"And surrendering
to him is the only thing I can do." He looked at Ugolini. "Do you
agree?"

Ugolini sighed and shook his head. "I cannot think."

Gently Daoud freed himself from Sophia's embrace. "Insh'Allah, God
willing, I will return to you."

He turned to the door. Every muscle in his body screamed at him to run,
or to draw his sword and try to fight his way out. He cringed inwardly
from the thought of imprisonment and torture. He remembered the poor
madman whose body they had torn apart with red-hot pincers. He forced
himself not to tremble. He took the first step toward the door, then
another.

_God, make me strong in the face of my enemies._

LI

"Many think I have little power in this city," said Frescobaldo
d'Ucello. He sat in a dark window recess with one foot up on the ledge
and the other dangling, his fingers tapping the raised knee. Lashed to a
chair in the center of the long, narrow chamber, Daoud had to turn his
head to look at him. Daoud's back ached from being held rigid by the
back of the chair, and the ropes bit into the muscles of his arms and
legs.

At the end of the room, a clerk with scalp shaved in the clerical
tonsure sat in the podesta's high-back chair behind a heavy black table,
writing down what was said on a scroll with a feather pen. Four tall
candles set in brass stands formed a square around Daoud, casting a
bright light on him. A row of candles burned in a wrought-iron
candelabrum beside the clerk, lighting a wall hanging behind him that
depicted some idolatrous Christian religious scene. D'Ucello sat in the
shadows that lay upon the rest of the chamber.

Daoud sensed that d'Ucello meant what he had just said as a sort of
challenge.

"All I know is that for my part I have very little power in this city,
Signore," Daoud said with a smile. "I depend altogether on those who
have befriended me." That was the way David of Trebizond should respond.
Not very frightened, because not guilty of anything. Humble,
ingratiating, but retaining some scrap of dignity.

D'Ucello stood up suddenly, strode briskly across the room to Daoud, and
stood over him.

"Do you think your friends will save you from this?" he said tonelessly.
His eyes had an unfocused look, as though they were made of glass.

"Save me from what, Signore?" Daoud put bewilderment and a shade of
anger into his voice.

D'Ucello swung his hand. Daoud felt the sting of a hard palm against his
jaw, and the crack