covered and put to death. You
must learn to separate your mind from your body so that what harms your
body will not affect your mind._

Daoud raised the cup, wondering if he would have as much power over wine
drunk in the land of the infidel as he did when he drank it with his
teacher. He sipped. The red liquid was thick and bitter and burned his
mouth, but he made himself smile, sigh appreciatively, and sip again. He
kept God at the center of his thoughts.

Celino was watching him closely. Raising his cup in salute, he also
drank.

"Good, good. Now eat. Fresh roasted. Pork."

Daoud's fingers, poised over the meat, stopped short. Already made ill
by hunger, by the vile odor of the room in which he had been confined,
and by the wine that made his stomach churn, he felt himself on the
point of vomiting. For nearly twenty years the prohibition against
eating the flesh of pigs had been impressed upon him until the very
thought of pork made him sick. He knew he should have prepared himself
by eating it before he left El Kahira, but he had never found time for
that. So now, a prisoner of the enemy, he faced for the first time the
test of pork.

Celino was watching him with a half smile.

_He would not test me with wine and pig's meat unless he suspected I am
a Muslim._

Daoud's fingers grasped a slice of the hot meat. He tore it in half,
using both his clean right hand and his unclean left as a non-Muslim
would.

He stuffed a slice of pork into his mouth. It had smelled good until he
found out what it was. Now it seemed slimy and tasteless. His stomach
clenched, but he held himself rigid, expressionless. He started to chew,
and found that his mouth was dry. His life might depend on his giving a
convincing imitation of pleasure. He chewed the meat to fragments and,
as though savoring it, swallowed the abomination crumb by crumb.

He realized he was still holding the other scrap of pork in his left
hand. To give himself a respite, he tossed it to the flagstone floor
before Lorenzo's hound.

Unclean to the unclean, he thought.

Scipio looked at Daoud with an almost human look of surprise, then bent
to devour the meat.

"Friday, Scipio," said Celino sharply. "You are forbidden meat."

The dog looked sadly up at Celino, licked its chops, and sat back on its
haunches, leaving the meat untouched. In spite of his predicament, Daoud
laughed.

"You see?" said Celino. "Even a dog can learn to obey the commandments."