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beautiful, as the angel of death was said to be. Maybe after all he would be merciful.
    He stooped and raised Mustafa to his feet. The wards held, so that Mustafa could not either drop or run. He could not hide his face, either.
    Saphadin looked him up and down. “A Muslim dog in a Frankish collar,” he said. “You stink of pork.”
    Mustafa said nothing. Defiance might gratify him and quicken his death, but he could not grasp the words long enough to speak them.
    “Go back to your master,” said Saphadin, “and tell him that Islam will abandon this land when God Himself forsakes it.”
    Mustafa swallowed. Go back? He was to live? But—
    Saphadin laid a finger on Mustafa’s brow between the eyes. The touch was light, barely to be felt, and yet it was like a dart of fire piercing his skull. “And tell the other one,” Saphadin said, bending close, speaking softly in his ear, “the great one, the prince of mages, that magic will negate magic. We do not fight in that way here.”
    At last Mustafa found his voice. “But there is no—”
    “Go, betrayer of Islam,” Saphadin said with no rancor in his voice, “before the guards find you. Not all my brother’s servants are as softhearted as I.”
    The bonds were loosed. Mustafa could move. He hardly needed Saphadin’s encouragement to bolt for freedom.
     
    He came back to Richard’s camp well before dawn, to find it already stirring. He was limping: Saphadin’s dismissal had included no protection, and he had met a spy much like himself, skulking about the edges of the Frankish lines. The man had landed a blow or two before he died.
    It was not cowardice or weakness that brought him to thephysicians’ tent rather than the king’s. Richard was asleep and his guards were grimly determined that he not be disturbed. Mustafa reckoned that by the time he had acquired a salve and a bandage or two, the king would be up and about and willing to hear what Mustafa had to tell.
    The king’s physician was awake and overseeing the rolling of bandages and the packing of medicines. Master Judah was always a bit of a surprise—not only a Jew alive and whole in an army of Englishmen, but a young one at that, tall and strong. Mustafa had reason to know that sometimes he walked about in the garb of a Christian, and people took him for one of the knights.
    In this very early morning, he wore the skullcap and the loose gown of his people, moving with easy grace among his assistants and apprentices. They were almost done; the boxes and bags were packed, the beds folded into bundles that men could carry. Already some of them were moving to strike the tent.
    The master himself gave Mustafa the salve and the bandages, working quickly and deftly, and offering no commentary on the nature or provenance of the wounds. He only said, “Keep the bandages clean. If any of the wounds festers, come back to us.”
    Mustafa bowed. Master Judah had already forgotten him.
    Sioned had not been among the physicians. Her tent was already struck and packed in the baggage. He found her baking bread in the coals of a campfire, sharing it with a pair of wolfhounds and a squire or two. The boys were more wary than the dogs as Mustafa squatted beside her. They were ill-raised and ill-schooled children from some remote northern castle, to whom every man in a turban must be a devil, and all Islam was a nightmare of hell.
    Sioned was paying them no heed; nor did Mustafa. He said to her in French that the boys could understand if they tried, “I bring you a message from the lord Saif al-Din.”
    Her eyes widened just a little; it was hard to tell in firelight, but he thought a flush stained her cheeks. “Saphadin? Al-Malik al-Adil? But—”
    “He thought you were a prince,” said Mustafa. “He said that magic negates magic. They don’t fight that way here.”
    “What way is that? And why—”
    “I don’t know,” Mustafa said. “Maybe he meant the king’s mother instead? She wasn’t there, but if