His body felt cold as death, and he hesitated. As he did so, Kassar turned his head, and Daoud saw consciousness struggling to return to his glazed eyes. This was Daoud's last chance to avenge Nicetas. He heard a distant roar of command from the naqeeb Mahmoud, but he ignored it. He brought the mallet down with all his strength on the Kipchaq's glistening black hair. The shock of the contact ran up his arm and into his shoulder. Kassar started to fall. Daoud struck again with the mallet. Kassar pitched from his pony's back. As he struck the ground, Daoud smashed the mallet into his head a third time, just as if he were hitting a ball. He tried to hit hard enough to knock Kassar's head right off his neck. Daoud saw the head suddenly distorted, flattening, and knew the skull was crushed. Kassar lay on the ground on his back, only the whites of his eyes showing, his mouth hanging open. Dust half obscured his body. Daoud heard shouts from the bystanders, but he paid no attention to what they were saying. He saw riders, the other players, racing toward him. A silence fell on the playing field. "Get down from your horse." It was Mahmoud, who had run out into the field on foot. As Daoud and Mahmoud walked across the field, the naqeeb said, "You will answer to El Malik Qutuz and to Emir Baibars for this. Fool, whatever your quarrel was, could you not have settled it in private? Have you forgotten that Baibars is a Kipchaq? He will not forgive you." Despite his joy at seeing Nicetas's murderer dead, Daoud now felt terror clutching his throat as he approached the two seated figures in their splendid robes at the side of the field. Now that the deed was done and could not be undone, he dreaded facing these two mighty judges. _Baibars is a Kipchaq, but it was Baibars who bought me for the Mamelukes_, Daoud thought. _I wonder which will mean more to him this day._ Baibars and Qutuz sat side by side on cushions in the shade of a silken canopy. Baibars wore an egret's plume, symbol of valor, on his green turban. His wide, harsh mouth was tight under the red mustache, his good eye as empty of feeling as the blind one that was crossed by a vertical saber scar. _Beneficent God, if I must die for what I have done, let it be a quick and clean death. And then I will join Nicetas._ El Malik al-Mudhaffar Qutuz, Sultan of El Kahira, a Mameluke of a Kurdish tribe, was somewhat older than Baibars. His face was criss-crossed with tiny wrinkles. His beard, greased so that it jutted like the prow of a galley, was such a flat black that it must surely be dyed. He wore a large black turban and full black robes with gold embroidery. Daoud fell to his knees and prostrated himself before the sultan. "Get up and take off your cap," said Qutuz without preliminary. Daoud rose to his feet, lifting his cap from his head. "Look at that blond hair," said Qutuz wonderingly. "I thought he had the look of a Frank about him, Bunduqdari."