bably never seen a battle, much less
fought in one. And yet, knowing not what war is, you try to bring
together the Tartar hordes and your crusader knights that they may lay
waste my country, kill my people, and stamp out my faith._

Recalling how he and de Gobignon had faced each other at the pope's
council, Daoud once again felt rage boil up within him and wondered why
he hated the young nobleman so. Was it because he intended to use
Sophia to spy on de Gobignon and corrupt him, and that she must bed with
him? But that was her work, Daoud tried to tell himself, just as warfare
was his.

But was this warfare? To pander to a fat friar's yearning for an old
book? To send a lovely woman to the bed of a spoiled young nobleman? To
incite a poor fool, maddened by God, into getting himself tortured to
death? Daoud wished he could fight openly--draw his sword and challenge
de Gobignon. To drive him to his knees, to cut him down, to strike and
strike for the people he loved and for God.

_To kill him before all, as I did to Kassar._

Daoud, like de Gobignon, was alone. Lorenzo dared not come; the
condemned man might recognize him and call out to him. Daoud would never
bring Sophia to witness such a sight, even though there were many women,
and even children, in the crowd.

The previous night Tilia had told him that she had rented for the day a
house overlooking the piazza, from which some important patrons would
enhance their pleasure with Tilia's women by watching the pain of the
heretic. Daoud looked around at the colonnaded facades of the palaces
around the square, wondering which were the windows through which
Tilia's depraved clients watched.

A howl went up from the crowd in the square, the people around Daoud
shouting so loudly as to deafen him. He saw a cage made of wooden poles
rocking into the piazza. People cheered and laughed. Two executioners in
blood-red tunics, their heads and faces covered with red hoods, stood on
either side of the cage, each man holding in his hands a pair of
long-handled pincers. Standing on tiptoe, Daoud saw on the platform of
the cart a black iron dish from which ribbons of gray smoke arose.

The prisoner, squatting in the cage, was silent for the moment. Even at
this distance Daoud could see his shoulders shaking spasmodically with
his panting. He was naked, and all over his flesh were bleeding,
blackened wounds.

The executioners thrust the ends of their pincers into the coals an