"I am my lord's slave. I shall tell it to you as it happened to me." She settled herself on the cushion. "I first met Daoud ibn Abdallah in the hills outside Orvieto on an afternoon in late summer, three years ago--" Tilia stopped her tale twice, so that she and Baibars could pray when the muezzins called the faithful to prayer at Maghrib, after the red of sunset had left the sky, and again at 'Isha, when it was dark enough that a white thread could not be told from a black thread. After the final prayer of the day, a servant brought an oil lamp. Baibars waved the lamp away, then called the servant back and asked for kaviyeh. Tilia drank the sweet, strong kaviyeh of El Kahira with Baibars and devoured a tray of sticky sweets, and then went on with her story. By the time she was finished, the moon had risen above the courtyard. She sat back and looked at the Victorious King. "He was to me like my firstborn son." Baibars took a dagger from his sash, held open his shimmering silk kaftan, a costly robe of honor, and slashed a great rent in it. Tilia wondered what to say. How could she comfort him? _Comfort him? How can anyone offer comfort to a man like Baibars?_ "We are Mamelukes," he said. "Slaves. We are slaves of God. We are His instruments. His weapons. I shaped Daoud to be a fine weapon against the enemies of the faith. And it is even as this Simon de Gobignon told the Greek woman Sophia--Daoud succeeded. Abagha Khan still seeks an alliance with the Christians, as his father Hulagu did. But many Tartars have already converted to Islam, and the next Tartar khan of Persia may be a Muslim. I am working to make that possibility a certainty. As for the Christians, my informant at the court of Charles d'Anjou, a certain dwarf named Erculio, tells me that now Charles desires to extend his empire across the Middle Sea into Africa. King Louis is already gathering ships and men for a crusade. But Charles is trying to divert Louis's crusade to Tunisia, which would make it harmless to us. He is a very persuasive man, and I think he will succeed. Truly, this Charles is God's gift to me. He does just what I want. And I do not have to pay him." Tilia heard no mirth in Baibars's deep laughter. "And so," Baibars said, "Daoud has won for us the time we needed and changed the fate of nations. And he will be avenged." "I do not think he would feel a need to be avenged, my lord. He would be happy just to know that he saved his people from destruction." Baibars nodded. "True. But I, too, am a sword in the hands of God. And if it pleases God to wield me, then in a generation there will not be a crusader left anywhere on the sacred soil of al-Islam. That will be Daoud's vengeance and his monument. Hear me, O God."