“Never fear, my husband,” she said in a soft voice, meant only for him. “Once Muhammad is dead, we shall return to stealing openly under the sun.”

It was the sultry tone Hind used exclusively in bed, and suddenly Abu Sufyan had to fight the urge to throw her on the ground and take her like a dog in heat. The lord of Mecca looked at her with both desire and despair. The chieftains worshiped a god of gold. And he, a goddess of fire.

THE ASSASSINS GATHERED OUTSIDE Muhammad’s home, their black cloaks melding perfectly into the shadows cast by the small sprinkling of stars in the overcast sky. The Meccan general Khalid crouched beside his old friend Amr ibn al-As and Hind’s arrogantly handsome brother Waleed ibn Utbah. They could see the lights flickering on the second level, in the family living quarters, and the distinct sound of women’s lyrical voices could be heard from within. The heavy iron gate, normally left open, had been chained, a precaution that the Muslims were taking in all their homes since the death of Abu Talib.

Waleed argued for scaling the wall and taking Muhammad by surprise. Amr was shocked at the suggestion, reminding Waleed that there were women inside. Waleed sneered at Amr’s sense of propriety, but Khalid silenced him.

“Amr is right,” the warrior said, his shrewd eyes taking in everything at once as he developed a strategy of attack. “Muhammad’s followers will defend him to the death. If we hurt one of the women, the honor of Quraysh will be sullied, and even Abu Lahab will be unable to quell the fire of revenge among his clan.”

Waleed shook his head, unconvinced.

“Muhammad emerges every morning before sunrise to pray,” Khalid continued. “He uses the well in his yard for ablutions.” The Meccan general nodded to an ancient circle of stones at the edge of the property.

“We will kill him the moment he steps outside,” Amr said with a smile, satisfied that decorum would be preserved even in the act of murder.

Khalid lay back against the cold pebbles of the earth and slowed his breathing. He needed to preserve his energy for the moment the door opened. Khalid closed his eyes and time passed in silence. The world seemed to slip away from him. And then he jolted upright. The eastern sky was brightening in herald of the sun god. Khalid looked at the others and saw their eyes were closed, too. He stifled a curse. In all his years as a sentry, he had never once fallen asleep as he spied on an enemy camp. His eyes immediately flew to the gate, which he saw with some relief was still chained. Unless Muhammad had scaled the wall as Waleed had planned to do, he was still inside.

He gruffly shook his comrades awake, covering their mouths so that they did not cry out in surprise. The minutes raced by as tension increased, but there was no sign of movement from the house. As a cock crowed loudly somewhere in the city, Khalid sensed that their plan had somehow gone awry.

“We’ve waited long enough,” Waleed said, moving into a forward crouch, his sword gleaming red in the early light of dawn.

This time, Khalid did not argue.

“All right. Do what you must,” he said, rising from the ground. “Spare the women and children if you can. But don’t let anything get between you and Muhammad.”

They moved out of the shade of the trees like black cats. Khalid clambered up the outer wall and jumped down into Muhammad’s courtyard, the others following. They landed softly in the carefully tended bushes and raced toward the main door.

Unlike the gate, the paneled wooden entrance was open. Khalid pushed it slowly, hoping that its distinctive creak would not alert the women inside. But no one stopped them. The house appeared almost abandoned, and the three men crept through the barely furnished interior, their bare feet wrapped in soft strips of goat wool to muffle footsteps on the icy marble floor. Khalid climbed the winding staircase, looking for any sign of a concealed opponent on the balcony above. He led the three toward the heavy door made of carved palm wood at the eastern end of the corridor. This was Muhammad’s bedroom and the most likely place to find him. As Amr and Waleed stood on opposite sides of the door, Khalid nodded. He raised his sword and kicked it in with such force that it tore off its hinges. The three men rushed inside. The room was bare, containing nothing except a comfortable down bed, the only furnishing of any value Khalid had seen inside the cavernous home. A figure lay in the bed, covered with a green Hadrami cloak that Muhammad was often seen wearing as he preached in the streets of Mecca.

There he was, the man that had caused such fitna, such chaos, in Arabia for the past ten years. In seconds it would all be over, and the Meccan lords could begin the process of restoring order to Arabia.

Khalid stooped, watching the cloak rise and fall steadily as the sleeping figure within breathed his last. Obviously Muhammad was so deep in sleep, perhaps under the spell of his so-called revelations, that even the thunder of the door breaking could not awake him.

This would be easy.

Too easy.

Khalid felt his stomach fall as the truth hit his warrior’s soul. He lowered his sword, prepared to order his men back.

But before Khalid could stop him, Waleed rushed forward, his weapon poised.

“In the name of the gods!” Waleed threw off the cloak, his sword moving to strike…only to reveal young Ali lying in the bed, looking up at Waleed with those strange and frightening green eyes.

Waleed’s face froze in shock. And then it twisted with ugly rage. He raised the weapon to strike Ali dead, when Amr threw himself against the youthful hothead.

“No!” Amr managed to knock Waleed’s blow to the right, and it slashed down into the bed, releasing a cloud of feathers that glittered in the morning air.

They had been tricked. Muhammad was gone and the assassins had failed. Waleed glanced over at Amr with gratitude, and his friend nodded, panting from the sudden exertion. Had Waleed killed an unarmed Ali, Abu Lahab’s promise of accepting blood money in exchange for the death of a clansman could not be honored. Khalid would have spent the rest of his life waiting for the retaliatory strike that would inevitably come from the men of Bani Hashim.

“Let’s go,” Khalid ordered.

“But Muhammad-”

“He’s not here, you fool!” Khalid looked at Ali with grudging respect. The boy had risked his life for his cousin Muhammad. And he was known to wield a sword as if it were his third arm. Such a youth would have been an invaluable asset for Khalid’s army.

Ali nodded to Khalid, as if reading his thoughts. The kahina s, the wandering witches of the desert, sometimes claimed that Ali possessed a second sight that allowed him to see into men’s hearts. They even sold bronze charms to shield one’s thoughts from the strange youth. Khalid had always laughed at their superstition, but as he looked into those mysterious eyes, he felt a strange chill. As Khalid led the men out of the room, he saw Ali gazing at Waleed, who had almost killed him moments before.

“Next time we meet,” Ali said softly, “I will have a sword in my hand. And you will die.”

Waleed began to laugh, but Ali’s piercing gaze slit the sound from his throat. The proud son of Utbah, the brother of the powerful Hind, suddenly looked confused and uncertain. Ali’s tone was not that of a threat or a challenge. His voice was actually filled with an inexplicable kindness. As if Ali had read the book of their lives and seen how it would end for Waleed, and was graciously preparing him for the inevitable.

Khalid suddenly wanted to find one of the wrinkled old kahinas. And he was ready to give away his fortune for a charm to protect against this terrifying youth whose eyes gazed into another world.