as lying on something soft.

Kneeling on his left side, de Gobignon said, "I am sorry I hurt you. I
folded my cloak and put it under you to try to make you more
comfortable."

"Thank you. I feel better now."

"Are you really a--Muslim? Can you talk, or is it too painful?"

"I can talk."

"I would be glad to know who and what you really are."

"And I will gladly tell you." Daoud began to feel death creeping through
his limbs. The pain was sealed off, but he sensed the lower cavities of
his body filling up with blood. The crossbow bolt should have gone right
through him, but the rear half of his breastplate must have stopped it.

Fear began to rise in him again. Fear, and a desolating sorrow. Never to
see Sophia again. Never to do even the simplest things, get up and walk,
see, breathe. It was more than he could bear.

He fought to find his balance.

_I cannot save myself from dying. But I can decide how I will use these
last moments of life._

He wanted to tell this man, who had been his greatest enemy all along,
how he had tricked him and how close he had come to thwarting their
grand design of an alliance of Christians and Tartars to destroy Islam.
It would make up, in a small way, for all today's defeats. For himself,
that was all he wanted now. Very soon now, he would go up to paradise.

But Sophia and Lorenzo, Ugolini and Tilia, would have to struggle on in
this world after he was gone. He must protect them.

"Tell me," Simon prompted.

"My father was the Sire Geoffrey Langmuir of Ascalon," he began. "My
mother was Lady Evelyn." He told de Gobignon of his capture by the army
of Egypt, his rearing as a Mameluke in a barracks on the Nile. He tried
to explain what a Mameluke was, and what code he lived by. He told of
his acceptance of Islam, his first battles.

As he spoke, his eyes wandered, and he saw the red sun half hidden by
the wooded western hills. He felt the air growing colder, and he
shivered. The chill was not in the air alone. His arms and legs were
numb, as if they were freezing.

"Give me your cloak, Valery," de Gobignon said, and in a moment a red
cloak was being spread over him.

"You were at Mansura, where my father fought," de Gobignon said.

"It was a great victory for Islam," said Daoud. "I saw only a little
fighting. I was very young." He told how Baibars had entrusted him with
more and more important tasks, even with the killing of Qutuz. And how
at last, having trained and sh