stay. Even now, with over five hundred florins, more money than she had
ever had in her life, she was alone. She knew how to travel; she had
traveled for two years with Angelo. But she also knew the terrors and
dangers of the road, dangers that ultimately had killed Angelo.

The best she could hope for was to endure this life for a year or two,
get what she could from it, let it make her rich. When she did leave,
she would have enough money to hire guards to accompany her. She would
make up an elaborate story about her past. She would go where no one
knew her, Sicily perhaps, and begin a new life as a wealthy woman,
venturing into banking or trading for herself.

The hope of a wealthy new life--that was the raft that would bear her up
when she felt she must drown in sorrow.

XXVII

Daoud's tired eyes burned. He shut them, as he entered his bedchamber,
against the bright light coming through the white window glass. But,
tired as he was, sleep did not come. Perhaps he was too tired.

He had missed the proper time for morning prayer, but he poured water
into a basin and washed his hands and face, then turned toward the risen
sun and humbly addressed God, first bowing, then kneeling, then striking
his forehead on the carpet.

_When I pray, I am at home no matter where I am._

After praying, he pushed open the iron casement with its diamond-shaped
glass panels to let in air and then pulled the green velvet curtains
across the window to shut out light.

He moved now in a cool dimness, as if underwater. He must rest, to be
strong for the next battle.

Crossing the room to his sleeping mattress, which lay on the floor
Egyptian-fashion, he stripped off his sweat-soaked tunic and threw it
down. He unbuckled his belt and laid it carefully on the mattress. Then
he kicked off his boots and dropped his hose and his loincloth. He
splashed water over his body and felt cleaner and cooler.

There was another way to be home. He had been waiting for the first time
he could feel he had triumphed. He knew all too well what that way could
do to a man in the aftermath of defeat--sharpen his misery till he could
ease the pain only by destroying himself.

But last night he had unmasked the Tartars before all the great ones of
Orvieto, and he had survived a street encounter with bravos who intended
to kill him. And so this morning he could allow himself this.

He had brought a cup of kaviyeh from Ugolini's room. He set it o