s
showed.

"I must help my friend," Daoud said. "If he lives, you can ask him why
he chose to defend your father. Are you just going to cower here?"

"What should I do?"

What would make those men leave Celino alone long enough to give him a
chance to escape? Standing outside the doorway with the boy, Daoud's
eyes searched the courtyard again as his mind tried to fit what he saw
into a plan.

Daoud looked up at the lanterns again. Fire was sure to take men's minds
off a fight.

"Take the lanterns and run up those stairs. Throw them into the bedding
and get a good fire going. Make sure the floor is burning. Then come
back down to me."

Daoud took the two lanterns down from their pegs and handed them to the
boy, who raced up the stairs that clung to the outer wall of the inn.
Daoud went to the stable and opened the doors of the stalls that held
their four horses. He dragged out the saddles and bridles and threw them
over the horses' backs. Trained with horses since boyhood, he worked
with practiced speed. By the time the boy was beside him again, he had
two of the horses saddled.

He looked up and saw bright yellow flames flickering in the upper
windows.

"You did that well," he said. "You know how to saddle horses?"

"Yes, Messere."

"Get these two ready, then. Do it right; you will be riding one. And
hold them here with your donkey."

Daoud turned and shouted, "Fire!"

He ran to the doorway, looked in long enough to see the darkened spot
with its glowing center in the wooden ceiling of the dining hall, and
gestured toward it as he again shouted, "Fire!" Then he stepped back to
let the crowd tumble out past him.

The burly innkeeper was among the first to exit, jamming his dagger back
into its scabbard and shouting for help. "Take water from the horse
trough. Get buckets, pots, anything!" Waving his long arms, he towered
over the men milling around him like a giant commanding an army of
dwarves.

When the first rush had pushed through the doorway, Daoud ran into the
dining hall. He could see the blackening circle spreading in the ceiling
and flames licking around its edges.

Celino and the old Jew were still standing together by the far wall.
Only three men faced them now.

"Come on!" Daoud shouted. He strode to the table where they had been
sitting and grabbed up their packs.

"Stay where you are!" a woman's voice cried. It was the innkeeper's
wife, a gaunt woman nearly as tall as her husband, w