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.