that was needed was for Celino to drop a word here and a
coin there. Many people believe the Tartars are demons from hell.
Perhaps they are. Anyway, I think we have turned the people of Orvieto
against the Tartars."

"You are like a child playing with flint and tinder in a barn full of
straw," said Ugolini, blinking his eyes rapidly.

_He must be prodded into action_, Daoud thought. _Tilia said the idea of
my appearing before the pope would terrify him. We must settle that
today._

Daoud walked to one of the four mullioned windows. The casements swung
inward for air. Looking down through the iron bars on the outside of the
window, Daoud regarded the street where the Tartars had passed. The
pottery maker across the road had washed away the bloodstains and was
sitting in front of his shop displaying his brightly colored wares.

What would move this man Ugolini--money, threats, the promise of
personal power?

He turned back and made himself smile.

"You do not want me here, Your Eminence."

Ugolini looked at him for a long moment, and finally said, "For over a
dozen years Baibars has been a far-off figure who sends me small rewards
in return for scraps of harmless information. Now, suddenly, his agent
is in my home, demanding that I, the cardinal camerlengo of the Sacred
College, risk death by torture to deceive the pope and betray the
Church. In a week or two in the cathedral piazza, they will do horrible
things to that poor mad heretic. But his sufferings will not be the
tenth part of what they will do to me--and to you--if we are found out."

Daoud bowed his head. "The sooner I complete my work, the sooner I am
gone."

While he let that sink in, he decided that with his next words he would
pit his boldness against Ugolini's timidity.

"So, you must present me to the pope as soon as possible."

Ugolini's eyes grew wide and his mouth trembled. His stare, with his
sharp nose, tiny chin, and trembling whiskers, gave him the look of a
jerboa, one of those desert rats that Daoud had hunted with hawks in
Palestine.

"Tilia told me you had some such mad notion," said the cardinal. "If you
speak to the pope and his court, every important man in Orvieto will
see you. If you make the slightest slip that could reveal what you
really are, they will be on you like hounds on a fox." He laughed
nervously. "No, no, no, no. I might as well take you to de Verceuil and
say, 'Here is the enemy you are looking for. Behold, a M