VIII
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 patches in 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 Fakr ad-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. His khushdashiya 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." He grinned 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 across the 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 to see his 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.
"I won," 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?
"When you broke the ring, that was a miss," said Nicetas. "You lost. The shirt is mine."
"You will have to take it from me," said Kassar with a grin. "Come to my tent and you can wrestle me for it." Now he made the gesture encircling his forefinger that Nicetas had made before.
What would Nicetas do, Daoud wondered. He was not big enough to hurt Kassar—but if he yielded, Kassar would make a slave of him and subject him to abominations.
"I had heard that a Tartar never goes back on his word," said Nicetas. "I see now that at least one Tartar is a lying jackal."
Good! Daoud thought fiercely. In a battle of insults, he felt sure, the talkative Greek would have the upper hand over the dour Tartar.
Kassar reddened, and he smashed his fist into Nicetas's jaw. The Greek boy fell to the ground, and Daoud saw that his eyes were blank, dazed. But Nicetas shook his head and forced himself to his feet.
"Your fist can't restore your honor, Kassar. You have fucked it too many times."
Loud laughter burst out from the watching boys, choked off as again the Tartar swung, hitting Nicetas in the mouth. The boy was thrown back against the onlookers, and blood ran from his nose and mouth.
Daoud felt the blood pounding his temples as his anger grew. As long as it was just Kassar against Nicetas, he could not get into the fight. But if Kassar's friends joined in, he promised himself he would help Nicetas.
"Take back what you said," Kassar growled, advancing on him.
Daoud could not see Nicetas behind Kassar's bulky form. But suddenly Kassar's head snapped back and his white cap fell off into the sand. The Kipchaq fell back, and Daoud saw that Nicetas was on his feet, grinning through the blood and rubbing his knuckles.
"Yah, Nicetas!" he shouted, but he was alone in cheering. He sensed others looking at him. May they burn in the flames if they did not see that Nicetas was the better man.
Kassar plowed into Nicetas, pummeling him with both fists. When Nicetas collapsed under the punishment, Kassar kicked him in the head, sending him flying backward. Kassar's friends shouted encouragement. Daoud felt his whole body growing hot with anger.
Nicetas rolled over on his stomach, raised himself on hands and knees, and spat blood. His eyes searched the crowd of boys watching him and Kassar, and Daoud knew that he was looking for a friend.
"Nicetas!" Daoud cried, and the Greek boy's dazed eyes found him and his bloody mouth stretched in a grin.
But if Nicetas did not give up, Kassar would kill him.
Suddenly Daoud turned and pushed his way through the crowd and hurried to where Mahmoud was still sitting.
"Why do you not stop this?" he demanded. "It is your duty to keep order among us."
"Do not tell me my duty," said Mahmoud. "Have you forgotten what my cane feels like?"
"You would use the cane on me?" Daoud exclaimed, outraged. "When Kassar is cheating?"
There were a thousand tiny wrinkles around Mahmoud's blue Circassian eyes, from a lifetime of squinting into the sun.
"Daoud, I will tell you what my duty is. My duty is to take miserable julbans and make Mamelukes of you. When you are a full-fledged Mameluke, there will be no naqeeb over you to right your wrongs. Among Mamelukes, he who is strongest rules. If Kassar is the strongest among you, you must be ruled by him."
Daoud growled with disgust and ran back to the fight.
Nicetas had somehow gotten back on his feet, though his face was a mass of blood and dirt and his breath was coming in gasps. His eyes were glazed, but he managed to stagger forward and hit Kassar in the nose with his fist. Blood began to flow from the young Tartar's wide nostrils into his mustache.
Kassar put his fingers to his upper lip, took them away and stared at the blood. His eyes widened in fury. His head swung right and left; then he sidestepped to a boy in front of the circle. From the boy's sash he pulled a dabbus, a fluted iron cylinder mounted on a wooden staff.
Swinging the dabbus so it whistled through the air, Kassar charged at Nicetas. The boys fell back, opening the circle wider.
For the first time, Daoud saw fear in Nicetas's eyes. He ducked as Kassar swung the mace at his head, but his movements were slow and awkward. He had been hit too many times. He fell, stood up, and staggered backward.
The naqeeb would not interfere. This could end only one way.
And Daoud knew that he did not want to see Nicetas die before his eyes.
He would not allow it.
Only moments ago rage had raised a great storm within him, but now his mind was like the desert after the storm has passed, still and empty. Like the desert, he felt himself full of a terrible power.
Without any more thought he stepped out into the ring behind Kassar and shouted, "Kassar! Enough!"
The Tartar whirled, holding the dabbus at shoulder height.
"Stay out of this, pigshit Frank."
"Let him be, Kassar." Almost all Daoud's attention was on Kassar, but a part of his mind was free to wonder why he felt no fear at all. Somehow, he was not sure how, the hours with Saadi had something to do with it.
"Put that down," Daoud said, pointing at the dabbus.
"In your head!" Kassar shouted, and charged at him.
Daoud kept his eyes on Kassar's, but in the edge of his vision he saw the ridged mass of iron, heavy enough to crack a steel helmet, rushing toward his head—his head protected only by a cloth cap.
At the last possible moment he threw up his hand and caught Kassar's wrist. He stepped back out of the path of the dabbus and jerked downward on Kassar's arm. The weight of the mace helped throw Kassar off balance, and he landed on his chest with a grunt, the air driven out of him.
Daoud stamped on Kassar's forearm and yanked the dabbus out of his grasp. He flung himself down on Kassar and pinned him to the sand.
Though all his attention was on Kassar, there was room in his mind for a triumphant surprise.
Allahu akbar! God is great! I never thought I had the strength to throw the Kipchaq.
"Nicetas won the contest. Admit it, or I'll break your skull," he growled, holding the dabbus over Kassar's head.
Kassar remained silent. Daoud lowered the dabbus and tapped the Tartar's round skull through his mop of straight black hair. He hit Kassar just hard enough to let him feel the weight of the dabbus.
"Admit that Nicetas won."
"All right," Kassar grunted, his face in the sand. "He won."
"Swear by the Prophet you will leave him alone from now on."
"I swear," came the muffled voice.
"By the Prophet."
"By the Prophet."
Daoud stood up warily and handed the dabbus back to the boy Kassar had taken it from.
Kassar rose slowly, wiping sand from his face. His eyes seemed to spark with hatred.
This is not finished yet, Daoud thought.
He looked for Nicetas. The Greek boy was on his feet. He was wiping the dirt and blood from his face with the hem of his robe. He looked at Daoud, and there was something bright and solemn in his eyes. No one had ever looked at Daoud like that before.
Daoud felt a great rush of gratitude to God for giving him the strength to save Nicetas's life.
If I had not fought Kassar, Nicetas would be dead.
That clean-lined face so full of warmth and wit would be so much lifeless clay. Daoud felt a lightness in his heart and a smile bubbling to his lips. He was proud of his strength. He had used it to save a precious life. He was a warrior of God.
Smiling, he went to Nicetas and threw his arm around his shoulders.
He should force Kassar to give Nicetas the mail shirt. But he had done enough fighting for one day. Nicetas did not need the damned shirt. Let the Tartar keep it.
"Now then, you wretched sons of desert rats!" came Mahmoud's voice. He pushed his way into the middle of the ring, coin necklace glittering, eyes flashing in anger.
"Fighting, eh? Trying to kill each other? Save your fighting for the emir's enemies. You are khushdashiya, brother Mamelukes of Emir Baibars. If again I see one of you raise a hand against his brother, I swear I will stake him out on the sand." He raised his right hand to heaven. "Hear me, God!"
The naqeeb had a strange way of making Mamelukes out of them, Daoud thought. But perhaps he knew what he was doing.
That night, without anyone's saying any more, Nicetas brought his tent and his bedding to Daoud. They compared tents and decided that Daoud's was the larger. They would sleep in it.
After they had tended their ponies and joined with the rest of the troop in the final prayer of the night, they crawled into the tent and spread their bedding side by side. Daoud felt Nicetas moving in his half of the tent and heard a rustling, as if his new tent mate were shedding his clothes. Why would he do that on such a cold night?
Nicetas pulled his blankets over both of them and rolled toward Daoud. The Greek boy's skin felt warm and silk-smooth. Nicetas wriggled even closer and stroked Daoud's chest, arousing pleasant tingles. Daoud felt, keener than ever, the powerful longings that had been troubling him. But then he remembered cruel Turkish laughter and rough hands, the unbearable pain and shame of his first nights of captivity. He struggled to free himself from Nicetas's arms.
All at once Nicetas let go of him and turned over, leaving a small space in the tent between them.
"Sleep well, Daoud." There was hurt in the soft voice.
Remorseful, Daoud reached for his friend. When his hand grasped the bare shoulder, his fingers tightened of their own volition. Nicetas drew closer again, until their bodies were pressed together.
"Ah, Daoud!" Nicetas whispered.
After they had made love, Daoud thought, Perhaps God sent Nicetas to me.
Fearing that the thought might be blasphemous, he put it out of his mind and fell into a sated sleep.
Daoud, Sophia, Celino, and the boy came to a riverbank. They had ridden in silence for so long that the moon's crescent hung low in the western sky, casting a glow on rippling water. Daoud called a halt and sat gazing at the Tiber. Next to the Bhar al-Nil, the river Nile, this is the most famous river in the world.
It was wide and flowed fast, judging by the ripples, and looked deep. Looking upriver, he saw that it followed a winding course leading toward black bulks, lit with yellow lights here and there, that must be great buildings. Rome.
They laid the old man's body down on a cracked marble platform beside the river. Celino had long since pulled the dagger out of the old man's flesh, and now he handed it to Daoud. The dagger was a well-balanced throwing knife of good steel, stained with a film of dried blood. Daoud knelt, washed it in the Tiber, and wiped it with the hem of his cloak. He held it out to the boy.
"I do not want it." The boy's face was still wrapped in a blue scarf, but Daoud could see tears glittering on his cheek.
"It is a good knife. You may have need of it now that you have no father."
"It is the knife that killed him." The boy hesitated. "All right, give it to me."
Daoud handed it to him, and the boy turned and hurled the knife out over the river. It flew a short distance, and the splash threw off light like a handful of pearls.
"Well," Daoud said, "no one had a better right to do that than you." He smiled to himself. He could understand quite well the lad's feelings.
But there was something odd about the way the boy's arm had moved when he threw the knife. Daoud recalled a phrase that he had heard in memory while they were riding toward the river.
You throw like a girl.
That had not been true of Nicetas, but it was true of this boy.
And his voice, though high, was not as light and clear as the voice of a child. Moved by a sudden suspicion, Daoud reached out too quickly for the boy to draw away and pulled loose the scarf.
He leaned closer for a good look. He heard Celino, standing behind him, grunt with surprise. Revealed in the moonlight was, not a lad whose voice had not yet changed, but a girl. Her eyelids were puffy from her weeping, but the eyelashes were long and thick, her nose delicate, her lips full. The eyes that looked back at him with a mixture of fear and defiance were, in this light, black as obsidian. Her hair was coiled in a thick braid at the back of her head, where the scarf had hidden it.
He did not have to ask the reason for the pretense. Traveling with only an aged father to protect her, she was far safer as a boy.
Sophia pushed past Daoud and put her arms around the girl, who began to cry again. "You poor child, are you all alone now? There, it's all right. We will help you."
"Who was your father?" said Celino in an equally kindly voice.
"He was not my father," the girl whispered. "He was Angelo Ben Ezra of Florence, a seller of books, and he was my husband."
Sophia drew back in surprise, then hugged the girl tighter. "Oh, poor little one. So young, and wed to such an old man. How could your parents do that to you?"
The girl angrily drew back from Sophia. "Do not speak so! My parents were good to me—and my husband was. He never touched me. When my mother and father died of tertian fever, he took me in, and he married me so as not to give scandal. He taught me to read."
"What is your name, girl?" Celino asked.
"Rachel." She dropped to her knees beside the body stretched out on the marble, and her tears splashed on the white face. She bent over and kissed him.
"He is so cold."
"We must wrap him quickly and be on our way," said Daoud. "We have killed three people and burned down an inn. I assure you, they have stopped chasing us only for the moment. Celino, I want a word with you. Sophia, help the girl wrap her husband's body so we can travel on."
"I do not need to be commanded," said Sophia sharply as Daoud turned his back on her, motioning Celino to follow him.
What in the name of God am I to do with these people?
Daoud strode across the marble platform and picked his way down a flight of cracked stairs to the edge of the Tiber. He followed a line of tumbled stones, once part of an embankment, until he felt sure Sophia and the girl could not hear them.
Then he whirled, bringing his face inches from Celino's.
"You fool! I ought to kill you for what you have done."
He heard a soft growl to his right.
"Send your damned dog away," he said, without taking his eyes off Celino.
"Of course," said Celino calmly. "Scipio!" He snapped his fingers. "To the horses. Go!"
The hound turned, head and tail lowered, and walked away. But he swung his long muzzle around to glance back at Daoud as he moved off. His pupils reflected the moonlight like two silver coins.
"Give me the jewels you're carrying," said Daoud.
"Of course," said Celino again, promptly unbuckling his belt. Daoud tensed himself in case the Sicilian should go for his dagger. But Celino held the belt up so that the twelve unset stones—rubies, pearls and amethysts—could roll out of the hidden pocket into Daoud's palm. Daoud added them to the twelve already in his pouch.
"There, now you have the stones back. And now are you going to try to kill me?"
There was a hint of challenge in that word try.
"If I had had all these jewels at the inn, I would have left you for that crowd to kill. How could you be so stupid as to involve us in a tavern quarrel?"
"I am no man's slave," Celino growled. "Not Manfred's, and surely not yours."
But I am a slave. That is what the very word Mameluke means, and I am proud to be a Mameluke.
"Do you think, Celino," Daoud said softly, "that you are a better man than I?"
"I think myself better than no man, and no man better than me."
Daoud looked away. Madman's talk.
Gazing up the river, he noticed a huge round shape bulking against the horizon, a fortress of some kind. There might be danger from that direction.
"Celino, you and Sophia and I are a little army in the land of our enemies. An army can have only one leader."
Celino nodded. "I know that. But you must understand that if I accept you as our leader, it is of my own free will. I am still my own master."
Daoud felt a strange mixture of admiration and uneasiness at this. He was painfully aware that among Mamelukes a warrior of Celino's age would be treated with great respect. Indeed, King Manfred clearly held Lorenzo in high esteem. His effort to save the old man had been noble in its way. But an impulse at the wrong time, even a noble impulse, could mean death for all of them.
"Does that mean you feel free to disobey me?"
"I have done whatever you wanted up to now. Except for what happened at the inn. That was different."
"Why different?" Daoud demanded. "You are not a stupid man, Celino. Why did you do such a stupid thing?"
Celino shook his head and turned away. "Angry as you are at me, Daoud, you cannot be angrier than I am at myself. If I had not intervened, that man Angelo Ben Ezra might yet be alive and his child-wife not widowed. They might have been hurt, and they surely would have been robbed. But I do not think those tavern louts would have gone so far as to kill them."
Daoud was astonished that Celino did not even defend his actions.
"Any more than we meant to kill any of those men," Daoud agreed. "But a man of your experience knows that once the sword is drawn, only God knows who will live or die. Yet you drew your sword against them."
"The old man wandered in out of the night seeking hospitality. Instead, they were beating him, and they were going to take his donkey and everything he owned and cast him out. Because he was a Jew."
"Yes, you Christians are very cruel to Jews. It is not so in the lands of Islam. But you should be used to seeing such things."
"I am not a Christian, Daoud. I am a Jew myself. And that is why I went to that old man's aid."
Daoud blinked in surprise, then began to laugh.
"You find that funny?"
"I am just as surprised to find out that you are a Jew as others would be to find out that I am a Muslim." Daoud stopped laughing. "I have known many Jews in Egypt. Abd ibn Adam, Sultan Baibars's personal physician, is a Jew. But why do you not wear the required hat?"
"It is not required in Manfred's kingdom. And I would not wear it on this mission any more than you would wear a Muslim's turban." Then Celino laughed. "But if I were to drop my breeches, you would see the mark of Abraham."
"I have that as well," said Daoud with a smile. "Muslims are also circumcised. I was eleven." He remembered with a twinge the old mullah chanting prayers in Arabic, the knife whose steel looked sharper and colder than any he had seen before or since.
"Now that mark is all I have left of the religion I was born into," Celino said.
"What do you mean? Did you convert to Christianity?"
"I told you I am not a Christian. I profess no faith."
Daoud drew back. A man who had no faith at all was somehow less than human.
"You believe in nothing?"
"One of Manfred's Saracen scholars gave me a book by your Arab philosopher Averroës. In it he taught that there are no spirits, no gods, no angels, no human souls. All things are matter only. That is what I believe."
Daoud made a casting-away motion. "I have been taught that Averroës is a great heretic. Now I see how wise we are not to read him."
"It was life that made me a nonbeliever. Averroës only showed me that there are learned men who think likewise."
Daoud shook his head. Baibars would never allow such a man near him.
"Why does your king permit you to have no religion?"
"The truth of it is, he thinks as I do. As his father, Emperor Frederic, did before him. In the kingdom of Sicily under the Hohenstaufens, people may believe as they please, as long as they are discreet about it. Of course, King Manfred must pretend to be a Catholic, or all the hosts of Christendom would fall upon his kingdom and destroy him. As for me, Manfred trusts me because he knows I do not stand in awe of the pope. The same reason he relies on his Saracen warriors."
Yes, Daoud thought, having no religion might make Celino a more useful companion for a mission like this. But how could Daoud trust a man who had no faith in a higher power?
"But why did you try to fight for that old man? Look what you have done to us."
Celino sighed and shook his head. "He was so much like my own father. I could not help myself."
"That is a poor excuse."
Celino looked steadily into Daoud's eyes. "It may seem so to you. It is said that Mamelukes scarcely remember their mothers and fathers."
Daoud's body stiffened with rage. Celino's words were a blow that tore open an old wound.
"You know nothing of that, and for your own safety you had best not speak of it to me," Daoud said in a choked whisper.
Celino inclined his head. "I ask your forgiveness."
"Remember that if we fail in this mission, it will mean great harm to your King Manfred, who has been so good to you and raised you so high," Daoud said.
Celino's head was still lowered in submission. "You are right to remind me of that. I have been foolish."
Daoud gripped Celino's wrist. The Sicilian raised his head and stared into Daoud's eyes.
Daoud said, "I must have your oath that this will never happen again. Should you see a hundred Jews having their throats cut, you will smile like a good Christian and declare the sight pleasing to God."
"I will do my best, Daoud. That is all I can honestly promise you, but I think it will be good enough."
By being honest, as he puts it, he still leaves himself room to defy me.
"And you will obey my commands from now on, as if they came from your king?"
"You have my word of honor."
Whatever the honor of an unbeliever is worth. Manfred, what kind of a crazed camel have you foisted off on me?
Here he was, far across the sea from the only home he had ever known, in the midst of people who would kill him in an instant if they knew who he was. And now he felt he could not trust one of the few men he must depend upon. He felt a coldness beginning in his palms and spreading through his body as he wondered what further calamities like tonight's might lie before them.