"Not blind!" she cried.
She turned swiftly and reached for the door handle. But Daoud could not
let her go. He was there before her, and he faced her and seized her
hand.
"I am not blind," he rasped. "I see that pretending to be what you are
not is tearing you apart. I wish we could be our true selves with each
other--"
"We cannot," she said bitterly. "And to speak of it only makes it hurt
more. Let me go."
He relaxed his grip on her hand, and she was gone.
_Some day_, he thought. _Some day, Sophia._
Looking at the closed door, Daoud felt an almost unbearable inner pain.
He had thrust her at Simon. He had lashed out at her, hurt her unjustly.
Having done that to her, he was about to put her in far worse danger.
How could he claim, even in the secrecy of his own heart, that he loved
her?
* * * * *
Daoud could barely see Marco di Filippeschi in the darkness. Moonlight
touched the gold medallion that hung from Marco's neck and on the silver
badge in his cap. For the rest he was a figure carved out of shadow.
Despite the full moon, this narrow alleyway between a stone house and
the city wall was almost as black as the bottom of a well.
Daoud's Hashishiyya-trained senses needed no light to see by. He had
learned to see with his ears as well as with his sense of smell. He
could sense what weapons Marco di Filippeschi was wearing--a shortsword
and two daggers at his belt, and, from the difference in footfalls, a
third dagger in a sheath in his right boot. He knew the position of
Marco's hands, and he knew that Marco had told the truth when he said he
had come to this rendezvous alone.
Lorenzo had assured him that Marco would leap like a hungry wolf at any
chance to avenge himself on the Monaldeschi. But Daoud wondered, would
the volatile young clan chieftain really be willing to undertake an
attack on the Monaldeschi that had more chance of failing than
succeeding?
"I can offer you over two hundred lusty bravos collected by one who is
known to you," Daoud said. Hoping to make Marco a little less certain
about who his ultimate benefactor was, he avoided naming Giancarlo.
Marco could destroy Daoud and all his comrades by revealing the identity
of the man who had incited his attack on the Monaldeschi. If he were
captured and tortured, strong and fierce though he might be, it was
likely he would tell everything.
Daoud reached into the purse at his belt, where he had earlier put two
emeralds. He held them out in his open palm so that the moonlight
glistened on their polished surfaces.
"Please accept these as a gift," he said. "If you decide to assault the
Palazzo Monaldeschi, your preparations will be costly."
The jewels must be called a gift. The capo della famiglia Filippeschi
was not a man you paid to do your work for you.
Marco's hand closed around the emeralds, and his other hand seized
Daoud's forearm.
"I shall spend this on weapons," he said. "Crossbows to kill more
Monaldeschi. Stone guns to batter down their walls. I care not what
price I must pay."
_That is good_, thought Daoud, _because the price may be very high_.
"I will need until spring," Marco continued. "It will take that long to
buy the weapons. I must work slowly and quietly so the old vulture does
not get wind of what I am doing."
"The Monaldeschi are collaborating with this French pope and his French
cardinals," Daoud said to spur Marco on. "And the French party is about
to invite an army under Charles of Anjou into Italy."
"Damn the French!" said Marco. "And damn that putana and her family for
working with them."
"Also, as everyone knows," Daoud said, "the pope has not long to live.
Strike a blow now for Italy, and you will frighten the cardinals at a
time when they will soon be choosing the next pope. So your attack had
better come no later than spring."
"We Filippeschi are as loyal to the papacy as the Monaldeschi. Perhaps
more."
"My master, whom I prefer not to name," said Daoud, knowing that Marco
would think he meant King Manfred, "does not wish to see the pope in
league with the French."
"This war of Guelfi and Ghibellini leaves us prey to every French and
German ladrone who wants to come down and loot our country," said Marco.
Obviously he had no great love for the Hohenstaufens, either.
"How will you start the fighting?" Daoud asked him.
"Two or three of my cousins will take a walk in the piazza before the
Palazzo Monaldeschi on a Friday evening, when everybody strolls," Marco
said. "If their mere presence in that part of the city does not cause an
incident, they will step on a few toes."
"It will take some courage to go into the lion's den," Daoud remarked.
The young Filippeschi chieftain laughed ruefully. "We possess more of
courage than we do of anything else."
If they did not also possess some prudence and the ability to keep a
secret, Daoud thought, everything was lost.