Daoud's heartbeat quickened and he tensed when his turn came to pass. "Come here. Lower your hood," the man said. Walking slowly toward him, Daoud reached up and pushed back his hood. The official raised thick black brows and beckoned to a guard. "If he makes a move you do not like, skewer him." "Yes, Messer Lorenzo." Daoud felt a stiffness in his neck and a knot in his belly. King Manfred's chancellor, Aziz, had written that Daoud would be quietly admitted to the town. The heavyset, black-bearded Muslim soldier took a spear from the boy standing near him and leveled it at Daoud, his face hard. "Now then," said Lorenzo, "give us your sword." This overzealous guard captain, or whatever he was, was paying too much attention to him. But to avoid more attention, he must readily cooperate. He unbuckled his sword belt and held it out. Another Muslim guard took it and stepped beyond Daoud's reach. Messer Lorenzo said, "Open your pack and show me what is in it." "Silk, Your Signory." Daoud shrugged the pack off his shoulders and laid it on the table. He unlaced its flap and drew out a folded length of deep blue silk and then a crimson one. The shiny cloth slid through his long fingers. "I am not a lord," said Lorenzo softly, reaching out to caress the silk. "Do not insult me by addressing me incorrectly." "Yes, Messere." Lorenzo took the pack with both hands and shook it. A shiny circular object a little larger than a man's hand fell out. Lorenzo picked it up and frowned at it. "What is this, a mirror?" "Yes, Messere. Our Trebizond mirrors are famed in Byzantium, Persia, and the Holy Land. I brought this as another sample of what we can offer." "It is a good mirror," Lorenzo agreed. "It shows me my ugly face all too well." Daoud was relieved to see Lorenzo had not guessed the secret of the mirror, that it contained a deadly disk of Hindustan. Thrown properly, the sharp-edged disk would slice into an opponent like a knife. At Lorenzo's command, two of the guards searched Daoud briskly and efficiently. They even made him take off his boots. The fingers of one guard found the chain around Daoud's neck and pulled on it. The locket Daoud had hidden under his tunic came out. "What is that?" Lorenzo growled. A chill ran over Daoud's body. Could Lorenzo possibly guess what the locket was? "A locket with a holy inscription in our Greek language, Messere." "Open it up." With a leaden feeling in his belly Daoud turned a small screw in the hammered silver case. Perhaps he should not have taken the locket with him. What would Lorenzo see when he looked at it? The cover fell open, and he glanced down at the intricate etched lines and curves on the rock-crystal inner face of the locket. When Daoud saw beginning to appear on the crystal the face of a dark-skinned woman with accents of blue-black paint around her eyes, he looked away.