is face
expressionless.

"I should have been concerned for the lovely lady, except that she is
obviously so healthy and serene. Much more serene, I believe, than when
she first came here. What do you suppose accounts for that?"

Daoud shrugged. "In silence is security from error."

"Is that a saying of one of your Muslim philosophers?"

"Yes," said Daoud, allowing himself the faintest of smiles. "The
Princess Sheherazade."

* * * * *

The sun had set by the time Daoud left Cardinal Ugolini, and the
third-floor corridor was nearly dark. Servants had placed small candles
on tables at each end of the corridor. Daoud had allowed himself a cup
of wine with the cardinal because there was nothing else to drink, and
now his face felt slightly numb.

A large figure walked slowly toward him from the opposite end of the
corridor as he approached his room. With the candlelight behind him, the
man's face was in darkness, and Daoud tensed himself.

"Messer David, it is Riccardo."

Now they stood face-to-face, Daoud having to look up a little.

"I searched everywhere. Questioned everyone I know. I would stake my
life that Sordello is not in Orvieto. He went out the Perugia gate after
talking to Madonna Sophia. I do not think he ever came back."

Dismissing Riccardo, Daoud went into his room to think and to pray. He
felt baffled. He would have staked _his_ life that no man bound by the
powers of the Hashishiyya would ever turn against the one who showed him
the delights of paradise.

_But I did threaten him with death, and he saw that I wanted to kill
him. That might have been enough to break the bond._

_And I did wonder, even when I initiated him, whether there might not be
some part of him that remained free._

Daoud bolted the door of his room. He needed to be alone, to think and
to refresh his mind.

He faced the charcoal-marked spot on his wall that marked the direction
of Mecca and, with care and thought, went through the sequence of the
salat, standing, bowing, kneeling, striking his head on the floor again
and again until he was done. He asked God, as he did every night, to
favor his efforts here in Italy with success, out of His love for the
people of Islam.

_I place all in Your hands._

After he was finished praying, he unlocked his traveling chest and began
to take things from it. First came a small grinder box he had bought
from an Orvieto ironsmith, a grinder such as w