El Malik Dahir," she addressed him. _Victorious King._

"God blesses our meeting, Tilia."

She sat back, and he lowered himself to a cross-legged position facing
her. In the ten years since she had last seen him, he had aged little.
He had won the battle of the Well of Goliath, had made himself sultan,
and had reigned over a kingdom threatened from East and West. Yet his
yellow face was unlined, and there was no gray in his drooping red
mustache. She looked at the white scar that ran vertically down his
blind right eye; then she looked at his good left eye, and saw that it
was still bright blue and clear.

"Forgive me, Tilia, for not being able to greet you when you arrived in
El Kahira. I was inspecting the crusaders' defenses at Antioch--from the
inside."

She laughed. Amazing that such a striking-looking man should manage
again and again to move among his enemies in disguise. But he had been
doing it most of his life.

"My lord travels far and fast, as always."

"You have traveled farther. You are comfortable?"

"Who could fail to be comfortable, under Baibars's tent?"

"And Cardinal Ugolini? Will he be happy here?"

"The happiest he has ever been. He spends his days in your Zahiriya,
reading ancient manuscripts, talking to the scholars, working with the
philosophical instruments. He hardly sleeps, the sooner he might return
to the house of learning you built."

"Ah, we must find a strong young slave to comfort you if your cardinal
does not spend enough time in your bed."

"I am not the voracious woman you bought from a brothel so many years
ago, my lord. Adelberto can satisfy my waning desires."

Baibars laughed, a rumbling sound. "Anything you want, Tilia, in all the
sultanate of El Kahira, is yours. You have served me well."

"You took a prisoner and a slave and trusted her. You sent her jewels
and gold in a steady stream. You helped her to achieve riches and power
in the very heart of Christendom. Why should I not serve you with all my
might? Since you sent me from here long ago I have not had the chance to
see you with my own eyes and speak aloud my gratitude to you. And now
that I am face-to-face with you, words fail me. If I spoke for a
thousand and one nights I could not say enough to thank you. To praise
you."

Baibars shrugged. "Do you not regret losing it all? You cannot open a
brothel here in El Kahira, Tilia. I have closed all the brothels." His
eyelids crinkled humorously. "I am a very