s both a slave and unbeliever," said Gamal ibn Nasir with a
faint sneer. "Must I be kind to him?" Daoud stared at Gamal, burning
with hatred, all the more because what he said was true.

Gamal was a slender, olive-skinned boy whom no one dared cross, because
he was a grandson of the reigning Sultan of Egypt, Al Salih Ayub. Most
of Saadi's students were boys of noble family, and Daoud knew that he
was permitted to enter this circle only because all men feared and
respected Baibars. And even though he studied Islam with them because it
was Baibars's wish, Daoud remained fil-kharij, an outsider, because he
was an unbeliever.

The boys sat in a semicircle, their rectangles of carpet spread over the
blue and white tiles of the inner courtyard of the Gray Mosque, where
Saadi had been teaching since long before these students were born. The
old black man sat with his back to the gray stones of the western wall,
the stones that gave the mosque its name. He taught in the late
afternoon, when he and the boys could sit in the shade.

"God is compassion itself, Gamal," Sheikh Saadi said with a smile, "but
even He may find it hard to love a mean spirit." The sultan's grandson
blushed angrily, and his eyes fell.

Thinking about the compassion of God, Daoud opened his eyes wide as a
startling idea occurred to him. But after the insult from Gamal his
tongue felt thick in his throat and the palms of his hands went cold at
the thought of speaking. He still stumbled over the Arabic tongue in
which Sheikh Saadi conducted his lessons.

Saadi looked warmly upon him. "Daoud has a question?"

Daoud stared down at his hands, which seemed very large as they lay in
his lap. "Yes, master." Those kindly velvet-black eyes seemed to draw
speech out of him. "If God loves the compassionate, how can he look with
favor upon the warrior, who wounds and kills?"

Saadi's turbaned head lifted. His grizzled beard thrust forward, and his
eyes grew round and serious. He looked, Daoud thought, like a
thoroughbred steed pricking up his ears to a trumpet call.

"I say to you, Daoud, and to Gamal and to all of you--the work of a
warrior is a holy calling. When the Prophet Muhammad, may God bless and
salute him, began to teach, he did not want the believers to be men of
the sword. But the pagans beat those who went to hear him, and they
would not let him teach. And so he learned that a true man of God must
go forth with the Book in one hand and the sword in