The Saracen: Land of the Infidel

by Robert Shea

  XXVII

  Daoud's tired eyes burned. He shut them, as he entered his bedchamber,against the bright light coming through the white window glass. But,tired as he was, sleep did not come. Perhaps he was too tired.

  He had missed the proper time for morning prayer, but he poured waterinto a basin and washed his hands and face, then turned toward the risensun and humbly addressed God, first bowing, then kneeling, then strikinghis forehead on the carpet.

  _When I pray, I am at home no matter where I am._

  After praying, he pushed open the iron casement with its diamond-shapedglass panels to let in air and then pulled the green velvet curtainsacross the window to shut out light.

  He moved now in a cool dimness, as if underwater. He must rest, to bestrong for the next battle.

  Crossing the room to his sleeping mattress, which lay on the floorEgyptian-fashion, he stripped off his sweat-soaked tunic and threw itdown. He unbuckled his belt and laid it carefully on the mattress. Thenhe kicked off his boots and dropped his hose and his loincloth. Hesplashed water over his body and felt cleaner and cooler.

  There was another way to be home. He had been waiting for the first timehe could feel he had triumphed. He knew all too well what that way coulddo to a man in the aftermath of defeat--sharpen his misery till he couldease the pain only by destroying himself.

  But last night he had unmasked the Tartars before all the great ones ofOrvieto, and he had survived a street encounter with bravos who intendedto kill him. And so this morning he could allow himself this.

  He had brought a cup of kaviyeh from Ugolini's room. He set it on theblack marble table beside his sleeping mattress. Then from his travelingchest he took the dark brown leather pack that had accompanied him herefrom Lucera. He felt for the small packet and drew it out. Unwrappingthe oily parchment, he looked at the small black cake, a square abouthalf the length of his finger on a side. He drew his dagger out of itssheath--the dagger that would have been poor protection for him earlierif he had had to fight those Filippeschi men. Carefully he shavedpeelings from the cake to the polished black marble. With the sharp edgeof the dagger he chopped at the peelings until he had a coarse powder.He held the cup of cooling black liquid below the edge of the table andscraped the powder into it. He stirred the kaviyeh with the dagger'spoint.

  Holding the cup up before him as if he were offering a toast, he spokethe Hashishiyya invocation: "In the name of the Voice comes Brightness."

  He put the cup to his lips and sipped it slowly. The lukewarm kaviyehmasked the other taste, but he knew it would begin to work as soon as itreached his stomach. He peered into the bottom of the cup to make surehe had missed no precious grains, then set it down.

  _The magic horse that flies to paradise_, so the Hashishiyya called it.

  From Sheikh Saadi he had learned how to resist the power of drugs. FromImam Fayum, the Old Man of the Mountain, he learned how to use them,when he chose.

  Naked, Daoud lay back on his mattress with a sigh that sounded like aroar in his ears. If the Filippeschi came upon him to kill him now, hewould greet them with a smile and open arms. Lying on his back, his headresting on a feather-filled cushion, he let his senses expand to fillthe world around him. His eyes traced the intricate red-on-red floralpattern of a damask wall hanging. The humming of a large black fly thathad blundered in through the open casement and the closed curtainsresounded in his ears like a dervish chorus chanting themselves into anecstasy.

  Odors swept in through the open window--clean mountain air with thescent of pines in it, but from nearby the swampy foul reek of every kindof filth produced by thousands of human beings living too close to oneanother. It had rained last night, but not enough to clean the streets,and the scavenging pigs--Daoud's heightened senses could hear and smellthem, too--could not keep up with the garbage and sewage produced by theovercrowded people of Orvieto.

  But he need not remain in Orvieto. He raised his head and lifted thechain that held the silver locket about his neck. Turning the littlescrew that fastened the lid of the locket, he let it fall open. Itcovered most of the palm of his right hand. Holding the crystal diskbacked by silver close to his eyes, he saw his face reflected back athim from the convex surface. His image was broken up by a pattern etchedinto the transparency, a five-part webwork of interlocking angles andboxes, spirals and concentric circles. The pattern formed a maze toocomplex for the eye to grasp. He believed that the man who used astylus, doubtless diamond-pointed, to cut the design into the crystalmust have gone blind in the course of his work. No mosque bore a moreintricate--or more beautiful--pattern on its walls.

  His eyes, as they always did when he looked into the locket, tried tofollow the pattern and became lost in it. As the drug extended itsempire within him, it seemed that he could actually see his eyes,coalesced into a single eye, staring back at him from the net of linesand whorls that entrapped it.

  _The captive eye means that the locket now controls what I see._

  He saw the face of Sophia Karaiannides. Her dark lips, luscious as redgrapes, were parted slightly, showing even, white teeth. Herthick-lashed eyelids were half lowered over burning eyes. Her hair hungunbound in brunette waves on either side of her face. She had splashedwater on her face, and the droplets gleamed on her cheeks and brow likejewels.

  Daoud had no doubt that he was seeing her exactly as she was at thismoment, somewhere else in the cardinal's mansion. The locket had thatproperty.

  _But I do not want to see Sophia. I want Blossoming Reed._

  Then Sophia spoke to him. "Oh, David, why will you not come to my bed?"

  Her voice was rich as velvet. His muscles tensed with a sudden hunger, along-felt need that Francesca, the woman he bedded with now and then atTilia Caballo's, could never satisfy. Sophia, he realized, could givehim 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 andthe drug together could show a man things he did not want to see, makehim feel things he did not want to feel. Things that were inside himthat he did not want to know.

  _The knowledge you run from is the most precious of all_, Saadi hadsaid.

  _I know I want Sophia. I do not hide that from myself. But I cannot haveher. Let me therefore see my wife, Blossoming Reed, she who gave me thislocket._

  Sophia's image faded now, and he saw again the crystal and its patternthat caught his soul like a fish in its toils. Gradually the patternbecame the face of Blossoming Reed. Sparks flashed from her slantingeyes, painted with black rings of kohl. Her wide mouth was a downturnedcrescent of scorn. The nostrils of her hawklike nose flared proudly.There was a message in her face. What did she know, and what was shetrying to tell him?

  Blossoming Reed, daughter of Baibars and a Canaanite wife Baibars hadstolen from the crusader stronghold in Sidon. It was rumored thatBlossoming Reed's mother practiced a kind of sorcery that was ancienteven when the Hebrews were in bondage in Egypt. But would Baibars, themightiest defender of the faith since Saladin, allow devil-worship inhis own house? Daoud could not believe it.

  And yet, what was this locket if not the work of some evil magician? Hewould not have touched the thing, much less worn it, had it not comefrom 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 theirlovemaking. Blossoming Reed, Baibars's gift of honor to him, seal andsymbol of eternal friendship between Baibars al-Bunduqdari and Daoud ibnAbdallah.

  Blossoming Reed, who now spoke to him in anger out of the magic ofhashish 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 longblack line of charging Tartars. Eagerly Daoud leaned forward in thesaddle. Tightly he gripped his bow.

  _Now, devils, now yo
u will pay for Baghdad!_

  He had relived that day, the greatest battle of his life, hundreds oftimes in thoughtful moments, in dreams, in hashish visions. What he sawnow were moments that seemed to leap at him out of the darkness.

  * * * * *

  Screaming a war cry and brandishing a scimitar, a Tartar galloped athim. They were in open ground. Daoud circled away, sheathing his saifand pulling his bow from its case. The Tartar chased him, guiding hishorse with his knees and firing arrow after arrow at Daoud. But he wasin too much of a hurry. He was not aiming carefully, and all the arrowswhistled over Daoud's head.

  The muscles of the black Yemenite stallion bunched and stretched underDaoud as its hooves thundered over the plain. He stood in the saddle. Heturned and took aim along the shaft of his arrow at the center of theTartar's chest. The arrow went low, to Daoud's annoyance, and struck theTartar in the side of the stomach. But he must have been wearing lightleather 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 astone, from the saddle into the sand.

  Daoud wheeled his Yemenite about, then jerked the horse to a stop andjumped from the saddle with his saif out. The Tartar had somehow risento all fours, but was vomiting blood into the sand. Daoud kicked himwith his red-booted foot and rolled him over on his back.

  Holding his saif high, he looked into the face of Nicetas, contortedwith pain and fear.

  "Oh, God!" he whispered. "Oh, God, no!"

  He stood paralyzed. Their eyes met.

  Nicetas said, "You have to."

  "God be merciful to me," Daoud said, and brought the saif down.