icetas dryly.

"Go!" Mahmoud roared.

Nicetas screamed across the field. The rumh flew.

Daoud cried out in amazement as the lance, no bigger than a splinter at
this distance, shot perfectly through the ring.

Joy was a white light momentarily blinding Daoud. His heart was beating
as hard and fast as if it had been he who had made the cast.

"Nicetas! Yah, Nicetas!" he cheered.

Loud cries of admiration went up. Nicetas retrieved his rumh and waved
it over his head, standing in the stirrups as he rode back to the troop.

He jumped down from his horse, and Kassar, already dismounted, went to
meet him. Kassar's heavy walk, his clenched fists, the rage in his face,
told Daoud there was going to be trouble.

He felt hot anger surging up inside him, but he reminded himself again
that Nicetas must fight his own battles.

The boys surrounded Kassar and Nicetas, the naqeeb with his green turban
in their midst. Daoud pushed himself into the innermost circle.

"Bring me the mail shirt," said Nicetas.

"_I_ won," Kassar declared, glowering down at him. "I smashed the ring,
a thing you are too weak to do." He looked away from Nicetas and moved
his head from side to side, glaring around the circle of boys,
challenging any of them to contradict him. No one spoke. No one wanted
to quarrel with Kassar, especially on behalf of a boy no one knew.

Daoud felt angry words rushing up inside him, but he kept himself in
check. To take up Nicetas's quarrel unasked would insult Nicetas. If
things got too far out of hand, the naqeeb would intervene.

Daoud felt himself abruptly pushed to one side. He turned to protest,
and then checked himself. It was Mahmoud, leaving the circle that
surrounded Nicetas and Kassar. As Daoud watched in amazement, the
gray-bearded naqeeb walked to his red-and-white-striped tent and sat
down cross-legged on the carpet in front of it, calmly gazing at the
sandstone cliffs as if what was going on did not concern him at all.

_He should be the one to declare Nicetas the winner_, Daoud thought, as
angry now as he was astonished. _Is he, too, afraid of Kassar?_

"When you broke the ring, that was a miss," said Nicetas. "You lost. The
shirt is mine."

"You will have to take it from me," said Kassar with a grin. "Come to my
tent and you can wrestle me for it." Now he made the gesture encircling
his forefinger that Nicetas had made before.

What would Nicetas do, Daoud wondered. He was not big enough to h