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, with bulging eyes and
a face as sharp as the carving knife she brandished.
An earthenware jug crashed down on her head. Her eyes rolled up till
only the whites showed. As she slumped to the floor, Daoud saw Sophia
behind her.
_Well done, Byzantine woman._
"Scipio! Spegni!" Celino shouted. With a roar like a lion's, Scipio
leapt at the central figure among the three men confronting his master.
Scipio's prey screamed, then stumbled over a bench and fell to the floor
on his back. The hound sprang onto his chest, snarls of rage all but
drowning out his victim's shrieks. The other two men, their mouths
gaping, their eyes fixed on nothing, ran past Daoud without seeing him.
"Stop your dog," Daoud called to Celino. "I want no killing." Smoke
spreading from above was searing his nostrils.
Daoud, Celino, and Sophia, followed by the old man and the dog, made
their way to the door.
Daoud threw saddlebags to Celino and Sophia. Men were dragging their
panic-stricken, rearing horses out of the stables and through the gate.
The giant innkeeper and other men were racing up and down the outside
stairs, which had also begun to burn, dumping buckets of water on the
fire. Men were fighting their way through smoke and flame into the
bedroom, trying to rescue belongings they had left there.
The boy stood by their horses, exactly where Daoud had left him. Bravely
done, Daoud thought. Hastily tying his packs down, Daoud unlaced one.
There were two weapons inside--a Scorpion, the miniature crossbow of the
Hashishiyya, and a full-size crossbow. Daoud chose the bigger one, a
Genoese arbalest drawn by crank, a present from King Manfred. The
quarrels were loaded by spring from a chamber within the stock that
could hold six at a time, so that the bowman could fire it as quickly as
he could draw it.
Holding the arbalest with one hand, Daoud vaulted into the saddle.
Celino and Sophia were already up. The old man had clambered onto their
spare horse, and his son was on the donkey.
_I should leave that old man behind_, Daoud thought angrily. _Were it
not for him, I would be sleeping comfortably right now._
"_They_ started the fire!" It was the innkeeper's wife in the doorway,
her tall body and long arms silhouetted by leaping flames. She pointed
an accusing hand at Daoud's party. "Stop them!"
The men who had been trying to put out the fire were giving up, and they
turned and started for Daoud and his companions.
"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.
_God 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. Damned
infidel. I am the leader of this party._
"Here they come!" cried Sophia. Waving swords and long-handled
halberds--God 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._