
"Tell me what I have to do, Maestro."
"Serve me faithfully, and from time to time, when it pleases me, you
will visit paradise. Disobey me or betray me--we will know instantly if
you do--and when you least expect it you will find yourself in hell. Not
the one we created for you last night. The real one."
"You don't need to threaten me," said Sordello with a flash of his old
rebelliousness. "Just tell me what you want."
"Simply go on doing what you have been doing. You will give the Count de
Gobignon information about us--but from now on we will tell you what to
tell him. And you will keep me informed about the young count. Hardly
any work at all, you see."
Sordello grunted. "I doubt it will be that easy. But as long as you
offer a reward so great, I am your man."
_My slave_, thought Daoud, hoping that his pity for this creature did
not show in his face.
But he must remember that there were hidden places in this man's soul.
And he had never before tried to enslave a man as the Hashishiyya did
it. He could not be sure that he had succeeded fully, and so he had made
a creature potentially as dangerous to himself as to anyone else. The
flesh on the back of his neck crawled.
* * * * *
She was sitting by the window, staring out at the spot on the street
where the young man's body had lain. She heard the door open behind her.
She turned, and there was David. Golden-haired, lean, tall, with those
light-filled eyes. She forgot herself and felt a leap of love, and then
her heart clenched like a fist with anger.
_Wait, let him tell it before I judge him._
He closed the door slowly, a strange expression on his face. She looked
from him to the image of the saint. Yes. The look around the eyes was
the same. They had accepted pain and sorrow, did not struggle against it
as ordinary people did, and they knew _something_.
Except that David's eyes were not the bright blue of the saint's.
David's eyes seemed to reflect whatever color was about him.
How could it be that the icon she had painted could remind her of two
such different men as Simon de Gobignon and David of Trebizond?
He stood there looking at her, and she realized that he was waiting for
her to speak. He wanted to know what she and Simon had done in this
room, and he did not want to ask. And she knew at that instant, watching
his face, that he was expecting to be hurt by what she would tell him
about herself and Simon.
_But what about that young Frenchman in the street? I saw Simon kneel by
him, weep for him, bear him away._
"Something terrible has happened," she said.