by Robert Shea
XLIII
Hidden in the cellar behind a rack of wine barrels, Daoud watched theFrankish count, the old priest, and the two Armenians as they pausedbefore the door of the spice pantry.
He thought: _Man can plan and plan, but God will surprise and surprise._
He had been just about to try to trick the Tartars into letting him intothe spice pantry when de Gobignon and the others came down the stairs.He suppressed his fury and forced himself to stay calm.
The spice pantry door opened for de Gobignon and those with him. Fromhis hiding place Daoud caught just a glimpse of the Tartars, bothsitting with sheathed swords in their laps, their two guards standing infront of them. Their refuge appeared to be lit by a single lantern.
Daoud was perhaps only twelve paces from the doorway, but the cellar wasmostly in darkness, and he was dressed entirely in black, his headcovered with a tight black hood, his face masked. For ease and silenceof movement he wore no mail. The garb of a fedawi, a Hashishiyyafighter.
With gestures de Gobignon ordered his two Armenians to stand guardoutside the door. One set a candle in a sconce high in the cellar wall.Then they unslung their bows and nocked arrows and stood on either sideof the door, which closed behind Gobignon and the old priest. Daoudheard a bolt slide shut with a clank.
Baffled, he bit his lower lip. What demon had inspired de Gobignon tocome down from the battlements and join the Tartars just at this moment?Now he could not get to the pantry door without being seen and having tofight the two Armenians outside. That would alert those inside, and thedoor was bolted from within. He took deep breaths to clear his head offrustration.
He would have to change his plan of attack.
* * * * *
To get into the Monaldeschi palace he had used a peasant's cloak andhigh boots like those he had worn last summer when he'd landed atManfredonia. It had been an easy matter paying a few silver denari to afarmer and then helping with the loading and unloading of sacks of ricebeing delivered to the Monaldeschi. Once inside the palace courtyard ithad been the work of a moment to slip away from the carts and hidehimself in the maze of dark rooms on the ground floor of the palace.There he had shed the peasant costume, leaving his black Hashishiyyagarb, and he'd pulled the hood and mask over his head.
But the very thing that made it easy for him to get into the palace withthat cartload of rice left him shocked and uneasy. The Monaldeschi werepreparing for a siege. He had seen screens against fire arrows being setup on the roof and householders in the neighborhood locking their doorsand fleeing.
Someone had warned the Monaldeschi. When the Filippeschi came tonight,their hereditary enemies would be ready for them.
Heart pounding, he pondered. What if the Filippeschi called off theattack? He tried to tell himself that it would not matter. Even theexpectation of a siege would so distract the Tartars' protectors that hewould be able to get at them.
And, he promised himself, if he came out alive, he would search out andrepay whoever had betrayed him.
He had rechecked his weapons--the strangling cord, the Scorpion, thetiny vessel of Greek fire in its padded pouch, the disk of Hindustan anda dagger, its blade painted black. After nightfall he would seek outthe Tartars' apartment, which he knew was on the third floor of thepalace, where the best rooms were. In the meantime, he had hidden in acorner of the kitchen behind a large water cask. He had squatted thereand waited, taut as a bowstring, to find out whether the Filippeschiwould attack.
When he heard the first battle shouts through the narrow embrasures onthe ground floor, he let out a little sigh of relief. Of course Marco diFilippeschi would go through with the attack. Even without surprise, hewas doubtless better prepared tonight to fight the Monaldeschi than everbefore in his life. And Marco was not the sort of man who, oncecommitted to a course, would turn back.
Even as these thoughts passed through his mind, Daoud had been surprisedto see the two Tartars with two of their Armenian guards stride pasthim.
Of course, he thought, de Gobignon must have realized that the Tartarsmight be a target, and he was moving them to a safer place.
For a moment the Tartars had been abreast of him. Two poisoned dartsfrom the Scorpion would do it.
But, just then, a dozen or so Monaldeschi archers, crossbows loaded andcranked back, had trotted into the kitchen and nearby rooms and taken upstations by the embrasures. Daoud, his body aquiver with excitement, thelittle crossbow already in his hands, had sunk back into hiding. If heshot the Tartars, he might have been able to escape the two Armenians,but so many men-at-arms would certainly kill or, worse, capture him. Andonce they discovered who he was, Sophia, Ugolini, all those working withhim, would swiftly be in the hands of the Franks.
Seething with frustration, he had watched an Armenian open a cellartrapdoor. The two Tartars and the two Armenian guards descended out ofsight.
Daoud, still crouched behind the water cask, then decided that God hadbeen kind to him. Even if he had been denied this opportunity to killthem, at least he had seen where the Tartars were.
He had sat in his hiding place, relaxed but alert, listening to theMonaldeschi bowmen shout encouragement to one another as they fired onthe Filippeschi trying to cross the piazza. The arrow slits were cutthrough the thick walls in angled pairs so that two archers side by sidewould have a full field of fire. After a while Daoud began to despair ofever getting into the cellar.
Several times servants came running to fill buckets from the cask to putout fires in the atrium. Crouched in the darkness behind the cask,Daoud saw, grouped around it, buckets, pots, and kettles, all sorts ofvessels, already filled with water for immediate use.
Long after the battle began, a pageboy came running down the stairs tothe ground floor with an order for the archers to come up to the roof.
They left only one man to watch through the arrow slots. His back,sheathed in a shiny brown leather cuirass, was turned toward Daoud. Thenoise of fighting from outside was loud enough, Daoud thought, to maskany sound he might make.
He slipped from behind the cask and picked up a wooden bucket full ofwater. Carrying the bucket he stepped, silent on his soft-soled boots,to the cellar trapdoor. Keeping his eyes on the crossbowman, he put thebucket down and, holding his breath, grasped the handle of the trapdoorand lifted it. The archer moved as Daoud crouched by the open trapdoor.Daoud froze. But the man's back remained turned. He was only shiftingfrom one arrow slot to the one beside it, to get a view of the piazzafrom a different angle.
When the archer was settled in his new position, Daoud crept down thecellar stairs, bucket in one hand, and lowered the door over his head.He watched the archer until the slab of wood cut off his view. He was ina pitch-black cellar smelling of wine.
He saw a crack of light from under a door and heard voices. He was aboutto go and knock, pretending to be a man-at-arms with a message. When thetwo Armenians within opened the door, he would douse their lantern withthe water he was carrying, and then move in on the Tartars in the dark.
Just then the trapdoor above had opened. He hid behind the wine barrelsas de Gobignon, the friar, and two more Armenians came down to jointheir Tartar charges.
* * * * *
Stones were slamming into the walls in such rapid succession that thebuilding was continually shaking. This must be the climax of theFilippeschi attack. Next would come a rush of all the fighting men. Theywould storm the palace and either break through or be driven off.Probably, Daoud thought, the attack would fail. But even so, it wouldgive him the opportunity he needed.
The two Armenian guards held their bows laxly, resting their backsagainst the wall by the door. The candle in the sconce was six pacesaway from the guards. Silently he lifted the bucket of water he hadbrought down with him and moved it out in front of the wine barrel rackso that later he could quickly reach it. Then he loaded the Scorpion,drawing back its string.
He stepped out from behind the barrels, aiming for th
e eye of thenearest guard, and fired. The steel dowels snapped forward, propellingthe bolt through the eyeball and into the skull. The man collapsedwithout an outcry. His body, clad in leather and steel, hit the stonefloor with a crash.
The other Armenian gave a shrill shout in his native tongue. He staredin horror at Daoud, and his heavy compound bow was up, the ironarrowhead pointing at Daoud's chest.
Daoud had already taken the disk of Hindustan out of the flat pouch onthe left side of his belt. Dropping the Scorpion into its pocket, hetransferred the disk to his right hand. The disk was heavy; by Frankishweight it would probably be half a pound. Its center was of strong,flexible steel; bonded to its edges was a more brittle steel that wouldtake an edge sharp enough to slice a hair lengthwise.
Daoud scaled the disk at the candle that rested in the sconce at thedoor to the pantry. It sliced through the candle's tip, just below thewick. The flame went out, plunging the cellar into total darkness. Thedisk rang against the stone wall, then clanged to the floor. Daoud'strained hearing registered the place where it fell. The Armenian's boltwhistled past him and hit the wall with a sharp crack.
Voices from inside the spice pantry shouted questions. That must be thetwo Armenians who had first gone in there with the Tartars. The manoutside answered, and Daoud could hear fear in his voice. De Gobignonwould not want to open the door to help the Armenian, for fear ofendangering the Tartars.
Somehow, he had to be made to open the door.
Daoud stood still, listening to the guard's rapid, heavy breathing, thescraping of his boot soles on the stone floor.
After a moment he tiptoed to the side of the chamber, retrieved hisdisk, and dropped it into its pouch in his tunic.
Silently picking up the water bucket in front of the wine barrel rack,he drifted closer to the guard, thinking of smoke, as the Hashishiyyahad taught him, to make himself move even more quietly.
He heard the Armenian sling his bow over his shoulder, and theslithering of his sword coming out of his scabbard.
Daoud set the water down and crept close to the guard, utterly silent,listening for the many small noises that would tell him where the manwas and how he was standing--breathing, swallowing and the licking oflips, the creak of leather armor, the rustle of cloth, the clink ofsteel. Slowly and very carefully Daoud reached out toward the guard'sthroat, then with a sudden movement seized it, his thumb and fingersgripping like a falcon's talons.
His action had the desired effect. The Armenian screamed, forcing airthrough his constricted throat again and again.
He tried to slash at Daoud's arm but missed.
With his free hand Daoud grabbed the guard's wrist and gave it a sharpturn. He let go of his opponent's throat and used both hands to forcehis sword arm down. He straightened the arm out and brought his kneedown hard on the elbow, throwing all his weight on it.
The guard screamed with pain, and his sword clattered to the floor.Daoud kicked it off into the darkness, then danced away. The Armenianfell back against the spice pantry door, groaning in pain and fear.
Daoud heard muffled cries from the other side of the door. They demandedto know what was happening. They begged to know what was happening.
The Armenian's agonized voice cried out to them, also begging, to be letin, to be saved from the man who was killing him in the blackness.
Daoud readied himself, finding the water bucket again in the dark andpicking it up. He held it with both hands, by the handle and by thebase. He would have only a little time to use it, before they found someway to stop him.
He heard the men on the other side of the door slide back the iron bolt.It was the only thing they could do, Daoud thought. The other Armenianscould not bear to keep the door shut and let their comrade die.
The wooden door swung inward. Light sprang out into the cellar from onlyone oil-fed lantern, but dazzled Daoud because he had been in completedarkness since he put out the candle. He now saw the man he had beenfighting, a squat man with a thick black mustache, tears of pain runningfrom his eyes, his right arm dangling limply.
In the fraction of an instant before his enemies saw him, Daoud took ineverything in the spice pantry.
De Gobignon was standing just inside the door, holding his beautifulscimitar out before him in his right hand. With his left hand hereached for the wounded guard to pull him in. On either side of him werethe other two Armenians, bows drawn, ready to fire. Beyond them Daoudglimpsed the Tartars, also with bows loaded and pulled, and the oldpriest.
But the most important thing in there was that small, weak flameflickering behind sheets of horn in a box-shaped lantern on the table inthe center of the room.
Daoud stepped as close as he dared into the doorway and raised thebucket high, heaving the water in a stream at the table.
He heard a bow thrum and an arrow whistle past his shoulder. His eyesmet de Gobignon's just as the light went out.
Like a stone fired from a catapult he hurled himself, crouching low,into the pantry.
Landing silently inside the room, he changed direction once, twice, athird time, ending up at the door. He slammed it shut and bolted it.They should all now be thoroughly confused.
In total darkness, seeing with his senses of hearing, smell, and touch,he began to stalk the Tartars.
XLIV
Simon heard the thick door slam and the iron bolt driven into place. Hestood in a blackness darker than any night outdoors would have been, hisscimitar heavy and invisible in his hand. It was all he had against anenemy who was also invisible. He felt death rushing upon him out of thedarkness.
Except for the occasional vibrations of a rock hitting the palace wall,all sounds of battle were blocked out of the spice pantry. In the deepsilence, Simon's heartbeat thundered in his ears like a kettledrum.
_It was my stupidity that opened the door to him._
He had caught only a glimpse of the enemy. All in black from head tofoot, eyes shining through oval holes in his mask. Truly like a devil.
The stalker had deliberately doused the light, which must mean he couldfind his victims in the dark.
Simon's body went from hot to cold. While he stood here helplessly, themen with him could be dying. He tried to force himself to think, but hismind was motionless as a stone.
All around Simon was confusion. He heard Grigor, the guard who hadstaggered into the room just before the light went out, moaning withpain. He heard men stumbling about. They kept bumping into him. Helowered his scimitar to avoid stabbing someone by accident.
A crash made Simon jump. That was the lantern, smashed probably, by theman in black, so that no one could relight it.
Next he would start killing them, one by one.
_God, if only I had some light. Just a little._
The odors of the precious spices the Monaldeschi stored in this pantrypervaded the air--saffron, cardamom, pepper, cloves, ginger, nutmeg,cinnamon. When Simon had first entered the spice pantry a short time agoit had seemed a pleasant enough smell. Now it was making him sick.
Was there still a lighted candle in the cellar outside?
"The door!" he shouted. "Get the door open." Friar Mathieu repeated hiscommand in the Armenian tongue.
He heard a scraping, as of someone pulling on the heavy bolt that heldthe door shut. Then a thud and a choking cry of pain. Then a sound likea heavy sack being dropped.
Simon groaned inwardly. He could picture what had happened. Now the doorwas held shut, not just by a bolt, but by a dead body.
He felt ice cold, but sweat trickled under his mail. The blackness wasthick, a blanket, smothering him. The smells of the spices were cloying,dizzying. His stomach felt queasy.
"Flint and tinder!" Simon shouted, and Friar Mathieu repeated his wordsfor the Armenians and Tartars. Everything he said had to be translated.The delay was maddening.
And, Simon realized, anyone who tried to strike a light would makehimself the enemy's next target.
God's blood, even by answering Friar Mathieu the Tartars woul
d give awaytheir location to the stalker. The man in black must be able to find hisvictims by listening for them.
So, if sound would make them visible, then the only way to thwart thisdemon would be by silence. And even now men were starting to answerSimon's call for flint.
"Silence!" he shouted. His voice sounded shrill in his ears, like afrightened boy's.
For a moment there was no sound in the blackness.
"He finds us by the sounds we make," Simon said. "Everyone remain still,and we will hear him when he moves."
As Friar Mathieu translated, Simon realized that either he or FriarMathieu could be the next victim. The stalker would want to kill theFranciscan so Simon could not communicate with the others.
And one Armenian was badly hurt, one was probably dead outside and onedead by the door. Left able to fight were only Simon, the Tartars, andone Armenian guard. They had swords and bows, but the bows would just beencumbrances in this total blackness.
In minutes the ambassadors could be dead. Simon felt terrified, drowningin darkness, almost overcome with helplessness.
_I must make him come to me._
The thought frightened Simon even more. He did not know whether he wouldhave the courage to act on it.
What weapons did the stalker have? In the glimpse Simon had of himbefore he put the candle out, the man in black had seemed to beempty-handed. His weapons must be small ones that could kill, but mightnot be quite so dangerous to a man in mail.
"Everyone remain still," Simon said loudly. "You will hear me movingsteadily about. If you hear someone else as well, it is the enemy."
He racked his brain to remember the size and shape of the room. Holdinghis sword low, he put his hand up before his face and forced himself totake one step, then another. An attack might come from any direction.The trembling of his hands and knees made his mail jingle faintly.
The mailed glove dangling from his wrist rattled as his bare handencountered a man's face. The man gasped and pulled away.
"C'est moi," said Simon, just to let the man hear his voice, knowing itdid not matter what language he spoke. He was not afraid of callingattention to himself. He wanted the stalker to come for him. And hewanted those on his side to know where he was so they would not attackhim by mistake.
The face he felt was hot, sweaty, with a bushy mustache--one of theArmenians. The killer had been masked. Simon patted the man on theshoulder and moved on. He doubted that he could find the man in blackthis way. If the stalker were as skilled at moving about in the dark ashe seemed to be, he could easily evade Simon.
The Tartars seemed to have understood the peril they were in; they hadbeen silent now for a long time.
The thought struck him like ice between his shoulder blades: What if thekiller had already gotten to them, and they were silent because theywere dead? He wanted to call out to them, or to Friar Mathieu, to besure they were all right. He suppressed the urge and reached out foranother face.
This time he felt a beard. It was long and full. Friar Mathieu.
"C'est moi," Simon said again, and a hand reached up and squeezed hisreassuringly.
The next face was hard, bony. There was a mustache that his fingersfollowed long below the mouth. The beard was thin, sprouting from thechin only. One of the Tartars. Simon felt the face move under his touch.Thank God, the man was alive.
He reached beyond the Tartar and felt a shoulder. This must be the otherTartar. But no--the shoulder was high, as high as the Tartar's head.
Just as he was about to jump back he felt something brush over his hair.
A cord was around his neck.
It jerked tight with such force that Simon's breath was instantly cutoff. Pain circled his neck like a band of fire.
His scream forced its way through his throat as a drawn-out grunt as thecord tightened still more. He could feel the blood in his head pressingout against his temples and eyeballs. He felt as if nails were beingdriven into his head.
He had his scimitar. He raised it and drove it back over his rightshoulder. It went through empty air. The killer had felt it coming andducked out of the way. But for a moment the cord cutting into Simon'sthroat let up just a bit.
He heard voices all around him. The others knew what was happening. Theystumbled about, but they could not see to reach him. He felt himselfbeing dragged backward, pulled away from his comrades. The cord wasdigging into his windpipe harder and harder. In a moment his mind wouldgo black. He would not even know when he died. He fought his terror,knowing that if he yielded to it, he would surely die.
He _would_ live. He _would_ see Sophia again.
He tried to lean forward, to bend his knees, to find some purchase onthe stone for his iron-shod feet. Still, the attacker pulled him. Simonfelt he had only a child's strength compared to the man in black.
Dizzily Simon remembered tug-of-war games when he had been a page at theroyal palace.
_When one side lets go, everyone on the other side falls down._
With his last bit of consciousness, Simon squeezed his whole body into acrouch, then sprang up and backward, like a bow released.
His mail-clad weight and the attacker's momentum threw them bothbackward. They crashed together against shelving, and Simon heardporcelain shatter. Clouds of ground spices enveloped them, and they fellsideways to the floor, Simon on top of his attacker.
He heard a gasp as the man's breath was knocked out of him. And now _he_could breathe. He choked on air saturated with cinnamon and curry, butthe cord was loose.
The fall had knocked his scimitar out of his hand. Anguished, he feltfor it, but it was as if it had fallen into a well.
"Simon! Where are you?" Friar Mathieu shouted.
"Ah! Ah!" Simon let his breath out and sucked it in, gasping. He wantedto cry for help, but he could not use his voice. His body shook withterror.
And he felt the body under him moving with swift and terrible power. Thecord snapped tight again.
But not before Simon got his right hand under it. The killer gave avicious jerk on the thin cord, and it felt as if it might slice throughhis fingers. But Simon pushed against it with all the strength in hisright arm, and loosened the cord enough to be able to pull air into histhroat. He worked his other hand under it.
His shout burst from his throat. "M'aidez! Help me! Here! Here!"
Boots pounded toward him. He felt men around him. He heard them coughingand sneezing from the spices that filled the air. A sword poked himthrough his mail.
"Under me! Stab! Stab! You cannot hurt me!"
The cord went lax. The attacker had let go of it. Simon drew airfrantically through his tortured windpipe.
Before he could get to his feet, an arm, hard as if clad in mail,whipped around his neck, clamping him to his enemy. He felt the edge ofa dagger at his throat.
Simon could hear the devil's breathing right by his ear. Frantic, hejerked his head forward and drove it back, ramming the back of his headinto his attacker's face, slamming the enemy's head against the stonefloor. Simon felt stunned, but the other must have been stunned, too. Heheard a whispered gasp.
_How can the devil be so silent?_
He heard men speaking above him and feet shuffling around him, butdespite his command, no swords were jabbing downward. They were afraidof stabbing him, even though he was wearing mail.
He arched his body and brought all his mailed weight down hard. He feltthe edge of the enemy's dagger scrape across the chain around his neck.A bolt of terror shot through him. If not for that medallion, he wouldbe bleeding to death right now. Simon thrust his steel-encased elbowsinto his enemy's ribs. The gasp was louder this time, and with a violentheave he freed himself.
He twisted over, arms reaching to wrap around his enemy.
_I have to pin him down. I cannot let him get loose in this room again._
But the knees below him drew up and the feet kicked against him,throwing him back.
"Right in front of me!" Simon cried. "Get him!" And then he realizeddespai
ringly that none of the armed men on his side could understandhim.
And no one, it seemed, had flint and steel to strike a light. He knew hewas carrying none. Such a simple thing, yet tonight its lack might behis death.
His foot kicked something that rang against the stone floor. His sword.He swooped down on it, seized it, and thrust blindly straight ahead. Thepoint struck a stone wall, and he felt the blade bend. He checked histhrust just in time to keep the scimitar from breaking.
He heard a movement to his left and stabbed again. Again he struck blankstone.
_The devil is somewhere in this part of the room._
"The door!" Simon shouted. "Mathieu, get the door open."
He heard the iron bolt shoved back, the creak of hinges, the scrape of abody being pushed aside.
But the blackness remained absolute.
_He must have put out the candle in the cellar before he broke in here._
Simon heard running footsteps outside the spice pantry. Sandals slappingup wooden stairs. The creaking of the trapdoor at the top of the cellarsteps. And then there was light. Gray, faint, but after what seemed likehours spent in utter darkness, it was as if the sun had suddenly risen.
_God bless you, Mathieu._
Scimitar at the ready, Simon swept the room with his gaze.
A shadowy figure stood halfway along one of the side walls, holdingsomething out before him in both hands. A miniature crossbow, avicious-looking thing. Simon turned to see where it was pointed.
He saw John Chagan on the other side of the pantry facing the killer.
He heard a snap.
But Grigor, the Armenian who had been hurt outside the spice pantry, hadstepped between John and the crossbow, and he took the bolt in hisleather cuirass. Simon felt his mind moving much more slowly than thingswere happening, trying to grasp it all.
Grigor's eyes opened wide. Perhaps, Simon thought, he had expected thata bolt from such a little bow would merely bounce off his hardenedleather armor. Or perhaps he knew that it would kill him.
In the semidarkness Simon could not see the hole in the cuirass, butGrigor's hand went to his chest, and then he toppled over.
The Tartar Philip had picked up a bow from the floor, and so had theother Armenian. Both raised their weapons toward the man in black.
_Now we have him cornered and in a moment I will rip off his mask andknow who he is._
The stalker's black-gloved hand flashed upward and he threw a tiny,round object into the pile of broken wooden shelves on the floor. A roardeafened Simon, and a blaze of white flame blinded him. The woodenshelves were afire, the flames feeding on the powdered spices thatfloated in the air. Heat seared Simon's face.
_Death of God! He truly is a devil!_
By the time Simon and the others had recovered from the burst of fire,the enemy was out the door and running for the cellar stairs. Simoncried out wordlessly in frustrated rage. He must not get away, not afterall he had done to them.
As the man in black reached the foot of the stairs, Philip stepped intothe doorway, drew his bow as calmly and carefully as if he were hunting,and loosed an arrow. The man in black jerked to a stop. Simon could seethe shaft of the arrow protruding from his right thigh.
The man reached down and with a sudden movement snapped away the arrowshaft. He drew a dagger with a strange blade that did not gleam; it wasdead black. He raced on up the stairs, limping, but with inhumanstrength and speed. Two more arrows flew at him, but missed, clatteringagainst the cellar walls.
Friar Mathieu stood at the top of the stairs. He held his arms out, alit white candle in one hand, blocking the stalker's path. The man cameat him with the dagger.
"No!" Simon screamed.
With a sweep of his arm the man in black threw Friar Mathieu down fromthe banisterless stairs. The old priest fell six feet to the cellarfloor, struck with a loud, sickening thump, and lay there, still.
And the enemy was gone.
By the time Simon and the others had climbed up to the kitchen, the manin black had vanished into the maze of dark rooms on the first floor ofthe palace.
Simon, wild with rage and grief, forced himself to think. He was alive,God be thanked, and he had saved the Tartars, but just for this moment.The man in black, seemingly routed, might renew his attack at any time.
_And Friar Mathieu. Dear God, don't let him be dead!_
What was the creature Simon had fought in the darkness? Christian?Saracen? Or, as his most frightening imaginings hinted, a being fromhell itself?
Clearly it was not some Filippeschi bravo who had somehow broken throughthe palace's defenses. Simon's inspiration on the battlements had beenright; the Filippeschi attack had been only a diversion.
If a demon of this sort opposed the alliance, Simon felt more than everdetermined that the alliance must succeed. This was the hidden enemywhose presence he had sensed since coming to Orvieto. The forcedetermined to prevent the alliance of Christians and Tartars. The onewho had incited Orvieto's people against the Tartars when they firstcame. Who had set that poor devil of a heretic to draw his daggeragainst them in the cathedral. Alain's murderer. Stalker. Enemy. Killer.Devil.
Hatred blazed up within Simon.
If only he could have killed the man in black or caught him before heescaped. Now he must guard against an enemy as evil as Satan. An enemypowerful enough to throw an army against a fortified palace, subtleenough to reach into an impregnable chamber and strike at his intendedvictims. A being whose strength and skills made him seem more thanhuman. Cruel and pitiless, ready to murder anyone who stood in his way.
It was as certain as the judgment of God that they would fight again.This was war to the death.
To be concluded in THE HOLY WAR Book Two of THE SARACEN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert Shea has given his full time to writing novels since 1977. He isthe co-author of the science-fiction novel ILLUMINATUS!, which won theHall of Fame Award of the Libertarian Futurist Society and was producedas a play in the United States and in Europe. His historical novels areSHIKE, set in medieval Japan, and ALL THINGS ARE LIGHTS, which, like THESARACEN, takes place in the era of the Crusades. He was a magazineeditor for twenty years and is also a prolific magazine writer. He liveswith his wife and son near Chicago.
IN THE SWEEPING FIRES OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY, A BOLD NEW WORLD IS FORGED....
Into the furious whirlwind of war set off by the bloody Crusades, one man dares to step. His legacy belongs to the Mamelukes, legendary warrior-slaves of Egypt. His arsenal consists of no more than a sword and a bag of jewels. His mission is to enter Europe's powerful and treacherous realms of king and pope, conspirator and courtesan--and to single-handedly turn the tide of battle between continent and continent.
The man is the one they call the White Emir, the blond assassin and spy skilled in combat and sorcery, who moves adeptly and lethally through the worlds of both East and West. Against him stands Simon de Gobignon, a proud, young nobleman from one of the great--and accursed--houses of France. Each fights gallantly and desperately for the civilization he serves--and for the love of the ravishing Sophia, whose powerful erotic allure no other mortal woman can surpass, and no man alive can resist.
