The Saracen: Land of the Infidel by Robert Shea (poetry books to read txt) 📖

for a fortification. Daoud noticed large iron rings set at intervals under the arch. His feet crunched on fresh straw.

The space under the arch was about ten paces from outer portal to inner. On one side a broad-shouldered official sat at a table. The man glanced up at Daoud, looked down at a leather-bound ledger in which he was writing, then raised his eyes again for a longer look. This time the brown eyes met Daoud's.

The official's grizzled hair formed a cap of curls around his head, hiding his ears. He had a thick mustache, black streaked with white. His shirt of violet silk looked costly. On the straw beside him lay a huge dog, doubtless bred for hunting, with short gray fur, forepaws stretched before it like a sphinx.[8]

These people live with unclean animals, Daoud thought with distaste.

When the official leaned back in his chair, Daoud saw the long, straight dagger that hung from his belt in a scabbard decorated with crossed bands of gold ribbon.

Fear tightened Daoud's throat.

Will this man see through me? Will he guess what I am?

Come, come, he chided himself. You have gone among Christians before. You have walked in the midst of crusaders in the streets of Acre and Antioch. You have landed on the island of Cyprus. You have even gone as Baibars's emissary to the Greeks of Constantinople. Commend yourself to God and cast fear aside.

He visualized what the Hashishiyya called "the Face of Steel within the Mask of Clay." What he showed this official would be his Mask of Clay, the look and manner of the merchant he was pretending to be. Beneath it, unseen, was his true face, a Face of Steel forged over years of bodily and spiritual training.

The mustached man allowed most of the people in line to pass into the city after a few quick questions.

Daoud's heartbeat quickened and he tensed when his turn came to pass.

"Come here. Lower your hood," the man said.

Walking slowly toward him, Daoud reached up and pushed back his hood.

The official raised thick black brows and beckoned to a guard. "If he makes a move you do not like, skewer him."

"Yes, Messer Lorenzo."

Daoud felt a stiffness in his neck and a knot in his belly. King Manfred's chancellor, Aziz, had written that Daoud would be quietly admitted to the town.

The heavyset, black-bearded Muslim soldier took a spear from the boy standing near him and leveled it at Daoud, his face hard.

"Now then," said Lorenzo, "give us your sword."

This overzealous guard captain, or whatever he was, was paying too much attention to him. But to avoid more attention, he must readily cooperate. He unbuckled his sword belt and held it out. Another Muslim guard took it and stepped beyond Daoud's reach.

Messer Lorenzo said, "Open your pack and show me what is in it."

"Silk, Your Signory." Daoud shrugged the pack off his shoulders and laid it on the table. He unlaced its flap and drew out a[9] folded length of deep blue silk and then a crimson one. The shiny cloth slid through his long fingers.

"I am not a lord," said Lorenzo softly, reaching out to caress the silk. "Do not insult me by addressing me incorrectly."

"Yes, Messere."

Lorenzo took the pack with both hands and shook it. A shiny circular object a little larger than a man's hand fell out. Lorenzo picked it up and frowned at it.

"What is this, a mirror?"

"Yes, Messere. Our Trebizond mirrors are famed in Byzantium, Persia, and the Holy Land. I brought this as another sample of what we can offer."

"It is a good mirror," Lorenzo agreed. "It shows me my ugly face all too well."

Daoud was relieved to see Lorenzo had not guessed the secret of the mirror, that it contained a deadly disk of Hindustan. Thrown properly, the sharp-edged disk would slice into an opponent like a knife.

At Lorenzo's command, two of the guards searched Daoud briskly and efficiently. They even made him take off his boots.

The fingers of one guard found the chain around Daoud's neck and pulled on it. The locket Daoud had hidden under his tunic came out.

"What is that?" Lorenzo growled.

A chill ran over Daoud's body. Could Lorenzo possibly guess what the locket was?

"A locket with a holy inscription in our Greek language, Messere."

"Open it up."

With a leaden feeling in his belly Daoud turned a small screw in the hammered silver case. Perhaps he should not have taken the locket with him. What would Lorenzo see when he looked at it? The cover fell open, and he glanced down at the intricate etched lines and curves on the rock-crystal inner face of the locket. When Daoud saw beginning to appear on the crystal the face of a dark-skinned woman with accents of blue-black paint around her eyes, he looked away.

He leaned forward to give Lorenzo a closer look at it without taking it from around his neck. The locket's magic should work only for the person to whom it was given.

Daoud heard a low growl. The great hound had risen to his feet[10] and was staring at him with eyes as dark brown as his master's. His upper lip curled, revealing teeth like ivory scimitars.

"Silence, Scipio," Lorenzo said. His voice was soft, but iron with command. The dog sat down again, but kept his eyes fixed on Daoud.

Heart pounding, he waited for Lorenzo's reaction to the locket. The official grasped it, pulling Daoud's head closer still.

"Mh. This is Greek writing, you say? It looks more like Arabic to me."

"It is very ancient, Messere, and the two alphabets are similar. I cannot read it myself. But it has been blessed by our Christian priests."

Lorenzo let go of the locket and glowered at him.

"What Christian priests? Where did you say you are from? What is your name?"

With deep relief Daoud stepped back from Lorenzo, snapped the locket shut, and dropped it back inside the collar of his tunic.

"I am David Burian, from Trebizond, Messere."

"Trebizond? I never heard of it," said the mustached man.

"It is on the eastern shore of the Black Sea."

"You have come such a great distance with only a few yards of silk and a mirror in your pack? Would you have me believe this is how you expect to make your fortune?"

Daoud reached deep in his lungs for breath. Now he would see whether the Christians would believe the story he and Baibars had devised.

"Messere, my city, Trebizond, lies on the only road to the East not cut off by the Saracens. A few brave merchants come from the land called Cathay bearing silk and spices. The samples I have brought with me, doubtless you can see, are of the highest quality. We can send you many bales of such silk overland from Trebizond to Constantinople, then by ship to your port of Manfredonia. I am here to arrange this trade."

"Arrange it with whom?"

Daoud hesitated. He had come to Lucera to meet with King Manfred. If, through some mistake, he should fall into the wrong hands, he would try to get word to the king that he was there.

"Your local merchants, your royal officials," he said. "Even your King Manfred, if he wishes to talk to me."

"So, a dusty peddler comes to our city gate and wants to speak[11] with the king." He turned to the guard with the spear. "Take him to the castello."

Daoud molded the Face of Clay into an expression of naive wonderment. "The castello? Where King Manfred is?"

Lorenzo grinned without mirth. "Where King Manfred's prison is, my man. Where we hang the people sent by the pope to murder King Manfred."

Lorenzo's eyes were hard as chips of obsidian, and when he said the word hang, Daoud could feel the rough rope tightening around his neck.

But he was more angry now than frightened. His jaw muscles clenched. Why had Aziz not made sure there would be no mistake like this?

"Why are you doing this to me, Messer Lorenzo? I mean no harm."

"And I intend to see to it that you do no harm in this place, Messere of Trebizond," Lorenzo shot back. He waved to the guard. "To the guardroom, Ahmad."

May a thousand afrits hound this infidel to his death, thought Daoud angrily. "And what will you do with me, Messer Lorenzo?"

"I will examine you further at my leisure, after I have passed all these good people into the city." One violet-sleeved arm made a flowing gesture toward the waiting throng.

Daoud noticed that the tiny firewood seller, who had already passed by the guards, had paused at the inner portal. He shook his head sadly and touched forehead, shoulders, and chest in that sign Christians made to recall the cross of Jesus, their Messiah.

Why, I believe he is praying for me. That is kindly done.

Ahmad, the guard, pointed his spear at Daoud and jerked his head. Daoud stood his ground.

"What of my silk? If you keep it, I will truly have no honest business in Lucera."

Lorenzo smiled. He stuffed the lengths of silk and the mirror back into the pack and held it out to Daoud.

"There is not enough here to be worth stealing. Take it, then."

"And my sword?"

Lorenzo laughed gruffly. "Forget your sword. Take him away, Ahmad."

They had missed the precious object hidden in a pouch tied in his groin. And they missed the Scorpion, the miniature crossbow devised by the Hashishiyya, its parts concealed in the hem of his[12] cloak. Nor did they have any idea that the tie that held his cloak at the neck could be pulled loose to become a long strangling cord, flexible as silk and hard as steel.

Daoud pulled his hood back over his head, shrugged into the pack under his cloak, and began walking. Every step he took sent a jolt of anger through his body. He would like to use his strangling cord on the man responsible for this blunder.

The news might well travel northward that a blond merchant had been arrested trying to enter Lucera. And if that man should later appear at the court of the pope, there might be those who would remember hearing of him and wonder why he had gone first to the pope's enemy, Manfred von Hohenstaufen.

His first feelings of anger became a cold turmoil in his belly as he thought what could happen if his mission failed—El Kahira leveled, its people slaughtered, Islam crushed beneath the feet of barbarian conquerors.

He must not let that happen.

The narrow street he walked on was lined with circular houses, their brick walls a warm yellow color. The conical roofs were covered with thin slates.

A Muslim sword maker looked up from his forge to stare at Daoud and his guard as they passed. Veiled women with red pottery jars on their heads stopped and looked boldly into his eyes.

Daoud lifted his gaze to the octagonal central tower of the citadel, bright yellow-and-black flags flying from its battlements. Instead of being squared off, the battlements were topped by forked points, like the tails of swallows, proclaiming allegiance to the Ghibellini, partisans of the Hohenstaufen family, enemies of the pope.

Closer to the citadel, noises of men and animals came at Daoud from all directions. He saw many buildings, all connected with one another, their small windows protected by iron grillwork. To his right, in a large grassy open field, a hundred or more Muslim guards in red and green were swinging their scimitars as an officer on a stone platform called out the count in Arabic. Daoud and his guard passed by a second yard, where still more Muslim soldiers were grooming their slender Arab horses.

A pungent smell of many beasts and fowl pent up close hung in the warm, damp air. Another row of buildings echoed with the shrieks of birds. Falconers in yellow-and-black tunics walked up and down holding wicker cages. As he peered into a doorway,[13] Daoud saw the golden eyes of birds of prey gleaming at him out of the shadows.

The sun was high by the time they came to the gateway of the castello.

Well, so far they have taken me where I wanted to go, Daoud thought grimly.

The entry hall of the castello was a large, vaulted room, as Daoud had expected. He had studied the citadel of Lucera before leaving Egypt, as he had studied many other strongholds in Italy, memorizing building plans and talking at length with agents of the sultan who had been there.

A strange, almost dizzying sensation came over Daoud. He recognized the feeling, having had it several times before when, in disguise, he entered Christian fortresses. As he gazed around the shadowy stone hall, its gloom relieved by shafts of light streaming in through high, narrow windows, he seemed to be seeing everything through two pairs of eyes. One pair belonged to a Mameluke warrior, Daoud ibn Abdallah, scouting an enemy