. Manfred plucked a freshly baked cherry
tart from a tray, bit into it, and nodded to the bowing cook.

To his surprise, Daoud noticed a small figure in one corner, the little
bent man who had earlier looked on him with pity. The dwarf lay curled
up on his side with closed eyes on his empty firewood cart. Not a bad
occupation, Daoud thought, supplying firewood to the king's pastry
kitchen.

Beyond the kitchen the three men entered another great hall, so brightly
lit that Daoud's eyes hurt for a moment. The afternoon sun streamed
through arched windows of white glass set, as in the Hall of Mars, high
in the walls. The walls were lined with shelves loaded with books and
compartments filled with scrolls. Walkways at three levels ran around
the walls, and ladders were spaced along them. Men in long gray tunics
browsed at the shelves or sat at tables in the center of the room
reading books and scrolls and making notes on parchment.

A servant opened a wrought-iron grill in the shortest wall of the
library, and the three men stepped out under the sky into an octagonal
space filled with trees and plants, enclosed on all sides by a
colonnaded gallery. In the center of the garden a small fountain played,
topped by a small bronze statue of a naked woman straddling a dolphin,
the water spurting from the dolphin's mouth. Daoud was momentarily
shocked. The most powerful and corrupt emir in Egypt would not dare to
have such a statue where strangers might see it.

Manfred beckoned, and Daoud followed him down a pebble path to the basin
of the fountain. Small dark green fish flickered through the water. The
king seated himself on a marble bench, and the two men stood before him.
At a gesture from Lorenzo, Scipio lay down in the sun beside a bush
bearing dozens of dark-red roses.

The sun gleamed on Manfred's pale hair. "What does your sultan want of
me?" he asked.

"I am ordered to speak openly only to you and your secretary Aziz," said
Daoud, his glance shifting to Lorenzo.

"Ah, you did not know, then, that Aziz is the name Lorenzo Celino uses
when he writes to the Sultan of Cairo for me?"

Lorenzo Celino--Aziz? Daoud turned to Celino and laughed with delighted
surprise.

"You write excellent Arabic. I would never have guessed that you were
not one of us."

Lorenzo accepted Daoud's compliment with a small bow.

"One of _us_?" said Manfred. "And what are you, then, Messere? I see
before me a strapping man, blond enough t