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.