The Saracen: Land of the Infidel Part 24

"Send your d.a.m.ned dog away," he said, without taking his eyes off Celino.

"Of course," said Celino calmly. "Scipio!" He snapped his fingers. "To the horses. Go!"

The hound turned, head and tail lowered, and walked away. But he swung his long muzzle around to glance back at Daoud as he moved off. His pupils reflected the moonlight like two silver coins.

"Give me the jewels you're carrying," said Daoud.

"Of course," said Celino again, promptly unbuckling his belt. Daoud tensed himself in case the Sicilian should go for his dagger. But Celino held the belt up so that the twelve unset stones--rubies, pearls and amethysts--could roll out of the hidden pocket into Daoud's palm. Daoud added them to the twelve already in his pouch.

"There, now you have the stones back. And now are you going to try to kill me?"

There was a hint of challenge in that word _try_.

"If I had had all these jewels at the inn, I would have left you for that crowd to kill. How could you be so stupid as to involve us in a tavern quarrel?"

"I am no man's slave," Celino growled. "Not Manfred's, and surely not yours."

_But I am a slave. That is what the very word Mameluke means, and I am proud to be a Mameluke._

"Do you think, Celino," Daoud said softly, "that you are a better man than I?"

"I think myself better than no man, and no man better than me."

Daoud looked away. _Madman's talk._

Gazing up the river, he noticed a huge round shape bulking against the horizon, a fortress of some kind. There might be danger from that direction.

"Celino, you and Sophia and I are a little army in the land of our enemies. An army can have only one leader."

Celino nodded. "I know that. But you must understand that if I accept you as our leader, it is of my own free will. I am still my own master."

Daoud felt a strange mixture of admiration and uneasiness at this. He was painfully aware that among Mamelukes a warrior of Celino's age would be treated with great respect. Indeed, King Manfred clearly held Lorenzo in high esteem. His effort to save the old man had been n.o.ble in its way. But an impulse at the wrong time, even a n.o.ble impulse, could mean death for all of them.

"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 G.o.d 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.

"You find that funny?"

"I am just as surprised to find out that you are a Jew as others would be to find out that I am a Muslim." Daoud stopped laughing. "I have known many Jews in Egypt. Abd ibn Adam, Sultan Baibars's personal physician, is a Jew. But why do you not wear the required hat?"

"It is not required in Manfred's kingdom. And I would not wear it on this mission any more than you would wear a Muslim's turban." Then Celino laughed. "But if I were to drop my breeches, you would see the mark of Abraham."

"I have that as well," said Daoud with a smile. "Muslims are also circ.u.mcised. I was eleven." He remembered with a twinge the old mullah chanting prayers in Arabic, the knife whose steel looked sharper and colder than any he had seen before or since.

"Now that mark is all I have left of the religion I was born into,"

Celino said.

"What do you mean? Did you convert to Christianity?"

"I told you I am not a Christian. I profess no faith."

Daoud drew back. A man who had no faith at all was somehow less than human.

"You believe in nothing?"

"One of Manfred's Saracen scholars gave me a book by your Arab philosopher Averroes. In it he taught that there are no spirits, no G.o.ds, no angels, no human souls. All things are matter only. That is what I believe."

Daoud made a casting-away motion. "I have been taught that Averroes is a great heretic. Now I see how wise we are not to read him."

"It was life that made me a nonbeliever. Averroes only showed me that there are learned men who think likewise."

Daoud shook his head. Baibars would never allow such a man near him.

"Why does your king permit you to have no religion?"

"The truth of it is, he thinks as I do. As his father, Emperor Frederic, did before him. In the kingdom of Sicily under the Hohenstaufens, people may believe as they please, as long as they are discreet about it. Of course, King Manfred must pretend to be a Catholic, or all the hosts of Christendom would fall upon his kingdom and destroy him. As for me, Manfred trusts me because he knows I do not stand in awe of the pope.

The same reason he relies on his Saracen warriors."

Yes, Daoud thought, having no religion might make Celino a more useful companion for a mission like this. But how could Daoud trust a man who had no faith in a higher power?

"But why did you try to fight for that old man? Look what you have done to us."

Celino sighed and shook his head. "He was so much like my own father. I could not help myself."

"That is a poor excuse."

Celino looked steadily into Daoud's eyes. "It may seem so to you. It is said that Mamelukes scarcely remember their mothers and fathers."

Daoud's body stiffened with rage. Celino's words were a blow that tore open an old wound.