by Robert Shea
Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
THE ASSASSIN AND THE LOVE SLAVE
He is Daoud ibn Abdallah. A warrior who is not afraid to go alone amidmultitudes of enemies. The servant of a very great ruler. Though young,a wealthy and powerful man in his own land. A spy and a thief in thelands of others.
He is the man whom Sophia Karaiannides, accomplished courtesan andmistress to a king, is to serve without reservation.
The alliance has been struck. The adventure begins....
_Also by Robert Shea:_
ILLUMINATUS! (With Robert Anton Wilson)
SHIKE
ALL THINGS ARE LIGHT*
*Published by Ballantine Books
THE SARACEN: LAND OF THE INFIDEL
ROBERT SHEA
BALLANTINE BOOKS . NEW YORK
Copyright (C) 1989 by Robert Shea
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American CopyrightConventions. Published in the United States of America by BallantineBooks, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously inCanada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 88-92191
ISBN 0-345-33588-0
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition: March 1989
Transcriber's Note:
Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Variant spellings remain as printed, whilst inconsistent hyphenation has been standardised.
TO MICHAEL ERIK SHEA
_who helped me learn many things about the art of storytelling_
BOOK ONE
LAND OF THE INFIDEL
_Anno Domini 1263-1264 Year of the Hegira 661-662_
"Whoso fighteth in the way of God, be he slain or be he victorious, on him We shall bestow a vast reward." --The Koran, Surah IV
"Nothing is true. Everything is permissible." --Hasan ibn-al-Sabbah, founder of the Hashishiyya
I
In the mist-filled plains around Lucera, cocks crowed.
Daoud ibn Abdallah pushed himself slowly to his feet. After days andnights of walking, his legs ached abominably.
Tired as he was, he looked around carefully, studying the othertravelers who rested near him on the road, peering at the city wall ahundred paces away with its shut gate of iron-studded oak. In hisstomach he felt the hollow ball of dread that had not left him since helanded in Italy.
_I am alone in the land of the infidel._
Dawn gave a pink tint to the pale yellow stones of the wall, about twicethe height of a man. Above it in the distance, covering the summit ofthe central hill, rose the citadel of Lucera, surrounded by its own hugewall set with more than a dozen many-sided towers.
Daoud's feet throbbed in his knee-high boots. For three days he hadwalked along the carter's track from the port of Manfredonia on theAdriatic coast into the hills around Lucera. Yesterday at daybreak hehad been able to see, from a great distance, the outline of the fortressemerging from the center of a rolling plain. It had taken him anotherday and a night to reach its gate.
Around Daoud now were dozens of people who had gathered at the gateduring the night, mostly merchants with packs on their backs. A fewfarmers, hitched to carts loaded with melons, peaches, and oranges, haddragged their burden over the plain. The more prosperous had donkeys topull the wagons.
One man with a long stick drove six small sheep. And a cart near Daoudwas piled high with wooden cages full of squawking chickens.
Walking in his direction was a tiny dwarf of a man who appearedpermanently doubled over, as if his back had been broken. It seemed toDaoud that if the man were not holding his arms out from his sides forbalance, his knuckles would almost have brushed the ground. His littlecart was piled with broken tree limbs, firewood to sell in the city.
The dwarf lifted his head and grinned at Daoud through a bushy blackmustache. Daoud smiled back, thinking, _God be kind to you, my friend_.
From within the city issued a familiar cry, in Arabic, that tore atDaoud's heart: "Come to prayer. Come to security. God is most great." Itwas the adhan, the cry of the muezzins in the minarets of Lucera'smosques. For, though he was in a Christian land, Lucera was a citymostly populated by Muslims.
Daoud wanted to fall to his knees, but he was pretending to be aChristian, and could only stand and ignore the call to prayer as theChristians around him did. He said the words of the salat, the requiredprayer, in his mind.
The people near Daoud spoke to one another sleepily, softly, in thetongue of southern Italy. Someone laughed. Someone sang a snatch ofsong. When the Muslim prayer ended, they expectantly looked up at thetown wall.
Daoud saw two soldiers standing in the tower to the left of the gate.They were accoutred in the Muslim manner, with turbans wrapped aroundtheir helmets and scimitars at their belts. One lifted a long brasstrumpet to his lips and blew a series of notes that sent shivers alongDaoud's spine. With a few changes it could have been the call that hadawakened him every morning in the Mameluke barracks on Raudha Island inthe Nile.
Using ropes, the other soldier hoisted onto a tall pole a yellow bannerbearing a black bird with spread wings and claws, and two heads facingin opposite directions. The double-headed eagle of King Manfred'sfamily, the Hohenstaufen.
With a great squealing of cables and squeaking of hinges, the tallwooden door swung wide.
Daoud reached down and picked up the leather pack that had lain betweenhis feet. Leaning forward, he pushed his arms through the shoulderstraps.
He wore draped over his pack a long countryman's cloak of cheap brownwool. His tunic and hose were of lightweight undyed cotton. Only hishigh boots were expensive. He needed good ones for the long walk fromthe coast to Lucera. A sword swung at his belt, short and unadorned, thesort any man of small means might wear. He had chosen it in El Kahiraout of a stack of swords taken from Christian men-at-arms during thelast crusade.
He drew the hood of his cloak over his head. Later his blond hair andgray eyes would guarantee that no one would suspect what he was. Buthere in southern Italy, where most ordinary people were darkcomplexioned, his appearance might draw unwanted attention.
Even though the sun had just risen, he felt the heat on his back. But itwas not the dry heat of Egypt that he had known most of his life. Aheaviness in the air called forth a dampness from within his flesh. Histunic clung to him.
_If a Christian asks me what month this is, I must remember to sayJuly._
He brushed the dust from his clothing and fell into line behind the bentman with his cart of firewood.
Once inside Lucera, he would find his way to the inn of al-Kharim. Andtonight the chancellor Aziz would come to him from King Manfred.
The line shuffled forward. Three guards were standing in the shadowsjust inside the gateway. They were big dark men wearing long green capesover red tunics. Red turbans were wrapped around their spike-toppedhelmets. Curving swords hung from their belts. A boy in a red tunic andturban 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 ofwarriors of Islam.
The feeling was nonsense, he told himself. These were not his people,but the Saracens
of Manfred von Hohenstaufen. Their Arab ancestors hadonce ruled southern Italy, but the Christians had conquered them over acentury before.
No, these Muslim warriors were not Daoud's people. In truth, on thiswhole earth there were no people Daoud ibn Abdallah could truly call hisown.
* * * * *
Once he had been David Langmuir, living with his crusader father andmother, in a castle near Ascalon by the plain of Gaza. An Englishancestor had been one of the first crusaders in the Holy Land.
Just after David's ninth birthday Geoffrey Langmuir, his father, hadridden out to war in gleaming mail with a cross of red silk sewn on hiswhite surcoat. David never saw him again.
Some weeks later the Saracens appeared before the castle, and therewere days of thirst and hunger and constant fear. He remembered thethunderous pounding at the walls and the dark men in their yellow robesand green turbans, their crescent-shaped swords coated with blood. Heremembered his mother, Lady Evelyn, in her blue dress, running up thespiral stairs of a tower. He heard her distant scream. When the Saracensdragged him out of the castle, with men being cut down by swords allaround him and women thrown to the ground by laughing Turks who fellupon them, he saw at the base of the tower a bundle of blue linensplashed with red that must have been his mother.
On their leisurely journey back to the Nile, the Turks forced him to lieon his belly, and they used him as men use women. He would never forgetthe needle-sharp tip of a curving dagger touched to his eyeball as abashi with a flowing black beard demanded that Daoud use his mouth togive him pleasure. Whenever Daoud remembered that time, his insidesknotted and his face burned with shame.
One day he stood naked on a platform in El Kahira, capital of thesultans--the city the Christians called Cairo. A fat, laughing slavedealer, who had raped him till he bled the night before, offered him forsale.
A tall man with one eye a glittering blue and the other a blank white, ascimitar in a jeweled scabbard thrust through the embroidered sasharound his waist, came forward.
A silence fell over the crowd of slave buyers, followed by whispers. Theone-eyed warrior paid the price asked in gold dinars and withouthaggling. And when the slaver fondled David's loins one last time as hecovered him with a ragged tunic, the warrior seized the slaver by thethroat with one hand, forcing him to his knees, and squeezed till hecollapsed unconscious in the dust of the marketplace.
David was almost mad with terror as the one-eyed warrior took him to hismansion beside a lake in the center of El Kahira. But the tall man spokekindly to him and treated him decently. Amazingly, he could speakFrench, David's language, though with a strange and heavy accent. Hetold David that he was called Baibars al-Bunduqdari, Baibars theCrossbowman. He was an emir of the Bhari Mamelukes, which meant, hesaid, "slaves of the river." But though the Mamelukes were slaves, theywere also great and powerful warriors.
Baibars gave David a new name--Daoud--and told him that he had selectedhim to be a Mameluke. He explained in a firm but kindly way that Daouddid have a choice but that the alternative was a life of unrelievedwretchedness as a ghulman, a menial slave. As a Mameluke, Daoud would beset free when his training was complete, and he could win riches andglory and be a warrior for God and his emir.
"I have long watched for such a one as you," Baibars said, "who couldlook like a Christian but have the mind and heart of a Mameluke. Onelike you could be a great weapon against the enemies of the faith."
_But your faith is not my faith_, David, who was to be called Daoud,thought, not daring to speak, _and your enemies are not my enemies_.
His longing to please this man, the first Muslim to treat him withrespect, struggled as the years passed with his memories of a Christianchildhood. Daoud underwent the training of a Mameluke, and Baibarswatched him closely. Daoud accepted Islam and took the common surname ofa convert, ibn Abdallah. He took naturally to the life of a warrior andgrew in strength and skill.
Year by year Baibars, too, became more powerful. At last he made himselfsultan of El Kahira, ruler of an empire that stretched from North Africato Syria. Daoud's hand had wielded the flame dagger of the Hashishiyyathat ended the previous sultan's life.
Now, having raised Daoud, trained him as a Mameluke, and educated him instatecraft, having sent him to learn wisdom from the Sufi and terrorfrom the Hashishiyya, having given him a new name and a new faith,Baibars had sent Daoud into the Christian country called Italy.
* * * * *
The stones of the gateway seemed to be marble, unusual for afortification. Daoud noticed large iron rings set at intervals under thearch. His feet crunched on fresh straw.
The space under the arch was about ten paces from outer portal to inner.On one side a broad-shouldered official sat at a table. The man glancedup at Daoud, looked down at a leather-bound ledger in which he waswriting, then raised his eyes again for a longer look. This time thebrown eyes met Daoud's.
The official's grizzled hair formed a cap of curls around his head,hiding his ears. He had a thick mustache, black streaked with white. Hisshirt of violet silk looked costly. On the straw beside him lay a hugedog, doubtless bred for hunting, with short gray fur, forepaws stretchedbefore it like a sphinx.
_These people live with unclean animals_, Daoud thought with distaste.
When the official leaned back in his chair, Daoud saw the long, straightdagger that hung from his belt in a scabbard decorated with crossedbands of gold ribbon.
Fear tightened Daoud's throat.
_Will this man see through me? Will he guess what I am?_
_Come, come_, he chided himself. _You have gone among Christians before.You have walked in the midst of crusaders in the streets of Acre andAntioch. You have landed on the island of Cyprus. You have even gone asBaibars's emissary to the Greeks of Constantinople. Commend yourself toGod and cast fear aside._
He visualized what the Hashishiyya called "the Face of Steel within theMask of Clay." What he showed this official would be his Mask of Clay,the look and manner of the merchant he was pretending to be. Beneath it,unseen, was his true face, a Face of Steel forged over years of bodilyand spiritual training.
The mustached man allowed most of the people in line to pass into thecity after a few quick questions.
Daoud's heartbeat quickened and he tensed when his turn came to pass.
"Come here. Lower your hood," the man said.
Walking slowly toward him, Daoud reached up and pushed back his hood.
The official raised thick black brows and beckoned to a guard. "If hemakes a move you do not like, skewer him."
"Yes, Messer Lorenzo."
Daoud felt a stiffness in his neck and a knot in his belly. KingManfred's chancellor, Aziz, had written that Daoud would be quietlyadmitted to the town.
The heavyset, black-bearded Muslim soldier took a spear from the boystanding near him and leveled it at Daoud, his face hard.
"Now then," said Lorenzo, "give us your sword."
This overzealous guard captain, or whatever he was, was paying too muchattention to him. But to avoid more attention, he must readilycooperate. He unbuckled his sword belt and held it out. Another Muslimguard took it and stepped beyond Daoud's reach.
Messer Lorenzo said, "Open your pack and show me what is in it."
"Silk, Your Signory." Daoud shrugged the pack off his shoulders and laidit on the table. He unlaced its flap and drew out a folded length ofdeep blue silk and then a crimson one. The shiny cloth slid through hislong fingers.
"I am not a lord," said Lorenzo softly, reaching out to caress the silk."Do not insult me by addressing me incorrectly."
"Yes, Messere."
Lorenzo took the pack with both hands and shook it. A shiny circularobject a little larger than a man's hand fell out. Lorenzo picked it upand frowned at it.
"What is this, a mirror?"
"Yes, Messere. Our Trebizond mirrors are famed in Byzantium, Persia, andthe Holy Land. I brought this as another sample of what we c
an offer."
"It is a good mirror," Lorenzo agreed. "It shows me my ugly face all toowell."
Daoud was relieved to see Lorenzo had not guessed the secret of themirror, that it contained a deadly disk of Hindustan. Thrown properly,the sharp-edged disk would slice into an opponent like a knife.
At Lorenzo's command, two of the guards searched Daoud briskly andefficiently. They even made him take off his boots.
The fingers of one guard found the chain around Daoud's neck and pulledon it. The locket Daoud had hidden under his tunic came out.
"What is that?" Lorenzo growled.
A chill ran over Daoud's body. Could Lorenzo possibly guess what thelocket was?
"A locket with a holy inscription in our Greek language, Messere."
"Open it up."
With a leaden feeling in his belly Daoud turned a small screw in thehammered silver case. Perhaps he should not have taken the locket withhim. What would Lorenzo see when he looked at it? The cover fell open,and he glanced down at the intricate etched lines and curves on therock-crystal inner face of the locket. When Daoud saw beginning toappear on the crystal the face of a dark-skinned woman with accents ofblue-black paint around her eyes, he looked away.
He leaned forward to give Lorenzo a closer look at it without taking itfrom around his neck. The locket's magic should work only for the personto whom it was given.
Daoud heard a low growl. The great hound had risen to his feet and wasstaring at him with eyes as dark brown as his master's. His upper lipcurled, revealing teeth like ivory scimitars.
"Silence, Scipio," Lorenzo said. His voice was soft, but iron withcommand. The dog sat down again, but kept his eyes fixed on Daoud.
Heart pounding, he waited for Lorenzo's reaction to the locket. Theofficial grasped it, pulling Daoud's head closer still.
"Mh. This is Greek writing, you say? It looks more like Arabic to me."
"It is very ancient, Messere, and the two alphabets are similar. Icannot read it myself. But it has been blessed by our Christianpriests."
Lorenzo let go of the locket and glowered at him.
"What Christian priests? Where did you say you are from? What is yourname?"
With deep relief Daoud stepped back from Lorenzo, snapped the locketshut, and dropped it back inside the collar of his tunic.
"I am David Burian, from Trebizond, Messere."
"Trebizond? I never heard of it," said the mustached man.
"It is on the eastern shore of the Black Sea."
"You have come such a great distance with only a few yards of silk and amirror in your pack? Would you have me believe this is how you expect tomake your fortune?"
Daoud reached deep in his lungs for breath. Now he would see whether theChristians would believe the story he and Baibars had devised.
"Messere, my city, Trebizond, lies on the only road to the East not cutoff by the Saracens. A few brave merchants come from the land calledCathay bearing silk and spices. The samples I have brought with me,doubtless you can see, are of the highest quality. We can send you manybales of such silk overland from Trebizond to Constantinople, then byship to your port of Manfredonia. I am here to arrange this trade."
"Arrange it with whom?"
Daoud hesitated. He had come to Lucera to meet with King Manfred. If,through some mistake, he should fall into the wrong hands, he would tryto get word to the king that he was there.
"Your local merchants, your royal officials," he said. "Even your KingManfred, if he wishes to talk to me."
"So, a dusty peddler comes to our city gate and wants to speak with theking." He turned to the guard with the spear. "Take him to thecastello."
Daoud molded the Face of Clay into an expression of naive wonderment."The castello? Where King Manfred is?"
Lorenzo grinned without mirth. "Where King Manfred's _prison_ is, myman. Where we hang the people sent by the pope to murder King Manfred."
Lorenzo's eyes were hard as chips of obsidian, and when he said the word_hang_, Daoud could feel the rough rope tightening around his neck.
But he was more angry now than frightened. His jaw muscles clenched. Whyhad Aziz not made sure there would be no mistake like this?
"Why are you doing this to me, Messer Lorenzo? I mean no harm."
"And I intend to see to it that you _do_ no harm in this place, Messereof Trebizond," Lorenzo shot back. He waved to the guard. "To theguardroom, Ahmad."
_May a thousand afrits hound this infidel to his death_, thought Daoudangrily. "And what will you do with me, Messer Lorenzo?"
"I will examine you further at my leisure, after I have passed all thesegood people into the city." One violet-sleeved arm made a flowinggesture toward the waiting throng.
Daoud noticed that the tiny firewood seller, who had already passed bythe guards, had paused at the inner portal. He shook his head sadly andtouched forehead, shoulders, and chest in that sign Christians made torecall the cross of Jesus, their Messiah.
_Why, I believe he is praying for me. That is kindly done._
Ahmad, the guard, pointed his spear at Daoud and jerked his head. Daoudstood his ground.
"What of my silk? If you keep it, I will truly have no honest businessin Lucera."
Lorenzo smiled. He stuffed the lengths of silk and the mirror back intothe pack and held it out to Daoud.
"There is not enough here to be worth stealing. Take it, then."
"And my sword?"
Lorenzo laughed gruffly. "Forget your sword. Take him away, Ahmad."
They had missed the precious object hidden in a pouch tied in his groin.And they missed the Scorpion, the miniature crossbow devised by theHashishiyya, its parts concealed in the hem of his cloak. Nor did theyhave any idea that the tie that held his cloak at the neck could bepulled loose to become a long strangling cord, flexible as silk and hardas steel.
Daoud pulled his hood back over his head, shrugged into the pack underhis cloak, and began walking. Every step he took sent a jolt of angerthrough his body. He would like to use his strangling cord on the manresponsible for this blunder.
The news might well travel northward that a blond merchant had beenarrested trying to enter Lucera. And if that man should later appear atthe court of the pope, there might be those who would remember hearingof him and wonder why he had gone first to the pope's enemy, Manfred vonHohenstaufen.
His first feelings of anger became a cold turmoil in his belly as hethought what could happen if his mission failed--El Kahira leveled, itspeople slaughtered, Islam crushed beneath the feet of barbarianconquerors.
He must not let that happen.
The narrow street he walked on was lined with circular houses, theirbrick walls a warm yellow color. The conical roofs were covered withthin slates.
A Muslim sword maker looked up from his forge to stare at Daoud and hisguard as they passed. Veiled women with red pottery jars on their headsstopped and looked boldly into his eyes.
Daoud lifted his gaze to the octagonal central tower of the citadel,bright yellow-and-black flags flying from its battlements. Instead ofbeing squared off, the battlements were topped by forked points, likethe tails of swallows, proclaiming allegiance to the Ghibellini,partisans of the Hohenstaufen family, enemies of the pope.
Closer to the citadel, noises of men and animals came at Daoud from alldirections. He saw many buildings, all connected with one another, theirsmall windows protected by iron grillwork. To his right, in a largegrassy open field, a hundred or more Muslim guards in red and green wereswinging their scimitars as an officer on a stone platform called outthe count in Arabic. Daoud and his guard passed by a second yard, wherestill more Muslim soldiers were grooming their slender Arab horses.
A pungent smell of many beasts and fowl pent up close hung in the warm,damp air. Another row of buildings echoed with the shrieks of birds.Falconers in yellow-and-black tunics walked up and down holding wickercages. As he peered into a doorway, Daoud saw the golden eyes of birdsof prey gleaming at him out of the shadows.
The sun was high by the time they came to the gateway of the castello.
_Well, so far they have taken me where I wanted to go_, Daoud thoughtgrimly.
The entry hall of the castello was a large, vaulted room, as Daoud hadexpected. He had studied the citadel of Lucera before leaving Egypt, ashe had studied many other strongholds in Italy, memorizing buildingplans and talking at length with agents of the sultan who had beenthere.
A strange, almost dizzying sensation came over Daoud. He recognized thefeeling, having had it several times before when, in disguise, heentered Christian fortresses. As he gazed around the shadowy stone hall,its gloom relieved by shafts of light streaming in through high, narrowwindows, he seemed to be seeing everything through two pairs of eyes.One pair belonged to a Mameluke warrior, Daoud ibn Abdallah, scouting anenemy stronghold. The other eyes were those of a boy named DavidLangmuir, to whom a Christian castle had been home. And, as always onsensing that inner division, Daoud felt a crushing sadness.
Ahmad took Daoud through a series of small, low-ceilinged rooms in thebase of the castle. He spoke briefly to an officer seated at a table,dressed like himself in red turban and green tunic. He gestured to aheavy-looking door reinforced with strips of iron.
"In there, Messer David."
Every muscle in Daoud's body screamed out in protest. As part of hisinitiation into the Hashishiyya, he had been locked in a tiny blackchamber in the Great Pyramid for days, and, except for the deaths of hismother and father, it was the worst memory of his life. Now he ached tostrike down Ahmad and the other Muslim soldier and flee.
Instead, he said quietly, "How long will I have to wait?"
Ahmad shrugged. "God alone knows." Ahmad's southern Italian dialect wasas heavily accented as Daoud's own.
_How surprised he would be if I were to address him in Arabic._
"Who is this man who orders me imprisoned?" Daoud demanded.
Ahmad and the other guard shrugged at the question. "He is MesserLorenzo Celino of Sicily. He serves King Manfred."
"What does he do for King Manfred?"
"Whatever the king tells him to." Ahmad smiled at Daoud and gesturedagain at the ironbound door. "Thank you for making the work of guardingyou easy. May God be kind to you."
Daoud bowed in thanks. Remembering the proper Christian farewell, hesaid, "Addio."
The other soldier unlocked the door with a large iron key, and Daoudwalked reluctantly into a shadowy room. The door slammed shut behindhim, and again he went rigid with his hatred of confinement.
The walls had recently been whitewashed, but the little room stankabominably. The odor, Daoud saw, came from a privy hole in one corner,where large black flies circled in a humming swarm. Half-light came inthrough a window covered with a black iron grill whose openings werebarely wide enough to push a finger through. Noticing what appeared tobe a bundle of bedding against a wall, Daoud approached it and squatteddown for a closer look. He prodded it, feeling straw under a stainedcotton sheet. At his probing, black dots, almost too small to see, beganmoving about rapidly over the sheet.
Daoud crossed the room, unslung his pack from his back, and dropped itto the floor. He sat down on the flagstones, as far from the bedding andthe privy opening as he could get, his back against the wall, his kneesdrawn up, like a Bedouin in his tent.
_I am helpless_, Daoud thought, and terror and rage rose up in him liketwo djinns released from their jars, threatening to overwhelm him. Hesat perfectly still. To bring himself under control, he began thecontemplative exercise his Sufi teacher, Sheikh Saadi, called thePresence of God.
"God is everywhere, and most of all in man's heart," Saadi had said, hisold eyes twinkling. "He cannot be seen or heard or touched or smelled ortasted. Therefore, make your mind as empty as the Great Desert, and youmay converse with God, Whose name be praised."
Daoud touched the farewell present Saadi had given him when he left ElKahira to begin the journey to Italy. It was a leather case tied aroundhis neck, and it contained a piece of paper called a tawidh, aninvocation whose words were represented by Arabic numerals.
Like the locket, it would arouse curiosity if someone searching himfound it. But it could be simply explained as one of those curiousobjects a traveler from distant places might have about his person.And, like the locket, it was simply too precious _not_ to be worn.
Saadi said the tawidh would help wounds heal faster. Daoud refused tolet himself think about wounds. He tried to make his mind a blank, andin the effort he forgot for a time where he was.
