God, only You can help me. Send someone to deliver me, or I will
die._

LXV

Pride swelled Daoud's heart as he watched the column of Muslim cavalry
suddenly change direction and sweep like a long roll of thunder through
the valley. A flutter of orange banners on their flanks, and the men at
the far end of the line launched into an all-out gallop, while the
riders at the near end slowed to a high-stepping trot. The whole line
pivoted like a great scythe, enveloping the flank of an imaginary enemy.

"Very impressive," said King Manfred. "They get their orders from those
colored flags?" He and Daoud stood on the rounded brow of a grassy hill,
watching the Sons of the Falcon displaying their skills for their king.
The valley Daoud had found for the demonstration was a natural
amphitheater, a flat, circular plain at least a league in diameter
surrounded by hills. Normally it was used as grazing land.

For over a year Daoud had been training these two hundred men, picked
from hundreds of volunteers from Manfred's Saracen guards. With so much
time, he had been able to forge and polish the Sons of the Falcon into a
weapon that could be the vanguard of Manfred's army.

He hoped that what Manfred saw today would put him in a warlike mood, a
mood to ask Daoud for his advice. He prayed for the chance to urge
Manfred not to wait for Charles d'Anjou to invade his kingdom, but to
march north and attack Charles at once.

_O God, open Manfred's mind._

For Manfred to delay the start of his war against Charles d'Anjou even
this long could well be disastrous. A year ago Manfred could have moved
out from southern Italy and smashed Charles, as a man rises from his
couch and crosses the room to crush a mosquito. Sadly, like many a man
who sees a mosquito across the room, Manfred had chosen to remain on his
couch.

And the mosquito was fast growing into a dragon.

Lorenzo Celino and Landgrave Erhard Barth, the grand marshal of
Manfred's army, stood on either side of Daoud and Manfred. Scipio stood
beside Celino, who rested his right hand on the dog's big head. Half a
dozen nobles and officers of Manfred's court were gathered a short
distance away from the king and his three companions. Lower down the
hillside, scudieros held the party's horses.

"Those flags would be useless at night," said Barth, speaking Italian
with a heavy accent, which Daoud knew to be that of Swabia, the German
state from which Manfred's family came