ofs and bell towers of churches, the battlements
of palaces and the red-tiled roofs of houses. One narrow road zigzagged
up the steep side of the great rock, sometimes disappearing into clumps
of trees, a white streak against the ocher cliffs. A city built on an
almost inaccessible mountaintop, like the strongholds of the
Hashishiyya.

He spied a horseman in purple cap and brown cloak descending the road
from the city. Celino. Following him was a glittering gilt sedan chair
carried by four bearers.

The breeze that had brought the storm had died away, and Daoud was
beginning to feel the heat of the sun on the back of his neck. A mild
sun compared to that of Egypt, even though this was the middle of the
Italian summer, but he drew up his cotton hood to shade his head. He
glanced over his shoulder. Rachel and Sophia were in the clearing on the
other side of the road, watering the horses in a stream that ran down
the hillside. Rachel was nodding eagerly as Sophia talked. He hoped she
was not telling Rachel too much. Just as he himself might have told
Sophia too much, he thought ruefully.

Celino arrived at Daoud's camp well ahead of the sedan chair. Scipio had
bounded up the road to meet his master, and now licked the hand that
Celino held out as he dismounted.

Celino said, "Cardinal Ugolini sends this messenger, who may surprise
you."

When the sedan chair came to rest on the side of the road, Daoud saw
that the four bearers were black men of Africa. They wore scarlet vests,
and sweat glistened on their bare arms and chests. Sheikh Saadi had been
such a man, and there were many such men in the Egyptian army. Daoud
wondered if these, too, were Muslims. In the city of the pope? Not
likely.

Two of the bearers drew back the curtains of the chair and reached
within. Bejeweled white fingers grasped the bearers' muscular arms, and
a turban brocaded with gold pushed out past the curtains, followed by a
round body swathed in lime-green silk.

Daoud was not surprised. This must be the one who called herself
Morgiana in the letters to Baibars that came regularly from Italy by
carrier pigeon and ship, thought Daoud. Still clinging to the bearers,
the stout woman pulled herself erect. Then she waved her servants away
with a flapping of sleeves and a jangling of bracelets and squinted at
Daoud.

"Is it time?" said Daoud. He spoke in Arabic.

"Not yet," she answered in the same language. "But presently." That
completed th