t no one would suspect what he was. But
here in southern Italy, where most ordinary people were dark
complexioned, his appearance might draw unwanted attention.

Even though the sun had just risen, he felt the heat on his back. But it
was not the dry heat of Egypt that he had known most of his life. A
heaviness in the air called forth a dampness from within his flesh. His
tunic clung to him.

_If a Christian asks me what month this is, I must remember to say
July._

He brushed the dust from his clothing and fell into line behind the bent
man with his cart of firewood.

Once inside Lucera, he would find his way to the inn of al-Kharim. And
tonight the chancellor Aziz would come to him from King Manfred.

The line shuffled forward. Three guards were standing in the shadows
just inside the gateway. They were big dark men wearing long green capes
over red tunics. Red turbans were wrapped around their spike-topped
helmets. Curving swords hung from their belts. A boy in a red tunic and
turban held a sheaf of lightweight spears.

Their thick beards reminded Daoud how much he missed his own beard,
shaved off in preparation for this mission.

_My people._ Daoud felt a sudden warmth at the familiar sight of
warriors of Islam.

The feeling was nonsense, he told himself. These were not his people,
but the Saracens of Manfred von Hohenstaufen. Their Arab ancestors had
once ruled southern Italy, but the Christians had conquered them over a
century before.

No, these Muslim warriors were not Daoud's people. In truth, on this
whole earth there were no people Daoud ibn Abdallah could truly call his
own.

* * * * *

Once he had been David Langmuir, living with his crusader father and
mother, in a castle near Ascalon by the plain of Gaza. An English
ancestor had been one of the first crusaders in the Holy Land.

Just after David's ninth birthday Geoffrey Langmuir, his father, had
ridden out to war in gleaming mail with a cross of red silk sewn on his
white surcoat. David never saw him again.

Some weeks later the Saracens appeared before the castle, and there
were days of thirst and hunger and constant fear. He remembered the
thunderous pounding at the walls and the dark men in their yellow robes
and green turbans, their crescent-shaped swords coated with blood. He
remembered his mother, Lady Evelyn, in her blue dress, running up the
spiral stairs of a tower. He heard her distant scream. Whe