"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."