es before the attack. I believe he is still in my power."

* * * * *

When alone with Sophia, Daoud lay back on his cushions. She stood
looking down at him, and he wondered if that was pity he saw in her
face.

"You are in such pain," she said.

He shook his head. "It is nothing."

"I do not mean the pain of the body."

She understood, then, what he was feeling. He smiled at her and shut his
eyes.

She sat in silence on the edge of the bed while he lay there, brooding.
Again he escaped into drowsiness. His mind drifted back to the sands of
Egypt. He dreamed again of riding as a Mameluke.

When he woke, a short time had passed, and Sophia was still sitting
there, gazing down at him.

Hints of a new plan began to come together in his mind. As fever purged
him of poison, it had brought him dreams of battle. Not of intrigues
with the priests and bishops around the pope. Not of ambushes in narrow
streets. Rather, open war.

That was the meaning of those dreams. Perhaps God Himself had sent them.
He was called upon to wage jihad against the enemies of Islam as a
Mameluke, on horseback, at the head of an army.

He held out his arm to Sophia. "Help me up. You and Lorenzo and I must
meet with Ugolini."

* * * * *

Later that morning, a heavy spring rain hammered on the windows of
Ugolini's cabinet. The storm had so darkened the room that the
cardinal's servants had lit extra candles. Daoud, Lorenzo, and Sophia
sat in a semicircle across from Ugolini's worktable.

The painted glass eyes of Ugolini's stuffed owl glared disapprovingly
down from the bookshelves at Daoud, who had a sense that the cardinal
felt as the owl looked. The skull on the table seemed to be laughing at
him.

He understood now what he had to do, but would the others, especially
Ugolini, go along with it? Over Ugolini's frantic protests he had
insisted on inciting the Filippeschi to attack the Palazzo Monaldeschi.
That attack having failed of its purpose, would the three of them still
accept Daoud's authority? Ugolini, surely, would think that events had
proved him right about the futility of the attack on the Monaldeschi.
How could he be won over to the idea of a wider war? _Make war utterly
on the idolaters_--that, he had decided, was the meaning of his dream.

"Manfred's supporters, the Ghibellini, must take the pope captive," he
said. "I know that you would prefer peace to war