eir prearranged words of recognition.

"Salaam aleikum, Morgiana," he said, smiling. "Peace be to you." He
pushed back his hood and bowed to her. He had a warm sense of meeting an
old friend. He had read many of her reports on matters of state in
Italy.

"Wa aleikum es-salaam, Daoud," she replied. "And peace also to you. You
will have to know my real name now. Tilia Caballo, at your service."

He had pictured Morgiana as a tall, slender woman of mature years,
darkly attractive. The real Morgiana was quite different. Her eyebrows
were thick and black, her nose a tiny button between round red cheeks.
Her face was shiny with sweat even though she had been doing nothing but
sitting in a sedan chair. Looking at her spherical body, Daoud felt
great respect for the strength of the men who carried her. The silk
clinging to her body outlined breasts like divan cushions, and her belly
protruded in a parody of pregnancy. Could she truly be a cardinal's
mistress? Just as sultans and emirs had chief wives who were old and
honored and younger wives for play, perhaps Cardinal Ugolini kept Tilia
Caballo only as his official mistress.

The clasp on her turban was studded with diamonds. A heavy gold necklace
spilled down the broad, bare slope of her chest. From the necklace
dangled a cross set with blue and red jewels.

_The gold Baibars has sent her helped buy the fortune she wears._ He
wondered, how much did Baibars really know about this woman?

"I saw Cardinal Ugolini for a moment only, Messer David," said Celino.
"As soon as he found out I was from you, he insisted that I go to this
lady's establishment." Celino, speaking the dialect of Sicily, uttered
the word stabilimento with a curious intonation. Scipio stood with his
forepaws on Celino's chest, and Celino scratched the hound behind the
ears.

"He means the finest house of pleasure in all the Papal States," said
Tilia Caballo, smoothing the front of her gown with a self-satisfied
look. "Naturally his eminence Cardinal Ugolini cannot risk meeting
openly with you until I have seen you on his behalf." She had switched
from Arabic to an Italian dialect that was new to Daoud. He had trouble
understanding her.

He did not think it had been mentioned, in her letters or by Baibars,
that she was a brothel keeper. He felt slightly repelled. He wondered if
Baibars knew. He must. Baibars knew everything.

"Take yourself away, Celino," Daoud ordered. "And tell those two to come
no