_It is you who are almost mad, with terror_, Daoud thought. He was going
to have trouble with Ugolini, no question.
Aloud he said only, "We will discuss it. You can help us plan. Pardon
me, Your Eminence, while I send for Lorenzo."
* * * * *
"It will have to be late at night, of course," said Lorenzo. "And I
would think a Friday evening would be best, when the men-at-arms will be
off their guard and many of them out carousing. But it finally depends
on when Marco di Filippeschi says his family's men can be ready. They
need to buy weapons."
Daoud and Lorenzo stood by the cardinal's table while Ugolini paced with
many short steps between the windows and the hearth. He muttered to
himself, and his hands trembled as he ran them through his tufts of
white hair.
"What of our men?" said Daoud.
"We have over two hundred now, scattered throughout the city," said
Lorenzo.
_If I could be in the palazzo before the fighting begins ..._
Ugolini stopped his pacing and faced them. "You talk like moonstruck
men! You would unleash a civil war right here in Orvieto?"
"Not us, Your Eminence," said Lorenzo. "Have not these two families been
fighting for generations?"
"What is your objection?" said Daoud gently.
Ugolini fixed them with a ferocious glare. "For six months, half a year,
I have lain awake imagining arrest, disgrace, torture, execution.
Through miracles you have managed to carry out your plans without being
caught. Now you want to launch still wilder plans--incredible, fantastic
things. I have had enough. God has kept me alive this long. I will not
tempt Him further."
"My dear Cardinal," Daoud said, "once the Tartars are dead, this will
all be over. I will go back to Egypt. Lorenzo and Sophia will return to
Manfred's kingdom. You will have nothing further to fear."
"You could have tried to kill the Tartars at any time since they came
here," said Ugolini. "Why now?"
"I needed to create as much ill will as possible between Christians and
Tartars," said Daoud. "If I had killed the Tartars at once, I could not
have had them discredit themselves out of their own mouths. Fra Tomasso
and your colleagues among the Italian cardinals could not have stirred
up so much fear and hatred toward them. Now, though, I have done all I
can along those lines, and Fra Tomasso is already undoing what together
we have accomplished."
"And why involve the Monaldeschi and the Filippeschi?" Ugolini pressed
him.
"To make it seem that the Tartars have been killed by feuding Italians.
Then Hulagu Khan will think again about whether he wants such people as
his allies."
Ugolini shook his head. "I do not have to tell you, of all people, what
war is like. And I think Messer Lorenzo, by the way he carries himself,
has known battle more than once. You both know that chance rules every
moment in war."
"True," said Daoud.
And if chance decided against them? For a moment he saw Sophia naked,
being torn apart by the torturers' pincers. He almost shuddered, and had
to hold himself rigid.
"I take it you intend to be part of this attack on the Monaldeschi,"
Ugolini went on.
"I do," said Daoud.
Ugolini threw up his hands as if Daoud had already proved his case for
him. "Well then, what if someone recognizes you attacking the palace?"
"I will not openly lead. I will enter the palace and kill the Tartars."
"So," said Ugolini. "You will not just be somewhere in the street
outside the Palazzo Monaldeschi. You will be _in the palace_. In the
midst of all your enemies. Alone. Attempting to assassinate the Tartars.
Tell me, does that sound like the plan of a reasonable, cautious man to
you?"
Daoud thought it sounded as if he were, to put it as Ugolini had,
tempting God. But Ugolini did not understand that Daoud had not only the
skills of Mameluke, but had also received the secret training of the
Hashishiyya fighters, the fedawi, whose powers many in the lands of
Islam thought magical.
"I will be masked. I will be dressed in garments that will make it
almost impossible to see me. I will not expose myself. I will move in
darkness. I have been trained to find my way in darkness as surely as if
it were sunlight."
Ugolini shook his head. "Understand me. I would not go on arguing with
you like this did I not feel I am arguing for my life. And Tilia's, and
the lives of those who depend on you. You must admit that you might be
captured or killed. My house guest, found trying to murder the Tartar
ambassadors."
Daoud spread his hands. "You would then denounce me. You say you never
knew what a demon you had taken into your home."
Ugolini laughed loudly and bitterly. "Are our opponents fools? Do you
really think they would believe me, even for a moment? After perhaps
hundreds of people have been killed, after a civil war in Orvieto,
anyone who is even suspect will die. The Monaldeschi, the French, the
Church authorities, all will take their revenge. Surely you understand
that."
Daoud's heart grew cold as he looked along the road Ugolini was
describing and saw defeat, massacre, the hideous deaths of his comrades,
and beyond that iron waves of crusaders and endless columns of Tartar
horsemen sweeping over the Dar al-Islam. And he could not look into
Ugolini's eyes and declare that all would turn out well.
But what would happen if he did nothing? He looked down that path and
saw the same masses of crusaders and Tartars, saw the burning mosques,
the emptied cities, the heaps of corpses. He saw the Gray Mosque in El
Kahira ruined, his teacher Saadi hacked to pieces by crusader swords.
Then he heard words Saadi had spoken: _We are God's instruments, by
which He brings about that which He wills. The fool does nothing and
leaves the outcome to God. The ordinary man acts and prays that God will
grant a good result. The wise man acts and leaves the outcome to God._
He would act.
He turned to Lorenzo, standing near him by the cardinal's table.
"Your life is at stake in this. What do you think?"
Lorenzo's face was as grave as Daoud had ever seen it. "If the
Filippeschi attack the Palazzo Monaldeschi, they will be driven off. But
with more than five hundred men attacking the palace, it will be
impossible for the French to guard the Tartars adequately. If you get
in, kill them, and get out safely, I think we can hide our part in the
fighting. If you are caught or killed, I think it is as the cardinal
says. We are all doomed."
"Exactly!" cried Ugolini from where he stood behind his table. "Then why
risk it?"
"Because we must," Lorenzo said to him. "If we do not stop the alliance
by force, the pope will strike a bargain with the King of France. There
will be a French army marching against my King Manfred, and after that
crusaders and Tartars will fall upon Messer David's people."
Ugolini uttered a deep groan and sank into his chair.
Relief swept over Daoud. He had already decided to make the attempt on
the Palazzo Monaldeschi even if Lorenzo opposed it, but to have Lorenzo
side with him gave him more confidence that he could carry it off.
Lorenzo turned those somber eyes to him again. "It all depends on you. I
am gambling that you can do it."
Daoud felt a powerful warmth toward the Sicilian. There were times when
he had wished Lorenzo were not with him, times when he distrusted him.
The foolishness of involving them with Rachel and her husband. The fact
that Lorenzo was a Jew who had abandoned his religion. Even his dog was
a nuisance. But at this moment to have Lorenzo's support made him feel
as strong and confident as if the Mameluke orta he commanded had
suddenly appeared in Orvieto.
He grinned at Lorenzo. "You proved how good a gambler you are by losing
to de Verceuil."