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. From
his hiding place Daoud caught just a glimpse of the Tartars, both
sitting with sheathed swords in their laps, their two guards standing in
front of them. Their refuge appeared to be lit by a single lantern.

Daoud was perhaps only twelve paces from the doorway, but the cellar was
mostly in darkness, and he was dressed entirely in black, his head
covered with a tight black hood, his face masked. For ease and silence
of movement he wore no mail. The garb of a fedawi, a Hashishiyya
fighter.

With gestures de Gobignon ordered his two Armenians to stand guard
outside 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 side
of the door, which closed behind Gobignon and the old priest. Daoud
heard a bolt slide shut with a clank.

Baffled, he bit his lower lip. What demon had inspired de Gobignon to
come 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 to
fight the two Armenians outside. That would alert those inside, and the
door was bolted from within. He took deep breaths to clear his head of
frustration.

He would have to change his plan of attack.

* * * * *

To get into the Monaldeschi palace he had used a peasant's cloak and
high boots like those he had worn last summer when he'd landed at
Manfredonia. It had been an easy matter paying a few silver denari to a
farmer and then helping with the loading and unloading of sacks of rice
being delivered to the Monaldeschi. Once inside the palace courtyard it
had been the work of a moment to slip away from the carts and hide
himself in the maze of dark rooms on the ground floor of the palace.
There he had shed the peasant costume, leaving his black Hashishiyya
garb, 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 with
that cartload of rice left him shocked and uneasy. The Monaldeschi were
preparing for a siege. He had seen screens against fire arrows being set
up on the roof and householders in the neighborhood locking their doors
and fleeing.

Someone had warned the Monaldeschi. When the Filippeschi came tonight,
their hereditary enemies would be rea