Together they passed beyond the tapestry and entered a cave which cut nearly to the heart of the towering rock. Inside, the cave was comfortable, furnished with a rug for the floor, pillows, a low brass tray piled high with cooked meats and dried fruits, and a tall pitcher of clean water.

“You look well, Ibrahim,” said Sir Guy as he warmed his hands over the flame.

Ibrahim al-Asiri was a tall thin man with a hawk nose that had been broken and badly set, giving him a villainous look that was at odds with his role as diplomat and counselor to Salāh-ed-Dīn Ayyūbi. Like Sir Guy, his counterpart in the politics of the wars here in the Holy Land, Ibrahim was a scholar, but, unlike the Frenchman, the Arab was also a mathematician of some note and the author of complex books on engineering, geometry, and algebra.

While they ate, the two men picked up the thread of a conversation that had occupied them over many previous secret meetings.

“I am taking the matter to a priest,” said Sir Guy. “One of the Hospitallers of my order. An old friend of the family. He is a wise and subtle man, and I think he will see the logic of our plan.”

Ibrahim frowned. “What will happen if he does not agree with us? What will he do?”

“Do?” laughed Sir Guy. “He would denounce me and I would be lucky to escape being publically whipped to death. My lands and fortune would be seized and I would be excommunicated.” The Frenchman waved a hand at the expression of alarm on Ibrahim’s face. “No, no, my friend, that’s what could happen, but I do not think that it will happen. I know this man.”

“So far,” Ibrahim said, “this has all been nothing but an intellectual exercise, a discourse of a philosophical nature. Once you speak to this priest, it becomes something else.”

“I know. With the first words I say to the priest it becomes treason and heresy.”

They thought about that for several moments, each of them staring through the flickering fire at the future.

“We could turn back,” suggested Ibrahim. “Now, I mean. We could finish our meal and you could ride back to your camp and I to mine, and we could never speak of this again.”

“We could,” agreed Sir Guy.

“If we do not, then we are irrevocably set on a course that will wash the world in blood and pain and destruction from now until the ending of time.”

“Yes.”

“We must be sure.”

“I am sure,” said Sir Guy. “If you were not a heathen of a Saracen then we would drink wine together to seal the bargain.”

“And if you were not an infidel deserving of a jackal’s death we would spit on our palms and shake upon it.”

They smiled at each other.