The small khanjar is a curved dagger, and it was with this very one Nuri had killed in single combat a minor chieftain of the Muntefiq.

The basic requirement for peace in the deepest sense is not that people should be unselfish or kindhearted to one another; that helps, of course, but individual kindheartednesses are too often misguided and mutually conflicting to provide harmony and stability.

I have tightened the loose bolt that was the culprit; it should work now.

I was a bit disappointed. Was that it? No abuse like Lord Byron had endured? Not that I was wishing that upon myself. It was just that a blue between my parents, albeit a raging, foul, bile-spitting hate fest, was not exactly Charles Dickens.