gown off, was she? And no light in
the room till I brought this candle in? You and she are not as discreet
as you were before I left."

_We could never fool Lorenzo_, thought Daoud ruefully.

"The pope is gone, the Tartars are gone, the French are gone," said
Daoud. "There is no one left in Orvieto that we need deceive. Find some
soft cloths on the table to bind my feet." Creating the barrier between
his mind and the pain, Daoud swung his legs over the edge of the bed.
Lorenzo stared at him, his mouth falling open.

"What in the name of hell are you doing? You cannot get up! What wounds
are under those bandages?"

"I do not mind the pain," said Daoud. "I want to meet this duke's son.
Where is your army camped?"

Lorenzo's grin stretched his thick black mustache. "In the valley to
the north. You should see it. After I climbed up to the main gate of
Orvieto I looked down and saw the hundreds of campfires twinkling. It
was as if the world had turned over, and I was looking down into the
starry sky."

Daoud wished he could go to the city walls to see what Lorenzo had
described. But he had barely strength enough to walk from his room to
Ugolini's cabinet.

* * * * *

Four men--Daoud, Lorenzo, Ugolini, and Lapo di Stefano--sat around
Ugolini's worktable discussing the fate of Orvieto. The servants had
moved the table to the center of the cabinet and had replaced the
cardinal's usual clutter of philosophical instruments with platters of
meat, loaves of bread baked fresh in the cardinal's kitchen, and trays
of steaming pastries. Daoud had no appetite and was in too much pain to
eat.

"When does your King Manfred intend to come up from the south?" Lapo
asked Daoud. He twisted the carcass of a roasted pigeon between thick,
juice-stained fingers. His nose had been broken in some accident or
fight; air whistled in and out of the flattened nostrils. Daoud judged
him to be about twenty, the same age as Simon de Gobignon.

As far as Lapo knew, Daoud was an agent of the king of southern Italy
and Sicily. It might have shocked him to discover that he was dealing
with a Muslim from Egypt.

Daoud had to evade Lapo's question. He had no idea what plans Manfred
had, if any. He could only hope that when he met with Manfred at Lucera
he would be able to persuade him to invade the Papal States.

"King Manfred would come from the south much more quickly," Daoud said,
"if he could count on being rec