It hurt Simon to look at what was happening. He felt his own breath cut off, his heart pounding as if he were laboring for air. He wanted to turn away and knew he could not. He must somehow stop this before that Venetian died.
"Blood of God!" he whispered. He recognized the darkened, distorted face.
Sordello.
All around Simon the Venetians were edging closer to the Armenians, their daggers gleaming in the candlelight. But none of the foot soldiers wanted to be the first to brave those sabers.
That meant, Simon thought, heart pounding, that he would have to face them.
Where the devil are my knights?
Looking to the right and left Simon saw Alain, Henri de Puys, and the four others, swords out but—like himself—unarmored, standing irresolutely between the Venetians and the Armenians. Against one wall he saw a huddle of women, their bare bosoms gleaming in the dim light. Standing protectively in front of the women was a man Simon recognized as the innkeeper. For the price Simon was paying, why could not this man keep order in his own house?
"Aha, now we have the stinking figlii di cagne!" a man behind Simon cried. Simon turned and saw a crossbow leveled at shoulder height. He had ordered that the Venetians' weapons be kept under lock and key. Evidently someone had broken them out. Once the rest of the Venetians armed themselves with their bows, the Armenians would be slaughtered.
Simon's body grew hot with anger. He would like to kill the fool who helped the Venetians to their arms.
But the Armenians had their bows, too, and one by one they started to unsling them. Simon heard the ominous squeaking as the Venetians wound back their crossbow strings. The Armenians would never be able to get their arrows nocked and their bows drawn before the crossbow bolts began to fly.
Simon's actions followed instantly on his thoughts. "Cessi!" he shouted, hoping the Venetians would understand him.
Now all eyes were turned toward him. The muscles of his belly tightened as he cast about in his mind for the right thing to do.
The hands of the Venetians hesitated on their crossbows as they recognized their master.
"De Pirenne, de Puys, the rest of you. Make our men put down their crossbows."
But just as Simon spoke, the Armenian strangling Sordello gave another turn to his bow, and the old bravo gagged and gasped.
Simon realized that if he drew his scimitar, the room would be a charnel house in moments. He approached the Armenian nearest him, spreading his hands to show their emptiness. He prayed that the man, whose bow and arrow was aimed at his chest, would not see how those outstretched hands were trembling.
In his strongest voice he said, "Hold your arrow!" hoping the man would understand his tone. As he spoke, he firmly grasped the arrow near its head and pushed it aside. His heart thudded, and he could almost feel that steel tip stabbing into his chest. And how bare was his back to the crossbow quarrels!
The Armenian took a step to the side and let Simon pass. Simon let out a deep breath of relief. As he stepped forward, the soles of his boots slid a little. The floor, he realized, must be slippery with spilled wine.
Now he was facing the man who was murdering Sordello. A vagrant thought struck Simon:I do not like Sordello. I would not mind if the Armenian killed him. Why risk my life for him?
Because a good seigneur is loyal to his men, the answer came at once.
He spoke commandingly but softly. "Stop. This is my man and you must not kill him. Let him go." He put his hand firmly on the forearm of the Armenian, who was a good deal shorter than he was. The man's dark brows drew together in a puzzled frown. He was studying Simon's face. Simon could feel a faint tremor in the muscles under his hand.
Any man would be frightened at a moment like this, no matter how brave, how hardened, Simon thought. But he saw that the Armenian's face was unlined, his eyes clear. His black mustache was small and fine.
He must be about my age. Maybe even younger.
Simon felt a warmth toward the young Armenian, and hoped he could win him over. But how could such a pleasant-looking fellow bring himself to strangle a man with a bowstring? Perhaps Sordello had done something truly evil.
"Come now," Simon said, giving the young man's arm a gentle shake. "Do let him go." He essayed a smile, hoping it would look friendly.
The Armenian let out a deep sigh and closed his eyes. Then he released his grip on the bow. He slapped it with one hand to make it twirl. Simon heard a faint choking sound from Sordello, and then the Italian slid to the stone floor.
A woman, her henna-dyed hair gleaming red-gold in the candlelight, rushed to the young Armenian and held his arm, talking soothingly in Italian. He stiffened at first, then smiled at her.
"Thank you," said Simon to the Armenian, shaky with relief.
He smiled and patted the dark man's free arm, feeling foolish about his simple words of gratitude. If only Friar Mathieu would get here so that he could talk to these men from the East.
A cool feeling of relief bathed Simon. So far all had gone amazingly well. But, he reminded himself, this was not over yet. He must continue to think quickly.
"De Puys, clear the Venetians out of here. Assemble them outside. Then march them away from this street altogether. And collect their crossbows and get them locked up again. You should never have let them get at those weapons. De Pirenne, you stay here and tell me what happened."
"Well, this is how it was, Monseigneur," said Alain, looking abashed. "Our men were drinking quietly, and this redheaded woman was sitting with Sordello. Then these men from Tartary came in. They made no trouble, just sat down in their own corner. But the woman, she took a fancy to that man you saw trying to kill Sordello. She served him wine and sat down with him. Sordello went over and tried to get her back. There were words. They didn't understand each other, but the meaning was clear. Sordello went for the other with a knife. And then the other mankickedit out of his hand—rather a surprise, that was—to Sordello, too, I think. And the next thing I know he was strangling Sordello and his companions would not let anyone stop it. Sordello had the key to the storeroom where the crossbows were kept. After the Armenian seized him, he threw it to one of the Venetians."
A typical muddle, Simon thought, like most of the cases brought to him for justice since he had become Seigneur of Gobignon. He felt disgusted with all these fools. No saying who was at fault. Most likely the damned woman. Thank the Virgin he did not have to fix blame, just put a stop to the fighting.
Sordello, who had been lying curled up on the floor, suddenly lashed out with a booted foot.
The woman screamed. As Simon stared, the young Armenian fell heavily to the wine-wet floor. Sordello sprang upon him, and a dagger flashed. He was striking at the Armenian's chest.
Simon had no time to feel the panic that flooded through him. He grabbed for Sordello's arm, too late to stop the dagger but pullingit back so that it drove upward through the muscles of the chest instead of plunging deep. The Armenian bellowed in pain. With all his strength, Simon yanked Sordello off the Armenian and threw him backward. De Pirenne caught him and held him.
Shouting in their own language and brandishing their swords, the other Armenians rushed at Sordello.
A familiar voice cried out a sentence in a strange tongue. Friar Mathieu rushed into the circle of candlelight, his white beard flying, his arms upraised. At his sudden appearance the Armenians, who were ready to make mincemeat of Sordello—and perhaps de Pirenne with him—hesitated.
Oh, thank God!The weight of struggling to control this dreadful situation was no longer Simon's alone to bear.
Friar Mathieu spoke several sentences to the Armenians. Simon could not tell from his tone whether he was scolding them or trying to placate them. There were in the room five angry men who looked to be formidable fighters, armed with swords and bows and arrows. And, Simon realized, he had just sent away all but one of his knights and all of his crossbowmen.
Simon cursed himself for letting Sordello wound the young man.
Alain said Sordello dropped a dagger. Why did I not think to look for it?
He felt himself growing hot and cold as he realized this incident might wreck everything—for Christendom, for Louis, and for the honor of the House of Gobignon.
Now Friar Mathieu fell to his knees beside the young Armenian, whose white tunic was splashed deep scarlet with blood. He spoke comforting words to him and then turned an agonized face to Simon.
"This is Prince Hethum," said the friar. "The Tartars will be furious when they learn what has happened. This may destroy any chance of an alliance. At the very least, they will demand satisfaction."
I am to protect these emissaries, and one of my own men has stabbed a prince of Armenia.
Despair was an ache in Simon's chest.
"What sort of satisfaction?"
"I fear they will require that man's life," said Friar Mathieu sadly.
"By God's beard, I have done no wrong!" Sordello rasped. His voice was a croak.
"Be silent!" Simon snapped, his rage against himself turning tofury at Sordello. "You are a fool, but being a fool will not save you."
"Your Signory!" Sordello cried. "How could I let him take the woman from me? My honor—"
"Yourhonor!" Simon raged. "What is your wandering blackguard's honor compared to the honor of France? The woman chose him over you. Look at her."
Sordello glared at Simon, but was silent. The red-haired woman crouched over the fallen Prince Hethum, crooning softly in Italian.
And yet, Uncle Charles would not want me to sacrifice Sordello. And the Armenian did try to kill him. My knights and men-at-arms will lose all respect for me if I let the Tartars have their way with Sordello.
But if he goes unpunished, if the Armenian prince goes unrevenged, there will be no alliance at all.
And it would be his fault. The little honor that was left to the House of Gobignon would be lost.
A wave of anger at himself swept over him. Had he dedicated himself to the alliance only so that he might free himself from the agony of his guilty secret and his house from dishonor? He thought of King Louis and how pure was his desire to win back for Christendom the places where Christ had lived. How impure were Simon's own motives!
As long as he put his own needs first, he would continue to deserve the burdens of guilt and shame.
In the Name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful.All praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds.Master of the Day of Judgment.
Daoud stood perfectly still, looking into the violet sky, reciting in his mind the salat, the prayer required of a Muslim five timesdaily. This was Mughrab, the moment when the last light of sunset had drained away. An evening breeze cooled his face, welcome after a day of traveling under the summer sky of Italy. Oriented by a bright crescent moon just rising, he faced southeast, toward Mecca. His back was to the stone wall of the inn called the Capo di Bue, the Ox's Head, where he and Sophia and Celino had decided to spend the night. On the other side of the wall, loud voices contended for attention, the sound of travelers in the common room settling down to supper.
Praying in the dusk reminded Daoud that he was alone. What would it be like now in El Kahira, the Guarded One? He would be praying with hundreds of fellow Muslimin, standing shoulder to shoulder, all equal before God, in the Gray Mosque, all listening to the call of the blind muezzins from the minarets—"Come to the house of praise. God is Almighty. There is no god but God."—all facing the Prophet's birthplace together in holy submission. Daoud's prayer might be the only one going up to God tonight from anywhere near Rome.
All around him towered ruins. The silhouettes of broken columns rose against the darkening sky, and across the Appian Way the ragged shape of what had once been a wall. Pines stood tall and black where, according to Lorenzo, some wealthy woman of ancient Rome had her tomb.
He tried to forget his surroundings and to think only of the salat. It was hard to concentrate when he could not assume the proper positions for prayer—raise his hands, kneel, strike his forehead on the ground. He fixed his mind on the infinity of God.
"Do not try to see Him," Abu Hamid al-Din Saadi had told him. "If you see Him in your mind, you are looking at an idol."
Daoud did not try to see God, but as he prayed, a Muslim all alone in the heart of Christendom, he could not help but see Sheikh Saadi, the Sufi master who had brought him to Islam.
The face was very dark, the rich black of a cup of kaviyeh. Out of the blackness peered eyes thatsaw—saw into the very souls of his students.
Often as he sat listening to Sheikh Saadi read from the Koran, the Book to be Read, and explain its meaning, voices from the past reproached him. The voice of Father Adrian, the chaplain of their castle, rang in his mind. The quiet voice of his mother, teachinghim the Lord's Prayer and the Hail Mary, whispered to him. Like thunder his father spoke of war and of what it was to be a knight.
He could escape the torment of these voices only by listening closely to the Sufi sheikh. Saadi was trying to teach him how to be good, and that was the same thing his mother and father had wanted for him. So they would not mind if he learned from Saadi.
Sheikh Saadi, wearing the white woolen robe of a Sufi, sat on a many-colored carpet of Mosul, an open copy of the Koran resting on an ornately carved lectern before him. His hand, as dark as the mahogany of the stand, caressed the page as he read aloud.
"'Such as persevere in seeking their Lord's countenance and are regular in prayer and spend of that which We bestow upon them secretly and openly, and overcome evil with good: Theirs will be the Heavenly Home.'"
Mohammedan dogs!Daoud remembered Father Adrian in his black and white robes shouting in the chapel at Château Langmuir.Satan is the author of that vile book they call the Koran.
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 God.
"Secretly and openly are we to give," the old man was saying. "God 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 noble 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.
"God is compassion 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 compassion of God, 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 God loves the compassionate, 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 pricking 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 God 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 God 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 God.
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 God made man, how can He love one who butchers His creatures?"
Sheikh Saadi raised an admonishing finger. "The Warrior of Godis no butcher. He strikes with sorrow and compassion. He hates evil, but he loves his fellow men, even the one he fights against. The Warrior of God 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 God."
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 God 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 hardship 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 God 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, bumping 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 repetition. "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 shifted 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 God 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 betweenthem. 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.
The crowd of men and women in the room were turned toward Lorenzo Celino. He stood against the far wall, the long blade of his sword gleaming in the candlelight, facing six naked daggers.
Beside Celino, the hound Scipio stood stiff-legged, tail whipping from side to side, fangs bared, growling softly. Fear of that dog was keeping Celino's opponents back as much as fear of his sword, thought Daoud.
The bearded old man who had spoken to Daoud was standing to Celino's left and a little behind him. Celino's eyes flicked toward Daoud for an instant, and then quickly away before anyone might notice that he had looked toward the doorway.
Daoud scanned the room for Sophia. She was standing in the shadows, almost invisible in a long, hooded cloak. No one was threatening her.
One of the men facing Celino, Daoud recognized, was the innkeeper himself. He was a huge man with broad, rounded shoulders and a shock of thick black hair cut off at the same length all theway around, so it looked like a bowl. The dagger he held was a long, murderous blade, but his big hand made it look like a toy.
"Give us the Jew," the innkeeper said to Celino. "We have no quarrel with you."
The old man was a Jew? How was it, Daoud demanded of himself, that these people had known that and he had not?
"You do have a quarrel with me," said Celino, "because I do not care to see you torment and rob this old man."
Daoud swore to himself. Was this the kind of madman Manfred had yoked him with? Sworn to the utmost secrecy, carrying a fortune in jewels, and now he brings a whole inn down around his ears by defending some dusty old man?
But does not God love the compassionate?
Give us the Jew, the innkeeper had said. Daoud knew that Christians took delight in mistreating Jews.
And I told the old man to go in there. But I did not know he was a Jew. Or that these people would harm him.
Whether Celino was a madman or not, Daoud would have to get him out of this, because he was carrying half of their supply of precious stones. When they left Lucera, Daoud and Celino had divided the twenty-four jewels Manfred had traded for the great emerald. Each carried half of the precious stones in a pouch hidden under his tunic.
Daoud studied the room. There must be a good thirty people there, most of them men. Aside from the six surrounding Celino, few of them seemed menacing. But if someone jumped in to help Celino, more might join the other side.
What do I have to help me? That boy who came with the old man. Sophia. And Celino and the dog.
If only, he thought, he had the Scorpion. But that was in the dining hall there, with all their other baggage, which Celino—the fool!—was supposed to be guarding.
He backed out into the small courtyard and bumped into the boy, who had followed him to the door. "You. Your father is in danger in there. And my friend has gotten into trouble trying to help him. We must get them out, you and I."
"Why should Christians help us?" The bitter voice was high. The boy must be very young. He was wrapped up like a Bedouin. His head and face were swathed in a dark cloth, his body cloaked. Only those sparkling eyes showed.
"I must help my friend," Daoud said. "If he lives, you can askhim why he chose to defend your father. Are you just going to cower here?"
"What should I do?"
What would make those men leave Celino alone long enough to give him a chance to escape? Standing outside the doorway with the boy, Daoud's eyes searched the courtyard again as his mind tried to fit what he saw into a plan.
Daoud looked up at the lanterns again. Fire was sure to take men's minds off a fight.
"Take the lanterns and run up those stairs. Throw them into the bedding and get a good fire going. Make sure the floor is burning. Then come back down to me."
Daoud took the two lanterns down from their pegs and handed them to the boy, who raced up the stairs that clung to the outer wall of the inn. Daoud went to the stable and opened the doors of the stalls that held their four horses. He dragged out the saddles and bridles and threw them over the horses' backs. Trained with horses since boyhood, he worked with practiced speed. By the time the boy was beside him again, he had two of the horses saddled.
He looked up and saw bright yellow flames flickering in the upper windows.
"You did that well," he said. "You know how to saddle horses?"
"Yes, Messere."
"Get these two ready, then. Do it right; you will be riding one. And hold them here with your donkey."
Daoud turned and shouted, "Fire!"
He ran to the doorway, looked in long enough to see the darkened spot with its glowing center in the wooden ceiling of the dining hall, and gestured toward it as he again shouted, "Fire!" Then he stepped back to let the crowd tumble out past him.
The burly innkeeper was among the first to exit, jamming his dagger back into its scabbard and shouting for help. "Take water from the horse trough. Get buckets, pots, anything!" Waving his long arms, he towered over the men milling around him like a giant commanding an army of dwarves.
When the first rush had pushed through the doorway, Daoud ran into the dining hall. He could see the blackening circle spreading in the ceiling and flames licking around its edges.
Celino and the old Jew were still standing together by the far wall. Only three men faced them now.
"Come on!" Daoud shouted. He strode to the table where they had been sitting and grabbed up their packs.
"Stay where you are!" a woman's voice cried. It was the innkeeper's wife, a gaunt woman nearly as tall as her husband, with bulging eyes and a face as sharp as the carving knife she brandished.
An earthenware jug crashed down on her head. Her eyes rolled up till only the whites showed. As she slumped to the floor, Daoud saw Sophia behind her.
Well done, Byzantine woman.
"Scipio! Spegni!" Celino shouted. With a roar like a lion's, Scipio leapt at the central figure among the three men confronting his master. Scipio's prey screamed, then stumbled over a bench and fell to the floor on his back. The hound sprang onto his chest, snarls of rage all but drowning out his victim's shrieks. The other two men, their mouths gaping, their eyes fixed on nothing, ran past Daoud without seeing him.
"Stop your dog," Daoud called to Celino. "I want no killing." Smoke spreading from above was searing his nostrils.
Daoud, Celino, and Sophia, followed by the old man and the dog, made their way to the door.
Daoud threw saddlebags to Celino and Sophia. Men were dragging their panic-stricken, rearing horses out of the stables and through the gate. The giant innkeeper and other men were racing up and down the outside stairs, which had also begun to burn, dumping buckets of water on the fire. Men were fighting their way through smoke and flame into the bedroom, trying to rescue belongings they had left there.
The boy stood by their horses, exactly where Daoud had left him. Bravely done, Daoud thought. Hastily tying his packs down, Daoud unlaced one. There were two weapons inside—a Scorpion, the miniature crossbow of the Hashishiyya, and a full-size crossbow. Daoud chose the bigger one, a Genoese arbalest drawn by crank, a present from King Manfred. The quarrels were loaded by spring from a chamber within the stock that could hold six at a time, so that the bowman could fire it as quickly as he could draw it.
Holding the arbalest with one hand, Daoud vaulted into the saddle. Celino and Sophia were already up. The old man had clambered onto their spare horse, and his son was on the donkey.
I should leave that old man behind, Daoud thought angrily.Were it not for him, I would be sleeping comfortably right now.
"Theystarted the fire!" It was the innkeeper's wife in the doorway, her tall body and long arms silhouetted by leaping flames. She pointed an accusing hand at Daoud's party. "Stop them!"
The men who had been trying to put out the fire were giving up, and they turned and started for Daoud and his companions.
"Throw them into the fire!" shrieked the woman in the doorway.
Motioning the others toward the gate, Daoud turned his horse sideways and swung the crossbow in an arc to cover the attackers. The men stopped their rush, but the tall woman pushed her way through them, screaming curses.
Her hulking husband joined her, his long arms reaching for Daoud. He looked able to knock a horse to the ground.
Daoud used both hands to aim the crossbow at him, gripping the horse with his knees. He hoped the threat would be enough to stop the man. He did not want to shoot the innkeeper. If anyone were killed, the deed could follow them to Orvieto.
As he hesitated, the huge man drew back his arm and threw the dagger with the force of a catapult. Daoud heard a thump and a groan behind him. Daoud's thumb pressed the crossbow's release, and the string snapped forward with a reverberating bang. The innkeeper bellowed with pain, the cry dying away as he collapsed. The bolt probably went right through him, thought Daoud.
As the man's dying groan faded, his wife's scream rose. She fell on her knees beside him, and the other men crowded around them.
"Blood of Jesus! Pandolfo!" the innkeeper's wife wailed.
Jerking the reins with his left hand, Daoud wheeled the horse out the gate.
God help us, now they will be after us.
Which one of his people had been hurt?
He found himself, in his anger, hoping it was Celino.
The three other horses and the donkey were bunched together outside the gate, on the dirt path that led through trees to the Appian Way. Some of the men from the inn were out there, too, but when Daoud swung the crossbow in their direction, they backed into the inn yard.
"Leave me here," the old man gasped. "I am dying." So it was he the dagger had hit. They would have to leave him, Daoud thought, and his son would insist on staying with him. And the vengeful crowd from the inn would tear the two of them to pieces. All this fighting would have been for nothing.
Celino spurred his horse over to where the old man swayed inthe saddle clutching his stomach. "Sorry to hurt you, but we are not leaving you," he said. He pulled the groaning wounded man across to his own horse and swung one of his legs over so that he was riding astride.
Daoud saw blood, black in the faint light of the crescent moon, running out of the old man's mouth, staining his white beard.
"Can you ride a horse?" Celino barked at the son.
"Yes," the boy sobbed.
"Get up on this one." Celino indicated the horse from which he had just dragged the old man. "Take your packs off the donkey and put them on this horse if you want them. Quickly, quickly. Leave the donkey."
Daoud fingered the crossbow as the boy hastily transferred himself and his goods to the horse.
Still Celino risks our lives with his care for these strangers. Damned infidel. I am the leader of this party.
"Here they come!" cried Sophia. Waving swords and long-handled halberds—God knew where they had gotten them—and sticks and pitchforks, the crowd from the inn tumbled through the gate. Some of them were on horses.
"Ride!" shouted Daoud in the voice he used to command his Mameluke troop.
He kicked his spurs into his horse's side and sent it galloping down the road.
He and Celino had not talked about which way to flee, but there was really only one direction they could go—north, toward their destination. That, he knew, would take them straight into the heart of Rome.
There would be a price to pay for the blood they had shed this night.
The great Salah ad-Din had said it:
Blood never sleeps.
The clatter of four horses' hooves over the broken paving stones of the Appian Way rang in Daoud's ears. He heard shouts behind him as the men from the Ox's Head organized a pursuit. And beside him the old man, held erect by Celino's powerful arm, groaned again and again as the wild ride jolted his stomach wound. His legs dangled lifelessly on either side of the horse.
Daoud looked over his shoulder and saw that the boy was keeping up, riding next to Celino. His robes were hiked up and his skinny, bare legs gleamed in the faint moonlight. Daoud could hear him sobbing loudly, in time with his father's groans, as the horses pounded onward.
Glancing over at Sophia, on his right, he saw that she was stiff in the saddle, like one not used to riding, and the moonlight showed her lips tight and her jaw clenched. But she rode hard and made no complaint. She sat astride, wearing trousers under a divided skirt. Daoud felt himself admiring her. So far the woman had proved no burden. Celino had caused trouble, but not she.
Glancing quickly again at her profile, outlined by moonlight, he realized with a start that she reminded him of a face he had not seen in many years. Nicetas. She had the same high forehead and long, straight nose. Her mouth was fuller, but her lips had the chiseled shape of Nicetas's lips. Nicetas. Even amid this moment's perils sorrow gripped his heart for the one who was lost and could never be recovered.
As if she sensed him looking at her, Sophia turned her face toward him, but this put her face in shadow, and he could not make out her expression. He shrugged and looked away.
He rode with one hand holding the arbalest across the saddle in front of him, the other on the reins, guiding his mount. The horses Manfred had given them ran well, aided a little by the high crescent moon. Daoud tried to maneuver his small party to skirt dark patchesin the road where there might be holes in the pavement that could trip them.
The cries of the pursuers were louder, and Daoud heard hoofbeats behind them. He looked back and saw a dark cluster of horsemen rushing down the road. Five or six men, he guessed. There could not have been many more horses than that stabled at the inn.
He felt no fear for himself. The country might be strange to him, but riding and fighting in darkness were not. But his stomach tensed with worry about the four people with him. One of them was already badly hurt. Could he get them away safely? They were in his care now, and it was a duty.
Celino was the only one of his charges who could look out for himself. And he, thought Daoud angrily, was the one who had least deserved to survive.
But he is carrying half the accursed jewels.
If we survive this, it might be best for me to kill Celino.
As they rode on, Daoud kept glancing over his shoulder. Their pursuers were gaining on them. Celino's horse, carrying two riders, was holding Daoud's party back. But that meant the men from the inn would soon be within the arbalest's short range. He had only three bolts left in the box under the stock. He wished he had a heavy Turkish bow, the kind he had used at the battle of the Well of Goliath. Almost as powerful as a crossbow, it was easier to handle on horseback and would shoot much farther.
Now they will see how Mamelukes fight.
His eyes were now completely adjusted to the faint moonlight. The road took them into a deep pine wood. They splashed through a puddle in a low place, then clambered up a slope.
Down the other side. At the bottom of the next slope, Daoud twisted around in the saddle. Letting go of the reins and guiding the horse with his knees, he aimed the crossbow at the top of the hill. When the first rider came over the crest, clearly visible in the moonlight, Daoud pressed the catch with his thumb and released the bolt. An instant later the man fell without a sound.
He told himself a warrior of God should not rejoice at the death of an enemy, but he could not help a small surge of satisfaction at his good shooting.
Daoud cranked the string back and another bolt snapped into place. He hit the next man on the downslope. It was a harder shot, and this man did not die instantly but toppled screaming out of the saddle.
After glancing forward to make sure of the road ahead, Daoud turned again and saw that the three remaining men had stopped, their horses milling around the fallen men. They would give up pursuit now, Daoud was sure of it. Doubtless none of them had any real weapons, and they could not contend with a crossbow.
He felt his lips stretch in a grin, and he sighed deeply with relief. He had been more worried than he realized.
He and his companions topped another hill, and when he looked back again their pursuers had disappeared below its crest.
Daoud raised his hand and called out, "Slow down to a trot. No one seems to be following us. We can be easier on the old man and the horses."
"And on Scipio," Celino said, pointing down to a great shadow racing with them along the side of the road. Daoud could hear the hound panting and his claws drumming on the paving stones. He wondered how long Scipio could keep up with galloping horses, then reminded himself that this was a hunting dog. Scipio could probably outrun horses.
"Soon the Appian Way will take us to the old walls of Rome," said Celino. "The watchmen there would question us. But we can go off to the left toward the Tiber and skirt the city."
And because Celino knows such things, I cannot kill him. But I must see to it that he never again does anything like this to endanger us.
As they rode on, Daoud realized that the old man had stopped moaning. He heard Celino whispering something that sounded like a prayer.
"How fares the old man?"
Celino sounded angry. "He's dead."
On the other side of Celino the boy let out a wail of anguish, and then sobbed bitterly. Daoud felt a surge of grief. He was not sure whether it was for the boy or for himself.
"We should leave his body behind," he said to Celino. "Going this fast, that horse cannot carry both of you much farther." Anger at all this useless trouble constricted his throat and made his voice husky.
The boy cried, "No!" It was almost a scream.
"I can manage," said Celino.
"I will not leave him!" the boy shouted.
Sophia whispered, "I wish we had never seen them—without our help, they might only have been robbed. That poor boy!"
Celino clenched his fist and muttered to himself. Then he looked up and motioned to Daoud, pointing out a road diverging westward from the Appian Way. Daoud jerked the reins of his horse, and the hooves no longer rang on old Roman paving stones but thudded on hard-packed dirt. The trees closed together overhead, and they rode for a time in almost total darkness.
Celino dropped back now, and Daoud, glancing over his shoulder a little later, saw the boy and Celino in conversation as they rode side by side. After they had gone a mile or so, Celino rode back to join Daoud and Sophia. The old man's body was draped over his horse's back in front of him.
"You have much to answer to me for," Daoud said.
"I know that," said Celino. "But as long as we are out of Rome by morning, we are safe. The Giudecca, the Jewish quarter, is along the Tiber on the south side of the city. We can leave the boy with them and they will help him bury his father and take him in. It is not far from here." Daoud could not see his face clearly in the dark, but there was a note of pleading in his tone.
"How far?" Daoud demanded.
"We will be there long before dawn."
"But then we will have to go into the city," Daoud said. "How do we explain to the Roman watchmen why we are carrying an old man, dead of a knife wound? Surely they will be at least as thorough in inspecting baggage as you were at Lucera."
Celino was silent a moment. "You two can cross a bridge that will take you west of the city. I will take the old man's body and the boy to the Giudecca, and I will be the only one who will have to deal with the watch."
Sophia spoke up. "As you dealt with those ruffians at the inn? Then we will have all of Rome hunting us."
"All of Rome?" Celino chuckled. "The Romans can agree on only one thing—fighting among themselves. There are powerful Ghibellino families here who will protect us if need be."
He needed this damned Lorenzo, Daoud thought, because of his connections with the Ghibellini.
"How did the men at the inn know the old man was a Jew?" Daoud asked Celino.
"The hat he was wearing," Celino said. "All Jews are required to wear those round black hats in the Papal States. To make it easier for good Christians to persecute them." Daoud shook his head. Even Christians were treated better than that in al-Islam.
I did not know. Somehow, out of all that I learned about the Christian world, that detail about hats for Jews was left out. A little thing, too trivial to be mentioned. What other deadly little omissions lie in wait for me?
He felt like a man in chains. He would have to keep Celino with him, and the prospect infuriated him.
As they continued riding westward, Daoud heard the boy weeping. It made him think of nights in the Mameluke barracks on Raudha Island when he lay on his pallet, biting his knuckles so no one would hear him sob as he cried for his mother and father and for himself so lost and lonely.
I will help the boy bury his father. If it does not endanger us.
This boy, too, was lost and lonely. As Daoud had been while training to be a Mameluke.
As Nicetas had been.
It had been a chilly day, the day that Daoud and Nicetas became friends.
Huge gray clouds billowed in the east, over the Sinai desert. In the lee of a cliff formed of giant blocks of red sandstone, a dozen small tents clustered.
On a restless brown pony with a barrel-shaped body, Daoud waited in a line of nearly thirty julbans, Mamelukes in training, similarly mounted. Soon it would be his turn to ride past the wooden ring that a pair of slaves was swinging from side to side between the legs of a scaffold. In his hand Daoud grasped a rumh, a lightweight lance longer than a man's body, with a tip of sharpened bone.
On a low rise of brown gravel, Mahmoud, the Circassian naqeeb in charge of their training troop, sat astride a sleek brown Arab half blood. He looked almost regal in his long scarlet kaftan and reddish-brown fur cap. His beard was full and gray, and a necklace of gold coins hung down to his waist. The boys wore round caps of undyed cotton cloth and striped robes, and they rode scrubby ponies.
From atop a galloping horse, each boy was expected to hurl his rumh unerringly through the ring, whose diameter was two handspans. The ring was attached to three strong, slender ropes. One rope suspended it from the scaffold; the other two went out to either side, where the slaves held them. Pulling in turn on the ropes, the two slaves swung the ring from side to side.
The boy just ahead of Daoud in line was a new member of the troop of young Mamelukes. His face was smooth and his skin pale, his hair and eyes very black.
He turned to Daoud and said, "What if we hit one of those slaves by mistake?"
Daoud had once seen a slave transfixed by a wild cast of the rumh. It hurt to remember his screams and thrashings.
"Wound a slave and you will be beaten," he said. "Kill a slave, and you go without water for three days. In this desert that is a death sentence."
The boy whistled and shrugged. "Hard punishments for us, but not much comfort to the slaves, I'd say."
"It comforts them to know we have reason to be careful," Daoud answered.
After a moment, the boy smiled hesitantly and said, "I am Nicetas. From Trebizond. Where are you from?"
Daoud rubbed his pony's neck to settle it down. "Ascalon, not far from here. I am called Daoud." He saw the puzzlement in Nicetas's face and added, "My parents were Franks."
"Oh," said Nicetas, and looked sympathetic, as if he had instantly grasped what had happened to Daoud's mother and father and how he came to be a Mameluke.
"My mother was a whore," Nicetas said without any sign of embarrassment. "She sold me to the Turks when I was eight, and I was glad to go. She had sold me for other things before that. This is a good life. You learn to ride and shoot. Mamelukes wear gold, and they lord it over everybody else."
Daoud felt a slight easing of the tension of waiting to cast the rumh. He enjoyed talking to this new boy. There was a warmth and liveliness in him that Daoud liked. And even though their lives had been different, Daoud felt more of a kinship with this boy than he ever had with any of the others in his training group.
"Mamelukes have a good life if they live," said Daoud. "Where is Trebizond?"
Nicetas waved his left hand. "North of here. It is a Greek city on the Black Sea. But I suppose you have never heard of the Black Sea."
"I know where the Black Sea is," said Daoud, somewhat annoyed that Nicetas should think him totally ignorant. "How did you come to join our orta?"
"I was enrolled in the Fakri, the Mamelukes of Emir Fakrad-Din. The emir was killed by the Frankish invaders last year. The older Fakri are staying together, but the young ones have been transferred out to the other ortas."
Daoud found himself feeling somewhat sorry for Nicetas. He knew how lonely the Greek boy must be. His khushdashiya, his barracks comrades, were the nearest he had to a family. And even at that he was not really close to the other boys. He was the only Frank among them, and to talk to them at all he had to learn their various languages—Turkish, Kurd, Farsi, Circassian, Tartar. They would not bother to learn the Norman French, which was still the language he heard in his dreams. Most of the boys slept two by two in the field, but Daoud had no close friend to share a tent with.
"Go!" shouted Mahmoud the Circassian to Nicetas.
The Greek boy stood up in the saddle, and rode down the field with a warbling scream that was a perfect imitation of a Bedouin war cry. His trousers billowed against his long legs. Daoud watched his handsome, straight-nosed profile as he turned to fix his eyes on the swinging target. The lean-muscled bare arm drew back and snapped forward. The long black pole of the rumh whistled through the air, shot smoothly through the ring and landed upright, quivering, in the dune beyond it.
Daoud heard murmurs of appreciation around him. At the naqeeb's next cry of, "Go!" Daoud kicked his pony in the ribs and plunged forward to try his own cast.
He tried to ignore the fear of missing that knotted his belly muscles, tried not to think at all about his desperate need to make a good cast.
He guided his mount with the pressure of his knees. He squinted his eyes against the wind of his rush and fixed them on the ring. His body moved up and down with the action of the horse, and the ring swung back and forth. He twisted sideways in the saddle, steadying himself with one hand on the pony's back. Grasping the rumh at the middle so that it balanced, he lifted it high over his head. The little horse's muscles rippled under his palm. If he fixed his gaze and his aim on the point in space that the ring occupied at the lowest point of its arc, and released his rumh just as the ring reached the extremity of its swing, the target and rumh should arrive together.
The pony had carried him opposite the ring now, and he took a deep breath and whipped his arm forward.
His lance reached the right spot—an instant too late. He wanted to throw himself down from his horse and weep with frustration.
He heard groans and curses from behind him. Not once this morning had the troop had a perfect round. He rode around to the back of the scaffold, where the two slaves were sitting until the next boy should take his turn. The ghulmans kept their eyes down, their black faces expressionless. Angrily he yanked his rumh out of the sand and rode back to the end of the line.
Nicetas patted his arm reassuringly. Two more boys missed after Daoud, and that also made him feel a bit better. It occurred to Daoud that Nicetas was one of the few who had not once missed the ring that morning. He was a good horseman and seemed to have a remarkably keen eye with the rumh.
The only other boy in the troop who was that good, Daoud thought, was Kassar, the Kipchaq Tartar. Daoud looked around for Kassar and saw him sitting on his pony partway out of line, eyeing Nicetas sourly. Kassar's head was round, his face flat, and he was already old enough to have grown a small black mustache.
"From now on," the naqeeb bellowed from his hilltop, "anyone who misses once will not eat today. Anyone who misses twice will sleep in the desert tonight without tent or blankets."
Nicetas, who was wearing a long, sleeveless robe, grinned and shook himself. "It will be cold out there tonight."
"What if someone misses a third time, naqeeb?" someone called out.
"He is no longer Mameluke," said Mahmoud in a soft voice that carried. "He goes back to El Kahira. To be a ghulman for the rest of his life."
He would kill himself first, Daoud thought. He would plunge his dagger into his own heart before he would let that happen to him.
A frozen silence fell over the troop. The only sound Daoud could hear was the desert wind hissing past his ears. But he felt the fear all around him just as he felt the wind.
Mahmoud's threat seemed to help the troop's marksmanship. Only one boy missed in the next round. In that round and the one that followed, Daoud's rumh flew true both times. The second time, he felt dizzy with relief, and he leaned forward and hugged his horse's neck as he rode back to his place.
One more round and they could rest. Daoud's body ached, especially his back and his arms. He felt a clenching in his stomach, knowing that he had to get his lance through the ring this time. Hiskhushdashiya would hate him, and he would hate himself, if he missed. And the more he feared missing, the more he would be likely to miss.
"Never mind hitting a slave," said Nicetas just before his turn. "Do us all a favor, hit the naqeeb."
Daoud laughed. Nicetas rode out and hit the target as usual. Feeling less tense, Daoud rode out to make his third cast. He held his breath until he saw his long lance sail smoothly through the dark-rimmed circle.
He shouted with joy and turned his mount back toward the troop. He did not hug his horse this time. Laughing, he rode up beside Nicetas, threw his arms around him, and pulled the skinny body against his larger frame. Nicetas's eyes seemed to sparkle as they looked into his when Daoud let him go.
It turned out to be another perfect round, and Mahmoud declared they could stop to pray and eat.
Thank God!Daoud said fervently to himself.
The sun had crossed from the zenith to the western part of the sky. Mahmoud led them in reciting the prayers, facing south toward Mecca. Then each julban took a portion of stale bread and dry goat cheese from a pouch hanging from his saddle, and a single draft from his water skin. The swallow of warm water Daoud took tasted foul, but he had to fight down the impulse to drink more. He sat down before his small tent to eat.
"May I sit with you?" Daoud squinted up into the sun to see the Greek boy standing over him.
"Please," said Daoud, gesturing to the sand beside him.
They ate in silence for a time. Daoud looked up from the hard bread he was relentlessly chewing and saw Nicetas smiling at him. He smiled back.
"You were eating by yourself," Nicetas said. "Do you sleep alone, too?" Daoud nodded.
"Would you like to have a tent mate?"
Before Daoud could answer, a shadow fell over them. Daoud looked up. Kassar stood between them and the sun, half a dozen of his friends around him. He glowered down at Nicetas.
"You think you are good?"
Nicetas's smile was friendly. "It is in the blood. Greeks are good at games."
"You throw like a girl," Kassar said to Nicetas. The Kipchaq's followers laughed dutifully.
Daoud felt his face burn with anger. He wanted to say something on Nicetas's behalf, even though it was the rule that each boy must defend himself.
Nicetas, still smiling pleasantly and looking quite unafraid, stood up with lithe grace to face Kassar.
"My rumh pierces the target," he said, making a circle with thumb and forefinger and pushing his other forefinger into it. "You have to be a man to do that."
This time the laughter was spontaneous, but Kassar did not smile.
"I will bet with you that I can throw the rumh better than you can," said Kassar grimly. "I will make you a handsome bet. I will put up the mail shirt that I took from a Frankish knight at Mansura."
Daoud felt the sting of envy. If he had only been a year or two older, he, too, might have souvenirs of that battle.
"I possess nothing of value," said Nicetas. "What can I put up against your mail shirt?"
Grinning, Kassar stepped closer to the Greek, bringing his face down till Nicetas's sharp-pointed nose almost touched his flat one. "You will spend the night in my tent whenever I want you." His thick fingers gripped Nicetas's chin, kneading the flesh of his face.
Nicetas blushed and pulled away, rubbing his chin, but still he smiled. "If your hand is that rough, I do not wonder you need a new tent mate."
This time the boys all roared with laughter, and Kassar's eyes narrowed to angry slits.
Daoud had never before heard anyone speak openly of what all the boys were aware of but only whispered about. For more than a year Daoud had seen and felt his body changing and had been tormented by steadily growing needs within himself. He sensed that others of his khushdashiya were tormented by the same nearly unbearable hungers. He knew, from listening to the talk of older men, that the answer to all these yearnings lay in women. But julbans were forbidden the company of women. He quickly learned how to relieve himself in solitude, and suspected many of the others did the same. But some, he was sure, made use of each other's bodies.
"I accept the contest," said Nicetas, staring fearlessly into Kassar's eyes.
"We must go to the naqeeb for permission," said Kassar. "But we will not tell him the stakes. He might get ideas about you." Hegrinned at Nicetas with such frank lasciviousness that Daoud, remembering how his captors had raped him years ago, wanted to smash his fist into the Tartar's big white teeth.
He followed Nicetas and Kassar as they went to Mahmoud's large silk tent and explained the contest.
"Yes," said Mahmoud, leading the way back to the practice field. "Put the one-handspan ring on, and you will ride fifty paces from the target. You will cast until one of you misses and the other follows with a hit. If both of you miss, you will be beaten for disturbing my rest."
The slaves changed the two-handspan target ring for the smaller one and began pulling on the guide ropes that swung the ring from side to side. The naqeeb paced off the distance for Kassar and Nicetas.
At Mahmoud's command, Kassar rode down the field. He made a perfect cast, and his friends cheered. It was Nicetas's turn, and he flew past the target with his warbling scream, standing in the stirrups. There was something dance-like in the way he stood swaying with the jolting movement of his pony, left arm outstretched to balance himself, rumh poised to throw.
He is beautiful, Daoud thought.
Nicetas's rumh went perfectly through the ring. The cheer for him was lower; after all, nobody knew him.
Daoud called out, "God guides your arm, Nicetas!" Some of the other boys stared at him, and his face grew hot.
Both contestants made successful second casts. But when Kassar made his third throw, Daoud saw the ring wobble slightly. The rumh must have brushed its inner edge. Nicetas's third try, once again, was flawless.
"We cannot be at this till sunset," Mahmoud grumbled. "Move out to seventy paces." He paced off the new distance, and Kassar and Nicetas, stone-faced, not looking at each other, rode to the spot he pointed out.
To throw the rumh accurately from that distance would take great strength as well as a keen eye, Daoud thought. Looking at Nicetas's slender arms and narrow shoulders, he wondered if the Greek boy could manage it.
A wind rose, stinging Daoud's face with tiny sand particles. It was blowing from the east, across the field where the boys rode. Nicetas would be lucky to get his lance anywhere near the scaffold.
At Mahmoud's barking command, Kassar galloped out acrossthe field. He half rose as he came abreast of the target, and Daoud saw his powerful shoulder muscles bunch under his thin robe.
There was a loud crack as Kassar's rumh hit the ring. Daoud saw black fragments fly though the air. He gasped in surprise.
Kassar's lance had hit the side of the target ring, and the desert-dried wood had shattered under the impact.
"Well." Mahmoud turned to Nicetas with a laugh. "The target is destroyed."
"Let us put another ring on," said Nicetas promptly, just as Kassar rode up.
Kassar's face was tight with fury. "The rings are different sizes. It will not be fair if you have a bigger ring to hit."
"I want a smaller ring," said Nicetas with a faint smile.
Mahmoud sent a boy galloping to the target pullers with the order to attach a new ring to the ropes. From where he stood, Daoud could not even see daylight through the new ring. In the distance he saw a whirlwind raising a cone of sand, a sand devil, spinning near the red cliff.
"Think that there is a crusader charging at you, and you have to hit him in the eye to stop him," Mahmoud suggested to Nicetas.
"If it were, I would not let him get close enough for me toseehis eye," said Nicetas dryly.
"Go!" Mahmoud roared.
Nicetas screamed across the field. The rumh flew.
Daoud cried out in amazement as the lance, no bigger than a splinter at this distance, shot perfectly through the ring.
Joy was a white light momentarily blinding Daoud. His heart was beating as hard and fast as if it had been he who had made the cast.
"Nicetas! Yah, Nicetas!" he cheered.
Loud cries of admiration went up. Nicetas retrieved his rumh and waved it over his head, standing in the stirrups as he rode back to the troop.
He jumped down from his horse, and Kassar, already dismounted, went to meet him. Kassar's heavy walk, his clenched fists, the rage in his face, told Daoud there was going to be trouble.
He felt hot anger surging up inside him, but he reminded himself again that Nicetas must fight his own battles.
The boys surrounded Kassar and Nicetas, the naqeeb with his green turban in their midst. Daoud pushed himself into the innermost circle.
"Bring me the mail shirt," said Nicetas.
"Iwon," Kassar declared, glowering down at him. "I smashed the ring, a thing you are too weak to do." He looked away from Nicetas and moved his head from side to side, glaring around the circle of boys, challenging any of them to contradict him. No one spoke. No one wanted to quarrel with Kassar, especially on behalf of a boy no one knew.
Daoud felt angry words rushing up inside him, but he kept himself in check. To take up Nicetas's quarrel unasked would insult Nicetas. If things got too far out of hand, the naqeeb would intervene.
Daoud felt himself abruptly pushed to one side. He turned to protest, and then checked himself. It was Mahmoud, leaving the circle that surrounded Nicetas and Kassar. As Daoud watched in amazement, the gray-bearded naqeeb walked to his red-and-white-striped tent and sat down cross-legged on the carpet in front of it, calmly gazing at the sandstone cliffs as if what was going on did not concern him at all.
He should be the one to declare Nicetas the winner, Daoud thought, as angry now as he was astonished.Is he, too, afraid of Kassar?