"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.