reat
families, the Monaldeschi and the Filippeschi. Since the Tartar
emissaries are guests of the Monaldeschi, I hope to make friends
with the Filippeschi.

* * * * *

Seated at a table in his little room at Cardinal Ugolini's, Daoud made
two copies of his letter to Baibars on small sheets of parchment scraped
so thin as to be almost transparent. He had written the letters in a
code using the Arabian system of numbers. Even if the message suffered
the unlikely fate of being intercepted and finding its way to one of the
few Arabic-reading Christians, it would remain an enigma.

Daoud rolled up the two letters tightly and put them in the leather
scrip at his belt. He stepped out of his room into a narrow corridor.
Doors on his right opened into rooms for Ugolini's guests and
high-ranking members of his staff. On his left, oiled-parchment windows
let light into the corridor from the atrium of the mansion.

Ugolini's cabinet, his private workroom, was at the end of the corridor,
where it turned a corner. Daoud walked up to the heavy oaken door and
raised his fist to knock.

He felt light-headed, as he did when going into combat. This was combat
of a kind. He had been a guest in Ugolini's mansion for over two weeks
now, and he had already, he thought, hurt the Tartars' prospects for an
alliance with the Christians. But he needed to do much more, with help
from Ugolini. The cardinal, Daoud knew, would be absolutely terrified at
the thought of his Muslim guest appearing before the pope.

And to appear before the pope, with the cardinal presenting him, was
precisely what Daoud wanted to do.

He knocked on the cabinet door.

To the muffled query from within he answered, "It is David."

He heard a bolt slide back, and he entered the cabinet. Cardinal Ugolini
returned to the high-backed chair at his worktable, which was strewn
with leather-bound books and parchment scrolls. In the middle of the
table lay a large, circular brass instrument Daoud recognized as an
astrolabe. On shelves behind the cardinal, besides many more books and
papers, were a stuffed falcon, a stuffed owl, and a human skull with a
strange diagram painted on the cranium. Windows of translucent white
glass in two walls let in an abundance of light. A good place to work,
thought Daoud.

"I hope I do not disturb you, Your Eminence," said Daoud.

"Not at all, David," said the cardinal. "It is very necessary tha