The Saracen: Land of the Infidel Part 16

By the age of eleven Daoud had already known cruelty and evil at the hands of the Turks who had captured him, kindness with Baibars, and goodness with Sheikh Saadi. The Sufi sheikh had never made any claim, but Daoud had no doubt that he often walked and talked with G.o.d.

"Secretly and openly are we to give," the old man was saying. "G.o.d has been generous to us, and we must be generous in turn. When you are kind to a bird or a donkey, or even to an unclean animal like a pig or a dog, He loves you for it. He loves you more when you are kind to a slave or to a woman or to one of the unfortunate, like a cripple or an unbeliever."

"Daoud is both a slave and unbeliever," said Gamal ibn Nasir with a faint sneer. "Must I be kind to him?" Daoud stared at Gamal, burning with hatred, all the more because what he said was true.

Gamal was a slender, olive-skinned boy whom no one dared cross, because he was a grandson of the reigning Sultan of Egypt, Al Salih Ayub. Most of Saadi's students were boys of n.o.ble family, and Daoud knew that he was permitted to enter this circle only because all men feared and respected Baibars. And even though he studied Islam with them because it was Baibars's wish, Daoud remained fil-kharij, an outsider, because he was an unbeliever.

The boys sat in a semicircle, their rectangles of carpet spread over the blue and white tiles of the inner courtyard of the Gray Mosque, where Saadi had been teaching since long before these students were born. The old black man sat with his back to the gray stones of the western wall, the stones that gave the mosque its name. He taught in the late afternoon, when he and the boys could sit in the shade.

"G.o.d is compa.s.sion itself, Gamal," Sheikh Saadi said with a smile, "but even He may find it hard to love a mean spirit." The sultan's grandson blushed angrily, and his eyes fell.

Thinking about the compa.s.sion of G.o.d, Daoud opened his eyes wide as a startling idea occurred to him. But after the insult from Gamal his tongue felt thick in his throat and the palms of his hands went cold at the thought of speaking. He still stumbled over the Arabic tongue in which Sheikh Saadi conducted his lessons.

Saadi looked warmly upon him. "Daoud has a question?"

Daoud stared down at his hands, which seemed very large as they lay in his lap. "Yes, master." Those kindly velvet-black eyes seemed to draw speech out of him. "If G.o.d loves the compa.s.sionate, how can he look with favor upon the warrior, who wounds and kills?"

Saadi's turbaned head lifted. His grizzled beard thrust forward, and his eyes grew round and serious. He looked, Daoud thought, like a thoroughbred steed p.r.i.c.king up his ears to a trumpet call.

"I say to you, Daoud, and to Gamal and to all of you--the work of a warrior is a holy calling. When the Prophet Muhammad, may G.o.d bless and salute him, began to teach, he did not want the believers to be men of the sword. But the pagans beat those who went to hear him, and they would not let him teach. And so he learned that a true man of G.o.d must go forth with the Book in one hand and the sword in the other."

Daoud felt a warm pride in his chest. He was not a despicable slave. He would one day be a warrior, in a way a holy man, like Saadi, who helped spread the teachings of G.o.d.

_But I am an unbeliever._

He listened for the Frankish voices in his mind crying out against the Saracens, against the devilish religion of the one they called Mahound.

But the voices were silent.

A pale boy with a grave face asked, "If G.o.d made man, how can He love one who butchers His creatures?"

Sheikh Saadi raised an admonis.h.i.+ng finger. "The Warrior of G.o.d is no butcher. He strikes with sorrow and compa.s.sion. He hates evil, but he loves his fellow men, even the one he fights against. The Warrior of G.o.d is known, not by his willingness to kill, but by his willingness to die.

He is a man who would give his life for his friends."

Saadi went on to speak of other things, but Daoud's mind remained fixed on the words "Warrior of G.o.d."

Ever since the day the Saracens carried him off, he had lived without a home. He had drunk from gold cups in the palace of Baibars, had seen that a Mameluke might rise to earthly glory. But such rewards fell to only one in a thousand. For the rank and file, the life of a Mameluke was a hard one, often ending in early death.

Lately Baibars had sent him to live with the other Mameluke boys in training on the island of Raudha in the Bhar al-Nil, the river Nile.

Every morning, when he woke to the rapping of the drill master's stick on the wooden wall of his sleeping shed, his first feeling was anguish.

Sometimes he prayed before sleeping that he might not wake up again.

Only when he journeyed twice a week, by boat and on foot, to sit at the feet of Saadi, did he feel any peace.

But what if G.o.d had chosen him to be a Mameluke? Then it was a blessed life, a holy calling, as Saadi had said. There was a world beyond this one, a place the Koran called a "Heavenly Home." All men, Christian and Muslim, believed that. As a warrior he could hope that his hards.h.i.+p would be turned to joy in that Heavenly Home. In that world, not one in ten thousand, but every good man, would dwell in a palace.

Absorbed in his own thoughts, he heard the soft, deep voice of Saadi as one hears the constant murmur of the windblown sand in the desert. The boys around him and the men who came and went in the Gray Mosque--all were believers. As a warrior of G.o.d he could be part of that, and not the least part. He would no longer be fil-kharij, a stranger in this world. He would be fil-dakhil, at home.

The lesson was over. The boys stood with Saadi and bowed their heads in prayer. After the prayers they bowed again to their teacher and, alone or in pairs, pattered out of the courtyard of the Gray Mosque.

When they were all gone, Daoud stood alone facing Saadi.

"What does Daoud have to say to me?"

In a rush of love for his master, Daoud threw himself to his knees and struck his forehead on Saadi's red carpet, b.u.mping his head hard enough to be slightly stunned.

"What is it, Daoud?" Saadi's voice was a comforting rumble.

Daoud sat back and looked up. The figure of the Sufi towered over him.

But Saadi bent his head, and looking into the dark face, Daoud felt as if someone huge and powerful had taken him into his arms.

"Master, I want to embrace Islam."

Daoud was mentally repeating the salat for the third time when he heard footsteps and the click of hooves coming up the road. He shut his eyes to resist the distraction.

A voice interrupted the fourth repet.i.tion. "Peace be unto you, Signore.

Can you tell me if there is room at the sign of the Capo di Bue for my son and me and our donkey?"

Daoud was annoyed at having to stop his prayers, but he had to reply or call unwanted attention to himself. He opened his eyes and saw in the shadows before him a short man with a full white beard holding the reins of a donkey that breathed heavily and s.h.i.+fted its feet nervously on the great black paving stones of the Appian Way. A second figure, obscure in the darkness, sat on the donkey. The two seemed heavily dressed for summer. The bearded man wore a round black hat with a narrow brim, of a type Daoud had never seen before.

"It is not overly full," he said impatiently.

But the man with the black hat still stood before him. "Are you sure that we will be welcome, Signore?"

"You can pay for a place in the common bed, can you not?" said Daoud, eager to finish the prayer.

"Oh, we do not require a bed, Signore," said the old man. "We will sleep in the stable, or sit up"--he chuckled--"or even sleep standing up, as our donkey does. It is just that we cannot go farther tonight. Rome has more robbers than a dog has fleas."

Why in the name of G.o.d was the man so hesitant? Daoud, seeing no need to continue the conversation, remained silent.

The old man sighed. "Peace be to you, Signore," he said again. "Come, my son."

The man's son climbed down, and the two travelers pulled the donkey through the inn's gate. Leather packs hung from either side of the donkey, and Daoud wondered what was in them. Probably nothing of value, but robbers would attack anyone who looked vulnerable, and the old man's fear was doubtless justified.

Daoud thought of the precious stones he and Celino carried between them. He felt the cold breath of danger on the back of his neck.

_Here in this inn they may all be honest men, but if they knew what wealth we had, even honest men would try to cut our throats._

He turned his mind again to his prayers. By the time he finished and turned to go through the gate leading to the courtyard, he sensed a change in the noises from within. Shrill, angry voices had replaced the cheerful murmur of general conversation.

The donkey and the boy who had ridden it huddled in the corner where the stables met the main building.

Daoud stood listening in the center of the inn yard, his hand resting lightly on the dagger at his belt. He faced the two-story main building, the dining hall at ground level, the beds that slept six or more upstairs. Access to the sleeping room was by way of a flight of outside wooden stairs leading to a platform and an upper door. The doors and the window shutters on both levels were open to let in the cool night air.

Stables secured with half doors on his left, a storage shed on his right.

As Daoud strode past the old man's son, he caught a glimpse of bright black eyes reflecting the light from oil lanterns hung on wooden pegs set high on either side of the inn door.

Daoud moved to the doorway, and as he looked into the smoky, candlelit hall, his heart sank.