were large and heavy. They had
to be, to drive a wooden ball half the size of a man's head.

Slaves had pulled perforated water barrels in carts over the field to
lay the dust. Baibars and the sultan and the highest-ranking emirs
seated themselves on cushions in an open pavilion facing the center of
the field.

Daoud's teammates chattered excitedly. They loved mall, and to play
before the sultan was a special honor. Kassar, the captain of their
team, boasted that he would make ten goals that day. Theirs was to be
the second match.

Hefting his mallet, Daoud watched the first match, also between two
teams of fifth-year trainees. Each team of eight riders tried to drive
the wooden ball between a pair of stone pillars painted with red and
yellow stripes, defended by the other team. With every crack of a mallet
against the ball, a roar went up from the watching Mamelukes.

A judge with an hourglass called time halfway through the match, to let
the field be watered again and the teams change ponies. By the end of
the match, the dust was so thick Daoud could not see who had won. But he
did not care. He felt utterly calm. He was past anger and past fear. He
thought only of watching for the right moment.

Now it was time for their team.

Kassar, Daoud, and the other six riders lined up on the east side of the
field, the eight members of the troop they were playing against forming
on the other side.

The judge set the wooden ball, yellow with a bright red stripe around
its middle, in the center of the field. The sultan held out a blue silk
scarf and dropped it. Kassar and the captain of the other team raced at
the ball from opposite goals, screaming their war cries. Kassar whirled
his mallet over his head, and his pony's legs were a blur in the dust.
He reached the ball an instant before his opponent. His mallet slammed
into the ball with a crack like the splitting of a board, and the ball
flew halfway toward the enemy goal.

The ball was in play, and now the other riders could join in.

_You will make not even one goal today, Kassar_, Daoud thought as he
galloped across the field with his team.

The players on the other side were trying to hit the ball away from
their goal. Kassar had ridden into their midst, his pony nimbly
following the ball. He held his mallet low to hit through the legs of
the opposing team's ponies. Two of the opponents had stayed back by
their goalposts to deflect the ball should Kassar hit it