the other."

Daoud felt a warm pride in his chest. He was not a despicable slave. He
would one day be a warrior, in a way a holy man, like Saadi, who helped
spread the teachings of God.

_But I am an unbeliever._

He listened for the Frankish voices in his mind crying out against the
Saracens, against the devilish religion of the one they called Mahound.
But the voices were silent.

A pale boy with a grave face asked, "If God made man, how can He love
one who butchers His creatures?"

Sheikh Saadi raised an admonishing finger. "The Warrior of God is no
butcher. He strikes with sorrow and compassion. He hates evil, but he
loves his fellow men, even the one he fights against. The Warrior of God
is known, not by his willingness to kill, but by his willingness to die.
He is a man who would give his life for his friends."

Saadi went on to speak of other things, but Daoud's mind remained fixed
on the words "Warrior of God."

Ever since the day the Saracens carried him off, he had lived without a
home. He had drunk from gold cups in the palace of Baibars, had seen
that a Mameluke might rise to earthly glory. But such rewards fell to
only one in a thousand. For the rank and file, the life of a Mameluke
was a hard one, often ending in early death.

Lately Baibars had sent him to live with the other Mameluke boys in
training on the island of Raudha in the Bhar al-Nil, the river Nile.
Every morning, when he woke to the rapping of the drill master's stick
on the wooden wall of his sleeping shed, his first feeling was anguish.
Sometimes he prayed before sleeping that he might not wake up again.
Only when he journeyed twice a week, by boat and on foot, to sit at the
feet of Saadi, did he feel any peace.

But what if God had chosen him to be a Mameluke? Then it was a blessed
life, a holy calling, as Saadi had said. There was a world beyond this
one, a place the Koran called a "Heavenly Home." All men, Christian and
Muslim, believed that. As a warrior he could hope that his hardship
would be turned to joy in that Heavenly Home. In that world, not one in
ten thousand, but every good man, would dwell in a palace.

Absorbed in his own thoughts, he heard the soft, deep voice of Saadi as
one hears the constant murmur of the windblown sand in the desert. The
boys around him and the men who came and went in the Gray Mosque--all
were believers. As a warrior of God he could be part of that, and not
the least part. He would no longe