_A letter from Emir Daoud ibn Abdallah to El Malik Baibars
al-Bunduqdari, from Orvieto, 13th day of Muharram, 663 A.H.:_
O Pillar of the Faith, the gift of the ancient scroll to the
Christian scholar Tomasso d'Aquino has served our purposes beyond my
expectations. At the same time that I delivered the scroll to him, I
arranged for the allies of the Tartars to be deceived into thinking
that the priest Tomasso was already in our camp. They chose the
arrogant Cardinal de Verceuil, of whom I have told you, to bring
his influence to bear on the priest Tomasso. The cardinal's
treatment of Tomasso so offended him that he was driven to take the
side we wished of him.
This Tomasso has turned the clouds Ugolini and I stirred up into a
veritable thunderstorm. The pope cannot proclaim a crusade unless he
has the support of the Christian kingdoms and peoples. Otherwise,
they will support him only halfheartedly or not at all. I confess I
am surprised at how often the Christians of Europe choose to neglect
or even refuse to do what the pope demands of them.
As we know, the Christians of today have not the zeal to make war on
us that their forefathers had. Let time pass, and Hulagu Khan will
lose patience and recall his ambassadors. The Christians will fight
among themselves here in Europe. And, if God wills it, Islam will
know peace. Such is my deepest desire.
Time, O Malik Dahir, is our ally.
* * * * *
Daoud stood at his writing desk, smiling at the tiny Arabic characters
with which he had covered the thin square of parchment.
El Malik Dahir--the victorious king. How well Daoud remembered the day
Baibars had, with his help, assumed that title.
* * * * *
Riding back from the victory at the Well of Goliath, the Mameluke army
was camped outside Bilbeis, two days' ride northeast of El Kahira.
Tomorrow Sultan Qutuz would hold audience at Bilbeis, and soon after he
would ride into El Kahira in triumph, a triumph Baibars had earned for
him.
Baibars was alone in his tent when Daoud answered his summons. His blue
eye glittered out of deep shadows cast on his face by a small oil lamp
that hung in the center of the tent. With his own hand Baibars served
Daoud kaviyeh from a pot on a brazier, and the two men sat side by side,
turned toward each other.
"Again he refused me," Baibars said. "I have given him every chance,
Daoud."
Baibars's face was calm, but Daoud knew that the fury of a Tartar was
boiling within him.
A reddish haze obscured the tent for Daoud as he fought back his own
rage at the injustice to Baibars.
"He thinks I want to be governor of Aleppo merely out of ambition,"
Baibars said.
"The sultan is a fool," said Daoud.
The single sighted eye transfixed him. "No, not a fool. He played the
game of power well enough when he made himself sultan. No one could
blame him for the murders of Ai Beg and Spray of Pearls. He restored
order to El Kahira. His mistake now is in not trusting me. And that is
an understandable mistake." Baibars stretched his thin lips in a sudden
grin.
"Understandable how?" Daoud experienced that unsettling sense he often
had that the one-eyed emir was always two or three jumps ahead of him.
"It comes of too much cleverness," said Baibars. "He does not believe me
when I say I want to be governor of Aleppo because it is the first city
Hulagu Khan will attack. He suspects me of a hidden motive. He thinks
that if he gives me Aleppo I will break with El Kahira and claim all of
Syria for my own, because that is what _he_ would do. But Hulagu Khan,
seeking vengeance for the Well of Goliath, is coming from Persia with
all his power. May God send to the eternal fire a commander wicked
enough to divide the kingdom at such a time."
The kaviyeh Daoud held had cooled. He drained the glazed earthenware cup
and put it down beside him.
"The sultan himself divides the kingdom," said Daoud, "by dishonoring
you."
"It is more than dishonor. It is war. If he thinks me too dangerous to
be ruler of Aleppo, it means that he thinks me too dangerous to live."
Daoud felt as if his heart had dropped into the cold, black bottom of a
well. If Qutuz destroyed Baibars, he would destroy Islam and El Kahira
and all of them. Daoud's whole world.
"What will you do?" said Daoud.
"I do not know what I will do," said Baibars, fixing his one eye on
Daoud. "But you know that if he kills me, he will kill all close to me.
What will _you_ do?"
Daoud felt the edge of the headsman's blade on the back of his neck as
he had not felt it since that day Qutuz demanded his death. The thought
of being executed at Qutuz's command outraged him. It was one thing to
die as a mujahid, a martyr in holy war for Islam, destined to be taken
at once into paradise. But what a shameful fate, to be murdered because
your own sovereign lord did not trust you.
"I am your slave, Effendi."
"Not slave, Daoud. You are as near a son to me as a Mameluke can be. Are
you not the husband of my favorite daughter? I speak now with you
because I must speak, and in all this camp you are the only one I can
rely on absolutely."
Daoud felt tears coming to his eyes. He was embarrassed, even though he
knew it was a manly thing to weep easily. For him crying was rare.
Baibars rested a large, strong hand on Daoud's arm.
"Never to know any brothers but our khushdashiya, our barracks mates,
never to know any father but the emir who trained and freed us, it makes
us the hardest, the finest warriors in the world. But we long for the
loving families we never had."
Daoud wiped his face with the sleeve of his robe.
They sat in silence for a long time, while Daoud, stroking his thick
blond beard, grappled with what Baibars was asking of him. Asking, not
in words, but in the spaces between the words.
Baibars spoke. "Remember what the Tartar general, Ket Bogha, called
Qutuz? The murderer of his master. The world belittles us because each
sultan has climbed to the throne over the murdered body of the last
sultan. Turan Shah, murdered."
He held up his left hand, his sword hand.
"I myself killed Turan Shah because he betrayed the Mamelukes. Next, Ai
Beg, murdered. The Sultana Spray of Pearls, murdered. Ali, son of Ai
Beg, murdered. Each murder weakens the throne itself."
"The throne is as strong as the man who holds it," said Daoud.
Baibars continued to look at his left hand, his head turned to the side
in his one-eyed way. "Even so, Ai Beg did not himself kill Turan Shah
and Qutuz did not himself kill Ali. If I kill Qutuz and take the throne
with his blood on my hand, I am inviting every other Mameluke emir to
kill me when my back is turned. The title of El Malik, the sultan, chief
sovereign of Islam, will be like a ball in a game of mall, flying this
way and that."
Daoud felt as if he were standing at the mouth of an enormous black
cave. It was one thing to know that Qutuz was not fit to rule. It was
another thing to think of striking down the sultan, the anointed of God.
If Daoud entered this cave, he might never come out again. He might
leave it only to fall into the flames of hell. He seemed to see stars in
the depths of the cave, as if he were looking into the world beyond the
world. Somewhere among those stars, God dwelt in His paradise with those
He loved around Him, the Archangel Gabriel, and the Prophet, and Abraham
and Jesus, and the saints and martyrs of Islam.
_Is it God's will that I kill the sultan? How can I know?_
He could not know. But he did know that second only to his submission
to God, the most important thing in his life was devotion to his emir.
As Baibars said, his khushdashiya and his emir were all a Mameluke had.
He leaned closer to Baibars.
"Whoever dishonors my lord Baibars deserves instant death at the hands
of my lord's servant."
Baibars closed both eyes with a look of satisfaction.
"Have I asked you to kill--anyone?" he said.
"No, Effendi."
They sat in silence again. The desert wind hummed in the ropes of
Baibars's tent, and the poles shifted and creaked.
"If someone wished to kill Qutuz," said Baibars, "he should recall that
we are now very close to El Kahira. Once Qutuz rides on streets
festooned with silks and carpeted with flowers, once people see him as
the victor of the Well of Goliath, they will love him too much. They
would never accept his being taken from them. We could not control their
fury."
Daoud said, "Tomorrow, when he holds audience at the palace of the
governor of Bilbeis, men from all over the district with requests for
favors, with claims, with grievances, will surround him, clamoring.
Anyone could easily approach him."
Baibars nodded. "Let him be struck down before the eyes of many. Let it
be like a public sacrifice. I would rather see it done so than by poison
or ambush." His thin lips curved in a smile. "I seem to recall that you,
too, have a preference for taking vengeance in public."
"If the other emirs demand that he who killed the sultan be punished,"
said Daoud, "you will have to sacrifice your servant."
Baibars's face tightened. "They will not. They will accept what you and
I do."
"Nevertheless, if it seems needful to secure your place on the throne,
you must give the killer up. You will not have to explain that to me.
And you will still be my lord. My father."
"Ah, Daoud," Baibars said. Daoud saw a wetness in both Baibars's eyes
now, the sighted and the blind.
* * * * *
Daoud stood beside a spiral pillar near the front of the audience hall
of the governor of Bilbeis. It was a small chamber, but an elegant one.
The floor was of mottled green marble, and pink columns lined the
approach from the front door to the massive gilded throne on its dais.
Merchants and small landholders, officials in red fezzes, Bedouin
sheikhs in black robes and burnooses, crowded the hall. Each man held a
petition scroll for the sultan.
Daoud carried no petition, but the sleeve of his left arm hid, strapped
to his wrist, a scabbard holding a twisting dagger--a flame dagger, the
weapon of the Hashishiyya.
He longed for Qutuz to come into the hall, for the dance of death he had
rehearsed a thousand times in his mind, to begin.
He had prayed this morning longer and with greater fervor than he had
for many years.
_When_ would Qutuz come?
At the doorways and around the edges of the room stood warriors of the
halkha, the sultan's bodyguard, their steel helmets and breastplates
inlaid with gold, their tunics bright yellow. What would they do when
they saw him strike at Qutuz? They were Mamelukes. They had seen Qutuz's
fear at the Well of Goliath and his pretensions afterward. But it was
their duty to protect him. Daoud could not guess what feelings would
move them.
Here and there around the room rose the spherical white turbans of the
Mameluke emirs who had been at the Well of Goliath. There was Kalawun,
called al-Elfi, the Thousander, because his first master had bought him
for the incredible price of a thousand gold dinars, there Bektout,
beside a blue-white pillar, another Kipchaq like Baibars. Six or so
others talked quietly under the pointed arch of the public entrance to
the audience chamber. None of the emirs paid attention to the
petitioners who streamed past them into the room.
In the corner of the room farthest from the dais, Baibars stood alone. A
head taller than anyone around him, he swung his white-turbaned head
from side to side so that he could survey the room with his one good
eye. His glance seemed to pass over Daoud without seeing him.
A side door to the throne room from the governor's private apartments
swung open, and two officers of the halkha strode through.
One of the officers drew himself up and shouted, "The Beloved of God,
the Victor of the Well of Goliath, El Malik al-Mudhaffar Qutuz!"
The buzz of conversation in the room at once stilled, and Daoud's
heartbeat filled his ears.
Then a roar arose as Qutuz entered briskly, arrayed in a bejeweled
green turban and a black and silver robe of honor. His chamberlain, a
stout man carrying a basket, followed him.
The petitioners rushed forward, clamoring and waving their scrolls. The
men of the halkha made no attempt to hold them back. A merchant in a
blue robe was the first to reach Qutuz, and he hugged the sultan,
weeping. He first thrust a small silk bag into Qutuz's hand, which
disappeared quickly under the sultan's black robe, then pressed a scroll
upon him.
Qutuz handed the scroll to his chamberlain, who put it into the basket.
The petitioners were the people of Islam, and it was their right, as it
had been since the days of the Prophet, to clamor for their ruler's
attention. And though they might shout and beg and even manhandle the
sultan, he must endure it, because these were the richest men of the
district, the men of highest rank, those on whom the sultan's power in
this place depended.
Qutuz enjoyed, Daoud knew, playing father to his people. And though one
might think the Sultan of El Kahira had wealth enough, he was not averse
to increasing it with the gifts of gold and jewels offered him on
occasions like this.
Qutuz moved slowly through the petitioners, head high, his oiled beard
pointed like the prow of a majestic ship. A small, indulgent smile
played about his lips. He allowed them to impede his progress to the
throne. The petitioners crowded around him, some plucking at his sleeve,
some falling at his feet, some pulling at the hem of his robe, even
kissing it in their urgency.
Another man, this one a sheikh in desert robes, seized the sultan in an
embrace, bellowing his entreaty. This time when Qutuz stopped he
disappeared behind a forest of upraised arms.
The babble of voices, each one trying to outshout the other, made
Daoud's head ache. Men elbowed those beside them and pushed their hands
into one another's faces. Daoud even saw one man claw his way up the
backs of two who stood in front of him and climb over their shoulders to
get closer to Qutuz.
From his position near the front of the hall Daoud could catch only
glimpses of the sultan's green turban from time to time and follow his
progress by watching where the turmoil was fiercest. The melee was like
one of those towering dust storms that whirl across the desert, and
Qutuz was at the center.
When Daoud judged that Qutuz was halfway to the throne, he began to
move.
He plunged now into that black cave where God dwelt somewhere in
infinite spaces. Doubt and fear he left at the mouth of that cave. He
must give all his strength and will to what he was about to do.
He charged into the storm around Qutuz. Though these magistrates and
merchants were feeble compared to him, their frenzy and the mere weight
of their struggling bodies formed a wall that took all his strength to
break through. Each man was so intent upon his own desperate need to
reach the sultan that none of them seemed to feel Daoud forcing his way
past them.
Qutuz saw him coming. The dark brown eyes met Daoud's, questioning,
frowning. A Mameluke emir of Daoud's rank did not usually join a crowd
of petitioners. The sultan's arms and hands were full of scrolls. His
chamberlain had long since been carried away from him in the crush.
"Oh, Sultan, grant my prayer!" Daoud shouted in a loud voice.
_For your death._
Qutuz's jaw clenched, and his eyes widened in the beginning of fear as
Daoud bore down on him.
Daoud had reached the center of the storm. Color and movement whirled
about him. Shouts deafened him. He forced his mind to blot out the chaos
all around and to focus totally on Qutuz. He made himself as oblivious
to the shrieking men around him as they were to him.
He threw his arms around the sultan, crushing the satin of his kaftan
and his armload of scrolls against his body.
When Daoud's arms came together behind Qutuz's back, his right hand
reached into his left sleeve and pulled the dagger from its sheath.
Qutuz's hands pushed against Daoud's chest. So tight was Daoud's embrace
that he felt the sultan take a deep breath, to cry for help. They were
locked together like lovers.
Daoud stretched out his right arm, and then with all the strength in
that arm drove the dagger into the sultan's back. He struck for the
center of the back, between two ribs, so that the point would reach and
stop Qutuz's heart.
His thrust went true. The strong, lean body jerked violently, then went
limp in his arms. Qutuz was a weight against him, sliding downward.
Daoud was sure he was already dead, because he did not move or cry out.
Triumph blazed up within him. He had done it. He had killed the sultan.
Daoud let go of the dagger, hilt-deep in Qutuz's back. He stepped
backward quickly, pressing himself into the crowd around them. His
heartbeat was thundering in his ears and his knees were quivering.
Qutuz toppled toward him as he moved back.
"The sultan falls!" a man next to him screamed.
Hands reached out to catch Qutuz as he fell. Cries of "The sultan has
fainted!" "God help us!" "The sultan is hurt!" went up all around Daoud.
He continued to back away through the crowd. If attacked, he had
decided, he would draw his saif and fight. If he must die, he
desperately wanted to die fighting, not on the headsman's block.
He had not truly believed he could strike Qutuz down without being seen,
but no one was yet pointing at him.
"Blood!" someone shrieked. "A dagger!" The shrieks and prayers were
deafening.
All the men who had clustered around the fallen sultan backed away.
Daoud was carried farther from the dead Qutuz by the crowd. Craning his
neck over the heads around him, he could see the body lying sprawled
face down on the green marble floor, a spreading bright red stain in the
black and silver robes around the dagger's hilt.
The babble of voices was so confused that Daoud could no longer tell
what anyone was saying. Mansur ibn Ziri, commander of the halkha, and
Anis, master of the hunt, pushed their way through to Qutuz's body,
while some men still clutching scrolls ran from the chamber. They must
fear even being in the room where the sultan was murdered.
_I have killed the sultan._
Though his whole body shook with reaction and his limbs felt weak, his
heart was full of joy.
His hand on his sword hilt, Daoud surveyed the large chamber. The
Mameluke emirs were looking, not at Qutuz's body, but at one another.
And they kept glancing at Daoud.
_They_ had seen Daoud throw his arms around Qutuz. They knew who had
killed Qutuz. And they knew why he had done it.
Baibars still stood apart in a far corner. His good eye met Daoud's, but
his face was a mask.
As the last of the local men fled the place of death, a silence fell
over the room. The Mamelukes were alone with the body of their sultan.
The men of the halkha, the sultan they were sworn to protect now dead,
looked at the emirs. The only voices now were the murmured words of
Mansur and Anis as they bent over Qutuz's body.
With an effort Mansur pulled the dagger from Qutuz's back. Anis grunted
when he saw the twisting blade.
Heart hammering, Daoud tensed himself. Would Mansur turn and accuse him?
He glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was behind him and took
gliding steps backward until his shoulders were pressed against a
pillar.
Mansur said in a voice that carried through the room, "The flame dagger.
Our lord has been struck down by the Hashishiyya."
Daoud almost laughed aloud with relief. With an immense effort he held
himself rigid, his fists clenched so tightly at his side they hurt.
Mansur was telling everyone who knew what had happened what they were to
tell everyone who did not know.
Would anyone contradict Mansur? No one did. Relief spread through him.
Carefully, almost delicately, Mansur laid the dagger on the floor beside
Qutuz. He stood up, wiping his hands on his mantle.
With rapid strides the commander of the halkha crossed the chamber
toward Baibars. To arrest him? What choice had Mansur made?
To bow deeply before Baibars. He made a graceful, sweeping gesture
toward the vacant throne.
"My Lord, the power is yours."
_Praise to God!_
Baibars's single-eyed gaze paused for an instant, Daoud saw, as it fell
upon each of the emirs. In the look he fixed upon each there was both
question and challenge.
Some of the emirs bowed their turbaned heads slightly. Others, like
Kalawun al-Elfi, simply looked back at him in silence, and that was
assent enough.
Baibars raised his right hand toward the vaulted ceiling, the wide
sleeve of his robe falling away from his powerful arm.
"With Your help, O God." He did not shout, but his deep voice carried
through the room.
Slowly but with a terrible firmness he walked across the room. So quiet
was the audience chamber that Daoud at the other end of the room could
hear the scrape of Baibars's boots on the three marble steps to the
throne. Baibars turned and sat on the throne, resting his hands on its
arms. He leaned back a little, and his eye seemed to rest on some spot
above and beyond the heads of those who watched him.
Mansur ibn Ziri turned to an officer of the halkha. "Let runners be sent
to El Kahira. Let them tell the people, 'Pray for God's mercy on El
Malik al-Mudhaffar Qutuz. Pray for the long life of your Sultan
Baibars.'"
_Let me hail him first_, thought Daoud. _And if he wants to kill me for
what I did, let it be now._
Trembling with exhilaration, he strode through the crowd and up the
center of the room toward the throne. "Lord Sultan!" he said in a loud
voice, "El Malik Dahir! Victorious King!"
He dropped to his knees and prostrated himself, striking his forehead on
the hard, cold floor.
* * * * *
Hearing a knock at his chamber door, Daoud rolled up the slip of thin
parchment and dropped it into the purse at his belt.
Sordello entered at his command, greeting and saluting him.
"I see you are one of us, Messer David."
"One of who?"
Sordello pointed to the writing desk where Daoud had been standing and
the sheaf of quill pens. "One who had his letters. I write down all my
songs."
Daoud had no wish to feel kinship with Sordello. The bravo had not
bothered to clean the whiskers from his face for several days, and there
was untidy-looking gray stubble, like fur, under his nose and on his
cheeks and chin. A man should grow a beard, Daoud thought, or keep his
cheeks smooth.
"What brings you to me?" Daoud asked curtly.
"The Count de Gobignon sent a message to me by way of Ana, the Bulgarian
woman. Would you care to read it?"
De Gobignon's note read: "The lady Sophia, Cardinal Ugolini's niece, has
represented herself to me as an honest woman who knows nothing of
politics and takes sides neither for nor against the Tartar alliance.
Find out if she is telling the truth. Report to me in three days' time."
Daoud felt pleased with himself. Turning Sordello into a spy for himself
was yielding useful results. It was not surprising that the Frenchman
was suspicious of Sophia. She was so close to the party opposing the
alliance; how could he think otherwise? But now, Daoud thought happily,
they had the means to put his suspicions to rest.
Daoud handed the note back to Sordello, saying, "That is short and to
the point, but he does not tell you how you are to learn whether Madonna
Sophia is telling him the truth or not."
"I could tell him that I have sung at dinner for the cardinal's
household," said Sordello. "I could report a conversation at table which
shows Madonna Sophia to be the innocent he would like to think she is."
"You keep talking about your songs and your singing," Daoud said.
"Answer me truly--are you any good at those things?"
Sordello shrugged. "I could claim to be one of the finest trovatores in
all Italy, but if I did, you would rightfully ask why I have to make my
living as a hired man-at-arms. So I will say only that I am good enough
that I wish I could spend all my time making poetry and singing."
A worthy wish, Daoud thought. Hearing his careful self-estimate, Daoud's
respect for the man increased a bit.
"Then you _will_ sing at the cardinal's table. Your suggestion is a good
one. I will also arrange for you to be with Madonna Sophia at other
times as well, so that you can honestly claim to know something about
her."
"Very good, Messer David." Sordello turned to go, then turned back
again. "Messere?"
"Yes?"
"Do you think you might send me on another trip to paradise sometime
soon?" The eager light in his eyes sickened Daoud.
"Do your work well, and I will see that you are properly rewarded."
Sordello left, and Daoud brooded over his shame at what he had done to
the man--turned him into something less than human, less than animal, a
kind of demon with a single appetite.
After a moment he forced himself to put that out of his mind. A fighter
in jihad, holy war, must do many an ugly thing, but all was for the
greater glory of God.