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 noble in its
way. But an impulse at the wrong time, even a noble 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 God
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 w