Qutuz laughed harshly. "Your faith in your master is touching, but I will have your head carried before me on a spear when I ride back to Egypt. He cannot save you from that." "I would rather die for my khan than be like you, one who rose to power by murdering his rightful lord!" Ket Bogha cried. Baibars smiled wryly as he repeated the Tartar's words in Arabic. Qutuz went white with fury. "Take him away and cut his head off," he ordered. "And you, Baibars, how dare you repeat such a slander to me? I never murdered anyone." Qutuz's command revolted Daoud. After the poor part the sultan had played in the battle, he had no right to take the head of a brave enemy. Daoud heard Baibars give a little snort of disgust, and the emir strode to Qutuz's side. Baibars spoke in a low voice, but Daoud heard him. "My Lord, this is not worthy of a sultan in his hour of victory. This is a brave commander, and I repeated all that he said because you wished me to." Qutuz glared wildly at Baibars. "Be still! I will not spare your fellow Tartar." Qutuz, Daoud thought with smoldering wrath, was not worthy to be sultan. Baibars turned his back on Qutuz. The brown face was impassive, but in the one blue eye Daoud saw death. XXIII The rats scavenged in the garbage and the cats hunted the rats. And cats and rats scurried out of the way of the two men who staggered beneath a waning moon through the streets of Orvieto. "I was truly drunk," said Daoud. "But only my body was drunk. It is still drunk." He walked with one arm thrown over Lorenzo's shoulder to steady his steps. It must have rained during the evening. The streets were slippery, and the clean, vaporous scent of drying rain was stronger than the usual odor of rotting rubbish piled between the houses in the spaces the Orvietans called quintane. "You feign the extremity of drunkenness quite well," said Lorenzo. They had met by prearrangement on the street outside the Monaldeschi palace. Sophia and Cardinal Ugolini left earlier and separately, carried in sedan chairs and escorted by the cardinal's guards. "What hour is it?" Daoud asked. "Past the third nocturn. Do you know what that means?" "It was explained to me once, but now my memory seems to be drunk." "Simply, dawn is not far off," said Celino. "The third nocturn is between midnight and dawn. The contessa's reception began at the first nocturn, between sunset and midnight. Tell me, did you never experience wine in Egypt?" Daoud decided that, much as he liked Lorenzo, he did not want to confide any of Saadi's most secret teachings to an atheist. "Many times we stayed up all night, drinking kaviyeh, talking and watching the dancers. But we do not drink wine." "Really?" said Lorenzo, glancing at him. "Permit me to be skeptical. I know many Muslims who drink wine."