rk. 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, 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 stronghold. The other eyes were those of a boy named David
Langmuir, to whom a Christian castle had been home. And, as always on
sensing that inner division, Daoud felt a crushing sadness.

Ahmad took Daoud through a series of small, low-ceilinged rooms in the
base of the castle. He spoke briefly to an officer seated at a table,
dressed like himself in red turban and green tunic. He gestured to a
heavy-looking door reinforced with strips of iron.

"In there, Messer David."

Every muscle in Daoud's body screamed out in protest. As part of his
initiation into the Hashishiyya, he had been locked in a tiny black
chamber in the Great Pyramid for days, and, except for the deaths of his
mother and father, it was the worst memory of his life. Now he ached to
strike down Ahmad and the other Muslim soldier and flee.

Instead, he said quietly, "How long will I have to wait?"

Ahmad shrugged. "God alone knows." Ahmad's southern Italian dial