The Saracen: Land of the Infidel Part 18

"Throw them into the fire!" shrieked the woman in the doorway.

Motioning the others toward the gate, Daoud turned his horse sideways and swung the crossbow in an arc to cover the attackers. The men stopped their rush, but the tall woman pushed her way through them, screaming curses.

Her hulking husband joined her, his long arms reaching for Daoud. He looked able to knock a horse to the ground.

Daoud used both hands to aim the crossbow at him, gripping the horse with his knees. He hoped the threat would be enough to stop the man. He did not want to shoot the innkeeper. If anyone were killed, the deed could follow them to Orvieto.

As he hesitated, the huge man drew back his arm and threw the dagger with the force of a catapult. Daoud heard a thump and a groan behind him. Daoud's thumb pressed the crossbow's release, and the string snapped forward with a reverberating bang. The innkeeper bellowed with pain, the cry dying away as he collapsed. The bolt probably went right through him, thought Daoud.

As the man's dying groan faded, his wife's scream rose. She fell on her knees beside him, and the other men crowded around them.

"Blood of Jesus! Pandolfo!" the innkeeper's wife wailed.

Jerking the reins with his left hand, Daoud wheeled the horse out the gate.

_G.o.d help us, now they will be after us._

Which one of his people had been hurt?

He found himself, in his anger, hoping it was Celino.

The three other horses and the donkey were bunched together outside the gate, on the dirt path that led through trees to the Appian Way. Some of the men from the inn were out there, too, but when Daoud swung the crossbow in their direction, they backed into the inn yard.

"Leave me here," the old man gasped. "I am dying." So it was he the dagger had hit. They would have to leave him, Daoud thought, and his son would insist on staying with him. And the vengeful crowd from the inn would tear the two of them to pieces. All this fighting would have been for nothing.

Celino spurred his horse over to where the old man swayed in the saddle clutching his stomach. "Sorry to hurt you, but we are not leaving you,"

he said. He pulled the groaning wounded man across to his own horse and swung one of his legs over so that he was riding astride.

Daoud saw blood, black in the faint light of the crescent moon, running out of the old man's mouth, staining his white beard.

"Can you ride a horse?" Celino barked at the son.

"Yes," the boy sobbed.

"Get up on this one." Celino indicated the horse from which he had just dragged the old man. "Take your packs off the donkey and put them on this horse if you want them. Quickly, quickly. Leave the donkey."

Daoud fingered the crossbow as the boy hastily transferred himself and his goods to the horse.

_Still Celino risks our lives with his care for these strangers. d.a.m.ned infidel. I am the leader of this party._

"Here they come!" cried Sophia. Waving swords and long-handled halberds--G.o.d knew where they had gotten them--and sticks and pitchforks, the crowd from the inn tumbled through the gate. Some of them were on horses.

"Ride!" shouted Daoud in the voice he used to command his Mameluke troop.

He kicked his spurs into his horse's side and sent it galloping down the road.

He and Celino had not talked about which way to flee, but there was really only one direction they could go--north, toward their destination. That, he knew, would take them straight into the heart of Rome.

There would be a price to pay for the blood they had shed this night.

The great Salah ad-Din had said it:

_Blood never sleeps._

VIII

The clatter of four horses' hooves over the broken paving stones of the Appian Way rang in Daoud's ears. He heard shouts behind him as the men from the Ox's Head organized a pursuit. And beside him the old man, held erect by Celino's powerful arm, groaned again and again as the wild ride jolted his stomach wound. His legs dangled lifelessly on either side of the horse.

Daoud looked over his shoulder and saw that the boy was keeping up, riding next to Celino. His robes were hiked up and his skinny, bare legs gleamed in the faint moonlight. Daoud could hear him sobbing loudly, in time with his father's groans, as the horses pounded onward.

Glancing over at Sophia, on his right, he saw that she was stiff in the saddle, like one not used to riding, and the moonlight showed her lips tight and her jaw clenched. But she rode hard and made no complaint. She sat astride, wearing trousers under a divided skirt. Daoud felt himself admiring her. So far the woman had proved no burden. Celino had caused trouble, but not she.

Glancing quickly again at her profile, outlined by moonlight, he realized with a start that she reminded him of a face he had not seen in many years. Nicetas. She had the same high forehead and long, straight nose. Her mouth was fuller, but her lips had the chiseled shape of Nicetas's lips. Nicetas. Even amid this moment's perils sorrow gripped his heart for the one who was lost and could never be recovered.

As if she sensed him looking at her, Sophia turned her face toward him, but this put her face in shadow, and he could not make out her expression. He shrugged and looked away.

He rode with one hand holding the arbalest across the saddle in front of him, the other on the reins, guiding his mount. The horses Manfred had given them ran well, aided a little by the high crescent moon. Daoud tried to maneuver his small party to skirt dark patches in the road where there might be holes in the pavement that could trip them.

The cries of the pursuers were louder, and Daoud heard hoofbeats behind them. He looked back and saw a dark cl.u.s.ter of hors.e.m.e.n rus.h.i.+ng down the road. Five or six men, he guessed. There could not have been many more horses than that stabled at the inn.

He felt no fear for himself. The country might be strange to him, but riding and fighting in darkness were not. But his stomach tensed with worry about the four people with him. One of them was already badly hurt. Could he get them away safely? They were in his care now, and it was a duty.

Celino was the only one of his charges who could look out for himself.

And he, thought Daoud angrily, was the one who had least deserved to survive.

_But he is carrying half the accursed jewels._

_If we survive this, it might be best for me to kill Celino._

As they rode on, Daoud kept glancing over his shoulder. Their pursuers were gaining on them. Celino's horse, carrying two riders, was holding Daoud's party back. But that meant the men from the inn would soon be within the arbalest's short range. He had only three bolts left in the box under the stock. He wished he had a heavy Turkish bow, the kind he had used at the battle of the Well of Goliath. Almost as powerful as a crossbow, it was easier to handle on horseback and would shoot much farther.

_Now they will see how Mamelukes fight._

His eyes were now completely adjusted to the faint moonlight. The road took them into a deep pine wood. They splashed through a puddle in a low place, then clambered up a slope.

Down the other side. At the bottom of the next slope, Daoud twisted around in the saddle. Letting go of the reins and guiding the horse with his knees, he aimed the crossbow at the top of the hill. When the first rider came over the crest, clearly visible in the moonlight, Daoud pressed the catch with his thumb and released the bolt. An instant later the man fell without a sound.

He told himself a warrior of G.o.d should not rejoice at the death of an enemy, but he could not help a small surge of satisfaction at his good shooting.

Daoud cranked the string back and another bolt snapped into place. He hit the next man on the downslope. It was a harder shot, and this man did not die instantly but toppled screaming out of the saddle.

After glancing forward to make sure of the road ahead, Daoud turned again and saw that the three remaining men had stopped, their horses milling around the fallen men. They would give up pursuit now, Daoud was sure of it. Doubtless none of them had any real weapons, and they could not contend with a crossbow.

He felt his lips stretch in a grin, and he sighed deeply with relief. He had been more worried than he realized.