As a cold wind against his spine, he felt his long-buried fear of the wrath of the Christian God.
The big hound, right beside him, let out a thunderous bark. Daoud started with surprise. His heart pounded in his chest.
Scipio barked and barked, so loudly Daoud put his hands over his ears. Father Kyril took a step backward. People who had been venerating the bloodstained cloth turned with angry shouts. The hands of the men-at-arms escorting Father Kyril twitched, groping for the weapons they were not carrying.
"Scipio!" Lorenzo gave the hound a sharp slap on the side of the head. The dog kept up its barking. Father Kyril had stopped walking and looked frightened. He clutched the stained cloth to his breast. At a word from him, Daoud thought, the crowd would tear to pieces the dog, Lorenzo, and perhaps Daoud himself.
Lorenzo grabbed Scipio's muzzle with both hands, forcing it shut. Scipio kept up a growling through his teeth. Lorenzo growled back, "Be still!" He wrestled the dog down until the lean gray head was pressed into the grass.
"Barking is the only way he knows to greet the Savior," said Lorenzo with an ingratiating grin, looking up at the people glaring at him.
"There could be a devil in that dog," a brown-robed friar said ominously. But Scipio relaxed under Lorenzo's hands, and those around Daoud and Lorenzo turned back to the procession.
Daoud was furious. Lorenzo's damned dog had been like a stone in his shoe ever since they set out from Lucera. Lorenzo was a valuable man, but he insisted on attaching others to him who caused endless trouble. Like the dog. Like Rachel.
A scream rose above the music, so shrill Daoud put his hands over his ears again.
"My God! I can see!" A woman was standing, clasping her hands together and flinging them wide again and again. One of the Franciscans threw his arms around her, whether to rejoice with her or restrain her, Daoud could not tell. But she pushed him away and went stumbling after Father Kyril. From the way her hands pawed the air, Daoud suspected she could not see very well, but she shouted with joy all the same.