He began the salat, bringing his hands up to the sides of his head and saying, "Allahu akbar, God is great." He repeated his prayers, the bowing, the kneeling, the prostrations, with great care and full attention. With his forehead pressed to the rug, he submitted himself and this day utterly to the will of God. Finished, he looked over at Sophia. She was still sitting on the edge of the bed, watching him silently. He looked long at her, drinking her in. It weighed heavily on his heart that he had to leave her, and even more heavily that she would be terribly frightened for him until he came back. As he feared for her. _Compassionate God, Cherisher of Worlds, protect her._ He began to dress for battle. Husain had spread out his armor and weapons on top of his traveling chest. Daoud's breastplate was made of many rectangular pieces of steel laced together with leather thongs and overlapping each other. Two larger plates, side by side, were attached over his heart, inlaid with the spiraling gold design that marked him a member of the halkha, the sultan's personal guard. Worked into the design were verses from the Koran. On the left plate, "He succeeds who purifies the soul," and on the right, "And he fails who corrupts it." The breastplate was divided at the sides, where it could be strapped together. Baibars himself, after Daoud returned to Manfred, had arranged for a bribed Genoese sea captain to smuggle it to him. Daoud was proud of it, and the men of the Sons of the Falcon would be proud to see their leader wearing it. He pulled on a quilted tunic of embroidered red silk, its padding stuffed with linen. Then he dropped the breastplate over his head. He heard a movement behind him, and then felt Sophia fastening the breastplate at his sides. The storehouse of Manfred's Muslim armorers offered blades of the finest Hindustan steel, and from it Daoud had selected a saif for himself. It gleamed in the candlelight as he drew it from its sheath. He examined with pleasure the gold inlay near the hilt. There was not a nick or a scratch anywhere on the blade. He took a heavy silk scarf from the clothing on the table and tossed it in the air. He held the blade under it, edge up. The scarf fell on the blade and then dropped to the floor in two parts. He sheathed the sword and buckled it on. He put on his bayda, his egg-shaped helmet, and wrapped the silk of his turban around and around it, and when it was properly tied, pinned it with an emerald clasp. "Someday you must do that slowly for me, so I can learn how to wrap your turban," said Sophia. "I would like to do that for you." A pang of sorrow for her struck his heart as he realized she was speaking of their future together to convince herself that there would be one. He wished he could free her from fear. While he dressed, she had quietly been dressing, too, in a long blue gown and a fiery orange woolen mantle.